"All the Tea in China" by Jane Orcutt at Absolute Write

Hi all:

I have a new review over at Absolute Write for Jane Orcutt's last novel All the Tea in China.

All the Tea in China By Jane Orcutt / Revell Everybody expects Isabella to get married, but the witty, fun-loving Englishwoman shocks them all by announcing that she's going to become a missionary in the Far East. Leaving her predictable Oxford life behind, she sets sail to a world fraught with danger. Can she trust her fellow missionary Phineas? Or will her adventure end before it ever begins?

Here's how my review begins:

All the Tea in China is a well-crafted historical romance that brings readers on a physical and emotional journey from Oxford to China by way of Capetown, South Africa, and from single to family by way of an unusual courtship. Orcutt's rich period language brings readers back to 1814 England with such delightful words as sapscull, missish, verrucas, and hoydenish. Indeed, when you enter these pages, you escape to the dignified past of early 19th century Oxford in the upper class home of a renowned academic dean-- but not without glimpsing the destitute history of the sorry slums just outside the university limits. You also experience the cacophonous bustle of the London and Gravesend docks, and exult in the excitement on board the full-masted merchant ship Dignity, first as a stowaway huddling with the livestock, then as a passenger posing as a sister whose "brother" will be putting her off in Capetown, for sure. But independent hero, Isabella Goodrich, is on a mission to China and will not be put off. Brother Phineas Snowe is also a missionary, or so she thinks, but on the long voyage to Macao, many secrets are revealed ...

Find out more about Isabella's adventures on the high seas and in the Far East, as well as what she's doing with that sword, by reading the rest of my review here. Or buy the book here.

You may have also noticed the animated ad for this book in the right side bar of my blog. Clicking on the ad will bring you to a web page put together by several of Jane Orcutt's writer friends after Orcutt's untimely death in March of this year from leukemia. The website supports Orcutt's books and her husband and two young sons.

This is a great book!

Enjoy!

hrh