Tumperkin’s Take:
Sometimes, when I’m really enjoying a book, I just race through it. If I get even five minutes peace, my hand will stray towards it and I’ll fit in however many pages I can. I’ll gorge and guzzle it; devour it the way you might eat a chocolate bar when you’re hungry. And sometimes that greediness leaves me with a feeling of regret afterwards, wishing I’d savoured it more even though I know that the regret is misplaced. Because the compulsion is part of the enjoyment. The Madness of Lord Ian Mackenzie was such a book for me. I read it over a couple of days, snatching every chance to pack in a few pages.
TMOLIM is the first in a series of what looks like being four books, focussing on the four Mackenzie brothers, the oldest of whom is the autocratic Hart Mackenzie, the Duke of Kilmorgan. Ian is the youngest brother at 27 and the hero of the first book. The brothers have had troubled childhoods: their mother died when they were young and their father was violent and angry. They are all introduced in this first book and we learn that they each have had difficult histories. There was a fair bit of sequel-baiting but since it did largely fit with Ian’s story, I didn’t object too much.
This is a premise – the pack of siblings, headed up by the uber-alpha big brother – that has become popular in historical fiction lately: Madeline Hunter’s Easterbrook series, Mary Balogh’s Slightly series and Jo Beverley’s Mallorens all use the same model. Initially, I was slightly put off reading TMOLIM because of this. However, by the time I reached the end of page 1, all of my reservations had disappeared. The opening chapter is one of the most arresting and intriguing first chapters I’ve read in a very long time, introducing the character of Ian in a compelling and original way.
Ian is widely believed to be ‘mad’. Even Ian himself believes this. The modern reader recognises the condition that Ian suffers from (Asperger’s syndrome) but the Victorian characters of the novel don’t have this insight. And so Ian’s symptoms are described by him and by others as is the treatment he received for eleven years in an asylum until Hart arranged his release on their father’s death. I am no expert on Asperger’s syndrome, but I suspect that Ian may be somewhat atypical. He is able to express himself quite articulately and whilst Ashley describes his inability to recognise and interpret emotions, he seems to be able to discuss this inability with a degree of comprehension – and later find a pathway to an understanding of love - that gave me pause. I wondered if this was accurate. I worried about it a little. And then, ultimately, I decided that Ashley had done such a good job with this character, that I wasn’t going to be troubled any longer. I made the conscious decision to simply accept Ian as he was presented. Ashley has written a character in Ian whose actions and characteristics are consistent and logical within the pages of the book and within my own understanding of this type of condition. Which I suppose is a very long-winded way of acknowledging that this character might not work for everyone, but he worked for me.
In fact, I loved him. I loved the descriptions of his feelings for Beth – even if he didn’t recognise them as emotions until close to the end. Even more, I loved the descriptions of his ways; his helpless absorption in the things that fascinated him – getting ‘lost’ as he put it. There is a marvelous little bit where he becomes fixated on a ball of ink hanging suspended from the end of pen and in the end his valet has to take the pen and write for him. Similarly, we get to see him in a number of difficult situations in which he becomes enraged or panicked. Ashley’s depiction of how he experiences these events, how very raw and difficult they are for him, is so rich and satisfying. The language Ian uses to describe his experiences is heartbreakingly understated: he refers to these situations as ‘getting into one of his muddles’. Those romance readers with a motherly streak (Kristie J, I’m naming you; and standing with you, shoulder to shoulder) will love this hero.
The heroine – as is often the case with books that have an outstanding hero (or vice versa) was inevitably less noticeable. Nevertheless, she was likeable. (I didn’t mind her ending up with my Ian). We are told that Beth’s mother was genteel but her father was a con artist and she spent most of her childhood in poverty before marrying a vicar and enjoying a short but happy marriage with him. On his death, she found employment as a companion, and after 7 or 8 years, when her employer died, inherited everything from her. One small quibble I had was that the employer – Mrs Barrington – was portrayed rather unsympathetically. Beth’s time with her was referred to as drudgery and we hear many quotes attributed to Mrs Barrington. I had the sense we were meant to find her hypocritical and small-minded but on the whole I found her comments unobjectionable and given that she left Beth her large fortune, she couldn’t have been all bad!
If I’m going to be really picky, I also felt that Beth’s character felt as though it had been constructed to be Ian’s perfect match rather than a unique character in her own right. She is uniquely suited to him: she has enough knowledge of the streets get information from whores she knows by name whilst having sufficient polish to navigate Ian’s privileged world with ease; she has enough sexual experience to be keen to bed him whilst having a sufficient degree of innocence that he is able to ‘teach’ her a number of variations on the general theme; she is empathetic enough to feel his pain whilst being tough enough to face down the rest of the world on his behalf. You get the idea. I’m not knocking Beth as such. She worked. But it did mean that she was a less compelling, less ‘real’ character for me than Ian.
Ian wants Beth on sight and quickly takes action to make her aware that her fiance Lyndon does not deserve her. There’s an oddness around this opening portion of the book. In the first chapter, Ian meets Lyndon to buy an antique bowl from him – Ming bowls are Ian’s passion. We learn in this scene that Lyndon can’t tell a real bowl from a fake; and this is a metaphor for what he is as a man. He doesn’t see what has value in life. Without being over the top about it, Ashley shows us a man who is rude, crude and fawning all at once. We see that he clearly does not deserve the heroine. We want Ian to take her away from Lyndon before we’ve even met her. *SPOILER ALERT* At this stage, I anticipated a struggle – perhaps a third of the book at least being given over to this – but that isn’t what happens. Instead, Ian divulges something to Beth immediately about Lyndon that causes her to throw him over. This revelation was not – to my mind at least – connected to the more fundamental objections about Lyndon’s character, and the ease with which she decided to ditch him felt odd. Why had she agreed to marry someone in the first place that she could cast aside with such ease?
But really, these are mere quibbles. I loved this book. It consumed me. I read it too fast then wished I hadn’t. It’s an A for me despite the flaws, for the same reason The Spymaster’s Lady was an A for me: because it really got my teakettle whistling.
One last thing that I really liked about this book: the pacing of the ending. I often feel like I don’t get enough HEA for my money. You get the crisis/ the black moment, then the HEA. Sometimes, the crisis is very close to the end of the book and suddenly the HEA is upon you, and it’s over. And I feel like my rollercoaster car has just reached the end of the track and fallen to the ground, instead of gliding to a stop. This book didn’t do that. It gave us a black moment, then another, different crisis, then slowly brought us to a really lovely HEA before guiding us out of the rollercoaster car very gently and back onto the ground. I can’t tell you how much I appreciated that careful handling.
Oh, and I can’t wait for Hart’s book.
Jessica’s Rejoinder:
I, too, really enjoyed this book, despite the fact that I had to read the paper version (I have gotten very used to enlarging the Kindle fonts!). I became intrigued by it after reading so many great reviews online, and when I saw how many readers of this blog had just bought it (discovered when I asked people what the last 5 books they bought were).
I’ll say what I really liked about it: the dark world of the Mackenzie brothers, the unusual hero, and the witty and no nonsense heroine. As Tumperkin has mentioned, the hero, Ian, has an unusual mind. He has a gift for numbers and memorization, trouble detecting verbal nuances and reading facial expressions, and can’t easily restrain his own impulses in order to follow social convention. The following bit exemplifies what I liked about Ian and about Beth:
“I shouldn’t let you do this,” she whispered.
“Why not?”
“Because I think you could break my heart.”
He traced his finger around her lips, outlining the cleft of the top lip and the roundness of the lower. His gaze remained on her lips, as his large hand moved to her thigh.
“Are you wet?” Ian whispered, teeth on her earlobe.
“Yes.” She tried to swallow. “If you must know, I am quite, quite damp.”
“Good.” his hot tongue circled the shell of her ear. “You understand such things. Why you need to be wet.”
“My husband explained on our wedding night. He thought that ignorance on the woman’s part was the cause of much unnecessary pain.”
“An unusual vicar.”
[snip]
His eyes flickered. “Does what I say anger you?”
“No, but never speak like that in a drawing room full of ladies and fine china, I implore you. That would be quite a mess.”
He nuzzled her hair. “I’ve never been with a lady before. I don’t know the rules.”
“Fortunately, I’m an unusual sort of woman. Mrs. Barrington did her best to change that, but she never succeeded, bless her.”
“Why should she want to change you?”
Beth warmed. “My lord, I do believe you are the most flattering man of my acquaintance.”
The scene also exemplifies what I felt uneasy about. Like Tumperkin, I felt Ian’s condition was romanticized. The lack of eye contact which some people with AS display is a marker for lack of empathy and social reciprocity. That’s a very big emotional barrier to the kind of romantic love Ian and Beth share. I also felt, as in this scene, that Beth’s wit, which I did really appreciate, sometimes took on the condescending tone of a parent who talks to her child in such a way that you know her comments are directed more at the other adults in the vicinity and not the child, who will never understand them anyway.
But, like Tumperkin, the good parts of the romance made me overlook these qualms. I figured if sexual abuse, domestic abuse, and all the other things get romanticized in the genre, why not autism spectrum disorder? I told myself Ian was on the “quirky” side of things, not the “high functioning autism” side.
Some readers felt the sequel bait was a bit too smelly, but I was so enthralled by the Mackenzie’s, who have had a hell of a childhood, I didn’t mind. I can’t wait for Mac and Hart’s stories in particular, Mac’s because he is estranged from his wife, and I love estrangement stories, and Hart’s because I found him absolutely vile and cannot believe he will get his own book.
Like Tumperkin, this was a page turner for me. I didn’t stop to ask why Ian became enthralled by the mere mention of Beth’s name, how likely it was that Beth would bump into both the hero’s brother and sister-in-law in France, why Beth felt so comfortable speaking plainly to both Mac and Hart about their own lives when she hardly knew either of them.
I was fascinated by every character who appeared on the scene (like Tumperkin, I thought the pacing was terrific. I never found a moment I could put it down.) and I just wanted to be in this world and learn more about it. I can’t wait for the next installment!
