Crescendo is a facinating philosophical romance by Charlotte Lamb. The power struggle between the hero and heroine in this Harlequin Presents makes for a riveting read.
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Crescendo by Charlotte Lamb
Rating: 
Published: 1980
Illustrator: Will Davies
Imprint or Line: Harlequin Presents #451
Published by: Harlequin, Mills & Boon
Genres: Category Romance, Contemporary Romance
Pages: 189
Format: Paperback
Reviewed by: Introvert Reader
SPOILER ALERT ⚠
“Hello. Red Riding Hood. I’m the Wolf.”
CRESCENDO by CHARLOTTE LAMB
The Book
Crescendo by Charlotte Lamb starts like a hazy dream. A beautiful girl stands at the cliffs, and a strange man, thinking she’s about to jump, runs to save her. She isn’t committing suicide, though. The girl is mesmerized by the savage beauty of her coastal home.
There is an instant connection between the girl, Marina, and Gideon, the stranger much older than her. Marina lives alone with her grandfather, plays the piano beautifully, and at night shares her thoughts with her best friends, two dolls.
There are secrets hidden in this tale that slowly unravel to reveal a different story altogether.
The Premise
A Question of Lust
Crescendo deals with an issue that has always puzzled me. Why are so many heroes in romances absolute horndog sluts?
It’s not simply about being good in bed. A man doesn’t need to sleep with legions of women to know how to do this! He only needs to know a few, or just one, very well. There is also the perceived allure of getting–and keeping—the one man that no other woman could keep.
I find how this situation is often handled in romances to be vexing. The hero’s lovers can number in the hundreds or more, and he doesn’t care for these women. He uses them sexually until he meets the heroine (often virginal or inexperienced). Then she changes his man-ho ways forevermore.
Usually, the heroine appreciates her man’s experience as it leads to intense sexual pleasure in bed. Likewise, the hero appreciates the woman’s inexperience, as this pleases him emotionally.
There’s something that rings so false about this. I greatly believe in the special yin-yang, complementary nature of male and female relationships. However, I prefer the pair to be “equally yoked,” so to speak.
I’d like to see more virgin heroes paired with virginal heroines. Conversely, I’d like to see mature, sexually experienced men with women of similar familiarity. (That doesn’t mean I want them to be walking STDs, though.)
A Question of Time
Here in Crescendo is naïve, innocent Marina and Gideon, a cad with women, loving and leaving them without caring for their feelings. There is great depth to Marina’s character. She is far more insightful than Gideon, who is many years older than she.
Marina learns from her painful past and demands accountability when wronged. I don’t particularly appreciate having heroes grovel endlessly for their hurtful deeds, but major penance is required here. And it’s not going to happen in one day.
Unfortunately, Gideon was so cold-hearted in his pursuit of Marina that he didn’t take anyone’s feelings into account. Not Marina’s and certainly not his disposable mistresses’.
The Philosophy of Love
When Charlotte Lamb was bad, she was awful, but when she was good, there was absolutely no one better. Her best works were not shallow and often posed philosophical queries, questioning the nature of love and desire.
In Crescendo, she asks, “How does a man like Gideon come into being?”
In Gideon‘s case, he’s not evil. Instead, his mother spoiled her boy rotten while micro-managing every aspect of his personal life, thus creating this hateful, self-centered male creature.
He says to Marina:
“[Women] stifle you, smother you, and cling round like ivy. I decided when I grew up that women had their uses but had to be firmly kept in their place. I learnt to use them, and then kick them out of my life… Yes, it isn’t pretty. I could lie to you and hide all of that, but I don’t want any more secrets between us, Marina. I want you to know what I am, what I’ve been.”
So how can Gideon do what he does without suffering the consequences? He pursues Marina and gains her affection, and suddenly disappears. But he makes a return. Gently he woos her, makes her fall in love with him, seduces her, impregnates her, and marries her, only to betray her!
All the while never giving any love in return, his actions playing havoc with a young woman’s heart and mind. Can he be easily forgiven?
In Crescendo, he isn’t.
No human being has a right to put his own desires in front of the happiness of anyone else. Gideon’s brilliance did not give him that right.
No Love Without Change and Forgiveness
At one point, Marina observes:
For all his brilliance as a musician, Gideon had been stunted in his emotional growth in childhood; unable to coordinate the demands of body and heart, like an autistic child which never makes the right connections and is isolated from those around him by his own self-absorbed internal life.
Crescendo is the antithesis to many romances where the hero is a jerk to the heroine throughout the entire book. Only in the last few pages, does he make a declaration of love. That fantasy fairytale ends with them embracing and walking happily off into their ever-after. That’s not so in this tale.
Marina makes Gideon hurt as she wrenches his heart out of him. She’s ruthless in her cruelty to him.
“You don’t love me—you never have. You wouldn’t know how to love. Frustrated desire was all you ever felt for me, and it’s all you feel now… And I don’t love you. If anything I despise you!”
It had given her a tortured pleasure to say that to him, to be aware that she had finally hurt him as deeply as he had ever hurt her.
Final Analysis of Crescendo
Charlotte Lamb’s writing in Crescendo is beautiful, haunting, and thoughtful. The conclusion here is believable and fitting.
I adored Marina. Some readers may judge her as too cruel. However, I found her actions understandable. Compared to Gideon, she’s so young with such little life experience that she has to have a strong sense of herself if they are to be together.
Gideon has to understand who and what he is and that redemption and change are possible. He can’t be a self-centered womanizer and simultaneously seek a monogamous, life-long relationship with a woman he loves.
The fairytale must yield to reality.
They had each taken a silent, bitter journey into themselves, but they had returned, like characters in a fairy story, with miraculous discoveries.
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| Overall: | 4.8 |
Synopsis
One awful moment shattered her life
Basslea was a haven, and Marina was totally content there. She had her music and her innocent childlike fantasies. Nothing seemed capable of changing her world–until Gideon Firth arrived.
He was everything she was not: sophisticated, urbane, powerful. And she found herself responding to his magnetism the way no unawakened girl should. . . .
He seemed to wield a power she didn’t understand, until he forced her to recognize the truth for herself. Then Marina realized what was happening to her–and what had happened!
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What was Gideon Firth’s occupation?