“Reckless” by Amanda Quick

“Reckless” by Amanda Quick
1992, Bantam Books
ISBN: 0-553-29315-X

“Reckless” by Amanda Quick gets five stars from me. Every time I read this book it is just as fresh and wonderful as the first time I read it years ago. Quick’s trademark with her historical novels are quirky heroines and heroes. They just don’t fit in with the rest of society around them and manage to eventually find each other.

This one is about Phoebe Layton, youngest daughter of a wealthy family who just didn’t fit in. They all worried about her, but she set her sights on being a publisher. She had to do this in secret because her family would never understand or approve. But her first writer is Gabriel Banner, the man of her dreams. However, there she has a problem and she’s decided that he is the only one who can help her with it. It involves an old friend who, coincidently, is an enemy of Gabriel’s. He does not, though, know that she is his publisher and is not particularly inclined to help her. Letter after letter she sends to him and finally, creates enough interest or irritation for him to agree to meet with her.

Plans unfold. She finds herself in danger. They fall in love. It may be the same old love story, but Amanda Quick always finds a fresh new way to tell it.

I read this as I moved through the irritating sickness of a summer cold. It was just what the doctor ordered, even better than chicken soup.