Feminista

Rating: 3 out of 5.The daughter of an English lord who promised her mother, his French mistress, marriage, Lisette has grown up wary of men. Correctly so, as her social standing in life affords no marriage propositions, but promises of a different kind. The Duke of Lyons is borne of a family of mad men. Fear of putting a wife through the nightmare his mother had to go through, Maximilian does not want to marry, but his duty to bring about an heir means that sooner or later, he has to marry.The search for Max’s presumed dead older brother brings to two together, to uncover the truth. But their journey also brings emotions of another kind that threatens to tie them together for life.This novel was of an average read. The plot and writing was good. However, there were some inconsistencies that detracted from my enjoyment. For example, when Lisette and Max finally sleep together, and Max offers marriage, Lisette gets offended when Max correctly says that without his offer of marriage she might be bringing in illegitimate (a word I am not fond of, but that was commonplace in those days) child in the world. Lisette angrily says that if she finds herself in that position, of course she would marry him. But how was she to know that Max would offer her marriage, when even before their sleeping together, Max was refusing to marry her. So what would she have done, if she was left with a child with no marriage prospects. I guess people could say that she knew in her heart that Max with do the right thing, but such certainties, especially with her history of a father who kept giving her mother hope of marriage but never followed through, would make such a notion unfathomable. So I didn’t understand her need to get all righteous when she has no real means of making things right. I mean she can barely force a duke to marry her, if he doesn’t want to. I also disliked how Max, subconsciously kept on testing her. For example in the scene above, Max thinks that he half expected her to accept the offer of marriage, something which other women in her place would do. I also hated what a hypocrite Max was. There is a part at the end where he calls her mother a whore. Yes he was angry, but that doesn’t excuse him. He can’t even properly apologise for it until way later. But meanwhile, when some other man calls her mother a whore, he gets all righteous and uses his power as a duke over him. Was I supposed to be impressed by this contradiction? Because I most certainly was not. And finally, Lisette melted even before Max apologised. He calls her dearling and she melts faster than ice-cream on a hot day. I am not a big fan of malleable women, no matter how authors painted them otherwise. If they are strong in one aspect of their life, it should reasonably translate to their personality and character as well. ARC Courtesy of Edelweiss and Pocket Books