Deceived by Desire
Marie Force’s Deceived by Desire, the second in her Gilded series, takes place in Rhode Island, at the turn of the twentieth century. It begins when Aubrey Nelson, having invited his friends to his parents’ seaside residence, arrives first and finds the place unfit for human habitation. The previous staff quit en masse because Aubrey’s mother is a nightmare to work for, and the new housekeeper, Maeve Brown, is desperately trying to whip the place into shape almost single-handedly.
This is an interesting start with a challenge for the hero and heroine, but the book immediately plunges into problematic issues. Maeve mistakes Aubrey for the new butler, and he indulges his insta-lust by playing along, well aware that he can get further with her as a fellow servant than as her employer. Then the butler shows up, but Aubrey is undeterred. He invites Maeve on a picnic, keeps telling her to call him by his first name, and comes to her room at night to offer her some cake. Maeve, who’s hiding a Dark Secret, says over and over that this isn’t appropriate, that she’s not interested, and that if something happens she has more to lose than he does. But by the second day they’ve known each other, he’s in love, because she’s Not Like Other Women.
Readers looking for these tropes might enjoy this book. But for my part, I was extremely uncomfortable with the setup whereby an employer ignores an employee’s boundaries because he claims he’s so attracted to her that he can’t control himself around her. It was difficult to believe this book was published in 2019. Aubrey keeps pushing and pushing for intimacy, for marriage, and for Maeve to do things that embarrass her. She bites her lip and makes token protests (“Please, Mr. Nelson, this is indecent.”) but then does what he wants. He makes all the decisions, including those to do with having children (If she ended up pregnant, that would keep her with him, or so he hoped.), because he has all the power, the money, and the experience.
But at the same time, this is dull to read because the two of them constantly tell each other how beautiful, brave, kind and loving the other one is, which the narrative calls “witty banter”. Their conversations beat the same issues to death. Maeve frets that she won’t be accepted by society, Aubrey says she’s perfect and he loves her. Maeve feels guilty about her Dark Secret, Aubrey says she’s perfect and he loves her. Oh, and the Dark Secret? She defended herself from her evil husband (who was impotent – virgin widow ahoy!) and the force of gravity killed him for her.
Aubrey’s family and friends then turn up, perhaps because Aubrey and Maeve adoring each other isn’t enough to pad out the rest of the book. His friends are the sort of aristocrats who don’t use titles, because this isn’t set in some dystopian hell where class distinctions exist. They describe how they became besotted with their wives in the previous book, while the wives instantly befriend Maeve. Then the hero of the next book hears that his father and brother were killed in the same accident, making him an earl though he’s avoided responsibility all his life.
But Aubrey’s mother hates Maeve for being lower-class and Irish. Everyone – including Maeve’s maid – reassures her and tells her she’s wonderful, but Maeve literally trembles when her mother-in-law glares at her. Finally, the mother-in-law says Aubrey is too good for Maeve, so she should leave him. Maeve, who’s pregnant, runs off without a word to Aubrey, let alone a plan to support herself. So he has his mother dragged away screaming while he finds Maeve…
…and, unbelievably, the story ends. Yes, there’s the blissful baby-logue, the expected cherry on the cliché cake, but the story stops without Maeve having done a thing to stand up to her mother-in-law. I couldn’t believe what a cop-out this was.
Finally, the sex scenes are numerous, but one of them refers to “the soft pouch under his scrotum”. Maybe he has two scrotums? Scrota? Whatever. Between the exhausted tropes, the consent issues, and most of all, a heroine with less backbone than a jellyfish, there’s nothing to recommend about Deceived by Desire.
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Recent Comments
Terrific review, Marian. Incisive, amusingly witty, wise and a well-deserved flaying with a sharp scalpel. I always love a well written D or F review like this one.
Thank you!
I’m confused. The book takes place in Rhode Island, but the characters are aristocrats who don’t want to use their titles? I thought that RI was part of the US and titles don’t apply — does this mean the characters are British immigrants/tourists/whatever? The issues about the doormat heroine and #MeToo hero are clearly more important, but this seems like another ahistorical aspect of the novel.
The hero of the previous book in the series is a duke who’s visiting his friend (the hero of this book). Being a man of the people, the duke doesn’t like it when anyone calls him Your Grace or curtsies upon meeting him. Naturally, the evil mother-in-law does both of these.
It’s possible to have been living in RI (at least for the summer) and had a title and wanted it used in the Gilded Age – see the Vanderbilts, etc. who married up into European royal families but summered in Newport.
“and comes to her room at night to offer her some cake.”
The cake is his penis, isn’t it?
Perhaps it’s the hard shaft above his penis.
And see I just read that Ice Planet Barbarian book (the first in the series) and the alien has such a thing. So. There’s that.
Gives a whole new meaning to the term “the cake is a lie.”
Fun review, Marian! Thanks for seeing it through to the bitter end. This will definitely be a “skip” for me.
For what it’s worth, I agree about the nice cover. That’s an unusual but pretty color for a dress- HR or otherwise.
Yes, I like that seafoam color. I wouldn’t mind having a dress like that, matching hat and all.
One wonders what book Amazon readers read. It’s a 4.8 star read from 173 Amazon reviewers. Odd.
I suspect the author must have a very active street team.
There are a number of authors whose output is mediocre at best, who always get hundreds of 5 star reviews who I know for a fact have large street teams who are… discouraged from leaving reviews of anything less than 4 stars.
You might be on to something. This is…. something.
https://marieforce.com/contact/
Based on what Dabney dug up, that’s probably true. Also, we can’t forget that a lot of people will go gaga over anything that hits all the expected tropes. Not to act pretentious or superior about it, but I’ve noticed that AAR readers tend to be a lot more discerning when it comes to analyzing romance than the average online fangirl. To a lot of readers, “okay” is “good enough” or even “excellent.” And I think a lot of the positive responses are genuine.
We’re definitely a higher class of online fangirl around here! :P
I think your last line is significant. At AAR we tend to focus on the technical merits of the books we review. Which is excellent. For many readers, however, all that matters to them is was it fun? Both approaches to books are just fine and necessary!
Absolutely! The more variety in books and the way they get reviewed, the better.
I also agree with Caz though that it is definitely misleading when authors are going out of their way to specifically garner four and five star reviews by making “street teams” with reviewing rules that completely eliminate negative critiques.
Now, do these teams account for the majority of squealy reviews on Amazon? I couldn’t say. Just based on my own experiences, there are a lot of people out there who will give five stars to just about anything. Conversely, there are raters who don’t appear to be satisfied with anything. And of course, there are some who rate all over the place plus those who actually provide thoughtful, in-depth reviews.
When it comes down to it, reviews are highly subjective. Personally though, I would prefer to see a variety of opinions about a work to highlight the positives and the negatives. Because when I see all five star reviews for something on Amazon, I assume those are curated rather than organic.
This is one of the many aspects I appreciate about AAR. Amazon reviews can be fun to read- whether good or bad- but I have far more confidence in the balanced analyses presented here.
I once came across an author who had a fantasy romance released by a notorious vanity press called PublishAmerica. The book wasn’t available in stores or as an e-copy.
But the author had a street team that was not only dedicated but surprisingly large. So her website featured a discussion board with sub-fora devoted to the book, the characters, the world…and best of all, the author’s dreams. Yes, there was a section of the board where she would post if she had a dream, and her friends/fans would excitedly analyze this.
So yeah. Whenever I see a lot of uncritical support and praise for a sub-par book, I keep the possibility of a street team in mind.
I know of several current and very prolific HR authors who have large and very enthusiastic street teams. A friend of mine was once invited to join one of them, but one of the conditions was that she could only publish 4 or 5 star reviews. She declined.
It’s great if an author can do their own marketing successfully and all power to them for doing it, but for the majority of readers, who don’t realise such things exist, it’s quite misleading to see so many high ratings for mediocre books.
I’m not on social media, but this is the reason I don’t even sign up for email notifications from my favorite authors: I want to feel free to like or dislike their books without being tangled up in being part of their posse. I think the whole “author’s clique” element is also why the proofreading and copy editing in some books is so craptastic: authors leaving it to their Facebook/Beta/Street Team readers to do their proofing & editing. If, as a beta reader, you’ve already pledged to never rate an author’s books at less than 4.5 stars, are you really going to point out gaping plot holes, sloppy grammar, or abrupt changes in POVs? Doubtful. I may be feeling a bit prickly today because I had to DNF a book last night that featured the following line: “Posters from famous plays like ‘The Great Gatsby’ hung on the walls.” Ah yes, that famous play!
That’s another D for Force’s historical work. Man, maybe she needs to focus in on contemps, because historical mores don’t seem to click for her. God, wth is that ending? And SOFT POUCH?! Honey, the taint doesn’t feel like that.
Okay, I burst out laughing when I read this. Thanks, Lisa!
And yeah, I feel that if someone dislikes certain aspects of the past, like social classes, or the fact that there were lines drawn between servants and employers, that’s fine. Everyone’s entitled to an opinion. But what’s the point of writing a historical that deliberately flouts these? Of course, this series still includes the “good” parts of history, such as the heroes being dukes and earls, or at least rich enough to marry servants and ignore whatever society might have to say about that.
I think I need to re-read Longbourn now.
That’s what I’d like to know. While I’m definitely in the camp of letting authors write what they want, they really shouldn’t be labeling wildly inaccurate work “historical.” Why not come up with a new category like “alternative history romance?” Because when solidly researched HR and wallpaper HR get thrown into the same bin, it can be really frustrating for readers who are looking for one subgenre or the other. It’s not that there isn’t room for both kinds of stories, but they need their own designations.
Heck, we could come up with a whole new dictionary for romances like this. “Duke : Very rich guy from England. Earl : The duke’s best friend (and also a very rich guy from England).”
I just read a regency where the heroine (who has had sex once) and her (virgin) best friend run a sex advice column that earns them thousands of pounds a month. SO.
You so should! Glad I made you laugh!
That comment made me think of one of the golden moments of comedic TV….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4VPFEZDDNo
Hah!
Oh, Marian – I’m so sorry you inflicted this one upon yourself. I reviewed the author’s previous “historical” – Duchess by Deception and it was utterly horrible, too.
I thought the cover was nice, and I’d seen Marie Force’s name around before. But even for an author whose forte seems to be contemporary romance, this was bad. The whole setup where a powerful employer keeps pursuing a helpless employee who keeps saying no… if you’re going to write this, do it with a lot of sensitivity and skill or leave it the hell alone.