A Christmas Scandal

A Christmas Scandal

by Jane Goodger

So this cover is complete bullshit, FYI. This is set in the fucking Victorian era (I'd hazard the 1890s because it talks about the Wild West Show as having happened a few years before). But what I'm saying is, that shirt that woman is wearing is nothing like anyone could wear at the time, and his trousers, I'm pretty certain, are far too modern. LOOK IT BUGGED ME SO I'M GOING TO POINT IT OUT TO YOU ASSHOLES.

Find it on Amazon here. I actually found it at Half-Price books for 75 cents (which I only know because the sticker is still on my copy), so I didn't actually pay for it on Amazon or whatever. I read it on Christmas Eve because I had it, and had this blog idea in mind.

Hi there. Welcome to The Fuck is On My Shelf? This is my first ever post.

So in this book, we've got Maggie. Maggie's father recently got arrested for embezzlement and is going to jail. We've also got Edward, who is some Duke or something and he earned the title just a few years before and they met a year ago at a Christmas ball to honor their friends' (Maggie's friend Elizabeth and Edward's friend I can't even fucking remember look he's like a Count or something) marriage thing.  They fell in love but both of them think the other didn't actually like them so they're not telling, and also Maggie is ashamed 'cause, y'know, Dad's in jail and no one likes her family anymore and so now her family is totally poor or something.




So, okay, basics out of the way. The basic premise is that Elizabeth is pregnant with Whatever the Count or Whatever's name is baby, and she's lonely and has no female friends in England, so Maggie and her mother must travel to England to hang out with her and WOE for Edward is there and this makes Maggie's heart all a-fltutter.

Several bullshitty things frustrated me with this book:

First, most romance books tend to be either first person or third person limited going back and forth between the lovers. I have read a lot of crappy romances, so I know this. And A Christmas Scandal  started down that path, with the first chapter or two being from Maggie's POV, then switching to Edward. But then after establishing this back and forth rapport, Jane for whatever reason started tossing in POVs from other places. Over here, we have an Elizabeth chapter! Over here Maggie's insufferable mother! Oh, and let's not forget the end where every chapter is suddenly from Edward's obviously supposed to be adorable 19-year-old sister Amelia's POV who is insufferably precocious! Dear god, who can forget that! It was fucking frustrating as fucking shit, and at times it would switch so fast that I'd be left with whiplash trying to figure out who the fucks head I was in and what in the fuck they were talking about.

Second, the tension and the building of the subplots was abysmal. I don't know if any of my readers have ever watched -- god, was it Sinister or was that the second movie? Sec, quick Google search time.

Okay, so the movie I'm thinking of is Insidious (though Sinister also suffered form this).  The movie was pretty beloved as far as Horror movies go: "Oh, look, this guy isn't writing a slasher so it's great!" But having studied movies, all Good Movies tend to get ruined for me, and Insidious did just that. It was GREAT at building tension at first; the strange shit happening, the weird baby monitor incident, etc. And then Darth Maul and Evil Punk Rock guy showed up, and things went to hell, and then "YOUR SON IS A TALENTED ASTRAL PROJECTIONIST" happened and all was ruined forever. But what I'm trying to say, in an absolutely impossibly complex way, is that the guy started being able to build tension, and then he tried to release it, and he completely fucking failed.

That's my problem with Ms. Goodger's writing. We have some build up, and then she'll try to drop a twist of a side plot, or she'll try to release some tension, and one of two things will happen. 1) It will be completely out of left field and dropped in the middle of nowhere so you're left (again) with whip lash or completely confused about this development, or 2) It will go hysterically backward.  So let's take a look at these moments that completely fucking failed in this book:

• Maggie's father is being jailed. She was hoping for one year, but it's five years. Lots of sobbing. Good.
• Maggie and her mother have had to sell all their stuff as their family name is ruined. Her brothers are struggling to get by. Good. 
• Maggie is personally affected by their name being ruined when the man she thought she was getting engaged to drops her. Good.
• Maggie gets a letter from her friend inviting her to England. She thinks of Hot Duke Edward and longs for him. Good.
• Maggie gets to England where her friend Elizabeth greets her. Maggie's insufferable mother lies about their financial state and how Maggie is still totes engaged. The Duke inwardly seethes because crap, Maggie is kept from him by fiance. Good.
• Maggie and her insufferable mother get in a fight in their private rooms about insufferable mother's lies. Also Maggie suddenly thinks about how she gave up her virginity to a creepy ex-coworker of her father to get her father only one year in jail instead of five and how fat he was. WHAT??????? WHERE THE FUCK DID THIS COME FROM??

 
It isn't helped that I fucking hate those sorts of plots. Luckily, Goodger did really well with that subplot (well, sort of, in her own inept at building tension way), but this kept happening.

There's lots of build up as Kate has to struggle with the lies her mother is building up but eh she comes clean about them and no one really cares or even gets mad. There's a lot of build up of her possibly getting engaged to this old Knight because she thinks Edward hates her, and Edward meanwhile thinks she doesn't like him and actually likes the old Knight and they avoid each other but then suddenly Edward goes down on her in a library (literally out of nowhere) and suddenly she breaks it off with the old Knight and he's okay with this. She decides she's going to go to New York and kill Fat Rapist John Guy, and on the way her boat sinks. Then she gets to Fat Rapist Guy and it turns out that her father WAS only sentenced to one year so she didn't lose her virginity in vain and also her father was only sentenced to one year. Oh and Edward panics because he thinks she dies on the boat but it's okay because literally less than a paragraph later he finds out she's okay.

At literally each of these fucking plot points, they'd be dropped so out of the blue that I would be confounded. Did I skip a few pages? Were some pages missing? This was a 75 cent book, after all, maybe someone had sold it to Half Price after tearing out some pages. But each time I was astounded to find...nope. Just fucking sucks at writing both transitions and releasing tension.

Third, to top off the above, the relationship between the protagonists fucking sucks. We get told about five thousand times how hot they were for each other at this dance before Elizabeth and WhatsisFucks wedding, how amazing and flirty and how they completely rebounded but it's not visible at all. They snipe at each other now and again, and it's kinda playful, but it's so rare and scattered and, as the above stated, abrupt, that I didn't feel any goddamn fucking build up. Suddenly, he's going down on her in a library. And then suddenly ten pages before the goddamn fucking end, they're making out and fucking in a bath tub. And then we don't hear about them doing anything in the end really, aside from three paragraphs, because the rest of the fucking epilogue is focused on Edward's insufferable fucking little sister Amelia GOD FUCKING DAMNIT AAAUGH

But anyway. On to the good thing. The whole Maggie-gave-up-her-virginity-to-some-fat-balding-dude-in-order-for-him-to-testify-for-her-father-to-ensure-he's-not-in-jail-long-thing. Normally when these sorts of plots come up in romance books, they're disgustingly handled: it's not the girl who gets the revenge, it's the guy doing it for her in an act of love while the girl gets to remain a damsel, and there's some bullshit thing about the guy proving to her how sex actually matters and is good. Goodger didn't handle this badly. I'd not say she handled it perfectly--but she didn't make me grind my teeth over it. Maggie handles it herself. Hell, Edward doesn't even know she does it. She's planning on killing the guy, but instead once she realizes what death is like with the ship sinking, she instead goes and talks to him. She tells him he's a sack of horse shit (basically), and then socks him in the face, and leaves. And she feels better for it--because she let out her feelings, and she did hurt him a bit, but it wasn't forever. She lets it go.

She then goes back. She comes clean to Edward. And instead of being like BB I SHOW YOU WHAT IT REALLY IS LIKE (well, he did to a degree), it's Maggie going: "I decided if the fact that I lost my physical virginity mattered to you, then you weren't worth my time. I also recognized it's up to me to decide what losing my virginity means, and just 'cause that guy raped me doesn't mean I lost my virgnity to him. I decide what my virginity is, and I want to lose it to you." And Edward's like "k, sounds good I'm proud of you bb."

And y'know. Sure, lack of tension again. But y'know what, thank you for not having Maggie be the damsel here, Jane Goodger. Good on you.

But with all that said

Should You Read It?

I would not pay $6.29 for this book (which is what Amazon Prime is telling me the cost of it is at the moment). It's a dollar paperback at best, and a lot of people will likely not be bothered by the same things I am -- I've studied literature and media and am also a feminist. I mean, I gave it to my mom to read. She'll likely enjoy it much more than I did simply because she's a mathematician and knows nothing about how literature is supposed to be constructed. If I handed her a book about math theorem, she'd be much more critical of it than I would be. Etc. So in the long run: If you like historical romance and find it for under three bucks? Go for it. Otherwise, pass.

Eh.