Reunited at the King’s Court (Harlequin Historical: English Civil War)
Reunited at the King’s Court has an intriguing setting — the very start of Restoration England, as the newly anointed Charles II reclaims his murdered father’s throne. But it spends little time establishing this setting. It has, theoretically, an intriguing cast of characters: William Latham, the Royalist soldier home from French exile, and Arlette Dryden, daughter of a Royalist landowner whose sister, Hester, married a Puritan. “Reunited” in this postwar period, their love seems to bloom from nothing; the obstacles lack stakes. I wanted to like Helen Dickson’s romance, but from the start, it felt flat. There was little sense of Arlette’s distinct identity — simply a set of reactions that were both detached and overwrought. It became difficult to connect to her. The reader is told what the character felt and saw, not shown it. Hester is written as a strict but flat mother-figure, with none of her motivation. Interactions with Arlette made little sense.
If the novel opened at a later point, the characters would be more vivid, their motivations better constructed. However, a later point in this story would be another story entirely. Readers should look for a better-constructed historical romance.
