Call of the Trumpet-Helen A. Rosburg

Call of the Trumpet
Helen A. Rosburg
Medallion, Oct 2007, $6.99
ISBN: 9781933836140

In 1859 with the death of her beloved father in Paris, Cecile Villier decides to leave France to visit the Sahara where she was born two decades ago. Her beloved late father left the desert grieving the death of his Bedouin wife in childbirth. She asks her late dad’s friend Mr. Blackmoor for help in locating her foster father, Raga eben Haddal.

Blackmoor sends his son Matthew to meet her, but he learns she has been abducted by a caravan planning to sell her to the Caliph. Matthew rescues Cecilia but introduces himself as El Faris rather than the son of her late father’s friend. He treats her like the lowest creature on the planet and leaves her at a Bedouin camp to learn the ways of the women of the desert. Although not easy, the courageous Cecilia wins the respect of those at the camp when she risks her life to rescue a child from a wolf. As she and El Faris fall in love, he takes her to meet Haddal, who plans to sell her as a wife to the highest bidding sheik. Matthew proposes, but when she fails to return from a trek into the desert, he assumes she died and marries another. When she finally returns to accept his proposal, she must decide whether she wants to be his second spouse.

CALL OF THE TRUMPET is not the usual historical romance as the Bedouin culture serves as the prime focus of this strong mid nineteenth century tale. Thus a westernized Victorian style relationship between the lead couple even when the male is a sheik does not occur; instead the audience lives within the Bedouin camp and learns its ways along side of the heroine. Her struggles to adapt and her courage make for a rich saga as the audience will wonder will she willingly become the second wife, return to France, or be sold to the highest bidder.

Harriet Klausner