My Sweet Folly

"All the shame of that moment when she had read his last letter washed over her again, the shattering realization of her foolishness, her loneliness, of her secret treason." ahh gods my heart!

My Sweet Folly has one of the best epistolary opening chapters - maybe ever! . . . and then Kinsale swiftly pulls the rug out from under you, after your heart has expanded 3 sizes and you want MORE intimacies only letter-writing can fulfill (I actually liked that the rug was seized from under us promptly, because I dislike when the You've Got Mail con goes on too long - it's just not my preference). The epistolary element doesn't disappear entirely, but the function changes.

I liked this book but when the novel shifts into a gothic tale, it took show more a while for me to get back into the flow. This is my over-arching Kinsale journey 3 books in: her prose doesn't captivate me for extended periods even though I am aware how beautiful the writing is. I did love Follie, she was such a flirt and I adore how her personality just shines in her letters to Robert and in her interactions with the people around her. Robert's time with The India Trading Company looms heavily over my experience of this book in that it seemed to exist too benignly for me. show less

Upon finishing My Sweet Folly I feel like the victim of a mean dirty trick - and how easily did I play into the author's hands. The first third of the book was ok - up to pg 146 to be precise, the exact moment that the book turned into something other than what it had promised to be and dashed my hopes utterly. I don't mind twists and turns and surprises in books - I welcome them. Things get boring otherwise. But in this case, what came before pg. 146 and what came after simply didn't fit together, and the rest of the story fell apart as a result - undoing all the wonderful character development and promising romance that came before.

***Spoiler alert***

Prior to pg. 146, Robert Cambourne, formerly of the Indian army, is going stark show more raving mad – his dead wife harasses him and he thinks They are out to get him. Folie Hamilton, widowed with a 19 year old stepdaughter, is invited by Robert to visit him at his estate before she and her daughter Melinda set off to London for Melinda's debut. Folie and Robert share some history - they started a correspondence four years ago, quite by accident, having never seen each other before. They fell in love, even though at the time Folie was married. Robert put an end to their letter writing by revealing late in the game that he's been married the whole time and they can never contact each other ever again. Oh the angst. They're both free now, spouses having gone to their respective graves, and leaving Robert as Melinda’s guardian. Against her better judgment Folie accepts Robert’s invitation, and she and Melinda go to Solinger. When Folie sees Robert for the first time, she's shocked and horrified - he's not the Robert she imagined from her letters, the sweet gentle, funny knight in shining armor she’s loved all these years. He's a crazy stranger who promptly incarcerates them on his estate. Robert, for his part, starts out a very interesting character - very disturbed and tortured, and I thought that the author did a great job delving into the murkiness of his madness while still making him seem human at the same time. I really liked this set up - the rude collision between dreams and reality. I couldn't wait to see how the romance between Robert and Folie would develop.

Unfortunately for me, it doesn't, because around pg 146 Robert suddenly recovers his sanity. Folie and Melinda have left Solinger by now for London, and he’s overcome his incapacitating paranoia enough to follow them there. He brainstorms a bit and finds out that he’s not crazy at all. He’s just been poisoned into craziness, the victim of a diabolical plot to overthrow the monarchy and destroy the East India Trading Company. This explanation for his madness is mostly why I felt cheated. Not that I wanted Robert to stay crazy, of course, but for him to have never really been crazy in the first place, and for him to then drag us into a silly sprawling spy plot... I was annoyed, to say the least, at this turn of events. Furthermore, there is absolutely no connection between the Robert of the letters and the Robert we actually meet. Of course, that's the point when Folie meets him. But what’s the point of this disjunction once his madness magically dissipates? Shouldn't we get a sense of who he is? Some elaboration on his past, some reference to his and Folie’s letter writing beyond the stray comment, a reference to their love, past and present, that can then grow into something real, a compromise or incorporation of the two separate worlds? Robert as a character just doesn't make sense. After he wakes up from his poison induced madness, there’s nothing that holds him together and convinces me that he loves Folie, let alone has any coherent feelings whatsoever. The change from crazy Robert to “sane” Robert is so sudden, and the explanation so far-fetched, such a disappointment, that I'm thrown off guard and spend the rest of the book waiting for things to return to their former brilliancy, to return to the issues and feelings that were raised in the beginning.

But I’m never satisfied in this regard. Instead I get pulled against my will into a story of convoluted, half-baked conspiracy plots, kidnappings, spying, a shotgun wedding, and, of all things, magic tricks and mesmerism. It's so bizarre, so clumsily handled, and such a copout. The romance goes out the window, especially after Folie and Robert marry (an event that in and of itself is a random contrivance that leaves me scratching my head). And he all of a sudden decides that he must emotionally manipulate and torture Folie - by night he plays that game, and by day they both happily go about their business trying to save king and country, bantering and joking with their pals as if Robert weren't a twisted sicko. Of course, Folie takes it because she has an epiphany that he’s like a magic unicorn that she must not scare off by objecting to his treatment of her. Ugh. Absolutely no time is spent on exploring their relationship or the hints of torment introduced in the beginning. Nor was I ever really won over by their letters to each other either – and this is a big problem because that early epistolary relationship is supposed to carry the entire weight of their romance throughout the rest of the book. While they had some nice moments, I thought their letters were for the most part self indulgent, more immature than endearing. The letters were supposed to convey the beauty of young love, the fantasy and the innocence, and that’s fine in theory, but it never pans out well in practice, or merges with the mess of an external plot that follows. The book never goes anywhere with those letters after the prologue, except to try and pacify me at the end with a perfunctory, cutesy epilogue, as if that gives me leave to accept that Robert and Folly are in love and happy together at last. Not bloody likely. show less

Laura Kinsale has to be a pantser, right? This book is far beyond the reach of any,err predictable or, uh ,normal plot. AT times, I adored it. I think the entire prologue is an experience. At other times, I just hated it. It's interesting, and makes me think the characters really have a life all their own.

Nicholas Boulton performs the audio and I could never read this book I don't think. Although I was curious, it wouldn't have been enough for the WTFery that ensues. He gets an A+++ but the book is only saved from DNF by that and Kinsale's often amazing writing-because as a whole, I just didn't like it.

I'm slowly working my way through Kinsale's backlist. I have all the books--I just ration them because they're so good.

And My Sweet Folly is no exception. Folie Hamilton begins a correspondence with her husband's cousin Robert Cambourne when she responds to a letter he'd written to her husband. Over the course of a few years, the letters provide a source of comfort and joy to the lonely young wife and the unsuited military officer stationed in India. That all changes when Folie's husband dies and she writes Robert that she's coming to visit him. His curt response informs her that he's been married all along.

Then his wife dies and he returns to England, at about the time Folie is trying to launch her stepdaughter into society. Now head show more of the family, Robert commands them both to come to his estate.

Where Folie discovers a completely different Robert than the one she'd come to know through his letters. He's sullen, angry, paranoid, autocratic... mad. There are glimpses of the old Robert, but only enough to be confusing rather than reassuring.

Robert seems convinced, in his lucid states, that someone is doing this to him--poisoning him. Or is that just madness talking? And how can Folie trust him when she has her stepdaughter's future to worry about?

As is typical (if typical can be used to describe such inventive variety) of Kinsale's work, My Sweet Folly is intensely emotional. The reader isn't spared any of Folie's or Robert's pain or confusion, or, in the end, their joy. One can assume, of course, since it is romance, that Robert will be sane at the end of the book, so it's a real trick to make one doubt that in the middle. Kinsale accomplishes it.

Folie is a wonderfully believable and sympathetic heroine. I loved watching her grow through the book, from the young idealistic woman escaping the duty of her marriage, through Robert's first betrayal, she grew up and turned her focus on her stepdaughter. When they meet again, she wants to believe him, but madness seems more likely, and it's the classic conflict between what the heart needs and what the head knows.

Robert is even more poignant. Spurned by his beautiful wife, he knows he's unloveable, and now it seems he's going mad. He retains enough self-preservation to be suspicious and paranoid, but can't be sure that's not also madness. It's a frightening thing not to be able to trust your own mind, and I could feel that right along with him.

I also loved the contrast between the first flowering of their romance--a sweet, naive, hopeful love story that could have been a whole book on its own, and the eventual HEA that was forged in the fire of adversity. (hyperbole, yes, but it seems to fit) It's like a fable about the difference between puppy love and real, lasting mature love. I'm not sure how the love between that young couple who wrote such lovely letters to each other would have survived the inevitable trials of life. The couple who ended up together at the end of the book, however, will survive anything. show less

The thing that gets me is that this book started off so strongly I loved the letters in the beginning and I loved Folie. But Robert, aside from the Robert in the letters, is an ass and he doesn't get any better. Neither of them communicate, but especially Robert and that left me very frustrated.
Also I don't really get the importance of Folie's temporary amnesia it really didn't seem to matter all that much because the information she shared we (the audience already knew) and Robert didn't give two shits about it. It only seemed to serve as the impetus for them to (view spoiler) which could have been done in any other numerous methods.
In short Folie was way too good for Robert and I think the story got lost on itself. It had a ton of show more potential and I was very interested in it, but all in all it just didn't quite make it to awesome.
Also, Roberts an ass. Just had to say it again, get it off my chest. show less

This has been one of my favorite books for a long time, I love the beginning, the letters between Robert and Folie are sweet and interesting. The meeting of the characters in real life is a little unhinged, but still interesting.
- Spoilers -


The plot became big and all kinds of crazy, with international politics and a conspiracy to poison the Prince. All the while Robert is more and more of a jerk, even when he is nice he is awful. The poison made him nuts, but he really seemed like a pathetic bully much of the time.
It hurts saying that because My Sweet Folly was my go-to comfort read. I suppose I'll just stick with the first 50 pages.

4.5 stars

The correspondence at the beginning of this book is absolutely charming: a light-hearted exchange about life in India and England around 1800. Then the book transitions into a dark gothic mystery, madness, a kidnapping, an intrigue, another kind of romance, and understanding.

All of it hooked me--I cared about the main character and wanted, like her, to understand and solve all the mysteries.