Christophe St. Laurent has lost his entire family to the French Revolution by way of the guillotine and has been in hiding ever since that dreadful day. Waiting for a time when he can take revenge on the man who killed his dreams. Scarlett, a young widow who is pregnant with her late husband's baby, knows all about the wayward details of the Revolution since it took her husband's life and all that she thought was true about relationships.

Being forced to live on the meager wages of bread-bakers, Scarlett and her family must try to survive on the allotment of flour sent to them by her her "uncle" Robespierre. When a letter is sent that the flour will no longer be sent, the Bonham women decide to go to Paris to beg for Robespierre's mercy. After learning that Scarlett is related to Robespierre, his enemy, Chrisophe takes off for Paris to avenge his family and their deaths so that he can start a new life with the one he loves--Scarlett.. Will Christophe and Scarlett ever reunite and declare their love for each other? Will Robespierre be murdered by the Count of St. Laurent? Will the French Revolution ever be over?

Whew! Just when things start to go well for the characters, another wrench is thrown into the storyline. The action starts on page one and we get to experience the deaths of the St. Laurent family as we hide in a secret compartment in the walls with Christophe and his sister Emilie. Things take a turn when they must run for their lives and this is where the story begins to slow down so we can figure out who the key characters are in the story.

I enjoyed reading about the blossoming romance between Scarlett and Christophe--although I did worry about their income if they were to get married. I mean, he's in hiding, so he can't really say-"I'm the Count of St. Laurent, here are some jewels to pay for everything." (Everything was stolen after the deaths of his family.) I was also excited to go to Paris with the ladies as Stacia had to go out and find a husband to help save the family. I've often wondered if the balls were like "meet markets" and everyone tried to pair up with someone else before all of the "catches" were taken. Exactly how is a lady supposed to act with the attention of several men at once? (I think I would have loved to be a fly on the wall just to soak up the atmosphere in the room during this time period.)

Overall, I enjoyed reading "Love's First Light" by Jamie Carie and I;m excited to see what she brings us next. ( )

From the start of the book, I knew that I was going to like it. This is the first book I have read by Jamie Carrie and I really enjoyed it. I like historical books but I believe this is the first one I have read about the French Revolution it was very interesting. I never knew the story of how all the French aristocrat's were be-headed. It was so terrible that one man "Robespierre" could come in and cause this. He was so mean, as Christophe (the count of St Laurent) grabbed his little sister and hid in a secret hole in a wall while his parents and brothers were killed with the guillotine in their own family room.

After this happened Christophe and Emilie ran down the street to an old friends of his, but someone was after them so he told his sister to run to the red door and run into the home of his friend, but he could not find her. Then the "citizen" movement that it was being called brought more people up on a platform to be-head and they had a young girl with blond hair with a hood over her head and they be-headed her so Christophe lost it and ran. Even King Louis XVI and his young wife Marie Antoinette was beheaded during this revolution.

He meet Scarlett in the cemetery where she was putting flowers on her husband's grave and she was with child. They became friends but can he get over the nightmares of what happened to his family and what will happen to the citizen movement. Scarlett was married to Robespierre's cousin and she didn't know how mean they were. Will her child be born healthy? Will Christophe finally be able to be able to sleep again with out nightmares?

This book was sent to and autographed by the author through B&H Media for review. ( )

The romance between Christophé and Scarlett was refreshingly absent from the standard clichés. Their relationship was well developed from their initial brief meeting to the final resolution. The storyline seemed to mirror the tumult of the revolutionary period in France.

At times, the historical scenes flowed smoothly through the story. At other times, the history lesson regarding the French Revolution seems crammed into too-short a time-frame. Regardless, this book did make me want to learn more about the French Revolution and it did keep me reading. Many references to guillotining, gun violence and grisly descriptions of suicides makes Love’s First Light not for the faint of heart. ( )

From the beginning, I really liked the easy manner in which Carie pulls the story together. I found her sentence construction and story telling to be straight forward, yet engaging. Honestly, it was an easy read that had me caring about the characters in such a way that I had to keep reading to know what was going to happen next.

Although I know some of the history of the French Revolution, it was interesting to have a story that approached it, sympathetically, from the aristocrat's side. This direction in story telling made me feel much more sympathy for those who lost their lives as children, who had nothing more than their family lineage to blame for their deaths. I thought that Christophe's story, and the painful loss of his family made it all the more important for us as readers to see him happy again. Having him fall in love with the equally saddened Scarlett seemed perfect, although the gap in their backgrounds definitely complicated the story and kept it moving.

Altogether, I found the novel to be a fun, engaging read. Some of the "instant" falling in love sequences, when characters simply looked at someone and fell in love had skeptical me scoffing a little, but it was sweet. I can't say that I know how that whole eyes locking from across the way and knowing you're in love thing would actually work, or if that exists, but it did seem to pull characters together that you genuinely cared about and wanted to see happy. Who am I to drag my jaded views of love into the formula, right? In the end, I would say it was a good, fast read, and an engaging story that I can recommend to anyone who enjoys a little historical fiction, and a clean, sweet romantic story. ( )

I've never read any of Jamie Carie's stuff before, but after reading this book I'll probably check into her other works. Though the book wasn't what I expected ... and it was kind of easy to guess where it was headed next ... it was still an overall good read. ( )