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A review by jackiehorne
The Lover's Knot by Erin Satie
3.0
4 stars for writing and characters, 2 stars for plotting and problems with goal & motivation
Backstory: After Sophia Roe's parents died, they put her funds in trust, under the guardianship of her uncle Malcolm and their lawyer, Mr. Swann, who later inherits the dukedom of Clive. On the day her engagement to Julian Swann, a cousin of the duke's, is announced, the duke and Mr. Roe tell Sophie all her money has been lost. In her frustration, she throws a bottle of ink against the wall and is hit by a shard of the flying broken glass. And then someone pushes her wounded face into the spilled ink, leaving her with a birthmark-like scar. Convinced (for a reason that is never clearly explained) that Julian was the one responsible for marring her looks, seventeen-year-old Sophie breaks off the engagement, leaving Julian brokenhearted.
Flash forward to the present (1839, 11 years later). The Duke of Clive has just died, and Julian has inherited the title. When he returns to the ancestral home, though, the Dowager shows him her husband's suicide note. A note Julian immediately knows is false, because he recognizes Sophie's forgery style (apparently she's been able to copy others' handwriting since she was a child). Did the previous duke really kill himself? Or was he murdered? And if so, by whom?
This is the second Satie book I've read, and I'm still feeling like there's a lot about the characters and their motivations that are clear in the author's head, but haven't made it down onto the page. Is Sophie's memory simply bad, or does she have an actual memory disorder? Why did Sophie think Julian harmed her? What does the whole murder plot have to do with Sophie and Julian's character arcs, or their romance arc? Or was it just a convenient reason to bring them back together? Why does Sophie go from declaring "I hated being in love with you. I was glad when it was over. I still am," to accepting Julian's proposal, a mere 30 pages later?? If the author is aiming for subtlety, leaving gaps so that readers will figure things out on their own, I have to say I think she's being too subtle, forcing readers to leap chasms in order to make sense of her characters and their actions.
Was unsettling to have the heroine be so openly vindictive toward her enemy at book's end. In romance, it's usually the men who take care of the villains, or the villains conveniently fall off a cliff or are accidentally shot, receiving their comeuppance without the heroine having any blood (actual or metaphoric) on her hands...
Backstory: After Sophia Roe's parents died, they put her funds in trust, under the guardianship of her uncle Malcolm and their lawyer, Mr. Swann, who later inherits the dukedom of Clive. On the day her engagement to Julian Swann, a cousin of the duke's, is announced, the duke and Mr. Roe tell Sophie all her money has been lost. In her frustration, she throws a bottle of ink against the wall and is hit by a shard of the flying broken glass. And then someone pushes her wounded face into the spilled ink, leaving her with a birthmark-like scar. Convinced (for a reason that is never clearly explained) that Julian was the one responsible for marring her looks, seventeen-year-old Sophie breaks off the engagement, leaving Julian brokenhearted.
Flash forward to the present (1839, 11 years later). The Duke of Clive has just died, and Julian has inherited the title. When he returns to the ancestral home, though, the Dowager shows him her husband's suicide note. A note Julian immediately knows is false, because he recognizes Sophie's forgery style (apparently she's been able to copy others' handwriting since she was a child). Did the previous duke really kill himself? Or was he murdered? And if so, by whom?
This is the second Satie book I've read, and I'm still feeling like there's a lot about the characters and their motivations that are clear in the author's head, but haven't made it down onto the page. Is Sophie's memory simply bad, or does she have an actual memory disorder? Why did Sophie think Julian harmed her? What does the whole murder plot have to do with Sophie and Julian's character arcs, or their romance arc? Or was it just a convenient reason to bring them back together? Why does Sophie go from declaring "I hated being in love with you. I was glad when it was over. I still am," to accepting Julian's proposal, a mere 30 pages later?? If the author is aiming for subtlety, leaving gaps so that readers will figure things out on their own, I have to say I think she's being too subtle, forcing readers to leap chasms in order to make sense of her characters and their actions.
Was unsettling to have the heroine be so openly vindictive toward her enemy at book's end. In romance, it's usually the men who take care of the villains, or the villains conveniently fall off a cliff or are accidentally shot, receiving their comeuppance without the heroine having any blood (actual or metaphoric) on her hands...