Noble Lady goes slumming - sort of
Oct. 2nd, 2010 09:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dangermousieMy favorite romance trope is not the usual Cinderella one (you know - insanely rich/high status guy falls for a milkmaid/beggar/hooker/whatever) but the reverse - a rich/upperclass woman has a romance with a man who is poorer/much worse in status etc.
But, sadly, this is not nearly as popular because romantic stories (whether in dramas or romance novels) are usually directed at female audience and that is not a big female audience fantasy, compared to the Cinderella one.
I've come across a number of dramas which have this, but almost never a romance novel. So, basically, I get excited and check one out whenever I come across one. This led me to Gaelen Foley's Lady of Desire despite my author trepidation (so far I've read 3 Foley romances - one of which I loved to bits, one of which I was meh on, and one which I loathed with a passion. So very uneven).
Heroine of LoD is Jacinda - a well-off aristocrat who decides to run away when her family arranges for a marriage for her with a very suitable family friend. Suitable and nice he may be, but Jacinda has no interest in him at all - he is horridly old (almost 40, OMG), she has no romantic feelings towards him, and she craves adventure and excitement - she would looooove to meet a man like Byron's Corsair (because she's a very sheltered 18 and sort of a fanciful idiot, even if I love her anyway, remembering being this age myself). Not being prepared for the real world, she gets thwarted before she gets very far by a young pickpocket taking all her money. So she does what any sensible young woman would do - she runs after him into the nastiest, meanest part of London wearing her fancy dress and diamond jewelry and ends up right in the middle of a local gang war.
If this was real world, this would be a very short and unpleasant story - the various thieves, murderers and gang members inhabiting the area would rob her, rape her and murder her (or, in the best case scenario, hold her for ransom from her loving if overprotective family). But this is a romance novel, and the gang leader she stumbles across is a macho, sexy, tattooed 20-something Adonis named Billy Blade who takes her back to his hideout while he figures out how to make sure she does not report on him to the police and at the same time how to best return her where she came from before his men slit her throat either for her jewelry or for her sexy self.
I am basically a fifth in and am enjoying this hugely, without the least bit of guilt. She is all "OMG he is so sexy and rough and speaks with Cockney accent and mmmmm...tattoos. I wanna slum, this would be fun, as I never interacted with anyone like this before." And he thinks she is so pretty but also would be an awesome elevating influence and could bring him to the light of righteousness and other similar Victorian terms on the inspiration of virtuous yet sexy womanhood (though this novel is set a bit earlier).
I can't wait for them to hop in the sack (though if I were her, I'd check for STDs carefully - man who's probably done it with cheap 19th century hookers is probably not super safe) and get to the whole angst of "OMG I am not good enough for her" and "OMG, my family would never let me marry a brigand".
I peeked near the end and somehow, improbably, he turns out to be a legitimate son of some aristocrat or other - I guess this way our heroine can have her cake and eat it too. But that's fine, I don't mind. I'll take my slumming romance where I can find it :)
But, sadly, this is not nearly as popular because romantic stories (whether in dramas or romance novels) are usually directed at female audience and that is not a big female audience fantasy, compared to the Cinderella one.
I've come across a number of dramas which have this, but almost never a romance novel. So, basically, I get excited and check one out whenever I come across one. This led me to Gaelen Foley's Lady of Desire despite my author trepidation (so far I've read 3 Foley romances - one of which I loved to bits, one of which I was meh on, and one which I loathed with a passion. So very uneven).
Heroine of LoD is Jacinda - a well-off aristocrat who decides to run away when her family arranges for a marriage for her with a very suitable family friend. Suitable and nice he may be, but Jacinda has no interest in him at all - he is horridly old (almost 40, OMG), she has no romantic feelings towards him, and she craves adventure and excitement - she would looooove to meet a man like Byron's Corsair (because she's a very sheltered 18 and sort of a fanciful idiot, even if I love her anyway, remembering being this age myself). Not being prepared for the real world, she gets thwarted before she gets very far by a young pickpocket taking all her money. So she does what any sensible young woman would do - she runs after him into the nastiest, meanest part of London wearing her fancy dress and diamond jewelry and ends up right in the middle of a local gang war.
If this was real world, this would be a very short and unpleasant story - the various thieves, murderers and gang members inhabiting the area would rob her, rape her and murder her (or, in the best case scenario, hold her for ransom from her loving if overprotective family). But this is a romance novel, and the gang leader she stumbles across is a macho, sexy, tattooed 20-something Adonis named Billy Blade who takes her back to his hideout while he figures out how to make sure she does not report on him to the police and at the same time how to best return her where she came from before his men slit her throat either for her jewelry or for her sexy self.
I am basically a fifth in and am enjoying this hugely, without the least bit of guilt. She is all "OMG he is so sexy and rough and speaks with Cockney accent and mmmmm...tattoos. I wanna slum, this would be fun, as I never interacted with anyone like this before." And he thinks she is so pretty but also would be an awesome elevating influence and could bring him to the light of righteousness and other similar Victorian terms on the inspiration of virtuous yet sexy womanhood (though this novel is set a bit earlier).
I can't wait for them to hop in the sack (though if I were her, I'd check for STDs carefully - man who's probably done it with cheap 19th century hookers is probably not super safe) and get to the whole angst of "OMG I am not good enough for her" and "OMG, my family would never let me marry a brigand".
I peeked near the end and somehow, improbably, he turns out to be a legitimate son of some aristocrat or other - I guess this way our heroine can have her cake and eat it too. But that's fine, I don't mind. I'll take my slumming romance where I can find it :)
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no subject
Date: 2010-10-03 01:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-03 02:33 am (UTC)The opposite huge difference is quite common (in another Foley book, the Duke hero married a courtesan, and that's a common type of trope) but not the other way around :P
no subject
Date: 2010-10-03 02:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-03 06:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-03 06:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-03 08:17 am (UTC)I'm always a bit disappointed when that happens, whatever the genre (because it happens a lot in fantasy too). It can feel like a cop-out and removes either a source of tension within the relationship or disregards the fact that it wasn't an issue for them and they loved each other anyway.
Plus, I get frustrated with the idea that only those of the Noble and Illustrious Royal Bloodline are capable of heroics.
no subject
Date: 2010-10-03 03:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-03 03:22 pm (UTC)I could recommend one of my favorites with this set-up, The Passions of Emma by Penelope Williamson. Late 19c, Bristol, Rhode Island. Upper crust, high society beauty Emma meets on a fox hunt impoverished Irish immigrant Shay McKenna who works odd jobs to support his wife and children (who in turn work at Emma's fiance's cotton mill). Very evocative and melancholic, ie. not a pick-me-up but I can still remember passages, it's that vivid.
no subject
Date: 2010-10-03 03:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-03 04:43 pm (UTC)She also strikes an unlikely but beautiful friendship with Emma, and it's that friendship which allows Shay to see the woman behind the shy, elusive society beauty. It's a slow build-up towards romance, though the undercurrents of a connection are there from the beginning at the fox hunt, and I savoured every minute.
And no, there's no cop out (eg. switched at birth aristocrat's son etc.) in the final outcome.
no subject
Date: 2010-10-03 04:55 pm (UTC)