Wake Me Most Wickedly
Felicia Grossman
April 9, 2024, Forever
368 pages
Review by E Broderick
Felicia Grossman’s books are easy to recommend for a variety of reasons, but in keeping with the nature of this blog I’ll give you my personal favorite because it is a distinctly Jewish sentiment. Sometimes it feels like the world is looking for any excuse to label “good” and “bad” Jews, as a way to let gentiles vent their frustrations on their favorite punching bags. It’s a convenient way for those in power to divert frustrations from class, race, or economic policy issues and onto a man made villain that has been demonized for centuries. Grossman shines a light on this age old stalwart of antisemitism, gives it the middle finger, and provides a steamy romance for good measure. What’s not to love?
In her latest historical romance, Wake Me Most Wickedly, the heroine/villainess is Hannah Moses, a Jewish pawn broker who does what she needs to do to survive. Hannah blames herself and her temper for getting her parents arrested after a gentile client provoked her as a teen. The trial in which they traded their lives for Hannah’s was widely publicized and the Moses’ family ostracized by both the gentiles who blamed them for all the ills of London and the Jewish community who are afraid to be tainted by association. Spoiler alert for anyone reading – that never works. If gentiles want to hate Jews, they will do regardless of who we associate with or how many of our own we offer up as sacrificial lambs. Hannah learns that the hard way.
Hannah deals with it all by throwing her resources into building a dowry for her sister Tamar. She is hoping that with enough funds, Tamar, who was too young to be included in the original trial, might might be able to secure a husband that allows her to rejoin the Jewish community that shuns Hannah. She has no such hopes for herself. Instead, she is resigned to taking miserable job after miserable job in the seedy part of town.
During one such night on the job, Hannah saves the life of Solomon Weiss, who readers may recall from the first book in this series, Marry Me By Midnight. Sol is immediately captivated by the mysterious stranger with a sharp tongue and mysterious smile even after learning about her past and how it might thwart his own desire to rejoin the Jewish community. Adding a further obstacle is Sol’s brother Frederick, who has distanced himself from Judaism and gone so far as to be baptized in an attempt to integrate himself with the gentile upper crust. Frederick is pursuing a marriage with a gentile widow from the gentry and he fears that Sol’s insistence on being so publicly Jewish and associating with characters like Hannah will ruin his chances. Still, Sol cannot help but follow the attraction.
The romance is indeed very steamy and there are multiple explicit sex scenes, but Wake Me Most Wickedly also full of wicked wit and teasing. Unlike Isabelle, the heroine of Marry me by Midnight, Hannah is no innocent. She is also several years Sol’s senior. This combination allows Grossman to show off more of her skill set. Wake Me Most Wickedly has tongue in cheek humor and biting acerbic banter along with the passion, and I was definitely into it! The tone is also quite suitable to the original fairy tale it retells – Snow White – which has always struck me as a dark story even in the Disney version.
Wake Me also has an intricate social commentary and meditative take on what it means to be a Jew and why we are such convenient fall guys for ages and ages of other peoples problems. It takes time to build that kind of framework for storytelling, so if the book feels like it starts slow, keep going. Things started to really heat up for me around 30% and by 60% I found myself in some pretty action packed moments. There are perhaps a few inaccurate statements/descriptions about food allergy, but as the author states in the content warning, she is not a physician, much less an allergist, so we can just gloss over that and zoom in on what she is a specialist in – namely dark humor, fun sexy times, and historical accuracy.
Hannah learns that the gentile world is not worth even trying to please, that she is not to blame for the past, and the scene in which she does is deliciously fulfilling. Like biting into a juicy apple – crisp and full of things you feel like you’ve known forever but have simply been waiting for someone else to articulate. Lucky for us, Grossman is indeed very articulate and she perfectly encapsulates these thoughts for the rest of us. As a Jew, it is the reason I fell so hard for this book.
Note: Bookishlyjewish received an e arc of this book from the publisher.