To Tell Me Terrible Lies: A Romance of the Pine Barrens (Wainwright Chronicles 1778-1783, No 1) - Hardcover

St. Clare, Katherine

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0963283014 ISBN 13: 9780963283016

Publisher: Wainwright Pr, 1993

About this title

From Publishers Weekly:

At the beginning of the Revolutionary War, feisty Serena Wainwright returns home to the New Jersey Pine Barrens after spending months with her lover Stuart Brandon, a rugged privateer who harasses British ships. But her family has been turned against her by obsequious scoundrel Caleb Salem, who aims to control the Wainwright ironmaking business and has vowed revenge for Serena's refusal of his marriage proposal. Rejected and pregnant, Serena makes her own way in the world, first as an apprentice to a local healer, then as mistress of a wealthy man who promises to protect her daughter. Throughout her travails, Serena is sustained by her will to survive and her love for the rebel privateer. His final betrayal, and Caleb's death, change her life once again. Debut novelist St. Clare doesn't make much use of her historical setting, although it provides a mildly interesting backdrop for her characters' adventures. The first in a projected series of five historical romances, this title may startle readers with its ending, which makes a sophisticated departure from genre conventions.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal:

St. Clare's debut romance novel is the first of a five-part series set in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey during the American Revolution. Serena Wainwright harbors a dream of running her father's iron plantation, although she knows that he would never leave the works to a woman ironmaster. Kidnapped by a thief, she is rescued from the brink of rape by American privateer Stuart Brandon. When Brandon informs her that her family has disowned her for running away, she embarks on an affair with him. He leaves her homeless and pregnant within the first 70 pages, and the rest of the book is filled with Serena's melodramatic struggles with violence, unwed motherhood, and life as the mistress of a wealthy old man, all the while pining for Brandon. Plot and character development are sacrificed to a setting rich in detail and metaphor. St. Clare does not deliver an "entrepreneurial heroine" but a silly girl and a supporting cast of ineffectual, insensitive, or sadistic people.
- Kimberly Martin, Washington Univ. Law Lib., St. Louis
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Wainwright Pr
• Publication date: 1993
• ISBN 10: 0963283014
• ISBN 13: 9780963283016
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 335