Unforgivable Love

Starred review from September 1, 2017

Scott (All I Need To Get By) reimagines Pierre Choderlos de Laclos's 18th-century French classic Les Liaisons dangereuses setting it in 1930s Harlem. The manipulative Marquise de Merteuil is played here by Mae Malveaux, an heiress used to getting her way. The unprincipled Vicomte de Valmont is Valiant Jackson, who could have any woman, but Mae is the one he desperately wishes to possess. Much to his chagrin, Mae poses a bargain of sorts: to seduce her innocent cousin Cecily and ruin her engagement with Frank Washington. As a reward, Mae promises Jackson that she will spend a night with him. But Jackson has plans of his own: to entice the married, church-going Elizabeth Townsend. Her faith in his good character will be Elizabeth's downfall. VERDICT Readers of classic and historical fiction will find this fresh retelling a fascinating read.--Adriana Delgado, Palm Beach Cty. Lib., Loxahatchee, FL

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2017
A retelling of the 18th-century French novel Les Liasons Dangereuses, set in 1940s Harlem.After Mae Malveaux is denied the ability to pursue her romantic feelings for her first true love, another young woman, she blames the entire male race for establishing conventions that prevent her from engaging in a same-sex love affair. A decade later, Mae has been orphaned, married, widowed, and left with a substantial inheritance that allows her finally to implement her plans. She forms an alliance with a man by the name of Valiant "Val" Jackson, a handsome fat cat adored and revered by many of their shared acquaintances. Mae and Val use their accord to regularly pull puppet strings and toy with the emotions of those in the post-Depression Harlem high society they inhabit. When Mae discovers that a former lover of hers has proposed marriage to her own cousin, Cecily, she hatches a complicated plan meant to destroy the fledgling couple. Mae artfully orchestrates a scenario in which Cecily will fall in love with a young jazz singer (to the detriment of her pre-existing engagement), while also instructing Val to simultaneously seduce and hopefully impregnate the young woman. Val's reward for the successful implementation of Mae's plan will be a night in bed with Mae herself. Scott (All I Need to Get By, 2014, etc.) sets this fresh retelling of Pierre Choderlos de Laclos' novel against an alluring backdrop of city nightclubs, country retreats, tightknit church communities, and the Brooklyn Dodgers. As Val implements Mae's machinations, wreaking havoc throughout Harlem and Westchester, he unwittingly falls prey to pure, true love for another woman, the only force against which Mae Malveaux might falter. A dazzlingly dark and engaging tale full of heartbreak, treachery, and surprise.

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August 1, 2017
The classic French novel, Les liaisons dangereuses, is the inspiration for Scott's (All I Need to Get By, 2004) latest. She transposes the story from eighteenth-century Versailles to Harlem in 1947 and centers it around Mae Malveaux, scheming heiress to a hair-pomade fortune, and Val Jackson, a baseball-mad nightclub owner. Their wealth and physical beauty give them power, which they use for conquest and control. Mae enlists Val to deflower her innocent cousin Cecily, the intended bride of a former lover. Val, meanwhile, schemes to bed Elizabeth, the virtuous wife of a lawyer who is away doing civil rights work in the South. Both seductions occur at the Westchester estate of Val's Aunt Rose, but nothing turns out quite as planned. To Val's consternation, he finds himself falling in love, and the burgeoning attraction between Cecily and Sam, a young musician, threatens to undermine Mae's determination to keep Sam for herself. Scott's heady blend of sumptuous description, rarefied setting, sensuality, revenge, and redemption will keep readers engaged.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)