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The Storybook Hero

by Andrea Pickens

reviewed by Cheryl Sneed

October 2002, 214 pages, Publisher: Signet, ISBN: 0451207319

Octavia Hadley, destitute and desperate, takes a position no one else wants as governess to the ward of a deputy minister in the Moscow Embassy. Octavia, the daughter of a deceased scholarly vicar has a sharp mind and keen intellect, but is bitter because, as a woman, she cannot use it as a man might. She resents her lack of choices and how she is at the mercy of the whims of men. (Sing it, sister!)

Alexander Sheffield is the family Black Sheep, a womanizer and a drunk. Ten years ago, he was sailing with his eldest brother when a storm came up and his brother drowned. Alex has felt guilt and despair ever since, while his father and other brothers have blamed him for the heir's death. He has subconsciously been seeking his own death in wild living ever since. But now he has a chance for redemption. A 12-year-old cousin has been orphaned and stranded in Russia and Alex volunteers to rescue him.

Octavia and Alex meet on board the ship to Russia during a violent storm. Alex hasn't been on a boat since his brother died and is drunk in an effort to numb the pain of flashbacks and get through the ordeal. Despite his crude advances to Octavia, she quite ably puts him in his place but takes pity on him and sits with and holds him through the worst of the storm.

Alex introduces himself as a tutor on his way to employment. There is much unrest in Russia with rumors of Napoleon's whereabouts and a planned invasion of Russia running rampant, and now is not a good time to declare oneself a member of the aristocracy. When he is sober, he is a charming scoundrel and he and Octavia part ways in St. Petersburg peaceably.

The book now shifts perspective between the two as it details Octavia's life in Moscow with her new charge Emma, a neglected and unwanted 12-year-old girl, and Alex's search for his cousin who, it seems, has an Evil Uncle Vladimir, who wishes the boy Nicholas dead so he can have his estate and fortune.

As the French army closes in on Moscow, both Octavia and Alex with their respective charges, flee for the coast. They meet in an inn, under dangerous circumstances and decide to team up for the journey to St. Petersburg and transport back to England trying (and failing) to avoid both the French Army and Uncle Vladimir.

Adversity brings out the best and the worst in people, and there is much to admire in our quartet of refugees. Alex shows great resourcefulness and compassion, Octavia great courage and forthrightness, and the attraction between them grows steadily. The children are fairly stoic when necessary, but thankfully are not model children and so revert on occasion to childish tantrums and fears. And though Alex makes an effort to be sober and responsible, he has a couple episodes of backsliding into drunkenness for which he pays dearly.

I had a couple of quibbles about the book; I felt the middle of the book where Octavia and Alex were separated dragged just a bit, and the perspective moved back and forth between them a bit too often which gave that section a disjointed feel, and I think the final resolution of the relationship took a bit too long to wrap up, but these certainly did not outweigh my overall enjoyment of the book.

I've read hundreds of traditional regencies, and can't recall ever reading one with this setting. The flight from Moscow to St. Petersburg is finely drawn with much tension and peril. Pickens has obviously done much research for this book, but it rarely overwhelms the central drama of Alex's redemption and transformation into a Storybook Hero.

Reviewed by Cheryl Sneed, October 5, 2002