A Catch of Consequence

A captivating historical novel from the national bestselling author, as Ariana Franklin, of Mistress of the Art of Death.

Makepeace Burke serves Patriots at her late father's tavern on the Boston waterfront in 1765 and hates the redcoats with a vengeance. But even she can't watch an angry mob drown an Englishman. She rescues him and nurses him back to health-and falls in love.

In Patriot Boston, hers is an unforgivable sin-made worse by the fact that her Englishman turns out be the aristocratic Sir Philip Dapifer. Philip must smuggle Makepeace aboard a ship bound for London and save her life at the expense of the world she knows.

Rich in period detail, bringing the years of colonial rebellion to vivid life, A Catch of Consequence is a stylish novel of Boston and England, and of a woman who defies convention in both worlds.

Makepeace Burke, fishing one early morning in Boston Harbor, finds herself rescuing an English aristocrat who's been set on by a Patriot mob and dumped in the harbor to drown. Though Makepeace is a staunch Patriot herself and scorns the Englishman, the mob soon turns on her because of her act of charity, placing her life in peril. When the Englishman offers her a lifeline, there seems no other course for Makepeace. Her journey with him across the Atlantic will change her life...

Nola Theiss - KLIATT

Written in the style of the 18th century, this novel captures the tension between the colonies and England in the characters of Makepeace Burke and Lord Dapifer. Burke is an unconventional woman for her time period, a tavern keeper on the Boston waterfront in 1765. When she rescues a drowning British lord and takes him back to the tavern to nurse him, she runs afoul of the American revolutionaries. Out of gratitude that turns into love, Dapifer takes her to his ancestral home and she becomes the second Lady Dapifer on the trip to England. Unfortunately, the first Lady Dapifer does not recognize her divorce and causes great trouble. How that trouble is resolved and how Makepeace finds her place in the world comprise the pivotal emphasis of the novel. Personal, national and international conflicts abound in this historical fiction as do interesting characters of the time; some, like Sam Adams, well known and others not. The story is told with an air of authenticity, making this novel more than a history lesson, though there is history to be learned in its plot, and lessons to be learned in its history. KLIATT Codes: SA;Recommended for senior high school students, advanced students, and adults. 2002, Berkley, 386p.,

A former journalist, Diana Norman has written critically acclaimed biographies and historical novels. Under the pen name Ariana Franklin, she is also the author of the bestselling novels Mistress of the Art of Death and The Serpent's Tale.