The Master’s New Governess
Harlequin Historical has a fairly good track record and has a number of my favourite authors on its roster, so I picked up new-to-me author Eliza Redgold’s The Master’s New Governess in hopeful anticipation of another enjoyable, romantic read. But I was sadly disappointed. What I found instead was a dully plodding story, bland, barely two-dimensional characters and a romance that never got off the ground.
The position of a governess could be a very uncomfortable and insecure one, something brought home to Miss Maud Wilmot when she is dismissed from her position without a character for reasons which are merely alluded to, but which are easy to work out. Without references, she will not be able to secure another post, but as luck would have it, her sister Martha – who is recently married – had secured a situation in Cornwall prior to her marriage and has not yet written to decline it. So – with Martha’s full knowledge – Maud (pretending to be Martha) writes to Sir Dominic Jago of Pendragon Hall to accept the position as governess to his seven-year-old daughter, Rosabel, and is very soon on her way.
She has been sent a first class ticket for the last leg of her journey – even though it’s very unusual for a governess to travel in such luxury – and gets her first, unexpected glimpse of her new employer when he intervenes to resolve a dispute on the train. Maud knew Sir Dominic was a businessman, but hadn’t realised he’s the owner of the West Cornish Railway.
Arrived at the hall, Sir Dominic (the author makes a point of having Maud think that he should be addressed as Sir Firstname and not Sir Lastname – which is correct, so why hit readers over the head with it?) broaches a delicate subject before introducing Maud to her charge. The last two governesses he employed had entertained “a fantasy of certain governesses that they might marry the master of the house.” He wants to make it absolutely clear that he has no interest in remarrying and won’t tolerate any romantic notions about him on her part. Maud quickly assures him she has absolutely no interest in anything other than educating his daughter.
To be fair to Maud, she does mean it. But she doesn’t know she’s in a romance novel.
So, of course, romantic notions do eventually take root on both sides, but the pacing of the story is dreadfully slow, there’s so little chemistry between the characters I’d actually put it in negative figures, and the writing is so full of overblown sentimentality and navel-gazing that I’d have been better entertained watching grass grow. There’s no tension or forward momentum in the story at all (the only real bone of contention being that Maud is pretending to be Martha) and most of the story is devoted to Maud and Dominic busily castigating themselves for being attracted to the other, and thinking any relationship other than that of master and servant is impossible.
When they do finally kiss about two thirds of the way into the book, our hero is, of course, completely blown away and thinks it was better than any of the sex he had with his dead wife. While Maud, who –
had thought that the sensitive, previous part of her had been numbed, frozen, half-dead, unable to come alive.
(Not to belabour a point, of course.)
Starts to feel all those tingly feminine feelings rushing back.
Oh, puhleeze.
And naturally, Maud is the sort of governess who could put Mary Poppins to shame. We’re told she’s far more popular than any previous governess had been. Dominic tells her early on that he’s worried that Rosabel has become overly timid, and he can “barely encourage her out of doors.” But hey, whaddya know? On her very first morning, Maud gets Rosabel outside to release a butterfly into the garden, and from that moment, she’s outside almost all the time, and Dominic’s fears are forgotten. Maud makes up stories about butterflies every night, they go butterfly hunting by day, Dominic buys a vivarium for the butterflies… so yes, if you’re not fascinated by butterflies (or railways), you’re not going to have a lot of fun with this book. Actually, that’s probably true even if you are fascinated by butterflies or railways.
There’s an evil Other Woman who has all the subtlety of a pantomime villain – she crops up to be nasty to Maud and taunt her with her plans to marry Dominic (she makes Blanche Ingram appear pleasant by comparison). Dominic speaks in info dumps about railways half the time and while I appreciated Maud’s dedication to the cause of female education, her speech to the evil OW near the end was preachy and only needed a flashing neon sign saying ‘important message here.’
As I said at the beginning, Harlequin has some terrific authors of historical romance in its stable who are able to write engaging stories, rounded characters and believable, well-developed romances within the shorter page-count generally allocated to the category romance – and I’m not going to let this dud put me off reading them. But I’d advise giving The Master’s New Governess a miss.
Buy it at: Amazon or shop at your local independent bookstore
Visit our Amazon Storefront
Recent Comments
The name of this novel is a bad porno just waiting to happen.
“Why, Miss Sidebottom. I’m afraid this position entails certain… duties beyond what was listed in your application.” *Bow chicka bow wow.* :)
Heh – I always say that at least M&B/HH titles are WYSIWYG; none of these cutesy song/movie title efforts that make me cringe!
I attempted to read a previous title by this author (The Scandalous Suffragette) and couldn’t even get 100 pages in because it was so bad. Looking back at my notes, I wrote, “The history is wallpaper at best, the author tends to tell more than show, and there has never been a heroine more in need of a Female Intelligence Society as this one” (having just read a Beverly Jenkins novel, haha).. Which was too bad, because it did have an interesting premise.
I’ve personally found Harlequin HR to have a very strong and consistent list of writers, and most of the new HR I read these days is published by them. Because of the consistency of their better writers, I’m more likely to give newer authors a chance there, where I wouldn’t necessarily do the same for other publishers. It’s always a disappointing when a new one (this one, Lauri Robinson) doesn’t live up to their amazing ones (Virginia Heath, Marguerite Kaye), especially if they are writing in less-used but more interesting time periods.
I agree 100% with that – and like you, most of the new authors I try are published by HH because they’ve got such a good track record. I just finished reading Virginia Heath’s latest (which Em reviewed here) and it’s the best HR I’ve read this year.
Y’know, I’ve noticed that Harlequin’s kind of pulled all of the sex out of the majority of their historicals lately. It’s been an odd choice.
I feel very, very bad for Sir Dominic’s dead wife after reading this review.
Oddly, the last couple I’ve read have been that way – this one and… I can’t remember, the last Julia Justiss, maybe? In that one, it wasn’t an issue because the rest of the story was pretty good. In this one… well, to be honest, they could have stripped naked and cavorted swinging from the chandeliers, and I don’t think that would have enlivened the story one whit.
But I don’t think it’s a trend so much as authors being allowed to write what they want to write? (Or at least I hope not!)
I think the lack of sex in recent Harlequin Historicals may be partly due to author choice. Unlike many of their other lines, HH permits authors to choose the heat level. This is the direct quote from their Submittable page under the “Harlequin Historical” submission category tab: “All levels of sensuality are considered. From the tingling sensation you experience when a wet-shirted Mr. Darcy rises from the lake, to the explicit bedroom romps of Tudor times, whatever the level of sensuality, chemistry and sexual tension are vital.”
Although I am beginning to wonder if sweet romance is becoming a trend again at Harlequin overall. For example, they have three limited Love Inspired (Christian worldview, no sex) lines they are currently accepting submissions for: Love Inspired Historical (which a lot of people missed), Inspirational Cold Case (non explicit contemporary mysteries), and Inspirational Mountain Rescue (non-explicit rescue romances).
This is just a hunch on my part, but Harlequin may also be embracing non explicit romances reminiscent of vintage titles because they can’t really compete with more explicit competitors. Carina Press, for example, used to have a line entitled “The Dirty Bits,” which were erotic romance novelettes and novellas of 10,000 – 25,000 words. Look at their sales rankings on Amazon, and it’s not too hard to figure out why they discontinued the line. At any given time, the vast majority of Top 100 erotica e-books are self-published through KDP. Trying to compete with a never-ending stream of writers who can produce inexpensive smutty work about once per week for a grand total of $0 investment is a losing proposition for a major publisher. Ergo, I think it stands to reason that traditionally published non-explicit romances with high production values (i.e. attractive book covers and professional editing) have more of an edge in this environment. Anyone else agree?
With the historicals I really think it’s a case of authors writing what they feel comfortable with. The few HH authors I know personally write the same sort of sex scenes you’d find in any other traditionally published HR, I can’t speak as to the rest of what you say, although it does make sense.
I actually think it might be a smart move by Harlequin to focus on non-smutty historicals, because the other big pubs who do historicals (Kensington, Avon primarily) seem to be tending more and more to mandatory sex scenes, even when they don’t seem to really serve the story – I’ve read at least a few that were obviously shoehorned in because an editor said they had to be.
There IS a market for sweet historicals, though, and tbh I think it’s actually a natural fit for Harlequin. It’s not all that easy to identify them otherwise, and there are definitely readers who want sex-free romances. HH could become the go-to for it, and as I say, I think that might be a smart move from a marketing point of view.
Oh, I agree. HH may also be answering a desire for readers who want sweet historicals that don’t shoehorn in religion a la Harlequin Love Inspired. I understand religion was a focal point throughout many people’s lives historically, and even today, but as one reviewer so aptly put it, Harlequin Love Inspired Historicals are great if you can push past the “random praying.”
I’ve read at least a few that were obviously shoehorned in because an editor said they had to be.
I have as well, but I really hope they aren’t going in the direction you suggest. Sex scenes aren’t the be-all and end-all of a book, but given the current dire state of HR, it would be a shame if HH puts that sort of restriction on its writers, some of whom write very good bedroom scenes. I admit to liking a bit of steam in the historicals I read and I’d be really sad if that disappeared from the HH line, as they’re one of the few publishers of HR at the moment who isn’t completely fucking it up.
If it’s any reassurance, HH submission guidelines still allow authors to choose the heat level of their stories. Having said that, it would be nice if HH gave their books a heat rating to avoid confusion. Their other lines, such as Intrigue, Dare, etc., are quite clear about heat levels. Since HH is open to more of a spectrum (thank goodness), it would at least be considerate if they had some kind of way for readers to tell in advance what to expect from a particular book in this line. At least AAR defines the heat levels in their reviews.
“I admit to liking a bit of steam in the historicals I read and I’d be really sad if that disappeared from the HH line, as they’re one of the few publishers of HR at the moment who isn’t completely fucking it up.” This!
The last few I read were that way too. It’s an interesting choice.
I just finished the latest Virginia Heath- no closed doors there ;)
I’ll bet Lisa was glad for once she didn’t get lumbered with this beaut!! Great review, Caz!!
Hahah! She is ever the optimist – I give most new to me authors one or two chances to impress me, and these days it’s more often one than two. Lisa is more generous than I am on that score!
HAH!
I might have given this an F, you never know!
Thanks for the fun review, Ms. Owens. I will definitely be giving this one a skip.
“To be fair to Maud, she does mean it. But she doesn’t know she’s in a romance novel.” Love this! Lol!
As for Sir Dominic (first name, of course, not last name), a single kiss makes him forget all about the sex with his first wife? Well, maybe at the *moment* of the kiss, but then what? No reflection, no regrets, no conflicted outlook on the new situation? And dang, didn’t he *care* about his first wife at all? I see this tendency in a lot of romance novels where the first spouse gets brutally shoved aside like s/he never existed.
Oddly enough, I think one of the more respectful portrayals I’ve seen of a widower romance is in the sitcom The Connors. Dan was married to Roseanne for about 45 years, mourned a great deal, and is just now easing himself into a romance. There were some heartfelt moments along the way, as in it was *painful* for him to take off his wedding ring in order to move on. I think a lot of romance novels, without getting too maudlin, could use a little more of that. To be fair to the romance genre, I thought Beverly Jenkins handled a widower romance extremely well in her HR Tempest.
I recently listened to a very unusual m/m romance – Any Given Lifetime by Leta Blake, – which does a great job with the former partner element of the story. Kelly Jensen handles it well in Building Forever, too. But here, yes the late wife was a cow.
Is the word count for Harlequin Historical shorter than single title historical? I’ve noticed that these have got much shorter in recent years with some of them being barely 300-350 pages long and in a Facebook Live chat with Tessa Dare hosted by HH author Janice Preston, they both said that their books are 70K.
Ms. Bonello, here’s what I can tell you about Harlequin Historical word count based on their Submittable page: they accept submissions 70,000-75,000 words in this category. You can see the word count requirements for every category here: https://harlequin.submittable.com/submit.
Category Romance is traditionally shorter – normally, Harlequin Historicals are listed as 288 pages, which is generally shorter than the 352/384 that are the norm for historicals from the major publishers (although a number of those pages will be taken up with other material, so the actual difference is likely less). HHs are, I think, longer than most of the other categories Harlequin puts out. I have noticed, however, a shorter page count coming from a number of established authors and publishers – I can’t help but think that many of the authors who used to put out just one book per year and are being pressured to put out more are struggling while HH authors are used to the shorter format and know how to use it to good effect. This book being an exception of course!
Yes, you are correct that HH allows a bigger word count than their other lines. I assume this is for world building purposes. Page counts are strict to minimize printing costs due to how the paper is folded (a signature typically has 16 pages). At least, that’s what I’ve heard.
As for authors being put on a much tighter schedule, I think it’s another sign of a tanking industry. I’ve heard that advances don’t pay like they used to, which forces authors to write more in order to gain money. Plus, there is an incredible amount of competition from small presses and self-publishing. Staying on the radar, particularly with wonky algorithms like Amazon, means cranking those puppies out. Sure, there are some Barbara Cartland types who probably have no issue with this. But in the long term, I think this is unsustainable for most authors and likely leads to burn out.
>>What do YOU think?
I think you’re a GENIUS, Caz. I thoroughly enjoyed this negative review. You really had me at “numbed, frozen, half-dead, unable to come alive”.
Well, to be fair, those are the author’s words and it’s she who is flogging that particular dead horse.
But I appreciate the sentiment :)
Yeah, I worded it wrong, didn’t I? What I meant was “You really had me at (that quote) “numbed, frozen, half-dead, unable to come alive”. But hopefully you understood what I meant with my clumsy, awkward, half-baked, poorly written comment.
Well yes, but I thought ‘credit where credit is due’ you know? I thought I’d wandered into a Stephanie Laurens book when I read that – take a point and hammer it so far that all that’s left of it is an unsightly splat !