Hot I like an author that knows her audience is intelligent. Judith Ivory writes elegantly and is not afraid to use larger words. She writes like she knows we can understand the more complicated phrases, like she knows we can hold an idea in our heads for longer than a page. Sleeping Beauty , although slightly complicated and written intelligently, is basically a book based on a Big Misunderstanding.
Coco is a woman of the world.
Not born into the upper class, she socializes on the edges of that class due to her connections as a courtesan. The only person allowed to get close to her emotionally is her adult son, David. James, freshly back from an African Geological expedition of which he was the only survivor, is on top of the world. He has met the queen and been knighted. He is for the first time in his life well off and courted by high society.