To Have and to Hoax
Martha Waters’ debut novel, To Have and To Hoax, had me laughing out loud but also throwing the book down with a groan. At times I thought this would land in B territory and at times I thought I would DNF it. Reader, I am still puzzled by this book!
Lady Violet Grey and Lord James Audley married five years earlier after being caught in an embrace alone on a terrace. They have known each other for only ten minutes, but have fallen head over heels in love by the time they marry a few days later. All goes well for a year but then Violet and James have a fight to end all fights.
Fast forward four silent years and Violet receives a note stating that James has been thrown by a horse and is injured and unconscious at their estate, and rushes to his side only to find that he has made a quick recovery. James is not at all gracious about seeing her and Violet decides to punish him for frightening and then dismissing her – she’s going to frighten him by pretending to have consumption. Enter the ‘doctor’ and the supporting friends. What follows is 300 pages of Violet and James trying to get the better of each other all the while lusting after each other.
This book is presented as a “fresh and hilarious historical rom-com” and there are some scenes that are quite funny. There is an obvious chemistry between Violet and James, and Ms. Waters can craft great bedroom scenes. The writing is solid and the side characters are terrific – in fact I liked some of them more than I liked Violet and James. So what is wrong with all this?
Well, the games between Violet and James just drag on and on. And on. Ms. Waters does a good job convincing us that they are still in love but then their actions keep showing us otherwise. I just wanted to yell ‘oh, grow-up!’ at Violet and James again and again. We are also kept in the dark about what the big argument four years before was about until way too late in the book and by then all I could think was that they could have saved themselves four years of sadness by just talking and LISTENING to each other.
In the end…C+. I was impressed by the writing and delighted with some of the dialogue, especially with the secondary characters, but the immaturity of the principals was too much for a solid recommendation. I will, however, give Ms. Waters a second chance – the good parts of this book were really good so I am hopeful for her future writing career.
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Circling back to read this review, as I’m about to write my own for an arc. I agree with the review and the grade. It’s been a frustrating read and at the same time, I too can see the appeal of Martha Waters’s writing and would be open to reading another from her. The immaturity of the pranks became tiring and especially at a point in the story when both characters knew better. It’s also not a book equally balanced with grievances, as the hero is especially in the wrong and for stupid reasons. Funny in places but a teeth grinding read too much of it.
Mixed reviews for this one – will try it out when I clean out my backlog.
Don’t know on that – instead of a photo shoot with all that entails (models, photographer, stylists etc) you have an illustrator, which may cost less in the end, but I can’t think we’re talking a huge saving. But publishers certainly seem to be using them to drive price points up.
I liked this one better and agree with Em’s comments. It’s a B read for me. I really liked the secondary characters and would like to see more of their stories. I appreciated the humor. My hardest thing was the price at $11.99. I also read You Deserve Each Other by Sarah Hogle and enjoyed the humor with some laugh out loud moments. Somewhere in the middle of the story, I got a little tired of the pranks but it had a satisfying ending. It was also expensive at $11.99. I hope my library will have ebooks for these authors in the future.
I wonder why there’s such a large discrepancy with the pricing?! Odd.
I started a category on GR called ‘greedy publishers,’ – and I don’t even know if that’s what it actually is or not. I just think the pricing model – especially for a debut like Ms. Waters, can’t possible help her book sales?!
Are cartoon covers less expensive to produce than photo covers?
I don’t like movie/TV covers either.
I know romance novels have traditionally had a much lower price point, but I’d sort of thought that was a trade off for the fact that romance readers tend to buy more books than readers of almost every other genre. Longer print runs, lower production prices, more sales etc.
Interestingly the Kindle edition of this one is £1.99 at Amz UK. (With a different, though illustrated cover) and the Sarah Hogle novel mentioned above (You Deserve Rach Other) is £4.99, Both are a lot lower than the US price. I have no idea why.
For new books, yes.
Have you noticed if the price points are generally higher?
Many of Julia Quinn’s books (in pbk) have have had illustrated covers in the UK for years.
True. And I forgot to mention some of the things I’ve read expressing concern that the cartoon cover may also be being used as a way of making PoC less ‘visible’. I just added a review to our system for a book with a Japanese-American hero – and there’s absolutely no way to tell that from the cartoon image on the cover. Other illustrations do show different skin tones, but the arguments I’ve seen make a good point when they say that even they are seen as images that are more ‘acceptable’ to the mainstream audience.
Interesting.
I guess there’s two sides to that. Making all romances look more like all books has some upsides as does downplaying the looks of the leads.
It’s a difficult balance between using cover models and cartoons. On the one hand, a less Fabio-type image with the shirtless (or torn shirt) Viking might snag a reader who would never be caught dead reading one of *those* books. On the other hand, there are issues, as you say, when cartoon covers obscure a character’s race.
Personally, I have a preference for abstract covers (which are rare in romance) so I can imagine the characters myself. For example, this proposed cover for the upcoming “Erato: Flash Fiction” erotica anthology is abstract, tasteful, intriguing, and can be anything the reader wants it to be: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51027444-erato?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=ontzv9gjGR&rank=1. Plus, it’s safe for work (unless you have an objection to the word “smut” on the cover.) Anyone else here like abstract covers of this nature? How well do you think they would do for romance books?
As an aside, book covers that have a picture from the movie as a tie-in are a huge turnoff to me. Just wanted to throw that out there…
I could be wrong – as I haven’t trawled through Amazon to find out – but it seems to me that ALL the cartoon cover books are out there at higher price points than normal for romance novels. And I think that’s another key to the current vogue for them among publishers: not only is it a way of “disguising” all those romance cooties to promote the books to “not normally romance readers”, but doing away with the classic romance “clinch” covers seems designed to say “hey, this isn’t a romance, so we can charge more for it!”
What’s interesting is to see all the covers slowly being redone this way. It’s definitely the wave of the near future.
I liked this better than you did. I agree that the shenanigans drag out for too long, and that a good talk would have cleared the air much sooner. But I also think that the way Violet and James come to their union with baggage from “challenging” relationships with their parents, accounts for much of their inability to communicate just when it mattered most. Trust is a large theme in this one, and unfortunately, it’s a major roadblock to their happily ever after. Though I agree that they fall for each other on that balcony just a bit too quickly, I think Ms. Waters does a nice job illustrating how fortunate they both felt to find a partner they like, and ultimately love.
To Have and to Hold is marketed as a rom-com. I expect silliness and that not all of it will sometimes work for me. I giggled through parts, sighed at others, and enjoyed the ‘he doesn’t know she knows he knows,’ throwback to Friends – a show with plotlines that often strained credibility, but I enjoyed nonetheless.
This was a high B for me; a promising debut. Although I do want to again voice my concern about the price tag! Ouch. I’m guessing you had an ARC of this (I did); I’m not sure how this book got priced quite so high – and I felt the same way about the Hogle.
I agree with Em. Violet’s anger was well earned but her pretense of consumption ridiculous. James had a more thorough character arc than Violet because he had farther to go. “How could he have ever thought anyone other than Violet would satisfy him? You didn’t, said the quiet, reasonable voice that occupied some small corner of his head. Not really. And he knew it was true. Why else had he spent the past 4 years as chaste as a monk, in a house with a woman who loathed him? Because he’d never stopped hoping, never stopped wanting, even if he hadn’t been able to admit it, even to himself. And that was the problem, really. Wasn’t that what Violet had been saying in her roundabout fashion last night? He’d loved her, but he’d lost faith in her at the slightest provocation. He’d let his past dictate his future, and he’d never done the slightest thing to fight for that future. He was the son of a duke, and as such, he wasn’t accustomed to having to fight for much of anything. And when something didn’t come easily to him, he abandoned it. Mathematics? Easy. Wedding Violet? Easy. Inheriting his father’s stables? Easy. But moving past childhood hurts? His relationship with West? Marriage to Violet? More difficult. And so he’d never really tried.” I thought this passage was insightful, more than we find in many other romances (or straight literature, for that matter), and I liked James the better for it.
And I loved when Violet dressed James down for flirting with his brother’s former love, not just because it was a ridiculous way to try to make her jealous but because he didn’t think of the effect on Sophie or West, whose standing in Society or feelings might be hurt. He hadn’t thought of them as people but simply as pawns to be used in his game with Violet. But James does grow up, and while I grew impatient with some of the ups and downs and false steps along the way, there were actually fewer of them than I expected from the review. In the end I found the story and the characters sympathetic, funny, and enjoyed spending time with them.
I’m seeing mixed reviews on this one, I have to say. I’m planning to review the audiobook version, so I’ll see how it goes!
I just read Sarah Hogle’s You Deserve Each Other and loved it though some readers thought the snark got a bit too mean spirited. I’m hoping that I find this one in the same spirit, especially because I have an arc of it that I need to review. I did read a bunch of really positive reviews of To Have and to Hoax from readers who found it to be ultimately very touching and romantic. Fingers crossed.
Saying you have a fatal disease, in an era when there was NO treatment or cure, is a pretty rather a sick plot device. Particulatly now. I realise the author could not have foreseen Covid-19 but this sort of thing would put me off, full stop. Would we enjoy reading a story set in the 21st century where a character used “fake” terminal cancer to manipulate a partner? I don’t think we would call it a “romance. This book is definitely not for me.