Forever Waiting

September 14, 2009
Sisters Debra and Valerie Gantt finally complete the Colette trilogy (begun 30 years ago) with the story of Charmaine Ryan, governess to the late Colette Duvoisin's girls and heir to Colette's role as soul of the Duvoisins, a family of prosperous 19th-century plantation and mill owners. The novel is heavy with flashbacks and recaps intended to catch readers up with preceding events. It's now 1837, and Colette's widower, Frederic Duvoisin, wishes to make up for past mistakes, but son John remains estranged in Virginia while John's half-brother teeters on the brink of marriage. Meanwhile, Agatha Duvoisin continues to hatch sinister schemes, leaving hardworking heroine Charmaine to triumph the old-fashioned way: by not giving into anything but true love. The novel feels very much like a throwback to the staid romances written a generation or two ago, where a man's masculinity is silhouetted by a burning fire and love ignites when hero and heroine dance at a ball, then stroll alone together through a garden.