In the Cold Harsh Light | Reacting to Wicked and the Wallflower by Sarah Maclean

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Leonora
Hello, ladies. You're listening to A Fancy for Romance, a podcast for historical romance, fiction lovers. And I'm your host, Leonora, a fellow fan.

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Leonora
This is episode three and it's called In the Cold, Harsh Light. Where I'm going to be diving into Wicked and the Wallflower Here by Sarah MacLean.

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Leonora
Okay, friends, before we begin, I don't use character names, so you'll mostly hear female lead and male lead.

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Leonora
There will be the occasional spoiler, but nothing that will ruin it if you haven't read the novel. So without further ado, let's get to it.

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Leonora
The story begins at the ball being held in Marwick House. Our male lead is breaking in to make sure the Duke is reminded of the promise they made to each other all those years ago.

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Leonora
No heirs. The male lead has been betrayed by the Duke and means to punish him for his past transgressions. While sneaking into the ball. The door to the conservatory opens and in comes are female lead, causing the male lead to hide in the shadows. She heads to the balcony to catch a breath from the ball. A moment of quiet away from the harsh criticism.

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Leonora
After exquisite banter between our main characters, they go their separate ways. But to our female leads chagrin, she bumps into her former group of friends who do nothing but humiliate her. In a moment of rash indignation. Our female lead proclaims to the group to have already landed the Duke

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Leonora
Back at home. The female lead is in a panic and is distressed by her lie.

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Leonora
She has been ruined. When she enters her bedchamber. The mysterious man from the ball has come to offer her a deal. He offers her a duke. She negotiates for passion as well.

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Leonora
Little does she know that the male lead is using her to exact his revenge.

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Leonora
So here we are, friends. And let me tell you, I ate up this book. When I read the back cover I wasn't expecting much to be real. I knew it would be a good read. I knew I would enjoy it. I mean, the author proclaims Male lead to be a bastard, son of a duke and king of London's dark streets. I enjoy reading stories with bad boys, so I knew I had a checkmark there. But you want to know what got me, though?

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Leonora
It was the language used in the story that hooked me. In the prologue alone, I felt like I was reading a fairy tale. In my mind. I could imagine listening to the narrator from Beauty and the Beast. So Disney like. But not childish. Since I feel like I do it no justice. I'll read a short snippet from the prologue.

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Leonora
The three were woven together long before they were aware. Strands of spun silk and steel that could not be separated, not even when their fate insisted upon it. Brothers born on the same day, in the same hour, at the same minutes. Two different women. The high priced courtesan. The seamstress, the soldier's widow, born on the same day, in the same hour at the same minute to the same man, the Duke, their father, whose arrogance and cruelty fate would punish without hesitation, stealing from him the one thing he wanted that his money and power could not buy an heir.

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Leonora
I love the repetition and how it creates the feeling of a rhyme, but not quite. The story in general carries just the right amount of description so that you are immersed in the environment, but not too much that you are bored. As you continue reading the language, used continues to flourish. The banter between female and male lead is off the charts.

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Leonora
There is wit and charm and flirtation. It's delicious. After the first couple of chapters, I was invested because I wanted to see the male leads plan fail. After all, we know the main characters will fall in love. It's the how that's enthralling.

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Leonora
Our female lead is a wonderful character. She is bright, witty, and her hero's journey or transformation, if you will, was wonderfully illustrated.

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Leonora
She is actually a relatable character. Her journey starts with her dissatisfaction with her current life. She was outed of her friend group out casted by society plastered as a wallflower. All she wanted was to reintegrate herself into the glamorous life she once led, which she believed at the time was important and a part of who she was. The thing here is she wants to go back to the known and familiar.

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Leonora
She wants acceptance and she is sticking it from her social circle and her peers. She wants to follow the dictates of society, even though they do not truly inspire her or let her grow and thrive. She is neglecting herself simply to fit in because she believes it to be the right thing to do. Because it is the only thing she knows and because it is what she was taught.

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Leonora
That is what so lovely about her transformation. Even though it is set in 1837, her problems are still relevant to this day, even though it's a fictional character with exaggerations built in for entertainment purposes. It doesn’t change the fact that the author gave her a very grounded human problem? She wants to fit in. She wants to be accepted.

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Leonora
Her transformation is relatable. We might not be in London or a part of the glittering ton, but the fact is, a lot of times while growing up, we tend to neglect ourselves or change ourselves to fit in or to follow the norm. As social creatures, we value what those around us think, even to our own detriment. Through her journey, she begins to accept herself for who she is and what she wants.

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Leonora
She begins to follow her gut and pursue her true desires. She realizes that what society has dictated is not important to her any longer. All the while discovering herself and that there is more to her and for her than she had believed possible. The female lead goes through a transformation from a passive wallflower to a lock picking temptress determined to open the doors shut before her, not letting anything get in the way of what she truly wants and who she truly is.

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Leonora
The male lead is the king of the underground. He is a powerful character who has fought for what he has. He has made his fortunes from nothing, all while protecting his siblings. As a character, male lead was all dark mush. What I mean by that is that he projects himself as a dark, dangerous, alluring and powerful man. But as soon as he gets captivated by the female lead, he becomes all mush.

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Leonora
It's very sweet and totally fictional. He is in his own right, a powerful character, though he just so happens to become mush around her. From the start his plan for revenge is silly, and even his close brother questions its validity. Now, as male characters go the way he falls for her is endearing. The way he treats her as perfection is swoon worthy.

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Leonora
I would say his character flaw is putting the female lead on a pedestal too far above himself. It gets to the point that his treating her as perfection gets rather cheesy and at times annoying. He actually displays low self-worth when it comes to her, which again is a character flaw because we need those to create semi believable characters.

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Leonora
He is also a character who has a clearly defined idea of what is possible and not possible for himself, of what is right and wrong and what should and should not be. This causes him to push away the female lead when he realizes he wants her. Again because he does not feel worthy of her. In a way, his character growth was also about wanting more and the rules and bounds he had set for himself accepting that more was possible.

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Leonora
But even he could wish for the light and have it. Furthermore, learning that there was more to darkness than even he had realized.

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Leonora
The ideas of light and darkness in the novel fascinated me. The interpretations of light and darkness vastly change depending on the character. This is what gave me the idea for the episode title. Early in the story, we can easily see the female leads idea of what light and darkness represent on page 19 and I'm quoting.

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Leonora
Maybe he was the darkness itself, ephemeral and mysterious and tempting. So much more tempting than the daylight where flaws and marks and failures shone bright and impossible to miss. The darkness had always tempted her. The locks, the barriers, the impossible.

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Leonora
And on page 20, and this is a partial quote everything seemed more possible in darkness than in the cold, harsh light.

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Leonora
Here we can see an unusual idea of what darkness represents. And I love it. For the female lead darkness is the unknown wonder, mystery, possibility and freedom from society's pressures. While the light for her represents coldness, scrutiny, restraint, rules, bounds, expectations and shackles. It's a wonderful interpretation and rings true for the character because the female lead lives in a world where one must conform to society's rules and structure.

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Leonora
A world where you are constantly being judged and scrutinized. A world full of light, splendor and power. However, the moment you step outside those rules, you are cast out and ostracized. In this sense, the light is suffocating, cold and unforgiving.

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Leonora
This leads me to the male lead's interpretation of light and darkness. His is the more stereotypical. For the male lead the darkness is sin, greed, distrust, lack and fear. While light is warmth, beauty, comfort and purity.

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Leonora
Throughout the story, the female and the male lead both want what the other has. The female lead wants darkness, adventure and his world. The male lead wants light, warmth, happiness, and her to further emphasize the point. One of their intimate scenes is in Chapter 19, and it is done in the light.

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Leonora
Our female lead in Chapter 18 stated on page 247 that she had never seen him in the light. So after their moment together, the male lead realizes what just transpired and he walks away into the darkness. Their brief moment together is about him attaining light, and for her it's about succumbing to the darkness.

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Leonora
Both of them see the possibility and the beauty of the other, they accept each other and I find that the contrast in how they do so is lovely. The idea of light and darkness is beautifully woven into the story and is highly entertaining to read. The two perspectives. It builds upon their character growth and echoes their relationship.

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Leonora
The characters have several romantic encounters in the story. We have three kiss scenes, two heavy petting scenes and one joining.

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Leonora
However, one of the KISS scenes does fall into the category of light petting. If I were to be technical. The language used for the actual encounters is quite strong and descriptive. Something to bear in mind. It is for the adult reader. What I think made all of this work for me as a reader, though, was indeed the language used throughout the story.

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Leonora
The banter between both characters is amusing and salacious, as well as the fact that throughout the work the author sets things up as a fairy tale. She even adds the romance story of the god Janus. So this fantastical element integrated into the story allows for some of the lines to land nicely, especially towards the end when things begin to get cheesy and they do get quite cheesy.

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Leonora
Their relationship does fall a bit into the love at first sight category, but again, that doesn't bother me because of the fairy tale vibe created. I know what I got into from the prologue and I am perfectly okay with it.

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Leonora
One of the historical tidbits that I found fascinating was the Chubb Lock. This is because the female lead has the criminal tendencies to lockpick.

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Leonora
I had never heard of the Chubb lock before as it had never occurred to me how to prevent lock picking or even just having the need for a set lock has never been on my radar. Now, understanding what a Chubb lock is as well as what it does is pretty simple and was perfectly described in the story. It's a lock that prevents theft by detecting when a person is trying to pick it or uses the wrong key.

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Leonora
Then the mechanism becomes unusable until the owner of the lock uses a kind of reset key that comes with it. It's a really straightforward concept, though I am pretty sure the mechanism is quite complex. That being said, what got me on Google was wanting to know what said Locked looked like, so I found two websites that I will link in the description.

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Leonora
They talk about the history of the lock and have lots of pictures of what the lock could look like.

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Leonora
Every time you read a historical romance set in London for the most part. If relevant to the story, you will hear about Covent Garden in one way or another. It's a historical location and is still active today. Something that usually catches my attention while reading is how characters like our male lead refer to the impoverished areas as the rookery.

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Leonora
After a while, you realize that they are referring to the slums. The term is used because of its resemblance to the densely packed nesting, usually seen done by birds in trees. The conditions of the rookery were abysmal as they were heavily crowded, had little ventilation and were very unhygienic. Again, we're talking about 1837 because of the poverty we can see or at least try to understand why there was so much crime in the area.

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Leonora
We can also understand the male lead a little better and why he was so bent on the female not going anywhere near Covent Garden because he was vastly aware that one wrong turn and she could get hurt. In addition, we can understand why the fact the male lead actually taking care of his turf would be seen as important and garner such loyalty from the people who live there.

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Leonora
If there is a person who is actually improving your living conditions and giving honest work to the people therein, it is easy to conclude that keeping said a person safe is to the benefit of many. This, in my opinion, worked well in the plot of our story and helped us fall more in love with the male character.

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Leonora
It shows his humanity. He is not a cruel man. It also justifies the reason why a man as powerful as the Duke could not find the male lead and his siblings. The male lead had gained the trust of his people and they protected each other.

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Leonora
All in all, be it. The contrast between light and darkness, the Female leads personal transformation story, the male lead's attempt at happiness, or the fantastical fairy tale elements integrated into the story and the language used. This read was riveting.

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Leonora
And this brings us to the end of a Fancy for Romance podcast episode number three In the cold, harsh light reacting to Wicked and the Wallflower by Sarah MacLean. Thank you so much for listening to the end. I appreciate it so much. Don't forget to subscribe to our podcast and share with your friends who you think will find this entertaining.

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Leonora
See you next time.