Fireflower [Paperback]

Heroine: soft, ripe

Cavalier Gideon Hawkes has returned to England after an extended absence, prepared to retake his family's ancestral home at whatever the cost. Stopping in at a London tavern for some supper he makes the decision to bed one of the wenches there. His choice? Sweet young Mary Monk who, having been rendered homeless and orphaned after the Great Fire and horrifying plague, has made the painful decision to sacrifice her virtue in exchange for survival. But what was meant to be a quick romp for Gideon instead becomes a lasting relationship as he offers Mary his protection.

As the mistress of a powerful and rich man, Mary flourishes. While never really a beauty she still manages to catch the eye of many a man, including the King himself. This suits Gideon just fine as he intends to see her settled with a new protector as soon as he can bring his plan to fruition: to woo and marry the lovely puritan Celeste Southern, new owner of his family's estate. But there is a complication: poor Mary has fallen deeply in love with her paramour! 

What worked for me:
The setting of the story was an interesting one: the Restoration, after the civil war during which Cromwell imposed his harsh religious standards on the people of England. (I love novels set in the past. It's the most painless history lesson you'll ever receive!) The characters were all well-fleshed out for the reader, even the supporting ones. There are several to feel sympathetic toward, and a few to despise. And the education of Mary, a sheltered respectable tradesman's daughter, in the ways of being a wealthy man's mistress was a treat.

The tension in the book in the book was great. As the story moves forward you can't help but feel frustration at the fact that Gideon does not realize that he could have a very happy life with Mary. And there are several plot twists which serve to keep the tension building: Mary's introduction at Court, which earns her a powerful enemy; the accidental meeting between Mary-the-mistress and Celeste-the-betrothed; and the dear friend who wishes to become Mary's new lover, but would put his life in peril if he ever said so out loud. 

As far as Mary's size goes, she was never described as being large. However, she didn't fit in with the particular beauty standard of the day either, as Celeste Southern did. Celeste was tall, willowy, and lily-skinned (think Michelle Pfeiffer.)  Mary was dark, nearly sallow-skinned, and fairly compact in build.

What didn't work for me:    
Since this is an older novel, the pacing may seem somewhat slower than more current books to some readers. However, speaking for myself I didn't find this to be a problem.

Overall:
    Fans of historicals shouldn't miss this one! It's an older title and out of print, but well-worth scouring the used bookstore shelves or online auctions for. 
If you liked "The Fire-Flower" you might also enjoy "The Bride and the Beast", "The Accidental Bride", or "Suddenly You".

This was a decent book. The heroine was a sweet girl. She knew what she was and where her place was with the hero. Even though she was in love with him she never asked more of him. She was very selfless. I can't say the same for the hero. He's a first class jerk. While keeping the heroine as a mistress he continued to pursue the prude fiancee. The fiancee was one very annoying woman. The hero treated the heroine like a whore and actually called her a whore when he was talking with the fiancee he referred to her as "his whore". I guess we were suppose to be touch that she was "his whore". After the fiancee kept turning him down he eventually came to his senses. Even though he came back to the heroine I still didn't believe he loved her. He should have been groveling to her and pleading with her to take his sorry ass back but he didn't. In my opinion he insulted her more. He tells her that she's not any real beauty. He doesn't tell her that he's over the other woman only that they were't right for each other. It's like him telling her "hey things didn't work out for me and my fiancee because she's a prude and I'm not, so I've decided to come back to you. Consider yourself lucky because face it we all know your not pretty". The epilogue made think that after many years later he still had a thing for the fiancee because on his death bed he had his son return the key to her. The key to me represented some sort romantic momentose between the two. The novel would have been so much better if there was more focus on the romance between the hero and the heroine and not the hero and the fiancee. I didn't care for the ending because I didn't feel the hero loved the heroine.

The Girl: Mary Monk, the daughter of a cobbler who died in the plague, and whose home burned down in the Fire of London. She's got nowhere to go, she's starving, and so she decides to become a whore as a last resort. So she's in a tavern and trying to avoid the grasping hands and obvious leers of the scary customers until she sees a Mr. Calm, Cool, and Collected watching her from the corner.

The Guy: Gideon Hawkes, the son of a man whose loyalties went with the Royalist or Cromwellian breeze. He hated his father's hypocrisy but loved the family manor, so he sent lots of money home from his exile abroad for the old man to keep it in fine condition for when he inherits it. However, he arrives to find the old rascal dead and new tenants in place who took the mysterious money that kept coming in the mail and did some renovating. He's pretty damn gracious about it and withdraws, but is intent on getting it back with Charles II's blessing since Old Rowley owes him a favor or two for letting his purse be open to the sticky royal fingers while in exile himself.

The Setup: Gideon picks Mary up in the tavern with a proposal that she be his mistress. She needs food and a roof, and he's got his manly needs. It's a business arrangement, made more than a bit complicated when he discovers after the first night that she was a virgin pushed to desperate measures. He wants to protect her and pats himself on the back that he's doing her a favor, while she idiotically falls in love with him even though she knows that she can't be his wife because of her lowly station. Gideon pursues wifely material in the person of the sister of the current master of his childhood home. It's Charles' master plan: Gideon will marry the sister and get his old house, and her brother will marry a rich widow who has a manor. It's the "Get a Spouse AND a House!" Stuart special. (Don't forget to bring your coupon!)

The Good Stuff: OK, this was one of toughest books I've read in a long time. Never before have I wanted to keep reading about vague characters that I didn't much like. Weird, huh? Gideon really is an ass, going about his business of keeping Mary on the side while he courts secret Puritan Celeste Southern in order to get his house. He's so single-minded about getting his hands on the manor, right up until almost the very end of the book, that I began to wonder if the cover should have had him wrapping his arms around a rose bower or a sideboard instead of Mary. Mary is pale and fragile and really very willing to be Gideon's doormat, except in those moments when she isn't, and her crusade to become literate is more pathetic than sweet. Still....I kept reading and my interest didn't wane, for all that. I did like the character of Celeste, the Puritan, who is holier-than-thou and, at first glance, makes Lillian Gish seem like a screaming harlot. However, the scenes with her were great, sort of a portrait of the smug and justified hypocrisy of the Puritans and Cromwellians. She undertakes Gideon as a pet project of salvation, and utterly convinces herself that her pride in eventual victory is really just a tribute to God rather than her own personal vanity. She's insufferable, and her ending is no more than she deserves. She was the best-drawn character in the book, and I was glad that the final chapter was hers.

The atmosphere of the court was well-done without dwelling on the well-trod territory of Charles and his mistresses. Castlemaine makes a brief appearance, Charles is rather selfish and not the woobified martyr to love in recent HF, and Rochester isn't a fractious and naughty puppy, but a craven coward whose reputation-destroying viciousness Charles admittedly tolerates because he's amusing. It was a different take from other also-ran Restoration era novels, and so I enjoyed it.

My Gripe: The hero and heroine weren't all that engaging, and for a romance they should have been. Gideon's epiphany at the end about Mary was a bit wordy and windy, and didn't seem like a declaration, but more like "I've run out of options to get that house and so I've decided I don't want it." (You can't fire me, Celeste. I quit!) He said all the right "omg, I've been such a dunderhead" hero things, but it really wasn't all that romantic or heartfelt.

And last (but definitely not least), the grammar. Oh, the grammar! Sentences that go on and on. Whole paragraphs of sentence fragments. Commas that outnumber all of Thumper's descendants. The long sentences were very painstakingly constructed, and therefore read most artificially. Some were dense, others weren't, and most had a flow of their own that surprisingly didn't require a re-read. However, I think my mind was so intent on deciphering the kernel in each one that that's why Gideon and Mary faded into the background.

For example:
Mary could only stand and stare after him, and would have stayed to stare as he approached the fine Cavalier who immediately bent into a bow as he approached them, and would have stayed to gape at the beautiful honey-haired lady who arose from her curtsy with a smile as he took up her hand in his, and would have remained to simply stand and stare at all that passed, forgetting herself entirely, if Jamie hadn't put a hand on her shoulder to turn her bodily at last, since she hadn't heard a word he'd said to her since Gideon had left her side.

And,
{The play} was very naughty, of course, and even though she knew she wouldn't have understood half the jests so much as a month before, she felt very clever and worldly because she did now - even if in a corner of her mind she was uncomfortably aware that the characters were more to be pitied than laughed at, more to be censured than envied, and their situations more to be feared than she wanted to admit.

Yet some of the rambling sentences took on a kind of ingratiating rhythm, as certain words became anchors or motifs. They were downright artful, but I was always aware of their artfulness. It's not a book I got lost in, but I really liked it and was constantly surprised at how it was keeping my attention (and in a good way), despite its faults.

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