Book Review

Guest Squee: Trial by Desire by Courtney Milan

NB: Have we mentioned that we love a good squee? Because we do. We love hearing about which books made you feel absolutely over the moon, or ones that you’ve connected with on deep, emotional levels. 

This particular squee comes from Poppy. Poppy is a long-time fan of SBTB and loves cats, books and coffee, in that order. There is also a trigger warning at the beginning of the review, but in case you miss it – TRIGGER WARNING.

TW: discussion of depression, bipolar disorder, domestic abuse, and mental illness

It’s 4.30am where I am, and I have opened up my laptop to write this because I couldn’t sleep without doing so. The thoughts that brewed in my gut after reading Courtney Milan’s Trial by Desire have bubbled up my throat and are threatening to choke me if I don’t open up a pressure valve. And so I hit up SBTB, hoping to process my feelings by reading someone else’s review of this book so I can finally go back to sleep. But this was all I could find:

Trial by Desire by Courtney Milan is 99c! This is the second book in Milan’s Carhart series and, as with the rest of the deals, this book is on sale in an enhanced ebook edition. Remember Ned Carhart, Jenny’s favorite customer in Proof by Seduction? Well now he gets his own book! After leaving his wife three years ago, Ned returns to his marriage, making this a historical romance with a second chance romance plot. Catnip, anyone? Readers loved the transformation of Ned from the previous book, while others had difficulty believing the romance.

SHE CANNOT FORGET THE FIRE HE IGNITED …

In the three years since her husband left her, Lady Kate Carhart has managed to forge a fulfilling life for herself. But when Ned Carhart unexpectedly returns, she finds her tranquility uprooted — and her deepest secrets threatened. Though she has no intention of falling for Ned’s charms, Kate can no longer deny the desire that still burns in her heart.

OR THE PROMISE OF HIS LOVE …

Ned is determined to regain his wife’s trust by using unbridled seduction. But just as Kate surrenders to Ned’s passion, her carefully guarded past threatens to destroy her. Now Kate must place her faith in the only man she’s ever loved, and the only one who has ever betrayed her…

This Amazon blurb is at best, inaccurate; at worst, downright rubbish. Unless I was reading a completely different book without realising it, there was nothing close to “unbridled seduction;” in fact, Ned’s attempts to regain Kate’s trust went in quite the opposite direction.

Kate, also, did not “surrender to Ned’s passion.” She was a woman of great agency who played as significant a role in restoring their relationship as he did.

But mostly, I was disappointed not to find any mention of what was, for me, the heart of the story – Ned’s struggles with bipolar disorder. This was primarily a story about a man suffering from poor mental health, how he coped with it, and the damage it wreaked on his relationships. For Milan to put Ned and his mental health struggles at the heart of her story was incredible. I can’t find adequate words to describe what it felt like to unexpectedly encounter a nuanced, sensitive treatment of a bipolar character – the lead of the story, no less – in a Regency romance.

At this point, I suppose I should just come right out and say it. While I am not bipolar, I have suffered from depression for nearly two decades. What started out as teenage angst somehow never went away as I transitioned into young adulthood. I grew up with “Why are you so moody?”, “She’s in one of her moods again”, “You have nothing to be sad about, you are such a lucky girl”, “Can’t you just get over it”, “It’s all in your head” and so on. In my teenage years and much of my twenties, when I couldn’t (and refused) to name that debilitating, monstrous cloud that occasionally settled over my life, even when everything was ostensibly going well, I castigated myself in a similar fashion, hating and despising my weakness. If only I was strong enough, if only I was sensible enough, if only I had better self-control.

In my late twenties, when my depression had cost me a marriage (which, unlike Ned’s and Kate’s, is irredeemable) I finally started seeing a counsellor. Now I understand “It’s all in your head” is precisely why depression, bipolar disorder, and other mental health issues are so hard to shake. It is, after all, asking your head to solve the problems that the very same head has created.

Since I’m writing this as a reaction to how I related to Ned (and in some way, Kate), I won’t go very far into plot points. Suffice to say Trial by Desire is a well-paced, engaging story that touches on domestic abuse, women’s rights in the context of the time, and a discussion of what real support between friends means. Ned was first seen in the previous book Proof by Seduction, the first of the Carhart series, as the young, slouchy, troubled cousin of Ash, Marquess of Blakely. Ned had been visiting a fortune teller for ersatz counselling sessions to manage his disorder. After said fortune teller was exposed by Ash as a fraud, Ned lost his sole source of support and went into a depressive tailspin. By the end of the book, he was accused of “compromising” a young lady and somewhat pressured into marrying her.

Trial by Desire re-introduced Ned as the protagonist in his own book. At the beginning of the book, he took off abruptly to China after a mere few months of marriage, much to the understandable horror of his new wife Kate. He returned in the next chapter, three years later, interrupting Kate in the middle of her secret mission to conceal an abused wife from her violent husband. By then he had “tamed his dragons” by successfully replacing destructive behaviour patterns with more positive ones, like regular workouts and visualisation exercises. He also had a battery of coping mechanisms which included refusing to sleep with proper heating and, sadly, refusing to sleep with his wife. The last, of course, left Kate hurt and enraged.

Even without Ned being bipolar, the story would have been great. Ned could have been written as an impulsive, immature young man who ran off because he wasn’t too keen on being married and/or was afflicted by wanderlust. It would have been believable that he did not want to bring along a wife he deemed too genteel and still too much of a stranger. The rest of the plot could have followed quite well, too – upon his return, he would have had an equally daunting task of grovelling for forgiveness and getting to know his wife, who had been very, very busy running the estate by day and rescuing victims of domestic abuse by night. All these would already have been heady storytelling.

But I rejoice that the book, instead of settling for “good,” went straight for “amazing.” Ned’s internal troubles elevated the story and gave dimensionality to its characters – made it less about plot, and more about people. Much of the story is told with Kate’s voice, but a good amount of real estate was also given to Ned and his fights with his “bouts of darkness” and the “bewildering and inexplicable sadness that sometimes came over him”. The descriptions of how Kate struggled to understand why Ned left also gutted me. A few years after I got married, I took off (coincidentally, also to China) in a similarly abrupt way. My ex-spouse, like Kate, was left miserable and confused.

Depression, in my experience, is an isolating condition. I know people, and know of people in my life who suffer from similar issues, and invariably we leave behind a trail of hurt and perplexed parents, siblings, spouses, friends, colleagues. In my worst moments I sometimes feel like I am trapped in a glass jar, watching my loved ones repeatedly, painfully running into the invisible wall as they try to reach me. Milan captures this in much of Ned and Kate’s interactions. Kate could not understand why she wasn’t reaching Ned; Ned could not trust himself to get close to his wife for fear that he would hurt her again. Much of the healing process was about Ned being able “to trust himself around her, trust that this time, he would not go careening off into the abyss again.” Reading all this was simultaneously painful and comforting. Painful because I could recognise so much of their conflict, but comforting because, unlike with my family and friends, I gained direct entry to Kate’s internal monologues and saw that she, like my family and friends, was coming from a place of wanting to be supportive and loving, even if she didn’t yet know how.

But more precious than just the thoughtful depictions of Ned and Kate’s difficulties is Milan’s decision to position Ned squarely at rudder of his own ship, to make him firmly in charge of his own recovery. It is heartbreaking to think about how people with mental illnesses must have struggled in a time when there was so little understanding of such issues. So it is particularly gratifying to see Ned make the best of his situation. He succumbed, as related in gory detail; but he pulled through. He was vigilant about managing his illness. He told his well-meaning but insensitive friends how he expected them to treat him. Most importantly, he finally confided in Kate, and trusted her to support him in her own way.

By the end of the book, Ned had largely triumphed over his disorder, but not because his affliction had been magically banished, but because he – and Kate – had learned viable coping techniques for it. This was wonderful, optimistic and realistic.

After all, “recovery” from mental disorder is not some mythical, paradisiacal destination that can eventually be reached. Instead, it is in the many little quotidian choices and actions that keep our vessels steered, even if not in the precisely right direction, then at least, in a generally desirable one.

Like Ned, I have spent years developing and relying on an arsenal of coping strategies to deal with difficult days. One of them, of course, is to disappear into the warm cocoon of romances and their stories about other seemingly less afflicted lives. But books like these, that unapologetically, honestly, optimistically put someone’s affliction at the heart of its tale, have made me realise that reading romance can do more than help with coping – it can sometimes be part of the healing process as well.

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Trial by Desire by Courtney Milan

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  1. Greensky says:

    This book sounds amazing. I loved Proof of Seduction – the scene with the orange is hilarious! I never read this one though as the blurb sounded boring and I could not imagine Ned as the hero of his own book. However after reading this I’ll be giving it a go.

  2. Alex says:

    Thank you for this review and for your words. There were several passages that really hit home for me.

    I will be picking this one up. Something I rarely find – and maybe I haven’t searched it out enough – is romances where one or even both members of the couple struggle from a mental illness. And especially ones where it’s the female. And more specifically, depression. If anyone has any recommendations for those please post!

  3. Betsydub says:

    “It is, after all, asking your head to solve the problems that the very same head has created.”

    YES!

    I will be co-opting this. Thank you!

  4. Willa says:

    Megan Chance’s The Portrait features a hero suffering with bipolar. A wonderful historical book, dark, angsty – it makes for uncomfortable reading at times because it captures bipolar so well.

  5. Cat C says:

    I love this book as well! It’s one of my favorite Courtney Milans, and boy do I adore her books. I relied heavily on Milan’s books (and other romances, so many romances), and their mixture of comfort and healing, when throughout college and grad school I hadn’t yet given myself permission to seek professional help and just sublimated everything through escapism and self-care (that only worked for so long, and I’m doing much much much much much better with the help of a professional therapist and prescribed medication, thank you modern health options). Thank you for your eloquent review, and I hope it leads other people to give this book a try.

    I think what’s so great about this book is that it has Ned’s compelling and powerful journey as you’ve described so well but also Kate’s story is just as powerful as Ned’s, as she helps women escape instances of domestic abuse (these outer actions are much of what drive the plot).

    And there’s a beautiful line about two secondary characters (actually, the couple from the previous book): “So this was what a happy marriage looked like, even under circumstances that were far from happy. This was what it really meant–not that they never suffered, but that when they did, they shared their burdens.” At the time, I’d never been in a serious relationship, and lines like these gave me a glimpse into what would prove important when the giddiness of a new relationship wore off (and I’m lucky to now be married to someone with whom I’ve shared many a burden).

    Oh, and check out Milan’s enhanced edition, especially her anecdote about how a real-life family incident inspired what she calls the least believable part of her book. It also has a prettier cover 🙂

  6. Cat C says:

    @Alex–one book I really loved was Julie James’s contemporary Suddenly One Summer where the heroine suffers from anxiety and panic attacks, and it even features her journey through therapy (after much initial reluctance). I honestly don’t remember the romance parts, but I do remember proudly telling my therapist about how much I identified with the internalized stigma and how good it felt to see her eventually accept help and make progress. (I’m going to feel really awful if this is not actually how the book went.)

  7. Katie Lynn says:

    This is lovely, thanks so much for the review. I always appreciate books that delve into a topic like this, whether I can understand it or not, to give me more perspective on other people’s lives. They usually end up being my favorites, because the characters are so real and flawed. I think this is the only series of Milan’s that I haven’t read, so I will definitely be adding it to my queue.

  8. Lori says:

    Thank you so much for this review! I love Courtney Milan but haven’t gotten around to reading all of her books. I went and bought this immediately on Amazon ($1.99 right now!) because my husband was diagnosed with bipolar disorder earlier this year and I have appreciated reading fiction featuring characters who struggle with mental illness. It sounds like this story will probably be a little emotionally challenging for me to read but ultimately will make me very happy.

  9. Iris says:

    I came to this book after reading two other entire series by Ms Milan and was blown away by how powerfully I related to the story and now to this review. My husband is bipolar and his disease first showed after a few years into our then weekend marriage, so it was difficult to understand what was going on since we spent so little time together and so frustrating at that. I am not sure we have found the perfect coping techniques, but being aware of a problem and determined to face it and deal with is a good start. Even if you have thankfully not experienced such problems in your life, you will enjoy this book and the romance – love does conquer all in this book in the end, especially the fear of sharing your problems with a partner who is only too willing to share your burdens out of love for you.

  10. Madeline Iva says:

    Fascinating. Love all the hurdles people are finding to romance–by opening up a big wide door to acceptance-ville.

  11. catses says:

    Thanks for this review. I’m going to order the book.

  12. @Alex – Courtney Milan’s Unclaimed has a heroine dealing with depression, though it isn’t as central to the book as in Trial by Desire. (She is also a courtesan, and the hero wrote a book on male chastity. It is delicious.)

    Her Once Upon a Marquess has a hero dealing with severe anxiety and a past drug addiction, and her Trade Me has a hero with an eating disorder. (It’s also a brilliant exploration of wealth and poverty, and really funny.)

    If I may toot my own horn, my f/f fantasy standalone novelette Dreamsnare has one main character who has struggled with depression that cost her a career and a marriage. It’s heavily informed by my own experiences with depression and anxiety.

  13. Vasha says:

    Althea, I just spent a couple hours reading your story — it was beautiful! Short stories are difficult, but you paced it right, with the crisis you placed your main characters in being intense enough to make it natural for them to reveal their painful secrets early on, and a sense of suspense. I particularly liked the way you depicted the antagonist in the story. No real villains here.

  14. Margaret says:

    Wow. What a wonderful squee. The description quoted at the beginning would most likely not have led me to search out the book, but that’s what I’ll be doing next after I hit “send.” Thank you, Poppy, for your honesty and passion. I have a daughter who suffers from depression and it is very, very hard to be on the outside looking in and feeling helpless. It will be nice to see in fiction, if nowhere else, some success at working things out.

  15. jmom says:

    I’m so glad I read your review, Poppy. Coincidentally it’s 4:30 am my time. I’m catching up on SBTB after losing almost two days to a sleep/fog that is one of my bipolar pitfalls. I’m going to get hold of this book as soon as I can. Maybe I can learn some more coping skills from Ned 🙂

  16. Thank you soooo much, Vasha – it means so much to me! <3

  17. catses says:

    Bother it, I wish I hadn’t followed the rules (in my head) and bought what I thought was the first book. In fact that one, “This Wicked Gift”, is a novella and I’d have been better going to the first full book in the series.

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