I am very fond of Grace Burrowes' romances, featuring very good people quietly setting their lives in order - I've only read two, The Heir and The Soldier, but they both stayed with me for their quiet grace, as it were.
Still, I wasn't prepared to love her latest, Darius, as strongly as I am doing right now. I woke up early to keep up reading, and if you knew how much I love to sleep in, you'd know what an endorcement it is.
Set in the 1820s, I'd love it for no other reason than the fact that it certainly has a set-up I have not seen before in a period novel - its hero Darius is a male escort. An impoverished younger son of an aristocratic family run by a horrific paterfamilias, Darius tries to protect his siblings and also survive by selling himself (with some conditions and relatively discreetly) to rich and bored society ladies. And then an elderly parlamentarian makes Darius an insane but irresistible offer - if Darius knocks up the parlamentarian's young second wife Vivien, so that she will have an heir or heiress (long story) to his entailed estate, he will pay Darius enough money that Darius can leave his occupation and actually become a gentleman farmer. And even though that violates Darius' remaining scruples, desperate to get out of his present life, Darius agrees. But Vivien is little like what Darius expected and in their month together, he finds himself losing his heart...
So, why do I love it? Firstly, I am very very fond of GB's writing style. It's not overwrought but not uncessesarily spare. I find all her books haunting in their emotion and the wistful, atmospheric feeling they produce (I remember reading The Heir during a miserable, grey, cold winter day and being transported into summery sunlight with a cool glass of lemonade).
But ultimately, I am a sucker for a story of hope and redemption and of quiet desperation transformed into healing and joy. It also matters that both Darius and Vivien are such ultimately good people, people who life knocked around quite a bit, but who maintain their essential decency (and yes, I realize that is a loaded word to use with respect to someone who sells himself for money). I was rooting for them so desperately to find a way out of everything that prevented them from happiness and from being with each other. Vivien, especially, is such a lovely heroine - brought up by a stepfather who was waiting to sell her off in marriage to the highest bidder and saved from that fate by her elderly husband (she was a companion to his first wife), Vivien is someone who has never had any time to enjoy herself and act her age. She is gentle but not a pushover, smart and warm and quiet and quietly wonderful. I'd love her for a sister or a mother or daughter, if that makes any sense. And I am in love with Darius, who is desperately trying to keep his head above water and his self-respect by walling off his emotions, but who cannot do so, and who is drowning in his life without being able to get out, but who tries so hard, and who is so full of intense, fierce kindness.
Basically, it's really really good and it hit all my kinks, and I was desperately rooting for Darius/Vivien and why are you reading this post instead of going to get that book?
Still, I wasn't prepared to love her latest, Darius, as strongly as I am doing right now. I woke up early to keep up reading, and if you knew how much I love to sleep in, you'd know what an endorcement it is.
Set in the 1820s, I'd love it for no other reason than the fact that it certainly has a set-up I have not seen before in a period novel - its hero Darius is a male escort. An impoverished younger son of an aristocratic family run by a horrific paterfamilias, Darius tries to protect his siblings and also survive by selling himself (with some conditions and relatively discreetly) to rich and bored society ladies. And then an elderly parlamentarian makes Darius an insane but irresistible offer - if Darius knocks up the parlamentarian's young second wife Vivien, so that she will have an heir or heiress (long story) to his entailed estate, he will pay Darius enough money that Darius can leave his occupation and actually become a gentleman farmer. And even though that violates Darius' remaining scruples, desperate to get out of his present life, Darius agrees. But Vivien is little like what Darius expected and in their month together, he finds himself losing his heart...
So, why do I love it? Firstly, I am very very fond of GB's writing style. It's not overwrought but not uncessesarily spare. I find all her books haunting in their emotion and the wistful, atmospheric feeling they produce (I remember reading The Heir during a miserable, grey, cold winter day and being transported into summery sunlight with a cool glass of lemonade).
But ultimately, I am a sucker for a story of hope and redemption and of quiet desperation transformed into healing and joy. It also matters that both Darius and Vivien are such ultimately good people, people who life knocked around quite a bit, but who maintain their essential decency (and yes, I realize that is a loaded word to use with respect to someone who sells himself for money). I was rooting for them so desperately to find a way out of everything that prevented them from happiness and from being with each other. Vivien, especially, is such a lovely heroine - brought up by a stepfather who was waiting to sell her off in marriage to the highest bidder and saved from that fate by her elderly husband (she was a companion to his first wife), Vivien is someone who has never had any time to enjoy herself and act her age. She is gentle but not a pushover, smart and warm and quiet and quietly wonderful. I'd love her for a sister or a mother or daughter, if that makes any sense. And I am in love with Darius, who is desperately trying to keep his head above water and his self-respect by walling off his emotions, but who cannot do so, and who is drowning in his life without being able to get out, but who tries so hard, and who is so full of intense, fierce kindness.
Basically, it's really really good and it hit all my kinks, and I was desperately rooting for Darius/Vivien and why are you reading this post instead of going to get that book?