The lure of the moonflower : a Pink Carnation novel

Now I???ll admit: one of the reasons it took be so very long to pick this up is because of the pairing. I wanted to know what happened to Jane, of course, given the events of Purple Plumeria, but I wasn???t feeling very kindly towards Jack, who had caused everyone a world of trouble in Blood Lily and again in Purple Plumeria. And since I wasn???t all that into the pairing, I decided to pass on it until I was in the mood...which basically took me almost a decade to get over. 

But hey, that was the point of this massive reread: to finally just get on with it. Plus, my feelings regarding Jack had softened over time (and the fact that I???d forgotten most of what he???d done haha), so I decided to just get on with it and read it to finally finish the series.

And I???ll admit, I was pleasantly surprised by how the pairing worked! My dislike of Jack came back over the course of the reread, albeit in a milder form than when I first read the series, and the way he acted in the first few chapters of this book certainly didn???t help. He struck me as an unnecessarily edgy SOB, whose past was certainly tragic but: come on. 

To be fair though, I thought that Jane was rather unlikable as well in the first chapters - something I didn???t notice in my previous read but which I finally noticed in the reread leading up to this book. Jane is, frankly speaking, a bit of a bitch: high-handed, snooty, and a know-it-all on a level that???s pretty annoying. There???s glimpses of it in Garden Intrigue, and then again in Purple Plumeria, but you really get a front-row seat for it in this book and BOY is it annoying. 

So you???d think these two wouldn???t have any sort of chemistry, and for the first couple of chapters, that is very true. I was skeptical of the pairing initially, wondering how the author would make it work. But I am glad to say that the author DID make it work - mostly by having these two abrasive personalities rub up against each other (metaphorically speaking - though, okay, also a bit literally in certain scenes) until their prickliness smoothed out and they, finally, became honest with each other about their past experience and emotions. 

Willig also used this as an opportunity to explore how the racism that Jack experienced as someone of half-British, half-Indian descent meant that he could not truly belong anywhere and engage with society as he wished to, unable to put his immense talents to good use in a legitimate way, In a similar fashion, the constant overwhelming misogyny and chauvinism of British society at the time meant Jane could not serve her country in the traditional way. Both Jack and Jane have been denied the traditional/legitimate paths to service and glory because society has denied them the opportunity to do more - Jack for being mixed race, and Jane for being a woman. And it is this connection that draws them together, and then as the novel progresses, becomes the foundation on which their romantic relationship is built.

While the love story is certainly something I enjoyed, I will say that the fate of the Gardener is...something I kind of predicted. I guess it comes from the intense familiarity I have with the series because of the reread, but suffice to say that I already knew how a certain scene was going to turn out, which means the tension of the scene itself was entirely lost on me. 

Speaking of things I saw coming from a mile away: Eloise and Colin get a happy ending, though there???s a bit of family drama that rears its head up in this novel that, like the aforementioned scene involving the Gardener, loses all its tension - not just because I already knew how it would turn out, but because it just seemed a bit...silly? 

Anyway: I AM FINALLY DONE WITH THIS SERIES AND CAN PUT IT TO BED BABYEEEEE~! And now I think to cleanse my brain with something a bit harder-edged.