Okay, confession time. We get LOTS of really old books as donations at the library, particularly paperbacks. And (being totally serious here) it's really quite sad. Because once a paperback gets to a certain age, those cheap pulpy mass-produced pages are brown and fragile and brittle - we can't use them in the library, even if we wanted to. Libraries try to be sensitive, and we do what we can based on our local rules and regulations; pass them on to charities, sell them off, or at worst, send them off to be recycled. Once upon a time, a box of particularly ancient paperbacks had a Barbara Cartland romance in it with a VERY disturbing name, and I was totally hooked. I'm not going to admit which one, but it was enlightening (and yes, disturbing), to say the least. So when a recent batch of donations had another ancient, brittle, foxed paperback with Cartland's name on it and another disturbing title, I just had to read it.
Vote for Love
Barbara Cartland
1977 (bantam paperbacks)
ISBN: 0553103415 (?)
Read May 26, 2016
Oh man. Ok. We're solidly in King Edward's reign, while his lovely deaf wife Alexandra nods and smiles at people and he hooks up with Alice Keppel every chance he gets. So solid Victorian mores here: cheat all you want, but don't dare cause a scandal. Also, in the lead up to war, the suffragettes are getting nasty; planting bombs and causing disturbances and refusing to be bailed out of jail and going on hunger strikes and getting force-fed, all of which is causing untold scandal to their well-bred and better-behaved family members. Raybourn is our man here, and he's a solicitor. He's single, and been hooking up with various married women for a while now, but his last fling is a stormy, emotional, jealous type. Our girl is Viola, and she's being terrorized by her evil stepmother (I wish I were kidding) after her father's death to participate in the suffragette movement because her name will cause people to think that her departed father had sympathies for the movement (he did not).
I will pause here and say that the ENTIRE novel treats the suffragettes as either frigid man-hating battle-axes or silly socialites who are throwing silly tantrums on a lark because they're bored with tea-parties and want people to notice them.
Poor Viola gets thrown into Raybourn's arms (quite literally) when her stepmother has her plant a bomb in his apartment, and he comes in while she's hoping to become a suicide bomber. (Reading this now with ISIS and the heated political situation here and the shootings and bomb threats at Planned Parenthood was uncomfortable, to say the least.) Raybourn begins his successful campaign of rescuing this delicate flower (yes, I get that her name is Viola, that it sounds like Violet, that violets are shy and delicate and retiring and need protection oh my god seriously give it up.) from various social inequities and unpleasantness. They get engaged as a sham to keep each other safe; her from a lecherous old Earl, and him from the jealous mistress (her husband died, and now she's on the prowl), but there are a few more rough waves to crest before making it to smooth sailing as husband and wife.
Highlights:
Viola speaks... in... ellipses... when she's... around Raybourn... because she's usually.... so.... so frightened... and overwhelmed. HELP ME.
(This one is a serious one) Raybourn spends an awful lot of time ruminating on the inequities of Society; that men should be allowed mistresses pretty much whenever, but women had to wait until after they were comfortably wed and bred (heir and a spare first) before they could acceptably engage in assignations. That sort of observation, while trenchant, doesn't really mesh well with whatever else we see of his personality. (Granted we only get 150 pages of story, so we're dealing with limited characterization anyway.)
Best Line Ever: At the end of the book, Raybourn finally reassures timid little Viola that his love is true, and he reassures her of his continued protection: "and when we are wed, I won't allow you to vote for anything but love."
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