Filed under: Book Reviews, D Reviews
Dear Ms. Callen:
I read a book of yours for the first time almost a year ago. It was charming and light although not very memorable. I went on to read one more of your books before this one. I jumped at the chance to review Never Dare a Duke and anticipated another enjoyable reading experience. However, my intense dislike of the story and of the female protagonist, a dislike which I have rarely before felt for a romance heroine, left me wondering how this book could get published. To really discuss why I disliked this book so much, I’ve contained quite a few spoilers. Readers should beware.
You set the stage early on for Miss Abigail Shaw’s quest to ruin a man’s reputation. It seems that her father’s newspaper is losing some of its readership and may be in danger of shutting its doors. In a desperate attempt to sell more papers, Abigail decides to uncover some vague sort of scandal that occurred years ago involving Christopher Cabot, the duke of Madingley. Forget the fact that her father is an honorable man who refuses to publish gossip articles based upon speculation. Forget the fact that he chooses to publish newsworthy stories based on fact. Instead, Abigail decides to uncover what she speculates must be a truly scandalous story such that her father will be forced to publish it. Abigail will have then single-handedly saved the newspaper while also proving to her father that she is a talented journalist.
And why does she think there’s a gossip-worthy tidbit about the duke just waiting to be uncovered? Well, that’s simple. The Cabot family has had so many scandals that the odds were in her favor that the duke had done something. Abigail seems to resent the fact that “the duke was the only member of the Cabot family who portrayed himself as above the many scandals that seemed to follow the rest of his relatives.” It’s not clear why Abigail reaches this conclusion at this point, having never met or seen the duke or his family before. She also seemed upset that he “had no reputation except that of a sought after, titled bachelor.” Lucky for Abigail, her friend Gwen had somehow found out that “there were rumors that he was hiding a dreadful secret and that exorbitant money had been given to pay for secrecy.” Abigail takes an instant dislike to the Duke for this so-called “dreadful secret” and decides that she will be the one to uncover it regardless of the harm it will do to him or his family. After all, “[n]o one is perfect, and no one should be allowed to deceive others.”
Gwen asks Abigail to accompany her to Madingley Court where the duke’s mother is holding a house party. Believing that the duke won’t be there and hoping to question his family and servants, Abigail agrees to go in disguise. She soon discovers that either no one is willing to talk or there is nothing to talk about. In other words, she discovers nothing. Not one to be easily deterred, Abigail decides to search the house.
Before she can do so, Christopher arrives home. To defend himself from his mother’s matchmaking, Christopher and Abigail reach an agreement in which he will pretend to court her. She agrees to the charade so that she can get closer to him and his family, and learn more of his secrets. Although they realize this charade will most likely ruin Abigail’s reputation when they call it quits, Christopher pays little attention to the consequences and doesn’t seem to give much thought to the reason behind Abigail’s so called altruism.
The problem with Abigail was . . . everything. Every conversation she had-whether it was with the duke, his mom, his sister or anyone close to them- was just an attempt to ingratiate herself with them. Every smile, every laugh, every bit of interest she displayed in anyone was just an act to convince them to trust her with the duke’s secrets. Essentially, every conversation she had was a lie. It never seemed to dawn on Abigail until 2/3 of the book had passed that her story, if there indeed was anything to tell, would hurt the family, particularly the duke’s sister Elizabeth who recently had her coming out, and was hoping to find a husband.
And Abigail may very well be the worst investigative journalist in the history of journalism. She wouldn’t understand the idea of subtlety if it jumped up and bit her on the behind. She clumsily interrogates servants and family members. She gets caught eavesdropping time and time again. She gets caught questioning various people. She gets caught searching various rooms in the house. She even lies- badly- each time she’s caught. And what does her inept investigating uncover? Not a thing. She hears a few vague references to the past, but no real hints of what this possible scandal might be. Does that deter her? Of course not. After all, she still must save the newspaper even if it means contradicting everything her father stands for.
The romance, if you can even call it that, suffers from the selfishness of the two protagonists. They are essentially using each other for their own purposes. Neither has a care for the other’s well being, their reputation or the result of their actions. Intimate scenes usually ensue after Abigail is caught searching different rooms of the house. It got to be very predictable: she lies about her reasons for being there, the duke becomes mad because he knows she’s lying, Abigail pretends to be indignant that he won’t believe her lies, and suddenly the Duke is overcome with desire for her. Romantic? Not in any sense of the word would I describe this book as such. In fact, I was pretty disgusted by it all. Any sort of real understanding of the other doesn’t happen until well over 2/3 of the novel goes by. Even then, it’s half-hearted and rather ridiculous. When we find out that these two actually have something in common and that this common interest was enough to prevent Christopher from being mad at Abigail for trying to ruin him, it was enough to make me laugh out loud.
What may be so upsetting about Abigail’s characterization is that the she never really grasps the consequences of her actions. She succeeds in deluding herself into believing that the story must be written by her because “she could not let someone else steal her article idea- and treat the family far worse than she would.” This kind of rationalization is what drives her character throughout the story. I honestly didn’t understand how I was supposed to relate to or sympathize with her.
Perhaps the most upsetting of all is that Abigail does not decide-on her own- to take the high road. She never reaches the conclusion that her investigation must stop. If that were so, perhaps I would have disliked her slightly less than I did. But that’s not the case. Instead, her investigation comes to a halt when someone uncovers her real identity. With no choice in the matter and no means to continue her investigation, Abigail “decides” to stop pursuing the story. However, there’s no doubt in my mind that she would have continued with the investigation had she not been found out.
And strangely enough, Abigail really does appear to believe that’s she’s redeemed herself by not following the story once she’s caught. She tells Christopher’s mother that:
“I didn’t write it, obviously, because once I grew to know and understand the duke, I could not betray him-or his family. I was foolish ever to think I could go through with it . . .”
“But it could have been you, Miss Shaw,” said the duchess in an impassive voice.
Abigail could not hide her guilty blush. “Yes, it could have been, until I came to my senses.”
This makes no sense! The fact is that Abigail didn’t make the right choice and she didn’t just come to her senses. Instead, her purpose for being at Madingley Court was found out. By that point, she had no options left to her. She could not write the story because she had never uncovered anything. This whole “came to my senses” bit is just nonsense.
Abigail proved time and time again to be one of the most unlikeable romantic heroines I have ever read. Some people may find that her actions right at the very end redeemed her previous conduct. Without giving away more spoilers, I’ll just say that I do not. My passionate dislike of Abigail ruined any enjoyment I may have had for the book. And while I occasionally felt bad for Christopher- that sympathy was usually fleeting as he too was guilty of much selfish conduct. Never Dare a Duke is certainly a book that I will remember for awhile, but for all the wrong reasons.
D-
:) loonigrrl
This book can be purchased in mass market from Amazon or Powells or ebook format.
Sounds like two horrid characters finding each other. One can only hope they’ll be miserable together.
I’m so glad I didn’t buy this book, I took off her off my auto-buy list a few years ago.
I didn’t buy this book because the description turned me off. I normally buy Gayle Cullen too…
This disappoints me to hear. However, I will still likely buy it, and give it a chance, since Callen is an autobuy for me. Viscount in Her Bedroom is one of the few on my keeper shelf. Christopher didn’t thrill me when I read the last book, though, so my expectations, sadly, are not soaring.
Another example of not being able to judge a book by it’s (excellent) cover.
It’s always disappointing to see a writer have what’s suppose to be her heroine acting in a callous, uncaring and vengeful way. The only time this “uncovering something awful” plan worked for me was with Lisa Kleypas’s Lady Sophia’s Lover and that was because the heroine showed herself almost from the start to be too smart to go through with her plot against the hero… oh, and the writing was good, LOL!
Adding ‘lacking scruples’ to my Tropes you hate list. Thanks for the insightful review.
I didn’t read the review. Looking at the grade was enough. I’ve never read Callen and I’m assuming that this would _not_ be a good place to start. For my historical fix, I will be looking into my TBR pile for quite sometime. In fact, I feel like a Roberta Gellis re-read is in order.
I totally agree with this review. I found Abigail to be grating and unlikeable and you are right about her lack of ability as a spy :) Then again, I find most of Callen’s characters to be boring and unlikeable…