A RETURN TO ROMANCE

Fashion is going both romantic and historical this spring. And as I have been predicting, not only is the time ripe for the classic mystery to resurge, so it is for romantic suspense. Here is a discovery book we have just ordered

Fitzpatrick, Kylie. The Ninth Stone (Weidenfeld $30). An imaginative novel of suspense set in Victoria's day and recalling The Moonstone and the work of MM Kaye (and maybe Phyllis Whitney) moves from India to London and back. The narrative flows with the history of a diamond stolen from the goddess Kali, a maharaja who loves a dancing girl, a gutsy London orphan posing as a boy and working in the offices of the London Mercury, the widowed Lily Korechnya, grieving for her artist husband, who has been enlisted to help Lady Cynthia Herbert (whose spouse was murdered in India by Thugees) catalogue her jewels … Imaginative, terrific fun, well researched lending authenticity to the somewhat fantastical bits. We have a large number of such books to tell you about as we move into spring and early summer.