Review: The Last Rendezvous (Anne Plantagenet)

Ok, so this is another book that took me a little bit to get into. I just wasn't sure I could enjoy the story of a woman that loved two men--her husband and her lover reflections of her own complexities. It can get just a little too complicated.

However, Anne Plantagenet managed to bring Marceline Desbordes-Valmore to life. Shamefully, I had no idea who this poet was. Born just a few years before the French Revolution. She not only wrote, but also acted. Her parents really had no clue how to take care of themselves, much less how to take care of Marceline and her siblings. Her mother eventually leave her drunkard father for another man. That guy doesn't really measure up either, but by now Marceline's mother won't leave him. Her mother is the one that sends her to the theater to act. They live off of Marceline's earnings. One thing leads to another, and Marceline and her mother end up in the French Caribbean. Her mother dies there.

Marceline doesn't have a better time once she manages to get back to France. Her sister popped out babies here and there. Few survive, and no father sticks around anyway. Marceline really has a hard time of it until she meets Prosper Valmore, the man that became her husband. A good man, but she still couldn't help falling in love with Henri Latouche. Quite jarring, since Valmore is handsome and youthful while Latouche is unattractive and moody. It doesn't matter. Marceline never leaves her husband, but she loved Latouche passionately and the feeling never really left her.

This story, told from Marceline's perspective, isn't for an unforgiving person to read. Marceline is complicated to a fault (a huge fault). I couldn't identify with her, but at least at the end, I didn't judge her that harshly. She knows her failings and makes no excuses for them. Her vacillations do get a little tiresome. And though her love for her children redeems her, she manages to be a little annoying with that, too.

Anne Plantagenet doesn't judge her character either. This makes the story palatable. I'm sure the story is much more beautiful in its original French. Still, it's worth picking up if you're looking for drama.

Next up: The Last Time I Saw You, by Elizabeth Berg. I loved, loved, loved Open House, The Year of Pleasures, and Home Safe. Hope it doesn't disappoint!