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ladyofspringdreams's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
This was an interesting one for me.
I love and have read all of Scarlett Peckhams’ books so buying this was a no brainer.
Firstly, I always enjoya second chance romance and older protagonists. Our female lead is late 30’s and the male lead is early to mid 50s. The problem is I hate age gap romance (though our leads are fully grown adults during the bulk of this book, there are flashbacks to an 18 fmc and 32 mmc including an on page sex scene) and when the book takes place in the real world, I generally don’t enjoy open relationships (there’s an on page MMF threesome and talk of taking other partners.)
And yet, I still liked this. I didn’t LOVE it, but I liked it.
This is a 3 star read because the romance didn’t move me. Usually I enjoy an opposites attract, but for most of the novel I felt like these two were fundamentally different and couldn’t *see* the love they kept *saying* they felt for one another.
The ending goes a long way towards fixing thatI really like that Cornelia stepped out of her comfort zone for Rafe and Peckham didn’t give us a married with babies ending , but it came a bit too late to change my rating.
I love and have read all of Scarlett Peckhams’ books so buying this was a no brainer.
Firstly, I always enjoy
And yet, I still liked this. I didn’t LOVE it, but I liked it.
This is a 3 star read because the romance didn’t move me. Usually I enjoy an opposites attract, but for most of the novel I felt like these two were fundamentally different and couldn’t *see* the love they kept *saying* they felt for one another.
The ending goes a long way towards fixing that
beyondevak's review against another edition
1.0
Quick Summary: A twisted love, open romance
My Review: The Portrait of a Duchess by Scarlett Peckham is volume 2 in the Society of Sirens series. It features a multicultural couple.
About the Book: This period piece introduces readers to Cornelia Ludgate and Rafe Goodwood. The couple have been separated for two decades. Upon the death of a family member, the two lovers are reunited. As such, unresolved desires, past frustrations, and overdue discussions are revisited.
My Final Say: This novel is an acquired taste read. I did not care for it at all. The direction it took was not where I thought it would lead, and I confess that I was highly disappointed by that.
Question to Consider: Did this couple really resolve their issues, at the end of the day? (There is more that should be considered where they are concerned.)
Rating: 1/5
Recommend: No
Audience: A
Series: Yes
Other: MMF relations
Status/Level:
My Review: The Portrait of a Duchess by Scarlett Peckham is volume 2 in the Society of Sirens series. It features a multicultural couple.
About the Book: This period piece introduces readers to Cornelia Ludgate and Rafe Goodwood. The couple have been separated for two decades. Upon the death of a family member, the two lovers are reunited. As such, unresolved desires, past frustrations, and overdue discussions are revisited.
My Final Say: This novel is an acquired taste read. I did not care for it at all. The direction it took was not where I thought it would lead, and I confess that I was highly disappointed by that.
Question to Consider: Did this couple really resolve their issues, at the end of the day? (There is more that should be considered where they are concerned.)
Rating: 1/5
Recommend: No
Audience: A
Series: Yes
Other: MMF relations
Status/Level:
amyjoy's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
5.0
FANTASTIC. I loved this one. Everyone told me it was better than The Rakess (which I also loved), and it did not disappoint. I loved that the MMC is casually bisexual, and no one in his group of friends says anything about it. The heroine is such a competent badass, and I adore her tight knit friend group (though I absolutely could have had more of the Sirens in this one!) The sex scenes are HOT (that threesome!!!!! ), and I am so excited for the next book in the series, but also wish I could read this one again for the first time.
andrea_author's review
4.0
Cornelia must wed to claim her inheritance. The twist? She secretly married twenty years ago. Seeing her husband again brings back old feelings. Can she learn to trust again?
This is a steamy, character-driven, feminist novel with likable characters. The romance is a slow burn and includes an FMM scene.
Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC I received. This is my honest and voluntary review.
This is a steamy, character-driven, feminist novel with likable characters. The romance is a slow burn and includes an FMM scene.
Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC I received. This is my honest and voluntary review.
xandrarama's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
The subversion of tropes was interesting, as was the premise of the story. But the characters didn’t feel fully developed, the parallel structure of the book (with flashback chapters interspersed with present day chapters) didn’t work for me, possibly because the big plot points revealed in the flashbacks were underwhelming, and overall I wasn’t emotionally invested in the characters or particularly interested in either their journey or the wider storyline around the Society’s fight for radical political and social reform. None of it was nuanced enough to be as engaging as I’d hoped it would be.
There were lots of promising elements to this book but ultimately perhaps too many for the author to weave together successfully. I appreciate the author’s desire to address intersectionality, but if she’d focused on fewer themes instead of trying to cram in race, gender, sexuality, class, etc., these could perhaps have been explored in a less superficial and ultimately more satisfying manner.
averagebee's review against another edition
emotional
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
hrhprincessjasmine's review against another edition
I picked this book up for an easy read, but for a historical romance it was surprisingly hard to follow. I don't know. I don't feel super invested in either of the characters. And for the life of me, their history was so confusing. On one hand it felt like they had some really long deep intense and tangled past, but on the other hand it seemed like they barely know each other and had very little history so I couldn't understand the tension that the author was trying to build.
edressa's review against another edition
3.0
I was a bit skeptical coming into the book, and the prose initially set me off (it's very much a me thing), because I was scared it would be another instance of "heroine is a 21st century woman for no reason at all and her love interest is the only man in England who thinks she deserves basic human rights, yay I guess". The reason why it frustrates me is that you *did* have radical women at the time - yes, they did have some ideas we see as dated today, but look, I may occasionally cringe at some things Mary Wollstonecraft has written but I'm a good little feminist and I know better than to dismiss the Mother of Modern Feminism.
It's not 100% accurate, obviously, but I can tell Scarlett Peckham did her research and I can see the various inspirations for her leading ladies - Seraphina is based on Mary Wollstonecraft but with a decidedly less shitty love interest (nah seriously we do not stan William Godwin here), Thaïs has a bit of Lady Hamilton, a bit of the Convent Garden Ladies, Elinor is Lady Worsley, and Cornelia has a bit of Dido Belle due to being biracial, and also a bit of the famous female portraitists of the 18th century (Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun, Adélaïde Labille-Girard, although those two were pretty closely linked with royalty and "proper" society).
And it's interesting to see them interact and how they want to advance women's rights, because I'll admit the book did make me think about Jane Austen's takes on society and the Fallen Woman (might finally write a Substack entry on that!), and simply the concept of independence vs. dependence, but specifically the type of dependence that entails responsibility. Which is a theme the book plays with, but I wish it was better... handled.
The whole thing is that Cornelia is scared of commitment - which given her past and childhood trauma, kind of makes sense... until it doesn't. Her gripes with the MMC (Rafe) are as follows - she spends 20 years thinking he's a Tory (oh yeah, and it's never clear what they actually do that's so terrible, not that I doubt that they suck but you'd think you'd hear more about that), but she finds out pretty quickly in the story that he was a double agent all along and a ringleader in the radical cause. Second, she goes on about how he "betrayed" her 30 years ago, and you're expecting something kind of shitty until you find out that he wanted a marriage in truth instead of a marriage of convenience, and that's what made her run away. Which was clumsy and misguided of him, but I'm not sure it really justifies how harsh she is about him. (There's also the fact that she was 18 at the time and he was 34-35, which could definitely be icky but I'm willing to give it a pass given the time period. That being said, I get she had a previous relationship with an art tutor but she felt way too worldly for an 18-year-old who was otherwise pretty sheletered. Aging her up and giving her more life experience wouldn't have hurt.) She also views marriage as harmful in terms of women's rights, which from a legal perspective is definitely true in Georgian England, but there's really no reason for her to think that Rafe is going to force her to play house and spend the day doing... embroidery (LE GASP). It's a lot of things they could have easily resolved with a simple conversation at 50% of the book, because the only thing I can fault Rafe for is him forgetting about how she does not like PDA (and even then, he immediately apologizes when he forgets). But Cornelia is basically the Queen of Mixed Signals so sometimes, it gets really hard to blame him.
(No, seriously, Cornelia, you present your self-portrait at the Masquerade ball WEARING A WEDDING RING PROEMINENTLY, and you're not going to make me believe that you, a proto-feminist and an artist, do not understand what a wedding ring means, and why representing yourself wearing one is important. That's the textbook definition of sending mixed signals. There's also the fact that Cornelia is the world's fastest painter because she paints her self-portrait and Rafe's portrait in less than a week but I digress.)
So yeah, the summary of it is that Cornelia has a Negative Motivation throughout the book, which is frustrating given she realizes herself that her remaining married to Rafe and being a duchess makes all of her projects A LOT EASIER to accomplish. But she doesn't because... something something freedom, and she's somehow convinced that being love equates losing your freedom (even if Serafina is right there and an example to the contrary, but I digress). It ends up with Rafe looking like a kicked puppy more often than not, but her pushing him away constantly, constantly misinterpreting him for no valid reason and being way too harsh about his intentions is okay I guess because he always comes back and there are zero consequences for her for doing this. And it's fine at first, but it gets very tiring when you're at the 80% mark.
So as a consequence, when Sera finally gives her a pep talk (and she was honestly way too nice about it), Cornelia basically does a complete 180 degree turn that had my head spinning (and not in a good way), she does a grand gesture IN PARLIAMENT (when one of her big stinks in regard to her relationship with Rafe was her not liking PDA) and everything is resolved. And on one hand, these are two people who are clearly very compatible with each other, but on the other, they resolve it very neatly very quickly and while they promise to be honest with each other, I still think it's going to be a very volatile relationship, mostly due to Cornelia.
And this is ultimately going to be very subjective because I'm a white person and I probably shouldn't be making a judgement about this, but I could kind of tell that this was a white author writing a BIPOC heroine, because the heroine talking about her experiences as a black woman didn't feel very... tangible. This isn't to throw stones at Peckham because I do think the attempt here was genuine and she mentions her own limits herself in a foreword, but pick up a historical romance by Beverly Jenkins, Alyssa Cole or Adriana Herrera and you'll get what I mean right away.
But I think that's ultimately a problem all the characters kind of have, because their inner lives aren't as well-developed as they could be (mind you, I haven't read The Rakess yet so I don't know if that also stands there). And I'll admit I'm curious to see what Peckham will be going for with Thaïs, but 90% of her dialogue being lewd jokes became old pretty quickly (and no, her being a man would not have made her more enjoyable - I would be even less charitable), so we'll see how she'll develop as a character.
It's not 100% accurate, obviously, but I can tell Scarlett Peckham did her research and I can see the various inspirations for her leading ladies - Seraphina is based on Mary Wollstonecraft but with a decidedly less shitty love interest (nah seriously we do not stan William Godwin here), Thaïs has a bit of Lady Hamilton, a bit of the Convent Garden Ladies, Elinor is Lady Worsley, and Cornelia has a bit of Dido Belle due to being biracial, and also a bit of the famous female portraitists of the 18th century (Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun, Adélaïde Labille-Girard, although those two were pretty closely linked with royalty and "proper" society).
And it's interesting to see them interact and how they want to advance women's rights, because I'll admit the book did make me think about Jane Austen's takes on society and the Fallen Woman (might finally write a Substack entry on that!), and simply the concept of independence vs. dependence, but specifically the type of dependence that entails responsibility. Which is a theme the book plays with, but I wish it was better... handled.
The whole thing is that Cornelia is scared of commitment - which given her past and childhood trauma, kind of makes sense... until it doesn't. Her gripes with the MMC (Rafe) are as follows - she spends 20 years thinking he's a Tory (oh yeah, and it's never clear what they actually do that's so terrible, not that I doubt that they suck but you'd think you'd hear more about that), but she finds out pretty quickly in the story that he was a double agent all along and a ringleader in the radical cause. Second, she goes on about how he "betrayed" her 30 years ago, and you're expecting something kind of shitty until you find out that he wanted a marriage in truth instead of a marriage of convenience, and that's what made her run away. Which was clumsy and misguided of him, but I'm not sure it really justifies how harsh she is about him. (There's also the fact that she was 18 at the time and he was 34-35, which could definitely be icky but I'm willing to give it a pass given the time period. That being said, I get she had a previous relationship with an art tutor but she felt way too worldly for an 18-year-old who was otherwise pretty sheletered. Aging her up and giving her more life experience wouldn't have hurt.) She also views marriage as harmful in terms of women's rights, which from a legal perspective is definitely true in Georgian England, but there's really no reason for her to think that Rafe is going to force her to play house and spend the day doing... embroidery (LE GASP). It's a lot of things they could have easily resolved with a simple conversation at 50% of the book, because the only thing I can fault Rafe for is him forgetting about how she does not like PDA (and even then, he immediately apologizes when he forgets). But Cornelia is basically the Queen of Mixed Signals so sometimes, it gets really hard to blame him.
(No, seriously, Cornelia, you present your self-portrait at the Masquerade ball WEARING A WEDDING RING PROEMINENTLY, and you're not going to make me believe that you, a proto-feminist and an artist, do not understand what a wedding ring means, and why representing yourself wearing one is important. That's the textbook definition of sending mixed signals. There's also the fact that Cornelia is the world's fastest painter because she paints her self-portrait and Rafe's portrait in less than a week but I digress.)
So yeah, the summary of it is that Cornelia has a Negative Motivation throughout the book, which is frustrating given she realizes herself that her remaining married to Rafe and being a duchess makes all of her projects A LOT EASIER to accomplish. But she doesn't because... something something freedom, and she's somehow convinced that being love equates losing your freedom (even if Serafina is right there and an example to the contrary, but I digress). It ends up with Rafe looking like a kicked puppy more often than not, but her pushing him away constantly, constantly misinterpreting him for no valid reason and being way too harsh about his intentions is okay I guess because he always comes back and there are zero consequences for her for doing this. And it's fine at first, but it gets very tiring when you're at the 80% mark.
So as a consequence, when Sera finally gives her a pep talk (and she was honestly way too nice about it), Cornelia basically does a complete 180 degree turn that had my head spinning (and not in a good way), she does a grand gesture IN PARLIAMENT (when one of her big stinks in regard to her relationship with Rafe was her not liking PDA) and everything is resolved. And on one hand, these are two people who are clearly very compatible with each other, but on the other, they resolve it very neatly very quickly and while they promise to be honest with each other, I still think it's going to be a very volatile relationship, mostly due to Cornelia.
And this is ultimately going to be very subjective because I'm a white person and I probably shouldn't be making a judgement about this, but I could kind of tell that this was a white author writing a BIPOC heroine, because the heroine talking about her experiences as a black woman didn't feel very... tangible. This isn't to throw stones at Peckham because I do think the attempt here was genuine and she mentions her own limits herself in a foreword, but pick up a historical romance by Beverly Jenkins, Alyssa Cole or Adriana Herrera and you'll get what I mean right away.
But I think that's ultimately a problem all the characters kind of have, because their inner lives aren't as well-developed as they could be (mind you, I haven't read The Rakess yet so I don't know if that also stands there). And I'll admit I'm curious to see what Peckham will be going for with Thaïs, but 90% of her dialogue being lewd jokes became old pretty quickly (and no, her being a man would not have made her more enjoyable - I would be even less charitable), so we'll see how she'll develop as a character.
mdoerr's review against another edition
3.0
This was good. I loved the idea of the society rebelling against social standards. I enjoyed myself while reading this and can’t fault it. It just wasn’t anything overly exciting.
marquel82's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75