Book Review

Lord Rakehell by Virginia Henley

I know why I started reading this book. I have a really scary pile of ARCs and this was one I wanted to read and then send it out in to the world. I like Henley and her habit of slathering on crazysauce sprinkles on top of the crazy sauce fondant covering the crazy sauce cake (Remember that time where the villain got choked to death by leeches? That was awesome). What I don’t know is why I kept hoping this book would turn a corner and become readable.

This is the story of James Hamilton, heir to the Duke of Alcorn, and Lady Anne Curzon-something, daughter of the Earl of something else. James is BFF, attendant, and general cover-er of the Royal Ass of HRH the Prince of Wales. Anne eventually becomes lady-in-waiting and chief confident of Alexandra, princess of Wales.

Anne and James’ families, in the way of the peerage, have know each other for ever, and Anne falls in love with James at the age of 12 because he tells her that she’s a beautiful wild Irish rose. But James is otherwise too busy fucking his way through Oxbridge and finding hookers to teach the Prince of Wales how to fuck.

Anne is the youngest child of her father’s second marriage and has to deal with the uber-bitchery of her half-sister who is a lady-in-waiting to Queen Victoria, and the whole book is interspersed with scenes of Queen Victoria bemoaning the maturity level of her Crown Prince and controlling the shit out of everyone in her kingdom. James convinces Teddy (The Prince of Wales) that in order to get access to his money, he should suck it up and get married, and then conspires with Princess Victoria (daughter of Queen Victoria) (yes, two Victorias) (whom James was also fucking, because apparently everyone was) to introduce him to Princess Alexandra of Denmark.

Anne ends up as a chief confidant of Alexandra because Anne designs clothes and Victoria’s choices for Alexandra’s trousseau were sad and ugly. Alex is sweet and kind and doesn’t know anything about sex and Teddy doesn’t know anything except how to fuck professionals who take the lead and he just lies there.

James and Anne have the most boring story ever. He’s been away for years, and she’s grown up, so she pretends to be a courtesan to get his interest, and then before he can convince her to go to his room and seal the deal, she vanishes off before being introduced to him properly. They drift in and out of each other’s orbit for a while, while his brother courts her and she holds out hope that James’ll stop fucking around and marry her. He does, and it’s the least climactic thing ever, and then they are engaged but her father won’t give permission, until he’s basically blackmailed into it, and then there’s a HUGE scandal with a divorce suit and the Prince of Wales that might derail the wedding, but this all happens with less than ten pages to go to the end, so there is literally no tension in it whatsoever.

The book doesn’t really have an overarching plot, it just sort of….happens. Almost every scene is 1 and a half to 2 pages long, and is just people entering a room, imparting information with awkward dialogue, and then some says something direly and the scene ends. People sort of drift around their story, but there’s no development.

Now, I did not realize that James and Anne were actual people- James Hamilton, 2nd Duke of Abercorn was a Lord of the Bedchamber to Edward VII (though Wikipedia is silent on the “Did James Hamilton help Prince Teddy learn from whores” question). Anne was actually Maria Anna Curzon-Howe; they were married and are ancestors of Diana, Princess of Wales.

As far as I know, the facts of Prince Albert’s death, Victoria’s reaction, and Victoria and Albert’s relationship with Teddy/Bertie/Edward is accurate. Though I feel like Henley has an anti-Victoria bias – while I know that Victoria was super controlling, especially when it came to her children, Henley wrote her as a truly hateful bitch. Teddy doesn’t come off much better, and while Alexandra is sweet and kind and good she’s about as complex as cardboard.

But then EVERYONE in this book is about as complex as cardboard. Anne designs clothes and loves James. James has a huge dick. Teddy just wants to consume everything and be loved by his daddy.

The other problem is that James and Anne have a truly obnoxious number of siblings, and it’s hard to keep them straight. If the writing were better, if it felt like the was an intentional plot rather than a string of docu-drama scenes from an inferior ITV documentary (look, you and I both know that the BBC would at least make this interesting), there’s plenty here to make a really wacky book. But mostly, I expect SO MUCH BETTER from Henley. She never let her crazy-sauce flag fly!

I mean, sure, we got a plot point where Anne’s mother was in love with this dude, but Queen Adelaide was against the match so she had the dude posted abroad and then had the woman married to the dude’s father — which did not stop her from boinking the dude (AKA her stepson) when he got back.  That was a thing.  (I swear, if one of you finds out that this is truth in storytelling, I will buy you a beer.)

I’m so disappointed. I expect so much better, so much more off the wall of Henley, and this is what I got?  At least it now goes into the Donate bag.

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Lord Rakehell by Virginia Henley

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  1. Diane says:

    I’m still haunted by that death by leeches scene.

  2. Emily says:

    I like the guy on the book cover better than the guy on the wiki page. So much better.

  3. DonnaMarie says:

    Sooo depressing when a writer you could normally count on for a good time goes all empty and conservative. I think I’ll just go reread The Raven and The Rose or maybe The Hawk and the Dove. That should make me feel better about this review.

  4. Elyse says:

    “though Wikipedia is silent on the “Did James Hamilton help Prince Teddy learn from whores” question).”

    Fucking Wikipedia

  5. nabpaw says:

    You know I’m not that crazy about the crazy old skool historical novels. Old skool to me is Georgette Heyer (so civilized, my dear), but I gotta say I love these reviews! Keep it up.

  6. Elli says:

    The real Maria and James had seven sons and two daughters, and four of the boys died the day they were born.

    Sad.

  7. Aimee says:

    DonnaMarie – bless you for mentioning The Hawk and The Dove…I have been trying to remember the name of that book for ages and the second I say it I said “A-ha!” (Literally…out loud…at work – I got some looks). You gave me a HaBO without meaning to, so thank you!

  8. Cate M. says:

    “Lord of the Bedchamber” kinda makes it sound like it was his JOB to procure whores. Man, why wasn’t that position covered in the careers talks they gave us at school?

  9. DonnaMarie says:

    @Aimee, my pleasure.

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