REVIEW: Luck Be a Lady by Meredith Duran
Dear Ms. Duran:
When I finished the first book in this series recently, I concluded my review by expressing my concerns about what kind of hero Nick O’Shea would make. In Lady Be Good, he’s the heroine’s uncle, a kingpin of the London underworld who owns a gambling den (don’t they always?). That in itself doesn’t make him villainous per romance rules, but his treatment of the heroine was morally ambiguous, to say the least. He blackmails her for the better part of the book, but even more damning, in my eyes, was his behavior in the prologue.
The heroine of Lady Be Good, Lily, is still a teenager in the prologue of that book, and she works for her uncle as a thief. One night she takes a job in her desperately ill sister’s place, stealing some letters Nick needs. She’s discovered and escapes by the skin of her teeth; when he finds her she is stuck in a tiny space between two buildings, unable to go backward (or be discovered) or forward (because there’s no room). He coaxes her out by reminding her that her sister needs her and finally telling her to dislocate her shoulder to get free. Only when she does so, and he has the document he needs, does he tell her that her sister has actually already died.
I thought that was very cold. It revealed Nick to be manipulative and ruthless, and it bothered me that he was behaving that way towards his own kin – who was little more than a child, to boot. I hoped that in Luck Be a Lady we’d get some insight into Nick’s perspective that would make his behavior seem less abhorrent.
The book starts off with establishing prologues for both Nick and the heroine, Catherine Everleigh. Each does give the reader a sense of how they ended up the way they are: Catherine, the “ice princess” is groomed by her beloved father to take over his auction house, and she lives in fear of disappointing him. Both her parents discourage any hint of childlike behavior, even when Catherine *is* a child of seven. Catherine longs for a friend her age, but she longs even more to please her father.
Nick is poor boy living in the slums with his mother and venturing out every day to the docks, hoping to get picked up for back-breaking labor that will keep a roof over their heads for another month. When he finds that his mother is pregnant by their hated landlord, his life takes a turn for the worse.
As adults, Nick and Catherine became acquainted during the events of Lady Be Good, and it’s clear that they are intrigued by each other right away (though the proper Catherine is of course mortified by the very idea of any connection to a flashy criminal such as Nick). Catherine has big problems courtesy of her older brother Peter. He’s embezzling from the auction house, which he cares nothing about; Peter’s after a political career. He’s also now threatening to sell the business, and Catherine can’t stop him unless she’s married (marriage will give her half-control of the auction house, under the terms of her father’s will).
Nick is also having some problems with a local functionary who is encroaching into his territory and having buildings that he owns improperly condemned, displacing the residents (this is the first sign of Nick’s reformation; he’s concerned not just about someone muscling into his territory but about the poor residents of Whitechapel whom he feels responsible for).
Catherine and Nick’s problems converge and she suggests the unthinkable: a (secret) marriage of convenience between the two. She’ll get her half-control of the auction house, allowing her to put a stop to her brother’s malfeasance. Meanwhile, the very fact of her marriage to a known criminal will be blackmail material to hold over Peter’s head (it would of course be bad for his political career to be related by marriage to someone like Nick). This will allow Nick a measure of political control over Peter, who sits on the board that oversees the condemning of derelict buildings. After five years, they can quietly divorce.
I was glad that the marriage was consummated immediately; Catherine feels like it’s necessary to guard against any legal challenges her brother may throw up, and of course Nick is happy to oblige. The book still didn’t really entirely avoid the tiresome “will they or won’t they?” business since after the first time Catherine resists (and resists and resists) the urge to give it another go. As I’ve gotten older (or maybe just because I’ve read a bajillion romances) I’ve definitely become one of those readers less interested in sex scenes and even less interested in unresolved sexual tension lasting for the better part of a book. I know it’s a traditional element in romance but I am more interested in seeing the conflict and tension between a h/h depicted in other, less trite ways. So often I’d rather see the couple just Do It and get it out of the way.
For the most part, I really liked Luck Be a Lady – for the majority of the book, I was ready to rank it above Lady Be Good, which I gave a B+ to. I very much liked Catherine; she’s a flawed yet sympathetic character who grows in the course of the story. I felt like Nick’s reformation was fairly well-done; there was maybe a little pulling of punches about just how bad a bad guy he’d been, but I sort of expected that. I wouldn’t have minded a smidge more remorse about his treatment of Lily, though when she appears late in the book she seems to have put it all behind her. (Side note: I thought it was strange that whatever letters Lily was stealing for Nick from Peter Everleigh at the beginning of Lady Be Good never came up again. I thought they’d be integrated into this book somehow, but Peter only seems to appear on Nick’s radar when Catherine makes him aware of Peter’s business relationship with another man, named Pilcher, who is the very man Nick is having trouble with. This felt like an oversight, unless I missed something.)
Something happened late in Luck Be a Lady that really pissed me off, though. Nick and Catherine have a conflict and I was really on Catherine’s side but she ended up caving and it bugged me enormously.
Spoiler (Spoiler): Show
Another more minor annoyance: Peter never got his proper comeuppance. Throughout the book he shows himself to be a more and more malevolent person, capable of some pretty bad things. I guess we were supposed to feel like Catherine was safe from him because Nick would protect her, but that didn’t satisfy me, because Peter was still a danger to others. I didn’t necessarily want him dead (though Nick did; he only refrained out of consideration for Catherine). I thought he at least belonged in prison, though.
Up until the last part of the book (the 87% mark on my Kindle, to be exact), Luck Be a Lady was an A- for me. Because of my disappointment over the plot development, I’m dropping it down to a B+. It’s still a very good book, and I look forward to the next Meredith Duran title.
Best regards,
Jennie
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I would have been more outraged about Nick’s behavior if I felt Catherine had half a lick of sense about her own self preservation or demonstrated any ability to take care of herself. She is definitely presented as very business savvy but seemed to have little or no “horse sense”. The only reason she made it to the conclusion of the story was because Nick and his people were looking out for her, even against her own wishes at times. ( There is nothing I hate worse than when a heroine is feisty just for the sake of being feisty.) Throughout most of this book Catherine continually underestimates her brother and ignores his pattern of behavior for no good reason. She was so suspicious of him in the last book she believed her tried to poison her but in this books spends much of her time saying “Oh it will be fine living and working with him even though I know he is a criminal and has done X, Y and Z” At one point he is breaking into her locked rooms in the middle of the night! After that she still insists she will be fine working with him etc. Even when Lavinina warns her “hey your brother is here looking for you with some big thugs and a carriage that looks like it’s made for abducting people” she doesn’t have the sense to run, she hangs around talking for a while.
I also disagree with your assessment about Nick and the auction house suggestion. They both encouraged each other to branch out and see themselves as more capable than they are. Catherine told Nick he was competent enough to stop backing other politicians and just be one himself, Nick told her it wasn’t just the Everleigh name that made the auction house it was her and she could do it all on her own if the worst happened and her brother caused it to close. I took it as very encouraging. It was Nick telling Catherine she didn’t need her father or his name as she was the business. Nick never did anything but encourage her work.
I think Catherine underwent as big a revision as Nick in the “nice” department for this book. While we saw her thaw toward Lily in the last book, she was so relentlessly and needlessly unpleasant to everyone around her I wondered how much would carry over into this book. Nick, as I expected, was whitewashed quite a bit. Apart from one instance where he admitted he didn’t read very quickly he was for all intents and purposes (in speech, dress and taste in antiques ) pretty impeccable. He didn’t even have the raw edges of a Derek Craven type character. He was incredibly handsome, beautifully groomed, spoke perfectly and had the ability to select only the most exquisite and expensive antiquities from the people who owed him money. For a guy who seemed to blame his niece in the last book for trying to gentrify herself he did a pretty thorough job of remaking himself in every way.
I personally preferred Lady Be Good to this book (but I must say despite any flaws, they were the two best historical novels I have read all year by far) because I felt the hero and heroine had much more to struggle against. For the hero it was literally the life of his family and loved ones and for the heroine, the whole life she had built for herself. In Luck Be A Lady, both Catherine and Nick had reached their pinnacles in a sense and it was only personal issues they were struggling with. The book could have ended about 20% into it if they were on the same page about a lot of things.
That being said, I would give both books higher marks than you did. As usual Duran’s writing was excellent and she is one of the few authors writing interesting, non- wallpaper historical novels.
Despite her rudeness, I liked Catherine in the previous novel and wanted to see how she thawed out. A lot of things about Nick bothered me in Lady Be Good but I was willing to give him a chance. I also liked Nick and Catherine’s chemistry in Luck Be A Lady, and the consummation was fun to read. The way Nick respected and encouraged Catherine was refreshing.
Having said that, the issues that you found minor proved to be major hindrances to my enjoyment. Nick came out looking too perfect. He’s a notorious criminal so I’m sure he’s done a lot worse things than bullying and beating people up. Yet, he is the noblest person there is. Yes he did all that wrong to protect his own, but all that wrong should have tainted him a little, right? He was also too powerful for my liking, so much that I was never in doubt of him being able to win against his opponents, which meant there was nothing interesting to me with regards to his character development or his plotline. The only time Nick captured my attention was in the prologue.
The leniency of the plot toward Peter also bothered me, as did the quick wrapping up of a clearly very traumatic experience Catherine goes through. This story had a lot of potential and some parts were clearly very good. It didn’t work for me overall though. However, I’ll probably be in the minority with that opinion.
@Jo: @Jo: I would have preferred Nick have more rough edges as well. I freely admit this type of hero is one of my favorites, from Derek Craven in Kleypas’s work to Blade in Bec McMaster’s “Kiss Of Steel” the self made “gutter rat” trope really works for me. I did enjoy Nick but I wish there was more left of his early days in him. Lily in “Lady Be Good” seemed more in touch with her old life and self than Nick did for all his criticisms of her. One of the fun things about the other heroes I mentioned was how Derek Craven would lapse into his old thieves cant and had the look of a former brawler. Blade speaks with a cockney accent and has very gaudy taste in clothes. Nick on the other hand is pretty much impeccable.
@Christine: Yes. He’s not only impeccable in speech and appearance, but also in his actions. I felt we got a wholly different person in Luck Be A Lady than whom we saw in Lady Be Good. He did some pretty awful stuff in that one, for which he hasn’t a bit of remorse in Luck. Where did the notorious criminal go?
I liked both books. I do wish there had been more of an explanation, however, about Lily and Nick’s relationship. I think the take away from both books was that he looked after his nieces, Fiona and Lily, but as Jennie said, Nick’s actions in the previous book weren’t that of a loving uncle. After reading both books, I think he probably did coax Lily out from between the buildings for her own good, but that’s not how the scene played out when I read it. It did appear as if the stolen item was more important. I thought there would be a scene in this book to clear that up.
I didn’t mind Nick locking Catherine in her room. As Christine noted, Catherine kept putting herself in danger. After the asylum incident, Nick knew her brother was desperate and capable of anything.
@Christine:
I don’t know that I thought Catherine was that dumb about her personal safety. She was naïve, because she’d come from a different world. Still, I didn’t see the situation that they were going into (a public meeting) as a place where Nick couldn’t protect Catherine. Nick is supposed to be this ultra-macho superman, so it didn’t make sense to me that she had to be locked up for her protection.
Re the auction house, I just felt like the ending of the book, after the locking-in, was too much about the ways in which Catherine needed to change in order for them to be together and not enough about Nick needing to change at all. I didn’t think he was wrong about the auction house, necessarily (though again, I wondered who would be paying for her fresh start), but the way that something important to her was dismissed as not that important – maybe even as an impediment to her growing as a person – that bugged me.
Regarding the two characters changing and growing, I think there’s a difference between being a prickly snob and being a criminal. Catherine just needed to allow herself some vulnerability in order to make a friend. I did expect the whitewashing of Nick but I wouldn’t have minded less of it. For instance, it was implied that he never hurt anyone who didn’t deserve it. What if he had? I think Nick would’ve been a little more complex if he had some regrets over things he’d done. He seemed slightly regretful about Lily, but she ended up absolving him.
That being said, I would give both books higher marks than you did. As usual Duran’s writing was excellent and she is one of the few authors writing interesting, non- wallpaper historical novels.
I agree. And a B+ is a pretty high grade for me.
@Jo: Yes he did all that wrong to protect his own, but all that wrong should have tainted him a little, right? He was also too powerful for my liking, so much that I was never in doubt of him being able to win against his opponents, which meant there was nothing interesting to me with regards to his character development or his plotline. The only time Nick captured my attention was in the prologue.
I agree that it would have been more interesting if Nick was more tainted or even traumatized by some of the things he’d done to get where he was.
And your second complaint is one that I have of about 90% of romance heroes. The deck is usually ridiculously stacked in their favor – they’re smarter, quicker, more powerful, richer, etc. than their enemies. I do tire of it sometimes.
@Kim: Maybe I’ll just have to chalk the prologue of LBG to point-of-view. The prologue is from Lily’s POV, and she was not very charitably inclined towards Nick for most of that book. Nick’s POV was different; obviously – I think he felt like he was teaching his nieces to be tough and useful, necessities in the world they lived in. But I wish that had been addressed a little more explicitly in LBAL.
I could live with NIck locking Catherine up if he’d had some remorse or understanding about her feelings about it afterward. She’d just been in an asylum, for goodness’ sake. They had a relationship where he ostensibly respected her need for independence. Given that, he had no right to lock her up. Further, as I mentioned in another comment, it wasn’t even realistic to me that an alpha male like Nick couldn’t protect Catherine at a public meeting. If Peter was *that* dangerous, why let him roam around free at the end of the book?
@Jennie: ” don’t know that I thought Catherine was that dumb about her personal safety. She was naïve, because she’d come from a different world. Still, I didn’t see the situation that they were going into (a public meeting) as a place where Nick couldn’t protect Catherine.”
By this point in the book Catherine shouldn’t have been naive at all and she had just gotten grabbed out of a business she half owned in front of all her employees despite having a bodyguard and a warning from Lavinia. Nick was facing one of the biggest challenges of his life so he really couldn’t put all his energies into a speech and protecting Catherine at the same time. The other, bigger problem was Catherine didn’t want to acknowledge the marriage which would have given Nick rights as a husband. The reason Catherine’s brother was able to pull everything he did was because Catherine would only go half way on a lot of things. If the brother got rid of her without anyone knowing anything about the marriage he could spin it however he wanted as Nick was a criminal with a bad reputation. Nick didn’t really have any “authority” to protect Catherine as far as the rest of the world was concerned. Without Catherine’s testimony who would have believed she willfully married him? Or that she wasn’t coerced or crazy or that it wasn’t a forgery and some scheme of Nick’s?
“Regarding the two characters changing and growing, I think there’s a difference between being a prickly snob and being a criminal.”
I disagree about the assessment of both of their characters. Catherine played with the lives of people who worked for her everyday, it wasn’t just her being “prickly”. She and Nick were born into very different circumstances, he was literally fighting to survive when he did what he did. I’m not saying he was always great, but it seems if you asked the people who worked for him they thought more of him than the people around Catherine. Catherine was flat out nasty, horrible and callous for most of the first book. The Everleigh girls were all working class women who obviously needed the jobs Catherine always seemed to be disparaging or threatening. I don’t give a hero or a heroine the excuse of “I’m unhappy with things in my life so I get to make everyone around me miserable.” Catherine doesn’t get points with me just for being born into a wealthy and (mostly) law abiding family, particularly since she had no problems using Nick and his “criminal” associations to get what she wanted. Nick protecting people and wanting to make sure they have decent places to live seems more noble than Catherine wanting to control the auction house. I’m not saying she doesn’t and shouldn’t have every right to it, but it and her behavior, really didn’t give her the moral high ground IMHO.
@Christine: I agree about the characters and their actions. I thought Catherine was being very stubborn and obtuse about her personal safety. I did, however, end up liking the book a little bit more than Lady Be Good. I felt the villain in that one was just a plot device and wasn’t very well flushed out. I also felt the class differences for both couples in both books got swept aside too easily, but particularly so in the first one. All that said, I did enjoy both of them.
@autonomous: fleshed out, not flushed out. *sighs*