B-
Genre: Historical: European, Romance
Theme: Opposites Attract, Plot Moppet, Slow Burn, Small Town
Archetype: Character with a Disability
This RITA® Reader Challenge 2016 review was written by Gloriamarie. This story was nominated for the RITA® in the Short Historical category.
The summary:
Lord Philippe Lavay once took to the high seas armed with charm as lethal as his sword and a stone-cold conviction: he’ll restore his family’s fortune and honor, no matter the cost. Victory is at last within reach–when a brutal attack snatches it from his grasp and lands him in Pennyroyal Green.
An afternoon of bliss brings a cascade of consequences for Elise Fountain. Shunned by her family and ousted from a job she loves, survival means a plummet down the social ladder to a position no woman has yet been able to keep: housekeeper to a frighteningly formidable prince.
The bold and gentle Elise sees past his battered body into Philippe’s barricaded heart…and her innate sensuality ignites his blood. Now a man who thought he could never love and a woman who thought she would never again trust must fight an incendiary passion that could be the ruin of them both.
Here is Gloriamarie's review:
It Started With A Scandal is the tenth in the Pennyroyal Green series. If you have read the previous nine books in the series, you will have no trouble with the references to Colin Eversea and the ballad featuring him (volume one) You will be familiar with the fact that there is a mystery attached to Olivia Eversea and Lyon Redmond, alluded to throughout several volumes of the series until it is all cleared up in the eleventh book. You will be familiar with the frequently allied to high seas adventures of Lord Lavay and the then Captain Ashton Flint, now the Earl of Ardmay, and how Ardmay won his bride in the fourth volume of the series. Various residents of the village move in and out of the story but we were introduced them much earlier in the series. The vicar, for instance is married to a former Madam and that story is in volume seven, A Notorious Countess Confesses.
You may gather from this that I don’t consider this a stand-alone and you would be correct. I think readers would be well advised to read the Pennyroyal Green series in order. Some series are not so intertwined, but in this series each volume is very much dependent on the previous books.
What the blurb above does not tell is that Lord Lavay is a Prince of the House of Bourbon. He lost much that was dear to him in the Revolution but what he seems to miss the most is the estate. He wants that estate back and is willing to go through the marriage arranged for him by his father before the Revolution. His only motive for this step is that with the marriage he would have enough money to buy back his family home in France. After all, the Bourbons are back in power so it is safe.
At some point before the story begins, Lord Lavay was attacked by six men who left him injured and in pain and this makes him very, very cranky. Oh, so cranky. He throws things. Usually not at other people but when others are in the same room. His crankiness and throwing arm make it impossible to keep a housekeeper employed there. Indeed, our heroine, on her way to interview for that very position, passes the former housekeeper as she flees the premises, apparently having impetuously made up her mind to flee that very morning. Which raises the question, how did the Earl and Countess of Ardmay know ahead of time to send their housekeeper to interview Elise?
Mrs. Wintrop, the Ardmay’s housekeeper, is not very forthcoming about the details. She hesitates over addressing Elise as “Mrs. Fountain,” makes obscure references to “circumstances” and “situation.” By which she means Elise’s situation and circumstances without ever saying what they actually are. She says there is a full staff, for instance, but this does not explain the deplorable condition of the house. During the course of the interview, Lord Lavay tosses a vase and smashes it, which requires Mrs. Winthrop to mention that he has a tendency to throw things, but while he wouldn’t, as a rule, aim at any person, it’s still best to get out of the way.
All in all not a very appealing position, but Elise doesn’t care. She has Reasons. She was a teacher at The School for Recalcitrant Girls and had been sacked for attempting to correct the behavior of one of the students and she needs a new job stat for reasons yet to be disclosed to the gentle reader. Elise wants the position even after she makes the acquaintance of the beautiful but hard, emotionally remote Philippe, aka Lord Lavay, who engages her for a two week trial.
Elise returns to her boarding house to pack and there we meet her Reasons: her six year old illegitimate son. As if I did not see that coming. When she told her respectable parents she was pregnant out of wedlock, they reacted by tossing her out of the home. All she took with her was her hairbrush. How she survived in between that event and obtaining a teacher’s position at the school is something we will never know. Of course he is just a too adorable plot moppet. Off they walk to the manor so Elise can start work the next morning.
The next morning she enters the kitchen to find in a state of squalor while the staff plays five card loo, expecting her to join in. Apparently they do no work. Our heroine will have none of that and the staff argue with her, especially the formidably large Dolly, cook and washerwoman. Elise issues orders, Dolly objects, Lord Lavay rings his bell and the staff encourage her to answer it post haste but she lingers to give them orders. When she does respond to the bell, Lord Lavay tells her he dislikes ringing a second time. I mention this because this becomes a running joke throughout the book.
Surprise! The staff is cleaning. Even Dolly. Surprise! The staff is won over and they work. Surprise! Elise, daughter of a doctor, knows how to fix Lord Lavay’s hand, which had been badly cut and badly stitched together. For other aches and pains, she doses him regularly with willow bark tea.
Throughout the story residents of Pennyroyal Green enter for cameo appearances and then exit again.
Oh the whole, it’s charming, albeit very predictable story. It is well written, as are all of the books in the series. No egregious errors of grammar etc, which I really hate. The two most cliched characters are Dolly and Philippe’s betrothed. They are both very entitled and that is all they have by way of personality. Jack, the little boy, could have been a cliche, but he actually has personality and gets away with calling Lord Lavay “Giant.” Well, Philippe is quite tall.
One constant is that no matter how attracted Philippe may be to Elise, no matter how many secrets they learn about each other, he will stay the course and marry the woman picked out for him. He is determined to do this because he needs the money to buy back his French home. So there is lots of UST between the pair.
As a result of one of the revelations, Philippe discovers who Elise really is and what her history really is.
Meanwhile, Elise’s parents write and ask her to come home because they missed her as soon as she had left. But did nothing to find her? Even though she hadn’t even changed her name? Elise and her son, Jack, travel to Northumberland because she can’t stay in the house that her enemy is going to be mistress of.
At this point I was very close to the end of the book and nothing had been resolved. But, silly me, of course things get resolved all in the last chapter.
Elise, meanwhile, realises how desperately she loves Philippe, how much he cares for Jack, that she is compelled to let go of her pride, which has gotten her through every circumstance.
I give this book a B- for several reasons. Elements of the backstory are never shared. How did Elise survive in between leaving her parents’ home and becoming a teacher? How prescient are the Earl and Countess of Ardmay that they send their housekeeper to interview a new one, despite the fact that there was already a housekeeper employed who only quit the morning of the interview? The book cannot stand alone; it must be read as part of the series, preferably in order, to make sense of all the tidbits from previous stories. How did she manage to win over the staff so completely and so quickly, too. I found that unbelievable. Lord Lavay got over his childish crankiness very quickly too.
Mostly though, I give it this grade because it is so utterly predicable and because the resolution happened much too quickly. Much too quickly.
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I read this book without having read any of the others in the series. (I think it was reviewed here and on sale) I was aware that it was part of a series and that many of the characters mentioned or making cameo appearances were call backs to previous volumes. I didn’t find the references made a great deal of difference to my rather tepid enjoyment of this story. I might have been pleased to see old friends reappearing if I had read the rest of the series, but this one didn’t inspire me to find and read them.
It was a pleasant diversion and I was pleased that it was well written and edited. Like Gloriamarie, I find all too often that I have to grit my teeth to get past silly errors of grammar and usage. I also agree with her that the plot seemed contrived and a bit silly–definitely not something that holds up to too much critical thought.
I wasn’t sorry I’d bought it on sale, but I won’t rush out to pay full prices for the rest of the series.
@Samanda, thank you for the support about grammar and usage errors. You can appreciate my reaction to the book I am reading now. I was puzzled that someone wanted to run away to “Gwam.” I couldn’t think of any country named “Gwam” then I sounded it out in my head and realized the author meant Guam. After that, of course, I was able to take references to “steal refrigerator in stride.
ROFL @ “Gwam.”
I gotta tell you, “Gwam” really threw me. Really really threw me.
I guess phonetics just might not be the best way to spell something. Because “Gwam” and “Guam” do sound alike.
Oh, the examples I could give for those errors! Most of these are from books I have read in the last month.
“den of inequity”
“esprit de crops”
“a peel of laughter”
“felt a trill”
“no greeter sorrow than…”
“experience the right of passage”
“here me out”
“flare for the dramatic” and its companion “the flair of her waste”
“the sole of discretion”
“the basic tenants of running a business”
“a comedy of errors recorded by the cleverest of barbs”
Someone who refuses to change described as “retractable”
The usual confusion of loath/loathe, then/than, leant/lent, honed/homed, tread/trod, bore/bored, born/borne, lie/lay/laid/lain, perpetrated/perpetuated, there’s/theirs, adverse/averse, flaunt/flout, alluded/eluded, where/were
Anacronisms (“hassle” and “chauvinistic” used in early 1800’s dialogue)
If you’re waiting “with baited breath” don’t plan on kissing anyone soon.
And my favorite dangling participle, as the hero is undressing the heroine: “Wearing only her silk stocking and garters, he stroked one of her thighs…”
SusanE, I grew up in the American midwest (aka farms in the country and agribusiness in the city), and I must, simply MUST, discover how to encourage ‘esprit de crops’. LOLOLOLOLOLOL!
SusanE, I think I love you.
Hilarious, SusanE. I’m glad I’m not the only one who baulks at poor spelling and grammar. I can excuse typographical errors, but too often there seems to be a basic lack of understanding of the English language, which is inexcusable in an author. But it’s the anachronisms that are my pet peeve. Sometimes it’s contemporary US slang used in London-set Regency novels. Ouch!!
the flair of her waste- teeheehee
@Ann Stevens – Well they used to say talking to your plants helps them grow. Maybe they just need a good pep talk.
@Hazel – The waist flair really caught my eye. Even if you change the spelling, isn’t it the hips that flare? Unless she’s pregnant or has a medical condition that wasn’t mentioned in the book.
One thing I have missed since I switched to e-readers is how easy it was to correct the punctuation in a printed book. I always kept a fine point pen nearby to add quotation marks, change a comma to a semicolon, etc. And did you know you can use a pocket knife to scrape the ink off paper to get rid of a comma or an apostrophe? Very useful when fixing “a leader in it’s field” or “the tree’s are green” and it doesn’t leave a mark.
I have been known to mark corrections on junk mail before I throw it away. Not that I’m obsessed or anything …
My all-time favourite still remains when he made love to her with “wonton abandon.”
I’m still partial to the description of a heroine who was described as a beautiful lady with “pail, delicate skin.” Left me wondering how delicate something could be if it was galvanised.