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Daring and Decorum: A Highwayman Novel
Elizabeth Collington, the twenty-year-old daughter of a country vicar, longs for more than the circumscribed life of her 18th-century Devonshire village. When a highwayman steals a kiss along with her mother's necklace – provoking feelings of which her father would never approve – she suddenly has a secret no one must know. But the highwayman also has a "he" is actually a woman.
Will the story of the highwayman's past – complete with a tyrannical husband, a gloomy castle, and a daring escape into London's underworld – persuade Elizabeth to abandon propriety in favor of passion? In the end, can the lovers make an independent life in a world where women are little more than property, evading both the redcoats and the jealous young lord who would tear them apart?
Daring and Decorum is comedy of manners wrapped around a gothic tale; a mashup of Jane Austen, Alfred Noyes' poem The Highwayman, Robin Hood, and Moll Cutpurse; and a passionate case for the freedom to love whom one chooses, Daring and A Highwayman Novel should appeal to fans of Ellen Kushner's Riverside series, Emma Donoghue's Life Mask, and Michelle Martin's Pembroke Park (billed as the first lesbian Regency).
Will the story of the highwayman's past – complete with a tyrannical husband, a gloomy castle, and a daring escape into London's underworld – persuade Elizabeth to abandon propriety in favor of passion? In the end, can the lovers make an independent life in a world where women are little more than property, evading both the redcoats and the jealous young lord who would tear them apart?
Daring and Decorum is comedy of manners wrapped around a gothic tale; a mashup of Jane Austen, Alfred Noyes' poem The Highwayman, Robin Hood, and Moll Cutpurse; and a passionate case for the freedom to love whom one chooses, Daring and A Highwayman Novel should appeal to fans of Ellen Kushner's Riverside series, Emma Donoghue's Life Mask, and Michelle Martin's Pembroke Park (billed as the first lesbian Regency).
252 pages, Kindle Edition
Published August 1, 2017
1 person is currently reading
49 people want to read
About the author
Lawrence Hogue
5 books35 followersLawrence Hogue is a writer, educator, environmental advocate, and stay-at-home dad. His previous books include All the Wild and Lonely Places: Journeys in a Desert Landscape (nonfiction/nature writing, Island Press, 2000), Daring and Decorum (LGBTQ historical romance, Supposed Crimes, 2018), the post-apocalyptic sci[fi novel, Ada's Children (2024), and a self-published collection of three short stories, Desert Trilogy. A satire on conspiracy theories and false beliefs, Ship of Fools, is forthcoming, or can be read on his Substack. He is also the author of numerous magazine articles, mainly on the outdoors and especially the desert. His literary influences include Thomas Pynchon, William Gibson, Dave Eggers, James S.A. Corey, Emily St. John Mandel, and Kim Stanley Robinson, as well as the video game Horizon Zero Dawn. When not writing, he likes to hike, cycle, and go Nordic skiing; play video games; and work or volunteer in various capacities to protect nature.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
June 10, 2017
'Thanks to Suppose Crime Publishers for my ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review'
An ok read..a romantic,vivid love story that takes place in the hidden and 18th century times when people had to hide to show their feelings..through every dishy,page-turning twist,it seems that one person's happiness leads to another's misfortune and suddenly everyone,including both leading characters using any means necessary..the book lacks a bit of realism when it comes to the portrayal of women loving each other and even chemistry...the dialogue also felt a bit too clean..ended ok
An ok read..a romantic,vivid love story that takes place in the hidden and 18th century times when people had to hide to show their feelings..through every dishy,page-turning twist,it seems that one person's happiness leads to another's misfortune and suddenly everyone,including both leading characters using any means necessary..the book lacks a bit of realism when it comes to the portrayal of women loving each other and even chemistry...the dialogue also felt a bit too clean..ended ok
October 13, 2017
Lawrence Hogue’s Daring and Decorum, stands out in the micro-genre of lesbian historic highwaywomen stories for its solid worldbuilding and the deliberation with which it builds the relationship between the two female protagonists, making both their attraction and the obstacles to it believable and solidly grounded in the social history of the times.
The plot follows what seems to be an obligatory formula for the micro-genre: a respectable young woman (though one with a yearning for something beyond her foreseeable fate) is one of the victims of a highwayman’s robbery, protesting the loss of a piece of jewelry that has deep sentimental meaning. The highwayman, in a change of heart, returns the jewelry, prompting (or encouraging) an inexplicable attraction between the two, and the highwayman is (eventually) revealed to be a woman who took to an outlaw life due to a tragic backstory. They, of course, fall in love, struggle with the personal, social, and legal barriers to their relationship, and eventually work their way through to a happy ending. This is actually the generic formula that applies to nearly every lesbian highwayman story I’ve encountered. What Hogue does is flesh it out into a well-written period piece.
The pacing--especially of the middle section where we learn the backstory of our second protagonist--was just on the edge of leisurely, but only because the adventures are being related to another character rather than being experienced in real time. Hogue notes in the introductory material that he was inspired in part by the Alfred Noyes poem “The Highwayman”, which may add a bit of tension for readers familiar with that work. Certain details of the book’s plot seemed a bit forced to fit the poem’s structure, but possibly not in a way that those unfamiliar with it would notice. Unlike some other similar books, the climax of the story was neither too rushed nor too pat and felt historically plausible as long as one accepts the motivations and actions of a certain third character.
Hogue has a solid grasp of the flavor of early 19th century novels without resulting in any stilted awkwardness of language. His familiarity with the historic and social background raises the book above the “erotic encounter in costume” level that is too common in lesbian historical romance. I’m not a good judge of erotic scenes in books, but those in Daring and Decorum didn’t seem any more awkward or inherently ridiculous than in any other story I’ve read. (Confession: I’m really not a fan of sex scenes in my historic fiction, so I’m not a good judge.)
Content warning: Unfortunately the book got off to a bad start for me with a sexual assault in the opening scene (although it didn’t go beyond groping) which was framed as inspiring the heroine’s erotic desire for the highwayman (much later revealed to be a highwaywoman). Given how much I liked the book overall, I don’t consider that one stumble a fatal flaw, but it’s certainly worth a content warning.
It wasn’t the gender perception issue in the assault scene that bothered me--to some extent when you’re dealing with historic gender-disguise plots in lesbian fiction, it really helps to view the characters as solidly bisexual, because any other framing tends to lead you down some sort of weird telepathic/gender-essentialism road. (The sort that was popular in medieval and Renaissance gender-disguise plots: “It’s ok that she fell in love with someone who she thought was a woman because it was really a man in disguise and she somehow unconsciously intuited this.”) But I digress.
No, what bothered me was invoking the trope that a woman will naturally overlook being forcibly assaulted and will find herself enjoying the assault and later fall in love with the person who assaulted her. Not only did I think that the story could have been made to work perfectly well with a different--or at least much less offensive--interaction, but the assault felt extremely out of character for the highwaywoman, as we later come to know her. It felt like cheap titillation. And given that the reader has no clue yet that this particular highwayman is our love interest (there are several people involved in the robbery), it felt like a slap in the face to readers who came to the book for some escapist woman-centered reading.
That said, most stories in this genre involve a requisite amount of fairly dubious consent, or at least of secretly enjoying a forced erotic encounter. The overall writing quality definitely makes this book worth checking out if you enjoy swashbuckling lesbian romantic adventure.
The plot follows what seems to be an obligatory formula for the micro-genre: a respectable young woman (though one with a yearning for something beyond her foreseeable fate) is one of the victims of a highwayman’s robbery, protesting the loss of a piece of jewelry that has deep sentimental meaning. The highwayman, in a change of heart, returns the jewelry, prompting (or encouraging) an inexplicable attraction between the two, and the highwayman is (eventually) revealed to be a woman who took to an outlaw life due to a tragic backstory. They, of course, fall in love, struggle with the personal, social, and legal barriers to their relationship, and eventually work their way through to a happy ending. This is actually the generic formula that applies to nearly every lesbian highwayman story I’ve encountered. What Hogue does is flesh it out into a well-written period piece.
The pacing--especially of the middle section where we learn the backstory of our second protagonist--was just on the edge of leisurely, but only because the adventures are being related to another character rather than being experienced in real time. Hogue notes in the introductory material that he was inspired in part by the Alfred Noyes poem “The Highwayman”, which may add a bit of tension for readers familiar with that work. Certain details of the book’s plot seemed a bit forced to fit the poem’s structure, but possibly not in a way that those unfamiliar with it would notice. Unlike some other similar books, the climax of the story was neither too rushed nor too pat and felt historically plausible as long as one accepts the motivations and actions of a certain third character.
Hogue has a solid grasp of the flavor of early 19th century novels without resulting in any stilted awkwardness of language. His familiarity with the historic and social background raises the book above the “erotic encounter in costume” level that is too common in lesbian historical romance. I’m not a good judge of erotic scenes in books, but those in Daring and Decorum didn’t seem any more awkward or inherently ridiculous than in any other story I’ve read. (Confession: I’m really not a fan of sex scenes in my historic fiction, so I’m not a good judge.)
Content warning: Unfortunately the book got off to a bad start for me with a sexual assault in the opening scene (although it didn’t go beyond groping) which was framed as inspiring the heroine’s erotic desire for the highwayman (much later revealed to be a highwaywoman). Given how much I liked the book overall, I don’t consider that one stumble a fatal flaw, but it’s certainly worth a content warning.
It wasn’t the gender perception issue in the assault scene that bothered me--to some extent when you’re dealing with historic gender-disguise plots in lesbian fiction, it really helps to view the characters as solidly bisexual, because any other framing tends to lead you down some sort of weird telepathic/gender-essentialism road. (The sort that was popular in medieval and Renaissance gender-disguise plots: “It’s ok that she fell in love with someone who she thought was a woman because it was really a man in disguise and she somehow unconsciously intuited this.”) But I digress.
No, what bothered me was invoking the trope that a woman will naturally overlook being forcibly assaulted and will find herself enjoying the assault and later fall in love with the person who assaulted her. Not only did I think that the story could have been made to work perfectly well with a different--or at least much less offensive--interaction, but the assault felt extremely out of character for the highwaywoman, as we later come to know her. It felt like cheap titillation. And given that the reader has no clue yet that this particular highwayman is our love interest (there are several people involved in the robbery), it felt like a slap in the face to readers who came to the book for some escapist woman-centered reading.
That said, most stories in this genre involve a requisite amount of fairly dubious consent, or at least of secretly enjoying a forced erotic encounter. The overall writing quality definitely makes this book worth checking out if you enjoy swashbuckling lesbian romantic adventure.
July 15, 2017
'Thanks to Suppose Crime Publishers for my ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review'
All in all - I only got about halfway before I had to stop reading but foresaw this would be my reaction from the very start.
**warning for sexual assault mentions
I opens with light sexual assault in the form of some forced making out + groping during a robbery and the main character enjoy it and feels weird about enjoying it. Hell I felt weird about her enjoying it too so I was right on board.
What eventually had me stop reading was an extremely violent and tragic backstory given to the love interest meant explicitly to explain her becoming a vigilante hero. I felt that the Robin Hood reasoning made enough sense as a motivation but apparently she also needed to be raped a billion times.
This I think stems from a larger issue of very poorly written female characters. The main character's entire personality and motivations revolve around "she's not like other girls" which is boring and sexist.
She and the love interest seem to have exactly zero chemistry while the love interest is presenting as a woman and in their friendship. They even describe it specifically as sisterly. I was never going to buy that as a romance.
The love interest herself is an interesting character in her robin hood motivations with the added twist of being insecure in her relationships with people, especially when she can't hide behind an alter ego. All this complexity was completely lost when the aggressively tragic backstory came into play - even worse that this was presented as the reason for her interesting morals and personality. Woman being presented as shallow and petty and immoral until truly terrible things happen to them is not my favourite trope.
2 stars for the interactions between the lead and the highwayman having good chemistry and being fun to read - the plotline about the jilted lord had potential to be fun as well as long as it stayed away from additional sexual assault.
All in all - I only got about halfway before I had to stop reading but foresaw this would be my reaction from the very start.
**warning for sexual assault mentions
I opens with light sexual assault in the form of some forced making out + groping during a robbery and the main character enjoy it and feels weird about enjoying it. Hell I felt weird about her enjoying it too so I was right on board.
What eventually had me stop reading was an extremely violent and tragic backstory given to the love interest meant explicitly to explain her becoming a vigilante hero. I felt that the Robin Hood reasoning made enough sense as a motivation but apparently she also needed to be raped a billion times.
This I think stems from a larger issue of very poorly written female characters. The main character's entire personality and motivations revolve around "she's not like other girls" which is boring and sexist.
She and the love interest seem to have exactly zero chemistry while the love interest is presenting as a woman and in their friendship. They even describe it specifically as sisterly. I was never going to buy that as a romance.
The love interest herself is an interesting character in her robin hood motivations with the added twist of being insecure in her relationships with people, especially when she can't hide behind an alter ego. All this complexity was completely lost when the aggressively tragic backstory came into play - even worse that this was presented as the reason for her interesting morals and personality. Woman being presented as shallow and petty and immoral until truly terrible things happen to them is not my favourite trope.
2 stars for the interactions between the lead and the highwayman having good chemistry and being fun to read - the plotline about the jilted lord had potential to be fun as well as long as it stayed away from additional sexual assault.
July 7, 2017
An endearing, at times surprisingly lusty, love story for the Jane Austen fan. The heroine is charming and her journey of self-realization from buttoned-down, restrained vicar's daughter to the bold lover of another woman is believable within the constraints of the genre. Hogue does a really nice job capturing the "feel" of the era's writing style, and combines it with some quite frank, yet tasteful, lesbian eroticism. The character of the "highwayman" feels a bit more artificial - so much happens (in backstory flashback) to this person that it's a bit overwhelming. However, this sort of "let me tell you my story" character development is common to the original genre, and Hogue handles it well. If you're looking for a sweet and passionate romance that has a genuine period feel to it, Daring and Decorum would be a fine choice.
June 18, 2017
Lizzie is the daughter of a local pastor in a small, rural town in England some time during the late 1700s or early 1800s. Traveling in a carriage with her friend, the son of the local lord, they are set upon by a highwayman, who not only steals Lizzie's broach but a kiss as well. Soon Lizzie can think of nothing else but the highwayman.
This novel is an adaptation of the famous poem written as a romance between two women. The writing is smooth and engaging. The setting and historical detail is well drawn. While the first third is a bit long, the rest of the book moves at a good pace.
This novel is an adaptation of the famous poem written as a romance between two women. The writing is smooth and engaging. The setting and historical detail is well drawn. While the first third is a bit long, the rest of the book moves at a good pace.
December 3, 2017
2017 Rainbow Awards Honorable Mention: Daring and Decorum (A Highwayman Novel) Lawrence Hogue
1)This adaptation of the famous poem, The Highwayman, is a historical romance between two women, one a local pastor's daughter and the other the dashing thief who robs nobles and uses these gains to help the poor. The author presents historical details convincingly, describes a small rural town vividly, and provides the forward plot as well as the backstory in a manner that holds the reader's attention.
1)This adaptation of the famous poem, The Highwayman, is a historical romance between two women, one a local pastor's daughter and the other the dashing thief who robs nobles and uses these gains to help the poor. The author presents historical details convincingly, describes a small rural town vividly, and provides the forward plot as well as the backstory in a manner that holds the reader's attention.
August 4, 2023
would like to thank netgalley and the publisher for letting me read this book
a highwayman robs elizabeth collington of her mothers necklace and a kiss
and from that day their fate is sealed...
its an interesting tale of love and betrayal and friendship... whats one persons loss is another persons gain...
a highwayman robs elizabeth collington of her mothers necklace and a kiss
and from that day their fate is sealed...
its an interesting tale of love and betrayal and friendship... whats one persons loss is another persons gain...
August 12, 2023
I really admire the author's dedication to not only historical accuracy in period setting, but even the writing style and general philosophy is consistent with the time. Unfortunately, this style is not really for me. The style made the characters feel detached and aloof, so it was difficult for me to get into it. I'll stick to historical fiction with a more modern voice.
May 5, 2020
Great characters ad well as great plot
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews