Squee
Genre: Historical: European, Romance
Lisa Kleypas was one of the first romance authors I read, way back when I was a little baby teenage Amanda. Her Wallflowers series will always hold a special place in my heart. But since then, I’ve become estranged from historical romances. Now, I’m dipping my toe back in thanks to this encouraging thread on Twitter. When several passionate romance readers start espousing the swooniness of a romance hero, I take notice.
Dreaming of You is the second book in the The Gamblers of Craven’s, but I did just fine without reading the book before it, Then Came You. The heroine, Sara Fielding, is an author and a bit of a county bumpkin. She frequently makes trips to London for research purposes. Unfortunately, her research entails traipsing around the less than savory parts of the city. It’s there that she meets Derek Craven being attacked in an alley. She keeps a pistol in her reticule — a safety precaution — and promptly fires at Derek’s attackers. From there on, Derek and Sara become intertwined. She seeks to gain entrance into his gambling hall for her research and seeing as how she saved his life, Derek’s staff firmly believes she should get something as a way of thanks.
There. That’s the setup.
I don’t want to put in too much summary because I need to save room for squeeing, because I loved this book. LOVED. I stayed up until 3am just to finish it because I didn’t want to wait until the morning to find out what happens.
The thing is, I have a weakness, and that is any romance pairing that could be filed under “Slytherin falls in love with a Hufflepuff.” There’s just something about a serious, grumpy, ambitious hero and a earnest, too-pure-for-this-world heroine. I live for a hero who begrudgingly accepts the heroine’s presence and then BAM, has an epiphany where he realizes — oh shit — he’s in love. And Dreaming of You is pretty close to that scenario.
Derek Craven was born from nothing and grew up doing whatever he could to make ends meet. Now, he’s very rich and owns the most exclusive gambling hall. However, no matter what he achieves, he knows he’ll never fit in or belong to the upper echelon. He constantly struggles with greed. Not in the monetary sense, but in the experience sense. Never satisfied, he’s always on a quest for more, more, more.
And to add a dash of sexiness, Derek frequently slips back into his cockney accent when irritated.
It was hard to find a precise paragraph that fully encapsulates Derek as a character, but I think this one does a good job.
But in spite of his expensive attire, no one would ever mistake Derek Crave for a gentleman. The jagged line of stitches on his face gave him a battered, rough appearance. His hard green eyes seemed to look right through her. He was a powerful man with street swagger and absolutely confidence, a man who could no more conceal his appetite for the finer things of like than he could seep the sun from rising.
If this were ever made into a movie, may I suggest Tom Hardy?
Derek is a broken man, ashamed at the unspeakable things he had to do to get where he is. He’s never known happiness before and struggles to even identify the emotion. He hides all this behind charm and flirtation. JUST LET SARA’S LOVE HEAL YOU!
What I liked about Sara was that she was so…normal. It reminded me a lot of the paring in Lothaire by Kresley Cole. Lothaire is this mastermind, super old vampire and his mate is this young, backwoods human.
Sara came from a nice family and had very relatable issues like whether she was settling in her current relationship and if she was making the most out of life. Two things that I have also wondered about a time or two. While Sara’s writing is quite successful, it’s really a way for her to live vicariously through her characters. She longs for adventure and to be just a little bad. With Derek, she sees an opportunity to fly a bit closer to the sun, possibly (or definitely) a little too close.
She also doesn’t take any guff! When Derek is acting up with her, she calls him out on it. Doing research and observing people has given her some great skills in reading people and picking up on emotional cues.
Can I also say that I adored Sara’s parents? They’re fucking adorable. Here is an excerpt from when Sara’s family meets Derek:
Katie appeared in the doorway with a delighted exclamation, and made a move to embrace her daughter. “Sara, how was the ball? You must tell me everyth—“ She stopped at once as she saw the man beside Sara, his dark, broad-shouldered form filling the doorway.
“Mama, this is Mr. Craven,” Sara said softly.
Taken aback, Katie stared at the two of them with round eyes. “Isaac,” she called, her voice higher-pitched than usual. “Sara’s brought someone home with her. A man.”
“Has she? Well let me have a look at him.”
Abruptly Derek found himself confronted by two small gray-haired people.
Ultimately, Sara’s parents just want her to be happy and they trust their daughter enough to know what she wants. I really liked that. The trust they had in her to forge her own path was so heartwarming and nice a break from the typical meddling family members or toxic parent/child dynamics.
I know very well this book isn’t perfect. The last quarter of the book had some action whiplash, and there is an epilogue with a baby, which isn’t for everyone. There are also two or three times the word “gypsy” is often used to described physical features of a secondary character and to be honest, I have no clue what “gypsy-haired” even means.
The one thing that I had trouble reading was the villain of the story. There’s a villainous woman, Joyce, who does terrible things (content warning: she tries to have the heroine raped, has men physically scar the hero’s face, and stalks the hero).Even a week or so after finishing the book, I still don’t know how I feel about her. There are several points in her scheming where she reveals little pieces of how she came to be so evil. She was married to an old man at a young age, is constantly lonely, and feels deprived of love.
I don’t think any of these things are a justification for her actions in the book. But what kind of woman would try to have another woman raped? I keep coming up short on a plausible reason someone would do this, aside from just being over-the-top evil. If we Occam’s razor this scenario, Joyce is just bad. That’s it, though I’m not satisfied with that answer. And truly, I have no answers and my feelings will always be complicated on Joyce.
But there was just something, je ne sais quoi about this book that captivated me. Every time Sara and Derek were together, I smiled. When Sara returned home to be reunited with the man she hoped would propose to her, I cried because I just wanted her to return to Derek. There are only a small number of books that have elicited that kind of emotional response from me and those are the books that are impossible to forget. This book might even replace my favorite Kleypas book, It Happened One Autumn.
But Sara saw Derek for exactly what he was, no more and no less, and she was aware that he might never change. It was enough that he loved her. In spite of his faults, he would take care of her and defend her to the last breath of life. Separately they had different strengths. Together they were complete.
I think this is what makes Dreaming of You a great romance. There is no magical cure for their flaws, and Sara knows that Derek might always have his abandonment issues or difficulty communicating his happiness. But what’s most important is the two of them as a team and how they can use their strengths to get through things together.
I’m a little bummed there aren’t more books in this series, as I’d be very interested in revisiting Derek’s world. But I suppose if I wanted to do that, I could always give this one a re-read, and I wouldn’t mind that in the least.
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Amanda. Why did you do this to me? *buys*
I had much the same reaction as you: loved Sara, thought she was great together with Derek, could’ve done without the e-vile villain and all the accompanying melodrama. (When the women of Spindle Cove were drawing up a list of slightly-subversive books for their lending library, I thought Sara Fielding’s novels would’ve fit right in, but sadly they didn’t mention them.)
Tom Hardy seriously needs to play a bad boy in a historical romance adaptation. Taboo didn’t do it for me (too many shitty things happening to women characters), but between that and Wuthering Heights, he is perfect in that type of role.
I also love this book. Very few historical romance heroes can top Derek Craven.
I’m a little bummed there aren’t more books in this series, as I’d be very interested in revisiting Derek’s world.
Technically, there are more books in this series. A novella entitled “Against The Odds” is an actual sequel featuring Derek and Sara’s eldest daughter in an anthology called Where’s my Hero? … you can safely skip it.
And, of course, Devil in Winter (from the Wallflowers series) features the daughter of Ivo Jenner, who was the wannabe-Derek-Craven dude in Dreaming who abandoned Sara when the carriage was mobbed. And some random fusty gentleman in Devil compares Sebastian to Derek without ever naming Derek.
…not that I am AT ALL completely obsessed with Dreaming of You or anything.
I will pay you 17 cents to fix the unclosed italics tag after that question mark.
This just reminds me of how much I loved this book and that it dearly needs re-reading. Oh and look, there it is in my Calibre library. How very convenient.
Dreaming of You is definitely on my keeper shelf. A moment which stuck with me – when things go very wrong for Sara, Derek’s response is not to blame her, or to take advantage (even though he has ‘feelings’), but to try and fix it. I wish more heros would do the same.
I just read Dreaming of You for the first time a few months ago. I really enjoyed the story, and it was a nice brain break from the harsh realities of daily life. Kleypas has a storytelling ability that really just gets you going.
That being said, a lot of the book rubbed me the wrong way, and while I liked Craven and Sara, I feel like the book’s much more problematic that people let on. Sara is subversive for her time, but she’s also very privileged, and Kleypas uses the theme of Sara’s virginity to make her into a martyr/superior compared to the sex workers she researches and writes about. While it’s a view that is perhaps sympathetic, it’s still one of a hierarchy, and the sex workers mentioned in the story are either comedic or objects used to express how virtuous Derek and Sara are (Derek for not swindling them, Sara for writing about them). That bothered me and I wish more people would talk about that with the book because that ages very poorly.
Amanda, you also mentioned the issue with Joyce who comes across as super problematic in her portrayal. Again, her sexual life is played against Sara’s virginity as a theme – Joyce is evil, crazy, and a sex fiend, Sara is sexually unlocked only when losing her virginity to Derek and is good because she withheld herself, etc etc.
What kept me from loving this book were those consistent double standards; it’s trying to be both subversive and also highly focused on virginity and purity as a superior. Sara is allowed to be adventurous because she’s removed from the world, and while that’s challenged a bit, more of the book reinforces it than not. I think it’s a fun read, and Derek is a great example of a problematic but secretly gushy wounded hero, but I don’t think it’s aged well, and I wish I had known that going in so my expectations could have been tampered down some.
@Deborah: payment not necessary – all fixed. No worries, friend.
Thanks for this. I’ve always loved Dreaming of You, but I’ve read a lot of reviews that will squee for Derek but then turn around and dis Sara for being somehow not a good enough heroine for him. I’ve always thought that her normal-ness was kind of the point of her, and it’s nice to read a review that doesn’t ding her for not being “more”.
@John: I didn’t read the Sara/Joyce dynamic as a Madonna/Whore scenario and I never interpreted them as being in direct competition with one another. I felt more so that Joyce had some severe attachment issues, as she mentions trying to ruin the lives of all her past lovers.
As for the sex workers, I can see your point, but I think what negates that for me is how much the sex workers really loved Sara’s Mathilda (or was it Matilda?). They were so excited to see “themselves” on a popular work of fiction, though they loved it so much they truly believed she was real.
Anyway! I just want to say thank you for your comments because I love a good discussion.
Isn’t there a short story about Derek and Sara’s daughter? It features a hero from another of her series I think.
Can we “ding” Sara for leaving her childhood sweetheart at home while she made out with Derek? Or for returning home after making out with Derek, pressing her childhood sweetheart to propose, merrily proceeding with plans for their marriage and children for a good part of the middle of the book, and then dumping him? How about for murdering a guy and never having a second thought about that? If she’d been a simple, sweet country girl, I could have gotten on board with the opposites pairing. As it was, nearly everything she did impressed me as the action of a ghastly human being I wouldn’t have wanted to see paired with anyone.
There’s a lot of discussion happening on Sara’s privilege, there’s a line in the book where she acknowledges that if she were in the same situation as those prostitutes, there’s no doubt that she’ll be a prostitute, too. She acknowledges that, and she wants the world to know that there’s such a world with her writing. She’s not loud or annoying about it, but she uses research and her writing skills to do so. That’s why she’s one of LK’s more memorable heroines (as opposed to her most recent ones, sadly).
I can’t quite remember why I’ve stayed away from this book, something to do with the secret baby… I also loathe evil mistress cardboard romance character… I admit this review is making me consider picking it up from my library, though.
I squee along with you Amanda! I loved this book too! I own all of LK’s books and reread them frequently.
Oh, I love this book.
Derek and her spectacles is still one of my favorite moments.
Hufflepuff and Slytherin. Lol. Love it.
@MClaudia no secret baby in this one.
Kleypas does have two other books, that I remember, that the heroine becomes pregnant.
Derek Craven first shows up in “Then Came You” as a friend of the heroine (Lily) and I found his character in that book to be much more interesting than his own book. Or maybe it’s because I thought Lily to be a much more interesting character than Sara, and I really enjoyed Lily’s relationship with Derek. He just seemed more believable in “Then Came You.”
“New Lisa Kleypas” is an anagram for ‘autobuy immediately’ for me!
@ EFK
The short story features their daughter Lydia the math geek and Jake Linley the doctor. It’s called Against the Odds, I think.
Dreaming of You has been on my keeper shelf for years. It’s right next to my physical copies of the Wallflower series. However, It Happened One Autumn will always hold a space in my squeeful little heart.
“serious, grumpy, ambitious hero and a earnest, too-pure-for-this-world heroine.”
Ugh, I want the exact opposite. I’m so sick of too-pure-for-this-world heroines. Give me a serious, grumpy, ambitious heroine any day. Any suggestions?
@Hera: Check out today’s Rec League! There are some suggestions in the comments.
I adore “Dreaming of You”. Probably my first Kleypas, back when I was discovering the genre.
Things it has that are still rare: Still haven’t found a hero that can top Craven considers what Sara wants, listenes to what she says. Sara is aware of her privilege.
The eeevil-ex I could do without, but she does get some depth as someone with attachment issues and not just spurned ex.
(In total contrast to Amanda, It Happened One Autumm gets a meh from me. Friendship and hijinks are fun, but the romance part has ugly tropes: Dubious consent, sex-is-love, marriage because “I-took-your-virginity.”, hero of future book threatening rape, an so on.)
“If this were ever made into a movie, may I suggest Tom Hardy?” [faints]
I love this book too and yes, it does have some tropes which some may find objectionable, but the characters are written so well that I can forgive.
The two parts which I felt described the two characters well was when Sara asked Derek to stay with her and he felt too ashamed and got this cold and numb feeling where his heart was and then ..
“It wasn’t difficult to walk away from her. It was appallingly easy” Ugh!
Later when Sara prays over her heart break – her words just broke my heart with its practicality.
“I can bear it for a little while … but please don’t let it hurt forever” Double Ugh!!
I really loved ‘Then Came You’, and I think it’s because Lily is such a compelling heroine. Sara seemed utterly dull by way of comparison, which isn’t fair since Lily’s been shaped by completely different life experiences. I’ve read ‘Then Came You’ a few times over, but only bothered with this one once.
My favorite LK. Read it at least once a year. It does have some problems but DC is a very memorable gero.
I’m on page 142 and I’m in total squeeee mode. This book is definitely going on my list of comfort books.
@Kati: So happy you’re enjoying it!
Just finished this and squee indeed! Thank you! but where to now?! Ive read the others in this series and all the wallflowers so now what? Help a bitch out!