C-
Genre: Historical: American, Mystery/Thriller, Romance
Content warning: While the main characters are OK, the entire plot centres around a kidnapping and blackmail ring that involves the sexual assault of women. Nothing is described in graphic detail, but it’s pretty upsetting. Another character is a survivor of abuse by her spouse.
The Lady Has a Past is a really strong romantic thriller with mild paranormal elements that delivers on both the thriller and the romantic aspects of the story. Unfortunately, while I thoroughly enjoyed this story while I was reading it, I found myself increasingly troubled by certain aspects of the narrative once I began to reflect on the story in order to write this review.
The story begins when apprentice PI and former socialite Lyra Brazier witnesses a murder in progress, and intervenes. But it quickly becomes clear to Lyra that the scene she witnessed wasn’t precisely what it seemed, and before she has time to sort out whether what she saw was real and whether she has been used in someone else’s murder plot, her boss and mentor, Raina, disappears unexpectedly, leaving only a few cryptic words and a note as a partial explanation of where she has gone.
Enter Simon Cage, antiquarian book dealer and psychic, with a nose for blackmail and embezzlement, and a talent for picking locks. Simon has just finished one mission and is looking for some downtime, ideally with a woman who knows the score and is up for a bit of fun. But he is summoned by his friend Luther, a wealthy nightclub owner with mob connections, to help search for his lover – Lyra’s boss, Raina.
Simon and Lyra rub each other up the wrong way from the start. They don’t particularly want to work together, but each quickly acknowledges that the other has strengths that they don’t share, and by the time they check into the honeymoon suite as Mr and Mrs Cage, they are a pretty strong team.
I liked the way they complemented each other as investigators. Lyra may be new to the world of investigation, but she is observant, and more importantly, she is one of those people who can draw out almost anyone. Total strangers fall over themselves to share their secrets with her, which is extremely useful. Simon is more the safe-breaking and occasional arm-breaking type. He has had a lot of practice dealing with shady characters of all kinds, and running investigations for Luther. But he is smart enough to realise that in this investigation, he needs to play second fiddle to Lyra in many ways, and smoothly slides into the role of her backup and advisor. Their romantic relationship grows naturally out of this dynamic, and I enjoyed their banter. The setting of their story is the 1930s, and the plot and relationship felt to me very much like one in an old black and white movie.
One thing I especially liked about this novel was the pacing and the structure. When there has been so very much plot going on, I really appreciate an extended denouement that allows the emotional threads of the story to come to the foreground and the relationships to reach a more settled stage. There was so much violence and horror in the book that I needed that quieter time at the end for my own emotions to settle down.
There was one thing that made me uncomfortable. We eventually learn that the scene at the start of the book was a set up by the apparent victim, who wanted to make sure her husband wound up dead. Her husband had been committed to an asylum, but she has him discharged against medical advice, and then tells him something that she knows will provoke him to violence, just when she knows a witness will arrive. She has a gun ready, so that when he inevitably attacks Lyra, the wife will be able to kill him in her defense. The husband is, certainly, murderously violent…but in this instance, the apparent victim deliberately and callously created this violence to achieve her own ends.
I was really uncomfortable with this plot point. There are so many harmful myths about women who are abused by their partners somehow provoking the violence, and it distressed me to find this story leaning into that damaging falsehood.
I was also troubled by the repeated framing of male violence as resulting from mental illness. In addition to the situation above, the violent husband of another character was mentally ill (something akin to bipolar disorder) and wound up being committed to an asylum by his family. There is also a sexually sadistic villain whom we learn is mentally disturbed.
The characterisation of every single man who was violent or abusive towards women as being mentally ill is problematic on multiple levels. It smacks of the toxic idea that men who are violent against women are either monsters or can’t help themselves. It is also profoundly insulting to the many, many mentally ill people in this world who would never dream of abusing another person – and who are also, statistically, at particular risk of abuse.
I’ll be honest: writing this review has been a roller coaster. I finished the book smiling and thinking, yeah, I really liked that.
Then I thought, well, OK, actually, that bit about domestic violence could have been handled better.
And then I started thinking about other incidents in the book, and found that they added up to a pattern that made me deeply uncomfortable – not least because I didn’t even notice it at the time. This says something either about the powerful nature of unconscious biases, or about my tendency to become oblivious to anything outside the story when I am reading, or maybe both.
I don’t know where to land on this. The Lady Has A Past really is a good, solid romantic thriller, and I genuinely enjoyed reading it. I loved the central characters and their relationship, and I loved the long slow ending.
But then there was the subtle but troubling pattern of the way violence against women and mental illness were characterised and… I just don’t know what to do with that. Given the way women were treated more generally in the book, and the outdated, harmful depiction of mental illness, the more I thought about the story around the two protagonists, the more disappointed and frustrated I felt with the book overall. It was a fun read that carried me along very happily – while I was reading it. But once all the reading endorphins wore off and I was able to look at the story critically, there was just too much that didn’t sit well with me. I am no longer sure that I like this story at all.
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Thanks!
Thank you for another great and thoughtful review.
This is not, at all, intended as a critique of your analysis of the dynamics, which has successfully convinced me that I don’t want to read this book, but I just wanted to point out that some abuse victims actually do deliberately provoke their abusers, because then they get a break from worrying about when the abuser will strike next, which gives them a measure of control when they’re otherwise feeling powerless. They’re not causing the abuse itself; they’re just trying to choose when the axe will fall. Again, not trying to argue with your analysis! just wanted to say that, because the myth of the perfect victim is very dangerous; it leads to this idea that if someone does anything in response to abuse besides sit meekly and cry, it wasn’t abuse, which is problematic because many (or maybe even most) of us respond to abuse by behaving badly in some way or other, and abusers use that to get outsiders’ sympathy or escape consequences.
Thank you for your review. After reading this and several other reviews, it seems this is a very strong offering by JAK. I realize there are things in the book that concerned you, and I appreciate that, and the fact that you added the CW. It’s interesting that another reviewer called it a “comfort read” and so far no other review I’ve read brought up the concerns you have. That makes me very curious. I think I’ll give this one a try and see where I land on it. Thanks again for a very thoughtful review.
I had this on my wishlist after reading previous titles in the series, but I appreciate the content alerts. I’ve been reading a lot of M/M romances lately and one author in particular (Roan Parrish) deals with mental illness in a way that feels sympathetic and true. This on the other hand sounds outdated and stereotyped.
I’ve never liked one-note villains and AQ has always tended toward the mustache-twirling tie-her-to-the-tracks kind of bad guy; generally I’ve waved that off because the central romantic relationships were always fun. Sounds as though my misgivings would be the same as yours on this title, though.
I am so glad that you wrote this review, and that you added all your misgivings that didn’t crop up until you finished the book – thank you, thank you!! I have been trying to read this book for 4 days, when I normally finish one of hers in 2. For some reason, when I put it down, I don’t want to pick it back up. As someone who struggles with DNF-ing a book, I’m glad I’m not the only one that feels iffy about this book, and it’s a definite DNF for me, now.
Yeah, no. I read the spoiler for the depiction of violence against women and I’ll definitely be passing on this! Recently, I’ve read two (new release!) romances that feature villainous victims of domestic abuse and one novel with a hero who “justifiably” murdered his intimate partner…UGH, I can’t. While I agree with the commentator above who mentioned how damaging the perfect victim myth can be, I think this trope is incredibly harmful. When a story is unsympathetic to abuse victims and goes out of its way to portray those individuals as THE MOST destructive or violent (above and beyond the actual perpetrator of the abuse), it is reinforcing misogyny and reads as very ignorant and regressive on the author’s part.
I really liked Lyra. I loved her confidence and I liked that she and Simon were on more equal footing than a lot of AQ/JAK couples. Often the heroes are super wealthy and socially connected and the heroines are not.
I have bipolar disorder and I don’t think I’ve ever seen realistic representation in popular fiction. I wrote a whole bunch about mental illness and abuse but this is not the place. I will say that I wasn’t bothered by this book.
@Star, thank you for your thoughtful comment. I take your point about the problem of the perfect victim, and the messiness around provocation in order to control a violent situation by whatever means one has. I don’t think that was quite the dynamic happening in this story (that was certainly the way it appeared early in the book, but later chapters indicated otherwise – @Cece has kind of hit the nail on the head with the dynamic here), but I will try to address this more carefully if it comes up in future. This is an area where my experience is only second-hand, and that’s not the same.
@Michelle – I like Lyra and Simon for those reasons too! I really struggled with reviewing and grading this book, and I’m honestly still conflicted about it.
This was a solid B for me – I actually like this mystery series more than Quick’s romances, so I admit I’m soft for the concept as a whole. The treatment of MI is fairly problematic, but I agree with Star’s assessment re the other plot point.
YES.
I liked most of this book (I listened to it while working yesterday. At 1.25 speed with some breaks for actual times I needed to focus, it took most of the day) and I was totally expecting at least two of the “crazy” men to actually be the same man, since there are no coincidences, as they say several times. The fact that all the bad men have diagnosable violent mental illnesses and all the bad women are ex-spies was too pat.
Also, I thought the denouement part was far too long and too “There! Now everyone is one big happy family!”