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3.3 AVERAGE
3.3 AVERAGE
Gossip Girl meets Jane Austen meets Downton Abbey... took a while to get into but once it picked up, I enjoyed it. not sure how I feel about the ending, though...
The comparisons to Downton Abbey for this book are apt. However, after watching the season 3 debut of that show last night, I realized I would never want to read the novelization of it. It works as a soapy television drama really well, but would be a drag in print. That's this book. I feel like I should have read Waugh or Wharton instead of this, which was a bit like The Luxe grows up and moves to England...(And yes, I read the entire Luxe series.) But it's hard to describe how I felt about this book, except that I felt that the author was acting out an elaborate game with her Barbie dolls, and then writing it all down for us to read. It was superficial and juvenile. I read this book at a fast clip because it is so soapy and easy. I'm just hoping I can recall a few specific scenes and critiques for my book club discussion tonight.
It was a good story, but the suspense built up to a disappointing reveal/ending. If you want a satisfying gothic mystery, stick with Rebecca.
This is one of those books that are supposed to be for people who are missing 'Downton Abbey' between seasons but is really are for people who have watched 'The Age of Innocence' once and now claim they love Edith Wharton. It wasn't terribly good. It was filled with cliches and anachronisms and the sort of thing that are best left for bodice rippers that can be picked up in the grocery store. And yet, there were some genuine moments folded in all the drock. Now, did I like it? Enough that I couldn't put it down. I genuinely wanted to know what was going to happen and how all this would play out. So, I suppose miss Daisy Goodwin (seriously, is that her real name? I actually almost wrote Miller) did what she was setting out to do; write an entertaining novel set in a very entertaining era.
Miss Cora Cash is the envy of New York. The heiress to a fortune in flour there's no one quite as lavishly rich as the Cash family and no one quite as gauche. Despite feelings for fellow society member, Teddy van der Leyden, Cora allows herself to be shipped off the England much as Wharton's Buccaneers did before her. Her mother's excuse is a London season, but the real reason, as everyone knows, is to catch a titled husband. Enter Ivo, Duke of Wareham, who discovers Cora after she falls off her horse in the woods and happily nurses her back to health and promptly proposes in his crumbling manor house. But Cora soon learns that English society is not the same as American, things that are admired in New York are scorned in London, and she might be in over her head. But when Cora learns that she might not know her husband as well as she thought she did the discovery might lead her to the ultimate scandal.
My favorite part of this book was the setting. It starts out in Newport, Rhode Island, among the monolithic country cottages built by the likes of the Vanderbilts and Astors and then moves to Lulworth, the Duke's manor house, and London during the Edwardian era. I'm a bit of a sucker for this time period. And the extreme excess of the Gilded Age is something that's easy to appreciate in this day and age (I often think we're in the midst of a new gilded era where the super rich have far too much and too many have too little). My problem with this sort of novel is that the authors always seem to need their characters to be the most. The most beautiful, the most rich, the most popular.Why can't the Cash Newport cottage be on par with the ridiculousness that is The Breakers rather than dwarfing it? It makes the whole thing unrealistic when it really didn't have to be. This sort of privilege did exist, for sure, so why make it absurd with over indulgences?
Also, the Double Duchess, Ivo's widowed mother who promptly married another Duke, is supposed to be a member of society that people looked up to and who ruled with an iron fist, the Violet Crawley of the bunch, if you will, but she was so outrageous that it was unrealistic. Taking over hostess duties in front of guests? I don't think so. That would have been intolerably rude and everyone would have known it. She could have made plenty of snide comments that would have been accepted with a smile and snicker into one's tea, but beyond that, just... no.
Finally, the ending. What? Really? All that and it was just so... stupid. There was no realism, no tragedy, nothing but a "this is what was going on the whole time and it was totally innocent and everything's great". The sort of ending that belongs to those bodice rippers I was talking about before. It was awful and completely unrealistic.
But that's not to completely discount what came before. This book wasn't good, by any means (as I am sure you can tell from my ranting) but it had a certain pleasantness to it that appealed. I would have been completely down with it had it been written by a different author with a slightly different plot. But titled Americans are interesting. It's also interesting that Ms. Goodwin felt the need to name her lead character the same name as the American character on 'Downton Abbey' who also married a titled Brit. Oh, and there's Cora's friend Sybil too. Oh well, what can you do.
Miss Cora Cash is the envy of New York. The heiress to a fortune in flour there's no one quite as lavishly rich as the Cash family and no one quite as gauche. Despite feelings for fellow society member, Teddy van der Leyden, Cora allows herself to be shipped off the England much as Wharton's Buccaneers did before her. Her mother's excuse is a London season, but the real reason, as everyone knows, is to catch a titled husband. Enter Ivo, Duke of Wareham, who discovers Cora after she falls off her horse in the woods and happily nurses her back to health and promptly proposes in his crumbling manor house. But Cora soon learns that English society is not the same as American, things that are admired in New York are scorned in London, and she might be in over her head. But when Cora learns that she might not know her husband as well as she thought she did the discovery might lead her to the ultimate scandal.
My favorite part of this book was the setting. It starts out in Newport, Rhode Island, among the monolithic country cottages built by the likes of the Vanderbilts and Astors and then moves to Lulworth, the Duke's manor house, and London during the Edwardian era. I'm a bit of a sucker for this time period. And the extreme excess of the Gilded Age is something that's easy to appreciate in this day and age (I often think we're in the midst of a new gilded era where the super rich have far too much and too many have too little). My problem with this sort of novel is that the authors always seem to need their characters to be the most. The most beautiful, the most rich, the most popular.Why can't the Cash Newport cottage be on par with the ridiculousness that is The Breakers rather than dwarfing it? It makes the whole thing unrealistic when it really didn't have to be. This sort of privilege did exist, for sure, so why make it absurd with over indulgences?
Also, the Double Duchess, Ivo's widowed mother who promptly married another Duke, is supposed to be a member of society that people looked up to and who ruled with an iron fist, the Violet Crawley of the bunch, if you will, but she was so outrageous that it was unrealistic. Taking over hostess duties in front of guests? I don't think so. That would have been intolerably rude and everyone would have known it. She could have made plenty of snide comments that would have been accepted with a smile and snicker into one's tea, but beyond that, just... no.
Finally, the ending. What? Really? All that and it was just so... stupid. There was no realism, no tragedy, nothing but a "this is what was going on the whole time and it was totally innocent and everything's great". The sort of ending that belongs to those bodice rippers I was talking about before. It was awful and completely unrealistic.
But that's not to completely discount what came before. This book wasn't good, by any means (as I am sure you can tell from my ranting) but it had a certain pleasantness to it that appealed. I would have been completely down with it had it been written by a different author with a slightly different plot. But titled Americans are interesting. It's also interesting that Ms. Goodwin felt the need to name her lead character the same name as the American character on 'Downton Abbey' who also married a titled Brit. Oh, and there's Cora's friend Sybil too. Oh well, what can you do.
I haven't really fully made my mind up about this book.
It wasn't a Mills and Boon type of book, it was more filled out than that and was over 400 pages. However if you were to ask me how it was filled out more, I am at a slight loss how to answer. To be honest, a lot of stuff probably could have been cut out of this and if wanted, could have easily have been made into a M & B...without the sex and loving hero that is.
The Duke Ivo - well he was pretty much a useless male lead. Usually the lead man in books has his faults but comes through in the end, and I suppose in his way he did. But I didn't like him and he had no redeeming features in my opinion.
Cora Cash (fab name) was actually a fairly likeable character in the end, she wasnt as spoiled and vain as expected, she really did marry him for love but couldnt understand why Ivo was the way he was with her. I felt sorry for her being lumped with him. But there were times that I was really annoyed with her and was silently yelling at her to grow a backbone and stick up for herself against everyone.
Really there were no characters that was relatable or even that likeable as a whole. Yet I found I couldn't put the book down, I had to know what was going to happen next. So in that sense it was a very good book because it had my curiousity aroused. The ending could have been better. Confrontations were building up throughout the whole book yet they kinda fizzled out at the end, which was disappointing.
I did like the author's style of writing, I just felt that the book was a bit too long, and it could have had some stuff taken out.
I suppose has a whole I did like it, but its not something I would read again. Once was enough. I am not sure I would anythng else from this author either.
7/10
It wasn't a Mills and Boon type of book, it was more filled out than that and was over 400 pages. However if you were to ask me how it was filled out more, I am at a slight loss how to answer. To be honest, a lot of stuff probably could have been cut out of this and if wanted, could have easily have been made into a M & B...without the sex and loving hero that is.
The Duke Ivo - well he was pretty much a useless male lead. Usually the lead man in books has his faults but comes through in the end, and I suppose in his way he did. But I didn't like him and he had no redeeming features in my opinion.
Cora Cash (fab name) was actually a fairly likeable character in the end, she wasnt as spoiled and vain as expected, she really did marry him for love but couldnt understand why Ivo was the way he was with her. I felt sorry for her being lumped with him. But there were times that I was really annoyed with her and was silently yelling at her to grow a backbone and stick up for herself against everyone.
Really there were no characters that was relatable or even that likeable as a whole. Yet I found I couldn't put the book down, I had to know what was going to happen next. So in that sense it was a very good book because it had my curiousity aroused. The ending could have been better. Confrontations were building up throughout the whole book yet they kinda fizzled out at the end, which was disappointing.
I did like the author's style of writing, I just felt that the book was a bit too long, and it could have had some stuff taken out.
I suppose has a whole I did like it, but its not something I would read again. Once was enough. I am not sure I would anythng else from this author either.
7/10
I really enjoyed this book. Yes, it's what you would call a "guilty pleasure" but if you enjoy reading historical fiction with a Downton Abbey-esque plot, this book is for you.
Picked this up at the local little free library when I had finished my other books on a little vacation we took to a rural cabin. It was a fast, easy read. Not super well written, but fun and light.
Easy light historical romance set in the gilded age, following an American heiress on her pursuit pf finding a title across the pond. Think The Buccaneers.
A wonderful, satisfying read! The storyline was quite unexpected and it wasn't a feel-good, happily ever after-type story. The characters were quite human and treated each other as such. With joy, but also with cruelty, jealously, cowardice and even goodness. Now really, how about a sequel?
Entertaining but the plot kept changing with a dismal ending.