The Year Of December

by Lucy Cores

Running Away
from Europe to the furthest point possible - Russia - following a tumultuous love affair with Lord Byron, Claire Claremont must keep her identity as Byron's mistress a secret in order to obtain employment as a governess, the only way a woman of 1825 had of making a living...

One Look
magnetically draws Claire into a passion-filled relationship with an eighteen-year-old Prince, Grisha Volyniski. Claire's emotions, bottled up since the death of her daughter, Byron's love child, come pouring out. But is her attraction to the Prince for himself alone - or for the memories of Byron he rekindles in her?

Swept Up
in the politics of the first Russian Revolution, the tragic, abortive, Decembrist Uprising, Claire and Grisha move from an idyllic country estate to the Moscow salons where the conspirators rendezvous, to the Winter Palace at St. Petersburg and the dank dungeons of a Czarist fortress, where Claire asks herslef again and again: Does she Love the Man - Or The Memory?

Genres: Russia, Romance

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1978

About the author

Lucy Michaella Cores Kortchmar was born in Moscow and was brought to the United States in 1921 ahead of the Russian Revolution. She attended Barnard College. She wrote mystery, romance, and historical novels, and science fiction.

Reviews

[Sarah Mac · Rating 3 out of 5]

In brief:

Good parts are good. Boring parts are boring. Pretty writing is pretty. And beta hero is so freakin' beta.


EDIT: Aw, screw it. I like this review the way it is. :D

[Rabbit {Paint me like one of your 19th century gothic heroines!}]

DNF on pg 100.

I have no desire to finish this one.