Jacob Proffitt's Reviews > Private Arrangements

I had a hard time enjoying this book despite how well-written it is. The characters, setting, and plot are all excellently well-done and very immersive. Which is part of the problem, I think. The story we're immersed in, here, has darkly tragic roots with a very raw betrayal at its heart.

The story is spread out over ten years, though really, we only experience the bookends directly (with the occasional short, often irrelevant interlude). In the early section, we have a proud, self-assured Gigi as a take-charge woman with advantageous matrimony in mind. Camden is a noble youth of unexpectedly risen fortune who wants to be naïve, even though that ship sailed when he took over the finances for his hippie parents (they're too noble to be true vagabonds, but that's what it amounts to). In this section, we have two forms of pride clashing in the most horrible way imaginable—with the result of a decade of separation that follows.

For all that they're portrayed as more or less equally culpable, I had a really hard time buying into this moral claim. Unfortunately, Camden's core character is based on him being the wronged party here and I just can't see it that way. mild spoilers here: (view spoiler)[Gigi's actions were foolish and high-handed. They were reprehensible in their own way, but more or less natural for a head-strong girl with a shaky moral foundation—all things Camden knew characterized her (remember, he is not naïve and the narrative depends as much on this as on his "honor"). (hide spoiler)]

Unfortunately, in terms of moral calculus, Camden takes her offense and blows it completely out of the water with his own. It's like if one person farted in a room after a burrito lunch and their companion took out a gun and shot them for it. Yeah, the initial offense is unpleasant, but it's also not completely unexpected and can better be dealt with by encouraging more circumspect behavior. Again, mild spoiler (Thomas drags out the full reveal to about the quarter or third point and there's some emotional artistry in the presentation so I don't want to rob her of how well it's setup to deliver the emotional charge) (view spoiler)[While Gigi's offense is aimed towards manipulating Camden into something he wants to do anyway, Camden's offense is to hijack the intimacy and trust of sex and use it as a weapon against her—to take her love and reforge it into his own instrument of retribution. To marry her knowing of her manipulation and to do so with the intent of giving her one night of bliss (and I mean emotional as well as sexual) just to yank it back afterward as painfully as possible is beyond merely villainous. It is iniquitous to the point of outright evil. That's enough to create a right horrendous hang-up all on its own and something that should have left emotional scars that would take more than a little effort, luck, and time to heal. (hide spoiler)]

So by the middle of the book I literally couldn't stand Camden and only tolerated him because I could see how much Gigi still loved him (fool girl). I kind of wanted someone else to enter from left field (definitely not her swain, Freddie) and give her the trust, love, and comfort she had gone a long way towards earning. I mean kudos to Gigi that she let that event soften her and lead to an examination of motives and kindness that you could see had a real positive effect on who she became. But how much better if that had been accomplished by loving kindness and respect from the husband who vowed to cherish, protect, and love?

Anyway, Camden kind of turns it around in the end, at least insofar as Gigi puts him through the wringer (without malice or artifice), so I'm okay with how things turned out. It helps that there are secondary plotlines that are entertaining as well (not least some unexpected wisdom from the idiot swain, Freddie) to keep me going through some of the darker times. I laughed out loud a few times and had a hard time putting it down throughout, so it did its job. I just wish the moral foundations of their quarrel hadn't been so dark and so unequal.

A note about Steamy: On the high side and with a disturbing twist. There are a handful of explicit scenes of moderate length, but the disturbing part of them is that sometimes they are the truly vicious retribution inflicted on Gigi by Camden (and I don't mean the one plotted in the past). This is not fun or flirtatious or anybody's fantasy, but rather a raw vengeance darkly and determinedly perpetrated with malice and planning. I tell you, Camden crosses a line into evil here and I didn't recover from it nearly as quickly as Gigi did...