CW: Death of a parent (off-page and in the past), aging parent for whom death approaches
I sit here stunned. Yes, I have written this review twice. The first version was too overwrought because I was entirely overcome by this book. This is such a bracing, visceral story of deep thoughts and even deeper emotions that it left me wrung out.
Before I go any further, I need to beg you to absolutely delete this book’s cover from your mind. It is horribly misleading. Our hero is not a smug git. Our heroine does not spend her time in a dead faint.
Lord Dominic Kirke is a Whig MP and a well-known orator. His latest affair (i.e. consensual business arrangement) ended and in response his thwarted mistress tried to burn his house down, somewhat intentionally. So he seeks refuge at the Grand Palace on the Thames (the setting for all of the stories in this series), where he meets Catherine Keating. She is a country-bred lady in town for the season to catch a husband. Catherine is also a temporary resident of the Grand Palace on the Thames.
The impact they have on each other is immediate:
She stared, blinking, into the space he’d left, her ears ringing as if he’d been a cymbal clash, instead of a man.
In the opening chapters of the book, Catherine and Dominic have a few conversations in quiet corners of fancy houses during the balls they attend. These conversations are unlike any I’ve read in romance. Dominic is wry and biting and whip smart with a tremendous amount of passion for protecting the most vulnerable of society. Catherine has experienced great loss (her mom and it’s made her really appreciate the shortness of life and how precious it is, in a full-hearted way) so she faces the ton as both an innocent and as someone who struggles to find her place in this bright and shining London where things like the correct sleeves are apparently important. That innocence is matched with a biting wit of her own that she unleashes on Dominic often during their singular, secret conversations.
In Dominic’s eyes:
For such a soft-spoken person Keating’s wit had surprising angles and edges. There was almost nothing he loved more than angles and edges. They were the means by which puzzles were put together.
From the very start, he is confused and defensive and spellbound by this woman. Catherine is astonished by the ferocity of this, her first love – the ways in which it reshapes her, and makes her more herself. The backbone of this story is not a plot: it is two people falling in love through conversation, each one more delicious than the last. If pining is your thing, this book has it in spades. It sears the senses and the thwarted lust makes me blush. But if you need ACTION in your books, then this won’t be the one for you. The events are things like, ‘sitting quietly in a corner of a ballroom talking’ and ‘secretly sharing a cab’. There is rather delicious tension in how they have to secretly see each other and the central conflict between them is based on their need to let down their guard and trust that love is possible for each of them.
The one potential red(ish) flag? The age gap. Dominic is 35 and Catherine is 22. Their age gap is not shied away from; on the contrary, it is front and centre as they get the measure of each other. The story is honest about how one person in the couple has a lot more life experience than the other, but that knowledge doesn’t diminish the experiences Catherine has had. Because it is dealt with so forthrightly and in the open, it didn’t feel gross to me, though I don’t gravitate toward age gap romances so my experience there is limited.
Our hero and heroine are deep, philosophical thinkers, but that thought is matched by deep, honest emotions, so the philosophical questions about a state of being are never boring or pompous. These are questions that make up the stuff of life and they are asked with a clear-eyed sincerity about any number of topics.
For example, when faced with her first ball and her absent chaperone, this is how Catherine felt:
She felt undeniably a little melancholy, but it was also a bit dreamlike and delicious to be completely alone in a strange place. As if she was floating unmoored through space. As if anything could happen at any time.
If you need a heart-heaving historical in your life, I think this might be the one you’re looking for.
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I’ll detach the cover from the story in my mind but I can’t delete it because it was a Cover Snark. https://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/2023/10/cover-snark-what-a-smarmy-face/
Just an FYI: the title is My Season of Scandal. (The Goodreads link doesn’t work because the title is incorrect.)
All fixed! Thank you for letting me know!
Read it like it was candy. I love the pining and therefore loved this book. But your review is a perfect summation of strengths/weaknesses.
Your review sent me straight to one-click this title. I need this book in my life right now.
Great review! I’d preordered this but forgot when it was coming out until it appeared on my Kindle and I dropped everything and devoured it in one sitting Tuesday night and then sat around in a swoony Good Book Daze for hours.
You summed up perfectly why I love the whole series. The conversations! The emotions! “Two people falling in love through conversations” is my ultimate catnip and the whole series does that SO well. There’s a feeling of the characters discovering each other and themselves, growing individually and together that makes the romances feel very real and grounded on friendship and communication and so satisfying.
I love the writing – I almost never highlight things on Kindle, but this series made me start. Great turns of phrase, some gloriously romantic lines and speeches, a lot of humor and snark, and also just so many conversations that are so emotionally powerful and well-put. I also love the warmth and humor, the caring found family vibe of the boarding house, the “spirited” discourse” in the sitting room, the running jokes and references.
They’re pretty much my favorite comfort reads and if I had to pick one desert island romance series, this one might be it.
Inhaled it, adored it, Book Hangover inducing. But I also do need to take issue with the cover (besides their eyebrows, which I may have discussed a bit in the linked-above Cover Snark…).
Since this cover was revealed months ago, I’ve wondered what would put a young woman in her first Season into a bright scarlet gown. Answer: apparently nothing. The better question is: what would put that young woman into a shimmering evening-blue gown. That answer is: EVERYTHING (no spoilers; IYKYK). So why… WHY is she pictured in a non-existent gown when the blue gown is so much a huge part of the narrative?
What I’m also wondering is why a top-rung author such as JAL doesn’t get the cover she deserves. Yes, I’m grateful that Avon/HarperCollins still provides portrait covers (rather than the deplorable candy-colored cartoonish ones that have overtaken the Romance categories). But seriously – how hard is it to have a staffer read the book and forward a couple of notes to the art department on appropriate coloring for cover clothing?
I’ll let someone else take on why if Dominic has the dark, dark hair JAL gave him, does he have a goldenish beard on the cover… sigh.
Sidebar – as much as I love the people of The Palace, and miss them when I’ve finished each book, it had gotten a bit claustrophobic (I think the last book was intentionally so because of the record-setting flooding that kept everyone inside). So it was a welcome relief – and a pleasure – to get to go beyond The Palace’s walls every day (and/or night). All of the garden spaces were lovely secondary characters.
I bought this a couple of days ago and pre-ordered the next title in the series. I think I’ll sit on it until it arrives in October and then start again from the beginning with Lady Derring Takes a Lover. I can’t disagree about enjoying some more than others, but I recall writing an impassioned response to someone’s comment somewhere criticizing the first or second in the series. Or perhaps I wrote it and deleted it. Do any of you do that? Write and then delete entirely instead of editing into calm and coherent?
I was already planning to grab so I could cozy up this weekend while my kids and husband are out of town. I’ve been in a reading rut, and I’m so very excited to have something really good to read. I decided not to read the review in full – I’ll compare once I’ve read it. Yay!!!
JAL never ever misses!
NOBODY is doing it like Julie Anne Long. And I mean NOBODY.
This book is the best!! It was such a pleasure to read about 2 people who are just so in synch and made for each other that age gap etc just doesn’t matter! They simply belong together! So well written!
I just finished it. I didn’t think an anything could top How to Tame a Wild Rogue but this did. What an amazing book. I literally laughed out loud, which I never do and cried real tears. This book was everything and I have such a book hangover now.
Two things I noticed when I finished this book…about 30 minutes ago. One, I find it refreshing that there is no “meddling” from the previous characters. No one is trying to set anyone up – it truly is two people learning how much they enjoy one another, with all the pants of heartache and misunderstanding that come in an intense, shallow (the ton) social setting. And I like that it feels like the inhabitants of the boardinghouse are along for the ride, observing with us.
Two, I honestly could have done without the sex scenes. There is great tension in their conversations and the private revelations they each have, and I was captivated with just that. The H and H have similar dry senses of humor, without being cruel. Total catnip for me. They didn’t spar so much as try and spark each other with humor and honesty. Personally, I didn’t need them to have sex on page. That’s not often the case for me. But I do find with historicals these days, I tend to skim the sex scenes, especially if it’s the virgin set up.
When I started the book this morning, I had to make sure to have a cup of tea and a pastry nearby. They have such a homey feel. I might have to sneak back into one of the previous books to keep the cozy vibe going.
That was meant to say “pangs of heart ache ” –
@SaraGale: “pants of heartache” does have a certain ring to it!
@SaraGale & @Karini
“pants of heartache and misunderstanding” RULES! One leg for heartache; one for misunderstanding.
I’m reading this now actually. One of the things I love about it is the way Long makes social issues integral to the essentially character-based romance. There is no whiff of didacticism, and it’s clear that human decency is fundamental to Long’s romantic ideal.