A dull hero and little plot make this book best for readers with knowledge of the first two books in the series who cannot...
The third installment in the Wilde historical romance series features an heiress who has fallen on hard times and her infuriatingly attractive nemesis, the richest bachelor in England.
Lavinia Gray is horrified to discover that her mother is an opium addict who has decimated her daughter's dowry to support her habit. Once renowned for her beauty and riches, now Lavinia's "old life seemed to lie in shards around her feet.” To save her mother and herself, Lavinia proposes to Parth Sterling, a wealthy businessman taken in as a child by the eccentric and loving Wilde family after his Englishman father and Indian mother died. Lavinia and Parth have been thrown together often enough in the company of the Wildes that they have formed ill opinions of one another: Lavinia thinks Parth is too stern and correct, while Parth thinks the fashion-obsessed Lavinia is shallow. Parth rejects the offer but agrees to help Lavinia find a suitor, perhaps a European prince, while himself courting an Italian contessa. Of course, underneath the antagonism there is a mutual attraction, and as they give in to it, they come to know more about one other. Parth’s character arc is mainly to stop seeing Lavinia as “shallow as a puddle,” which he does, very quickly. Lavinia develops her prodigious, and bankable talents as a modiste and stylist, learning to embrace her love of clothing as an art form. Readers are advised to read the first two books in the series to better understand immediate past events, which are frequently referenced, and the large cast of characters James has created. Even with that background, however, the characters' motivations are often opaque or nonsensical, very little actually happens beyond psychological gymnastics, and Parth’s Indian heritage, which might have provided fertile ground for deepening this two-dimensional character, is almost completely sidelined.
A dull hero and little plot make this book best for readers with knowledge of the first two books in the series who cannot bear to miss any Wilde action.Pub Date: July 31, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-269247-4
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Avon/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2018
Entertaining and thoroughly engrossing.
Another reboot of Jane Austen?!? Hadlow pulls it off in a smart, heartfelt novel devoted to bookish Mary, middle of the five sisters in Pride and Prejudice.
Part 1 recaps Pride and Prejudice through Mary’s eyes, climaxing with the humiliating moment when she sings poorly at a party and older sister Elizabeth goads their father to cut her off in front of everyone. The sisters’ friend Charlotte, who marries the unctuous Mr. Collins after Elizabeth rejects him, emerges as a pivotal character; her conversations with Mary are even tougher-minded here than those with Elizabeth depicted by Austen. In Part 2, two years later, Mary observes on a visit that Charlotte is deferential but remote with her husband; she forms an intellectual friendship with the neglected and surprisingly nice Mr. Collins that leads to Charlotte’s asking Mary to leave. In Part 3, Mary finds refuge in London with her kindly aunt and uncle, Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner. Mrs. Gardiner is the second motherly woman, after Longbourn housekeeper Mrs. Hill, to try to undo the psychic damage wrought by Mary’s actual mother, shallow, status-obsessed Mrs. Bennet, by building up her confidence and buying her some nice clothes (funded by guilt-ridden Lizzy). Sure enough, two suitors appear: Tom Hayward, a poetry-loving lawyer who relishes Mary’s intellect but urges her to also express her feelings; and William Ryder, charming but feckless inheritor of a large fortune, whom naturally Mrs. Bennet loudly favors. It takes some maneuvering to orchestrate the estrangement of Mary and Tom, so clearly right for each other, but debut novelist Hadlow manages it with aplomb in a bravura passage describing a walking tour of the Lake District rife with seething complications furthered by odious Caroline Bingley. Her comeuppance at Mary’s hands marks the welcome final step in our heroine’s transformation from a self-doubting wallflower to a vibrant, self-assured woman who deserves her happy ending. Hadlow traces that progression with sensitivity, emotional clarity, and a quiet edge of social criticism Austen would have relished.
Entertaining and thoroughly engrossing.Pub Date: March 31, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-12941-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Hannah, after eight paperbacks, abandons her successful time-travelers for a hardcover life of kitchen-sink romance. Everyone must have got the Olympic Peninsula memo for this spring because, as of this reading, authors Hannah, Nora Roberts, and JoAnn Ross have all placed their newest romances in or near the Quinault rain forest. Here, 40ish Annie Colwater, returns to Washington State after her husband, high-powered Los Angeles lawyer Blake, tells her he’s found another (younger) woman and wants a divorce. Although a Stanford graduate, Annie has known only a life of perfect wifedom: matching Blake’s ties to his suits and cooking meals from Gourmet magazine. What is she to do with her shattered life? Well, she returns to dad’s house in the small town of Mystic, cuts off all her hair (for a different look), and goes to work as a nanny for lawman Nick Delacroix, whose wife has committed suicide, whose young daughter Izzy refuses to speak, and who himself has descended into despair and alcoholism. Annie spruces up Nick’s home on Mystic Lake and sends “Izzy-bear” back into speech mode. And, after Nick begins attending AA meetings, she and he become lovers. Still, when Annie learns that she’s pregnant not with Nick’s but with Blake’s child, she heads back to her empty life in the Malibu Colony. The baby arrives prematurely, and mean-spirited Blake doesn’t even stick around to support his wife. At this point, it’s perfectly clear to Annie—and the reader—that she’s justified in taking her newborn daughter and driving back north. Hannah’s characters indulge in so many stages of the weeps, from glassy eyes to flat-out sobs, that tear ducts are almost bound to stay dry. (First printing of 100,000; first serial to Good Housekeeping; Literary Guild/Doubleday book club selections)
Pub Date: March 31, 1999
ISBN: 0-609-60249-7
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1999
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