Customer Reviews

Undone

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Virginia Henley is a gifted writer. Her books stand out among the best. This book was also well-written. My problem with it was the very sad turn of events it takes. It was too much. Even though the ending made up for it, I was too wrung out.

I am always advocating for more drama in romance novels, so I didn't think I would say this, but this novel had too much drama. I just finished reading it and it has my emotions in turmoil. I would certainly recommend it, but beware, this is not a lighthearted, easy to read story, nor is your usual, uncomplicated romance. This book gets you emotionally involved, makes you lose sleep and throws your feelings into a whirlwind at times. I think for the first time since I started reading romance novels, I found one that made me unsure it would have a happy ending. The novel got so complicated and tragic at times that I really feared for their "happily everafter".

I just learned when I read the review in this page that this novel is loosely based on real facts. Maybe that explains some things that happened that I considered unnecesarilly tragic, like the death of someone towards the end of the book that made absolutely no sense to me, since it didn't contribute anything important to the main story and was a very sad event. I won't say who it is as to not spoil the surprise. You'll know who I'm talking about if you read the novel.

The one complain I have about this book is that it was too long. In fact the first one hundred pages or so, where so slow that I actually put it down 3 times and read other books before I finally decided to finish this one. In the end I'm glad that I read it completely, because after the first initial calm the book picks up the pace, but after that outburst, it slows down again after Elizabeth marries. Her married life took too much of the novel, and John Campbell, who was supossedly the other main character rather dissapears from the book for long periods of time, only appearing sporadically. During that time the story is only from Elizabeth point of view, and we don't know much about John. The novel was more about Elizabeth journey from an innocent little girl to a mature woman, and I felt that John was only slightly more important in the novel than the rest of the secondary characters. To put it in other words, if the novel was a movie we would probably be seeing more of the villain and the support cast than the hero. I really think that more than 400 pages of small print were not justified to tell the love story of this book. But then that is just my personal opinion.

This said, I can only add that if you are ready for a strongly emotional and intense novel, don't miss this one. If you are just looking for a light and fun read, "Undone" is not for you.

After reading the reviews that panned UNDONE, I felt I had to write a review.
I very much enjoyed this story and read it in one sitting because I couldn't put it down! It is an extraordinary example of the BEST that Romantic fiction has to offer!!!

There are two points I wanted to make in response to other reviews posted here.

I appreciate the research that Ms. Henley and her team has done and it made this novel exceptional in its genre.
I researched Elizabeth Gunning online and I also saw that Elizabeth had three children from her marriage with James. However, I give Ms. Henley kudos for her use of artistic license which allows Elizabeth to have one child from that marriage. It is essential to the storyline, and in keeping with our ideas of what a romance novel should be, that the child be fathered by her true love and not the "villain". Three, all fathered by John and not James, would have been ridiculous.

Yes, we DO expect to see the lovers end up happily together in the end. THAT is what makes it a romance novel. I enjoyed the twists in the storyline which kept the lovers apart and kept me on the edge of my seat.
Ms Henley has created wonderful complex characters in this novel and I enjoyed watching them grow and mature through the story, especially our heroine. Elizabeth begins our story as a 16 year old girl who is completely controlled by her mother and becomes a strong and courageous woman and mother before the story is through. I was shocked when Elizabeth refused to marry her true love after she had become a widow, but after reading on it all became clear. Elizabeth was refusing MARRIAGE (essentially a state of ownership in those times) not LOVE. After considering this last twist I also understood that Ms. Henley was being true to her characters and I appreciated the novel all the more for it.

Thank you, Ms. Henley for an extraordinary novel!!!

Setting - Great Britain 1751 ---- Virginia Henley has taken a piece of history about a common, lowborn but beautiful young woman, done her research, and given her readers this romantic and fictionalized remarkable story of her life. The young woman, Elizabeth Gunning (1733-1790), and her older sister Maria, whose beginnings from an impoverished family rose to impressive heights through the ambitious and clever manipulations of their mother. With nothing but their incredible good looks these two sisters, manipulated by their ambitious mother, posed as minor nobility where they were soon courted by the cream of the Georgian nobility. Elizabeth, became a Duchess, not once but twice and her story is told in Henley's most impressive and sensual style.

The story is told from Elizabeth's meager beginnings in Ireland, where she first met the handsome John Campbell, heir to the Duke of Argyll and her story is fictionalized and chronicled thru to her first marriage to Campbell's enemy the Duke of Hamilton. The author will depict Campbell's love for Elizabeth as all consuming, yet, he alone knowing the truth of her origins, couldn't see his way clear to offer her marriage due to the difference in their status. When the Duke of Hamilton heard of Campbell's regard for the glorious Elizabeth, he thought to kill two birds with one stone by tweaking his archenemies nose and gaining for himself a `trophy wife' and duchess!

The fictionalized story of the Gunning sisters rise to fame was, for me, a most enjoyable read. The historical details were numerous as one comes to expect in a novel from Henley, yet I was unaware of the existence of this person until I read the author's note at the end. Be that as it may, where it is fictionalized I found it to be deeply sensual with some very torrid love scenes. One can only imagine that for a woman in that early period of history to have won not one, but two Dukes of the realm in marriage, must have been a most remarkable woman. So, for those of you looking for a most enjoyable and entertaining look back into history - enjoy, and for those looking for a very sensual and steamy read - look no further! **** Marilyn, Official Reviewer for www.historicromancewriters.com

In Virginia Henley's much awaited new release, UNDONE, we meet two lovely sisters, Elizabeth and Maria. Both sisters are equally lovely but their mother Bridget favors Maria, the oldest, and sets her very ambitious sights on her. Since they are poor and Bridge comes from a theatrical background at first she trains both daughters to be actresses. As their prospects change, Bridget realizes she can set her sites higher and decides to enter society and present her daughters. To do this her husband must borrow huge sums of money, sell their family home, and present an air of wealth.

Elizabeth, who had met John Campbell quite by chance before moving to London, meets him again in society. They are drawn to each other and there is a very passionate connection between these two characters. Elizabeth, constantly overseen by her very dominate and controlling mother, finds herself maneuvered from party to party, and giving up lovely dresses to Maria, her sister, in her mother's effort to marry her off. Elizabeth, whose natural and genuine appeal shines through, befriends Charlie a very wealthy heiress and her beau Will, a friend of John's. As they plan many secret "couple rendezvous" events John and Elizabeth become closer. Meanwhile, Bridget continues to plan her daughters' future and as John leaves for Scotland and official business plans for Elizabeth to marry the very wealthy Duke of Hamilton. Realizing that John will never marry her, and the prospects of her family lie in her hands...she marries the Duke.

This story is lovely. Virginia Henley has reigned in her fiery pen to tantalize us with a subtler sensual tale than her previous works. Still filled with the steamy scenes we all expect from Ms. Henley, this story is presented to us at a slower pace, allowing us to get to know and care about the characters. Elizabeth's delightful innocence and growth into a strong woman who knows what she wants is an empowering tale for anyone to read who knows the progression from girl to womanhood well - and the trials and tribulations that shape a persons character.

UNDONE is not be missed!

Let me start with the good before I go to the bad...
This book is a lusty novel full of romance (how cliche!)... The two main characters are helplessly in love and are tragically kept apart by a sequence of events. Sounds like the perfect novel, no?
Well, I don't know about you, but passion doesn't hold a novel together. This is not the book to curl up and read if you want a light happy reading. Expect to be brought to the brink of tears over and over again.
I personally read this and felt as if the author was playing with my emotions a tad to much. The drama was becoming well insufferable. There came a point that I honestly was ready to put the book down and not pick it up again. Now don't get me wrong, drama can be a good thing, and the use of pathos (the techinque of playing with the readers emotions) can create a very very good book, but only if it is done subtly. By the end of this book I was honestly happy I had finished it, almost like someone would feel after they weathered a hurricane.
If you like the tragic romance, this book is for you, but if you are like me, and read romances to get that warm glowy feeling after you finish, I don't suggest it. It is, in all aspects, a matter of taste...

I read this book when I was deployed in the Middle East back in 2004. The story of this romance novel was just so different from the way many of romance novels are written and I could not put it down. I carried this book in my duffel bag and read it in a tent, a humvee, the chow hall, and even for long hours stranded on flightlines on my way to Germany. The story offered a great escape from my current environment then and made me smile, laugh, feel sad, and fortunate that I had those few moments to take this book out and read it whenever I had the opportunity. I pictured myself reading this at home and probably letting the dish pile up because I just did not care for anything else (a little too much but at the time it offered a better alternative than missing my husband and home). The heroin Maria was a victim of circumstances and her own cruel mother. She had to go through a series of tests but in the end came out triumphant against all odds. I loved it that she was married off to someone else but she still had her first child from the man she truly loved. Well, just read it and enjoy the twists and surprises.

In 1751 in a remote part of Ireland, Duke John Gunning and Elizabeth Gunning, meeting for the first time, share a Midsummer Night's Dream encounter. Both are attracted to one another, but neither expects an aristocrat and a commoner to run into each other ever again as their circles are quite different.

Elizabeth's pushy mom plans to have both her daughters perform on the stage. She turns to her friend actress Peg Wolffington for help. Peg takes to the two young females and arranges for the three women to see her perform at Dublin Castle. She goes so far as to sham a relationship insisting that the two siblings are daughters of Viscount Mayo, a lord in the most remote isolated part of the country. However, also at the castle is John, whose silence can only be bought with kisses from the real Elizabeth, not the performer.

This is a fun Georgian Era romance that puts a twist on the taboo of acting by making it an acceptable occupation. The story line grips the readers as John and Elizabeth fall in love, but must cope with the overarching reach of her mom, who would be the mother-in-law from hell. Fans of the period will enjoy Virginia Henley's latest tale because as usual the author provides a deep historical piece inside a strong character driven romance.

Harriet Klausner

In 1751 in a remote part of Ireland, Duke John Gunning and Elizabeth Gunning, meeting for the first time, share a Midsummer Night's Dream encounter. Both are attracted to one another, but neither expects an aristocrat and a commoner to run into each other ever again as their circles are quite different.

Elizabeth's pushy mom plans to have both her daughters perform on the stage. She turns to her friend actress Peg Wolffington for help. Peg takes to the two young females and arranges for the three women to see her perform at Dublin Castle. She goes so far as to sham a relationship insisting that the two siblings are daughters of Viscount Mayo, a lord in the most remote isolated part of the country. However, also at the castle is John, whose silence can only be bought with kisses from the real Elizabeth, not the performer.

This is a fun Georgian Era romance that puts a twist on the taboo of acting by making it an acceptable occupation. The story line grips the readers as John and Elizabeth fall in love, but must cope with the overarching reach of her mom, who would be the mother-in-law from hell. Fans of the period will enjoy Virginia Henley's latest tale because as usual the author provides a deep historical piece inside a strong character driven romance.

Harriet Klausner

Supposedly Ms. Henley "researched" this book before she began writing - if that was the case, then I really think all the "research" she did was to verify some names and places and leave it at that.

I don't know, maybe I would have enjoyed it better if I hadn't done a little research of my own before I started reading it, but unfortunately I did. The book was ruined for me because I kept thinking how Beth had more than one child by James Hamilton, the dates were all wrong, and how the actual story of their wedding was a heck of a lot more romantic than the fictional account Ms. Henley gave.

The dialogue just wasn't up to par for her either, with the characters coming off just a little stilted. And since Ms. Henley was taking the literary license that she was, it would have been nice if perhaps she would have seen fit to give Beth a backbone, rather than just let her mother and Hamilton walk all over her the way they did. I would have also liked a little more story with Beth and her first husband. Supposedly she was scared of him, but I could never quite understand why?

As for the ending, well, that just seemed to be tacked on to the end to give a little drama to the book, but it didn't make any sense in the flow of the narrative. Beth had spent nearly the entire book in love with this man, so why bulk at marriage when he was proposing? Was the reader supposed to be surprised when Beth decided to marry him after all?

This could have been an outstanding book if she would have stuck to the facts a little more - that and perhaps tacked on 200 more pages and cut out some of the filler that was used. But as it was, the literary license she took just kept bothering me, therefore keeping me from enjoying this book as much as I could have.

I do understand that this was a fictional account of the romance between Elizabeth Gunning and John Campbell, but really, the truth appears to be a heck of a lot more romantic than what Ms. Henley came up with.