TEST
Evie Dunmore’s series about a group of young women activists in late Victorian Britain continues with Hattie’s story, Portrait of a Scotsman. Like the previous two novels in the set, this one is extremely well written and strongly characterised; the lack of agency of well-bred young ladies of the period is again critically examined, and the very genuine struggles they face in trying to reconcile rigidly traditional upbringings with their own emerging sense of self and a desire for something more are articulated with a great deal of insight. If you enjoyed the author’s previous work, chances are you’ll enjoy this, too; all the things you’ll have come to expect of her books – strong heroines and heroes who actively support them and understand their worth, themes of female empowerment and sexy, well-written romances are to be found here. BUT. In spite of all that, I have mixed feelings about this novel as a whole – mostly because I wasn’t wild about the heroine and I really disliked the ending.
Hattie Greenfield is studying art at Oxford University, but is frustrated at not being taken seriously – even by her professors, who are condescending to all the female students. She longs to create more meaningful work and paint more challenging subjects – and hopes to gain some inspiration from the work of the Pre-Raphaelites. To this end, she arranges to join a tour to view John Everett Millais’ famous painting of Ophelia, which is currently in the collection belonging to one Mr. Blackstone – a man with a reputation so black society has dubbed him “Beelzebub”, and who happens to be one of her father’s business rivals – but when she arrives at the gallery at the appointed time, she’s concerned to discover that either she’s late for the tour, or that nobody else has arrived. While she’s waiting to view the painting, a man enters the room – a darkly attractive man with hard grey eyes and unruly black hair – who offers to give her the whole tour… and promptly kisses her instead.
Lucian Blackstone (whom we met briefly in A Rogue of One’s Own) is a self-made man with a reputation for cold-blooded ruthlessness in his business dealings. Born into a Scottish mining community, he’s survived real hardship and suffering, but has pulled himself up from nothing to become a captain of industry and amass a fortune along the way. He never forgets where he came from though, and is determined to do whatever he can to improve the lots of the people who work for him. But while he’s very wealthy, he has little real power or influence, and he needs both if he’s going to be able to bring about the changes he wants to effect; so in order to make himself more… acceptable to society, he has begun the attempt to rehabilitate his fearsome reputation. Unfortunately, he hasn’t met with much success so far, but his brief meeting with Greenfield’s daughter has given him the germ of an idea as to what his next move should be. And while there are a number of well-bred young ladies in society who would suit his purpose, he’s rather surprised to find there’s really only one of them he wants.
It’s not a spoiler – it’s in the blurb – to say that it’s not long before Hattie and Blackstone are married, and even though Hattie is wildly attracted to her new husband, it’s far from the sort of marriage she had envisioned for herself. She’d wanted to find a true life-partner, someone who would share his time – and himself – with her, someone she deeply loved and who would love her the same way, and I liked that about her, that she wants love and affection and family and doesn’t see that desire as somehow ‘lesser’ – while at the same time being determined to attain her independence and be herself.
Up until this point, I was enjoying the story a lot; it’s perhaps a little slow to start, but that meant there was plenty of time for the author to establish the personalities and motivations of her characters and to round them out so they came to life on the page. But then, Hattie discovers something unpalatable and starts behaving like an immature brat rather than trying to address it, and I lost sympathy with her.
Fortunately however, the author managed to regain some of that in the second half of the book, in which the newly-weds make their way to Scotland so that Blackstone can take care of various business concerns there. Maybe it’s not the most romantic honeymoon, but the time they spend together here slowly brings them to a closer understanding of one another, and the slow-burning attraction that’s been there since their first meeting and first kiss builds into an intense desire. Running alongside the romance is a fascinating storyline about Blackstone’s desire to improve the working conditions for the people working in his mine (which also goes some way towards explaining the unpalatable thing I mentioned earlier) and to invest in new infrastructure and technologies to increase profits rather than just working the miners to death. As Hattie learns more about her husband’s past and gets to know the real man behind the reputation, she finds much to admire and a worldview similar to her own in many ways. She finds herself abandoning the resentment she’d determined to harbour against him, while Blackstone is coming to realise that the woman he’s married is far more than the nervous chatterbox he’d first thought her, and that he enjoys talking and debating with her as much as he enjoys thinking about how to get her into bed. This section is easily the best part of the book; the relationship development, as they take the time to learn about each other’s aspirations and ambitions, to learn why they are the people they are now, is extremely well done.
But then judgmental Hattie returns and jumps to a conclusion about something that may or may not be true – she has no way of knowing – and the author undid all the good work she’d done in getting me to like Hattie again. And then… the ending. Okay, so first of all, let me assure you that this book DOES have an HEA, so no worries on that score. And actually, what happens makes sense in terms of the way Hattie is characterised as someone who wants to make her own choices in life and, just as importantly, wants to be chosen. But even though I understood that, and could see the sense in it – I still thoroughly disliked it.
Hattie and Blackstone have good chemistry and they work well as a couple, but while he’s a terrific hero – a bit dangerous and somewhat morally ambiguous, but with a heart very much in the right place and a strong desire to enact change for the better – Hattie is inconsistent. I liked a lot about her and felt a lot of sympathy for her to begin with; she’s talented and smart and determined to succeed on her own terms, but unfortunately, nobody in her family sees her or appreciates her for who she truly is, and her frustration at always being the odd one out comes across really strongly. But when she became judgmental and jumped to unwarranted conclusions – I liked her a lot less.
Portrait of a Scotsman is undoubtedly entertaining and well-written, although if you’re expecting another story about women fighting for universal suffrage, you may be disappointed as this one is more about Hattie’s personal struggle to find herself and live life on her own terms. The author’s research is impeccable as always, her social commentary is insightful and razor sharp, and the central romance is a passionate and sexy slow-burn, but overall, it lacks some of the charm of the previous instalments, and my disappointment with the ending meant I came away from the book on a downer. It turned out to be one of those books I could appreciate but didn’t really feel – although I’m sure there will be many readers who disagree with me!
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Grade: B
Book Type: Historical Romance
Sensuality: Warm
Review Date: 07/09/21
Publication Date: 09/2021
Recent Comments …
Yep
This sounds delightful! I’m grabbing it, thanks
excellent book: interesting, funny dialogs, deep understanding of each character, interesting secondary characters, and also sexy.
I don’t think anyone expects you to post UK prices – it’s just a shame that such a great sale…
I’m sorry about that. We don’t have any way to post British prices as an American based site.
I have several of her books on my TBR and after reading this am moving them up the pile.
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I’ve just finished this book and I can say I’m profoundly sorry I spent $10 on it. I can’t see myself buying Dunmore again. I may try reading her again but it will be from the library. Hattie is obnoxious and supercilious. I kept thinking she was going to get better, but no, just kept getting worse to the point that now I dislike Lucian because why did he have any interest in her at all? All she did was trample on him repeatedly. Why? Because he committed the sin of marrying her?
Oh and the Americanisms creeping into the text were too much. The English and Scots do not refer to their younger sisters as “kid sisters”.
I like to read romance to feel happy. This book made me agitated and decidedly unhappy.
Dunmore’s heroines all treat the heroes far worse than the heroes treat them. It’s my least favorite thing about her work.
I’m not sure I’ll read her again, either. My brain recognises she’s a very good writer, but for a romance to be enjoyable it need to appeal to the heart as well, and that certainly didn’t happen for me here – other than that I liked Lucian very much. Her heroes are all wonderful – but then she pairs them with heroines who are much harder to like – as Dabney says, the heroines don’t generally treat the heroes very well, and for me, that does not a romance make. A good romance is about equality, not about one partner getting one over on the other all the time.
But this seems to be the direction historical romance is taking – there are a lot of writers who seem to think having heroines who treat men like crap is somehow payback for years of patriarchal dominance. I’d argue that two wrongs don’t make a right and that we’re better than that.
I like strong heroines, but strong does NOT equal mean, thoughtless, or prone physically violence. I gave up on this author at Rogue of One’s Own.
Exactly – yet there is a whole slew of authors (some big names among them) who only seem able to signal that a heroine is “strong” by having her run rings around the hero and behave like a spoilt brat.
I thought this was Evie Dunmore’s best book….but I agree with some of the issues. Can I split my ballot?
Her writing is evocative and she has a tight plot. I love Blackstone as a hero. He may be my favorite hero of 2021. He is realistic about his flaws and ambition. He is pragmatic. And he develops into a hero worthy of a strong female.
I agree with comments about Hattie. She is inconsistent. I really hate what she does towards the end. She is immature, and I’m not sure I agree that she grows towards the end. I don’t understand her goals and ambitions. Dunmore’s first two novels clearly demonstrate the heroine’s ambitions. Hattie doesn’t know what she wants. Her growth suits the narrative of the previous novels. Her new revelations seem to develop because she needs a “cause” like her other friends.
I will continue to read Evie Dunmore’s novels. Even if I disagree with her plot points, I admire her writing. I can’t wait t read Catriona’s novel!
I agree – I loved Blackstone, he’s a terrific hero and his motivations are really well articulated. I, too, admire Dunmore’s writing, but this is where I go back again to the “seeing” versus “feeling” argument; my brain very clearly recognised that the writing was excellent, but I just didn’t feel much for the characters. Well, Hattie, really. I did sympathise with her in many ways, but she was all over the place, and in the end, I thought Blackstone deserved better.
It’s interesting to read historical romance being published today. There is clearly a profound desire on the part of many of the genre’s biggest names–MacLean, Dare, St. George, Dunmore, Kleypas, and more–to write stories that triumph over the patriarchy, are anti-racist, pro-labor, sensitive to cultural appropriation, and fused with consent. Which, in theory, is great.
But it’s hard to do well–when an author infuses her stories with modern ethics, it can strike readers as requiring too great a suspension of disbelief. That said, it’s doable. But I see–and Dunmore whose writing I really like has done this in all of her books–a trend towards allowing women to behave in ways that aren’t ethically sound. It’s as if because there are so many romances in which men have been revered despite their caddish behavior, now women are given rein to do so. That just doesn’t work for me.
My thoughts exactly. I think that of all those authors you’ve listed, Dunmore is making the best job of doing all those things, as her books seem much more well-thought out and written – the issues are integrated in a way that is far less obtrusive and “look at how unconventional I am!” on the part of the heroines.
I completely agree with your last statement – two wrongs don’t make a right, and a romance in which the heroine treats the hero like crap as a way of getting back at men for hundreds of years of oppression isn’t in the least romantic, IMO.
I think the upcoming St. George does the best job I’ve seen of making its leads have progressive values.
I felt about the same with this one, probably a B- for me. Hattie’s inconsistency and also her not taking responsibility for her own actions. As much as she thinks about her own agency and being able to make her own choices, she never realizes that her situation is not all on Blackstone. She made decisions along the way that led directly to where her life goes and yet it’s all about how Blackstone wronged her.
And that ending just felt like cutting her nose off to spite her face (to quote my dad).
I use that expression as well – and it felt absolutely like that. I just found this a book where I understood the characters’ motivations, and what the author was doing, but it didn’t move me or give me any “feels”.
Agreed. I think part of why this didn’t hit me in the “feels” was because what was coming through was the author’s agenda (though I think that’s too strong a word), perhaps more the mechanics of the story and not the emotional connection I wanted. The author needed the story to go in certain directions and that made it feel forced for me.
This is not to say that I don’t like complicated heroines, I love them, but the complications of Hattie didn’t seem truly organic.
This one is closer to an A- for me. While, like Caz, I found the ending profoundly irksome, I loved the rest of the book. It’s actually my favorite of the series.
Despite another smacking heroine? It’s becoming a pattern… ;)
I was really on the fence between a B+ – which is what I gave the previous two – and a B. In the end, I went with the B because I felt it wasn’t as strong as those.
Ooh, I’m officially intrigued!
Email me if you want details!