Fairest of Them All made me mad. So, so mad.
Mad like:
The thing was, the book was not what I was expecting and the hero was not the right guy, IMO.
Charlene Blanchard is penniless noblewoman who has taken to disgusting herself as a boy and pick-pocketing in order to support herself and her aunt. One day Charlene learns that the Duke of Baynton is looking for a wife. The duke, Gavin, is very wealthy so money isn’t an issue, but he’s looking for someone with impeccable family lines–and Charlene qualifies. She goes to a ball, meets Gavin, and he is smitten.
Gavin starts courting Charlene, but he’s awkwarding all over the place. At thirty-four, Gavin has spent most of his adult life trying to put his estate back in order after his father’s death. He’s a virgin with very little romantic experience.
Now I am 1000% here for a Cinderella story with an awkward, virgin duke. I will wait in line for that shit.
Problem is, Gavin is not the hero.
Did I mention that Gavin’s twin brother, Jack, chose right then to show up? The guy who disappeared from Eton at 15 and everyone assumed was dead? Yeah. Turns out he was asshurt that he didn’t get to be a duke so he ran off with an acting troupe and then went to America and now he’s there trying to negotiate on behalf of America with the British. Like you do.
Charlene and Jack fall in love, which is shitty for a lot of reasons. Char feels like Jack knows the real her because he caught her trying to pick his pocket and he knows she’s a thief. Of course, it’s impossible for Gavin to know the “real” her if she lies to him and doesn’t tell him stuff. You can hardly fault him for not having all the information.
Also we learn that Gavin was originally betrothed but stepped aside when his younger brother and his fiancée fell in love. So this is the SECOND time this is happening to him.
And I didn’t even like Jack. I mean, the guy ran away with the circus because he didn’t get to be a duke? And! His mom faints when he shows up BECAUSE SHE THOUGHT HE WAS DEAD. I watch a lot of Investigation Discovery, and when a teenager goes missing you usually don’t assume he’s doing fine and just on another continent. Jesus Christ, at least write the woman a letter so she knows you’re alive, dude. And he doesn’t come back to England because he feels bad or wants to see his family; he does it on behalf of America and he uses his family name to help with the negotiations.
Hey mom! Remember how you probably thought a pedophile killed me and buried me in a shallow grave? Ha! I’ve really been alive all these years. I didn’t come back to tell you that though. You cool with me using our family name to do stuff for ‘Merica! ?
What. A. Dick.
I basically spent the entire book feeling really bad for Gavin. Then, at the end, Gavin starts acting like a sexist douche canoe because, I am assuming, he was just too sympathetic. It was totally out of left field and totally out of character.
Take this gem:
“She’s daft,” the duke said to Lord Jack. “That is what happens when women read too much, and she reads. She reads everything.”
Great. Now I don’t like ANYBODY in this book.
Charlene wants a hero who slays a dragon for her, and when Jack helps her out of a bind, she decides that’s him. The problem is, Gavin doesn’t know about her woes because she doesn’t tell him, so she’s setting him up to disappoint her. Jack let his family think he was dead for fifteen years because he couldn’t bother writing them a note which is unjustifiably selfish in my book. Gavin develops sudden-onset misogyny in the last few chapters.
So yeah, I was pissed. Fairest of Them All started off with so much promise and delivered so much disappointment.
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“Damn you, Q, messing with the space time continuum! It really is frakking up a lot of romance novel plots lately.”
Srsly.
If he’s 34 and disappeared at 15, the douche left them thinking he was dead for closer to 20 years than 15. Our hero, ladies and gentlemen!
Oh this makes me really sad/mad. Sounds like I would have loved a Gavin/Charlene story (if he hadn’t devolved into sexist asshattery towards the end). Such a shame.
Sorry the book was lousy, but I loved your review!
Wait, is “slaying a dragon” a metaphor, or is this set in an alternate universe? If the latter, I for one welcome our new Targaryen overlords.
I was thinking the girl was a moron with pants feelings for circus boy but then it devolved into hating all the peoples in teh book so i think it’s just not for me. I don’t have time for a hate-read right now.
I know it’s just a typo, but I am laughing myself stupid at the idea of her ‘disgusting herself’ as a boy…
“Charlene” seems more of a modern cowboy romance heroine name. Like the heart-of-gold waitress at the only cafe in the middle of nowhere, Texas. Just sayin’ …
Hahaha to “sudden onset misogyny”!!
I would have been all over a book with an awkward virgin hero but a asshurt hero? Not so much, feel like I have read that book a thousand times.
I would hope that Gaven might get his on book had he not turned into a douche canoe.
Yes, Charlene is a strictly 20th century and later name, as far as I can tell. Modern names in historical novels are a big pet peeve for me. Even if they are theoretically possible, it’s just such a needle scratch to have a Regency heroine named Brooke, which I noticed in a recent review here. It doesn’t take long to look at name lists from your historical time period and pick something appropriate.
“Sudden-onset misogyny” – LOL! That happened in another book I read recently, too. I love this review and your GIF choices.
@Wanda and Susan – co sign about Charlene. But the male names seem a bit off, though they are more period appropriate. I think “Jack” is technically a diminutive of “John” (or Jacob???), but it also means roughly “lower class person” usually in a pejorative way. I’m not sure if it’s as strongly negative as “thug” in US English or “chav” in the modern UK, but it’s definitely not aristocratic. (It survives in phrases like “jack of all trades, master of none,” “jack in the box” and “every man jack of them” as well as the “jack” in a deck of playing cards, the lowest value face card.) So “Lord Jack” is sort of an oxymoron, like “Lord Homeboy.” (Georgette Heyer, who was ultra-sensitive to class, has a VILLAIN named Jack in Cotillion, but his name is part of the hint that he’s not the hero.)
“Gavin” is a modern derivative of “Gawain,” one of King Arthur’s companions and frequently held up as the ideal chivalrous knight, so that’s a little better, but as such it’s obviously Anglo-Saxon in origin, and aristocratic names, both given and family, tend to be Norman (French) derived in England after the eleventh century. There ARE plenty of chivalric romances written in French featuring Gawain, and by the 19th C he is sort of a legendary hero, so it’s not an IMPOSSIBLE name, but it would require some sort of explanation, and something respectably Norman would be better.
As Susan says, it’s not hard to look at names from your chosen period, even if you don’t go into the research of why they are what they are.
@Jane Lovering: I came down here to say the same thing. It had me mentally laughing so hard I could hardly concentrate on the rest of the review.
So, I suppose the sequel will have Gavin finding true love with a woman who can’t read. I wonder if Elyse will be up for reading/reviewing that one for us.
(I’m a different Susan, btw.)
I was also hoping there would at least be a sequel about the awkward virgin duke until I found out about the sudden onset misogyny.
Huh. While it had issues, I actually enjoyed this book quite a lot. I would have said B-
I also enjoyed the book and must disagree about Jack’s motivation. He mentioned it more than once and he wasn’t upset he couldn’t be duke but that he didn’t feel he could be anything in England except the second son (there was a very rigid hierarchy). He wanted to be his own man and chart his own path. Of course, I agree that he should have sent a notice to his family that he was alive but that would have caused problems, too. Anyway, I’ve been reading Cathy Maxwell a long time and this wasn’t her best book but it wasn’t her worst either (I had a DNF of one of her books a few years ago, though I was happy with its sequel so I generally give a second chance).
Also, there is a sequel with Gavin finally getting his duchess (I think it’s A Date at the Altar).
I read the first book in this series and I thought it was OK, nothing too special – mostly just looking forward to Gavin’s book because I felt bad for him and I looooove an awkward virgin hero. When I read the teaser for this book I was like YES GAVIN before realizing he wasn’t the hero. Meh. Decided to read it anyway. I didn’t dislike it, but I’ve already forgotten most of it, so it’s nothing special. Gavin gets thrown over AGAIN and I agree that the sexist crap at the end of the book was really out of character and I really hope that’s not how Gavin’s character is fleshed out in book 3. We know from this book who the heroine is going to be for that one so it’s looking like an enemies to lovers type thing. But virgin hero yay???
I am bothered enough by names like “Charlene” in allegedly historical romances that I am pleased to see I’m not alone on Fussy About Anachronisms Island.