AAR

[Leigh]

[ChrisReader]

Leigh said

[Sarah]

Had William and Winter actually believed her, they would have mitigated a lot of this. Instead, they CHOSE not to believe her, which really finished the "ruining".

Certainly Mickey initiated the sequence of events, but the events did not have to play out the way that they did.

[JMM]

[nic919]

Blaming Mickey for destroying the marriage is akin to solely blaming the "other woman" when a marriage breaks up. Obviously the marriage was not in great shape if all it took was the suggestion of impropriety for William to not believe that nothing happened. Had there been a solid relationship, he would have thanked her for risking her reputation for him. He did not and then makes her feel like a whore before he goes off to sea. Dying at sea is a deus ex machina to set up this novel, so I am not blaming Mickey for that.

I do think Mickey was an ass to do that to put her in that situation, but in the scheme of "bad boy" heroes, he certainly isn't the most despicable one out there and he does end up paying for it later on. It's not like in Breathless where the "hero" pays for the heroine to get raped and then barely apologizes for it later on.

I think that reading the first book that deals with the Silence and William marriage would have helped give more context to everything and how it builds to this point. There is a lot in even in this book that is clearly setting up the next book and maybe beyond.

[jaime]

[jessers]

When I said that Mickey's actions ruined Silence's life, I wasn't referring only to her marriage, but also to her standing in the community and how her family saw her. All of those things suffered because of Mickey's actions, and while in a perfect world her family and friends would believe her, Hoyt is depicting an imperfect world and so of course most people don't believe her version of events. Because of the culture they're living in, she loses the respect of many people in her community and many of those closer to her look at her differently. Silence did nothing to deserve such treatment and I found Mickey's actions to be cruel and paternalistic in a way that left a really bad taste in my mouth.

Equating Mickey to the 'other woman' in the dissolution of a marriage because of an affair doesn't really work for me either. Mickey deliberately and maliciously created a situation that he knew could have devastating effects on Silence's marriage. Silence's husband could have believed her and their marriage would have been strengthened or unharmed, that's true; but her husband also could have reacted with violence, or abandoned her, rather than the emotional withdrawal that characterized his actual reaction. Mickey essentially gambled with Silence's future on a whim. And while Silence eventually admits that her marriage wasn't perfect, she certainly seemed happy enough, and the idea that she needed Mickey to open her eyes to the true nature of their marriage is distasteful to me. For all we know, Silence's husband could have grown and realized the error of his ways; we don't know because he dies.

I went into the book hoping I would find a story that would redeem Mickey's actions, I (personally) didn't. I did appreciate that at one point in the novel he admits that he did it with little thought, and that he regrets it, but I guess I didn't feel like he regretted it enough, or that Silence held him accountable enough, for their reconciliation and love story to really connect with me.

[MEK]

I guess for me this novel worked well enough because it is an historical and because Mickey is a pirate with a room of gold and trunks of jewels and a throne, etc.... Therefore, it has that touch of unreality. I can run with his less than stellar behavior and not get too worked up over it. Mickey and Silence can have their HEA. I enjoyed their story and gave it a B.

However, if this had been a contemporary novel, there is no way I would have been comfortable with a hero acting the way he did and then getting the girl in the end. You don't mess with people's marriages.

[ChrisReader]

jaime said

[bethaboo]

I've been reading this thread and the other Scandalous Desires thread while I've been finishing up my own copy.

I feel like a lot of good points have been made on both sides.

Should Silence's husband have trusted her when she told him what didn't happen between her and Mickey? Absolutely. There's no excuse for him to believe anything less of her than the complete honesty she had always given him. Is Mickey culpable too? Try as I might, I couldn't quite let it go that he had done that to her in the first place.

The only thing that truly swayed my sympathies towards Mickey was learning of his horrific childhood, of the lack of love and affection he'd received (I'm sorry, but "protecting" him from the Vicar is not an example of a mother's love). Still, I wasn't wholly won over, and though it helped that he told her he wished he'd never done it in the first place, I still felt like Mickey was definitely getting the better end of the bargain. However, I feel like this happens a lot in Romancelandia, so I can't really blame Hoyt for that feeling.

I point out that the fact that we're all debating this story and its "gray areas" really speak to the fact that Hoyt is a wonderful writer, full of imagination and innovation. Could another author have pulled off this difficult scenario and won me over completely? I doubt that anyone else could have come as close as Hoyt did. I say bring on more books like this one than the regular, worn romance novel tropes.

Overall, an excellent read, I was touched more than once. I do wish the ending hadn't dragged on quite so long--it felt like the LotR multiple endings all over again.

One last point. . .I haven't always been able to draw that many similarities or lessons between the fairy tale excerpts and the story itself, even though I do love that Hoyt puts in those little touches. Clever John made up for all the fairy tales that I thought were just too disconnected. A really beautiful story that made you think.

[xina]

[jaime]

[Kayne]

[xina]

[AnnaS]

I just finished this book, which I'd been looking forward to for a long time, and am coming down more on the bummer side of things than I had hoped. I agree with Leigh and others who have brought up the book's rather substantial Stockholm-Syndrominess--I found the whole setup rather offputting. I'm sure it's a matter of personal taste, but I feel like there's Sexy Power Imbalance in romance and Icky Power Imbalance, and this fell firmly on the latter side.

However, this wasn't the biggest issue of the book for me. Sure, it's troublesome, but it didn't bother me as much as it might have otherwise since I felt that Silence was a total nonentity as a heroine. I suppose this isn't a bad thing in itself--I don't expect all my heroines to be bluestocking stunning beauty secret spy talented musician/painter/writer/whatever types--but I feel like there was a wealth of wasted opportunity to make Silence into an actual character instead of just a heroine for Mickey. She doesn't have to have special superpowers or anything, but she should have SOME distinguishing qualities other than "unassuming widow with toddler." She never seems to talk or think about anything other than her dead husband and/or Mickey, whereas he gets to have all kinds of adventures. Isn't it kind of weird for a romance novel heroine to fail the Bechdel Test?

I found it unrealistic that Silence had so few wants or desires or even thoughts of her own, and because of that I didn't really buy that she would attract the attention of a man like Mickey (not to suggest he's any great prize), much less keep it. Even with Silence's blankness, I feel like there still could have been an interesting story made of it: haven't we all at one point or another been drawn to someone for a reason we can't logically ascertain? But instead of this the story focused lots more on freshwater swashbuckling (fun, but lamer than saltwater) and weird, extended power struggles over dinner (again, missed opportunity! Whither the hot hot food love scene after the hunger strike, Ms. Hoyt?!), and I struggled to sympathize with Silence's treatment. It was hard for me to feel much outrage on behalf of someone who didn't seem like she really existed, even though she was treated shabbily indeed.

Also, I was really distracted this time around by some of Hoyt's favorite phrases appended to the hero, which, now that I think about it, appear in almost every book she writes. c_ck twitch at heroine's innocuous activity? Check. Likeness to a (large, likely feline) predator repeatedly noted? Check again! And if I happen to come across yet another sentence about Mr. Fabulous' body hair "narrowing to a thin line which disappears into the waistband of his breeches" in her next book, I think my eyes will roll of their own accord. Oh, for a Hoyt hero who manscapes! (I know, I know, anachronism. But still!)

I consider myself a big Hoyt fan, but somehow, worst of all, this book prompted an unflattering reevaluation of her earlier work: do all her heroines tend toward this blandness? Are they all just created with the goal of propping up the hero and his awesomeness? I honestly don't think this is true, but nonetheless it was a very depressing thought to be having after finishing a new book by a favorite author.