Book Review of A Foreign Affair by Caro Peacock

When I first read about A Foreign Affair by Caro Peacock, I immediately knew that this would be a book for me. As soon as I entered Peacock's world of Victorian England, my first assumption was confirmed.

Through the main character of Liberty Lane, a young British woman living alone in England after her father's death, Peacock took me on a journey from the outskirts of France to the aristocratic society of England in 1938. Liberty Lane is determined to prove that her father did not die in a duel, and we follow her as she enters a world unknown to her to find his assumed murderer.

The independent mind of Liberty seems to show a bit of the struggle of Victorian England, where the class division was beginning to be a burden on the country. The novel is not only a story about a woman; it is also a story about a country, an era and the political culture of the time.

A Foreign Affair is a novel filled with mystery and drama, and the storyline was so captivating that it took me back to the castles I visited in England years ago.  Peacock's writing flows fluently, her knowledge of the time and the area is obvious, and together with the attention to detail the novel becomes an effortless read. Every time, I had to put the book down, I was excited about the next time I would be able to pick it again.

The ending left me wanting for more, and I hope Peacock left it this way with a purpose, as I would love to read more.

I can highly recommend A Foreign Affair to lovers of fiction and of historic novels, this is a captivating novel, which sent my imagination off to a historic journey. After finishing the book, I am looking forward to read the next Caro Peacock book.



A Foreign Affair

by Caro Peacock
Trade Paperback Fiction
Avon, An Imprint of Harper-Collins Publishers
April 2008
Price: $13.95 U.S./$14.95 Canada
352 Pages
ISBN: 978-0-06-144589-7