A Review of The Dutch Girl, by Donna Thorland

The Dutch Girl is another edge-of-your-seat historical romance, full of Revolutionary-era spies and danger. As always with Donna Thorland, prepare to be up reading well past your bedtime, because you will not be able to put this down!

Setting

Manhattan and Harenwyck, a fictitious Dutch patroonship in the Hudson Highlands of New York, 1778.

Main Characters

Anna Winters appears to be the respectable head of a girls’ finishing school in Manhattan, and she is. Except she is also Annatje Hoppe, on the run after a tenant uprising led by her father. Someone knows this and uses it as leverage to send her back to Harenwyck, the patroonship where her life began and then almost ended. She is to bring the new Patroon to the side of the Rebels or be exposed and likely hanged.

Gerrit van Haren is the rightful heir of Harenwyck, and he wants to dismantle it. But his younger brother got him disinherited, and Gerrit is now a highwayman, caught between loyalty to the Rebels and loyalty to the tenants he is trying to free.

Romance

Annatje loved Gerrit when they were teens, despite her mother telling her that such things were impossible between the Patroon’s family and tenant farmers.

Gerrit loved Annatje, and when his father found out, he promptly shipped Gerrit off to Leiden for schooling and to forget her. They told him she died while he was away, so he married, became a father, and then a widower. He is so shocked when he finds her at Harenwyck that he calls out to her, alerting those who want her dead that she is alive and within their grasp.

Garrit refuses to let Annatje go, and as they rekindle their past relationship, they put the fate of the tenants, the Patronship, themselves, and possibly the Revolution in jeopardy.

Plot

Harenwyck lies on a strategic bend in the Hudson River, and both the British and Rebels want control of it to secure control of the critical river. Gerrit has been promised British support in his inheritance claims if he will gather enough men to run his brother off and give the British control, but Annajte’s future depends on her being able to sway his brother to give the Rebels access.

Gerrit is a Rebel at heart and has served in their army, but he cannot dismantle Harenwyck and free the tenants if he does not control it. The harder they try to untangle the web of conspiracies, the more entangled they all become until everyone’s lives are in jeopardy.

Historical Worldbuilding

As always, Thorland’s worldbuilding is masterful. She brings to life not only the Revolution and many of its key players, but also the old Dutch patroon system, which was still in place along the Hudson River in New York. Patroonships were essentially feudal holdovers from old Europe, and despite over a hundred years of British rule in New York, the Dutch Patroonships were still very Dutch. Annatje’s primary skill, for which she was blackmailed into going to Harenwyck in the first place, is her ability to speak and understand Dutch. The tenants still wear wooden klompen on their feet, and eat keokjes. The autumn cider pressing comes alive as a festival that brings all of Harenwyck together. And the intrigues of the Revolution always simmer just below the surface.

Tropes

Gerrit is the rightful heir of Harenwycke, and Annatje is the daughter of rebellious tenant farmers, so we definitely have a class difference trope. Indeed, since Gerrit was raised to be essentially a feudal lord, it verges on royalty in disguise, despite his being a Rebel. Annatje is anything but helpless, so if you love a strong and deadly heroine, you will love that trope here. It is also a second-chance romance, since they were teenage sweethearts who see no easy path to a future now.

Secondary Characters

One of Throland’s great strengths is her complex and well-developed side characters. No character is simple, nor or any exactly what they seem. This makes the spy intrigue utterly gripping.

Point of View

The story is told in third person, alternating between Annatje and Gerrit’s points of view.

In Summary

• This is yet another of Thorland’s high-action spy romances set during the Revolution. The history is real, the characters come alive, and you will not be able to turn the pages fast enough!
• It is set in Manhattan and at Harenwyck, a fictitious patroonship in the Hudson Valley of New York. The year is 1778.
• Annatje and Gerrit have each been through more tragedy and hardship than anyone should have to bear, and you will root for these two every step fo the way.
• The worldbuilding is spectacular, and you will be transported to the Patroonships of Dutch New York at the time of the Revolution.
• This is a class difference romance, and a second-chance romance, and the heroine is a strong one.
• The heat level is about a 2 out of 5. There is sex on the page, but it is brief and fairly euphemistic. It is a deadly spy story set in a war, so there is violence, and there is also a threat of sexual assault.

Keep them Coming!

What historical romances are you reading right now? Please let me know! I am a reader, too, and I am always looking for historical romances to read and to review.

Love gritty historical romance? Passion’s Return is a six-chapter short story set during the French & Indian War. That is the war that laid the foundation for the American Revolution. It is yours for no money whatsoever, and is a nice, low-time-commitment length for trying out a new-to-you author. Be sure to check it out!

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Image: Image by Allexandre Fellipe Alle from Pixabay

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