I though the insight into this change, especially the ability to capture a true likeness of a loved one – a photograph that remains after death – and the beginning of the celebrity photographer elevated this book from being simply entertaining.Ĭharlotte’s “hobby” is barely tolerated by her family, but as the heir to the family fortune it is allowed. Charlotte Baird is a young heiress, but is determined to become more than a society matron, and is certainly in no great rush to marry any of the “younger sons” presented to her.Ĭharlotte has taken up photography and we learn about the early days of photography and the changes that come with the ability to take a picture of a person or event. Yet the reader cannot help but realize the author has drawn a parallel between the Empress Elizabeth, a woman whose life was very much like that of the more recent Princess Diana. The Empress Elizabeth is spending time in England, riding at the hunt, and that much of the novel is based on real history. And oh-la-la it is occasionally ever so slightly racy in a very Victorian way, which is plenty fast enough for me. Set in the mid 1800’s, during the reign of Queen Victoria, the novel is full of all of the pomp and ceremony, social expectations and mores of the time.
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