Review Tuesday (Slightly Late)...and a Diatribe on Historical Romance

My apologies for being slightly late for "Review Tuesday". I blame the Labor Day holiday on Monday as yesterday did not feel like a Tuesday.

Today I'm reviewing "The Day of the Duchess" by Sarah MacLean. It is a historical romance. Some of you may be thinking, "Why is Caroline reading historical romances?" Well, here goes. For those of you have been long time readers, you probably already know that my own writing is essentially historical romance. I have always preferred "historical fiction with strong romantic elements" but the publishing field does not always recognize this as a genre. They should. Really. Why? Because I find that people who write "historical fiction with strong romantic elements" spend a great deal of time getting the historical part right. I'm obsessive about getting the details correct--everything from language to clothing, and all things in between.

Recently, I've noticed a lot of chatter on the Historical Novel Society's Facebook group (and other places) about the trend in historical fiction towards making characters a bit too unique, as in taking one historically documented person who did terrific things or went against the grain, and using that as a backup to characters doing very unhistorical things. I will admit that I verged on that with "Rebel Heart". My heroine Julienne was pretty bad ass to start with--sort of like Mati Hari (who didn't come on the scene for many more decades) and Belle Boyd (a real Civil War spy) rolled into one. Sure, there are plenty of documented Civil War female spies on both sides of the fight, so I feel like Julienne's part in the spy ring was justified. She probably is a little too independent for the time period, but I like to believe that when dealt the hand she was given, the human spirit kicks in and does what it needs to do, no matter what the time period.

My issue with "straight" historical romance (meaning those novels with scantily clad ladies and gents on the cover), is that the authors often twist the time period and characters to suit modern day attitudes. This is what I encountered in "The Day of the Duchess". I was initially attracted to this novel because it features one of my favorite tropes, the second chance romance. In the novel, which is set in 1830s England, Seraphina Talbot and Malcolm, the Duke of Haven fall in love, but "Sera" is the daughter of a new earl, who won his title playing cards with Prince Regent many years before. I'm thinking that this is a stretch as well. Prinny, as the Prince Regent was known, was not a model citizen, so I could see this happening, but still, it's a stretch. In any case, Seraphina and her many sisters are known as the "Soiled S's". They all have "S" names which gets pretty ridiculous when you get down to Sesily (instead of Cecily). But I digress.

Because she is considered "beyond the pale", Seraphina doesn't trust the Duke to propose, even as they have imperiled her reputation with a lot of furtive glances and hand holding. Worried that her sisters will not be able to make decent marriages, Sera and her mother concoct a scheme to ensure that Duke makes an honest woman of her. Of course, the Duke does and when he finds out that he has been trapped, he is not a happy camper. Loads of bad things happen and Sera leaves Malcolm. She finds her fortune in a Boston tavern, and this is where I start to roll my eyes a bit. Sera has quite the singing voice, and after making friends with an enterprising American, takes to the stage as "The Dove".

Three years pass and Sera has decided that she wants to return home to England. She is hell bent on getting a divorce from Malcolm and running her own tavern in Covent Garden. The one thing that MacLean did get right was the fact that married women could not own property--anything that they owned belonged to their husbands. Also, divorces required an act of Parliament, which MacLean does detail, but it is a very simplistic explanation. Prior to the Matrimonial Causes Act of 1857, the only cause for a full divorce was adultery, at least for the husbands suing their wives for adultery. If a wife brought a case against the husband, she had to prove adultery and life threatening cruelty. So when Sera storms Parliament demanding a divorce, I found myself rolling my eyes once more. While Malcolm was a brute and cheated on Seraphina, there is no life threatening cruelty involved. Maybe emotional cruelty, but even then, that's a stretch, and it certainly wouldn't have held up in the 19th century. Sera convinces Malcolm that she is involved with her American business partner, so he promises to give her a divorce...if she helps him find a new wife. Of course, this is all an elaborate plot to win Sera back because Malcolm still loves her, even though he was a major idiot when they first married. But once again, this is starting to get outside of the realm of historical reality. MacLean leans heavy on the fact that Malcolm is a duke and therefore a "catch". The ladies that line up to vie for his hand are all newly minted debutantes. I am thinking that their families would not have wanted their daughters to marry a divorced lord, no matter what his title was. But we have very little information to figure this out as only 337 divorces were granted by Parliament before things changed in 1857.

I could go on about all the historical things that were just plain wrong in this novel, but I won't. And this is why I shy away from calling my novels "historical romances". I'm too entrenched in telling the truth, and so when I read something that plays hard and fast with the established facts of history, I get a bit touchy. I love romance, though you probably couldn't see that from looking at me. Is it so hard to write a historically accurate historical romance? What drives the established authors of the genre to commit such acts of...well fiction? Does the average reader of historical romance not know, or perhaps even worse, not care?

So, my review of "Day of the Duchess". MacLean is actually a great author. She does an excellent job with characterizations, even if some of them are a bit far fetched. Her prose is bit to "pretty" for my tastes but I'm sure it appeals to a lot of readers. Should you pick up this novel? Sure. If you are not acquainted with random historical nuances (such as I am) or you just want a fun read. There is a happy ending, though in some of the other reviews that I read, folks were not happy with sappy, predictable epilogue. To each his own, I suppose. "Day of the Duchess" is the third book in the "Scandal and Scoundrel" series by MacLean. Sera and Malcolm first appear in the first book of the series, "The Rogue Not Taken", which features Sera's younger sister, Sophie.

For more insight on marriage and divorce laws in England, check out the life and work of Caroline Norton. She is the reason that the Matrimonial Causes Act was passed. Her story is actually extremely sad, and when you compare the circumstances to fictitious renderings of divorce during the period, you might feel a little ashamed.