Mischief
Author Laura Parker positions her characters like pieces in chess. Plotting is her strength, and structure of each sentence is sound. She has depth of research, but declines to explore deep themes.
Japonica is not a typical Regency heroine, but an ordinary-looking merchant’s daughter who manages her own affairs. She goes to the “Indian Devil” to seek passage out of Baghdad. He drugs and seduces her. She submits to his charms, not realizing he is an English officer who has “gone native.” Switch viewpoint to that of Devlyn, chagrined to discover that his friend Lord Abbott sent her. He had thought she was an assassin sent by his enemies, and deserving of punishment.
Left in charge of Lord Abbott’s five unruly daughters, Japonica travels to England where she again meets Devlyn, but “he is nothing like the man in whose bed she had lain captive to the rapture of his passion.” Such passages hint at stronger writing than Parker has crafted here.
