It has been twelve years since a dark, murderous figure stalked the alleys and courts of Whitechapel. And yet, in the summer of 1900, East London is still poor, still brutal, still a shadow city to its western twin. Among the reformers is an idealistic young woman named India Selwyn-Jones, recently graduated from medical school. With the help of her influential fiance--Freddie Lytton, an up-and-coming Liberal MP--she works to shut down the area's opium dens that destroy both body and soul. Her selfless activities better her patients' lives and bring her immense gratification, but unfortunately, they also bring her into direct conflict with East London's ruling crime lord--Sid Malone.

India is not good for business and at first, Malone wants her out. But against all odds, India and Sid fall in love. Different in nearly every way, they share one thing in common--they're both wounded souls. Their love is impossible and they know it, yet they cling to it desperately. Lytton, India's fiance, will stop at nothing to marry India and gain her family's fortune.

Fractious criminal underlings and rivals conspire against Sid. When Sid is finally betrayed by one of his own, he must flee London to save his life. Mistakenly thinking him dead, India, pregnant and desperate, marries Freddie to provide a father for hers and Sid's child. India and Sid must each make a terrible sacrifice--a sacrifice that will change them both forever. One that will lead them to other lives, and other places...and perhaps--one distant, bittersweet day--back to each other.

Customer Rating:
Summary: Not as good as "The Tea Rose"
Comment: I didn't care for this book after reading "The Tea Rose." This one seemed to concentrate more on violence and it was a little hard to follow. Hopefully her third book in the trilogy will be better

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Customer Rating:
Summary: NOT MY NORMAL READ, BUT I DID ENJOY THIS ONE!
Comment: The Winter Rose is a sequel to the delightful The Tea Rose. I am usually not all that enthusiastic over sequels, but in this case I feel the work held up well and was just entertaining and just as much fun as its predecessor. This is a well written and well crafted novel.

This story takes place during the early 1900s toward the end of the Victorian Era. A young medical school graduate, a woman no less, has the dream and determination to start a medical clinic for women and children in one of the worse parts of London at that time. This is her story. Needless to say just about every barrier you can imagine, from an family who only wants to see her into a "good marriage" to the prejudices and poverty of that time. It is a complete uphill battle from the start for our heroine, India. She, India cuts family ties and starts a new life, and dealing with a fiancé who is less than understanding and actually quite an unlikeable sort of fellow.

Crime, politics, privilege, class struggle, romance, danger, suspense, neat twists and good story telling all play a part in this rather well written novel. This is a romance of sorts indeed, not my normal cup of tea, but that is okay by me in this case as it fits perfectly with the author's plot. Not that I am antiromantic in any way, it is simply not the usual thing I would read. There is actually plenty of action in this rather large volume and I can truly classify it as a page turner.

The story starts in London, during hard times, and the reader is carried as far as Africa and the United States. I suppose what I like most about this book though was the characters the author has liberally sprinkled throughout the book; most of them quite colorful, i.e. my kind of people. We have the eccentric, the loveable, the dangerous, the smart and the stupid along with a good cast of evil doers. There are lots of twists and turns in this one and just about the time you think you have it all figured out, zap, you find you don't.

The book is very well written and I must say can be read as a complete stand-alone, despite the fact that it is a sequel. To be honest, I would have not touched this particular book with a stick had it not been for my wife pushing it one me. Bless her heart, I am glad she did. I would have missed out on a terrific read. I do highly recommend this one. I gave it four stars rather than five due to the fact that I personally do not have anything to compair it with. You on the other hand, may find this to be a five star read! It was certainly entertaining.

Don Blankenship
The Ozarks

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Winter Rose - Amazing Follow Up
Comment: Of all the novels that I read in the past year, this one stood out. The story is fascinating with a wonderfully developed heroine. The author does a fantastic job in creating a very likeable heroine/hero. It's the 2nd book in the "tea" series and I could not have asked for a better follow up to the Tea Rose. I love the return of all the wonderful characters from the Tea Rose.
This is an amazing love story with so many twist and turns. In the middle of the book, the author introduces a secondary love story that I could not have expected. At first I was really irritated because I just wanted to read about the main characters but then I got really into these secondary characters and fell in love with their story. You can tell that JD is preparing you for another novel. It's wonderful. The best part of the book is the love story between a very unlikely pair but it works. This book has great heroes, evil villains, and wonderful supporting characters. It's a complete book and one of my favorite novels of the best year. It's a true love story with a very unexpected ending. I read it not knowing how the story would unfold and it's wonderful...just beautiful. A must read for anyone who is a true romantic.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Loved it!
Comment: Loved the Tea Rose, loved the Winter Rose...it's a book (series) I can (and do) read again and again. Absolutely love it!

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Major disappointment
Comment: The book started out so well and promising that I couldn't believe the plot elements and drastic character changes that took place long after I got hooked on the story and the characters.

I think it is one thing to change a heroine from a subjugated, humiliated door mat with zero self confidence to a free, unconventional and independent woman with a will of her own but quite another thing if it is the other way around. India starts as a free spirited, extraordinarily strong woman far ahead of her time but is then inexplicably turned into a meek, conventional doormat who prostitutes herself in the worst manner possible (in a figurative sense). She makes -knowingly and with her eyes wide open!!!-such a self destructive choice that I would have found it more consistent had she committed suicide because what she did was a slow sort of suicide anyway.

Not only didn't I recognize the heroine anymore I completely and utterly loathed her. I wished that she would have been eaten away by a sand storm but alas no such luck for me... The worst thing for me was not even that the author basically killed off her main character (again in a figurative sense), the worst thing was that it was so completely unnecessary.

The plot would have been perfectly fine if India had made another much more character-consistent choice. Besides another choice-any other choice!-would have been much more realistic. There were so many possibilities but the author chose the worst alley open to her. She completely dragged an actually lovable, admirable character through the mud. It drove me absolutely nuts.

I would have given the book a five stars plus review before I got to the point where India betrayed all her ideals and what she believed in before but after that point of no return I would have liked to give it less than zero stars. Never has a book that I initially loved made me so mad and angry. But maybe exactly that was what made me so angry.

The only redeemable thing about that book was that I found out a lot about the back story of Fiona which made me desperately wish that I had read "Tea Rose" instead of "Winter Rose". Her story was actually the only thing that kept me reading. Now, Fiona is the kind of heroine I like to read about. But India was one of the most insufferable heroines I ever encountered in a historical novel. I really wished she had been devoured by a tiger.

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