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3.31 AVERAGE
3.31 AVERAGE
Not terrible for the author's first novel, but not really that good either. I would try another one of her books a few years down the road.
lighthearted
relaxing
medium-paced
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
One of my cherished New Year's Day rituals is reading a trashy and undemanding genre novel. This fit the bill but I was immediately annoyed by the generic cover image, which looks like it's from the 1990s rather than the 1890s. To me that's always such a red flag that a novel is going to tell an essentially contemporary story using period window-dressing.
The plot is much like Edith Wharton's The Buccaneers: the sledgehammer-obviously named Cora Cash is an American new-money heiress whose life has been more gilded cage than Gilded Age. The plaything of her social-climbing mother, who's determined to marry her off to an English aristocrat, she's introduced while strapped to a cruel posture-improving device, like poor old Consuelo Vanderbilt.
Cora's story is pacy but overly familiar – the hometown honey she leaves behind; the cold, mysterious duke she ends up marrying; the way she struggles to adapt to English ways and is always being wrongfooted by malicious toffs and sniffy servants alike – and especially her awful mother-in-law, the Double Duchess. There's some pleasure here in the lavish descriptions of clothes and rituals – very much like Luxe by Anna Godbersen; but where Godbersen seems in control of her period setting, using it to inform plot and character, here it's pure picturesque.
The plot is silly and predictable, pivoting on Cora's rival manipulating her into posing for a socially ruinous Madame X-esque portrait. (I think this was the book's reference to the Robert Browning poem that gives this novel its title.) However, I did enjoy the parallel romance between Cora's plucky Black maid Bertha and cute English stablehand Jim, which seemed much more grounded in the realities of race and class than the rote soap-opera antics of the rich characters – more like Longbourn by Jo Baker.
The plot is much like Edith Wharton's The Buccaneers: the sledgehammer-obviously named Cora Cash is an American new-money heiress whose life has been more gilded cage than Gilded Age. The plaything of her social-climbing mother, who's determined to marry her off to an English aristocrat, she's introduced while strapped to a cruel posture-improving device, like poor old Consuelo Vanderbilt.
Cora's story is pacy but overly familiar – the hometown honey she leaves behind; the cold, mysterious duke she ends up marrying; the way she struggles to adapt to English ways and is always being wrongfooted by malicious toffs and sniffy servants alike – and especially her awful mother-in-law, the Double Duchess. There's some pleasure here in the lavish descriptions of clothes and rituals – very much like Luxe by Anna Godbersen; but where Godbersen seems in control of her period setting, using it to inform plot and character, here it's pure picturesque.
The plot is silly and predictable, pivoting on Cora's rival manipulating her into posing for a socially ruinous Madame X-esque portrait. (I think this was the book's reference to the Robert Browning poem that gives this novel its title.) However, I did enjoy the parallel romance between Cora's plucky Black maid Bertha and cute English stablehand Jim, which seemed much more grounded in the realities of race and class than the rote soap-opera antics of the rich characters – more like Longbourn by Jo Baker.
I wanted to like this book more than I did, and I can't quite put my finger on why it was just an average book. I think I went in with high expectations (having absolutely adored Daisy Goodwin's Victoria). It took too long to get to the meat of what was going on with Ivo; and the character development for Cora felt painfully slow. My favorite character was Bertha - her perspective felt fresh and real; she grapples with what her skin tone means in both the US and the UK and we see the reality of both worlds, both with their positives and both with their negatives. She also grapples with the loyalty that she feels to Cora, even though she knows that Cora does not return her loyalty in an equal and fair way. Many of the secondary characters were fascinating, so a great deal of thought went into character development.
The author did a good job presenting the complexities of marriage and relationships. All the characters struggle with their past selves and actions in ways that are real, none of it felt fabricated or forced. I would have liked to see the perspective from inside Ivo's mind. More flashbacks into Ivo's past and the interaction between him and other characters would have heightened up the suspense surrounding his odd antics.
The author did a good job presenting the complexities of marriage and relationships. All the characters struggle with their past selves and actions in ways that are real, none of it felt fabricated or forced. I would have liked to see the perspective from inside Ivo's mind. More flashbacks into Ivo's past and the interaction between him and other characters would have heightened up the suspense surrounding his odd antics.
What a fantastic book! The first couple of chapters were a little slow - Cora is a spoiled brat and her mother is overbearing but once Cora meets the Duke and begins to change as a person, I was hooked. I thought that the story was fascinating because of the honesty of the situation - despite being dukes and duchesses and rich people, they were faced with the same problems that each of us face - loneliness, overbearing families and refusal to face the truth of hard situations. The ending was the best part - Cora makes a very wise and mature decision and I was very satisfied with the entire book. I received this book as a part of the Goodreads First Reads.
Didn't like any of the characters, and the writing was a bit choppy for my taste.