Customer Reviews

Lessons of Desire (Rothwell Brothers)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(12)

 

 

The comparison to a conqueror would apply in Madeline Hunter's LESSONS OF DESIRE if Elliot Rothwell actually did anything. Instead, he harbors a lot of emotional angst and he acquiesces to everything according to Phaedra's terms and conditions. I have to admire Madeline Hunter for writing a heroine so different from the historical-romance norm such as Phaedra Blair, but I can't say I liked Phaedra and Elliot together. The book belongs to Phaedra Blair, her eccentric individuality, her dogged pursuit to print her late father's explosive memoirs, and her investigation to discover her late mother's last lover. On his deathbed, Phaedra's father claimed this last lover of her mother's eventually caused her mother's morose decline. Elliot Rothwell accompanies Phaedra on this journey to discover her mother's last lover. Elliot tries to dissuade her from printing portions of the memoirs which vilify his family, but he mostly cheers her on from the sidelines. Throughout the second half, Elliot inappropriately grovels at Phaedra's feet quite a bit too. Even following the very last page of this 386-page paperback, it didn't seem like Phaedra really wanted to marry him. Although she finally agrees and thinks she wants marriage with Elliot, she unfairly tests Elliot quite a bit. She makes him beg and voice copious words of love and affection before nonchalantly agreeing to marriage. Phaedra really doesn't deserve Elliot, and I was a little sickened by Elliot's constant debased groveling at Phaedra's feet.

I found the plotting, prose and settings below-average in this novel, but my dislike of the characters may have something to do with that feeling. For many romance books with relatively weak plotting, it's usually a hit-or-miss deal resting on whether the characters work for you or not. Madeline Hunter is better in this respect than most because she usually intersperses some intriguing plotting aside from a gritty romance itself. In LESSONS OF DESIRE, I felt the incongruous h/h interaction took away from the plotting dealing with Phaedra's memoirs. STEALING HEAVEN (*****) also featured a confident, experienced heroine at odds with her hero. There however, the hero turned heaven and earth upside down for his heroine, and it was very compelling. The combative tension there was mutually acknowledged and anticipated by both. In LESSONS OF DESIRE, Elliot doesn't really do anything, and his excessive groveling at the end seemed very inappropriate for a woman who clearly doesn't want marriage. Her last-second turnaround towards marriage wasn't very convincing either.

In many ways, LESSONS OF DESIRE represents the antithesis of RULES OF SEDUCTION and its heroine. RULES OF SEDUCTION's Alexia was practical, sensible and amenable to marriage, while LESSONS OF DESIRE's Phaedra is the polar opposite. Phaedra doesn't believe in the very institution of marriage.

Phaedra Blair believes in a philosophy espoused by her late mother, "free love" (a forward concept for the time period). Later in the novel, Elliot accurately recognizes the philosophy for what it is: "free pleasure." Phaedra also scorns a marital relationship which in her view chains a woman to a man. Poor Elliot; more than once, Phaedra fervently rebels against marriage with Elliot. When Elliot disconsolately provides Phaedra with the names of lawyers who help women in divorce cases, Phaedra hypocritically feels a "twist of disappointment" that Elliot would not contest her wishes for undoing their marriage. When Elliot writes to her expressing concern for her safety at her home, Phaedra almost blames Elliot for not asking her to come live with him. All this after Elliot practically begs her to continue with the marriage only to have her reject the marriage, and by extension, him! And over what? A feminist philosophy which repudiates the notion of marriage and how it always has to be: the woman chained to the man. If anything, it was Elliot enslaved by Phaedra, not the other way around. I thought it was incongruous to have Elliot use the words "love" first when it was always Phaedra who rejected and rebelled from him.

Elliot chances on too many opportunities to protect Phaedra from herself but he never seizes them. The book makes Elliot too much of a romantic goody boy: in Italy, he arranges to liberate Phaedra from an imprisonment of her own making twice, he protects her, he submits to her conditions for intimacy, he accepts Phaedra's lifestyle of "free love" and defends Phaedra's mother and her way of life when Phaedra expresses hatred towards her mother, he honors Phaedra's oath to print her father's controversial memoirs, he never coerces the witness Merriweather to retract statements which impugn Elliot's family, he never asks Phaedra to omit the portions of the memoirs which malign his family's name, he doesn't even abscond with the manuscript when Pheadra didn't want to print them herself.

Some of the transitions from a grave, quarrelsome tension to a sensual undercurrent seemed unsuitable at best, very jarring at worst. They're arguing over the gravity of how these memoirs could sully families' names and all of a sudden there's all this sexual chemistry. Other times, Elliot's thoughts over his mother's cheating and his father's cold imprisonment segues into his desire for Phaedra (p. 69). It didn't work for me, but maybe it did for others.

Finally, I didn't like this book weighing the greater evil between their father-the-jailer and their mother-the-adulteress. Elliot's mother loves another and in response, his father incarcerates her. Of the two evils, LESSONS OF DESIRE taints Elliot's father the late Marquess of Easterbrook's actions as the greater evil. I'm not so sure. He tragically loved someone who loved another. The father responded unfairly, but I don't believe their mother's betrayal in wedlock was somehow "less wrong."

I had high hopes for this book. Unfortunately I was very disappointed, mostly because of the heroine. She is not someone I would know or want to know. I am no prude, but in my opinion, "free love" and romance are oxymorons.

Even though Ms. Hunter went to great lenghts in her depiction of how Phaedra was raised to be a free thinker, I found her to a selfish, closed minded ideologue. She did not care about how her choices impacted those she cared about and who cared about her. She was unyielding in her opinions and not open to discourse unless it reinforced her own positions.

The strangest thing about her philosophies was that she refused to reconsider them even though she was fully aware of the negative impact her mother's lifestyle and choices had on her.

I would not call her a free thinker. She was a mouthpiece for her mother, but what were her own opinions? A free thinker does not agree with everything they are told. Rather, they think independently and critcally and come to their own conclusions.

My own conclusions are that Phaedra is one of the worst heriones ever featured in a romance novel and that wasting a fine hero like Lord Elliot on her is like throwing throwing pearls before swine.

I usually like books by this author; she breaks out of using stereotypical romance leads and gives her characters a range or emotions that approach realism (I know I know, it is excapist reading, but...) This book was not what I expected. I know it was noteworthy that the heor wasn't a stubborn @#!%* alpha-male, but the female lead took over that role instead. I never felt connection between the 2 leads. Also, I found it hypocritical that the female went into vapors everytime she possibly had to compromise on something-she was, on the other hand, very good at dishing out her own orders. Long story short, I didn't like the female lead (despite the fact that I do have feminist leanings) and I didn't really ever get why the leads fell in love, or feel any genuine connection between them.

I usually really enjoy Ms. Hunter's books - but this one was weak. First - the heroine was what myself and my romance-reading girlfriends refer to as a "feminist ninny". Not a genuine feminist - one of those ones who seem to populate romance novels purely because they are supposed to create drama through their "difference". What they actually create is a lot of irritating banter-for-the-sake-of-merely disagreeing banter; and they disagree with the "hero" just because his opinions are those of a man. They also make stupid decisions, based on their rigid "principles", which are actually just plain foolish, and even dangerous. My other major issue is - nothing really HAPPENS in this book, plot-wise. It - and its heroine - rapidly grow tedious. Ho - hum!

Sooner or later it happens to the best of them. Madeleine Hunter is one of my most favorite romance writers. But like others before her, she reached a point with this book where she just lost inspiration.
The heroine is pathetic. Feminism is all fine, but we all know that even Gloria Steinham got married. I have yet to meet a woman who madly loves a guy, and I mean loves -- not lusts after him -- and admires him greatly, but gets sick with hysteria at the thought of marrying him. I agree with the reviewer who notes that there is no chemistry between the leads. Also, the setting for their first coupling is just too far-fetched. Phaedra and Elliot are stranded in a tower in Italy with an angry mob who demands the "witch" (Phaedra) in the streets below. And this in the 19th century Europe! Simply does not hold water. Let's hope Ms. Hunter regains her usual flair for romance.

Of course I realize that plots turn on conflict and lead characters need SOMETHING to do before the sensuality and "truwe luuve" hits them, but sheesh! The male lead is thoughtful and smart and why he puts up with the thoughtless, arrogant and foolish lead female is just embarassing. At one point, he owns it as being "an English gentleman", but then that would leave this female lead as the "Ugly American" version of an English lady. Her provoking behavior in foreign settings doesn't proclaim her own independance as much as a wish for an early death! Still this author is a master of this type of historical novel and a newcomer reader to this genre might enjoy the great settings and secondary characters. For me, this formerly auto-buy author is going to receive a little break from me for awhile until she earns my hard earned $$$ back for this dog.

Ok, so we all know that it's uncool and unrealistic, these days, to write a romance novel where the hero is miraculously changed by a heroine's love from knave to knight. So why oh why would we respond well to a story about a supposedly principled heroine (with silly and rootless principles) that the hero must change? Ultimately, the heroine doesn't stand by ANY of her principles, nor does she CHOOSE to give them up. Instead, circumstances conspire to make it "easy" for her to live as everyone else does. While the prose was fine, the heroine was difficult to swallow, and a wonderful hero was ruined by taking her so seriously. (Plus, was ever a plot so dull?) My recommendation is to pass on this one, ladies! [Stick with earlier titles!]

I admit I'm a Madeline Hunter fan, so I'm giving her a little bit extra credit here, but seriously, I think I can be objective. Which is the problem. I can actually see both sides of the issues with the book. I know why some people don't like it, and I get why some do. I kind of had both reactions myself.

Phaedra Blair is a really different kind of heroine. She is not a strong willed, obstinate, spoiled, but nevertheless to-the-manor-born kind of gal. She was rasied by her parents, especially her mother to have a totally different mind set when it came to marriage and relationships. The fact that she is totally ostracized by society only makes it more real and not just a plot device. She has made an informed choice on how she wants to spend her life, and it will take something really powerful to make her change her mind.

Something like Elliot Rothwell. He, of all of the heroes I've seen, changes the most in this book. He starts out the typical English male who will work his wiles on Phaedra to get what he wants, but it backfires as he learns that what he wants is her and he's going to have to let go of some pretty ingrained ways of thinking to get her.

All this is different from the run of the mill romance novel, and the kinds of heroes and heroines we've come to expect. And while I love something different it doesn't make it necessarily...comfortable. She does seem blind at times to what kind of choice she is making, she has a tendency to leap before she looks and it takes her a long time to see that she needs to change her way of thinking too. And Elliott can look a bit weak at times because he loves her so much that he's willing to do almost anything to have her. So I can see that not sitting well with some or why they wouldn't like her.

I'm teetering on the fence here because while she frustrated me too, I can see that for someone like her it wouldn't be easy to let go of a lifetime of indoctronization. And I loved that Elliott admitted that he loved her and would do almost anything for her even though it went against his natural inclinations. I'll definitely give her props though for the love scenes that didn't seem forced there for the sake of sex but seemed a natural progression of two people who are consumed with each other.

I think, in retrospect, I'm falling off the fence on the side of liking the story very much after all. It's not the most comfortable read, but it's different and has a lot going for it.

Ugh. A good character might start out shallow, whining etc. but changes into a more mature, practical, interesting character via personal growth and love.

But she's an extremist and we're supposed to respect her because she makes sacrafices. Ok, I get it. But it would have been more interesting if she had fallen in love with a religious fanatic. At least they would have challenged each other. I'm all for unconditional love but ... the essence of attraction is that hopefully we're sent someone who will help us grow up and stop living so selfishly.

And then the description of her clothes! She wore black so she didn't have to clean her clothes regularly. That pretty much killed the ambiance for me.

I did not really care for the heroine and her philoshpy of free love. Especially since it wasn't truly her philosphy, but her mother's and she seems to be holding onto it out of loyalty. This at the expense of her hero and herself. The only redemption was the final understanding of the importance of committment in a relationship. However, she caused the hero so many problems without ever doing anything to really endear herself. I was left wondering why he even bothered with her.

The brother Christian is a true scene stealer and I eagerly await his story.