Notorious
A fight-laden main relationship and awkwardly handled attempts at trying to write about the difficulties of being a biracial person during the regency make for a poor start to Minerva Spencer’s brand-new Rebels of the Ton series. Notorious is, sadly, the worst Spencer I’ve read yet and a downfall for an author whose books usually fallen within DIK range for me.
Drusilla – Dru – Clare is an outsider to ton life, as are her other friends. Dru is not on the marriage mart at all; an heiress of common stock, she’s determined to remain a spinster follower of Mary Wollstonecraft, and is a feminist bluestocking with a sharp tongue who believes in equal rights besides. Unfortunately, she has a crush on one certain gentleman.
The object of said crush is rakish fellow outsider Jibril – Gabriel – Marlington, her best friend Eva’s stepbrother and the result of his mother’s abduction, sale into a harem and union with a former – and dead – sultan. This is detailed in Dangerous, and readers of this new series should know that the characters in the Rebels of the Ton series are all children of the principals in Spencer’s Outcasts series. Gabriel was expected to take over his father’s kingdom, but a coup made that impossible. Settled uncomfortably into English life – adored by his British family but only tolerated by most of the ton – Gabriel immediately notices Dru among the swans surrounding her, but it’s sparks and arguments all the way between them. He naturally can’t stand her nastiness toward him, which he interprets as revulsion at his background, and can’t stop himself from sniping at her at every occasion. But he’s got two actress mistresses and is courting a lovely society maiden; surely this brown wren of a girl isn’t special, no matter how hot sparring with her makes him.
Fate promptly intervenes, when a stranger comes upon Dru napping in a conservatory during a ball. He is Visel, Gabriel’s longtime hated rival, and believing her to be Eva, attempts to kiss and then manhandle Dru. Gabriel rides to the rescue, and a brawl ensues.
When the guests rush in, Dru is summarily ruined, and Gabriel is on a collision-course towards a duel with Visel. Dru and Gabriel enter into what seems to be a temporary betrothal in order to protect Dru’s reputation, but go through with the wedding in spite of their misgivings. They settle into a paper marriage, and Gabriel continues to gallivant and damage her reputation, even heading to Whites on their wedding night. But can they figure out how to make a true match of it?
Notorious, like Dru and Gabriel, is stuck in an uncomfortable union, which, in the book’s case, is between its old skool plot trappings and a new skool sense of feminism. This time, Spencer doesn’t quite pull off the balancing act, and too much plot development takes place inside of the characters’ heads.
If you’re looking for communication, this is not the couple you’ve been seeking. Gabriel and Dru fight, they jump to conclusions about one another, they have sex and then angst about the sex. Gabriel thinks Dru hates him and presumes him to be a barbarian due to his heritage; Dru is attracted to Gabriel but knows he’s been a cad with other women, shows no regard for her feelings, and is petrified to tell him about her years-long crush on him after trapping him in the marriage (this is even after they have had dynamite sex, which – whut?) Naturally, they’re both victims of self-loathing, but their lack of cross-communication everywhere but in the bedroom lasts far beyond the book’s midpoint and ultimately grates.
Gabriel is at his best when he’s with the children in his family. He is gruff, stilted and awkward around Dru, and it takes him having sex with her for him to find a little respect for her (as he says in the text, he only wears sheathes with “women he does not respect”). Instead, he spends pages paying higher regard to his two mistresses than the heroine – for a good reason, which I cannot spoil for you, but it will raise some eyebrows and make you root for their relationship instead of anything he has with Dru! His near-book-long preference for the company of his mistresses takes far too long to change, and he only seems to make the change because he likes condom-free sex with Dru.
And yet there are some wonderful passages about how Gabriel anglicized his name and had to learn an entirely new language in order to be accepted by the ton, and the resultant bitterness when he becomes an object of fascination and repulsion for them. But Gabriel’s struggle with his own identity is never solved, and Dru’s constant fetishization of him – everything from his “dark” looks to the “foreign flair” with which he writes – does not help Spencer’s case.
Dru’s self-defensive shrewishness does not make it easy on Gabriel though. While she longs for him, Gabriel treats her like an errant little sister until they manage to merge physically mid-book. Yet for the majority of the novel, she’s the one who has to change for him, from dressing differently to being kinder and all but forgetting her worship of Wollstonecraft. With Dru’s scandalized shock at the notions of committed threesomes and harems and housing the mistresses of her husband, one wonders if the Wollstonecraft she read was Phyllis Schlaffley-Wollstonecraft instead of free-love supporting Mary.
The end result is two people who are nigh on impossible to root for, who are pigheaded and foolish and willing to believe the worst of each other at the drop of a hat. Whenever they are sympathetic, it is a moment briefly held, and then only because they are not doing the homework of interpersonal communication. Spencer seems to know the relationship is weak, because she throws objects – specifically Gabriel’s cousin, whose gentlemanly exterior and kindness is a cover for something wicked – and secrets into their path nonstop to keep them from getting together. Because of the exterior conflict and total denial of their own interior issues, their characters have to change rapidly in the last fifty pages to force their coupling to make any sort of sense. I absolutely did not buy Gabriel’s sudden belief in the intelligence of women after the level of disrespect he levied against everyone but his mother and mistresses.
All else is cliché and Spencer indulging her worst tendency to wallow in same without her usual tendency to turn those clichés on their heads. There’s the usual plot beat where the wallflower, fashion-hating heroine decides to Dress Real Pretty For the Hero. There’s the evil rival who’s not That Bad because he must become the next book’s hero, the over involvement of the mistresses in Gabriel and Dru’s relationship (which causes a plot twist that’s too bohemian to be believed for the era). Spencer’s sex scenes are still as purple as ever, with their painful yet wildly erotic deflowerings and demi-virgins giving expert blowjobs (If your womb is “heavy and full” mid-intercourse, uterus-possessing people, please go to your gynecologist). There’s a who’s-the-daddy plot complicated by several awful revelations about what Gabriel’s hastiness has cost him. Way too much is on the table by the end of the novel, and it’s resolved with a deus ex kidnapping plot.
Notorious will ultimately be so for only one reason – as Spencer’s worst book.
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Book Details
Reviewer: | Lisa Fernandes |
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Review Date: | November 29, 2020 |
Publication Date: | 11/2020 |
Grade: | D+ |
Sensuality | Warm |
Book Type: | Historical Romance |
Review Tags: | PoC | Rebels of the Ton series |
This September, Harlequin Historical published a Regency featuring a biracial (black/white) heroine. It is entitled A Mistletoe Vow to Lord Lovell. I haven’t read it yet, but it’s been on my never ending TBR list for a while. Is anyone here familiar with the story? It looks like a Christmas marriage of convenience tale based on the product description.
I’m aware of it, but HH isn’t very consistent about which books it puts up at NetGalley – sometimes they might only put one or two historicals up per month (and they release six), and that’s our main source of books for review. That wasn’t one of their NG titles.
Oh, really? I didn’t know that about NetGalley. Huh. I wonder how they choose which books to put up. You would think they would want to pick books that break the mold a bit. Maybe that’s just wishful thinking on my part…
I’ve read the author under her other pseudonym and find her work a true mixed bag. Sometimes I really enjoy her books and sometimes I’m left scratching my head.
One book changed plots so completely mid-way it made my head spin. There is also a real melding of her erotica with her historical romance a lot of times. Here it seems to be present in the two mistresses the hero doesn’t seem to want to give up. If I had a complaint in general about her works it’s that there never seems to be any tender love scenes in her books, it’s all passionate but for me can often lack heart.
I do enjoy that she tries to write unusual heroes (one was an albino). It seems I will either skip this one or borrow it to read just for the curiosity factor.
This one is even worse re the mistresses; to drop a plot spoiler
She does try to mix things up – that I have to give her credit for.
OK that’s a little too much melding of genres for my personal tastes. That’s definitely more erotica territory in my book. Not my cup of tea in historical romance for sure. Definitely a case of YMMV. I don’t know how the book ends but I couldn’t see this guy settling down with one woman.
Thanks for the spoilers!
I think I would’ve accepted the plot twist had
You’re welcome!
Just popping in again to say I appreciate the review and the work put into it. I also appreciate the nuanced grade that said the book was full of big problems but didn’t dismiss it as entirely worthless by giving it an “F” grade.
Thank you so much!
I second all of this. And you forgot to mention all the casual references to mom and stepdads hot and spicy sex life. And moms bizarre interest in Gabriel’s sex life. Ick. No thanks. Please stop.
If I disagree with anything, it’s your grade. I don’t think it earns the plus! Unless it’s an F+?
PARENTS ARE ALLOWED TO HAVE SEX TOO!
Of course. But do you tell your kids all about it?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! All the time? Wink, wink, heated look, heated look. Yuck.
Well, I grew up in a family that is very frank about sex. I suspect our sense of what’s not weird is different than most.
But I do dislike the American idea that kids shouldn’t know their parents are sexual beings. It’s led to a whole series of expectations for parents that limit their lives unnecessarily.
I have zero problem with parents having sex and enjoying it! After all, I’m a parent in a very happy, satisfying marriage.
Have you read this story? This isn’t “my parents are so embarrassing” level of uncomfortable. It’s way beyond that. IMHO.
If you didn’t read the book, I don’t think you can or do understand what I’m referencing.
This isn’t about modeling healthy sexual relationships, or my lack of comfort with conversations about sex between parents, children, or anyone else.
I’m not criticizing your review!!! I’m sure you’re right about this book.
I was just making a general point and clearly doing it poorly. Sorry!
Haven’t read the book, so I’m not sure what kind of specifics we are discussing here. How long it took to climax last night? OK, you’ve got a point. But the fact that someone obviously had sex and enjoyed it? I’m on Dabney’s bandwagon here.
We are far too embarrassed about being sexual beings in this country. If we as parents can’t or don’t model any behavior or conversations about our own sexual lives (and I’m not talking about engaging in sex in front of our kids but at least letting them know that we enjoy sex), how are our children supposed to know its ok for them to enjoy it at some point too?
If we hide it – at least until the next pregnancy comes along – the message isn’t just that sex is “private” but that it needs to be hidden. How many good, lovely, positive things in our lives need to be hidden away and never discussed? No wonder important, necessary conversations with our kids are fraught with tension and embarrassment – and the vast majority of our tweens and teens (both male and female) are getting their sex ed questions answered by watching Porn Hub videos. . . .
I won’t deliver full spoilers but
.
Thank you for the clarification!
I don’t know the level of openness in this book, but I think I agree with you, Dabney. I get real tired of the “OH gross my parents have sex” bit, in books or real life. Grow up. Our culture has fixated on young and beautiful sex and older people having sex with their older bodies is too often looked on as squicky.
We talk rather frankly about sex here as well. No details, but definitely as a part of our relationship and lives. For example, I’ve had discussions with my kids about anti-depressants and the frequent side effect of decreased libido, since several of them are on anti-depressants and so was I for years. It was openly known that my oldest daughter took her next younger sister to buy her first vibrator for he 18th birthday. My husband doesn’t blink an eye when a vibrator order arrives from Amazon for one of the girls. Life is too short not to encourage joy, including a healthy sex life.
Gabriel and his mother did indeed have a weird, overinvolved relationship in this as well.
Lol Dabney standing up for the parents.
Did you see that scene in My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 where Ian and Toula are caught making out in their car and Aunt Voula comes to their defense saying, “Parents are allowed to have a sex life too!” And Ian and Toula’s teenage daughter freaks out, saying, “Said no one ever!”
One of my other favorite moments like that is when a romance author was at a panel defending herself against a newspaper article charge that she wrote “mommy porn.” She straightened herself up and said, “Well, aren’t mommies allowed to have orgasms too?” LOL, and good for her.
It’s not a matter of whether parents are allowed to have sex—I mean obviously we are or none of us would have more than one child!—it’s the very icky notion of over sharing between parents and their children regarding personal sexual matters. I assume my children—all of whom are adults—are fully aware that their parents have intimate lives, but we don’t share the facts of it with them and I definitely don’t want to know what they’re getting up to with their significant others. It seems as if these boundaries are being crossed in the book.
Hah, I didn’t find that too offensive until the TMI started with Gabriel and his mom. The
Stuff was kinda gross though.
I save my Fs for meritless, rotten stuff, which this does not quite manage to become.