Anne Stuart - Shadow Dance

Beneath the ruffles and frills of a demure woman, Valerian Romney is ingeniously disguised as his older brother, Phelan’s “wife” in order to escape a wrongful murder charge. All is well until he meets the charming Sophie, who never expected to have feelings for a “woman.”
His brazen masquerade is not the only secret—the stable lad is actually Juliette, dressed in man’s clothes, trying to escape her abuser, and Valerian’s brother, Phelan, is totally smitten.
They are all caught in a swirling dance of mistaken identities, passion and danger, and it will take heroic measures to release the four of them from historic mess they’ve gotten themselves into.

Comment: I was not planning on reading this book but a challenge topic made me pick it sooner than what I'd probably would. It also helped the plot seemed intriguing and very familiar to a certain Shakespeare play.

Phelan and his half brother Valerian decide to run and hide right after their father is found dead and Phelan's mother accuses Valerian, whom she never liked. While hiding, the brothers decide to lay low and Valerian dresses up as a woman, which means that someone looking for two men would not look at them twice. In the meantime, while they stay at a secluded estate near a small location, they hide in plain sight mingling with the locals and Valerian starts being friends with young Sophie, who sees in Valerian the older female friend she never had. Things might not be so bad if Julian Smith, a young boy who starts working at the local inn, didn't catch the eye of the wrong man, making Phelan decide to help him.. the only issue is that Julian is actually Juliette, running from her abusive husband, and Phelan discovers he might like her more than he wants others to see...

It's true that this sounds a very complicated plot, with lots of lies and deceit and cross dressing. Things aren't really that hard to follow, though, and the characters were very distinctive, making it following the plot easier than what I anticipated. However, this was a story published in 1993 and some details are quite dated.

I've read the author's work before and I've had mixed results. I'm not very fond of the supposed "darker" stories where characters are shady or do things we would condemn now because knowing that debatable issues will be on the page make me anxious and less eager to appreciate the story. I was a little unsure, then, regarding this book, but thankfully the less than good details weren't dark and I was actually quite interested in seeing what new shenanigans the characters would see themselves in.

The overall plot is a big adventure with characters deceiving others with a supposed good reason. This leads to a lot of confusion, especially considering some characters are also trying to hide from someone else. I've found this messy plot more palatable anyway. There was a slight sense of comedy in errors and the notion things would never become degrading or terrible for the characters and I could stomach the less than good situations for I knew something good would come out of it.

The main characters see themselves in a mix up of identities, but like I've said, it was easy to keep track of what was going on with all. Valerian and Sophie are a sweet couple, even when Sophie believes Val to be a woman. I will say it seems extremely unlikely that no one would recognize Val for whom he was but I'll just accept maybe Val was androgynous enough this could happen and that, as always, people see what they want. Juliette as Julian wasn't as easy to hide (less clothes and way to hide mannerisms) but even this has an explanation for why we should accept it. Still, it was a lot simpler for Phelan and Val to immediately see Julian as a woman...

The romances develop as expected, with deceit all around. I didn't think this was a bad as that because we could know the characters were not being malicious or deceiving to cause intentional harm. It's true the length of the deceit wasn't fair but this didn't really ruin my experience. Let's say that it was less thrilling to think Phelan took so long to admit his own feelings and this delayed the HEA with Juliette which, to me, merited a less vague story... I think their end was a bit too quick.

There were a few details that bothered me and which I attribute to dating and older school types of stories... first, the general idea of how women are treated, and how there was this notion they are badly treated - even accepting this an historical, so - , then how the men have this behavior of being superior, especially Phelan and some of his own thoughts while justification this or that action and also the terribly superficial and unfairness of having the only obvious gay character being so unpleasant. I know this wasn't a big deal then, but surely other options might have been better.

All things considered, this was a good enough story, entertaining and easy to read even with the less than good elements. I'd certainly change some details but as a whole, this still felt better than other stories I've tried by the author I didn't like much.

Grade: 7/10