Nikos Gr Gr থেকে Phanom Set, Tha Tako District, Nakhon Sawan, Thailand
The Wild Rose is the conclusion of a trilogy that began with The Tea Rose. Since I read all three books in the trilogy my review is somewhat a summation of my thoughts on the entire trilogy. The Wild Rose takes place in the years immediately preceding, during, and just after WWI. Of all three books, I think this time frame is my favorite, since there was a lot going on during that time that the author could work into the story. (The Tea Rose incorporated Jack the Ripper, but somehow that simply doesn't thrill me as much as Lawrence of Arabia). Donnelly incorporated not only the spy games of WWI, but the women's liberation movement and the adventuring (mountain climbing, etc.) of that era. The flavor it set worked well for me. I also liked the characters in the book. Willa, the heroine of the Wild Rose, is my favorite of all three books. She is constantly seeking adventure and challenging gender norms of that era. Even more impressive, I thought, was that Donnelly made her an amputee (from having lost her leg in the preceding book). Even in our supposedly enlightened present era, heroines tend to conform to common beauty norms; you don't read too many romance novels where the heroine is missing a major limb. One of the reasons that I read this series when it isn't necessarily the type of book I seek out is that Donnelly wrote romance novels with strong female characters. Even better, not every strong female character winds up paired off with a handsome man (even if the three main characters do, since these are after all romance novels). That is not to say the novels are without flaws. Like many authors who write series, Donnelly includes recaps of what happened in the previous novels. Since these novels tend to have somewhat twisty-turny plotlines, these recaps aren't exactly short. You can tell Donnelly tries to write them as tersely as possible, but it winds up coming across as an awkward info dump. More importantly, knowing every plot twist of the preceding book is really not necessary to understanding the plot of the present book. I imagine it also ruins the enjoyment somewhat of anyone who reads the books out of order. A more important quibble I have with the book (or rather, the series), is the same plotline coming up repeatedly. Boy and girl realize they are in love, circumstances conspire to keep them apart, boy and girl think that they can never be together, and one of them miserably marries another person. This happens in every. single. book. It wasn't bad the first time (yeah it's been done before but it's hard to find a plotline that hasn't been), but after the third time it feels lazy. At best. In short, The Wild Rose is an enjoyable read on its own. But if you've read the previous two books in the series, you can probably skip this one unless you're absolutely dying to find out what happened to Willa and Seamie. (view spoiler)