Judith Ivory

Someone somewhere on the Internet listed Judith Ivory’s Black Silk as one of their personal Best Books Evar! So I decided to give it a shot, even though it doesn’t have Navy SEALs…

Yes. This is one of the best romance novels I have ever read.

Everything you expect from a romance novel is turned on it’s head; everything you think is necessary in a hero/heroine is missing. Familiar characters - the rake, the widow, the scheming bastard son, are all rounded and fleshed out beyond show more expectations. Actions unfold slowly and with great care. Ivory pays an exquisite amount of attention to language, description, characterization.. even at the expense of plot and likability.

Graham, were he transported to the 21st century, would basically be a “Bro” in an Apatow knockoff. Rich, smart, and utterly wasting his life in the pursuit of idleness. A fuck-up. In fact, an ugly fuck-up, for being so blithe about it. Ivory manages to make the reader see what a “rake” truly is— the waste of potential, and yet also the joy in being eternally adolescent and carefree.

And the widow? Her name is Submit, which really made me doubt I could get two pages into the book… And then? AND THEN? She is everything unexpected - a child bride who actually truly loved her old, rich husband; a unique character who is not swept away by Graham but instead recognizes him for all of his failings.

Their romance is stuttered, cut short, or delayed for most of the book. They misunderstand each other, ignore each other, and fight each other. However, unlike many other books, I was not exhausted by this. Instead, I was invested and cared. These weren’t “Too Stupid To Live” moments where basic logic/self-awareness is sacrificed for dramatic tension. Both of these characters had to be redeemed, both of them have to change before they could reach any kind of happy ending.

I really enjoyed, most of all, Ivory’s prose. She is lyrical without that sense of grasping at straws I sometimes feel from other, less skilled authors. She also is not afraid to write intelligently, with nice, big multi-syllabic words I don’t often see in genre fiction (“inchoate” and “sybarite” were my favs).

I would give it five stars except that there were a few sacrifices to the plot that I did not like. Characters that show up to ratchet up the tension and then nicely dissipate when not needed are wasted characters to me. Four of five stars show less

Judith Ivory's UNTIE MY HEART is a historical romance set in the late Victorian period.
Emma Hotchkiss, the delightful heroine, is a former con artist. She is also the widow of the local vicar [who was also on the game] and a sheep farmer. Emma is described as 'short and rounded,' 'pudgy' in a certain light; she is smart, sassy, and unconventional. And she is determined to force the local lord to repay her for the sheep his coach and eight accidentallly dispatched.

Stuart Aysgarth, the new show more Viscount Mount Villiars, has financial trouble since his uncle has stolen most of his assets, and he brushes Emma's claims for her sheep aside. This is a mistake, since Emma is then forced to resort to a con to get her compensation, and the chase is on.

Emma and Stuart have a delightful chemistry; at times kinky and at times thoughtful, they are forced to deal with immediate physical attraction and a more slowly developing love. Neither is a conventional stock romantic lead: Emma is a woman with a past and Stuart deals daily with a stutter. Ivory very ably catches the nuances of an adult stutter who copes successfully with his problem, hiding it in shifts in rhythm and phrasing. Neither character completely trusts the other nor wants to open themselves to love.

Watchting Emma and Stuart together is just plain fun. And I will never view chairs in quite the same light.

This book not only makes my keeper shelf [used bookstore eat your heart out], I have made it my #1 book in my Top 10 Romance List. What more can I say? show less

November 2024 read: I have 40 pages of hand-written notes and I would like to someday share these coherently

April 2024 read: I am not who I once was. I feel as though a wave crashed over me; as though I was dissolved into molecules, my essence taken apart and reassembled into who I am now. This is all very dramatic but it is also true: I am made whole by the existence of this work of art.

September 2023 read: I started browsing, just looking for some quotes and ended up reading it all again. show more It's just so good I could cry about it.

July 2023 read: "Just two messy, stupid human beings."

April 2023, second read: fuck this book is amazing. I was more tuned into Submit during this read. I loved her immediately when I first read Black Silk, but this time I felt like I saw her from the POV of other characters who also love her. People kind of just fall under her thrall and I GET IT. Also, Graham Wessit, in frustration, telling Submit she fucks people with her mind is the hottest (possibly unintended) compliment I have ever read in my life.

March 2023 read:
Do I have thoughts that are clearer now that the book has been within me for a short while? No. I do not. I am in a haze; uncoordinated. I made over 200 highlights and countless notes and my heart expands with the fullness of this book. I cannot stop thinking about this passage late in the book - about a woman Graham once knew - and it feels apt to share and revisit:

[
. “ . . . the small vase with its Etruscan lines. Simple, but pure and beautiful at heart. As an odd postscript, the same little vase had recently made its way back into Graham’s possession. Jim had given over the lot of Margaret’s things to the local church when she’d died (of unknown causes, in her sleep) just the previous year. The vase had been among these articles when the church had had its annual fair. Graham had purchased it for a third its value. He was rather touched to find it was among her “personal things.” Her husband Jim did not remember where it had come from. . .

People missed things. People didn’t notice; people didn’t care. People’s own misperceptions made black into white, made grey into whatever they wanted it to be. Graham began to think it was all fiction. Life was much less fixed than people imagined it to be. Then the thought of Margaret brought him back. She was a fixed point, someone he felt he had known, though briefly, truly well.”
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for me and my life, Black Silk has become a demarcation and I am living in the after of this book.
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Initial response: I have been flattened, bowed by the excellence of this book. It was a surrender I did not anticipate enjoying so thoroughly. I may have more thoughts later although what even are thoughts at this point? I experienced.
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Many CWs, please take care before reading: death by suicide (MMC's father dies by suicide after killing the MMC's mother - this happens off page but is referred to a few times and another character dies by suicide), infant death, young child death, miscarriage, death during pregnancy, infant illness, frequent alcohol consumption, on-page sex, arranged marriage between 16 year old and 59 year old, revenge porn, infidelity, absentee father show less

Zero angst, but I loved it! The plain heroine is a bit insecure, but that eventually passes. What unique and different characters, I don't think I've ever read a hero like Mick. He's confident and sure of himself without being arrogant, is sweet and unselfconscious. It was fun watching him draw Winnie out of her shell. I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, given this is a gender-switched version of My Fair Lady, but there is not a bit of strife between the MCs, the relationship is 100% show more open and sweet. show less