C-
Genre: Historical: European, Regency, Romance
I feel like this was an experiment of a book: take a girl, make her a surprise heiress, and don’t tell the reader which of three potential gentlemen is the actual hero until the last act of the book.
I don’t think it really worked.
Elisabeth Elham is a penniless governess when her estranged and extremely rich uncle dies and leaves everything to her, because when her parents died, she did not beg him for money. Among the everything is a broken down estate, a literal fuck tonne of money, and the ability to enter society. Because Elisabeth is a good and kind person, she collects her penniless cousins (who did not inherit anything because they did have the audacity to go to their rich uncle when they lost everything). She also needs to find another cousin to act as chaperone, and an entry into society.
Along the way, she meets three dudes, a fortune hunter (who cheerfully tells her that he’s a fortune hunter when they first meet, because he’s found that young ladies get mad when they find out further along the courting process), her neighbor (a viscount-in-waiting), and a Byronic type, recently returned from the West Indies. Part of the planned fun of this book is playing, “which dude is endgame?”
We’ll get to the dudes in a minute, but let’s discuss Elisabeth. When handed this pile of money, she immediately goes to fetch her various cousins, and the older chaperone cousin has connections with a duchess, so they’re all able to get introduced into society without so much as a hiccup. “Oh, yes, I will get you vouchers to Almacks, no problem.” It’s just… so easy! Impossibly easy! And Elisabeth is just so unruffled by all of this. She’s good and sweet and kind and the most frustration she shows is, “Wow, I need to spend some time alone in my room because my cousins talk a lot.” Which, yeah, I feel you, but she just makes the jump from penniless teacher to impossibly rich heiress without so much as a “what the fuck?” Everyone wants to help her. There’s no internal conflict. There’s no growing pains. She gets some new dresses, and everything is just ducky.
Even her female cousin, Belinda, marries a duke after being in society for like, five minutes. There’s some concern about her male cousin, and how will he learn to operate in society, but there’s the neighbor dude who can help him, so that’s dispensed with.
The problem with playing dude-roulette is that there’s no chance for character development on the hero. There were parts of each dude’s narrative that I liked. I have to admit, I appreciate a fortune hunter who admits that’s what he is, though admitting to the woman he hopes will marry him that he’s got a gambling problem isn’t, perhaps, the wisest of moves. The Byronic dude had a whole thing about “yeah, I tried being a planter in the West Indies, but I suck at it and also slavery is terrible” which… yes, yes it is. If he hadn’t admitted that, then I would have had a lot more trouble accepting him as a potential hero. The neighbor dude is, you know, a neighbor. He’s fine.
There’s through-line of “Hey have you read this book, Pride and Prejudice, by this Austen chick?” that makes the Byronic dude look like a frontrunner for the hero spot.
I wanted to like this. I really did. But other than literally being the last gentleman standing, there’s no real reason I saw for the hero and the heroine to be together. There’s no reason for them not to be together, either. There’s just no there there.
This is a re-release and refresh of a book from 25 years ago. (Well, more, since it was first published in 1980). There’s a few artifacts from the conventions of that time (Elisabeth being referred to as “the girl” in the text for one), which, fine, whatever. I might have more quibbles about that particular thing if there were not all these other issues. And yes, books from the Old Skool didn’t have much in the way of heroic development. But at this point in time here in Romancelandia, we expect hero to have actual dimensions. And if you’re going to take a book from the Old Skool and revise it and re-release it, I’m going to have certain expectations.
Basically, I’m disappointed.
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So, have you shown this to Elyse, Redheadedgirl? Because this sounds like a sort of low-budget (only three contestants!) Regency Bachelorette. Was there a Dreaded Rose Ceremony?
I suspect it would have graded much higher if approached with adequate rum and coke, or something.
On the other hand, as a plotline for a (faux) Reality Television Series Very Serious No Really, Regency Bachelorette seems kinda like a winner, to me (less so for Regency Bachelor, ’cause seems a little too too old skool).
Aw, too bad. I’d be really interested in a version of this experiment that actually worked; sometimes I get a little tired of being able to Spot the Couple from the get-go, particularly since a lot of the time, if I stop to think about it, I don’t actually know why they’re meant to be apart from that the author has decreed it thus. In fact, I would honestly love to read something where the author used the readers’ genre-savviness to trick us into thinking the wrong person is hero or heroine until about halfway through the book. (End of the book wouldn’t work, for the same hero-development reasons cited in this review.)
This is a great review, though!
I guessed the hero before I even clicked on the spoiler, which didn’t take much thought. That just feels so lazy and trite. I get that it was published in 1980, but if you’re going to release this in 2017, do a seriously thoughtful and thorough update or don’t waste everyone’s time.
That’s a little harsh I know, but. IDK.
OMG please have a rec league on this – books where the couple isnt revealed till the middle!
Shash: This subject popped up in one of the early SBTB podcasts, more as examples of twisting reading expectation. I don’t know whether it has a transcript yet. The two examples I remember was Loretta Chase’s Devil’s Delilah and Edith Layton’s Duke’s Wager. I wish I enjoyed the Chase more. While I liked the heroine and who the hero turned out to be, I had similar issues with how the storyline enfolded.
The promise of three-fer suitors was a bit of a regency synopsis staple back in the day:
Of course, in all of these, the inevitable mate is fairly obvious from the back cover copy alone. I have a vague memory of being shocked by a Signet Regency where the rakish aristocrats dangled in the synopsis were beaten out by the virtuous vicar…whom I would not have selected from the back cover copy because he was virtuous and a vicar and it was the 90s, darnit.
Too bad about the plot, but I loooove the cover. I could feast my eyes on it for hours.
Deborah: I don’t suppose you remember the virtuous vicar one?
This reminds me of an American historical romance series I read back in the late ’70s/early ’80s by Patricia Matthews. Each of the stories had two men who became involved with the heroine, and you didn’t necessarily know who she would end up with. This was compounded by the fact that she always had sex with both men, so you couldn’t judge by that factor. Sometimes, I liked one guy more than another, and sometimes I felt it would be fine no matter who she chose. Now, though, the story structure seems a little odd to me.
The multi-love interest aspect sounds like Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy. I highly recommend the movie from 1967!!
@Julia aka mizzelle – Unfortunately, no. I mined the three descriptions I quoted above from Amazon while I was searching for that book, but the only thing I’m (97%) sure of is that it was a Signet Regency. Even though I felt a bit wrist-slapped by the author (in a “tsk-tsk, you superficial, rake-loving reader” sense), being chastened wasn’t enough to catalog the book in my swiss-cheese brain.
I grew up with the Sunfire books, so the idea of two suitors both vying for the heroine’s attention is one I’ve always loved. It sounds like three suitors may have been too much for the book.
@Julia aka mizzelle and Deborah: I think the book you’re talking about is Libby’s London Merchant by Carla Kelly.
@Emily: that might be a good one for the proposed rec league! But the book I’ve forgotten featured a vicar, not a doctor, and the back cover copy laid out the heroine’s three “options” in the fashion quoted above.
And can any of you think of cases where the hero/heroine is actually in love with one person at the start of the book, and switches their affection to a different one, without love interest A turning out to be a jerk or a villain? the only one I can think of is “Choosing You” by Jenny Trout.
@Vasha — that’s more what I’m interested in, too. Not so much “X suitors vying for heroine’s hand” as just, like, a bait and switch. Bonus points if the guy she starts off interested in is standard trope material (her high school crush, her brother’s bff, her bff’s brother) and the other one isn’t.
And I loved the 2015 version of “Far From the Madding Crowd” with Carey Mulligan and Matthias Schoenaerts. He’s a heartstopping Gabriel Oak, the scenery is gorgeous, and it felt good but odd to say Thomas Hardy and Happy Ending in one sentence ( although admittedly most definitely not happy for everyone, but then it is Thomas Hardy).
Anyone else read those YA historical romances from the 80s/90s, each novel featuring a different (American?) time period and being named after the heroine? Each book had a plot unique to its historical moment, in each one was that there were two men vying for the heroine’s affections, and the resolution always involved her choosing one over the other (unless, you know, one goes down with the Titanic). I’m sure my 13-year-old self was not truly discerning, but I remember that the Chosen Dude was not always obvious from the get-go. In any case, they were a lot of fun, and clearly a gateway drug into Romancelandia.
@Melissandre: Those are the Sunfire romances just mentioned. So many people on this site had fond memories when there was a post about them.
@Vasha: Ah, yes! Now I remember that post. Still, any opportunity to talk about those books is a good one!
@Vasha In What I Did for a Duke by Julie Anne Long the heroine starts out in love with one guy but ends up falling in love with the duke (not a surprise). The first guy she is in love with isn’t an asshole, though he is a bit of a dumbass. Mostly he’s just young. I love that book 🙂
@Vasha and Anonymous: I feel like The Choice by Edith Layton does that. I’m a bit fuzzy on the details, but I seem to remember that the heroine is infatuated with someone other than the hero at the start of the story.
@Vasha, yes, one of Tessa Dare’s earliest books “Goddess of the Hunt” has that plot. The heroine has been crushing on a friend of her brother’s for years.
I just checked, it is in fact Tessa Dare’s DEBUT book. Wow, is she good!
Speaking of Edith Layton, her book “The Chance” has the bait-and-switch plot but with the genders reversed. The hero has been in love with one woman, but because of plot things that happen, he ends up with someone else. It’s my favorite Layton novel.
Too bad about the Jane Ashford book though, she has written some good stuff. “The Bargain” is wonderful.
The “guess the love interest” could be interesting if done right, but you’re 100% correct that “hey look surprise it’s the last person you’d ever have suspected” is not in and of itself a satisfying romantic resolution. That might work for the revelation of the culprit in a puzzle-oriented mystery, though even then you should establish some motivation, but in a romance you need to have an emotional connection between the characters and reasons they’re actually going to work as a couple.
A lot of older romantic suspense had two (usually two) potential heroes and the heroine having to choose between them, often with it not becoming clear who the right one was until near the end and with the wrong one turning out to be the villain. But usually the way this was executed you could guess the right one a mile away – the one who seemed to be a jerk was the good guy, and the one who seemed nice was the bad guy. I think Rebecca Du Maurier’s Jamaica Inn (which has a real crazysauce big reveal about the Wrong Guy) might have been the template for this kind of setup. It tends to be too predictable for my taste, and as someone who generally likes nice love interests and has a low tolerance for alpholes – as the Good Guys often are – it gets on my nerves.
The “by the way, I’m a fortune hunter” bit happens in one of my favorite romances, Rose Lerner’s True Pretenses, though it happens a bit later and after the heroine has guessed something is up. So if you’re looking for a book where the fortune hunter actually IS the hero, that’s a good choice.
And as a fan of the Dragon Age video games I can’t help but think of Iron Bull from DA:I, who admits to the player character right away (not even a spoiler) that he’s actually a spy who’ll be sending reports to his foreign handlers and just wants to let you know that. Though this makes sense in context given the other Qunari agents we meet in the series and given later revelations about Bull’s character….
If you want a good fortune hunter hero try Diane Farr’s The Fortune Hunter. He accidentally blows his cover early on, they are forced to spend time together for reasons, attraction and personal growth on both sides, ending with a lovely romance.
@Althea: (Completely off topic, so beg pardon) Bull is one of my favorite characters for that reason. I play as a dwarf archer, and I can romance him, but I can’t bring myself to do it (plus I’m in a relationship with Sera right now). I love how up front and candid Bull is about everything. It’s so interesting as a contrast to the “secretive” spy tropes.
Mary Balogh also had a book (one of her Signet Regencies, most likely from the 90s) where the virtuous vicar won out….
@SB Sarah – my current character is also romancing Sera, high five! Though I’m playing a human mage. One of my favorite Bull moments, though also one of my favorite Solas moments too:
Solas: “We have killed living men, and all that they might have been is lost.”
Iron Bull: “Yeah, but they were assholes!”
(My favorite SERA moment is when the player character asks “Is that innuendo?” and she replies “No, it’s up the front!”)
/tangent
also: my brain switched Daphne Du Maurier’s first name in my post above with the name of her best-known book. Ack.
I’ve read both What I Did For a Duke (loved it) and Goddess of the Hunt (hated it), and neither of them hit this particular mark for me because it was very clear from the outset who the real hero was. Authors always give a sort of Hero Treatment to their male and female leads (at least modern authors do; don’t know about the earlier stuff people are citing!), and you can generally guess who is who just based on that. What I’m really hankering after is set-ups where you think you’re reading Plot Trope Collection #12 and then a third to halfway through you discover you’re actually reading something else.
One “unexpected” kind of hero happens in Marilyn Pappano’s Tallgrass novels (I think those – the ones with the military widows). It’s less in a single book than throughout the series, one of the women realizes that her next love has been around all along. She dates one of the other guys briefly, but I think he ends up as a hero for someone else (also in the series). Which is kind of cool/interesting because neither is a bad guy and it’s more “real life like” than such things usually happen.
@Anonymous 32: love triangles are common to the point of cliche in YA, especially YA series. Like, I’ve actually seen people specifically asking for recs of YA where there ISN’T a love triangle. So you might be interested in looking there for that kind of setup. But I haven’t read enough modern YA yet to have a good sense of how often the resolutions of those triangles are telegraphed early.
One problem I sometimes have with the “multiple possible love interests” setup is that I get really attached to one of them and… it turns out they’re not only not the Right One but that they were Evil All Along (or fall to the dark side along the way). I actually find it considerably more painful to have a character I love turn out to be a villain (or become one) than to just have them die – it feels like a negation of everything I ever loved about them. It can even feel like an implication of me as part of their villainy, especially if I still fondly recall that character from then they WEREN’T an asshole. But those reactions may very well be part of an author’s intention….
re my last comment: I meant “fondly recall that character from WHEN they weren’t an asshole.” Argh.
@Althea, but it’s OK if the character you love is not the Right One, because he might redeem himself and turn out to be sequel bait! That’s what happens to the Wrong One in “The Duke’s Wager”.
Great virtuous vicar in the first book in Patricia Gaffney’s Wickerley Trilogy.