The Supposed Sister (Paradice & Dark)
The reader will be well-served to be familiar with Belle’s A Parcel of Rogues as events of this book extend the consequences of the previous book’s Jacobite plot that retired courtesan Polly Paradice and her lover, artist and spy Andre Dark, foiled in 1715 London. Six months later, happily running her Covent Garden coffee house, Polly is once again called to adventure when she receives a missive from Mattie, the sister she thought long lost. Tracking the traveling players with whom Mattie has thrown her lot, Polly finds a fierce and guarded young woman nothing like the child she remembers. When Mattie’s next missive seems a call for help, Polly can’t help but answer, along with her friends, Oxford merchant Sam Jessop and streetwise handmaiden Gin. Before long Polly finds herself embroiled with smugglers, spies, and what might be a nefarious plot to lure Dark to his doom using Polly as bait. Will Polly’s eclectic and resourceful friends manage to save her from the clutches of a villain? Chances are good, since there’s a third book on the horizon, but the reader will be drawn in by the quest.
Though the novel takes its time revealing the true stakes of the action, Belle’s writing is assured, and the scenes clip along nicely. The lively cast blends friends from the first book along with new actors like the precocious young Phil and her inventive, likeable brother, Tawny. Belle’s sense of time and place is impeccable; one smells the coffee, tastes the food, feels the soggy ground of Romney Marsh shift beneath one’s feet. Every detail, from the dialogue to the geography, feels precise without ever slowing the story. Though romance fans might wish there were a little more Dark in the Paradice and Dark duo, this is a delightful read.
