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Italian Chronicles #1
The Fifth Daughter
THE FIFTH DAUGHTER IS A STUNNING NEW LOVE STORY THAT SWEEPS FROM THE SOMBER MOORS OF YORKSHIRE TO THE TUSCAN HILLS OF SUNNY ITALY.
Born of tragedy and nurtured by scandal, Maresa Fairweather was a fifth daughter, all but abandoned by her widower father. Wild and headstrong, she was fortunate to have Percy Bronwell to keep her from harm's way. Now the childhood friends have grown up, but realizing his love for Maresa is unrequited, Percy enlists in the Royal Navy.
Always attracted to the wrong man, Maresa continues her flirtatious ways until increasing gossip dictates a change of scene. She travels to Italy, but old habits are hard to break and, desperate to end another engagement, she pleads for Percy's help. He saves her the only way he can --- by offering a marriage of convenience.
After only one night together, Percy returns to his naval command ... and Maresa becomes the woman she was destined to be. Learning that Percy's life is in danger at the hands of the French, she risks her own life to save him --- and to give him something he has always given her: unwavering love. But is it too late?
Born of tragedy and nurtured by scandal, Maresa Fairweather was a fifth daughter, all but abandoned by her widower father. Wild and headstrong, she was fortunate to have Percy Bronwell to keep her from harm's way. Now the childhood friends have grown up, but realizing his love for Maresa is unrequited, Percy enlists in the Royal Navy.
Always attracted to the wrong man, Maresa continues her flirtatious ways until increasing gossip dictates a change of scene. She travels to Italy, but old habits are hard to break and, desperate to end another engagement, she pleads for Percy's help. He saves her the only way he can --- by offering a marriage of convenience.
After only one night together, Percy returns to his naval command ... and Maresa becomes the woman she was destined to be. Learning that Percy's life is in danger at the hands of the French, she risks her own life to save him --- and to give him something he has always given her: unwavering love. But is it too late?
443 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published November 1, 2001
10 people are currently reading
200 people want to read
About the author
Elaine Coffman
63 books116 followersBarbara Elaine Gunter was born in San Diego, California, to William Samuel Gunter, Jr., a naval officer and Edna Marie (née Davidson) Gunter, a homemaker. From the age of three she lived in Midland, Texas and graduated from Midland High School. After she received a degree in elementary education from North Texas State University, she taught elementary school in Midland, Texas, while working on her Master’s Degree and certification for Language and Learning Disabilities at Texas Tech in Lubbock.
Elaine currently resides in Austin, Texas, where her son, Chuck, also lives. She has two daughters, Lesley who resides in Raleigh, N.C. and Ashley, who lives in San Diego, California.
Elaine Coffman is a New York Times bestselling author with a large international following. She has penned novels in both the historical romance genre and suspense. A lover of history, she has penned several novels set in Scotland, Regency England, Italy and the American West. To date, she is the author of nineteen novels and five novellas.
While writing her first novel, My Enemy, My Love, she found herself inspired by a letter her great-great grandmother, Susannah Jane Dowell Shacklett wrote in 1920, telling about her journey from Brandeburg, Kentucky to San Antonio, Texas, and then going with an army escort to El Paso, Texas, where her brother, Ben Dowell, a veteran of the Mexican War, was El Paso's first mayor.
Elaine continued to write best-selling, award-winning books until the publication of her eleventh novel, If You Loved Me, which was the last book of her beloved Mackinnon series and her first book to hit the New York Times bestseller list.
Her first suspense novel, Alone in the Dark, was published by Pocket books in 2006.
Elaine currently resides in Austin, Texas, where her son, Chuck, also lives. She has two daughters, Lesley who resides in Raleigh, N.C. and Ashley, who lives in San Diego, California.
Elaine Coffman is a New York Times bestselling author with a large international following. She has penned novels in both the historical romance genre and suspense. A lover of history, she has penned several novels set in Scotland, Regency England, Italy and the American West. To date, she is the author of nineteen novels and five novellas.
While writing her first novel, My Enemy, My Love, she found herself inspired by a letter her great-great grandmother, Susannah Jane Dowell Shacklett wrote in 1920, telling about her journey from Brandeburg, Kentucky to San Antonio, Texas, and then going with an army escort to El Paso, Texas, where her brother, Ben Dowell, a veteran of the Mexican War, was El Paso's first mayor.
Elaine continued to write best-selling, award-winning books until the publication of her eleventh novel, If You Loved Me, which was the last book of her beloved Mackinnon series and her first book to hit the New York Times bestseller list.
Her first suspense novel, Alone in the Dark, was published by Pocket books in 2006.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
September 18, 2017
2.5/5. Maresa was the fifth daughter, chosen at birth by her father to be saved at the expense of her mother's own life. He was expecting a son, a promised heir finally. Instead he lost his beloved wife for yet another useless daughter and he took the 4 older girls and turned his back on this fifth child -the cursed one, they called her. She grew up alone and isolated, mocked by the local children, spoilt by the staff at her estate and her older cousin companion. By the time she met the calm and reliable Percy Bronwell, a younger son of a nearby genteel family, she was quite entrenched in her self-absorbed ways, and even his close friendship could not deter her from leaving a string of emotional entanglements behind her, wherever she went. They became instantly close friends, he remained loyal and true standing by her side through all her mishaps and many a times assisted her in disentangling herself from her self-inflicted mess. Maresa, desperate for attention and love missing from her absent father and family, readily attached herself to anyone showing her affection, which unfortunately lead to way too numerous engagements and almost engagements.
Maresa was a disaster through and through, her background story should elicit sympathy from the reader, but instead I felt increasingly frustrated with her antics, jumping from one fellow to the next without consideration for their feelings and that of those around her affected by her reckless disregard, especially Percy's. Percy should have been more firm with her. He lacked the strength of character to tell her his feelings early on and allowed his brother to jump in instead and he certainly lacked the strength to resist her lure, when she was not really offering anything back in return for his friendship. There was little telling from Percy's point of view, and Maresa's head is too shallow for me to enjoy spending too much time in. Nowhere near her best, Heaven Knows
Maresa was a disaster through and through, her background story should elicit sympathy from the reader, but instead I felt increasingly frustrated with her antics, jumping from one fellow to the next without consideration for their feelings and that of those around her affected by her reckless disregard, especially Percy's. Percy should have been more firm with her. He lacked the strength of character to tell her his feelings early on and allowed his brother to jump in instead and he certainly lacked the strength to resist her lure, when she was not really offering anything back in return for his friendship. There was little telling from Percy's point of view, and Maresa's head is too shallow for me to enjoy spending too much time in. Nowhere near her best, Heaven Knows
March 29, 2015
I remeber the first time i read ths i was like 13 and it was my first REAL romance, i bet i read it like 20 times that summer! i fell madly in love with percy and was determined to name my first daughter maresa! now ten years later and i still love this book!!!
March 8, 2013
This book is so interesting. It's as if the story really happend
April 27, 2022
I've had this book on a shelf for a long time. I didn't know what it was about, didn't bother to read the blurb, and just cracked it open and started to read. I do this sometimes and get some great surprises.
This book was interesting actually. It wasn't a mover or a shaker, but I was interested enough in the characters to keep turning the pages. The pace was steady without a whole lot of drama although there was some, the love scenes were rated G, and there were some feels on the part of Percy, our hero.
The story started on a sad note with Maresa's mother giving birth to her and her father having to make a choice between saving the baby or saving his wife. Thinking that the baby was the boy he'd always wanted--and needed for an heir--he told the doctor to save his son. He already had four daughters. He needed a son. Well, that son turned out to the fifth daughter. He abandoned her and left her to the servants and a cousin to care for. He didn't even name her. He took her sisters and went to London, making appearances only on her birthday. Maresa grew up with no sisters, her father making periodic visits and wasn't nice to her when he did show up, and she was lonely. The other kids in around weren't nice to her, either and threw rocks at her, called her names, and just treated her badly.
Percy and his family were neighbors with Maresa and Percy took a special liking to her. He was 13 and she was 10 when they first met and they became fast friends. Maresa spent a lot of time with his family. They loved her. She loved them. But Percy loved her in a different way and she didn't see that until it was almost too late.
Maresa had a problem with becoming engaged and then backing out of them. She did it numerous times throughout the book. Her father was so enraged and embarrassed by her actions that he put a time limit on her to find a husband or he was going to do it for her. She bargained with him and got a year in Italy with her mother's family instead.
Meanwhile, Percy was in the British Navy as a lieutenant and was at war with Napolean's forces. Things got very interesting for him, but he loved Maresa and never forgot her. He wanted to be with her and went to extremes to do so. But she was too selfish and self-centered to see it. He understood she was like that and accepted it, but he didn't like it. It was almost too late before the light came on.
As I said, this was an interesting book. I rather enjoyed the characters of Percy and Maresa's sister, Beatrice. I couldn't blame Maresa for being how she was, considering how she was raised and how she was treated as the bane of her father's existence. I did get frustrated with her with the way she treated Percy, but she redeemed herself at the end.
Not a bad book overall.
This book was interesting actually. It wasn't a mover or a shaker, but I was interested enough in the characters to keep turning the pages. The pace was steady without a whole lot of drama although there was some, the love scenes were rated G, and there were some feels on the part of Percy, our hero.
The story started on a sad note with Maresa's mother giving birth to her and her father having to make a choice between saving the baby or saving his wife. Thinking that the baby was the boy he'd always wanted--and needed for an heir--he told the doctor to save his son. He already had four daughters. He needed a son. Well, that son turned out to the fifth daughter. He abandoned her and left her to the servants and a cousin to care for. He didn't even name her. He took her sisters and went to London, making appearances only on her birthday. Maresa grew up with no sisters, her father making periodic visits and wasn't nice to her when he did show up, and she was lonely. The other kids in around weren't nice to her, either and threw rocks at her, called her names, and just treated her badly.
Percy and his family were neighbors with Maresa and Percy took a special liking to her. He was 13 and she was 10 when they first met and they became fast friends. Maresa spent a lot of time with his family. They loved her. She loved them. But Percy loved her in a different way and she didn't see that until it was almost too late.
Maresa had a problem with becoming engaged and then backing out of them. She did it numerous times throughout the book. Her father was so enraged and embarrassed by her actions that he put a time limit on her to find a husband or he was going to do it for her. She bargained with him and got a year in Italy with her mother's family instead.
Meanwhile, Percy was in the British Navy as a lieutenant and was at war with Napolean's forces. Things got very interesting for him, but he loved Maresa and never forgot her. He wanted to be with her and went to extremes to do so. But she was too selfish and self-centered to see it. He understood she was like that and accepted it, but he didn't like it. It was almost too late before the light came on.
As I said, this was an interesting book. I rather enjoyed the characters of Percy and Maresa's sister, Beatrice. I couldn't blame Maresa for being how she was, considering how she was raised and how she was treated as the bane of her father's existence. I did get frustrated with her with the way she treated Percy, but she redeemed herself at the end.
Not a bad book overall.
June 25, 2013
Did not finish
It's been years since I've tried to read this thing, so the details have clouded over time, but some have stayed. They refuse to leave my mind no matter how hard I wish they would. Bad books tend to do that. But here's what I remember, and what I didn't like about it:
They were best friends, supposedly. The woman in here, whose name I can't remember, kept stupidly getting herself in situations that she didn't know how to get out of, because she was a freakin idiot. She got engaged to men she barely knew and didn't want to be married to, because....I don't actually know. She just did. I guess the author thinks stupidity is a nice character trait. I'd like to tell her it is not. So, dummy finds herself engaged like 3 times, and each time she goes running to the man, her friend, to get her out of it. Each time he does, but immediately leaves afterward and comes down hard on her. He's sick of helping her and wants more, because apparently he loves her. So meanwhile, he ends up on a ship with a friend, and there are these latin or hispanic or Mexican women that give them the green light, and so both men naturally have sex with them. Then the next morning, they wake up with killer headaches and make some really disgusting and trashy comments about that race of women being talented or something like that. I was so incredibly disgusted I threw the book down and have not picked it up since. I thought the man was in love with what's-her-face, yet he's having sex with some stranger who was probably a prostitute. Gee, how romantic! That's so sweet! I can only hope that one day I'll meet a man who claims to love me so much that he has sex with some random woman he just meets, and then makes crude comments about it the next day. That's every girl's dream. Completely disgusting and I wouldn't open this up if someone paid me.
It's been years since I've tried to read this thing, so the details have clouded over time, but some have stayed. They refuse to leave my mind no matter how hard I wish they would. Bad books tend to do that. But here's what I remember, and what I didn't like about it:
They were best friends, supposedly. The woman in here, whose name I can't remember, kept stupidly getting herself in situations that she didn't know how to get out of, because she was a freakin idiot. She got engaged to men she barely knew and didn't want to be married to, because....I don't actually know. She just did. I guess the author thinks stupidity is a nice character trait. I'd like to tell her it is not. So, dummy finds herself engaged like 3 times, and each time she goes running to the man, her friend, to get her out of it. Each time he does, but immediately leaves afterward and comes down hard on her. He's sick of helping her and wants more, because apparently he loves her. So meanwhile, he ends up on a ship with a friend, and there are these latin or hispanic or Mexican women that give them the green light, and so both men naturally have sex with them. Then the next morning, they wake up with killer headaches and make some really disgusting and trashy comments about that race of women being talented or something like that. I was so incredibly disgusted I threw the book down and have not picked it up since. I thought the man was in love with what's-her-face, yet he's having sex with some stranger who was probably a prostitute. Gee, how romantic! That's so sweet! I can only hope that one day I'll meet a man who claims to love me so much that he has sex with some random woman he just meets, and then makes crude comments about it the next day. That's every girl's dream. Completely disgusting and I wouldn't open this up if someone paid me.
Read
December 21, 2014Dall'amicizia all'amore... nell'Europa delle guerre napoleoniche...
LA CITAZIONE:
"Non le sembrava possibile che ci fosse stato un tempo in cui non lo aveva amato, perché si trattava di un sentimento troppo intenso e completo per essere nuovo. Doveva averlo sempre amato senza rendersene conto, così presa dalla ricerca di un marito da non accorgersi che l'uomo perfetto per lei era sempre stato al suo fianco."
LA CITAZIONE:
"Non le sembrava possibile che ci fosse stato un tempo in cui non lo aveva amato, perché si trattava di un sentimento troppo intenso e completo per essere nuovo. Doveva averlo sempre amato senza rendersene conto, così presa dalla ricerca di un marito da non accorgersi che l'uomo perfetto per lei era sempre stato al suo fianco."
November 25, 2011
I so like this novel Maresa and Percy create magic for me when they finally got married and Maresa found out that she was in love with Percy something she should have realized from the beginning. Anyway the plot was excellent. I would advise everyone to read this it teaches that friends can really fall and about every dying loyalty.
November 25, 2011
maresa's father deserved to die long b4 he actually did. He was cruel and illiterate.however I think percy and maresa made a perfect couple.Percy was understanding and patient and so adorable.
"LOVE IS REALLY A FUNNY TING" Lol.
"LOVE IS REALLY A FUNNY TING" Lol.
Read
January 2, 2023Probably the worst book I've ever read.
Characters are shallow. No real feelings and things just happen, like they don't have any part.
Only interesting part was the war and Napoleon, and that's a lot when you are reading romance novel.
Characters are shallow. No real feelings and things just happen, like they don't have any part.
Only interesting part was the war and Napoleon, and that's a lot when you are reading romance novel.
March 29, 2008
Trashy romance novel, entertaining enough, pretty much what you'd expect, and not overly racey.
June 22, 2011
First time with this daughter. Nice story. Good character development, good plot, nice happy ever after ending. Clearly, the author does her research thoroughly.
May 3, 2013
Good story line, but she could have added more of Percy.
December 17, 2015
Boring. nothing much happened.
Read
June 4, 2016Used - Good (Some spine creases)
Currently reading
February 4, 2008I'm about half way through this book and am wondering why I'm even bothering to finish it.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews