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3.46 AVERAGE
3.46 AVERAGE
Fair warning; I did not manage to finish this book, and it's likely I never will.
The Good:
Structurally, there is nothing wrong with this novel. The author has a good voice, her characters are lovable and you easily find yourself rooting for them, the writing is solid, and the story enjoyable. This is exactly the sort of book I normally love and I am genuinely sad I can't finish it.
Why in the WTF section (may contain spoilers).
The best part of this novel, and the reason I mourn my inability to force myself through one more page, is because I love what she's doing with this forced marriage. Most romances focus hard on the chemistry and use it as a shortcut for a real relationship, glossing over all that "getting to know you" stuff. It's erotic, but unrealistic, even in a genre known for bending the truth.
The way this author is handling it is "yes, they're attracted to each other, but...." The attraction doesn't stop them from being strangers or unhappy with the situation they've found themselves in. They still have to learn about one another and come to an accord, and the whole story is so much stronger for the efforts they make.
The Bad:
My only nitpicks with the story itself thus far is world building (see the WTF section as this may have spoilers), the kiss scenes, and the title of "rake" as granted to the Duke.
The author spent a good amount of time lovingly setting up her hero, and I was really looking forward to the same sort of setup for her heroine. Instead we get nothing but some light banter before the first big kiss, making it a lot harder to care about the subsequent kiss scene and consequences thereof. There's just no real stakes.
Then there's the heroine's reaction to said kisses (hidden for light spoilers).
One of the most WTF scenes I came across was the upshot of the first two kisses. The author is trying hard to do consent-based kissing in an era not known for it, and I will say she mostly does this very well. It still feels a bit strange considering the time period (and the hero being labeled a "rake" and all), but this is one of the few places she managed a halfway decent balance between modern morals and historical norms.
The hero states he will kiss the heroine for a reason (to get her to leave a room, to get her to stop talking), then pauses to see if she objects. The heroine, upon being faced with these reasons and given a choice, twice chooses to accept. Then after the second kiss she lectures him on how she doesn't like him bullying her with kisses.
And that's where it goes right off the rails. Because he didn't bully her with kisses as he gave her every opportunity to say no and she consented. And not only that, neither of the kisses they shared even achieved his stated goals, as she did not leave the room and she did not shut up. So while the author obviously wants a "yay, feminism!" moment, to the reader it just comes off as the heroine being more than a little bullying herself.
Also, the main character is not a rake. Not even close. In fact, considering how the author portrays his personality, I question if he would have gotten laid quite as often as she claimed.
"Rake" in historical romances mean more than just "some dude who sticks his spear in a lot of honeypots." Many characters who are not rakes are quite promiscuous, and many were hellraisers in their younger years. Both were actually something that was expected of young men of the nobility and so are not unusual traits by themselves. But "rakes" take it a step farther in romances. They tend to embrace their wild years long after most men have left them behind. They often have a deep sense of fashion and are veritable fountains of charm. They break the rules of society, but in such a way they--mostly--manage to remain in good standing with their peers.
They are, in essence, sort of "trickster" characters, getting themselves in and out of scrapes with great abandon--at least, so these romances tell us--until they meet The One(tm).
And the Duke in this tale is so much the exact polar opposite of that trope that it almost seems planned, as if the author tallied up the rake characteristics and set out to write a character that embodied none of them. Saddling him with the title of "rake" is a choice that baffles me, as he doesn't need the title to be fascinating; in fact he is much more fascinating not being one.
Was this something the publisher insisted on to boost sales? The author insisted on for reasons of her own? It's hard to say, but it's such a strange thing that it fair pulls one out of the story trying to puzzle it out.
The WTF?:
Warning: Potential spoilers ahead.
This feels a lot like a contemporary novel badly ported to a historical universe. The entire reason I cannot finish this novel is because the author pushed my suspension of disbelief beyond the breaking point. Had she set this on an alternate earth with it's own rules, in a fantasy universe, or in a contemporary setting the entire story would have worked much better. What killed this book for me was the attempt to crowbar this plot into a historical setting.
From the very first scene the scenarios in this story didn't work, but--like all historical romance readers--I let a lot slide because, honestly, no historical romance is truly accurate. The people, morality, and relationships are often too forward thinking while many things that are abhorrent to modern audiences--like being forced to marry one's rapist--are carefully sanitized. Historicals are as much a fantasy as any tale with unicorns and dragons and because of this I think the readers of such are pretty tolerant.
So when I say it snapped my suspension of disbelief to the point of being forced to stop reading, please know I don't mean she got some small, nitpicky detail wrong. It was actually a cascade of them.
Potential spoilers from here on out.
* The heroine's love for books, while admirable, is not explained at all. Books were an expensive purchase and she comes from a tradeperson's family so poor she shares a room with her sister. Did she go to a library? Have a rich relative? How did she get access to all these books anyway? I'm 43% of the way through the book and this still hasn't even been touched upon.
* The heroine comes from a family where making a good marriage is the only way these girls will see a better life. And yet her mother--the daughter of an Earl--is not only not teaching her daughters the ways of high society so they can make better matches, but seems to be actively okay with her daughter pursuing the sorts of hobbies that will leave her unmarried and shunned. Also left unexplained for far too long.
* The heroine, when confronted by the Duke's superiority complex, reacts like a modern day American and not a member of her own society. There are ways to have her believably react the same way to his assertions of bloodline superiority--see the movie Ever After where the heroine's obsession with the book Utopia formed much of her world view for a good example--but that wasn't done here.
* The hero's easy acceptance and approval of her strong opinions on feminism, politics, and everything else. Most historicals at least give a nod to the fact that a woman having such views was taboo while sanitizing out that women got punished or even flat-out thrown in asylums for free-thinking behavior--like I said, historicals are not 100% accurate. But while I don't demand our heroine to by asylum-bound and in fact love a heroine with strong opinions, to have the hero treat her opinionated ways as the results of a good education and having different priorities than other women (helloooo Not Like Other Women trope!) instead of at least hesitating over the aberration it absolutely would have been made the entire exchange seem surreal.
* How the heck did this poor nobody with no polite society manners and clothing that's three years out of fashion and kind of shabby wind up at a Duke's ball anyway? Was she snuck in a back entrance by a bribed servant? If it's ever explained, I didn't get that far, though I'd expect to know by nearly halfway through the book.
* She started the story hanging out in a man's study. Studies like that were men-only zones, something she would have known even as a tradesperson because it was hard-baked into the culture. She basically gave away all her respectability simply by setting foot in that place, much less curling up alone with a good book in his chair.
* Chaperones don't seem to exist in this book. They are an afterthought at best.
* To my knowledge women in that era did not talk to men about politics, not even Duchesses. Those who did were bucking the rules, not following them. So the repeated emphasis on the part of the hero about how his wife will need to hold her own discussing politics with a room full of men is more than passing strange.
* The whole scenario is a sham as a Duke would not marry a tradesperson no matter if he was caught kissing her, not unless she brought one hell of a dowry to the table. But the author emphasizes at every chance that she is poor. While I can get behind this scenario in theory because it makes an interesting story dynamic, it's harder to believe when the main hero is obsessed with wealth, title, status, and duty, especially in a time period where making a marriage like that could ruin him. If he truly was out to protect his family legacy, he'd be trying to cover up the scandal, not taking her to wife.
* I finally broke at the point where the Duke--the rake--asked the heroine to marry him quickly in his "little chapel out back" so he could finally tup her. First of all, rakes don't care if they're married. Secondly, marriages didn't work that way. Marriages for nobility were complicated and drawn out processes--practically ritualistic--and it was the law of the land to work that way. The only way for a quick marriage would have been to go to Scotland. The Duke cannot get a marriage like some drunk dude looking for a drive-thru chapel in Vegas.
And it was not just one of those things that broke me but the veritable waterfall of them. Every time I suspended disbelief and forgave one unlikely scenario the author would hit me with another. I haven't even listed them all, just the ones that bothered me the most.
Again, this would have worked very well in other contexts, especially as a contemporary novel, perhaps with an American faced with foreign (likely non-British) royalty. The choice to make it a historical felt less like the author wanted to write a historical and more like she wanted to correct the "problems" with and make a statement about historicals. I don't think I read a single sentence where I didn't feel the author hovering over my shoulder.
This is a solid attempt and there will be plenty of people who love it--and I don't begrudge them because overall it is well written. For me, though, I can't accept the rather poor worldbuilding that comes with it.
The Good:
Structurally, there is nothing wrong with this novel. The author has a good voice, her characters are lovable and you easily find yourself rooting for them, the writing is solid, and the story enjoyable. This is exactly the sort of book I normally love and I am genuinely sad I can't finish it.
Why in the WTF section (may contain spoilers).
The best part of this novel, and the reason I mourn my inability to force myself through one more page, is because I love what she's doing with this forced marriage. Most romances focus hard on the chemistry and use it as a shortcut for a real relationship, glossing over all that "getting to know you" stuff. It's erotic, but unrealistic, even in a genre known for bending the truth.
The way this author is handling it is "yes, they're attracted to each other, but...." The attraction doesn't stop them from being strangers or unhappy with the situation they've found themselves in. They still have to learn about one another and come to an accord, and the whole story is so much stronger for the efforts they make.
The Bad:
My only nitpicks with the story itself thus far is world building (see the WTF section as this may have spoilers), the kiss scenes, and the title of "rake" as granted to the Duke.
The author spent a good amount of time lovingly setting up her hero, and I was really looking forward to the same sort of setup for her heroine. Instead we get nothing but some light banter before the first big kiss, making it a lot harder to care about the subsequent kiss scene and consequences thereof. There's just no real stakes.
Then there's the heroine's reaction to said kisses (hidden for light spoilers).
Spoiler
One of the most WTF scenes I came across was the upshot of the first two kisses. The author is trying hard to do consent-based kissing in an era not known for it, and I will say she mostly does this very well. It still feels a bit strange considering the time period (and the hero being labeled a "rake" and all), but this is one of the few places she managed a halfway decent balance between modern morals and historical norms.
The hero states he will kiss the heroine for a reason (to get her to leave a room, to get her to stop talking), then pauses to see if she objects. The heroine, upon being faced with these reasons and given a choice, twice chooses to accept. Then after the second kiss she lectures him on how she doesn't like him bullying her with kisses.
And that's where it goes right off the rails. Because he didn't bully her with kisses as he gave her every opportunity to say no and she consented. And not only that, neither of the kisses they shared even achieved his stated goals, as she did not leave the room and she did not shut up. So while the author obviously wants a "yay, feminism!" moment, to the reader it just comes off as the heroine being more than a little bullying herself.
Also, the main character is not a rake. Not even close. In fact, considering how the author portrays his personality, I question if he would have gotten laid quite as often as she claimed.
"Rake" in historical romances mean more than just "some dude who sticks his spear in a lot of honeypots." Many characters who are not rakes are quite promiscuous, and many were hellraisers in their younger years. Both were actually something that was expected of young men of the nobility and so are not unusual traits by themselves. But "rakes" take it a step farther in romances. They tend to embrace their wild years long after most men have left them behind. They often have a deep sense of fashion and are veritable fountains of charm. They break the rules of society, but in such a way they--mostly--manage to remain in good standing with their peers.
They are, in essence, sort of "trickster" characters, getting themselves in and out of scrapes with great abandon--at least, so these romances tell us--until they meet The One(tm).
And the Duke in this tale is so much the exact polar opposite of that trope that it almost seems planned, as if the author tallied up the rake characteristics and set out to write a character that embodied none of them. Saddling him with the title of "rake" is a choice that baffles me, as he doesn't need the title to be fascinating; in fact he is much more fascinating not being one.
Was this something the publisher insisted on to boost sales? The author insisted on for reasons of her own? It's hard to say, but it's such a strange thing that it fair pulls one out of the story trying to puzzle it out.
The WTF?:
Warning: Potential spoilers ahead.
This feels a lot like a contemporary novel badly ported to a historical universe. The entire reason I cannot finish this novel is because the author pushed my suspension of disbelief beyond the breaking point. Had she set this on an alternate earth with it's own rules, in a fantasy universe, or in a contemporary setting the entire story would have worked much better. What killed this book for me was the attempt to crowbar this plot into a historical setting.
From the very first scene the scenarios in this story didn't work, but--like all historical romance readers--I let a lot slide because, honestly, no historical romance is truly accurate. The people, morality, and relationships are often too forward thinking while many things that are abhorrent to modern audiences--like being forced to marry one's rapist--are carefully sanitized. Historicals are as much a fantasy as any tale with unicorns and dragons and because of this I think the readers of such are pretty tolerant.
So when I say it snapped my suspension of disbelief to the point of being forced to stop reading, please know I don't mean she got some small, nitpicky detail wrong. It was actually a cascade of them.
Potential spoilers from here on out.
Spoiler
* The heroine's love for books, while admirable, is not explained at all. Books were an expensive purchase and she comes from a tradeperson's family so poor she shares a room with her sister. Did she go to a library? Have a rich relative? How did she get access to all these books anyway? I'm 43% of the way through the book and this still hasn't even been touched upon.
* The heroine comes from a family where making a good marriage is the only way these girls will see a better life. And yet her mother--the daughter of an Earl--is not only not teaching her daughters the ways of high society so they can make better matches, but seems to be actively okay with her daughter pursuing the sorts of hobbies that will leave her unmarried and shunned. Also left unexplained for far too long.
* The heroine, when confronted by the Duke's superiority complex, reacts like a modern day American and not a member of her own society. There are ways to have her believably react the same way to his assertions of bloodline superiority--see the movie Ever After where the heroine's obsession with the book Utopia formed much of her world view for a good example--but that wasn't done here.
* The hero's easy acceptance and approval of her strong opinions on feminism, politics, and everything else. Most historicals at least give a nod to the fact that a woman having such views was taboo while sanitizing out that women got punished or even flat-out thrown in asylums for free-thinking behavior--like I said, historicals are not 100% accurate. But while I don't demand our heroine to by asylum-bound and in fact love a heroine with strong opinions, to have the hero treat her opinionated ways as the results of a good education and having different priorities than other women (helloooo Not Like Other Women trope!) instead of at least hesitating over the aberration it absolutely would have been made the entire exchange seem surreal.
* How the heck did this poor nobody with no polite society manners and clothing that's three years out of fashion and kind of shabby wind up at a Duke's ball anyway? Was she snuck in a back entrance by a bribed servant? If it's ever explained, I didn't get that far, though I'd expect to know by nearly halfway through the book.
* She started the story hanging out in a man's study. Studies like that were men-only zones, something she would have known even as a tradesperson because it was hard-baked into the culture. She basically gave away all her respectability simply by setting foot in that place, much less curling up alone with a good book in his chair.
* Chaperones don't seem to exist in this book. They are an afterthought at best.
* To my knowledge women in that era did not talk to men about politics, not even Duchesses. Those who did were bucking the rules, not following them. So the repeated emphasis on the part of the hero about how his wife will need to hold her own discussing politics with a room full of men is more than passing strange.
* The whole scenario is a sham as a Duke would not marry a tradesperson no matter if he was caught kissing her, not unless she brought one hell of a dowry to the table. But the author emphasizes at every chance that she is poor. While I can get behind this scenario in theory because it makes an interesting story dynamic, it's harder to believe when the main hero is obsessed with wealth, title, status, and duty, especially in a time period where making a marriage like that could ruin him. If he truly was out to protect his family legacy, he'd be trying to cover up the scandal, not taking her to wife.
* I finally broke at the point where the Duke--the rake--asked the heroine to marry him quickly in his "little chapel out back" so he could finally tup her. First of all, rakes don't care if they're married. Secondly, marriages didn't work that way. Marriages for nobility were complicated and drawn out processes--practically ritualistic--and it was the law of the land to work that way. The only way for a quick marriage would have been to go to Scotland. The Duke cannot get a marriage like some drunk dude looking for a drive-thru chapel in Vegas.
And it was not just one of those things that broke me but the veritable waterfall of them. Every time I suspended disbelief and forgave one unlikely scenario the author would hit me with another. I haven't even listed them all, just the ones that bothered me the most.
Again, this would have worked very well in other contexts, especially as a contemporary novel, perhaps with an American faced with foreign (likely non-British) royalty. The choice to make it a historical felt less like the author wanted to write a historical and more like she wanted to correct the "problems" with and make a statement about historicals. I don't think I read a single sentence where I didn't feel the author hovering over my shoulder.
This is a solid attempt and there will be plenty of people who love it--and I don't begrudge them because overall it is well written. For me, though, I can't accept the rather poor worldbuilding that comes with it.
"Only that a pair of muddy breeches can lead to remarkable things." The Duke of Thornfield is the almighty powerful and arrogant Duke. Georgiana is barely genteel. Georgiana is intelligent and sassy to the dukes cold arrogance. Beginning with an accidental meeting this is the delightful story of their romance. I loved the growth of the duke throughout the book. This is also a story of patience and understanding of people's differences.
I loved the characters in this book but had a hard time settling into the story. Their connection was hard to feel and the plot was good, but never quite grabbed me enough to keep me invested deeply. It was a sweet story with a lot of redemption and learning from both people.
emotional
funny
hopeful
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
This is by far my favorite historical romance of 2021. The characters are well draw and the connection between them is believable. The problems of the period are acknowledged and discussed in a very real way without ever overwhelming the central romance of the book. I loved it.
lighthearted
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
This book will kill your reading slump. Right from the start, Devon sucks you in to the story of Georgiana Bly and Edward, Duke of Thornfield. The second these two are on the page together, when Georgiana mistakes Edward for a servant and refuses to leave his private library, the story flows in such a delicious way that you don't want to put the book down. She calls Edward's bluff of his threat to kiss her to scare her away and the two are caught into an unwanted marriage on both sides. What's particularly great about this book is both characters are so likable. Georgiana is smart and witty and unafraid to say what's on her mind...even to a Duke. Edward is that grumpy hero with a soft center that is truly a good person deep down, despite what he may think of himself. I loved that Devon wrote Edward to be on the spectrum and how he handles the challenges that brings. I love that Georgiana is put in an unwanted to very difficult position as she is not someone of rank before her marriage to Edward and still puts on her big girl panties and deals with it in the best way she knows how. The writing is great and this book was just fun. I'm looking forward to more in this series. 4.5 stars!
Thank you to NetGalley and Entangled for an ARC of this book. The opinions here are my own.
Thank you to NetGalley and Entangled for an ARC of this book. The opinions here are my own.
lighthearted
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This book didn't waste any time getting started and I loved that. This book is romantic, passionate, sassy and such a fun read. I recently watched the Bridgerton series, and this book is a great one to pick up if you're looking for something similar. This was my first Eva Devon book and I'm ready for more!
I received an ARC from NetGalley. Opinions are my own.
I received an ARC from NetGalley. Opinions are my own.
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated