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The Calhoun Chronicles #4
Enchanted Afternoon
The wife of an ambitious senator, Helena Cabot is the perfect accessory for a man whose hunger for power knows no bounds. But she married for all the wrong reasons and now she is trapped with a dangerous man. Fearing for her safety, Helena ends her marriage and flees to a safe haven. But she soon understands that it's impossible to outrun the past, so she turns to Michael Rowan for help. Michael broke her young heart years before, but Helena must learn to trust him again so that together they can face the dangers that lie ahead.
416 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 2002
183 people are currently reading
996 people want to read
About the author
Susan Wiggs
169 books7,422 followersSusan Wiggs's life is all about family, friends...and fiction. She lives at the water's edge on an island in Puget Sound, and she commutes to her writers' group in a 17-foot motorboat. She serves as author liaison for Field's End, a literary community on Bainbridge Island, Washington, bringing inspiration and instruction from the world's top authors to her seaside community. (See www.fieldsend.org) She's been featured in the national media, including NPR's "Talk of the Nation," and is a popular speaker locally and nationally.
According to Publishers Weekly, Wiggs writes with "refreshingly honest emotion," and the Salem Statesman Journal adds that she is "one of our best observers of stories of the heart [who] knows how to capture emotion on virtually every page of every book." Booklist characterizes her books as "real and true and unforgettable." She is the recipient of three RITA (sm) awards and four starred reviews from Publishers Weekly for her books. The Winter Lodge and Passing Through Paradise have appeared on PW’s annual "Best Of" lists. Several of her books have been listed as top Booksense picks and optioned as feature films. Her novels have been translated into more than two dozen languages and have made national bestseller lists, including the USA Today, Washington Post and New York Times lists.
The author is a former teacher, a Harvard graduate, an avid hiker, an amateur photographer, a good skier and terrible golfer, yet her favorite form of exercise is curling up with a good book. Readers can learn more on the web at www.susanwiggs.com and on her lively blog at www.susanwiggs.wordpress.com.
According to Publishers Weekly, Wiggs writes with "refreshingly honest emotion," and the Salem Statesman Journal adds that she is "one of our best observers of stories of the heart [who] knows how to capture emotion on virtually every page of every book." Booklist characterizes her books as "real and true and unforgettable." She is the recipient of three RITA (sm) awards and four starred reviews from Publishers Weekly for her books. The Winter Lodge and Passing Through Paradise have appeared on PW’s annual "Best Of" lists. Several of her books have been listed as top Booksense picks and optioned as feature films. Her novels have been translated into more than two dozen languages and have made national bestseller lists, including the USA Today, Washington Post and New York Times lists.
The author is a former teacher, a Harvard graduate, an avid hiker, an amateur photographer, a good skier and terrible golfer, yet her favorite form of exercise is curling up with a good book. Readers can learn more on the web at www.susanwiggs.com and on her lively blog at www.susanwiggs.wordpress.com.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 73 reviews
May 29, 2017
Weakest of the "Calhoun Chronicles" series. Hero was very difficult to like; heroine wasn't quite weak but was strong enough to do what she did in the book. After reading the magnificent first three books, this one was a disappointment.
November 17, 2012
Not sure why this is called Enchanted Afternoon - the title doesn't fit the book. Very good though. About an early pregnant woman, who marries a politician with her parent's blessing - exactly what everyone thought was a spectacular match. But no one know the wife beating demons he had, and what a social face she has put forward. So everyone is shocked when she divorces her husband and opens Moon Lake Lodge - a refuge for abused women that she succeeds in creating and sustaining - and she reconnects with her son's true biological father - who turns out to be the half brother of her ex-husband.
December 14, 2024
It is a historical romance that takes place in Saratoga Springs during the late nineteenth century. I like how it touched on the subject of women's issues including abuse.
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November 19, 2014I love Susan Wiggs' historicals - but her series tend to follow a specific pattern for me. There are books I love and then books....I don't love. When it comes to the Calhoun Chronicles (although I still need to read #5!) this book had to be DNF'ed for my own sanity. Here are the rundown of the characters:
1) The heroine - who gets knocked up, marries a man who ain't The Baby Daddy quickly, then proceeds to pass off her son as her husband's spawn for the next 8+ years.
2) The "hero" - who gets the heroine knocked up, and when she "hypothetically" asks him "hey, what if I were pregnant?" he is too moronic to realize that "hey, maybe this is more than hypothetical!", cuts her to the quick and then THROWS HER OVER when a better opportunity comes along.
3) The heroine's husband - who after finding out after 8+ years that the son he thought was his isn't really his? Beats the heroine.
And yeah, I was out. I actually liked Helena in the previous book, Halfway To Heaven, but any charm and goodwill she earned in that story quickly (and I mean QUICKLY!) left the building after I got myself through the first chapter. I intensely disliked everything about this book and promptly declared that life is too short, and Wiggs has written many other books that are surely going to work better for me.
1) The heroine - who gets knocked up, marries a man who ain't The Baby Daddy quickly, then proceeds to pass off her son as her husband's spawn for the next 8+ years.
2) The "hero" - who gets the heroine knocked up, and when she "hypothetically" asks him "hey, what if I were pregnant?" he is too moronic to realize that "hey, maybe this is more than hypothetical!", cuts her to the quick and then THROWS HER OVER when a better opportunity comes along.
3) The heroine's husband - who after finding out after 8+ years that the son he thought was his isn't really his? Beats the heroine.
And yeah, I was out. I actually liked Helena in the previous book, Halfway To Heaven, but any charm and goodwill she earned in that story quickly (and I mean QUICKLY!) left the building after I got myself through the first chapter. I intensely disliked everything about this book and promptly declared that life is too short, and Wiggs has written many other books that are surely going to work better for me.
September 30, 2016
Not as good as her normal books. The abuse parts are skimmed over and a lot of times there are big gaps and the story seemed to jump around. Never really cared about any of the characters. Very blah story.
September 15, 2018
This 4th book of the series tells a complete story, but it builds heavily on the previous book. There is so much about Helena and Michael in the previous book that in my mind it changed how I viewed those characters in this book.
In the previous book, Helena was characterized as a very shallow air-head beauty. Michael was characterized as unaware of everything around him, but heavily involved in a relationship with Helena that amounted to little more than lust. Coming into book 4, I was prepared not to like either of them at all. I certainly didn't care if they got together and I completely distrusted Michael's motives.
This book is more about the social injustices experienced by 19th century women than it is a romance. We quickly find out that Helena's husband, Troy, is a wife beater. He doesn't just strike her, but according to the early chapters, he abuses her so badly that her ribs are cracked and he arm badly sprained. And that is not enough hardship. When she leaves him, he uses his power to steal her considerable inheritance left to her by her late father. He would even have denied her the jewelry that was hers which she sold and used to survive. She would have been destitute.
SW strongly implies, maybe even states it outright, that wives have no recourse when beaten by their husbands. But later in the book, a man is arrested for battery of his wife even when it stops short of death. This seems a little inconsistent to me, but perhaps that's the way things were - inconsistent. During this period, women were making some very slow progress in regard to their rights.
Helena finds other women suffering the oppression of a male run society. One of them comments that the only choices a woman had for survival were either the sweatshop factories or prostitution. One woman was a former slave who was unemployed when Helena hired her as a maid shortly before she left Troy. Another woman was repeatedly beaten by her husband. This woman, Sarah, becomes a symbol of what's wrong as her story progresses in even more tragic ways.
Because Helena and Michael are former lovers, what romance there is in the story concerns re-connection rather than new romance. Much of that only happens because Michael is the father of Helena's son, William. This aspect of the story just didn't pop for me. And I didn't pick the book up to read a story of social injustice.
Michael's money making scheme later in the book is about as unbelievable as anything can be. Completely ridiculous.
Even so, the injustice part of the story is well done. Unlike many stories in this genre that use battery or other abuses to gain sympathy for the leading lady, this book examines the problems in some depth and elicits sympathy.
I had trouble with the almost total disappearance of Abigail and Jamie through the middle of the story. They were very conveniently out of touch in Egypt. It should have been obvious to Helena that their return would make a huge difference regarding her inheritance, yet Helena seemed to let go of it like it was nothing. That aspect of the plot was not authentic at all. I question that Troy could have pulled that off at all if challenged, but Helena didn't challenge it.
Mature themes: there is mildly explicit sex. At least two people are killed by violence. The main issue is the extensive description of abuse, not just of one woman, but several, and in some cases the battery was associated with sexual situations as coercion or punishment.
I did not like this book, but I was generous rating it because the serious subject matter was handled well for the genre. My gut reaction is 1 star. As a romance it was very disappointing.
In the previous book, Helena was characterized as a very shallow air-head beauty. Michael was characterized as unaware of everything around him, but heavily involved in a relationship with Helena that amounted to little more than lust. Coming into book 4, I was prepared not to like either of them at all. I certainly didn't care if they got together and I completely distrusted Michael's motives.
This book is more about the social injustices experienced by 19th century women than it is a romance. We quickly find out that Helena's husband, Troy, is a wife beater. He doesn't just strike her, but according to the early chapters, he abuses her so badly that her ribs are cracked and he arm badly sprained. And that is not enough hardship. When she leaves him, he uses his power to steal her considerable inheritance left to her by her late father. He would even have denied her the jewelry that was hers which she sold and used to survive. She would have been destitute.
SW strongly implies, maybe even states it outright, that wives have no recourse when beaten by their husbands. But later in the book, a man is arrested for battery of his wife even when it stops short of death. This seems a little inconsistent to me, but perhaps that's the way things were - inconsistent. During this period, women were making some very slow progress in regard to their rights.
Helena finds other women suffering the oppression of a male run society. One of them comments that the only choices a woman had for survival were either the sweatshop factories or prostitution. One woman was a former slave who was unemployed when Helena hired her as a maid shortly before she left Troy. Another woman was repeatedly beaten by her husband. This woman, Sarah, becomes a symbol of what's wrong as her story progresses in even more tragic ways.
Because Helena and Michael are former lovers, what romance there is in the story concerns re-connection rather than new romance. Much of that only happens because Michael is the father of Helena's son, William. This aspect of the story just didn't pop for me. And I didn't pick the book up to read a story of social injustice.
Michael's money making scheme later in the book is about as unbelievable as anything can be. Completely ridiculous.
Even so, the injustice part of the story is well done. Unlike many stories in this genre that use battery or other abuses to gain sympathy for the leading lady, this book examines the problems in some depth and elicits sympathy.
I had trouble with the almost total disappearance of Abigail and Jamie through the middle of the story. They were very conveniently out of touch in Egypt. It should have been obvious to Helena that their return would make a huge difference regarding her inheritance, yet Helena seemed to let go of it like it was nothing. That aspect of the plot was not authentic at all. I question that Troy could have pulled that off at all if challenged, but Helena didn't challenge it.
Mature themes: there is mildly explicit sex. At least two people are killed by violence. The main issue is the extensive description of abuse, not just of one woman, but several, and in some cases the battery was associated with sexual situations as coercion or punishment.
I did not like this book, but I was generous rating it because the serious subject matter was handled well for the genre. My gut reaction is 1 star. As a romance it was very disappointing.
May 8, 2023
Helena Cabot married Senator Troy Barnes in the last story. Now it seems she married for all the wrong reasons. Her father is a powerful senator and he dies early in this story. One of the reasons that she married Troy was to please her father. She also was pregnant and knew she needed a father for this child.
She never loved Troy and comes to fear and despise him. He learns the boy is not his child when her father dies and a disgruntled admirer spills the beans. Then Helena learns how dangerous Troy is as he beats her. She has been keeping up social appearances. But she knows she has to remove herself and the young boy before Troy continues the beatings.
She tries to get a divorce but no lawyer will take on her case when they discover who her husband is. She finally is able to find a refuge for abused women, called Moon lake Lodge. Other women join her there where they build a place that can sustain them.
Along the way Helena meets up again with her lover, Michael Rowan. This is the man she truly loves and of course he is the biological father of her son, William.
Michael comes to live at the lodge in a separate building. He and William bond. A hot spring is discovered on the grounds and all the women and Michael work together to build a hot spring bath.
Much of the story involves the terrible treatment that women had to endure from husbands and men during this time period.
I enjoyed the story but not as much as the earlier books.
She never loved Troy and comes to fear and despise him. He learns the boy is not his child when her father dies and a disgruntled admirer spills the beans. Then Helena learns how dangerous Troy is as he beats her. She has been keeping up social appearances. But she knows she has to remove herself and the young boy before Troy continues the beatings.
She tries to get a divorce but no lawyer will take on her case when they discover who her husband is. She finally is able to find a refuge for abused women, called Moon lake Lodge. Other women join her there where they build a place that can sustain them.
Along the way Helena meets up again with her lover, Michael Rowan. This is the man she truly loves and of course he is the biological father of her son, William.
Michael comes to live at the lodge in a separate building. He and William bond. A hot spring is discovered on the grounds and all the women and Michael work together to build a hot spring bath.
Much of the story involves the terrible treatment that women had to endure from husbands and men during this time period.
I enjoyed the story but not as much as the earlier books.
May 20, 2024
This book was a very unexpected read.. one of my co-workers found this book.. and I began to read it.. at first I thought it was going to be a very uninteresting book.. but as I read it I couldn’t put it down.. Helena Cabot Barnes was a very Brave and interesting person.. she was a pioneer in this book.. she over come her abusive husband Troy Barnes.. and made it that other women could have a place to come and get away from their abusive husbands or boyfriend. I was so impressed by the ladies that joined her at Moon Lake Lodge..
I’m trying my best not to give away the whole book.. but the book is set in the 1800’s and I have to say IS! A great read.. thanks Susan Wiggs.. this is the first time I have read one of your books and even know about you too.. I’m sure I will be looking you up and get another book.. 👍🫶
I’m trying my best not to give away the whole book.. but the book is set in the 1800’s and I have to say IS! A great read.. thanks Susan Wiggs.. this is the first time I have read one of your books and even know about you too.. I’m sure I will be looking you up and get another book.. 👍🫶
June 19, 2024
I found this book on the shelves of a local restaurant and picked it up to peruse while I ate my solo outdoor breakfast. The title is completely mismatched to the story, making it appear like a silly, surface romance. While the book, indeed, has romance, it's far from silly as it addresses more than one important social issue.; women's rights, women's place in society, and spousal abuse being among but not exclusively the issues. What a pleasant surprise to me to find this little gem and additional pleasant surprise to find the author not fall into the cliche trap of having the main woman character have all her problems solved by finding a male love interest.
May 18, 2020
Helena Cabot married for all the wrong reasons and now really regrets it. When her husband, prominent Senator Troy Barnes beats her for a second time, Helena flees with her son and maid to start a new life. She ends up getting help from the one man she has always love but cant fully trust, Michael Rowan. Hes the man who walked out of her life. Can the two find their love again and can they build a new life in this historical romance
June 10, 2023
It was my first Harlequin. While I appreciated the Era the book was based on circa 1890s the story could have played out in 200 pages vs 400.
It's your typical love story, but they can't be together because they're from 2 different social classes, child out of wedlock and the scandal across town. The book ends happily, as they tend to.
Nothing wow, a little slow but I am glad I finished it all the same.
It's your typical love story, but they can't be together because they're from 2 different social classes, child out of wedlock and the scandal across town. The book ends happily, as they tend to.
Nothing wow, a little slow but I am glad I finished it all the same.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 8, 2023
I enjoyed this much more than the previous book in the series. Helena has always taken the easy way out, bluffing her way through or just ignoring, difficulties. Michael, eccentric as he is, on the other hand, has worked hard to rise from poverty and become a professor. This mismatch makes for some entertaining moments, at times hilarious and at other times sad. The story line flows nicely.
Excellent.
Excellent.
September 19, 2020
Much to like, but
Michael and Helena's story is continued here 9 years later and in Sarasota NY. I liked so many of the settings and characters but I didn't buy the root of the tension between Michael and Helena. Loved the boy. Loved the lodge. Loved the summer evolution for both Helena and her son.
Michael and Helena's story is continued here 9 years later and in Sarasota NY. I liked so many of the settings and characters but I didn't buy the root of the tension between Michael and Helena. Loved the boy. Loved the lodge. Loved the summer evolution for both Helena and her son.
November 4, 2023
An all too familiar story of pain and violence hidden behind the closed doors of proper society. Can Helena break free from her chains to return to her one true love she always needed, or will she and her son be forever bound to the monster she once thought was all she wanted? NOTE: a couple of token scenes of passion.
January 18, 2025
I enjoyed the historical setting and the author did a good job of describing the atmosphere. Unfortunately, the main characters were boring and annoying and their challenges were difficult to feel empathy with. Some secondary characters were interesting and well written but not enough for more than a 3-star for me.
October 9, 2019
This one began during the romance of Abigail and Jamie and Helena realized years later that she married the wrong man. Helena and Micheal left things between them in such a state years ago that she went on with her plans to marry another. In this story, she wants free from the man she married and the life she led to live life on her own terms. Reaching out to Micheal brought back memories that she thought were gone. Micheal does help her gain her freedom from her husband and gains the love of a man who would do anything for her.
November 26, 2020
Ugh, I'm so annoyed. This could have been better, but the hero didn't repent enough, the heroine acted like an idiot, and then it ended too quickly. Why do all her novels end so fast? The writing is good.
July 14, 2017
This is romance genre fluff. I did get thru it but did a LOT off skimming through. I have enjoyed Sun Wiggs books before. But, not this one.
December 25, 2017
Very good story line with lots of action. At the end the author got a little toothy in filling up the book.
July 21, 2019
excellent
July 23, 2019
Awesome. Book
This will be one of my favorites. Loved the first 3 books. Susan Sighs is a awesome author. Thank you
This will be one of my favorites. Loved the first 3 books. Susan Sighs is a awesome author. Thank you
July 27, 2020
Held my breath most of the way.
This author is one of the very best. When you see her name you know that you are in for a treat.
This author is one of the very best. When you see her name you know that you are in for a treat.
May 2, 2021
I liked this one, though TRIGGER WARNING: there's a lot of violence against women in this book.
Rating: Pretty Good
Rating: Pretty Good
April 4, 2022
Series - once you get started, gotta finish! Am enjoying the series although predictable!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 11, 2022
It’s a good read. Best to read the complete series. Glad I read the 2 preceding books first. On to book 4
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March 1, 202320th Century Historical Romance, Regency Romance
Miniseries
The Calhoun Chronicles (Book #4)
Miniseries
The Calhoun Chronicles (Book #4)
April 8, 2023
Loved, loved, loved this book...Great story, women escaping their dangerous lives and coming together and creating a wonderful safe haven and a new enterprise. Finding a new old love.
April 9, 2023
very fun to read while in the ward i guess
July 24, 2023
It was nice to see Helena and Michael get their happy ending. Also serious issues were addressed that are still happening today like domestic violence.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 73 reviews