Grade: B-

Susan Elizabeth Phillips says this book is “probably the best historical romance ever published” and Glamour proclaims it to be “one of the greatest love stories of all time”. What the hell do I say in the face of such praise? Would I sound like a complete plebe if I said that this book… umm… kind of bored me? It’s original and all and really touching in some parts, but for the most part, it’s just… dreary and heavy, man. Basically, it’s about a dissolute rake who is struck by stroke (heh!) in the prime of his life and the “thee-thou” Quaker girl who turns her back on the only world she’s ever known to take care of him and be with him. The stroke affects the part of the hero’s brain that supports speech functions, as well as his comprehension, so when we are treated to his point of view, we see the dialogue as he does: garbled and incomprehensible. It’s a little frustrating to read, but that’s just the point of it. We literally see how hard it is for the hero and the heroine to communicate because they can’t understand each other. Literally. No, I mean that. Literally. This doesn’t make the book an easy read, of course, as it is especially dense in some parts, but Laura Kinsale can write the hell out of the more emotional scenes, so I was bored AND sobbing like a baby at the same time. Yeah, I know. I can’t recall ever having been so confused while reading a romance novel. At one point, I almost prayed that the hero would magically heal so that he and heroine can have some totally inappropriate sex or something. That would have definitely lightened the mood some. Nothing like bodice-ripping or some man-titty flashing to add some fun into the mix.

Christian Langland, the Duke of Jervaulx (Sheh’voh), is a rake. He sleeps with married women, carouses drunkenly with his friends, and is an all around useless libertine. It is his passion for married women that gets him into trouble when a cuckolded husband comes home unexpectedly and finds him trying to sneak out of the house. The husband challenges him to a duel and Christian accepts, then staggers home where he gets very sick. Christian suspects that his mistress might have put poison in his chocolate–and he so does love his chocolate–but is hard-pressed to think of a reason as to why she would do such a thing (even if she is pregnant with his child). The duel is in a few days, but Christian gets well enough to attend a meeting for a society of mathematicians to discuss his academic paper. Christian, dissolute rake that he is, lurves math. In fact, he is considered to be a math genius by other math nerds. One such math nerd is an old blind Quaker with whom he has been corresponding. On the night that Christian is to speak in front of the math society, he invites the old blind math nerd out for dinner, along with his beautiful non-math nerd Quaker daughter, Archimidea Timms. The three of them have a nice dinner, then Christian goes home to deal with the dueling business. While facing his opponent on a dueling field, however, Christian experiences a very, very, very bad pain in his head and falls down. At first he suspects that the cuckolded husband may have shot him, but nope, he’s wrong. It’s a stroke, baby, yeah.

Archimidea “Maddy” Timms is a good Quaker girl. She takes care of her daddy, is beloved by everyone in her community, volunteers in the local mental ward run by her cousin, and in her spare time, serves as a courier between the Duke of Jervalks and her father. As a Quaker, Maddy has a natural disdain for the nobility, especially for their tendency to spend ridiculous amounts of money on luxury and laying around like lazy sacks of crap, when they should really be devoting their time into making the world a better place to live. In her non-encounters with the duke–whenever she goes to his house to pick up his letters for her father, he never comes out and Maddy always has to deal with a servant–Maddy has judged him to be a profligate, arrogant pig of a man, and wants nothing to do with him. After a dinner with him and her father, however, Maddy realizes that he may not be so bad, especially since he offers her father a math chair at the university. Of course, before the offer is cemented in stone, Jervaulx gets his dumb ass shot in a duel and dies. It is only months later, while working for her cousin at the local mental institution, that Maddy discovers that Jervaulx is not dead, but confined in a mental ward–the very same one that her cousin runs–because he has become violent and uncommunicative, prone to yelling unintelligible things and punching the orderlies. Naturally, Maddy is the only one who realizes that Jervaulx is not crazy, but merely unable to speak properly or comprehend speech. She also finds out that his family had intentionally stuck him in the loony bin so that they can get their greedy little hands all over his money. On top of that, his family also means to have him declared as incompetent by the royal courts, so that they can get control of the dukedom. Maddy realizes that she is the only one who can stop that from happening and takes it upon herself–nay, considers it a personal mission from God, to help Jervaulx regain his communication skills and restore him to his former dukish glory.

The relationship between Maddy and Christian is a fascinating one. Maddy was raised as a devout Quaker, so Christian’s world is very foreign to her. She doesn’t approve of his way of life, of his station in life, or the very person that he is. It is her own beliefs in her religion that pushes her to help him out, but even as she starts to fall for him, she realizes that it’s an impossible situation not because he’s a duke and she’s a nobody, but that she’s a Quaker and he’s an outsider. I, for one, found Maddy’s “devotion to her faith” and stubborness extremely irritating. For example, Jervaulx gets into a situation where Maddy is required to lie for him, but she refuses to do it because of her religion. Her steadfastness and firm grip on her faith should have been admirable, but I got the feeling that she was only holding on to it because it was all she knew. In the end, even as she admits to herself that she is in love with Christian and that Christian feels the same way for her, she would still rather turn her back on him and go back to the Quakers, only because she doesn’t know how to deal with the outside world. I know nothing about Quakers or their way of life, but as I read more about it in this book, it just began to seem like a cult to me. I don’t know if Kinsale accurately portrays the religion, but I have to admire her for “going all the way” with it and not being wishy-washy about it. Because of that very reason, however, I was unable to decipher a true personality for Maddy apart from her being a Quaker and Kinsale kind of lost me there.

I was more enthralled with the character of Christian because he was just more colorful and larger than life. In the beginning, he seemed like nothing more than your average historical romance rake, but as the story went on and he becomes trapped in his own mind, a different Christian emerges. Imagine not being able to say what you want because it comes out wrong each time or not being able to understand what people are saying to you because it sounds like gibberish in your ear. Like I said earlier, when we are privy to Christian’s point of view, the dialogue we read is the dialogue he hears, so we’re frustrated along with him. Here he is, just trying to hold on to the dukedom and trying to get back to his way of life, but he can’t do it because everyone in the world thinks he’s crazy or an idiot. When Maddy comes into his life, he desperately hangs on to her because to him, it seems that she’s the only one who is willing to try and understand him. He tricks her into marrying him, so that his family won’t send him back to the institution, but even as he tries everything in the world to please her, she won’t yield even a little bit to him. She rejects his way of life, rejects everything that he stands for, and absolutely refuses to compromise. Even in the end, when Christian realizes that he will only scare her away if he pushes her further, he is still hoping that she will come to him on her own. The most poignant part of the story for me is when Christian is shivering out in the cold, waiting for Maddy to come to him after he issues her an ultimatum, because it basically encapsulates the entire story in that one little scene. It just felt like Christian was always the one waiting for Maddy to come to him and that she is forever shutting him out in the cold.

Look, I understand Maddy’s reluctance to throw herself into Christian’s arms and embrace his way of life. I got that. She was born and raised a Quaker and up to the point where she meets Christian, it was all she knew. The whole “thou art a sinner” and “I can’t lay with thee because thou art not a Quaker” just got kind of old for me. I mean, Maddy’s dad is also a Quaker, but he seemed more open to loving Christian than Maddy was. To me, Maddy just seemed closed-minded and prejudiced and I wasn’t digging that. It’s like she uses her religion to put up defensive walls around her because she can’t deal with the outside world. The scenes in this book that really worked for me are the ones with Christian in the loony bin and Maddy trying to devise a way to communicate with him. These are the moments that convinced me that these two can really get to know each other, break down the barriers between them, and fall in love. Once the two of them leave the walls of the loony bin, however, I wasn’t as certain as to the future of their relationship. Christian may love Maddy and Maddy may love Christian, but what’s to say that Maddy wouldn’t turn her back on Christian again once the Quakers come a-callin’? There were times in the book where I just really wanted to reach into the pages, yank out Maddy, and snatch the bitch bald. I’m serious.

I’m a little disappointed with this book because everyone and their mothers pretty much told me that it will blow my mind or ruin me for other historical romance novels. While I agree that Kinsale definitely did her research on the period and seemed to know what she’s talking about, I found myself wanting to skim the pages in the middle. I didn’t, of course, because I also wanted to know about the little things that were going on. It’s definitely a testament to Kinsale’s writing skills that I steadfastly pushed on through the more boring parts, even though the juicier parts were few and far between. If you’re looking for a fast-paced easy read, this book is definitely not for you. This book isn’t like One Perfect Rose where the hero still manages to look gorgeous and badass even as he is wasting away in his bed. The effects of the stroke on Christian’s mind are real; for three-quarters of the novel, he is barely coherent (SPOILER: and he doesn’t get all the way better). I mean, how many romance novels have you guys read where the hero is basically an invalid? I really gotta respect Laura Kinsale for writing an emotionally wrenching tale about a very imperfect hero and the Quaker girl (who is not always likeable) who loves him. There is a conviction in Kinsale’s writing and I gotta applaud her for writing book that is not always easy to read. “Not easy to read” is a euphemism for kind of boring, by the way. Even the appearance of the evil skanky former mistress didn’t save it for me. I mean, it was just a difficult, heavy read. In short, I didn’t like it. Call me superficial or shallow, but while I was reading this book, I was praying that something sensational would happen… like if Maddy were drop out of character and wiggle her booty in front of Christian wearing nothing but nipple tassles. Yeah, that’s right, I said it. Let the flaming begin.

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 20th, 2006 at 2:37 pm and is filed under Books, Grade: B, Romance: Historical. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.