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The Little Adventure
THE LITTLE ADVENTURE
Paris in 1869 was a wildly extravagant society, one in which women valued jewels above love and lavish spending brought rich men to ruin. Yet it was to Paris that the breathtakingly beautiful Lady Corinna Vernon fled in order to escape her shrewish aunt, and assumed the post of governess under a disguised name. There, too, she met the Duke of Milverton, a wealthy and handsome lord. Soon they were both caught up in an elaborate deception that could only draw them strangely closer--in the intriguing new bestseller by today's best-loved writer of romantic fiction.
BARBARA CARTLAND
Paris in 1869 was a wildly extravagant society, one in which women valued jewels above love and lavish spending brought rich men to ruin. Yet it was to Paris that the breathtakingly beautiful Lady Corinna Vernon fled in order to escape her shrewish aunt, and assumed the post of governess under a disguised name. There, too, she met the Duke of Milverton, a wealthy and handsome lord. Soon they were both caught up in an elaborate deception that could only draw them strangely closer--in the intriguing new bestseller by today's best-loved writer of romantic fiction.
BARBARA CARTLAND
216 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 1974
About the author
Barbara Cartland
1,337 books756 followersBorn in 1901, Barbara Cartland started her writing career in journalism and completed her first book, Jigsaw, when she was just 24. An immediate success, it was the start of her journey to becoming the world’s most famous and most read romantic novelist of all time. Inspiring a whole generation of readers around the globe with her exciting tales of adventure, love and intrigue, she became synonymous with the Romance genre. And she still is to this day, having written over 644 romantic fiction books.
As well as romantic novels, she wrote historical biographies, 6 autobiographies, plays, music, poetry and several advice books on life, love, health and cookery – totalling an incredible 723 books in all, with over 1 billion in sales.
Awarded the DBE by Queen Elizabeth II in 1991 in honour of her literary, political and social contributions, she was President of the Hertfordshire branch of the Royal College of Midwives as well as a Dame of Grace of the Order of St John of Jerusalem and Deputy President of the St John Ambulance Brigade.
Always a passionate advocate of woman’s health and beauty, she was dubbed ‘the true Queen of Romance’ by Vogue magazine in her lifetime. Her legend continues today through her wonderfully vivid romantic tales, stories that help you escape from the day to day into the dramatic adventures of strong, beautiful women who battle, often against the odds, eventually to find that love conquers all.
Find out more about the incredible life and works of Dame Barbara Cartland at www.barbaracartland.com
As well as romantic novels, she wrote historical biographies, 6 autobiographies, plays, music, poetry and several advice books on life, love, health and cookery – totalling an incredible 723 books in all, with over 1 billion in sales.
Awarded the DBE by Queen Elizabeth II in 1991 in honour of her literary, political and social contributions, she was President of the Hertfordshire branch of the Royal College of Midwives as well as a Dame of Grace of the Order of St John of Jerusalem and Deputy President of the St John Ambulance Brigade.
Always a passionate advocate of woman’s health and beauty, she was dubbed ‘the true Queen of Romance’ by Vogue magazine in her lifetime. Her legend continues today through her wonderfully vivid romantic tales, stories that help you escape from the day to day into the dramatic adventures of strong, beautiful women who battle, often against the odds, eventually to find that love conquers all.
Find out more about the incredible life and works of Dame Barbara Cartland at www.barbaracartland.com
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
January 7, 2019
Exactly what you could expect. A romantic tale with a lot of twists and misunderstandings. Running around with our characters in a very nice and romantic version of a 19th century’s Paris. Enjoyed it enough, but there are better romance novels out there, some of them written by Barbara Cartland.
January 5, 2024
Romantic intrigue, secret identities, scheming adventuresses, misunderstandings, and euphemisms abound in this typical Barbara Cartland saga which, at times, borders delightfully on self-parody.
December 14, 2019
I think she should have make him suffer more!!!
March 22, 2023
Corinna decides to answer a written request for a governess that arrives at the orphanage her family owned—good thing too, since she’s recently become orphaned herself and would have otherwise been stuck living with her horrid aunt and uncle. She poses as Cora Vern and goes to France.
Her employer is a scheming woman who, unbeknownst to Corinna, is trying to convince the Duke, Daryl, that her son is biologically related to Daryl’s dead brother (so the son should inherit the money and title that Daryl now possesses after the brother’s death). Daryl doesn’t believe that little Pierre is his brother’s son, but he plays along, and that’s how he meets Corinna. They end up falling in love quickly but all the while, Daryl thinks that Corinna’s been hired by the scheming woman to further her scam (he also saw Corinna outside a brothel where his friend offered her a ride, since she seemed to be in need of transportation—she had helped a sick lady of the night that she met on the boat to France, which is why she’d been there).
Corinna has dreamt of her future husband and thinks that Daryl is him. The vibrations of love in the air! She’s shocked when Daryl fakes their wedding to get revenge on Corinna allegedly being in on the scheme, because weirdly enough Corinna has missed out on all the plot twists that Daryl and the other characters uncovered. Pierre is really the son of the scheming woman’s assistant (we find out when Pierre tries to save his uncle from dying on a duel and ends up getting shot in the shoulder instead—his real father had been the shooter and was so devastated by the injury that he let the truth slip). Daryl doesn’t realize Corinna doesn’t know the truth, and she never gets the chance to do more than vaguely pick up on his odd behavior the night of their fake wedding. But once he accuses her and offers to keep her as his mistresses instead, Corinna slips away and runs back to England to forget about him. Daryl finds her and does a pretty decent job at conveying how sorry he was. For a Cartland hero, his apology was pretty good. They end up getting married for real and Daryl recreates the setting down to what they were wearing when he accused her, so that they could have another go at their wedding night and erase the sadness of the past. And it seems like it worked it lol.
I did end up enjoying this one, but it was VERY convoluted. The plot didn’t need to be this twisty or dense. Summarizing it just now was a challenge!
Her employer is a scheming woman who, unbeknownst to Corinna, is trying to convince the Duke, Daryl, that her son is biologically related to Daryl’s dead brother (so the son should inherit the money and title that Daryl now possesses after the brother’s death). Daryl doesn’t believe that little Pierre is his brother’s son, but he plays along, and that’s how he meets Corinna. They end up falling in love quickly but all the while, Daryl thinks that Corinna’s been hired by the scheming woman to further her scam (he also saw Corinna outside a brothel where his friend offered her a ride, since she seemed to be in need of transportation—she had helped a sick lady of the night that she met on the boat to France, which is why she’d been there).
Corinna has dreamt of her future husband and thinks that Daryl is him. The vibrations of love in the air! She’s shocked when Daryl fakes their wedding to get revenge on Corinna allegedly being in on the scheme, because weirdly enough Corinna has missed out on all the plot twists that Daryl and the other characters uncovered. Pierre is really the son of the scheming woman’s assistant (we find out when Pierre tries to save his uncle from dying on a duel and ends up getting shot in the shoulder instead—his real father had been the shooter and was so devastated by the injury that he let the truth slip). Daryl doesn’t realize Corinna doesn’t know the truth, and she never gets the chance to do more than vaguely pick up on his odd behavior the night of their fake wedding. But once he accuses her and offers to keep her as his mistresses instead, Corinna slips away and runs back to England to forget about him. Daryl finds her and does a pretty decent job at conveying how sorry he was. For a Cartland hero, his apology was pretty good. They end up getting married for real and Daryl recreates the setting down to what they were wearing when he accused her, so that they could have another go at their wedding night and erase the sadness of the past. And it seems like it worked it lol.
I did end up enjoying this one, but it was VERY convoluted. The plot didn’t need to be this twisty or dense. Summarizing it just now was a challenge!
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews