White Rose

by Amy Ephron

Morrow, 240 pp., $23

White Rose is a romance novel for educated women, an observation that isn’t meant unkindly. The book lacks the necessary character development and motivation to be a truly first-rate work, though it’s entertaining and reasonably well-researched. Set in the 1890s, White Rose is the story of Evangelina Cisneros, a young, beautiful Cuban revolutionary, and Karl Decker, a star Hearst paper journalist who has been sent to engineer her escape and bring her to the U.S. For precious little reason, just like a romance novel, they fall in love. But Decker has a suitably upper-class wife and adorable son, and Evangelina has Carlos, her revolutionary soulmate. Uh-oh. Ephron is a sincerely adequate writer. It just doesn’t occur to her to do the things a more skilled or talented writer would.

This article appears in January 21 • 2000.

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