Blaze Wyndham

Blaze Morgan, at 15, is the eldest of Lord Robert Morgan's eight spirited but loving daughters, and the financially strapped aristocrat is relieved to have her married to Lord Edmund Wyndham, the kindly and enormously wealthy Earl of Langford, who promises to lavishly dower Blaze's seven sisters as well. This unpretentious romp through Tudor England spans 1521 through 1536 and follows sensuous, fiery Blaze as she gradually and passionately learns to love her husband and grieves deeply when he is killed in a hunting accident only three years after they are wed. Unjustly blaming her husband's nephew Anthony for the accident, Blaze seeks diversion at the court of Henry VIII where her country charm and healthy sexuality arouse the courtiers, inspire envious gossip and eventually beguile the monarch. The reluctant Blaze becomes Henry's mistress, his friend and even his unofficial adviser when he asks her aid in the politically sensitive matter of his divorce from Queen Catherine of Aragon. Ill-conceived additions to the plot (a scheme to murder Blaze; an illness that strikes a devoted maid) seem randomly thrown in as afterthoughts. But mass market bestseller Small's first hardcover novel (after Enchantress Mine, etc.), with its cast of beauteous women, lusty men, pages of elaborate costume description, coupled with a speedy tempo, should lure her paperback fans to cross the bookstore aisles. Doubleday Book Club alternate. (May)