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Palace Circle (2009)

by Rebecca Dean(Favorite Author)

3.24 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

076793055X (ISBN13: 9780767930550)

languge

English

genre

Romance

publisher

Broadway Books

review 1: 8/9/09 - I think I'd probably term this as "light" historical fiction -- a fun summer read with enough family drama & intrigue to keep the reader interested. As other reviewers have mentioned, Rebecca Dean has chosen to tell the story from the point of view of 5 of the main characters (3 female, 2 male) in sequential order (rather than alternating back & forth), which I thought was an interesting way to tell the story. I initially wasn't sure that it would work, but I think it did. The book description leads the reader to believe that the story centers around the character of Delia, but her portion of the story is only the focus at the beginning, and then she becomes somewhat of a background character from that point on. While Delia did have some redeeming qualities, I fou... morend her rather superficial, & the once-in-a-while slips into southern U.S. slang just didn't seem to "fit" & annoyed me more than anything.I enjoyed this story overall, but I think the comparison to Philippa Gregory is misleading. Rebecca Dean is not yet up to Gregory's caliber, or perhaps her writing style is just different than Gregory's & she shouldn't be compared to her at all, which is probably more likely the case. I find it interesting that the UK title for this book is "A Dangerous Desire", which leads one to believe it is more suited for the historical romance genre.
review 2: If you like books that have good character development, this book is not for you. Palace Circle was supposed to be, "A novel that will sweep Phillipa Gregory fans off their feet." As you can probably tell from my two reviews of Phillipa Gregory books, I like a good novel mixed with history, romance, and royal betrayal. Palace Circle had potential, but for me, it missed the mark on all three.It's a book written about an 18-year old Southern beauty who is swept off her feet by an older English Vicount before World War II. She moves into the palace circle, finds out that affairs are the norm, and is moved with her husband to Egypt just as she finds someone to start her own with. And her story ends right there. The book could have been great if the author would have just followed Delia's story for the rest of the book but instead it is broken into three different "books." The first follows Delia (the Southern beauty), the second follows her oldest daughter, and the third follows the son of an Egyptian leader. A hundred pages is not long enough to develop any store well enough in my mind, or at least not in this book. After Delia's story was over, I lost all interest and just skimmed through to get to the end. less

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