A dense read with historical people at its center. One of the more interesting things I discovered was the alternate panic and elation that swept through England in response to France's bloody revolution. So much of what I read has focused on regency England and the war with Bonaparte, it was good to get a better understanding of what led up to it.

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This book had all the right buzz about it, having been a best book on several reputable lists. It also had the right storyline for anyone interested in historical fiction. It's the tale of a dazzling stage actress of the late 1700's who captures an Earl's heart and waits 20 years for his estranged wife to die.....and the interwoven activities undertaken by those in the upper crust world to occupy themselves in passing the days. The author's intent must have been to tell a tale of extreme pretense and vapid behavior as a way to shine a spotlight on the era and its pastimes, which indeed she does....but perhaps too well. Too well, because the story itself succumbs to the very vapidness of the pastimes it relates. I just could not stay engaged in the comings and goings and extremely superficial world of doings that is the book's focus. The book would have related the tale in adequate fashion had the author kept the first several chapters and the last, and jettisoned all in between. I just could not help but be bored in reading about such, well....boring pastimes.

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