An Affair Before Christmas (Desperate Duchesses, #2) in Fans of Eloisa James & Julia Quinn

Aug 24, 2012 Kym rated it liked it

Shelves: romance, georgian, series

Setting: April-December, 1783 London
Genre: Romance
The descriptions of Georgian Era clothes and customs are very vivid. You can see women with wildly large feathered and powdered hair atop hugely wide panniered dresses. You can see men in their embroidered pastel coats, clocked stockings, and high heeled shoes. You can practically smell the stench of unwashed bodies in ballrooms. You get hints of the politics of the day through mention of prominent people and issues. All-in-all, you get a peek in Setting: April-December, 1783 London
Genre: Romance
The descriptions of Georgian Era clothes and customs are very vivid. You can see women with wildly large feathered and powdered hair atop hugely wide panniered dresses. You can see men in their embroidered pastel coats, clocked stockings, and high heeled shoes. You can practically smell the stench of unwashed bodies in ballrooms. You get hints of the politics of the day through mention of prominent people and issues. All-in-all, you get a peek into the world in which the characters in this book reside. The dialogue between the characters is very witty in places and actually made me laugh. These are some of the things right about this book.
The main plot focuses on the unhappy marriage of the Duke and Duchess of Fletcher. Poppy was madly in love with Fletch, but because of what her mother told her about how to behave and what to expect, the two have grown apart in the 4 years they've been together. He was wildly in love with her, but her coldness in bed has led him to feel rejected. She has very low self-esteem due to her mother being a misandrist harridan. So the story is about the growth, individually and as a couple, of these two. Miscommunication is the main plot device.
There is a subplot involving the Duke of Villiers, who has an infection of the wound he suffered in a duel in the first book of the series. The relationship he develops with Charlotte Tatlock (spelling? I listened, so I don't know) is basically there for exposition of the type of man he really is, and to cast a vague foreshadowing of a book to come. Jemma, the Duchess of Beaumont, plays an important role in this story, and there are hints at what might happen in the future. Although he doesn't show up often in this book - less so than in the previous - the Duke of Beaumont makes my gut twist when he does, because he seems at a loss as to how to get beyond his stupidity in the past and connect with Jemma. Even though he was a cad of the first order, he's tied with Lord Strange as my second favorite man in the series (Villiers being favorite).
What's wrong here? Well, the story is in third person from the point of view of 4 different characters. This is a pet peeve of mine, especially when I use the audiobook format. Hopping from one person's POV to another's can be disconcerting. EJ could have tightened up the plot in this book by dropping the subplot without loss of integrity of the series. She could still have provided foreshadowing of future events, but lost extraneous characters.
Overall, I enjoyed this book in the series, aside from the subplot. I liked the characters, though the whole French femme fatale at the end was kind of silly. I liked that Poppy & Fletch got their HEA. ...more

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