The theme: Starting Over
Why This One: I didn’t have the theme in mind when I started, but it kind of fits. As a romance reader, I hope it fits.
From the Goodreads reviews this isn’t a fan favorite, and it’s not hard to see why. There’s almost no plot — all vibes, as the kids say. And the vibes aren’t all that good.
Caprice is the name of our heroine and she doesn’t know herself whether it’s “a case of the name predicting the personality, or the personality fitting itself to the name.” She’s whimsical, capricious, manipulative and an inveterate flirt, and she’s starting to realize that she’s in perhaps in a trap of her own making. She’s not a terrible person by any means, and many of her ploys throughout the book are for the benefit of her friends, though she’s never truly let those friends in. But her socialite lifestyle is shallow and she has no desire to change it, even while realizing something is missing.
In typical Harlequin fashion, Caprice’s feelings are upended by an attractive man named Pierce — another descriptive name, I just realized — and it scares the hell out of her.
She felt an inner lurch, and then was frightened. Foolish, foolish, for this man was a stranger and he didn’t matter any more than the others mattered. She shouldn’t fear him. He didn’t know her, couldn’t know her. She was glittering brightness, she was cool fire, she was laughter and gaiety, and malicious gentleness, she was Caprice. Underneath that, she was untouchable.
These thoughts happens right after Pierce tells her “everyone has a basic reason for doing something. Sometimes, with the more twisted or fanatic mind, you need to search deeper for the reason, but it’s always there, deep, underlying actions and thought like the still waters under the surface of this lake.” Which makes a lot of sense in terms of her character, but sets the reader up for disappointment, because we expect some powerful reason for Caprice’s behavior, some trauma, and we don’t really get one. (Though on the other hand, yay for avoiding that particular romance cliche?)
Pierce finds Caprice about as frustrating as you’d expect, but nonetheless courts her in spite of her hot and cold reactions, and in the end manages to make a pretty good argument for how their opposite attracts relationship could work. I still have my doubts about their ultimate happiness, and I wish there could have been more progress in Caprice’s understanding herself better and moving closer to other people in her life, to help create a happy ending. Instead it comes out more as “she just needed a good shagging” quite literally ala “Gone with the Wind.” The second half of the book is less interesting than the first.
It’s hard to believe this was published in 1986, because it feels like a time capsule — those who enjoy loving descriptions of clothes will be happy — but more like 1960 than the 1986 I knew. (Though coincidentally enough, I was just about Caprice’s age then, and it’s the year I met my husband.) The feel is so old-fashioned, I kept being surprised when Caprice could go off with a young man without a chaperone or be caught kissing him without a scandal. Were rich people really having innocent house parties in 1986?
A Willful Woman... 
TIL Thea Harrison wrote anything before her Elder Races books (and given what I hear about those, the prudishness must be rather surprising, if not outright shocking)
We joke about readers being demanding and (ha!) capricious, but it’s true. On the one hand, we are tired of the cliché big tragedy or traumatic event that forever shapes a protagonist, but on the other hand, when characters lack it, then we feel a bit lost. (Mind you, it’s a more true-to-life characterization choice to have characters who just are how they are because nothing has forced them to change, like the vast majority of humanity, but they can make for less entertaining fiction.)
I know, I’m always finding myself being annoyed because I miss something I theoretically am sick of. 😉
I’m so glad there isn’t a felt need to describe clothes like books in the ’80ish did. I read two older contemp Judith McNaughts and almost drowned in shoulder pad blazers and white stockings.
I wonder if the author’s age played a part in this feeling older, older author still writing with her generational mindset? I think I can see that in some contemps today, mid-twenties characters should not have pop cultural references that I as almost 40yrs can completely share.
I don’t know, I think it’s kind of the nature of the old Harlequin beast? I They’re always 25 years or so behind the times.
Too true. Management turnover possibility or really how long it takes their analytics to discover trends have changed
I be really old now, but THIS!
[…] TBR Challenge: Caprice by Amanda Carpenter (aka Thea Harrison) Mar […]