Elle: I also loved some of the phrases you quoted and the detail in the early relationship between Camden and Gigi. Like you I gave the later relationship a bit of a break because of all that, but it also made me miss some of that focus later on. I also think you’re right about Victoria and Perrin’s HEA, although the build up was so amusing I kind of forgave the pat quality (esp. Victoria’s revelations about Perrin’s guilt *sigh*), especially because of the way she totally mistakes her early influence on his mother. ;)

Lizzy: I am torn about the Lady Croseus aspect of the novel. I was so hungry for some kind of out of bed contact between the two that didn’t require mutual combat that I think I gave that bit a pass. But I agree that it was probably a bit out of place relative to the rest of the novel. And frankly I liked what Gigi was doing, lol.

Beth: I’m glad you brought up Camden’s behavior upon returning to London, because while he was definitely a jerk, once we learn about his actions in Copenhagen I really felt that his behavior early on in their reconciliation was a product of his fear that Gigi would reject him and what I saw as his fear of being completely at Gigi’s whim (since his feelings were so strong for her and his sense of power attained only in his disdain).

Keilexandra: How would you rather have seen the book end?

I wonder that no one has remarked on how cruel Camden is to Gigi when he returns to London. His insults and their first sexual encounter threw me back forcefully to my teenaged years of reading Rosemary Rogers.

SPOILERS—

I was also glad that Gigi did not give in right away to Camden’s attempt at reconciliation, not because of her devotion to Freddie, but rather because Camden had not been civil enough to her for long enough (groveled enough, in your lingo). In fact, I wonder that anyone can think a good shag and a half hearted query could make any heroine forget a decade of incredibly childishly cruel behavior, which continued, I might add, unabated, until mere weeks before said attempt at reconciliation.

I was seriously divided on this book. While I felt it was better written than many other romances I’ve read, I felt it struggled in its overall plot. And although romance novels, as a genre, are full of deus ex machina-type happenings, this book seemed to have several that were glaring to me: Lady Croesus, for one. Obviously, this is just there so that Camden can follow here and so that Gigi can say: We all deserve a second chance. Because the prose was elegant, this kind of inelegant narrative device only served to jar me and bring me out of the story.

I also found the structure tiresome, and wondered if anyone else did. While I don’t mind if authors dip frequently into the past to reveal the present, I wondered if that was because this author was simply having a hard time telling her story.

At any rate, after I read the interview with the author and she said how she had written the book and then put it away and, later, re-examined and done re-writes on it, I felt that I could feel that influence.

However, the strength of the writing was there. Too often, romance novels just recycle their prose and don’t challenge, and this was a lot of fresh stuff. On the basis of that, I would give the book high marks, even if I felt the plot and structure were unsatisfying. I will definitely be reading Delicious to see what Thomas will do next.

I think that Jen’s comment (made elsewhere) that many of the scenes in the book had a “cinematic quality” really is on the mark, and I also loved that about the story. Jen used the example of the scene on the boats in Copenhagen in which Gigi and Camden pass each other on the water and she runs down the deck of her boat gazing into his eyes, trying to keep him in view. But the book is full of such scenes–Camden watching a vibrant, laughing Gigi on the carousel in Copenhagen; Camden meeting Freddie at their club in front of a crowd of avid witnesses; Gigi’s dramatic entrance into Camden’s dining room near the end of the book ….

I loved the way that Gigi and Camden were so *aware* of each other–of the way the other laughed (”You still laugh like a little girl getting tickled, all hiccupy and breathless.”), the way the other felt and smelled (”He slid a strand of her hair between his unsteady fingers. It was as cool as well water. He lifted it and pressed it to his lips, inhaling its sweet cleanness, as fragrant as the blade of a young leaf.”) They listen for each other’s footsteps outside their doors (I liked the two scenes in which Camden is in bed, waiting and listening to Gigi pause at the doorway to his room.) At one point Camden says to her: “You breathe and I’ll know it’s you.”

The giddy happiness of their early courtship was very well done (”She glanced about them in the mischievous way she had, signaling to him that she was about to come forward and kiss him, the public nature of her front lawn be damned.”) While I agree that in the reconciliation portion of the book, their connection seemed to be focused on their sexual attraction/compatibility, I probably let that slide a bit more than I would have otherwise because of the development of their relationship earlier in the story. I bought into Camden’s attraction to Gigi’s vitality, intelligence and pragmatic spirit. Honestly, what man could resist a woman who refers to him as “an impoverished nobody“?

SPOILERS TO FOLLOW

S
P
O
I
L
E
R
S

As Gigi and Camden renew their attachment, the novel does slip into somewhat familiar Romance terrain, especially with Gigi’s martyred attempt at honor in choosing to go through with her engagement to Freddie despite Camden’s articulated desire to start their relationship over. It is the one move in the novel that feels artificial and somewhat inconsistent with the idea of honor Gigi claims for herself.

I (rather paradoxically) agree with both you and Janine in your interpretation of this segment. I also felt that Gigi’s rejection of Camden’s offer of a new start and her decision to cling to her pledge to marry Freddie seemed like something that a “romance novel heroine” would do. It just seemed slightly off-key with the rest of the story, and that section and the part that immediately followed represented a bump in the pacing for me. That said, I can definitely buy into the theory that Gigi was afraid to trust Camden again after the way that he had hurt her in the past. And there was a certain lovely symmetry to the story, with initially Camden and then Gigi clinging stubbornly to the idea of marrying someone who was all wrong for them due to some mistaken notions of honor and duty. On one level, it was nice to see this concept brought full circle with Gigi being the one to hold firm and not give in to her heart’s desire and Camden beginning to understand the desperation that had driven Gigi to her unscrupulous actions before their marriage.

I liked the way that Thomas had Gigi set aside Freddie, and Camden turn away Theodora thoughtfully, after a period of separation from each other (i.e. not in an immediate post-coital, sexual haze), and without the guarantee that they were heading for an HEA with each other. That signaled to me a maturity in their emotional development.

I also approved of the touch of Freddie not being *too* conveniently paired off with Miss Carlisle at the end of the story. I actually liked his character a lot.

The Duke of Perrin and Gigi’s mother were an interesting secondary couple, but I find that I am actively skipping over their sections as I re-read. Their resolution seemed a bit too pat for me, although I liked the scene with the two of them gambling using chocolates, and the one with the mother and the cat. In fact, the only section that I could have done without is the Lady Croesus passage. I found it hard to believe that Gigi had time to be Lady Bountiful as well as a ball-busting businesswoman and a party-all-night socialite.

I still say that the writing was beautiful and well done, despite my struggles with the story itself. I’m still looking forward to Delicious. It looks like its plot line is bound to be different, and if this hero and heroine get to enjoy the conversations and getting-to-know each other the way Victoria and Perrin did, (I’m expecting a few good arguments, too), then I anticipate enjoying it.

In any case this portion of the story worked for me very well, maybe also because I wanted to see Camden cool his heels for a bit before getting his happy ending.

I definitely agree with you on wanting Camden to be put off for a while,especially after so many attempts that Gigi had made to win him back.

I believe that those whose own sense of honor is stronger are therefore hurt much more when someone they trusted betrays them. Then, to bury that pain in anger was most realistic, for me.

An interesting insight, Kathleen, and I certainly understand Camden’s anger, even if I think his own impetuous stubbornness matched his sense of honor, driving him to do something really extreme (beyond the bounds of honor, IMO).

I just went back through the book, and out of 351 pages, only 67 of them (if I counted correctly) take place during the reconciliation period (after Camden’s re-entry into her life and before they finally get together), AND show both Camden and Gigi even in the scene together.

I struggled with this, too, but I didn’t realize that the page count came out the way it did! I didn’t mind the long sections devoted to their early relationship, because that really built the tension for me. But I did want more of their post-estrangement relationship to develop outside the bedroom and outside of Camden’s perpetual lust for Gigi. Had Thomas not done such a good job with the relationship development early on in their courtship and in drawing Gigi as a heroine, my grade for the book would have been much lower, I think.

In addition, the fact that they really didn’t learn to communicate made the HEA a little unbelievable, to me… much less believable than Victoria’s and Perrin’s.

I think Camden’s attempts in Copenhagen were supposed to set us up for the ending, but I agree with you that it felt a bit abrupt based on the separation previous to it. What I determined for myself was that in a sense they would be starting their relationship more than picking it up, because they had spent SO MUCH time apart relative to the time they knew each other that the ending was more like an initial proposal, if that makes any sense.

Instead, they seemed to know that they belonged together because of their sexual attraction. We, as readers, see that they also match each other mentally, for example. But do they know that? After ten years apart, I think they would have needed to discover this all over again.

Yes, I agree with all this, and as I said above, I really saw their HEA and a happily ever beginning, although I don’t think that is a complete or perfect answer to your quibbles, and I shared a number of them, especially the attraction outside the bedroom.

I liked the book… and didn’t like it. The prose was beautiful, definitely. The characters were very real, leaping off the page. Everything was painted so clearly in your mind’s eye. I loved that.

I, personally, found BOTH characters very sympathetic. I thought Sherry did an excellent job building Camden’s character in such a way that I found his reaction totally believable AND sympathetic. I love his understanding and kindness on so many levels. I loved how he understood Freddie’s attraction, and how he treated Freddie well. Yet, despite his many, many good qualities, Sherry told the story in such a way that it is totally understandable how such a man acted like he did. First we are shown his extreme sense of honor in such a way that we can totally understand how he came to have it. I believe that those whose own sense of honor is stronger are therefore hurt much more when someone they trusted betrays them. Then, to bury that pain in anger was most realistic, for me.

I also loved HOW Camden realized, in the end, that he’s no better than Gigi was. I love that he had to make a choice that wasn’t too much different than the one that Gigi had made her mistake in, and that he discovered that his honor forced him to make the more difficult choice now. I loved that this was realistically difficult for him to make, and that its difficultly was what finally enabled him to understand how Gigi had made her mistake.

With GiGi… I loved her character and how realistic it was. She wasn’t a mysteriously emancipated female stuck in the wrong time, like many historicals portray. Her character seems a perfectly understandable result of her lot in life.

But I do wish there had been more non-sexual interaction between these two. I wish more of the chapters included scenes that were an integral part of their reconciliation. The whole scene where GiGi is Mrs. Croesis really had very little to do with the plot line, other than the fact that it showed her compassionate side and allowed Camden to see it. I would have liked to either see her sense of compassion develop through the story, or I would have liked to see it there from the beginning. Without either of those, that scene seemed just stuck in there to make that point. (Unless, maybe I missed something?)

The scenes with Gigi’s mother and the duke: I liked them, and I generally do love a secondary romance in a book… but I was disappointed that the two romances separated early on, and then had nothing to do with each other. I would have loved it more if somehow their romance had been interwoven with Camden and Gigi’s reconciliation. Camden and Gigi might have been able to learn some things from Victoria and Perrin’s experiences and stories.

I just went back through the book, and out of 351 pages, only 67 of them (if I counted correctly) take place during the reconciliation period (after Camden’s re-entry into her life and before they finally get together), AND show both Camden and Gigi even in the scene together. Those 67 pages are what I read romances for… to see how the characters interact and fall in love (or reconcile, in this case). I would have liked the story better if at least 200-250 pages portrayed Camden and Gigi in the same scene and working out their reconciliation, even if arguments were decent portion of the first 100 or so of them. I’m not saying that those pages should be nothing but talking… I’d just like them to be in the scene together, at least. I enjoyed the two or three sections where they talk about Camden’s ships, but I wish those conversations had inched into civilized communication about their relationship.

I guess I’m saying I wish the balance between scenes in the past, scenes with Victoria and Perrin, and scenes in the present had been weighted different. I generally don’t enjoy reading how things fell apart. I’d much rather read that they did fall apart (as in past tense) and then enjoy the coming back together, ie: those 67 pages. My preference is that such stories focus on the reconciliation. After all, one day’s mistake can take months or years to reconcile.

But that, I suppose, is the story that this book tells. Could it have been told in a way that I would have loved more? I don’t know. I would have loved it if their reconciliation had relied on learning to communicate more, and sex less. (I did find some of the sex scenes a little unbelievable – physically impossible, one of them – but I suppose what’s realistic for one woman might not be for another.)

In addition, the fact that they really didn’t learn to communicate made the HEA a little unbelievable, to me… much less believable than Victoria’s and Perrin’s. Victoria and Perrin learned to communicate and trust each other with painful histories… they learned to communicate. That is what I wish we could have watched Camden and GiGi learn. What guarantee do we have that Camden and Gigi won’t be totally thrown by the next struggle that life throws their way? They’ve learned to forgive each other for the sins that they committed against each other during that one month period of courtship and the day after their wedding… but they haven’t really learned very much that will help them make it through the next hurdle (for there always are more to come, in any marriage). Instead, they seemed to know that they belonged together because of their sexual attraction. We, as readers, see that they also match each other mentally, for example. But do they know that? After ten years apart, I think they would have needed to discover this all over again. I would have liked to see Camden become a part of Gigi’s enterprises, and Gigi became a part of his. But as it is, what is going to keep them together when that baby is born, and Gigi is so exhausted from months of sleepless nights that her libido deserts her? What is going to happen in another decade or so, when the world is torn by war? Will their marriage have a stronger foundation by then, hopefully?