In 2000, the company I worked for as a technology director had just come to the conclusion that the Y2K bug was a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing, the last original Peanuts comic strip appeared in newspapers, the dot com boom ended and the GPS became available to the public, enabling us to travel anywhere as long as we were willing to take the circuitous routes prescribed by that bored-sounding woman. Baha Men asked the musical question, “Who Let the Dogs Out?” and, as far as I can remember, there were no movies worth the price of admission.
And Judith Ivory won the RITA for Best Short Historical with The Proposition.
No man, gentleman or otherwise, has ever looked at Lady Edwina Bollash the way the brash, handsome man standing before her is doing now. Edwina has accepted the challenge to transform incorrigible Mick Tremore into a gentleman in just six weeks. And although the linguist is sure she can rise to the task, she isn’t at all certain she won’t swoon under his frankly sensuous gaze before her job is done.
Mick has lived outside of London society long enough to know that appearances can be deceiving. Edwina might look all buttoned up-the perfect English lady-but there is unleashed passion existing just below her placid facade (not to mention a great pair of legs!). And as she prepares him to take his place in society, Mick prepares Edwina to take her place in his heart...and in his bed.
The Proposition is a delightful reverse Pygmalion story in which Lady Edwina Bollash is the Pygmalion character and Mick Tremore is Galatea. In this delightful tale, while Lady Edwina helps turn Mick into someone who can pass for an aristocrat, he turns her into someone who recognizes her own worth and acknowledges her long buttoned-up emotions. It’s impossible to read this book without being totally sucked into Edwina’s painful anxiety and the joy Mick takes in his life and in his Winnie.
The parallels throughout the story are wonderful. Winnie is obsessed with Mick’s mustache and will do (almost) anything to convince him to shave. Mick, is obsessed with Winnie’s legs and uses his mustache as a bargaining chip in a bid to let him see them. And not only does Winnie teach Mick to talk like an aristocrat and integrate into high society, Mick takes Winnie into his environment and, in a fabulous scene at a pub, Winnie finally lets go of her own inhibitions and dances on the tables.
Compelling characterization distinguishes all of Judith Ivory’s books and make them permanent residents on my keeper shelf. Her last book, Untie My Heart, was published in 2002. Unfortunately for us, there do not seem to be any in the future. I live in hope that she will write again.
Myretta Robens
The Republic of Pemberley
