Lady Emily's Exotic Journey

June 8, 2015
Marek’s second Victorian Adventurers romance should be exciting, but slow pacing, exacerbated in the first half by the romantic leads’ fixations, results in a languorous Mesopotamian travelogue rather than a high-energy romantic escapade. Even an episode with pirates barely registers on the excitement scale. Lady Emily Tremaine, her friend Julia, and her mother—who helped enliven Lady Elinor’s Wicked Adventures—accompany her father on a trip to determine the efficacy of building a train along the Tigris. Their guides are Lucien Chambertin, a Frenchman with a secret, and David Oliphant, an Arab-English diplomat. David and Julia quickly fall in love, but Emily and Lucien require more time. After Lucien and Emily are physically thrown together during an attack on their boat, they become emotionally stuck, spending nearly 100 pages trying to comprehend their bodies’ reactions to the unexpected proximity. Though Victorian attitudes certainly constrained behavior, their constant intrusion into Emily and Lucien’s thoughts and feelings makes for dull reading in the present day. Agent: Gail Fortune, Talbot Fortune Agency.

August 1, 2015
The adventures of the Tremaines continue in this second installment of Marek's Victorian travel series (Lady Elinor's Wicked Adventures, 2014) with Elinor's sister, Lady Emily, and her new sister-in-law, Lady Julia. As they travel, this time to Assyria, the Tremaine family are just as wonderfully unconventional as before, visiting archaeological excavation sites, traveling by horse or by boat, dodging the flying bullets of marauding tribesand the women even wear pants! Accompanying them are two handsome guides: David Oliphant, their interpreter, and the quiet Frenchman, Lucien Chambertin, who immediately catches Emily's eye with his modesty and thoughtful disposition. They eventually become invested in the archaeological discovery of Lucien's friend, Monsieur Carnac, whose daughter, Melisande, is also taken with Lucien. Trouble brews when jealous Melisande arranges to have Emily kidnapped. The plot fluctuates both in pace and intrigue, with occasionally indelicate cultural references ( lunatic Kurds randomly attack the party), but there is plenty to enjoy in Lucien and Emily's transformation as lovers swept away by adventure.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)