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Genre: Historical: European, Romance
Theme: Forced Proximity (stranded, safehouse, etc), Marriage of Convenience
Remember back back back in May when we were all at RT and on the podcast we talked about this book we scored at the Rodeo and we all said that it was basically a shot of pure crack and it was basically the best thing ever?
Yeah, you can get this delightful catnip crackalicious angst fest for your very own now!
In the 1850s, in Scotland, a small orphan boy, Dougan Mackenzie, meets a small orphan girl, Farah Leigh No Last Name Given, and they become friends. She teaches him to read and that maybe not everyone is awful, and he promises to protect her. He decides that they should marry when they’re both around 13, and they handfast (with lines from Outlander, which, mmmmm, no), and when the priest that runs the home they both live at tries to molest her, things rapidly go awry, and he’s sent to prison for killing the lecher.
Seventeen years later, Farah is a clerk at Scotland Yard, using the last name Mackenzie, when a dastardly crime lord is brought in, one that Scotland Yard has been chasing for months. He goes by the name of Dorian Blackwell. This dude has systematically taken over the underground, and Farah’s boss accuses him of causing the disappearance of the judge that sent Dorian to Newgate for seven years, and some of the guards that were there, too. Curious.
They got nothing on him, though, and he gets bailed out, and then promptly kidnaps Farah and drags her to his gloomy and lonely castle in Scotland. It comes out that Dougan died in Newgate ten years before, and the crime lord, Dorian, and all of his inner circle knew Dougan. Dougan told them stories about Farah (Her called her his “Fairy”) and that helped keep them all sane until they got out. Once Dorian got out, he took over the London crime scene and got them all jobs. All of the men from Newgate regard Farah as Dougan’s ladywife, and respect her as such.
Turns out that Farah Leigh NoLastNameGIven is the daughter of an Earl, and since there’s no son and heir, it’s decided that who ever married Farah will get the title, and there’s a possibility that her father’s man of business tried to have her murdered so the plan is for Farah to marry Dorian and he’ll keep her safe, because that’s what Dougan would have wanted.
Farah as a heroine is pretty typical- strong and sassy and even when she’s about to piss her pants because Dorian is being scary, she hides it and stands up to him in a way that he’s not used to. It’s good for him, because everyone else in his life does what he says without question, either from fear or loyalty. Farah does what she wants and he can fucking deal. She didn’t spend seven years going to Newgate prison every day (stopping only when she was told that Dougan had died) to be cowed by this asshole.
Dorian is pretty classic alpha hero. He’s dark and brooding and traumatized and scarred and can’t quite figure out how to human so as to relate to people. He got where he is by being big and scary, but sometimes sounds like a kid who’s just trying to sound tough. He can’t bear to be touched (yet has impeccably tailored clothes, so….hmmmm), doesn’t sleep well, and has more money than god (and a few Mediterranean villas, a house in Paris, and I think one in Vienna?).
What I liked best about this book was the liberal use of crazysauce. It’s a melodramatic tale of a broken man healed by the love of a good woman, and the good woman that’s strong enough to love this man and bring him back into the world. When he proposed the marriage idea, she’s like “Fine, but I want a baby so that’s my condition,” and he’s like, “but I don’t touch people so I didn’t really think this through,” “fine, then I’ll take a lover.” “I. WILL. KILL. HIM….”
“That’s not very solution-oriented.” (Actual quote!)
It’s got some first-book issues. It’s very hand-wavey when it comes to how Dorian left Newgate and within ten years amassed so much power and money. He’s always impeccably dressed in perfectly tailored clothes, but can’t bear human contact, to the point that he tells Farah that he does his best to used murder methods that don’t involve contact. (I have a note in the margin that says “but tailored pants tho”). I have some questions, because it seems like Byrne went “these are the marks of the alpha hero I want” without quite connecting the dots to make it work together.
But this is what I see as a reader. I see a lot of really good instincts. I could not put this book down, and the cover is AMAZING. There’s two people who totally work together, and I love me a brooding alpha with a heroine who’s not afraid of him. Could not put it down, really would like another hit of Byrne crack, so I hope she keeps going.
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What a great review! I’m so keen after that quote I even resisted clicking the spoiler. Is she really 30? That’s awesome too.
I actually noticed this one on the shelf at work last night, in that “hey this is new” way.
Perhaps Dorian uses a fit model who is his exact same size and proportions for his tailored clothes? *shrugs* It’s amazing what lengths I’ll go to to rationalize away little inconsistencies in a book I like.
Really enjoyed the review and will admit to peeking at the spoiler. The buzz elsewhere and that cover (sigh) had me ensuring The Highwayman hit my doorstep tomorrow. BTW, the paperback is still on sale for $5.13 on Amazon.
“That’s not very solution-oriented.” That doesn’t sound like England in the mid-1800s. Thanks for including it in the review as it pretty automatically crossed this one off my interest list.
That cover IS pretty amazing. It’s almost Rapunzel-esque in how the woman looks like she’s lying in a nest of her own hair. 😀
I think I’ll have to check this ‘un out from the library just to sample the crazysauce!
My problem, and I can buy the rest of the crazysauce, is how could she not know it was him? So I’ll probably pass on this, but I LOVED the review!
So this no touching thing. Can he handle physical proximity?
Because when measuring a criminal underlord who doesn’t like being touched, the tape (or a string or something) would have to touch him, but that’s an inanimate object, and so maybe no more objectionable than a chair. Right?
The tailor would have to be quite close, but could manage it without any touching. Not easily, but if his life depended upon it? Sure.
Think of how they hold the tape when you get measured for a bra (if you haven’t done this you really should, and not just so you can more readily enjoy the crazysauce), where it’s crossed out in front and there’s no boob fondling.
Sure, making adjustments would be tough, but talk about incentive to do it right the first time.
Or, fit model. I’m with CG on this. It could work.
Does anyone else have Alfred Noyes running through their head?
Thinking of a recent discussion, what’s the accent like in this book? Inquiring minds and all that… … …
@Gloriamarie – the wind was a torrent of darkness, among the gusty trees, and the moon was a ghostly galleon, tossed upon cloudy seas… Thank goodness. I thought I was the only one. 😉
My mother read that to me over and over and over and over and over and over and over. Poor Bess.
I met Noyes first through the Phil Ochs song. Haunting. (I believe there’s at least one short story based around it, but can’t remember the anthology.)
I cannot tell you how much I have missed Phil Ochs over the decades.
Hero sounds practically like a carbon copy of Nick Gentry from Lisa Kleypas’ “Worth Any Price.” He’s not a secret viscount by any chance, is he?
I work in menswear and though we don’t do the tailoring ourselves, I am very careful not to touch the customer when I pin the pants. He could’ve had a mannequin made to his measurements that the tailor kept on hand. I remember a scene in “In the Goold Old Summertime” ( awesome movie!) where there’s a dressmaker’s dummy specifically for an individual client.
Turns out that Farah Leigh NoLastNameGIven is the daughter of an Earl, and since there’s no son and heir, it’s decided that who ever married Farah will get the title,…
Um, it doesn’t work that way. Depending on how the title was granted, a daughter MIGHT inherit if there are no male heirs (see Earl/Countess of Mar or Duke of Marlborough), but hubby doesn’t get to claim her title for himself. Way back when, he sat in Parliament and acted on her behalf, but it was still her title.
Now, if Daddy’s title went extinct on his death, the monarch could re-create the title for hubby. But that would be a NEW title, and would put him at the bottom of the precedence list behind all the older titles.
Sorry for the soapbox, but misuse of titles is one of my pet peeves (and I’m not even English), and it’s rampant in England-set historicals. All it takes is 5 minutes on Google or Wikipedia to get it right. Is that so very hard?
Yeah, I picked up on that too, but felt I’d been pedantic enough for August. LOL I was also thinking that since she is No LastNameGiven, doesn’t that mean she is illegitimate and, therefore, unable to inherit, even if Daddy Earl recognized her?
I might be interested but the PB is $5.13 and the ebook $7.99 on Amazon. I’ve noticed this happening more and more. Again. Yep, we’re back to the bad old days. Eff that.
You had me at a shot of pure crack, but Amazon lost me with the price point. I’ll stalk it until it goes on sale.
@gloriamarie Yes, I thought of the poem also. Which come to think of it is also overly dramatic but without the HEA.
Too expensive right now, but I will remember the author for future times, in case of price drops!
Yup! Much too expensive. I am passing on many of the highly reviewed books because they cost too much.
No one has commented on the “verras” and “dinnas” and other bogus examples of a Scot’s accent.
Library to the rescue! I just placed it on hold as the price is a bit higher than I am willing to pay right now.
ladies!!! when you’re talkin’ spoilers WARN PEOPLE!!! i deliberately didn’t click on the spoiler because i was all ooooh book for my upcoming vacay to the beach and i’m reading through the comments for more entertainment because everyone is smart and funny and i’m in need of happy things this week when BOOM spoilers all over the place… :\
Yeah @Gloriamarie and @Rebecca, I memorized that Noyes poem as a child. Not for school, just for myself. It’s what I used to do while stuck in bed with chicken pox, measles etc., back in the day.
And I’m so happy to see my libary system has this book on order.
One wonders if Kerrigan Byrne is as familiar with that poem as are we?
“library”, that is, lol. I’d bet Byrne knows the poem, and I do appreciate the simplicity of the title, I hate those long jokey titles. And I’m grateful for the return of man hair, look at that arm and that stubble!
Sandra and Gloria, it is true that the wife’s title would still be sort of held as a courtesy. So he wouldn’t be a true peer, but more of a placeholder. They would still call him ‘my lord’ and everything and he’d sit in the house of lords or Parliament or wherever. It doesn’t seem like this is the kinda book where that really is relevant?
Who is this “Gloria?”
“Turns out that Farah Leigh NoLastNameGIven is the daughter of an Earl, and since there’s no son and heir, it’s decided that who ever married Farah will get the title,”
Soooooo I am pretty interested after reading this review, but the handling of the above is literally the Y/N for if I can read this book. If the writing is otherwise good and the characters are developed well, I am prepared to overlook mild anachronisms like modern “solution-oriented” language or ladies being extremely independent, but I cannot hang with outright I-didn’t-bother-googling inaccuracies about something so basic as primogeniture. Can anyone who’s read confirm what’s going on in this? Does her family have one of those super-rare “heirs of the body general” patent (or whatever), or does the book just not know how primogeniture normally works? (First, I will read, second, I can’t unless it’s explicitly set in a fantasy universe.) Many thanks!
I also generally care about “did you get your inheritance schemes right” and while my copy of the book is currently about 1100 miles away from me, and it’s been a while since I read it (we got our copies in May, y’all), I think there was enough of a handwavey “well, the Queen decided that the title would go like this and everyone went along with it because the Queen said” that I shrugged and went along with it, too. Give me enough to hang my hat on, and flavor it with crack and I’m good.
This is why I no longer have much of a problem with women inheriting titles:
http://wordwenches.typepad.com/word_wenches/2011/08/forbidden-inspiration.html
http://wordwenches.typepad.com/word_wenches/2013/02/titles-1.html
But! This is just me.
I was excited about this one based on the reviews and the high Goodreads rating average. And 50% in it was nearly a DNF… I can’t really put my finger on the reason(s) but I did manage to force my way to the end, if only to see how it came together. I think the heroine was a little too easily forgiving (of EVERYTHING); and also the hero’s self-esteem stuff got really, really old.
Stuff I did love: all the secondary characters, even the slightly cliched whore-with-a-heart-of-gold. The crazysauce. The idea of two people staying faithful to each other through all those years and events.