Guest Review: The Perfect Imposter by Wendy Soliman

They had grown up together:  Julia was the earl’s daughter, and Katrina daughter of the earl’s steward.  Yet the earl had insisted that Katrina be educated with his daughter and that they be allowed to play together and share their growing up experiences as pals.  Often their surprising similarity in looks had been at the root of the fun they had fooling their governess–they looked so alike that people often thought they were twins.  Now they are grown and their lives are truly moving in different directions.  Julia is married and unhappily, it appears.  Katrina is struggling to become a designer and maker of fine garments for the women of the ton–a modiste as they were then called.  And Julia, her life-long best friend, has asked a favor of Katrina that will probably be the greatest strain on their friendship they will ever face.

This novel is not your usual poor-girl-meets-rich-aristocrat kind of historical romance.  Rather, it is a story about thievery, possibly misplaced trust, mysterious personal agendas, and the lengths to which one friend will go to be a friend.  There are twists and turns, surprising actions on the part of several of the characters, a very confused and increasingly angry and upset heroine, and a hero who is having a difficult time processing what is really going on, even though he knows that Katrina isn’t Julia, but he along with everyone else, can’t figure out what lies at the root of all this subterfuge.

I am a great fan of historical romance and thought the underlying premise of this book to be fascinating to begin with.  But when I got into the story I was dragged along because nothing was playing out the way Katrina expected, and Julia’s maid who was supposed to be a guide and a help to Katrina, just doesn’t seem to be “on the same page.”  This is perhaps one of the first clues that all is not as it initially appears.  I think I was most taken with the character of Katrina–a woman who was not unhappy with having to make her own way in the world, but one whose inner strength of character, her faithfulness to her friend, her willingness to engage in this duplicity just for the sake of her friendship with Julia, made her a person of honor and who stands out as one stellar human being.   And I really liked Leo–a man who had been “burned” in the arena of romantic love, whose cynicism about people in general and women in particular was fairly significant and yet it didn’t blind him to the differences he saw in Katrina.  His attraction to her confused him, but he still knew the “real thing” when he saw it.  Best of all, I think this author made this story “work” on so many levels and I responded to its action and to the characters involved quite profoundly.  It was a massively entertaining story.

I have read several of Ms Soliman’s writings and found all of them to be quite good.  This work is, by far, one of her best I have encountered.  It’s just one terrific read!!  I hope you will seek it out and if you do, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

I give it a rating of 4.5 out of 5

You can read more from Judith at Dr J’s Book Place.

book is available from Carina Press. You can buy it here or here in e-format.