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Book Review: Your Scandalous Ways by Loretta Chase
When it comes to historical romance, Loretta Chase’s Your Scandalous Ways has got to be one of my favorites because, quite frankly, the heroine is a big ol’ ho. No bookish schoolmarm or passive princess or, egads, even worse, “feisty fireball” here. The star of Your Scandalous Ways is a ballsy, unapologetic, fallen-from-grace whore. And I, for one, loved her.
After being disappointed by Chase’s last book, Not Quite a Lady, I had my reservations about picking up another Chase novel about a “fallen woman”, but I heard such good buzz about Ways that I (thankfully) set aside those qualms and read the book. I’ve long been a fan of Ms. Chase’s gifts for sparkling writing and fresh characters, and this latest offering does not disappoint.
Your Scandalous Ways is the love story of Francesca Bonnard, our illustrious slutpuppy, and James Cordier, a spy and jewel thief who is, in many ways, something of a slutpuppy himself. James is on his last spy mission: to nab some important and big-time-secretive papers from Mrs. Bonnard. Francesca is divorced from a real asshat who treated her like shit and had her shunned from English society, which is how she ended up in Venice, where the plot of the novel unfolds. As expected, Francesca and James become smitten with one another, both against their better judgment: James is tired of spying, this is last job, he should just grab the goddamn papers and go; for Francesca, falling in love is dangerous and not particularly good for business because she is — say it with me now — a whore.
What isn’t expected is the fantastic character development Chase employs here. Throw out any notion you have of how these characters might behave; i.e. James must be unsure of Francesca as a mate because of her profession, or Francesca must be so unhappy and unfulfilled because she’s a courtesan. Wrong, and wrong. James knows from the beginning that she likes to play games and toy with men, but he loves every second of it and willingly takes part; his reservations have more to do with the mission at hand and how a relationship with the victim might jeopardize that and less to do with her whorin’. And Francesca, for her part, is a pretty happy hooker. Even at the end, with the Happily Ever After looming on the horizon over the Grand Canal, when she’s clearly in love with James and has told him so, she still refuses to be “owned” by any man. She actually likes her job…and how many of us can actually say that?
For me, James — even with all his charm and humor and yummy-nummy-nummy physicality — took a back seat in the gondola to Francesca. I just bloody loved how this heroine managed to nab the hero and fall in love with him, never for a second compromising her ideals (however misguided) or having some ridiculous and unrealistic “transformation” into a changed woman.
Though Chase’s characters are terrific and her writing is damn-near crackling, there are a few plot elements that left me a little cold. First of all, Your Scandalous Ways has a lot of back story; both Francesca and James come with a fair share of baggage that the reader really needs to be let in on to understand the scope of the situation they find themselves in. And I didn’t feel as if we were given proper access to that baggage. Both of their histories are given a few sentences here and there, and a few conversational mentions, but nothing much beyond that. We are asked to just trust that the bad guys are bad and the good guys are good. I needed more proof of that.
Secondly, there is a whole subplot involving Francesca’s father that just did not work in the scheme of the novel. What we really need to know about him — because he plays a big role in how Francesca got into the situation she’s in — we don’t really learn; only the barest skeleton of details are sketched out as far as he is concerned. When he pops up later in the story, it’s a pretty anticlimactic moment. Daddy who?
Third, the villains. Another thing I love about Chase’s stories is that her villains are always complex and utterly human; in fact, even though I didn’t enjoy Not Quite A Lady, the villain of the book is one of my favorites for the simple fact that he isn’t really a villain at all: he’s a person. But the villains are much more one-dimensional in Ways. We don’t really get under their skins like I’m used to in a Chase book, and the result is a set of pretty cardboard bad guys.
With that said, Your Scandalous Ways is still a damn good read. With the author’s knack for creating memorable heroines and heroes, coupled with her extraordinary voice as a writer, this one stands out in the romance genre. It’s also refreshing to see an unapologetic, rabble-rousing, scandalous heroine just not give a fuck that she’s all of these things. Because she knows she is more.
And so do we. Grade: B
Title Your Scandalous Ways
Author Loretta Chase
Publisher Avon
Year Published 2008
ISBN 006123124X
Snarkbytes From her author bio: before getting published, Loretta Chase once worked a “Dickensian six-month experience as a meter maid”.
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The Snark is a creature created by Lewis Carroll in his poem "The Hunting of the Snark". To give a proper description of Snarks, one must look no further than Carroll himself, who summed them up in one word: Unimaginable.
But this much we do know: some have feathers, some have whiskers. Snarks sleep a lot, yet they are an ambitious lot -- with very little sense of humor. They love bathing-machines and tend to bring them wherever they go; they are also handy for striking a light. Snarks live on a far-off island, a place filled with chasms and crags, and are constantly on the lookout for Snark-hunters. Their mortal enemies are hope, care, thimbles and forks.
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