B-
Genre: Historical: European, Romance
Theme: Class Differences, Trauma, Workplace
Archetype: Spy/Assassin
This RITA® Reader Challenge 2017 review was written by cbackson. This story was nominated for the RITA® in the Short Historical category.
The summary:
A MAN OF SIN
Devastatingly handsome. Vain. Unscrupulous. Valentine Napier, the Duke of Montgomery, is the man London whispers about in boudoirs and back alleys. A notorious rake and blackmailer, Montgomery has returned from exile, intent on seeking revenge on those who have wronged him. But what he finds in his own bedroom may lay waste to all his plans.
A WOMAN OF HONOR
Born a bastard, housekeeper Bridget Crumb is clever, bold, and fiercely loyal. When her aristocratic mother becomes the target of extortion, Bridget joins the Duke of Montgomery’s household to search for the incriminating evidence-and uncovers something far more dangerous.
A SECRET THAT THREATENS TO DESTROY THEM BOTH
Astonished by the deceptively prim-and surprisingly witty-domestic spy in his chambers, Montgomery is intrigued. And try as she might, Bridget can’t resist the slyly charming duke. Now as the two begin their treacherous game of cat and mouse, they soon realize that they both have secrets-and neither may be as nefarious-or as innocent-as they appear . . .
Here is cbackson's review:
Historicals, man. Like many a romance reader, historicals were my gateway drug. And like many a romance reader, the historicals of my youth are, in retrospect, very slightly wince-inducing. Violet eyes! Sixteen-year-old virgin heroines with improbably located hymens/no hymen due to an anachronistic fondness for riding astride! Masterful manly dudes with magic manly parts capable of bestowing multiple orgasms on said virgin heroines! Frequent use of the term “hoyden”!
I wish I could say that, like Saul on the road to Damascus, I experienced a Moment of Feminist Awakening and cast off the shackles of the patriarchy and thenceforth only read contemporaries about self-actualized women, but actual knocked-off-the-horse monumental epiphanies aren’t so common, are they? The real truth is more like this: life happened, and once enough life had happened to me, naive teenage heroines no longer interested me, and nor did one-dimensional rakes whose misdeeds topped out at ill-considered bedroom shenanigans. I still love historicals, but they have to offer me something more these days – something that feels more like my lived experience as (in my mom’s phrasing) a grown-ass woman. For me, the heroine makes the book. I want to remember her. I want to feel like she’s a real person.
A lot of writers try to accomplish this by sort of glue-gunning eccentric traits onto heroines – she’s a nineteen-year-old in her first Season but by night she calculates the orbits of comets with a telescope she won at cards from the ringmaster of a traveling circus! But Elizabeth Hoyt doesn’t fall into that trap. The heroines in Hoyt’s Maiden Lane series have distinctive, fully developed passions. They are motivated by something other than marital maneuvering (note: I REALLY TRIED to find a way to express that concept that avoided alliteration, but failed. Suggestions accepted in comments). When the curtain opens on an Elizabeth Hoyt novel, you feel like you are joining a story that is already in progress – the story of a woman’s real life.
Duke of Sin is no exception. The heroine, Bridget Crumb is (as is revealed within the first few pages) the illegitimate daughter of a noblewoman, and works as a housekeeper. She has taken employment with Val Napier, the Duke of Montgomery, who is blackmailing her mother, Lady Caire. Val, though reprehensible, is charming, handsome, and quickly grasps that there is more to his housekeeper than meets the eye. Romance ensues.
Even by the Hoyt scale of heroines, Bridget is a standout. Her life has not been easy, but there is no self-pity in her. She feels some anger toward the mother that left her, but is also acutely aware that her mother regularly intervened to ensure that she went on to a respectable and secure life. In fact, the scenes between Bridget and Lady Caire are exceptional, particularly the first: Lady Caire slips and use Bridget’s first name, revealing an affection usually hidden. In the next breath, Lady Caire dismisses Bridget as she would a servant. And Bridget does not resent it, because in their world, Lady Caire’s conduct is expected and appropriate. Their shared blood does nothing to erase the social distance between a housekeeper and an aristocrat.
For me, the romance between Bridget and Val was secondary. When Hoyt writes an antihero, he’s a real antihero. These aren’t men who gained rakish reputations by flaunting disreputable mistresses at the opera or wrecking the family curricle on prom night. Val is an actual blackmailer, who revels in the power that nasty secrets afford him. Unfortunately, where Hoyt heroes often fail to be distinctive is in their backstory: Val’s atrocious behavior is, of course, due to his Very Bad, No-Good Father. He makes, of course, a dramatic proclamation that he does not believe in love. He is convinced (of course!) of his wholesale worthlessness. And so on. This isn’t new ground, and as a result, Val wasn’t compelling to me.
I also struggled with the inequity in their relationship – and not just the inequity in their social status, although that was challenging. Val comes on to Bridget strongly, and while the reader knows that his attentions aren’t wholly unwelcome, it’s hard for me not to think about his actions in the broader context of the risks women in domestic service faced in 18th-century England. Conversely, Bridget is significantly more mature than Val – his early trauma has left him, in a sense, emotionally immature. Val is attached to Bridget in a way that didn’t read as romantic to me, but rather, as a bit sad, like a lonely, troublemaking child who has finally found a friend and who clings to that friend with smothering intensity. While who had the upper hand varied over the course of the novel and depended on the context, I never felt like their relationship was in equilibrium – I didn’t feel like I saw them become true partners. The end result, for me, was an uneven book that, while enjoyable, didn’t rise to the level of Hoyt’s best.
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I loved this book – it may be my favorite of this series. Valentine is an emotional mess and is devoting himself to being bad, bad, bad in order to advance himself. BUT – in the previous book, he turned up as looking after his illegitimate sister. And he is SO turned on by Bridget in one scene.
This book may not be perfect, but I think to need to buy it anyway because heroines called Bridget are in seriously short supply – in contemporary or historical!
I adore the Maiden Lane series, it’s an auto preorder for me and I have recommended it to all of my romance reading friends. That said, I didn’t like this book. To me Val was too much a villain, his exceedingly traumatic childhood coupled with his explanation that he truly doesn’t understand morality, as in literally doesn’t know why it’s wrong to hurt and manipulate people, read to me like a person with antisocial personality disorder. You can’t heal violent psychopaths with the love of a good woman. They don’t shift from kidnapping innocent women to giving away puppies to children as their most diabolical actions.
Perhaps it’s because I’m close to somebody who is in all likelihood antisocial and have seen firsthand how they abuse, control, and manipulate the women in their life but for the life of me I could not like Val. There’s a particularly disturbing scene where he shoots and kills a man in front of Bridget and a big part of the plot is his kidnapping of another woman. Val is not a good person. It’s not his fault that he is so deeply flawed but that doesn’t mean that as an adult his actions are excusable, either.
I wanted to like this book, I really like a good wounded, dark hero who struggles to find the light but I didn’t see Val looking for the light. Again, I think my personal experience colored my reading of this book a lot and I don’t deal with violence very well. I still love Hoyt, she’s still an auto buy but this particular book didn’t work for me at all. Although YMMV because overall it seems quite popular and I’m pretty sure I’m something of a minority in how I feel about a lot of books.
@Lizzie: yeah, I think that’s some of the risk of how all-in Hoyt is willing to go on antiheroes. I loved Bridget as a character in this, but I truly didn’t think Val was worthy of her, in the end. I felt like he needed a lot of therapy and needed to make amends to a lot of people before he could have a relationship (romantic or otherwise) that worked.
I am a huge Elizabeth Hoyt fan and enjoyed this book. I normally dislike the squicky employer/employee power dynamic. I didn’t feel it in this case. I thought (it’s been a year since I read it) that Bridget wasn’t really planning on staying anyway, that her Mother could probably help find her another position, so I didn’t feel the threat of her livelihood or physical intimidation of her position. As for their social disparities, Val would not care in the least that he married his housekeeper (in fact, probably enjoyed the scandal of it)
Val has the most fucked up childhood I’ve read about that has so warped his thinking. He is unrepentantly self serving and yet so sly, sexy, and logical in his own mind view. He is delicious. Bridget likes what she does is not looking to be “saved” any more than Val is. I think a matched pair.
I hear is Ms. Hoyt is looking for a baby name for Val and Bridget’s child! I was hoping we hadn’t heard the last of them! I guess there is only one more Maiden Lane full novel left. I am not ready to leave all the wonderful character and will be sobbing into my fichu when it happens!
Interesting review on a book who has a character who can be a bit controversial to anyone reading the Maiden Lane series. I also had a problem with the inequity between Val and Bridget. Val probably would be labeled as having an antisocial personality in our times, as Lizzy mentioned, but now we know his background and motivations. Maybe Bridget is the cure. However, I think how Elizabeth Hoyt handles the difficult to love Val is why we are seeing her as a RITA nominee.
I had read books from the Maiden Lane series in a hit or miss fashion in the past and have started reading/re-reading the series from the beginning. I’m wondering what my feelings will be after reading about Val the second time through.
And, cbackson, I loved your observations of today’s glue-gunned eccentric heroines! I’ve read a few of those in the past few years.
I’m with Todd in that this is the best of the series for me – I loved it. Val is the worst jerk character I’ve ready anywhere, but he’s funny, he kind of revels in it like a kid. I’m reminded of Sterling Archer – he does and said totally evil stuff while giggling. I liked his character arc because it was gradual over multiple books and thinks more believable, and also because Hoyt makes it seem like he really wants to change, even if he is struggling with how to do that and why. Also, Bridget is totally capable of managing him, and also ruthless in her own way. She’s a badass and he’s hot.
Really enjoyed your review! I will probably see if this one is available at the library given your description….
I haven’t read this one, so I’ll refrain from voicing a serious opinion, but I loved this review! You perfectly captured why I’ve also moved away from violet-eyed virgins as heroines–once life happens to you, you need more interesting people to hold your interest.
I adore Elizabeth Hoyt and her gallery of strong, fascinating women (entirely devoid of hot-glued spangles masquerading as character traits, as you so fabulously put it) and the powerful men upon whom the heroines have a powerful effect. It’s interesting to get some more rounded perspective on one of her novels.
I like ‘marital maneuvering!’ But if you’re absolutely and automatically anti-alliteration, perhaps ‘getting an MRS degree’ or ‘ring finagling.’
I really enjoyed your review and the additional comments. The first book I read in the Maiden Lane series was Sweetest Scoundrel which immediately precedes this and introduced Val and Bridget. I actually found that book sort of squicky- something about the H/h relationship and overcoming her prior sexual trauma just didn’t sit right with me. And the short intro to Duke of Sin did not entice me to keep reading it or any other ML books (Val watching from a darkened corner as Bridget snoops around his bedroom, after he had been lurking in the walls of his house for weeks… predatory much?). I’m curious from those of you who have read others in the series, do they all have a similar tone that just comes from the way the Elizabeth Hoyt writes antiheroes? I’m pretty new to romance novels and currently jumping all over the place in my reading as Everything Sounds Awesome! And then I find out some books may be awesome… just not awesome for me.
@Emily – I personally think the couples from Sweetest Scoundrel and Duke of Sin are probably the two most #problematic pairings of the entire series—they definitely aren’t all like that, and I thought they were 2 of the weakest series entries because of it. With both books I tore through them and enjoyed them in the moment because she really knows how to write a gripping tale, but as soon as they were done I was like “meh.” Esp re: Val. I think she could have toned down *some* of his in-book exploits and had him remain both believably in character with his previous series villainy but also made the romance a little less, uh, puzzling and disturbing.
ALSO, ONE OF THE WORRRRRST AND MOST ORIENTALIST PLOT MOPPETS OF ALL TIME.
This review was excellent. Funny, insightful. A+.
I didn’t really get the romance between this pair until about 75% of the way through. But OMG do I love Hoyt’s anti-heroes. They are so good at being bad.
This review’s opening paragraph may just be my favorite opening paragraph in the history of opening paragraphs! Like, put it on a vintage-ass clutchy-clutch O-face romance cover AND I WOULD HANG THAT SHIT ON MY WALL INSTA-FAST!
Also this review kicks all the ass and it makes me wanna read my copy ALLL the now! WELL DONE, HON!
@Ellen- that is just how I felt, compelling plot and movement that I sped through- I truly see the author’s talent for complex multilayered situations and characters. But at the end when I digested the relationship I was less than enthused and a little unsettled.
I have to say the characterization of Bridget based on this review makes me really intrigued to read about her as a heroine. This might be a good library pick for me
@Emily – my favorites of the Maiden Lane series are Wicked Intentions (which is the first book) and Scandalous Desires. Scandalous Desires is an interesting contrast to this one, actually, because HOO BOY is Mickey an antihero – and he specifically does something awful to the heroine prior to the opening of the book – but I bought the path to redemption in that book and I didn’t here. I think, without spoiling books in the series too much, is that Scandalous Desires worked a bit better for me because there’s a gap between the bad thing that he does and when their story picks up, and you see both why he did it and what it revealed to her about her own life.
But all of the Hoyt books have great heroines; Temperance (who turns up in this book and is the heroine of Wicked Intentions) and her family are wonderful. And with Hoyt, I always feel like I’m dealing with real people – in fact, maybe that’s part of the problem: Val felt like a very real, very damaged person for me, and it was hard for me to buy the compressed path to healing that you see within the arc of the novel. She’s a very, very good writer and definitely worth your time, even if not all of the books are hits (for me, at least).
I was kind of hesitant to read this review for odd reasons. Sometimes I sock away the most anticipated books in my favorite series, sort of like hoarding the really good chocolates in your underwear drawer and doling them out (but only to yourself.) Anyway Val is such an intriguing villain, I really looked forward to this but haven’t yet read it. I feared the dreaded spoiler, but, yay, there were none. Best of all, there are such a diversity of responses to this book that I’m definitely hitting that metaphorical underwear drawer in the next couple of weeks! So, thank you, cbackson, and thank you, commenters all. I owe ya.
@PamG Hon, I feel you on the hoarding of the good books! I have this thing that, when I am SUUUUPER pumped about a book, especially if it’s a favorite trope with a favorite author, I stick my head in the sand so I don’t wreck it before reading it. If it meets the above criteria, I don’t even wanna read the synopsis BECAUSE EVEN THE SYNOPSIS IS A SPOILER, YA KNOW? lol
I loved Bridget, but felt sorry for her being stuck in a romantic novel with such an ass.
@EmilyC, “Duke of Midnight” is my favorite of Hoyt’s. Maximus is the antithesis (and nemesis) of Val. Yes, there is the squicky element that Artemis is employed by Maximus, by the complexities and options for a woman in her position are well acknowledged. As much as I love Elizabeth Hoyt, she may not be for you. That’s the nice thing about a large genre, something for everyone and every mood!
@cbackson and @Lisa- Thank you for the feedback and the recs! Based on the reviews, I want to check Duke of Midnight next from Elizabeth Hoyt.
The employer/employee dynamic actually doesn’t bother me so much as the idea of a character who is unrealistically redeemed. If the characters are really well-written and feel grounded as “real people” then I need their arc to feel plausible as well. And it sounds like I’m not alone in not quite getting that from Sweetest Scoundrel and wouldn’t get it from Duke of Sin either. So basically “yup” to everything in this review and the followup!
I just was checking the Maiden Lane booklist to make a comment about which one was my favorite. It’s very hard to pick, but Scandalous Desires, with Mickey and Silence, is definitely the hottest. That book is smokin’!
Also I loved Duke of Midnight, because I love the heroine being a downtrodden companion trope. And she corrects the power imbalance by blackmailing the hero. And OMG! I just realized that I missed an e-book novella, “Once Upon a Moonlit Night” which involves a recurring secondary character. I’m off to read it right now!
I enjoyed Duke of Sin a lot. I didn’t mind Val as the hero. I felt he was even more a villain in prior books because you only saw the effects of his actions through other character. With the complete focus on him in this book, Hoyt has made him so over the top to the he has reached comic book villain status, and therefore I couldn’t really take him seriously despite his obviously callous actions. The Guest Reviewer mentions her dislike of the power imbalance, but recall that the heroine is gifted something by the hero that puts the power balance completely back on her side. This book helped redeem Hoyt for me because I was totally disappointed with the previous book Sweetest Scoundrel which I couldn’t even finish.