I adore all the historical romance novels where the real history is incorporated with a fictional characters and story. And I especially love the stories where the heroines are strong, smart and willful. Rosalind Laker is one of the authors, who always finds some interesting historical characters to use for her story. This time the real person is Charles Frederic Worth – a man who was first to use a live model, to show the latest fashion to his customers and who changed a known drapery store into a clothing store, with seamstresses in the back to sew the dresses on demand and also for stock.

The fictional heroine is Louise, an seamstress, who starts the story as an urchin, who has just lost her mother and who is taken in by an seamstress, who just took bitty on the girl in a graveyard. Years go by, Louse helps Charlotte with her sewing, then Charles is renting the room in Charlottes abode, and so they meet and their friendship begins. With a little help from fortune, Louise also starts to work in the same sewing company as does Charlotte.

It would not be a romance novel, if there would not be a romance, and especially unhappy romance. Louise’s love interest is a young captain and emperor’s godson Pierre de Gandi, so there is no way they could marry without emperor’s permission. But the captain is sent to war, and he gets engaged to a more suitable young lady and Louise is left to raise their son alone.

But the story is not over jet! Louise does not give up, she continues to work in Charles workshop, and she gets married to a totally wrong person and moves to England, where she makes her good-for-nothing husband’s drapery store famous, and opens her own dress salon and makes a lot of money for herself and for her son. Even if she goes back to France on the most dangerous time, still she is a strong and industrious person and she finds a way to survive and be successful.

As I said, an interesting and inspiring historical novel that gives an interesting insight to a fashion in Paris and London at the end of nineteenth century.

A sweeping tale of a child starting with nothing determinedly using her talents and energy to forge her own atistic and commercial success. This is a huge story set in European capitals during the greatest days of hand-stitched haute couture. It is packed with period detail of dress design, fashion, working practices and home life. Our heroine is unlucky in love and you will be waiting for her to be swept off her feet in the best tradition of independent romantic heroines. Hugely enjoyable.