Captain Peregrine Tracey was humiliated when the rich but common Ansteys rejected his suit for their eldest daughter Mary, but he never gave up hope that they would one day marry. After 10 years of serving in the military, Peregrine inherited the title of the Earl of Devenahm and was instantly acceptable to the Ansteys as a son-in-law. Determined to erase the memory of his earlier humiliation, the new Earl immediately sets out for the Ansteys country estate to claim Mary's hand in marriage. Unfortunately, it is immediately apparent to Emily, Mary's younger sister, that whatever affection used to exist between Mary and Peregrine is no longer there. Indeed, Mary seems quite in love with the vicar, Reverend Peter Cummings and he with her. However, Mary would never refuse to do her duty and she knows that her family is counting on her to help them rise in social prominence, so she is determined to go through with the wedding. Emily cannot bear to see Mary unhappy so she promptly drugs Mary's morning tea, slips on a brown wig and marries the earl herself. Unfortunately, her whole plan backfires when the earl refuses to get the marriage annulled. So Emily is swept off to the Earl's estate and determines to make the best of her new life as a countess. She finds herself increasingly attracted to the handsome, taciturn earl, yet unwittingly alienates him every time he comes near her. The Earl is very frustrated with his newly married state and turns to his mistress for comfort. When her charms pall, he returns to Emily and tries to woo her, but her dratted cat seems to receive more of Emily's affection than the Earl ever will. Will the two of them ever show their true affection for each other?

This book is a typical regency romance, if a tad more far-fetched than most. I usually enjoy regency romances, but I did not care for the characters in this one. Instead of a being a charming young miss, Emily seemed like a featherheaded twit who should have been sent back to the schoolroom to grow up before she tried to marry someone. I liked the Earl, but the author didn't spend a lot of time on his character. Emily and the Earl spent much of the book apart and the whole book seemed to be filled with rather boring incidents to keep the plot going, but were never really followed up on. The author would introduce something, like Emily's charity work with the poor at the Earl's estate, and then just drop it for the rest of the book. If you are not going to use something to further the plot along then it simply isn't necessary in the book at all. Anyway, I was disappointed in this romance. The author has a nice writing style, but the book has little else to recommend it.

Emily Anstey noticed with consternation that her beloved sister Mary dreaded marriage to Earl of Devenham. Though the pledge to marry had been made out of love 10 years ago, both wished they had not made it as the wedding neared. Even though Mary was now in love with another, she is honor bound to go through with it. What else for Emily to do, but to go in her sister's place.

The premise of switching places in a wedding ceremony seems too incredulous, even for a Regency Romance. But Marion Chesney (MC) explains Emily's silly, but nonetheless, sweet character and how she plays out the part of the heroines in her Romance novels, very reminiscent of young Catherine in Austen's NorthAnger Abbey, MC is forgiven. And when MC makes reference to Duke of Wellington's true life long courtship, you realize that the derivitive plot is merely a vehicle to get Emily and Peregrine (Devenham) together in a quasi-marriage of convenience. It is there where the real fun begins.

Emily finds herself outgrowing her old dreamy girlhood, into a useful countess, managing her husband's estate, but finding it increasingly more difficult to manage as his wife when his mistress is looming in the background.

MC knows how to depict a sweet and romantic marriage courtship. Emily is heartachingly vunerable not only as a Cit's daughter marrying a formidable earl, but as a young woman ruled more by her heart than her head. The sweet part is when Devenham finds that he is not impervious to this endearing young charmer, and endeavors to capture the heart of his wife more than his former mistress. This book is one of MC's more quaint novels because of the lovable characters, not to mention the YEOWLING cat! It's too, too funny!

There would seem to be some justice to the earlier review. This book obviously is handicapped by the absence of illustrations: some line drawings accompanying each species would greatly enhance the usefulness of this book. The color photographs are few (at most one per species), fairly small and many suffer from a dark background: also they are in a separate part and not near the descriptions. This book is not in the same league as John Laird Farrar's work for northern North America.

Still the pictures are of a pretty good quality. For most species a distribution map is provided. The volume is well-printed. In many respects it complements Harrar&Harrar's "Guide_to_Southern_Trees". Maybe these two together make up a complete book?

PS I don't dare judge the quality of the descriptions, although I do note that the authors refer to "Betula alba" as if it is an extant name, which is a pretty backward thing to do.

I found the book's keys difficult to use for identification of trees because the terminology was totally scientific. There were no drawings for clarity, and the photos were not adequate for identification. The book was a disappointment.

This is one of two Darkover novels I have read that, in my opinion, have plots superior to their characters. (The other is The Bloody Sun.)

I do love this book, I have been drawn back to re-reading it many times. So why only three stars?

Well, one thing I'll warn you about right now, if you're someone who tried to read the Thomas Covenant series and stopped at the rape scene, don't bother reading either Two to Conquer or the rest of this review. You'll hate every second of it.

That said, on to my personal perspective:

There are *serious* problems with the characters in this book. I've heard people complain that the Renunciates trilogy is full of stereotypes of men and women. If that's the case, it is MILD compared to what you'll find in this one.

Perhaps part of the problem is that the main characters are both very definitely anti-heroes. MZB sometimes writes antangonists with astonishing depth and understandable yet non-cliched motivations for their actions: Dyan Ardais and Robert Kadarin of the Sharra subcycle are two excellent examples. However, she does have a tendency to fall back on the stock overbearing mysogynist as antagonistic male character. In a novel the size of, say, The Shattered Chain or Stormqueen! it doesn't matter if a stereotypical mysogynist like Kyril Ardais or Darren of Scathfell has a small part in the plot.

However, writing an entire novel with two men who think that women are always asking for it and "cry rape" after the fact (even when one of said "women" is a girl who has only just hit puberty) as the major characters is disturbing in the extreme, and they are SO over-the-top with this that it doesn't seem that they can be real. This is a real disappointment for me, since MZB's characters are usually incredibly vivid and real and non-stereotypical, complex human beings.

To compound the problem, the women are too bloody forgiving! Especially Melisendra - there are times I think she could have had as much of a personality as Dio Ridenow (who is also sometimes a bit too tolerant of her man) if MZB wasn't so caught up in making her a political and moral contrast to Bard and Paul.

More irritating still, the characters somehow manage to embody EVERY feminist cliche out there: the overweight, not conventionally beautiful woman who is nonetheless sensual and loving and noble and intelligent, not to mention far more attractive than she seemed at first glance (Melora); the pledged virgin who is thin to the point of anorexia and obsessed with her own purity (Carlina and to a lesser extent Mirella); the working-mom Superwoman who manages to have it all - a career (as court leronis), an adoring lover, and a son (Melisendra); the short, scholarly gentleman who is shown to be more of a "real man" than the more traditionally masculine men around (Varzil); and of course the boorishly macho men who go so far as to literally rape and torture women until a woman teaches them better (Bard and his "dark twin" Paul). This is just too much.

More's the pity, because the central item of the plot (the two Cherilly's duplicates meeting, wondering how far they can trust each other, and learning about themselves through each other) is a very good one. It just could have done without all the preaching.

Like most of Marion Zimmer Bradleys' books "Two to Conquer" starts of with an interesting prologue. Unfortunetly after the prologue the story gets off to a slow start. But as The book is read, you become more interested and it goes much faster. The book is very interesting inroducing new ideas about far away galaxies and duplicates of ourselves and everything around us. It also shows how different people can overcome ill feelings tward each, come to terms with these feelings and make peace. There are many other interesting concepts but i wont ruin your fun. Overall this was a very interesting book.

"Alfred Lord Tennyson" is a compilation by Marion Shaw of the feminist views within the poet's works. Marion Shaw deeply investigated the works of Alfred Lord Tennyson to discover the numerous feminist references the great poet used in his works to express his thoughts on gender equality. The book itself consists of 174 pages, including a chronological table of Tennyson, an alphabetical list of references, and an index. Shaw identifies such feminist views as marriage, romantic love, mothers, desire, and even death. She pinpoints each of these topics in Tennyson's writings and beautifully praises him.

This book presents us to several short stories written by MZB with her incredible imagination, showing many different worlds, going from Earth to Darkover. You can read one story telling about the renunciants organization(Darkover), another one is about Lythande (a blue star magician with a secret). In my opinion, the best short story in this book, is the one about the Centauru's Children - where having a baby is the same to a death sentence to the mother... Well everyone can decide what is the most interesting of the 15 short stories of this book and vote in it.

This rather simple Christmas drama revolves around a family of four on the night of the birth of Jesus. The father, Eliab, is a devout student of the scriptures, but fails to see them fulfilled before his eyes. His wife understands what he can not. Their son, Abner, is thinking of revolting against the Romans and his sister, Miriam, appears too much like an American teenager.

The play tries to illuminate some of the wonder of Jesus' birth, but is written in such an ordinary way, that it captures very little excitement at all, let alone any wonder. Nevertheless, for a small cast to perform around Christmas, with not too much work, it works okay.

My review can also be seen at www.romrevtoday.com

Present day Seattle & San Juan Islands, Washington

Marion MacDonald's duo of suspense/adventure stories is fun for the whole family. While they are aimed at young adults, I enjoyed both stories.

THE CHRISTMAS ICE MYSTERY: Lora arrives from her home on the San Juan Islands to spend the holidays with her Aunt Shannon, Uncle Richard and cousin Jamie. In exchange for brand new skis and a fantastic skiing holiday, Lora and Jamie accept temporary jobs in Richard's business, Hammond's Department Store. Lora takes a job at Santa's Wonderland where children of all ages come to see Santa and have their picture taken. Jamie helps out as a stock boy working throughout the store where he has the advantage of watching all of his co- workers.

The shrill clang of the fire alarm puts a damper on their first day at work. After a fire is set in the men's bathroom, the Winter Ice Display is stolen from the jewelry department. Diamonds valued at more than one million dollars vanish without a trace and police are sure it was an inside job. When a misunderstanding about insurance coverage threatens to put Richard out of business, Lora and Jamie begin a hunt for suspects that may put them in danger. Can they solve the mystery and save the store?

SAN JUAN SECRET reunites Lora and Jamie for another intriguing mystery. This time Jamie has come to the San Juan Islands to spend a few weeks with Lora's family. After they discover an old plaque from a shipwreck, they bring it to the attention of Lora's neighbor, Marie. Marie's late husband died years ago on a bootlegging run and the plaque stirs up more than memories. Someone wants to keep the kids away from Jones Island where the plaque was discovered. Now Jamie and Lora need to figure out what is so important about that old wreck.

SAN JUAN SECRET was my favorite of the two. Past secrets collide to bring a thrilling end for all involved. The suspense kept me hooked from beginning to end. Vivid narrative and an understanding of how a child would react to the grown-ups around made both stories a thrill to read. There were a number of typos and one inconsistency, however, which tended to distract me from what I was reading. In the first story, Jamie's parents were named Richard and Shannon. In the second book, their names were John and Judy. It left me wondering if Lora had another cousin Jamie who lived in the city.

"Christmas Present" by Lynne Collins. Nurse Carola Bailey had been devastated when her fiance dumped her at a Christmas party. His cousin, Dr. Noel Partridge, was a help in saving Carola from humiliation in front of her family and friends. A year later, Partridge is working in Carola's hospital, hoping she is recovered and free to love again. A gentle tale almost in the style of early Harlequin medical romances, very sweet (even with the lovemaking scene).

"The Way We Were" by Laura MacDonald. Love between doctors Callum and Elizabeth Brent couldn't survive the determination of Callum's mother to exclude Elizabeth from practicing medicine or Callum's constant refusal to interfere. After tempers lead to more and more arguments, Elizabeth left for jobs in America. She has returned at Christmas to ask for a divorce, only to find herself helping in the practice and everything changed. Callum appeared pretty clueless in the beginning, but overall this was a good story.

"A Miracle or Two" by Marion Lennox. Fire raged near Dr. Jana Reiss' home town, matched by the flames caused by visiting Dr. Iain Carisbrook. Jana had decided to marry for security, only to be distracted by Iain's flashing eyes and warm sense of humor. Jana rediscovers laughter and the fun of living under Iain's loving guidance.

"The Real Christmas Message" by Sharon Kendrick. Nurse Lara King developed a crush on Dr. Nick Cunningham when she was a fat 15 year old. That crush deepened into love once she met Nick again and began working with him. Everything is perfect until Lara collapses at a party given by Nick. An engrossing look at life and love in a small town.

Poor Constance Lamberton. She is the familiar storybook heroine. Overworked and mistreated, her only escape from a hellish existence is marriage to a brooding, handsome man. Will the marriage be made of dreams? Will Constance find a way to strive past her troubles? Wait! Don't roll your eyes in disgust! For the true treasure of this book lies not in the insipid premise but in the engaging and hilarious characters that Chesney has created. Take for instance, Peter Potter, the sad subject of hilarious bouts of forgetfulness. In one episode, Peter arrives at the hero's house in slippers (instead of shoes), polishes his teeth with a quizzing eyeglass (instead of an appropriate utensil), and, having been admonished for his method of dental hygiene, uses the same quizzing eyeglass to scratch his head. The airhead that is Peter is well brought out and is a pleasure to read. So to is the cat-fight between bad-girls Mary Besant and Lady Amelia (the latter being the source of the heroine's pre-marriage hell). These two ladies engage in a standard-issue romance-novel war of wits. Chesney raises the silliness-factor of their fight by painting the two characters extremely well. Despite the fun characters, let's reconcile ourselves to the fact that the premise was probably doomed from the start. If you're going to read this book, don't set yourself up for disappointment. Just enjoy the frivolous fun.

I had to get this book for my foods class at school and even though this is a new edition, the pictures are from the 1970's!! The publisher's and authors need to take a look at their datebooks because the rest of the world is heading into the 21st century! With all the new technology out there, the book should contain up to date pictures of foods and meal presentations. I'm very disappointed in this books presentation of food. The only reason I give the book 3 stars is because the information is useful.