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sophia_sol) wrote2020-09-06 11:10 am
sophia_sol) wrote2020-09-06 11:10 am
The Duke Who Didn't, by Courtney Milan
Courtney Milan's newest romance novel!!!! So exciting!
Milan said on twitter at some point that when she was writing this book, she put into it all the things that made her happy, and you know, as a strategy for writing a highly enjoyable book I think this really really worked.
It is a historical romance set in England featuring Chinese protagonists (because yes, there HAVE in fact been people of colour in England for a long, long, long time!), and Milan drew some inspiration for them from her own family story.
Chloe is working class and lives with her father, and they are working on creating and selling a sauce in order to a) make money, b) get revenge on the white assholes who stole a previous sauce recipe from her dad, and c) be proud of how delicious the sauce her father can make is. Jeremy is a mixed-race duke who's been in large part raised by his racist white aunt, and happens to own nearly the entire village where Chloe lives.
I love Chloe, I love Jeremy, I love Chloe's dad, and I love EVERY BIT of the dynamics between each duo amongst the three of them. The romance between Chloe and Jeremy is DELIGHTFUL, the family feels between Chloe and her dad are AMAZING (and I love that the importance of this relationship and its dynamics get proper narrative attention!), and the way Chloe's dad chooses to approach interactions with Jeremy is just. Yup. I love it all.
Chloe is a determined, organized, and capable sort of person, very goal-oriented, very bad at accepting help because she feels she ought to be able to do it all. Jeremy is a kind-hearted jokester who loves teasing Chloe but only if Chloe's enjoying it too. Both of their personalities are in part formed by their past life experiences, but it doesn't make either of them any less who they are. And Jeremy likes that Chloe is intimidating! Chloe likes that Jeremy teases her! They both know each other so well, and they both like each other for the realities of who they are, and it's so charming to watch them enjoying each other's selves.
I also love the whole village where Chloe lives. It's a wonderfully multicultural village, with many other Chinese inhabitants beyond just the Fongs, and so it's a place where Chloe and Jeremy can both feel comfortable and at home because they're not being constantly othered by white people. The village has its difficult people, as any community does, but as a whole it's just a friendly, welcoming, supportive place, and it's great. I do wish we'd seen a bit more of Chloe's friendship with Naomi though!
Chloe and Jeremy each have their own emotional arcs to go through, of course, before they can reach their happily ever after, and I love them both.
Chloe's is a relatively common arc, of learning to accept that she's loved and deserving of love just the way she is, but it's well done, and I particularly appreciate that it takes place in both her familial and romantic relationships. And Jeremy's arc is of learning how to root out the poisonous vines from his life and it's SO GOOD! The moment when he realises he has never considered giving the land to the village! And recognising that although his aunt does genuinely love him, she has also hurt him and will continue to do so. And that he doesn't need to stay in the part of society that cannot accept him for who he is. Amazing. I love that the happy ending is for Jeremy to come join Chloe's life, even though the more "normal" approach in a romance novel would be for the poorer, lower-class person to delightedly join the life of leisure amongst the aristocrats her new spouse is a part of.
I also adore that Milan deliberately chose to structure this novel without the standard beat of having that moment of despair when Everything Seems Lost Forever. I can see exactly how this book COULD have gone there, but instead it just....doesn't. And I think that's beautiful. The narrative isn't any less for not having that happen, and in fact I think it works really well for this book -- it means we get to watch this constant positive spiralling upward of the two of them inching closer and closer to being able to actually make this work, and it's so nice. The moment where Jeremy tells Chloe the big secret that's been weighing on him, and instead of breaking them apart it's just fine, I like how that says that trusting your partner to tell them the hard things is the right thing to do, and it can work out!
Also I adore the series of revelations Jeremy has as a result of this conversation, that everyone in the town is deliberately teasing him about being the Duke with full knowledge, and that they're all a lot funnier than he ever gave them credit for. That's such a Jeremy way of thinking about it and it's great!
(Disclosure: I received this book as an ARC in exchange for an honest review. The book goes on sale September 22, and is available for preorder now!)
Milan said on twitter at some point that when she was writing this book, she put into it all the things that made her happy, and you know, as a strategy for writing a highly enjoyable book I think this really really worked.
It is a historical romance set in England featuring Chinese protagonists (because yes, there HAVE in fact been people of colour in England for a long, long, long time!), and Milan drew some inspiration for them from her own family story.
Chloe is working class and lives with her father, and they are working on creating and selling a sauce in order to a) make money, b) get revenge on the white assholes who stole a previous sauce recipe from her dad, and c) be proud of how delicious the sauce her father can make is. Jeremy is a mixed-race duke who's been in large part raised by his racist white aunt, and happens to own nearly the entire village where Chloe lives.
I love Chloe, I love Jeremy, I love Chloe's dad, and I love EVERY BIT of the dynamics between each duo amongst the three of them. The romance between Chloe and Jeremy is DELIGHTFUL, the family feels between Chloe and her dad are AMAZING (and I love that the importance of this relationship and its dynamics get proper narrative attention!), and the way Chloe's dad chooses to approach interactions with Jeremy is just. Yup. I love it all.
Chloe is a determined, organized, and capable sort of person, very goal-oriented, very bad at accepting help because she feels she ought to be able to do it all. Jeremy is a kind-hearted jokester who loves teasing Chloe but only if Chloe's enjoying it too. Both of their personalities are in part formed by their past life experiences, but it doesn't make either of them any less who they are. And Jeremy likes that Chloe is intimidating! Chloe likes that Jeremy teases her! They both know each other so well, and they both like each other for the realities of who they are, and it's so charming to watch them enjoying each other's selves.
I also love the whole village where Chloe lives. It's a wonderfully multicultural village, with many other Chinese inhabitants beyond just the Fongs, and so it's a place where Chloe and Jeremy can both feel comfortable and at home because they're not being constantly othered by white people. The village has its difficult people, as any community does, but as a whole it's just a friendly, welcoming, supportive place, and it's great. I do wish we'd seen a bit more of Chloe's friendship with Naomi though!
Chloe and Jeremy each have their own emotional arcs to go through, of course, before they can reach their happily ever after, and I love them both.
Chloe's is a relatively common arc, of learning to accept that she's loved and deserving of love just the way she is, but it's well done, and I particularly appreciate that it takes place in both her familial and romantic relationships. And Jeremy's arc is of learning how to root out the poisonous vines from his life and it's SO GOOD! The moment when he realises he has never considered giving the land to the village! And recognising that although his aunt does genuinely love him, she has also hurt him and will continue to do so. And that he doesn't need to stay in the part of society that cannot accept him for who he is. Amazing. I love that the happy ending is for Jeremy to come join Chloe's life, even though the more "normal" approach in a romance novel would be for the poorer, lower-class person to delightedly join the life of leisure amongst the aristocrats her new spouse is a part of.
I also adore that Milan deliberately chose to structure this novel without the standard beat of having that moment of despair when Everything Seems Lost Forever. I can see exactly how this book COULD have gone there, but instead it just....doesn't. And I think that's beautiful. The narrative isn't any less for not having that happen, and in fact I think it works really well for this book -- it means we get to watch this constant positive spiralling upward of the two of them inching closer and closer to being able to actually make this work, and it's so nice. The moment where Jeremy tells Chloe the big secret that's been weighing on him, and instead of breaking them apart it's just fine, I like how that says that trusting your partner to tell them the hard things is the right thing to do, and it can work out!
Also I adore the series of revelations Jeremy has as a result of this conversation, that everyone in the town is deliberately teasing him about being the Duke with full knowledge, and that they're all a lot funnier than he ever gave them credit for. That's such a Jeremy way of thinking about it and it's great!
(Disclosure: I received this book as an ARC in exchange for an honest review. The book goes on sale September 22, and is available for preorder now!)