January Reading Notes

Today is the last day of the first month of the year, and it feels like just yesterday, I was writing my New Year's Day post. This month has simply vanished. There was a lot of busyness involved every single day and some days felt like they were a week long; yet, the month has gone by with an unnoticed rapidity. I moved yet again, and there was a lot of packing and unpacking involved. There are less than ten (feels like a victory) packed boxes to go through and then I will be done. I hope there are no more moves in the forseeable future.

The Siren of Sussex by Mimi Matthews
Category: Victorian Romance
Comments: I highly recommend this book. It is one of the best historical romances I have read in a long time. At twenty-three, Evelyn Maltravers has just arrived in London from the Sussex countryside for her first season. Evelyn is determined to snag a wealthy aristocratic husband to pave the way for the successful futures of her younger sisters. Her passions are horses and fashion, and she intends to harness both in her bid to cut a dash in London society. Ahmad Malik is a dressmaker, currently working out of a gentleman’s tailoring shop making bespoke riding habits for the ladies of the demimonde. He dreams of opening his own ladies’ dress shop, designing unique gowns to fit each lady’s body and personality. Evelyn and Ahmad meet when she arrives at his shop to commission a riding habit. [My Review]

The Roughest Draft by Emily Wibberley & Austin Siegemund-Broka
Category: Contemporary Romance
Comments: This is a haunting meditation on the psychological perils of success. It is a romance novel by two coauthors who married for love, who’re now writing a romance about coauthors who fall in love while they’re writing a love story. New Yorkers Katrina Freeling and Nathan Van Huysen have history. They used to be very successful co-authors who had a falling out. But now, they're back together to write one final book on their publishing contract, and they realize that they are not only phenomenal co-authors but even more phenomenal life partners. [My Review]

Weather Girl by Rachel Lynn Solomon
Category: Contemporary Romance
Comments: A lovely story that does Jewish, neurodiverse, and fat rep well. It also sensitively handles managing depression through meds and therapy. Ari Abrams is a TV meteorologist. Russell Barringer is a TV sports journalist and a teen parent of a now preteen. The two bond over matchmaking for their bosses because their verbal warfare is causing stress in the workplace for everyone. While I liked Solomon's debut Ex Talk more, this is a wonderful story.

Kamila Knows Best by Farah Heron
Category: Contemporary Romance
Comments: I loved Heron's first book, Accidentally Engaged, last year, and I loved this book. I enjoy her voice and her storytelling style. Set in the same cosmopolitan Toronto setting as her first book and Uzma Jallluddin's and Jackie Lau's books, this is a childhood friends to lovers story. Kamila Hussain is a staid accountant by day and a vivacious party planner by night. And clueless that sharp-dressing Rohan Nasser is in love with her. They have history. He is the CEO in her and his fathers' company, and her father trusts him while indulges her, i.e., doesn't take her seriously. She wants to be respected. And Rohan shows her how to get what she wants.

Ramón and Julieta by Alana Quintana Albertson
Category: Contemporary Romance
Comments: This was an unusual book for me, and I loved it for that. Set in San Diego and dealing with the unique and complex San Diegan Latinx culture, this deals with one character being fully embedded in the culture, and another coming to terms with his roots, after being on the outside for long. The unusual part of the book for me was the deep immersion in the culture. In the Latinx books I have read before, the authors have sparingly included cultural details. This book does a deep dive—without the culture, there is no story. I loved that! And the stakes for the hero are very high, his very identity. In his youth, Ramón Montez’s father stole a recipe for a taco from a señorita and built a nationwide chain. Ramón lives a luxurious lifestyle. The recipe was Julieta Campos' mamá's, and they are barely ekeing out a living. Julieta wants to continue to run her highly successful, small tacqueria, but Ramón wants to convert it into his flagship chain restaurant.

Lease on Love by Falon Ballard
Category: Contemporary Romance
Comments: This is a roommates-to-lovers, opposites-attract debut rom-com. I enjoyed Ballard's wit and writing, and I am looking forward to her next book. Sadie Green works in stodgy finance but dreams of opening a highly creative florist business. One day, sharp words later, she's out on her ear. After confusing a roommate-finding app with a dating app, she ends up with a room in a beautiful Brooklyn brownstone at an unbelievably low rent. Jack Thomas is very wealthy and very alone. He is shy and she is larger-than-life. She's like a whirlwind in his life and gets him out of his shell and painting again. He, in turn, makes her feel worthy and valued and respected.

Reputation by Lex Croucher
Category: Contemporary Romance
Comments: This was a difficult book. The publicity for the book is falsely advertising that it is Bridgerton-esque or like Jane Austen. Yes, it is set in the Regency, but any and all connections to Julia Quinn’s and Jane Austen’s work or other current histrom are non-existent. There is a love interest, but it is not a romance; it is more women’s fiction with a romantic subplot. This is not the usual rom-com as the publicity would lead you to believe. While there is some witty banter and some LOL moments, I feel British sense of humor is rather different from American. The story is rather dark with drug and alcohol abuse, death, emotionally abusive families, rape, sexual assault, slut-shaming, toxic friendships, racism, and violence. While none of these in the singular or plural is cause for my disfavor, all of it together is too much to balance with the love sub-plot. As far as the writing goes, it is well written, astute, and assured and does not read like a debut book. And I loved the diverse cast of characters in terms of race, gender, and sexuality. Yes, the book is popular on GoodReads, but it was not for me.

Caroline's Waterloo by Betty Neels
Category: Vintage Contemporary Romance
Comments: There was a period of a few months in 2020 when I read many Betty Neels and Mary Burchells. This was my first Neels since then, I think, other than one exception. It came across highly recommended by @NYSuri from our Saturday Twitter Book Club. It is classic Neels with a middle class British nurse heroine and a very wealthy Dutch doctor (surgeon?). This book is set in The Netherlands. Caroline does not think anyone would ever want to marry her since she isn't pretty or especially clever. She gets injured in a biking accident and ends up staying at the mansion of the aloof, arrogant Professor Radinck Thoe van Erckelens for a few days. Out of the blue, he proposes to her, telling her that he needs a hostess. He is not looking to fall in love. He has A Past(!) and so wants to settle for comfort this time around. She has fallen in love with him so accepts his proposal and agrees to not impose on him in any way. But, in her heart of hearts, she is scheming for his love. There is one dramatic scene towards the end that is quintessential Neels, and our heroine brings the hero to heel...imposingly and arrogantly.

Review: The Siren of Sussex by Mimi Matthews

Mimi Matthews is an excellent raconteuse. I was rivetted by her prose, held spellbound by the story she was telling. The Siren of Sussex is so beautifully realized—the characters, the setting, the language, all combine to tell a complex tale. Like the smooth gait of an Andalusian horse, there is superb kinetic pacing to the story that ebbs and flows with the emotions and motions of the heroine.

At twenty-three, Evelyn Maltravers has just arrived in London from the Sussex countryside for her first season. Unlike her older sister who scandalously ran away with a baronet’s heir to live abroad unmarried, Evelyn is determined to snag a wealthy aristocratic husband to pave the way for the successful futures of her younger sisters. Orphaned at a young age, she and her sisters were brought up by a spinster aunt. She feels fortunate that her eccentric, Victorian spiritualist uncle is willing to sponsor her. Her passions are horses and fashion, and she intends to harness both in her bid to cut a dash in London society.

Ahmad Malik is a dressmaker, currently working out of a gentleman’s tailoring shop making bespoke riding habits for the ladies of the demimonde. He dreams of opening his own ladies’ dress shop, designing unique gowns to fit each lady’s body and personality. Perfection in tailoring and minimalism in embellishments is his trademark, which he hopes to bring into fashion in London society.

Evelyn and Ahmad meet when she arrives at his shop to commission a riding habit. As they work together on her clothes, he is proud how his clothes make her beauty visible to all, and he is proud that she thinks his clothes are beautiful and magical and can transform a person into something extraordinary. She, in turn, is proud that he has made her beautiful and is proud to showcase his designs to Society. She is never shy to drop a word here and there to bring him new business.

As an Anglo-Indian, Ahmad was brought up on the outskirts of British colonial life in India. He was not raised as a Muslim but was brought up on a watered-down, hastily cobbled together version of Christianity, with which he has never known what to do. As a child of a white British soldier and an Indian woman, he was not accepted in Indian society, nor in British society, to which he was reluctantly brought as a teen. Matthews depicts Ahmad’s struggle for identity and sense of self with great care.

Learning to love someone is looking at them the right way. This is not learning to love by acting a certain way. It is simply by looking at them a certain way. Evelyn always sees Ahmad as her equal. She sees his race and learns about his humble life and only sees him as a man she is attracted to, a man to admire—her equal in every way. It never occurs to her to see him otherwise. On the other hand, Lady Heatherton, an upper crust white woman looks at Ahmad and sees a “native” man who is beneath her, who is only good for an intimate encounter and to make her gowns—someone to be used.

This is Ahmad’s reality in London life. He is used to being used. But instead of allowing this to beat him down and keep him mired in the squalor of the East End, he rises above it by sheer dint of integrity, hard work, and desperate courage to become a dressmaker to women of the ton. He isn’t afraid of having to work hard for a living and doesn’t think it is lowly to be employed. He is seduced by beautiful fabrics and elegant tailoring, not soft living. He loves Evelyn, not for her comfortable living style, but for her acknowledgment of him as an equal in every way and for her bravery in loving him back despite his background.

LL Cool J has said, "You can't let your past hold your future hostage." Evelyn is determined to rise above her genteel, white British country upbringing to become a modern Victorian woman who is building a life with an Anglo-Indian tradesman in racist, colonial Britain. How she goes about making it possible for them to marry while securing the futures of her sisters, I will leave it for you to discover. Evelyn’s growth over the novel is her building awareness that the journey between who you once were and who you are now becoming is where the dance of life really takes place.

bell hooks has said, “Love is the necessary foundation enabling us to survive the warts, the hardships, the sickness, and the dying with our spirits intact. It is love that allows us to survive whole.” It is this forever love that Evelyn believes in. As the story moves along, she convinces Ahmad that what his life was or wasn’t, isn’t important; he is always he—her beloved, and her love is not just a verb—it is her looking into his soul.

An accomplished horsewoman herself, Matthews instinctively knows that the human relationship with the horse is the critical difference between merely riding a horse and being at one with the horse. Where Society is focused on their riding clothes and riding crops, Evelyn is focused on her seat, her leg, and her gentle but strong hands to instinctively know how to guide Hephaestus, her Andalusian stallion. Scenes where Hephaestus features are nearly poetic in their beauty.

Matthews does not shy away from depicting an accurate picture of British racism and colonialism, which had a "tendency to dehumanize, demonize, exoticize, or infantilize Indians [and Anglo-Indians]," as Matthews says in her Author's Note. Most historical romances gloss over these uncomfortable details, but Matthews confronts them head-on, and in so doing, tells a complex and authentic historical tale.

I highly, highly recommend The Siren of Sussex. It is one of the best historical romances I have read in a long time.

Happy New Year

Today is the dawn of a whole new year. May this be the year we achieve herd immunity through vaccination and can heave a sigh of relief and say the pandemic is at an end. Every year I write these new year's posts, I lay out lofty goals and exhortations. This year, my goals are simple and yet more profound: focus on health and achieve a measure of peace and joy. To that end, I have begun going for daily walks and investing in nutrition through more fruits and vegetables and less processed foods. I have begun a meditation practice. And I have also signed up for a program that requires you to work with a psychologist exploring indentity: Who Am I? I have been writing daily notebook pages by hand and journaling daily on LiveJournal for years. What I write in the journal and the notebook differ; one is more structured, the other, more freewheeling. This work with the psychologist is a more in-depth look into what makes me tick and how can I tick differently in some areas. The past many years have been one of passivity for me, where things happened to me and I drowned in them. I hope this year, I will be an instrument of change. I can't wait for the days to unfold and see what I bring to the table.

"Be Like a Tree: May we face the coming year with the steady serenity of a tree—that supreme lover of light, always reaching both higher and deeper, rooted in a network of kinship and ringed by a more patient view of time." —Maria Popova