Carolyn Melander Osborne

A Perfect Plan Carolyn Melander Osborne

Can turning a dream into a plan make it make it come true? In a remote corner of 1780s England, young Catherine Nelson wants to marry but knows the damage love can cause. She wants to control and protect her own life. In India, restless, worldly George Matcham wonders if the life he dreams of is in the countryside of far-away England, and how he can build that life. For each of them to reach their dream, they must learn and overcome a great deal in themselves and in their worlds. As different as they are, how can they make room for each other in their own, very different, carefully perfect plans? A Perfect Plan is a historical novel based on their well-documented lives and love. Set in 1780s Norfolk, England, it offers an intimate, affectionate view of the family of British hero Horatio Nelson through the eyes of his youngest sister. Besides offering historic content, it is a tender and romantic coming of age story. A Perfect Plan is the first book of the series Helena's Stories, which offers personal perspectives of historical times and traces the development of an American family through their ancestral stories. The second book, Rule! tells nine true tales from empires - set in the British Isles, 13th Century France, and Charlemagne's empire. The third book, Promise, will tell of American pioneers, from the 17th into the 20th Centuries. Readers say of A Perfect Plan: "A joy to read. The setting is enthralling, the writing exquisite, the characters attractive, the historic detail superb. (The reader) is transported into the British village of Burnham Thorpe in Norfolk. Village life, and Kitty Nelson, her father the Reverend Nelson and Kitty's older sister Nancy, spring alive in the very first pages of the book." Alexander H. ter Weele, author of, among others, We Escaped: A Family's Flight from Holland during World War Two. "(Ms. Osborne has) the period down very well. I loved the characters and the story." Romance writer Caryn Moya Block, Moonkissed Series. "A delightful telling of who these folks might have been. It seems as if they were your neighbors." M. Steen "Given that I read World War II histories and maybe one fiction book a year, I did not expect to like it. I really enjoyed it!! Excellent detailed portrait of the time and place. I liked a story from the point of view of a female: I enjoyed her unsaid thoughts. Kitty - what a wonderful hero!" D. Ljung