10th book in a "Poldark" series, "The Loving Cup", starts with Geoffrey Charlies arriving in Cornwall from the Napoleonic war with his bride. They settle in his home—Trenwith, a house that was left to George's servants—the Harries—to be taken care of until Geoffrey Charles comes to age. Seeing it in a very poor condition, Geoffrey Charles dismisses the Harries and decides to repair his family home with people who still cared about it. He and his loving, Spanish bride Amadora organize a family dinner and invite Ross and Demelza along with their children, Drake and Morwenna, Dwight and Caroline, George and his new wife Harriet, his stepbrother Valentine and a couple of other noble Cornish families. At the dinner, we witness Valentine's awful side after he invited Connan Whitworth (Morwenna and Osbourn's son) without knowledge of Geoffrey Charles nor hers and that way brought back bad memories to Morwenna who didn't see her son ever since she left him with Osbourne's mother. The night finishes with a huge fight between the stepbrothers.

Jeremy is still heartbroken over Cuby and, after spending some time thinking, he decides to join the army in order to forget everything all while his sister Clowance is still in love with suspicious Stephen Carrington. After Stephen suffers pneumonia, she decides to visit him in order to be at his bedside and the two decide to get married if he survives the sickness. Clowance somehow gets approval from her parents and they get married when Jeremy is on leave.

In the meanwhile, Demelza finds Jeremy's share from the robbery. She is not certain that Jeremy robbed the bank but has a strong feeling that he had something to do with it. She burns everything down except a small, loving cup which she brings home with the excuse that she found it at the beach.

Toward the ending, Valentine gets in conflict with manipulative George over his marriage with Jeremy's love- Cuby after which Valentine tells him that he is not interested (and never was) in her. He admits he married recently widowed Selena Pope whom he was seeing when her husband was still alive and who has enough money to support him.

Jeremy finds out that his loving Cuby is free again and sneaks into her room to ask is she wants him the way he wants her.

The loving cup remains in Poldark home, just waiting to be found somehow by Warleggan.

This is the book that historical romance lovers won't find boring because, unlike the previous one, it doesn't have a lot of description of the mining business and steam engine. I'd say this is a major book of the last five because it determines the reader's feelings toward each character of the new generation. If you struggled with reading everything after "The Angry Tide", I'd say to read this book and then decide whether the rest of the series is worthy or not.

This book has a lot of character development and readers get to know children better. I was creeped out by Valentine Warleggan a little bit. His upbringing wasn't great; even though he grew up in wealth, George never really found time for him after Elizabeth died. It seems that Valentine is being neglected even in later years when George sent him to Eton college and never really cared about whether he wanted it or not. All he cared about is to have a son suitable for the wealthy society George was part of. It was probably expected of Valentine to grow into a person without values, without sensibility other children had.

On the other hand, Jeremy Poldark grows his interest in the mining business with a new steam engine. And not just that, he also decides to join the army in order to heal a broken heart after Cuby's rejection of the proposal. Jeremy in this book reminds me of Ross a lot because of his tendencies toward the mine and army.

All in all, this is the book that will make you fall in love completely with the new Poldark generation.

I impatiently threw myself on the next book in a series because of that feeling of uneasiness regarding Jeremy and Stephen Carrington. The next book is called "The Twisted Sword" so I expect a major disaster hitting the Poldark family. I just don't know who will be affected the most this time.

As I mentioned already, I felt nostalgic in the first few chapters when Geoffrey Charles arrived at Trenwith with his young bride and gathered them all at the dinner party. During their conversations, I was reminded of why I got to love these characters in the first place. And even though peace and happiness in "Poldark" books don't last long, I am glad the writer gives us these throwbacks and that way ensures the attachment with the original crew. Once again, his brilliant writing style is the most deserving.

Winston Mawdsley Graham OBE (30 June 1908 – 10 July 2003) was an English novelist best known for the Poldark series of historical novels set in Cornwall.
He had wanted to be a writer from an early age, and following the death of his father, who had previously been incapacitated by a stroke, he was supported by his mother while he wrote novels at home in longhand and attempted to get them published.

"The Loving Cup" is a culmination of the last five novels in the "Poldark" series and is, so far, the most interesting one. Readers have a trip down memory lane at the beginning of the novel which I found to be extremely nostalgic and the rest of the book is building the tensions between the characters through their major decisions and acts. It is definitely a page-turning that won't leave you indifferent.

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Created Nov 29, 2019 at 11:26am • Submit your own review...