Book Review

Guest Review: The Perils of Pleasure by Julie Anne Long

Note from Sarah: We’re running this review and the Wedded Bliss review from Carrie together because they illustrate how one item in a larger context can ruin a book for a reader.

Thanks to Poppy for submitting such a thoughtful guest review. Poppy is a long-time fan of SBTB and loves cats, books and coffee, in that order.

Confession: I spent a long time thinking about how to grade this book. Here are the three grades I swung back and forth on. Let’s call them Without Incident, With Incident, and But is the Incident Equivalent to an Entire Book. (I’ll address the Incident later.)

Without Incident: B minus

The premise was great – spunky smart Madeleine Greenway saves charming roguish Colin Eversea from the gallows. He is, of course, innocent. He had gotten into a quarrel with Louisa, his intended, which resulted in him storming off to a tavern and getting into a drunken brawl with one Roland Tarbell who fell onto his own knife and died. The only witness able to corroborate Colin’s story had mysteriously disappeared. The mystery kicks up a notch when the anonymous man who hired Madeleine to save Colin later tries to kill her instead of paying her. Colin promises Madeleine that his family will pay her what she was due, and more, if she helps him prove his innocence.

Both of them have significant motivations for this endeavour succeeding. Madeleine wants to start a new life in America, so she needs the money to complete payment on a farm she has purchased in Virginia, and also to buy passage there. Colin needs to, well, not be imprisoned and hanged again. He also needs to prove his innocence before he can marry Louisa. So the two hit the road to launch their own investigation while dodging discovery and arrest. This is of course a petri dish for pants feelings, angst, and more pants feelings, finishing off with a HEA.

Overall, this was a fun story. The plot was engaging, the narrative well-paced, the dialogue snappy, and there were some sweet, funny, heart-warming episodes. There were also, however, a couple of moments that seemed a bit weird to me. I fully admit that I might have been too pedantic and therefore spoiled my own reading experience. Nevertheless, I got distracted enough that I had to stop reading and start researching Googling, so I was thrown off track from the story a bit.

One of these moments was when Colin had to mansplain to Madeleine that the gunpowder in her pistol was bad – she “never would have gotten off a shot.” This gave her the “sudden realisation” that although “she was brilliant, she could shoot the heart out of a target”, she had no idea how to tell good gunpowder from bad. Oh yes, this also came after Colin escaped his bindings without her noticing. That scene was jarring to me. Wasn’t Madeleine supposed to be a mercenary? Bad gunpowder apparently (thanks Ms Google) has a strong, unpleasant, acidic smell unlike not-bad gunpowder, which doesn’t smell much. Lacking personal experience with gunpowder, pistols and even bindings, I did think that it was unlikely that one could become a mercenary and “brilliant” shot without knowing bad gunpowder and how to tie a firm knot.

Another “what…?” moment came when Colin described the accidental death of Roland Tarbell: “He came at me… I stepped aside, he slipped in a puddle of ale… the damned fool fell on his own knife trying to kill me.” (ellipses mine) I pondered the mechanics of falling onto one’s knife for a bit, then ill-advisedly turned to Google where I learnt that yes, apparently this is a thing. A tragic, horrible thing. Colin goes on: “I rolled him over, and sadly, he was quite dead… And anyone knows you’re not to take a knife out of a deep wound if you want that person to have a chance at living. So I was sober enough not to pull it out. But I did put my hand on it…” (ellipses mine) Wait, what? We went from “He’s dead” to “But I want him to have a chance at living so I won’t pull the knife out” to “But hey let me just put my hand on the knife anyway”. Considering the whole story basically hung on Colin being falsely accused of murder, I had hoped the setup would be more convincing.

But of course, this is not a deal-breaker. Colin was probably shocked and who knows why, instead of checking Roland’s breathing or pulse, or panickedly yelling his name or for help, or backing away in horror, etc., he instead chose to place his hand on the knife until someone comes in to see him. Weirder things have happened, I suppose. (Have they?)

Finally – and this is more unintentionally funny than actually problematic – these two have been on the run for days, sleeping rough on many occasions and without a change of clothes or much chance to wash. Before that, Colin had been shackled in prison, also for days. So when sexytimes started with this line, “The musk of desire was already so thick and heady between them Madeleine’s head swam”, my own head started swimming with the imagined BO. There were also the very unlikely descriptions of glowing, satiny skin (after being on the run – how?) but then again, rare is the man who would gaze lustfully upon mud-speckled, grime-smeared skin.

These parts were distracting for me, hence B minus. But overall, this was a cute, fun, enjoyable read with more good moments than bad. It’s time, though, to say hello to the elephant in the room. If you enjoyed this book, perhaps you could stop reading now?

With Incident: F minus

This was the Incident:

“You know nothing of farming,” Colin said. It sounded like a warning. She wanted to say, How do you know? But he was right, so she simply waved a disdainful hand. “I learn quickly. I can certainly fire a musket, and I daresay I should hold my own against an Indian or a bear. And I thank you for your concern.”

…he smiled a little, no doubt picturing her in battle with an Indian or a bear.

The first time I read that, I definitely smelled a musk in the air. When I read it again, in disbelief, it felt a bit like falling on a knife.

I actually stopped reading the book after that for a few days. I thought about that line quite a bit. It followed me around like a big toxic miasma, probably more noxious than bad gunpowder. My main question was, “why?” Why drop that in there? What was it for, what does it achieve? Why couldn’t Madeleine just “hold her own”, full stop? Plus – the conversation was about farming. Why would Madeleine be needing to shoot Indians and bears in the course of farming? Was her farm on their reservation? Does she mention Indians in the same breath as bear because both are supposed to be equally savage animals?

I spent a few hours reading about the history of “Indians” (obviously, they are not Indians) in Virginia, and the interactions of the Native tribes with Europeans from the time the latter first landed in the 16th century to the present. By the 19th century, many tribes had lost their lands and others, like the Pamunkey and Mattaponi, were struggling to retain control of theirs. It is a gory, painful, deeply horrific history. Put your damn musket down, Madeleine. [Some accessible readings: here and here]

The thing that makes my stomach clench is how carelessly and casually that bit of cruelty was dropped into the conversation. Whoops I didn’t even notice I alluded to shooting Indians and bears, hahaha! My musket just went off on its own. Must be the bad powder.

It’s even more upsetting that this was so carelessly and casually dropped into the conversation, as though it doesn’t warrant further thought – obviously you fight Indians and bears, what else? Perhaps it is historically accurate for someone like Madeleine to speak of shooting Indians as par for the course. But I somehow feel that writers of historicals are uniquely placed to help retell histories from the perspectives of those whose voices have been suppressed or stories misrepresented. Every time a person of colour appears in historical with his/her own agency, motivations and fully-fleshed individualism, it is a push-back against the dominant narratives that we’ve lived with for centuries. I shall not say more, as this topic has been covered at length by far more eloquent and insightful commenters, which I am grateful to encounter regularly in this community.

Anyway, let’s not forget the bears. I learned about them as well. According to the National Parks Service, there may have been as many as two million black bears in North America before the Europeans arrived. By the early 20th century, bear populations were nearly eliminated as a result of unbridled hunting and habitat destruction. There’s a HFN (happily for now) though. The park’s bear management plans and improved ecological conditions have brought numbers up to around 900,000 across North America. Around 6,000 are in Virginia today. [Source]

Also, just so you know, recently a bear cub in Roanoke locked himself into a car, ate snacks, and honked the car horn. Luckily the police officer on the scene chose not shoot it with a musket, but instead coaxed it out and let it run back into the woods. [Source]

But is the Incident Equivalent to an Entire Book: D

I finally went back to finish the rest of the book. But it’s a bit like meeting and befriending someone awesome, adding them on social media and then seeing that they are fans of #BuildtheWall or similar. It’s not going to be the same the next time you meet up. When I was a teenager, I volunteered at an Elderly Home where I would chat and play games with the residents. I got on especially well with one lovely old man, until he leaned toward me conspiratorially one day and said, “Thank god you’re not a bloody ___ <insert ethnic group>.” (I actually am.) It was never the same after that. I spent less and less time with him and eventually stopped visiting.

So yes, this book. One bad line does not a book make – or does it? Reading, to me, is a great escape and comfort. It’s like spending a few hours with friends – the ones on the pages of the book, and through them, the author who created them. The reader-author relationship is precious to me and I cherish the lovely worlds they create for me to inhabit for a few wonderful hours. And so, I’m torn. I don’t know how to give a fair, balanced overall grade and perhaps in cases like these, there just isn’t one. This book is both a B minus and an F minus. The average of that is a D, so that’s where I ended up. That’s a cop-out, so I just thought it was important to explain why, and how, I got there.

I’d love to hear from the Bitchery community: How would you grade books like these? And why?

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The Perils of Pleasure by Julie Anne Long

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  1. Sure Thing says:

    I agree wholeheartedly. Authors now have the means by way of sensitivity reading and basic awareness to improve the prevalence of positive depictions of diverse people.

  2. Titi says:

    Thank you for a thoughtful and well written review, this made me want to talk about a book which I haven’t done in a while. 🙂 It’s definitely jarring to get suddenly pulled out of a story like this, I’ve had it happen a few times too, and depending on the severity of the infraction it does colour the way I look at the book.
    Why put those lines about shooting bears and Indians in there? I wonder if you could read it as a way to underline the vagueness of her plan to become a farmer in the first place? She makes it sound like all she knows of farming in Virginia are vague stories of Indians and bears and wilderness. How well has she researched her own plans in the story? Whether this makes the scene work better or not, I don’t know. (I have the book but couldn’t get into it much past the “saving him from the gallows”-scene in the beginning, can’t remember why anymore) I’m guessing she doesn’t end up farming by herself in Virginia, though?

  3. Kate says:

    This is why I have a hard time reading historical set in America (especially the American south)… I can’t divorce what I know about the historical context from the plot of the story. However, with a European historical I feel a little removed from the story bit still pick and choose.

    I realized recently this is why I like fantasy/sci-if/Steampunk romances the best. They are not aligned to historical fact and therefor I can read them as a standalone series not within the context of real history.

  4. Bu says:

    Thank you, Poppy, for the thoughtful review! It’s always uniquely jarring and upsetting to get figuratively smacked in the face by a book or person that way, and I’m so sorry that happened to you.

    The way you unpacked this issue made me realize that while there are several ‘unforgivable’ things that will automatically turn books into DNFs or Fs for me, the line is placed slightly differently based on WHEN the book was written. I can get past things (with an eyeroll or by putting the book in short timeout) in an actual Victorian novel that I cannot forgive in historical fiction.

  5. Hazel says:

    Thank you, Poppy. I’ve had similar reactions in the past. In this case, it seems to me that the remark was probably in character, and in keeping with how the speaker would have viewed ‘Indians’ at the time. So I might wonder if the author had given it any thought, but would probably not drop my grade because of it.

    @Sure Thing: I don’t know that I expect authors nowadays to actively redress the imbalance in depictions of ‘diverse people’. That is a subject that matters to me. I don’t expect that it matters to everyone, or to every author. People write for various reasons. Altruism and activism etc are seldom among them.

  6. Ash says:

    I think it’s a common enough experience, but maybe we take it for granted or we are desensitized because we tell ourselves it’s not “reality”, but in actuality, they are pretty prevalent in both the obvious and subtle shades?

    I’ve read historical romances that end with a lady donning a belly-dancing costume for her war veteran husband who spent time in the “East”, dehumanizing “dark-skinned, exotic local women” or “the barbaric Indians”, descriptions on fabrics and jewels from India while having Indian servants, and flimsy portrayal of locals in any story based in Egypt (and the broken English that’s often associated with them), all by well-loved authors… I get jarred out stories like this all time because a lot of those sentiments hits too close to home that I can’t suspend reality anymore… There are good, very considered stories out there, but the ones that are jarring are hard to forget as well.. :/

    Kudos to you for giving it a D, where I probably would have given it a DNF

  7. Megan M. says:

    Yikes. The casual heartbreak of that one line! Also, I’m so sorry that that elderly man a) thought that thing at all and b) felt comfortable enough to say that thing to you.

  8. Veronica says:

    I see this in two ways. In the particular case of this book and this line, it sounds like a throw away line that is in no way necessary. The point could have easily been conveyed by asking her what she knew of irrigation and blight, two things an actual farmer would definitely encounter.

    However, in a broader sense, I think that authors of historical novels should strike a balance between historical accuracy and modern knowledge and awareness about diversity, especially in dialogue. I get sidetracked in books when I encounter a character who either talks completely as though they belong in the 20th/21st centuries, or who holds opinions that are wildly inconsistent with historical norms (usually this is done with the hero to make them look better in the context of treatment of some kind of ethnic, religious, or other minority).

    I think it ultimately comes down to a difference between historical fiction and historical romance. I think historical romance is so divorced from historical reality at this point, authors have less justification for throwing in casually racist statements, regardless of how historically accurate they might be. In historical fiction, I don’t think I would be as upset by encountering such dialogue, because I feel that the author is striving for accuracy, and historical accuracy is often terrible and uncomfortable.

  9. Jaclyn says:

    This was a an interesting read for me because 1) I read this book fairly recently 2) had a hard time rating it and 3) come from an indigenous background so this kind of casual racism about indigenous peoples tend to stick out at me.
    It’s an interesting conundrum. I tend to tell myself, when reviewing a book with this kind of situation, that it’s a small thing within the larger context and have found that I often give lenient grades because of it. But sometimes that ONE line or one piece of the narrative is the only thing that sticks with me.
    For example, I found this book rather slow at first. I kept putting it down after 20 minutes of reading. But I thought the emotional parts at the end were really great. I loved Colin Eversea–that underestimated, goofy type of hero is a favorite of mine. So I think I gave it a 4? Because I was sure that I’d be more likely to remember the feels it gave me than the slow beginning and the one awkward line. But guess what, I can’t seem to forget those things.
    Another one like this is Mr. Impossible. Great characters, good adventure. (Honestly, very similar to Perils of Pleasure– hardened widow, underestimated and goofy hero.) I was definitely more likely to remember that than the racist portrayal of Egyptians and casual mentions of defiling sacred monuments, right? But no. It sticks with me.
    How do we reckon with good books with bad elements? I’m not sure I have an answer. But I can say the casualty with which Ms. Long dropped “killing Indians” honestly makes it worse for me. Because the authors of these books don’t seem to be bothering to reckon with the racism of the time or the imbedded racism within themselves. From the readers perspective, they just throw around racist remarks and move on with their lives— this is impossible for subject of that racism to do.

    (I don’t recommend you read the second one in this series of this line bothered you. The hero and everyone around him loves to remark on the dark beauties he seduced in South America. Blech. We need less dehumanizing of native people in general in romance)

  10. connie333 says:

    When I was a very pre-teen I was mad on Willard Price’s “Adventure” books about two brothers who collect animals around the world. I found a load when I was clearing out the loft and had a flick through them. Wow they were hella racist. Not sure what to do with them – don’t want to take them to the charity shop in today’s bonkers political/racist climate. I think they’ll have to live in the attic if only because I don’t throw books away and one of them “Amazon Adventure” is a first adition and has the most bonkers illustrations of an anaconda that looks about fifty feet long killing some hunters.

  11. Rebecca says:

    I don’t know that this one line would be a deal breaker for me, but the idea of buying a farm in Virginia raises huge red flags for reasons mentioned in the review of The Wedded Bliss.

    I haven’t read the book, and the review doesn’t really make Madeleine’s economic or social status clear (just that she “needs money”) so I could be misinterpreting. That said, if Madeleine were really destitute and desperate she could put herself into indentured servitude to get passage to America. That was what lots of desperate men and women did and when their term was up (if they survived) they could and did become small farmers. But if Madeleine is putting a down payment down on a farm, that suggests more resources, and raises an awkward question. Even a very small family farm is more than a one person job (something that would have been both more true and more widely known in the early 19th C) so unless Madeleine really is TSTL (not just “inexperienced”) she has to have considered the issue of labor. Who’s going to plow the fields and tend and harvest the crops on her fantasy farm in Virginia? To put it very crudely, is she planning to buy slaves? Because that’s what it sounds like.

    I’m aware that the majority of colonists in Virginia were not slave holders, and that many of these poorer settlers were pushed into the less fertile hill country on the western borders of the state (and into what is now West Virginia), where they eked out a fairly miserable existence. Geographically speaking, these colonists were also the point of the conquerors’ lance, so they were more likely to clash violently with the people who had been there before them (and also possibly bears). But again, a lot of them were former indentured servants, or people who had one way or another made their way to America already and were trying to stay. Buying land in advance via down payment (especially for someone considered at all a “lady”) sounds more like an attempt to enter the Tidewater class. So Madeleine making a throwaway comment about genocide seems all of a piece with her general ethics. Which are hard to romanticize.

  12. HollyS says:

    I understand, and this was a great review. The irony is that there are tons of authors writing historicals now that take place during all kinds of troubled times in the US. BUT they manage not to slip in stupidity like this. One line can ruin a book for a variety of reasons, and Julie Ann Long just showed us how easy it is.

  13. Zyva says:

    Some plot elements sound like “Shanna”, by Kathleen Woodiwiss. An influence?
    Though “Shanna” did feature the indentured/ ‘bonded’ labour @Rebecca mentioned.

  14. Vasha says:

    Huh. I didn’t notice that particular line when reading The Perils of Pleasure, but the gunpowder incident you mention is SO typical of why I didn’t like the book. We are told that Madeleine is a fighter, planning and carrying out raids, etc., but after getting the hero out of the prison at the start, what more active participation does she do? Exactly nothing. She follows Colin around holding his horses. At the climax, her planning skills would come in very handy, but they’re not mentioned — Colin does everything to defeat the villain single-handedly. She’s a classic Faux Action Girl.

  15. Rebecca says:

    Thinking about it further, the challenge for writers of historical romance is to not have characters who simply have anachronistic 21st C attitudes, but to uncover the REAL attitudes of a number of people AT THE TIME THEY WERE WRITING which didn’t make it into the dominant narrative. Where, for example, are the romance heroes like Colonel Marinus Willett, of the Anglo-Dutch aristocracy of New York, who negotiated a peace treaty with the Creek in 1790, and then retired from the army, in spite of George Washington’s pleas that he continue his career, and offer to promote him to Brigadier General. In 1792 Willett wrote to Washington to turn down the promotion: “the honor of fighting and beating Indians is what I do not aspire after. If in any way I could be instrumental in effecting and maintaining peace with them, it would be to me a source of great satisfaction.” Or the heroines like Sarah Kierstede, who learned the Lenape language and acted as an official interpreter between the Lenape leader Oratam and the Dutch West India Company, and was granted land in what is now New Jersey by Oratam in thanks for her services in the late seventeenth century. (Not to romanticize Sarah too much, she was also a slave owner, and bequeathed several slaves to her children in her will, without any mention of freeing them.)**

    The point is, Europeans who encountered Americans between the seventeenth and early nineteenth centuries had a whole variety of reactions which were more complicated than just “shooting Indians” so sticking that in isn’t historically inaccurate, but it’s not the ONLY POSSIBLE historically accurate attitude.

    ** For those interested, the info on Sarah Kierstede and Marinus Willett comes from a book called Dutch New York Between East and West: The World of Margarieta Van Varick that’s the catalogue of an exhibition from 2009, edited by Deborah L. Krohn and Peter N. Miller.

  16. Rose says:

    I’m of the mind that in historical romance, unless the author is writing fiction vérité and solely trying to document the world precisely as it was, the only way including some seriously disturbing aspect of the time period is valuable is if the author has something to say about it. I don’t expect an 18th-century white British hero to have progressive ideas about the systematic genocide of Native Americans, but if it’s going to come up as a topic, use that moment to tell me something about it. How does the hero’s attitude contrast to his friends’? To a character who’s actually been to America? Is this a moment of learning or just a reinforcing of his own prejudice? Even if the characters don’t learn anything, does the reader?

    I can accept mention of unpleasant topics in my romance if they will be used to educate either the reader or the character, but to throw one in offhandedly and move on is like casually stepping over a land mine on a hike and expecting the group to follow.

  17. Louise says:

    @Veronica
    authors of historical novels should strike a balance between historical accuracy and modern knowledge and awareness

    Oddly enough I had a similar thought at an earlier stage in the review, when the hero is quoted:

    anyone knows you’re not to take a knife out of a deep wound if you want that person to have a chance at living

    Um, yes. We know that now. But did they know that then? Some absolutely jaw-droppingly stupid things were once held to be medically valid.

    @Rebecca:
    Find and read a biography of Molly Bannaky (Benjamin Banneker’s grandmother). Transported to the Colonies as an indentured servant, acquired land, bought a slave … and then freed and married him. You go, girl.

  18. Lora says:

    Yuck. No. Just no.
    I’ve read books with similar casual racism and misogyny recently and I invariably feel like I need a shower. Foul miasma indeed.
    Your build the wall was both ingenious and accurate. Thank you for your review.

  19. Emily A says:

    Julie Anne Long has long been a problematic author for me. Misgynoism is a consistent undercurrent in her books.

    2) There was another book (I believe) in the series with a similiar line about “shooting indians”. (Someone commented on it in a review, but I can’t source it.)

    3) Her treatment of the irish was so terrible that in one of her books that I have been convinced she will eventually write something that offends someone else. The use of Irish stereotypes that completely represent the Irish characters is so problematic! (Full disclosure: I’m partly of Irish descent.) It’s been a few years, but I still remember exactly why I found that book degrading and demeaning to Irish and those of us of Irish descent.

  20. Blackjack says:

    I’ve definitely encountered details that can take me out of a story as well as ones that are distracting, annoying, sexist and racist. My overall feeling is that if the romance itself is strong and the overall plot still holds up well, the smaller issues would likely lower the grade a bit but probably not two whole letter grades. If the sexism and racism and ahistoricism impact the overall story and my feelings for the main characters then those would be significant reductions. I don’t really think the examples above fall quite into that territory for me. Perils of Pleasure was more of a B- read for me, as I recall. It’s been a while, but it had redeeming features and was entertaining to read.

  21. LauraL says:

    Lazy or non-existent research by authors of contemporary novels are more likely to bother and frustrate me, thus lowering my grade. I am better at willing suspension of belief for the 19th century because it is not of my time. Life before modern times was often dirty and deadly, especially for those who produced luxury goods. And it still is.

    That said, The Incident does bother me because I know some Virginia history and would be making faces at my Kindle for Madeline’s remark. But keep in mind the British have often considered America a bit wild and woolly and the heroine was likely buying her farm sight unseen. Back in the day, farms were often sold “lock, stock, and barrel,” meaning any indentured servants, slaves, animals, and implements were part of the deal. And any bears in the woods. Life on a farm in Virginia can include bears in the woods, as I have learned in the past year. Our neighbors have had a number of those attributed 6000 bears waddle through their yards. I carry a big-ass, big-beamed flashlight when I take the Poodle out at night. And like Madeline, I wouldn’t know bad gunpowder if I smelled it.

  22. chacha1 says:

    I have seen, far too many times, the heroine described as strong and competent, with various skills, and in historicals these skills often allow them to live in apparent safety even though in reality, had they behaved the way they behave in the book in the places they are in the book, they would have been raped to death.

    Just because a female character is strong-WILLED, that does not actually make her strong and competent. I’m not going to believe she is competent until what she does in the book proves it.

    That said, male dialogue or internal monologue that is mansplainy or “she doesn’t know what’s good for her” or “she doesn’t know what she’s doing” (basically anything that can be prefaced with “she doesn’t know”) gives me all the rage.

  23. Linda says:

    It’s something I struggle with all the time. While I like historicals set in England it’s always frustrating to me how they do perpetuate a fantasy of an all white and not just all white but all Good White People world that just didn’t exist. I love Julie Ann Long’s books, you can also see her unexamined casual racism seep into her work like in throwaways like this because we are all raised in this fucked up society with these ideas. She’s also never written a heroine of color but has written a storyline about a heroine who is So Sad about how her father funded a slave trading ring. It’s gross, we need to keep talking about it because people have never learned that it’s gross.

  24. Carla says:

    I just finished this book 2 days ago and admit that this “throw-away” line was just that — thrown away by me. This was my first JAL book and I loved it. I like to escape into witty, snappy dialogue, and JAL gave me that from beginning to end in this book. I use romance novels to escape from the everyday realities of racism and historical revision, so this book would have garnered a much higher rating from me.

    Carla

  25. Karenza says:

    I read this sometime ago and to be honest – the racist line never bothered me as much as the whole getting hot and heavy after being on the run for many days. I actually cringed through that scene because I just couldn’t get over the unhygienic conditions. It was like “Eueew, eeuww, eeeeuuwww” all the way

    As for the racism and animal cruelty that historical romances hold – we need to be honest. The British / Europeans were a racist bunch and there is no going around it. They also hunted (fox hunting anyone?) So while it would be nice to see them with modern sensibilities, if you want a book that’s honest to the period it was written it – these sort of lines are expected, because people were really that ignorant and silly back then.

    I live in a country that was colonized by first the Dutch and then the British (Independence in 1948). Yet, I come from a family of both Dutch and English descent and I still have older relatives who feel the ‘natives’ are not good enough for anything – regardless of the fact that we ourselves are now so intermixed with so many different races, the only thing European is our last name. They are idiots (my relatives that is) but then they are a product of their generation. Sad but they are just clinging to the beliefs and learning’s of the old British conquerors so I can understand how Madeline would have felt
    That said – I understand the sting of racism as I am not accepted by the locals so I am not in anyway excusing such remarks should it happen in a contemporary or real life! I am also a die hard animal lover and these lines just make me sad to think of how we used to and still do treat poor animals.

    On the other hand – I loved all Julia Anne Long’s books and I read them as they deserved to be, pure historical ‘fiction’

  26. Cristiane says:

    “So I was sober enough not to pull it out. But I did put my hand on it…”

    So – is he worried about fingerprints? When is this book set, anyway? Fingerprints weren’t part of general law enforcement until the end of the 19th century. A small thing, but it bugs.

  27. aorist says:

    There’s a trend of modern stories in fancy dress. For me Julie Ann Long’s stories fall somewhere between historical and that. I never got a good feel for the time in any of her stories given the odd anachronisms. She’s one of those author’s I read because she provides “fluffy” stories that are most definitely “fiction,” as one of of you said. I’ve come to set my expectations fairly low these days, and I rarely review because most books anymore are three stars. Maybe, they always were, but the gems sparkle a lot.

  28. Gloriamarie says:

    @aorist, read Koiné?

    I too rarely give any romance novel more than three stars which means to me “it was enjoyable enough to read but I probably won’t reread it.” Few romance authors are, in my opinion, good enough writers to deserve more.

    I am trying to think of those to whom I might have given four. Just looked at my Goodreads’ reviews. I see I give four stars to paranormals rather than straight romance.

    Hmmm…. I guess like make believe more than love stories. LOL

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