My review/endorsement of Duchess by Susan May Warren

About the book:

The golden age of Hollywood is in the business of creating stars. Rosie Worth, now starlet Roxy Price, has found everything she’s wanted in the glamour of the silver screen. With adoring fans and a studio-mogul husband, she’s finally silenced the voices—and grief—of the past. Her future shines bright…until the fated Black Friday when it all comes crashing down. When Roxy loses everything, she finds herself disgraced and penniless. Her only hope is to join forces with Belgian duke Rolfe Van Horne, a longtime film investor. But Rolfe is not who he seems, and he has other plans for Roxy and her movies—plans to support a growing unrest in Europe, plans that could break her heart and endanger her life.

When her country needs her, will she have the courage to surrender her glittering world and her one true love?


My review:

Have you ever read a novel that left you with a warm glow in your chest by the time you finished the book? Well, after feeling an ache in my heart for Rosie/Roxy that began in the last book, I was thrilled to finally experience some healing with her. The way her story emerged was brilliantly written. Her childhood experiences along with a number of failings when it came to relationships played a big role in her ongoing travesty. The author used dialog that revealed insight into two hearts through a screen play written by an important man, where Rosie's role was that of the actress. Those lines had the potential to speak to her heart while she read the script. I found that revelation profoundly moving in how it was written. And yet she still struggled to see the truth. Don't we all?

One thing I love about Susan's characters in this series is she isn't afraid to allow them to feel the pain and consequences of their poor choices. She shows the long-term and often devastating impact of their decisions. At the same time, she shows how God can still use tragedy and turn it into triumph. The way the hero expressed his pain brought tears to my eyes. The author is a master at communicating with a character's expression and their eyes. Rosie's desire to be loved, and to resist being loved at the same time, made me want to weep for her. Her insatiable need for attention and love boiled down to her desire to be able to trust a man, and the same time she had an inability to open her heart due to a number of painful experiences in her life. But God never lets us go. This is well shown in this story. Unfortunately, Rosie had to hit a very low point in her life before she could look up.

Duchess is very well-written. The extensive research the author did to bring the story and the climate of the times to life is obvious. This is, in my opinion, Susan's best series and in the series, this is her best book, probably because I knew the characters so well from reading the first two books. This book is making my favorite fiction list for 2013. It won't be released until March, but you can pre-order it right now. You'll be glad you did.

Duchess was published by Summerside and releases in March 2013.