September 2020 TBR Challenge – Dress for Success
“Dress for Success” can mean all kinds of things. In Lynn’s case, she went for fashion designer lead characters. Or, one can do as Caz did, and pull out a Pygmalion-esque story. And then there are masquerade balls, heroes and heroines in disguise…all kinds of possibilities. What would be your favorite “dress for success” book?
His Convenient New York Bride by Andrea Bolter
Sometimes I’m shallow when I pick out my books. I’ll admit that I ordered His Convenient New York Bride based 100% on the cover. When I got to this month’s prompt and saw that it was “dressed for success”, current me was thanking January 2020 me for getting a book that would actually fit the prompt. Sadly, while the book fit the prompt, it was a fairly ‘meh’ read for me.
Forced marriage and its near cousin, fake marriage, can be tough sells in a contemporary. However, Jin Zhang has a compelling reason for letting himself be prodded into marriage. Zhang has always loved LilyZ, the fashion line developed by his grandfather. The line survives despite his father’s mismanagement and generally dissolute ways, and Zhang inherits the business outright – if he marries.
Zhang’s parents’ bitter divorce and Jin’s own recent divorce haven’t exactly recommended the married state to him. However, he has an idea. His best friend’s younger sister, Mimi Stewart, is a talented young designer. If Jin marries her, he can bring her in as new head designer for LIlyZ. For Mimi, whose career has floundered in the wake of a whisper campaign by her ex-boyfriend, this would be the chance of a lifetime. And then there’s the fact that she has had a huge crush on Jin Zhang since they were teenagers together.
Jin draws clear boundary lines at the beginning, but as is the case in these types of stories, the lines blur. Each is attracted to the other and cannot help getting closer and closer. Friendship starts turning into something more.
On the one hand, I liked the chemistry between Jin and Mimi. They have great energy working together as designers and their romantic chemistry is flirty and fun as well. However, both of them are coming from a place of having been very deeply hurt. This comes up from time to time in the story, but I felt like it didn’t get dealt with in a very satisfying fashion. The two just go from hurt to wild about each other. If there had been more exploration of the emotions there, I think the story would have captured me more
This book also me think about the difference between cultural appreciation and cultural appropriation. Unfortunately, the author made some plot choices that felt uncomfortably on the wrong side of that divide for me. On the one hand, Mimi clearly has a history with her husband’s family and that has long included sharing Chinese New Year and other holiday traditions with them, at their invitation. The story takes place partly during the New Year, and that is woven pretty naturally into the story.
However, there are other instances where Mimi(who is white) goes to an event wearing a cheongsam or when she plans (apparently without much input from Zhang) an event for LilyZ that is almost stereotypically Chinese, with tea, lanterns, a lion dancer and other similar touches. And then there was the moment when Mimi realizes her feelings for Jin and that is described as, “A gong echoed through her.” Reading it made me uncomfortable, and I wondered how a reader who is Chinese would view it. The author does not appear to be an own voices author, so that may have played into my reaction to these scenes as well.
I liked the cover of His Convenient New York Bride, and the premise definitely caught my eye. However, the blah romance and some of the ways in which the author showed the heroine basically appropriating the hero’s culture just did not work for me. The fashion details in this story are pretty cool, but it’s not a romance I can recommend.
Grade: C- Sensuality: Subtle
~ Lynn Spencer
Buy it at: Amazon
The Love Knot by Elisabeth Fairchild
Sometimes I look at a TBR Challenge prompt, and the perfect book comes to mind, sometimes I look at it and … it doesn’t. “Dress for Success” was one of those times. I was all set to give up and just read a random book from the TBR when I found I had Elisabeth Fairchild’s The Love Knot on my Kindle. I’ve read a few of her books and enjoyed them, and when I read the synopsis – an elegant gentleman agrees to help a gauche young woman learn to attract the object of her affections – I realised I’d found this month’s read.
It’s a fairly simple story that uses a familiar trope, but what bumps it up into the recommendation bracket is the way the central relationship is developed and the strong characterisation of the two leads. It opens with a prologue set the night before the hero, Miles Fletcher, is due to leave London to stay with his friend Thomas Coke at Holkham Hall in Norfolk to observe the annual sheep shearing (Miles is an art dealer and knows little about farming; he’s interested and wants to learn for when he inherits his uncle’s property). He’s settled for a quiet night at his club when he’s summoned to attend his uncle Lester who has just won a fortune at the gaming table. Lester isn’t in good health and doesn’t expect to live for much longer, and before Miles leaves for Norfolk, Lester makes a cryptic request – to make sure a certain young lady doesn’t find that she’s been ‘fleeced’.
The subject of that request appears unexpectedly as Miles and his sister Grace approach Holkham in their carriage. Stopping briefly to observe a group of ladies at archery practice, Miles is immediately struck by the skill and poise of a tall, red-haired young woman whose confidence calls to him as much as her looks do. Aurora Ramsey is breathtaking, and Miles is smitten – he had not expected to find such beauty in fulfilling his promise to his uncle.
The Ramsey name is dogged by scandal, from the eldest brother’s gambling addiction to another’s drunkenness to another’s womanising, and Aurora- the only Ramsey female – has been doing her best to run the family estate pretty much single-handedly. But with the means to do so ever dwindling, it’s time for her to find a wealthy husband whose money will give her the chance to save the home and land she loves so much – and she’s settled on Lord Walsh, a young, handsome and wealthy peer who is also present at the house party. The problem is that Aurora has absolutely no idea how to go about attracting a man, and no social graces to speak of. She can ride and hunt and talk about sheep shearing and land management, but she can’t dance or play or paint or flirt… she has never learned any of the so-called accomplishments expected of society ladies.
This Pygmalion-esque story proceeds as one would expect; Miles offers to help Aurora to learn the sorts of things she’ll need to be able to catch a husband – what clothes to wear, how to flirt, how to converse appropriately and all the things society dictates a well-born young woman should know. Naturally, during the course of these lessons Aurora finds it increasingly difficult to remember that she’s learning how to attract Lord Walsh. Miles Fletcher may not be the handsomest man she’s ever seen, but he’s certainly the kindest, most honourable one – not to mention the best dressed! – and for the first time in her life she understands what genuine attraction and desire feel like… if only she wasn’t feeling them for the wrong man!
Miles is a terrific beta hero. He’s considerate and empathetic and just wants Aurora to be happy. He does know something she doesn’t for most of the book – that her brother Jack lost the Ramsey estate to Miles’ uncle Lester and that Miles stands to inherit it when his uncle dies – but he doesn’t lie to her about it; or rather he doesn’t withhold the information because he deliberately sets out to deceive, he does it because he wants her to be able to make her own choices. He’s smitten with Aurora from the first, and their subsequent interactions – in which their differences are plain to see, but in a way that shows how right they are for each other – only reinforce his initial impression that she’s the woman for him. But if she decides she wants Lord Walsh, then Miles is determined to help her get what she wants, even if it breaks his heart in the process.
There were a couple of times I felt Aurora was being overly stubborn, but I liked her for the most part. She’s in a really awkward situation; her brothers (with one exception) are wastrels and care for nothing except their own pleasure, so she’s been the one to manage their estate and through no fault of her own stands to lose the land she loves and the only home she’s ever known. I mostly forgave her sometimes blinkered view of things because of that – upper class women of her time had so few options – and once her deep seated insecurities were revealed, I warmed to her.
I really enjoyed the setting of this story. Sure, it’s at a Regency house-party, but instead of an emphasis on grand balls or musical evenings, there are outdoor scenes of the estate at work, which was a refreshing change of focus.
The chemistry between Miles and Aurora sparks from the outset, and even though the author doesn’t go beyond kisses on the page, the sexual tension is always present in the air between them, and in certain scenes (such as the one in the attic where they’re looking at a portrait) it’s so thick as to be almost palpable. The dénouement is perhaps a little rushed, but overall, I enjoyed The Love Knot and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys a good Traditional Regency, or who simply wants to read an historical romance in which the characters aren’t twenty-first century people in period costume.
Grade: B Sensuality: Kisses
~ Caz Owens
While I am am always interested in reading about the clothes (because of my fabric addiction), the clothes I tend to most enjoy reading about belong to the men, particularly the Georgian era men. The lasting influence of Beau Brummell is something I have come to deplore for the way it stifled innovation.
Oddly, the book that came to mind in regard to women’s clothes was The Flame and the Flower, by Kathleen Woodiwiss. As I recall, the hero at some point takes the heroine off to a dressmaker to acquire a wardrobe, a scene with details that must have caught my attention. And I am leaving it at that, because the book is one that I am just never going to read again. I hoard my books, mostly, but I think that one I got rid of years ago. I read Georgette Heyer, Gone with the Wind, and Jane Austen, among others, in high school. Years later I resumed reading romances with Woodiwiss and Rosemary Rogers, whose work is not at all to my taste these days.
What fantastic reviews!
Thank you, Lynn, in particular, for calling attention to the problems of cultural appropriation in His Convenient New York Bride. I could see myself ordering this book, as I’m eager for depictions of interracial relationships and nonwhite protagonists, but I’d prefer to avoid books, especially ones published recently, that perpetuate white supremacy and privilege through Orientalism.
Roarke is always filling Eve’s closet in J.D. Robb’s books. I find it charming shorthand for how he shows her he loves her without overwhelming her with feelings (or his wealth).
The first Dress for Success book I thought of is The Masqueraders by Heyer, with cross-dressing to hide in plain sight.
Although I am not and never have been a follower of fashion for myself, I love and prefer seeing costumes on screen rather than in description in a book. For me, proper costumes can make or break a character and they can define that character completely. For example, I am watching Queen of the South on Netflix at present and I adore the costumes worn by Veronica Falcon as Camila Vargas: sharp, elegant, powerful and full of statement – I Am The Boss. In series 1 (which I am watching, being a latecomer), Alice Braga is shown in flashes also wearing statement outfits that tell us that Teresa Mendoza will one day also be The Boss.
I am also interested in historical costume and have spent many hours in the Fashion Museum in Bath admiring clothing and shoes from centuries past. The skill and technique in making clothing before sizing, sewing machines, quality factory-make everyday cloth, even decent lighting, etc. is incredible to me. I particularly like the wonderful embroidery, as a not-so-very good embroiderer myself, often on garments such as a gentleman’s waistcoat.
Finally, I loved that scene in series 1 of Outlander where a bemused Claire is dressed by Mrs FitzGibbon in clothing of the 1740s much to Claire’s confusion, surprise but also interest and excitement in wearing genuine clothing of the past.
My eldest – who is just about to start an MA in Heritage Management – would set up camp in the Bath Fashion Museum of she could! She’s hoping to focus on fashion and costume as part of her course.
She should consider a visit to Colonial Williamsburg sometime. Not only are all the ‘tour guides’ in appropriate period dress, they have shops there where clothing of the period is actually being constructed in front of you. The workers there are mostly college students studying period costumes and all the things that entails. There are cobbler shops, leather workers, weavers, its a kind of living museum. Once travel is again possible, she might have a good time there.
I’ll pass that on – makes me wonder if there’s anywhere over here that does something similar.
I love sumptuous descriptions of expensive new wardrobe. However, the one scene I thought of was the (trying to avoid spoilers just in case) court dress sequence in Mary Balogh’s Slightly Married, and the deliberate choice of Eve to have it mean so much more than just a presentation at court.
Sorry the book didn’t live up that cover, Lynn!
Caz, if Pygmailion is your thing, you might like The Sugar Rose by Susan Carroll. (Another Trad.)
One of my favorite books, The Magnificent Ambersons, opens with one of the best descriptions of the sartorial splendor of the day that I’ve ever read. I think you can find it on Project Gutenberg. The film adaptation captures that beginning brilliantly:
https://youtu.be/ND1X594F1wY
Clothing in novels, particularly romance, is an interesting issue. I remember watching a panel discussion of romance authors who essentially said, “Gone are the days of costume porn.” Elongated descriptions of clothing seems to be a thing of the past in favor of tighter pacing and shorter word counts. As a fairly new romance reader, I don’t know what clothing descriptions used to look like, but some of the panelists said they remembered a time when you could get away with taking up a page or two just painting a lush picture of the various ball gowns and suits characters wore at a party. Has anyone found this to be the case? If it’s true, does anybody miss the “costume porn?”
Personally, I prefer extraneous details related to characters’ physical appearances and attire to be kept to a minimum to focus on the characters themselves as well as dialogue and action. With romance and erotica, I am a lot more forgiving of physical descriptions given the nature of the genres- just as long as those descriptions don’t sound like a police report. What do you all think?
I find Lisa Kleypas puts in some nice details about costumes in her books. She also does her research and included little bits about how one heroine is wearing a new dress made with the recently discovered (in 1856) aniline dye.
I always think of Gone With The Wind in terms of costume descriptions as I used to pore over those parts again and again. If somone hasn’t read the book then they don’t know why Scarlett is determined to wear the inappropriate dress that shows “her bosoms” before 3 o’clock. As I recall it’s because her favorite dress is stained and while she considers wearing a brooch to cover it she is afraid Melanie has sharp eyes and will spot it. And of course she must wear her signature green.
I do remember that years ago (and it still happens) authors would have heroines wearing the most outrageous stuff no self respecting 18th or 19th century ingenue or debutant would be caught in.
I think most of the Barbara Cartland books I read were because the one thing she did write well were some great costume descriptions. And if you have ever seen a picture of her you know that woman knew her way around some rhinestones.
I remember reading some older historical romances where the author spent a page or two describing the H/h’s clothing. These authors also used to spend a lot of time describing the food being served at various functions and the decor. It sometimes felt like they were dragging out every detail so they could showcase how well they had done their research. It isn’t just romance writers who have been known to do this. One of my favorite sci fi authors, Robert Heinlein, used to show off his knowledge of physics and astronomy. It mostly happened in his later books. It lessened my enjoyment of the story as it seemed to be overkill and didn’t do much to further the plot (especially for us non-scientific readers). Sometimes less is more.
Oh yes, KarenG, I also enjoy reading great descriptions of food whether past or present. I’ve read several books on the history of food, cooking, dining, table manners, etc. Fascinating and brings a story to life for me if well done. I just think it’s more of a case of getting things correct to context than showing off.
I remember Karleen Koen’s book “Through a Glass Darkly” would do that and even put definitions in parentheses in the middle of the sentences. Drove me crazy.
Early Eloisa James’ books have lots of descriptions of clothes and sometimes makeovers which I found enjoyable. I never felt it overwhelmed the plot.
I have to say, one of the things I love most about the Little House books are the descriptions of dresses. Ma’s dark green delaine with the ripe strawberries embroidered on it, anyone?
I like descriptions of dresses in historical romance too, but I don’t need these to be exhaustive. A few details that are poetic or imagination-invoking will work better for me than a down-to-the-last-stitch summary.
I loved the clothes descriptions in those books so much! Was it Ma or one of her sisters that had buttons with little castles on them? I loved it every time Laura described the clothes they were sewing, how she cut her “lunatic fringe” bangs, when she pinned on the strawberry bar brooch or Ma’s sadness at Laura’s sensible black wedding dress “married in black, you’ll wish yourself back”.
Every time I hear those books mentioned I think of the line in You’ve Got Mail when Kathleen Kelly (Meg Ryan) says:
”When you read a book as a child it becomes a part of of your identity in a way that no other reading in your whole life does”.
Truer words were never written. Thank you Nora Ephron!
Great responses, everyone! I have had fun reading about your clothing examples in literature.
@Chrisreader- I totally forgot about Scarlett having a stain on her dress! I was always terrible at tests in school when they would ask ridiculous detail-oriented questions like “What color shirt was so-and-so wearing in Chapter 2?” Unless an outfit has direct bearing on character, plot, or theme, I’m highly unlikely to remember it. And, in the case of Scarlett’s dress, I forgot that detail too! :)
@KarenG- Totally with you on the problems with info dumping, whether its period costume research or hard science facts. This is one of those areas where a hard-nosed editor can really rein in an author for his own good. The problem is, once an author gets big enough, like Heinlein, he really doesn’t need to listen to anybody anymore as he scribbles away.
@Elaine S- Mmm… food. :) Love your comment about making facts “correct to context.”
@hreader- Yeah, just about anything can work as long as it doesn’t take over the plot and characters. It’s kind of like special effects in movies. I can tolerate them if they exist to enhance the story rather than supplant the story.
@marian Perera- I was never a Little House fan as a kid. Not sure why. Maybe I just had too much of a problem with Pa getting a darn fool notion to move his family out in the middle of nowhere where everybody had to work hard when they could have had an easier, safer, much more fun life in the city. I guess you could say I’ve always been a bit work-averse. Tee hee… And the idea of farm life with its daily grind and sometimes life-threatening and/or financially-threatening challenges has always given me the heebie jeebies. Props and respect to those who can and do make it work!
“A few details that are poetic or imagination-invoking will work better for me than a down-to-the-last-stitch summary.” Agreed.
One of my favorite dress/makeover moments is in “Dreaming of You” by Lisa Kleypas. In it the bespectacled, cap wearing, “country mouse”author Sara Fielding gets the scandalous Lily (of Then Came You) to help her get a suitable gown so she can infiltrate the masquerade ball at Derek Craven’s gambling den. Lily takes her to her own fabulous (French of course) dressmaker and has a gorgeous blue gown altered for her and a delicate matching mask made.
It’s a fun scene for anyone who loves descriptions of pretty gowns but I particularly enjoy it for more reasons.
One- it’s all about women helping women. Lily is charming and immediately befriends Sara for her own sake and because she senses Sara could be important for her good friend Derek. Most other books I thought of involved a man styling a woman Pygmalion style (which also can be fun) but this one was all about the women having a great time with Sara trying on the gowns and determining what would be the most stunning on her.
Two- it’s a temporary masquerade not a complete revamping of Sara and her style. She saves the gown and wears it again later on, but she is right back to her caps and glasses the next day as that suits her and her lifestyle. While she wears it though she discovers another side to herself that likes a little drinking and flirting and allows her to explore her sensual feelings she has been repressing with her dull almost fiancé.
If I had to pick an unread book it would likely be “Silk Is For Seduction” by Loretta Chase. I have been hoarding it and the rest of the series for some time waiting for the mood to strike for me to read it. As it is part of the Dressmaker Series it seems appropriate.
I used the Pygmalion referrence very loosely here, tbh. Aurora learns more about what suits her during the course of the story, but she’s very much the same person at the end as at the beginning. My favourite of the Dressmaker series is the last – Dukes Prefer Blondes – I enjoyed all of them, but the connection between the H/h in that one is special..
I was thinking of the books in my collection with Pygmalion like themes such as Meredith Duran’s A Lady’s Lesson in Scandal because it jumped it to mind for me. In a lot of books the hero will gift the heroine with a new wardrobe or a special dress. I can think of a ton of romances both historical and modern where this happens. They are not all makeovers but the Kleypas one struck me because it’s all females involved.
Afterwards I thought of “The Proposition” which is a fun reverse Pygmalion where the woman is the Henry Higgins figure.
I’m looking forward to reading the Chase books I’ve heard a lot of great things about them and I’ve been hoarding them “for the right time” which may be now!
Julie Anne Long’s To Love a Thief is another Pygmalion inspired tale, but in this case both hero and heroine are helping each other transform (if I remember correctly). That one doesn’t get mentioned much anymore, but I do remember enjoying it.
I concur on Dukes Prefer Blondes! While the clothing descriptions are slightly less emphasized in this book than in the rest of the Dressmaker series, the story is perfection. I adore Raven and Lady Clara, they are utterly perfect for each other. And it’s so funny how this super-smart man is both a bit enchanted and bewildered by her clothes. But of course she has a rep as a fashion plate that she must uphold…
I love Loretta Chase and her wonderful historicals, but if you only read one of them this would be a good one to choose. (Although Mr Impossible is truly wonderful as,well…!)
We have a Pygmalion tag! https://allaboutromance.com/review-tag/pygmalion/
“However, there are other instances where Mimi(who is white) goes to an event wearing a cheongsam or when she plans (apparently without much input from Zhang) an event for LilyZ that is almost stereotypically Chinese, with tea, lanterns, a lion dancer and other similar touches.”
Oh, dear. Here we go again. Why should a non-Chinese person get a Chinese person’s input on whether or not to wear a cheongsam? Seriously, who decides the rules on who gets to wear what? I definitely understand the argument about not wearing religious regalia flippantly, but the cheongsam as we know it today has a long history that was in fact influenced by Western fashion in its later years. By this logic, the modern cheongsam is a product of cultural mingling rather than permission-asking: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheongsam. And isn’t that a good thing?
As for the stereotypically Chinese party with tea, lanterns, and a lion dancer, this is bad why exactly? Lots of cultures have tea and lanterns, and there’s no particular reason why anybody can’t enjoy those things today. And I seriously doubt lion dancers who get paid to perform at parties care who’s hiring them for an event.
“Reading it made me uncomfortable, and I wondered how a reader who is Chinese would view it.”
Everyone is an individual and is likely to view the scene differently. But just as a general trend, I’ve noticed that people actually living in the cultures being supposedly appropriated tend to be bothered far less (if at all) than people outside the culture or fifth generation descendants feeling offended on their behalf.
My favorite clothing descriptions are in Loretta Chase’s novels, especially the Dressmaker series. The fashions at that time were so overdone, even the hair was styled into silly top knots and side curls. Chase manages to describe all the bows and buttons and ruffles in a way that is both loving and mocking (and hilarious). I especially recall the phrase ‘sleeves the size of butter churns’, which cracks me up every time I read it.
Yes, those wonderfully ironic descriptions are brilliant. I’d probably have chosen one of those for the prompt if It’s hadn’t already read them all!
This reminds me of Anne Shirley’s desire for a dress with puffed sleeves, which makes me smile.
Which Matthew gets for her! Best guy ever!!