In the Wake of the Wind.

Kingsley, Katherine (Julia Jay Kendall)

Publisher: Dell: 1996, 404pp.

Having dreamed for years of a handsome man she believes destined to become her lover and husband, young Serafina, result of the upbringing of an eccentric, Wiccan aunt, goes to her wedding day with every expectation of happiness except a slight concern about the mysteries of the wedding bed. Happily for her, she meets a charming young man in the wood just outside her home who is delighted to explain it all. The uninhibited fellow is equally willing to tell her about his upcoming wedding day as well, to an ugly heiress, a fate which he considers (almost) worse than death.

Naturally, he's delighted when his beautiful wood nymph marches of the isle, and she's equally disgusted that the man of her dreams considers her a monster. Moreover, having received information wildly varying from that of the young man about sex, she's not at all certain she wants try it, after all.

In fact her dream prince is not as far-fetched as he seems, since she did in fact fall in love with one in a past life. She, and her lover Aiden, have contracted a great karmic debt which they must work off. But the first order of business, at least from Aiden's point of view, is to consummate the marriage. His automatic expectations, after his previously outrageous conversation, are little disappointing. And if I had felt as strongly as Serafina had about staying virgin, I would have volunteered to sleep on the floor or the couch, rather than forsaking my principles for a little comfort! Working under the twin burdens of obvious lust and a lack of love for a woman he's just met, Serafina's husband Aiden has his work cut out for him to persuade her to fall into his bed, which provides much of the romantic tension for the first part of the book.

Romantic love stories, (it seems to me) must follow a pattern like those country dances--meet and retreat, and the reasons for both must be clearly delineated, or the characters will appear inconsistant. Frankly the characters' reactions at these turning points often puzzled me. A sprinkling of humor here and there only adds to the tension, but the author, who went to some trouble to set up what could have been potentially side splitting humor, tended not to take advantage of her opportunities. Why, she dispersed Aiden's fears that it was Serafina's elderly aunt that he was marrying in one sentance--and after all that trouble to get the old witch into an 18 year old's gown, too!

This is not a book in which it's difficult to figure out who the villain is. Aiden's family life is difficult, because his drunken but genial father ruined what must have been an immense family fortune in very little time. (Though this isn't entirely clear. He started drinking when his wife died giving birth to Aiden. Yet the family fortunes seemed to be in relatively good shape when Aiden took over, on a family trade ship, several years prior to the start of the story.) Serafina likes the old souse, however, and persuades Aiden to forgive his father, with remarkably little difficulty. Likewise the old man finds gardening an equally easy cure for his alcoholism. It's seems unlikely to me that Lord Delaware could have overcome his affliction so easily, or that Aiden could forgive him for a lifetime of neglect so readily. Those kinds of hurts take time to heal.

Charlotte, Aiden's bible spouting older sister who is paralized from the waist down by a fall, completes his family. Bitter and suffering from pain, she too improves considerably from her sister-in-law's remedies. Though her considerable bitterness is easy to understand, some of her other behaviors don't seem to have basis in either her personality or her past. She is what she is. Rafe, a neighboring duke who is Aiden's best friend, and Elspeth, Serafina's aunt, round out the tableau which is to re-enact their tragic past.

I thought the pagan rituals were sweet, and similar to those described by friends, which actually rather surprised me, since I had understood the originals to have been lost with the advance of Christianity centuries ago, and the modern ones to have arisen in the past few decades. --In fact, a lot of the time I felt I was reading something contemporary. In fact, I didn't know paganism was extent in the 1800s; I certainly don't believe it was tolerated to the extent depicted in this book. People took their religion--and their intolerance--*seriously* back then, in a way I suspect those outside of fundamentalist sects find hard to understand.

Moreover, while I freely admit finding reincarnation even less probable than heaven, I don't understand why karmic debt is visited upon the good guys. Nor was I ever quite clear how it was lifted by them, except perhaps that this time Aiden is a little quicker to believe his wife. It seems to me the villains in this piece ought to be paying the debt. Not being intimately familiar with the concept, I'm unaware whether the supposed payment requires repentance. If so, then the whole logic of this subplot falls apart.

And, I finally have to admit, there are (often) times when Serafina comes off as a wuss. Unfairly accused of adultery, she--surprise!--refuses to move out of her own house when ordered to do so. What I want to know is why she doesn't call two strong footmen to pitch her accuser out! The delicacy of this behavior is very nearly worthy of Fanny Burney's 18th ca heroines, and while women 200 years ago found pointless self sacrifice, enormous sensibility, complete gullibility, and the absolute unwillingness to stand up for oneself (has to be done for one by a man, see) appealing, it makes me want to gag.

Worse, her despicable reaction when she stumbles upon the sexual abuse of a young servant is to run away from the appalling scene, with a vague hope of getting the victim a new position, instead of delivering a ringing denouncement. I was so disturbed by this I actually wrote an alternate history for the unfortunate! Yes, the contortions modern novelists undergo in order to clothe their regency heroines in modern sensibilities is at times laughable, but, like so many regency villains, I like to see my heroines with some spirit. This one has the spinelessness of the popular romances of 200 years ago and modern attitudes--the worst of both worlds.

(All right for a plane ride or the beach. two stars.)

16aug98