Magic in the Stars by Patricia Rice is a fun book to read. The dialogue is crisp & attuned to the times. It moves from chaos to disaster in a pleasing romp. I gave it five stars.
Lady Azenor Dougal, Aster, had a constant reminder not to shirk her duty. “I must not doubt my intuition,” she muttered as the carriage jounced in another muddy rut and rain blurred the windows. “I must believe in my gifts.”
“An instinct that takes you out in this storm is not very trustworthy,” Aster’s companion intoned in her sepulchral voice. Clad in black, cloaked in gloom, Jennet loomed large against the opposite seat. “We should turn back.”
Aster had chosen Jennet for her melancholy unlikableness."
Describing her gift, Aster thought: "It was beyond dreadful to know when something awful would happen, and not be able to stop it. There were days when she feared everyone was better off not knowing their fate."
She encountered Theo, Lord Theophilus to warn him about his brother Duncan's, the Marquess, poor alignment of planets in an astrological forecast. He was struck by her attractiveness. He discounted her zodiac predictions & she was incensed. "...she explained with less of the musical tone of earlier & more acerbic authority. The fluffy morsel contained a hint of steel."
Theo did not want to assume the mantel of Marquess & the responsibility that went went it. A Marquess is a British nobleman who has a rank below a duke & above an earl.
It seems Theo & Aster are star crossed from the beginning.
Aster & her sister, Bree, & cousin, Diedre, have gone to help Theo put his house in order so he can find a woman to marry since his brother Duncan was injured & his fiance deserted him. "He blamed the long dry spell between mistresses for his illogical reaction to an irrational female."
Bree nearly shouted at Aster: "One needs love to smooth over the difficulties, and heaven only knows, this household is simply bursting with difficulties."
I would like to thank the author & Rice Enterprises for a complimentary copy. That did not change my opinion for this review.
Link to purchase: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01CDNZFH4
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