Caterina

Half-English, half-Portuguese Caterina Fonsa is back in a satisfying sequel to Whispering. Twenty years after the close of that novel, brave and unconventionally beautiful Caterina is still struggling with hidebound social life in Oporto, now enmeshed in the civil uproar of 1830s Portugal. The intriguingly liberal Dom Pedro (formerly the King of Portugal), who abdicated the throne in favor of his daughter, Maria da Gloria, is engaged in a fight for her constitutional monarchy against his cruel and autocratic brother Dom Miguel. Caterina's handsome, difficult son Lewis is a great supporter of Dom Pedro, but he treats his mother in high-handed fashion. Happily, Caterina's best friend Harriet and her business manager and admirer, Greville Faulkes, are at her side. Caterina's political cartoons, published under a pseudonym, put her at risk, even as she paints Dom Pedro's portrait while trying to keep a safe distance from the lady-killing Liberator. Meanwhile, old friend Jeremy Craddock makes a return visit with designs on Caterina, disrupted only briefly by his passion for spy Rachel Emerson, who is up to her old tricks under cover of marriage plans for her daughter, the beauteous and innocent Ruth. The truth of Lewis's paternity is just one of the secrets revealed in the course of the action, as personal emotions are backlighted by the hardship of war. As usual, Hodge excels at evoking the human drama of intense relationships and family dynamics. Even her scoundrels are rounded enough to make readers empathetic. Though more formulaic than her best work, this lively historical still shows Hodge as a superior contributor to the genre. (Aug.)