Over the weekend, I finally finished James Tipton's Annette Vallon. This book, though it centers around a romance, is actually a good history of the French Revolution. It is wonderfully descriptive and, though the characters live outside of Paris, you get a sense of what the terror must have been like for ordinary people.
The British poet William Wordsworth fell in love with Annette Vallon shortly before the Terror began, but the Revolution soon separates them. For a novel centered around two people in love, those two share precious few pages together. William returns to Britain and Annette begins to help those who are unjustly hunted by the revolutionaries (including at various times, herself).
In this novel it is made clear just how blurry the lines between royalist and revolutionary truly were, changing with the various tides of fanaticism. And there were so many tides! One forgets just how prolonged and agonizing this Revolution truly was!
This is a great historical novel, with just a hint of romance and tons of adventure. It is refreshing to see a courageous heroine, one who is intelligent and unafraid of anyone's negative opinion. I can't say this made me a fan of Wordsworth, but then, I've never been much into poetry. If you want a good read, I recommend it.
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