Book Review

Starlight by Carrie Lofty

Starlight by Carrie Lofty, is full of CarrieS bait. The hero is an astronomy teacher. The heroine is a union leader in a mill. The novel is set in Glasgow in 1880, and it manages to present the possibility of a mill being run fairly without glamorizing what was grueling work under even ideal conditions. The biggest problem with the story is that the protagonists are so much at odds that it’s hard to believe in their happy ending.

The story involves Alex Christie, a widower with an infant son. His wife, Mamie, died in childbirth. Her father, Josiah, who now wants to get his clutches on the baby, had horribly abused Mamie. Reader, be aware that the book contains several discussions on how Mamie was affected by the sexual abuse she survived at the hands of Josiah. Mamie and Alex had a friendly but not passionate relationship and worked on several progressive causes together.

In addition to losing his wife, Alex is also recovering from the recent loss of his estranged father. All Alex inherited from his father was a struggling cotton mill in Glasgow. Josiah, the pedophile asshole father-in-law, tells Alex that he will fight Alex in court for custody of Alex and Mamie’s baby. Alex has no money so he would lose in court. BUT according to his father’s will if Alex can make the mill show a profit within two years he will get a million dollar bonus (the story begins in New York City, hence dollars). If he can’t make the mill earn a profit, he will get one payment of five hundred dollars and that’s it. Of course Alex goes to Glasgow to try to make the mill profitable so that he can protect his son from Josiah, while I wonder who on earth would write a will like that.

Naturally, there is unrest in the mill, because mills were wretched places to work. Polly is the daughter of the union leader. He is sick from a lung disease (common among mill workers, who breathed dust and fibers all day) so she is essentially the union leader in his stead. Polly hopes that Alex will be a sympathetic mill owner and that she will be able to avoid a union strike which would doubtless involve suffering and violence. Polly and Alex experience a powerful attack of insta-lust and commence to fight, keep secrets from each other, and have wild sex.

Polly and Alex are basically two alphas who are at cross-purposes, who can’t or won’t openly divulge their motives or goals, and who can’t keep their hands off each other. As Alex, rather affectionately, says of Polly, “You would argue with a storm cloud in the middle of a hurricane.” He also points out at various times that she would argue with “a door” and “a tree-stump” and Polly’s usual rejoinder is that she would and furthermore she would win.

Polly and Alex even bicker in bed, which leads to some hilarious dialogue. The following excerpt, in which Alex teaches Polly the medical terms for certain body parts, is NSFW but it cracked me up:

“Now, the clitoris is the subject of much debate.”

She arched her hips. “Alex, please.”

“Would you like to know why?”

“Why, what?”

“Why it’s the subject of debate.”

“You’re a beast.”

“It’s because many men and even argue against its existence. Can you believe that? They think it’s a myth-a trick of history based on rumors spread by Romans or witches or some such. You’ll have to tell me what you believe.”

After some activity on his part her breathless conclusion is, “It exists.”

This book is 395 pages long and as of page 377 it still didn’t seem like these two crazy kids would stop fighting long enough to have an HEA but finally things wrap up. There’s a big action scene that comes out of nowhere and Alex and Polly experience the kind of mutual epiphany that only comes from a lot of adrenaline. Their problems are violently but satisfactorily solved and they go on to wedded bliss. It’s very abrupt.

In case you are wondering, there’s not much astronomy in this book. Alex shows Polly the stars through his telescope and it’s very sweet. That’s about it. Why his father thought an astronomy teacher should run a mill is beyond me, although apparently the father wanted Alex to go into business and was angry that he didn’t.

While the actual plot of this book is extremely contrived, the Author’s Note talks about why the romance itself could have actually worked. Class barriers in Scotland were not as great as the ones in England. The book also does a good job of keeping Alex realistic as a mill owner without making him horribly oppressive. Even when he’s trying to keep the mill profitable Alex applauds safety features in the mill, such as a fan that helps keep at least some of the fibers out of the workers’ lungs. Once some of the pressure is off him, he and Polly implement reforms like mandatory schooling for factory children and bonuses for workers. This keeps Alex from being an industrial villain without making things so perfect as to be unbelievable.

Because the plot and its resolution were so contrived, and because the plot relies on a number of one-dimensional villains who become increasingly cartoonish as the story progresses, this book gets a C. However, I’m adding a + for the humor, the excellent two main characters, and the dextrous handling of a mill owner hero, which could so easily have gone wrong in so many ways.

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Starlight by Carrie Lofty

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  1. I would never have looked at that cover, with the heroine’s dress falling open strategically at the back while she reclines on a bed of roses, and thought the story had anything to do with a mill.

  2. linn says:

    Hmmm… Somehow you just made me want to rewatch “North and South” (the 2004 version with Richard Armitage) yet again, rather than read this book. I guess Mr Thornton is the only mill owner hero for me!

  3. Beth Anne says:

    @linn– I’ve been yearning to re-watch “North and South” again as well, and that was the first thing I thought of when I saw “mill” in this review.

  4. Rose says:

    I, too, have a Pavlovian response to “mill owner” that inexorably pulls me toward the TV to watch North and South for the billionth time. If you haven’t seen it, you should spend the rest of the day bingeing. It’s that good.

    That cover seems very irrelevant for the book and also so so so pretty.

  5. Caitlyn says:

    I love this book. The first book in the series is really good too. Don’t get your hopes up, though — she’s stopped writing due to health reasons, so the third, Diva, is unlikely.

  6. Iris says:

    The pretty color scheme isn’t enough to distract me from the fact that she has body parts missing and spines don’t easily do that position.

    And why on earth would the father of a child be at risk of losing his child to an in-law? I thought it was the mother whose legal rights to her child were so tenuous.

  7. Sandra says:

    @ Marian: I’m not even sure it’s a dress. It’s more like she’s wrapped in a bolt of fabric (from said mill?).

  8. Kris Bock says:

    I don’t think that’s the right leg. Or rather, it is the right leg, which is not the correct leg for that position.

  9. MsCellanie says:

    @Iris. Yes.
    Al so, if he has access to two continents, why not just take the baby to the other. It’s 1880. International custody disputes are hard enough today with countries that work together and quick transatlantic travel. Then, distance alone should solve the problem.

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