LURE OF THE EMERALD PEACOCK
Romance
By Romona Hilligar
Linden Bay Romance LLC, US
ISBN: 1-905393-652
Review Rate: 4
Review Date 11/06/2006
Reviewer: JoEllen Conger
Although LURE OF THE EMERALD PEACOCK's contemporary setting is late 1940's India, the misadventures of the half-cast Dina, and her romantic Irishman, Duncan MacGavin is told with a Classic Fantasy voice. I found this story charmingly crafted and every exciting.
Before her British father passes away, he places his young daughter, Geraldine Pearce into the keeping of an old family friend. His Majesty, Meharaja of Khadampur and his wife Maharana Shante Deui, change her name to Dina, and treat her as their own daughter. They also guard the exquisite emerald brooch placed in their safekeeping. However, at his own death the precious heirloom becomes the object of lust for the sly, power-hungry Maharja Askole Kumar, who is obsessed by the jewel as well as its rightful owner. He determines not to honor his father's pledge, by refusing to return the jeweled heirloom to her on her twenty-first birthday, as agreed.
At first sight, the scrappy Scotsman, Duncan MacGavin, Ashok's royal engineer, falls in love with his majesty's Anglo-Indian step-sister. With the Maharana's blessing they escape together with the Emerald Peacock pin. Their chase through India with the priceless Emerald Peacock produces great misadventures for the Scotsman who has vowed to love her always, and the palace-raised half-cast girl, who is naively clueless that her caramel complexion inflames the Irishman's tightly reined passions.
