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Review: About a Rogue, by Caroline Linden
Aug. 30th, 2020 03:42 pmThis book is so soft. It's like cashmere and puppy fur made into a pillow. With down filling. So. Soft.
I didn't realize until I was decently committed to my course in this book that there are overtones of Taming of the Shrew, possibly because I abhor TotS with every bone, muscle, and sinew in my body and attempt to forget it is a thing that exists. Thankfully, the parallels are carefully drawn and rework all the worst elements of TotS so that instead of being The Worst Thing Ever, this is actually quite dear.
The set up of this book is that we have a Dowager Duchess who has just lost her last son capable of producing an heir. She contacts her man of affairs to find the next-in-line for the dukedom, and he finds the three next-of-kin. The third in line is one Maximillian, who has a reputation as a dissolute gamester. The Duchess, trying to plan for a number of contingencies, settles a sum on the two heirs she has managed to find and gives them an amount of time to make something of it.
Max doesn't believe he'll inherit, and what's more, doesn't really care. His relationship to the ducal line is a bit fraught due to their past treatment of him and his mother. Max does, however, very much want the opportunity this money presents to him. Having been struggling to survive in one way or another since birth, Max is intent on investing in a business and making something of himself.
Enter the Tate family. The Tates make pottery. The product is top-notch. Their business sense...could use some improvement. However, Mr. Tate, the widower father of two girls, Cathy and Bianca, pretty much only allows involvement in the actual business by way of nepotism. So Max does the only logical thing to do when one desires a family and a home: he negotiates an engagement contract with the eldest, Cathy, who's the sister most involved in running the household and fulfilling a traditionally feminine role.
There's one small problem: Cathy has a suitor, and has long had one. Said suitor has put off engagement for money purposes, but upon realizing that Mr. Tate is not listening to Cathy's objections on this matter, her and her beau take the last option available to them and elope. On Cathy's wedding day.
Mr. Tate, knowing that Bianca had to have been involved in this plan (as, indeed, she was) loses his cool and forces Bianca into marrying Max through the leverage of saying he's already committed a part of the business to him. Bianca's first love is the business. She creates the glazes that make their products unique and her work is everything to her. Hence, she agrees. In the tradition of leading horses to water, though, she makes a pact with herself never to like her husband.
Max, on the other hand, agrees because he enjoys Bianca's contrariness and has faith in his ability to get her to at least like him over time.
And boy howdy, does it take some time. And some early morning shenanigans. And a trip to London with a business plan that will forever change the landscape and size of the Tate company fortunes. It is a wooing in the tradition of Shrew, but infinitely more kind, sweet, and actually funny, as opposed to simply leaning on misogyny to create humor.
There are so many elements I appreciate about this book. For instance, we the readers know Bianca is being kind of a jerk in her intention not to give Max a chance, but we also completely understand her logic, given the facts she has. And while Max enjoys that she has a strong personality, it's not simply that she's "feisty." He likes her intelligence and the challenge she represents. Also, Max is coded "feminine" in some interesting ways in this book, in that it's him who is desperate for a home, a family, the steadiness of something that is simple but his. On a number of levels, Max almost reads more as the heroine archetype at the climactic moment in the novel. It is delicious.
This was my first Linden. I'll be back for more.
I didn't realize until I was decently committed to my course in this book that there are overtones of Taming of the Shrew, possibly because I abhor TotS with every bone, muscle, and sinew in my body and attempt to forget it is a thing that exists. Thankfully, the parallels are carefully drawn and rework all the worst elements of TotS so that instead of being The Worst Thing Ever, this is actually quite dear.
The set up of this book is that we have a Dowager Duchess who has just lost her last son capable of producing an heir. She contacts her man of affairs to find the next-in-line for the dukedom, and he finds the three next-of-kin. The third in line is one Maximillian, who has a reputation as a dissolute gamester. The Duchess, trying to plan for a number of contingencies, settles a sum on the two heirs she has managed to find and gives them an amount of time to make something of it.
Max doesn't believe he'll inherit, and what's more, doesn't really care. His relationship to the ducal line is a bit fraught due to their past treatment of him and his mother. Max does, however, very much want the opportunity this money presents to him. Having been struggling to survive in one way or another since birth, Max is intent on investing in a business and making something of himself.
Enter the Tate family. The Tates make pottery. The product is top-notch. Their business sense...could use some improvement. However, Mr. Tate, the widower father of two girls, Cathy and Bianca, pretty much only allows involvement in the actual business by way of nepotism. So Max does the only logical thing to do when one desires a family and a home: he negotiates an engagement contract with the eldest, Cathy, who's the sister most involved in running the household and fulfilling a traditionally feminine role.
There's one small problem: Cathy has a suitor, and has long had one. Said suitor has put off engagement for money purposes, but upon realizing that Mr. Tate is not listening to Cathy's objections on this matter, her and her beau take the last option available to them and elope. On Cathy's wedding day.
Mr. Tate, knowing that Bianca had to have been involved in this plan (as, indeed, she was) loses his cool and forces Bianca into marrying Max through the leverage of saying he's already committed a part of the business to him. Bianca's first love is the business. She creates the glazes that make their products unique and her work is everything to her. Hence, she agrees. In the tradition of leading horses to water, though, she makes a pact with herself never to like her husband.
Max, on the other hand, agrees because he enjoys Bianca's contrariness and has faith in his ability to get her to at least like him over time.
And boy howdy, does it take some time. And some early morning shenanigans. And a trip to London with a business plan that will forever change the landscape and size of the Tate company fortunes. It is a wooing in the tradition of Shrew, but infinitely more kind, sweet, and actually funny, as opposed to simply leaning on misogyny to create humor.
There are so many elements I appreciate about this book. For instance, we the readers know Bianca is being kind of a jerk in her intention not to give Max a chance, but we also completely understand her logic, given the facts she has. And while Max enjoys that she has a strong personality, it's not simply that she's "feisty." He likes her intelligence and the challenge she represents. Also, Max is coded "feminine" in some interesting ways in this book, in that it's him who is desperate for a home, a family, the steadiness of something that is simple but his. On a number of levels, Max almost reads more as the heroine archetype at the climactic moment in the novel. It is delicious.
This was my first Linden. I'll be back for more.
