Search - Black Silk (Avon Romance)

One of my favorite romance novels, by one of my favorite romance writers. Judith Ivory is a subtle, highly sophisticated observer, with an elegant, clear writing style, who ought to be taught in college-level English courses. This book is set in the 1860s, in England. The plot's a twist on the old saw of a will with a bequest that brings two unlikely people together: Submit Channing-Downes, an intelligent, dry-witted widow, who's very secretly engaged in writing a scandalous, serialized novel, and Graham Wessit, a flamboyant earl with a taste for setting off fireworks and embarking on midnight boating parties fueled by champagne and strawberries. Poor Graham's fighting a major paternity suit, brought by a woman he's never met, but his reputation is so wrecked that everyone thinks he did it. Graham's also coping with a demanding, American mistress, Rosalind, who's really enamored with the idea of bedding an English lord. The machinations of these three people and others are carefully thought-out and subtly rendered. Much as I adore this book, I've learned from lending this book to friends that it doesn't work equally well for everyone. What it's offering is a close-up, psychological study of all the characters. If you were once an English major, and you adored Victorian novels, and wish current romance writers wrote stuff that is of the quality of Edith Wharton and early Henry James, you may like this book.

The author has a gift for describing places and action very vividly

Perhaps my favorite Judith Ivory I've read. Has many reviews available online, so I can't add much more, but I did enjoy the complexity of the relationship between Submit and Graham.

Could not get into this book-it just seemed to plod along.

I had not read Judith Ivory before. I enjoyed this book. Not your typical storyline, but great characters.

From back cover: A Duitiful Heart; As befitting her name, lovely Submit Channing-Downes was th proper, obedient wife of an aging marquess-until her husband's death left her penniless and alone...with one last marital obligation to fulfill. Entrusted with delivering a small black box to its rightful owner, she calls upon Graham Wessit, the notoriuos Earl of Netham, whose life has been forever marred by rumor and scandal. But Graham wants nothing to do with a bequest from the man he holds responsible for his ruin-or with the bewitching emissary who brings it. In the face of breathtaking erotic mystery-in the throes of an inflamed passion unbeckoned but impossible to deny-a rogue's hardened heart may be undone by love...and a staid beauty in desperate straits may learn the exquisite, sensuous freedom of surrender.

A historical romance set in 1858 England.

One of her best books besides Beast and Sleeping Beauty.

Little slow in the being and then it picks up at the end of the book

Loved this story of a heroine bound by duty to become involved with a rogue.