JOINT DISCUSSION: The Legend of Lyon Redmond by Julie Anne Long
Trigger warnings:
Spoiler: Show
Janine: When Julie Anne Long’s much-awaited The Legend of Lyon Redmond came out recently, Robin, Jennie and I decided to hold a SPOILERIFIC roundtable discussion of the book. Below is the back cover description:
Bound by centuries of bad blood, England’s two most powerful families maintain a veneer of civility…until the heir to the staggering Redmond fortune disappears, reviving rumors of an ancient curse: a Redmond and an Eversea are destined to fall disastrously in love once per generation.
An enduring legend
Rumor has it she broke Lyon Redmond’s heart. But while many a man has since wooed the dazzling Olivia Eversea, none has ever won her—which is why jaws drop when she suddenly accepts a viscount’s proposal. Now London waits with bated breath for the wedding of a decade…and wagers on the return of an heir.
An eternal love
It was instant and irresistible, forbidden…and unforgettable. And Lyon—now a driven, dangerous, infinitely devastating man—decides it’s time for a reckoning. As the day of her wedding races toward them, Lyon and Olivia will decide whether their love is a curse destined to tear their families part…or the stuff of which legends are made.
On the series as a whole:
Janine: This is the eleventh book in Long’s Pennyroyal Green series. I feel this book should have come sixth, following I Kissed an Earl, in which Lyon made a rare appearance, and What I Did for a Duke, in which we saw up close how Lyon’s absence hurt Olivia. Instead we got books about people who weren’t Everseas or Redmonds, when the series began as one about two feuding families, and this one was postponed.
Jennie: I very much agree that this book should have come earlier in the series. The Legend of Lyon Redmond was set up to be a victim of high expectations no matter how good (or not so good) it was.
Robin: I agree with the expectations problem. Although had the extension (and automatic reordering) of the series resulted in a finale that made it all worthwhile, I would probably have gone back and re-read some of the books I skipped after the extension announcement.
On the first half of the present-day storyline:
Janine: The book has a dual-timeline structure, with flashbacks to Lyon and Olivia’s original courtship, as well as a present day storyline about Olivia’s upcoming wedding to Landsdowne, a viscount, which is thwarted by her reunion with Lyon.
But Olivia and Lyon’s reunion in the present day doesn’t take place until the novel’s second half. In the first scene we see Lyon learn of Olivia’s wedding and decide to stay in England. After that, all the present day sections in the novel’s first half are in Olivia’s POV.
Olivia gives pennies to some beggars, one of which has his face bandaged; she hears a new song about her and Lyon, and views caricature drawings of him. She is fitted for a wedding dress, and confides in her modiste’s new assistant, Lilette, about her feelings for Lyon. But Olivia and Lyon confronting each other about their breakup, that we don’t get until the 55% mark.
I was frustrated with that for multiple reasons. First, because we’d already waited so long for this confrontation before this book even began. Second, because it was obvious that Lyon was impersonating the bandaged beggar, as well as that Lilette was in his employ, and it bothered me that he was duping Olivia. Third, because I was afraid this wouldn’t leave enough pages for Lyon and Olivia’s present day relationship to be adequately developed.
This structure also meant that Lyon and Olivia’s relationship was presented linearly. All the backstory was in the first half, and the reunion in the second. Seeing a relationship presented nonlinearly is one of the pleasures of a dual timeline narrative, so this choice seems odd.
Jennie: I was also very annoyed by Lyon-as-disguised-beggar. I find it annoying when authors practically draw flashing lights around plot points that (I think?) we’re supposed to be surprised about later on. I mean, what is the point of that? I would have rather had the scenes from Lyon’s POV rather than endure the pretense that 90% of readers aren’t going to realize the beggar is Lyon. (I felt the same way about Lilette/Digby, whom I loathed, BTW – her breezy attitude towards her betrayal of Olivia and complicity in kidnapping her infuriated me.)
Robin: I loved the songs and the portraits of Lyon (and I love that he bought one for himself), because they provided a self-consciousness about the absurdity of Lyon’s “legend” that I thought was necessary to pull off the romance. But I felt like that was dropped somewhere along the way, and not really carried through.
My biggest objection to the beggar was the way Olivia depended on his “blessing.” It felt fetishizing and exploitive and even when we discover his identity, it did not erase Olivia’s belief that she needed the approval of an impoverished person to feel okay about herself. It made her social consciousness feel callow and self-centered. For example, when she sees the beggar going into the church with Adam, right before her wedding to Landsdowne, her excitement is inherently selfish:
And she was glad she could send him to Adam, who seemed to have endless reserves of time and goodness to give to those who needed it. And if she’d been the means by which that man found help and comfort, well then, that was the only wedding present she needed.
It seemed like a sign.
Though she would have preferred to have one of the beggar’s blessings, just to be certain of it.
(Kindle Locations 4961-4965).
Her compassion for his poverty almost seems dependent on her needs, which is backwards to the way I think we’re supposed to see her. I couldn’t even dislike Olivia; I just felt that the story kept taking shortcuts with her character (and Lyon’s, for that matter) to push the melodrama of both the initial and reunited romance.
On the way the poor are presented:
Janine: Not only do we have the beggars in the present day storyline, but also, within the flashbacks, the Duffys, an impoverished Catholic family with a lot of children, tenants of the Redmonds whom Olivia visits and tries to aid.
Robin: I was increasingly frustrated at the way the poor become a plot device in the novel to facilitate Olivia’s goodness and both the initial coming together of the lovers and their reuniting. Her charitable visits are literally the means by which she gets to visit Lyon, so from the beginning, the two activities are entwined, and most of the passion seems to be directed at Lyon.
I also felt that the Duffys especially, became nothing more than a plot function to give Olivia her activist credentials and to facilitate the exchange of the watch. And even that is problematic, because Lyon’s gesture is still about Olivia’s happiness, more than it is about alleviating actual poverty. He tells her it’s for the Duffys, of course, but then says, “You must allow me to give you something.” (Kindle Locations 2512-2513). Which, now that I think of it, makes his anger and resentment toward her when she wouldn’t leave with him, odd, since he later claims that he did all of his good deeds because she could not.
That Olivia and Lyon meet while Olivia is on her way to and from the Duffys makes it difficult for them to be much more than a facilitator for Olivia and Lyon, and when Olivia is thwarted from visiting with them, her real anguish is that it will make her visits with Lyon more difficult. Later, I think it’s easier to read back to that section as reflective of Olivia’s own childish and self-pitying indulgence, but I’m not sure how self-aware Olivia ever is of that, especially given her interactions with the beggar. So again, I think it really deprived Olivia of development of those sentiments in an independent and authentic way.
Janine: Yes to all of that. The beggars were extra-annoying to me because I knew they were really Lyon and his crew. It turned me off to have Lyon, who is privileged and wealthy, playing at being a beggar. With the Duffys, I couldn’t help but think of how much better Cecilia Grant handled a similar visit to tenants who needed help in A Lady Awakened.
Jennie: I’m glad I wasn’t the only one that noticed that plot point: the kindly rich Protestants help out the poor Irish Catholics who can’t stop making babies and drinking. Ugh. (Even their dog is called promiscuous late in the book!)
On the development of the romance in the flashback sections:
Janine: The development of the romance in the flashback sections was my favorite aspect of the book. We see Lyon and Olivia as young people meeting and falling in love despite the enmity between their families. The Redmond / Eversea conflict and the knowledge that it will come between them lends poignancy to their interactions, and I especially liked the care Lyon showed for Olivia by not fully consummating their relationship. There was something sweet about the dry humping, because we knew he didn’t want to cause her social ruin or get her pregnant.
Robin: To your point about sex substituting for relationship development [in the second half], that’s true for the beginning of their relationship, too, where attraction drives everything. The yearning was off the charts. And I am a big fan of yearning. It made What I Did For A Duke incredibly successful for me. But in this book I started feeling wrung out even before Lyon departed, and so by the time they reunited, it was almost anti-climactic for me.
Janine: You know, that’s true, attraction drives everything, but we see them take an interest in each other’s reading materials, and there’s the conflict with the parents where they need to figure out how important they are to one another relative to their families. Their insecurities were felt more in the past, so there was more character development there than in the present, even if the relationship development was limited.
Jennie: I liked that they were identifiably young in their earlier romance – especially Olivia (Lyon still had a little bit of that “-est hero” syndrome I’m weary of – smartest, handsomest, most virile – thing going, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as the older version of Lyon). I’m not a big believer in “thunderbolt”/love-at-first-sight, in real life or romance, but I thought Long sold it pretty well with Lyon and Olivia.
Robin: Yes to the fact that we see more of them as people early on, and that could have easily been build on later. Why, for example, does Lyon read Marcus Aurelius? Why does Olivia really want to be an abolitionist? Wasted opportunities galore.
Janine: I also liked Lyon’s confrontation with his father, Isaiah Redmond, who was determined to marry Lyon to someone else, which set the stage for Lyon’s departure from Pennyroyal Green. There follows a scene in the pouring rain, which I also liked very much, in which Lyon asked Olivia to run off with him to Gretna Green. Afraid to leave her family, Olivia questions his ability to support them and tells him no in very strong terms.
Jennie: I felt frustrated by that scene because I couldn’t believe that Lyon didn’t understand what he was asking of Olivia. In retrospect they both realize they made mistakes, and of course they were young – but he had such unreasonable expectations and his anger when she wouldn’t just give everything up to go with him was uncalled for.
I did like that there was an acknowledgment of how their differing home lives played into how they viewed running away together. Olivia – coming from an unusually close and loving family – was sacrificing a lot more than Lyon was, especially since he’d already been effectively banished by his father.
On Olivia and Lyon’s reunion:
Janine: Then we get to the second half, and Lyon stages the reunion by sending Olivia a fake invitation to meet with abolitionist Hannah More, Olivia’s idol and role model. So he dupes Olivia again.
What’s more, Olivia invites Lilette, the dressmaker’s assistant who is really a cohort of Lyon’s, to serve as her companion / chaperone on the journey to meet Hannah More. Why would Olivia do this? How could Lyon count on Olivia making this choice, rather than bringing another companion? It didn’t make much sense to me.
Finally, 55% into the novel, Lyon and Olivia meet. Lyon insists that they have a reckoning on board his ship, and the ship starts sailing as soon as they board. So Lyon more or less kidnaps Olivia. With her wedding to Landsdowne just two weeks away, this was a jerk move but I was still in the grip of the book so I went with it and enjoyed it.
They sail to his house in Cadiz, Spain, and this part of the book reads rushed. There’s an argument in which Lyon accuses Olivia of having been a coward when she wouldn’t run off with him to Gretna Green and Olivia realizes she was scared, but she explains that he pushed her too hard at the time.
Robin: I was frustrated with the fact that Lyon, in particular, doesn’t understand that Olivia can’t just pick up and leave with him on a moment’s notice. That she’s younger and so much more inexperienced and has no reason to believe she’d be safe with him, let alone whether she should risk her reputation to run away with him. I can see him not getting this at the moment, but FIVE YEARS?! Like it never occurred to him that he was being unreasonable by demanding she leave and then taking her own churlish comments to him as tantamount to a declaration of war?
Lyon otherwise understands the social consequences of his relationship with Olivia, because he’s always been the ‘responsible’ son. So his resentment toward her seems artificial to me, concocted to foster conflict.
Janine: You make great points about Lyon; he should have figured out Olivia had reasons to find it difficult to just take off to Gretna Green in all the years later. By the same token that Lyon should have figured out Olivia’s fear was reasonable, I thought Olivia should have realized that fear held her back a lot sooner, instead of acting like a martyr in all the intervening years.
Jennie: Olivia did spend a lot of the five years being a martyr to the memory of Lyon but to be fair to her, she was getting ready to get on with her life and marry a good man. Of course, it’s only then that Lyon can be bothered to have it out with her. (And why, again, did he have to kidnap her in order to do that?)
Robin: All this talk about abolition and social activism and intrigue around Olivia’s father and the slave trade, — hints throughout the series of this really big story — when the entirety of five years of drama and angst boils down to basically one Big Mis (and your points about Olivia’s martyrdom are excellent). I got to the part where they have sex for the first time, and I kept thinking that they’ve both suffered through five years of seemingly insurmountable problems between them and all it takes is a kidnapping and Lyon’s Spanish house to get things back on track?! And again, what of Olivia’s social ambitions? This could have been such a rich and interesting aspect of her character, but it always seems to just facilitate her relationship with Lyon (for example, the Hannah More ruse). Also, what year is this book set in, because More died in 1833.
Jennie: Yes, exactly. It’s not like I wanted more pointless bickering, but the quickness of the resolution highlighted the weakness of the conflict.
Janine: Their present day storyline was too compressed (and for what — Olivia’s dress fittings and “Lilette” spying on her for Lyon?). I kept feeling like they needed a conflict in the present day, something that would bring out the qualities they had developed as they got older — their greater toughness and certainty in what they wanted.
I wanted to see them prove that certainty to each other, get to know the people they had become in the intervening years and work out the differences that would arise from that. And by “get to know” I don’t mean go at it for most of their time alone together (I like sex when it’s well written, but it’s not a substitute for relationship development).
The sex in the hidden waterfall glade was clichéd, and it also bothered me that Lyon, who had cared so much about not getting Olivia pregnant when they were young, announced that he would not dry hump spill in his trousers ever again, and proceeded to take no precautions whatsoever, despite the fact that Olivia was still engaged to Landsdowne. I guess it was okay by them to potentially stick Landsdowne with Lyon’s kid, even though Landsdowne needs an heir to his viscountcy?
Robin: I was frustrated that Landsdowne was being disregarded here. Did Olivia have one thought of Landsdowne during this time? I don’t remember her even thinking of him or having any cognizance of the disloyalty her actions were showing to him.
Our abolitionist hero also owns a plantation:
Janine: Also how about Lyon owning a Louisiana plantation? Really I don’t know what Long was thinking.
Robin: OMG a SUGARCANE PLANTATION!! Do you think it’s run by elves, who work away while Lyon’s out there thwarting slavery?
Janine: Maybe it’s run by Oompa-Loompas.
Robin: That’s it!!
Jennie: Hah! I had the same thought! Well, not about the Oompa-Loompas, but the mention of the plantation had me going “?” – I kept waiting for there to be some mention of how Lyon operated it without slave labor, but it never came up. Although I think that would’ve been a cop-out, since it’s hard to imagine being part of a community and an economy that runs on slave labor and not benefiting from it in some way.
Robin: Putting aside the whole ‘slavery was so much better in Lousiana’ argument (the problems with that are myriad), sugar cane became a powerful crop in Louisiana precisely because of the number of Haitian slaves brought to the territory. In fact, there was a large slave revolt over their brutal treatment on sugar cane plantations in Louisiana. So that was just an epic WTF moment for me.
Janine: It was for me too. I don’t get how, in a book in which both hero and heroine are abolitionists, he can own a plantation and she doesn’t even question it.
On the second separation, and on poor Landsdowne:
Janine: Lyon’s ship returns for Olivia and Lyon tells her that she has to go back to Pennyroyal Green and do what’s right for her. How could he do that if he really loved her, without at least telling her that he loved her? Who does that? When you love another person, you don’t let them go that easily. Plus it seemed patronizing to tell her to remember her code.
Back in Pennyroyal Green, instead of figuring out what she feels and needs, Olivia waits until she’s at the altar to dump Landsdowne. Again, who does that? Couldn’t she have told him an hour beforehand, at least?
Lyon the beggar is in the back of the church, complete with bandaged face. That came off as cheesy rather than dramatic. I didn’t pick up on it, but a friend pointed out that the book was an homage to The Odyssey, with trees, seafaring hero and prudent heroine. At the end of The Odyssey, Odysseus shows up dressed as a beggar, so it was taken from there, but it didn’t work.
I liked that Lyon didn’t let his father off the hook and have a warm reunion with him, but did we have to be told about every couple from every book in this series because it was the last book?
Jennie: Poor Landsdowne. Poor, poor Landsdowne. That was *so* wrong. I had been going along disliking Lyon a lot and Olivia only a little but waiting until THE ALTAR to ditch Landsdowne made me feel like the two really deserved each other.
I agree that it was good that Isaiah wasn’t magically forgiven. And also that there was way too much of “Lyon meets random in-law for the first time! And now another one! And another!” Not interesting.
Robin: The way Landsdowne is treated by Olivia, right up until the end of the book (and especially in the final scenes) is one of the worst aspects of her characterization for me. How are we supposed to respect her when she doesn’t have the courage to be honest with him? And I can’t even really blame Olivia, because her character, as did Lyon’s and Landsdowne’s, felt manipulated to serve the circumstances of the romance, which seemed to give way to shortcut after shortcut (The hero in disguise! A last minute revelation at the wedding that should never have happened! The unsuspecting cuckold, jilted at the altar, for maximum drama! A convenient bell tower for the couple to find refuge in!).
And yes, the allusions to Penelope’s character and to The Odyssey are certainly there. Except that Penelope spends the story thwarting all other suitors through various tricks, and she is merely a bit player to Odysseus’s heroic adventuring. So again, what’s the point of the allusion? What does it reveal or enrich in these two characterizations?
On the double standard:
Janine: Another aspect of the homage to The Odyssey that didn’t work was Lyon’s flings during the years of separation. It didn’t feel true to his character as a young man – he was so very obsessed with and committed to Olivia — and it bothered me that he got to stray while Olivia sat at home pining for him, too. This is not Homer’s time. It’s the twenty first century and women deserve a little more gender parity than that, damn it.
Jennie: I was particularly icked out by the no doubt “exotic” geisha who gave Lyon the origami figure. Yeah, I could have done without knowing that he wasn’t celibate. I would rather it not be addressed as all, or that he actually was chaste during the five years. Given the level of his devotion to Olivia, I don’t feel like it would’ve been unbelievable.
Robin: For me this goes back to Olivia’s characterization. If she’s intended to symbolize the faithful, chaste wife, then, well, to what end? Why? And why construct a character who is so socially progressive in one way, but so seemingly traditional and conservative otherwise? Not that it isn’t possible, but what’s the logic? What’s the rationale behind the double standard?
On the epilogue:
Janine: After the Lyon / Olivia story ends with a final paragraph about Isaiah (Why?) there’s an epilogue about some people in our own time that takes up 7% of the book. Why do we need to see these two descendants of Violet, Ardmay, and Jack in our own time, and what does it matter what all the Pennyroyal Green descendants do for a living? (And they’re all super achievers. By the end, I just wanted to hear that one of them flips burgers at Burger King.)
It’s also hinted in the epilogue that Jacob Eversea went on to kill Isaiah Redmond. What kind of HEA is that for Lyon and Olivia?
As I read the epilogue, I kept thinking that this 7% of the novel could have been put to better use developing Lyon and Olivia’s romance. Instead it felt like it was there to attract us to Long’s upcoming contemporary romance, Hot in Hellcat Canyon.
Jennie: It felt like a several-pages-too-long advertisement for Ancestry.com, as two people I don’t know or care about talk about their shared family tree.
Robin: I have to say, though, that I like Long’s contemporary voice better than her historical voice at this point. And it felt like there was better control over the language and the meanings of words and phrases. Although I was frustrated that it ended as a cliffhanger, since the upcoming contemporary features an entirely different couple.
On what was left out of the book:
Janine: The story about Jacob Eversea being involved in the slave trade, hinted at in I Kissed an Earl, was brushed off with a brief explanation that Isaiah made it look that way, and Lyon never tells Olivia that this was what kept him away from Pennyroyal Green.
Lyon and Olivia also don’t discuss how the miniature she gave him ended up in Adam Sylvaine’s hands. Readers of I Kissed an Earl may remember how Lyon’s sister, Violet, came to have this miniature, but since Adam Sylvaine’s possession of it hurt Olivia enough to cause her to get engaged to Landsdowne, I thought this should have been cleared up.
The possibility of the Redmond siblings learning that Colin Eversea is their half-brother, which we were tantalized with in The Perils of Pleasure, also didn’t materialize in this book.
I’m confused about the timeline of events around Colin’s conception, too. Olivia’s mother says to Olivia “When you were a little girl, your father went to sea for a time […] it was a difficult time. But true love weathers these things, and only grows stronger.” To which Olivia replies, “That was just before Colin was born, right? When Papa went to sea?” Isolde confirms this.
But as best as I can tell, Olivia is in her late teens or at most, twenty years old during the flashback storyline, which would make her twenty-five at most during the present day storyline, while Colin is presented as over twenty-six in The Perils of Pleasure, which takes place years earlier. That indicates Colin was conceived long before Olivia was a little girl.
Another confusing thing is that Isaiah is presented as caring more about money than love in this book and in earlier ones, so I thought he chose Fanchette for his wife over Isolde, Olivia’s mother, for that reason. But at the end of the book it’s stated that he carved Isolde’s name on a tree almost thirty years before Lyon and Olivia’s wedding “while he waited for a girl who never came.” So did Isaiah choose Fanchette over Isolde, or did Isolde choose Jacob over Isaiah?
Jennie: I noticed that! It seemed like an error because earlier in the book it’s pretty much stated that it was Isaiah’s greed that kept him from Isolde.
As for the other stuff, I’m probably glad that my memory for what I read is so bad now because I barely remember any of those details from earlier books.
Robin: Yeah, this is part of why it felt like the book took a lot of shortcuts. And unfortunately, a lot of the stuff that was tossed aside was the most interesting and provocative. It felt like everything was a prop to get Olivia and Lyon together, and then back together, and I was so frustrated by the machinations I couldn’t emotionally invest in the actual romance.
On the writing style:
Robin: The yearning felt very overwrought in this book, and the prose had some awkward moments. Like this one:
Certainly she was beginning to truly understand the power of her own beauty, and she knew the notion of her marriage settlements bestowed her with an extra frisson of allure.
(Kindle Locations 1511-1512).
Janine: The content was also awkward at times:
Lyon had become a man who could elude or escape any trap, by any means necessary.
Really? Any trap? I guess that puts him one up on Harry Houdini.
He knew that […] she preferred to take breakfast in the kitchen rather than the dining room because she liked the way the sun came in that particular window
So then where did her servants eat?
She laughed, and then gave a little gasp as he tugged her forward and then down a fairly steep slope, flexing his arm expertly, effortlessly, for all the world like a rudder on a ship. His strength was both shocking and humbling and innate.
How can physical strength be innate? We all have to exercise or develop it through our work; no one is born with it.
Jennie: I’ve been noticing what you’ve complained about before.
The one or two sentence paragraphs.
Everything is made to seem more portentous than it needs to be.
I started mentally copy-editing the paragraphs into longer ones.
It was very annoying.
I think the book would easily be 20 pages shorter without the unnecessary paragraph breaks.
Janine: Long’s books have always had short paragraphs, but this particular book read like a parody of her style.
Jennie: It was SO BAD in this book. By the end I swear if there’d been a sentence that read “He ate a scone” it would have been set apart in its own paragraph to give it dramatic heft.
Janine: My kindle found fourteen instances of “infinite” or “infinitely.” Twelve of “ironic” or “ironically.” Eight of “abstracted” or “abstractedly.” The latter isn’t that many but it’s an unusual enough word that I found it distracting.
On copyediting errors:
Janine: Readers have mentioned copyediting errors in Long’s Avon books in the past, and there are some bad ones here too:
Then again, indirectly, Lord Lavay and his friend the Earl of Ardmay were indirectly
And when he suddenly became brilliant and convex she realized her own eyes were welling with tears.
“But there existed – exists, I should say – people in all walks of life […]”
About the Authour
Our takeaways:
Janine: At one time anything Long wrote went on my purchase list. I loved books like Beauty and the Spy and What I Did for a Duke so this is frustrating and sad.
Jennie: I may be ready to let go of this author, at least unless or until I hear really good buzz on a new book from people I trust. I went into this knowing that it might difficult to fulfill high expectations – not that my specific expectations were very high but after a zillion books in the series all referencing the deathless love of Lyon and Olivia, I thought it might be hard to deliver. But I ended up having a host of problems with the book that weren’t even related to that facet of it. (Still shaking my head over the Louisiana plantation, sheesh.)
Robin: I had mixed expectations going in – hope for a great book, worry based on the series extension. I even pre-ordered it, wanting to make sure I was reading the final copy. In the end it just felt compromised and unthoughtful. Oh, well. At least Avon isn’t overcharging for digital books.
I don’t know why but this line struck me as the funniest: “(Even their dog is called promiscuous late in the book!)”
How depressing. Is this the end of this series? Or if not, would any of you keep reading it?
Thanks so much for the spoilery discussion about this book. I am glad that I am getting it out of my local library, so that I won’t feel guilty if I skim through it. I note that none of you gave it a grade. Was it D? C?
Here’s what I’m curious about- this is a book from a good-sized publishing company. This book was probably read by a number of experienced agents and/or content editors and/or copy editors, right? How did no one say “Hey, your abolitionist hero owns a plantation, do you think that’s weird?” or “As your agent/editor, I’ve read your other books, and it seems like you set up ALL THESE OTHER QUESTIONS that you don’t delve into at all here”?
@Lozza: Sometimes it feels as if the publishing companies are underestimating romance readers; as if they think that as long as there are bedroom scenes and an HEA it’s all good. Who needs dialogue or logic or sense?
JAL is a great writer (coincidentally my two favorite JAL books are the ones Janine named as hers), I can trust her to give us an excellent book. If only her editor (or someone!) had called her out on the issues in this one. Who could have thought that epilogue was a good idea?
Thanks for this discussion. I have been on the fence about whether or not to take the time to read this book, and I haven’t read anything in the reviews so far to induce me to run out and get this book (even the positive reviews haven’t reassured me). I enjoyed the first few books in the series but was disappointed in the books that came after What I did for a Duke. I DNF’d the books involving Jack and Ian because I found the characterization and plotting so sloppy, and I didn’t even try to pick up the last one – what I read of Jack and Ian’s books left me with the impression Long was just going through the motions. Since I “know” that Ms. Long and her team can do better (What I did for a Duke was excellent), I thought that they might pull it all together to deliver a great conclusion to the series. It saddens me that they didn’t.
Wow. I had a completely different reaction to this book. I was completely drawn into the story (except for the copy errors!). I loved Lyon, understood where Olivia was coming from and was intrigued by Lansdowne as I suspect he’s the next book. Yes, there were some details that didn’t add up, but with a little bit of suspension of disbelief I really fell into this story and couldn’t put it down. I loved that he maneuvered her onto his ship and then to his home, it rang true to me that he and she would both want uninterrupted time to test their love. I was disappointed that she didn’t tell Lansdowne about her change of heart earlier, but it didn’t diminish my love of the book. Also, I must be a complete ninny b/c I didn’t figure out the beggar situation! Fool that I am.
But seriously, if you’re on the fence about this book, I’ll speak up as one reader who really loved it.
Sigh. I love some of JAL’s early books so much (Like No Other Lover is beautiful and funny), but this discussion confirms what I’ve felt about the series as it’s gone on and on. I won’t be in any hurry to get to this book.
How I hated this book. I can’t forgive the heroine for what she did to her fiance. That poor man did not deserve to be treated like that. I found myself hoping at the end that Lyon caught an STD while sleeping around and gave it to Olivia. Those two did not earn and do not deserve a HEA. Bleh.
@Jayne: Yes, it’s the last in the series. I think that I might take a break from this author’s books for a while, unless I hear serious buzz.
@msaggie: We decided to run this as a Tuesday morning Op-Ed, the way we did the piece on Kate Breslin’s For Such a Time. The format is a little bit different — a more thorough discussion than what you’d see in a review, broken into subtopics and with spoilers discussed. For this reason we didn’t put any grade on it.
If I had to grade it, though, I might give it a C-/D. Unlike the previous book in the series, it kept me reading all the way to the end (although I had to force myself not to skim the epilogue).
@Sweeney:
Thank you for offering another perspective on the book. But re. Landsdowne, his is not the next book, because Long is switching to contemporaries. Her next book is this one.
@Jayne: I think I’m done with Long’s historicals, but I’d be willing to try her in contemporary, as that narrative voice struck me as more natural. Although the title of her contemporary debut is not promising: Hot in Hellcat Canyon.
@Lozza: When I hit the sugarcane planation I could not believe someone didn’t catch that. I mean, COME ON! But then there was that book where the heroine’s name was wrong during half the book (and I think there might have been a tepid, unconvincing attempt to explain that away in the epilogue).
@ducky: The thing that really frustrated me was the fact that it didn’t HAVE to go like that. There were so many other ways that could have been plotted out so that Olivia kept her personal integrity and Lyon swallowed his own pride and returned to Olivia. It was his rashness that set the whole mess in motion, but he blamed Olivia for it. Olivia, in turn, eventually moved on but didn’t mature, as that altar scene demonstrated. And instead of having these two grow the hell up and take responsibility for themselves and their relationship, the book sacrificed other characters and the heroine’s integrity for what amounted to IMO unnecessary and shallow melodrama.
@Sweeney: You’re not alone, as the book has received a lot of positive reviews, from what I can see. I might have been more sympathetic if the next book was Landsdowne’s, and not the contemporary. Did you see a signal that she would be writing more of these?
@Karenmc: I remember how excited I was when I read Beauty and the Spy and how unusual and interesting it read. Even with some of the vocabulary and editing problems, I loved Like No Other Lover and What I Did For A Duke. This book felt to me like it was fashioned by a malfunctioning auto-pilot.
@msaggie: We didn’t grade it because we approached it as a discussion and not a review. I can’t even grade it, because while it failed for me as a Romance, it wasn’t objectively a failure on all levels, which is what I deem an F. There were just so many problems that could have (and IMO should have) been resolved but were not.
Wow, I must be missing the nitpick gene or something. I LIKED this story although it could never live up to an eleven book hype/build up. What I did for a Duke is still my favorite. Yes, there were things wrong with it but overall I thought the author did a nice job of summing up the series. I’ve certainly accepted far more ludicrous plot twists and fact alignment *cough* J. Quinn *cough* and still been happy enough. It must be VERY difficult to stuff everything into such a large story arc. It can be done. Witness the Kate Daniels series which has been killing it with every book.
@Janet:
I must have missed that, or maybe it was one of the ones I skipped. Do you know which book it was?
@Janine: A Notorious Countess Confesses (Adam and Evie’s book): http://karlynp.booklikes.com/post/405688/post.
@Jane: And the dog is slut shamed!: “And because of the Duffys and the O’Flahertys and Evie Duggan’s sister, there were a lot of children, and plenty of dogs, thank to the O’Flahertys’ promiscuous dog Molly.”
@Janet: Thanks. I only read a chapter and a half of A Notorious Countess Confesses before I put it down, and that was the ebook edition, so I didn’t see the name changes. But I remember that readers on the AAR boards complained about an eye color change earlier in the series, too.
I really enjoyed this discussion, though I have no intention of reading the book (I loved Like No Other Lover and What I DId For a Duke despite weak spots, but haven’t been tempted to try others in the series). So for me it raised a more general, and probably unanswerable, question:
When/why is it that a reader decides a book takes too many shortcuts, and when/why does she go with it and fill in the gaps or accept the story? I recently read a book praised by a lot of people that I thought was ALL short-cut, no story, and I didn’t get the praise. But I don’t think those other people are just terrible readers. What is the book-reader alchemy that makes the difference?
(at the same time, I think that in an era of shorter books, shorter time to publish, and the pressure to write more more more, there ARE more shortcuts than in many books, and it weakens a lot of them. Narrative shortcuts and tropes are part of a genre writers tools, not just in romance, that make space for doing other things because some things don’t have to be explained. But lately I feel I read too many books where there aren’t enough “other things” either and everything is half-baked).
Finally–I hadn’t heard about the plantation before, and I just can’t get over that nonsense.
This was fascinating to read. Robin and Janine got me to read an earlier JAL book and I liked it; she can be really good at depicting the romantic relationship. But the WTFery in this, as in other JALs, would need a really good romance to compensate, and it doesn’t sound like it happens here.
I’m still trying to wrap my head around the plantation thing. This is almost certainly set after 1803, right? And sugar plantations were capital intensive and almost always dependent on slave labor (because the work was so hard), so there is no way Our Hero is not running an exploitative, slavery-based enterprise. Next to that, the stereotypes of the Irish and the non-specific poor people are almost palatable.
The thing I can’t come to grips with is, Avon is a major romance publisher, especially in historical romance, and they let the weaknesses through. But apparently lots of people are enjoying this book, so I guess they know what they’re doing.
Oh yeah: please tell me that “dry humping” is not in the text. Please.
@Liz Mc2:
That’s a fascinating question. I think sometimes when a book hits on a trope or theme that is resonant for a particular reader, it may be easier for that reader to fill in the gaps.
I also wonder, with a book like this one, that gives us the conclusion to the journey of a couple we have followed in previous books, and supplies answers to some questions we’ve been waiting for to have answered (such as why did Lyon and Olivia break up), if the excitement generated by that can make it easier for some readers to fill gaps too. So many readers loved this book, and even though I didn’t, I wonder if I would have finished it at all had I not still been attached to the Olivia of What I Did for a Duke and the Lyon of I Kissed an Earl.
@Sunita: The date of the setting isn’t given in the book, but the present day storyline has to take place after the Napoleonic Wars because Olivia’s brother Chase is a former army captain and he and his wife have a history that goes back to the war which was detailed in their book, Since the Surrender. Here’s Jane’s review of it.
The plantation thing is bizarre, because it’s not like there’s a plot point that hinges on it. Lyon — the same Lyon who has been acting the role of pirate to put a stop to the slave trade — just casually mentions it and there’s no follow up.
–Kindle Location 3952
And that’s it! I don’t understand why put it there at all. It calls into question the entire portrayal of Lyon, and it’s not like it serves a significant purpose vis-a-vis the needs of the plot.
And no, “dry humping” wasn’t in the text; I was paraphrasing and I should have quoted. What Lyon actually says is:
–Kindle Location 4145
This line infuriated me because the younger Lyon, whom he referred to as “a boy” showed more maturity and thoughtfulness than this older version who proclaimed his manliness by insisting that they risk a pregnancy.
@Janine and @Sunita: Submitted for your judgment as to whether this constitutes dry humping:
He backed her up against the elm tree. And now they were nearly climbing each other, the kisses swift, rough, plundering. . . .
Her hands slid down to his waist and she pulled herself tightly against him, and his cock was so hard her slightest movement sent an agony of pleasure through him. He hissed a breath in through his teeth.
“Liv.” He bumped his lips softly against hers.
Her eyelids were heavy, and her breath came hot and swift between her parted lips. She moved against him, seeking her own pleasure, not quite knowing how to find it. . . .
She arched against him.
“Liv . . . I . . .” His voice was a shredded rasp. “You mustn’t . . .”
Her head went back and her eyes were closed, and he could see her pulse in her throat, and her breath came swift and hot through her parted lips as she pulled him harder against her body, her hands sliding down to his hips.
“Oh God. Oh God.”
His voice was in shreds. He buried his face in the crook of her neck and bit his lip hard as his release tore through him. Wave after wracking wave of unimaginable pleasure. He soared out of his body, somewhere over the Sussex downs. (Kindle Locations 2561-2569).
Oh my. I’m trying not to laugh, but come ON. First of all, that sentence construction is atrocious. It sounds as if he might have a second plantation in New York. And “a home in the south of France.” What is this, the 1970s?
@Janet: Oh dear. I hope he landed softly after his trip over the Sussex Downs (no doubt rendered in his imagination in capital letters).
@Liz Mc2: When/why is it that a reader decides a book takes too many shortcuts, and when/why does she go with it and fill in the gaps or accept the story? I recently read a book praised by a lot of people that I thought was ALL short-cut, no story, and I didn’t get the praise. But I don’t think those other people are just terrible readers. What is the book-reader alchemy that makes the difference?
Great question! For me it boils down to a difference between shorthand, which I’d define as the gaps in a text that a reader has to fill in, and plotting shortcuts, which I’d define as a compromised or easier way to get toward a particular outcome. Both can be frustrating, but I think the second type tends to frustrate me more, because it’s not just that the reader has to fill in gaps, but that the shortcut can more easily violate the integrity of a character’s development or the logic of the plot.
Although both are shortcuts, for me they’re different in type, in that in the first case, the reader fills in gaps to make one part of a story connect up with another (like the mental lusting between H&H that signals love, or like the way Lyon and Olivia use sex in place of actual working out of their issues as a way to build intimacy). In the second case, though, I see it as like a fork in the road, and there’s a path that may fast track the book to point B, but it often involves a compromise to the characterization or the plotting. Like the way Olivia dumps Landsdowne at the altar, which does not reflect well on her as particularly mature or compassionate, despite the way the series has tried to characterize her as both across books. Or the way Lyon kidnaps Olivia and has sex with her for two days in Cadiz, thus mending five years of wounded pride and serious enough hostility that Olivia could actually become engaged to another man.
Now, the way the book uses the Duffy’s to demonstrate Olivia’s social consciousness (and conscience) might be more shorthand, but the way Lyon gives her his cherished watch is more of a shortcut to me, because it’s an easy way to put the watch into play such that Lyon’s father gets his hands on it and gives Lyon the ultimatum that makes him leave and try to take Olivia with him.
These two types of shortcuts may end of being the same for other readers, and heaven knows that there are many books where I have happily filled in gaps where I think the author uses shorthand to communicate something to the reader. I also think it’s clear from the many positive reviews of this book that some readers find the plotting and characterization to be completely sound and in line with their own expectations or their own perceptions of the characters and the romance.
@Sunita: Someone just needed to save that book from the plantations. There’s just no coming back from that.
@Sunita: Yeah, it’s terrible sentence construction.
@Janet: Oh, it definitely constitutes dry humping! I thought Sunita was asking whether the words “dry humping” appeared in the text.
@Jane: I was like, even the Duffy dog (with an Irish name, natch) is afforded no dignity. Poor dog.
@msaggie: For me it was a C-; it moved me slightly in places, and it didn’t *totally* bore me, so by that criteria it didn’t deserve a failing grade.
@ducky: I was so, so pissed at Olivia for that. And pissed, I guess, that we were supposed to be so invested in the deathless love of Lyon and Olivia that we wouldn’t *care* that some poor blameless guy was getting his heart ripped out in public because they just looooved each other SO MUCH. She could have made a decision anytime after coming home right up until the moment she entered the church and it would have been better (I mean, obviously better to not even have people congregating in the church, but aside from throwing up her skirts and screwing Lyon on the altar in full view of everyone I don’t see how she could have been more selfish or less appropriate).
@Liz Mc2: See, to me, this is something that usually happens organically – if a book draws me in (usually with excellent characterization and prose), then I’m much more accepting of shortcuts (and flaws in general, of course). I’ve told myself, “Sure, it’s not likely that this happened this way, but it *could* have.” And in a way it’s logical to me, because good characterization and prose usually means the story feels more real to me, and real life is idiosyncratic and inconsistent and sometimes improbable. Whereas if a book feels formula, I can accept that if it’s well-done formula, but I’m going to notice the gaps more. Hell, if this book had REALLY worked for me otherwise, I probably would’ve rationalized Lyon’s plantation as the cover for some slave-rescuing operation.
@Janine: Ah, I must be missing an inside joke, then! Sorry!
@Jennie: Great point about how a book that hooks you (or, in my case, an author who has won my trust) will get greater latitude.
@Janet: No, no inside joke. I thought the term “dry humping” was anachronistic and that was why Sunita was asking. Sorry for the confusion!
Thank you for reaffiriming my decision not to continue with my series. I tried. I really tried.
BTW, did anyone ever find Lyon’s body after it flew over the Sussex Downs? ^_~
This is a great review. I’ve never read any JAL books, and, I have to admit, this doesn’t make me want to start reading her either. The way that the heroine dumps the poor guy at the altar– the hell? That’s horrible! The whole relationship sounds contrived and uninteresting. And the offhand mention of the plantation in Louisiana is just… incredibly poorly thought out. My slave-owning ancestors left Haiti because of the revolution there, and they ended up in Louisiana as slave-owning farmers. So yeah, owning a plantation in early 19th century Louisiana definitely makes you pro-slavery. :/
BTW, speaking of which, I would love to see a romance set against the backdrop of the Haitian Revolution. I’m getting really tired of “historical romance” basically being shorthand for “the problems of rich white people.”
@Joanne Renaud: Rose Lerner’s new historical romance coming out in January also features white main characters in England, but the guy is a butler and the girl is a maid, so definitely not rich. Should be interesting.
Great discussion, everyone!
My 2 cents:
Once again, JAL seems to think that “proscribed” is a synonym for “prescribed.” (Not sure, but I think she first made this mistake in WIDfaD.)
As some other astute poster mentioned elsewhere, how is it that the H/h keep reminding us how incredibly well they understand each other–how rare and amazing it is!–yet they just seem to have these monumental lapses of understanding and communication at crucial times in the book?
I liked certain parts of the story–particularly the young love part, that was kind of sweet–but taken as a whole, the book was a let-down. It bugged me that during those 5 years he was gone, Lyon could have corresponded with Olivia, but he chose not to (at least as far as I know). So his coming back before her wedding for a “reckoning” was nervy. And BTW, a “reckoning”?? Really?
I also hated that, when Lyon tried to hurt Olivia by declaring with a shrug that of course he’d been with other women over the years, Olivia did not try to kick his sorry ass six ways to Sunday. I always thought of Olivia as a woman hoping Lyon would eventually come home to her. She stayed true to him. And when he didn’t come home–didn’t really get in touch in 5 years–she finally decided she needed to move on with someone else. And now here Lyon is, not only trying to mess with Olivia’s new-found peace but letting her know that he had not been true to her this whole time.
How do you listen to that and not get pissed off? I wanted Olivia to tell Lyon that she’d waited for him, had had faith that he would return and they would hopefully work things out, while apparently he’d been too freakin’ busy adventuring and having other women to give her much thought! And now suddenly, when she’s getting her life back on track, *he* needs a “reckoning”? Where was the outraged Olivia? Where was the groveling Lyon asking for forgiveness for being so stubborn and thoughtless?
And, yeah, don’t get me started on the treatment of the fiance. Or the whole stupid thing where Lyon and Olivia don’t have a heart-to-heart convo but instead he sends her back to marry Landsdowne, hoping that she’ll stop herself by remembering her “code”. Oy vay.
@STL Viewer: Great point that Lyon and Olivia could have corresponded. I didn’t think of that. I think we were supposed to view their breakup as something that couldn’t easily be overcome, but since it was cleared up with one conversation, clearly that does not hold water.
Honestly I think the correct response to Lyon’s admission of roving, as well has his announcement that being a man now, he was too old to keep his sperm out of Olivia’s womb, would not have been to kick his sorry ass but rather to marry Landsdowne. It bums me out that this was the Lyon we’d all waited so long for. I loved his character in I Kissed an Earl and I don’t know what happened during the time between these two books.
I couldn’t believe he did that. If there were a thought bubble over my head when I read that it would have said “Come again?” Does anyone act that way when they are really and truly in love? “Oh, hey, it’s chill, go back to your fiance, just don’t forget your code.”
So, Long is no longer writing historical romance? No book for the jilted fiance? That just sucks and makes me loathe this book even more.
@ducky: I can’t say with certainty. Maybe she does plan a book for him, but if so it isn’t her next one. I was forwarded a copy of her newsletter, and there was no mention of upcoming historical romances in it, only this new contemporary that’s coming out in June.
@Janine:
Thank you, Janine.
Thank you for this honest discussion. I have such a problem with this author’s last two books getting such glowing reviews! These two books were such a terrible disappointment that I feel angry at every 5 star review. I use to be able to trust reviews but now feel an author’s fan club interferes with reviews.
@Lori J: You’re welcome!
I enjoyed this book a lot. It wasn’t a disappointment for me. I noticed another question in this series wasn’t ever answered. In How the Marquess Was Won, we learn that Miss Marietta’s Endicott Academy has a secret patron & also that Phoebe Vale’s family may have secretly paid her tuition. There is a further mystery as to whom her parents were. I inferred from this plot point that perhaps Olivia or someone in her family was the secret patron and perhaps an Eversea or Redmond was one of her parents. This was never mentioned again.
JAL has posted that she does plan a prequel that revolves around Isaiah and Isolde’s failed relationship and a contemporary book dealing with Isabel and Malcolm’s romance. She doesn’t know when she’ll tackle these stories.
@Kim:
Thanks for letting us know that. And good point about the other dropped plot point, too.
Odd thing and not by design, while reading this novel over several evenings, I was also listening to ’12 Years a Slave’ on audiobook while driving back and forth to work in my car. (I did not see the movie, I dislike watching violence on the screen, although I am ok with reading and listening about violence.) 12 Years is the true story of Solomon Northup’s life as a slave in Louisiana where among his experiences he worked on a sugar plantation. He describes the long hours of back breaking labor performed by slaves and the ever present master with whip in hand ready to apply the lash if a person slacked off. When I read Lyon owns a sugar plantation in Louisiana, I could not believe it. It is mentioned and … nothing more is said. That thoughtless, careless reference left me uneasy for the rest of the book. It is a horrible inclusion on the part of the author and editors.
The 5-year big misunderstanding that is bridged within the span of two days, waiting to the last possible minute in the altar scene and a sugar plantation are why this novel is a disappointment.
Just got around to reading this book and yours really is the best discussion I’ve found so thank-you!
I’ve actually liked the last few Pennyroyal books, and I did love some scenes in this book, particularly the flashbacks, but it had so many problems! I had some of the same reactions, especially with the plantation and the jilting at the altar and OMG the epilogue, but some of the other things made sense to me.
The way I read it was that Lyon thought Olivia despised him – he says it at one point. So if he thought for part or most of that five years that they’d never be together again then it makes sense that he’d move on or try to (although there was no need to mention it). I got the feeling that he wanted to show Olivia that he was a success, that he could make something of himself without his father – that’s why he kidnapped her, to show her the dream, to show her what she gave up. Yes, at that point he’s trying to get her back but I had the impression he hasn’t always really been sure that was possible or even desirable until recently, whereas I think he’s had the idea of “showing” her ever since he left. And I think that the reason he let her go without saying anything was because she needed to make a leap of faith, the one she failed five years previously.
Instead I had a problem with Olivia: it was actually refreshing for a heroine to refuse a proposal based on a fear of poverty as its quite rational – but she was cruel about it and JAL didn’t really justify her reaction. And she’s still angry at Lyon for leaving, even though she sent him away but you never really see her older self regret or justify that choice. And then planning to marry one man when in love with another was just weak and cruel, although better that she didn’t go through with it I suppose. So while I liked the Olivia in the flashbacks it really didn’t seem she’d matured at all and Lyon deserved better. Which is interesting given everyone else seems to feel its the other way around.
I didn’t feel that badly for Landsdowne, as he always just seemed a bit controlling to me, but I’m sure he will get a HEA as the last time we see him, the woman whom he abandoned for Olivia, Lady Emily Howell, is fighting through the crowds to get to him in his hour of need so I doubt he’ll be lonely for long.
The absence of the whole Jacob Eversea slavery angle just didn’t make sense as it could have been a rich story element. And why on earth would JAL undercut the HEA with Isaiah’s pain? And totally agree that word count of that overlong epilogue would have been better used to deal with some of the other issues. Aaargh!!
@Yuri: Thanks!
I agree with all this but I thought it was immature on Lyon’s part to want to “show” Olivia. And especially to want it so much that he kidnapped her before Olivia wedding. It should have occurred to him that this was inconsiderate to both of Olivia and Landsdowne.
I read this as being the reason the author chose to have him do that, but I don’t think anyone would ever do this IRL when they love someone — not without telling that woman how much they love her and want her before asking her to choose. When you love someone and believe they may love you, you don’t just let them walk away. I’ve never seen anyone do that to someone they wanted to spend the rest of their lives with. So I feel it’s the kind of thing that happens in books, but that that doesn’t make it believable.
Do you mean during their argument in the rain? I thought she was angry that Lyon expected her to just drop everything and kiss her family goodbye simply because he couldn’t stay in Pennyroyal Green anymore. It’s not like he explained about his father’s threats to her.
I agree completely. I did try to articulate this in the review, but maybe I didn’t do it well.
Yes. I think Robin made this point. Olivia did come across as weak and cruel, albeit maybe not deliberately cruel — just thoughtlessly and carelessly so, but it still made her look like a jerk. I thought Lyon did too, though.
I somehow missed Landsdowne’s reunion with Lady Emily; thank you for pointing that out!
Sign me +1 to all of the above. All that was really frustrating.