Cheating

Show Notes

Cheating is often regarded as the worst thing that a character in romance can do. Here at Reformed Rakes we love the meanies, so we try to get to the bottom of the knee-jerk disdain for cheating in books by dissecting historical romances that contain infidelity. We're joined this week by our first guest, Bayley, who you can find at @bayleyreadsbooks on TikTok, and @bayleyreads on Twitter. She also blogs at bayleyreadsbooks.com. 

Books From This Episode

Scandal by Carolyn Jewel

Not Quite a Husband by Sherry Thomas

Day of the Duchess by Sarah MacLean

If You Deceive by Kresley Cole

Lord of Scoundrels by Loretta Chase

Prince of Dreams by Lisa Kleypas

Tempt Me at Twilight by Lisa Kleypas

Lady Gallant by Suzanne Robinson

The Duke I Tempted by Scarlett Peckham

Seduction of a Highland Lass by Maya Banks

Dreaming of You by Lisa Kleypas

Ravishing the Heiress by Sherry Thomas

The Countess by Sophie Jordan

References

Check out Bayley’s website for excellent reviews and book specific crossword puzzles

Bayley’s tiktok

Most social is @bayleyreadsbooks

Comment from All About Romance Blog

the @megloveswords tiktok mentioned

Infidelity and Its Associated Factors: A Systematic Review

Is Infidelity Predictable?

Transcript

Beth: Welcome to Reformed Rakes, a historical romance podcast that's slept with your husband. I'm Beth, and I'm on booktok under the name bethhaymondreads. in the name that he and read,

Emma: I'm Emma, a law librarian, writing about justice and romance at the substack, Restorative Romance.

Chels: My name is Chels. I'm the writer of the romance substack The Loose Cravat, a romance book collector and book talker under the username chels_ebooks.

Beth: Today we’ll be discussing cheating in romance, a somewhat polarizing topic. I can find thoughtfully compiled lists on YouTube, Goodreads, and blogs of books featuring cheating. Then there are comments on TikTok videos, Reddit, and Goodreads where a person refuses to read a book with infidelity. I found this gem on a blog post on All About Romance:

“Great author or not, giving an HEA to someone who has been unfaithful is cheating. Of course, it can be done; after all, the author is in control. But it doesn’t really change anything. It’s still condoning wrong actions. Nicole Jordan re-issued one of her books, removing an instance of infidelity, an impressive move IMO.”

Chels: BOOOOOOOOO

Beth: Our favorite critique by readers. The presence of a wrong action means the author condones that action.

I could read a thousand different comments about cheating, or infidelity and romance. It's kind of a joke that people will excuse murder before cheating.

The cheating discourse follows a couple of different Thoughts.

1. Readers can excuse cheating in historical romance if the set up is an arranged, loveless marriage.

2. Some people actually really enjoy cheating as a plot for the drama and for the redemption that comes after doing a terrible thing.

3. Others hate cheating because they’ve been cheated on and don’t want to see it in their fiction.

4. Cheating is okay as long as it’s the main couple cheating with each other (or the literal opposite)

There’s more. We’ll get into it. If you listened to us before, we love the drama, the character arcs, and characters doing terrible things. That’s why we think cheating in romance works as a viable storyline, despite reviews to the contrary.

Today we have a special guest who we've referenced a few times on the show already. Bayley. She's on tik tok and most social media under the name at bayleyreadsbooks and you can go to her website for insightful reviews on bayleyreadsbooks.com.

Chels: Yay! We're so excited to have you

Beth: So yay Bayley!

Bayley: Thank you for having me. I really like your guys’ podcast, it is so great.

Chels: We've quoted you on here a few times,

Bayley: I know, I’ve felt so famous!

Chels: Yeah so many times I've saved one of your tik toks

Bayley: I’m so glad that things that Bayley says on the internet are received positively. And like Bayley said on the Internet, are we saved? Positively,

Emma: I feel like Bayley brings a big like. “I've read other genres perspective” to romance novel discourse, which is always helpful for me, someone who barely reads other genres. Oh, Bayley has insight outside of just historical romance, which is always, I'm always happy to see.

Bayley: I am relatively new to reading it, and most of my first historical romance Recommendations came from Emma.

Emma: Oh! I did steer you wrong with a Mary Balogh.

Beth: I was going to say it. I think that was actually the fault to a fantasy author.

Emma: So I will, I’ll get you to read the right Mary Balogh book. I just did it with Beth.

Beth: Yes, I know. I find I, Mary, Mary Balogh is good for me 50% of the time.

Emma: So that's about her win rate.

Beth: Yeah, that seems about right. Okay, we're so glad to have you here, Bayley, and we have talked about cheating/infidelity before. And I know that you're interested in this topic as it pertains to romance. So before we kind of get into it, we're going to define infidelity a little bit

Okay, like every other discipline, defining infidelity is difficult and everyone has different parameters of what it covers. But I found this definition in the article Infidelity and Its Associated Factors: A Systematic Review: “Infidelity has been defined as “a violation of a couple’s assumed or stated contract regarding emotional and/or sexual exclusivity.”

I feel like from what I’ve read people divide women and men in how they view what’s considered infidelity, but studies have found “more similarity than difference between the genders’ engagement in infidelity, especially when both sexual and emotional forms of infidelity are considered.”

Many studies look at demographic variables like age, gender, socioeconomic status, faith to measure likelihood to engage in infidelity. Then you have “intraindividual factors” for example if someone has a more permissive sexual attitude or attachment styles like anxious or avoidant individuals. “At a couple system level”, and this hasn’t been found consistently across all studies, but one of the biggest predictors of infidelity is relationship satisfaction.

One final thing, because we’ll bring this up later in the episode because there’s a disproportionate number of men cheating in romance, I want to mention that it’s not such a disparity. From this article which I’ll link in the shownotes: “The results of a 2007 meta-analysis of 50 studies showed a lifetime prevalence of infidelity in 34% of men and 24% of women.”

So yes, men are more likely to engage in cheating, but it isn’t at all like we’re seeing in the romance, where we could barely find any books where the heroine is the cheater.

Beth: So now that we kind of establish what, how we define in fidelity, we're going to bring it around to romance. So why do you think some readers really don't like cheating in romance? What has been your experience when you've brought it up on tik tok or other platforms.

Bayley: I think people don't like cheating in romance, because, like cheating feels bad in real life, and they don't want to feel bad when they're reading a romance book. I've talked about cheating a few times on Tiktok, and I've received some pretty wild comments. The most boring and easiest to dismiss are people essentially saying that I am delighted that real people get cheated on. Because I don't mind reading a romance novel where cheating is a central conflict. I think this is very silly and every time I talk about the topic I do give a like I'm not trying to make you personally for you to cheating book disclaimer that should be implicit.

But isn't apparently. But after that critique I get comments on opposite ends of the spectrum that, like romance should be a fantasy. The first group think that romance should be realistic, and thus no one should stay with a partner who cheats. This one is really easy to counter, because so many people stay with their partner who cheats in real life. That's super common.

The second group are people saying that romance should be happy and cheating is not happy. multiple people outright, saying that if there is cheating the book just like categorically can't be a romance. I I it's a little bit bananas to think that your personal preference should dictate genre constraints. But I also don't think that anyone thinks that romance is supposed to only make you happy. I'm not like coming for the HEA. But I think that I've never felt happiness 3 quarters of the way through a romance novel. I felt, you know, angry or frustrated or sad, probably where you cry and I want that to be the case. I love it when an author makes me doubt that an HEA is possible, and then manages to convince me by the end. Even the fluffiest romances don't deal in happiness, and I think it's infantilizing and not grounded in reality to think otherwise. I like that. Romance is such a high conflict genre, and I think cheating is a really good conflict.

Emma: Bayley, that was great, wooo. Yeah, as far as like, reader, response or like audience response to stuff that I put out about cheating. I've only made one video about cheating because I don't really think of cheating as a unifying thing for romance like I wouldn't class the books that we're gonna talk about today as books that are alike each other in any way, even though they share a plot point. But the video that I made about cheating was really about other women, and how or other women characters, and how misogynistic the way that people talk about them are, including readers and authors.

There are a few books where the other women characters, even though I don't really mind cheating as a plot, the other woman is the character who gets all this like in-universe anguish she gets to comeuppance. And readers seem to really hate them, even as they're saying, oh, what I hate is cheating. I'm like, well, the other woman is not the character who's cheating. The rake gets forgiven, because that's part of getting to the happily ever after, and the other woman is the character who gets to comeuppance.

And a sort of not quite the other woman. because they're often not the characters between the main couple, but late husband's mistresses. This is a common plot that I see where a widow or we'll discover that her late husband had a mistress, and that character gets similar treatment as the other woman in cheating plots.

But yeah, I don't really connect all these cheating books together, because there's so many different things you could do with it? that I don't. I don't think of this as a trope in and of itself as much as it has, like lots of different little common threads like I would connect other women and like late husband’s mistress more acutely together than I would all the cheating books.

Beth: Yeah, I think what you're talking about where the other woman gets a comeuppance is interesting because it does feel gendered. I think it's also plays out in the number of books that feature cheating where no data here but a cursory glance, is primarily the heroes who are cheating even with queer books. I can only find a list for men, and no like sapphic book lists that feature cheating

Beth: But if we had to hero a cheating that we know they work their way to forgive this, and you can at least see where they're coming from kind of like what you're saying, Emma. It's not…I never really talked about cheating on like my Tik Tok account, because the reviews and comments and like good reads, are so unhinged. So I just kind of stay away from the conversation until now. I guess it has made me very angry the way people talk about it, so

Bayley: People will come tell you.

Chels: They will. They will tell you if you say if you suggest something that is like not to their personal taste, it's like an attack

Which I don't think I've ever specifically addressed cheating. but I have talked about several of the books in that we're going to talk about in this episode on TikTok and one time I spoke about Ravishing the Heiress which we'll get to later and spoiler alert for that section, but we don't actually think it's a cheating book, but I did get a comment on that video that said, I read this because of your video. And when I called my mom to tell her about it, I was vibrating with anger. Which is the funniest thing anyone has ever said to me on Tiktok and I also think I might need to apologize to her mom.

But it's kind of like with bodice rippers that include intimate partner violence where detractors are like this isn't romantic. This isn't something that we should aspire to. That's how some I feel like some romance readers react to cheating and romance.

Both of them are understandable when it comes to triggers like we have limits, and we have boundaries and things that we just don't want to be reading in a book. But for cheating specifically, there's a lot of people who have a hard and fast rule that this is unforgivable, that this is not something that should be depicted at all in romance.

And this is something that Bayley mentioned earlier. And it's something that I've also heard Beth say before, and I think about it often, that everything that is unforgivable to you someone has been forgiven for. I want us to kind of move away from the idea that self insertion is the goal of romance. And that's how I think we should be discussing romance in general. What is the story? How does this work? How does it make you feel? Not did something happen to the heroine that I wouldn't personally allow in my relationships.

So there's this tiktok account that does trope jail, and of course one of the first tropes to be jailed was cheating. But what was interesting to me is that the booktoker described cheating in a way where I've never read it in a romance like an unrepentant man just bowling over a woman. You don't have to read books with cheating if you don't want to, obviously. But I sometimes wonder if the folks that make big generalizations about cheating specifically in romance have read them

Because it's something that needs to be worked through. If the HEA is the goal you need to get from this big emotional upheaval to a place where all parties are comfortable. How does the author get us there? It can be a really interesting journey.

Beth: I'm glad we're coming for trope jail.

Chels: I hate it so much, and started like getting digs on her all the time.

Beth: No, you should. That account makes me very frustrated, and just like the worst criticism of all time

Emma: And it’s spreading on tiktok. It's like more and more trope jail. I can't.

Bayley: I haven’t seen the original person, but I've seen like their echoes.

Beth: I feel like there's 2 big accounts there's like there's like the one the one girl or she like she's, she talks really fast, and it sounds like it's a cadence of a joke. But it's not actually that funny. And she just like list things off that are like conflicts and books. And then there's that other person. It's just like anything bad like horror, like they'll pull out and be like jail like they did the the screen.

Chels: Yeah, that's a book jail.

Bayley: I have not been that person at all, but I've I've heard tell

Emma: that's a good like a a good indication of your For You Page, Bayley.

Bayley: I do, I do try “not interested” my way into an okay for you page.

Beth: Yeah, that's probably the best way to go. So we should define what cheating is in romance. We'll talk a little bit later: on about a few books where people classify them as cheating folks, but we would wouldn't classify them that way.

And kind of like our miscommunication discussion. Could we make a difference between cheating and cheating trope. Is there a cheating trope? Perhaps the trope part would be something like walking in on your partner, right as they are cheating on you.

Emma: Yeah. So I had a few ideas about this, because I feel like it. It's important to define cheating as it functions in the book rather than cheating in real life, because I feel like, you define cheating in your own life, right? Like whatever relationship you're in, that definition of cheating is cheating. So we don't want to try and make a definition that applies to everyone in the world but a definition that I'd seen when I started reading romance was…anytime, any character has on page sex with another character, the other than the main relationship. They call that a cheating book, and this is one of my first indications that maybe the way that romance talks about cheating is not how I think about cheating in books. And I saw it as a reaction to Notorious Pleasures by Elizabeth Hoyt.

Which is not a book that we're gonna talk about today. But it's interesting because the reviewer was mad at the hero for sleeping with another woman. The book opens with the heroine coming upon the hero sleeping with another woman at a party.

But actually in that book the heroine is the one who's cheating on her fiance with the hero like she is. She is engaged, and she is engaging with a romance with his, her fiancee's brother. So she's the one who's cheating, but there was this like incredible vitriol in this review against having to witness a scene where the hero was sleeping with another woman, and I thought that was indicative of how a lot of people respond to cheating in romance. The the problem is not necessarily the cheating, it's the sex on page, but that's at least one definition for people.

And I think if we're gonna talk about a trope, there has to be at least 2. And I'm not even sure if I'm really attached to this definition, but cheating together and cheating on each other, I think, has to be two different things, because the structure of those plots are going to be so different.

I think it's a great example of how I see tropes working. They have to have a rhythm or beats. These are two tropes that involve the same act by a human that play off each other differently in structure and narrative demands. Main characters cheating together has an element of forbiddenness and taboo going against the grain, society, expectations. There has to be a reason that we're rooting for this couple, even though they're not engaged or married to each other.

Then a main character cheating on another main character. The question is more internal rather than about society. How do we overcome ourselves and earn forgiveness? And those are just so removed from each other-- I think there has to be at least two tropes. But I think there's probably even more granularity there. But I don't think you can lump all cheating books together under one umbrella of cheating.

Chels: Yeah, I feel like I'm getting a little bit tired of seeing, like all actions through the lens of a trope. Not that these aren't or can't be tropes, because I think Emma did a really good job of kind of laying out how you can kind of like categorize them in a different way. But, like what Emma said, in our miscommunication episode, like tropes, are in conversation with each other. So sometimes these feel like a wink and an Easter egg like “alone with you in a library” where the heroine goes to read at midnight, and then the hero was there and then sometimes they're like a big story arc like enemies to lovers.

But when you try to take something as messy and fraught and frankly reviled as cheating, it automatically leans towards becoming a pejorative, when you add trope to it my skin starts to itch the way people say that they found cheating trope and miscommunication trope and a book as though they're an unexpected and unwelcome ingredient in a salad they ordered

Sometimes being upset is the point. like I've never read a book with cheating where the cheating didn't get me worked up. But here's the thing. Romance can run the gamut of emotions, and sometimes you get a greater pay off when you have bigger stakes.

Beth: Yeah, that’s why I didn't add anything. You both said exactly what we need to say. Yeah, I agree with all of that.

Bayley: Yeah. I agree with all that!

Chels: Well, I think I think, too, I Bayley, I know for your cheating tik tok that you made that one time like you were kind of like cheating trope, and you rolled your eyes, not everything has to be a trope! And I'm like, that's kind of like, how I kind of feel about it. Like.

Bayley: yeah, I do get like a little bit annoyed at the Internet for the way that we use the word trope, because I don't think it's useful. If it's used in every context, then you don't need to say the word, because it's implicit. And I just think that we're adding an extra word where we don't necessarily need to say it, and I totally agree with your assertion that, like people say it when they mean “thing I don't like,” and not when they mean thing that happens in book.

Emma: right? It's not miscommunication trope if I liked the book..

Beth: no. I agree. Okay. So now that we have defined a bunch of things we're going to talk about books that have cheating in them, but different kinds of cheating like we've been talking about just because they have this plot point they are enacted in many, many different ways.

Bayley: Not Quite a Husband follows Bryony and Leo. We briefly see their marriage in its final days before their eventual annulment then jump to Bryony working as a doctor in India and Leo arriving to return her to England because her father is in ill health. The pair have to journey through India during an uprising against British colonial rule and in the process have to actually face each other and themselves on the trip back to England.

This book includes a single instance of infidelity after the pair were engaged and before they married. Leo sleeps with an old flame and Bryony knows but never confronts him before or during their marriage about it. This action, and imbalance of information, is at the heart of their marriage crumbling.

Bryony imagines that she is being played for a fool, that he has either a steady mistress or that he is continuously engaging in casual sexual encounters with multiple women; she never wishes to confront him because she is deeply ashamed and embarrassed, and angry. She cannot trust him any longer and is absolutely unable to even pretend to feel positively towards him during the time they are married. Leo is deeply confused, he does not understand why his wife seems to hate him and ends up agreeing to an annulment.

Chels: I love this book. I love this book so much. Well, I think there are criticisms for it, but I don't know if we'll get into this episode. But something that like really stuck with me about like I remember before I even read this book before I even read Sherry Thomas. I remember seeing a lot of reviews of this book, and the way that they talked about Leo was so different than my experience. Reading Leo like they made him out to be like the worst person, the least sympathetic character. And so I was kind of like, ready for, like a type of bodice ripper villain like someone who's just like is evil and unapologetic about it, who is a misogynist. And that's not Leo at all like Leo, I think, is very relatable in a lot of ways, and so I'm kind of like it. It's so interesting to me that like cheating is such cheating the thing that he does do in the book, and it is something that he, both he and Bryony have to work through together.

Kind of like part of that that I don't think people talk about when they talk about the cheating in the book is that like a lot of Bryony does some really cruel things to Leo to like her refusal to talk about it, and her refusal also to kind of like, let things go like there's a part towards the end where he's they’re kind of like thinking about reconciliation, and he's like I cannot. I cannot get back to with Bryony, because, like, what if I make her angry again like eventually, it'll happen like how to…I don't know if she's gonna continue to stonewall me, or if we're ever gonna get to this point where, like, you can harm Bryony and Bryony can kind of contextualize it and kind of find a way to work through it, or if every grievance against Bryony, he is just immediately getting the cut.

Beth: Yeah, I like the the part when Bryony finally tells him like, Hey, I I know that you cheated on me, and I actually felt so deeply empathetic to Leo like that description where he's just like, he's like his whole. He's just like, Oh, my gosh! And like the sound like was so loud. And yeah, I and I think another thing that Thomas does really well with how she sets up this dynamic is, Bryony assumes the worst, like I think it's kind of human to assume that greater malice than that person actually felt like Leo to me, kind of strikes me as someone who really wanted to be in this relationship got into this relationship kind of before he was ready, made an impulsive decision. And I don't fault him for not telling her. I don't know if you if you guys feel the same? I think her should told her, but I'm not like surprised like I can follow his logic on he’s like, how would anyone ever know like this? And the person who was with…he went to her a few months after he's like…Did something.

Bayley: Did you tell my wife?

Beth: So yeah, yeah, my whole point. I'm just. I'm very empathetic to Leo, and he's kind of younger. He's younger than her. He's like 24.

Bayley: He's younger than her, and she proposed to him, and she wasn't intending on getting married for a couple of years.

Emma: Yes, yeah, it's a very empathetic situation in which he, he cheats on her, and he immediately regrets it. I think of some of the reviews I read were like…they fault in less for the cheating, and more for not telling her on his own volition like, it's not until she's like, I know you cheated on me. that he reveals.

But I think the setup of their relationship. It is so clear like, it's like, kind of like the classic question of like, do you tell someone if you've done something wrong, if you did it one time, you immediately regret it like, Are you just going to harm them again? And there are other problems in their relationship of like lack of communication. And it's like, it's very. I think it's very. It's very easy to understand that Leo sees their other problems. It's like if I told her I would just be adding to this injury to her. It's like she's already so injured by my presence that he is even connect to the cheating that it's he thinks he's doing her a service by not telling her about the cheating

And I think he kind of he kind of, if she didn't know he would be like and she just has this She assumes bad faith, because when she proposes, she doesn't understand that Leo has any affection for her. She basically it's not just bad faith for him, but bad faith for her own actions. She is. She proposes and thinks like I sort of trapped him with my dowry--and not realizing that he's independently wealthy. So then she gets even more confused and like, why did he even marry me?

So she she doesn't have any concept that he would be developing feelings for her on his own, which, like leads them to married a little earlier than that he would have wanted which leads to him cheating because he he sort of has cold feet, because he's like he's a 24 and he's also he's been in love with her his entire life. So that's also this element. It was like he can't, he can't deny her. He can't say no, I don't want to marry you, because it's like, of course he wants to marry her. Maybe just not like right after he comes back from the university.

Beth: These 2 people strike me as--they really feel strongly for each other. Kind of jump ahead in the relationship before they build the scaffolding to support the relationship they want, like they haven't done the hard work of like, how do we actually communicate before they're like, Okay, now, we're married. Actually, that's that's kind of what it feels like to me. And then also to your point Emma, I feel like Leo just feels, I feel like shame is such a powerful motivator, and I don't think we talk about it enough like what it you feel so much shame you did something so bad like. How do you even bring that up to like? I'm not trying to. We're. I don't think any of us are trying to like, excuse, Leo. I just I think we could see where he's coming from, for sure.

Bayley: And I think the scene where he where they have to talk about. It is done really well, and he clearly feels shamed, and he like independent of the fact that she's bringing it up like he felt shame before she was like you should be ashamed.

I just I don't know. I like that scene. I thought it was really well written.

Beth: It was one of my favorite ones from the book. Okay, we're going to be move on like we could talk a lot about Not Quite a Husband. This one the hero grovels for the whole book to prove his trustworthy despite his past, where he's cheated on his wife, and the heroine’s husband has cheated on her. So you should definitely be reading Scandal by Carolyn Jewel. Scandal deals with the repercussions of previous previous infidelity rather than on page infidelity between the couple.

Sophie eloped with Tommy when she was 17. She eventually realizes Tommy married her for her fortune and doesn’t return her love. He spends all her money and cheats on her. Sophie remains faithful to Tommy and still loves her husband.

Tommy’s fellow libertine, the Earl of Banallt, cheats on his wife as well. He often accompanies Tommy in some rakish behavior. Banallt propositions Sophie when he first meets her and she turns him down, leading to a friendship instead. Tommy dies, and Sophie reconnects with her brother John. On the first page of the book, Banallt accompanies John to visit Sophie. He proposes to her, and Sophie refuses him because she doesn’t trust him. (Banalt is a widower now.) She’s got good reason to not trust him since Banallt cheated on his wife through their entire marriage.

The book jumps between the present day, 1815, and three years prior. A present day conversation will often lead to a relevant past scene, which shows us how their relationship got to its current dynamic. Chels has pitched Scandal as a book-long grovel. I think that’s pretty accurate and an interesting lens to view the repercussions of infidelity and how that affects future relationships, even if you didn’t cheat on the person you’re trying to be in a relationship with.

Chels’ pitched Scandal as a book long grovel. I think that's pretty accurate, and an interesting lens to be the repercussions of infidelity and how that affects future relationships. Even if you didn't cheat on the person you're trying to have a relationship with. Okay, so a few things. First, Sophie really loves Tommy, which I really like. and one pivotal and one pivotal moment in the relationship is right before he dies. He says he's going to change, so he stays home. He's paying attention to her. As she tells, Banallt, her made her fall in love with with him all over again.

Then she spies him sleeping with someone else, and they have a big fight over it. He leaves that evening, and that's what he gets in an accident. I think that second falling in love piles on the mistrust and devastation, and you absolutely see why she expects the not to be any differently from Tommy.

And then one other thing that I think really influences Sophie's reticence. there's actually part in the book. Banallt poses a hypothetical to her and the hypothetical is, if they were married, and his words, knowing what I am which he stay faithful to him. She said she would only marry so much she loves, and if they married it would be for love. So yes, she would be faithful. Then I then mentioned he has a daughter, and he's surprised at how much he loves her, that he would die for her, and if her future has been made or unhappy, he would thrash it.

But not to be of the world's interesting, where he recognizes the inequality that some men demand fidelity from their wise or hiding mistresses, and then tracks this up to men, being inherently deceitful. So if he says, some men are faithful and he responds, not I.

Bayely: I want to read that book!

Chels: what makes this book like so fun to talk about and like a cheating episode is because, like, I think, you get a lot of historicals where, like the heroin is being cheated on by your husband until there's like this doesn't happen in this book. I think he gets sick, but like it's kind of like an inconvenient wife dies, and childbirth and inconvenient husband does on horseback like. That's usually what happens when there's like a bad husband, but here I think he gets sick. in any case, Banalt analt is a stand in for Tommy for Sophie, because Tommy idolized Banalt. So Tommy married Sophie because he wanted he wanted he he wanted an he. He wanted to get rich, and so he like made Sophie feel like she was special and worthwhile. And then, after they got married the wool was pulled over her eyes, or whatever the saying that applies goes like she she realized that that he's not who she thought he was, and he actually doesn't really like her.

And Tommy wants to be like this rich aristocrat with wealth, so he hangs out with Banalt, who's a much worse man than Tommy, and he starts like emulating his behavior so Banalt falling in love with Sophie? Sophie's like, why would I be with you? Why could I trust you. You were worse than the man that I married, and so the whole book is because he's kind of reached the point like in the dual timeline, like that when we're in the present day. He's already kind of reached the point where he's like, I fucked up like I want to be different like I love Sophie. I will do anything for Sophie, and Sophie is kind of like she sees, but not from the past, as been off in the past, and so kind of the whole book is like piecing together what happened like in little bits and pieces like, as that said, like the relevant scene and the from the past and the current day, and it also is kind of like getting trying to prove to Sophie that he loves her, and that he isn't like Tommy, because, as you mentioned Beth like he. Tommy apologized to her, too. Tommy said that he would change too, and he didn't.

Beth: I know that's gotta mess with you so much like Sophie…like as Banalt is trying to when Sophie over be like I felt like this before someone else has talked to me like this before, like it's got to be. It's got a mess with your head so much so you completely understand Sophie's point of view. So yeah, that everyone should read Scandal.

Bayley: I will!

Chels: and something that like reminds me of. So we just talked about. Not Quite a Husband is like Sophie and Bryony. You kind of have that thing in common. We're like they've been deeply, deeply hurt, but like at certain point, like you need to kind of like. If you want a relationship. If you want to be happy, you can't just like lock yourself away and not interact with the world like you can't. You're just hurting yourself even more. And because, like people will hurt you, people will make mistakes. you have to kind of. You don't have to forgive everybody, but you do have to live a life.

And both of them have this very like, they have very similar reactions to being cheated on where they just kind of like shut down completely. And so they're while it is a book, long grovel. And it is a lot about Banalt’s like apologizing and making up to Sophie. There's a lot of work that Sophie has to do, too, and she's kind of initially reticent about it, because she's in the right. She's the injured party.

Emma: I was just. I wonder I I've not read this book, but I wonder if there's something about like duel timelines and cheating? Because I think, for at least in the books that we're talking about our dual timeline, because both Sherry Thomas are, Day of the Duchess is and this one is where something about that like seeing the build up to cheating, and then seeing the grovel like. There's, I think, something about like that lends itself to making it more dramatic. I do think dual timelines tend to be like heightened drama, so I think about that structure of and also being in, I think it works well with like being in, someone's head twice of like knowledge bases thinking about.

What does someone know of like, how how much do they know about their partner cheating on them? And like, maybe the reader knows. But they're reading a scene where the character hasn't had to reveal yet like that happens, in Not Quite a Husband where we're watching Briany about to find out about Leo But I just I just noticed that that so many of the ones that we're talking about are dual timeline, which is one of my favorite structures. I love a dual timeline.

Bayley: It’s very good

Chels: Okay, we're gonna jump to a fake engagement and it’s If You Deceive by Kressley Cole. Chels?

Chels: This book is like so funny to me, because it's a book that I'm like. I don't know how to articulate why I like this book. And so I'm just maybe I'm trying to work through…I do really like this book. I reread it a lot, but I gave it like 3 stars. But I'm the way I'm talking about it, and the way that I will continue to talk about it, it's going to sound like I really like it because I'm lying to myself.

Chels: So this is, If You Deceive by Kressley Cole. And this is such an interesting book and I reread it often as I mentioned. it's not really like Lord of Scoundrels by Loretta Chase, so I don't want to disappoint anyone on that front. But this is the only beauty and beast Historical, where the characters really echo Jessica Trent and Dain from that book.

Ethan MacCarrick is a surly Scottish aristocrat who wants to get revenge on Madeliene van Rowen, who’s family essentially mutilated him a decade prior. He already got revenge on her parents unbeknownst to her, so when he meets her and kind of becomes obsessed with her, he’s not really sure what to do. Like, he wants her in his life but he doesn’t want to marry her. He wants to further his revenge but he also feels guilty for the way that Madeleine has suffered because of the retribution he’s already enacted on her parents that trickled down to her when she was still a child.

Madeleine at this point is poor, young, and powerless compared to an aristocrat, but she has that innate confidence of a woman who's extremely clever and outrageously attractive, so it always feels like she has the upper hand over Ethan.

She won’t agree to be with him unless he marries her, because she wants that security and is worried that he’ll pull one over on her. He’s still unsure about his intentions and doesn’t think he can love Madeleine, but he will do anything to keep her in his life (except marry her) so he lies to her and says that he will once they get to one of his estates, hoping that he’ll be able to sleep with her if he puts off marriage long enough. When they get there, he keeps getting distracted by work, and snapping at her, and acting quite belligerent. Madeleine sees the writing on the wall and says “I’m going to leave you” because you are clearly not going to marry me. Ethan throws a fit and, to spite her and prove that he doesn’t need her, he immediately goes to a brothel. He brings two women up to a room, they undress him and begin to kiss his body, and then he has a change of heart. He runs back to Madeleine with a marriage license in tow, says “I will do right by you, let’s get married right now” and Madeleine happily agrees. Just as they’re engaging in makeup sex, she finds two lipstick prints above his navel, is furious, and then kicks him out of the room.

So Madeleine and Ethan actually have penetrative intercourse at the beginning of the book, so it feels like her refusal to sleep with him is more in line with her refusal to be a mistress or to let him have what he wants without her getting something in return, rather than to protect her virtue. They do engage in intercourse throughout the book while they’re in this bargaining stage, but it’s not penetrative so it doesn’t “count” according to the characters.

This is also kind of where I think about the cheating, too, because Ethan says that he didn't go through with it at the brothel like they stopped at body kisses, and because of that it doesn't count. And I think some readers would agree with this assessment. But I wouldn't.

I also think that Ethan and Madeline both recognize it as a betrayal? So even if it doesn't count, does that really make a difference in how the characters feel like if you are going to split hairs here, I think you could say that Madeleine was leaving Ethan, so he wasn't really cheating at that point because they were planning a split.

But again, I would counter that with this feels like a betrayal, and it's kind of handled as such.

Emma: This is like the Regency, “we were on a break.” We were on a break!

Bayley: That is very apt!

Beth: okay. So the way that she reacts when she finds the the kisses, and it's like he has asked her to. Okay, I'm for real now. Let's get married. But he doesn't disclose like where he was before. That's kind of what it feels like a little bit like I agree with you, Chels. it feels a little murky to me.

Chels: Yeah, like I can see why he didn't disclose that. Because he's like, Hey, I mean it. I'm gonna get married to you. Don't ask me why I just was. That's not relevant. And I don't think people really getting that mad about the cheating, or if they the discussion about cheating around this book, and I think kind of like I I think I keep coming back to the Lord of Scoundrels like Jessica Trent Thing, because, like Madeline is like such a force of nature that, like it, she doesn't ever feel like it's like even she doesn't feel like an aggrieved party as much like even when she is like rightfully angry at something because, like she's on, her brain is already always moving to like the next thing she's like, Okay, this happened to me. Regroup got to move over, and I think, like some of that comes from trauma, and like from what she had to do, like as part of his revenge.

So like his revenge against her parents, basically like, impoverished her entire family, and like kind of caused her father to die. And then she had to like live in the a really sketchy part of Paris and grow up there, and kind of try to like scrounge on her own so she's kind of been like trying to like work her way up to a place of stability like where she can just like live comfortably. And that's the most important thing to her over literally everything else like there is no part in this romance at all where Ethan is more important than Madeline being safe.

Emma: Right? I feel like this cheating book, or like calling this cheating trope like misses that, like the betrayal, seems to be like, it's like right proposal, wrong reasons. It's like that actually happens a lot in historical romance, where someone who is like the hero will get to the point like, Oh, I do want to marry the heroine, and the conflict comes from, he either says the proposal wrong, or she she may, she realizes that the proposals coming from a place of duty, or like sort of misaligned reasons like this like that.

That seems to be the betrayal. You didn't want to marry me until you went to a brothel and then realized that you would rather have sex with me than anyone else like. That's a betrayal. But not necessarily it's cheating, or it's not cheating. But like that doesn't matter as much as like what's like happening there is that she's refusing him because he's proposing for reasons that are not like sort of coalesced in a way that is satisfactory to her.

Beth: Okay, we're moving on to the next book. Sorry. I just like looking at how many books we have. So this is an interesting one. Lady Gallant by Suzanne Robinson the hero sets up a scene with another woman so he can get caught.

Emma: I've seen with another woman, so he can get caught by the heroine. Yes, and this one has similar reader reactions to it as the Kressley Cole. Where people say this is definitely cheating. This is the worst cheating I've ever read, or this is definitely not cheating. I'm more of the mind that this is cheating or maybe the Kresley Cole one is on whether they're in a committed relationship or not.

We discussed Lady Gallant in our communication episodes. I won't go into as full plot, recap as Chels did there, but it is a Tudor England romance between Nora, a mousey, quiet woman, and Christian to Rivers, a handsome, charming rake in Queen Mary's Court. Both Nora and Christian are spies for Princess Elizabeth, though neither knows this about the other one. Christian is enamored with Nora early. He first thinks of seducing her, and then her earnest and honorable responses to him, make him fall in love.

She's really confused that his attention sort of in a why, me way? because she's never gotten this sort of positive attention from men of the court before the romance is incredibly sweet, like, at one point she brings him puppies, and he's just unmoored by this gesture, like it's just super sacrament for the first third of the book. But after he proposes, Christian discovers a cipher left by Nora in a garden. He first believes the cipher to be dangerous, but innocent. But then the words in the cipher are translated, and make it clear that Nora is a spy, though Christian assumes for Mary rather than for Elizabeth.

Nora is a lady for the Queen, so it's a fairer assumption to make that she sort of aligned herself with the institutional power that she already works for. Christian goes through with the marriage, but after the wedding night he reveals his assumptions about her that she is a spy, that she was trying to kill his father, and but not that he is assuming she is a spy for Mary.

Nora, in her loyalty to Elizabeth won't reveal to Christian the nature of her work, or who's in charge of her spy work. He lies and says he never loved her in one of the cruelest speeches I've ever read, listening all the things that he does love about her as false.

But the cruelty does not stop there. Christian invites a coterie of courtesans to their house, and makes Nora play hostess as he flirts with them. He kisses one, Mag, in front of their guest. He has a previous relationship with Mag. Magg takes his interest in earnest, and even attempts to steal away with him. But Christian delays their meeting, making it clear that his interest is less and Mag, and then, in being seen with Mag by Nora.

After dinner while Nora is sleeping in her room, she hears noise in Christians adjoining bedroom. She opens the door to find Christian in bed with Mag, not quite having sex.

And then Christian cruelly teases. Perhaps my wife would like to join us. He attempts to use the scene to bully Nora into revealing her spy master, offering to abandon Mag. If only Nora would tell him! Nora again refuses, and her broken steeliness is finally what breaks Christian.

When Mag questions him, when he returns to bed, he says, I tried to put her in hell and put myself there too. Other than the spy plot, the rest of the book is Christian, really atoning to Nora both grandly by making her life easier in her new home, and really specifically tailoring his redemption to what Nora needs to hear in response to his cruel words and actions.

A least a few readers don't class Christian’s betrayal is cheating to me. It is clearly cheating. they're in bed together Mag is unclothed. He's married to Nora.

But the cruelty reminds me somewhat of how we talked about Stormfire of which we did a previous episode on Christian at first justifies as cruelty as politics in a vacuum. He's attempting to injure a spy who is actively putting people he loves in great danger and working for Queen Mary, who's brutalizing Protestants as she's losing touch with reality in the book.

I think it is important that Christian starts to break down that vacuum before he ever discovers that Nora is actually working for Elizabeth. He realizes a lifetime of holding that hatred would to destroy both of them. So for me it is definitely cheating, and one of the worst bad intents in the context of cheating. But what I love is that the motivation for change comes before everything gets solved in Christian's head.

Bayley: I think it's super interesting. I still haven't read this book, but I think it's really interesting that some people don't think that is cheating, but I've read a book where a man kisses a woman on the cheek like hello! And people were like he cheated on her. I think it's on the cheek it might be on looks. It was like, Hello, it's not yeah. And I just, you know, I think a naked lady in your bed, if you're like there, too, more scandalous.

Chels: Yeah, I've just kind of like what is ambiguous about that I just don't like, I guess I guess. Kind of like what you said Emma about like cause. I guess it's kind of like what I think like penetrative sex like if for if you deceive like, it's not cheating. If they didn't have like penetrative sexual intercourse. I sound like a nerd saying it like that.

Beth: This episode we have to define because people are splitting hairs!

Chels: I don't want to say anything that feels like weirdly gendered or like, you know what I mean. So like I'm like, I'm where I'm literally imagine me pushing up my glasses as I say that I'm doing right now. but yeah, I don't even know what I was talking about. I just got distracted…

Beth: I interrupted you So I I think this is such an interesting book we've talked about before. I haven't read it either. But like what you said, Emma, that Christian, he starts working on repairing things with Nora before helike fully learns. I guess, that when he sees that she's a spy for Elizabeth, and he recognizes, like how what his actions were and how wrong they were, and I think that's a probably my favorite character arc, where it's like they feel the shame on their own. It wasn't like instigated by something else

Emma: Right, after he finds out she's a spy for Elizabeth. It's like, Oh, my God! Like I I I can't believe the level to which I fucked up like.

Beth: Yes

Emma: It's really that he forgives her pre-that. But it's like this moment with Mag. He's like, m plan has to change like I cannot. So he starts investigating, or he starts asking questions and sort of also letting Nora like he doesn't bug her as much because he's like this is an untenable situation for us to live in this household together, and for me to keep like nagging at her because I'm gonna like kill myself because I'm so distraught by this. He sort of realizes suddenly that the political is personal, or when you're married to a spy. And he’s also a spy! He is also doing his own spying. It’s so messy. He jumpstarts his own redemption because of feelings he has.

Chels: Yes, what? It's so fun about this one, too. Is that like, okay? So he's in his new mode where he's like, Okay, I'm going to make it up to her. I have been wrong obviously. And so like Christian is like, he's so charming. And this book is really funny. It doesn't sound like it from the description. But this book is hilarious and Christian is hilarious. and so he's kind of like in his mind. He's like, Okay, well, I apologize. I'm Christian. I'm going to apologize. It'll get right. And Nora is like a mouse of a woman, you know, and like her nickname, is literally “mouse,” and so it's not like me being like she's a mouse, but like everyone's like she's a mouse, it’s her nickname and so she's kind of like very timid, and that's what makes it so sweet, and also what makes it cheating so devastating is just because she's like a very fragile person but like Nora, goes like full Waiting to Exhale like in that last part where Christian is like expecting to come back and being like oh, I just, you know, just rub her shoulders a little bit, and you know, whenever we’ll get back together, and then like, Nora’s like “I'm going to kill you.” This book is really fun. It's like, so I don't know. I've never heard a book that's like it's like the combination of devastating and like joy is like equal. Like when you've mentioned Stormfire is just like I need a nap, storm, fire is just like, Oh, my God! I need a nap. I need to stare at a wall, I need to count to 20.

Emma: It’s highly recommended. And it's got the best grovel because the grovel lasts for like 12 chapters.

Bayley: Grovels are great.

Beth: Speaking of grovels, I feel like all these books have grovels, we’re going to talk about The Day of the Duchess by Sarah Maclean.

Bayley: I really really like this look like to an extent that I think is overwhelming and I think it's also interesting. This book also is very, very sweet in the period before the cheating happens, and then it's very, very not sweet right after.

The Day of the Duchess is the final book in a trilogy. You don't have to read the earlier books to read this one, but it is relevant because the trilogy opens with the heroine of that book coming across her brother in law having sex with a woman who is very much, not her pregnant sister, in some bushes at a cultural appropriation garden party.

[LAUGHTER]

She screams with him, and the events of her novel, The Rogue Not Taken, go from there. The day of the Duchess opens three years later, with Sera, the heroine, petitioning her estranged husband, the Duke of Haven for divorce on the floor of the House of Lords. The book has a dual timeline. We move forward from the divorce day, and then go back in time and watch the way the pair meet, and their relationship that was built and crumbled in under a year.

The first injury is not Haven cheating on Sera, and it isn’t the biggest injury dealt to Sera by Haven. We do see the impact Haven cheating has on Sera, and we see her taunt him with the untrue potential of her having been unfaithful in the years apart. But he is determined to get her back, to prevent the divorce so he comes up with a scheme to get her assistance in finding her replacement before he will grant her a divorce.

I think this book excelled at taking the harm done seriously and having the characters actively work to keep the relationship going. This book does include my favorite grand gesture, but forgiveness does not hinge on one act, watching their relationship be rebuilt is so well coupled with the earlier timeline watching it shatter. I especially like watching Haven go from thinking himself the harmed party to actually having to confront his own culpability in his relationship with Sera.

Emma: I think this was my first cheating book, and I delayed reading it because I read The Rogue Not Taken and loved that book, and then saw that Sera and her husband were the couple in this book, and I was like, Oh, I don't want to read like I don't like cheating.

Bayley: He sucks!

Emma: Romance novels don't include cheating! And then I read this book, and I was like, Oh! And then, like I sobbed my eyes out like it. Parts of it are incredibly devastating. I like the old timeline more like that's the part that makes me cry. The newer timeline is a little bit lighter. for parts of it. Yes, this is my first cheating book, and it did, shift my mind about like what I was willing to accept. Because it's like, yeah, like, books don’t end with cheating, that’s the whole point of the arc, the cheating gets…they move past it, or it something precipitating happens to to get you to the ending, whether it works for you or not is up to you. But you're not ending on the anguish.

Bayley: Whenever I talk about cheating on Tiktok. The positive comment that I get is always like, I don't want to read cheating books, but I did like The Day of the Duchess.

Beth: Right, I like what we were talking about before with like dual timeline, because this one's like a dual timeline book, and I think, cheating and dual timelines working especially well, because you can see the devastation. And I think that just hits harder.

Ema: I like what you said about watching the relationship like coalesced back together. But while you're watching it shatter like, yeah, that makes for very devastating reads.

Bayley: it does! I think, I cried, like 5 times.

Emma: This book is like this surprisingly heavy when you you were. I read it when I was only reading like Tessa Dare and Sarah Macleans’s, and there my clients, and then I was like, Oh, my God!

Chels: okay. So oh, I was going to ask you, Bayley. So it includes your favorite grand gesture. I'm curious what that was.

Bayley: He grants her a divorce. I think it's great!

Beth: oh, yes, at the very end:

Bayley: that just makes me so happy. I'm like they’re getting divorced!

Chels: Oh, that's so clever because I've read The Rogue Not Taken too, but I think kind of like I read it at a point in my life like kind of what you mentioned, Emma, where I was like. I don't know if I want to. And now I'm like, I do want to read that!

Emma: We're gonna take advantage of this law that just just happened. that's that's fun where it's like. Suddenly they can get divorced. And it's like she's the first woman who's like, I'm gonna do this.

Beth: Okay, well Emma and I got to read a very fun book Not Quite a Husband, while Chels slogged through Prince of Dreams by Lisa Kleypas.

Chels: So yeah, this book. Oh, my gosh, this book I want to. Just, I want to scream about this book to everyone, and not like so much that I'm angry about it because I think at first it was angry about it, but then I was just kind of confused. And then I went to like, I'm kind of obsessed with what Kleypas is trying to do here--I think it's really interesting. I would just I I think I might read it again actually.

Emma: I love your mode, I hated it, now I’m obsessed with it, which happens pretty frequently.

Chels: That does happen to me a lot.

Bayley: You seem to like to dissect your books.

Chels: I am a rereader for sure!

This is an earlier Lisa Kleypas, published in 1995. It’s not good, but if you’re a Kleypas completionist you get to see her trying out some elements and storylines that she ends up putting in better books.

This is a romance between Nikolas, who is a Russian prince that has escaped to England after pretty traumatic events, and Emma Stokehurst, the eldest daughter of a duke. Nikolas starts off the courtship with control: he has an interest in Emma that he doesn’t quite put to words, but he threatens her love interest and essentially forces him to abandon courtship, which is something similar to what Harry Rutledge does in Kleypas’s Tempt Me at Twilight. Then Nikolas swoops in and proposes a marriage of convenience: she’ll get out of her father’s thumb and have control over her life and her menagerie (she has a menagerie of exotic animals, but they’re rescues so it’s fine!), and he will get to be married to her, a woman that excites him because she is the most Hoyden of all Hoydens.

But Nikolas’s past gets in the way. He confides to Emma that his brother was executed in Russia and that he was brutally tortured, but the trauma from that event is something that he lets trickle into his current relationships. He isn’t able to say that his obsession with Emma is love, so he slowly begins to emotionally abuse her. He ignores her, he mocks her, he attempts to dominate her actions, and their marriage is essentially falling apart. He also cheats on her: but what I find very interesting is that this happens off-page: Nikolas returns one day “smelling of sex” and Emma gets angry with him for infidelity. It’s not confirmed that he actually did sleep with someone until much later in the book. I actually really like how small the cheating is, in the grand scheme of things, because coupled with all the other ways that Nikolas is a bad husband, the cheating is much more forgettable. What we actually do see: him ignoring her, belittling her, being a bad father to the illegitimate son that gets left on his doorstep, have more of a negative impact.

So kind of a note about the weirdness of the book. This is a paranormal historical, and that is kind of a spoiler. So I'm so sorry. But this is a paranormal historical, and that ends up making this an interesting book, but not necessarily a fun one to read. So Nicholas gets his desire to change and be a better husband, because he goes back in time and lives as his great, great, great, great grandfather, who was executed in Russia.

And then, when he goes back in time, his wife is Emmeline, who is his relative that also just looks just like Emma. So it's essentially them reliving their relationship under different circumstances, that, and tragically, it's a very bizarre choice, and one that I would honestly love to see from anyone other than Kleypas. I just don't think the style works for her.

Beth: I think this… I think it should be your first Kleypas.

Bayley: It almost was! I saw it on the list, and I was like, I've been meaning to read a Lisa Kleypas. But then I consulted my list from Emma and saw it wasn’t on the list.

Emma: It's outside of her like neatness of her universe. I feel like Kleypas…you can tell from like a mile away. It's a Kleypas, but this is not. This is not, doesn't have some of the. But I think maybe some of the markers are the same, we're like the it seems like the dynamics between the couple is similar to Kleypas, like hoyden and man who can't talk about his emotions, even though he's obsessed with the wife. And that happens a lot. because the the paranormal element of living someone else. I wonder I feel like that kind of has structurally similar elements, like the dual timeline, you need to be removed in some way at both as reader and hero, from your cheating to see why the cheating is bad. But this book does sound wild.

Chels: I almost interrupted. Earlier, when we're like dual timeline books to add mine. I'm like this is a 2 timelines.

I was just going to say the most dual timeline. This is not relevant to the cheating at all. But I just want to talk about it. So so like there's this part. So he goes back, and he lives as his relative, and, like one thing, Kleypas quickly discards it, but like one thought that he has, he's like, Oh, no, I'm living as my great, great, great great-grandfather. I'm not going to have sex with my wife so that way I would never be born

Beth: So he doesn't sound very happy then.

Chels: It's a there's a lot really around his trauma, and it's kind of like it is kind of like a very like. It's a book that takes itself very seriously. but like kind of, as I mentioned earlier, like when we're talking about cheating, because, like this does like I, you do. The cheating is mentioned in Goodreads, which is why I picked this one up because I was like, How does Kleypas do cheating?

And the answer is like she doesn't really do it kind of, because it's kind of like a but she does like he's a bad husband. He's an emotionally abusive husband. And I think that's kind of an interesting way to look at cheating as like an act that can have like different levels of harm based on like kind of like where both characters are at. Because to me, in this book there are other things that Nicholas does like. He's his cruelty, his other cruelty, kind of like hurt Emma, and much more ways that we see directly than some off-page cheating when he's already like, kind of checked out of the marriage.

Beth: Yeah, I think it's also interesting that it's a marriage of convenience, and how that might play in like, what? What parameters did they set up like when they got married? Like cause, as we'll discuss later.

Beth: Sometimes people are okay with some extra marital activity, I guess. But this one I don't know. She's upset about the cheating or no?

Chels: Oh, yeah, she's about upset it. Yeah. And it's like and it's kind of a weird thing for it to be a marriage of convenience, because, like, there's no reason why Nicholas needs to marry Emma like he likes her.

Emma: I am conveniently in love with you

Chels: Yeah, yeah, it's it's so. It's kind of like it's only a marriage of convenience for her, because he's scared off her the the she wanted to marry. There are like a few things like the Tempt Me at Twilight. He's kind of like Harry Rutledge, the hoyden of all hoytens like, I think Kleypas later, softens the edges of that heroine character cause like it was insufferable, but like but she actually raised really likable hoydens generally. So And and then there's kind of like Kleypas loves an animal. She loves a pet.

But like here she's like, here's all the pets you have all the pets. So that was kind of it's kind of funny to like read it like having read so much, Kleypas. And and this isn't the oldest I've read. I don't think I think I've read some earlier ones, too, but like this one is worse, I think maybe because she like swung big and didn't quite hit it. But yeah, in the context of cheating like it, it is a cheating. It was saying, this is a cheating book feels super weird because it's like yes a cheating happens. But like, yeah,

Bayley: One cheating.

Chels: And that's part of something that the hero has to answer for. But it's also if cheating is going to be the the biggest thing for us, like the thing that like, it's the worst thing that anyone could ever do to a person. I don't think this book would agree with you. I don't think I would agree with you.

Emma: I can actually use a good transition to the next book, because I feel like these fit together really well, as far as like reader response to cheating So this book Seduction of a Highland Lass. The hero cheats with the heroine while engaged to someone else. This is the second book in the McCabe trilogy by Maya Banks.

And the context is that Alaric is the second son, and he's on his way to claim his fiance Rihanna, and then he's ambushed, and he is saved by Keeley. Keeley has been outcast from her clan. her! She's her position in the clan system is really tenuous. And so, Alaric, through that the whole book is unsure if he can marry her, both because he's engaged to Rihanna, and because Keeley isn't necessarily like to the level that would marry a McCabe brother. They're a sort of storied family that is in need of cash, and that's why someone's marrying Rihanna. It's an arranged marriage.

And that's really all you need to know about the cheating plot, because Rihanna is an off page character. She doesn't appear till the end of the book. and also, I think, important context is this is the second book in the trilogy, and Rihanna, the fiancee was also kind of engaged to the first brother who's the first book of the series. So she's passed from one brother to another one.

And then, sort of predictably, she's the heroine of the third book to the third brother. But so the romance that you see between Alaric and Keeley is really sweet, and there's sort of the question is, can I run out on my fiance who I've not actually met yet? And can I marry someone that's sort of I'm gonna get rid of my duty. I need to bring money into the family, and Keeley doesn't have any income. There is some sort of like day to this mocking out of making Keely, she finds her place back in the clans. The marriage becomes less tenuous or not approved. But most reviews that I run in this book. It would not class this as cheating, and I think it goes with the book that Chels was talking about in our future discussion of Ravishing the Heiress by Sherry Thomas, which is a book that we don't think is cheating, but lots of people think is cheating.

I think, on every level, and, like the definition of infidelity, Alaric is cheating on Rihanna, like he is engaged. She has the understanding that they are engaged when she arrives at the castle. She's upset that she's not getting married. She's like two men have walked out on me now like what am I supposed to do but because she's not a character on page. I think you can read this book, not as a cheating book like that’s not really the question that's coming up. Alaric is much more concerned of like keeping Keeley in his life like, can I have her be my mistress? Can I marry her. What are her feelings towards me? He's not really thinking about Rihanna, because even if he married Rihanna, I think he sort of intends to keep Keeely as a mistress.

So it it's then this is, I think, speaks to the way we're talking about cheating as a trope. This is a book that objectively has infidelity in it, but is not structured like a cheating book. And I think that's when you read the reviews of people who read this on Goodreads, and like. This is not a cheating book, or this almost is cheating, but it didn't feel like cheating. I think it speaks to that cheating a trope doesn't really make sense because you have this like wide berth.

Emma: of experience. As the reader. This book doesn't feel like cheating even though there is cheating. And there are other books that don't have cheating in them that feel like cheating books to readers. And this is sort of the the counter to that.

Beth: Did like the comment you have on our Google, Doc, where you I are quoting someone where the reviewer says, unfortunately, I did like the book in spite of the cheating, but I liked it under protest

Emma: that your experience is not you, you read this, and you're like I took me a minute to even remember this book had cheating in it. because it's like Rihanna is not in love with Alaric. She's not in love with Ewan from the first book. Her up being upset about not getting engaged like political. She's like, what am I supposed to do now like? Do you have another brother? And then, like lo and behold, there's another brother.

Beth: I like this though because it is showing how there's more there. There could be other ramifications outside of, because it it sounds like they're not like emotionally attached. But yeah, she's kind of on board like, what is she going to do now? She

Emma: it's the castle, I mean, like he leaves her at the altar, and she's not emotionally upset about it. She's just like like, come on, guys get it together. You owe me a fiance,

Beth: but that's still valid, and it is still a betrayal like you are accounting on this for your economic stability. And now you're like, Okay, well, what am I going to do now?

Bayley: I think this book is a good example of the like. Cheating is okay in historical, because sometimes cheating in historical like this wouldn't happen in a contemporary romance because you wouldn't be engaged to somebody you just like kind of vaguely knewish

Emma: right? I mean, it's like she's he's already like her second fiance. It's like her second arranged marriage, and it's very clear that the arrangement is between the families. and I think even the person who's arranging it is not a member of the family. It's like the king or someone in charge is like, Oh, these 2 families need to be united. so it's like one of you and one of you would need to get married. It doesn't really matter which one.

Chels: I'm really glad you said that, Bayley, because that's kind of like what I was. because the cheating is okay and historical. I feel like those folks don't quite maybe realize when they see it in contemporary. No, I know I'm thinking of a movie. But I'm thinking if You’ve Got Mail like, you know, when she leaves Greg Kinnear. And he's like, he's like, okay with it. He's just like, oh yeah, that makes sense. And I think that's so that we can be like.

Oh, yeah, she didn't do anything wrong, like he's fine with it. But it's like she was cheating on him. Yeah, throughout the whole movie.

Beth: And there's another part where he's like flirting with an anchor like it's it's like trying to show that they clearly are not, or they're like drifting apart. But to make it more palatable, I guess, to the audience. But yeah.

Emma: Meg Ryan loves to cheat on the sweeties. It also happens in Sleepless in Seattle!

Beth: Let’s move on to The Duke I Tempted by Scarlett Peckham.

Chels: This is a romance between Poppy, who has familial ties to the aristocracy but is a professional gardener, and the Duke of Westmead, or Archer.

Poppy and Archer first meet when she’s enlisted to create a beautiful plant scene for ball that Archer’s sister is planning. They have a pretty intense chemistry, but Archer rebuffs Poppy in a pretty painful and humiliating way. Poppy is the first relationship Archer has had since the tragic death of his wife and child, and Archer has isolated himself in his grieving process. He’s also become a member of a whipping house in London called Charlotte Street. He wears a key around his neck that gains him entry, and has scars along his back from the whipping house.

After they’ve amicably split, a gossip paper reports that Poppy and Archer were seen together, so Archer proposes a marriage of convenience. Things start off really well, but because Archer is harboring this secret about the whipping house and gets cold when Poppy seems like she’s getting close to finding out the truth, they get caught in this cycle of miscommunication. They both really want each other in their lives, but they’re unsure of how to talk to each other, and Archer is clearly withholding something, and Poppy concludes that his withdrawals are because of how he feels about her as a person, so in turn she walls herself off from Archer.

One day Poppy follows Archer to Charlotte Street, and catches him at the whipping house. This discovery is actually what ends up saving their marriage, because Archer finally comes clean and Poppy is also interested in exploring different types of sexual scenarios with Archer. This is where their sexual compatibility comes from: Poppy is more dominant, and that’s what Archer wants and needs, but was unable to express out of shame.

Only really angry Goodreads reviews call what Archer does at the whipping house cheating, but I also agree with them even though I’m not angry about it. It’s cheating because there isn’t an agreement in place between the two of them at this point. I like that Poppy is pretty ambivalent about the cheating but is more upset by what is more directly affecting her: Archer withdrawing himself from their relationship. I want to note that Poppy also has some pretty intense moments of stonewalling, so Archer is not the only party that’s responsible for what their marriage has become, but that initial reticence comes from him. He wanted a marriage of convenience where he could essentially ignore his wife and continue on at Charlotte Street as usual, but when he married Poppy he didn’t do a full pivot away from that, even though he had stronger feelings for Poppy.

Which, wow! This reminds me a lot of a lot of marriage of conveniences are kind of like this, like, oh, no, I love my wife, but I refuse to re-categorize her.

And so problems come up because of me like thinking that I can treat the aloof to the person that I want a relationship with.

Bayley: Oh, no, I love my wife is literally my favorite thing.

Chels: Okay? Well, a different question. So really, why do you think? Oh, no. I love my wife like happens so much with cheating books, because I notice this happens like in a few different ones.

Bayley: “Oh, no, I love my wife” happens a lot in books with emotionally repressed men, because you need to have like a big shake up in order to make him love his wife. So he has to like confront his emotions directly typically after something like happens to her. And then, once they've confronted their feelings, they have to like actually come up with a plan to tell her that they have changed the way that they feel, which often means that they also have to confront the harm that they've done to her when they were pretending that like. Oh, no, they did not love their wife

Emma: Sorry I was thinking about When Harry Met Sally, about that, what we're thinking about by Meg Ryan . And so we haven't mentioned. But I was thinking about the quote from the football game when Jess is like marriage marriages don't break up on account of infidelity. It's just a symptom that something else is wrong which is like it's like, just as like this character who's always having aphorisms.

Emma: And Harry's like this doesn't help me at all, my wife,

Beth: The symptom is fucking my life!

Emma: but I feel like that does capture some of the things it's like. Oftentimes the cheating and romance. You don't just apologize for the cheating. You apologize for all the stuff that came before the cheating like you have to and it's like this is now the thing where it's like it's so bad that the wife or the heroine, or whoever's been cheated on, is like this is unacceptable. I'm now gonna be angry at you, no matter what the power dynamic is between us, and you're like. Oh, no. Not only did I cheat on them. I have to. I I've also like stonewalled them, or like embarrass them or not, expressed my feelings to them. And it's like all that has to come together. But it's because cheating is so bad. It's like the worst thing you can do, it sort of wraps up all the all the other emotions. It's like the trigger.

Beth: I feel like this is almost like cheating, as clarifying emotion here, where it's like this book. He goes to the whipping House to like decompress, and like her discovering that this is like what he's doing. It's just like allows them to actually have a proper communication like, Oh, this is what's going on in our marriage. So I like this book for that reason.

Chels: I love having this book as an example, because the whipping house is cheating, and you know we talk about like how Archer’s withholding like some information from Poppy, but like when I was re-reading it for, like the second time, like I, Poppy does really really kind of emotionally abusive things, too, which she kind of has to like. So kind of like framing. This book is like, Oh, this is a book where he cheats on her is kind of like very simplifying the problem because the the bulk of the stonewalling actually comes from Poppy, like Poppy, is like very like. I love how Scarlett Peckham writes heroines and like she because people talk about unlikeable heroines a lot, and I

I don't want to ever call a heroine unlikeable basically because I don't feel that way about them. But I think like if people were to point out a heroine that they don't like. I think Poppy could very easily be this person because of the way that Poppy reacts. is very because she's very control, like controlling her environment is super important to her, like at every aspect of everything, and like Archer, is kind of like a wrench in her plans when she doesn't know what's going on in his head. so you can kind of see him like reaching out to her, which is different. What you have in most cheating books like this is different than one prince of dreams. This is different than if you just see, like Archer is making these like advancements.

He's like maybe we can get a little closer in this regard, like, maybe we can kind of get to know each other. And then Poppy is like, no, this is the marriage of convenience. I'm gonna protect myself. You're withholding something for me. And if this isn't perfect, it's not gonna work. And so she's kind of responsible for a good chunk of like what happened. So it's kind of like when people like it kind of makes it kind of crazy to talk about all cheating books as being the same, or like the same harm, or whatever, because, like, I don't really even Poppy doesn't see the whipping house is harmful for what Archer is doing like Poppy doesn't have a thought where she's like, how dare you to train me by going here? It's like the her initial reaction is like, Oh, okay. Now, I kind of understand our relationship a little bit better like this. She even, no, it's like this is not entirely innocent, like he's aroused. But like also that kind of makes sense. And our sexual relationship before this, like this, is kind of like now. so I I love kind of being able to include this one on there, because there's kind of like a lot of

Chels: and also to like, I don't know if you'll have any thoughts on this because I think that people have a lot of expectations about the way that heroin should behave when they are cheated on like this comes up in a lot of reviews. I wonder if you'll have any thoughts on like why, we have like when when people are complicated we, we don't expect this from abuse. Why do we expect it from like another type of traumatic event?

Beth: Well, I feel like the script for cheating is that you just assume that the other person will leave, and especially because we're reading romance. It's nearly the hero that's cheating. So we're expecting the heroine to just take the ultimate step and leave when that's as Bayley mentioned before, is not the case like people stay together all the time, and you should blame someone, I guess, if they see value in their relationship. Still, even if someone has made this significant misstep

Bayley: I also think we kind of think it's a moral failing to stay with like, not only to cheat on someone, but to stay with someone who's cheated on you. So when we're reading a book where the heroine chooses to stay, like, you know, we already hate women. And then she did something extra hateable. So let's hate her more.

Emma: Yeah, it can. If the cheating book like sales for you, it's like, Are you blaming the per, or even blaming the character? Who cheated? Are you blaming the person who's like made it a happily ever after, because one of those things is culpable. And one of them is not

It's also like with the context of historical romance. except for Bayley, I think all of our characters like divorce is not on the table for them like there's not. I like that in historical, because I like that the happily ever after has this constraint on it. I do read some books that extend past like divorce laws. but I like that. It's that you have to like work on it like it makes sense to me, is like a structural thing that you have to. They're going to be married so like, why not try to make it the happiest marriage possible? And so I I I'm I've also, even though. and maybe I'm just saying cheating is okay in historical, but which I don't necessarily agree with. But I feel like I've walked myself into that argument.

Beth: We're just saying there's different parameters where it's like you don't want it to just be livable with. We can make this better. Then why not shoot for that? I think, yeah.

Emma: And I guess it's like we say in historical historical people can't get divorced. But also divorce is a trauma of itself, like people don't want to get divorced, necessarily. And it's like, yeah people. It like Bayley said, people have the right to decide like how their relationship goes out. I imagine if you've been cheated on, I imagine there are people who've been cheated on who find these relationships where it's like, Oh, someone does like restore the person they've been cheated on. They do have a redemption like this model of like forgiveness like that that could be affirming in a way that that rather than like oh, someone's been cheated on, and they they cast out and and never get that happily ever after. Like, those are also a a of possibility. People react in lots of different ways to real life and to books.

Beth: Okay, we're gonna switch to a book where a heroine has an affair with her daughter's suitor. I'm very excited to talk about this one. This is The Countess, by Sophie Jordan and Bayley's gonna take it away from us.

Bayley: I found this book through megloveswords on tiktok and I think that The Countess is a cheating book made to be palatable to someone who does not typically want to read a cheating book. This book follows Tru, the titular Countess, who is married to an absolutely atrocious man. He is cartoonishly evil, literally on page 7 he calls her a priggish cow, says she is his one great regret in life and laments that the only way he will ever escape her is through death, then calls her stupid. The story really starts when Tru’s husband is told by a third party that his daughter is now old enough to marry, which makes her useful to him as he needs her to marry a man who would be willing to finance his lifestyle.

Jordan spends a lot of page time showing the reader over and over how horrid this man is, I do think this is detrimental to the romance overall because so many pages are spent on why Tru simply cannot abide being with her husband that I think might have been better spent increasing the interaction Tru has with the love interest Jasper. I do suspect this is to head off criticism from readers of Tru for conducting an affair.

Jasper is the man Tru’s husband has hand picked to marry their daughter. The pair meet at a seance and neither know who the other is. She exits the spectacle and he follows her out because he thinks she is hot and he is worried by her sudden exit. Jasper propositions Tru minutes into speaking to her for the first time, and she is tempted but ultimately declines due to her belief that cheating on her husband would make her equally as bad as he is. Tru and Jasper meet again soon after at a ball where he is meant to be wooing her daughter.

The pair very slowly enter into a romantic and sexual relationship. They are able to be together so often without raising suspicion because Jasper has arranged an actually fake ‘fake dating’ scheme with Tru’s daughter, who does not want to marry him but has no idea he is into her mom.

I was briefly convinced that this book was going to include Tru and Jasper plotting and carrying out the murder of her husband but I had no such luck, by the end of the novel the issue of Tru’s husband is solved by a bit of deus ex machina.

Chels: Does he fall off a horse?

Bayley: He gets run over by a carriage, of course.

Chels: Yeah. The horse was involved

Emma: Horses re so dangerous, especially if you're a bad husband.

Bayley: Yeah, yeah, you should not be into riding.

Emma: I am sad to hear that this book is kind of just supporting, and maybe like heads off like, I wish Jordan maybe had like people can deal with someone cheating It sounds like she spent a lot of time making sure that you don't hate the heroine because I I feel like. I would like to read a book where the heroine either cheats to be with someone that she wants to be with, or just cheats on her partner. Because it it doesn't it? It's one of these, I mean, sometimes you feel like these like.

Oh, romance has come so far, and you like this is one of those things it's like we still have very like distinct gender roles that this this book was came out this year right? Or pretty recently.

Bayley: A couple months ago.

Emma: if we have a heroine and cheating on them, we have to spend most of our time making sure that the readers don't hate the heroine. It's like, Oh, we are still definitely making some gender assumptions. both probably from the readers and the authors’ point of view.

Bayley: And I also do think that Jordan does some really interesting things with this book. I just think they're kind of overshadowed by how much time is spent, just like making sure you know that this man is the worst man

Chels: he's been. So that's kind of really interesting, because, like, I read The Worst Woman in London by Julia Bennett recently, and that's kind of another where the heroine actually gets a divorce in that book. And I think Bennett had, like a very different interest in the husband, who was also like very, very bad and very, very cruel to the heroine and a lot of ways, but like something that Bennett does that like weirdly frustrated me. was that she gave the husband like she didn't kill off the bad husband like she gave him like his own, happily, ever after, like in the divorce.

and I don't think it, for it didn't frustrate me because I didn't think that he should or could get that. I think it was more the way that it was written. But like I was really I really loved that she did that, or like, I love that. She tried it. I love that. She was something that she like put in there where it was kind of like. Okay, we can have the scenario where someone is being the worst husband ever, and is like cheating on a person. but like he can have all these faults, but he's still like a human being like these are still people that we have to kind of like grapple with and meet on their terms sometimes, even when we don't want to.

Bayley: and something I didn't mention about the Countess that I think I should have was Tru's husband does have a mistress, and she is fantastic, and, like you, the reader are supposed to think that she's fantastic. I laughed every single time she spoke. She is really great. The heroine does not have any ill will towards her like this book. Does the like treat the mistress excellently, and then you are like specifically made aware that after the husband is no longer an issue, that, like the mistress, is well taken care of afterwards.

Chels: Is there a mistress going to get her own book?

Bayley: I don't think so, but she's like having a lovely little life as a I think she's a singer, and I think she's being financed by the Countess

Chels: Lady Daring gets a Lover by Julie Anne Long, so that she's getting cheated on by, like her husband has already died at the beginning of the book, and then she meets her husband's mistress, and then they start a business scheme together. So there's kind of like, and the mistress is the love interest of the second book, like I have kind of mixed feelings about those I think, like Julie Anne Long is very fun. But sometimes she's like having so much fun, and I'm just like.I think hat you need to like how to get back to the story instead of the jokes sometimes. And I think that that is kind of the end of that series. That's kind of like where that heads off to. But the first step in the second one I really enjoy. I liked how that was kind of

Yeah, I'm sorry about other books, but you keep saying things that remind me of like, Oh, yeah, I think we all want to hear about other books. but yeah, I guess kind of back to the Countess. Her daughter doesn't know anything about doe she feel any type of betrayal by this being kept from her?

I think she was upset about it, but she's mostly just like baffled. And then it's like right at the end. So she kind of needs to like. Get with being happy pretty quick. and then, right after she finds out her I this is the spoiler. But right after she finds out her mother is kidnapped by her father, and he's gonna keep her in an attic or something. So she has to kind of help get her mom out of the attic. So she kind of gets over it pretty quick.

Emma: Dad sucks.

Bayley: He’s the worst!

Beth: Okay, we're going to transition to another Kleypas. This is Dreaming of You.

Novelist Sara Fielding saves Derek Craven’s life one dark night as he’s attacked by his rival’s hired men. Derek shows little gratitude, but they make their way to his gaming hell so he can get medical assistance. There, Sara requests access to the staff to interview for her upcoming novel. Derek says no, but his right-hand man, Worthy, says yes. Sara attends the club and Derek watches from afar. There’s something between them and Sara asks Derek for a kiss. He balks because he doesn’t want only a kiss and she’s Good and Pure so he says no. Although he explains he wants more than that, Sara feels humiliated that he won’t kiss her.

A little aside here, Sara has an almost fiancé Perry, who’s back home in a little English village. They’ve been together for about four years and Sara attributes Perry’s unwillingness to propose to his overwhelming mother. Which is true. Perry’s mom is A Lot and a Boy Mom. Sara has tried to initiate sex with Perry in the past, but Perry insists they wait until they’re married.

Back from the aside. Sara wants to attend a masquerade ball at the gaming hell, but Derek says no, but his one lady friend says yes and helps Sara with outfit and hair stuff. At the ball, Derek, not knowing it’s Sara, takes her to a back room and they make out with the intention of more. Eventually he recognizes her, and he tells her to go home back to little English village. Sara does.

Perry greets her with a kiss and Sara is kind of like, your mom is overbearing we should get married. They get engaged, but his mother is still quite overbearing.

One of the sex workers Sara interviewed, Tabitha, visits Sara as she’s on the way home to her family. She tells her Derek had sex with her and he called her Sara the whole time. So, this is the part everyone thinks is cheating. The actual cheating is Sara kissing Derek while in a relationship with Perry.

Beth: Perry is an interesting character.I texted a group chat like a page where he literally like runs home to his mother after Derek threatens him. And I was like, this is so over the top.

I feel like it's kind of similar to the Countess, where it's like Perry is made to be like a mama's boy like, so he, like, has no spine like so opposite to like manly man, Derek, that we don't really sympathize with Perry at all, and we kind of like excuse the fact that Sara is actually like cheating on this on like her fiance, or almost fiance. They're not quite engaged when the cheating happens. But I mentioned, like he greets her with a kiss. And I think at one point or like, he suspects that Sarah had succumbed to advances, as he calls it, because she's so forward now. And he is angry that at the thought that she would be with someone else.

Chels: I mean also. Yeah, like, I, I guess, like, I'm trying to see it from like point of view. Because, yeah he is written as kind of like comic relief in some ways. He's just like mother. The woman made sexual like. It's funny the way that he's written, but like but kind of seeing it through his point of if I'm trying to be nice about it, like you're kind of engaged to Sara. She goes away to London. She learns her London things. She comes home all of a sudden. She's like trying to kiss him and grope and do all this other stuff he's like, who is this woman? Where is this coming from? It's very confusing, like, what did you learn in London? Who have you been talking to?

Perry is just like kind of like a funny little feature of the book that I don't. I think that he's kind of like, very easy to write off, because, like his mom, is so cruel to Sara, and so, like Perry, is actually responsible for his mom's cruelty, because as a potential partner, he should be the one to kind of like, create that divide and like, put his foot down and be like, Hey, you need to be nicer. I really like her.

Beth: yeah, like back her home.

Chels: Yeah, like that. That's yeah. That's more of Perry's problem. And so I think Kleypas could have, like still written the character like that way without making him full on boy mom, like.

Emma: I also had an issue with this book when Derek Craven sleeps with Tabitha.

I am definitely the the rake who enjoys Lisa Kleypas the most. But I'm I'm always like is this your king?? about Derek Craven. he's not my favorite, Kleypas hero, but mostly because it's like this is really cruel to Tabitha like it's it's weird like to sleep with someone they call them by someone else's name. And it's like he obviously doesn't see her as a person. His relationship with the sex workers at the club is really weird, both as like, he's kind of their employer, but also he takes advantage of them like he indulges in their services, and that's what he's doing with Tabitha.

I didn't think of it as cheating on Sara as much as like, oh, that's just like a strange, cruel thing to do to someone. and I don't. I didn't understand Sarah hearing it and being like, Oh, I should go back to Derek, because obviously he's still in love with me. I it's like, Oh, it's like, that's weird. Don't do that And so it's it's weird thing, people's reaction where it's like, Oh, that's Derek cheating on Sarah, and we need to forgive Derek for that opposed to being like Derek has a weird relationship with his employees, we need to problematize that.

Chels: And the way that Kleypas writes Tabitha, is like very uncomfortable for me, because, like because of the direct comparison to Sara, like she looks just like Sara, but it's like, if you close one eye and squint another. It's like she's very like weathered from her from her occupation like. And then also like when she speaks, she is like a very different cadence. She's a very different accent she's not like doesn't have, like the cultured tones, or whatever she said, to describe Sarah's voice. So I think kind of like it is kind of like an additional cruelty to kind of like set these two women up like this like kind of like a mirror of like Derek can’t have you, Sara, the woman that he's, because, like we called Derek like the superego rake like, he doesn't think he deserves anything nice.

When you think about that, you think about that. That's kind of the way that he's written. He doesn't deserve nice things, so he won't. He won't touch Sara. He won't be with Sara.

Emma: Tabitha’s fine. She’s not a person!

Chels: So that's kind of like another part where I'm kind of like, okay, I don't. But yeah, but I guess to, for the cheating and specific like, that's so funny to me. I'm like I it's some people it's just like, if the hero sleeps with anyone in the pages of the book that's not the heroine. Then that's cheating, because, like, there's no way you could say this is cheating. They're not in it. Derek and Sara are not in a relationship. They have no agreement. He literally says, go back to your fiance. and she's okay.

Emma: She gets more engaged.

Chels: Yeah, she gets super engaged.

Chels: so yeah, I think that's kind of But but it's kind of like looking at kind of like, maybe just because, you know, it's like you, you can't cheat on a boy mom, but you can cheat on. Sara, who is the cheater like, I kind of just kind of interesting the way that people interpret these things. Yeah,

Beth: okay, let's move on to the next one.

Emma: okay, so this is the book that people say is the cheating book that isn't. We've referenced throughout the episode. partially because we all love this book. Or the Rakes, I don't think Bayley’s read this one. So this is Ravishing the Heiress by Sherry Thomas.

In Ravishing the Heiress by Sherry Thomas, Millie and Fitz are in a typical marriage of convenience--he unexpectedly inherited a title that came with a house in disrepair and an estate with debts, she is non-aristocratic only child of a tycoon of a new technology business that is flourishing in the second half of the 19thth century (tinned fish). Millie and Fitz have become best friends over the course of their marriage, weathering a period of Fitz’s life where he struggled with alcoholism and dealing with the death of both of Millie’s parents.

At the time of the marriage, Fitz was in love with his childhood sweetheart Isabelle, but put duty to his new title over his romance. Millie was aware of Fitz’s affection for Isabelle, but she fell in love with him from the moment they were introduced. She allows Fitz to believe that she also has a sweetheart she is giving up for the advantageous marriage. Along with the understanding of convenience, Millie proposes a “covenant of freedom,” where Fitz can conduct his affairs as if he were not married, including sexual partners, but also freedom to hang out with his friends, finish university, as if he were not a married Earl. She holds herself to the standard of an “unmarried girl,” so she does not have sexual affairs, but does run her own house and business with aid from Fitz, rather than his control. She proposes the agreement so that when they do have to have sex to have an heir, she is not having sex with the object of her unrequited love, an experience she dreads. Fitz jumps at the agreement, countering an eight year delay to Millie’s proposed six, only confirming in her mind his lack of interest in her.

Right when the agreement is up, Fitz’s childhood sweetheart returns to England as a widow. This is the precipitating event of the book--Fitz intends to take Isabelle as a mistress, but feels duty bound by the conditions of their marriage (and earnestly wants to make his wife happy with a child of her own) to first have a child with Millie. He is similarly under the impression that Millie suggested the pact because she has no interest in him romantically or sexually, even though she has been in love with him the whole time.

The book is a dual timeline, so you see what makes Fitz and Millie close friends in their marriage is the A Timeline as they are approaching the mandated consummation in the B Timeline.

So this book, there's not cheating. Fitz is conducting affairs throughout the book that's part of his covenant of freedom. Millie is hyper aware of the affairs; she knows what's going on, and there's the scene where he realizes how aware she is of the affairs they're dancing together, and she describes to him how he gets his lovers like, how does Fitz do seduction? And she's sort of aware of it because he's never done it with her. She describes him as a spider waiting for them to approach him. And then she says “a few days later, the gossip gets around to me, but I already know,” and this is sort of her reveal, that she she is watching fits in a way that he's sort of unaware.

Emma: Fitz feels like the description is slightly off and he characterizes his seduction techniques based shyness rather than a prowess. I don't really know what to do with this scene. but I think it's important to sort of note the awareness that Millie has of the affairs. He's not even he's not keeping them from her. and she's closely watching Fitz conduct these affairs. People sometimes call Fitz an emotional cheater or a cheater.

I really don't think he is, and I think the rakes are in agreement. Millie is not only not telling him how she feels, but she's lying about her feelings. She's letting him think that she has a sweetheart that she's in love with. She is also the one who sets the covenant of freedom. The moment she confesses her feelings for him, he changes how he relates to that information.

Chels: Maybe defensive isn't the right word. But when I when people characterize this as a cheating book, I'm like. I don't understand, because if you have an agreement like a verbalized agreement from the beginning of the relationship, I understand that, like Milly, is coming from it like from a place of sadness, where she thinks that Fitz can never love her, and that he had done a lot of things to lead her to believe that because of the way that he acted so. at the beginning of their marriage. So it's a self-protective measure like Millie thinks that if she like, speaks this agreement out, then she's okay with it.

But like Fits doesn't know that. Fitz thinks that this is something that she came up with, because she's just very practical. She's a lot more mature than him, and he does admire her and think that she kind of has it more together than she really does, because Millie is like very young, and she's just like heartbroken But all of that said, like, you have two characters like, Millie's like, Okay, we're married. You can do what you want. I won't say anything. We don't consummate the marriage until Year X, and then Fitz goes. Okay. So then, if Fitz sleeps with other women, that is within the agreement. So no matter how it makes Millie feel or the reader feel, it's not cheating.

Emma: I think it's also important that the agreement is not just like the covenant of freedom like you can sleep with other people. It's like you're not sleeping with me. So we get a lot of angst from Millie's side about the silence and the lies to Fitz in his conducting affairs. The angst on Fitz's side is really him sort of processing his substance abuse, his alcoholism, and that sort of connects to how he thinks Millie is viewing him. There are moments where he thinks like I was so intemperate at the beginning of our marriage like I scared her so badly. That's one of the like. She saw that in me and is scared of me. She was so young when we got married. He's commenting constantly. He's like we've been married for so long, but she's only 25, like we're both so young still.

His sort of anxiety is like I was not a good husband for this period, and I've been trying to be better husband. No wonder she's so scared of me. No wonder she doesn't want me to touch her. No wonder she's never tried to amend our agreement. She still wants those 8 years, and I have to spend those 8 years trying to like. Let her do her thing because she doesn't want to have anything to do with me, because I was so terrible during our honeymoon.

Bayley: Do you think that people think I I haven't read the book so I don't know. But do you think that people think this is a cheating book, because if what he's doing isn't cheating, they don't think she has like a right to be upset about it.

Chels: Yes, yeah.

Beth: I think you’re right.

Chels: I think I think it's because it feels like cheating, because, like it hurts so much. It's you have the. And this is built like a cheating book. It's like the dual timeline, the withholding information like, I've kind of noticed a lot like, but there's so much miscommunication in cheating books, I know it’s in all romance novels, but like in cheating books, especially because it's it's easier to kind of like pinpoint because of like that's kind of like where a lot of the disconnect is and where like these actions go. But yeah, I think, like you, your reaction to Ravishing the Heiress would be the same if even she didn't agree to it, I think, because it's kind of like what it it's kind of like a lot of times like, what is, what happens is less important than like how it makes you feel.

And I think that's kind of It's kind of why, I think you you would put Ravishing the Heiress as a cheating book, because it really does feel like a cheating book. But it's just like on the like you're gonna like, actually write out the definition of cheating like, because I guess the only reason why I get kind of like a little bit worked up about that is, maybe on Fitz's behalf, because I very strongly identify with Fitz, and I think, like people are very cruel to Fitz like people don't really like understand where he's coming from, and like are unwilling to acknowledge it. That really is as you said, Emma, Millie lying to him about like where she's coming from, how she feels so like he has, like all these things on his plate. He was also very young when he got married, so I think there's kind of like, maybe the whole reason why I'm just like I'm so protective of this book not being a cheating book like no matter. But the big failing is that I just want us to look at Fitz with kinder eyes, and I think, like in cheating books in general, people really struggle to do that.

Emma: And I think it's important, this book doesn't have a huge grovel in it like in that. When I first read it I was disappointed in like the lack of groveling. I was like Fitz needs to fix things with Millie like it's the gap between when she confesses her feelings to him. The only big act that he takes is cutting things off with Isabel. He says it very explicitly, like as well, we are not going to be together. I'm going to be with my wife, and then there's a misinterpretation of his actions on Millie’s part, so he has to apologize for that.

Emma: but when I first read it I was like I. What I felt like was missing, but the more times I read I probably read it like 4 times now. It really works. It's like all Millie. She doesn't want him to apologize necessarily like he, because he didn't really do anything immoral. She just wants him to be her husband like that. That's the solution for Millie. And I think it speaks to like in a relationship you kind of get to set the terms of forgiveness. Millie doesn't need the grovel, so we don't get a grovel and as much as you want, and what I think works, especially if you read the book that it comes after it. You get to see Millie and Fitz be a couple together, and you're like this is what this is, her version of a grovel. Her version of him apologizing is him just being a good husband and being around and loving her. She doesn't need the big apology that so many of our books sort of rest on.

Bayley: Yeah. I wanna go read it. You have the taste for Sherry Thomas historicals.

Beth: Join us, and being devastated

I will say this about Millie, where I think my strongest memory is I don't know if the family is like waiting to pick someone up at the train station or something, but they're all like waiting for, like another family member to join them. And Isabel it decides to like come, hang out, and Millie is a there yet. She comes down the stairs. I'm like, that scene is soooo. I am on the floor.

Emma: Fitz reaction, he's like, it's about like, you're embarrassing my wife like this, even if we're not in love with each other like, even if we can't do this, we're embarrassing, Millie, and it's like that. It's like that's the beginning of him being like. Isabel doesn't get what it's like to be married to someone you care about. because her marriage was really loveless, and she was like, I'm always holding out for Fitz. And it's you Fitz, doesn't realize that he's fallen in love with Millie, but he's he's so loyal to her.

He's like you can't, you can't embarrass Millie like, even if Millie doesn't love me, she's my wife, and he he really respects like the institution of marriage, even though he's sleeping with other people. It's this weird tension. Because he's like you. She's my wife. She's like no one will. No one will replace you. And you. You're my countess, you're first at the table. And that's sort of like what Millie needs to hear more than I want to have sex with you exclusively right.

Beth: Yes, I agree.

Chels: Oh, my God! The second hand embarrassment I got from that scene, and also what was kind of like. Really, what I love about that scene, too, is like, Yeah, there's Fitz there's Isabel. But also, like, all of it's his family. They're just like, Mille is your wife.

She's living as his wife in like every single imaginable way, except for as like the consummation of their marriage, like their business partners, their best friends. They like that she like knows his family. She hangs out with them, she attends functions. So if like. You are kind of this person who just kind of like, thinks that like, okay,

I'm in love with. Isabel is going to be the person that I go with, like Isabel has to like work up to that level that Millie was at, and then also kind of like the relationship isn't just like sleeping together. So that's kind of where it like Fitz like is kind of like. Oh, it's so easy for me to just like talk to my wife and sleep with my wife, because, like we, I already love her, and we're already living this way like this. But like me and Isabel at this point are strangers. So because she doesn't, she doesn't realize that this is something that I definitely don't want.

Beth: Yeah. And I am sympathetic to Isabel. I feel like she just doesn't know how to not be a wife. So I think it is kind of natural for her to be like, oh, well, we're gonna be doing this. I'm gonna like show up for you. So. And I think she gets her own novella. I'm sympathetic to Isabel, even though I'm like, please exit this situation.

Emma: Her novella is fun, she she opens the door at her house, and it's someone who looks exactly like fits, and she's like, Oh, my God! She thinks it's him coming back so she like throws herself at this man, and he's like, I don't know you. So it's it's fun because it's like it. I feel like Novella is frequently struggle with like the pacing, and it's like it.

Beth: We’ve talked a lot.

Chels: We won’t cheat this episode.

Beth: I will! I’ll wrap up. Thank you so much for listening to Reformed Rakes. If you enjoy the podcast you can find bonus content on our patreon, patreon.com/ReformedRakes. You can also follow us on Twitter and Instagram for show updates. The username for both is @reformedrakes. Thank you again, and we will see you next time.