PRIVATE ARRANGEMENTS

Author: Sherry Thomas ISBN: 9780440244318 4/2008 HISTORICAL Publisher: BANTAM
Time Period: 1880's through 1893

To all of London society, Lord and Lady Tremaine had the ideal arrangement: a marriage based on civility, courteousness, and freedom—by all accounts, a perfect marriage. The reason? For the last ten years, husband and wife have resided on separate continents. But once upon a time, things were quite different for the Tremaines….When Gigi Rowland first laid eyes on Camden Saybrook, the attraction was immediate and overwhelming. But what began in a spark of passion ended in betrayal the morning after their wedding—and now Gigi wants to be free to marry again. When Camden returns from America with an outrageous demand in exchange for her freedom, Gigi’s decision will have consequences she never imagined, as secrets are exposed, desire is rekindled—and one of London’s most admired couples must either fall in love all over again…or let each other go forever.

RRAH's THOUGHTS AND PONDERINGS:

I love flawed characters in a romance. But I love them even more when they are set inside a character-driven historical romance that contains both emotional depth and a lot of anguished soul-searching. PRIVATE ARRANGEMENTS has all that in spades, and more.

In the beginning, both Camden and Gigi come across as very likeable characters, him a bit more than her. But as a young Gigi "goes beyond the pale" to get the man she's fallen in love with to marry her, and Camden becomes spiteful and bent on revenge for what she's done to him, both become sad and unsympathetic characters in a what-could-have-been romantic marriage that seems to have gone so wrong.

What Sherry Thomas does so skillfully here is take us over the next ten years of what seems to be a loveless marriage and subject us to all the dark emotion, hurt and rage contained within it. As time passes we learn more about both Gigi and Camden, watch them mature and understand how their marriage came to the place it is now.

Late Victorian era romances are some of my favorites, because the time period is such a turning and growth point for women. While Gigi takes some pretty hard blows during the time she is apart from Camden, she's resilient, shrewd and tough enough to get back up and stand on her own two feet. She loves Camden long after they separate, but slowly, when she realizes there'll be no chance of winning him back, she picks herself up, dusts herself off, files for divorce and tries to build a new world without him.

Camden takes a little bit longer to catch on. Not until Gigi actually petitions her lawyers for divorce does he suddenly realize how dense he's become. Does he still care for her? Yes. But what does he really want from her? He doesn't really know, actually. His soul-searching becomes a bit more intense. Does he want to punish her more, or let her finally find happiness with someone else? Letting go of someone you love is always hard, more so if it's unrequited love. It's a lesson that's not lost on either of these two.

There is also a secondary love story in PRIVATE ARRANGEMENTS that develops between Gigi's mother, Victoria, and a duke who lives down the road from her. It helps take some of the tension away from Camden's and Gigi's story with its poignant and sometimes humorous romance, balancing out the overall book's intensity.

This is such an impressive, original and well written romance that I read it in just a few hours. I went back and forth from loving and hating both of these characters as their heartache became my own. That's quite an accomplishment, that depth and range of emotion, for any writer, seasoned or not to convey. Wrench me, anguish me, but most important, as a reader make me care and become one with the characters and their story. You did that, Ms. Thomas. You did.

Original, emotionally stirring, sensual and exceptionally well written, PRIVATE ARRANGEMENTS by Sherry Thomas is a definite keeper.

Nancy Davis.