"Victorian Series Doesn't Quite Take Flight"

FLIGHT OF FANCY is the first in a projected series called American Heiresses by Tracy Cozzins. It is set in Victorian times and will be about the four Carrington sisters, who are seeking husbands.

FLIGHT OF FANCY is the story of the eldest daughter, Hannah, who has little interest in the husband hunt. Hannah wants to be left alone to do scientific experiments and only the lure of the World's Fair in Paris gets her to agree to join her family.

Hannah quickly slips away in Paris to try an experiment on top of the Eiffel Tower, which gets her arrested. Also, incarcerated is Benjamin Ramsey, the Earl of Sheffield. Ramsey is also a scientist and as the couple talks they discover that they each have problems which the other one could solve. Sheffield needs money to carry on his experiments and Hannah quickly needs a husband to preserve her reputation plus Sheffield's title will make her mother happy.

They decide on a marriage of convenience, which Hannah thinks will free her for scientific study as an equal with her husband. But, she immediately becomes unhappy that she is being married for her money and wondering if the Earl will come to care for her. This precedes a series of misunderstandings between the would-be scientists and disappointment on Hannah's part that Sheffield will not let her into his laboratory.

What starts out as a fun romance between two equals, turns into a battle of the sexes fraught with missed communication and misunderstandings. Sheffield never quite lives up to his jailhouse introduction and Hannah on her part does not always behave like the intelligent woman she seemed at the beginning. At times, one finds it very difficult to believe that this pair could ever help man fly.

FLIGHT OF FANCY has many pleasant moments and the couple's interests are different and they ultimately prove to be likable. Hopefully, the future books will rely less on misunderstandings to move the plot along. But, I found this book intriguing enough to read the next one.

Reviewed by Linda Hurst
Posted May 15, 2002