I adore Deanna Raybourn's Lady Julia Victorian mystery series; they're well-written and slightly dark. So I was hoping that her stand-alone novel A Spear of Summer Grass (#426) would measure up to that high standard. The quality of her writing is still there, but A Spear of Summer Grass is published under Harlequin's MIRA imprint, so the primary focus is the romance, which I did not find to be nearly as interesting as her mysteries.
However, if romance is what you're looking for, this tale set in 1920s Kenya has a lot to offer. Delilah Drummond, the bad girl heroine, is a well-developed character, with many layers. The African setting is vivid and the native tribes are sympathetically portrayed. I personally found Delilah's love interest Ryder White a bit outré with his gold-hooped pierced ears, but that's probably just me. (Why do romance heroes always have to wear their hair "longer than the current fashion"? I find the clean cut look so much more appealing...) There's peril and a bit of mystery to keep the story moving along, and I must admit, I did find the reveal of the culprit at the end a surprise.
This book will certainly transport you to a different time and place, so if you need to get away from it all, A Spear of Summer Grass will do the job nicely. I'll just stick to Lady Julia in the future myself.
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