Originally published in 1996, Daughters of the Storm by Elizabeth Buchan is a historical romance story that is set in France during the Revolutionary years (1789 – 1793). It features three women, English woman Sophie, visiting France for the first time, her cousin Heloise de Guinot, a French aristocrat, and Marie-Victoire, the loyal maid to Heloise. From no choice of their own, all three become immersed in the politics of the day and their lives are swept up the storm that is engulfing France.

Sophie becomes involved with a handsome American, not knowing that he is spy, sent by George Washington to overlook the events that are occurring. Heloise is married to the Marquis de Choissy, a man she despises, she falls in love with a French soldier, Louis d’Epinon. Marie-Victoire, although in love with another man, is forced into a relationship with a childhood companion who raped her and now is filled with bitterness and thoughts of revenge.

In the midst of the turmoil and emotions of their own lives, the Revolution that will change the country forever is played out. While the book is certainly heavy on the romance angle, the author inserts enough history for the reader to get a good grasp of actual events. The blood, death and fear of the period that became known as The Terror, is particularly haunting. I have read Elizabeth Buchan before and now Daughters of the Storm is another book by this author that I found to be a very good read. ( )

This book is about an English woman to travels to Paris just before the start of the French revolution and gets caught up in it. Great suspense around what will happen to her and her friends amidst numerous executions of everyone associated with the upper classes. Gruesome and terrible at times but a very well written historical suspense story. ( )

Elizabeth Buchan's novel is far from a terrible take on the French Revolution, but having read a wide range of fiction and non-fiction on the subject, I require captivating characters or original storylines to break the historical monotony. Daughters of the Storm lacks both - and a good copy-editor.

The facts are all there - the author has done her research (bar the odd anachronism, like 'feminist' and 'cologne') - but the fictional side lets the story down. The characters are straight out of a romance novel: pampered aristo Heloise, who is forced to marry a wicked Heyer-esque rake for her parent's convenience, but instead falls in love with a dashing soldier; English bluestocking Sophie, equally ill-matched on the marital front, who falls in love with an American spy; and representing the third estate, poor lady's maid Marie-Victoire, who is raped by a field hand then falls in love with a sans culottes. Heloise's husband is the strongest character - I would have liked to learn more about him - and Marie-Victoire's stalker the weakest of a cardboard cast. The reader has barely been introduced to this Mills and Boon collection of cliches, however, before we are asked to give a damn what happens to them when caught up in Paris during the Terror. I just couldn't muster the energy.

The author missed a trick or two when trying to smuggle historical fact into a romantic novel, too - why not have William or Sophie write about the key events of the Revolution, instead of prefacing each section with a clunky italicised introduction? And why not write in the first person instead of switching back and forth between perspectives, often within the same paragraph, which was making me slightly dizzy? I can't help but feel that picking a couple of characters - Heloise or Sophie, William or de Choissy - and staying with them, might have drawn me into the story.

I don't mind romances - the Baroness Orczy's Scarlet Pimpernel series introduced me to the French Revolution in the first place, and there are shades of both Orczy and Jean Plaidy in Buchan's writing - but this is both romance and Revolution by numbers. Great for readers who have never read about that period in French history before, but nothing new for F-Rev followers. Try Marge Piercy, Susanne Alleyn or Michelle de Kretser instead. ( )