Rosenthal, Pam - Almost a Gentleman

[oyceter]

This book made me so happy because there were so many places it could have gone bad and didn't.

The heroine, Phoebe, has been disguising herself as the dandy Phizz Marston for the past three years, until of course, she meets the hero (David Hervey, Earl of Linseley). I love how she gets to do the things that she never had the independence to while married or as a girl. I especially love how she has hired a male prostitute. There's an especially wonderful argument later after David discovers her lover and gets incredibly pissed off (veering in bad territory), but the author rescues it by having Phoebe discover that David probably slept around with half the prostitutes of London in a phase of his life and calls him on his hypocrisy.

Plus, there's the fact that they have something that resembles real sex, and that there's even a scene in which they make fun of "manhoods" and etc.

I did figure out the villain in the first few pages, but oh well.

Lovely sexual tension and just a very refreshing take on gender dynamics.

I also like that there wasn't some sort of miracle baby, although I think that was avoided in part by having the heroine and hero's best friends get together and have a baby. But. While I adored most of the book and the dreamy atmosphere it invoked, I was incredibly disappointed when Phoebe decided to forgo her persona as Phizz and go off to marry David and live with him in his wonderful bucolic country estate. Disappointment was even worse because there were definitely points in which the author wrote as though Phoebe cherished the freedom she got as Phizz and didn't want to give that up for anyone. I suppose if one wants to point towardo sacrifices in marriage, it goes along with David's "sacrifice" of never being able to have more children, although it's Phoebe's as well! I just don't quite get why she had to give up her spiffy London life.

Plus, she's a lot sexier as Phizz Marston than as Phoebe.

Links:
- pocketgarden's review