This RITA® Reader Challenge 2016 review was written by Heather T. This story was nominated for the RITA® in the Short Historical category.
The summary:
SHE’S TAKING CHARGE
Prim, proper, and thrifty, Eve Dinwoody is all business when it comes to protecting her brother’s investment. But when she agrees to control the purse strings of London’s premier pleasure garden, Harte’s Folly, she finds herself butting heads with an infuriating scoundrel who can’t be controlled.
HE’S RUNNING THE SHOW
Bawdy and bold, Asa Makepeace doesn’t have time for a penny-pinching prude like Eve. As the garden’s larger-than-life owner, he’s already dealing with self-centered sopranos and temperamental tenors. He’s not about to let an aristocratic woman boss him around . . . no matter how enticing she is.
BUT LOVE CONQUERS ALL
In spite of her lack of theatrical experience-and her fiery clashes with Asa-Eve is determined to turn Harte’s Folly into a smashing success. But the harder she tries to manage the stubborn rake, the harder it is to ignore his seductive charm and raw magnetism. There’s no denying the smoldering fire between them-and trying to put it out would be the greatest folly of all . . .
Here is Heather T.'s review:
The issue with Sweetest Scoundrel is that while it is well-written and has generally likeable characters who behave honorably, it was colossally boring. Eve Dinwoody is a quiet person with an unattractive face who enjoys being alone. She is prim and proper and she paints miniatures. Her half brother asks her to oversee an investment he’s made, so she ends up crossing paths with Asa Makepeace, the roguish proprietor of Harte’s Folly – a pleasure garden and opera house. Of course, he initially can’t stand her, but within minutes, he finds himself inexplicably drawn to her. Inexplicable is the word here – he wasn’t, then he was. Yawn.
As for what attracts her to him, we are told (repeatedly) that it is because he is male: “So very, very male.” That’s all we get as far as character building and relationship building goes. The two fight with each other, but there is no heat either to the fights or to the reconciliations – these are characters who are struggling to achieve two-dimensionality. The whole book is written as if it is a dot-to-dot sketch from kindergarten – fight here, kiss here, damsel in distress here.
So on to the next thing – Harte’s Folly is being sabotaged. This could have been an interesting mystery with various suspects, false leads and derring-do. Instead, someone shows up, tells us that it was so-and-so – who we already knew to be a Bad Person – and they did it for such-and-such prosaic reason. Alrighty then!
Moving on.
Something bad happened to Eve when she was a child. This comes up again and again, a mantra akin to “I saw something nasty in the woodshed.” Whatever it was involved dogs and we are led to believe, some kind of molestation.
Eve suffers from frequent debilitating panic attacks and nightmares as a result. It has left her utterly traumatized, to the point where she has a paralyzing terror of dogs and of being touched by anyone, and has to have a constant bodyguard. But she meets Asa and before you can say, “hide the sausage” they are doing That Very Thing. And oh yes, she adopts a dog. Okey dokey.
Other than an annoying insistence on saying “seven of the clock” — which is a usage that ended two hundred years before the era the book is set in — the book is well-written, but dull. There wasn’t even bad grammar that could hold my righteous interest. This book was so boring that I fell asleep while reading a sex scene. Twice. This book was so boring that while reading it on a cold day in Minnesota I decided to go outside and weed the yard instead.
Was it bad? No. Was it good? Meh. Would I have had more fun doing pretty much anything else? Yes.
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I agree that the writing was strong. I enjoyed the sex scenes; there was more variety than I’ve usually seen in historicals and I thought they illustrated Asa well. (To be fair, I liked him way more than Eve.) I put it down a bunch of times. I really like Hoyt, but I agree that something did not gel.
Sooooo excited for Val’s book this year (next month?).
I only recently discovered the Maiden Lane novels and devoured most of them in a long jag when I should have been prepping for a competition. This was the one I had to wait for because my library’s ebook service had a waiting list. I agree that it was, of all of them, by far the least interesting. There was just no spark to anything. Even the horrible incident from the past — and lo, how I loathe 17 chapters of references to the deep dark past secret without revealing what it is to the reader as a plot trope, even though the damned thing is written as an omniscient narrator — which was clearly designed to be completely and utterly shocking, wasn’t all that interesting once you found out what it was. It was too mustache-twirlingly evil to be shocking.
I identify so heavily with the deep ambivalence of this review.
Oh I tried to read this and the sample made me sleepy. Nope. I love me a practical and thrifty heroine but I need something more interesting than this.
I do love a Cold Comfort Farm reference! Ada Starkadder is my spirit animal…
Sorry you did not enjoy the book. Do not give up! Even in the books I am not in love with, I enjoy the writing and sly wit. Try “Duke of Midnight”–my favorite, smart, sexy, sweetly soulful.
I’m going to go out on the proverbial ledge here and admit that I really liked this book; I’d even go so far as to give it an A. I’d put off buying it because in the past books, Asa Makepeace always seemed like an overblown ass to me. He was never portrayed as a guy I wanted to read about, let alone have him be the hero and focus of an entire novel. But nobody can write an overblown ass like Elizabeth Hoyt, and fuck me if she didn’t pull this off. I think if I had to pinpoint what it was, it was the dynamic of these two as they both change and accept each other, and eventually love each other. For whatever reason, something clicks inside of Eve where Asa is concerned. She’s able to step outside of her comfort zone and enter the taboo’d land of desire and arousal. She’s traumatized from her past (agree with the reviews on the long, drawn out aspect of identifying the trauma), and has been paralyzed with her fears. But something in Asa calls to Eve, and she is able to step out and embrace being a woman. For Asa, he sees Eve first as a strong – albeit unattractive and stuck-up – woman, but as soon as he realizes she is badly wounded, his protective nature is activated. Like two power rangers who hear the call, these two sense something inside the other and find their way to unite. 🙂 Once their mutual attraction starts, it was another hot ride, and I found myself firmly in Camp Asa. Watching the two of them become protective of each other, despite them realizing that they are complete opposites, was a fun dance to watch. I found a lot of great humor*, and ended up loving this book and having it turn out to be one of my favorite Maiden Lane books.
*Best line of the book: “I didn’t mean unclothed!” she said, making unclothed sound a lot like covered in shit.
@ Heather – I also was in Camp Asa and liked the book.
I was looking forward to Sweetest Scoundrel to see how Asa would hold up as a hero despite his less than stellar first impression and naughty reputation. I was not disappointed. The dance between Asa and Eve after they were forced to co-exist in the office and had to decide how to proceed was fun to witness.
Like those magic vajayjays that regularly heal soldiers’ PTSD in contemporary military novels, Asa’s sexual magic healed Eve’s PTSD. Willing suspension of disbelief and all that.
I was afraid of this. The excerpt after Dearest Rogue didn’t seem too appealing, but I thought maybe it was because I just finished something incredible.
@LauraL, your post reminded me of something that struck me while I was reading the book — thank you.
I come from the camp of “when the student is ready, the teacher will appear” for most (well, all) things in life. I liked how Asa was basically an opportunity presented to Eve to heal herself, let go, and move forward. He was so strongly compelling that she was willing to crack her shell and emerge. I think that really has to do with the readiness of the person (in this case, Eve). They may not have figured out how to move in or change, but there is a longing within themself for relief and improvement (whether consciously recognized or not). Life then presents a situation in the form of a person/relationship that has the ability to catalyze change. At its best, I think the transformative sex idea taps into the deeper rivers of emotional release.
I enjoyed Sweetest Scoundrel and found it to be the best of the “Harte’s Folly subset” of the Maiden Lane books (they seem to come in sets of three). But Sweetest Scoundrel was far less compelling for me than the best of the series, which in my mind would be Wicked Intentions and Scandalous Desires. Astonishingly, Hoyt has been nominated for a RITA multiple times over the last decade, but (if I am remembering correctly) hasn’t yet won–which is a crime and a shame, in my opinion. If she wins the RITA this year, it will be like Henry Fonda winning for On Golden Pond–maybe not the best artistic effort, but a long overdue honor for a wonderful body of work.
I love, love, love Elizabeth Hoyt. I have devoured all of her books, searched out her contemporary books and follow on Facebook (this is being enthusiastic not stalking). Could not finish Sweetest Scoundrel. Neither character grabbed me or seemed to be interesting in any way, and yet, I had waited for Asa’s story since book one. He always seemed interesting and slightly dangerous in that bad boy way I love, and would have been a great finish to the Makepeace family story. Very disappointed.