Baroness

Not sure if you’ve found a great book? If you have, you may find yourself employing rationalization techniques (like these). If the book is really, really good, however, the signs may be far less obvious. Here are some clues.

1. You bring your book with you while walking the kids to school … even if the school is only three short blocks away.
2. Your solo lunch break between errands turns into a three-hour afternoon lost in the roaring ’20s.
3. Your audible gasps attract the attention of people two tables away during your lunch-break-turned-three-hour-afternoon-lost-in-the-roaring-’20s.
4. Your neck is red from clutching it while reading.
5. Your husband wakes at 1am to find you wide awake, nestled with you favorite blanket, your book and a healthy mountain of tear-filled tissues.

Baroness
by Susan May Warren

Author Website: www.SusanMayWarren.com

Available in paperback and Kindle version. Summerside Press, 2012; ISBN: 160936631X; 320 pages.

It’s no secret: Susan May Warren is one of my very, very favorite authors. Her latest series — Daughters of Fortune — tackles a different genre than most of her spunky, chick-lit contemporary romances. I reviewed the first book last fall. Today I’m going to share with you Book 2: Baroness.

This title takes place six years after the first. Heiress followed sisters Esme and Jinx; Baroness follows their daughters, Lilly and Rosie. These girls definitely come from their mothers’ stock. I recognized so much of their mothers in them, yet they had their own mountains to climb, their own lessons to learn. Rather than being in the Gilded Age of Titanic fame, these girls come of age during the roaring 20s. While tangling themselves both in culture and society from Paris to the mob underworld in New York and Chicago and even to the dangerous heights of early aviation, they challenge the roles of women and the fine lines of propriety. As always, Warren’s characters are fabulous. They’re complexities absorb readers, seamlessly investing our hearts in their successes and mistakes.

Throughout all of this, one question resonates: What are the limits of God’s love?

If you read Heiress, you know these girls were born into baggage. They’ve enough drama within their bloodlines to fuel stage and tabloids. Can God’s love reach even them? At what point will He give up and refuse to forgive? Can they be loved and free at the same time? At what cost?

This book hit every one of those clues listed above. I loved it! As with most series, I do recommend starting at the beginning, but I believe one could still thoroughly enjoy both this and its prequel if read out of order.

Final Thoughts: Another fabulous read from an exceptional author. Get it.