OK. This was me at various points in the book…when I wasn'tHere's the basic story—maybe you'll see what I mean.Eleanor Chivenham is in a bad situation that just keeps getting worse. Before their parents died, her brother Lionel persuaded them to make him her guardian. She can't claim her inheritance unless she either marries with his consent or turns 25 without shaming herself. She's stuck in his house, with two more years on her sentence, since she’s not meeting anyone worth marrying among Lionel's drunken, lecherous cronies. Which is not to say there've been no offers. Lately, Lionel has been urging her to marry Lord Deveril. The dude's an earl and all that, but something about him makes her feel like she's got spiders in her drawers. So she said she’d rather die. At the time, Lionel let it drop, but she knows he's not giving up. She's lying in her locked bedroom, wondering what he'll try next, while her brother is "entertaining" downstairs. A maid scratches at the door and offers her a nice hot toddy to help her relax. You'd think she'd see it coming, wouldn't you? But you'd be wrong. Unbeknownst to Eleanor, Christopher Delaney, Earl of Stainbridge, has been drugged as well. Lionel and Deveril had initially offered him a pretty young man. But he had his wits together enough to protest that he was a ladies’ man ("was married, you know"). So Deveril offers him the doxy he has waiting for him upstairs. Stainbridge (a/k/a Kit) can't have people getting the idea that he's a Backgammon player, so up he goes. Eleanor tries to protest as the stranger slaps her and demands that she perform. But the words, "help!" "don't!" "stop!" just won’t come out of her mouth. She does manage “please,” though. (Because that’s so much easier to say than “stop” and not the least bit ambiguous.) Her last impressions as she drifts into oblivion are the look on his face and the pain… Downstairs, Lionel and Deveril talk about how it’s a shame they couldn’t get Stainbridge to show his true colors so they could blackmail him. As for the sacrifice of Eleanor's maidenhead, Deveril's cool. Taking her when she's unconscious wouldn't be that much fun anyway. And now that she's been "shamed," she has to marry him. He'll "enjoy her hatred even more when she's compelled to conceal it." The next AM, Kit goes back to Lionel’s place to try to make sense of what happened, and he sees a cloaked figure slip out a side door. He follows, and he catches up just as she’s fixing to jump off a bridge. He snatches her down. They recognize each other. She faints. Shortly after she comes around, he says, "You are the woman who was…introduced to pleasure last night." Now, me, I'm thinking that statement, coming out of the mouth of a man who slapped and raped me last night, might just make me a little Not Eleanor, though. This gal is the poster child for Flat Affect. She just calmly clarifies the situation. He raped her. She recognizes him, and besides her brother told her who had the "honor" of doing it. (At this point in the book, I was attributing her passivity and emotionlessness to shock or the near death experience or something, but nope, that's not it.)Anyway, once they have that sorted out, Kit suggests they go back to his place, and she's like, "sure, why not?" Once there, he insists she have some tea. And because she's had such good experiences with drinks lately, she's all, "pass the sugar." Meanwhile Kit decides to tackle the problem square-on. Yes, he really does have a twin, by the name of Nicholas. Who is in Paris at the moment, but Kit pretends he just skipped town after "expressing concern" about the events of the previous night. (I can hear that conversation now: "Hey, Kit, I think I raped a girl last night. Bit concerned about it. Off to Paris!") Eleanor is skeptical—for a second. Then she's like, "You mean it wasn't you? Whew! So now what do we do?" Kit proposes that she marry Nick (because that's just a super idea.) Exact words: “P 28 He is very kind-hearted and when he learns of this affair he will want to marry you and make all right.” (Eleanor evidently misses the obvious logic problem here. If Nick did it, then he probably wouldn't need to learn about it. But she's not one to question, I guess.)Kit, to his credit, is at least concerned about his unintended victim, and wants to help her. He’s "not the marrying type" himself, not to mention marrying a woman you raped has to be a little awkward. But if she springs a brat in nine months he’d like to keep it in the family. Still, if she's totally opposed to marrying her rapist he says he will set her up as a widow in some little burg somewhere, with enough money to live comfortably. Eleanor considers her options: 1) Return home and marry Deveril. 2) Go back to the bridge. 3) Marry her "kind-hearted" rapist. 4) Be a fake widow in some distant, rustic place. #4, right? Independence, respectability, enough money to get by. Maybe some neighbors might suspect a "widow" with no connections, but with an earl supporting the story it would die down quick enough.But…you guessed it. Eleanor calmly decides on Door # 3. (Now, if her reason had been that she feared her brother and Deveril could track her down, and as a woman alone she'd be vulnerable, I'd buy it. Instead, she worries that she'd have to tell the truth to any man who wanted to marry her, and no decent man would have her once he learned she'd been raped and faked a marriage to cover for any child she might have. Apart from the obvious fallacy of that reasoning, most recent rape victims would be just fine with the "no decent man would have her" part. But not El. Nope. She decides she's better off marrying the rapey slimeball. Because that's clearlythe best option.)Kit tells her more about her husband to be. “He lives for excitement and can be careless of who he hurts.” Eleanor's reaction to that? She's a little dismayed that “Nicky” won’t be the “comfortable helpmeet” she’d hoped for. (Because apparently she couldn't guess this from the fact that he raped her.) Eager to reassure her, Kit reiterates that Nicky is kind and charming…and "experienced with women.” Me?But Eleanor doesn't even blink about the experienced with women bit. Instead she reflects that men can be different when they’re drunk, and then remembers a nice guy she knew that used to beat his wife. “This was not a reassuring thought,” we’re told. (Um, yeah.) Meanwhile, in Paris, Nicholas gets a letter from Kit, who admits that he sort of accidentally deflowered a virgin the other night and just stopped her from killing herself the next day. He tells Nick that his allowance will be cut off unless he marries the girl. Nick doesn't need the money, and he's ass-deep in espionage, but hey, why not? Got nothing better to do than marry a suicidal rape victim. Eleanor receives a ring and a note from her groom to be that reads: “You must know I share all your feelings and anticipation at the thought of the ceremony to come.” (Me: Horror? Revulsion? Wow, that’s comforting!") Reading on…”Please wear the small gift enclosed as a sign of your kindness towards me. Soon I will have the right to give you much more.” Now if I read that last bit, coming from a rapist who is being forced to marry me? But here's what Eleanor thinks: “An ambiguous and alarming note, but Eleanor realized it could be read as expressing devotion." (Because devotion from a rapist is a good thing.) When Eleanor meets Nick, as usual, she's just all matter of fact. The one time she snaps at him, she immediately apologizes. And when he takes her aside to “their” room (she thinks of it this way), and she looks nervous, he asks what she’s afraid of. (Me: Are you f-ing KIDDING ME?)Eleanor: “I suppose I am afraid of the abnormality of things.” A bit later, El encounters a slutty Frenchwoman who seems very possessive of Nick. So the next sharp words out of her mouth are catty questions about the whore! (Because God forbid her rapist should cheat on her with another woman.) Mind you, Eleanor still hasn't said one word about the rape. Apparently she's just going to go quietly to the altar without any effort to find out, at least, whether what he did was an aberration, or whether he's in the habit. Me, I'd think that was somewhat important.That night, after the wedding, she tries to put him off. He accuses her of being more prickly than a hedgehog. (Am I really the only one who thinks that, from her POV, that comment is a little outrageous? But of course it doesn't faze Eleanor.)Then Nick smiles at her, and it takes all her resolution not to melt and smile back. (WTF???)OK, I’m going into excruciating detail here. But this is just the first 60 pages. Am I the only one who thinks this woman is several fries short of a Happy Meal?So then, finally, they talk enough that they both realize that Kit has deceived them, that he's the actual rapist and he's let her think it was Nick. Nick points out that he'd prefer it if he could believe the kid might be his (everybody just assumes that she's knocked up). So El agrees to consummate. Because of course there'll be no problem shagging a guy who looks just like the rapist. At least JoBev had the good sense to make it a challenge for her, and not an orgasmic experience. But still. Seriously. WTF. Once they settle at Nick's house, he tells her that he's going out—he's going to go pay a call to her brother Lionel, who, Nick assures her, will not trouble her again. Me: "Ooo! Can I come? Can I watch?" Or at least, maybe, "Do be careful." Eleanor: Shrugs and goes back to thinking about how to do her hair. (I'm not kidding.)Before he married Eleanor, Nick was recruited by his country to seduce a former lover (the French whore) to obtain information about a plot to help Napoleon escape from Elba. The marriage, obviously, complicates matters, but he's determined to go ahead with the plan. (view spoiler)[He calls his friends (the Rogues) together and asks them to distract Eleanor while he goes about it. Several of them offer to take his place in the mission instead, but he refuses, even tho his buddy Lucien is described as looking like an angel and supposedly never fails with women. Nope, it's gotta be Nick. By the time we find out there's an actual reason for this, I'm already way too convinced he's a sleazy asshat. Anyway, he doesn't enjoy banging Therese (I guess that's supposed to make it OK), but because he feels guilty, he treats Eleanor like a crapcicle, to the point where she actually has to beg him for a little kindness. God forbid he should just explain to her what's going on, because that might hurt her feelings! When it is finally over, Eleanor does make him cool his heels a bit before she lets him know whether she wants him back, but since she knows from the minute he walks in the door that she's going to say yes, it feels like a stupid game, or a petty punishment. Everybody else treats it like a game, too, and warns her not to let it go too far (because it's all on HER to keep HIM from feeling unwanted or something). Oh, and Nick supposedly agrees to court her while she's trying to make up her mind. So he gives her a couple presents. No spending time with her, actually trying to get to know her. No drawing her out about everything she's been through and how she feels. No rides in the country or flowers or serenades. He's just all, "Honey, I'm home. I'd like to stick around, but only if you want. Hurry up and make up your mind already." When she asks him how she can trust him, he asks her if he ever broke a promise to her (you mean other than your wedding vows?). Eleanor tells him to go away and give her a few weeks to decide, and he's actually peeved about it, enough so that he then makes her worry a bit. (hide spoiler)]
*MAJOR SPOILERS* The reviews on this book are proof that readers have completely different tastes in their "romance" novels. Note the parentheses around the word "romance." I, for one, didn't consider this book to be about romance.To anyone thinking about reading this book, please be aware that the main characters, Eleanor Chivenham and Nicholas Delaney, enter into an arranged marriage because Nicholas' twin, Christopher Delaney, the Earl of Stainbridge (Kit), rapes Eleanor at a party held by Eleanor's brother. Both Eleanor and Kit are somewhat set up - both having been drugged by her brother and his accomplices. The next morning Kit realizes that something dark happened the night before and as he is out walking to try and get his head cleared, he sees Eleanor preparing to jump in the river and drown herself. He stops her from jumping and pleads with her to allow him to try and make things right.Because Kit prefers men over women, he calls on his twin brother, Nicholas, to come home from Paris and marry Eleanor. Nicholas will do just about anything for his twin so he comes home asap and marries Eleanor and consummates the marriage the first night they are wed. To Nicholas' credit he is very careful with Eleanor and tries his best to make sexual intimacy pleasant in order to help her overcome her fears as a result of the rape. In fact, although the two have nothing except a marriage in name, Nicholas is in some ways everything one could want in a husband. He is kind, considerate, makes sure Eleanor is set up with homes, nice clothes and future finances. However, he makes no commitment to be faithful (unless of course one counts marriage vows). Nicholas has always been a traveler and he makes no promise to stick around other than to make sure Eleanor, who has been totally ruined, has a husband and the necessities of life including a very precious commodity to women like Eleanor in those days - freedom.CIRCUMSTANCES WHICH SET UP THE MAJOR PROBLEM IN THE MARRIAGE: Before Nicholas knew about Eleanor, he was sucked into helping infiltrate a group of people who are attempting to get Napoleon back in business. Chief in this group is a former mistress of Nicholas' - Therese Bellaire - a beautiful and evil woman who is known for setting up brothels and has come to London to set up two exclusive brothels - one in town and the other in the country. Nicholas' job is to make Therese his mistress for as long as it takes to find out the truth of the scheme and do whatever he can to foil the plans to set Napoleon back in play.At this point, the story line became very unsettling to me. Due to Nicholas' sweet personality and kindness to Eleanor, she has begun to fall for him. However, he is "never" around and only allows himself to make love to her one time after their wedding night because he feels guilty having Therese. As long as he is with Therese, he feels he must stay away from Eleanor for her own good. And, in point of fact, I will give him credit for that much.This is where his friends, the Company of Rogues enter in: Nicholas has a dinner party wherein he introduces all of them to Eleanor. Following the dinner, he explains to the Rogues that he would like for them to be available to escort and protect Eleanor during the coming weeks - which turn into long, long months. Of course, Nicholas doesn't explain to Eleanor what he is doing nor the fact that he is in fact "repulsed" by Therese. However, Eleanor hears rumors and talk and understands that Nicholas has another woman in his life. The situation begins to wear everyone down even the poor little Rogues. Eleanor, wimp that she is - that's right - she has absolutely no backbone, will not address Nicholas so the times they are together are very strained. Nicholas, of course, never offers an explanation until waaaaay too late. Once Eleanor realizes that Nicholas is doing all this as a "job" it is literally amazing how understanding she becomes. Sick? Yes! In fact all who are involved excuse this horrible thing that is going on because Nicholas has such good intentions - saving his country, don't you know!There are some details which are really revolting. At one point, Therese and her cohorts have Eleanor and a family friend kidnapped. Nicholas knows they have been kidnapped and still goes to Therese at the brothel continuing to play along and do his "job" even becoming aroused by the "repulsive" Therese knowing she is holding his wife and her friend. Yes, he is there to try and find Eleanor but really? I could go on and on about this garbage to no avail.It would be nice to say that at some point Nicholas gets what is coming to him and Eleanor gets past her stupidity before the doggone book is over! Yes, eventually lessons are learned but in my opinion, Nicholas did not get "enough" of his just due and most of this is because Eleanor and Nicholas' friends are just too willing to act as though all the garbage Nicholas was involved in was okay. Is he sorry? Yes, but too little, too late! The book is 95% complete. Way too late!!So, if you enjoy reading a book about a severely strained marriage between two people who didn't know one another at the beginning of their marriage and aren't given any quality time together to build upon a romance and where the Main Guy has a full time mistress for most of the book, I suppose this is the book for you. Realize this - the strain in the marriage lasts most of the book! But..... apparently it was the book for many people - there are quite a few 5 and 4 star ratings. I wouldn't have bothered writing a review except for my hope that it might help me get the bad taste out of my mouth/mind. Do I feel better after writing this review? You betcha! If it helps one person in their decision to read or not to read, it will have been worth the effort.
What do You think about An Arranged Marriage (1999)?
I picked up the Rogue series through a recommendation on Julia Quinn's message boards. The recommendation either listed under the, 'Virgin Male' section or in the top 100. Now that I think about it, it probably was the top 100. lol but the Virgin Male section sounds better. I... like this series! The characters are often incredibly dense and make me want to scream but the progression of it all makes up for it a little. The thing about the Rogue novels is that all the couples in the book are inevitably married with the first few chapters or well on their way. Their marriages start off on the wrong foot and the love doesn't happen til the end which is a nice change. Jo Beverley references Georgette Heyer on many occasions as her inspiration so it's no surprise that her books all seem to enjoy the same complicated circumstances.An Arranged Marriage started off with a ludicrous concept. Eleanor Chivenham our heroine, is drugged one night and raped by The Earl of something. I forget now, because he was also drugged! Turns out her brother in an attempt to blackmail the Earl has drugged the pair of them in order to ruin Eleanor. In a bizzare twist, the Earl decides to fob the entire affair off onto his twin brother Nicholas who ends up being the one married to Eleanor.Our heroine is raped, then the old "Sex as a Cure" stick is used. But still, the book is very untraditional in the sense that it begins with a rape, then marriage, adultery (on the Husband's side), kidnapping and a birth. Being book 1 of a series, Eleanor and Nicholas return often.
—Minh
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It was a good old historical novel. There were a few typos, which for a book that has been around for as long as this one, you'd expect they'd have been ironed out by now.After reading it I did have a look at some of the other reviews and to be honest am a bit confused. I think some peeps have reviewed it using the standards that we have today, in the era that this novel was set, then the options and decisions taken were appropriate. The saying 'British stiff upper lip' was coined for a reason, when shit happens you bite your lip and just get on with it, once again this was especially the case in the era the novel is set.I will definitely be reading more from this author.
—grumpyoldbird
I'd give minus points if I could. Considering this first book in Beverley's Rogues series was actually the third she wrote for it, it's all the worse - badly (under)written, badly plotted, badly executed. Pushed into 350 pages by an author who has no shame in rushing through the most dramatic storylines by telling rather than showing anything about her paper-thin characters, and not even including (because seemingly not knowing) any historical details, this is yet another huge disappointment. Beverley would have had working ideas - or at least original twists on old ideas - but to start with the rape (both participants drugged/forced) that's sadly often the norm in bodice rippers, and then to have that "nightmare" just be half a sentence and never dealt with, except in occasional miffed thoughts of the heroine?! Beverley was aware of it, too, because there is one half line where the heroine gets to think that she must be not a lady because she "dealt" with it so well. Except her enjoying shop windows the morning after, and generally being insufferably pleased with herself despite the text telling us the usual tropes - how she's insecure and worries about the obligatory female rival - makes her my least liked/most hated of Beverley's heroines. She's probably perfectly tuned to the expected audience though, an unremarkable woman that is then called beautiful, doing nothing except tear out facial hair and arrange ornaments in order to incite deep lust and love - why, any woman can do that, so her happy end must make it every reader's, too *bitter* To think this was the book that started it all and reverberated right into the latest one, and then to have not just the heroes this time but the actual plot be less than it seemed in the retelling in sequels?The second spoiler apart from the "rape" is also told of right in the first pages - the heroes twin brother is gay. And again, the disappointment is so huge because what a smart twist, to make him another victim of the villain, to have them both drugged, to have him have to fuck the supposed whore to prove he's not gay (Beverley read "Bent"?), then to want to atone! Except - Beverley makes him effeminate and positively amoral in claiming his brother had raped her, then blackmailing his brother. I'm worried she will kill him off in the future - sadly I have half a dozen more books already in the mail to me.But, repeating myself again, there is nothing worse than seeing this huge WASTE of characters and storylines, of the possibility of a truly arranged marriage, how getting-on-the-horse-again right away (ie. having sex with the husband) also isn't immediately the perfect lust, how homosexuality might really have been handled (Kit is extra stuffy and careful due to permanent fear), how Nicholas is forced to prostitute himself for his country (he's visibly suffering from having to be Therese's toy, but of course everyone blames him) ... WASTED. All of it, including actually plausible actions and reactions, due to the usual damn laziness of the editor and a writer who might be better than most others in the field, but never once reaches potential.The ending though turns a disappointing book into her (hopefully?) worst ever. Beverley has the unbelievable bad taste to follow a tedious hero-retells-everything and tediouser heroine-sends-him-away-another-month (there B. gets worse than Diane Perkins!) with the disgusting ending of her asking him "wtf did your brother rape me" and then indicating it's all a grand old joke, like not understanding "erotica" - less the so-called "rape" (and I'd never have thought I'd see the opposite of a boddice-ripper rape as equally bad), not even that the child might be the gay brothers, but that the whole "gay" thing is meant to be amusing. And then it ends without a single romantic intercourse, the woman already a mother and yet not even daring to show or feel any want for her husband. Revolting and depressing (- at least me).
—_inbetween_
