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Wyckerley Trilogy #2
To Have and To Hold
Suave, cynical, and too handsome for his own good, Sebastian Verlaine never expected to become a magistrate judging the petty crimes of his tenants and neighbors. Nor can the new Viscount D’Aubrey foresee that, when a fallen woman appears before him, he’ll find himself beguiled against all reason to alter her terrible fate...
Rachel Wade has served time in prison for her husband’s violent death, but soon discovers that freedom has its own price. For no one will offer her a second chance but a jaded viscount who needs a housekeeper. Scorned by the townspeople of Wyckerley as D’Aubrey’s mistress, tempted beyond her will by the devilish lord, Rachel risks everything she has to claim a life of her own...and a love that will last for all time.
Rachel Wade has served time in prison for her husband’s violent death, but soon discovers that freedom has its own price. For no one will offer her a second chance but a jaded viscount who needs a housekeeper. Scorned by the townspeople of Wyckerley as D’Aubrey’s mistress, tempted beyond her will by the devilish lord, Rachel risks everything she has to claim a life of her own...and a love that will last for all time.
388 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1995
145 people are currently reading
3349 people want to read
About the author
Patricia Gaffney
40 books319 followersPatricia Gaffney was born in Tampa, Florida, and grew up in Bethesda, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, D.C. She earned a bachelor’s degree in English and philosophy from Marymount College in Tarrytown, New York, and also studied literature at Royal Holloway College of the University of London, at George Washington University, and at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
After college, Gaffney taught 12th grade English for a year before becoming a freelance court reporter, a job she pursued in North Carolina, Pittsburgh, and Washington, D.C., for the next fifteen years.
Her first book, a historical romance, was published by Dorchester in 1989. Between then and 1997, she wrote 11 more romance novels (Dorchester; Penguin USA), for which she was nominated for or won many awards. Many of these previously out of print classics are available again today as digitally reissued classics, including the author's most recently re-released and much beloved novels in The Wyckerley Trilogy.
In 1999, she went in a new direction with her hardcover fiction debut, The Saving Graces (HarperCollins). A contemporary story about four women friends, the novel explored issues of love, friendship, trust, and commitment among women. The Saving Graces enjoyed bestseller status on the New York Times, Publishers Weekly, USA Today, and other lists.
Circle of Three (2000), Flight Lessons (2002), and The Goodbye Summer (2004) followed, all national bestsellers. Gaffney’s most recent novel was Mad Dash (2007), a humorous but insightful look at a 20-year marriage, told from the viewpoints of both longsuffering spouses.
More recently, Pat's been indulging her purely creative side in a brand new format for her -- novellas. With friends including J. D. Robb, she has contributed stories to three anthologies, all New York Times bestsellers. In "The Dog Days of Laurie Summer" (The Lost, 2009), a woman in a troubled marriage "dies" and comes back as the family dog. "The Dancing Ghost" (The Other Side, 2010) brings together a pretty spinster and a shady ghost buster in 1895 New England. And in "Dear One" (The Unquiet, 2011), a fake phone psychic (or IS she?) meets her match in a stuffy Capitol Hill lobbyist -- who couldn't possibly be that sexy-voiced cowboy from Medicine Bend who keeps calling the psychic line.
Patricia Gaffney lives in southern Pennsylvania with her husband.
After college, Gaffney taught 12th grade English for a year before becoming a freelance court reporter, a job she pursued in North Carolina, Pittsburgh, and Washington, D.C., for the next fifteen years.
Her first book, a historical romance, was published by Dorchester in 1989. Between then and 1997, she wrote 11 more romance novels (Dorchester; Penguin USA), for which she was nominated for or won many awards. Many of these previously out of print classics are available again today as digitally reissued classics, including the author's most recently re-released and much beloved novels in The Wyckerley Trilogy.
In 1999, she went in a new direction with her hardcover fiction debut, The Saving Graces (HarperCollins). A contemporary story about four women friends, the novel explored issues of love, friendship, trust, and commitment among women. The Saving Graces enjoyed bestseller status on the New York Times, Publishers Weekly, USA Today, and other lists.
Circle of Three (2000), Flight Lessons (2002), and The Goodbye Summer (2004) followed, all national bestsellers. Gaffney’s most recent novel was Mad Dash (2007), a humorous but insightful look at a 20-year marriage, told from the viewpoints of both longsuffering spouses.
More recently, Pat's been indulging her purely creative side in a brand new format for her -- novellas. With friends including J. D. Robb, she has contributed stories to three anthologies, all New York Times bestsellers. In "The Dog Days of Laurie Summer" (The Lost, 2009), a woman in a troubled marriage "dies" and comes back as the family dog. "The Dancing Ghost" (The Other Side, 2010) brings together a pretty spinster and a shady ghost buster in 1895 New England. And in "Dear One" (The Unquiet, 2011), a fake phone psychic (or IS she?) meets her match in a stuffy Capitol Hill lobbyist -- who couldn't possibly be that sexy-voiced cowboy from Medicine Bend who keeps calling the psychic line.
Patricia Gaffney lives in southern Pennsylvania with her husband.
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February 4, 2012
Okay. I'm not going to finish reading this book because I'm just not in the right sort of mood for it. It's disgusting me too much. However, it IS well-written and I finally understand why it's such a divisive book.
Here's the deal....
Imagine you find a puppy on the side of the road. Someone threw it out of their car and left it there, broken and injured, to starve to death alone. Suppose it's obvious that the puppy was mentally and physically abused prior to being thrown out of the car. You find the puppy and decide to take it home. You help it heal, but you don't give it any sort of warm affection or anything. You just give it a safe place. Then you think--hmmm....wouldn't it be kind of fun to continue the puppy degradation that others had already begun? Wouldn't be neat to see just how far you could push this puppy before it either turned into a raving lunatic or just blanked out into catatonia? Will it bite you? Will become irrevocably attached to you? It sure will be amusing to find out what will happen. Maybe you should push it in only small degrees. No beating, just insipid and constant humiliation. Maybe you call the puppy to you only to yell at it for coming? Maybe you just kick it some, and then some more. Maybe you invite all your friends over and allow them to kick the puppy over and over again while you watch.
Then suppose you suddenly become disgusted with your friends and yourself for kicking a helpless puppy. Maybe you have an epiphany. You are wrong and a bad bad person. Your friends are horrible people.
You know what? I couldn't possibly care less about your fucking epiphany. The simple fact that you would pick up a broken and injured puppy, take it home, and then kick it some more makes me think you are a psychopath and the only help for you is one involving intense psychotherapy and drugs.
Sure, people change. You might TRULY be sorry. That's fine. But you have NO BUSINESS keeping that puppy. Let the puppy go have a healthy relationship with another owner.
Leave. The. Puppy. Alone. Because you know what? At this point, if you keep the puppy, the puppy's attachment to you will be psychologically fucked up. The puppy will just be grateful that someone, ANYONE is being nice to it. You will become a god in that puppy's eyes and that's just wrong.
And yes, I'm sure the rest of your road to recovery and your full rehabilitation into the world of normal people who don't get joy out of kicking puppies is interesting and heartwarming, but like I said--I don't fucking care. I'm over it.
Here's the deal....
Imagine you find a puppy on the side of the road. Someone threw it out of their car and left it there, broken and injured, to starve to death alone. Suppose it's obvious that the puppy was mentally and physically abused prior to being thrown out of the car. You find the puppy and decide to take it home. You help it heal, but you don't give it any sort of warm affection or anything. You just give it a safe place. Then you think--hmmm....wouldn't it be kind of fun to continue the puppy degradation that others had already begun? Wouldn't be neat to see just how far you could push this puppy before it either turned into a raving lunatic or just blanked out into catatonia? Will it bite you? Will become irrevocably attached to you? It sure will be amusing to find out what will happen. Maybe you should push it in only small degrees. No beating, just insipid and constant humiliation. Maybe you call the puppy to you only to yell at it for coming? Maybe you just kick it some, and then some more. Maybe you invite all your friends over and allow them to kick the puppy over and over again while you watch.
Then suppose you suddenly become disgusted with your friends and yourself for kicking a helpless puppy. Maybe you have an epiphany. You are wrong and a bad bad person. Your friends are horrible people.
You know what? I couldn't possibly care less about your fucking epiphany. The simple fact that you would pick up a broken and injured puppy, take it home, and then kick it some more makes me think you are a psychopath and the only help for you is one involving intense psychotherapy and drugs.
Sure, people change. You might TRULY be sorry. That's fine. But you have NO BUSINESS keeping that puppy. Let the puppy go have a healthy relationship with another owner.
Leave. The. Puppy. Alone. Because you know what? At this point, if you keep the puppy, the puppy's attachment to you will be psychologically fucked up. The puppy will just be grateful that someone, ANYONE is being nice to it. You will become a god in that puppy's eyes and that's just wrong.
And yes, I'm sure the rest of your road to recovery and your full rehabilitation into the world of normal people who don't get joy out of kicking puppies is interesting and heartwarming, but like I said--I don't fucking care. I'm over it.
June 11, 2010
This book is one that sneaks up on your senses. You start reading the first sentence and before you know it, you're hooked. It was that simple. The writing flows, and the beauty of it is captivating. Yet at the same time, it is not flowery or florid. Just exhibiting the careful and artistic use of words to tell a story of redemption and growth. Sebastian Verlaine is not a pretender in the world of rakes. He is a true rake. He has lived an aimless existence of a sybarite, doing only what felt good to him, and only as long as it pleased him. He is on the crux of either descending to a lower level of debauchery, or turning his life around. When he encounters Rachel Wade, a woman just recently released from prison after 10 years, and arrested for vagrancy because she is homeless, this becomes a crucial moment in his evolution.
The manner in which the story enfolds is interesting. Sebastian has recently inherited Lynton, which is property from his disceased relative. He decides to go and stay there for a lark, and for fun and out of drunkeness, agrees to act as a local magistrate. As such, he is in a position of power to offer Rachel Wade a job as his housekeeper. In reality, it is also the position of his mistress. Sebastian finds himself fascinated by this beaten down woman, who was sentenced for murdering her husband, who had committed depraved acts on her. He is attracted to the luridness of the situation, and also by the woman herself.
When reading this, you are thinking, how could a person do a good deed for such a questionable reason. You see Sebastian laying his trap and allowing Rachel to settle into her position and you worry for Rachel. Yet Rachel is no fool. She knew all along to expect something along those lines, but her choice is to be put in the gaol for vagrancy, and to starve, or to accept relative comfort of a job, a place to stay, even if the price tag is to accept the unwanted attentions of her employer.
So begins this unlikely romance. At first, this is more of a character study as you watch Rachel adapt to no longer being a prisoner for ten years. You see her gain her self-confidence and overcome her sense of shame for being a convict, when she had been falsely accused in the first place. At the same time, you see Sebastian plotting and continuing along on his nefarious course, yet at the same time, slowly changing and developing a sense of purpose when before he only had a sense of boredom and jadedness. This evolution is so well done, that by the time you realize why Sebastian is such a rake, you have already forgiven him for it and accepted that this was his past. This was profound to me, because I have read more than a few books with rakes who really never seemed all that repentant, and certainly weren't fully changed by the love of the heroine. Characters that you wondered if they wouldn't end up falling off the wagon years later on, after the book was over.
The first sexual encounters are not consensual. Yet this is also done tastefully. Again, you are not reading this book as a romance novel at this point, but as a fiction work, and so it doesn't jolt you or offend your senses. Instead you keep reading, to see how this will unfold.
There are moments when I felt, that Sebastian would commit the final act that would serve as the straw breaking the camel's back, and I would come to hate him. Gaffney leaves the reader poised on the cliff of expectation, so skillfully keeping the reader's interest, as Sebastian has to make a choice, whether he truly is an unforgivable, irredeemable rake, or if he is a human being who does have ethical boundaries he won't cross. This moment arrives when he invites some of his jaded companions to his house, and allows them to bait Rachel verbally but does nothing. The situation worsens as one of the attendees states his intent to force his attentions on Rachel. At first, he acts like he could care less, because that is how the old Sebastian would have reacted. At the last minute he intervenes, and the breath that I was holding is let out.
From this point on, the story shifts as Sebastian learns how to love for the first time in his life. He becomes a caring person, learning to put someone else's needs first. And it really is touching the degree to which he devotes himself to making Rachel happy. I love redemption stories, so I really enjoyed reading about his transition to an honorable man. Or maybe, that seed was always deep inside of him, but he didn't allow it to germinate. When you get a glimpse into his family life towards the end of the book, you really have no questions as to why Sebastian acted the way he did at the beginning of the book.
This book works wonderfully on many levels, as a fiction book, and as a romance. It's not at all predictable, which is refreshing. Of course, you know that a happy ending is going to be given, but you don't exactly know how it will arrive at that point until you get there, and you almost want to read it again just in confirmation.
To Have and to Hold is a good example of the fact that romantic fiction should be respected for its power. Romance novels are wrongly labeled as fluff, trash, and worthless. But how could a book with such a deep message, and with such powerful storytelling ever be considered fluff? I will proudly put this piece of romantic fiction on my keeper shelf.
The manner in which the story enfolds is interesting. Sebastian has recently inherited Lynton, which is property from his disceased relative. He decides to go and stay there for a lark, and for fun and out of drunkeness, agrees to act as a local magistrate. As such, he is in a position of power to offer Rachel Wade a job as his housekeeper. In reality, it is also the position of his mistress. Sebastian finds himself fascinated by this beaten down woman, who was sentenced for murdering her husband, who had committed depraved acts on her. He is attracted to the luridness of the situation, and also by the woman herself.
When reading this, you are thinking, how could a person do a good deed for such a questionable reason. You see Sebastian laying his trap and allowing Rachel to settle into her position and you worry for Rachel. Yet Rachel is no fool. She knew all along to expect something along those lines, but her choice is to be put in the gaol for vagrancy, and to starve, or to accept relative comfort of a job, a place to stay, even if the price tag is to accept the unwanted attentions of her employer.
So begins this unlikely romance. At first, this is more of a character study as you watch Rachel adapt to no longer being a prisoner for ten years. You see her gain her self-confidence and overcome her sense of shame for being a convict, when she had been falsely accused in the first place. At the same time, you see Sebastian plotting and continuing along on his nefarious course, yet at the same time, slowly changing and developing a sense of purpose when before he only had a sense of boredom and jadedness. This evolution is so well done, that by the time you realize why Sebastian is such a rake, you have already forgiven him for it and accepted that this was his past. This was profound to me, because I have read more than a few books with rakes who really never seemed all that repentant, and certainly weren't fully changed by the love of the heroine. Characters that you wondered if they wouldn't end up falling off the wagon years later on, after the book was over.
The first sexual encounters are not consensual. Yet this is also done tastefully. Again, you are not reading this book as a romance novel at this point, but as a fiction work, and so it doesn't jolt you or offend your senses. Instead you keep reading, to see how this will unfold.
There are moments when I felt, that Sebastian would commit the final act that would serve as the straw breaking the camel's back, and I would come to hate him. Gaffney leaves the reader poised on the cliff of expectation, so skillfully keeping the reader's interest, as Sebastian has to make a choice, whether he truly is an unforgivable, irredeemable rake, or if he is a human being who does have ethical boundaries he won't cross. This moment arrives when he invites some of his jaded companions to his house, and allows them to bait Rachel verbally but does nothing. The situation worsens as one of the attendees states his intent to force his attentions on Rachel. At first, he acts like he could care less, because that is how the old Sebastian would have reacted. At the last minute he intervenes, and the breath that I was holding is let out.
From this point on, the story shifts as Sebastian learns how to love for the first time in his life. He becomes a caring person, learning to put someone else's needs first. And it really is touching the degree to which he devotes himself to making Rachel happy. I love redemption stories, so I really enjoyed reading about his transition to an honorable man. Or maybe, that seed was always deep inside of him, but he didn't allow it to germinate. When you get a glimpse into his family life towards the end of the book, you really have no questions as to why Sebastian acted the way he did at the beginning of the book.
This book works wonderfully on many levels, as a fiction book, and as a romance. It's not at all predictable, which is refreshing. Of course, you know that a happy ending is going to be given, but you don't exactly know how it will arrive at that point until you get there, and you almost want to read it again just in confirmation.
To Have and to Hold is a good example of the fact that romantic fiction should be respected for its power. Romance novels are wrongly labeled as fluff, trash, and worthless. But how could a book with such a deep message, and with such powerful storytelling ever be considered fluff? I will proudly put this piece of romantic fiction on my keeper shelf.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 26, 2015
I always hesitate to recommend this book, for reasons that other reviews discuss in depth. It's probably the most troubling romance novel that I've ever adored.
It's brilliantly written, and there's a lucidity to the language, a subtlety to the psychological nuances of both characters, that rivets me every time I read it.
The fact that it remains in my personal top five, along with Bliss by Judy Cuevas, suggests that I've got a taste for romance novels about men I wouldn't touch in real life with a ten foot pole.
It's brilliantly written, and there's a lucidity to the language, a subtlety to the psychological nuances of both characters, that rivets me every time I read it.
The fact that it remains in my personal top five, along with Bliss by Judy Cuevas, suggests that I've got a taste for romance novels about men I wouldn't touch in real life with a ten foot pole.
November 22, 2009
This is a tough book for me to rate. It's definitely somewhere between a four and a five for me.
On the one hand, this book is a phenomenal character study. Too often authors use the term "rake" as shorthand for a fun-loving libertine. When Gaffney uses the term here, she means business. Sebastian Verlaine is a rake of the first order. Debauched, selfish, lazy, and privileged, Sebastian uses the people around him for his own enjoyment. As the book begins, there's nothing lovable about him. He's not a bad boy with a big heart underneath, he's just a plain ol' douchebag.
Rachel Wade is the completely damaged woman who catches his eye while he plays at country magistrate. Rendered scared and meek from ten years spent in prison for the murder of her abusive husband, she's brought up on the charge of vagrancy, as she's been unable to find employment to pay for lodging. Seeing a fun little diversion, Sebastian offers her a job as his housekeeper as an alternative to prison, with the intention of seducing her, of course.
Gaffney didn't mess around with Rachel's emotional scars either. Girl is busted up. From the rigid discipline of incarceration she now has trouble making the simplest of decisions. Far from the typical genre fare of feeling an inexplicable attraction to the hero, she's friggin terrified of him. Their first coupling is not quite consensual and there are no miraculous orgasms caused by the hero's magical wang. In many ways it's ugly and sad, and she resents him for it, even though she accepted it.
Despite this ugliness, Sebastian's transformation is believable, as is Rachel's recovery. Upon a visit from his libertine friends from London, Sebastian begins to see in them his own ugly nature and resents it. He throws them out of his home and, after wallowing drunk in self-pity for a few days, begins to show through his actions that he is a changed man and worthy of Rachel. For her part, Rachel stays wary of Sebastian, while taking comfort from him at the same time. You see Sebastian act more and more selflessly while Rachel becomes braver and more independent.
Where I take issue with the book is with Sebastian's journey. I felt that he did not suffer enough or grovel enough for his truly despicable behavior earlier. All he had to do was change his ways, and he got what he wanted. I wanted more penance from him, for him to feel loss, humiliation or pain of some sort. Just being sorry wasn't enough.
Regardless, To Have and To Hold was a superbly written book of truly memorable characters. It is absolutely worth the trouble of tracking down a copy.
On the one hand, this book is a phenomenal character study. Too often authors use the term "rake" as shorthand for a fun-loving libertine. When Gaffney uses the term here, she means business. Sebastian Verlaine is a rake of the first order. Debauched, selfish, lazy, and privileged, Sebastian uses the people around him for his own enjoyment. As the book begins, there's nothing lovable about him. He's not a bad boy with a big heart underneath, he's just a plain ol' douchebag.
Rachel Wade is the completely damaged woman who catches his eye while he plays at country magistrate. Rendered scared and meek from ten years spent in prison for the murder of her abusive husband, she's brought up on the charge of vagrancy, as she's been unable to find employment to pay for lodging. Seeing a fun little diversion, Sebastian offers her a job as his housekeeper as an alternative to prison, with the intention of seducing her, of course.
Gaffney didn't mess around with Rachel's emotional scars either. Girl is busted up. From the rigid discipline of incarceration she now has trouble making the simplest of decisions. Far from the typical genre fare of feeling an inexplicable attraction to the hero, she's friggin terrified of him. Their first coupling is not quite consensual and there are no miraculous orgasms caused by the hero's magical wang. In many ways it's ugly and sad, and she resents him for it, even though she accepted it.
Despite this ugliness, Sebastian's transformation is believable, as is Rachel's recovery. Upon a visit from his libertine friends from London, Sebastian begins to see in them his own ugly nature and resents it. He throws them out of his home and, after wallowing drunk in self-pity for a few days, begins to show through his actions that he is a changed man and worthy of Rachel. For her part, Rachel stays wary of Sebastian, while taking comfort from him at the same time. You see Sebastian act more and more selflessly while Rachel becomes braver and more independent.
Where I take issue with the book is with Sebastian's journey. I felt that he did not suffer enough or grovel enough for his truly despicable behavior earlier. All he had to do was change his ways, and he got what he wanted. I wanted more penance from him, for him to feel loss, humiliation or pain of some sort. Just being sorry wasn't enough.
Regardless, To Have and To Hold was a superbly written book of truly memorable characters. It is absolutely worth the trouble of tracking down a copy.
September 25, 2018
This is an extremely dark story but in a weird kinda way, the H and h are superbly matched for each other and I really believed the HEA. For me, this was a couple who really worked well together even though I am completely appalled at how their relationship starts.
Rachel the h has been convicted of murdering her husband and imprisoned for 10 years. She was 18 and married for a week when her husband was killed. She stands trial and is convicted, no one wanted to believe that the man was a violent sadist and no one believed she was innocent. She is sent to a Solitary System type prison and stays there for 10 years. As the story starts she has been released but is about to be returned to jail for vagrancy when Sebastian the H, decides to make her his housekeeper/mistress.
Rachel is badly damaged, she keeps an strong barrier between herself and any type of emotion. Where she has been it wasn't safe for her to be anything other than a mindless automaton. She assumes her position in Sebastian's house and gradually begins to recover from her institutionalization. PG made Rachel's re-immersion into everyday life seem pretty rapid and miraculous, of course the reason for this rapid recovery is linked to Rachel's love for Sebastian and his care of her.
Which leads to the big conflict of the story, the character and conscience of Sebastian. He basically starts out as an utter complete jerk, he is hedonistic, bored and dissipated. Sebastian is an out and out bastard. He doesn't have a compassionate bone in his body. He is fascinated with Rachel because she appears so contained, she is helpless in his power, and he wants to know what it is like to sex up a murderess. He wants to break down her protective barriers and he wants to see her lose control. Not because he cares, she is an object like a rubik's cube that he wants to solve, mainly cause he is bored and jaded. Rachel is a new thrill in a long list of sybaritic thrills.
He plans to use her, break her and then go on his merry way. The first sex scene between Rachel and Sebastian is one of the most horrifying I have ever read and not because it is violent. It isn't, Sebastian coerces Rachel into sex by threatening her with being returned to prison. He makes repeated references to her husband's abuses and then he tries to make her physically respond. He gives up on the response from her but the sheer cold blooded calculation and coercion made me ill.
PG is so vivid in her imagery that you feel Rachel's desolation and pain even though it is not told in her pov. The scene is told in Sebastian's pov and it is this ability with words to make Sebastian and the vicarious reader recognize Rachel's devastation that makes this book work so well. Like Heisenberg and Schrodinger, Sebastian begins to learn that he is not unaffected as an observer in his experiment with Rachel. Her pain and her struggle to humanize herself again begins to get to him and it culminates when he invites some acquaintances down to basically harass Rachel about her marriage and imprisonment.
He looks at his "friends" doing their level best to injure Rachel's psyche and he sees a mirror of himself and hates what he sees. Sebastian makes his final choice of what kind of person he will be when he stops one of the houseparty members from raping Rachel at the last possible moment. From then on Sebastian goes out of his way to cherish Rachel and while it isn't the full scale mental therapy she needs, it does seem to help her heal enough to function in the everyday world and to be able to love Sebastian.
I think Rachel would never be able to function happily on her own without Sebastian, she is too easily overset by opposition. Rachel tries to be brave but she is fragile. Sebastian is still authoritarian enough to keep her stable even after both of their "rehabilitations". While he is kindness and love itself to Rachel, he is still arrogant and domineering.
I don't doubt his love for Rachel, I just don't think his basic ruthlessness and sense of entitlement really ever went away. Sebastian's edges are softened and his black depths brightened but they don't go disappear, they still comprise his character.
Strangely the one discordant note was at the very end of the book, it appears Rachel is going to be sent back to prison and Sebastian seems pretty helpless to stop it. This was a bit disingenuous on PG's part. Sebastian is now an Earl and has never seemed to have any problems throwing his weight around prior to this.
Maybe the novel experience of being completely in love has thrown him, but I kinda doubt it. Rachel is actually acquitted of murder in a deus ex machina move that was relayed by the H from a previous book and while it is nice fantasy it does kinda mess up the pace of the story and is a very awkward mien for Sebastian's character.
Ending machinations aside, the real story is Rachel and Sebastian's codependent-in-the-nicest-possible-way relationship. Rachel is never really independent and healed in her psyche and Sebastian is never really redeemed as a former rake. They don't really recover from their pasts, they just manage to accept each other and move on to build a better life than each had before. They are perfectly matched in this regard.
Interestingly, I did not feel a great need for Sebastian to make some grand gesture and redeem himself, it was enough for me that he wanted to take care of his estate and love Rachel. I also did not really care if Rachel made any more efforts at independence and self reliance, I was just glad she loved Sebastian and wanted to be cared for by him.
That was the effect of PG's fluid and vivid writing style. I, like Sebastian and Rachel, was content and happy with what I found at the end and willing to let the past rest in a loving and caring future.
Rachel the h has been convicted of murdering her husband and imprisoned for 10 years. She was 18 and married for a week when her husband was killed. She stands trial and is convicted, no one wanted to believe that the man was a violent sadist and no one believed she was innocent. She is sent to a Solitary System type prison and stays there for 10 years. As the story starts she has been released but is about to be returned to jail for vagrancy when Sebastian the H, decides to make her his housekeeper/mistress.
Rachel is badly damaged, she keeps an strong barrier between herself and any type of emotion. Where she has been it wasn't safe for her to be anything other than a mindless automaton. She assumes her position in Sebastian's house and gradually begins to recover from her institutionalization. PG made Rachel's re-immersion into everyday life seem pretty rapid and miraculous, of course the reason for this rapid recovery is linked to Rachel's love for Sebastian and his care of her.
Which leads to the big conflict of the story, the character and conscience of Sebastian. He basically starts out as an utter complete jerk, he is hedonistic, bored and dissipated. Sebastian is an out and out bastard. He doesn't have a compassionate bone in his body. He is fascinated with Rachel because she appears so contained, she is helpless in his power, and he wants to know what it is like to sex up a murderess. He wants to break down her protective barriers and he wants to see her lose control. Not because he cares, she is an object like a rubik's cube that he wants to solve, mainly cause he is bored and jaded. Rachel is a new thrill in a long list of sybaritic thrills.
He plans to use her, break her and then go on his merry way. The first sex scene between Rachel and Sebastian is one of the most horrifying I have ever read and not because it is violent. It isn't, Sebastian coerces Rachel into sex by threatening her with being returned to prison. He makes repeated references to her husband's abuses and then he tries to make her physically respond. He gives up on the response from her but the sheer cold blooded calculation and coercion made me ill.
PG is so vivid in her imagery that you feel Rachel's desolation and pain even though it is not told in her pov. The scene is told in Sebastian's pov and it is this ability with words to make Sebastian and the vicarious reader recognize Rachel's devastation that makes this book work so well. Like Heisenberg and Schrodinger, Sebastian begins to learn that he is not unaffected as an observer in his experiment with Rachel. Her pain and her struggle to humanize herself again begins to get to him and it culminates when he invites some acquaintances down to basically harass Rachel about her marriage and imprisonment.
He looks at his "friends" doing their level best to injure Rachel's psyche and he sees a mirror of himself and hates what he sees. Sebastian makes his final choice of what kind of person he will be when he stops one of the houseparty members from raping Rachel at the last possible moment. From then on Sebastian goes out of his way to cherish Rachel and while it isn't the full scale mental therapy she needs, it does seem to help her heal enough to function in the everyday world and to be able to love Sebastian.
I think Rachel would never be able to function happily on her own without Sebastian, she is too easily overset by opposition. Rachel tries to be brave but she is fragile. Sebastian is still authoritarian enough to keep her stable even after both of their "rehabilitations". While he is kindness and love itself to Rachel, he is still arrogant and domineering.
I don't doubt his love for Rachel, I just don't think his basic ruthlessness and sense of entitlement really ever went away. Sebastian's edges are softened and his black depths brightened but they don't go disappear, they still comprise his character.
Strangely the one discordant note was at the very end of the book, it appears Rachel is going to be sent back to prison and Sebastian seems pretty helpless to stop it. This was a bit disingenuous on PG's part. Sebastian is now an Earl and has never seemed to have any problems throwing his weight around prior to this.
Maybe the novel experience of being completely in love has thrown him, but I kinda doubt it. Rachel is actually acquitted of murder in a deus ex machina move that was relayed by the H from a previous book and while it is nice fantasy it does kinda mess up the pace of the story and is a very awkward mien for Sebastian's character.
Ending machinations aside, the real story is Rachel and Sebastian's codependent-in-the-nicest-possible-way relationship. Rachel is never really independent and healed in her psyche and Sebastian is never really redeemed as a former rake. They don't really recover from their pasts, they just manage to accept each other and move on to build a better life than each had before. They are perfectly matched in this regard.
Interestingly, I did not feel a great need for Sebastian to make some grand gesture and redeem himself, it was enough for me that he wanted to take care of his estate and love Rachel. I also did not really care if Rachel made any more efforts at independence and self reliance, I was just glad she loved Sebastian and wanted to be cared for by him.
That was the effect of PG's fluid and vivid writing style. I, like Sebastian and Rachel, was content and happy with what I found at the end and willing to let the past rest in a loving and caring future.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 12, 2023
I’d like to start my review with a big thank you to my goodreads friends who took the time to write thoughtful reviews for this book. Without their reviews I never would have found this book, and I would have missed out on something special. This wasn’t just a story, it was a masterpiece.
I love character-driven romance and in that aspect, this book is in a class by itself. It was an utterly fascinating character study of a bored, debauched antihero with a major mean streak and a woman seemingly broken and deeply traumatized by her very brief marriage and subsequent ten years in prison for a crime she didn’t commit.
Rachel was picked up for vagrancy soon after her release from prison and Sebastian, as the local lord and a town magistrate, decided on a whim to hire her as the housekeeper of his derelict country manor, in order to bed her (he saw a supreme challenge there) and fuck with her emotionally.
Sebastian would roll along the storyline seemingly nothing more than a typical wealthy jaded rake and then bam, out of the blue he would radiate such emotional menace that it gave me shivers.
He let his hand fall away and stepped back. “Sleep well, Mrs. Wade. We’ll speak again in the morning.” “Good night, my lord.” As expert as she was at hiding her feelings, she couldn’t disguise her relief. He would enjoy making her pay for it.
He wasn’t sure why he tormented Mrs. Wade, why he had numerous new torments in mind for her in the future. It wasn’t his usual style. But he’d seen a change coming in himself for a while now. Out of boredom and cynicism, he was starting to become nasty. He didn’t approve of it, but in some ways he saw it as inevitable.
Even this early in the book, though, the author is giving us brief glimpses of tiny shreds of decency and humanity, guilt and conscience, hidden deep inside of Sebastian, and I’m thinking, either this is going to be one hell of a redemption arc if the author can pull it off, or Sebastian is going to be one of the nastiest antiheroes I’ve ever read. Turns out it was both, and I loved it.
Bingham asked her about the “dry bath,” a degrading, dehumanizing strip search she’d endured once every month for ten years. So: in prison they’d even robbed her of the freedom of her own body. So had her husband. So had he. How long would she let it go on? For as long as he’d known her, she’d never surrendered to anything, not really, no matter how callously he’d treated her. But this was different. This was worse. He was letting it happen, watching it grow more beastly by the minute, because he wasn’t testing her anymore. He was testing himself. […] The worst for Sebastian was recognizing his own soft, mocking tone in Sully’s despicable cadence. He felt physically sick.
Rachel was no less fascinating to me. Before reading this book, I couldn’t even begin to wrap my head around what a brief marriage filled with brutality immediately followed by years in prison would do to your mind, your very spirit. I no longer wonder.
At the base of her throat, above the narrow collar of her cheap dress, a fast, erratic pulse hammered. Still, despite her physical vulnerability, she managed to convey an attitude of remoteness. You won’t touch me, her body said, because I am untouchable.
But time in the world and time in a convict prison were not even in the same dimension. And the church bell’s lonely knell was infinitely preferable to the cruel shriek of a prison bell, whose dreadful note was the tonal embodiment of everything brutal and despairing.
She fumbled with matches on her bedside table and lit the candle in the brass holder. The little thrill in her chest at this elementary but powerful act—controlling light and darkness in her own room—would probably fade soon, like her awareness that the bed was too soft. How quickly one could adjust to the unspeakable luxuries of freedom.
Barefooted, she got up and carried the candle into the sitting room. Just to look at it again. There was a desk with a chair, and a shelf next to it with a place for books. An oil lamp on the table, and a wooden bowl for flowers, or maybe fruit. Her own window to open or close, just as she pleased, any time she liked. And a fireplace, with a soft chair, an upholstered chair, to sit in before it—those were the best things. No, the desk and the window were the best. Or was it the bowl for flowers? Something else she couldn’t decide. Deciding things was going to be a problem, she already knew that.
Dark, powerful, compelling, complex, heart-wrenching… truly, these adjectives don’t come close, but they’re the best I can do…. This was simply brilliant storytelling.
Gentle and soft, sweet, unrushed, the quietest lovemaking, like a dance still, real but not real. The music was their breathing, and the slide of fingers on warming skin, and the whispery sound of kisses.
TW: non-consent
I love character-driven romance and in that aspect, this book is in a class by itself. It was an utterly fascinating character study of a bored, debauched antihero with a major mean streak and a woman seemingly broken and deeply traumatized by her very brief marriage and subsequent ten years in prison for a crime she didn’t commit.
Rachel was picked up for vagrancy soon after her release from prison and Sebastian, as the local lord and a town magistrate, decided on a whim to hire her as the housekeeper of his derelict country manor, in order to bed her (he saw a supreme challenge there) and fuck with her emotionally.
Sebastian would roll along the storyline seemingly nothing more than a typical wealthy jaded rake and then bam, out of the blue he would radiate such emotional menace that it gave me shivers.
He let his hand fall away and stepped back. “Sleep well, Mrs. Wade. We’ll speak again in the morning.” “Good night, my lord.” As expert as she was at hiding her feelings, she couldn’t disguise her relief. He would enjoy making her pay for it.
He wasn’t sure why he tormented Mrs. Wade, why he had numerous new torments in mind for her in the future. It wasn’t his usual style. But he’d seen a change coming in himself for a while now. Out of boredom and cynicism, he was starting to become nasty. He didn’t approve of it, but in some ways he saw it as inevitable.
Even this early in the book, though, the author is giving us brief glimpses of tiny shreds of decency and humanity, guilt and conscience, hidden deep inside of Sebastian, and I’m thinking, either this is going to be one hell of a redemption arc if the author can pull it off, or Sebastian is going to be one of the nastiest antiheroes I’ve ever read. Turns out it was both, and I loved it.
Bingham asked her about the “dry bath,” a degrading, dehumanizing strip search she’d endured once every month for ten years. So: in prison they’d even robbed her of the freedom of her own body. So had her husband. So had he. How long would she let it go on? For as long as he’d known her, she’d never surrendered to anything, not really, no matter how callously he’d treated her. But this was different. This was worse. He was letting it happen, watching it grow more beastly by the minute, because he wasn’t testing her anymore. He was testing himself. […] The worst for Sebastian was recognizing his own soft, mocking tone in Sully’s despicable cadence. He felt physically sick.
Rachel was no less fascinating to me. Before reading this book, I couldn’t even begin to wrap my head around what a brief marriage filled with brutality immediately followed by years in prison would do to your mind, your very spirit. I no longer wonder.
At the base of her throat, above the narrow collar of her cheap dress, a fast, erratic pulse hammered. Still, despite her physical vulnerability, she managed to convey an attitude of remoteness. You won’t touch me, her body said, because I am untouchable.
But time in the world and time in a convict prison were not even in the same dimension. And the church bell’s lonely knell was infinitely preferable to the cruel shriek of a prison bell, whose dreadful note was the tonal embodiment of everything brutal and despairing.
She fumbled with matches on her bedside table and lit the candle in the brass holder. The little thrill in her chest at this elementary but powerful act—controlling light and darkness in her own room—would probably fade soon, like her awareness that the bed was too soft. How quickly one could adjust to the unspeakable luxuries of freedom.
Barefooted, she got up and carried the candle into the sitting room. Just to look at it again. There was a desk with a chair, and a shelf next to it with a place for books. An oil lamp on the table, and a wooden bowl for flowers, or maybe fruit. Her own window to open or close, just as she pleased, any time she liked. And a fireplace, with a soft chair, an upholstered chair, to sit in before it—those were the best things. No, the desk and the window were the best. Or was it the bowl for flowers? Something else she couldn’t decide. Deciding things was going to be a problem, she already knew that.
Dark, powerful, compelling, complex, heart-wrenching… truly, these adjectives don’t come close, but they’re the best I can do…. This was simply brilliant storytelling.
Gentle and soft, sweet, unrushed, the quietest lovemaking, like a dance still, real but not real. The music was their breathing, and the slide of fingers on warming skin, and the whispery sound of kisses.
TW: non-consent
December 7, 2011
What a complete and utter sh#*head the man in this book is! He "saves" a woman released from prison and makes her his housekeeper in order to sleep with her. She is terrified, and can't say no because she would lose her position and be sent back to gaol. When he is trying to force her into sleeping with her, he tells her to just submit- "don't let this be rape.". Oh yes, coerced sex is much better than rape.
This book made me furious, and I had to stop halfway through. What utter tripe. And an completely unredeemable man.
This book made me furious, and I had to stop halfway through. What utter tripe. And an completely unredeemable man.
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January 28, 2025This one got really long. Again, it's ooooold. Content warnings for detailed discussion of SA.
Wow. Okay. So, this book sort of ripped out my heart, threw it around a bit, tore it to shreds and then tossed the wreckage to the small purple flowers.
So the plot: Rachel Wade has just been released from a ten year prison sentence for the murder of her husband. Unable to find work because of her past, she eventually finds herself taken up for vagrancy in the village of Wyckerly. She is brought before the magistrate, the new viscount, a world-weary rake called Sebastian Verlaine (and our hero, ladies and gentlemen). He is sufficiently intrigued and titillated to offer her a position as his housekeeper. And by housekeeper I, of course, mean non-consenting mistress (who keeps house on the side). As Rachel settles into her new life, Sebastian avails himself, err, of her and uses her to entertain his vile London friends. Eventually he realises that he is a bad person and is sorry, so sets out to be a better one, winning Rachel’s heart in the process. Mean people, as ever, attempt to cause trouble, the true killer of Rachel’s husband is finally revealed and Rachel and Sebastian live happily ever after.
Oh dear me. What an absolute trainwreck. Everything about this book should be beyond objectionable but it is testament, I think, to the sheer dazzling skill of the writing that it is not only bearable but very close to beautiful. This probably makes me the worst human being in the world but I found the first half of the book significantly stronger than the second. The portrayal of Rachel’s suffering and Sebastian’s cruelty is just so goddamn deft. I don’t know how else to describe it. They both have real depth and sophistication and, whether you like what what’s going on or not (you won’t, by the way), they’re both so profoundly understandable that sympathy for them flows naturally. Even for Sebastian. Even though he really shouldn’t deserve it.
The second half of the book is an equally detailed exploration of them being nice to each other and falling in love. It’s lovely and, after the anguish of the first half, very much needed but it’s also noticeably less nuanced. I felt a bit perverse for not being more engaged with it, since I also recognise how seriously it was needed and I appreciate how much effort goes into repairing (or, at least, attempting to repair) the preceding damage. Reading this book is, frankly, a minor exercise in personal sadomasochism: first the whip, then the balm. But most of the tension after the midpoint comes from slightly lacklustre external sources. It is consequently far less gripping than the initial power struggle and felt, to me, just a little bit artificial after the devastating emotional authenticity of everything that goes before it. Also there’s a high degree of what I am coming to think of as Romantic Faffing About – neither of the lovers wants to be the first one to say ‘I love you’ (oh come on, seriously?) and this leads to a couple of stupid, easily avoidable misunderstandings, including Rachel nearly getting herself sent back to prison. Jessica Trent would not stand for this nonsense. And can I have that on a badge or a bumper sticker please?
While we’re on the subject of potentially problematic reactions, I was much more drawn to Rachel in the first half of the book than the second. Since I felt the same way about Heather, I’m starting to worry I’m some sort of psychopath who enjoys seeing women in distress. But Rachel is utterly mesmerising early on, strong and shattered at the same time, with an unflinching core of integrity and a heartbreaking sensitivity to beauty. Her journey back towards selfhood is so well-observed and exquisitely portrayed that I was with her all the way, celebrating every triumph, wanting to tear down every setback and practically on the verge of weeping for her lost innocence. When she’s brought before the Magistrate in the book’s opening scene, Sebastian casually asks what she was before she went to prison:
That just … broke me. It’s barely four words, but it expresses with devastating simplicity the inconceivable ruination of Rachel’s life. All her hope and all her potential reduced to nothing as she was cast from the world before she really had a chance to be a part of it. Ye Gods, it hurts just thinking about it. And, don’t get me wrong, I was happy for her happiness, but the final third of the book seems to be mainly preoccupied with whether she can come or not. And, yes, I can see why that would be important to her, of course I can, but there was a part of me that uncharitably wondered if it was less about her than about Sebastian’s vanity. His ‘make Rachel feel better’ goals are very explicitly make her come and make her laugh. And I’m sure that’s very nice of him but shouldn’t he maybe have discussed it with, well, with Rachel?
Responses to sexual abuse are various and complicated, and living with it is an intensely personal matter. A Rachel who can be brought to orgasm by some dude is not more whole or less abused than a Rachel who can’t. Also, I know we’re in romancelandia here, where sex and love are deeply interconnected, but sex is something you do, it’s not something you win at. Nor, for that matter, is sex necessary to be a complete person living a complete life (lots of people are really into it, but that’s not the same thing). To put it another way, I felt that Rachel began the book as a person. A damaged, terrified, courageous, compassionate, complicated person. But she ended the book as a romance heroine, complete with lovely hair, orgasms on tap and a goofy dog. And perhaps that was meant to be her triumph but she was already a heroine to me, and I felt I lost her a little towards the end.
Sebastian is, if anything, even more difficult. Unlike the other heroes I’ve encountered, he’s not a dickhead, bellend, pillock or wankbucket. Or any of the other charming terms I have previously deployed. Frankly, he’s on a completely different scale of moral repugnance. He’s a rake in the truest sense of the word, not just somebody who shags around a lot (like Dain, for example). He is driven solely by selfishness and self-indulgence, sex is about power, not about passion, and pleasure is gradually losing all meaning for him. This sort of rakishness makes for an interesting hero, I think, not because it’s an even remotely admirable or attractive quality but because it’s a kind of tragedy. Though the rake ruins others, he first and foremost ruins himself. It’s a kind of Faustian bargain: the harder one lives, the less life satisfies, the more pleasure one seeks, the less one finds. Despair lies always at the heart of hedonism, loneliness just beyond excess.
I also know he’s an adult man who chose his own life and there’s only so much sympathy you deserve for deciding to not give a damn about anyone. Even if your parents were mean. But, for me, there’s something mythically archetypical about rakehood (history is scattered with rakes after all, being splendid and awful and then self-destructing) that transcends the literalities of behaviour and Sebastian, damn him, is shockingly likeable. If I was feeling glib, and with apologies if this sounds like I am drawing a comparison between two acts that should not be equated ever, I might suggest he non-consensually seduces the reader as much as he does Rachel.
But, truthfully, I found him infinitely more bearable than any hero I’ve met so far. Perhaps it’s just because being a petty little dickhead is a deeply unattractive quality whereas being morally repugnant is weirdly hot and glamorous, at least up to a point. Or perhaps it’s something more complicated. I’ve been pondering this for a while and my working theory is that it has to do with reading against the grain of a text – in an unintended, rather than deconstructionist way. Whereas there can be something quite compelling about fictional characters who are damaged, angry, intense, morally dubious or faintly frightening, I can’t readily imagine many authors setting out to deliberately write someone who’s just a bit of a knob. We meet enough of those in our real lives, amirite?
So when a hero acts in a manner that comes across as knobish, it damages the compact between writer and reader. Obviously reading is always an act of interpretation but when your interpretation clearly runs contrary to the narrative, you’re going to come away feeling a bit cheated. I don’t mean to draw generalised conclusions about a genre I’m still not very familiar with but it seems to me that a romance, by its nature, only works if you buy into the notion that these two characters are worthy of happiness and worthy of each other. I’m sure Ms Woodiwiss wasn’t trying to write a book about the unhealthy relationship of a deranged, emotionally inarticulate rapist and a girl with no personality and no spine, but that’s basically what I got in my party bag. However, even if your interpretation of a character is deeply negative, as long as it’s consciously supported by the narrative, you’re still reading with the text instead of against it. And, although you might feel uncomfortable, you don’t feel emotionally unsatisfied, jarred out of the story or distracted with worry that the author might be writing with the wrong end of their body.
And that’s the thing. With one notable exception (I’ll get onto this later), there’s nothing bad you can think about Sebastian that he hasn’t already thought about himself.
His positive traits (his wit, his intelligence, his self-awareness, his perceptiveness) are extremely attractive. Again, he’s the first apparently charming hero who I’ve actually felt charmed by. He’s supposed to be charismatic and he genuinely is. If he was a stranger in a bar, you’d want his attention. If he gave it, you’d be his. I’m not quite sure how to respond to this other than to say: well played, Ms Gaffney, well played.
Like Rachel, Sebastian’s complexities are depicted with an unerring, unflinching eye for detail. And, in his case, a certain, terrible honesty. His internal monologues are like sloshing about in the oily, unspeakable depths of your own soul and watching all the loathsome monsters come out to play. It’s equal parts comforting and horrifying. To return again to that first scene in the court room, which is an incredible piece of writing beginning to end, Sebastian has been watching Rachel with curiosity, much as the reader has. The melodrama of her life (murder! imprisonment! abuse!) contrasts so strongly with the frozen, subdued reality of her person that it’s hard not to be drawn into prurient speculation. It’s hard, frankly, not to find the whole thing inappropriately erotic. So you can imagine my shock and discomfort when Sebastian’s thoughts mirrored my own almost exactly and in the worst possible way:
I think this encapsulates the very heart of Sebastian’s effectiveness as a character. Watching other heroes blunder around, behaving in bizarre and outlandish ways, it’s impossible to imagine yourself ever doing, or thinking, something like that. But Sebastian articulates and, to his discredit, often acts upon the sort of thoughts and impulses we all must surely have (at least, I hope we do or I’m a monster). For example, when he brings Rachel home and she naturally assumes he’s going to have his way with her, his internal monologue goes like this:
This is so very vile and yet so very human. I don’t like to think of the number of times I’ve taken a savage pleasure in living down to someone’s expectations (though, I would like to stress, not in this particular context). Also I love the frankly fucked up complexity of it: he fully intends to rape her, he pretty much sees it as his right to do so, but he’s irritated by the crudity of his own transparency. There’s a lot of this sort of thing in THATH. Sebastian is mercilessly candid about his own selfishness and cruelty. In some twisted way, you kind of have to respect that. And I did.
Since we’re on the topic of selfishness and cruelty, now seems as good a time as any to think about what I presume must be the most controversial aspect of the book: Sebastian’s violation of Rachel. I can honestly say, this shocked the hell out of me. I was kind of braced for it because Sebastian is pretty clear about what he’s planning, but I was also secretly hoping he’d surrender to an impulse of decency and, err, not. No such luck. And it goes on for pages. And pages. And pages. And just when I thought it was finished, he took her off to his bedroom and did it again. (Brandon, your legacy lives on, I hope you’re proud, Sir). I think only the fact I kept expecting it to end at any moment kept me going through it. Like everything else in this novel, it was written with tremendous skill and depth. But it was horrible. I know it was meant to be, but that doesn’t help.
I can also entirely understand why this book could be a deal-breaker for anyone. I know rape-by-hero is relatively common in romance – I’ve seen it already in F&F – but weirdly I think the better the book, the harder it is to take. I mean, yes, on principle one objects to Brandon having non-consensual sex with Heather but they’re both so awful and she’s so basically unbothered by it that (in the framework of that particular novel) it hardly seems to matter. He rapes her a few times, she’s upset but gets over it, he doesn’t do it again, it’s fiiiiine. It’s kind of like reading de Sade – inexpressible things happen to Justine but, as much as she weeps, bleeds and protests, she’s not actually affected by any of them so they never acquire any reality or impact.
But you simply can’t shrug off what Sebastian does to Rachel. It’s so beyond the pale, there is no pale. The pale, ladies and gentleman, has left the building and is running for its life. So this leaves the reader with a problem: is it ever okay to end up marrying your rapist? Well, no. No it isn’t. The idea of it is so profoundly wrong that it’s not even worth addressing. But, this is fiction. And although fiction is not hermetically sealed from reality, it works in different ways, on different levels. Terrible things acquire different resonances. Mental health, for example, serious, complicated issue affecting a lot of people and deserving to be treated with respect and sensitivity. On the other hand: Ophelia – COOL. Mrs Rochester – COOL. War, to take another example, a terrible evil that brings untold destruction to incalculable numbers of people. On the other hand: Sharpe – COOL. Game of Thrones – COOL. Slavery, utterly and unspeakably immoral. But: Gladiators – COOL. So, although literary devices should be not be entirely isolated from their real life counterparts, it is not always necessary to directly equate them. But, again, this very much comes down to personal choice and personal reaction.
I think – and, again, let me re-iterate this is entirely personal – I am okay with the basic concept of Rachel ending up with Sebastian. I think he treats her unforgivably but on a figurative and metaphorical level I can just about get my head around the idea that, in a story about love, the person who is capable of destroying you can also be the person capable of saving you. I don’t entirely like salvation narratives (I’m from the Alanis Morisette School of Romance: Not the Doctor) but love is a complicated business. And the fact of the matter is that, when you do really love someone, you essentially choose to, err, put all your eggs in the same basket. Your source of deepest joy and your source of deepest pain become one and the same. Ideally, the adored object should not be raping you (just sayin) but on this literary/figurative/metaphorical/wibbly level I find THATH genuinely effective and moving.
This is completely not my bag, so I’ll just point in the direction of Janet’s articles on these subjects, but I’m also aware that there can be strength and catharsis in confronting terrible things. And I can see that integrating an act of disempowerment, dehumanisation and cruelty into a romantic framework could be exceptionally powerful. I’m not making any judgements on that. But, truthfully, one reader to another, I was pretty uncomfortable about the way the rape was handled in aftermath. And, again, we’re very much in the space of personal responses and interpretations here and I could be just plain wrong. Once Sebastian’s finished physically violating Rachel, he basically flings her to his grotesque London friends for their amusement and this is what catalyses his self-redemption arc. Both acts constitute absolute abuses of her person but it bewilders me that he ‘fesses up to one but not the other. I can sort of see why he doesn’t want to have to start thinking of himself as a guy who raped a helpless woman, especially when he’s trying to be a better person, but hypocrisy is not one of Sebastian’s failings.
Continued in comments...
Wow. Okay. So, this book sort of ripped out my heart, threw it around a bit, tore it to shreds and then tossed the wreckage to the small purple flowers.
So the plot: Rachel Wade has just been released from a ten year prison sentence for the murder of her husband. Unable to find work because of her past, she eventually finds herself taken up for vagrancy in the village of Wyckerly. She is brought before the magistrate, the new viscount, a world-weary rake called Sebastian Verlaine (and our hero, ladies and gentlemen). He is sufficiently intrigued and titillated to offer her a position as his housekeeper. And by housekeeper I, of course, mean non-consenting mistress (who keeps house on the side). As Rachel settles into her new life, Sebastian avails himself, err, of her and uses her to entertain his vile London friends. Eventually he realises that he is a bad person and is sorry, so sets out to be a better one, winning Rachel’s heart in the process. Mean people, as ever, attempt to cause trouble, the true killer of Rachel’s husband is finally revealed and Rachel and Sebastian live happily ever after.
Oh dear me. What an absolute trainwreck. Everything about this book should be beyond objectionable but it is testament, I think, to the sheer dazzling skill of the writing that it is not only bearable but very close to beautiful. This probably makes me the worst human being in the world but I found the first half of the book significantly stronger than the second. The portrayal of Rachel’s suffering and Sebastian’s cruelty is just so goddamn deft. I don’t know how else to describe it. They both have real depth and sophistication and, whether you like what what’s going on or not (you won’t, by the way), they’re both so profoundly understandable that sympathy for them flows naturally. Even for Sebastian. Even though he really shouldn’t deserve it.
The second half of the book is an equally detailed exploration of them being nice to each other and falling in love. It’s lovely and, after the anguish of the first half, very much needed but it’s also noticeably less nuanced. I felt a bit perverse for not being more engaged with it, since I also recognise how seriously it was needed and I appreciate how much effort goes into repairing (or, at least, attempting to repair) the preceding damage. Reading this book is, frankly, a minor exercise in personal sadomasochism: first the whip, then the balm. But most of the tension after the midpoint comes from slightly lacklustre external sources. It is consequently far less gripping than the initial power struggle and felt, to me, just a little bit artificial after the devastating emotional authenticity of everything that goes before it. Also there’s a high degree of what I am coming to think of as Romantic Faffing About – neither of the lovers wants to be the first one to say ‘I love you’ (oh come on, seriously?) and this leads to a couple of stupid, easily avoidable misunderstandings, including Rachel nearly getting herself sent back to prison. Jessica Trent would not stand for this nonsense. And can I have that on a badge or a bumper sticker please?
While we’re on the subject of potentially problematic reactions, I was much more drawn to Rachel in the first half of the book than the second. Since I felt the same way about Heather, I’m starting to worry I’m some sort of psychopath who enjoys seeing women in distress. But Rachel is utterly mesmerising early on, strong and shattered at the same time, with an unflinching core of integrity and a heartbreaking sensitivity to beauty. Her journey back towards selfhood is so well-observed and exquisitely portrayed that I was with her all the way, celebrating every triumph, wanting to tear down every setback and practically on the verge of weeping for her lost innocence. When she’s brought before the Magistrate in the book’s opening scene, Sebastian casually asks what she was before she went to prison:
She hid her confusion by keeping her eyes on his knees. “I was … a girl.”
That just … broke me. It’s barely four words, but it expresses with devastating simplicity the inconceivable ruination of Rachel’s life. All her hope and all her potential reduced to nothing as she was cast from the world before she really had a chance to be a part of it. Ye Gods, it hurts just thinking about it. And, don’t get me wrong, I was happy for her happiness, but the final third of the book seems to be mainly preoccupied with whether she can come or not. And, yes, I can see why that would be important to her, of course I can, but there was a part of me that uncharitably wondered if it was less about her than about Sebastian’s vanity. His ‘make Rachel feel better’ goals are very explicitly make her come and make her laugh. And I’m sure that’s very nice of him but shouldn’t he maybe have discussed it with, well, with Rachel?
Responses to sexual abuse are various and complicated, and living with it is an intensely personal matter. A Rachel who can be brought to orgasm by some dude is not more whole or less abused than a Rachel who can’t. Also, I know we’re in romancelandia here, where sex and love are deeply interconnected, but sex is something you do, it’s not something you win at. Nor, for that matter, is sex necessary to be a complete person living a complete life (lots of people are really into it, but that’s not the same thing). To put it another way, I felt that Rachel began the book as a person. A damaged, terrified, courageous, compassionate, complicated person. But she ended the book as a romance heroine, complete with lovely hair, orgasms on tap and a goofy dog. And perhaps that was meant to be her triumph but she was already a heroine to me, and I felt I lost her a little towards the end.
Sebastian is, if anything, even more difficult. Unlike the other heroes I’ve encountered, he’s not a dickhead, bellend, pillock or wankbucket. Or any of the other charming terms I have previously deployed. Frankly, he’s on a completely different scale of moral repugnance. He’s a rake in the truest sense of the word, not just somebody who shags around a lot (like Dain, for example). He is driven solely by selfishness and self-indulgence, sex is about power, not about passion, and pleasure is gradually losing all meaning for him. This sort of rakishness makes for an interesting hero, I think, not because it’s an even remotely admirable or attractive quality but because it’s a kind of tragedy. Though the rake ruins others, he first and foremost ruins himself. It’s a kind of Faustian bargain: the harder one lives, the less life satisfies, the more pleasure one seeks, the less one finds. Despair lies always at the heart of hedonism, loneliness just beyond excess.
I also know he’s an adult man who chose his own life and there’s only so much sympathy you deserve for deciding to not give a damn about anyone. Even if your parents were mean. But, for me, there’s something mythically archetypical about rakehood (history is scattered with rakes after all, being splendid and awful and then self-destructing) that transcends the literalities of behaviour and Sebastian, damn him, is shockingly likeable. If I was feeling glib, and with apologies if this sounds like I am drawing a comparison between two acts that should not be equated ever, I might suggest he non-consensually seduces the reader as much as he does Rachel.
But, truthfully, I found him infinitely more bearable than any hero I’ve met so far. Perhaps it’s just because being a petty little dickhead is a deeply unattractive quality whereas being morally repugnant is weirdly hot and glamorous, at least up to a point. Or perhaps it’s something more complicated. I’ve been pondering this for a while and my working theory is that it has to do with reading against the grain of a text – in an unintended, rather than deconstructionist way. Whereas there can be something quite compelling about fictional characters who are damaged, angry, intense, morally dubious or faintly frightening, I can’t readily imagine many authors setting out to deliberately write someone who’s just a bit of a knob. We meet enough of those in our real lives, amirite?
So when a hero acts in a manner that comes across as knobish, it damages the compact between writer and reader. Obviously reading is always an act of interpretation but when your interpretation clearly runs contrary to the narrative, you’re going to come away feeling a bit cheated. I don’t mean to draw generalised conclusions about a genre I’m still not very familiar with but it seems to me that a romance, by its nature, only works if you buy into the notion that these two characters are worthy of happiness and worthy of each other. I’m sure Ms Woodiwiss wasn’t trying to write a book about the unhealthy relationship of a deranged, emotionally inarticulate rapist and a girl with no personality and no spine, but that’s basically what I got in my party bag. However, even if your interpretation of a character is deeply negative, as long as it’s consciously supported by the narrative, you’re still reading with the text instead of against it. And, although you might feel uncomfortable, you don’t feel emotionally unsatisfied, jarred out of the story or distracted with worry that the author might be writing with the wrong end of their body.
And that’s the thing. With one notable exception (I’ll get onto this later), there’s nothing bad you can think about Sebastian that he hasn’t already thought about himself.
But he’d seen a change coming in himself for a while now. Out of boredom and cynicism, he was starting to become nasty. He didn’t approve of it but in some ways he saw it as inevitable. (p.60)
His positive traits (his wit, his intelligence, his self-awareness, his perceptiveness) are extremely attractive. Again, he’s the first apparently charming hero who I’ve actually felt charmed by. He’s supposed to be charismatic and he genuinely is. If he was a stranger in a bar, you’d want his attention. If he gave it, you’d be his. I’m not quite sure how to respond to this other than to say: well played, Ms Gaffney, well played.
Like Rachel, Sebastian’s complexities are depicted with an unerring, unflinching eye for detail. And, in his case, a certain, terrible honesty. His internal monologues are like sloshing about in the oily, unspeakable depths of your own soul and watching all the loathsome monsters come out to play. It’s equal parts comforting and horrifying. To return again to that first scene in the court room, which is an incredible piece of writing beginning to end, Sebastian has been watching Rachel with curiosity, much as the reader has. The melodrama of her life (murder! imprisonment! abuse!) contrasts so strongly with the frozen, subdued reality of her person that it’s hard not to be drawn into prurient speculation. It’s hard, frankly, not to find the whole thing inappropriately erotic. So you can imagine my shock and discomfort when Sebastian’s thoughts mirrored my own almost exactly and in the worst possible way:
Against all reason, she interested him sexually. What was it about a woman – a certain kind of woman – standing at the mercy of men – righteous, civic-minded men, with the moral force of public outrage on their side – that could sometimes be secretly, shamefacedly titillating? (
I think this encapsulates the very heart of Sebastian’s effectiveness as a character. Watching other heroes blunder around, behaving in bizarre and outlandish ways, it’s impossible to imagine yourself ever doing, or thinking, something like that. But Sebastian articulates and, to his discredit, often acts upon the sort of thoughts and impulses we all must surely have (at least, I hope we do or I’m a monster). For example, when he brings Rachel home and she naturally assumes he’s going to have his way with her, his internal monologue goes like this:
He hadn’t planned to do anything with her tonight, but her blasted fatalism was insulting. She seemed to have come to an extremely cynical understanding of his intentions. Come to it, in fact, even before he had. Fine; he would try not to disappoint her.
This is so very vile and yet so very human. I don’t like to think of the number of times I’ve taken a savage pleasure in living down to someone’s expectations (though, I would like to stress, not in this particular context). Also I love the frankly fucked up complexity of it: he fully intends to rape her, he pretty much sees it as his right to do so, but he’s irritated by the crudity of his own transparency. There’s a lot of this sort of thing in THATH. Sebastian is mercilessly candid about his own selfishness and cruelty. In some twisted way, you kind of have to respect that. And I did.
Since we’re on the topic of selfishness and cruelty, now seems as good a time as any to think about what I presume must be the most controversial aspect of the book: Sebastian’s violation of Rachel. I can honestly say, this shocked the hell out of me. I was kind of braced for it because Sebastian is pretty clear about what he’s planning, but I was also secretly hoping he’d surrender to an impulse of decency and, err, not. No such luck. And it goes on for pages. And pages. And pages. And just when I thought it was finished, he took her off to his bedroom and did it again. (Brandon, your legacy lives on, I hope you’re proud, Sir). I think only the fact I kept expecting it to end at any moment kept me going through it. Like everything else in this novel, it was written with tremendous skill and depth. But it was horrible. I know it was meant to be, but that doesn’t help.
I can also entirely understand why this book could be a deal-breaker for anyone. I know rape-by-hero is relatively common in romance – I’ve seen it already in F&F – but weirdly I think the better the book, the harder it is to take. I mean, yes, on principle one objects to Brandon having non-consensual sex with Heather but they’re both so awful and she’s so basically unbothered by it that (in the framework of that particular novel) it hardly seems to matter. He rapes her a few times, she’s upset but gets over it, he doesn’t do it again, it’s fiiiiine. It’s kind of like reading de Sade – inexpressible things happen to Justine but, as much as she weeps, bleeds and protests, she’s not actually affected by any of them so they never acquire any reality or impact.
But you simply can’t shrug off what Sebastian does to Rachel. It’s so beyond the pale, there is no pale. The pale, ladies and gentleman, has left the building and is running for its life. So this leaves the reader with a problem: is it ever okay to end up marrying your rapist? Well, no. No it isn’t. The idea of it is so profoundly wrong that it’s not even worth addressing. But, this is fiction. And although fiction is not hermetically sealed from reality, it works in different ways, on different levels. Terrible things acquire different resonances. Mental health, for example, serious, complicated issue affecting a lot of people and deserving to be treated with respect and sensitivity. On the other hand: Ophelia – COOL. Mrs Rochester – COOL. War, to take another example, a terrible evil that brings untold destruction to incalculable numbers of people. On the other hand: Sharpe – COOL. Game of Thrones – COOL. Slavery, utterly and unspeakably immoral. But: Gladiators – COOL. So, although literary devices should be not be entirely isolated from their real life counterparts, it is not always necessary to directly equate them. But, again, this very much comes down to personal choice and personal reaction.
I think – and, again, let me re-iterate this is entirely personal – I am okay with the basic concept of Rachel ending up with Sebastian. I think he treats her unforgivably but on a figurative and metaphorical level I can just about get my head around the idea that, in a story about love, the person who is capable of destroying you can also be the person capable of saving you. I don’t entirely like salvation narratives (I’m from the Alanis Morisette School of Romance: Not the Doctor) but love is a complicated business. And the fact of the matter is that, when you do really love someone, you essentially choose to, err, put all your eggs in the same basket. Your source of deepest joy and your source of deepest pain become one and the same. Ideally, the adored object should not be raping you (just sayin) but on this literary/figurative/metaphorical/wibbly level I find THATH genuinely effective and moving.
This is completely not my bag, so I’ll just point in the direction of Janet’s articles on these subjects, but I’m also aware that there can be strength and catharsis in confronting terrible things. And I can see that integrating an act of disempowerment, dehumanisation and cruelty into a romantic framework could be exceptionally powerful. I’m not making any judgements on that. But, truthfully, one reader to another, I was pretty uncomfortable about the way the rape was handled in aftermath. And, again, we’re very much in the space of personal responses and interpretations here and I could be just plain wrong. Once Sebastian’s finished physically violating Rachel, he basically flings her to his grotesque London friends for their amusement and this is what catalyses his self-redemption arc. Both acts constitute absolute abuses of her person but it bewilders me that he ‘fesses up to one but not the other. I can sort of see why he doesn’t want to have to start thinking of himself as a guy who raped a helpless woman, especially when he’s trying to be a better person, but hypocrisy is not one of Sebastian’s failings.
Continued in comments...
March 5, 2018
What a beautiful book, despite all the ugliness in it.
The book has dark undertones but doesn’t completely keel over to the dark zone. (In fact it has its share of sweetness and fluff.) The flawed H’s nastiness in the present contributes more to the angst than all the hardships suffered by the h in the past. His turnaround is slow but he comes through at the right time to save the h and the book.
The book has dark undertones but doesn’t completely keel over to the dark zone. (In fact it has its share of sweetness and fluff.) The flawed H’s nastiness in the present contributes more to the angst than all the hardships suffered by the h in the past. His turnaround is slow but he comes through at the right time to save the h and the book.
August 26, 2023
UPDATE UPDATE: one of the greatest romance novels of all time, rewired my brain, etc etc
UPDATE: Second read-through.
My thoughts haven't changed about this book. I still think it's engrossing and moving and unique. What has changed is... me. I feel like my last review is almost apologetic for liking this book. I wasn't quite comfortable reading bodice rippers or admitting that I find value in them, so I threw in a bunch of caveats and waffled about if I would recommend this book. Releasing myself from the burden of taking myself to task for liking dark stories has done wonders for my reading life. I'm glad I could revisit this book with my new perspective.
Interestingly, I think I was too harsh on Sebastian, particularly by saying he doesn't deserve a happily ever after. While Sebastian is unconscionably cruel to Rachel in the first half of the book, he modifies his prodding when he falls in love. Instead of pushing her out of her comfort zone for his own amusement, he pushes her to help her enjoy life again. Ten years in prison stripped Rachel of a lot of her personhood, and Sebastian helps her rebuild.
I also spent a lot of time thinking about how the real villain of this book is the justice system. Rachel was arrested at 18 after being accused of killing her abuser, and the justice system punishes her over and over again. First, she is isolated in prison, unable to speak to others, and expected to perform menial and painful chores in the bitter silence. When she's released, she's quickly arrested again for failing to get a job, even though she can't get a job because she was in prison. She was set up to fail. And finally, Rachel is still not free after she's released. She has to pay weekly fines and meet up with a sort of Victorian parole officer. It's exhausting and enraging to watch Rachel jump through these hoops just to survive.
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I don't really know how to explain myself for this one, but this complicated, psychological torture-filled romance was heartbreaking and engrossing to me. Sebastian Verlaine, who I will call the love interest because he's so far from being a "hero" that he could easily make an appearance in any other historical as Creepy Rake #3, is a viscount with a recently inherited country estate. As a lark, he becomes part of the magistrate, where he meets Rachel Crenshaw, a notorious murderess recently released on parole. Newly out of prison, Rachel is being charged for vagrancy. Her prison history has excluded her from any job opportunities, which then leads her back into the hands of the law for being a "waste to the taxpayers."
Sebastian sees the injustice in this, but he offers Rachel a post as a housekeeper not out of any sense of morality, but because he's intrigued by her. He wants to make her not his mistress, as that word implies mutual consent, but his new toy. Without much of a choice, as it's either that or back to the gaol, Rachel warily accepts.
Sebastian wants to hurt her. He thinks it's funny to make her uncomfortable, to force her into situations where she'll have little chance of success. After 10 years in prison, Rachel has grown used to silence and numb to baseless cruelty, and he makes it his mission to get a rise out of her. He's titillated by her helplessness, by the fact that she's entirely under his thumb.
I won't mince words here - he rapes her. The book shies away from identifying it as such (Although he does cajole her with: "Don't make this a rape."), but Rachel never had a choice, as Sebastian intended from the start. I know a lot of readers will find this untenable in a romance novel, and I would not attempt to argue with them. Sebastian doesn't deserve a happily ever after, but Rachel does.
The first part of the book is largely from Sebastian's point of view, and his nasty obsession with Rachel is all that occupies his mind. She rarely rises to his bait because he doesn't have the power to hurt her like this, she's so used to casual cruelty that she's desensitized to it.
A small part of the turn-around, where this book turns into an actual (albeit still complicated) romance, are the tiny flickers of shame Sebastian feels as he slowly learns more about Rachel, and how her life was destroyed when she was only 18 and accused of murder. Instead of the slow, barely traceable build up, this shame crescendos when Sebastian enables his final humiliation on Rachel. Suddenly, everything has changed. He's finally gone so far that even he can't ignore what he's done, and Rachel's continued presence in his life is a silent but damning rebuke. His obsession with Rachel remains, but he begins to see himself as he is: another in a long list of men who have controlled and abused her. Right here, I don't think we are at a place where we can call it love, but the Sebastian's about-face into sweetness disarms Rachel.
This is not a book that I can recommend without a list of caveats, but I would be lying if I said that I didn't find it one of the most interesting romances I've read in a long time.
UPDATE: Second read-through.
My thoughts haven't changed about this book. I still think it's engrossing and moving and unique. What has changed is... me. I feel like my last review is almost apologetic for liking this book. I wasn't quite comfortable reading bodice rippers or admitting that I find value in them, so I threw in a bunch of caveats and waffled about if I would recommend this book. Releasing myself from the burden of taking myself to task for liking dark stories has done wonders for my reading life. I'm glad I could revisit this book with my new perspective.
Interestingly, I think I was too harsh on Sebastian, particularly by saying he doesn't deserve a happily ever after. While Sebastian is unconscionably cruel to Rachel in the first half of the book, he modifies his prodding when he falls in love. Instead of pushing her out of her comfort zone for his own amusement, he pushes her to help her enjoy life again. Ten years in prison stripped Rachel of a lot of her personhood, and Sebastian helps her rebuild.
I also spent a lot of time thinking about how the real villain of this book is the justice system. Rachel was arrested at 18 after being accused of killing her abuser, and the justice system punishes her over and over again. First, she is isolated in prison, unable to speak to others, and expected to perform menial and painful chores in the bitter silence. When she's released, she's quickly arrested again for failing to get a job, even though she can't get a job because she was in prison. She was set up to fail. And finally, Rachel is still not free after she's released. She has to pay weekly fines and meet up with a sort of Victorian parole officer. It's exhausting and enraging to watch Rachel jump through these hoops just to survive.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
I don't really know how to explain myself for this one, but this complicated, psychological torture-filled romance was heartbreaking and engrossing to me. Sebastian Verlaine, who I will call the love interest because he's so far from being a "hero" that he could easily make an appearance in any other historical as Creepy Rake #3, is a viscount with a recently inherited country estate. As a lark, he becomes part of the magistrate, where he meets Rachel Crenshaw, a notorious murderess recently released on parole. Newly out of prison, Rachel is being charged for vagrancy. Her prison history has excluded her from any job opportunities, which then leads her back into the hands of the law for being a "waste to the taxpayers."
Sebastian sees the injustice in this, but he offers Rachel a post as a housekeeper not out of any sense of morality, but because he's intrigued by her. He wants to make her not his mistress, as that word implies mutual consent, but his new toy. Without much of a choice, as it's either that or back to the gaol, Rachel warily accepts.
Sebastian wants to hurt her. He thinks it's funny to make her uncomfortable, to force her into situations where she'll have little chance of success. After 10 years in prison, Rachel has grown used to silence and numb to baseless cruelty, and he makes it his mission to get a rise out of her. He's titillated by her helplessness, by the fact that she's entirely under his thumb.
I won't mince words here - he rapes her. The book shies away from identifying it as such (Although he does cajole her with: "Don't make this a rape."), but Rachel never had a choice, as Sebastian intended from the start. I know a lot of readers will find this untenable in a romance novel, and I would not attempt to argue with them. Sebastian doesn't deserve a happily ever after, but Rachel does.
The first part of the book is largely from Sebastian's point of view, and his nasty obsession with Rachel is all that occupies his mind. She rarely rises to his bait because he doesn't have the power to hurt her like this, she's so used to casual cruelty that she's desensitized to it.
A small part of the turn-around, where this book turns into an actual (albeit still complicated) romance, are the tiny flickers of shame Sebastian feels as he slowly learns more about Rachel, and how her life was destroyed when she was only 18 and accused of murder. Instead of the slow, barely traceable build up, this shame crescendos when Sebastian enables his final humiliation on Rachel. Suddenly, everything has changed. He's finally gone so far that even he can't ignore what he's done, and Rachel's continued presence in his life is a silent but damning rebuke. His obsession with Rachel remains, but he begins to see himself as he is: another in a long list of men who have controlled and abused her. Right here, I don't think we are at a place where we can call it love, but the Sebastian's about-face into sweetness disarms Rachel.
"It had taken him an unconscionably long time to figure out that it was gentleness that devastated Rachel, not ruthlessness. Now he wondered if there was an ancillary lesson to be learned as well: that gentleness could disarm the seducer as thoroughly as the seduced."
This is not a book that I can recommend without a list of caveats, but I would be lying if I said that I didn't find it one of the most interesting romances I've read in a long time.
December 24, 2020
***First read: 3-stars***
***Re-read: 5-stars***
To Have and To Hold has a strangely concept of personal (hero and heroine) thinking. To have power over someones life and to trap a person simply because of curiosity - I enjoyed this two bit of ingredient in the story. I read this book years ago, and rereading this now made me grasp the story more properly. Sebastian is why the book is so famous, he is an absolute cad, mean and demeaning to people.
'He felt pity for her, and curiosity, and an undeniably lurid sense of anticipation. Against all reason, she interested him sexually. What was it about a woman—a certain kind of woman—standing at the mercy of men—righteous, civic-minded men, with the moral force of public outrage on their side—that could sometimes be secretly, shamefacedly titillating? He thought of the hypocritical justices from England’s less than glorious past, men who had taken a lewd pleasure in sending women to the stake for witchcraft. Watching the pale, silent, motionless figure behind the bar, Sebastian had to admit a reluctant but definite kinship, not with their sentencing practices but with their prurient fervor.'
What attracted Sebastian Verlaine (30), to Rachel who was too thin, a fugitive (falsely accuse), wearing a too drab clothes and also who is beaten down by life to hold her shoulders straight. He proposes a job as a housekeeper but with different intentions. She soon becomes the highlight of his days.
Rachel Wade (28), was ready to spent another sentence behind bars only because she couldn't secure a job after she was released from 10 years in jail. Falsely accused of killing her husband she loses hope and confidence when no one believes her. She is no dumb fool when Sebastian offers a job for she understands his nefarious reasons: he wants to sleep with her.
'She was used to gray and brown, metal and stone, the odors of public latrines and disinfectant, the sounds of cell doors slamming and angry voices shouting. Mercilessness and monotony and cold-hearted routine ruled her old world, and the new one bewildered her. She couldn’t categorize it; it was infinite, unpredictable, and much too hazardous.'
Sebastian is like a curious cat, to sate his cusiosity he is ready to poke a paw of danger. That danger being he makes an amusement of Rachel by handing her over to his depraved friends. He traps Rachel in his mind games letting her settle in relative comforts of life and then lets her know of her final duty; he wants to sleep with her. Rachel knew she was not here as a housekeeper and Sebastian knew if he took her to bed she would bear it like a matryr. Rachel's past has damaged her as a person and on top of it every people she knew hated her.
“You erased yourself,” Sebastian said, and she said, “Yes. That’s it, exactly. I killed myself without dying.”
Where Sebastian started as a jerk he has a redemption, you never know when you come to like him. He, in a way rehabilitates Rachel to come out of her shell, she gains her self-confidence. He challenges her, 'he wondered what in the world it was that made him want to test her, push her, see how far he could go before she broke.'
(Sebastian) “I always knew it. I doubt if you could kill an insect. You’re the gentlest person I know. And the saddest.”
Such a great development in both (H and h) characters. The ending was wonderful. Besides the story I enjoyed the villians, it was absolutely unpredictable, the story had a way of making and pushing us to a villian while the main villian was just ignored.
***Re-read: 5-stars***
To Have and To Hold has a strangely concept of personal (hero and heroine) thinking. To have power over someones life and to trap a person simply because of curiosity - I enjoyed this two bit of ingredient in the story. I read this book years ago, and rereading this now made me grasp the story more properly. Sebastian is why the book is so famous, he is an absolute cad, mean and demeaning to people.
'He felt pity for her, and curiosity, and an undeniably lurid sense of anticipation. Against all reason, she interested him sexually. What was it about a woman—a certain kind of woman—standing at the mercy of men—righteous, civic-minded men, with the moral force of public outrage on their side—that could sometimes be secretly, shamefacedly titillating? He thought of the hypocritical justices from England’s less than glorious past, men who had taken a lewd pleasure in sending women to the stake for witchcraft. Watching the pale, silent, motionless figure behind the bar, Sebastian had to admit a reluctant but definite kinship, not with their sentencing practices but with their prurient fervor.'
What attracted Sebastian Verlaine (30), to Rachel who was too thin, a fugitive (falsely accuse), wearing a too drab clothes and also who is beaten down by life to hold her shoulders straight. He proposes a job as a housekeeper but with different intentions. She soon becomes the highlight of his days.
Rachel Wade (28), was ready to spent another sentence behind bars only because she couldn't secure a job after she was released from 10 years in jail. Falsely accused of killing her husband she loses hope and confidence when no one believes her. She is no dumb fool when Sebastian offers a job for she understands his nefarious reasons: he wants to sleep with her.
'She was used to gray and brown, metal and stone, the odors of public latrines and disinfectant, the sounds of cell doors slamming and angry voices shouting. Mercilessness and monotony and cold-hearted routine ruled her old world, and the new one bewildered her. She couldn’t categorize it; it was infinite, unpredictable, and much too hazardous.'
Sebastian is like a curious cat, to sate his cusiosity he is ready to poke a paw of danger. That danger being he makes an amusement of Rachel by handing her over to his depraved friends. He traps Rachel in his mind games letting her settle in relative comforts of life and then lets her know of her final duty; he wants to sleep with her. Rachel knew she was not here as a housekeeper and Sebastian knew if he took her to bed she would bear it like a matryr. Rachel's past has damaged her as a person and on top of it every people she knew hated her.
“You erased yourself,” Sebastian said, and she said, “Yes. That’s it, exactly. I killed myself without dying.”
Where Sebastian started as a jerk he has a redemption, you never know when you come to like him. He, in a way rehabilitates Rachel to come out of her shell, she gains her self-confidence. He challenges her, 'he wondered what in the world it was that made him want to test her, push her, see how far he could go before she broke.'
(Sebastian) “I always knew it. I doubt if you could kill an insect. You’re the gentlest person I know. And the saddest.”
Such a great development in both (H and h) characters. The ending was wonderful. Besides the story I enjoyed the villians, it was absolutely unpredictable, the story had a way of making and pushing us to a villian while the main villian was just ignored.
May 31, 2019
Sencillamente precioso.....
He leído este libro por casualidad ya que no conozco a la autora, me lo recomendaron en un foro y me lancé de cabeza.
Acostumbrada a leer libros de la Regencia, se agradece una novela que transcurra en el campo, alejado de fiestas, la protagonista tampoco es una lady... simplemente una expresidiaria con la consiguiente diferencia social entre Sebastian, vizconde D'Aubrey y Rachel.
Si algo me gustaría destacar es la sutileza con que la autora de deja entreveer el desgarrador pasado de Rachel sin relatar practimamente nada cruel...
La evolución de ambos personajes me ha parecido magnífica, en mi opinión eran dos personajes sin alma, uno quizás nunca la tuvo y a la otra se la arrebataron, personajes prácticamente deshumanizados, ella simplemente sobrevive y él se ha convertido en un ser totalmente frivolo y quizás demasiado cruel...
El amor que entre ellos surge, sin quererlo, sin esperarlo... hace que ella vuelva a la vida y que el encuentre la felicidad.
En resumen y como ya he dicho una historia preciosa.
Merged review:
Reseña completa: https://masromance.blogspot.com/2019/...
Ostras, esto es relectura y le dí 5 estrellas la última vez y me sorprendo a mí misma porque si algo no aguanto en una novela romántica es justo lo que ha hecho el protagonista. No entiendo ni cómo no me acordaba de ese gran tema.
el trabajo de la autora se centra en el crecimiento de dos personajes, de tal forma, me ha enganchado y creo que pese a que ciertas partes me ha costado mucho leerlas porque son duras, incluso las que solo se adivinan porque no se cuentan que creo que es importante destacar
Sebastian se muestra con crueldad, , la desfachatez y libertinaje que serían tan propios de la época y actúa como, lamentablemente, muchos nobles harían. Por que eso sería así, no nos engañemos. No tiene escrúpulos
Rachel es una mujer que lo ha perdido todo, hasta su propio orgullo y lo único que quiere es sobrevivir, por ello acatará sin queja alguna todas las humillaciones y todo lo que tenga que resistir para no volver a la prisión.
Ambos personajes me han encantando, están tan bien construidos que es imposible no disfrutar de la evolución que con ellos ha hecho la autora.
Tras una primera parte dura la segunda, está llena de momentos románticos con una historia pausada y llena de detalles.
Es una novela de personajes, la trama es secundaria y el pequeño misterio casi te da igual
Soy la primera sorprendida de que me gustara tanto la primera vez y de haberlo disfrutado tanto esta segunda, porque en ella encontramos escenas que justo me hacen cerrar una novela.
Creo que es una buena novela, el trabajo psicológico de los personajes me ha encantado
He leído este libro por casualidad ya que no conozco a la autora, me lo recomendaron en un foro y me lancé de cabeza.
Acostumbrada a leer libros de la Regencia, se agradece una novela que transcurra en el campo, alejado de fiestas, la protagonista tampoco es una lady... simplemente una expresidiaria con la consiguiente diferencia social entre Sebastian, vizconde D'Aubrey y Rachel.
Si algo me gustaría destacar es la sutileza con que la autora de deja entreveer el desgarrador pasado de Rachel sin relatar practimamente nada cruel...
La evolución de ambos personajes me ha parecido magnífica, en mi opinión eran dos personajes sin alma, uno quizás nunca la tuvo y a la otra se la arrebataron, personajes prácticamente deshumanizados, ella simplemente sobrevive y él se ha convertido en un ser totalmente frivolo y quizás demasiado cruel...
El amor que entre ellos surge, sin quererlo, sin esperarlo... hace que ella vuelva a la vida y que el encuentre la felicidad.
En resumen y como ya he dicho una historia preciosa.
Merged review:
Reseña completa: https://masromance.blogspot.com/2019/...
Ostras, esto es relectura y le dí 5 estrellas la última vez y me sorprendo a mí misma porque si algo no aguanto en una novela romántica es justo lo que ha hecho el protagonista. No entiendo ni cómo no me acordaba de ese gran tema.
el trabajo de la autora se centra en el crecimiento de dos personajes, de tal forma, me ha enganchado y creo que pese a que ciertas partes me ha costado mucho leerlas porque son duras, incluso las que solo se adivinan porque no se cuentan que creo que es importante destacar
Sebastian se muestra con crueldad, , la desfachatez y libertinaje que serían tan propios de la época y actúa como, lamentablemente, muchos nobles harían. Por que eso sería así, no nos engañemos. No tiene escrúpulos
Rachel es una mujer que lo ha perdido todo, hasta su propio orgullo y lo único que quiere es sobrevivir, por ello acatará sin queja alguna todas las humillaciones y todo lo que tenga que resistir para no volver a la prisión.
Ambos personajes me han encantando, están tan bien construidos que es imposible no disfrutar de la evolución que con ellos ha hecho la autora.
Tras una primera parte dura la segunda, está llena de momentos románticos con una historia pausada y llena de detalles.
Es una novela de personajes, la trama es secundaria y el pequeño misterio casi te da igual
Soy la primera sorprendida de que me gustara tanto la primera vez y de haberlo disfrutado tanto esta segunda, porque en ella encontramos escenas que justo me hacen cerrar una novela.
Creo que es una buena novela, el trabajo psicológico de los personajes me ha encantado
January 5, 2022
4.5 stars
A great read! I was surprised how much I enjoyed this unique story. For a 100 pages, the H was a real cynical a******! The moment he set eyes on the fallen h, he planned to make her his mistress. He gives her a job as his housekeeper, a position she is not qualified for.
The h has been in prison for ten years for allegedly killing her evil husband. She wasn't allowed to talk or make eye contact with anyone. All this makes it difficult for the h to make decisions. The author does an excellent job of showing the toll prison takes on a person and how society ostracizes them afterwards. Cruelly, the H takes pleasure in picking on her and eventually committing coercion rape. So why would I root for the couple? Well, the H does an excellent job of redeeming himself and is able to help the h heal as well. I ended up loving the MC. Again, only a great author could accomplish that.
There is also the mystery of who murdered her husband and who is trying to destroy her now? Even though, I figured out the mysteries early on, I still relished when the truth is revealed.
I highly recommend this unique book!
A great read! I was surprised how much I enjoyed this unique story. For a 100 pages, the H was a real cynical a******! The moment he set eyes on the fallen h, he planned to make her his mistress. He gives her a job as his housekeeper, a position she is not qualified for.
The h has been in prison for ten years for allegedly killing her evil husband. She wasn't allowed to talk or make eye contact with anyone. All this makes it difficult for the h to make decisions. The author does an excellent job of showing the toll prison takes on a person and how society ostracizes them afterwards. Cruelly, the H takes pleasure in picking on her and eventually committing coercion rape. So why would I root for the couple? Well, the H does an excellent job of redeeming himself and is able to help the h heal as well. I ended up loving the MC. Again, only a great author could accomplish that.
There is also the mystery of who murdered her husband and who is trying to destroy her now? Even though, I figured out the mysteries early on, I still relished when the truth is revealed.
I highly recommend this unique book!
February 8, 2016
I um-ed and ah-ed about the rating for this for a bit, and I'm going for 4.5 stars rounded up, which I equate with an A-.
I read two books for this month's TBR Challenge of which this was the first. The prompt was "Kickin' it Old School", which meant reading a book that was at least ten years old. I chose this one because I've had it around for a while, but also because I know from reading reviews that it's a "marmite" book (you either love it or you hate it!) and I felt like reading something that seemed like it would give me something to get my teeth into.
Originally published in 1995, To Have and to Hold is a book that has divided – and continues to divide – opinion because of the actions of its hero, Sebastian Verlaine, Viscount D’Aubrey. There’s absolutely no doubt that at the beginning of the story, he’s a pretty despicable character and it’s easy to see why some readers have hated the book, or just not bothered to finish it. There’s also no doubt that this is an extremely well-written, compelling and often quite dark story in which the central characters are fully-rounded, three dimensional individuals and the emotions are often so raw they’re hard to read.
Sebastian Verlaine is young, rich, handsome –and totally and utterly debauched. He’s a rake in the truest sense, not in the way that’s so often found in every other historical romance these days – he does everything to excess, is frequently given to acts of cruelty simply because he has no conscience and nobody to stop him and, at the grand old age of twenty-nine, has reached a stage where he’s so jaded he has to keep pushing the boundaries in order to feel anything.
”But the older he got, the less fun he was having. It took more every day to divert him, and lately he’d begun moving gradually, with misgivings, into excess.”
He takes up his duties as magistrate in the village of Wyckerley mostly because he agreed to it while drunk, but also because he thinks he might find something salacious going on that will alleviate his boredom. When Rachel Wade - a woman recently released from ten years of imprisonment following her conviction for the murder of her husband - is bought before him on a charge of vagrancy, he thinks he may have found a new plaything. There is something about her that intrigues him immediately; she’s not beautiful, she’s too thin and her clothes are dreadful, but there’s an “otherness” about her that makes him want her:
”What was it about a woman – a certain kind of woman – standing at the mercy of men – righteous, civic-minded men, with the moral force of public outrage on their side – that could sometimes be secretly, shamefacedly titillating? He thought of the hypocritical justices from England’s less than glorious past, men who had taken a lewd pleasure in sending women to the stake for witchcraft.”
He proceeds to offer Rachel a position as his housekeeper – although she knows right away that that’s not the only “position” she will be expected to adopt. But it’s working for the viscount or a return to prison for indigence – and she has no other choice but to accept.
Just as Ms Gaffney pulls no punches in her characterisation of Sebastian as a cruel, heartless bastard, so she doesn’t sugar-coat Rachel’s situation. Brutalised by her husband – even though only married for a week before his death - she learned to cope with the incredibly harsh prison regime by withdrawing into herself and walling off her emotions, her soul, even. As she says later in the book, she killed herself without dying. It’s this emotional distance that so attracts Sebastian, and makes him want to “test her, push her, see how far he could go before she broke.”
The thing is, although this is an absolutely horrible beginning to what eventually turns into an enthralling love story, the connection between these two emotionally damaged people is immediate. Each has an intuitive understanding of the other on a basic level, even though they still have much to learn – about themselves and each other – but that’s one of the things that makes the story so compelling.
The first sexual encounter between the pair is a deal breaker for many, because Sebastian won’t take “no” for an answer. He forces Rachel to have sex with him by threatening her with a return to prison, and even though she tells him she doesn’t want it, he goes ahead anyway. It makes for uncomfortable reading, but then it’s supposed to. This is rape at worst, dubious consent at best; even though Sebastian isn’t violent, what he does is nonetheless despicable. Yet the scenes are tastefully done – not meant to titillate, but to show the reader in no uncertain terms that Sebastian isn’t some kind of loveable rogue who just needs the right woman to tame him. Ms Gaffney doesn’t shy away from making Sebastian a truly unpleasant man, thus making his eventual redemption all the more remarkable.
The writing in these scenes is powerful and filled with raw emotion. They are written completely from Sebastian’s PoV, yet the reader is left in no doubt of what is going on in Rachel’s head which, in terms of sheer technical ability, is masterful. Sebastian wants Rachel to respond to him, to climax, and sets about rousing her in such a calculating manner that it’s like train-wreck reading; repulsive, but impossible to stop reading. In the end, he realises that Rachel isn’t going to give him what he wants, and actually worries about hurting her – which doesn’t make it any better, but does, I suppose at least show that there might just be a grain or two of him that’s worth saving.
Unfortunately, Sebastian’s cruelties don’t end there. The time he’s spent away from London has begun to change him, he realises. He finds himself enjoying the quiet beauty of the countryside around Lynton, interested in farming methods and estate management – and is appalled by it.
”The pastoral charms of Devon had begun to seduce him, incredible as it seemed, and he deemed that [his friends] were just the antidote he needed for all this cloying rusticity.”
Still bent on provoking some sort of reaction from Rachel, who is still very much “walled-off”, and almost desperate to repudiate the changes in himself and prove he still belongs among the debauched and dissolute, Sebastian invites a group of his most venal “friends” to visit his home and insists that Rachel serve as his hostess. She knows and they know that she’s to be their entertainment (not in a sexual way – but so they can pick her to pieces and taunt her about her experiences in prison and her late husband’s “unnatural” proclivities), and sure enough, over dinner, and then later, their questions become more and more personal and probing, culminating in a game of “Truth”. All the while Sebastian is watching from the fringes, gradually becoming more and more uncomfortable with the way things are progressing, but almost paralysed and unable to do anything about it, because of his desperation not to admit that he’s changing.
The fact that he’d lost the stomach for it himself didn’t signify; on the contrary, it pointed to a new and dangerous weakness in himself he didn’t like and was determined to snuff out. Sully and the rest could be his proxies while he regrouped, reminded himself of who he was and of what his purpose in life had always been – the pursuit of selfish pleasure.”
I actually found that scene harder to read than the rape scene, because in the latter, Rachel does at least have a coping mechanism – she separates her body from herself, and maintains her distance from events that way. In the card-game, however, she doesn’t maintain those emotional walls beneath the verbal assault of the intrusive questions, and her lack of adequate defences makes the scene incredibly powerful, but incredibly uncomfortable. And Sebastian’s reactions are of the type you can only bear to see from behind your hands, peeking out through your fingers. He watches from the sidelines and does nothing; even when one of his guests makes clear his intention to rape Rachel, he does nothing, because that’s how the Sebastian of old would react. But at the last possible moment he intervenes, admitting finally that he is sickened to hear “his own, mocking tone in Sully’s despicable cadence.” - and thus, his choice is made. This is the pivotal moment in the book – after this, he cuts himself off from Rachel and almost everyone around him, spending several days in a drunken stupor, until finally emerging as… not quite a different man, but one who has decided he wants to live a different life.
From this point on, both Sebastian and Rachel begin to change; she evolves from the shell of a woman she is at the beginning of the story, gradually throwing off the marks of her decade-long incarceration to reclaim her emotions and learn to live again. Sebastian finds purpose in caring for his estates and tenants, and in caring for Rachel, to whom he is tender, charming and affectionate. The change in him is vast – yet he’s the same man. It’s a skilful author who can redeem such a terrible character without making it seem as though he’s had a total personality transplant, but Ms Gaffney does it admirably.
The one false note struck in the book comes near the end. I don’t want to go into details, but the events of the final chapter or so were a little jarring and overly simplistic when contrasted with the complexities of the rest of the story.
But that’s a minor complaint – and is why I knocked off half a grade, because otherwise To Have and To Hold is a tremendous read. Because of the contentious nature of some of the material, I completely understand that it isn’t going to be a book for everyone. But the writing is superb and Ms Gaffney gets absolutely and completely into the heads of her protagonists in a way many other authors just… don’t.
Sebastian and Rachel’s HEA is undoubtedly one of the hardest-worked-for I’ve ever read, but that makes it all the more satisfying. I will admit that I did think once or twice that he should have grovelled a bit more, but actually, I’m not sure that would have worked or was necessary. What’s important is that these two people have been through hell and come to accept each other – emotional baggage, damaged pasts and all – and are going to move forward together, into a better life.
I read two books for this month's TBR Challenge of which this was the first. The prompt was "Kickin' it Old School", which meant reading a book that was at least ten years old. I chose this one because I've had it around for a while, but also because I know from reading reviews that it's a "marmite" book (you either love it or you hate it!) and I felt like reading something that seemed like it would give me something to get my teeth into.
Originally published in 1995, To Have and to Hold is a book that has divided – and continues to divide – opinion because of the actions of its hero, Sebastian Verlaine, Viscount D’Aubrey. There’s absolutely no doubt that at the beginning of the story, he’s a pretty despicable character and it’s easy to see why some readers have hated the book, or just not bothered to finish it. There’s also no doubt that this is an extremely well-written, compelling and often quite dark story in which the central characters are fully-rounded, three dimensional individuals and the emotions are often so raw they’re hard to read.
Sebastian Verlaine is young, rich, handsome –and totally and utterly debauched. He’s a rake in the truest sense, not in the way that’s so often found in every other historical romance these days – he does everything to excess, is frequently given to acts of cruelty simply because he has no conscience and nobody to stop him and, at the grand old age of twenty-nine, has reached a stage where he’s so jaded he has to keep pushing the boundaries in order to feel anything.
”But the older he got, the less fun he was having. It took more every day to divert him, and lately he’d begun moving gradually, with misgivings, into excess.”
He takes up his duties as magistrate in the village of Wyckerley mostly because he agreed to it while drunk, but also because he thinks he might find something salacious going on that will alleviate his boredom. When Rachel Wade - a woman recently released from ten years of imprisonment following her conviction for the murder of her husband - is bought before him on a charge of vagrancy, he thinks he may have found a new plaything. There is something about her that intrigues him immediately; she’s not beautiful, she’s too thin and her clothes are dreadful, but there’s an “otherness” about her that makes him want her:
”What was it about a woman – a certain kind of woman – standing at the mercy of men – righteous, civic-minded men, with the moral force of public outrage on their side – that could sometimes be secretly, shamefacedly titillating? He thought of the hypocritical justices from England’s less than glorious past, men who had taken a lewd pleasure in sending women to the stake for witchcraft.”
He proceeds to offer Rachel a position as his housekeeper – although she knows right away that that’s not the only “position” she will be expected to adopt. But it’s working for the viscount or a return to prison for indigence – and she has no other choice but to accept.
Just as Ms Gaffney pulls no punches in her characterisation of Sebastian as a cruel, heartless bastard, so she doesn’t sugar-coat Rachel’s situation. Brutalised by her husband – even though only married for a week before his death - she learned to cope with the incredibly harsh prison regime by withdrawing into herself and walling off her emotions, her soul, even. As she says later in the book, she killed herself without dying. It’s this emotional distance that so attracts Sebastian, and makes him want to “test her, push her, see how far he could go before she broke.”
The thing is, although this is an absolutely horrible beginning to what eventually turns into an enthralling love story, the connection between these two emotionally damaged people is immediate. Each has an intuitive understanding of the other on a basic level, even though they still have much to learn – about themselves and each other – but that’s one of the things that makes the story so compelling.
The first sexual encounter between the pair is a deal breaker for many, because Sebastian won’t take “no” for an answer. He forces Rachel to have sex with him by threatening her with a return to prison, and even though she tells him she doesn’t want it, he goes ahead anyway. It makes for uncomfortable reading, but then it’s supposed to. This is rape at worst, dubious consent at best; even though Sebastian isn’t violent, what he does is nonetheless despicable. Yet the scenes are tastefully done – not meant to titillate, but to show the reader in no uncertain terms that Sebastian isn’t some kind of loveable rogue who just needs the right woman to tame him. Ms Gaffney doesn’t shy away from making Sebastian a truly unpleasant man, thus making his eventual redemption all the more remarkable.
The writing in these scenes is powerful and filled with raw emotion. They are written completely from Sebastian’s PoV, yet the reader is left in no doubt of what is going on in Rachel’s head which, in terms of sheer technical ability, is masterful. Sebastian wants Rachel to respond to him, to climax, and sets about rousing her in such a calculating manner that it’s like train-wreck reading; repulsive, but impossible to stop reading. In the end, he realises that Rachel isn’t going to give him what he wants, and actually worries about hurting her – which doesn’t make it any better, but does, I suppose at least show that there might just be a grain or two of him that’s worth saving.
Unfortunately, Sebastian’s cruelties don’t end there. The time he’s spent away from London has begun to change him, he realises. He finds himself enjoying the quiet beauty of the countryside around Lynton, interested in farming methods and estate management – and is appalled by it.
”The pastoral charms of Devon had begun to seduce him, incredible as it seemed, and he deemed that [his friends] were just the antidote he needed for all this cloying rusticity.”
Still bent on provoking some sort of reaction from Rachel, who is still very much “walled-off”, and almost desperate to repudiate the changes in himself and prove he still belongs among the debauched and dissolute, Sebastian invites a group of his most venal “friends” to visit his home and insists that Rachel serve as his hostess. She knows and they know that she’s to be their entertainment (not in a sexual way – but so they can pick her to pieces and taunt her about her experiences in prison and her late husband’s “unnatural” proclivities), and sure enough, over dinner, and then later, their questions become more and more personal and probing, culminating in a game of “Truth”. All the while Sebastian is watching from the fringes, gradually becoming more and more uncomfortable with the way things are progressing, but almost paralysed and unable to do anything about it, because of his desperation not to admit that he’s changing.
The fact that he’d lost the stomach for it himself didn’t signify; on the contrary, it pointed to a new and dangerous weakness in himself he didn’t like and was determined to snuff out. Sully and the rest could be his proxies while he regrouped, reminded himself of who he was and of what his purpose in life had always been – the pursuit of selfish pleasure.”
I actually found that scene harder to read than the rape scene, because in the latter, Rachel does at least have a coping mechanism – she separates her body from herself, and maintains her distance from events that way. In the card-game, however, she doesn’t maintain those emotional walls beneath the verbal assault of the intrusive questions, and her lack of adequate defences makes the scene incredibly powerful, but incredibly uncomfortable. And Sebastian’s reactions are of the type you can only bear to see from behind your hands, peeking out through your fingers. He watches from the sidelines and does nothing; even when one of his guests makes clear his intention to rape Rachel, he does nothing, because that’s how the Sebastian of old would react. But at the last possible moment he intervenes, admitting finally that he is sickened to hear “his own, mocking tone in Sully’s despicable cadence.” - and thus, his choice is made. This is the pivotal moment in the book – after this, he cuts himself off from Rachel and almost everyone around him, spending several days in a drunken stupor, until finally emerging as… not quite a different man, but one who has decided he wants to live a different life.
From this point on, both Sebastian and Rachel begin to change; she evolves from the shell of a woman she is at the beginning of the story, gradually throwing off the marks of her decade-long incarceration to reclaim her emotions and learn to live again. Sebastian finds purpose in caring for his estates and tenants, and in caring for Rachel, to whom he is tender, charming and affectionate. The change in him is vast – yet he’s the same man. It’s a skilful author who can redeem such a terrible character without making it seem as though he’s had a total personality transplant, but Ms Gaffney does it admirably.
The one false note struck in the book comes near the end. I don’t want to go into details, but the events of the final chapter or so were a little jarring and overly simplistic when contrasted with the complexities of the rest of the story.
But that’s a minor complaint – and is why I knocked off half a grade, because otherwise To Have and To Hold is a tremendous read. Because of the contentious nature of some of the material, I completely understand that it isn’t going to be a book for everyone. But the writing is superb and Ms Gaffney gets absolutely and completely into the heads of her protagonists in a way many other authors just… don’t.
Sebastian and Rachel’s HEA is undoubtedly one of the hardest-worked-for I’ve ever read, but that makes it all the more satisfying. I will admit that I did think once or twice that he should have grovelled a bit more, but actually, I’m not sure that would have worked or was necessary. What’s important is that these two people have been through hell and come to accept each other – emotional baggage, damaged pasts and all – and are going to move forward together, into a better life.
June 21, 2022
I read it for the second time and still loved it (even better than the first time around as I can savour each word instead of propelling towards the ending), and I'm not going to be apologetic about it. I think the book is unique, the characters (even the side ones) are drawn out and complex, and the prose is simply divine and evocative.
The most controversial thing about this book is the first sex scene, and I'm going to call it as it is; it is rape in my book. Rachel clearly said no, but Sebastian still went ahead and did it. In the hands of a lesser author, the whole book would have fallen apart there and then but Ms Gaffney is NOT among the lesser authors; she is clearly one of the best in the business. We knew that Rachel saw this coming when Sebastian employed her as a housekeeper (she knew he was attracted to her sexually but had no idea why). Sebastian manipulated Rachel when she was at her most vulnerable. The thing is, we were also privy to Sebastian's thoughts. His conscience would re-surfaced from time to time (his conscience didn't always win, unfortunately), so he wasn't completely irredeemable. The book opened with him dismissing his current mistress. He could have been outrightly cruel towards her, but he wasn't. I wouldn't call him being pleasant, but he was highly civilized about the whole thing. We also saw his interactions with other people and saw that he had the potential to become a better person. His moment of awakening happened when he saw his so-called friends mistreat Rachel, and she was about to be raped. He stepped in to save her and was injured in the process. He hated himself because he saw himself in them. Let's call it a moment of epiphany. He realized that he could care about another person's well-being more than his own. And he did strive to become a better person after that. Sometimes, you have to hit rock bottom before you can rise above, and this was what happened to Sebastian.
What about Rachel then? She went to prison for 10 years at the tender age of 18 for a crime she didn't commit. The book opens with her trying to become invisible (she had to do this in prison to avoid attracting the wrong kind of attention). We saw her steadily getting stronger. Human emotions are complex, and it's a thousand kinds of messed up. I can see why Rachel was drawn to Sebastian. She had no one else, and Sebastian was the first to show interest in her as a human being. Was it co-dependency? I'd say so, and it was just so messy. She is also a pragmatist and knew her time with Sebastian would end. We saw that she had the backbone to leave him after a row with him towards the end.
I simply have to commend Ms Gaffney on the well-executed love scenes. I've noticed that the love scenes are different and true to the characters (I have read the first book in the series and am in the midst of reading book 3). Sebastian is a sybarite so the love scenes here, ah, well, let's just say it is adventurous. Not to mention that the book was written in the 90s, so it struck me as being very modern and forward-thinking.
When it comes to anti-heroes, Ms Gaffney sure can give them a run for their money. I heartily recommend this book for dark romance lovers.
The most controversial thing about this book is the first sex scene, and I'm going to call it as it is; it is rape in my book. Rachel clearly said no, but Sebastian still went ahead and did it. In the hands of a lesser author, the whole book would have fallen apart there and then but Ms Gaffney is NOT among the lesser authors; she is clearly one of the best in the business. We knew that Rachel saw this coming when Sebastian employed her as a housekeeper (she knew he was attracted to her sexually but had no idea why). Sebastian manipulated Rachel when she was at her most vulnerable. The thing is, we were also privy to Sebastian's thoughts. His conscience would re-surfaced from time to time (his conscience didn't always win, unfortunately), so he wasn't completely irredeemable. The book opened with him dismissing his current mistress. He could have been outrightly cruel towards her, but he wasn't. I wouldn't call him being pleasant, but he was highly civilized about the whole thing. We also saw his interactions with other people and saw that he had the potential to become a better person. His moment of awakening happened when he saw his so-called friends mistreat Rachel, and she was about to be raped. He stepped in to save her and was injured in the process. He hated himself because he saw himself in them. Let's call it a moment of epiphany. He realized that he could care about another person's well-being more than his own. And he did strive to become a better person after that. Sometimes, you have to hit rock bottom before you can rise above, and this was what happened to Sebastian.
What about Rachel then? She went to prison for 10 years at the tender age of 18 for a crime she didn't commit. The book opens with her trying to become invisible (she had to do this in prison to avoid attracting the wrong kind of attention). We saw her steadily getting stronger. Human emotions are complex, and it's a thousand kinds of messed up. I can see why Rachel was drawn to Sebastian. She had no one else, and Sebastian was the first to show interest in her as a human being. Was it co-dependency? I'd say so, and it was just so messy. She is also a pragmatist and knew her time with Sebastian would end. We saw that she had the backbone to leave him after a row with him towards the end.
I simply have to commend Ms Gaffney on the well-executed love scenes. I've noticed that the love scenes are different and true to the characters (I have read the first book in the series and am in the midst of reading book 3). Sebastian is a sybarite so the love scenes here, ah, well, let's just say it is adventurous. Not to mention that the book was written in the 90s, so it struck me as being very modern and forward-thinking.
When it comes to anti-heroes, Ms Gaffney sure can give them a run for their money. I heartily recommend this book for dark romance lovers.
January 15, 2024
This book has me SO conflicted. 100 pages in and I almost DNFd because I was hating the hero so much. The heroine was accused of murdering her husband and spent 10 years in prison. She's released on the condition that she works in the hero's household, pays a fine, and goes to weekly checkup meetings.
From the start, I hated the hero. The heroine just spent 10 years in horrible conditions, dreams about her violent husband, and the hero is obsessed with her physically. She wakes up from a nightmare and he literally straight up assaults her and acknowledges that's what he's doing. Then, his friends come and almost assault her as well until he steps in. She has no agency, no personality, and no desire to live life.
HOWEVER. By the end of the book, I realized that's exactly what the author wants us to see. She wants us to see Rachel and how horrible her situation was and how she had no autonomy over her life. But THEN, we get to see Rachel slowly come out of her shell, slowly dare to want things in life, and slowly fall in love. She learns to take control of her life because she finally can for the first time in 30 years. The hero falls SO hard in love and has to learn that his money doesn't really get him everything he wants. It sure gets him a lot, but not everything. It was such an interesting story and one I loved not for the romance but for how the characters changed and grew and were affected by society. Don't go into this one expecting a sweeping romance, because it's not. But it was such an interesting story and I won't forget it for a long time!
From the start, I hated the hero. The heroine just spent 10 years in horrible conditions, dreams about her violent husband, and the hero is obsessed with her physically. She wakes up from a nightmare and he literally straight up assaults her and acknowledges that's what he's doing. Then, his friends come and almost assault her as well until he steps in. She has no agency, no personality, and no desire to live life.
HOWEVER. By the end of the book, I realized that's exactly what the author wants us to see. She wants us to see Rachel and how horrible her situation was and how she had no autonomy over her life. But THEN, we get to see Rachel slowly come out of her shell, slowly dare to want things in life, and slowly fall in love. She learns to take control of her life because she finally can for the first time in 30 years. The hero falls SO hard in love and has to learn that his money doesn't really get him everything he wants. It sure gets him a lot, but not everything. It was such an interesting story and one I loved not for the romance but for how the characters changed and grew and were affected by society. Don't go into this one expecting a sweeping romance, because it's not. But it was such an interesting story and I won't forget it for a long time!
February 7, 2020
After a string of romantic duds, I'm feeling pretty happy that I've read another bang-on historical romance where I didn't want the story to end! Never read anything by Patricia Gaffney but after seeing this pop up on GoodReads lists, I had to read it. I loved it- I thought it was dark and erotic. The romance was compelling and so was the mystery behind the murder.
To Have and to Hold is known for its a-hole hero, Sebastian, who basically hires a convicted murderess because he's so bored with his life that he's aroused by the idea of power games with Rachel, a woman who has so far served ten years on her sentence for murdering her husband in cold blood. Sebastian is mean and I'm here for it. Rachel is a bit of a cipher, but as Sebastian's meanness melts away and he becomes nice, we get more from Rachel's point of view.
I loved the characterization of Rachel and Sebastian. I liked the murkiness of Sebastian's intentions - to want to penetrate Rachel's inner sanctum, to toy with her, but soon he finds himself warming up to the idea of rescuing her - both swings of the pendulum very problematic but dealt with in a way that trusts and respects the reader's intellect. I loved Rachel coming out of her shell and boy oh boy Gaffney is great at getting inside the reader's head. Rachel's anxiety, whether it's having to manage a household, talking to people, opening up, fearing going back to prison - all of this was so real. It was really good but it was still a romance at the end of the day, which is the most important thing. The interactions between Sebastian and Rachel at the start of their relationship were electric.
This is a keeper. I am conflicted about whether or not to read the rest of the Wyckerley Trilogy since the tropes and set-up in the blurbs don’t appeal to me. If anyone has any other recommendations for Gaffney, I'm all ears.
To Have and to Hold is known for its a-hole hero, Sebastian, who basically hires a convicted murderess because he's so bored with his life that he's aroused by the idea of power games with Rachel, a woman who has so far served ten years on her sentence for murdering her husband in cold blood. Sebastian is mean and I'm here for it. Rachel is a bit of a cipher, but as Sebastian's meanness melts away and he becomes nice, we get more from Rachel's point of view.
I loved the characterization of Rachel and Sebastian. I liked the murkiness of Sebastian's intentions - to want to penetrate Rachel's inner sanctum, to toy with her, but soon he finds himself warming up to the idea of rescuing her - both swings of the pendulum very problematic but dealt with in a way that trusts and respects the reader's intellect. I loved Rachel coming out of her shell and boy oh boy Gaffney is great at getting inside the reader's head. Rachel's anxiety, whether it's having to manage a household, talking to people, opening up, fearing going back to prison - all of this was so real. It was really good but it was still a romance at the end of the day, which is the most important thing. The interactions between Sebastian and Rachel at the start of their relationship were electric.
This is a keeper. I am conflicted about whether or not to read the rest of the Wyckerley Trilogy since the tropes and set-up in the blurbs don’t appeal to me. If anyone has any other recommendations for Gaffney, I'm all ears.
January 9, 2022
5 sybaritic stars
This book took a familiar premise (lord x housekeeper romance with a noir subplot) and turned it into a powerful story of self-discovery and rebirth. By the end of the second chapter, I knew it was going to stay with me forever.
It’s also easy to understand why there seem to be two diametrically opposite schools of thought on this book: scathing 1 star reviews vs enthusiastic 5 stars. This isn’t a comfortable romance to read: it deals with quite heavy themes, and its characters bring out their absolute worst before choosing differently. ‘To Have and to Hold’ a spiny story, one that asks a lot of patience and understanding of the reader.
While this reviews obviously belongs to the second category, I sympathise with those who despised this novel and couldn’t get past the hero’s treatment of Rachel, the female protagonist, in the first half.
The narrative revels in Sebastian’s, Viscount D’Aubrey, rakish persona and determination to live as dissolutely as possible as well as his goal to seduce the self-contained Mrs Wade, a parole who’s spent 10 years in prison for allegedly murdering her husband. I’m generally not at all fond of rakes, because they bore me and/or I find their 180 degree redemptions unbelievable.
The fact that I was interested in and even sympathised with this hero is a testament to the author’s talent for stepping outside of HR cliches and creating a well-rounded character, one that discovers a gentler, genuine side of himself which was already there from the start while maintaining a degree of moral ambiguity.
Rachel was a unique heroine from the start: HR heroines are usually tidy and well-adjusted, but this one was a complete mess and the narrative never tried to glamorise her suffering. She was easier to love than her counterpart, and her transformation into a confident woman was a pleasure to witness. I was unsure whether the author would nail her POV (how does one even make the voice of a middle-class presumed murderess who’s spent a decade in a Victorian prison and is now a social pariah sound realistic?), but her inner monologue felt very vivid, and I’ve rarely come across a more compelling heroine or one whose arc was more satisfying to read.
The dynamic between master and housekeeper is overflowing with contradictory emotions (from mistrust to recalcitrant attraction with a good dose of admiration) and Sebastian, annoyed with his new-found sensibility, takes a vindictive pleasure in tormenting Rachel.
As the two of them become closer, their relationship undergoes a cataclysmic but nevertheless natural transformation.
Character driven romances are my jam, and this one felt like it had been crafted according to all my personal preferences: Gaffney did a masterful job at drawing both MCs and their internal struggles, while showing how deeply their convictions about themselves and the world have chanced.
The prose is beautiful and evocative, and the narrative never felt stale, by alternating fast-paced, action driven chapters with bucolic scenes of the two lovers rolling in meadows and feeding each other strawberries.
Character development is never sacrificed for the sake of the plot, the two coexisting in a balanced way common to the very best romances.
This was very much a story about two people’s journeys towards happiness and a better life for themselves, which happened to coincide with their falling in love with each other.
The narrative grapples with big important themes, but never takes itself as seriously as other books in the historical fiction genre would’ve done with this subject matter; add to that the fact that it has the audacity of featuring a HEA, and of course this book doesn’t get the recognition it deserves. However, you can be certain that I’ll never stop praising it.
This book took a familiar premise (lord x housekeeper romance with a noir subplot) and turned it into a powerful story of self-discovery and rebirth. By the end of the second chapter, I knew it was going to stay with me forever.
It’s also easy to understand why there seem to be two diametrically opposite schools of thought on this book: scathing 1 star reviews vs enthusiastic 5 stars. This isn’t a comfortable romance to read: it deals with quite heavy themes, and its characters bring out their absolute worst before choosing differently. ‘To Have and to Hold’ a spiny story, one that asks a lot of patience and understanding of the reader.
While this reviews obviously belongs to the second category, I sympathise with those who despised this novel and couldn’t get past the hero’s treatment of Rachel, the female protagonist, in the first half.
The narrative revels in Sebastian’s, Viscount D’Aubrey, rakish persona and determination to live as dissolutely as possible as well as his goal to seduce the self-contained Mrs Wade, a parole who’s spent 10 years in prison for allegedly murdering her husband. I’m generally not at all fond of rakes, because they bore me and/or I find their 180 degree redemptions unbelievable.
The fact that I was interested in and even sympathised with this hero is a testament to the author’s talent for stepping outside of HR cliches and creating a well-rounded character, one that discovers a gentler, genuine side of himself which was already there from the start while maintaining a degree of moral ambiguity.
Rachel was a unique heroine from the start: HR heroines are usually tidy and well-adjusted, but this one was a complete mess and the narrative never tried to glamorise her suffering. She was easier to love than her counterpart, and her transformation into a confident woman was a pleasure to witness. I was unsure whether the author would nail her POV (how does one even make the voice of a middle-class presumed murderess who’s spent a decade in a Victorian prison and is now a social pariah sound realistic?), but her inner monologue felt very vivid, and I’ve rarely come across a more compelling heroine or one whose arc was more satisfying to read.
The dynamic between master and housekeeper is overflowing with contradictory emotions (from mistrust to recalcitrant attraction with a good dose of admiration) and Sebastian, annoyed with his new-found sensibility, takes a vindictive pleasure in tormenting Rachel.
As the two of them become closer, their relationship undergoes a cataclysmic but nevertheless natural transformation.
Character driven romances are my jam, and this one felt like it had been crafted according to all my personal preferences: Gaffney did a masterful job at drawing both MCs and their internal struggles, while showing how deeply their convictions about themselves and the world have chanced.
The prose is beautiful and evocative, and the narrative never felt stale, by alternating fast-paced, action driven chapters with bucolic scenes of the two lovers rolling in meadows and feeding each other strawberries.
Character development is never sacrificed for the sake of the plot, the two coexisting in a balanced way common to the very best romances.
This was very much a story about two people’s journeys towards happiness and a better life for themselves, which happened to coincide with their falling in love with each other.
The narrative grapples with big important themes, but never takes itself as seriously as other books in the historical fiction genre would’ve done with this subject matter; add to that the fact that it has the audacity of featuring a HEA, and of course this book doesn’t get the recognition it deserves. However, you can be certain that I’ll never stop praising it.
August 12, 2013
You know how, in many historicals, there's this bad guy who the heroine is forced to be in close contact with? Maybe her guardian, or the man her family is pushing her to marry, or her employer--whoever he is, he wants her, and takes advantage of the fact that she's under his control. The hero has to rescue the heroine, because this guy can't be reasoned with. That guy? He's the hero of To Have and to Hold.
Look, I like morally ambiguous characters as much as the next person, but there's nothing ambiguous about Sebastien. This man gets off on hurting Rachel, and offers her a job with the intention of raping her. He loves to fuck with her head and keep her on a terrifying edge at all times. He'll occasionally realize that he's behavior is fucked up but he continues on, because his daddy ignored him and his mommy and big sister are whores. Or something. His redemption consists of being compared to people who are even worse than he is and not being mean to Rachel anymore. He still thinks of her as his possession, doesn't respect a single decision she makes that goes against what he wants, but he gets her a puppy and makes her orgasm, so it's all good.
Look, I like morally ambiguous characters as much as the next person, but there's nothing ambiguous about Sebastien. This man gets off on hurting Rachel, and offers her a job with the intention of raping her. He loves to fuck with her head and keep her on a terrifying edge at all times. He'll occasionally realize that he's behavior is fucked up but he continues on, because his daddy ignored him and his mommy and big sister are whores. Or something. His redemption consists of being compared to people who are even worse than he is and not being mean to Rachel anymore. He still thinks of her as his possession, doesn't respect a single decision she makes that goes against what he wants, but he gets her a puppy and makes her orgasm, so it's all good.
January 10, 2022
This is the type of book to read if you're in a mood for a darker theme. I mean, I am sure you will hate the hero for about 45% of the book. He's incredibly cruel even more so than the unfeeling ones because he not only felt, he also did horrible things with gentleness. It's nauseating and to think he does things that are worse than rape, it blew my mind.
I believe most people would want to dfn this book. But I swear if you pass a certain point you won't regret finishing it.
Then after countless horrible things the hero started to change. At first I thought he changed from water to wine too quickly and was hating the heroine for her easy forgiveness. But it really takes reading the whole book to appreciate every single thing you hate and understand how they came to be as they are. I believed in the hero's redemption only in the last pages. And I ended this book with a smile. (Even tho I wanted him to suffer for everything he's done to the heroine).
But I will say it again, if you like dark romance, I highly recommend this book. I thought I would give it a 1 star but after finishing it I am happy to say it was a solid 4.
I believe most people would want to dfn this book. But I swear if you pass a certain point you won't regret finishing it.
Then after countless horrible things the hero started to change. At first I thought he changed from water to wine too quickly and was hating the heroine for her easy forgiveness. But it really takes reading the whole book to appreciate every single thing you hate and understand how they came to be as they are. I believed in the hero's redemption only in the last pages. And I ended this book with a smile. (Even tho I wanted him to suffer for everything he's done to the heroine).
But I will say it again, if you like dark romance, I highly recommend this book. I thought I would give it a 1 star but after finishing it I am happy to say it was a solid 4.
January 2, 2010
One of my favorite "themes" in romance novels is The Reformed Rake -- you know, the man who's seen it all, done it all, and is to the point where he's actually getting bored with debauchery, only to be turned around by the love of a good woman? Yeahhh those :)
I'm so torn with this book. I truly can't decide if I loved it or hated it. Sebastian is a true rake -- he's bored, promiscuous, a bit cruel, and just overall a pretty nasty fellow. At least, that's how he is at the beginning.
Our heroine, Rachel, was horribly abused by her husband, both physically and sexually, for the one week that they were married.. The only thing that stopped him was someone murdered him. Rachel was convicted and sent to prison for ten years.
Prison in those days was not like prison is today. It was solitary confinement, with prisoners never allowed to speak or even make eye contact with anyone else. Basic human qualities such as modesty and vanity were completely abolished, with prisoners suffering all sorts of indignities designed to strip away their individuality.
Rachel ends up with a pretty solid case of PTSD, both as a result of her treatment at the hands of her cruel husband, and based on her experiences in prison.
My biggest issue with this book is the same one I think a lot of people have -- the first sexual encounter between the hero and the heroine is not consensual (even though it's not a violent rape). And I don't mean "forced seduction", where the heroine very weakly protests then gives in because she's so turned on. Rather, she doesn't want to have sex, it obvious to both the reader and to the hero that she doesn't want to have sex, and he has sex with her anyway. To the point where he actually makes a conscious decision to go ahead and ignore her pleasure and seek his own climax simply because he realizes that continuing the facade of trying to seduce her will just end up in his physically hurting her.
Is it "rape"? Yes. Not in the he-threw-her-down-and-violently-had-his-way-with-her-while-she-sobbed-her-protests way or anything, but it's still rape in my eyes when a sexually abused woman clearly indicates that she is not interested in a sexual relationship and the man pretty much tells her that she can either have sex with him or go back to prison. Our heroine is hesitant to call it rape (it even says just that right afterwards), but deep down, I think most people would acknowledge that it was. At the very, very least, it's dubious consent, and made me very uncomfortable reading it.
However(and that's a big "however"), I can't say that it was gratuitous. I did not get the feeling that Patricia Gaffney included that disturbing little scene (and the one immediately following it) in order to arouse or even give a thrill to the reader. Instead, it seemed to be a further illustration of Sebastian's true character. He is not a nice man. While it's clear he had no intention of physically hurting her (as he's clearly concerned that he might have done just that), it's also just as clear that he's excited by the fact she's not interested in a sexual relationship. He's so jaded and filled with ennui that pushing the envelope like that is one of the few things that gets his motor running. As uncomfortable as it was to read, I can't say that it wasn't necessary. Without that scene (and the scene immediately following), the reader would continue to foster the misconception that deep down Sebastian is a noble man who wouldn't really take advantage of someone who was truly in a helpless situation. That's simply not the case, and it's important for the reader to realize that in order to truly appreciate his redemption.
In addition, the entire bit where his friends come to visit, and it's clear that Rachel is to be that evening's entertainment (not sexually, mind you, but so that his friends can pick her apart about her abuse and jailhouse experiences), was also very uncomfortable to read.
Rachel is not your typical "abused heroine". She's a realist -- she understands that sometimes bad things happen for no reason other than that's just the way things are. She did not agree to be Sebastian's housekeeper with blinders on, but instead expected to have to please him sexually from the moment they arrived at his house. I think that might be one of the reasons their first encounter was so hard to read -- she'd been expecting it, had resigned herself to it, and yet still desperately wished she didn't have to go through it.
And yet.
I still really, really liked this book.
There was a single pivotal scene where Sebastian comes face to face with the reality of the type of man that he's become, and his whole world shatters. He knows he doesn't deserve Rachel's forgiveness for his treatment, and is appropriately grateful when she begins to bestow it upon him.
The whole conversation with the vicar before he leaves town that last time had me wanting to shake him. Total V8 moment (you know, where you want to just thump them on the forehead for being a moron?).
Also, do be aware that this book contains several situations and conversations that could be triggers for victims of sexual abuse.
So, my final rating is a solid four. Part of me really wants to give it a five, because it was so well written. The characters were three-dimensional, and there wasn't a single Mary Sue in the entire novel which was so very refreshing. If I could get over the squick factor of their first two encounters, I wouldn't hesitate to give it a five.
I'm so torn with this book. I truly can't decide if I loved it or hated it. Sebastian is a true rake -- he's bored, promiscuous, a bit cruel, and just overall a pretty nasty fellow. At least, that's how he is at the beginning.
Our heroine, Rachel, was horribly abused by her husband, both physically and sexually, for the one week that they were married.. The only thing that stopped him was someone murdered him. Rachel was convicted and sent to prison for ten years.
Prison in those days was not like prison is today. It was solitary confinement, with prisoners never allowed to speak or even make eye contact with anyone else. Basic human qualities such as modesty and vanity were completely abolished, with prisoners suffering all sorts of indignities designed to strip away their individuality.
Rachel ends up with a pretty solid case of PTSD, both as a result of her treatment at the hands of her cruel husband, and based on her experiences in prison.
My biggest issue with this book is the same one I think a lot of people have -- the first sexual encounter between the hero and the heroine is not consensual (even though it's not a violent rape). And I don't mean "forced seduction", where the heroine very weakly protests then gives in because she's so turned on. Rather, she doesn't want to have sex, it obvious to both the reader and to the hero that she doesn't want to have sex, and he has sex with her anyway. To the point where he actually makes a conscious decision to go ahead and ignore her pleasure and seek his own climax simply because he realizes that continuing the facade of trying to seduce her will just end up in his physically hurting her.
Is it "rape"? Yes. Not in the he-threw-her-down-and-violently-had-his-way-with-her-while-she-sobbed-her-protests way or anything, but it's still rape in my eyes when a sexually abused woman clearly indicates that she is not interested in a sexual relationship and the man pretty much tells her that she can either have sex with him or go back to prison. Our heroine is hesitant to call it rape (it even says just that right afterwards), but deep down, I think most people would acknowledge that it was. At the very, very least, it's dubious consent, and made me very uncomfortable reading it.
However(and that's a big "however"), I can't say that it was gratuitous. I did not get the feeling that Patricia Gaffney included that disturbing little scene (and the one immediately following it) in order to arouse or even give a thrill to the reader. Instead, it seemed to be a further illustration of Sebastian's true character. He is not a nice man. While it's clear he had no intention of physically hurting her (as he's clearly concerned that he might have done just that), it's also just as clear that he's excited by the fact she's not interested in a sexual relationship. He's so jaded and filled with ennui that pushing the envelope like that is one of the few things that gets his motor running. As uncomfortable as it was to read, I can't say that it wasn't necessary. Without that scene (and the scene immediately following), the reader would continue to foster the misconception that deep down Sebastian is a noble man who wouldn't really take advantage of someone who was truly in a helpless situation. That's simply not the case, and it's important for the reader to realize that in order to truly appreciate his redemption.
In addition, the entire bit where his friends come to visit, and it's clear that Rachel is to be that evening's entertainment (not sexually, mind you, but so that his friends can pick her apart about her abuse and jailhouse experiences), was also very uncomfortable to read.
Rachel is not your typical "abused heroine". She's a realist -- she understands that sometimes bad things happen for no reason other than that's just the way things are. She did not agree to be Sebastian's housekeeper with blinders on, but instead expected to have to please him sexually from the moment they arrived at his house. I think that might be one of the reasons their first encounter was so hard to read -- she'd been expecting it, had resigned herself to it, and yet still desperately wished she didn't have to go through it.
And yet.
I still really, really liked this book.
There was a single pivotal scene where Sebastian comes face to face with the reality of the type of man that he's become, and his whole world shatters. He knows he doesn't deserve Rachel's forgiveness for his treatment, and is appropriately grateful when she begins to bestow it upon him.
The whole conversation with the vicar before he leaves town that last time had me wanting to shake him. Total V8 moment (you know, where you want to just thump them on the forehead for being a moron?).
Also, do be aware that this book contains several situations and conversations that could be triggers for victims of sexual abuse.
So, my final rating is a solid four. Part of me really wants to give it a five, because it was so well written. The characters were three-dimensional, and there wasn't a single Mary Sue in the entire novel which was so very refreshing. If I could get over the squick factor of their first two encounters, I wouldn't hesitate to give it a five.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 12, 2010
Just as good this reading as the first time. This book is hard to describe. It's a historical romance that's not really a historical romance, if that makes sense.
The hero's behaviour borders on reprehensible at the beginning, if he had been written even a smidge differently he would have been unredeemable. As it is, it takes a lot to do it, but the author puts us front row and center so we see it happening just as Sebastien does. Rachel is beautifully drawn as well.
The way the book is written - switching from his pov to hers is fast becoming a favourite of mine (Anne Stuart did it in "Reckless")and it pulled me right into the story. Which, again, was completely necessary given Sebastien's behaviour at the beginning of the book.
It was unlike any HR I've ever read, and I loved it.
(Original comments: 4.5 stars -- this book blew my doors off. Wow. )
The hero's behaviour borders on reprehensible at the beginning, if he had been written even a smidge differently he would have been unredeemable. As it is, it takes a lot to do it, but the author puts us front row and center so we see it happening just as Sebastien does. Rachel is beautifully drawn as well.
The way the book is written - switching from his pov to hers is fast becoming a favourite of mine (Anne Stuart did it in "Reckless")and it pulled me right into the story. Which, again, was completely necessary given Sebastien's behaviour at the beginning of the book.
It was unlike any HR I've ever read, and I loved it.
(Original comments: 4.5 stars -- this book blew my doors off. Wow. )
June 16, 2022
3.75 STARS absolutely rounded up!
The first half of the story was disturbing to say the least. The dub-con was full-on creepy, and by the end, I don't think the author was entirely successful in redeeming the hero. She made a pretty good go of it though. I'll definitely be reading more by her.
If they had wasted time, been afraid, made mistakes before this minute, it didn't matter anymore.It's no secret that I love reading 'problematic' books and this one definitely qualified, lol.
The first half of the story was disturbing to say the least. The dub-con was full-on creepy, and by the end, I don't think the author was entirely successful in redeeming the hero. She made a pretty good go of it though. I'll definitely be reading more by her.
March 23, 2023
Re-read
I hadn't read this since I was a wee lass and I wondered if it would hold up. It did 🥹 This is one of those seminal HRs that *should* be read by everyone who loves old-school-ish romance and/or morally grey heroes.
Sebastian is a douche canoe. He's a bored aristocrat who ambles into the town of Wickerley with his mistress after inheriting a crumbling estate. For shits and giggles, he decides to attend the town's assizes and since he's a lord he gets to pass judgment. Who needs experience with the law when you have a title? 😒
Rachel Wade is a murderer. She served ten years for killing her husband and was released but arrested for indigency. Sebastian is immediately morbidly fascinated by this small woman who supposedly murdered her husband in cold blood. She looks beaten and cowed but he suspects she is anything but.
"He thought he understood now what had drawn him to her in the first place. He’d seen her as the opposite of himself, and he’d wanted her to save him. Simple as that. She’d stood in his mind for survival, because she’d been through hellfire and come out strong and whole, indestructible. What had he ever suffered? Except for a drunken duel or two, he’d never faced death or even danger; in all of his wasted, numbing, unmanning life he’d never stood up for any principle except libertarianism. His plan had been to use her, but personally risk nothing. Take, but not give. He’d felt a perverse delight in her helplessness, the condition he’d relied on in cold blood to have her."
This quotation perfectly describes his character arc and the reasoning behind his assholery for the first 40% of the book. Sebastian's character arc is immaculate and so is Rachel's. The writing is beautiful, Gaffney's prose is clean and evocative. She's a master at weaving history into the romance. I learned so much about how messed up Britain's prison and judicial system was and how terribly women fared.
Personally, I think this book is one of the best the genre has to offer even if it's not perfect. I do think the pacing loses steam in the middle and I wished for more love scenes after Rachel overcomes her fear of intimacy. This is one of those rare romances where the hero isn't wringing toe-curling orgasms out of the heroine just by breathing in her direction. Sebastian has to work for it and the scene where he finally figures how to make her come after her traumatic experiences with sex is steamy, yes but also a beautiful example of Sebastian's growth as a character.
All that being said this book isn't for everyone. It's not for anyone who dislikes power imbalance or dubious consent and it is not a lighthearted story. It deals with some dark themes as well. But if you love morally grey heroes, dont miss this Sebastian. He's almost as delicious as my absolute favorite Sebastian (Lord St Vincent).
Tropes:
Boss/employee
Forced proximity
Rake
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟/5
🔥/5
CW: talk of domestic and sexual abuse and incest.
I hadn't read this since I was a wee lass and I wondered if it would hold up. It did 🥹 This is one of those seminal HRs that *should* be read by everyone who loves old-school-ish romance and/or morally grey heroes.
Sebastian is a douche canoe. He's a bored aristocrat who ambles into the town of Wickerley with his mistress after inheriting a crumbling estate. For shits and giggles, he decides to attend the town's assizes and since he's a lord he gets to pass judgment. Who needs experience with the law when you have a title? 😒
Rachel Wade is a murderer. She served ten years for killing her husband and was released but arrested for indigency. Sebastian is immediately morbidly fascinated by this small woman who supposedly murdered her husband in cold blood. She looks beaten and cowed but he suspects she is anything but.
"He thought he understood now what had drawn him to her in the first place. He’d seen her as the opposite of himself, and he’d wanted her to save him. Simple as that. She’d stood in his mind for survival, because she’d been through hellfire and come out strong and whole, indestructible. What had he ever suffered? Except for a drunken duel or two, he’d never faced death or even danger; in all of his wasted, numbing, unmanning life he’d never stood up for any principle except libertarianism. His plan had been to use her, but personally risk nothing. Take, but not give. He’d felt a perverse delight in her helplessness, the condition he’d relied on in cold blood to have her."
This quotation perfectly describes his character arc and the reasoning behind his assholery for the first 40% of the book. Sebastian's character arc is immaculate and so is Rachel's. The writing is beautiful, Gaffney's prose is clean and evocative. She's a master at weaving history into the romance. I learned so much about how messed up Britain's prison and judicial system was and how terribly women fared.
Personally, I think this book is one of the best the genre has to offer even if it's not perfect. I do think the pacing loses steam in the middle and I wished for more love scenes after Rachel overcomes her fear of intimacy. This is one of those rare romances where the hero isn't wringing toe-curling orgasms out of the heroine just by breathing in her direction. Sebastian has to work for it and the scene where he finally figures how to make her come after her traumatic experiences with sex is steamy, yes but also a beautiful example of Sebastian's growth as a character.
All that being said this book isn't for everyone. It's not for anyone who dislikes power imbalance or dubious consent and it is not a lighthearted story. It deals with some dark themes as well. But if you love morally grey heroes, dont miss this Sebastian. He's almost as delicious as my absolute favorite Sebastian (Lord St Vincent).
Tropes:
Boss/employee
Forced proximity
Rake
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟/5
🔥/5
CW: talk of domestic and sexual abuse and incest.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 18, 2024
Histórica romántica pero ambientada en el campo.
Perfecto para cambiar de temática y que no sea regencia pura y dura.
Perfecto para cambiar de temática y que no sea regencia pura y dura.
November 7, 2016
I came to this book utterly clueless about the controversy behind it. I saw a blogger recommending this book highly, saying that it was more than just a romance, complex, and intriguing. It sounded like something that I'd appreciate. I do love my romance novels, but after a dozen, they begin blurring with each other in their similarities.
It began so well- Gaffney is an amazing writer, and I was so amazed that I found a new writer at last!
Then THAT SCENE happened. I was in utter disbelief. Are you kidding me? I was not ready for . I am surprised that so many people would call this book a classic, and one of the best in the genre. Look, I totally get that the bodice rippers of the 70s had a lot of rape in them, but this was written in 2003 and there's just no excuse. Those who support and talk highly about the book say that the author was painting the picture of a less-than-perfect rake, that as a rake he was what he was. But then, why wouldn't the author paint a real picture of a rape victim? Would a rape victim marry her rapist with love in her eyes?
Perhaps I'm too modern for this book. Perhaps I'm too enlightened, having watching two documentaries of women fighting hard to punish those who raped them, and having society disappointing them again and again because society didn't believe them. Some even thought they deserved it.
After watching these documentaries, there's no way in good conscience can I call this book amazing, enlightening, complex or whatever claptrap description its supporters have foisted on it. This book is perpetuating a dangerous idea in women's heads: That there can be romance after a man rapes you.
It began so well- Gaffney is an amazing writer, and I was so amazed that I found a new writer at last!
Then THAT SCENE happened. I was in utter disbelief. Are you kidding me? I was not ready for . I am surprised that so many people would call this book a classic, and one of the best in the genre. Look, I totally get that the bodice rippers of the 70s had a lot of rape in them, but this was written in 2003 and there's just no excuse. Those who support and talk highly about the book say that the author was painting the picture of a less-than-perfect rake, that as a rake he was what he was. But then, why wouldn't the author paint a real picture of a rape victim? Would a rape victim marry her rapist with love in her eyes?
Perhaps I'm too modern for this book. Perhaps I'm too enlightened, having watching two documentaries of women fighting hard to punish those who raped them, and having society disappointing them again and again because society didn't believe them. Some even thought they deserved it.
After watching these documentaries, there's no way in good conscience can I call this book amazing, enlightening, complex or whatever claptrap description its supporters have foisted on it. This book is perpetuating a dangerous idea in women's heads: That there can be romance after a man rapes you.
March 8, 2017
Fue una historia muy rara.
En un principio me molestaba mucho la actitud de Sebastian, el como disfrutaba de la incomodidad de la protagonista, me causaba conflicto como la obligaba a hacer cosas que ella claramente no quería, como le excitaba su vulnerabilidad. Me pareció cruel y un poco enfermo.
Pero luego cuando fue conociendo a Rachel y su pasado desgarrador, lo conmovió su situación.
Su romance fue pausado, ni siquiera me di cuenta cuando la relación entre ellos cambió y los sentimientos comenzaron a involucrarse.
Me gustó la narrativa de la autora, el como cuenta lo tormentoso del pasado de Rachel pero sin desvelar nada cruel o decirlo en palabras más "francas".
Es una historia bonita, pero me faltó conectar con los protagonistas y con su historia.
Buena para pasar el rato pero no de las memorables.
En un principio me molestaba mucho la actitud de Sebastian, el como disfrutaba de la incomodidad de la protagonista, me causaba conflicto como la obligaba a hacer cosas que ella claramente no quería, como le excitaba su vulnerabilidad. Me pareció cruel y un poco enfermo.
Pero luego cuando fue conociendo a Rachel y su pasado desgarrador, lo conmovió su situación.
Su romance fue pausado, ni siquiera me di cuenta cuando la relación entre ellos cambió y los sentimientos comenzaron a involucrarse.
Me gustó la narrativa de la autora, el como cuenta lo tormentoso del pasado de Rachel pero sin desvelar nada cruel o decirlo en palabras más "francas".
Es una historia bonita, pero me faltó conectar con los protagonistas y con su historia.
Buena para pasar el rato pero no de las memorables.
January 9, 2020
Sebastian Verlaine, Viscount D'Aubrey, is a twisted bag of dicks. When he sees ex-convict Rachel Wade brought before the law for homelessness, he offers her a choice: come and work for him as his housekeeper, or go back to prison. His plan: seduce the bejesus out of her because he's a twisted fucking bag of dicks. Her plan: survive it.
After a sexual encounter that is not not rape, Sebastian has an awakening when he spends an evening listening to his "friends" verbally taunt and torment Mrs. Wade, and then threaten her with rape. From this moment on, he is a caring, dedicated lover to the healing Rachel, who is regaining her confidence and autonomy following 10 years in gaol.
1. So here's the blanket spoiler / trigger warning for the rest of this review: there's emotionally abusive relationships, rape, physical abuse, sexual assault, etc. This book goes places.
2. I...am struggling to enumerate my thoughts on this book.
3. I thought the prose was engaging and the writing—the word choice, the evocative tone, the careful choreography of internal narratives and personal growth—was a piece of art. Full disclosure: all stars I assign for this book are for the words on the page and not for the story it told. Because the story is RIPE.
4. The first half of the book casts Sebastian as a heinous fuckface: he chooses to help Rachel not out of the goodness of his heart, but because he wants to derive pleasure in possessing her. He wants to have her at his mercy. He emotionally lashes out at her when she does not perform to his grotesque standards. He taunts her and pushes her because seeing her uncomfortable makes him feel alive.
And then there's the non-consensual sex. I mean, it's rape? It's rape. He rapes her. He, at one point, tells her to “relax [...]. Don’t make it a rape.” HAVING TO SAY THAT MEANS IT’S A GODDAMNED RAPE.
AND THEN: The second half of the book (post Sebastian’s ~awakening~) recasts him as a man who is learning to be a better person, who is learning to care for another before himself. He stumbles and is not perfect, but he does want to do better.
(Can it matter though? With the shadow of the hero’s abuse and torment of the heroine there, in the text? Can such a hero be worth the pagecount?)
5. The problem is that this conclusion doesn’t work when the fucking thing is rotten from the core. It posits that the acts committed in the first half of the book are redeemable. That they can be forgiven and forgotten. That they were...purposeful, with cause, because they were needed to connect these two characters.
...I hope that everyone can see how gross that sentiment is without me needing to resort to keysmashing capslock. I mean, I absolutely will if needed, because KJHSKDJFH FUCKING YIKES.
6. All of this and I haven’t touched on Rachel. After spending ten years in prison for the murder of her physically and sexually abusive husband, she is a fragile, downtrodden woman who struggles with making decisions and meeting other’s eyes. She has battened down her emotions to protect herself from the anger and injustice of being falsely accused and ostracized after her release.
(Her marriage thing is a whole nasty ball of gross, too: this nearly 40 year old father of her best friend ends up courting and proposing to a SEVENTEEN YEAR OLD RACHEL and then proceeds to inflict sadomasochistic abuse on her before he turns up toes up in his study one week after the wedding.)
And her growing confidence and assurance and friendships with the villagers is great. She makes a place for herself and in it builds a new definition for herself. Too bad it relies so heavily on Sebastian the dick bag tho!
She deserved a better hero. We all deserved a better hero.
7. Also the ending is a strange harried knot of a thing: it’s all wrapped up with a deathbed confession letter and a chat over wine and sandwiches. It’s fine but I once again point out that the book didn’t earn the resolution!
After a sexual encounter that is not not rape, Sebastian has an awakening when he spends an evening listening to his "friends" verbally taunt and torment Mrs. Wade, and then threaten her with rape. From this moment on, he is a caring, dedicated lover to the healing Rachel, who is regaining her confidence and autonomy following 10 years in gaol.
1. So here's the blanket spoiler / trigger warning for the rest of this review: there's emotionally abusive relationships, rape, physical abuse, sexual assault, etc. This book goes places.
2. I...am struggling to enumerate my thoughts on this book.
3. I thought the prose was engaging and the writing—the word choice, the evocative tone, the careful choreography of internal narratives and personal growth—was a piece of art. Full disclosure: all stars I assign for this book are for the words on the page and not for the story it told. Because the story is RIPE.
4. The first half of the book casts Sebastian as a heinous fuckface: he chooses to help Rachel not out of the goodness of his heart, but because he wants to derive pleasure in possessing her. He wants to have her at his mercy. He emotionally lashes out at her when she does not perform to his grotesque standards. He taunts her and pushes her because seeing her uncomfortable makes him feel alive.
And then there's the non-consensual sex. I mean, it's rape? It's rape. He rapes her. He, at one point, tells her to “relax [...]. Don’t make it a rape.” HAVING TO SAY THAT MEANS IT’S A GODDAMNED RAPE.
AND THEN: The second half of the book (post Sebastian’s ~awakening~) recasts him as a man who is learning to be a better person, who is learning to care for another before himself. He stumbles and is not perfect, but he does want to do better.
(Can it matter though? With the shadow of the hero’s abuse and torment of the heroine there, in the text? Can such a hero be worth the pagecount?)
5. The problem is that this conclusion doesn’t work when the fucking thing is rotten from the core. It posits that the acts committed in the first half of the book are redeemable. That they can be forgiven and forgotten. That they were...purposeful, with cause, because they were needed to connect these two characters.
...I hope that everyone can see how gross that sentiment is without me needing to resort to keysmashing capslock. I mean, I absolutely will if needed, because KJHSKDJFH FUCKING YIKES.
6. All of this and I haven’t touched on Rachel. After spending ten years in prison for the murder of her physically and sexually abusive husband, she is a fragile, downtrodden woman who struggles with making decisions and meeting other’s eyes. She has battened down her emotions to protect herself from the anger and injustice of being falsely accused and ostracized after her release.
(Her marriage thing is a whole nasty ball of gross, too: this nearly 40 year old father of her best friend ends up courting and proposing to a SEVENTEEN YEAR OLD RACHEL and then proceeds to inflict sadomasochistic abuse on her before he turns up toes up in his study one week after the wedding.)
And her growing confidence and assurance and friendships with the villagers is great. She makes a place for herself and in it builds a new definition for herself. Too bad it relies so heavily on Sebastian the dick bag tho!
She deserved a better hero. We all deserved a better hero.
7. Also the ending is a strange harried knot of a thing: it’s all wrapped up with a deathbed confession letter and a chat over wine and sandwiches. It’s fine but I once again point out that the book didn’t earn the resolution!
September 25, 2021
3.75 stars.
Well, it's a good read not as dark as I expected thought.
The Hero, you won't call him that on the first half of the book.
He just spoiled rich guy with too much money and time on his hand and feeling bored.
Nothing good to say about him, he took the heroine and give her a job because he wanted her, as simply as that.
The heroine? She wasn't stupid, she knew from the start what he want from her and kind of resigned with the situation, because the other choice is unthinkable, she could return to gaol if she didn't get a job. Poor thing, but good for her fighting spirit.
So yes, he treated her as he pleased and getting worst when he started to feel something for her, then something really bad almost happened to heroine because of him. Shock himself I supposed and made him see how his life became and how awful he was.
After that he was changing, and the story as like other romance story, not bad but his change is too much and annoying me. He certainly not Anne Stuart's hero, LOL:))
Oh well, still an enjoyable read!
Well, it's a good read not as dark as I expected thought.
The Hero, you won't call him that on the first half of the book.
He just spoiled rich guy with too much money and time on his hand and feeling bored.
Nothing good to say about him, he took the heroine and give her a job because he wanted her, as simply as that.
The heroine? She wasn't stupid, she knew from the start what he want from her and kind of resigned with the situation, because the other choice is unthinkable, she could return to gaol if she didn't get a job. Poor thing, but good for her fighting spirit.
So yes, he treated her as he pleased and getting worst when he started to feel something for her, then something really bad almost happened to heroine because of him. Shock himself I supposed and made him see how his life became and how awful he was.
After that he was changing, and the story as like other romance story, not bad but his change is too much and annoying me. He certainly not Anne Stuart's hero, LOL:))
Oh well, still an enjoyable read!
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