TEST
Be careful what you wish for, readers. I wanted a historical romance with a flawed heroine, and The Music of Love delivered that in spades. I read it with some interest, but it didn’t quite live up to the potential of its premise.
Portia Stefani, the widow of an Italian pianist lost in a shipwreck, receives a letter from a wealthy man, addressed to her late husband. The man wants piano lessons, and since Portia is also a talented pianist, she answers the letter with her husband’s name. She then travels to the gentleman’s estate, hoping he’ll give her a chance so she can pay the debts her husband left.
The gentleman, Stacy (short for Eustace) Harrington, has albinism, and as a result he believes he will never marry or have children. An orphan, he lives alone except for his aunt, but his reclusiveness is also due to the requirements of his condition. Bright light can damage his eyes, so he doesn’t go out during the day. He’s taken aback to discover his potential new teacher is a woman, but after Portia plays for him, he hires her, with the proviso that she not lie to him again.
At first I was thoroughly absorbed, because I love stories where people deal with financial problems. Even better, Portia was an experienced woman who enjoyed herself in bed long before she met Stacy. The lust-think was swift and frequent, but they were determined to behave like employer and employee, so they felt like two adults in historical times.
One night, though, Stacy breeds his stallion to a mare, and he invites Portia to watch. They are so turned on by the sight that they have sex in the stable, and they can’t go back to a professional relationship, since Portia is now pregnant. They decide to get married, so everything is wonderful until Portia overhears a villain say that Stacy was seen leaving a brothel recently.
Now the reason for this is that the madam of the brothel was his ex-lover and is still his dearest friend, so he wanted to tell her about his wedding. Does Portia ask him about this, though? No, she storms into his room and grabs something to throw at him. When he stops her, she tries to slap his face, but he catches her hand, so she drops to her knees and performs oral sex on him.
I’m sure her response is meant to show her passionate nature, but all I could think was: would it be acceptable for a hero to slap his fiancée if a villain claims she’s cheating? If not, why is such behavior okay for the heroine? I was so turned off that this was the least sexy blowjob ever.
This is the start of Portia’s downhill slide. Next, she discovers her former husband is alive, and he wants money for his silence. Does she tell Stacy? Of course not. She gives in to her husband’s demands while thinking, “Blackmailers always returned to the source of their money; every fool knew that.” Finally she goes off with another obvious villain, who then tries to kill her. At this point, she’s already survived two attempts on her life, so you’d think she would be careful.
Stacy fares better, since he’s a genuinely nice person, and I wished he’d ended up with a better wife. These two just do not talk about their problems, though that’s partly because they’re too busy getting it on. Yes, their physical compatibility is intense, but it’s difficult to feel sexual tension when the characters have sex at the drop of a hat. It got to the point that when the narrative briefly mentioned that the piano lessons were also ongoing, that came as a surprise.
Speaking of which, one reason I read this book is because I hoped the music lessons would be in-depth and insightful. Unfortunately their only function is to make Portia meet Stacy. And the end wraps everything up predictably – he inherits a title, the villains are hoist on their own petards, and there’s a blissful baby-logue. My favorite part is Stacy’s discovery that he not only has a twin brother with the same last name, but his brother and the madam of the brothel (Stacy’s ex) were in love years ago before fate separated them. What a coincidence. The madam never asks if Stacy is related to her long-lost lover, but then again, that might spoil the reveal.
Readers who enjoy over-the-top stories might want to try The Music of Love, since it’s certainly dramatic, with the blackmail, attempted murders, evil villains, and long-lost relatives. There’s also plenty of explicit sex and loads of angst produced by the failures to communicate. But rather than a single strong plot, there was a series of episodes, and other than Portia’s sex-positive approach, I didn’t like her as a heroine. So I can’t really recommend it.
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Grade: C
Book Type: Historical Romance
Sensuality: Warm
Review Date: 20/03/21
Publication Date: 12/2019
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.
I'm Marian, originally from Sri Lanka but grew up in the United Arab Emirates, studied in Georgia and Texas, ended up in Toronto. When I'm not at my job as a medical laboratory technologist, I read, write, do calligraphy, and grow vegetables in the back yard.
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Based on this review, all I can think is that this book was written in the 1970s but is only now being published.
Marian, thank you for the great review. You made me laugh out loud with your descriptions. The paragraph about the horse sex is really a classic— if you were writing a parody of a romance novel, you couldn’t do any better!
It made me wonder if the author had ever actually seen horses mating. I have many times. I don’t know how anyone finds that sexy. It’s not disgusting, but it’s not sexy.
Okay, now I want to read the following in a romance novel. The hero and heroine are aroused by watching
Ha ha! I don’t know about romance writers, but I’m sure everything you just wrote can be found in shifter/paranormal erotica somewhere.
It also reminds me of how odd the expression “birds and the bees” is to refer to sex ed. When you consider how birds and bees have a radically different reproductive system than humans, wouldn’t a better euphemism be “the dolphins and the orangutans?”
You forgot dogs–they get stuck together.
I don’t want to take this too far down the rabbit hole, but in Laurann Dohner’s New Species series this actually happens.
Oh my!! :-D
I read the first book in the New Species series and I’m sorry to say that if there was this type of sex in the book I don’t recall it. Maybe I’ve blanked it out of my mind.
I didn’t read anything further than that because I couldn’t take heroes with names like Moon and Darkness seriously.
I can’t remember the kind of “New Species” in the first book but it’s only a problem with the ones with “canine” type DNA. So if they are like a Tiger or something else it isn’t an issue.
I thought the names were sweet and sometimes sad. They were supposedly kept illiterate in labs their whole lives so when they got freedom they named themselves whatever they wanted. The leader took “Justice” because that’s what he wanted for them and you have a bunch of other names that are all over the place.
You’re most welcome!
This is also the third time I’ve read the “humans aroused by watching horses mate” trope. The first was in Skye O’Malley and the second was in one of Jean Auel’s Earth’s Children novels (though it’s possible I’m misremembering and the humans were actually turned on by watching mammoths mate, which is not exactly better).
Yeah, it was mammoths. (I will always remember this because Jondalar decides to pretend one of his arms is a mammoth trunk.)
Better his arm than some other appendage…..
Slightly o/t, but Serena Bell’s HOLDING OUT features a heroine who has fond memories of reading Auel’s book as an adolescent and how the image of Jondalar and “the rites of first pleasure” inform her of idea of losing her virginity. The only buzzkill for me as a “woman of a certain age” was that the heroine originally found the book not in her mother’s but in her grandmother’s romance novel stash. Way to make a gal feel old, Serena!
There’s also an older Lavyrle Spencer book with the whole “getting turned on watching horses” as well. I think it was “The Gamble”.
Maybe I should find a YouTube video of horses mating to see if it’s such an aphrodisiac.
Lol, I’m going to quote David Rose and say “I’m very uninterested in that option”.
And now I’m reminded of that film Equus, about a disturbed teenager who’s sexually attracted to horses…
This novel seemed like two different books stuck together.
The first part was great with an interesting and different hero and heroine. He was genuinely interested in her first for her amazing musical talent and the scene where she initially plays for him (to prove her talent as she accepted the job knowing he thought he was hiring her husband) is wonderful.
There is great sexual tension and attraction up until they first consummate their relationship. Then it turns into every crazy plot device you can think of. Overheard conversations, lack of trust, no communication, making stupid decisions just one piled atop another.
The last part of the book didn’t even seem connected to the the first part and I swear it was lifted almost entirely from an old Philippa Carr novel. I read it and knew exactly what was going on and who was behind it because I was remembering a plot from my teen years. It went from a romance novel to a whodunnit/woman in peril story.
My other complaint in general with S.M. LaViolette is that in general every sex scene is is usually a rough or highly charged one. I like reading variety but I also like when the sex scenes communicate that the two main characters actually like each other and there are some kind of tender feelings between them. Otherwise, it’s just mechanical if there isn’t any heart behind it, at least for me.
There was so much I enjoyed about this book that at the beginning I was sure it was going to be an A+ for me that it was doubly disappointing when things go haywire. I keep reading her novels because a certain amount of it really works for me….until it goes off the rails.
That’s how I felt – everything leading up to the horse sex was hot and interesting and fresh – and then the author kept piling the drama in to keep the MC’s apart for as long as possible.
Yes, exactly. I wish she had worked on the plot more and had it be based around the two main character’s feelings rather than random stuff and villains.
There was a lot the two could have worked through together like Portia’s fear of a second marriage and loss of independence, her maybe wanting a music career, not wanting to leave her friends etc. that would have made for a much more interesting character driven plot.
Stacey being basically isolated for his entire life would have created issues for him they would have had to deal with. It’s a shame the character set up was kind of wasted in favor of melodrama.
Well, I’m reading the second book in the series now because the hero is a staid mathematician, so hopefully he’s not going to be wildly aroused because he looked in a pond and saw two frogs getting it on. Fingers crossed!
I have that one borrowed but haven’t read it yet. I must have skipped it and read the third one (A Portrait Of Love) because the plot appealed to me more. I actually enjoyed it quite a bit.
I feel like the author corrected some of the things that were a problem in the first book. There would be the start of a “Big Misunderstanding” and I would groan thinking it was going to take over the book, but then the couple would actually talk and it was resolved, which was fantastic.
The hero is also less of an alpha jerk (at least over time). He starts off in the beginning (which is kind of a prologue) as very nice, then gets hardened and tough by war, life and disappointment but then later on he becomes nicer again as he gets more hopeful. It’s much easier to believe than in other books where a jerk becomes nice, because he’s actually shown as a nice guy to start off with.
There are the usual problems of some convoluted plots (but much less than the Music Of Love). In order to make some conflicts happen the characters have to do or say really dumb things, so there are misunderstandings- but not as bad as in other books. There was also a point where I thought the “mean or evil woman/ex/girlfriend” trope would prevail, but happily it didn’t!
I enjoyed it the most of all her books so far, along with the The Footman.
I sent in my review of A Figure of Love – sadly, another C grade, so I won’t be trying any more books in the series.
Those are the most disappointing ones I think, because there is enough that you like about the book to bring it to a certain level but then it just goes off the rails or has too many issues.
I really believe a strong editor or writing critique partner could make a huge difference as the author’s work has a lot going for it.
With the two books in this series that I’ve read, it feels like there’s very little conflict between the hero and heroine – they get along fine, they have great sex, etc. So the author has to bring in the blackmailers and kidnappers and other villains. I’m fine with antagonists, but I like them to be as three-dimensional as possible, and I don’t want them to be used as a substitute for a romantic relationship that’s complicated by the couple’s own flaws.
I agree, yet she sets up interesting characters who could easily have real issues they could need to work through with their partner like Portia’s bad history with marriage etc.
Rather than do that, it turns into an old gothic suspense novel with scheming, murderous relatives and jealousies.
I’m one of those people who love the “Before Sunrise” series of movies, so I am very happy to read about a talky couple who work through their issues together.
We had the exact same reaction to this one, including that very old skool Ryan’s Daughter horse breeding scene, and the fucking blowjob scene which is still a puzzlement to me.
I am, sadly, beginning to suspect that LaViolette’s THE FOOTMAN—which I read and loved last year—was an anomaly. I’ve read several of LaViolette’s other historical romances since then—including some published under her alternate pen name, Minerva Spencer—and none of them have had the combination of flawed characters, ambiguous motives, historical detail, and satisfying plot that THE FOOTMAN had. Although I do think HIS COUNTESS, which is very much on the erotic side of things, came close to being as good as THE FOOTMAN—but, as it featured almost the exact same plot (impoverished widow encounters a wealthy suitor who has ulterior motives), perhaps that’s not surprising. I think I’m just going to have to accept that lightening isn’t going to strike twice and move on. Sigh.
I thought the third one in this series, “A Portrait of Love” was quite good. It has its flaws but I enjoyed it. I hope this means her work is getting better as she goes along.
This sounds BONKERS.
I like plot twists, but this was more of a plot slinky.
That’s an excellent descriptor!
YES! Best description of this I’ve heard.
It seems you and Lisa are in agreement with the grading of this one, Marian!! I was sure I remembered the cover (the silver-haired chap) and sure enough, looked up and found the older review. Love having two viewpoints like this. Thanks!
Glad you liked it!
Thank you!