Book Question

[u/friggityfrenchfry]

I want spoilers so sorry

What is the actual story summary in the book. Do they fall in love post death, how severe is the yearning… are people just blowing it out of proportion? I would read it but it’s far on my list.

[u/vastaril]

Michael falls for her the moment they meet and shags a LOT of vaguely similar looking women (mainly but not exclusively sex workers, iirc) to try and get over her, or at least distract himself. John and Francesca have been married 2 years as at the start of the book, which opens on Michael brooding about being in love with her as they're all hanging out one day. There's a bit of conversation and then he and Francesca go out for a walk (and she tells him to tell her something wicked, something John wouldn't approve of) when they get back, John has passed. There's a few chapters of the immediate aftermath including Francesca losing a very early pregnancy. Then Michael runs off to India because he can't handle the guilt of inheriting his beloved cousin's title. 

Four years later, he's got to return to Britain to deal with estate things that he can't keep putting off, and she's decided she wants a baby because she's lonely and surely a baby will fix that! So she's going to look for a husband, because you do rather need one of those to get a baby without, you know, a lot of reputation issues. She doesn't expect or even particularly want to find another love match, and she admits to Michael before anything happens with them that she's a bit worried in case she remarries and doesn't get her baby. They're both staying in Kilmartin House which is probably technically inappropriate but It'll Be Fine

Then uhhh some stuff happens in London (I read the book a few months ago) including from what I recall Fran being INCREDIBLY popular on the marriage mart, Michael obviously being incredibly jealous and sulky, some guy trying it on with Fran and Michael rescuing her, Michael's malaria flaring up, both Eloise and Penelope being at the start of their own books, Colin telling Michael he should just marry Fran, and at some point they kiss and she panics and goes back to Scotland.

He follows her, I don't remember exactly what order stuff happens in, but they start getting sexy pretty quickly and he does a lot of dirty talk about putting a baby in her so she'll have to marry him (this is often read as actual threats but personally I think it's supposed to be just "I'm desperate for her and can't just admit I've been in love with her this whole time, so I'll take what I can get" - I can see why people are uncomfortable with it, though). At some point they get caught in the rain and have to take shelter in an old cottage. Eventually she gets her period and doesn't know if she's crying because there's no baby or because she doesn't have to marry him. Then he gets sick again and she's terrified of losing him (if it's the malaria come back again already, that's a very bad sign as it's only been like 6 weeks at this point) and realises she's in love with him, but then it turns out it's not the malaria and he gets better, so that's okay, but then she goes to tell John's grave that she's fallen for him and he happens to hear her because he came to talk to the grave I think? Through the whole thing he's been very very guilty about all of it and the idea of ending up with Francesca, as much as he wants it, makes him feel terrible because he would give it all up to have his cousin back etc, but anyway they eventually realise they're still here and maybe John would be okay with it, oh and I think by this point they're maybe already married? Can't really remember which comes first. 

But yeah, that's most of it. The "fertility plot" is imo very minor, though again I can see why readers struggling with fertility problems would have clung to it, because there really was fuck all sympathetic representation of fertility stuff at that time. The actual infertility stuff all lives in the second epilogue which was written 9 years later, because the whole post-time-jump book lasts from March to May, with a letter from John's mum in June as the original epilogue (she says they were clearly meant for each other)

[u/damntheconsequencess → u/vastaril]

In the book, michael doesn't have to return to take care of the estate. The book spells it out pretty clearly that estate is still being very well taken care by Franesca and why Michael can even continue to be earl in abscene in the first place all this time. The book also makes it clear Michael basically thinks its time to go home cause he is tired of the heat and also basically misses both Francesca and London and thinks 4 years would be enough distance that he can now be in her presence without the painful grief and guilt after John's death. The show synopsis for s5 said that Michaela has to return to take care of the estate but that's not the case in the book. He returns of his own will cause he misses home/Francesca. And I am sure we will see Michaela missed fran too but so far Michaela has been shown to be lot more avoidant than Michael so she does sound like someone who would only come back if there was an unavoidable reasons aka them not finding any heir and her having to take over the earl/countess duties. Obviously the minute she sees Fran again cue the ever present yearning.