City of Jasmine Author: Deanna Raybourn | Language: English | ISBN:
B00FNJVSVI | Format: PDF
City of Jasmine Description
Set against the lush, exotic European colonial outposts of the 1920s, New York Times bestselling author Deanna Raybourn delivers the captivating tale of one woman who embarks upon a journey to see the world—and ends up finding intrigue, danger and a love beyond all reason.
Famed aviatrix Evangeline Starke never expected to see her husband, adventurer Gabriel Starke, ever again. They had been a golden couple, enjoying a whirlwind courtship amid the backdrop of a glittering social set in prewar London until his sudden death with the sinking of the Lusitania. Five years later, beginning to embrace life again, Evie embarks upon a flight around the world, collecting fame and admirers along the way. In the midst of her triumphant tour, she is shocked to receive a mysterious—and recent—photograph of Gabriel, which brings her ambitious stunt to a screeching halt.
With her eccentric aunt Dove in tow, Evie tracks the source of the photo to the ancient City of Jasmine, Damascus. There she discovers that nothing is as it seems. Danger lurks at every turn, and at stake is a priceless relic, an artifact once lost to time and so valuable that criminals will stop at nothing to acquire it—even murder. Leaving the jewelled city behind, Evie sets off across the punishing sands of the desert to unearth the truth of Gabriel's disappearance and retrieve a relic straight from the pages of history.
Along the way, Evie must come to terms with the deception that parted her from Gabriel and the passion that will change her destiny forever….
- File Size: 870 KB
- Print Length: 368 pages
- Publisher: Harlequin MIRA (February 25, 2014)
- Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
- Language: English
- ASIN: B00FNJVSVI
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,937 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
This is a desert adventure, complete with camels, shootings, Bedouins, sheikhs, thirst, and hidden relics. As a romance, it's very weak in my opinion, but I don't pick up books for the romance anyway, but the story within.
The best thing about this book is its heroine. She's as strong as they make them.
"I smoke cigars and I barnstorm and I wear red lipstick and I do as a I damned well please. And when this all over *content deleted so as not to spoil it for anyone* we won't ever have to see each other again. But at least you'll know what you were missing."
I love her sarcasm, her wit, her bravery, her stubbornness. She even makes a moving target of herself...did I mention she's a pilot? Though honestly, there's very, very little flying. I'm disappointed in that.
But oh, goodness, I love, LOVE Aunt Dove. That's two incredible heroines. Aunt Dove made me laugh. I want a novel solely about Aunt Dove's exploits, from the kidnapping of the Aegean young man to her acquiring her parrot. I want her memoirs, no matter that they're fake. She's a true delight.
Sadly, she was only involved in the first quarter of the story. Once the heroine leaves Aunt Dove and gets "lost" in the desert and begins searching for a relic she really doesn't care about, I don't think, I began to get frustrated after a while. Despite all the exciting things that happen to her and her companion, I found them unemotional and I didn't care about the relic myself so I guess I didn't see the sense in the adventure. I also can't stand the hero. I'm glad I read the prequel, 'cause I'd gone solely by his character in this...well, I never would have seen what she saw in him.
I even learned something from this novel, however.
Although it's been five years since her husband Gabriel's death, aviatrix Evangeline "Evie" Starke can't shake his presence from her head or her heart. Longing for him still in the silent moments when she's alone, she distracts herself with an adventuresome career behind the controls of her plane, the Jolly Roger, accepting challenges and performing feats, each one more daring than the last. In the midst of her most ambitious trip yet, the independent Evie's attention is ripped from the present and thrust into the past in a manner from which even she cannot disconnect herself.
Can it really be? A photo of Gabriel in the post? A photo that shows he's aged since she's seen him? A photo that indicates the husband she believed to be dead is still alive and in Damascus, the City of Jasmine? One thing Evie knows, if he is alive, she's surely going to kill him once she gets her hands on him. Suddenly the past comes flooding back in a way it hasn't done in years, and Evie knows that she can't rest until she locates Gabriel and demands an explanation for his actions.
When they met, Evie and Gabriel acted on their immediate attraction to one another by running off to Scotland to tie the knot within hours of their acquaintance. The good-looking charmer, archaeologist and adventurer captured Evie's heart and never gave it back. Even when they parted ways in Shanghai on the verge of divorce, Evie still loved Gabriel beyond reason.
Before they could cross paths again, Evie received news that Gabriel had died in the sinking of the Lusitania, leaving Evie with her heart full of unresolved emotions and her mouth full of words left unsaid.
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