The Ashford Affair

February 18, 2013
Willig takes us from the twilight of the British aristocracy to colonial Kenya to modern-day New York City in her first historical romance outside of the Pink Carnation Series. In 1906, five-year-old Addie Gillecote leaves Kenya after her parents’ death to live in London with her Aunt Vera and Uncle Charles, the Lord and Lady of Ashford. Treated as a charity case by her aunt, Addie is taken under her cousin Bea’s wing. As the girls grow close and come of age, Bea is touted as the “Debutante of the Decade.” She lands a young marquess, Marcus, in a seemingly perfect match, and Addie joins them in their new home, taking a position at The Bloomsbury Review. In 1999, Addie is 99 and beloved by her granddaughter, Clemmie, a lawyer looking to make partner. Clemmie sees the marriage between her grandmother and grandfather, Frederick, as her model for love and has recently ended an engagement because her fiancé did not measure up. After Addie dies, Clemmie, aided by her step-cousin, historian Jon, learns that their family’s history is more complicated than she imagined. Well-researched details of life in the 1920s lends texture to this solid historical novel. Agent: Joe Veltre, Artists Literary Group.

February 15, 2013
Multigenerational tale, from an author of popular Regency/historicals, takes a family from estates in England and Kenya to a Manhattan law firm. Clemmie hopes to make partner after years as vassal to a petty tyrant in an Ivy League sweatshop. Her personal life is in shambles: Her engagement is off, and she's still smarting from a disappointing Roman holiday with her stepcousin Jon, with whom she's had a love-hate relationship since childhood. Now, though, her maternal ancestors are commanding more of Clemmie's angst. Her once indomitable grandmother Addie, 99, is failing fast. Addie's story intertwines with her granddaughter's. After a 1906 accident claims the lives of her parents, young Addie's uncle, an earl, takes her to live at his stately home, Ashford, ruled by his imperious countess, Vera. Almost immediately, Addie is welcomed as a sister and confidante by her impetuous cousin Bea. Back in 1999, Clemmie suspects that her mother is prevaricating about Addie's past. As the story of Bea and Addie evolves, so does the enigma. After the girls make their post-World War I debuts, Bea marries a marquess (to Vera's relief), and Addie, the poor relation, accompanies Bea to her opulent London pied-a-terre. However, as Addie occupies herself with intellectual self-improvement, Bea's social status is threatened by the marquess' philandering. To avenge herself, she steals Addie's beau, Frederick. Everything explodes when the marquess learns of Bea's pregnancy by Frederick. The action shifts to Kenya, where the characters re-enact an edgier version of Out of Africa. While on an ill-advised safari, Bea disappears. Since she is presumed dead, and husband Frederick, after a rather cursory investigation, is presumed innocent, Addie and Frederick are free to marry and become the progenitors Clemmie always thought she had. The panoramic canvas Willig chooses to cover is a bit overambitious--the law firm minutia, although entertaining, is essentially a digression--but she makes up for the unwieldiness with sharp, scintillating dialogue and expert scene-craft. Willig's crossover into mainstream fiction heralds riches to come.

COPYRIGHT(2013) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

November 1, 2012

You just have to love a book that's said to have an Out of Africa sensibility with a Downton Abbey cast. The author of the red-hot "Pink Carnation" series departs temporarily from revolutionary France to whirl us from World War I England to present-day New York. Almost a partner at a prestigious New York law firm but discontented, Clementine Evans attends grandmother Addie's 99th birthday party and becomes intrigued with Addie's stories of growing up in England with her aristocratic aunt and uncle. Nice to see Willig try something different.

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 1, 2013
Willig veers away from her Pink Carnation Regency spy series in this stand-alone offering, which follows Clementine Evans, an ambitious young lawyer who decides to dig into her family's history after discovering she bears more than a passing resemblance to a cousin of her grandmother's who she's never heard of. Clemmie's grandmother, Addie, and the cousin, Bea, grew up together in England in the early twentieth century after Addie's parents died and Bea's family took Addie in. Addie grew up in the glamorous Bea's shadow, eventually losing Frederick, the man she loved, to Bea. In the present, Clemmie tries to reconcile this new information with what she knows about Addie's long and happy marriage to Frederick. Clemmie feels especially betrayed by Jon, the handsome stepson of her mother's sister, who clearly knows more than he's letting on. Though it lacks the swashbuckling charm of her long-running series, Willig's new outing takes readers from WWI-era London to Kenya of the 1920s to New York in the 1990s, offering plenty of twists and intrigue to keep them entertained.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)