Private Arrangements

Oh man, this book. It's a second chance romance, so the entire first half bounces back and forth, inching toward their reunion, and also toward the event that separated them originally. So it's like watching a very slow moving car wreck. Both characters make *terrible* decisions throughout the book. And often in books that's enough to sap all my enjoyment, but as frustrating as it was here, it was still surprisingly compelling. Rather than wash my hands of them and their foolishness, I cringed but didn't want to turn away, lol. I hate that they missed out on a whole decade of happiness together over things they should have just worked to find a way through. It feels like such a waste. But somehow I didn't end up hating them, or this show more book.

Minor grievances, strawberry laurels were mentioned like four times too many, and Greek mythology, (though I'm a fan!) was also somehow shoe-horned in, every couple pages. Probably at least two dozen individual characters were named, not even as a part of the plot or anything, plus other odds and ends, all just sprinkled about. It felt very excessive. There were a lot of art references too, but often in reference to actual paintings in the story, so they didn't feel as blatant.

My feelings about their major mistakes She definitely shouldn't have had a letter forged. That's obvious. But ultimately, he shouldn't have stubbornly continued to give blind loyalty to someone who didn't deserve it, (and if he hadn't then she never would have sent a forgery in the first place). And ultimately, her letter freed him to do what he most wanted to do anyway, and besides pre-empting the other woman's actual abandonment of him by a couple weeks, it changed nothing! And his not-even-betrothed that he was willing to sacrifice his happiness for didn't even bother to notify him that she was casting him aside! Not worth clinging to. And he knew from the first moments of meeting the heroine that she was sort of ruthless and he even liked that about her, so it was preposterous of him to doom both their futures in retribution for just that one thing. His response was agregiously outsized to the offence. (He married her for spite, he spurned her, he made her feel horrible about herself, he made her think he'd taken a lover, he mentioned the desire to repeatedly throw her against the wall?! wtf? Even years later when he still hadn't given up on the idea of a reunion with her, he still was being a huge ass, saying that bedding her would sicken him and that he pitied any man she "loved". Stop getting in the way of your own happiness dude!!! She genuinely put in some serious effort trying to make up for her mistake, sacrificing pride and humbling herself and stuff, and he could have decided to get over it ANY TIME in like the first 8 years, and she would have leapt at the chance. So honestly, I put 90% of the blame for both of them being heartbroken and miserable, (for an entire decade(!)), at his feet! show less

Oh man, this book. It's a second chance romance, so the entire first half bounces back and forth, inching toward their reunion, and also toward the event that separated them originally. So it's like watching a very slow moving car wreck. Both characters make *terrible* decisions throughout the book. And often in books that's enough to sap all my enjoyment, but as frustrating as it was here, it was still surprisingly compelling. Rather than wash my hands of them and their foolishness, I cringed but didn't want to turn away, lol. I hate that they missed out on a whole decade of happiness together over things they should have just worked to find a way through. It feels like such a waste. But somehow I didn't end up hating them, or this show more book.

Minor grievances, strawberry laurels were mentioned like four times too many, and Greek mythology, (though I'm a fan!) was also somehow shoe-horned in, every couple pages. Probably at least two dozen individual characters were named, not even as a part of the plot or anything, plus other odds and ends, all just sprinkled about. It felt very excessive. There were a lot of art references too, but often in reference to actual paintings in the story, so they didn't feel as blatant.

My feelings about their major mistakes She definitely shouldn't have had a letter forged. That's obvious. But ultimately, he shouldn't have stubbornly continued to give blind loyalty to someone who didn't deserve it, (and if he hadn't then she never would have sent a forgery in the first place). And ultimately, her letter freed him to do what he most wanted to do anyway, and besides pre-empting the other woman's actual abandonment of him by a couple weeks, it changed nothing! And his not-even-betrothed that he was willing to sacrifice his happiness for didn't even bother to notify him that she was casting him aside! Not worth clinging to. And he knew from the first moments of meeting the heroine that she was sort of ruthless and he even liked that about her, so it was preposterous of him to doom both their futures in retribution for just that one thing. His response was agregiously outsized to the offence. (He married her for spite, he spurned her, he made her feel horrible about herself, he made her think he'd taken a lover, he mentioned the desire to repeatedly throw her against the wall?! wtf? Even years later when he still hadn't given up on the idea of a reunion with her, he still was being a huge ass, saying that bedding her would sicken him and that he pitied any man she "loved". Stop getting in the way of your own happiness dude!!! She genuinely put in some serious effort trying to make up for her mistake, sacrificing pride and humbling herself and stuff, and he could have decided to get over it ANY TIME in like the first 8 years, and she would have leapt at the chance. So honestly, I put 90% of the blame for both of them being heartbroken and miserable, (for an entire decade(!)), at his feet! show less

4.5ish stars

I was made to have hurt feelings until literally the last few pages of the book and I was woozy! Delicious and Not Quite a Husband made me cry actual tears so Private Arrangements is a step below those books as far as hurt feelings go . . .

Something that sticks out to me as kind of a brave choice for a romance, both MCs have people they could have married and enjoyed a lovely life with and these other people were not made to be "bad" for the reader to have a clean preference for Tremaine. When Gigi finally breaks things off with Frederick, I was so sad in my heart, there was a glimpse of how it could be between them. Likewise, when Tremaine was with Miss von Schweppenburg, sailing on the waters, with her children and he show more kisses her hair, that hurt! Because they could have been together all along and they would have been a very happy family. And gosh, seeing the dregs of what those relationships could have been affected me. Love was found, lost (not really lost, they never stopped loving one another), and found again between our MCs. But love was also found with other people.

More lovely tidbits: Gigi and her mother were hilarious. And this makes me think of how families function in a Sherry Thomas book (of which I've read 3 so I am not an expert!). In Delicious and Not Quite a Husband, people who come into the family, remain part of the family. One of the most touching sections in NQaH is when Leo arrives back in England and presents himself as Bryony's spouse when she attends her father's funeral and, even now, it brings tears to my eyes. The couple had such a messy go at it but were still a family. (crying rn thanks Sherry Thomas).

AND Thomas’s use of flashbacks and time jumps work well for me probably because they are used with devastating precision. I'm also thinking over Tremaine's explosive reaction after finding out about the forged letter from Miss von Schweppenburg. His turn as a super villain that could't really villain as effectively as he wanted was interesting! And lead to so much pain! (but this also makes me think of a passage from early in the book: “I couldn't stand the thought of bedding you before now.” “Really?” She laughed, thought she'd have preferred to smash an inkwell against his temple. “You liked it well enough last time.” “The performance of a lifetime,” he said easily. “And I was a good thespian to begin with.”)

Some misses: The secondary love story: it was fine - it did not deserve ALL the time it was afforded. I am alone in thinking this, but I also felt the secondary romance in Delicious wasted time I’d rather have spent with the MCs. I feel like so much of these side stories could do well as novellas on their own. It’s not that they aren’t interesting, but there is already a romance I’d rather focus on. But that’s just me!

Him pulling the birth control device out of her was a bummer. I was so nervous how he was going to react when he found out she’d been using the Dutch hat - but when she told him he didn’t freak out terribly. I would rather have a scene where she chooses not to use birth control instead of him removing it.

Gigi’s charity - look. Eat the rich! So much abundance of wealth here! And that felt intentional - like Thomas was not being vague or cutesy with how fucking rich these people are. And I appreciate that Gigi is the kind of woman to help other women but this did not move the story forward for me in a meaningful way. I do not care about rich people charities, they should be taxed into oblivion. show less

Tengo la teoría , forjada tras años de leer romances históricos , de que la gran mayoría de las autoras del género son fieles fanáticas de "Lo que el viento se llevó" . Aman tanto el libro , les angustia tanto el final , que hoy , en todos sus escritos deciden hacer una suerte de fanfic anual para darle a Rhett y Scarlett el final que nunca pudieron tener (y que supongo ,todos queríamos) .

Este libro no es la excepción .

Hay una Scarlett , hay una Melanie y hay un ASHLEY que después se convierte en una versión rara de Rhett . Incluso , la gran complicación de la trama , la que separa a los amantes , está sacado dellibro de Margaret Mitchel (si lo leyeron se acordarán de lo que tiene que hacer Scarlett para conseguir la show more plata para salvar a Tara ...si no ,les cuento que tiene mucho que ver con una carta falsa y un prometido ajeno ).

"Private Arrangments" no sólo roba una parte de la trama ,sino que además ,copia y desmenuza algún que otropárrafo que recuerdo bien ...
En fin ,a pesar de eso , es una historia entretenida y distinta a las otras copias .

Si , recomendable . Me gustó bastante más de lo que esperaba y los personajes seguían siendo queribles ,bien lejos de la virgencita estúpida de siempre y el super macho sin sentimientos. show less

I should probably give this book five stars, because it's that good. I'm knocking it down a star because it's a romance novel and it really depressed me. Sherry Thomas is an amazing writer, which is, basically, the problem. She made the characters of Gigi and Camden so real for me, and their pain so vivid, that reading the book was kind of like walking on a bed of nails.

We have two stories here. There's the story of Gigi and Camden's young romance, which starts out sweet and breathless and wonderful. I really believed, as I read these flashback scenes, that Gigi and Camden were meant for one another, a perfect match.

But the flashback story is interwoven with the present-day story, so we know from the get-go that something very, very show more bad is going to happen. Present-day Camden and Gigi aren't just distant, they're cold and cruel with one another. We know that Gigi wants a divorce, and Camden agrees to grant the divorce if she'll give him a year to impregnate her. That could go a lot of ways; in most romance novels, Camden and Gigi would probably have blazing hot sex that quickly develops elements of sweetness and tenderness, and then the good feelings would gradually spread to the rest of their relationship. PRIVATE ARRANGEMENTS is not most romance novels. For example - when discussing the prospect of having sex with Gigi, Camden tells her flat out that he finds sex with her disgusting, mocks her behavior in bed, and then announces he'll probably have to retreat to his room to vomit after he's done. Now, in reality, he's insanely attracted to her and loves having sex with her, but the dude's pretty committed to his role...and he STAYS committed. ALL the sex scenes in this book made me cringe.

While present-day Camden and Gigi are kind of, sort of working through their problems and putting the past behind them, the reader gets more and more of the flashback story. Gigi betrays Camden in a pretty major way, and when Camden explains why he's so hurt by her behavior his reasons are good and sound. But then he sets out to get revenge, and he's...really, really good at it. So I'm reading all these scenes where flashback Camden is basically taking a knife to Gigi's heart and twisting it, and getting such a clear sense of how deeply in love with him she is, and how very, very vulnerable she is, and it made the tension of the present-day scenes almost unbearable. It takes her years of separation to pick up the pieces and move on, and here he is, storming back into her life and re-opening all the old wounds.

I'm not the kind of person who likes to see heros grovel. I know some people dig groveling scenes and I generally hate them. But in PRIVATE ARRANGEMENTS it seemed like Gigi was the one expected to apologize, to make up for the wrong she'd done him, when I thought it had been the reverse. I thought he was the one who needed to make amends and prove that he could be a better man. I wanted some grand gesture from him, at a bare minimum - I don't think any single act could really make up for all the pain he caused her, and continues to cause her through most of the book.

We get our requisite happily ever after at the end, and like I said at the beginning, it was easy to believe that Camden and Gigi were really meant for one another...but the scenes of emotional violence in this book are just SO MUCH more powerful than the scenes of peace and joy, and so much more NUMEROUS, that the happily ever after couldn't bring me back to a tonic note. I didn't close the book with a warm fuzzy feeling, like I generally do with a romance. Even at the end, Camden and Gigi's story seemed sort of tragic to me, and I felt sad.

I read NOT QUITE A HUSBAND just before I picked up PRIVATE ARRANGEMENTS and I have to say, that was one of the most lovely, wonderful, bittersweet at times but ultimately joyful romances I have read in ages, really moving and excellent. I have every confidence in Sherry Thomas' talent, but PRIVATE ARRANGEMENTS is pretty dark and if many more of her books are like this I might stop buying them and settle for wishing her great success from afar. show less

Gigi, Lady Tremaine, has been separated from her husband, Camden, for 10 years. Gigi loves her husband but she is tired of waiting for him and has decided to get on with her life and remarry someone else for some small chance at happiness. Camden doesn't want her but doesn't want anyone else to have her either. Especially dim-witted Freddie, her intended fiance. So Camden demands that they live together for one year so he can get an heir off her in exchange for the divorce she wants. And Gigi agrees.

The story goes back and forth between the past and the present and slowly reveals why these two imperfect and somewhat unlikeable characters are so bitter and cruel to each other. When they first meet both characters are immature and Gigi show more has no self confidence in her beauty or personal attributes needed to attract a man aside from her considerable fortune. Camden is on the verge of proposing to another girl and Gigi is very determined to have him so she plots and schemes to bring Camden to propose. On the eve of their wedding Camden discovers her deception and is very angry (and I suspect, very hurt). He decides to proceed with the wedding and consummates the marriage, then very cruelly humiliates and rejects her. Of course, in this way he can throw her out and still have access to all her lovely money. Let's just say I was not too fond of Camden at this point. Especially after Gigi grovels and begs for him to take her back. Gigi is at fault for her deception but I found her much more sympathetic and I actually liked her quite a bit.

The weaving of the past with the present was smoothly done and the use of language by Thomas was superb making this book hard to put down. When Camden and Gigi first marry they are very young and so I gave their initial poor behavior some slack, but it is now ten years later and Camden is still bitter and angry and seems to still want to punish Gigi for making him fall in love with her. Gigi has grown up and acts much more honorably towards Camden and I found her a much more sympathetic character.

There is a lovely romantic sub-plot involving Gigi's mother, Mrs. Rowland, and a reclusive duke who lives next door. Mrs. Rowland tries to bag the duke for her daughter but ends up falling in love with him herself. A very amusing and well done sidebar to the main plot.

Overall this was a somewhat deep historical with three dimensional characters and a very satisfying and romantic ending. Everything I enjoy in a romance. I enjoyed this book so much Thomas is an auto-buy for me now. I have read Delicious and have Not Quite a Husband on my wishlist. GRADE: A- show less

Jane Feather called this book, "enchanting...An extraordinary, unputdownable love story." You would think a fellow author could conjure up better praise than "unputdownable," but Mary Balogh puts it better. She calls Private Arrangements "a love story of remarkable depth," and that's certainly true.In fact, the first half of Private Arrangements reads very much like a beautiful, artistic indie film. The first moments glimpsed between Gigi and Camden are intimate and sweet and summon a tone of magic. From the moment these two meet we feel the impression that they are soulmates, the kind of kindred spirits who finish each other's sentences and share silent exchanges. Sherry Thomas skillfully conveys their bond by capturing the real life show more nuances between a man and a woman, the instant connection that a man and a woman feel when they can share a joke in a glance. The silences are as telling as the words. This act in the story is possibly the most romantic I've seen in a romance. So I loved these flashes back. They're integral to the rest of the story, and they were placed ideally in the book to describe current events. (Don't worry, the flashbacks stop, they're not endless, LOL.)So it's all the more tragic when that communion is shattered. Both parties are to blame, but when we see, as we must, the sad straits to which the Tremaines come, two people once in love now unable to stop hurting each other, we feel the pain that Gigi and Camden must feel. Again, the author is brilliant at proving all her claims (aka "showing"). Gigi is meant to be intelligent and strong, and we see this in her actions and words, in the vulnerable heart of her that she protects so carefully. She is a real woman that we have all met at one point, not a manufactured heroine too stubborn or stupid to live or ridiculously naive. She is a proud woman, at once her strength and weakness. Likewise, we come to know Camden with his intelligence and calm, his humility and humor, his quiet dignity and strength. He's not arrogant or overbearing (though he can surely be aggressive/firm when the needs calls for it) and not led by the nose into the heroine's tricks or drama. At one point, he even makes light of a man flying into a jealous rage when a rival for the heroine's attentions is dangled before him-- which I found amusing, because we all have seen that device in historical romance. He is a very real hero, whom we probably all have met at one point or another. He makes mistakes and despite himself he's not invulnerable, though he's not a rake or resistant to love for the sake of resistance. Their histories have made the characters who they are, and they are not overdramatic or contrived.The ice between Camden and Gigi, the cold, polite relationship is Victorian British to the core and the barbs traded between them intelligent and biting. This is the first time I've seen this done right. This is the cut direct delivered with a smile, but the book is prevented from becoming too bleak or depressing because not only we do read about the longing and undying attraction, despite all, between these two, but we're promised an end in sight, a HEA. Needless to say, Thomas has done her research-- if you need proof, she drops a paragraph on the economics of the times, the only point in the novel where she reveals her research outright. She also roots us in the period with little windows into the time in a way that we can relate. We read a telegram from Camden to his mother-in-law, and it is as long-suffering as any modern man could be. At another point, instead of a description, we read a building plaque directly, Thomas illustrating the story herself. However, she remains firmly in the period. I particularly like that she doesn't try to make Gigi a modern woman from 2008 suffering the 1800s. In fact, Camden even looks back at medieval times as we would his time, saying something along the lines of, "Too bad we've made so much progress." That was a brilliant touch. Gigi exploits her advantages as much as he. Thomas also reminds us that the Victorians were human. Many authors research the strict accepted social norms of the times, but few realize they were flaunted just as the norms of today are. They laughed, they loved. Oscar Wilde would have approved. Thomas' style is another point in favor. She has a very elegant, spare style that suits the story far better than the purple prose we often find in romance. She is concise without verging into colloquial or informal, she's succinct in the way that Hemingway was, never too wordy. I also loved her physical descriptions of the characters because instead of using vague descriptors like "deep-set eyes" or a "bright eyes," she tells us a character has a chin like "Michelangelo's David" and we immediately have a concrete visual. She writes clever dialogue too, if I haven't mentioned that yet, that modern readers can understand without feeling dumbed down or too anachronistic.As for the plot, this is a relationship drama. There is no suspense or action to power the plot, but Thomas makes smashing-good drama of these characters' lives. The book is emotional not because of any manufactured devices, but because of the real pains that these characters suffer, the depths to which they plumb the human character when they're breaking up, when they're loving, hurting, parting, all of it, almost like Susan Wiggs if she wrote historical.In short, Thomas brings subtlety, a touch of realism, and human drama back into romance. She's a breath of fresh air in the romance genre, and I just hope I enjoy her next book as much.I should also mention that there's a current of heated tension between Gigi and Camden. However, while there are bedroom scenes, they are short and sensual. They are definitely not pages long, but enough details are conveyed to move the story as they are meant to do (and satisfy most readers, LOL). ;) show less