Jam-packed with history, romance and adventure

Called by The Washington Post Book World as “a master of pacing and plot,” Donnelly paints with a vivid palette of espionage, blackmail, steamy romance, exotic places, women’s suffrage and politics. She is a born storyteller. The Wild Rose, her final installment of a trilogy is jam-packed with historical fiction, romance and adventure.

Drink mint tea in a Bedouin tent after desert wanderings sustained only by water, dates and courage. Ride an omnibus as it belches and careens over London’s cobblestone streets. Watch a photo shoot of an avant-garde composer in Paris as the sun sets. Vivid description flows through this narrative as it travels from 1914 London to the mountains of Nepal and the Arabian Desert.

We are reunited with old friends Fiona and Joe Bristow, Sid Malone and his wife, Dr. India Selwyn Jones. Highlighted are Seamie Finnegan, famous polar explorer and Willa Alden, the “wild rose” and apparent heroine. Willa photographs and maps the Himalayas with a prosthetic leg. Seamie can’t decide what woman he loves and winds up a captain in the British navy. Handsome Max von Brandt, a German mountaineer who toys with women for his own advantage, is a colorful, man-you-love-to-hate character. Maud Selwyn Jones, a scandalous lady novelist, is married to one man and mistress to another.

Extensive period detail entrenches us in the historical setting. After seventy pages of the main characters’ back stories from The Tea Rose (2002) and The Winter Rose, (2008), the book takes off at a fast clip. Women seek equal rights in England. Climbers scale mountains in Nepal. Anxious people wait for news of their loved ones at war. Love, lust, jealousy, deception and action-packed adventure intertwine. World War I looms before us. The Dali Lama, Ernest Shackleton, Lawrence of Arabia and Winston Churchill make appearances.

Reading the other books in the trilogy will enhance your enjoyment of The Wild Rose, but in case you haven’t, Donnelly fills us in on sufficient background. That attempt proves a bit mind-boggling due to the myriad of characters and sub-plots it produces. Sadly, minor roles are given to some of the characters I came to love in the first two books.

The novel does yield a refreshing dose of adventure not found in the first part of the trilogy. Their appeal lies in Donnelly’s strong, never-give-up female characters, Fiona and India. That element is curiously lacking in The Wild Rose. Here, the author chooses a different tack.

A third book in any trilogy is tricky. Donnelly turns the tables on us by giving her main characters a surprising twist. In The Wild Rose, main characters Willa and Seamie are unlikable, self-absorbed people. Driven Willa uses any quest (mountain, man or fame) as a coping mechanism for her inability to accept her lost limb. When Seamie marries Jenny we are hopeful, but he soon becomes devoid of backbone or honor until the end of the book. Not villains, Willa and Seamie are simply flawed humans clawing their way out of their misery. Some readers may balk at this abrupt change in writing technique. This reviewer found it refreshing. Irritating characters can be more interesting than protagonists. Changing things up a bit is a bold author’s prerogative.

Some of the book’s themes converge on our current world state, elevating the book’s relevance. Political intricacies, horrors of war, drug abuse, and economic crisis mirror many issues facing us today.

Despite the fact that I longed for more character development and fewer characters, I couldn’t put the book down. The plot twists seemed outrageous at times, but the novel is engrossing and seductive. Donnelly has a vivid imagination and it gushes through her writing.

Hyperion graciously supplied the review copy. Opinions expressed are unbiased and wholly that of the reviewer.

Reviewed by Holly Weiss, author of Crestmont