Beguiling the Beauty
Grade : B+

Whether described by Sappho — “she that far surpassed all mortals in beauty” — or Marlowe — “the face that launch'd a thousand ships” — there’s not a woman in literature more lovely than the famed Helen of Troy. In Ms. Thomas’s latest historical romance, Beguiling the Beauty, the allure of her heroine Venetia rivals that of Helen. It is Venetia’s extraordinary beauty that ensnares Christian, the Duke of Lexington, in 1886, when he’s a student at Harrow and sees her at a cricket match. And it is her beauty and the way it shapes both their lives that, over the next the next ten years, nearly destroys them both. Their story, written by Sherry Thomas with poignant radiance, is every bit as lovely as Venetia and will ensnare all but the most chary of mortals.

The book begins with this:

It happened one sunlit day in the summer of 1886. Until then, Christian de Montfort, the young Duke of Lexington, had led a charmed life.

On that day, Christian, a brilliant budding naturalist, is playing in the annual Harrow vs. Eton match when he suddenly sees, sitting on a phaeton on the far edge of the field, a young woman.

Her face — he lost his breath. He’d never encountered beauty of such magnitude and intensity. It was not allure, but grace, like the sight of land to a shipwrecked man. And he, who hadn’t been on a capsized vessel since he was six — and that had only been an overturned canoe — suddenly felt as if he’d been adrift in the open ocean his entire life. Someone spoke to him. He couldn’t make out a single word.There was something elemental to her beauty, like a mile-high thunderhead, a gathering avalanche, or a Bengal tiger prowling the darkness of the jungle. A phenomenon of inherent danger and overwhelming perfection.

He felt a sharp, sweet ache in his chest: His life would never again be complete without her. But he felt no fear, only excitement, wonder, and desire.

This singular beauty is Venetia Fitzhugh Townsend, and she, much to Christian’s horror, is very much married. Overnight, Christian becomes a changed man. “Until he’d met her, he’d not known envy, misery, or despair.” Now, such emotions are his constant company. Late one night, several years after he first espies Venetia - to whom he’s never spoken - Christian encounters her husband, Anthony Townsend, in the quiet library of his club. Anthony, a bitter, destructive man, tells Christian he recognizes him from that day at the cricket game as the man “gawking at his wife.” He elliptically warns Christian about the dangers of loving Venetia and takes his leave.

The next day, Christian reads in the paper that Anthony Townsend is dead, and his life was in shambles. He was deeply in debt to jewelers and on the verge on bankruptcy. A year later, Venetia marries Mr. Easterbrook, a wealthy man thirty years older than she, and rumors swirl throughout England she’s blatantly unfaithful to her elderly spouse. Christian presumes the great love of his life is “a shallow, greedy, selfish woman who injured and diminished those around her.” He moves on with his life, still obsessed with Venetia, but determined to make sure their paths never cross.

By 1896, Venetia is again widowed and visiting Boston with her sister, Helena, and her, sister-in-law, Millie. Venetia, who has loved fossils since she found a famous one as a young girl, sees that the famous naturalist Duke of Lexington is giving a speech at Harvard discussing the theories of Darwin and Lamarck. The women decide to go — Venetia and Millie think Christian, from what they’ve heard of him, might make a grand husband for Helena. On the night of the lecture, Christian makes the pronouncement — in the context of answering a question about beauty’s role in Darwinian theory — “beautiful women are essentially untrustworthy,” and recounts, without naming names, his version of Venetia’s life, calling her “Exceptionally heartless, our beauty.” He, of course, has no idea Venetia and her family are in the audience. Venetia is devastated.

The reality of Venetia’s life is nothing like what Christian described. Venetia’s first husband, too weak to not be threatened by his wife’s pull on all who saw her, ultimately tried to destroy her. Her marriage to Easterbrook was not at all what society believed it to be. When the reader first begins to know Venetia — this only begins to truly happen when Venetia is in Boston — it is clear Venetia’s beauty and its impact on others are not what she and those who love her value in her. She’s a woman of great character and intellect whose life, in large part because of her beauty, has held a fair share of loneliness and misery. When Christian assails her in public, she’s undone — his assertions bring up all her pain over the last ten years.

She, needing time to be alone and lick her proverbial wounds, tells her family she’d like to leave Boston early and travel to New York to stay for a few days before the three set sail back to England. When she arrives in the city, she — and this is key — dons a veiled driving hat to protect her hair and face as she is driven from Grand Central Station to her hotel. As she steps out of the car, she sees Christian striding into the hotel. Panicked, she keeps the hat on as she steps up to the desk where he too is checking in and, when the desk clerk speaks to her, she answers in German and gives her name as Baronesse von Seidlitz-Hardenberg. As she sees Christian, she realizes she is furious at him for disclosing her personal pain so publically and, impulsively, decides to break his heart. She books a suite on the same boat he is returning to England on and, the next day, still in her veiled hat, boards the ship, and embarks on a trans-Atlantic affair with him, all the while keeping from him who she really is.

What follows is so wonderfully rendered, I forgave the conceit of the hat. Ms. Thomas’s writing is, as usual, fluid, gorgeous, and sensual. Christian and Venetia discover each other in so many ways in this book — on ship, as lovers who speak in German and make love only in the dark, and then, as their true selves back in England. Their relationship, especially in the last third of the book, is full of pain, and for Christian, betrayal. Like most of Ms. Thomas’s lovers, their ultimate happiness is hard won and, for the reader, genuinely satisfying.

Beguiling the Beauty is not a perfect novel. The love affair between Christian and Venetia is, in a few places, constrained by artifice, and in the latter part of the book, I found Christian’s behavior hard to credit. (My husband read the book as well and disagrees with me about this. He feels, from a man’s perspective, Christian’s behavior is completely understandable.) But, even with its flaws, the book is a delight.

The book is the first of three, each featuring a Fitzhugh sibling. The love stories in the two upcoming books are begun in Beguiling the Beauty and are fabulous. I can’t think of any books I am more interested in reading in the next year than Ravishing the Heiress, featuring the thus far heartbreaking story of Fitz and his wife Millie, and Tempting the Bride, the witty and sexy tale of Helena and, Fitz’s best friend, Hastings. All four of these main characters are vividly developed in this novel and each is fascinating.

I enjoyed Beguiling the Beauty tremendously. Ms. Thomas is a writer whose craft grows more dazzling with each book she writes. In this novel, she explores deftly the nature of love, the power of beauty, and the damage men and women do to each other in the pursuit of both. If, as Keats said, “A thing of beauty is a joy for ever,” readers will be enjoying Beguiling the Beauty for years to come.

Reviewed by Dabney Grinnan
Grade : B+

Sensuality: Hot

Review Date : May 8, 2012

Publication Date: 05/2012

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Dabney Grinnan

Impenitent social media enthusiast. Relational trend spotter. Enjoys both carpe diem and the fish of the day. Publisher at AAR.
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