I haven't read anything else in this series, I suspect I do not need to. This book is badass and sweet and adorable and possibly the most delightful revenge/love story I've ever seen. Thanks to Smart Bitches for the review that sold me on buying it.
Bertrice Martin is in her seventies, rich, feisty as fuck, and gives no fucks. Her only living relation is someone so terrible she refuses to call him by his actual name--using the Terrible Nephew, "Robby Bodkins" and "Clappy" instead. After she caught him trying to rape a lady in her household, she was done with him. Terrible Nephew is also a financial scammer, a thief, a perennial borrower and debtor. Presumably Bertrice isn't able to disinherit him or we might have no plot, but boy, does Robby Bodkins count on someday inheriting her fifty thousand pounds and milk the deathbed promise Bertrice made to his mother to take care of him. In addition to dealing with this idiot trying to scam her and everyone periodically, Bertrice is feeling pretty bored and blah after the deaths of her friends and girlfriend.
(The author is blatant about her total lack of subtlety or nuance in portraying the Terrible Nephew. "Sometime villains really are bad and wrong, and sometimes, we want them to suffer a lot of consequences.")
Bertrice is approached by Violetta Beauchamps, a sixty-nine-year-old spinster who's been fired from her job (running the rooming house Terrible Nephew lives in) and was also screwed out of her pension. Violetta is utterly screwed financially and her only hope is to go to Bertrice for money/assistance, by which I mean she feels like her only option is to try to scam Bertrice by claiming to be the landlord asking for his rent money. Bertrice, however, is unscammable, and is instead inspired to make a deal with Violetta.
Bertrice Gets Ideas as to how to fuck with Terrible Nephew, including ridiculous nicknames, terrible carolers, live animals, fire, etc. The ladies have an excellent time torturing him in fun ways, until Robby Bodkins and his manly man powers threaten to get Bertrice committed as being insane. OH FUCK, will that happen? I admit I got genuinely nervous at that point wondering if it was even possible to thwart such a threat when men always have all the power. But Violetta gets inspired to take some steps herself and...muahahahah.
This book is a delight. Fun snark, great lines, sweet lady romance, and REVENGE.
Also, I really liked the points this book makes about how essentially, Bertrice has had "fuck you" money for so long that she can pretty much do what she wants--but Violetta's been struggling all her life and she constantly has to make nice and be nice and eat shit. HEAR HEAR, GIRL. They also get into age and beauty issues (Bertrice really steps in it at one point and hurts Violetta's feelings, but they make it right) and power dynamics and dealing with men when you don't like them very much. Oh, and Bertrice loves prostitutes. Not like *that* but it cracked me up.
There is also good use of cheesy bread and toasting it over an open fire.
Quote Corner:
- This was going to take forever if they couldn't use actual words to describe actual things. "Oh. You mean prostitutes frequent it. Stop circumnavigating the conversation. I know what a prostitute is, and so do you. If God didn't intend us to use the words that He made to refer to the people He created, He would have said so." -Bertrice
- "My husband, God rot his soul, used to bring prostitutes home all the time. After he'd finished with them, I'd serve them tea and double whatever he was paying them." (When asked why she did that:) "It's good sense to be kind to people who are doing work for you. It was hard work fucking my husband. Trust me, I should know. I certainly didn't want to do it." -Bertrice
- "We are the ninth most renowned gentleman's club in London. That other list does not count. Imagine ranking Glaser's....beneath those upstarts at Smith's. It's an insult to even think of us at number twelve in London." -Terrible Nephew
- "Are you trying to make a point? Is it that the gentleman's clubs numbered one through eight wouldn't have you?" -Violetta
- "I'm a gentleman. It wasn't rape; I would have paid her afterward." --Terrible Nephew, proving it. (Though later as we find out, he tries to get prostitutes on credit, so he probably wouldn't even do THAT.)
- "By contrast, you're one of those...One of those nice people. You do things you don't want to do all the time, don't you? You're used to it." -Bertrice
- "What you call 'doing things I don't want to do' is what the rest of the world calls 'earning a living.'" -Violetta
- "You say whatever you want, and I feel like I'm always screaming, deep inside where nobody can hear what I'm doing. It's become so bad that I'm afraid I might start doing it out loud." -Violetta
- "I've screamed on the inside, too. I've screamed on the outside. I've screamed until I thought there was nothing left of me but my voice, and then I lost my voice. And still I kept screaming." -Bertrice
- "Robby Bobkins, I told you I was going to make your life miserable. When have I ever not meant what I said?" -Bertrice
Quote Corner will continue below a spoiler cut.
Four and a half stars. This is the shortest near-epic story I've ever read. An absolute delight on all levels.
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- "Well, I can't win against the Terrible Nephew, but I can still make certain that he'll lose. I can't wait to see the look on his face. I said I would get him out, and by God, I will. It's my building, I can burn it if I want to." -Bertrice
- "If I am going to set Glaser's afire, then we are going to make cheesy-toast over the smoldering remains." -Bertrice
- "I'm making cheesy toast over the remains of London's ninth most prominent gentleman's club." -Bertrice
- "Your Honor, this woman is deranged. The word we had of her goings-on yesterday involved arson and cheese toast. She cannot be trusted." -Terrible Nephew's lawyer.
- "How dare she be possessed of a fortune and burn her cheese toast." -magistrate
- "I have all this money and I utterly wasted it burning down the ninth most influential gentleman's club in all of London....There are eight more of them out there, bastard strongholds of masculine stupidity that they are, and I went for number nine. What idiocy! What ineffectiveness!" -Bertrice
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