TEST
Felicia Grossman’s début historical romance, Appetites & Vices makes use of a setting I’ve not come across before in historical romance – 1840s Delaware – and boasts a couple of interesting, though flawed, central characters who enter into a faux engagement in an attempt to better the social standing of the heroine so she can marry the man of her choice. There are some things about the plot that didn’t quite work and some odd writing tics that took me out of the story on occasion, but overall it’s a solid outing and I’ll be keeping an eye out for more of Ms. Grossman’s work.
Ursula Nunes is twenty-one, beautiful, clever and wealthy. By rights, she should have society at her feet, and she would, but for two things. One, she says what she thinks and has no social skills whatsoever. And two – she’s Jewish, which, in Delaware in 1841 puts her pretty much beyond the pale. She and her dearest friend Hugo Middleton have decided that it would be preferable to marry each other than to marry strangers, but the Middletons are one of the oldest families in society and with Hugo’s father intent on securing personal advancement, won’t countenance Hugo’s marriage to a Jew, no matter how rich she is.
John Thaddeus Truitt V – Jay – comes from a family that is even more prestigious than the Middletons, but that doesn’t mean life is any easier for him. The only son of a disapproving father who always believes the worst of him, Jay is well aware he’s a disappointment all round and wants nothing more than to take himself off to Europe and never come back. When he witnesses Ursula and Hugo in intense, whispered conversation and then overhears Ursula muttering to herself about ways she could ingratiate herself with the Middletons , he finds himself fighting back laughter at the incongruity of the idea of a woman as strong and vibrant as Ursula paired with a man so clearly unsuited to her as Hugo. But then inspiration strikes – and he has the solution to both their problems. In spite of his blackened reputation, the Truitt name still counts for something, and if he and Ursula pretend to be engaged to one another, her association with him means she’ll be able to move in the exclusive social circles to which she is currently denied entrance. And when she jilts him publicly,
“A good faux broken heart will be enough for my parents to stop trying to make me into something I’m not.”
That’s the set-up for the story, and the author does a really good job of exploring the prejudice Ursula encounters because of her birth and the difficulties she faces because she has so little patience with the superficiality of high society. She wants so badly to belong, but she doesn’t fit in anywhere, not in Hugo’s world, certainly not in Jay’s… and not even in that of her own (Jewish) family.
Jay is a very troubled young man who feels that nothing he ever does will be good enough and is so weighed down by guilt that all he wants to do is to escape into the drug-induced haze that is the only thing he’s found that will enable him to forget and lay down those burdens. The truth of Jay’s addiction isn’t sugar-coated; although the author doesn’t come out and directly say Jay is an opium addict – instead hinting at it – until some way into the book, his Earlcravings are clearly and convincingly described.
There’s a lot to like about this novel, not least of which is the humour and snappy banter between the two principals, and the way the author shows the understanding that develops between them; I particularly enjoyed the scenes where Jay uses the game of poker to try to teach Ursula how to read people and situations. Their chemistry isn’t the strongest I’ve ever read, but it simmers nicely, and the love scenes are well written.
BUT. I don’t know a lot about American society of the time, but I’m guessing the rules that governed male/female interaction were pretty similar to those in England, so I was surprised at how often Ursula and Jay were able to sneak off to have sex – in her house with family members (her father!) and servants around (there’s an explanation of sorts given towards the end, but that seemed like a convenient afterthought). And please, can we stop it with the virgin heroines who can give championship blow jobs at the first attempt and deep-throat the hero like a professional? I get that Ursula is curious and uninhibited, but I just don’t buy into that whole she-knows-how-to-do-it-just-by-instinct thing.
I also found some of the plans and situations rather convoluted – there were a few places where I had to stop and go back to re-read – and there’s quite a lot of woeful introspection on the part of both protagonists that got to be a bit much. The middle of the book is repetitive, and the way the secrets held by various characters are foreshadowed is quite heavy-handed. There are also some grammatical constructions that really bugged me and kept pulling me out of the story. I won’t go into huge detail, as I know not everyone is a grammar-nerd like me, but one thing I will mention is the use of contractions with names. Instead of ‘Lydia would’ or ‘Rachel did’, we get ‘Lydia’d’ or ‘Rachel’d’. Now, sure, they’re both fine on occasion, but in some places, sentences and phrases are so littered with them that they become unnatural and clumsy. If read aloud, they’d sound pretty odd. Some of the dialogue felt ‘off’ for the time period, and for some reason, Jay decides to shorten Ursula’s name and calls her ‘Urs’, which is a really ugly diminutive, and sounded far too close to ‘arse’ whenever I heard it in my head. If you don’t like your protagonist’s name, then use a different one!
Speaking of Ursula (I refuse to call her ‘Urs’!), I confess that for all her spark and originality, I found her difficult to connect with, and sometimes felt her behaviour to be quite immature (and she cries a lot). On the other hand, I did like Jay and warmed to him more easily; he’s damaged, witty, dangerously charming and possessed of the kind of emotional intelligence that Ursula lacks.
Even with the reservations I’ve expressed, I’m giving Appetites & Vices a recommendation, albeit a cautious one. The story at its heart – a woman who wants to belong and a man who wants to be seen for who he really is – is a good one, Jay and Ursula are well-matched, and both character and romantic development are well-done.
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Grade: B-
Book Type: Historical Romance
Sensuality: Warm
Review Date: 16/02/19
Publication Date: 02/2019
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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An interesting review and subsequent discussion. Coming from Scotland we have our own foibles from a language perspective. However when reading I wish to read text that is grammatically correct and does not distract from the story. In fact one of my pet hates is where a story is set in Scotland and the author puts text in some faux Scottish voice. It invariably jars with me and depending on which part of the country forms the setting I would rather imagine the accent and nuances of language in my head than read some tortuous manipulation of it.
Completely with you on the dialect issue. I feel the same when authors try to write cockney dialogue. Er, no, I come from London, I have a brain and can work out for myself what they sound like, thanks.
But your other point about wanting to read correct grammar is the one I wanted to make. I expect to find it in published books – and although yes, I recognise language evolves, I’d argue the illustration I gave is evolution in the wrong direction!
I’m enthusiastic enough to give this one an eventual try but ugh, there’s nothing tougher than a great book being brought down by lazy or lax editors.
I know we’ve talked about that one in private, Caz.
We have. But I’m quite happy to air those concerns in public, too. There are so many new authors out there who are just not being allowed time to develop their own voices and hone their craft. They get picked up by a publisher for a three-book deal then and often just disappear completely or turn up at different publishing houses (often the less well-known ones). For all the Mia Vincys I’ve read, I’ve read a dozen or more average books that had the potential to be better than they were, but in which the authors weren’t sufficiently ‘reined-in’ by their editors (if they even had one!). And that does them no favours, because they don’t learn how to stop doing the things that aren’t working.
I’m 100 percent with you on that. There are books I wanna recommend but I can’t do it because of major mess-ups.
There are some historicals that got so close, woe.
I think that’s what saddens me most. People with real potential aren’t given the direction which could enable them to become really good writers. And some of them – I could give you a long list of names – just end up churning out the same old same old year in year out, OR getting dumped because their books don’t do very well.
Reminds me of one particular HR writer who used to recycle her love scenes over and over again with only mild variations. YEP.
John Thaddeus Truitt V. Really? That’s enough to put me off this one. I calculate that going back 5 generations at roughly 25 years per generation, the first JTT was living sometime in the 1690s. This use of this sort of styling of a name is never used in Britain as far as I know (unless you are/were a monarch) and therefore I doubt very seriously if it was used in 1690s America. It wasn’t even the USA at that point, for heaven’s sake – it was still part of Britain! This form of naming is actually sniggered at in the UK as pretentious and a rather silly attempt to give yourself aristocratic airs and graces. From the comments above, I wonder if Caz was a little generous with her grading. And, yes, I am also a grammar nerd.
I will freely admit to NOT being as well up on the historical conventions in the US at this time as I am on the ones in England. That sort of naming doesn’t really happen over here, but I’ve come across it in novels set across the pond and decided to go with it.
As to the grading, I think a B- is fair; the book DOES have things to recommend it and the author DOES have potential. But she really needs a better editor to help her to tighten up her construction and plots.
The Delaware setting is intriguing but I appreciate your warnings about some of the problems of this book which are enough for me to give it a pass. I didn’t even realize the use of contractions with names is a thing but it would absolutely throw me right out of the story. I’m also at the point where I actively look for historicals with non virginal heroines because I seriously doubt that that is more anti-historical than all the blow jobs being given and without these guys even asking.
And I recently had a discussion with a mom who planned on using Lulu for her baby Ursula!
It’s not so much whether contractions with names are a thing, it’s that they look so odd. When I read, I sort of hear the words in my head, and they sound even more weird – it kept tripping me up and pulling me out of the story. If this ever gets made into an audiobook, it’ll be really noticeable.
As for Ursula and Lulu… Why not just have named the baby Lulu and have done with it? If you’re never going to use the full name, why bother?!
Lulu must be having a moment. I just finished a book (I think it was an HP) and in the epilogue the couple’s new baby was named Lulu. I knew a Lulu, but her given name was Lourdes. Plus, I’m definitely dating myself, but when I hear the name Lulu, all I can think about is the singer who sang “To Sir with Love”.
Same here (she has the same birthday as me although she’s several years older!) although for me, all I hear is the opening of “Shout”!
I just desperately needed this edited better – there is so much good in here that got lost in uneven pacing and weird grammar.
Yes, exactly. One has to ask – as I do so frequently these days – where was the editor? This author has a lot of potential, but without a good editor she may not fulfil it.
Count me amongst the grammar nerds! Very few things take me out of a story faster than sloppy or incorrect construction. I recently read a book where the hero’s name was Theo. Several times, the heroine (Theo’s wife) would refer to something belonging to the both of them using the phrase “Theo and I’s” (as in “Theo and I’s house”). The plot was engaging, so I was able to overlook the sheer wrongness of that grammar, but in the Afterword, the writer thanked someone for being her “grammar godmother,” to which I could only say, check your godmother’s credentials!
Oh, well here’s another one – the constant use of the past tense instead of the pluperfect. Eg. “Did she leave the iron on?” Instead of “had she left the iron on?” The former reads as though she’s asking if she should leave the iron on rather than wondering if she’s left it on! (This seems to becoming standard practice, especially amongst American authors and it drives me nuts, because it makes it hard to place events in some contexts.) Grammar rules are rules for reasons – mostly to make the written word understandable to those reading it, and I always find myself taken out of the story and having to question the author’s meaning in cases like that.
Americans and Brits may technically speak the same language, but we do use words differently. “Had she left the iron on?” sounds odd on this side of the pond, whereas “Did she leave the iron on?” does not. “Did”, in this case, just sounds more direct. Language evolves over time. One of my volunteer jobs involves reading probate records in the Maryland State Archives dating from the 1600s to early 1900s (Maryland is next to Delaware). It is interesting to see how the use of language has changed over time. People looking at British probate records have probably noticed similar changes. Don’t get me started on the subject of handwriting.
We don’t speak the same language, and that’s something that’s been clear to me for a long time! The use of “did” in the context I illustrated is so jarring to me that its use always jolts me right out of a story.
Nope, I’m an American, and “Had she left the iron on?” sounds exactly correct for literary use. “Did she leave the iron on” is a question used in a different time context.
EX:
“She stopped, worried. Had she left the iron on.”
“Why is her house on fire? Did she leave the iron on?”
Yes! Although here, you’d still use “had she left” in the context of the second one ;)
No, because of the shift to present tense. I suppose you could say “Has she left the iron on?” But it doesn’t feel right.