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caz963 's review for:
Born to Be Wilde
by Eloisa James
I’ve never made a secret of the fact that Eloisa James’ books have generally been rather hit or miss (mostly miss) for me. I’ve read some and enjoyed them - I gave [b:Three Weeks With Lady X|18052956|Three Weeks With Lady X (Desperate Duchesses by the Numbers, #1; Desperate Duchesses, #7)|Eloisa James|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1382507520s/18052956.jpg|25337638] a DIK at All About Romance, and have rated other books highly, but after [b:Seven Minutes in Heaven|25256835|Seven Minutes in Heaven (Desperate Duchesses by the Numbers, #3; Desperate Duchesses, #9)|Eloisa James|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1470337415s/25256835.jpg|44978893], I decided it was probably time for us to part ways. There are plenty of other books out there to read, so no big loss. But... this is Eloisa James, right? One of the biggest names in historical romance. Maybe I’ve missed something? It’s that feeling that has made me go back to her books occasionally, so I decided I’d pick up Born to be Wilde, the third book in her Wildes of Lindow Castle series, just to see if maybe I’d got it wrong and she would wow me again.
I should have had the courage of my convictions and stayed away.
Born to be Wilde is nonsensical superficiality from start to finish. The story is pretty much non-existent, the characters are bland and unmemorable, the romance is flat and seriously underdeveloped and the eleventh-hour conflict is utterly ridiculous.
Beautiful, vivacious and wealthy, Lavinia Gray is used to having men at her feet. She’s turned down numerous proposals of marriage, secure in the knowledge that she could afford to wait for the right one – until she discovered that her mother’s spendthrift ways and gambling habits mean they’re broke and worse, that her mother resorted to stealing valuable jewellery and selling it for cash. And as if that weren’t bad enough, she’s become addicted to laudanum to such a degree that she’s sent to a sanatorium at the beginning of the book to be weaned off the drug. So – Lavinia is desperate. She needs money and she needs it quickly if she’s to prevent her mother’s being carted off to Newgate; and what’s the easiest way to obtain it? Yep – marry it. The book opens with Lavinia turning up at the hero’s room and asking him to marry her.
Parth Sterling was born in India to an English father and Indian mother, but was sent to live in England at the age of five where, as a ward of the Duke of Lindow, he grew up with the Wildes and is regarded by them as a member of the family. He’s a self-made man, one of the wealthiest in England, and even owns a bank. He and Lavinia have known each other for years; she thinks he thinks she’s an empty-headed hat-fetishist, he thinks she thinks he’s a prig. Based on the fact that the worst insult she can come up with for him is “Appalling Parth”, I’d tend to agree with his assessment. There’s no doubt she’s beautiful and desirable… but Parth doesn’t want to marry her. Instead, though, he’ll help her to find a husband and sets about presenting her to highly eligible men, none of whom – of course – is good enough for her.
That’s pretty much the sum of their relationship. She thinks he doesn’t like her; he’s confused about his feelings because she’s frivolous and he wants the woman in his life to have a bit more substance. (Hence his intention to court a lovely Italian contessa). But of course, Lavinia DOES have substance; when she offers to put together a trousseau for her dear friend Diana – who is marrying the heir to the Duke of Lindow – the mercer (fabric merchant) suggests that with her exquisite taste (of which he has little discernible evidence), Lavinia should set up as a kind of personal stylist to society ladies, and that he would pay her a commission for using his fabrics. Um. Essentially - a tradesman suggests that a Lady works for money. In 1780. Nope. Not buying it.
Lavinia loves the idea, and thinks she can earn enough to pay off her mother’s debts AND enough to provide herself with a decent dowry. She adores fashion, so selecting fabrics, trimmings and designs isn’t really ‘work’, but doing something she loves. She spends the next few weeks working her fingers to the bone – we’re told she often works late into the night and forgets to eat – preparing this trousseau, which seems excessive. I know making clothes by hand is very labour-intensive, but still, it’s presented as though she’s working on achieving world peace or how to feed the world, rather than on sewing gowns.
By around two-thirds of the way through, Lavinia and Parth have both realised they were wrong about each other, that they’re wildly (!) attracted to each other and have jumped into bed. Parth somehow has a condom to hand for their first time – it’s not the use of it I query, because of course they were around, it’s more than he has one so conveniently to hand in a room not his own bedroom. They didn’t come in little foil packets back in the eighteenth century.
Of course, Parth wouldn’t have taken Lavinia to bed had he not intended to marry her, something which appears to go without saying for both of them. All is going to plan until that eleventh-hour conflict I mentioned, which is shoe-horned in for the sake of it, and only provides yet another opportunity for Lavinia to bemoan her own unworthiness and conviction that Parth doesn’t respect her.
The story is basically one big trope-fest, and there is absolutely NO sense whatsoever of time or place in the novel; had it not been for the timestamps at the beginning of each chapter telling me events were taking place in 1780, I’d have had no idea when the story was set, in spite of the extremely tedious descriptions of patterns and fabrics. And the fact that the hero is Anglo-Indian is mentioned a few times in passing and has so little bearing on his character or the story that I have no idea why the author chose to give him that background. I am well aware that mixed-race relationships/marriages were not uncommon at this time and have absolutely no issues whatsoever with the hero being of mixed parentage. But in the same way as the novel having no sense of time or place, there’s no sense of what his heritage means to him or how it has shaped him.
It’s all so much froth and banal superficiality. I like a well-written piece of fluff as well as the next person, but Born to be Wilde is just DULL. The antics of the Wildes basically scream “LOOK AT US – WE’RE UNCONVENTIONAL!” the humour is forced and unfunny, Parth and Lavinia share no chemistry whatsoever and Ms. James plays fast-and-loose with the conventions of the time. There are a lot of authors out there – I won’t name names, but it’s a long list – who write stuff like this all the time; characters in pretty frocks and tight breeches who pay no attention to social convention and speak and act with twenty-first sensibilities. If that’s what you want to read – and some authors do it very well - then fine, but part of the challenge of historical romance is, surely, in creating and developing a romantic relationship between characters who would, in the real world of the period, not have been allowed to spend time together alone – and making their interactions believable.
Mission SO not accomplished. As I said before - “That’s three and a bit hours of my life I’ll never get back.”
I’m sorry Ms. James – you have a large number of fans who love your work and good luck to you and them. But I’m done
I should have had the courage of my convictions and stayed away.
Born to be Wilde is nonsensical superficiality from start to finish. The story is pretty much non-existent, the characters are bland and unmemorable, the romance is flat and seriously underdeveloped and the eleventh-hour conflict is utterly ridiculous.
Beautiful, vivacious and wealthy, Lavinia Gray is used to having men at her feet. She’s turned down numerous proposals of marriage, secure in the knowledge that she could afford to wait for the right one – until she discovered that her mother’s spendthrift ways and gambling habits mean they’re broke and worse, that her mother resorted to stealing valuable jewellery and selling it for cash. And as if that weren’t bad enough, she’s become addicted to laudanum to such a degree that she’s sent to a sanatorium at the beginning of the book to be weaned off the drug. So – Lavinia is desperate. She needs money and she needs it quickly if she’s to prevent her mother’s being carted off to Newgate; and what’s the easiest way to obtain it? Yep – marry it. The book opens with Lavinia turning up at the hero’s room and asking him to marry her.
Parth Sterling was born in India to an English father and Indian mother, but was sent to live in England at the age of five where, as a ward of the Duke of Lindow, he grew up with the Wildes and is regarded by them as a member of the family. He’s a self-made man, one of the wealthiest in England, and even owns a bank. He and Lavinia have known each other for years; she thinks he thinks she’s an empty-headed hat-fetishist, he thinks she thinks he’s a prig. Based on the fact that the worst insult she can come up with for him is “Appalling Parth”, I’d tend to agree with his assessment. There’s no doubt she’s beautiful and desirable… but Parth doesn’t want to marry her. Instead, though, he’ll help her to find a husband and sets about presenting her to highly eligible men, none of whom – of course – is good enough for her.
That’s pretty much the sum of their relationship. She thinks he doesn’t like her; he’s confused about his feelings because she’s frivolous and he wants the woman in his life to have a bit more substance. (Hence his intention to court a lovely Italian contessa). But of course, Lavinia DOES have substance; when she offers to put together a trousseau for her dear friend Diana – who is marrying the heir to the Duke of Lindow – the mercer (fabric merchant) suggests that with her exquisite taste (of which he has little discernible evidence), Lavinia should set up as a kind of personal stylist to society ladies, and that he would pay her a commission for using his fabrics. Um. Essentially - a tradesman suggests that a Lady works for money. In 1780. Nope. Not buying it.
Lavinia loves the idea, and thinks she can earn enough to pay off her mother’s debts AND enough to provide herself with a decent dowry. She adores fashion, so selecting fabrics, trimmings and designs isn’t really ‘work’, but doing something she loves. She spends the next few weeks working her fingers to the bone – we’re told she often works late into the night and forgets to eat – preparing this trousseau, which seems excessive. I know making clothes by hand is very labour-intensive, but still, it’s presented as though she’s working on achieving world peace or how to feed the world, rather than on sewing gowns.
By around two-thirds of the way through, Lavinia and Parth have both realised they were wrong about each other, that they’re wildly (!) attracted to each other and have jumped into bed. Parth somehow has a condom to hand for their first time – it’s not the use of it I query, because of course they were around, it’s more than he has one so conveniently to hand in a room not his own bedroom. They didn’t come in little foil packets back in the eighteenth century.
Of course, Parth wouldn’t have taken Lavinia to bed had he not intended to marry her, something which appears to go without saying for both of them. All is going to plan until that eleventh-hour conflict I mentioned, which is shoe-horned in for the sake of it, and only provides yet another opportunity for Lavinia to bemoan her own unworthiness and conviction that Parth doesn’t respect her.
The story is basically one big trope-fest, and there is absolutely NO sense whatsoever of time or place in the novel; had it not been for the timestamps at the beginning of each chapter telling me events were taking place in 1780, I’d have had no idea when the story was set, in spite of the extremely tedious descriptions of patterns and fabrics. And the fact that the hero is Anglo-Indian is mentioned a few times in passing and has so little bearing on his character or the story that I have no idea why the author chose to give him that background. I am well aware that mixed-race relationships/marriages were not uncommon at this time and have absolutely no issues whatsoever with the hero being of mixed parentage. But in the same way as the novel having no sense of time or place, there’s no sense of what his heritage means to him or how it has shaped him.
It’s all so much froth and banal superficiality. I like a well-written piece of fluff as well as the next person, but Born to be Wilde is just DULL. The antics of the Wildes basically scream “LOOK AT US – WE’RE UNCONVENTIONAL!” the humour is forced and unfunny, Parth and Lavinia share no chemistry whatsoever and Ms. James plays fast-and-loose with the conventions of the time. There are a lot of authors out there – I won’t name names, but it’s a long list – who write stuff like this all the time; characters in pretty frocks and tight breeches who pay no attention to social convention and speak and act with twenty-first sensibilities. If that’s what you want to read – and some authors do it very well - then fine, but part of the challenge of historical romance is, surely, in creating and developing a romantic relationship between characters who would, in the real world of the period, not have been allowed to spend time together alone – and making their interactions believable.
Mission SO not accomplished. As I said before - “That’s three and a bit hours of my life I’ll never get back.”
I’m sorry Ms. James – you have a large number of fans who love your work and good luck to you and them. But I’m done