This HaBO comes from Lindsay, who wants to find this romance:
This is an historical (probably written in the early 2000s or 2010s), and the protagonists have either a marriage of convenience or they marry young and some sort of Big Misunderstanding has the hero leaving shortly after the wedding night and going off to war.
He returns from war to find that the heroine is thriving without him. As he proceeds to grovel, he slowly realizes that every single painting in their home is a different depiction of Judith and Holofernes. Yes, every painting in their house is of a woman beheading a man. This is when he realizes how badly he has f@#*ed up.
We also checked with Lindsay on whether the book is also from this similar, solved HaBO for Desperate Duchesses by Eloisa James and she confirmed that it is not.
Please, god, someone know what this is!!
I would branch out, personally. Judith, Salome, Jael. Orion savaged by his own dogs maybe. Just about anything with Maenads. Kali. Idk if this is more or less subtle than just sticking with one story, which is probably better messaging – sometimes the stories are not clear we’re better off without John the Baptist, for example – but I like variety. The more the merrier!
The Eloisa James books were what I was thinking of with this one for sure, but I am delighted to have it be a trend.
I can’t help, yet I would love to name title and author.
Following I think I’ve read this one.
I need this like air.
Following!
Following.
I don’t know if this is it, but possibly An Infamous Marriage by Susanna Fraser (2012)? The reviews don’t mention Judith and Holofernes, but the rest of the details seem to match up. After an unconsummated marriage of convenience, he goes to fight in a war. When he returns 5 years later, he finds her thriving, managing his estate and uninterested in his sh*t. He was unfaithful while away, which doesn’t bother her as such, just that he was so indiscreet about it which the local gossips used against her. Apparently he does the work and it’s not just an insta-forgive situation.
I’m both interested and also infuriated, if this is the right book.
Could it be Painting the Dark? I
I’m a fan of Susanna Fraser, and have read several of her books. Everything about this HABO fits An Infamous Marriage, except there are no paintings-I searched through the book on Kindle. But if you like this trope, it’s a good book. They have an unconsummated MOC, and he is serving in the military in Canada while she’s home taking care of his estate and his elderly mother. Rumors of his infidelity reach the small village where she lives, and she is angry and humiliated, so lots of groveling is needed once he returns.
In Kelly Bowen’s Night of the Scoundrel (and in an earlier book in the series) a painting of Judith and Holofernes plays an significant part. It’s not the requested book – but it’s worth to be remembered and read!
Fingers crossed that someone will solve this puzzle. I’d love to read it!
Yes! Thank you Lena, I knew I had read a book with that painting in it. Currently reading An Infamous Marriage thanks to earlier comments.
Hiii Lindsay here of the original query. Here are a few more details I remembered if they are at all helpful:
It’s the third or fourth book in a series about a group of friends. The friends in the first several books are all male, and the heroine in this book is female and she is the hostess of a weekly salon of artists, poets, and other social outcasts.
That last description sounds like Mary Balogh’s The Survivor’s Club series but I don’t recall the paintings. It’s a group of six or seven men plus one women that have suffered as a result of the Napoleonic Wars.
I don’t see Mary Balogh doing anything that snarky.
I have read all of Balogh’s Suvivors Club books – it’s definitely not one of those books.
@kkw popping in here to mention the horror/thriller A Wounded Fawn, one of my favorite horror movies. If you like stories about female rage and women’s revenge against men who wronged them, this movie has got you.
It centers around the theft of a statue of Orestes being hunted by the Furies. The main character, an authenticator at an art museum, escaped an abusive partner in the not too distant past and at the start of the movie is going away for a hot weekend with a man who she thinks is a nice art dealer, but who is actually a serial killer. It’s beautifully filmed, heavily influenced by giallo without ever sinking to its the exploitative lens, a love letter to art, and goes off the rails in a marvelously bonkers second/third act that David Lynch would adore where the killer begins to think the Furies are hunting him.
@Cora I am way too chickenshit for horror but I love everything horror adjacent and it is an ongoing struggle. The Wounded Fawn sounds amazing and I want it, thank you! What is the soundtrack like? If it’s got any violins making those don’t go down the stairs noises I am utterly out, I cannot. I have some advance readers for things like T Kingfisher’s horror to advise on these topics, I am going to see if anyone knows this movie, I am sure they will be delighted even if it turns out I won’t be able to manage.
I really really want this second series with the Judith and Holofernes painting theme, though! @Lindsey, do you remember any details/clues about the other books in the series, if you read them? Any sense of which war or era we’re talking?
@kkw no Psycho violins! It’s more thriller than horror and definitely leans into camp at times. There’s not much in the way of soundtrack except for the recurring song L.S.D. by 60s band Manfred Mann, which you can easily read as symbolic of the serial killer’s and abusive ex boyfriend’s selfishness and self-delusion as they use women. Check out the trailer on youtube and see if it’s in your comfort zone.
That said I have no idea about the Judith and Holofernes painting, but how the heck do you reconcile with someone who’s got multiple paintings of them decapitating you? Think I’d go with a thorough apology and a quick divorce.
I think this is either The Sins of Lord Lockwood or Duke of Shadows by Meredith Duran.
1- Duke of Shadows – The hero and heroine meet in India. Her parents are killed in a shipwreck on their way there. She is engaged to a bad guy (the hero’s cousin). She is also an artist. There is an uprising and hero flees with the heroine. They fall in love during the journey and at the safe house. Hero leaves her to return to the city to help friends during this uprising thinking she would be safe. While he is gone the revolutionaries overrun the palace (safe house) and she manages to escape but witnesses atrocities. She flees from camp to camp and eventually makes her way back to England thinking she had been abandoned by the hero. She may even think he dies. While at her cousin’s home she is suffering from PTSD due to the horrors she witnessed. She throws herself into painting these quite shocking pieces. A patron (Lord Lockwood but he doesn’t feature much in this book) convinces her to exhibit in London. In the meantime the evil cousin of the Duke has told him she is dead. He lives in London and has an affair with a widow who wants to marry him. She isn’t very nice but he doesn’t really care anymore. He decides to put the past behind him and gets engaged to the widow. Within days they attend this art exhibit. Lo and behold it turns out to be the heroine! There’s a lot more to this story and it is one of my all time favorites.
2- Sins of Lord Lockwood – Lord Lockwood marries a lovely Scottish woman. He needs money and she has it. He is in love with her. The very day of their wedding he is kidnapped by bad guys and put on a prison hulk to Australia. She thinks he has taken her money and abandoned her. She goes back to her property in Scotland. After five years Lord Lockwood has escaped the prison and made his way back to London. He is traumatized and does not contact his wife who is in Scotland. He is in London about a year until she becomes aware of what is happening. During this year in London he live quite scandalously with salons and such with in appropriate people. He also becomes a patron of the heroine in Duke of Shadows and sponsors this exhibit of the shocking paintings. They speak to him in a way because of his prison experience.
These are both great books and if you haven’t read Meredith Duran before, now is the time. Sadly she doesn’t write anymore but what she did is top tier.
I’m almost certain it’s a Miranda Neville! Lady Windermere’s Lover?
I remember loving the Neville series that book was part of(The Wild Quartet), but I don’t remember details like the paintings. But either way, you can’t go wrong reading Miranda Neville.
I don’t know if anyone is still checking the comments, but I was so curious about this that I re-read some nevilles (I was wrong, it wasn’t one of them) and then some other books from what I think of as the same era and I’m pretty sure I identified the book! It’s When the Duke Returns by Eloisa James.
Oh ho! We shall ask the asker!