Ebook Free The Hostage (The Chicago Fire Trilogy), by Susan Wiggs
If you get the published book The Hostage (The Chicago Fire Trilogy), By Susan Wiggs in on-line book shop, you could also discover the same trouble. So, you have to move establishment to store The Hostage (The Chicago Fire Trilogy), By Susan Wiggs and also search for the readily available there. Yet, it will not happen here. The book The Hostage (The Chicago Fire Trilogy), By Susan Wiggs that we will provide here is the soft documents concept. This is just what make you could easily locate as well as get this The Hostage (The Chicago Fire Trilogy), By Susan Wiggs by reading this website. We provide you The Hostage (The Chicago Fire Trilogy), By Susan Wiggs the best item, constantly and also consistently.
The Hostage (The Chicago Fire Trilogy), by Susan Wiggs
Ebook Free The Hostage (The Chicago Fire Trilogy), by Susan Wiggs
The Hostage (The Chicago Fire Trilogy), By Susan Wiggs. Provide us 5 minutes and also we will certainly reveal you the most effective book to read today. This is it, the The Hostage (The Chicago Fire Trilogy), By Susan Wiggs that will be your ideal selection for much better reading book. Your 5 times will certainly not spend squandered by reading this website. You can take the book as a source to make far better principle. Referring guides The Hostage (The Chicago Fire Trilogy), By Susan Wiggs that can be positioned with your demands is at some time tough. But below, this is so easy. You could locate the most effective point of book The Hostage (The Chicago Fire Trilogy), By Susan Wiggs that you can read.
Reading, again, will certainly offer you something brand-new. Something that you have no idea after that disclosed to be renowneded with guide The Hostage (The Chicago Fire Trilogy), By Susan Wiggs notification. Some knowledge or session that re received from checking out publications is vast. Much more e-books The Hostage (The Chicago Fire Trilogy), By Susan Wiggs you read, even more expertise you obtain, and a lot more opportunities to constantly like reviewing publications. As a result of this reason, reviewing book must be started from earlier. It is as just what you could get from the book The Hostage (The Chicago Fire Trilogy), By Susan Wiggs
Get the advantages of reading habit for your lifestyle. Reserve The Hostage (The Chicago Fire Trilogy), By Susan Wiggs message will certainly always connect to the life. The actual life, understanding, scientific research, health and wellness, faith, entertainment, and also more can be discovered in created books. Many authors supply their encounter, scientific research, research study, as well as all things to discuss with you. One of them is with this The Hostage (The Chicago Fire Trilogy), By Susan Wiggs This book The Hostage (The Chicago Fire Trilogy), By Susan Wiggs will certainly supply the needed of message and also declaration of the life. Life will be finished if you know a lot more things through reading books.
From the description above, it is clear that you have to review this publication The Hostage (The Chicago Fire Trilogy), By Susan Wiggs We offer the on-line publication entitled The Hostage (The Chicago Fire Trilogy), By Susan Wiggs right here by clicking the web link download. From discussed e-book by online, you can provide more advantages for lots of people. Besides, the visitors will certainly be likewise easily to obtain the favourite publication The Hostage (The Chicago Fire Trilogy), By Susan Wiggs to review. Find the most favourite as well as required e-book The Hostage (The Chicago Fire Trilogy), By Susan Wiggs to read now and below.
Deborah Sinclair is a beautiful, accomplished young heiress with a staggering dowry. But her fortune does her no good when, one horrible night, Chicago is engulfed in flames.
Tom Silver will walk through fire to avenge a terrible injustice—and he may have to. But when he makes Deborah a pawn in his revenge, the heat of the inferno fades next to the attraction he feels for his captive. And the further he takes her from everything she's known, the stronger their passion grows, until it threatens to consume them both.
- Sales Rank: #752200 in Books
- Published on: 2010-06-29
- Released on: 2010-06-29
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 6.62" h x 1.17" w x 4.21" l, .46 pounds
- Binding: Mass Market Paperback
- 448 pages
Review
"Susan Wiggs masterfully combines real historical events with a powerful captive/captor romance and . . . draws readers in with her strong writing style. . . ."
-- Romantic Times (Romantic Times )
About the Author
Susan Wiggs is the author of many beloved bestsellers, including the popular Lakeshore Chronicles series. She has won many awards for her work, including a RITA from Romance Writers of America. Visit her website at www.SusanWiggs.com.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
"What's the matter with Deborah?" asked Phoebe Palmer, standing in the middle of a cluttered suite of rooms at Miss Emma Wade Boylan's School for Young Ladies. Lacy petticoats and beribboned unmentionables littered the divans and ottomans of the fringed, beaded and brocaded salon. "She won't even let her maid in to attend her," Phoebe added.
"I'll see what's keeping her." Lucy Hathaway pushed open the door to an adjoining chamber. Deborah's dress, which she had worn to Aiken's Opera House the previous night, lay slumped in a heap of tulle and silk on the floor. A mound of sheets lay scattered over the bed, while the smell of expensive perfume and despair hung in the air.
"Deborah, are you all right?" Lucy asked softly. She went to the window, parting the curtain to let in a bit of the waning evening light. In the distance, some of the taller buildings and steeples of distant Chicago stabbed the horizon. The sky was tinged dirty amber by the smoke and soot of industry. But closer to Amberley Grove, the genteel suburb where the school was located, the windswept evening promised to be a lovely one.
"Deborah, we've been pestering you for hours to get ready. Aren't you coming with us tonight?" Lucy persisted. Though the engagement bore the humble name of an evangelical reading, everyone knew it was simply an excuse for the cream of society to get together on the Sabbath. Though weighty spiritual issues might be discussed, lighter matters such as gossip and romance would be attended to with appropriate religious fervor. Tonight's particular social event had an added drama that had set tongues to wagging all week long. The intensely desired Dylan Kennedy was looking for a wife.
"Please, dear," Lucy said. "You're scaring me, and ordinarily nothing scares me."
Huddled on the bed, Deborah couldn't find the words to allay her friend's concern. She was trying to remember what her life had been like just twenty-four hours ago. She was trying to recall just who she was, tallying up the pieces of herself like items in a ledger book. A cherished only daughter. Fiancée of the most eligible man in Chicago. A privileged young woman poised on the threshold of a charmed life.
Everything had fallen apart last night, and she had no idea how to put it all back together.
"Make her hurry, do," Phoebe said, waltzing in from the next room with a polished silk evening dress pressed to her front. "Miss Boylan's coach will call for us in half an hour. Imagine! Dylan Kennedy is finally going to settle on a wife." She preened in front of a freestanding cheval glass, patting her glossy brown hair. "Isn't that deliciously romantic?"
"It's positively barbaric," said Lucy. "Why should we be paraded in front of men like horses at auction?"
"Because," Kathleen O'Leary said, joining them in Deborah's chamber, "Miss Boylan promised you would all be there. Three perfect young ladies," she added with a touch of Irish irony. She reached for the curtain that shrouded the bed. "Are you all right, then, miss?" she asked. "I've been trying like the very devil to attend to you all day." The maid put out a pale, nervous hand and patted the miserable mound of blankets.
Deborah felt assaulted by her well-meaning friends. She wanted to yell at them, tell them to leave her alone, but she had no idea how to assert her own wishes. No one had ever taught her to behave in such a fashion; it was considered unladylike in the extreme. She shrank back into the covers and pretended not to hear.
"She doesn't answer," Lucy said, her voice rising with worry.
"Please, Deborah," Phoebe said. "Talk to us. Are you ill?"
Deborah knew she would have no peace until she surrendered. With slow, painstaking movements, she made herself sit up, leaning against a bank of Belgian linen pillows. Three faces, as familiar as they were dear to her, peered into hers. They looked uncommonly beautiful, perhaps because they were all so different. Black-haired Lucy, carrot-topped Kathleen and Phoebe with her light brown curls. Their faces held the winsome innocence and anticipation Deborah herself had felt only yesterday.
"I'm not ill," she said softly, in a voice that barely sounded like her own.
"You look like hell," Lucy said with her customary bluntness.
Because I have been there.
"I'll send for the doctor." Kathleen started toward the door.
"No!" Deborah's sharp voice stopped the maid in her tracks. A doctor was unthinkable. "That is," she forced herself to say, "I assure you, I am not in the least bit ill." To prove her point, she forced herself out of bed and stood barefoot in the middle of the room.
"Well, that's a relief." With brisk bossiness, Phoebe took her hand and gave it a friendly, aggressive tug. Deborah stumbled along behind her and stepped into the brightly lit salon.
"I imagine you're simply overcome because you'll be a married woman a fortnight from now." Phoebe dropped her hand and smiled dreamily. "You are so fabulously lucky. How can you keep to your bed at such a magical time? If I were engaged to the likes of Philip Ascot, I should be pacing the carpets with excitement. The week before my sister married Mr. Vanderbilt, my mother used to joke that she needed an anchor to keep her feet on the ground."
Deborah knew Phoebe didn't mean for the words to hurt. Deborah was a motherless daughter, the saddest sort of creature on earth, and at a time like this the sense of loss gaped like an unhealed wound. She wondered what a young woman with a mother would do in this situation.
"So," Lucy said, "let's hurry along. We don't want to be late."
Through a fog of indifference, Deborah surveyed the suite cluttered with combs, atomizers, lacy underclothes, ribbons, masses of petticoats—a veritable explosion of femininity. It was the sort of scene that used to delight her, but everything was different now. Suddenly these things meant nothing to her. She had the strangest notion of being encased in ice, watching her friends through a wavy, frozen wall. The sense of detachment and distance hardened with each passing moment. She used to be one of the young ladies of Miss Boylan's famous finishing school, merry and certain of her place in the glittering world of Chicago's debutantes. It all seemed so artificial now, so pointless. She felt alienated from her friends and from the contented, foolish girl she used to be.
"And what about you, dear Kathleen? " Phoebe asked, aiming a pointed glance at the red-haired maid. Phoebe took every chance to remind Kathleen that she was merely the hired help, there at the sufferance of more privileged young women like herself. "What do you plan to do tonight?"
Kathleen O'Leary's face turned crimson. She had the pale almost translucent skin of her Irish heritage, and it betrayed every emotion. "You've left me a fine mess to be tidying up, miss. And won't that keep me busy 'til cock-crow." Saucy as ever, she exaggerated her brogue on purpose.
"You should come with us, Kathleen." Lucy, whose family had raised her to be a free thinker, didn't care a fig for social posturing, but she knew that important people would be attending. The politicians, industrialists and social reformers were valuable contacts for her cause—rights for women.
"Really, Lucy," scolded Phoebe. "Only the best people in town are invited. Dr. Moody's readings are strictly for—"
"The invitation was extended to every young lady at Miss Boylan's," Lucy, who was both wealthy and naive enough to be an egalitarian, reminded her.
"Stuff and nonsense," Kathleen said, her blush deepening.
"Perhaps you should attend," Phoebe said, a calculating gleam in her eye. "It might be fun to surprise everyone with a lady of mystery."
The old Deborah would have joined in the ruse with pleasure. Lively, intelligent Kathleen always added a sense of fun to the sometimes tedious routine of social climbing. But it was all too much to think about now, and she passed a shaking hand over her forehead. The celluloid hairpins she hadn't bothered to remove last night exaggerated the headache that made her grit her teeth. The pain hammered so hard at her temples that the pins seemed to pulse with a life of their own.
"Phoebe's right, Kathleen," Lucy was saying. "It'll be such fun. Please come."
"I've not a stitch to wear that wouldn't mark me as an imposter," Kathleen said, but the protest failed to mask the yearning in her voice. She had always harbored an endless fascination with high society.
"Yes, you have." Deborah forced herself out of her torpor. "You shall wear my new dress. I won't be needing it."
"Your Worth gown?" Phoebe demanded. At her father's insistence, Deborah's gowns all came from the Salon de Lumière in Paris. "For mercy's sake, you've never even worn it yourself."
"I'm not going." Deborah kept her voice as calm as she could even though she felt like screaming. "I must go into the city to see my father." She wasn't sure when she had made the decision, but there it was. She had a matter of utmost importance to discuss with him, and she could not put it off any longer.
"You can't go into the city tonight," Phoebe said. "Don't be silly. Who would chaperone you?"
"Just come with us," Lucy said, her voice gentle. "Come to the reading, and we'll take you to see your father afterward. Philip Ascot will be in attendance, won't he? He'll be expecting you. What on earth shall we tell him?"
The name of her fiancé rushed over Deborah like a chill wind. "I'll send my regrets."
"You aren't yourself at all." Lucy touched her arm, her light brush of concern almost powerful enough to shatter Deborah. "We shall go mad with worry if you don't tell us what's wrong."
Phoebe stuck out her foot so Kathleen could button her kid leather boot. "Was it last night's opera? You were fine when you left, but you stayed in bed all day long. Didn't you like Don Giovanni?"
Deborah turned away, a wave of nausea rolling over her. The notes of the Mozart masterpiece were forever burned into her.
"It's your bloody flux, isn't it?" Kathleen whispered, ignoring Phoebe's boot. "You've always suffered with the heavy pains. Let me stay behind and fix you a posset."
"It's not the flux," Deborah said.
Lucy planted her palm flat against the door. "This isn't like you. If something's wrong, you should tell us, dear."
Nothing's wrong. She tried to eke out the words, but they wouldn't come, because they were a lie. Everything was wrong and nothing could ever be the same. But how did she explain that, even to her best friends?
"It's of a private nature," she said faintly. "Please. I'll explain it all when I return."
"Oh, so you're going to be mysterious, are you?" Phoebe sputtered. "You're just trying to make yourself the center of attention, if you ask me."
"No one asked you," Lucy said wearily.
Phoebe sputtered some more, but no one was listening. Though she had come up through school with the rest of them, Phoebe had set herself apart from the others. Nearly as rich as Deborah and nearly as blueblooded as Lucy, she had concluded that the two "nearlys" added up to much loftier status than her friends enjoyed. She was a terrible and unrepentant snob, generally benign, though her remarks to Kathleen O'Leary sometimes brandished the sharp edge of malice. Phoebe alone understood that one did not simply abandon an exclusive social event. But this merely proved the inferiority of a girl like Deborah Sinclair. New-money people simply didn't understand the importance of attending the right sort of functions with the right sort of people.
"I'd best go ring for my driver," Deborah said.
Lucy moved away from the door. "It won't be the same without you."
Deborah bit her lip, afraid that the sympathy from her best friend would break through the icy barrier she had painstakingly erected between control and madness. "Help Kathleen with the gown," she said, hoping to divert everyone's attention to the masquerade.
After sending for her coach, Deborah buttoned on a simple blue serge dress and tugged a shawl around her shoulders. Pushing her feet into Italian kid leather boots, she didn't bother with the buttoning. Instead, she wound the ribbons haphazardly around her ankles and then jammed on a hat.
In the main salon, the others dressed more carefully. Eyes shining with forbidden pleasure, Kathleen stepped into the French gown, her homespun bloomers disappearing beneath layers of fancy petticoats. The gown of emerald silk and her Irish coloring gave her the look of a Celtic princess, and her face glowed with an excitement Deborah could no longer share.
Before leaving, Deborah stepped back and surveyed the scene, seeing it for the first time through the eyes of an outsider. Over her father's protests she had left his opulent, gilded mansion for the solid gothic halls of Miss Boylan's. Her father believed the very best young ladies were educated at home. But once he learned a Hathaway and a Palmer would be in attendance, he had relented and allowed Deborah to complete her education with finishing school. She looked with fondness upon Lucy, Kathleen and Phoebe, who were her closest companions and sometimes, she thought, her only friends. The four of them had shared everything—their hopes and dreams, their broken hearts and romantic triumphs.
Finally Deborah had encountered something she could not share with her friends. She could not. It was too devastating. Besides, she must tell her father. She must. Please God, she prayed silently. Let him understand. Just this once.
"Have a wonderful time this evening," she said, her hand on the door handle. "I shall want to hear all about Kathleen's debut when I return." She forced the words past a throat gone suddenly tight with terror.
Kathleen rushed to the door. "Miss Deborah, are you certain that—"
"Absolutely." The word was a mere gust of air.
"Let the poor thing go," Phoebe said in a distracted voice. She lifted her arm with the sinuous grace of a ballerina and drew on a silken glove. "If you stand around arguing all evening, we'll be late."
She and Lucy launched into a squabble over how Kathleen should wear her hair, and Deborah took the opportunity to slip out into the tall, cavernous hall and down to the foyer, where her driver waited. Outside, she saw the school's large, cumbersome rockaway carriage being hitched to four muscular horses. The school crest adorned the black enamel doors.
Deborah's private Bismarck-brown clarence, with its gleaming glass panes front and rear, waited at the curb. Thanks to her father's habit of flaunting his wealth, the expensive vehicle, with its experienced driver and Spanish coach horse, was always at her disposal. Within a few minutes, she was under way.
Most helpful customer reviews
48 of 51 people found the following review helpful.
A wonderful sense of place
By Suzanne B. Kelly
The Hostage, the first of a planned trio of stories about a group of girlfriends in 1870's Chicago, tells the story of Deborah Sinclair, a pampered, yet wounded, financier's daughter who is taken hostage by Tom Silver, a man bent on revenge against her father for a mining disaster. Tom forces Deborah away from her home on the night of the great Chicago fire, taking her to beautiful, yet primitive and remote Isle Royale, a large island off the spectacular Lake Superior coast of upper Michigan.
Having grown up in Michigan, with several trips a year to Chicago, I was able to enjoy this book on several levels. First off, it is a wonderful character study: we get to see two wounded people, narrowed to one-dimensionality by environment and circumstance, blossom into fully aware, realized people who not only discover romance and conquer their fears of intimacy, but also who discover themselves, and learn to resolve their personal tragedies. Secondly, I thoroughly enjoyed the "minor players" - namely, Chicago and Isle Royale/Lake Superior. Each place is, in its own way, stunning, majestic, powerful, and sometimes cruel. It made me homesick, and reminded me of my own families' stories of "the great fire."
This story is not for those looking for a quick read with instant gratification--we are there for each small step on Tom and Deborah's roads to recovery. The romance, and the healing, grows slowly, and the ending is perhaps a little too swift given such a long buildup. But this is a minor flaw in a tale that is both grand and also intimate. The book does, definitely, reward a patient reading.
29 of 32 people found the following review helpful.
An outstanding Read!
By Maudeen Wachsmith
When I first heard of the subject matter of Susan Wiggs' latest novel, I was both intrigued and a bit skeptical. A hostage falling in love with her captor -- the plot has been done many times before and the subject seemed dated. A spoiled little rich girl and a rugged outdoorsman -- ditto. And, in less talented hands, the book might have been dated and nothing new. But given the gifted pen of Susan Wiggs this book works and works well. A more exciting beginning would be hard to find -- the story begins with the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. The rest of the book takes place on the route up lake Michigan, through the locks to Lake Superior's Isle Royale, introducing the readr to a whole host of interesting characters. A heroine with a social consience, despite her privileged upbringing and a captor with a lot of heart - what else can a reader want? I can hardly wait to read the next two books in the series!
20 of 21 people found the following review helpful.
How a tradegy can change ones life
By TSchlaack
This is a great story about how a tragedy and the things that come after it can change your way of life. This story has the main character kidnapped on the night of the great Chicago Fire. She was already wondering what she was going to do with her life do to another personal tragedy, she figured she was only trained to be "pretty" and not to even dress herself. This kidnapping teaches her a lot about herself. It is really fun to read about her change in attitude etc... and laugh as she learns things the hard way. At the same time it teaches her kidnapper a bit about himself, as well as a distant town learns not everyone with the same name is "evil". In the climax of the book you also learn alot about survival in the later 1800's and how things differ today. An excellent read. Not too much emphasis on the sensuality.
The Hostage (The Chicago Fire Trilogy), by Susan Wiggs PDF
The Hostage (The Chicago Fire Trilogy), by Susan Wiggs EPub
The Hostage (The Chicago Fire Trilogy), by Susan Wiggs Doc
The Hostage (The Chicago Fire Trilogy), by Susan Wiggs iBooks
The Hostage (The Chicago Fire Trilogy), by Susan Wiggs rtf
The Hostage (The Chicago Fire Trilogy), by Susan Wiggs Mobipocket
The Hostage (The Chicago Fire Trilogy), by Susan Wiggs Kindle
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar