Sometimes, reading a book makes you so mad, you email me. Which I totally understand because I've so been there. That's why we have book rants.
This book rant comes from Dread Pirate Rachel, who has spent the last few years developing an immunity to iocane powder. So I've heard.
Hi there. I am the Dread Pirate Rachel, and today I have for you a book rant. Inappropriate capitalization, overly-enthusiastic use of italics, and NSFW language abounds. Also massive spoilers. I pretty much summarize the whole book. Sorry.
Leigh LaValle's The Misbehaving Marquess is one of the novellas included in the Seven Wicked Nights anthology. Here's the cover copy, from Amazon:
Having awaited the return of her husband for half a decade, Catherine Raybourne, the Marchioness of Foster, has no intention of reconciling with her misbehaving marquess. But when he insists he needs an heir-immediately-she must confront her own lingering desires. Can she protect her heart while attempting to win his once again?
So that's the setup. The alleged hero (Jamie) abandons his wife (Cat) about two weeks after their wedding to spend five years gallivanting around the globe because she was discovered in a hazily-described “compromising situation.” From what little I could glean from the text, it appears as though she was seen on a balcony with a notorious rake. Shock! Horror!
Despite her protestation that she had not been unfaithful, he leaves at once because, “[he] could not stay in London and be thought a cuckold” (loc. 6503). It is important to note that Cat and Jamie had been friends from childhood, and he should have known her character well enough to know she was telling the truth. Nevertheless, he abandons her to face the scandal alone and departs for five years until his heir presumptive (a cousin) dies, necessitating his return to procreate and secure the family dynasty or some shit.
While Jamie has been cavorting around exotic locales and nursing a grudge, Cat has been capably running their estate and engaging in charitable pursuits including building a lace factory and renovating empty homes in the village to offer employment and housing to indigent widows. As the book begins, this project is nearly complete, and the women are scheduled to move in in a week. This is important, y'all, because what happens made me go from simmering resentment to volcanic rage.
So. Jamie comes home and says,
I allowed you to be free with your actions, Cat. You wanted a Season and I humored you. I watched you dance and flirt with other men, even after we were wed” (loc. 6523).
YOU WHORE. Wanting to dance and be free with your actions. You should have been grateful I allowed you to go outside without your face covered. Get thy Skanky McSlutsalot ass to a nunnery and start embroidering scarlet A's.
In between slut-shaming his wife for wanting a social life, Jamie somehow finds time to tell Cat that he wants to immediately get to work making a baby. Cat, understandably, is all,
No, thank you. I'd rather not be stuck raising your spawn alone next time you get a little wanderlust. Instead, I'd like an annulment.
Yay, Cat! Way to stand up for yourself! Unfortunately, Jamie's reaction is to refuse to sign an annulment and then fucking threaten to rape her.
No, really. She clearly says, “No, I do not want this,” and he tells her she has three seconds to run away and lock herself in her room, or he'll come after her.
At this point, I knew the book was irretrievable for me. Heroes do not threaten to rape people. Villains do that. Fuck that shit. Had I been reading a paper copy, I may have been tempted to burn it. As it was, I was afraid I was going to melt my Kindle with the heat of my glare. Despite all that, I hate-read the story to the end.
I'd like to clarify something. When I started the book, I thought that the plot device of a husband returning after five years of absence could be intriguing, assuming he had a damn good reason for leaving in the first place. Maybe he's a spy, I told myself. Maybe he's been off saving the world, and that's why he hasn't had time to write to his wife. Maybe he's a superhero! When it turned out that his reason for leaving was pretty flimsy, I told myself, That's okay, self. He can still redeem himself with a good grovelling session, right?
[BIG SPOILERS FROM HERE ON OUT]
[No REALLY]
[There's too much to white out so stop reading now if you don't want spoilers!]
[READY?]
But the grovelling never happened. In fact, he offers a half-assed apology only after discovering that Cat had miscarried their child shortly after his departure. Because pregnancy is the only thing that makes a woman worthy of consideration, amirite?
After delivering said pathetic excuse of an apology, Jamie gives Cat an assortment of trinkets that he bought while he was wallowing in self-pity on his way through Asia. Then they bang. The next morning, Cat wakes up to an empty bed and a message from the butler that Jamie will be home that night. Because apparently he couldn't be arsed to tell her in person or leave a goddamn note, I guess? Or maybe he's just out of the habit, what with him having gone five years without contacting her and all that. Either way, he doesn't come home, and the next afternoon Cat gets a message that OMGWTF the village is on fire!
She rushes to investigate/assist, and discovers that the only parts that have been destroyed are the homes and factory that she renovated and built. It may tell you something about my opinion of Jamie that I immediately suspected him to be an arsonist. But no, in fact, he is there helping to fight the fire by destroying the one home that was left of Cat's project.
Meanwhile, Cat arranges for food and medical supplies to be distributed to the victims and firefighters. Then, when the fire is successfully controlled, Jamie gives her a sapphire ring and says he wants to renew their vows. The end.
The ending was so rushed that I thought the question of what was going to happen to those indigent widows went unaddressed, but I was wrong; they do mention something about rebuilding with Jamie's assistance. The whole fire situation felt pointless and frankly gratuitous, and it seemed utterly unrealistic that only Cat's portion of the village was touched by it. It didn't help the plot along at all; in fact, it made me think that the universe of the story wanted to punish Cat even further by taking away the project that was most important to her. You know, because the social ostracism, miscarriage, and five years of abandonment weren't harsh enough.
I'm especially irked because Cat is an awesome heroine. I want her to have a better story.
Anyway. Here endeth the rant.
Groveling! It's an important life skill for a romance character, especially when the person to whom said grovel is owed is a truly excellent character.
(Have you've got a book that you need to discuss at length? You're always welcome to email me.)
I have that collection. The collection is buried under other TBR books so I doubt I will suffer Dread Pirate Rachel’s fate. Can you provide start and stop numbers? I’ll try to remember the author’s name. But my kindle doesn’t do skipping around as well as a paper book.
Wow.
There’s another book with a really similar plot. I can’t remember the title exactly, it’s something about winter, I think, but the absent husband, the heroine’s name, and the fire are all there. I don’t remember it as rage rousing to Dread Pirate Rachel’s degree, but I did want to take a poker to the hero—using the term loosely. I kept hoping somebody nicer would show up for Cat.
Right there with you, DPR. All I kept thinking when I was reading that novella was MOAR GROVELING!!!!!!! I was able to finish the story by telling myself that Jamie would probably die of some kind of lung disease and Cat would be an awesome widow in a different book.
oh Dread Pirate Rachel, that sounds truly awful. Thank you saving me from your fate! If you haven’t tried them, Eloisa James has written TWO husband returned from a long absence to grovel stories you might like much better, When the Duke Returns from the Desperate Duchesses series , and (the aptly titled) Seduced by a Pirate, which is a companion novella about a character in The Ugly Duchess. If I am remembering right there is an early Courtney Milan with that set up as well.
There’s also Sally MacKenzie’s “Loving Lord Ash” and Lily Dalton “Never Desire a Duke”, I don’t remember any problems I found with those, although in “Loving Lord Ash”, almost same back story, thinks new wife he grew up cheated on him, so left her, but I do like the heroine, seemed like a strong female…although I am a sucker for childhood sweethearts getting a second chance, so I might not have looked to deep for problems.
Courtney Milan’s book is “Trial by Desire”, and it’s the absolute best husband-skedaddles-for-far-too-long book ever. It’s the first one I’ve read that I thought, ok, he had a good reason.
Wow, the absent-for-years husband is a much more common trope than I realized. Courtney Milan’s Trial By Desier is on my TBR list, but I haven’t started it yet. I’ll definitely be checking out the Eloisa James novels Mochabean recommended. I really like a lot of EJ’s books, though sometimes they don’t entirely work for me. I’ve never hated one.
@Shannon, I don’t remember the start number for this book, but it’s the second-to-last entry. The anthology overall was thoroughly enjoyable except for this entry. I wasn’t a huge fan of the last story, either, but there was no rage in that case; just indifference.
Veronica said,
I did the same thing, except in my fantasy, Cat poisons Jamie and gets away with it. The Dread Pirate Rachel takes no survivors.
Poor Dread Pirate Rachael! Go rinse your brain out with Erin Knightley’s novella “Ruined by the Rake”; it is in that set and it’s lovely – I adored the hero, Nicolas, though the ending was a bit rushed.
I’m feeling a bit stabby after reading this. Glad I didn’t buy the anthology b/c I already had the Milan, Dare, and Thomas stories.
An a-hole hero who doesn’t have the grace to grovel? Bummer.
When I read it in even Wicked Nights, I thought it was familiar, but I found it had previously been published in Three Weddings and a Funeral.
In a Goodreads review, I wrote: “The man was a prat. The fact that he came to realise this was something of a saving grace, but I would have liked him better if he’d come home intending to reconcile. After all, she apologised five years ago, you stupid fool! What else do you want? Blood?”
@Jude – thanks for confirming I’m not going mad! I knew I’d read this story but was confused because I don’t have the collection mentioned. I read it in the Three Weddings and a Murder collection.
I started to read this, but then my attention wandered off and I went with it.
Thanks to DPR, I won’t bother trying to finish it. Sounds like I didn’t miss much!
Ack, that sounds dreadful!
As much as Jennifer Ashley’s Mackenzies series occasionally drives me nuts (I never finished the one about the actual Duke, for example), her Lady Isabella’s Scandalous Marriage is probably my favorite separation and reconciliation story of all time. There is groveling. There is a realization of what forgiveness really requires. There is such goodness.
Husband returns to grovel after long absence is my personal catnip, and my absolute favorite in that category is His Majesty the Prince of Toads by Delle Jacobs. He doesn’t even recognize her!!
I can re-read that book at the drop of a bonnet.
The prodigal husband trope was done wonderfully in Private Arrangements by Sherry Thomas. I loved both characters. And one of my all-time favorites with this trope is The Deception by Joan Wolf.
I must be tired; at first I read this sentence as:
“The next morning, Cat wakes up to an empty bed and a massage from the butler…”
If that had been the case, Cat probably should have run off with him. Or been really creeped out. One or the other.
A book that I DNF’d was Eloisa James’ first book “Potent Pleasures”. The first third or so was pretty good. I liked how the heroine recovered from having lost her virginity without having been wedded. SPOILERS: When the man she married, who was the same guy who she had sex with the only other time many years prior, freaks out on their wedding night because he could tell she wasn’t a virgin because the mighty hero’s wang can tell (he also had trust issues), he abandons her. He also got her pregnant with that mighty hero’s seed. I flipped ahead because his stupidity was wearing on me. It isn’t until the EPILOGUE that he even realizes who she is and what he’d done to her and only because she re-enacted the first night. There was a SERIOUS lack of groveling.
I read a contemporary recently where the hero threatened to rape the heroine and I believe in my review elsewhere I used the exact same phrase you did: “Fuck that shit.”
I am definitely not a fan of the prodigal husband trope, but I loved Sherry Thomas’s Private Arrangements so much that it’s still one of my favorite romances. Really fantastic writing and pacing, and Gigi was just too damn awesome for words.
It helped that the wronged husband actually was, you know, wronged as opposed merely being “wronged” because he’s missing the part of his brain that can communicate with wives.
Aack! I’m reading this anthology because it started with a Courtney Milan. Then I read one that was full of Convenient Plot Twists in which some girl named Cleopatra fell for her sister’s fiancé and now I’m reading one in which the guy is Scarred and Traumatized by the Wars and is now acting like a total dick to the heroine who waited four years for him. However that at least includes a funny legend about a were-stag which tells me that this author has better things to offer than Luke who can evidently kill a wild boar with his bare hands but cannot have the feels because Scarred and Traumatized. Oy.
Oh hell no. I don’t read anything where the hero abuses, threatens, or denigrates the heroine. Why would I want my perfectly awesome heroine getting mixed up with a prat like that? Nooo. An awesome heroine deserves an awesome guy.
This rant is amazing. And I am having sympathy-rage.
I did want to comment about another husband-gone-for-too-long plot line book: Heart of Brass by Kate Cross. Steampunk, and spies, and I really loved it. Plus, the husband had legit issues and legit apologized and it was AWESOME. Okay, it wasn’t the strongest book ever, there was a lot of repeated stuff, but all the relationship stuff was great (I thought). Anyhoo. Just wanted to add my suggestion to the chorus!