A Guest Pandora’s Box: Rose Lerner’s Sweet Disorder
Hello everyone and welcome to the fourth of our AAR blog columns. The basic idea is that we choose a book every month and have a discussion about it. We’re still Elisabeth Lane (of Cooking Up Romance), a long-time romance reader who now creates recipes inspired by books and then blogs about it, and Alexis Hall (author of, most recently, Waiting for the Flood), relative newcomer to the romance genre and occasional writer.
Fair (or, honestly, slightly unfair) warning: we swapped around the order for today. We were supposed to be looking at Ginn Hale’s Lord of the White Hell, but we moved it to next month, so we could be joined by reviewing superstar, Willaful. Today we’re going to be looking at Rose Lerner’s Sweet Disorder instead.
Set during a local election, Sweet Disorder is essential small-town set Regency Romance, about Phoebe Sparks — a widow in possession of a vote only her husband could cast — and Nick Dymond, the son of a prominent Whig, who is dispatched to secure said vote by finding her a suitable husband.
AJH: I should probably warn you, I’m going to be useless for this. I have literally nothing to say about this book that isn’t ‘omg I loved that’.
Elisabeth: Well, this is going to be a short review then since I felt much the same way. So…SQUEE. See you next month?
AJH: Maybe can just replace ourselves with a set of wildly joyous reaction gifs?
Elisabeth: Honestly, I think that’s a fabulous idea. There’s only so many ways to say THIS BOOK WAS AWESOME, after all.
AJH: It was, however, so awesome that I’m kind of desperate to talk (gush/squee/exclaim) about it. I mean, I read a lot of historicals and it was such a breath of fresh air, to be away from the usual sorts of settings and situations. And, don’t get me wrong, I love me some slutty Duke and some Almack waltzing scandal, but I really appreciated the political focus, the small town environment, and the fact that the book is largely about middle class people with what felt to me like very human, recognisable problems. Problems like how to get on with your life when you’re a widow. What to do when your teenage sister gets pregnant. How to keep your sweet shop running when you don’t have much money. And so on.
Elisabeth: I’ve been reading historical romances for so long that a lot of them have started to blur together. Not that I don’t also love the ballrooms of Mayfair, but Sweet Disorder was powerfully original. And also so full of heart. Not just in the romance between the hero and the heroine, but in the community’s struggles, family issues and needing to find a way to get along in the world with all the scars of the past.
AJH: Yes, heart is exactly right. I loved the way pretty much every single character you meet is developed and nuanced and written with such understanding and compassion. Even the people who behave less than well. It’s essentially an arranged marriage plot and it could have been so easy to make Phoebe’s alternative choices unpleasant in some way, but they’re both decent men, who just happen to be wildly unsuitable for her. Moon because he’s kind of intimidated by her and the Tory guy, Mr Fairclough, who is just a little bit too patriarchal, although he’s compelling to her in other ways.
Elisabeth: It’s funny actually. I liked Mr. Moon much, much better as a hero than Nick, but that’s, well, for me. For Phoebe, he’s kind of a disaster. He doesn’t read (she’s a writer) and she doesn’t like sweets (he’s a baker), but I loved his down-to-earth wisdom and, of course, his bakery. I was very excited when Rose Lerner mentioned on Twitter recently that he’s going to get his own novella. But Nick had his good points.
AJH: Moon would make a wonderful (and unusual) hero. I can’t wait to see what she does with him. Personally speaking, Fairclough is more my type — tough but kind Tory mill owner from Th’ North. Oh my. And how completely hilarious is it that we’re debating the romantic possibilities of the guys the heroine didn’t want?
Elisabeth: I think it just speaks to your point about how well developed even secondary characters are in this book. There aren’t really any caricatures, which seems especially rare for a Regency.
AJH: Yes, and there isn’t really a villain in the capital-V sense either, which is something I respond well to. I mean, obviously romantic suspenses require a capital-V villain, but there aren’t usually villains in real life — so when there’s somebody completely cackling in a more down to earth setting, it tends to jar me out of the story.
Elisabeth: The one place I might have wanted a bit more nuance was in the portrayal of the hero and heroine’s mothers.
AJH: I was thinking about that too. I actually really liked what Lerner did with Nick’s mother. She’s basically an amazing human being, but a terrible mother — and I found that portrayal kind of fascinating, because she’s someone I very much admired but also disliked intensely. And I thought it was kind of bold and interesting to give a female character that much narrative freedom to be, well, a dick in ways that are stereotypically masculine. I mean, Regencies are full of absent, ambitious, ruthless fathers. And here we have an absent, ambitious, ruthless mother.
Elisabeth: That’s a good point. I was so caught up in these characters — Nick and Phoebe — that I was really just pained for both of them. I suppose I wanted them to have had better parents. But that’s not the same thing as nuance. I guess it’s really Phoebe’s mother whose motivations weren’t as clear to me. Her concern for propriety is what any mother would feel, I suppose, but the way she reacts to her daughter’s pregnancy… I was just glad that she finally sort of came around or I was going to be uncomfortable with that level of evilness.
AJH: Also ‘bad mother’ is just one of those difficult literary devices because it’s basically synonymous with ‘bad woman’ or ‘bad human.’ Whereas, as you say, mothering instincts are not an integral part of being a woman, or even a good woman. For me, I just felt Mrs Knight (especially compared to Nick’s mother) didn’t anything else for me to really understand about her. She just seemed rubbish across the board, but then she doesn’t have Lady Dymond’s social freedom because she’s lower class and obviously if you’re an Earl’s wife you can more easily get away with ignoring your kids and having a life. So now I’ve just talked myself round in a massive circle of “I’m troubled by this .. oh no, wait, I’m not.” But I just love books that let you have discussions like this.
Elisabeth: Yes, no matter how much we talk, I feel like we’re barely going to scratch the surface of what Sweet Disorder has to offer. I mean, we haven’t even really talked about the romance yet. And it’s…beautiful.
AJH: God, it is. I was genuinely mesmerised by it. It’s got a slow build to it, so it feels like a genuine connection has been forged and it felt like there were genuine obstacles for them to overcome. So, even though I knew on a meta level it was a genre convention, the happy ending didn’t feel inevitable. It felt fragile throughout and then hard-earned.
Elisabeth: And there’s a coherent theme that comes out of their interactions, which we don’t always get in romance. They spend quite a lot of time working side-by-side together on the paper, and then that one super hot scene where they’re trading saying what they want back and forth, and then late in the book Nick says something like: “Love isn’t selfless, but it isn’t selfish either. It’s two people being equally important.” And yet, Lerner managed to present such a modern, feminist message in a way that didn’t feel at all anachronistic, just like…the ways things should be.
AJH: Yes, I loved that. Again, I feel (rightly) like a dickhead talking about feminism in romance because, cough, I do not get to do that – but it’s fantastic, the way the book centralised so many female characters and allowed them freedom and agency in a way that, as you say, doesn’t feel like Gender Studies 101 or like some kind of fantastical alt-history where feminism wasn’t needed because everything was totes fiiiiine. I really enjoy sex-positive heroines in romance (God, that sounds sleazy … but I have only so much patience for women being gently introduced to bedroom pleasures by experienced, uber-skillful dudes) and I felt Phoebe’s sexual desires and sexual confidence was handled really well. It’s just wonderful to read about and yet didn’t come across as unrealistic or anachronistic. No virgin widows here.
Elisabeth: I completely agree. On the one hand, I don’t love being reminded of how very many rights women didn’t have in the past. On the other, this entire story couldn’t happen any other way. Phoebe is making a political marriage because she can’t cast a vote herself. So I love that the reality is tempered by this vibrant relationship of equals that develops between her and Nick as a foil to that. It’s just the perfect balance.
AJH: *insert joy gif here* Actually, this is a really minor point, but can I just also say how much I loved that Phoebe was fat but that it wasn’t the whole point of the story? Every book I’ve read about non-normatively sized heroines as been ABOUT them being non-normatively sized.
Elisabeth: And the same could be said of the limp Nick acquired while serving in the war. They make adaptations for him, but it doesn’t become who he is.
AJH: Yes, exactly. I like the way these experiences feed into the story, but never become definitional. And speaking of Nick, I really liked him too. I actually identified with him a lot, which probably sounds odd, but the thing about him finding it difficult to articulate wanting things … I was so there. Male characters as people (rather than objects of desire) often aren’t the focus of romances and that’s absolutely fine. I’m not trying to say the genre about/for women pay more attention to men. But you get a different kind of romance when both characters are drawn with the same degree of depth and complexity and empathy.
Elisabeth: I do tend to prefer romances where both characters are fully articulated. I enjoy them less when they deliberately speak to a recognizable type — feisty heroine, alpha hero, etc. I loved that there wasn’t any shorthand here. Nick was just Nick and Phoebe was just Phoebe. They’re unlike anyone else — almost like real human beings.
AJH: Yes, and I adored them both. We spoke a bit earlier about the integration of feminist themes — I was also really struck by the exploration of masculinity that comes out of Nick’s experiences in the war. About how he’d felt he was basically failing at manhood by experiencing pain and loss and fear. Again, it just speaks to the broad compassion of this book and I was really moved by it.
Elisabeth: There’s just so much to love in this book, I feel like I could rave about it all day. Did you have any final thoughts?
AJH: Just to reiterate my love. I completely ate this book. It made me so happy in all the ways. I think everyone in the world should read it and be happy too.
Elisabeth: Speaking of eating… I would remiss if I didn’t at least mention that the food in this book is killer. I feel like I have to say it because I basically blog about food in romance in my “real life” and it’s rare that I come across one that uses food to such effect. So much of how Phoebe and Nick are characterised is done through food. It was my favorite part of the whole book.
We hope you’ll join us in the comments for more discussion of Rose Lerner’s Sweet Disorder.
And if you want to read-along at home, next month we’ll be looking at: Lord of the White Hell by Ginn Hale.
Thanks,
Elisabeth and Alexis
It’s an interesting questions about the word fat. I’m off to social media to ask what the norms are.
Yeah, that could be interesting. I have a feeling AJH is right about many people preferring the directness of self-identifying as “”fat”” these days. That’s the sense I get. It’s probably a really healthy thing. It just, makes me sort of meta-something-or-other. “”Fat”” feels bad to me, but then feeling bad/not using it sorta *also* begins feel bad. Argh. I do have this neurotic thing down to a science ;)
I’d be really interested in what emerges, Dabney.
I agree there’s a lot of cultural and social negativity bound up in ‘fat’ and – like queer or the n-word or the c-word, ultimately re-claiming it and potentially using it belongs to the people it directly affects.
I’m so late to the party, but I just wondered about this one thing that you wrote, Alexis: “”Again, I feel (rightly) like a dickhead talking about feminism in romance because, cough, I do not get to do that …”” Why don’t you get to do that?
Also, I have added the book to my tbr. Don’t know if I should thank you for that, it’s already bursting at the seams ;)
I’m so sorry – except not really, it’s a wonderful book and I hope you enjoy it :)
About the feminism thing – I think, in general, men have to be super careful how they interact / engage with feminism. Because of everything feminism exists to address, men who become associated with feminism can very easily drown out the very voices they should be listening to.
Oh, that answer was way shorter than I thought it was going to be :)
Heh, I lost my own question.
Ah, I suspected you meant something like that. Although I believe very strongly that men can and should be outspoken feminists, it’s easy that men get credit for stuff women have been saying for ages, just because they are men. And I assume it’s a bit like I feel about lgbt issues, not beeing lgbt myself.
I enjoyed the book very much, but actually loved the second book even more. And coming back to your discussion of it after reading the book was also very rewarding. I find historical romances that have middle or even working class protagonists can be really compelling.
Oh dear, I’ve already rapturously reviewed this on GR, but I’m still gonna go thru there agreeing with practically everything you both say :) So, to all of this: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes & yes: – “breath of fresh air” & “very human, recognisable problems” – “It’s got a slow build to it, so it feels like a genuine connection has been forged” – “so full of heart. Not just in the romance between the hero and the heroine, but in the community’s struggles, family issues and needing to find a way to get along in the world with all the scars of the past” – “I loved the way pretty much every single character you meet is developed and nuanced and written with such understanding and compassion. Even the people who behave less than well.” – “the exploration of masculinity that comes out of Nick’s experiences in the war. About how he’d felt he was basically failing at manhood by experiencing pain and loss and fear.” – “the broad compassion of this book . . . I was really moved by it” Okay, now then: On Mr. Moon, I personally preferred Nick to him as a hero, but I really liked him & think he’d make a wonderful hero too! I loved him for this line: “A mother makes a cake to give a child joy, not to keep him alive.” I’m so happy to hear there will be something written for him! On Mr. Fairclough, I thought he was attractive too, but at one point he made some, anti-Semitic remarks I really couldn’t forgive . It felt like more than mere, ignorant stereotypical attitude of the times. It was very mean spirited, snickering & contemptuous. For me, that instantly took him out of the running. And the carriage thing, itching to splash mud on his political enemies. I think he may have been sort of the opposite of Nick’s mother: Likable, but not such a decent human being. I would have been afraid for Phoebe to marry him, afraid he might turn out to be a secret bully :P On Nick, oh God, I *adored* him. He was vulnerable, kind, sweet souled, just a really deeply decent human being. Self-critical in good ways that made me admire him & in bad ways that made me identify with him. And omg, that afraid-to-choose thing, I *cried* over that epiphany, when he talked about it to Phoebe. Also there was this one scene with him & his brother, watching birds, that was just so touching to me for some reason: “They really were very pretty birds –strangely and efficiently made. He liked it best when they took flight. That impossible moment when they went from stillness to soaring made him catch his breath every time.” Well, there was much more to the scene, I just liked the poetry of that. But, I don’t know, it just, captured the essence of his soul somehow, quiet & thoughtful & aware of beauty, & some identification with the birds in their transition from immobility to flight. Which fits with his thoughts in another scene: “He was a bird on the windowsill. He hated this feeling, this shut-out, gnawing envy he’d felt all his life.” Omg *heartsqueeeeeze* *hugs the character* And I really liked the bonding with his brother in the rest of the scene, which later seemed especially poignant. Oh, also, Alexis, I can’t *possibly* understand how you identified with him! What?! I mean, there was absolutely *nothing* about him that was the *slightest* bit like you ;) I adored Phoebe too. And identified with her, omg, on body type alone, but also her self-doubt & “too much” issues, esp. loudness, & so many other things. I really appreciated too, how her non-normatively sized body is not the point of the story, but also how the text describes it in terms that sound sexy & beautiful. Like this: “Her perfect breasts, pillowed on her perfect round arms and dainty hands, rose and fell.” Omg <3 And other words are used like plump & ample curves. I love those words. I similarly used zaftig to describe her on GR the other day, another great word. I still love voluptuous too, though I think that one wore out its welcome ages ago, it was so over-used it became almost a caricature. But the word “fat”. . . sigh. I’ve noticed there seems to be an attempt happening to reclaim that word, presumably based… Read more »
Omg, I’d forgotten Fairclough was racist… I think I was distracted by imagining him as Richard Armitage.
*removes from list*
I’m a terrible person.
Moon was adorable – I think I responded slightly less positively to him than everyone else did because I was so locked into Phoebe’s worldview that all I could think was … wow, you’d be a terrible husband for her. But, again, I think what Rose Lerner does exceptionally effectively is allow the reader to flow between character-perspective and their own broader (potentially more generous) perspectives as someone outside the text. I think that’s why I didn’t hate Lady Dymond. She’s got such a lot of charisma and vitality even though she’s kind of completely awful in many respects.
Nick was definitely a fascinating hero – in that he was allowed to be vulnerable and even passive in ways that male characters often aren’t permitted to be. And, again, as I think Elisabeth said, he was a whole person, not just an archetype.
And his scenes with his brother are really heartbreaking, especially in the context of SPOILER. It kind of feeds into what I was saying about there not really being any villains in the book – he behaves in a really terrible way, but you’ve also had just enough of him to realise how lost and messed up he is. Like, he could so easily have been a better man. But family has failed him – not just Lady Dymond, but Nick as well.
I also thought Phoebe’s body was exceptionally well, uh, handled. Made beautiful in a way that was totally normalising – it was just presented as her body shape and there’s a lot of textual acceptance of that. And she only ever questions her own desirability when she’s already insecure – or when her mother has made her self-conscious. The scenes when she’s with Nick, she’s very confident – if she questions her desirability at that point, it’s because she’s middle class, not because she’s … fat.
Sorry, I’ve used the f-word. I genuinely don’t know how to engage with it, to be honest. I’m wondering if it’s one of those insider-only words (like the n-word) but most of the people I know who are not … normatively-sized … prefer the directness of fat. Like, tripping around Rubanesque or plump or voluptuous just seems flinchy to me? Like you have to cloak the reality in a facade of socially acceptable attractiveness. Rather that accepting that fat is just a body type and is no more fundamentally or inherently unattractive than thin is fundamentally and inherently attractive.
So that’s why I use the f-word. But, like anything else, I feel people have the right to define in whatever fashion they wish – and choose whatever words they like. And it’s up to other people to accept that.
And I agree about sex-positivity – a broad range of experiences and preferences is always the best :)
Oh, it’s okay about the “”f-word”” – maybe we should say “”the other f-word””? ;) My issues are just my issues :P
Though I think you may be on the right track re: “”insider only””.
I know *exactly* what you mean about “”cloaking reality in a facade of socially acceptable attractiveness””. That doesn’t seem good either. Tbh, I tend to just avoid the subject entirely, which is probably really bad, but I guess that means I don’t know how to engage with it either;)
I agree on “”just a body type””, not inherently unattractive , etc. Well, I agree in my head ;) The reality is, it’s often conflated with so much other complicated stuff, not just appearance normativity, but self-control issues/food-addiction shame kinds of things. Which can be difficult or impossible to disentangle.
But, there’s also an aspect that’s like, reacting to the *word*, not necessarily to the body type. Because of past use of “”fat”” as an insult. It’s almost like, for me, the word doesn’t simply mean “”this body type”” it *means* “”unattractive because this body type””. I guess I wish there was a neutral word to use for that body type, which is neither a euphemism nor a tainted word.
Sigh. But then we’d just end up with some obnoxiously pc new term & I’d hate it for a different reason! There is just no satisfying some people ;)
Fat activism is an interesting and emergent social movement that is seeking to reclaim the word “”fat”” itself in order to shed light on norms surrounding body images, particularly those used to define women’s bodies. I went to school with a woman who wrote her dissertation on fatness in literature. I sat in on her diss. defense and thought that she made so many excellent observations from literature. And yet, medical discourse offered one of the main stumbling blocks in her research, I thought, since there is a competing narrative that fatness is another form of difference and should be reclaimed (celebrated?) versus fatness is a serious and growing health crisis. Do we accept a form of difference that can kill us prematurely?
I know, it’s really a conundrum. To me it seems we should be able to have both. Recognizing something as a potential health problem isn’t the same as shaming people for having it, even if choice is a factor. But it’s so difficult to disentangle. Wanting to lose weight for health tends to bleed over into waiting to “”look better””, to the point you can’t even tell what you are reacting to. And the desire to deal with food addiction issues can easily turn into shame for lacking self control, which can attach to the body type that seems to be the visual “”symbol”” of that “”lack””. So you end up with all these competing things, normative body image, reacting to specific things like having been insulted or shamed with the word “”fat””, physical health issues & mental health issues of addiction, all sort of conflated into one big thing. Makes it almost impossible to figure out what you’re reacting to, in yourself or about others.
Haha, this article just convinced me to check out the copy my library has, and the sequel as well. Also, I looked on her website, and under “”Free Short Stories,”” the author has written a short hypothetical story in which Nick is a vampire and Phoebe a dragon.
That’s awesome.
Omg, I just saw that. It’s completely delightful.
SQUEE! Loved it
SQUEE! is so right :)
AJH…””I really enjoy sex-positive heroines in romance (God, that sounds sleazy … but I have only so much patience for women being gently introduced to bedroom pleasures by experienced, uber-skillful dudes) and I felt Phoebe’s sexual desires and sexual confidence was handled really well.””
This caught my eye as there’s been a debate here at AAR about divisions among readers with some feeling disgruntled that female virgins are disappearing from romances and others, like myself, that dislikes that element and prefers what you call “”sex-positive heroines.”” Nicely stated! I grew up reading a plethora of virgins and their experienced heroes and am so relieved that more and more romances are moving away from this.
I have not yet read Rose Lerner but based on the above conversation, I will give this one a try.
I did catch a bit of that debate.
I don’t think I have strong feelings either way, but I find it very noticeable in contemporaries. In historicals, it sort of makes sense that the heroine has no experience, although now I’m thinking of LORD OF SCOUNDRELS where Jessica is a virgin but she’s not completely ignorant, so you it doesn’t *have* to be the “”oh, gosh, are you sure it will fit … good heavens … what extraordinary pleasure!”” type dynamic, even if the heroine is a virgin. But I personally get slightly … I don’t know … it troubles me slightly when there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for the heroine having sexual experience / knowledge (she was married before!) and yet still it turns out she’s emotionally/psychologically a virgin, either because her husband was rubbish or grotesque or gay or whatever else it takes.
Whereas what I really enjoyed about Phoebe was that while her relationship with her former husband was clearly not perfect, it also wasn’t a completely write-off either. And there was no sense that this impinged on either her romance or a sexual encounters with Nick.
But she’s refreshingly sexy and direct — unlike him, interestingly. It’s a fascinating dynamic.
It’s funny, because I ended this book just yesterday. I really liked it.
The characters, the setting, the slow path that took me, as a reader, to a different place and time… The sexy scenes made sense within the story. They were nor there just for fun.
The literary references are wonderful, and it was very clever the way Herrick, Byron and Blake’s poetry is introduced and what it represents in the story and for each of the characters.
It’s a character-driven story, more than a plot-driven one. In the same sense as a Courtney Milan book is character-driven.
So I would recommend it to anyone who likes this kind of historicals, as I do. It’s one of those books that I’m sure I will remember clearly in the future.
I had one minor problem, though -Mr. Moon’s confections. They sounded very contemporary and complex for a European baker of that time.
And I have to confess that I had a very personal problem each time the book mentions Badajoz, b/c the aftermath of that battle was one of the darkest episodes of the British army in the Peninsular War. In this case, knowing History has taken part of the great pleasure that this book was giving me.
I’m thrilled to hear you enjoyed it too. It’s definitely a character-driven story, as you say, and I think you’re absolutely right about the sex scenes being totally contextualised and also character-driven. Because that deep basis in the people, and the slow journey to intimacy and understanding, I really did find them very … err … sexy *blush* and very romantic too. I don’t respond so strongly to sex scenes usually — I think because I’m not habituated into reading them in the same way most lifelong romance readers are — but I definitely felt they served a real, emotional purpose in the story. (not that there’s anything wrong with sex scenes that are primarily for titillation).
I confess I didn’t really notice anything particularly anachronistic in Moon’s sweets – but then I’m not a history buff. They were so delightful I’m more than happy to give them leeway ;)
Though I can definitely see the war background being traumatic.
Okay I feel like I’ve stepped into a parallel universe and it’s quite uncomfortable, but after this amazing discussion – how could I not want to try!
So I am going to download my first m/f romance, of any description, in about 5 years probably my first of this genre type m/f romance since the last century!
No pressure peeps :)
I read a lot more m/f and f/f than m/m … and I know that m/f can be alienating to some readers, especially if the ‘f” doesn’t reflect anything your experiences or yourself. BUT Phoebe is a wonderful character. And, knowing some of your reading preferences (I think), I hope you won’t find it too painful a visit to het. I hope you’ll be surprised and delighted :)
Count me in on the “”Sweet Disorder”” love. It was a DIK for me for so many reasons I didn’t have space to enumerate. RL is a terrific writer who is sort of plugging a gap in the Regency market by writing about ordinary people and ordinary situations.
Also – the point you make about Nick’s mother being an amazing person and a terrible mother is quietly awesome :)
I will love it forever with a deep, abiding love. It’s the kind of book that makes you feel grateful, you know? I’m so happy that someone wrote it and I got to read it.
And, yes, I love Regency romances but it’s nice to get out of the ballroom occasionally. It’s a meticulously researched, wonderfully detailed setting.
I had a lot of sympathy with Nick’s mother – well, I wouldn’t want her to be *my* mother but she was a really intriguing character. She could so easily have been a villain or a stereotype but, like everyone else in the book, she was just a person.
I liked this book but it’s not my favorite of Ms. Lerner’s. That said, I love that she writes about fairly ordinary people trying to get through the day. Plus, her research is impeccable.
If … this isn’t your favourite my mind cope with trying to imagine how incredible the rest of the books are :P
Speaking of research, her Tumblr is full of interesting stuff.
And yes, the focus on ordinary people is really refreshing.
I love following her on Twitter. She posts the most interesting stuff. I highly recommend her if you like random, cool historical tidbits.
That sounds like I might have to add it to my pile. From glancing at the cover I would absolutely have dismissed this as ‘generic’ and ‘yawn’. There’s something about the combo of satin sheets and curly writing that makes my eyes glaze over. So, great review. Sold.
The heroine on said generic cover is non-thin though. That’s kind of awesome :)
It is. And now that I actually clicked on the thumbnail I even saw that. ;)
That makes me so happy.
And this cover has a guy with chest hair!
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1619227940?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creativeASIN=1619227940&linkCode=xm2&tag=allaboutromance
I, cough, definitely noticed that.
Sweet Disorder is in my tbr. Why, oh why haven’t I read it yet?! I know I’ll love it. That’s it, I’m reading it next, then I’ll come back and reread this rev and then annoy the both of you with a barrage of ‘what about the part where’ tweets.:)
Omg, I’d love that :)
I hope you enjoy it!
Michelle, you could never annoy me with loving this book! You could never annoy me period ;-)
There is one scene though… With your love of erom, I CANNOT WAIT for you to get to it. Read faster!
I guess I may be the lone dissenting voice. I sooo did not like this book that I got about halfway through and dumped it. I had read the glowing reviews and thought it would have been an interesting read. It had checked all the little tick marks that usually pique my interest: 1) Different setting/small town vs big city, 2) Historical, and 3) not a duke in sight. For whatever reason, I just could not get into the story. Maybe it was the angstyness, although that is something I usually love in a story. I don’t know. Rose Lerner seems like a fine writer, but this book did not cause me to want to glom all of her other books. Maybe in a few months or years I can come back to this story and appreciate it. For the time being though, I’m going to stick with glomming all the Jo Beverley books I never got around to reading while I await new Mary Balogh, Joanne Bourne, and Stella Riley books.
Oh God, all the sympathy. I hate it when it seems like everyone in the world is all “”omg, this is the best book ever”” and I read it and it doesn’t work for me. It can be so alienating. Books are just really subjective experiences and sometimes it’s all about context. I’ve read things at particular times in my life and not rated them, and then come back to them later and they’ve finally clicked. But I’m definitely in favour of not forcing yourself into books for the sake of it.
I am, however, sorry SWEET DISORDER didn’t work for you – as you say, it’s unique in many ways. Interestingly, I didn’t find it particularly angsty (Phoebe, as a heroine, has a way of cutting through nonsense that suffuses the whole book, and it’s quite down-to-earth in many ways). Although now you mention it, I seem to recall a chapter near the beginning, which is just Nick lying in bed, being passive and all “”oh I am so wounded.”” It’s necessary to show us where Nick is initially, compared to what we learn about him over the course of the story … but unless you know where the book was going, I think it would be pretty easy to bog down here.
So it definitely is a slow-build – although, having built, I found it intensely rewarding.
Again, I’m really wary of telling people to stick with things because usually we are responding to the essentials of a text in the first few pages … but I think the opening of SWEET DISORDER is not necessarily a good showcase for the book as a whole.
Maybe it was where my head was at the time. There were books I just couldn’t into but then 6 months to a year later I picked them back up and loved them. Timing …
You are not the lone dissenter, Karen. I finished Sweet Disorder, but I found it frustrating. I loved the setting and the election plot, but I disliked both Phoebe and Nick as the central characters in a romance. I felt a great deal of sympathy for each of them, but they seemed emotionally damaged in a way that would undermine future relationships. I saw no evidence that Nick ever grew past his tendency to avoid uncomfortable conversations with his family, and that is a terrible quality in a husband. I really dislike the toxic mother trope in romance novels, and I found Phoebe’s relationship with her mother very troubling. If she hasn’t found a way to make peace with her mother and behave like a mature adult rather than an enraged adolescent, how can she be ready for marriage?
I hope you don’t mind me butting in – I just found this comment very interesting.
I can definitely see where you’re coming from but I suppose it comes down more broadly to what make a romance personally successful to an individual reader. And “”good relationship with parents”” just isn’t a factor for me. I’m much more interested in the relationship the protagonists have with each other and I don’t necessarily see relationships-with-family has inherently reflecting or feeding into that.
I’ve noticed that some romances tend to include what you might call social harmony as part of the HEA package (and that’s fine) but because it’s something life has quite firmly taught me I’ll be lucky to ever have … I often find it difficult when its an unquestioned assumption of relationship validity. Familial contexts can be quite harmfully reflective of heternormative or patriarchal paradigms.
Obviously familial relationships are powerful and they’ve clearly affected Phoebe and Nick significantly – but I suppose I tend to see relationships as learning how to navigate each other’s damage through love and understanding and sympathy, rather than as the reward for having miraculously fixed your damage.
I mean, if that was the case, I’d be totally doomed and alone forever ;)
So to my mind, what makes you ready for a relationship is being in love and committed to making the relationship work. Not how your interact with your mother.
I do agree, however, that the toxic mother trope is over-done in fiction in general. I definitely found the portrayal of Mrs Knight a little bit one-note in that, unlike Lady Dymond, she appeared to have no redeeming features. But then I guess I wonder why the trope is so particularly problematic – I mean, some people are bad mothers, it’s just a thing. So perhaps the problem is more closely related to the fact that being a bad mother is usually portrayed as the very worst thing a woman can do. (I’m weirdly thinking of We Need To Talk About Kevin now, which is a deconstruction of this idea).
I guess I didn’t express myself clearly enough with regard to family dynamics. I understand that some families of origin are simply toxic. I am not saying that social harmony is important for a HEA. Part of growing up and healing as a person is understanding the need to disengage from toxic family members. You cannot control other people; you can only control your reaction to them.
Phoebe continued to engage with her mother in very unproductive ways. She continued to feel wounded by her mother’s slights and respond with anger. Nick continued to avoid unpleasant conversations. I could not suspend my disbelief regarding their ability to make their marriage succeed in the era before couples therapy.
The reason I dislike the toxic mother trope so much is partly because it is overdone and partly because it is rarely done well. It is a lazy narrative short-cut to explain a character’s emotional baggage and solicit sympathy from the reader. I know people in real life who have toxic mothers. I have seen them find various ways to come to terms with that and heal their psyches. I have not seen characters in romance novels make that adjustment in a realistic way, so I am always left wondering “”how is that going to work?””