[ESSAY] A Bride for Lord Brasleigh: Your Taste in Men is Questionable

I bought this one from the local library back in Massachusetts. I think I bought it on a dare. Or maybe it was the novelty of it, seeing as how I had never before read anything like it in my life. Or maybe because the cover caught my eye. It is the most corny, quintessentially 80s thing I have ever laid my eyes on, from the filter effect to the rose bush lining the bottom of the frame. I'm not exactly sure what possessed me to buy it, let alone review it, but here we are over five years later.

The book sits at 221 pages long and isn't that dense. Not that this is a mark against the author. Prose density is not the end all be all of determining literary merit. Debbie Raleigh (this is her pen name, her real name is Alexandra Ivy) is a prolific New York Times Best Selling author which means she is an absolute monster when it comes to producing work, work that is consistently enjoyed by a wide audience. It may not be my cup of tea, but I do have to say that I respect the hell out of the woman for what she does because it sure as hell isn't easy to be so good so consistently. But it should have been an easy read. Which, for the most part, it is. But man, was it infuriating.

Right from the start, there is a prophecy that gives the ending away and there is never any indication that the prophecy could be misconstrued or dynamically reinterpreted. “A love that is true, heart that is steady, a wounded soul healed, a spirit made ready. Three women will come, as the seasons will turn, and bring true love to each, before the summer again burns...” Boom. Already we got three fuck bois who'll get hitched before summer break is over. The book follows one of the three, Philip Marrow (aka Lord Brasleigh), and his ward Bella Lowe through their ups and downs of falling in love.

Lowe is entrusted to Marrow by her father, who charges Marrow with providing for her until she is married off by a suitor of Marrow's choosing. Lowe, being a headstrong and independent woman, is stifled by this arrangement and runs away. However, upon doing so, she is set upon by ruffians only to be saved by one Lady Stenhold, who just so happens to be Marrow's aunt. Lowe, unaware of the familial connection, conceals her identity and endears herself to Stenhold so to have a suitable place to stay while she tries to find her way in the world. Meanwhile, Marrow hears about this news from his servant who had managed to follow her to Stenhold. Marrow comes up with a plan to scare Lowe back to his estate by... attempting to seduce her. It should be noted that they had never met before. However, Marrow is confident that his dashing good looks and his ability to absolutely slam these tequila shots will make the prospect a likely thing. Which is to say that he intends to make it perfectly clear that he is just looking for sex from Lowe and that this will somehow cause Lowe to be scared into returning to his estate meekly and accept her arranged marriage. While he does catch her off guard and she's very clearly attracted to him, Lowe turntables him and manages to get him to fall for her. In doing so, she also makes him jealous as she pretends to fall for the guy she was arranged to be married to so to get back at him for pulling such a prank on her. This ruse is meant to make Marrow see that his actions have consequences and also to get the two of them to a place (logistically, emotionally, and physically) where they can confess their feelings to one another.

The plot is convoluted. Is it as convoluted as it needs to be to make the premise work? I guess so. Does that mean that it makes no sense? Also yes. Are the characters' motives believable? Yes. Do they behave in logical and believable ways? No. No they do not. Basically, the story doesn't make any sense, but that's not what I want to focus on in this review. The main issue I want to focus on is how the romance is so totally and completely not romantic, and it all starts with Marrow.

I'll cut right to the chase by saying that Marrow is a sexual predator. It's clear that Raleigh intentionally painted him as a man with honor; he states both internally and externally that he never intended to have extramarital sex with Lowe. And while he fails in the beginning to understand that the living situation he provides for her stifles her autonomy, the reader also gets the sense that it is due to his sense of duty that compels him to secure Lowe's future. But none of this stands up to the fact that he literally can't take “no” for an answer, nor can his actions hide behind the “character” he plays.

In comedy, the comedian will often construct a “character” to play. Which is to say that they are not themselves, so they can behave in certain ways that might draw attention to whatever it is they're satirizing. For example, Stephen Colbert is famous for playing an extreme conservative political advocate even though he is actually left leaning. By doing this, the comedian can act in whatever way they like and deflect criticism to their character instead. So if you are playing a character that is a miserable twat, you can say, “That is just my character. I am not actually a miserable twat.”

Some comedians and actors may take this to extreme lengths and “perform” this character whenever in public, regardless of whether or not they are on a stage. At the bar? I'm a character. Grocery shopping? I'm a grocery shopping character. The dedication to the role may itself be a commentary. Whatever the case may be, there are limits to how far you can take this. You can't murder someone and blame it on the character. At some point, there needs to be a level of responsibility that is taken regardless of what your intentions are or who you are pretending to be.

And this applies to people in general. Of course, comedians will generally be more deliberate when choosing when and what role to play, but it's a common phenomenon found in everyone. Even the most sincere and open people will still adapt themselves to their environment. We behave differently in the company of strangers, our enemies, our parents, and our friends. In each of these spheres of interaction, we have learned that different people like to be treated different ways and so over the course of our lives, we compile a repertoire of protocols to perform as we move through these spheres.

To the general public and to Lowe when he first meets her, Marrow was deliberate in choosing the role of what he saw as a highly sensual, attractive, and lecherous man. This is in line with how people generally see him and how women tend to treat him. Instead, what he acted in reality was ignorant and sinister, and this is not something that can be deflected onto the role he plays. By disrespecting Lowe's personal space and ignoring her repeatedly telling him “no” to both the touching and kissing and general advances Marrow not only strips her of her economic autonomy, he strips her of her body's autonomy as well. Even though he plays a part to get her to accept his social and economic assistance, this doesn't invalidate the fact that his behavior is unacceptable.

Look. I'm not saying that its a bad thing to fantasize about a scenario in which a sexy hunk making moves on you. I'm not saying it's a bad thing that men make sexual advances on women, or vice versa. What I am saying is that the way in which he does this is completely wrong, even if it's for the “right” reasons. From Lowe's perspective, it is shown to the reader that she finds the behavior unacceptable.

An aside: I get that as a man reviewing this book, I might come across as a bit of a white knight. What we have here is a guy (me) essentially telling a woman (fictional or otherwise) how she should feel about a certain scenario. So you the reader should probably take all of this with a grain of salt. I don't mean to police the sensibilities of women. My viewpoint only comes from me mentally switching places with Lowe. So, I do apologize if this comes across as white-knighty or self-righteous. Detour done.

But this is the thing that frustrates the reading for me the most. The ending is a foregone conclusion, so everything that the characters do only serves to be a source of attraction to the other. Marrow's sexist and abusive behavior is seen in an attractive and desirable light. Not that I speak from experience, but I feel that a regular human being in Lowe's position would have punched Marrow in the face. Unless I really did want to sleep with him in the first place, in which case I'd have skipped the whole game and just jumped his bones, making this book a pointless exercise in narrative tension.

To really drive the nail in the proverbial coffin, Marrow is rewarded for his behavior. I say this not because he (spoilers) gets the girl in the end, but because he doesn't undergo any sort of change whatsoever, at least any change that is appreciable or earned in the narrative sense. There are only two things that come close to this criteria, and that is when he apologizes for not having realized that the care he provided for Lowe was substandard and when he changes his mind about married life. What's funny is that those two things are the bare minimum we should be expecting from our romantic interests, not the pinnacle of husband material that the book paints them to be. The bar has been set in such a way that buries it six feet under. So in my book, no pun intended, he is still a giant douche.

Even putting this issue aside, there is still the issue that our characters have zero chemistry outside of their physical attraction for one another. Of course, their attraction is partially informed by their respective behaviors. For example, Lowe respects Marrow for his ability to care for animals and other people, as he demonstrates by saving a dog or when he treats another plain looking woman like an actual human being. For another example, Marrow begrudgingly respects Lowe for her independence and strength. But all of these examples are two dimensional in that they never feel like character traits that exist outside of their function to make the characters attractive to the other.

And seeing as we're working with themes of true love, their relationship never seems to live up to those themes. I mean, Raleigh spelled out for the reader with the prophecy. Which is a bit of a shame because it completely robs the reader of any tension, sexual or romantic or otherwise, and leaves us wondering how reductive love is in this universe and how two people can call this love to begin with. What I'm getting at is that the love felt by our two main characters is... well I wouldn't even say that it's love. It's a common line of reasoning that the initial romantic attraction between two people stems more from sex and infatuation than from love, and this book is a perfect example of that. Nothing in the book was about sacrifice or devotion. We never see them having to deal with questions of self-worth or respect. We never see either of them having to carry the relationship for the other, we never see selflessness, and we never see gratitude.

I realize I'm getting over idealistic and I'm beginning to ramble. The book itself isn't complex or examine any themes beyond the superficial, nor does it make any claims to do so. It is condensed wish fulfillment makes no illusions that it will be anything else. Much the way people will say that they will simply watch a Transformers movie for robots beating each other up, I suspect that people will read A Bride for Lord Brasleigh for roughly the same reason. However, I can't say that it successfully made me feel satisfied, even if I was looking for an easy and quick read with a happy ending. I felt little to no connection to the characters, which compounded on the problem that the central theme of the story, true love, was two dimensional and utterly unbelievable. In the end, all I got was a sense of emptiness and disappointment and the enjoyment I got from the book came mostly from writing about its flaws.