Morning glory

Will, an ex con who's been loveless all his life meets Elly, who has always been an outsider. Together they start building a sense of belonging, family and love, no matter the obstacles thrown in their way!

— This is such a beautiful and tender book! This story will always have a place in my heart!

Will and Elly made me feel so, so much! Their connection was build so beautifully. I just love, love seeing two people who've been through so much hardship and pain finally find their person and being happy!

<3

My Year of Historical Romance - Book 14 WW2 (1941/2), Southern USA Whew, so much to say... and I don't know where to start. 30.09.20. I have a ton of issues about how this book was written, and I think that they were stark to me because at times it seemed like it was written by two very different individuals; one writing about the budding love between Will and Elly and one of them inserting a ton of mostly totally unnecessary and nasty stuff about other characters, determined to ruin this gorgeous romance for me. Ok, I'm going to try and keep this brief because a) at it's core this actually is a very beautiful and at times gut-wrenching love story between two very lonely and displaced individuals that transcends ignorance, poverty, bigotry and war, where the underdogs come up fighting and b) it will rile me up all over again to go into all the details of the things that really fucking pissed me off. But this otherwise wonderful story is so bogged down with so many unnecessary... issues (for lack of a better word) that it is incredibly frustrating to me. 1) The author seems to have a problem with fat people. All the fat people (whom are always described as being fat) are horrible and ugly in other ways or at the very least stiff and unfriendly even when they are being 'nice' (Gladys). The number of annotations I made where this is front and centre is ridiculous. It's one thing to describe people as being larger than average, but another to pick at things to describe them in a particularly horrible way, not once, or twice, or three times but over and over again. 2) Numerous mentions throughout of 'mens' work and 'womens' work and other highly gendered things. not quite what I want to say... 3) It also seems to me that the author is obsessed with slut-shaming in this book and has a Madonna/Whore complex. She has set the women up as either one of these archetypes with little deviation to that. Lula (the main antagonist) is no doubt a horrible horrible person and a borderline comic villain, but why on earth was her character given such prominence in this story with so many POV scenes? Like with Silver Lining where similar was done, I just don't get it. These two books were published 11 years apart (1989 and 2000) and set in totally different time periods, so it seems an odd narrative choice to make unless it was part of a trend that spanned at least that period. The way the author dealt with her slut 'problem' in this book was to (view spoiler)[kill them off (hide spoiler)]. Both the actual paid sex worker, way before we even start the book (view spoiler)[(for which although accidental/defensive, there was no remorse shown by the otherwise kind, thoughtful and honourable Will) (hide spoiler)] but we still hear how horrible a person she was when Will was forced to do what he did in the brothel he regularly attended with a friend (where's the slut-shaming of the men including Will???) of his back in Texas, because of her own actions (so, victim-shaming too!). And the unashamed (the horror!) sex 'fiend'... and I use that word because that is exactly how Lula is portrayed considering how much she loves and actually craves sex... AND she is also a sex worker of a kind too considering that she uses her sex games with numerous men to supplement her day time salary and yet still finds time to run after even more men. You get my drift? 3) There was also a third woman another sex worker, written horribly as clearly having 'Mexican blood' with a cringeworthy (at best) 'accent' who was also the jezebel that managed to invade Will's dreams... whilst he was in bed asleep with his wife. Really, how hard must it have been to come up with a way to include an 'exotic woman' stereotype into the narrative? And of course, later on, is the black woman, the ultimate in exotic of course (😣) who is also said to be a sex worker who pops up in conversation as a minor part of Elly's 'shameful' family history. So we get dreadful depictions of non white characters too and neither of them are ever given agency... There are a few other offhand mentions of POCs in the narrative, but no voice let alone any agency is given to these 'wallpaper' people. They can't be called characters because they literally just background decoration so to speak. If the only way an author can think of inserting a POC character into their story is like this, then feel free to just not bother again, I'd rather not exist in the text than to be dismissed like this. Anyway, (and clearly this is not looking to be brief as I had hoped for!), the prologue, set in 1919, opens with the first 'whore' character... Elly's mother, who after her sin of giving birth outside of marriage, gives herself and her baby (Elly) over to her 'madonna' mother (and her preacher father)... never to be seen again other than in passing in the narrative when she ends up dying - seemingly of madness shortly after the death of both of her parents when Elly is about 19. Actually, thinking about it, that whole plot doesn't make sense... if girls were sent away to give birth to their illegitimate children, what was then the point of returning home with said baby in arms where other townspeople could and of course were aware of the baby's existence and therefore her status??? And was Elly still going to school at 19...? So of all the female characters of any substance, we have, The Madonnas Elly's grandmother the religious nut Gladys Beasley the highly judgemental librarian who ends up as good friend to both Will and Elly (but she is fat too and ugly and too formal and stoic and a too brainy for her own good spinster grandmotherly type...!) Elly (she spent most of her childhood repenting for the sin of being born outside of wedlock, doesn't wear makeup either so is considered pure and has only ever had sex with her late husband, and now Will and only MONTHS after they actually got married) Lydia Marsh early theft victim of Will very early on and war wife raising kids on her own. She also becomes a good friend and support to Elly (although only after being asked to by Will) whilst both Will and her own hubby are away at war. She DOES wear makeup, but of course, it's not slathered on like Lula does... The Whores Elly's mother who died before the start of the book but spent the rest of her days repenting for her sins Unnamed prostitute killed by Will before the start of the book Lula, the aforementioned fiend! (view spoiler)[(who also ends up being killed about three-quarters of the way through the book...) (hide spoiler)] Mexican prostitute in Will's dream Black prostitute from Elly's family history TBC...