Phoebe Conn, Midnight Blue

Midnight Blue

Phoebe Conn

Leisure, May 2006, $6.99

ISBN: 0843957093

In 1781 recently widowed by the war, pregnant Sarah Godwin Hadley sails from Charleston, South Carolina to England to be with her family. However, her vessel the Beatrice is stopped by American privateer Captain Chris Macleod and his crew of the Island Belle. He takes the feisty woman prisoner to his stronghold in Martinique surviving a hurricane and eluding the British war ships.

On the Caribbean island, Chris and Sarah find there is an attraction between them. He especially enjoys playing with her newborn son and eventually they make love. Falling in love, he wants her and her infant safe while he continues the fight for freedom. Thus he takes her to his family home in Virginia to live with his parents. He comes home after suffering a severe war-related injury, but though he physically heals, mentally he hurts, ultimately rejecting the love that Sara offers freely to him.

The impact of the Revolutionary War on different people is felt throughout this solid late eighteenth century romance. The story line provides the audience how hostilities can stop things taken for granted like sailing across the ocean. Chris is a combination pirate (call him privateer to his face) and southern gentleman while Sarah in spite of seven months pregnancy and shortly after giving birth is regal. Though the tension between them especially after his injury seems forced battle fatigue syndrome, fans will enjoy Phoebe Conn's take on love and war.

Harriet Klausner