Gossamer Obsessions

"A Lily Among Thorns," by Rose Lerner

2012-01-25T06:15:00.001-08:00

The Chick: Lady Serena, a.k.a. "The Siren," a.k.a. "The Thorn." A former courtesan, her life's work is bound up in the hotel she now owns - until a close friend suddenly betrays her.
The Rub: She may not want to admit it, but she'll need help to retain control of her hotel - and who better than the random dude who was indirectly responsible for her getting the hotel in the first place?
Dream Casting: Downton Abbey's Michelle Dockery.

The Dude: Solomon Hathaway. Years ago, he recklessly gave away his entire quarterly allowance to a prostitute. Now he needs her help in recovering some stolen earrings.
The Rub: In the process, he realizes he's in love with her - but how can he convince her that he's the real deal?
Dream Casting: Tom Hiddleston.

The Plot (some plot spoilers):

In the Past...

Serena: Do you want me to take your virginity?

Solomon: No thank you! HERE HAVE SOME FREE MONEY!

Present Day...

Solomon: Will you help me find some stolen earrings?

Serena: Sure! No problem!

Rene, Marquis de Sacreval and Dirty French Spy: Bonjour! I've faked our marriage so I can steal your hotel for nefarious and not-to-be-spoken-of reasons!

Serena: THE HELL YOU ARE. I WILL TAKE YOU DOWN.

Solomon: And I'll help!

Serena: Wait, what?

Solomon: And I'll design pretty dresses for you! And stick up for you to your dad! And help uncover a secret network of spies and traitors for you! And step on the toes of men who are rude to you! And make you hot chocolate! And massage your feet!

Serena: HOW DOES SOMEONE AS NICE AS YOU PHYSICALLY EXIST?

Rene: OMG, does he have a brother?

Solomon: I do but he's dead and straight!

Elijah (Dead Brother): I'm not and I'm really not!

Rene: HOORAY! *plot foiled*

Solomon and Serena: HOORAY!

Romance Convention Checklist

1 French Frenemy

2 Stolen Earrings

1 Suspicious Fire

1 Very Bad Parent

1 Fortuitous Use of Hydrochloric Acid

1 Regency-Era Gay Bar

1 Faked Death

Several Sexy Spies

1 (Gay!) Secondary Romance (Between Sexy Spies)

The Word: Oh, Rose Lerner, you've done it again!

Rose Lerner SPLASHED (splashed, I tell you!) onto the Romance scene waaaaay back in 2010 with her debut novel, In For A Penny. I credit The Booksmugglers for pointing me and Rose Lerner in our respective directions, because it was a match made in heaven. In For a Penny surprised and delighted me with how it managed to create a sincere, lovely romance between complex characters without compromising the realism of the historical setting.

Rose Lerner takes the sophomore slump out to dinner and punches it in the face with A Lily Among Thorns, her long-awaited (and much-delayed) second book.

Lady Serena, prodigal daughter of a lord, used to be a whore, until a chance encounter with a nervous young man left her one hundred and twenty-five pounds richer. Serena turned that miracle money into an independent career as a successful courtesan, and then ultimately used those proceeds to purchase a sophisticated hotel, naming it the Ravenshaw Arms. Running the hotel is her joy and her pride and the last vestige of passion she allows herself.

So when she unexpectedly meets her mysterious benefactor when he asks for her help in locating some stolen earrings (her lady-of-the-night past left her with a bevy of useful underworld contacts), she sees it as the perfect way to repay his generosity without involving any unnecessary emotion.

Solomon Hathaway, a talented tailor, chemist, and dyer, has no idea this woman is the same prostitute to whom he recklessly gave his entire quarterly allowance so many years before - but he is drawn to her all the same.

Trouble arises in the form of Rene, the marquis of Sacreval, a dashing French aristocrat and Serena's business partner. Returning unexpectedly from the continent, he offers to buy out Serena's share in the Arms - but when she refuses, he produces expertly forged marriage lines that will be permit him, as her (il)legal husband, to take the Arms from her whether she wants to or not.

To Serena's surprise, Solomon offers to help her find a way to regain control of the Arms, and both find themselves drawn into a conspiracy involving French spies, English traitors, stolen rubies, secret doors, 19th-century gay bars, disapproving uncles, and expertly-tailored gowns.

One of the greatest joys in this book is that the hero and heroine don't begin the story with a reason to hate each other. A lot of other romances (even good ones), incite conflict right away by immediately putting the protagonists on opposite sides of a quarrel or problem. It's not necessarily a bad plot device, but it's used so frequently that it's just such a relief when we don't have romantic protagonists who immediately harbour the worst possible assumptions about each other.

Both Solomon and Serena have been shaped by being torn between two worlds. Serena was born an aristocrat, but sacrificed that status when she took on the world's oldest profession. She now uses underworld connections to survive in a world where a large number of the male haute ton can claim a "personal" connection to her. Solomon, meanwhile, is the offspring of an aristocratic woman who ran away with a Latin tutor. He has a Cambridge education from his disapproving Viscount uncle but prefers to work in trade with his (more lovingly disapproving) tailor uncle. In both cases, he's stuck somewhere in the middle.

But they both deal with such struggles differently, which is where their wonderful arguments and misunderstandings and interactions spring from. Righteous Beta Heroes and Dirty Heroines with Dirty Dealin's are my crack. Serena is such a magnificent heroine. Independent and strong-willed but practical - who believes she is cold and passionless until she meets the hero.

And what a hero! Solomon Hathaway is a prince among men. A prince among heroes! He cooks, he sews, he makes hot chocolate, he knows his way around a vial of hydrochloric acid, he has impeccable fashion sense, he's sweet and lovely and all that is good. He is wonderful. But he does have issues - he's only recently recovered from losing a twin brother in the war, the dashing and charming brother he always subconsciously compared himself to. And because of his mixed-class parentage he's always on the wrong side of someone's opinion - the aristos sneer that he's a commoner, and the plebs don't take him seriously.

The plot itself is darker and twistier than In For a Penny, but then again, I've always preferred those types of stories. Serena is such an evasive, closed-off, damaged character - who runs an inn that employs similarly evasive, closed-off and damaged characters. We learn new things about her in drip and drabs, because even from her point of view, she's close-mouthed. She's been used and abandoned by a lot of men in her day, which is why it takes a special one to win her heart - and even then, it take a good, long, delicious while to crack her shell.

But good things come to those who wait - and it's the same for Rose Lerner fans. We waited - and in the end, we were rewarded. While I don't particularly want to wait two years for her next book, I will if I have to.
A+

The Unwashed Blogger Masses: A Rant

2012-01-23T19:23:00.000-08:00

I am AnimeJune.

And I am one of the unwashed blogger masses.

Let me explain. One of the most glorious things about the internet, is that is has given everyone a voice. Virtually anyone can start up a blog, give it a title, and start writing about whatever they please. Out of this has grown a thriving reviewer community - not just for books, but for about every product on the planet - plays, videogames, TV shows, movies, you name it.

Now, most artists and authors see bloggers as an untapped, budget-friendly goldmine. Give a few free ARCs away, have a reviewer give a positive review, and then another twelve bloggers will read that post and try the book themselves and realize they love it, and then that's twelve more reviews, with thirty bloggers reading those blogs and deciding to try the book themselves. And so on and so forth

The thing is, some authors have not learned how to deal with negative reviews. Writing takes an absurdly puffed-up sense of confidence - believe me, I've had it. So a scathing review out of nowhere can pop that bubble pretty damn fast, and some authors just can't cope. And, unfortunately, it is far easier to take out your rage on an "amateur" reviewer than it is a seasoned journalist who says the same thing.

There was an episode of Saturday Night Live recently, where Daniel Radcliffe plays an oblivious internet artist who "went to a school with no grades" and just assumes that everyone loves him. In the sketch, he attempts to draw Chinese calligraphy while simultaneously doing an Irish gig, and when he sits down, he blithely says, "I tried, and therefore no one can criticize me!"

I fear that there are a lot of authors who secretly feel that way - who feel, I actually wrote a BOOK, and therefore no one can criticize me! Who somehow believe that making it past the thorny tangle of agents and editors and slushpiles to join the ranks of the Printed Word renders one exempt from opinion. They have SURVIVED submissions. They have ENDURED revisions. Their experience with negativity is henceforth over, and they and their book lived happily ever after! I'm sorry, but that's not how it works.

Now, there have been quite a few kerfuffles recently in the YA and Romance communities about negative reviews, and I've even posted about the inevitable pattern these responses to negativity take. In a nutshell, these replies always follow along the same lines:

"You're personally attacking me!"
"You're a stupid loser poo-poo head who writes in her basement!"
"How many books have YOU had published? Thought not!"
"You're just jealous!"
"You have no idea how much work goes into writing a book!"
"All these other people on Amazon liked it!"
"Nobody reads your blog anyway!"

But what I've recently taken the most exception towards is Maggie Steifvater's post about what makes a review a review. It starts off reasonably enough, stating that bloggers should never make reviews personal (as in, make personal remarks about the author - their sexuality, personal life, number of cats, education, etc. etc.). That is 100% correct.

But then she starts to veer off:

A review is an unbiased, careful look at a book — basically it is a little academic paper. It involves an itty-bitty thesis on your opinion of the book, surrounded by tiny supporting sentences describing the strengths and weaknesses of said book. Every month, dozens upon dozens of these reviews come out in professional journals. Because they're fair and thorough, they're prized and respected in the publishing world. Authors celebrate positive pro reviews. They sigh and learn from negative pro reviews. Publishing houses bend over backward to send review copies to these journals in time for a timely review, because good reviews can make or break a book's success with libraries and booksellers.

By now you'll have noticed the neat, little words she drops - "academic," "professional." Nice, clean, bland picket-fence words - so pretty and nice as they clearly separate "us" (the nose-picking, skinned-knee, orphan urchin bloggers) from "them" (the fair, thorough, prized and respected academic few, consuming their tea and cucumber sandwiches). And then, she goes on to condescendingly explain to us that we are not, in fact, true reviewers:

Let's talk about the negative "reviews" that authors have been lashing out at. They often involve animated gifs, swearing, and snark. They're often quite funny. But here's the thing, though. When a blogger writes a biased, hilarious, snarky rundown of a book they despised, he/ she is not writing a review. They are writing a post about a book. I'm not saying that bloggers shouldn't write biased, hilarious, snarky rundowns of books. I'm saying that those rundowns are not reviews. Bloggers who regularly write them cannot expect to garner the same respect and treatment from authors that pro reviewers or non-pro reviewers do. They can't expect authors to read their posts and learn something from them. And they cannot expect authors to not take it personally. They've made it personal.

You'll notice that this paragraph only mentions the negative blogger reviews as being "not reviews" - by the very nature of them being negative. No one ever takes issue with the "professionalism" of someone who writes a positive review. No one ever accuses them of being unqualified, or jealous, or tells them they write for a dinky little quarterly that nobody reads.

This post may be swaddled with reasonable-sounding rhetoric but at the heart of it is yet another author who reacts to negative reviewers by attacking their qualifications.

And have I mentioned how much I love it when authors accuse a book review of being biased? "How dare this reviewer express an opinion about a book in their book review! Opinions have no place in reviews!" A book review is the explanation of a bias - by reading the book, you become biased for or against, and a review is simply an explanation of how you got to that point.

Because of the Internet, everyone has a voice. But because anyone can do it, it allows people to diminish the voices of those they don't like. Just because we live in a society where everyone has the opportunity to perform a certain action, doesn't mean the action is meaningless.

Do you want to tell the new mother and her day-old infant that she's hasn't done anything that special? That literally billions of people, rich and poor, since the dawn of time have done the same thing a billion times over? Does that really diminish the importance? Or your child learning to read for the first time? Again - it's been done before. The vast majority of people in North America can already do it. That's not really an achievement or a special gift, now is it?

So I'm afraid author comments that the members of the blogger community are simply representatives of the unwashed, uneducated, common masses because we don't have the same literary gatekeepers doesn't hold a lot of water with me. We're the ones who do it for free. We're the ones who do it on top of our day jobs, in spite of our day jobs, staying up late, because we love it. Because we are passionate about books and reading. So who are you to say our voices don't matter - unless they say something that you like?

"The Broken Kingdoms," by N.K. Jemisin

2012-01-21T12:40:00.000-08:00

The Protagonist: Oree Shoth. A blind artist with a powerful secret - she can see magic.
The Rub: Her ability to see magic - along with a secret untapped potential locked in her ability to paint - is dragged into the limelight when she rescues and harbours a mysterious man with a very dangerous past.

The Secondary Cast:

Shiny: A strange man Oree rescues from a muckbin. He glows at sunrise, and has the power to come back to life after dying - something he does with disturbing frequency. Also, the godlings in the city don't like him one bit.

Madding: Godling of Obligation, and Oree's ex-boyfriend. They share a romantic past rife with awkwardness.

Lil: Godling of Hunger - nasty, crazy, wants to eat you, but occasionally useful in dangerous situations.

Hado: The Master of Initiates for the New Lights, a dangerous heretical cult with eyes on Oree and her magical abilities, but he's hiding a secret card up his sleeve

Dateh: The leader of the New Lights - wants to use Oree's power to restore the world to the monotheistic dictatorship it used to be.

Fantasy Convention Checklist:

1 God In Disguise

1 Almost-But-Not-Quite God In Disguise

1 Thousand-Foot Drop, Mysteriously Survived

Several Resurrections

3 Accidental Disembowelments

1 Kindly Murder Attempt

1 Magic Power

1 Secret Heritage

The Word: WARNING - THIS REVIEW WILL CONTAIN MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE PREVIOUS BOOK, THE HUNDRED THOUSAND KINGDOMS. Please do read that book, because it is awesome. But this review will be spoilery. You have been warned.

So in the first book of N.K. Jemisin's fantasy trilogy, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, the author established a world that was formerly ruled by three gods - Itempas (Light/Order/Stasis), Nahadoth (Darkness/Chaos/Progress) and Enefa (Twilight/Balance). However, war erupted among the three, with Itempas killing Enefa and subjecting Nahadoth and their gaggle of godly children (known as godlings) to imprisonment and slavery for two thousand years. During that time, the Arameri (Itempas' chosen people) conquered the rest of the world and enforced the monotheistic worship of Order and Light, and if they met any resistance, well, those enslaved gods and godlings made pretty good weapons of mass destruction.

The heroine of The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, however, managed to break the gods' bondage, releasing Nahadoth and all the godlings, fracturing the Arameri's stranglehold on the world, and devising a special punishment for Itempas.

On the day that happens, in a little village in a far away country, a blind girl named Oree Shoth discovers she has the ability to see magic - but nothing else. Inspired to abandon her backwater life and search for adventure, she moves to Shadow, the unique and colourful city that built itself around the roots of the World Tree that sprang up at the end of the last book.

Ten years later, the world is a very changed place, at least in Shadow. Itempas' dominion has been broken, and an unpredictable and lively new population of godlings walk the city, gathering new followers and pilgrims. Oree now works as a street artist, selling trinkets and souvenirs to Shadow's now-thriving tourist industry. Thanks to the new proliferation of magic and magical beings, she can see certain things, and it gives her a bit of an advantage over people who think she's completely blind.

Things get complicated when she discovers a dying man in her muckbin and takes him in. He dies several times over the course of his stay, coming back to life shortly thereafter, but otherwise he's as mortal as any man. On top of that, someone has discovered how to murder godlings, and a now-free Nahadoth threatens to obliterate the entire city of Shadow and everyone in it if the killer isn't brought to justice.

At its most basic, unadorned level, The Broken Kingdoms has a similar foundation to the previous novel - the story revolves around an underestimated, whip-smart woman of colour who finds her fate bound (very much against her will and better judgement) to a god who's fallen from grace. But the similarities end there. This novel does a great job of both creating its own story and examining its own themes while building on those established before.

The previous book showed how shallow and colourless a society can be when it abandons chaos and balance and focuses solely on order and light. This is contrasted by the vibrant, yet unpredictable and violent settings shown in this novel, which also examines how religious politics can exist in a world in which the gods are multiple and very present. There were quite a few darkly funny scenes where a god in disguise is forced to listen to the nonsensical blather his followers preach to excuse their heinous behaviour.

But, at the same time, the novel also examines what separates gods from humans. Just as she did in the first novel in this series, N.K. Jemisin nails the characterization of her immortal characters, drawing on myths and folklore. They can be capricious, jealous, vengeful, delighted - yet they have a billion years of experience and layers and ambiguity that render them too complex to define by human standards. Mild Spoilers --- I particularly enjoyed the portrayal of Itempas, especially how he has to deal with the limitations of mortality and just how badly his celestial mistakes have caught up with him. Yes. This is "his" book the way Hundred Thousand was "Nahadoth's" book. Even though BOTH books are ACTUALLY about the two bad-ass women who put up with these idiots.

Simply put, The Broken Kingdoms works on all levels. It's a fantastic book on its own (and could even be read as a standalone, although the first book is too good to recommend doing that), it's an excellent follow-up to the first book, and it provides a wealth of new material and directions to go in for the third novel, Kingdom of Gods (which apparently centers around child-God Sieh, a.k.a. He Who Pulls The Cute Adorable Face While He Kicks You To Death).
A.

A Very Unfortunate DNF Review, "Demon Moon," by Meljean Brook

2012-01-15T13:43:00.000-08:00

This is going to be a different review from my usual. Regular readers to my blog know that I very, very rarely DNF a book.

To me, a DNF doesn't necessarily mean the book is horrifically offensive or badly written. After all, I pushed all the way through Fool Me Once and Whitney, My Love.

Nowadays, though, I've started reading differently. I read slower than I would like (I'm sure everyone with a TBR thinks they read slower than they would like), so lately when I'm with books that are tiresome, I've found myself skimming. But I've never yet brought myself to DNF (Did Not Finish) a book.

Until this one, and it was a tough call, let me tell you.

I loved the previous book in this series, Demon Angel. I thought it had excellent world-building (the idea of angelic Guardians guarding the human race from demons and vampires), fantastic characters (Lilith is one of my favourite heroines ever), and a great love story.

Demon Moon, on the other hand, had a lot of stuff. Incredibly detailed, pointless, and probably unnecessary stuff. And two characters with really complicated and detailed magical backstories and less-developed actual, uh, human problems who have to make a romance in all of that.

So our hero is Colin. I loved him from his appearances in Demon Angel and in Meljean Brook's story "Falling for Anthony" from the otherwise-terrible Hot Spell anthology. So you'd think I'd like him here. Well, he's not bad, but ... he's a vampire, only he's a special vampire because he got turned by a nosferatu (a bald, creepy proto-vampire) instead of another vampire, and he's also special because his blood was tainted by a magic sword used to kill a dragon, and he's also super duper special because for some forgotten and doubtless complicated reason he is also capable of seeing into the Chaos realm whenever he looks at a mirror. And he also, like, spent a week in Chaos. For reasons. And this screwed him up, I think. Because of reasons.

And our heroine is Savi - a human girl who was practically raised by Hugh (the hero of Demon Angel) and her grandmother after her parents were murdered, so she also knows Colin by association. And she's also a brilliant computer programmer - who's secretly working for the government. For reasons. And when the novel opens, she actually gets mysterious superpowers after she uses computer wire, spit, and a mouthful of hellhound venom to take out a nosferatu who's smuggled his way onto her airplane. Yeah.

Oh, and she and Colin apparently spent a week in Caelum (the non-denominational version of Heaven for this book, it seems, although we still have Hell), something I did not at all remember from the previous books, and it was apparently a very emotionally contentious time for the both of them because they spend pages and pages hinting and circling around what happened instead of just out and telling us. ARGH!

From the first hundred and fifty pages I read, the external plot is that the nosferatu that were trapped in Chaos by the Good Guys in the last book due to some incredibly complicated shenanigans are now trying to escape, using other incredibly complicated shenanigans - calling for Savi, Colin, Hugh, Lilith, Selah and Michael to come up with EVEN MORE COMPLICATED SHENANIGANS to save the day.

At least that's what I got out of it. In my opinion, this novel was way, way, WAY too complicated for only the second book of a series. I constantly felt like I was missing something and that I had to keep up. I couldn't get involved with the story or invested in the characters because I was too busy trying to keep all the useless, unnecessary worldbuilding facts straight (what's the difference between a vampire's bloodlust and sex-lust? I HAVE NO CLUE but apparently it's really important in the early stages of the romance). There's Earth, Caelum, Hell and the Chaos Realm. There are vampires, nosferatu, Guardians, demons, hellhounds, werewolves, and wyrmwolves. Each with their own rules and special powers and this Guardian can teleport, but this Guardian can't and this demon can but only on Sundays, etc etc. etc.

After about a hundred and fifty pages, I gave up, exhausted. I didn't want to read anymore, I didn't care about the characters at all, the romance at this stage was just so one-note (Colin wants to get into Savi's pants but he has to do it in a douchey-seductive-vampire way because he doesn't want to reveal that he has feelings and Savi really doesn't want people to bite her but Colin is sexy so she'll let him). Just ... no. When I realized that reading this book had become a chore, and that there were 300 pages left, I just gave up. Life is short.

It reminded me of Marjorie Liu and her Dirk & Steele series, and how she's managed to have such a wonderful, detailed paranormal series while avoiding these very pitfalls. I was confused by Meljean Brook's second book (even after reading the first one and the "Falling for Anthony" short story), but I started what turned out to be the eighth in Marjorie M. Liu's series (The Wild Road, which has one of the best virgin heroes of all time) and loved the hell out of it.

Even so, giving up this book was difficult - I like the author herself, it wasn't badly written, there were a lot of original concepts throughout, and I'm sure I would have found the characters and their romance more interesting if the romance had been better incorporated into a streamlined paranormal plot instead of feeling like a distraction to the all-encompassing, overelaborate paranormal plot.

That being said, readers, have you read her other books? Are they still worth reading or will skipping Demon Moon leave me even more in the dark than I already am? Is The Iron Duke any good?

"Duke of Shadows," by Meredith Duran

2012-01-02T18:31:00.000-08:00

The Chick: Emmaline Martin. When she barely survives a shipwreck that killed her parents, she discovers that the proper life they had planned for her is no longer the one she wants.
The Rub: It's not enough that she has to survive a ship going down and killing her entire family - but she also has to survive an Indian uprising too. Not a lot of room left for personal problems.
Dream Casting: Kate Winslet.

The Dude: Julian Sinclair. Raised by his Indian grandmother and eventually taken under the wing of his English duke grandfather, he is a child of two worlds - and trusted by neither.
The Rub: This especially sucks because he's the only one who seems to notice that unrest is brewing in the native population of India, unrest that inevitably boil over into violence.
Dream Casting: David Giuntoli.

The Plot:

Emma: Hey guys! I survived a shipwreck!

Evil Fiance: Awesome - and your fortune is completely intact?

Emma: And ... and my person is also intact.

Evil Fiance: I don't care so much about that.

Julian: Hey, maybe we should stop being mean to all the Indian people we're training in modern warfare and giving guns to.

All The British People: LOL NO.

Rebellion: *is had*

Julian: Quick, Emma, I love you!

Emma: I love you too!

Julian: Now stay in this secure location that has a reputation for being a fortress surrounded by people I trust!

Fortress: *broken into*

Emma: THIS IS ALL JULIAN'S FAULT! HE ABANDONED ME! WOE IS ME! NOW I HAVE A VIOLENT PAST!

Four Years Later

Julian: OMG, you're alive!

Emma: Yes, and I hate you now, for no reason, because this book isn't long enough as it is.

Julian: Wait what?

Emma: Also someone's trying to kill me. I'm also dead inside. Oh, and I hate you for leaving me to die.

Julian: Um, can't we just talk about this like regular people --

Emma: 'Fraid not. I must be deep and scarred and mysterious now. And also I hate you. You know, for failing to protect me from all physical harm whether it's caused by you or not.

Julian: EXCUSE ME I'M STILL GETTING OVER THE FACT THAT YOU'RE NOT DEAD AND YOU SOMEHOW NEGLECTED TO INFORM ME OF THIS.

Emma: This is the part where you rescue me.

Julian: And will this somehow get me magically forgiven for sins that I never actually committed that are really a product of your PTSD?

Emma: ... sure.

Julian: *rescues* HOORAY!

Romance Convention Checklist:

1 Very Bad Fiance

1 Inconvenient Shipwreck

2 Inconveniently Dead Parents

1 Bloody Revolution

Several Violent Paintings

1 Intensely Interesting Secondary Character With a Dynamite Backstory Whose Novel Has Criminally Not Been Written Yet

1 Poisoned Dog

Several Unwittingly Secret Messages

The Word: When I first started reading Meredith Duran with Bound By Your Touch, I encountered a strange phenomenon where, objectively, I recognized that the writing was original and superior, the style was lyrical, the characters had layers; and yet, subjectively, I felt almost completely detached from the story.

I figured that maybe it was just a one-off, because a writing style like Meredith Duran's doesn't just turn up every day. So I picked up her contest-winning debut, Duke of Shadows, and found, to my dismay, that I felt the same way.

Detached. Uninvested. Even worse, when I stopped feeling apathetic, I felt annoyed - particularly with the dithering heroine.

The story begins in India in the 1850s, as young, wealthy Emma lives in the Residency and awaits her dismal future as the fiancee of a cartoonishly awful man named Marcus who is already hip-deep in an affair with another woman. Emma has no family in the country to run to - her parents perished very recently in a shipwreck that only Emma survived, and Emma's subsequent rescue by a ship full of rough-and-tumble sailors has left her reputation hanging by a thread.

She develops an odd friendship with Marcus' despised cousin Julian Sinclair, the Marquess of Holdensmoor. Despite his lofty English title, he is spurned by the British for his mixed blood (his mother was half-Indian) as well as his then-radical opinion that, Hey, Those Indian Blokes Don't Really Like British People Occupying Their Motherland and Might Eventually Be Inclined to Do Something About It. Emma, who survived the shipwreck that killed her parents to discover that a Proper English Life will inevitably smother her, finds solace with a fellow outcast.

And then a bloody and violent revolution happens, and Emma finds herself fleeing the city with Julian. During their flight, they share a few evasive conversations with each other and realize they're in love. Before they can go much further, however, Julian is forced to leave her at a secure location that ultimately ends up not being as secure as he thought it was, and the two are separated.

Cut to four years later. Emma has recovered from her truly traumatizing exodus from India by becoming an artist of gruesome and violent paintings about the atrocities wrought upon the natives by English soldiers. When a nobleman who shares her same opinion about the occupation of India persuades her to display her art, it finally brings her back into contact with Julian.

Unbeknownst to her, Julian has spent the last four years believing she was dead, so their reunion comes as something of a surprise to him. And here is where the novel roused me from my apathy - and dipped my opinion into dislike. Emma decides to guilt and blame Julian for things that could not possibly have been his fault, because she picked up Guilt Issues and a Mysterious Past (that's not mysterious since the reader finds out about it as it happens) in India and suddenly, this novel acquires a Big Misunderstanding and a Suspense Subplot when it had a perfectly suitable and realistic conflict already.

Here is where the novel falters. The book is essentially split into two parts - the first has an original setting, an interesting and historically relevant plot, and well-realized external and internal conflicts. The second has a conventional historical setting, a stretched Big Misunderstanding plot, a contrived Suspense Subplot, and a heroine who continues to engineer conflict beyond reasonable limits. The first half of this novel should have been a book on its own (and if you're interested in that sort of book, try Sherry Thomas' Not Quite a Husband), but as merely Part One, its effect is lessened by how rushed the development has to be.

And the second half of the novel is just run of the mill. Heroine guards her heart, hero has to seduce her, crazed madman forces hero to take care of heroine, heroine denies and discredits everything experienced hero says, mysterious past is revealed, et cetera and so on and so forth. In terms of its pacing, it reminded me vaguely of Carolyn Jewel's superior-in-all-ways Indiscreet - which also had the hero and heroine in an exotic setting falling in love in the first half of the novel before an evil villain turns it into an escape thriller.

Ultimately, Duke of Shadows is an uneven, disjointed, and inconsistent book. The heroine's Issues, while understandable, make her seem irrational and create more conflict than we need. The hero, despite telling instead of showing a rather colourful past, isn't incredibly interesting on his own. The writing is decent, and the descriptions of the setting are vivid and wonderful - but sadly, the story and the characters don't measure up.

For better versions of this novel, I would heartily suggest reading Thomas' Not Quite a Husband and Jewel's Indiscreet.
B-

2011: The Year In Review

2011-12-31T11:07:00.000-08:00

Well, 2011 was an interesting year for me, both reading- and life-wise. The biggest change, of course, is that I finally moved out into my first apartment, and that affected my reading habits in a number of ways. Firstly - moving took a lot of time and planning, and left little time for reading. Secondly, carrying more than 300 books from my parents' house to my tiny apartment really put my reading and book-buying habits in perspective. Thirdly, I discovered Tumblr, which is the timesuck to end all timesucks.

Lastly, and this is the kicker - the apartment I ended up moving into is only twelve blocks away from where I work, so I've now been walking to and from work every day. It's nice. It's relaxing. And I save money because I only really take the bus to go to specific places like the mall or my parents' house for Sunday dinner.

But let me put this into perspective - I was raised in a suburb. I've more or less been taking public transportation to and from school/work/social life since I was seven years old. Waiting for the bus, taking the bus, transferring - that has essentially given me two times a day, every day, for the majority of my self-aware life that I can lose myself in a good book. That's not to say I don't read at other times, not at all - but suddenly not having those two times put a significant dent in my reading pace, and suddenly I had to find a time to read more. The result is that my reading slowed down considerably this past year, and I've only started bringing it back up to scratch recently.

....but I also got an XBox 360 for Christmas so who really knows at this point?

Anyhoo, all told, I only managed to review 38 novels, slightly less than half the number of books I read last year (79).

In writing news, I scrapped my fantasy romance The Duke of Snow and Apples, and have been rewriting it as a YA, tentatively titled Snow and Apples, and actually won NaNoWriMo for the first time because of it! A lot of people asked about the change, and really there are a lot of reasons, but mainly I did it because I actually feel a lot more comfortable reading YA. I have a young mindset, a young voice, and I'm still inexperienced in a lot of ways and I personally realized that by writing romance at this stage in my life, I was bound to wander into territory in which I have no personal experience and would have to rely on derivative writing.

But, despite my lower reading rate, I did manage to read a lot of very brilliant, as well as mind-meltingly terrible books this year. As I have done in Previous Year Round Ups, I'm basing my Best and Worst lists based on letter grade rather than number. My Best List is Comprised of all my A+ reviews, and anything that received a D+ or lower made it onto the Worst List.

ANIMEJUNE'S SIX BEST BOOKS OF 2011:

Your Scandalous Ways, by Loretta Chase. Romance. A+
It's really, really hard to go wrong with Loretta Chase. One of Chase's best features is her use of unconventional settings in her historical romances. This sumptuous novel takes place in Venice, as a jaded spy tracks down a notorious courtesan who's suspected of hiding letters that could unmask a traitor to England. Take a heroine who is entirely unashamed of her oldest (and highest paying!) profession and pair her with a hero who thought his spirit of adventure had all but died out, and what you get is a richly evocative, unconventional, and exotic romance.

A Lady Awakened, by Cecelia Grant. Romance. A+
And now we move on to the brilliant debut by Cecelia Grant. Her rigidly practical and controlled heroine also turns sex into a business venture, when she pays an irresponsible rake to have sex with her in the hopes of conceiving a false heir to prevent an actual scoundrel from inheriting her husband's estate. Her refusal to enjoy the act, however, forces the good-hearted and determined hero to take drastic romantic measures.

Indiscreet, by Carolyn Jewel. Romance. A+
Jewel also gives us an historical romance with an unconventional setting - when our heartbroken hero meets our ruined heroine in Turkey, only to end up having to rescue her from an evil pasha's harem. Lush detail, vibrant settings, and a meticulously developed hero and heroine make this a novel a true gem.

The Shadow and the Star, by Laura Kinsale. Romance. A+
Of course, my Best-Of List would be meaningless without a Laura Kinsale title on it. It seems that Exotic Settings were my ultimate kink this year - Chase gave me Venice, Jewel gave me Turkey, and here Kinsale gives us Hawaii - where our ninja-trained hero was raised before travelling to Victorian London to unexpectedly fall in love with a penniless seamstress. Yes, he's a ninja. With ninja powers. And secret babies and sharks and demon swords all factor into this story. Kinsale flawlessly combines outwardly weird story elements into a fascinating and entertaining whole.

Flowers from the Storm, by Laura Kinsale. Romance. A+
Yes, Laura Kinsale made my list twice. Surprised? You shouldn't be. Flowers is Kinsale's acknowledged masterpiece - a heartbreaking tale of an arrogant, brilliant mathematician Duke who is brought low by a stroke and deprived of his ability to produce and comprehend speech. He is rescued, in more ways than one, by a Quaker heroine who, while pious, is far from simple. A breathtaking novel.

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, by Cathrynne M. Valente. YA. A+
Valente broke my heart with The Orphan's Tales, and she puts it back together again with this Victorian-influenced children's novel about an enterprising young girl who travels to fairyland and discovers it's not all fluffy, Disney cuteness. Uniquely lovely and horrifying as only the best children's fiction can be - because it's not a real adventure if you don't have the pants scared off you at least once.

Now, much like the Force, there was also a Dark Side to my reading experience this year. I've been quite sparing with my F grades on my blog - and this year, I gave out two. Without further ado, here are:

ANIMEJUNE'S TOP FIVE WORST NOVELS OF 2011

Tumbling Through Time, by Gwen Cready. Romance. D+
This hot mess of a novel messes with time travel, alternate histories, metafiction, Patrick O'Brien novels, Colin Firth, and fashionable shoes and completely fails to bind any of it together with any sort of logic or sense. Our heroine is apparently thinking of writing a novel, then gets transported - thanks to a Gypsy-cursed pair of shoes - back in time to deal with the irate hypothetical character of her hypothetical novel, who is simultaneously an historical figure in the middle of a war that is actually happening, while an unexplained entity possesses the heroine's body in the present and gives it a boob tattoo while simultaneously trying to have sex with a bunch of people. Confused yet?

Lord of Legends, by Susan Krinard. Romance. D
The hero is a unicorn who is transformed into a human man by an evil fairy prince in order to seduce a half-fairy woman into the fairy realm, but what really doesn't make sense about this ponderous, hypocritical and misogynist romance is how the hero manages to be so completely uninteresting while doing it. The author also clearly indicates to us who is the Heroine and who is the Villainess - the villainess is the woman who has a lot of consensual, enjoyable sex with a lot of people, whereas the heroine is the Pure Virgin who looks down on adulterers while having sex with a unicorn man while her husband is MIA. The moral of the story is, If You Have Sex and You're A Woman, You're Evil - Unless the Man Your Cuckholding Your Husband With Is A Unicorn.

Until You, by Judith McNaught. Romance. D
Another book in Judith McNaught's "Brain Injuries Make Romance Easy" series of insultingly twee, misogynist romances. A shapely redhead takes a blow to the head in front of a wealthy Earl who mistakes her for a highborn beauty, and her subsequent mental disabilities (particularly her inability to understand sex, ambition, or social rules) render her incredibly attractive to the hero. Until she actually remembers her own name - then she's tossed out on her ass as a "lying whore" and has to beg the jaded, woman-hating hero to take her back.

The Lady and the Libertine, by Bonnie Vanak. Romance. F
A helpful book for women who've been drugged, kidnapped, and either blackmailed or coerced into having sex with violent stalkers - it just means he's in love with you and it's up to you to change him into a better person! In this lovely novel, the hero steals a sacred jewel from a damaged heroine, threatens to take her to jail unless she has sex with him when she tries to steal it back, and then chloroforms her and ties her naked to a cathouse bed when she refuses to marry him. But it's because he's so tortured!

Whitney My Love, by Judith McNaught. Romance. F-
Yes, McNaught made it twice on my Worst List. Surprised? The ultimate in romance fail - where the heroine is just so stubborn, feisty and unconventional that the hero is simply forced to hit her, sexually assault her, and rape her in order to get her to see reason. And of course, when the hero discovers that his Perfectly Logical Reasons for treating the heroine like garbage are wrong - well, he's just Too Proud and Majestic to be Allowed to Apologize. Wrong and hateful on nearly every level. Whitney, My Love is my Worst Read of 2011. Congrats!

And now, the best of the rest:

The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins. YA. A-
Pros: Great social examination of media. Cons: So-so sci-fi worldbuilding.

A Dance with Dragons, by George R. R. Martin. Fantasy. A-
Pros: Vastly detailed world and characters. Cons: Slow pacing.

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand, by Helen Simonson. Fiction. A-
Pros: Lovely characters and English village setting. Cons: Bizarre ending.

Lady Isabella's Scandalous Marriage, by Jennifer Ashley. Romance. B+
Pros: Well-drawn characters and realistic romantic conflict. Cons: Completely unnecessary suspense subplot.

Lord Carew's Bride, by Mary Balogh. Romance. B+
Pros: A delicious Beta hero and a kickass ending. Cons: Low conflict.

A Summer to Remember, by Mary Balogh. Romance. B+
Pros: Great characters and character development, particularly the heroine. Cons: Slow pacing.

Room, by Emma Donaghue. Fiction. B+
Pros: Terrific premise, excellent use of limited/unreliable POV. Cons: Constant kid-speak can be irritating.

The American Heiress, by Daisy Goodwin. Fiction. B+
Pros: Lovely detail, lots of drama. Cons: Ending abrupt and somewhat unsatisfying.

Here On Earth, by Alice Hoffman. Fiction. B+
Pros: Great secondary characters, creative re-telling of Wuthering Heights. Cons: It's Wuthering Heights.

The House At Riverton, by Kate Morton. Fiction. B+
Pros: Great atmosphere, good upstairs-downstairs drama and historical detail. Cons: Some "surprise" plot points obviously telegraphed.

His At Night, by Sherry Thomas. Romance. B+
Pros: Gorgeous writing, laugh-out-loud comedy. Cons: Fake identity renders romance slightly unbelievable.

Dark Angel, by Mary Balogh. Romance. B
Pros: Interesting hero with a dark past. Cons: Uneven pacing and conflict.

Forbidden, by Jo Beverley. Romance. B
Pros: Virgin beta hero, interesting conflict. Cons: Too much inner whining.

The Summer of You, by Kate Noble. Romance. B
Pros: Excellent atmosphere and characterization. Cons: Flimsy plot.

One Night of Scandal, by Teresa Medeiros. Romance. B
Pros: Heroine is delightful beyond all reason. Cons: Hero is mopey beyond all reason.

Then He Kissed Me, by Christine Ridgway. Romance. B
Pros: Complex secondary romance. Cons: Shallow primary romance.

Bad to the Bone, by Jeri Smith-Ready. Urban Fantasy. B
Pros: Unique vampire worldbuilding. Cons: Doesn't work as a standalone.

I'm Not He r, by Janet Gurtler. YA. B-
Pros: Good emotional development, realistic depictions. Cons: Relentlessly depressing, manipulative plotting.

Something About You, by Julie James. Romance. B-
Pros: Strong heroine, some nice humour. Cons: Romance isn't memorable, mystery plot isn't really a mystery.

Talk of the Town, by Karen Hawkins. Romance. B-
Pros: Interesting story idea. Cons: Cheesy secondary characters and corny small town setting.

Immortal Champion, by Lisa Hendrix. Romance. C+
Pros: Good historical detail, good secondary characters. Cons: Contrived conflict, annoying anachronistic heroine.

The Duff, by Kody Keplinger. YA. C+
Pros: Good interaction between heroine and friends. Cons: Dickwad hero, major family problems glossed over unrealistically.

The Sharing Knife, Volume One: Beguilement, by Lois McMaster Bujold. Fantasy. C+
Pros: Interesting worldbuilding. Cons: Ridiculously low conflict and slack pacing.

To Ruin the Duke, by Debra Mullins. Romance. C+
Pros: Sensible protagonists. Cons: Cray-cray storyline.

Tangled Up In Love, by Heidi Betts. Romance. C
Pros: Some interesting protagonist interactions. Cons: Exaggerated conflict, too many Meddling Matchmakers.

Something Borrowed, by Emily Giffin. Chick Lit. C
Pros: Solid writing. Cons: Bitter, envious, passive heroine is a major drag, and conflict is lessened by the Major Bitchification of the romantic rival.

Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, by Gregory Maguire. Fiction. C
Pros: Well, it probably sounded like a good idea at the time. Cons: Pretentious, poorly-plotted, nonsensical "symbolic" bullshit.

The Dangers of Deceiving a Viscount, by Julia London. Romance. C-
Pros: Uh, the book fits easily into a purse. Cons: Starts conflicts but doesn't finish them, plot is flimsy, character development makes no sense.

"I'm Not Her," by Janet Gurtler

2011-12-22T20:45:00.000-08:00

The Heroine: Tess Smith. A misunderstood teenage outcast with an insanely popular older sister who sucks up all their parents' attention. Stop me if you've heard this one before.
The Rub: The insanely popular older sister gets cancer, has an painful identity crisis, and their parents both decide to check out early from the Responsible Parenthood Hotel, leaving only Tess to try and make sense of things.

The Secondary Cast:

Kristina: A star athlete with a guaranteed future ahead of her - until she gets cancer and has to change her whole outlook on life.

Mr. and Mrs. "Parents of the Year" Smith: One's a boozy perfectionist, the other's a professor with a Ph.D in avoidance. Neither of them know how to handle their older daughter's cancer or how to nurture their younger daughter's genuine artistic talent.

Simon: A troubled senior with *~brooding problems~* who nevertheless befriends Tess in her hour of need.

Clark Trent: A Hot Nerd with an unfortunate-sounding name who also befriends Tess in her hour of need, in a much healthier and more productive way.

Jeremy: A younger kid with a serious crush on Kristina, and a past that brings him closer to her than any other boy.

YA Convention Checklist:

1 More Popular Sister

2 Unsupportive Parents

1 Evil Bitch Ex-BFF

1 Troubled Love Interest

1 Nerdy Love Interest

1 McGuffin Art Contest

1 Shocking and Yet Manipulative Character Death

The Word: If someone had explained to me, on paper, what this book was about and what happened throughout, I would never have read this book. I would have put it down without a second thought, believing that I would never enjoy anything so relentlessly depressing and only mildly hopeful at the end.

But then I would be wrong. Now, I didn't luuuurve this novel, but honestly, I was just so surprised that I kept wanting to read to the end that I thought I would point that out as notable.

Because a lot of bad stuff happens in this book. Like, tragedy after tragedy after tragedy after tragedy. It just piles on, over and over, with very little if any relief for any of the characters, particularly the protagonist, Tess.

Tess is a bit of an oddball. She's plagued with low self-esteem because her older sister Kristina is gorgeous, outrageously popular, and has an Olympic-sized volleyball dream that their mother supports 110%. Meanwhile, Tess is bony, red-haired, and neither of her parents believe her artistic aspirations will be anything more than a hobby. She's used to being invisible at school, ignored by all in favour of her more popular sister. Her only friend is a chubby, vindictive fellow outcast with whom she loves to snipe and bitch about their despised sisters.

But then Kristina gets The Cancer. And it sucks, big time. As she gets chemotherapy and starts fighting her illness, she drops off the social grid entirely and swears Tess to secrecy. No dice - it takes all of five seconds for the school to realize Kristina's missing and the only source they have for information is Tess. Soon, Tess becomes the most visible girl in school, as everyone from Kristina's volleyball friends to her sort-of, maybe boyfriend starts hanging around Tess to find out how Kristina is doing.

And Kristina gets worse. And their parents flip out - Tess' dad detaches from the family entirely, and her mom busies herself with wallpapering over all their real problems to try and make up for the fact that the future she's imagined for her daughter will never take place. It's pretty heavy stuff.

And I kept reading. There are breadcrumbs of hope, scattered here and there. They are pitiful and small, for the most part, until they slowly, eventually, form into a cohesive message. I think the point of the book is that the fact that Tess doesn't fly entirely, completely to pieces beneath the full pressure of shitful fate is supposed to be some kind of victory. Her parents break, and Kristina breaks, and the popular kids reveal whose side they're really on, and through this Tess learns to develop an identity separate from other peoples' approval, as she discovers how little she can trust those people in a tough situation. Which is a message that's as depressing as it is uplifting.

Ultimately, though, this book was kind of a mixed bag for me. While the dramatic, tragic parts were handled in a painful yet evocative manner, the positive bits were all over the place. We get a lot of different characters who aren't all fleshed out with the same amount of sensitivity and detail. Tess's spiteful friend, for instance, gets the short shrift, turning into a sour, one-note villain. I couldn't understand why they were friends in the first place. As well, some of the plot points come across as contrivances to force more pain or negative pressure on the heroine to see how she develops from it, only it doesn't develop in an organic way. A shocking character death near the end of the novel is brought in so clumsily and obviously that it's almost funny in how blatant it is, and that kind of ruined the effect and gave the novel a cancer-opera feel similar to a Lurlene McDaniel novel.

While it wasn't a terrible novel, I wouldn't read it again, nor would I know who to recommend it to. The gains to the heroine and the message of the novel itself are fairly standard, and seem paltry compared to the bleakness of the majority of the book. Perhaps teenagers and people who've struggled with cancer (or with a family member who had it) will get more out of this novel than I could. To me, it was like medicine: useful, well-made, but not a voluntarily enjoyable experience.
B-.

"A Lady Awakened," by Cecelia Grant

2011-12-15T20:15:00.000-08:00

The Chick: Martha Russell. When her husband dies, she's left with nothing but an estate that will go to her despicable brother-in-law - unless she can produce an heir within the next nine months.
The Rub: Since her husband didn't do the job himself, she'll have to find someone who can, and the newly-arrived Theo seems as good a stud as any.
Dream Casting: Sophia Myles.

The Dude: Theophilus Mirkwood. A profligate rascal banished to the countryside to mend his ways, he'll have to prove his worth to his tenants and his father's steward if he wants to return to his high-flying ways in London.
The Rub: Associating with the forward-thinking, well-respected widow Russell does wonders for his reputation - and that's not even mentioning the 500 pounds she's paying him for sex!
Dream Casting: A younger Brad Pitt.

The Plot:

Martha: I need a baby!

Theo: I need a project!

Martha: I'll pay you 500 pounds if we have sex!

Theo: YAY!

Martha: Hey hey hey! I'm not paying you for orgasms!

Theo: Wut.

Martha: You heard me. Babies only. None of that flimsy fun stuff.

Theo: Hey, I'm giving tenants new roofs.

Martha: Oh, really? New roofs? They'll have better shelter.

Theo: Oh yeah, they'll be much better off - and less water damage to the structure.

Martha: Oh, baby.

Theo: You like that, don't you? Improved living circumstances to the economically disadvantaged.

Martha: Keep going, don't stop!

Theo: And I'm going to build a dairy.

Martha: You BUILD that dairy!

Theo: And create a higher-quality product for a lower cost, creating an economic stimulus.

Martha: Oooh, keep stimulating that economy, right there....

Theo: I'm getting all RESPONSIBLE LANDOWNER up in here!

Martha: Wow. I'm totally pregnant now. Screw propriety, let's get married!

Theo: HOORAY!

Romance Convention Checklist

1 Ho For Show

500 Pounds on the Dresser

Several Denied Orgasms

1 Nasty Rapist

1 Determined Pig

Several Unsatisfying Wheels of Cheese

1 Unsatisfying Husband (Deceased)

1 Upright and Religious Romantic Rival

The Word: Unless I come across a miraculous page-turner within the next sixteen days, this book is the best book I've read all year.

The author kindly offered me an ARC, and I accepted - but when the book arrived I kind of put it on my shelf and forgot about it.

Mea culpa. This is just one of those lovely, slow-burning, intricately written stories that manages to avoid NEARLY EVERY BURNING CLICHE I ABSOLUTELY DESPISE about historical romances.

Martha Russell needs a baby. Her husband is recently deceased, her brightest prospect is a position as a dependent in her brother's household, and Mr. Russell's entire estate will go to a slimeball of a brother with a vicious sexual reputation - unless Martha can convince people that Hubby Dearest took the time to pop a legitimate bun in her oven before riding out to break his neck.

Opportunity strikes when Theophilus Mirkwood arrives in town - an impossibly charming and promiscuous wastrel who has been stripped of his allowance and banished to the countryside by his father in order to mend his ways. He is shocked when the very prim Mrs. Russell very politely offers him 500 pounds to copulate with her once a day, every day, for a month - with the promise of 1500 more if their arrangement results in a boy she can pass off as Mr. Russell's posthumous heir.

Theo, who considers himself a thoughtful, thorough, and experienced lover (don't they all, though?), is even more shocked, however, at Martha's intentional and determined refusal to experience pleasure during the act, despite Theo's absolute best efforts. She'll have her cake, thank you, but she doesn't care to eat it, too.

Now, before you start thinking, Oh, she's one of *those* historical heroines. Another orgasmless widow? - keep reading. Martha is an exceptional, sensational, deeply moral, and uniquely wonderful character. She's a hen's tooth of an historical heroine who knows first hand about pleasure (if you catch my drift), but she's also witnessed the exploitation of women at the hands of men (both with her mother and her draining parade of pregnancies, and in the female tenants and servants she's responsible for). This knowledge has left her pathologically opposed to dependence of any kind.

For Theo, taking his pleasure without giving his partner any goes severely against his personal Rake Code, so when his many attempts to seduce her fail, he tries to please her in other ways - by talking to her, asking for her expertise and guidance on tending his estate, and studying ways to improve the lives of his tenants. To his surprise, not only does this work, but he starts enjoying it as well.

And oh, the protagonists. I loved them both equally, their idiosyncrasies and fears and motivations, and I love the fact that Cecelia Grant manages to create such wonderful characters without giving them some traumatizing or ridiculously momentous backstories to explain the way they act. Not that I don't like dramatic backstories, but it's refreshing to realize that one doesn't need to witness their parents die in a flaming carriage accident to become an interesting, flawed character.

Martha is a magnificent Swiss watch of a woman, precise, rigidly practical, controlled and well-ordered, with a strong sense of righteousness that sometimes goes a wee bit too far (honestly, deciding to provide a fake heir to jilt a guy based on sixteen-year-old rumours is the flimsiest part of the novel). However, as a result, she has severe social blind spots and is rather isolated from her community. But I adored her. She's strong and she's independent and aside from one iffy motivation ("this person allegedly raped an unknown woman sixteen years ago according to hearsay? I can't let him have his birthright!") she is a damn smart woman who knows how to survive in her environment.

Theo, meanwhile.... Mmmmm, Theo. He's a spoiled, lazy, charming, cheerful, thoroughly enjoyable rake who, even at the tender age of twenty-six, is starting to tire of no one taking him seriously or expecting much from him. Really, the only thing he's practiced or improved upon in his life is his skill at giving ladies Sexy HappyTimes, and Martha won't even let him do that. But as he tries getting her involved in his estate management in an effort to impress her, he starts making a difference and taking initiative, and finding something that he's actually good at. Reading how Theo grows up is just as wonderful as watching Martha loosen up.

What I love about the romance itself is that it develops almost entirely separate from sex. They knock boots within the first couple of chapters, and quickly establish that it's a businesslike arrangement between them (and is written as such). Almost all of their important interactions happen after sex, after the "duty" is fulfilled and they can relax enough to talk to each other.

The sex only becomes an act of pleasure after they fall in love with each other. Theo doesn't one day try some mysterious Far Eastern sex move and Martha doesn't magically discover her g-spot for the first time. Martha herself sets the perimeters of her sexual enjoyment - she doesn't want to surrender herself, sexually, to a man she doesn't admire and respect. And, without spoiling too much, she never does.

Thought-provoking, gorgeously written, flawlessly characterized, A Lady Awakened is a breathtaking debut from Cecelia Grant, who with her first book, proves herself worthy of the same bookshelf as Laura Kinsale, Mary Balogh, Sherry Thomas, Carolyn Jewel, Jo Goodman, and Judith Ivory.
A+

"The House At Riverton," by Kate Morton

2011-12-15T20:10:00.000-08:00

The Protagonist: Grace Bradley, a 98-year-old retiree who is asked by a filmmaker to provide historical details and advice for a movie to take place at Riverton, the house where Grace served as a maid as a young woman.
The Rub: The film is specifically about the tragic suicide of a famous war poet, but Grace, as the last surviving person who knows what really happened, is at last inspired to reveal the truth.

The Supporting Cast:

Hannah Hartford: Elder granddaughter of Lord Ashbury. Suffers from "progressive ideas." Wants to explore and make a difference in England's political scene, but her gender and class bar her from that dream.

Emmeline Hartford: Hannah's younger sister. Bit of a wild child, grows up to be a film actress.

Robbie Hunter: A friend and war buddy of Hannah and Emmeline's brother David. Becomes a soulful war poet. His violent death sets the stage for the novel's central mystery.

Alfred: A footman on (more than?) friendly terms with Grace who returns from the First World War greatly changed.

Marcus: Grace's grandson, a mystery writer who dropped off the grid to grieve over his wife's death. Grace starts recording her memories to give to him, in the event that he returns.

Frederick Hartford: Hannah and Emmeline's father. The second son of a lord whose business prospects invariably fail, he also shares a secret connection to Grace's mother.

The Word: In a way, the pacing of this story reminded me of a mixture of Downton Abbey and Titanic.

Downton Abbey, naturally, because like the BBC miniseries, we have an aristocratic family in the early twentieth century whose ancestral estate has an uncertain heir situation, and their lives are also witnessed and examined by their watchful servants.

And like the film Titanic, the story is narrated by the lone remaining, incredibly elderly survivor of the novel's central events, who, also like the Titanic's Rose, (here be spoilers) :

In The House at Riverton, 98-year-old Grace Bradley is approached by an American film director who wants to make a movie about the events in 1924 at an English manor called Riverton House, where an up-and-coming war poet named R. S. Hunter committed suicide.

Back in those days, Grace worked as a maid at Riverton House, which was owned by Lord and Lady Ashbury. Specifically, she helped wait on Lord Ashbury's granddaughters, Hannah and Emmeline - two sisters who, along with Grace, were the only witnesses to Robbie Hunter's death. While Grace starts out as an invisible observer of the lives of Hannah, Emmeline, and their brother David, she is eventually drawn into their lives by chance, becoming Hannah's particular confidante. Through her eyes, we learn the backstory of the siblings, their family situation, the upstairs-downstairs politics that Grace defies in order to befriend Hannah, and the actual real-world politics that the headstrong Hannah longs to involve herself in.

Grace is an observant, thoughtful and very human narrator, going back and forth between the events of the past, and the trials of the present. For instance, after getting a glimpse of what the upcoming Riverton film is going to look like, Grace hopes to make a recording of what really happened to pass on to her beloved grandson, Marcus, before her health ultimately fails.

There's no real mind-altering, ground-breaking story to be told here (for instance, the truth of Grace's parentage can be easily guessed within the first few chapters), but it's a solidly-developed, detailed, and well-told story about secrets and class differences and the progress of history. It's a colourful and textured snapshot of rural English aristocracy from 1915 to 1924, that is itself contrasted against the (more) modern backdrop of 1999, where the "present" part of the story takes place. There's tragedy and renewal, death and betrayal and unexpected love.

I know that it sounds like I'm damning it with faint praise, but I still thoroughly enjoyed the novel. It's a nice, meaty historical with interesting characters, excellent historical detail and context, upstairs-downstairs drama, and a tragic romance. For a novel to curl up with in a soft armchair by a fire, this is an excellent choice.
B+

"Immortal Champion," by Lisa Hendrix

2011-12-04T13:28:00.000-08:00

The Chick: Lady Eleanor de Neville. When a brave knight saves her from a burning building, she envisions him as the perfect champion to rescue her from an unwanted marriage.
The Rub: Unbeknownst to her, this rescue will be four years and countless pages of angst in coming.
Dream Casting: Zooey Deschanel.

The Dude: Gunnar the Red. Cursed to be a bull by day and a man by night, he's in love with Eleanor, but will she still love him if she knows the truth?
The Rub: While his feelings are true, he still has 600-year-old Slutty Ex Issues to deal with.
Dream Casting: Gerard Butler.

The Plot:

Eleanor: Help! A fire!

Gunnar: 'Sup. *saves*

Eleanor: OMG, you're so amazing! We should totally run away together, what's your favourite colour, I wonder what we'd wear if we got married...

Four Years Later...

Eleanor: ...and I would like to have three girls and three boys, and at least one of them would have to be named Mary, because hello, we're barely out of the Middle Ages, and our first house would be...

Gunnar: How the hell are you still talking about that? Er, I mean, yay, romantic?

Random Storyteller: Did I ever tell you guys the story of how a bull totally turned into a sexy man and got it on with a lady?

Eleanor: No but do go on even though it's not like this story will have any future relevance to me!

Gunnar (as a bull): *un-bull-ed**re-man-ified*

Eleanor: Well shit. Who knew? Let's get it on!

Gunnar: Wow, REALLY?

Eleanor's Dad: Hell no. Then the novel would be too short! Eleanor, go marry some Random Dude! We need at least three more chapters of angst!

Eleanor: Argh, FINE.

Eleanor's Sweetiepie "Sir Cellophane" Husband: *dies*

Gunnar: Can we get married now?

Eleanor: No, first you have to get all pissy and air out your Slutty Dead Wife Issues.

Gunnar: Can we get married NOW?

Cwen: Dude, I haven't even gotten to cackle yet! *defeated* Crap.

Gunnar: I HAVE WAITED SIX HUNDRED DAMN YEARS CAN WE PLEASE JUST GET MARRIED ALREADY?

Eleanor: FINE!

Gunnar: HOORAY!

Romance Convention Checklist

1 (Not Quite) Unbreakable Curse

3 Hot Viking Manfriends

1 Lady Seduction

1 Surprisingly Loving, Decent, and Completely Unfairly Treated Romantic Rival

1 Fortuitous Use of Greek Mythology

1 Secondary Romance (between Lucy and Henry Percy)

1 Evil and Yet Somewhat Ineffective Witch

1 Bad Dad

1 Whore Wife (Deceased)

The Word: Okay, the here's the deets - Nine Hot Vikings killed One Poor Dude while trying to rob a treasure. The One Poor Dude had One Bad Mutha, a witch named Cwen, who, to punish the Nine Hot Vikings, cursed them to live half their days as animals and the other half as men, with pesky immortality thrown into the bargain.

So two of the vikings (in Immortal Warrior and Immortal Outlaw) have attained their (literal) happy endings, and the other seven are still on the trail of the evil witch, who had fled into hiding at the end of Immortal Outlaw.

This particular story takes place in 1408, and is, if not directly connected to the War of the Roses, is at least War of the Roses-adjacent. Gunnar, a Hot Viking who is a man by night and a bull by day, is sheltering from a bitter winter at a neighbouring castle when a fire breaks out. He rushes in and rescues a young 14-year-old girl named Eleanor from the flames. While Gunnar tells a white lie to the injured Eleanor that he will return, he wisely hightails it out of there before he can garner any more unwanted attention, but not quickly enough to escape becoming Eleanor's First and All-Consuming Crush.

Eleanor's to be wed, you see, to her cousin, Richard Le Dispenser ("Pez," to his mates?), and that concept squicks her out to a major degree. She spends the next four (!) years pining over Gunnar and daydreaming about him rescuing her from her dreary normal life.

Four years later, Gunnar runs into Eleanor again, totally by accident, and in one of the novel's most awkward moments, completely forgets who she is. Whoops. While Gunnar would much rather slip away to sit peacefully under his cork tree and smell flowers, Eleanor is not willing to let her brave knight slip away as easily as he did the last time. Eleanor turns up the seductive charm to eleven, pretty soon Gunnar can't bring himself to leave, and he and Eleanor start getting along famously.

And that's when the novel runs out of conflict. Gunnar and Eleanor hit it off right away, and there's little to no angst or arguing or friction between them (beyond the usual hey-sometimes-I-turn-into-a-wild-animal angst). For the next hundred or so pages the novel's pace completely bogs down into historical detail, more of Gunner and Eleanor Making Nice, and a secondary romance between Eleanor's maid Lucy and Henry Percy that isn't as relevant or interesting as it thinks it is.

The pacing is pretty much the albatross around this novel's neck. We get long stretches of lagging, conflict-less scenes, some sudden and blessed drama, then more moping scenes. The conflicts that come up don't arise so much from the actions of our protagonists as they do from "fate" or because they kind of need to happen, and similarly, aren't solved due to the actions or decisions of our characters but rather through convenient fate.

Eleanor would normally be squicked out by the idea of a man turning into a bull - until a storyteller conveniently decides to tell the tale of Zeus and Europa around the fire. Eleanor doesn't know Gunnar turns into a bull during the day - until she goes under a weird trance and then encounters him in bull form. Eleanor is eventually forced to marry Richard le Dispenser - but hey, he suddenly gets a cough and then dies. Eleanor and Gunnar are still separated by distance - until some random kidnappers carry Eleanor off (in an encounter that happens off screen, by the way) and all but dump her in Gunnar's lap. Huh. Well, that was convenient.

And then, right on cue, Cwen shows up to make her contracted M. Night-ish appearance to reveal She's Known the Heroine the Whole Time and try (and once again fail) to un-save the day.

As always, I love the settings and the way the characters are incorporated into different periods of English history but the incorporation isn't enough. There needs to be more conflict from the characters, and this has always been one of the series' weakest elements. We need genuine character conflict and it can't be "Secretly I Turn Into An Animal" every time.

To be fair, in Gunnar's case we have actual backstory from him (an unfaithful wife) that colours his interactions with Eleanor and his perceptions of her behaviour. I liked that, and it did contribute to some of the romantic conflict - but it wasn't enough. Most of their conflict arose from elements in the book keeping them apart rather than their own actions.

As for Eleanor - I'll put it mildly and say I didn't much care for her. She's selfish - not so selfish that I can completely despise her for being insane but selfish enough to dislike her and find her intensely annoying. She's manipulative, deceitful, ungrateful - but she's self-righteous about it in a way that seems very anachronistic to me. I compare her to Melanthe from Laura Kinsale's For My Lady's Heart.

Melanthe is the epitome of selfish manipulation and working things to further her own interests - but she accepts what she's doing, what the consequences may be, and what she's getting out of it. She does what she does because she is practical and she wants to survive. Eleanor does what she does because when she wants something, she wants it - hang the consequences. That's what annoyed me and made her come across as anachronistically 21st-century minded - she has the drive for independence but none of the practicality to appreciate or understand the consequences of her actions. She's in love and that's all that matters.

I tend to really dislike characters in historicals who either don't realize or choose to ignore the realities of their historical periods, or judge the people who do work with the realities of their historical periods. In this case, I actually felt sorry for Eleanor's husband, Richard. To Lisa Hendrix's infinite credit, he turns out to be neither impotent nor a giant prick. He's actually a sweetheart who respects and listens to his wife. And okay, so he's no bull, but getting to marry a wealthy, influential guy like that who is also Not a Wife Beating Asshole is kind of like winning the lottery in 1400s England and Eleanor treats its all like it's the worst kind of torture. Oh no, not the comfy chair!

But then again, throughout this series I've also been a huge sympathetic fangirl of Cwen, so take my subjective opinions with a grain of Nordic salt.

As it is, with an annoying heroine and slow pacing, I couldn't really get behind this particular Champion.
C+

"The Duff," By Kody Keplinger

2011-12-02T19:39:00.000-08:00

The Protagonist: Bianca Piper. When a crass classmate calls her "The Duff" (the Designated Ugly Fat Friend) of her group of friends, she's forced to re-evaluate how she and other people view herself.
The Rub: When this assessment comes right before the collapse of her parents' marriage, Bianca turns to that same crass classmate, Wesley Rush, for physical comfort, and discovers he's also more than he seems.

The Supporting Cast

Wesley Rush: Teenage dirtbag with a heart of gold. Obvious love interest.

Casey: Bianca's BFF from early childhood. Also kind of weirdly possessive about who Bianca may or may not be dating.

Jessica: Bianca's other BFF, whom Casey and Bianca rescued from being enslaved by evil cheerleaders.

Toby Tucker: An erudite, soft-spoken nerd whom Bianca has a crush on.

YA Convention Checklist:

1 Nasty Nickname

1 Surprise Bitchslap

1 Poor Little Rich Boy

1 Secret Affair

1 Case of Parental Drama

1 Case of Grandparental Drama

1 Nerdy Romantic Rival

The Word: The book was a little hard to get into because the main character and her Obvious Love Interest are pretty much entirely unlikeable for the first half of the novel. Bianca, when we first meet her, is a prickly little sourpuss who resents having to squire her bubblier, happier, boobier and prettier friends around town.

One night, while she is determinedly not enjoying herself at a dance club, Wesley Rush, the school's resident Rich Popular Horndog, attempts to chat her up. In fact, he's only being nice to her because he thinks that showing kindness to the least attractive member of a group of pretty girls (i.e. The Duff - the Designated Ugly Fat Friend) is the quickest way to get into the prettier friends' prettier, thinner pants.

Of course, because either a) Wesley is an absolute fucking moron or b) we need an Inciting Incident to start the plot as well as name the book, Wesley tells Bianca all of this to her face, and then acts all surprised when an insulted Bianca not only refuses to guide his dick into her friends' jeans, but throws a drink in his face as well.

Of course, the name sticks, and all of Bianca's nameless insecurities comfortably slide under the Duff umbrella and she starts wondering if she's just the pessimistic third wheel to her boobtacular friends. It doesn't help that Wesley starts calling her "Duffy" whenever they cross paths. And, to not help things even MORE, when Bianca's Parental Drama gets the best of her, she starts having sex with Wesley because that experience is slightly less unpleasant than dealing with her mother's flighty cowardice and her father's impending return to alcoholism.

I tried to sympathize with Bianca, but for the first half of the novel she's such a bitter, cynical pill who just makes ridiculous snap judgments about everyone. For instance, she contemptibly calls the cheerleaders The Skinny Squad, despite the fact that her best friend is a cheerleader and none of the cheerleaders are particularly mean to her. Wesley is just as bad, a cartoonishly insensitive boor we're supposed to eventually identify with once we realize he has Poor Little Rich Boy syndrome, a nasty grandma, and has no dude friends except That One Gay Guy because he's incapable of not stealing their girlfriends.

And their fights aren't really very snappy. None of this witty, quickfire His Girl Friday banter - just Bianca lobbing low-blow insults at Wesley right before (and often right after) they have sex, with Wesley smirking and saying, "See you next week."

What I'm saying is that the "romance" element of this novel kind of stinks, and has a pretty easy resolution at the end - much like the far bigger problem of Bianca's father's alcoholism, which takes a surprisingly dark and vicious turn only to be glossed over under the Happy Ending Umbrella. The writing is simplistic - this was really the kind of book I was hoping to avoid when getting into YA because this was what I assumed most YA was like before Jennifer Echols and Suzanne Collins changed my life.

The novel has some bright spots - most of the scenes with Bianca and her friends, actually. While her friends are sort of portrayed as bubbleheads at the start, over the course of the book we learn the actual origins and politics of their friendship, so that it's not as simple as Wesley makes it out to be. It's not the Plainer Smart Friend paired with the Boobier Blonder Dumb Friends. More like the pessimist who's friends with a pair of optimists, they play off and complement each other. It's the strongest element of the novel, and one that kept me reading.

That being said, the rest of the book talks a big game but fails to play up to it. I'm sorry to say it, but in my pile of YA fiction, this book is pretty much the Duff.
C+.

"The Shadow and the Star," by Laura Kinsale

2011-11-29T18:23:00.000-08:00

The Chick: Leda Etoile. A penniless seamstress gets the shock of her life when she discovers a black-clad man hiding in her room - a man who later hires her as his secretary when she doesn't turn him in.
The Rub: Yes, he's really, really, ridiculously good-looking, but he's also courting another woman, one who is more of his station.
Dream Casting: Kelly Macdonald.

The Dude: Samuel Gerard. Rescued from horrific conditions by the Ashlands, he's dedicated himself to protecting their beautiful daughter, Kai, from the cruelties of the world. But he needs help in courting her, help that Leda could provide.
The Rub: Unfortunately, his desire for Leda far outmatches his affection for Kai, and frightens him to his core.
Dream Casting: Matt Damon.

The Plot:

Leda: Woe is me, I am an impoverished (and now unemployed) seamstress. Hey! Who's that?

Samuel: *ninja appearance* 'Sup.

Leda: HOLY FUCKING SHIT GET THE HELL OUT OF MY ROOM YOU CREEP.

Samuel: You seem to have ninja-broken my leg.

Leda: Oh no! Let me help you with that!

Samuel: Thank you. You are a veritable ninja of kindness.

Leda: You can stop using ninja as a descriptor now.

Samuel: Be my secretary!

Leda: ....what.

Samuel: I can see that my proposition came upon you silently and unawares, much like a --

Leda: DON'T FINISH THAT SENTENCE. Fine. I'll be your secretary.

Samuel: Awesome. God, I wish I wasn't so attracted to her. Ninja boners are the worst boners.

Leda: Wow, he's so perfect. I wish he wasn't trying to marry his sister. Foster sister.

Samuel and Leda: *knock boots*

Samuel's Fams: Don't be a dick, Samuel. Marry her.

Samuel: That is so not ninja.

Leda: Well, now that we've married, I will try to be the best wife for you. And look, your totally not-suspicious Japanese butler has led us all to this ship in the middle of the ocean where no one can hear our cries for help. Not that we'll be making them!

Evil Japanese Villain: Someone order a climax? Do you have a Japanese sword that has had little bearing on the plot? Surprise! It's important!

Samuel: Whoops. *drops sword in ocean*

Random Shark: *eats sword* See you later!

Leda: Well you can't get more ninja than that.

Samuel: OMG I LOVE YOU.

Leda: Hooray!

Romance Convention Checklist:

1 White Ninja

1 Penniless Seamstress

1 Ill Translator

1 Magic (?) Sword

1 Magic(?) Sword Eating Shark

1 Secret Baby

1 Completely Oblivious Romantic Rival

1 Weak-ass Sister-Whipped Romantic Rival

The Word: Laura Kinsale has been able to get me out of a quite a few jams. She'll take stories that, on paper, sound ridiculously fantastical (half-deaf highwaymen and cults? What? A celibate knight who learned oral sex tips from Catholic priests? Wait, what?) and make them into such deep, gorgeously detailed stories of longing and pure, unadulterated romance.

In The Shadow and the Star's case, this book rescued me from a total brain and heart shutdown brought on by reading Judith McNaught's poisonous "no-doesn't-mean-no-mance" Whitney, My Love. Honestly, after Whitney, I didn't want to go near romance novels with a ten-foot pole. Don't get me wrong - by no means do I tar all (or even most, or even 99% of) romance novels with the same rapey brush, but I figured that, at least for a while, every uberalpha male decision I read might very well conjure up echoes of Clayton "Please Don't Make Me Rape You For Your Own Good" Westmoreland. After all, a lot of the basic ideas in Whitney still come up in modern historical romance novels, even if the execution is far better.

But again, if anyone can make me run back into romance's ample, soft, and sweet-smelling bosom (preferably in slow motion, on a windswept beach), it's Laura Kinsale.

With Shadow, Laura Kinsale takes a plot point from the list of "Top Ten Stories You Cannot Possibly Write and Have People Take Seriously" (white ninjas) and proves everyone wrong. As a sequel (of sorts) to The Hidden Heart (which I haven't read but is on the way to my house via Amazon as we speak), this novel apparently deals with the little boy the hero and heroine from the previous book rescued - Samuel Gerard.

Rescued from horrific sexual abuse as a young child by Lord and Lady Ashland of Hawaii, Samuel subsequently learned the art of Japanese warfare from their mysterious butler, Dojun, gaining in skill and technique all the while. As an adult, when he accompanies the Ashlands to England to celebrate the Queen's Jubilee, he uses his ninja training to expose houses of underage repute by stealing priceless cultural artefacts from visiting dignitaries and leading the irate police force to the brothels.

Our heroine, Leda Etoile, a poor seamstress slaving away under a prominent dressmaker, first meets Samuel when he accompanies the party of the Queen and Princess of Hawaii to the dress shop and helps translate for some Japanese dignitaries. While entranced by his loveliness, she knows she's miles out of his league - until one evening when she discovers him hiding in her room with a stolen Japanese sword hilt.

Samuel's bout as England's Child-Prostitution-Fighting Robin Hood comes to an abrupt end when his scuffle with Leda ends with her breaking his leg with her sewing machine. For reasons even she can't fully understand, Lena refuses to turn Samuel in, and he rewards her by hiring her as his new secretary.

The romance between Samuel and Leda is so interesting precisely because both characters are rigidly repressed, albeit in different ways. Samuel's past of sexual abuse has led him to violently distrust sexual desire, identifying it in himself as a dark similarity to the people who first hurt him. His ultimate dream is to court and marry his foster sister, the Ashland's daughter Kai, because he feels no desire (albeit much affection) for her and thus can cherish and protect her from the sufferings of the world that he endured. Unfortunately, he spent too much time learning awesome ninja skills to learn awesome lady skills, and he requires Leda's help and advice.

However, Leda, an orphan who was adopted by a wild tribe of impoverished widows and spinsters, knows only the strictest and most proper rules of deportment. She clings to her rules because she knows no other way to survive in the world. Both characters are terrified of their feelings for each other, but still come to express it in astonishing and lovely ways.

I particularly liked Leda, probably because we get more of her current POV (we don't get to see how Samuel sees Leda until about the halfway mark). She gets in on the ground floor when it comes to Samuel, discovering firsthand his ninja training and his darkness (which he's kept secret from the Ashlands), and learning to love him going on from that, which is a marked contrast from Kai, who is bubbly but oblivious, and knows only the surface of Samuel that he shows to everyone.

Samuel, meanwhile, is a study of contrasts. At once confident in his training and desperately insecure about his life (his past has convinced him that no one can truly love him), intelligent about some things and blindingly ignorant about others, he is a mystery for much of the novel.

Another thing I loved, no, adored about this novel was the details and the settings, which are almost characters in their own right. The novel plays a delightful tightrope between conventional settings (1890s London and English countryside) and the fantastically unconventional (the burgeoning cultural mosaic of the Hawaiian islands, and the Japanese demon-sword subplot). These details are both relevantly portrayed and seamlessly integrated into the storyline, so I never felt I was reading an historical diatribe, but rather exploring a fully-realized world, with strong English, Hawaiian, and Japanese influences.

The only small misstep was the ending, which had a bit of a bizarre climax (in which Leda does little except cry and act terrified), but it's only a small element of dissonance in quite a magnificent and original novel.

A+, as usual.

VIDEO REVIEW: "Whitney, My Love," by Judith McNaught

2011-11-06T16:43:00.000-08:00

*WARNING: Images of childish, petty and disrespectful reader rage ahead. You've been warned. This is what happens when a girl with too much time on her hands and too many cold meds on the brain decides to express her opinions with a video camera. Written review to follow in a couple of days!*

"Whitney, My Love," by Judith McNaught

2011-10-25T19:18:00.000-07:00

The Chick: Whitney Stone. She's in love with her neighbour, Paul Sevarin, and will do anything in her power to get him.
The Rub: Too bad there's a guy out there willing to do anything in his power to get her - and because he's got boyparts, his stalking is far more effective and romantic.
Dream Casting: Ashley Rickards.

The Hero: Clayton Westmoreland, Duke of Westmoreland. He gets what he wants.
The Rub: ...But he doesn't always want what he gets.
Dream Casting: Rufus Sewel. Or the Devil. Whichever.

The Plot:

Clayton: One way, or another, I'm gonna find ya,
I'm gonna getcha getcha getcha getcha.
One way, or another, I'm gonna buy ya,
I'm gonna getcha getcha getcha getcha.

One way, or another, I'm gonna wed ya,
I'm gonna wed ya, wed ya, wed ya, wed ya.
One day, maybe next week,
I'm gonna own ya. I'll own ya! I'll own ya!

But I'll suspect you're a whore,
So I can mistreat you some more.
What are apologies for?

One way, or another, I'm gonna deflower ya,
I'm gonna getcha getcha getcha getcha.
Then I'll discover I'm wrong,
And then I'll woo ya. I'll woo ya! I'll woo ya!

One way, or another, you will forgive me,
You will forgive me, give me, give me, give me.
And then, I'll re-suspect you,
I'll re-mistreat ya. Mistreat ya! Mistreat ya!

Whitney: Wow, you're a total jerkface.
Who wants to keep me in my place.
I should spray you with mace.

Clayton: WHO SAID YOU GOT YOUR OWN VERSE?

Whitney: I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I just love it when you get all shouty!

Clayton: Love you. Now go make me a sandwich.

Whitney: HOORAY!

Romance Convention Checklist:

1 Evil Misogynist Wrathful Abusive Bastard Hero

1 Hoydenish Doormat Self-Blaming Deserves Better Heroine

2 Sexual Assaults

1 ~~Rape~~ Forceful Deflowering

Several Enabling and Victim-Blaming Relatives

1 Wimpy Romantic Rival

1 Less Wimpy But Still Ineffective Romantic Rival

1 Bitchy McBitchFace

The Word: How does one begin to review the most offensive, frightening, repulsive book one has ever read?

Well, I suppose I could begin with an apology to Fern Michaels, who previously held that esteemed title on on this blog. I may have hated your writing, Ms. Michaels, but the worst you ever did was inaccurately use the English language and include too many dogs.

And before you get all up in arms, I read the sanitized re-issue of Whitney, My Love, where the hero almost whips and almost rapes Whitney. How almost romantic.

But this really isn't a romance. This is a dark, psychological horror story of how a mentally-unhinged stalker and psychotic mastermind emotionally, physically, and sexually abuses a teenage girl into loving him. And he wins in the end. Hooray.

But maybe I should back up, and talk about Clayton's ~~victim~~ ~~sexual obsession~~ romantic interest: Whitney Stone. She starts out the novel as a pretty hateful little hellion with a budding stalker career of her own: she's determined to pursue and catch her hot gentleman neighbour, Paul Sevarin, with or without his consent. Her antics have already resulted in considerable damage to Sevarin's pride, personal property, as well as his person when one of her more brilliant attempts leaves him with a broken leg.

The entire neighbourhood kind of hates her because she takes her Angst and Daddy Issues out on other people in the form of "harmless" but actually quite dreadful and humiliating pranks. Finally, Dear Old Daddy has had enough of Whitney's crazy and decides to pack her off to France with her kinder and more tolerant uncle and aunt. There, Whitney comes to her senses and decides to clean up her act and win over Sevarin the old-fashioned (consensual) way.

Unfortunately, in France, she comes under the gaze of Clayton Westmoreland, who, after three years of silently watching her and one conversation during a masked ball, decides he must possess her. Despite the fact that he doesn't love her because he doesn't believe love exists.

Our Totally Rational Hero then hands Whitney's debt-ridden father a crisp cheque for one hundred thousand pounds in return for Whitney's hand in marriage, under the condition that Daddy Dearest keep Clayton's betrothal and true identity a secret so that Clayton may have a chance to court Whitney and give her the pretense of having a choice.

However, while Clayton has no problem putting a hundred thousand pounds towards new servants, dresses, and jewels for Whitney - he's not paying for backtalk. When they first meet, Whitney takes an immediate dislike to him, since he spends a great deal of their first conversation talking to her boobs. When they meet again at a ball, Clayton tries to get handsy and Whitney tells him off. Clayton responds by sexually assaulting her for the first time, on page 137:

It happened so quickly, there was no time to react. A hand like a vice shot out and seized her wrist, spinning her around back into the shadows, and jerking her into his arms. "I think," he enunciated in an awful voice, "that your problem is purely a matter of inexperienced teachers."

His mouth crushed down on hers, mercilessly bruising her lips, forcing them to part from sheer pressure.

Whitney writhed futilely in his iron embrace while tears of impotent rage raced down her cheeks. The more she struggled, the more insolent and punishing his mouth became, until she finally grew still, defeated and trembling in his arms.

Clayton really knows how to put the sensual in non-consensual. This sort of behaviour continues for much of the first half of the novel - he continues to spar with an increasingly-irate Whitney until his store of Amused Tolerance for Feminine Defiance runs dry (which doesn't take that long), after which he swiftly resorts to force, manipulation, or outright violence.

As I mentioned in my article over at Heroes and Heartbreakers about "How Alpha is Too Alpha?", an overly-aggressive hero is only tolerable if the heroine is capable of taking care of herself, and if the power in their relationship is evenly divided. The lack of this is exactly this novel's main problem. Through the entire novel, Clayton has all the power in their relationship. He's bought and paid for Whitney, and he's a hugely powerful and influential Duke. Whitney never wins a single argument or confrontation with Clayton, because Clayton has no qualms with crossing the line and using force once the argument doesn't turn his way.

What's worse, and what made this novel tear at the insides of my heart and brain, is how Whitney - and every other "good" character - slowly comes over to Clayton's side of things through copious amounts of victim-blaming. The worse he gets, the worse Whitney blames herself. Oh, if only she could control her fiery temper, then she wouldn't try poor Clayton's patience so badly he tried to beat her with a riding crop! Oh, if only she hadn't hurt Clayton's feelings, he wouldn't have sexually assaulted her for a second time! Oh, if only she'd put a stop to other people's gossip, than she wouldn't have embarrassed Clayton into trying to rape her! Oh, if only she hadn't been so stubborn and just capitulated to Clayton's advances, Clayton would never have had to get angry and force himself on her.

Woe is Whitney, her uncontrollable uppityness just keeps getting her into scrapes! GOOD THING SHE FOUND A MAN STRONG ENOUGH TO KEEP HER IN HAND.

Book - meet wall. Literally.

But enough about violence against women - let's talk about how this book fails as an actual book. For a novel that really is all about Clayton Westmoreland, we get little to no backstory or character development for him. He just shows up as a Big Dark Duke and we're supposed to go, "Oh, that's cool. Don't bother telling us any more about your life and personal interests and foibles and fears. You're hot and rich, which is clearly all that we care about when it comes to romantic heroes. No personality necessary."

In later books, Judith McNaught at least tries to give her asshat heroes some sort of backstory or motivation for why they're total assholes about and around women - like a slutty mum or a slutty ex-lover or several slutty mistresses (seeing a pattern here?). Clayton has none of that. He's the product of a love match and he has a fond, positive relationship with his mother. His ex-mistress is not only not a Raving Psychotic Bitch, but she's actually kind of awesome and nice. There's absolutely no development or reason given for why he's so incredibly suspicious and cruel towards Whitney. None.

And this book needs a reason - because the primary source of drama in this novel is Clayton's Mindbogglingly Irrational Ignorance and Distrust of All Things Whitney. Clayton's mind follows a pretty simple pattern:

Clayton loves Whitney totally and utterly, until,
Clayton comes across a scrap of iffy circumstantial evidence,
Clayton jumps to the absolute worst of conclusions (Occam's Razor? What's that? Whitney totally cheated on me with zebras! Not horses!)
Clayton knocks Whitney around and acts like a jackhole
Clayton finds out that whoops, he was totally wrong
Clayton apologizes and is quickly forgiven, and is totally in love with her again, until,
See #2.

The biggie, of course, is when he overhears gossip of Whitney and Paul's engagement (that Whitney had been unable to quell) - and he immediately assumes that Whitney has been cheating on him and by the time he tracks her down he's also convinced she banged a hella lot of other dudes, including stableboys. This, of course, precedes the scene where he drags her off to his estate, literally rips her clothes off, and takes out his trust issues on her hymen, consent-optional. He then apologizes by showing up at a wedding she's attending and looking sadly and soulfully at her until she feels sorry for him.

Whitney, My Love would have been slightly more palatable if this had been the worst and last thing Clayton did. But no.

At that same wedding reception, Whitney's rude to him while they dance - and he then assumes she's an uncontrollable slut again and dumps her again and starts dating some nasty bitchy rival and has to be dragged back, kicking and screaming, by his brother and Whitney herself to see fucking reason. Yes. Whitney, sixty pages after being pretty much raped by Clayton, has to go and BEG Clayton to take her back.

You'd think that would be end. You'd think that discovering he stole his soulmate's virginity for the wrong reason (because there is a right reason?) would make a guy a little more careful about interpreting ambiguous signals, BUT NO.

After he wrongfully accused Whitney of Ho'ing it up and was proven wrong ON TWO SEPARATE OCCASIONS, after they're married and Whitney's preggers, he comes across a scrap of a letter Whitney had written about possibly being pregnant months ago and a) assumes Whitney's kid ain't his, b) decides Whitney's a dirty, dirty whore who never loved him and c) conveniently forgets THE FIRST TWO FUCKING TIMES HE CAME TO THE SAME CONCLUSION AND TURNED OUT TO BE TOTALLY AND COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY WRONG.

And by this point, Whitney won't even let him apologize - the book implies it's because she wuvs him too much let this proud glorious manly man debase himself by admitting he could be wrong about anything, but I like to think it's because even Whitney doesn't want to stretch the story out any longer.

Again - there's no character development, backstory, or motivation given for why someone like Clayton would jump to all these heinous conclusions about Whitney. His actions also beg the obvious question of why Clayton would bother paying 100,000 pounds for a woman he's clearly afraid to leave alone with a vibrating showerhead. But whatever.

This book - ugh. I've never felt so angry reading a book. I also wrote an article about it over at Heroes and Heartbreakers - but even now, I still feel so full of words and emotions about how terrible, how hurtful this book was. It said so many wrong things about men (particularly, how men who are respectful and take "no" for an answer are weak and simply don't "want" it enough) and incredibly, offensively wrong things about women (particularly a scene where a secondary female character finally uses her "natural feminine wiles" - to lie in order to manipulate her man into proposing marriage. Wonder why all McNaught's heroes suspect women are lying, conniving, sluts?).

ROMANCE: YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG.
F-

"The American Heiress," by Daisy Goodwin

2011-10-19T18:35:00.000-07:00

The Protagonist: Cora Cash. A spirited and insanely wealthy heiress to a flour fortune, despite her mother's machinations and the gossips from two nations, she nevertheless manages to marry for love.
The Rub: ... or does she? As she wades deeper into British society as a newly-minted Duchess, she discovers secrets and lies surrounding her aristocratic husband and his circle of friends.

The Supporting Cast:

Ivo, the Duke of Maltravers: An impoverished aristocrat who inherited the title when his beloved brother suddenly died, he guiltily devotes himself to his estates and holdings - longing to bring them up to the standard to which they used to exist. And this fetching, lovely, and besotted flour heiress could very well be the answer to all of his life's problems.

Teddy Van Der Leyden: When Cora wanted to elope with him, he held back, self-conscious about how her vast wealth would affect their relationship. Now that she's married to a Duke, he's kicking himself for his hesitation.

The Double Duchess: Ivo's mother, who scandalized society by marrying the Duke of Buckingham right after her previous husband, the Duke of Maltravers, died. Likes sex. Dislikes American daughters-in-law.

Bertha: Cora's loyal African-American lady's maid, who shares a relationship with a white footman.

Mrs. Nancy Cash: Cora's social-climbing mother. Suffers from severe burns on the right side of her face from an electrical-dress accident. Yes, you read that correctly.

Lady Charlotte Beauchamp: Cora's "friend" and Ivo's former mistress who is willing to do just about anything to get back into Ivo's good graces - if she isn't already.

Sir Odo Beauchamp: Charlotte's cruel and vaguely-creepy-but-in-an-unexplained-way husband.

The Word: When I first picked up this novel, I was expecting a good story, some interesting history, and a heaping spoonful of well-written scandal. What I got was, more or less, an historical romance novel.

Not that there's anything wrong with that - as you can clearly see by the content of my blog! I love romance, historical romance especially. It's just that when I pick up a novel marked as fiction, my expectations are slightly different, story-wise. I expected a different sort of narrative focus, and while there is some of that, it's mostly a highly romantic tale - which makes me wonder, why wasn't this published and marketed as a romance?

A lot of times, these sorts of situations make me think of the Romance Novel Catch 22 - There are no good romance novels because when a novel is truly "good," it's no longer marketed as a romance - because there are no good romance novels. That's why my local Chapters considers Jennifer Crusie's novels to be "Women's Fiction," which is ridiculous.

Anyway, American Heiress has a basic concept quite familiar to readers of historical romance (Lisa Kleypas' books in particular) - Cora Cash is a fashionable, spoilt, free-spirited and unbelievably wealthy heiress who is taken abroad by her mother in order to land an impoverished British aristocrat to marry, essentially "purchasing" his title and the cachet that comes with it.

Cora agrees to the scheme mainly out of guilt. Back in New York, she thought she was in love with Teddy Van Der Leyden, the scion of a less-wealthy but incredibly old-school New York family, but when her mother's head literally caught fire at the sight of them kissing (I'm not kidding, you have to read it to believe it), Cora assuages her guilt by crossing the Atlantic.

And, entirely by accident, she succeeds at her plan - by falling off her horse in a wood belonging to Ivo, Duke of Maltravers, a handsome, duty-bound aristocrat with a mountain of debts and a crumbling estate. After a brief, sudden courtship, they are betrothed, and after a money-drenched spectacle of a wedding, Cora finds that adjusting to traditional English life is not as simple as she assumed.

Again, romance readers will know exactly where this is going. Culture shocks abound - Cora realizes she cannot buy tradition and history, something her husband and his friends value highly. Ivo has a Dark Past that would do any Alpha Romance Hero proud - he's got a Bitchy Whore Mother, a Bitchy Whore Ex-Mistress, and a Mysteriously-Dead-In-An-Accident Older Brother. And nobody's really sure, least of all Cora, if Ivo's Bitchy Whore Ex-Mistress is really an Ex at all.

It's a delightful book if you love opulent detail, high-society shenanigans, and ssssecretsss. Since this book is almost-but-not-quite a romance, the story has the liberty to explore a larger circle of characters instead of entirely focusing on the main two. The points of view gracefully bounce around most of the main characters, allowing the reader a peek into everyone's particular story. There are lots of secrets and angst, so believe me, even though the book begins with Cora paying her maid $75 to make out with her and a woman in a dress made out of lightbulbs spontaneously bursting into flame, it's not all downhill from there.

It's also written quite well, with a reliable balance between wordplay, detail and story-telling. There are some historically-questionable moments (like death duties and the fact that Bertha somehow believes that interracial marriages would be tolerated in 1890s London) but oh! The descriptions of clothes! The high society parties! The barely-veiled bitchy one-liners!

However, if you are a romance reader and read this book with the same expectations, you are going to be disappointed, because the character who receives the least explanation and development is Ivo. True, he is the novel's central mystery, as Cora has to wade through suspicions and self-doubt to discover whether she was married for love or money. However, their relationship isn't particularly well handled, his character is often crude and inconsistent, and the conclusion to their story was surprisingly, unbelievably abrupt, with little payoff. Just for all the hoity-toity "romance is trash" types - a romance novel would typically have handled the ending way more gracefully than this book did.

Nevertheless, this was a fun book. Not necessarily realistic and not necessarily consistent, it was still well-paced, well-written, and just plain entertaining (barring the sudden conclusion).
B+

Future Plans, and So Forth

2011-10-18T19:28:00.000-07:00

So, it's been a while since I've done a personal entry on this blog. What's next for Gossamer Obsessions?

More reviews! Thankfully. I'm currently writing the review for The American Heiress by Daisy Goodwin, but I have also started reading one of Judith McNaught's most infamous novel, Whitney, My Love and I am LiveTweeting it - click on the little origami twitter bird on the upper right hand corner if you would like to follow along as I explore that historical novel's unique brand of WTFuckery.

I've also started writing for Heroes and Heartbreakers - my first article came out on the 13th, but I've sent another one in. Not only do they publish my opinions - but they pay. Pretty much the closest I can get to free money.

I'm also participating in NaNoWriMo this year, and trying to get into the social aspect of it a well. I've actually tried to change the way I write my first draft of my latest venture, change it to the point of writing my first draft on computer and paper. Normally I just did it longhand, but it's frankly gotten too slow (I've been working on it - not very steadily, mind you - since July, and I'm barely a couple of chapters in) and my hand cramps, and it's inconvenient.

So yeah. When I'm out of the house, at work or a coffee shop, I'll write my novel in my fancy notebooks with florid handwriting. But at home? I'm going to actually try the laptop, and just discipline myself from overediting and becoming distracted. I don't know if I'll ever be as prolific as some of my favourite authors, but I need to move faster than this snail's pace I've been setting lately.

So let's see how that goes. 'Ta, readers.

"The Summer of You," by Kate Noble

2011-10-13T19:24:00.000-07:00

The Chick: Lady Jane Cummings. When her father's illness threatens to become public, she's ordered by her brother to pack up and move to their summer cottage in Reston, a.k.a. the middle of nowhere.
The Rub: There's not a lot to do in Reston except hang out with the locals - and the most interesting local might also have a highwayman past.
Dream Casting: Bryce Dallas Howard.

The Dude: Mr. Byrne Worth. Determined not to burden Society or his brothers with his struggle to regain his health and sobriety, he retreats to a little house he inherited in Reston, hoping to be left alone.
The Rub: Since Byrne became the mysterious newcomer with a dark past, the curious townsfolk - as well as Lady Jane - aren't likely to let that happen.
Dream Casting: Matt Bomer.

The Plot:

Jackass Brother Jason: How DARE you take our sick father to doctors who might help him! That's so irresponsible! *takes off to nearest pub once the family arrives in Reston*

Byrne: Did you lose one Jackass Brother?

Jane: I don't suppose you could be prevailed upon to keep him?

Byrne: *arched eyebrow*

Jane: Wow, you are automatically more interesting than anyone else in this town.

Anyone Else In This Town: Stay away from him! He's a criminal!

Jane: On what grounds?

Anyone Else In This Town: On the grounds that we don't like him!

Jane and Byrne: ...

Jane: I don't care - let's get it on!

Jackass Brother Jason: GROSS.

The Town: SCANDALOUS.

Byrne: Did I mention I found out who the highwayman is?

The Town: Oh, jolly good.

Byrne: So no apology, then? For locking me up and avoiding me and treating me like dirt?

The Town: ....oh look, a distraction! *runs away*

Jane: Don't worry - let's get married and make you a magistrate! That'll show 'em!

Byrne: HOORAY!

Romance Convention Checklist:

1 Sick Father

1 Packet of Incriminating Letters

Several Jars of Jam

1 Silver-Tipped Cane

1 Instance of Skinny-Dipping

1 Annoying Brother

1 Secondary Romance

1 Stolen Doctor's Bag

The Word: We were first introduced to Lady Jane in Kate Noble's previous book, Revealed, as heroine Phillipa's social nemesis. Her story begins during the celebration of Phillipa and Marcus' wedding, when her relentlessly selfish and callow brother Jason (recently returned from the Continent) tracks her down during the party to give her a scathing set-down.

Jane and Jason's father, the Duke of Rayne, has been slowly succumbing to dementia, and both siblings know that the formerly brilliant intellectual would hate to have his mental deterioration made public. However, Jane and her father's stay in Town, not to mention Jane's various dealings with doctors regarding her father's situation, has exposed their father to public scrutiny.

Jason decides to nip the problem in the bud by ordering Jane and their father to their estate in the Lake District. Appalled at her forced social exile, Jane nevertheless believes the change in scenery would be beneficial to her father - but she refuses to allow Jason to skip out on his own responsibilities yet again and blackmails him into accompanying them.

However, their carriage barely slows down in the Lake District village of Reston before Jason skips off to be the pretentiously annoying prick that he is and, unsurprisingly, winds up flat on his face in a mud puddle after several pints too many at the local Disreputable Pub. He is rescued and returned to Jane relatively undamaged by none other than Byrne Worth, Marcus' older brother from Revealed. It seems he now lives in a tiny cottage on Jane's property that he inherited from his aunt, and the locals of Reston shun and avoid him - partly because he is incredibly rude and unpleasant, but mostly because they fear he's the mysterious highwayman who's been terrorizing the village for the last few months.

For Jane, stuck between the Rock of a Beloved Parent's Illness and the Hard Place of being the most Popular Person in the Countrified Middle of Nowhere, going off to thank and then befriend Byrne is a joyful escape. They bond and grow even closer as they decide to solve the mystery of the local highwayman, all the while avoiding nosy locals, lovestruck secondary characters, mischievous children, and of course Jason, who just can't seem to get through the day without being a Royal Jackass to at least one person.

Let's start with what I didn't like - unlike Revealed, the plot here is light and meandering, if not outright aimless. Jane's ploy to spend more time with Byrne routing out the highwayman is just that, a ploy - when the highwaymen are revealed, it's a last minute "aha" moment that Byrne does on his own. Also, I don't feel we got to know a hell of a lot about Byrne. His main plot is that he wants to (and mostly has) overcome his opium addiction and his bum leg by himself without help from anyone, but apart from that we don't really dig into his psyche or his motivations very much, and I was disappointed - especially considering his brother Marcus Worth is one of the greatest romantic heroes ever (even when he's not in his own book!). However, I did enjoy that Jane liked getting physical with Byrne but was able to break it off before things went too far too fast.

What I did like was the setting, the humour and the description. I'm a visual reader with romances (particularly historical ones) and it was very easy to visualize the scenes in this book and it made the humour quite enjoyable. It's difficult to write humorous novels because comedy is so dependent on timing - and how do you control that with words that are read and not spoken or acted?

In the first Kate Noble novel I read, Compromised, I compared Kate Noble to Julia Quinn. I find the comparison comes up once again in The Summer Of You, only in this case, Kate Noble comes out the winner. Like Quinn, she creates a lovable cast of characters and a humorous social atmosphere in the town of Reston - however, unlike Quinn, she's not afraid to give her setting realistic friction. Reston is countrified, and Noble demonstrates that it's not necessarily a good thing - just a different thing. There are deep-seated resentments and prejudices and very real flaws in everyone, including our protagonists, and Noble's writing actually acknowledges that they are flaws, and not just cutesy "quirks." This gives her setting a gritty edge that makes the humour and moments of positivity pop out more.

I've found that Julia Quinn's writing of late (particularly in her latter Bridgerton books) never really paints her characters (those who aren't obvious villains of course) in any sort of negative light. Eloise's invasive and shrewish nature is never called out - other characters just say she's "inquisitive" and laugh it off. Or Hyacinth - who is incredibly rude and self-centred, but that just makes her "unique." Quinn never really acknowledges that her characters have anything wrong with them other than low self-esteem (that's usually cured by the HEA). In Summer of You, Jason eventually comes around, but his selfish and lazy nature isn't just shrugged off by Jane as "just who he is." That being said, he's played the part of the Asshole Brother so well I'm not sure how he'll actually do as a romantic hero in Noble's next book, Follow My Lead.

However, if you like humour, good heroine characterizaton and a gentle storyline and don't mind slow pacing and loose narrative focus, you're sure to enjoy The Summer of You.
B

"A Summer to Remember," by Mary Balogh

2011-10-08T20:23:00.001-07:00

The Chick: Lauren Edgeworth. After being humiliatingly abandoned at the altar, this well-bred lady has no intention of entering into marriage ever again.
The Rub: While marriage is out of the question, a bogus engagement to a scoundrel is perfect - and it keeps her well-meaning relatives from meddling.
Dream Casting: Keira Knightley.

The Dude: Christopher "Kit" Butler, Viscount Ravensberg. What's the best way to avoid an unwanted engagement? Fake another engagement - to a different woman.
The Rub: His relationship with Lauren may be false, but his feelings for her are increasingly real. But how will he convince her that the best ending to a fake engagement is a real wedding?
Dream Casting: Hugh Dancy.

The Plot:

Well-Meaning Relatives: Lauren, you should get married again.

Lauren: Um, no.

Kit's Drunken Friends: Bet you 50 bucks you can't marry Lauren Edgeworth by the end of June!

Kit: CHALLENGE ACCEPTED.

Lauren: LOL NO.

Kit: *shamed* For pretendsies, then?

Lauren: Let me think about it -

Kit: COOL! Let's go swimming!

Lauren: NO.

Kit: Let's climb trees!

Lauren: NO, THE SEQUEL: NO HARDER.

Kit: Let's have awesome Pity Sex to get me over my Guilt Issues!

Lauren: What is wrong with you?

Kit: Wheeeeeeee!

Freyja Bedwyn: Hey y'all, I'm here to provide romantic tension and also to show off what a fabulous bitch I am. *BITCH GLARE*

Lauren: *Bitchier Bitch Glare*

Freyja: Touche. Exit stage left!

Kit: Awesome! Now we can get married now!

Lauren: NO.

Kit: ...

Lauren: And now YES!

Kit: HOORAY!

Romance Convention Checklist:

1 Half-Naked Fist Fight

1 Fake Engagement

3 Rowdy Friends

1 Crippled Brother

1 Set of Guilt Issues

1 Set of Abandonment Issues

1 Bitchy Romantic Rival

The Word: We first met Lauren in One Night For Love, when her world was shattered into a million emotionally unstable pieces when her wedding to the Earl of Kilbourne collapsed when he discovered his previous, thought-dead wife Lily was very much alive. She spent most of that novel wandering around looking ghastly and making everyone feel guilty, but in A Summer to Remember she's regained her poise and is trying to recover and move on.

However, her well-meaning relatives keep trying to match her with suitable gentlemen, and everyone is so kind and pitying towards the poor, rejected spinster, that Lauren is slowly going mad all over again.

Salvation unexpectedly arrives in the form of Kit Butler, Viscount Ravensberg. He's also having matchmaking problems, you see. Formerly the black sheep of the family until an unfortunate death made him the heir, he's discovered his father intends to announce Kit's engagement to the sister of one of their neighbours. Stung by his overbearing father's controlling behaviour but aware of his duty, Kit decides the more mature and responsible way to say, "suck it, Dad!" is to marry someone else before his dad can make anything official.

But because he is still a bit of an irrepressible cad, Kit allows his drunken friends to make a wager out of it. Kit needs a respectable bride, and there's no one more rigidly proper in Society than Lauren Edgeworth - but surely she's far too high in the instep to consider someone with such a rakish reputation.

Kit sets about seducing Lauren Edgeworth with enthusiasm, and he's unwittingly aided by Lauren's friends who are so stuffily opposed to his presence that Lauren finds herself acceding to his outlandish overtures just to spite them. However, to this reader's very great relief, the whole "seduction as wager" plotline quickly dissolves before the end of the first act when a) Kit realizes he likes Lauren in spite of himself and b) Lauren sees right through Kit's facade.

However, given a brief taste of flirtation and romance, Lauren agrees to the arrangement of a false betrothal. While she's accepted her future as one of quiet, staid spinsterhood, she will pretend to be Kit's fiancee to fend off his father's matchmaking antics if, in return, he will provide her with one adventurous, romantic summer before they both part ways.

Of course, part of the arrangement involves Lauren travelling with Kit to his family estate in order to celebrate the birthday of his grandmother, and that's where she discovers that the sunny, charming Kit hides quite a wealth of dark family history beneath his cheerful smile, beginning with a younger brother who followed Kit into the war but returned a maimed cripple, and continuing with the coldly resentful family members of Kit's intended fiancee, Freyja Bedwyn (yes, those Bedwyns). Freyja, it turns out, was once the love of Kit's young life before she spurned him, and she is definitely not pleased to find their positions reversed, and in favour of a milk-and-water-miss like Lauren, no less.

Despite all this history and drama, Mary Balogh never resorts to histrionics. This story is a slow, steady, quiet exploration of English scenery and character development, as most of Balogh's novels are. And, since Lauren and Kit are fascinating characters, generally I enjoyed it - although, and this may just have been due to the mood I was in while reading it, I found myself getting a little impatient with the pacing three-quarters through.

Thanks to life dealing her a Royal Flush of Abandonment Issues (from her parents, her father's family, and eventually the Earl of Kilbourne), Lauren's lived her life striving for approval from others, never putting so much as a toe out of line, desperate to appear perfect and poised and worthy of love and security. At the beginning of the novel, it's hard not to pity her, having endured rejection after rejection.

Her dependence on propriety is so ingrained that it takes quite a bit of effort on Kit's part to shake a few curls loose, and convince her to live for herself. Balogh uses a nice bit of word play on the difference between "lady" and "woman" in regards to Lauren's behaviour - she's spent so much time being the perfect lady that she's had no time to explore the kind of woman she really is. And once she does - again, to Balogh's credit - she doesn't immediately transform into the Secret Hoyden Who Loves Wearing Pants. She's actually pretty normal, just a lot happier.

It's also interesting to compare Lauren to Freyja - as the novel frequently and explicitly does. Freyja does embody the typical wallpaper heroine who Cares Nothing For Society's Strictures (at least in this novel), and these types of heroines regularly do triumph over the proper and well-bred misses - and Freyja would have done just that if this novel had been written by, say, Judith McNaught. Thankfully, Mary Balogh's got this - and it's compelling stuff to watch just how Kit (and Lauren) discover Freyja wouldn't be a perfect match for Kit - this novel is about how Kit grows up and moves on from his reckless past, while Freyja clearly hasn't.

As per the usual, Mary Balogh crafts a solid, enjoyably romantic novel that looks upon stock romance characters from a different perspective.
B+

"The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making," by Cathrynne M. Valente

2011-09-25T13:20:00.000-07:00

The Protagonist: September Morning Bell. A partially Heartless little girl in WWII-era Nebraska who gets the chance to escape her boring life and fly off into Fairyland.
The Rub: Living a fairytale adventure is exciting, but a happy ending isn't necessarily guaranteed.

The Secondary Cast:

Ell, a.k.a. "A-through-L": A half-wyvern son of a library with encyclopedic knowledge (except for things beginning with M and beyond).

Saturday: A marid - a wish-granting water spirit who is rescued by September.

The Green Wind: A jolly air spirit to steals September off into Fairyland and lends her his sentient smoking jacket.

The Leopard of Small Breezes: A large cat who, with the Green Wind, helps September fly through Fairyland.

The Marquess: A curly-haired little girl who is not nearly as kind and forgiving as September - she rules Fairyland with a tiny, soft, adorable iron fist.

Fantasy Convention Checklist

1 Alternate Dimension

Several Significant Clocks

1 Enthusiastic Key

Countless Ineffective Victual Loopholes

1 Surprise Appearance of an Offspring

1 Magic Wrench

2 Windy Cats

1 Remarkably Teary Backstory

1 Lost Shadow

The Word: I adored Cathrynne M. Valente's The Orphan's Tales, the groundbreaking, soul-shattering two-volume collection of stories-within-stories-within-stories, so when I was offered the chance to review a copy of her new children's book, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, I knew this was an opportunity I couldn't pass up.

What little I knew of the book before going in was that it was an attempt to recreate the Victorian/Edwardian children's novel - and, true enough, The Girl nails that balance between sugar-coated whimsy and razor-sharp menace. Some of the best horror of 19th and 20th century literature (and film!) was made for children. And even though most contemporary stuff tries to keep the scary bits out, that only means that kids will go looking for it somewhere else, because being a child is the absolute best time to have the pants scared off you by books.

In my elementary-school and junior high days, I turned to R.L. Stine - and not even his goofy-scary Goosebumps series, but his older, teenage-slasher books where stepsisters and ex-boyfriends and mysterious foreign exchange students stabbed the more interesting characters until the less interesting characters found them out and reported them to the authorities.

I used to think that I didn't want to be scared or disturbed anymore. Heck, I don't like trying any carnival rides riskier than the merry-go-round. But with people like Neil Gaiman (Coraline) and now Cathrynne M. Valente bringing it back, it's past time to rediscover just how well a little terror can spice up a thrilling adventure.

Our protagonist, September, is swept away from a normal, boring life in Nebraska by the Green Wind, and this ill-tempered, well-read, and mostly Heartless youngster (a term very likely borrowed from J.M. Barrie, whose Peter Pan was all about how children are voracious little sociopaths before maturity grants them a conscience) finds herself in Fairyland. But this isn't Disney's Fairyland - this is Old School fairyland, where there are sharp teeth behind every smile, tricks hidden beneath every treat, and very real, dangerous consequences for every decision September makes.

While searching for an adventure, September captures the attention of the Marquess, the tyrannical young despot who rules Fairyland with an iron fist and a splendid hat. This solves September's quest for a quest rather nicely, as the Marquess has definite plans for September and not all of them involve September surviving until the end.

Besides borrowing from Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland, Narnia, Greek mythology, fairy folklore, and dozens of other stories, Valente's storytelling also succeeds because it maintains an undercurrent of reality that follows September around the labyrinth of fantasy like Ariadne's thread. Although September is at first apathetic towards the life she left behind, it subtly seeps into her memories, behaviour and consciousness regardless, such as her fears for her father (who is fighting overseas) and her isolation from her mother (who fixes machines in a factory).

And September herself is a tough, resourceful little nut - a nice, modern change from the sweet-natured little Pollyannas who normally tumble down rabbit holes and walk through wardrobes and get carried away by tornadoes. As the novel progresses, September is forced to make some drastic, painful changes in order to rescue her friends, most especially in how she creates that "ship of her own making" - but I won't spoil that for you.

As much as I loved this book, I could just have easily have hated it. A book like this requires a delicate balance between a number of factors, but Valente pretty much nails it - it's old-fashioned while still being relevant, the worldbuilding is fluid without being inconsistent, the language is self-referential without being twee, and while it subtly and not-so-subtly references a number of previous books and materials, it still remains its own original creation.

I honestly can't describe any more of the book to you - that would be an immense disservice, because, like Narnia and Oz, the joy comes from exploring the discovering Fairyland on one's own. The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland is a lively literary gumbo that will not only have you racing through it, but will have you poring through the children's section of your library to re-read the classics that brought both you and Cathrynne M. Valente to this point.
A+

Book-To-Film Review: "The Help," by Kathryn Stockett

2011-09-18T12:37:00.001-07:00

The Principal Cast:

Aibileen Clark: A maid of considerable experience, particularly in the area of raising babies. She currently works for a white woman who neglects and emotionally abuses her 2-year-old daughter.

Minny Jackson: A maid with an unfortunate tendency to sassmouth her employers who goes to work for a social outcast when a vengeful former boss blacklists her among the more respectable members of society.

Skeeter Phelan: A privileged young white woman who recently graduated with a degree in journalism and is eager to write something meaningful as well as publishable - and winds up in something way over her head.

The Supporting Cast:

Charlotte Phelan: Skeeter's ambitious, disapproving, rigidly conservative mother.

Elizabeth Leefolt: A high school friend of Skeeter's, and Aibileen's employer. A weak-willed social climber who looks to Hilly Holbrook for advice.

Hilly Holbrook: Another soon-to-be former friend of Skeeter's, and the novel's principal antagonist. Founder of the Home Help Sanitation Initiative, a program that requires people to install separate bathrooms for their coloured servants.

Celia Foote: A busty blonde rejected by Hilly and her friends for being a white-trash girl who married up. Slovenly and incapable of cooking, she hires Minny in secret in order to convince her husband she's capable wife material.

Constantine Jefferson: Skeeter's family's former maid who was fired under mysterious circumstances.

Stuart Whitworth: The son of the state senator who takes a shine to Skeeter.

The Word: In many ways, I found The Help to be a lot like Room by Emma Donoghue, in the sense that a lot of my enjoyment with this novel came from the novel's use of changing perspectives, and all of their various limitations.

The novel starts from the perspective of the two black maids living in Jackson, Mississippi, Aibileen and Minny. We read their stories first (or rather, listen to their stories, as Ms. Stockett uses a surprisingly effective dialogue-type of writing style for their POV chapters that cannily captures their voices). Aibileen tends the house of Miss Leefolt and tends her employer's two-year-old daughter, Mae Mobley, whom she loves and coddles in an attempt to make up for her mother's neglect and indifference.

Minny, meanwhile, is a maid with a reputation for heavenly cooking whose reputation is ruined when prominent Jackson socialite Miss Hilly Holbrook lies about Minny being a thief in order to hire her at a cheaper wage. When Minny retaliates by giving Miss Hilly her just desserts in the most appallingly literal way possible, the only work she can find is as a maid to an isolated, ostracized housewife the other wives in Jackson spurn for being white trash.

Through their eyes, we see the ignorance and weakness and cruelty and indifference of the people they work for, so that it comes as an interesting change of perspective when we get to Skeeter's first chapter. Skeeter, just returned from university, is friends with both Hilly and Miss Leefolt. Through her, we see the other sides to their characters, the shiny, public faces they show to their friends and their neighbours - not the private angers and pettiness they demonstrate in front of their help.

Skeeter, however, does not agree with her friends' treatment of their maids. She recently discovered that her own family's beloved maid, Constantine, apparently quit - although the circumstances are shrouded in secrecy. When the only journalism job she can find is as the writer of a housekeeping advice column, she goes to Aibileen for advice and comes up with the idea of writing about society from the perspective of the help. An editor in New York is tentatively interested in the idea, but Skeeter discovers that actually getting the maids to talk is another obstacle entirely.

As the book proceeds, the changes in perspective set an engaging tone. While on the one hand, I appreciated Skeeter's determination and drive to write an important book, her initial ignorance of the possible consequences of her actions (as viewed from Aibileen's and Minny's POVs) made me cringe. It's also worthy of note that I cared about each character's problems equally, even if in the larger scheme of things, Skeeter's problems (a disapproving mother, self-esteem issues) seemed woefully paltry in comparison to Aibileen's and Minny's.

Second to the perspectives, The Help's best element is its pacing. I started reading slowly, then sped up, then basically drag-raced through the book to the end. Stockett peppers her book with different mysteries and questions (why did Constantine leave? What's wrong with Minny's new boss, Celia?) that, along with the central plot, keep the tension high and the pace swift.

At the same time though, certain scenes and characters seemed a tad exaggerated - Miss Hilly foremost among them. Maybe this is my own ignorance and naivete, but I find it hard to believe a person as repulsive and yet cartoonishly comical as her could exist. She had some nuance in the first half of the novel (from her positive friendship with Skeeter), but in the second she was just an out and out villain, evil in pretty much every way it was to be evil.

But ultimately, I found the story immensely entertaining. I loved the differences in perspective and the sparks of humour and the excellent setting, atmosphere and dialogue.
A.

The Help (2011, tarring Emma Stone, Viola Davis, and Octavia Spencer)
WARNING: FILM AND NOVEL SPOILERS AHEAD
Not long after I finished the book, I had the opportunity to watch the movie with my sister. And I was pleasantly surprised to discover that, aside from a few changes, the movie was actually a pretty close, accurate, and entertaining adaptation from the novel. Having only recently finished the book, I recognized entire passages and pages of dialogue being spoken or enacted nearly word for word. I hadn't encountered that close of an adaptation since Sin City and the HBO television series Game of Thrones.

That being said, there were a few things the movie did change, and this is where my discussion comes in.

What did the movie change?

1. Skeeter's Ostracization
In the novel, after Skeeter revenges herself on Hilly by arranging for people to deposit old toilets on her front lawn (don't ask), Skeeter is ostracized by the white society women in Jackson at the behest of their humiliated Queen Bee. In the film, however, this shunning of Skeeter is never shown. We are told at the end of the movie that Skeeter lost all her friends, and there's one scene where Hilly removes Skeeter as editor of their League's newsletter, but we don't get to see how outcast she became, where even her longtime friends wouldn't speak to her for fear of enraging Hilly.

I was actually a little bothered by this, because Minny and Aibileen encounter the same repercussions they got in the novel, but we don't get to see Skeeter's. While I chalk this up to not enough screen time, I would have liked at least one scene where someone like Miss Leefolt refuses to talk to Skeeter.

2. Stuart's Dick-Ification
In the novel, Stuart and Skeeter get together after a number of mishaps and false starts. While politically conservative and indecisive, Stuart's a pretty decent guy. When Skeeter reveals she spent the last two years writing a book about the lives of black maids, Stuart breaks up with her, albeit respectfully, saying that he doesn't really know her.

In the film, an unshaven and tousled Stuart yells at Skeeter, "How could you do this to us?" and tells her she's better off alone, before flouncing off to his truck, never to be seen again. I disliked how the filmmakers used what time they had to make him selfish, petty and cold - which he isn't in the book. In one scene, everyone in Skeeter's house is watching JFK's funeral on the TV and weeping - except for an impatient Stuart, who leaves early so he can go to work. This scene was never in the novel, but was added in the film to clue the viewers in to what a dick he is before the ultimate reveal.

But he isn't a dick in the novel. Yes, he breaks up with Skeeter after learning she wrote Help, but it wasn't in a "how dare you care about black folk, Skeeter! You deserve to die a spinster!" way but more of a "I don't think I can marry you because I clearly don't know you," way. This is further supported in the novel by his troubled romantic past, where his last relationship before Skeeter, to his high school sweetheart and fiancee, ended with her cheating on him. It made sense that after enduring one woman lying to him, that he would be unwilling to marry another who had also hidden something important from him about herself.

But objectively I can understand that with the time limit of a movie, the filmmakers didn't have enough time to put this across, so they just decided to make him an easy villain instead. Doesn't mean I like it, though.

3. Skeeter's Mama's Sentimentalization
With Skeeter's mum, however, the filmmakers went in an entirely different direction. In the novel, she's a minor character, albeit one with a large influence on her daughter's life. She's critical, conservative, and obsessed with appearances and connections. She loudly disapproves of nearly everything in Skeeter's life - her physical appearance, her literary ambitions, her romantic life. She starts suffering from stomach ulcers midway through the book, and Skeeter only learns that her mother actually has cancer near the end. She's not a capital-E Evil person, but she's not really a positive force in the book at all.

In the film, however, her character openly lives with her cancer from the very beginning. It's an important aspect to her character and influences a lot of what she does in the film. Moreover, her sniping at Skeeter is toned down - it's depicted in the film as comical henpecking rather than the constant barrage of disapproval it is in the novel. In fact, in the film, she actually finds out that Skeeter wrote Help and praises her for it, saying she's proud of her, something the rigidly segregationist Charlotte Phelan in the novel would never have done. She also finds out about what Minny made Miss Hilly eat and makes fun of Miss Hilly for it - which, again seems incredibly out of character. I love Allison Janey (who plays Skeeter's mum in the film) but I couldn't help but wince at this cliched adaptation.

They significantly changed her character a lot in order to give Skeeter a supportive mother figure and once again I do not understand why. Skeeter suffered consequences and took a lot of risks in the novel to write Help - not only did she go against everything her friends believed in, she went against everything her mother believed in. But instead, the movie removes nearly every significant consequence to Skeeter's actions - her ostracization never happens, and her mother instead supports her work. How come Minny and Aibileen come under threat for Help in the film but Skeeter doesn't?

The Sentimentalization continues with the crucial scene in which Skeeter's mum fires Constantine, as mentioned below:

4. Constantine's Daughter's Backstory
In the book, Constantine's termination is a mystery for nearly the entire book. Skeeter comes home from university to discover that the beloved maid who helped raised her is gone, but her mother refuses to tell her what really happened and so does Aibileen (who went to Constantine's church group).

Eventually, it's revealed that Constantine gave birth to a light-skinned daughter, and later abandoned her at an orphanage because she didn't know how to raise a baby who looked white. While Skeeter was away at university, Constantine made contact with her now-grown daughter, who came down to see her - party-crashing Mrs. Phelan's DAR party in the process. Appalled at the idea of a black person infiltrating a white social event, Mrs. Phelan not only fired Constantine but revealed to her daughter the truth about how her mother abandoned her. It's an interesting mystery that's uncovered slowly, and it's a reveal that fits perfectly with Skeeter's mum's characterization.

In the film, however, Constantine's daughter Rachel is not only dark-skinned, but a family friend who accidentally walks in on Mrs. Phelan's DAR party at the wrong time. Mrs. Phelan "is forced" to expel Rachel and fire Constantine in order to impress her DAR friends, although the direction of the scene and how Mrs. Phelan reveals the story to Skeeter strongly imply that Mrs. Phelan is deeply ashamed and remorseful of what she did.

In this instance, I do understand the drastic change - the novel's reveal is a serious doozy of a backstory, but the book has the page count required to properly tell the chapters-long mystery. The movie does not have that kind of time, and they're trying to make the mum a good guy to boot, so I understand the streamlined mystery that makes Mrs. Phelan look somewhat less heinous.

"Lady Isabella's Scandalous Marriage," by Jennifer Ashley

2011-09-17T10:07:00.001-07:00

The Chick: Lady Isabella Mackenzie. Once the scandalous young debutante who eloped with a younger son, her passionate marriage burned up before its time and she now lives separate from her artist husband.
The Rub: Despite their separation, she still cares enough about him to approach him about a possible imposter - even if it means risking a renewal of affection.
Dream Casting: Bryce Dallas Howard.

The Dude: Lord Roland "Mac" Mackenzie. Once a passionate, hard-living artist, he's sloughed off his shallow, enabling friends, weaned himself off alcohol, and has avoided scandal in order to show his wife he's worthy of being her husband again.
The Rub: He knows he has to move slowly to keep from scaring her off, but it's hard to be patient when there's a murderous imposter on the loose.
Dream Casting: Ewan McGregor.

The Plot:

Isabella: Someone's impersonating you and selling paintings under your name!

Mac: Awesome!

Isabella: Wait, what?

Mac: I mean, whatever. Guess I'll totally have to hang around you making flirtatious comments and reminding you of the happy days of our marriage. You know. To protect you and stuff.

Isabella: This concerns me...

Evil Imposter: I am evil! And I look like your husband! Mwahahaha!

Isabella: Wow, this totally makes you look nicer and more responsible in comparison.

Mac: Awesome.

Evil Imposter: *shoots Mac* *dies*

Isabella: Oh no! You almost died! That totally makes me forget all our marital problems. Let's remarry!

Mac: HOORAY!

Romance Convention Checklist:

1 Bitter Separation

3 Sexy Brothers

1 Artistic Wager

4 Asshole Former Friends

3 Erotic Paintings

1 Violent Impersonator

1 Fake Secret Baby

The Word: The second in Jennifer Ashley's series centering on a scandalous, wealthy family of manly, red-headed Scottish peers (the first being the excellent The Madness of Lord Ian Mackenzie), the one thing I worried about before I started reading this book is, "How is she going to top Ian Mackenzie?" The first novel was well-written and lovely but it also had a killer hook - a hero with autism. Isabella's novel is a Marriage in Trouble romance, and while there are many, many ways to have a searingly beautiful, heart-tugging Marriage in Trouble romance (just ask Eloisa James), they aren't exactly thin on the ground. So how would Jennifer Ashley make this romance stand out?

Lady Isabella's marriage certainly was scandalous - she eloped with the wealthy, artistic Lord Mac Mackenzie on the very night of her debut. While her family disowned her, society embraced her, and Mac and Isabella showed every sign of being passionately in love with each other. Passion is a double-edged sword, however, and after three wearying years of thrilling highs and devastating lows, Isabella left Mac and requested a separation.

When the novel opens, Isabella willingly seeks out her husband's company for the first time in years, to inform him that someone has been impersonating him and selling forged paintings
under his name. While Mac is initially dismissive of the idea of an impersonator (he paints for the joy and satisfaction it brings him, not for fame or wealth), he seizes on this new opportunity to ease his way back into Isabella's life and hopefully reconcile with her. He's given up his drinking and carousing and wants to show her that he's ready to take life seriously.

However, while Isabella still loves Mac very deeply, she has no desire to return to a marriage as unstable and one-sided as theirs was. Mac is loving and loyal now, but he's always had those moments - until he gets bored and the fighting starts and he flees to paint in a foreign country and send her apologies by postcard. That's not the type of life she wants and she has no way of knowing whether Mac's change of heart is a true change or merely him in a good mood.

The things I liked? Isabella and Mac - I loved the interplay between them. Mac is playful without being thoughtless, Isabella is strong-willed without being tiresome. While there may be disappointment and bitterness, there is no hatred between them or in their interactions. Their antics are an intriguing mixture of old and new - they clearly know each other very well and are familiar with their tic and habits, yet at the same time, the ways they've evolved during their separation continue to surprise them.

Also under the "Good" List are Mac's brothers, who once again manage to participate in the story without acting like Walking Trailers For Their Own Books.

The things I didn't like? The whole suspense plot was completely unnecessary. We could have easily done without the Crazy Impersonator Who Makes Trouble and Illegitimate Surprise Babies, especially coming on the heels of Debra Mullins' To Ruin the Duke, which had a near-identical plot. Crazy Impersonator's antics leave little to no impact on the rekindled romance itself, except perhaps to help spook the protagonists back together faster. Because nothing restarts the Love Machine like the threat of violent murder.

That being said, does this book have the same kind of killer hook that Ian did? No. It takes the Julia Quinn route, actually - taking a pretty realistic, down-to-earth obstacle (a fractured marriage rekindling), and portraying it in a realistic yet romantic and wholly satisfying way.
B+

Movie Review: "Gigi" (1958)

2011-09-10T21:09:00.000-07:00

This is a story about a man who falls in love with a (possibly underage) prostitute. Almost. Sort of.

Let me back up and explain. My plans for today were derailed by a shopping trip spent with my Mum (an awesome individual) that ended with us watching one of the old movies I'd bought on a whim - the 1958 best picture winner, Gigi.

And boy is this movie alternately funny and creepy to watch in a modern context. Enough to warrant one of my rare and spontaneous film reviews.

The lovely teenage girl of the title (played by Leslie Caron) is the daughter of a flighty fourth-rate opera singer who has been raised by her grandmother Madame Alvarez (Hermione Gringold) and her great-aunt Alicia (Isabel Jeans). What the film plays coy with for much of its running time is the fact that both Madame Alvarez and Aunt Alicia are retired courtesans who have been training Gigi to follow in their footsteps - although most of their lessons seem to involve table manners, how to eat tiny birds and cold lobster, and maintaining a firm grip on the saucer when pouring a cup of coffee.

But instead of this being creepy and appalling, it is instead romantic because they are French and this takes place in France.

But this story isn't only about Gigi - it's also about rich playboy Gaston Lachaille (Louis Jourdan), a self-involved, pompous asshole who gads about town picking up chicks with his horny old bachelor uncle Honoree (Maurice Chevalier). His perverted old uncle is the same reputable gentleman who narrates the movie and sings the first musical number which involves looking at girls "of five, six, or seven" and imagining how hot they'll be when the puberty fairy comes a-callin' ("Thank Heaven for Little Girls").

But you see, he is charming and not at all a cradle-robbing pedophile because he is French and the French are shameless romantics. In France.

The movie actually opens with Gaston le boo-hooing over his rich white boy problems about how bored he is with all his money and material comforts. The only people he's not bored with are Gigi and Madame Alvarez, whom he visits on a regular basis - he apparently knows them because Madame Alvarez and Gaston's Uncle Poonhound used to bone back when she was Not Old. He enjoys Madame Alvarez's company (only in the platonic sense - because she is Hella Old) and he treats Gigi fondly like a beloved pet - playing cards with her, regaling her with stories, and bringing her sweets from his travels.

His pride is dealt a blow, however, when he takes his current mistress (played delightfully by Eva Gabor) out on a date and realizes (in song, naturally) that she's fallen in love with someone else and is no longer bestowing her amply-paid-for-charms upon him with the same skill as before. Even worse, she's in love with a low-class skating instructor! He revenges himself by paying her lover 1000 francs to le scram and dumping her in a humiliatingly public fashion, prompting her to commit suicide ("Your first suicide!" croons Uncle Poonhound proudly).

Of course this is hilarious and not offensively callous because this is Eva Gabor's fourth "suicide," which seems to involve taking just enough poison to make her sick enough to elicit sympathy but not enough to actually kill her. Because the French! They are just so French! And so crazily romantic!

Meanwhile, Gaston's Overabundant Male Ego won't let him lick his wounds and admit to the public that he's been thrown over, so he simply has to throw amazing parties, date dozens of ladies, and engage in debauched revelry in order to keep society from turning him into a laughingstock. But you see, Poor Little Rich Boy is just so bored with his Poor Little Rich Life that in between Wealthy Douchebag Gigs, he crawls over to Madame Alvarez' to whine and bitch and play cards with the charming Gigi.

Things change when Gaston decides to spend the weekend by the seaside in Toulouse and agrees to take Gigi and Madame Alvarez with him. Gigi and Gaston have a grand old time, which doesn't go unnoticed - either by the general public or Madame Alvarez (who gets a lovely musical number with Uncle Poonhound about How They Used To Bone). While Gaston continues on by himself to Monte Carlo, Madame Alvarez and Aunt Alicia decide to take advantage of the rumours swirling around about Gaston and Gigi by speeding up Gigi's Ho Training, hoping that by the time Gaston returns, he'll have a ready-made Virgin Mistress standing by.

Unfortunately, Gaston comes home to find a newly Sexified Gigi and freaks out when he realizes his coltish pet has boobs. Moreover, Gigi's Retired Ho Guardians declare that as a man with his reputation, he can no longer take Gigi out unchaperoned - unless he makes a certain offer. Realizing he can no longer get his underaged milk for free but must buy his newly-adult cow, he storms off in a huff and complains about how Life is Unfair and how Unattractive Gigi is. But the Healing Power of Song reminds him that Gigi has boobs now, he realizes he's in love with her, and he goes back to make an offer to the Retired Ho Guardians.

So up until this point, the movie is fluffy and enjoyable and full of flamboyant hats - provided you can turn your brain off and ignore that the story is actually about a teenager being trained to be a courtesan and that the man who's known her since she was a child is now going to buy her.

But let us not forget that this movie is French! The characters are French and the setting is French and the lifestyle is French and the French are just so irresistibly and scandalously and un-Americanly passionate! Up until this point, the movie executes a lot of smoke and mirrors and emphasizes the foreign setting, characters, and culture to get a 1958 American audience to excuse, ignore, or mistake the plot of prostitution.

Moreover, the characters do this as well. They frequently talk about the perks and the romantic aspects of their profession. The jewels and the moonlit nights and the fancy dinners and the attention.

But then the movie surprised me. Gaston brings his offer to Madame Alvarez and Aunt Alicia, and they break the news to Gigi, and then Gaston meets Gigi and offers to "take care of her." This movie is all about the euphemisms, and being coy, and playing up the public face of being a courtesan (the fashionable, romantic aspect) rather than the private face (the sexual aspect).

But then Gigi refuses Gaston's offer. "When say you want to take care of me, you mean you want me in your bed," she says. In one line, she cuts through all movie's hypocritical romantic bullshit and shifts the entire paradigm of her character.

Moreover, when Gaston replies that he wants to make her his mistress because he's in love with her, she flies into a tearful rage, demanding that if Gaston loved her, how could he offer her this lifestyle, with all of its accompanying shame and heartbreak? How could he be so horrible?

All we've seen of Gigi up until this point of the movie is a young, innocent girl who's been trained in dance, table manners, how to roll cigars (a more Freudian task you'll never see) and the arts of romance. She never gives any indication that she understands what she's really being trained for, but in that one scene, you realize that this lively, bubbly character understands all too well what she's been trained for, what the unspoken realistic consequences of such a lifestyle are, and that she no longer wants to do that. With that one powerful scene, Gigi bursts the movie's musical technicolour bubble.

Gaston, prince that he is, flounces out, outraged at Gigi's "lack of romance" (how dare she refer to his intention to pay for her romantic and sexual favours as prostitution! How vulgar!) and he's convinced it's just a plot to secure better terms. But then Gigi sends Gaston an apologetic note agreeing to be his mistress, explaining that she'd rather be miserable with him than without him.

It all stinks a little too much of a romantic cop-out, until he takes her out to dinner and she flawlessly rolls his cigar, makes poisonously catty remarks about poorer courtesans, coos over the emerald bracelet he's bought her and flaunts it for everyone to see - just like every other mistress he's ever had. A classic case of "you get what you pay for." Uncle Poonhound shows up to seal the deal by commenting that Gigi as a mistress "could keep your entertained for months!" Horrified, Gaston drags a sobbing Gigi back to her Retired Ho Guardians and leaves in order to Think Deep Thoughts Set To Significant Musical Accompaniment. He then returns and asks for Gigi's hand in marriage and all is right with the world.

Yeah, Gigi is an interesting and entertaining movie in many ways but Gaston can go and jump off the Eiffel Tower, thank you very much. He's a repulsive individual, a classic Duke of Slut character with all the money and power in the world who nevertheless whines about How Life Is So Boring and Difficult - even when he's visiting Madame Alvarez and Gigi, who have barely enough to live on as it is.

His botched affair with Eva Gabor's character is a clear example of how money can buy you a sexy horse but it won't make her drink. He can buy her attention but he can't buy her love and it offends him on a deeply personal level when he discovers she's in love with a skating instructor - not because she's cheating on him, but because she has the gall to fall in love with someone poor and lower class over the wealthy protector who's paying all her bills. He's outraged that he cannot control that and so he burns her and humiliates her.

I loved that Gigi had the stones to stand up to him. The refusal scene saves this entire movie and gives it a depth and resonance I appreciated. I also enjoyed how her "capitulation" to Gaston served to demonstrate how everything Gaston thinks he wants is wrong. I loved how she finally showed Gaston that if he insists on controlling everything in his life according to his own rigid personal tastes, of course he's going to be bored because everything is going to be the same.

And that's how I came to actually appreciate why the movie used prostitution as a plot device - because prostitution is a form of "controlled" love. Gaston uses mistresses and courtesans because it's a form of love and romance he believes he can own and control. However, it isn't really love, but only a cheap, pretty surface gloss that covers falsehood, greed, and desperation - much like the movie itself, which uses flamboyant costumes, lavish sets, and chirpy songs to mask the fact that Gigi's being trained as a courtesan because she doesn't have many other options (her father is never mentioned, and her mother is a floozy opera singer too concerned with her failing career to take care of her daughter or even appear on-screen).

In order for Gaston to achieve "true" happiness and romance, he must accept Gigi for who she is by marrying her, not by purchasing her. I quite enjoyed that aspect.

Yes, some aspects of the movie are still creepy from a modern context, like Uncle Poonhound's bon-mots and Gigi's age - it's never mentioned how old she is, but she's often dressed in a schoolgirl uniform and unbound hair to look about 15 or 16. But the music is cute, the costumes are amazing, and Gigi is a terrific character (if you can ignore how she ultimately ends up with a toad instead of a prince) who, unlike the movie, would rather live an ugly truth than a pretty lie.
B+

"Major Pettigrew's Last Stand," by Helen Simonson

2011-09-06T19:35:00.000-07:00

Our Protagonist: Major Ernest Pettigrew. A quiet, staunch English villager, he's a man who enjoys tradition and the smooth beaten path - until he wanders off it, big time, when he develops a friendship with Mrs. Ali, the Pakistani owner of the village shop.
The Rub: Stupidity knows no race or geographical boundary - and the Major runs into a lot of it when his friendship with Mrs. Ali starts to possibly blossom into something more.

The Supporting Cast:

Mrs. Jasmina Ali: The widowed owner of the village shop who helps the Major deal with his grief over his brother's death. Loves reading and soaking up knowledge, but must deal with societal pressures from her traditional Muslim in-laws.

Amina: A young single mother who befriends Mrs. Ali and the Major.

Abdul Wahid: Mrs. Ali's disapproving and religiously devout nephew who harbours a secret past relationship with Amina.

Roger Pettigrew: The Major's self-absorbed and ambitious son who's gotten engaged to a sophisticated American, but has no real plans for marriage.

Grace DeVere: The village spinster, mutual friend to both the Major and Mrs. Ali.

The Word: If I had to list two settings I love to read about, practically heedless of whatever the plot involves, it would have to be small towns and Britain. I'm an Anglophile - love the books, the TV, the architecture, the history, the music. But I also love stories that take place in insular, small settings with strong communities - where a whisper in one ear travels to every other's in the span of a Sunday afternoon.

So I was fully expecting Major Pettigrew's Last Stand to be my crack, to become one of those books that I bury myself in, dead to the rest of the world until I emerge.

Well, not quite - but it was still a pleasant, substantial read. One that I enjoyed while I was reading, that also had me thinking afterwards.

Major Ernest Pettigrew, a deeply-rooted inhabitant of the picturesque English village Edgecombe St. Mary, has his structured and orderly life upended when he learns of the sudden death of his younger brother Bertie. Half of his mind copes by considering the problem of what to do with his brother's shotgun, one of a matching set of family heirlooms bequeathed to the brothers by their father. While the Major just wants to reunite the pair, Bertie didn't officially bequeath it to him - and the prospect of selling the guns for a small fortune brings all sorts of family members out of the woodwork.

The other half of his mind reaches out for comfort and finds it from a surprising source: Mrs. Ali, the widowed owner of the village shop. Warm, compassionate, insightful, and intellectual, Mrs. Ali surprises and delights the Major, and they start spending more time together, bonding over Rudyard Kipling, roses, and tea. However, the insidious antagonists of pride and bigotry (both from the Major's family and white neighbours and Mrs. Ali's own relatives) strive to keep them apart.

The novel focuses on setting and character more than plot - because Major Pettigrew is, structurally and narratively, a romance (*gasp!*). But I don't think the novel would have worked any other way, for without a singular character like the Major, none of the subplots about real estate, pushy Americans, grasping sons and familial politics would be nearly as interesting.

Major Pettigrew is a fascinating character because he's so old-fashioned that you'd almost never expect this story to happen to him. He's a great believer in The Good Old Days - he lives for tea, tradition, hunting, classic British literature, the right of primogenitor, and untamed English countryside. The book is told entirely from his point of view, with loving descriptions of the fields behind his house and of the tea cups his wife Nancy cherished, as well as passages fraught with disgust and horror at the garish crisp-wrapper-strewn landscapes of more modernized towns and lifestyles.

Yet at the same time, the Major is like the embodiment of idealized Good Old Days - the Major extends politeness and friendship (and eventually, more) to Mrs. Ali almost without even considering her race or religion. While characters who advocate Modernity (such as the Major's cluelessly ambitious son Roger) are vilified in this book, so are the characters who espouse (or appear to) the appeal of the Traditional English Village, but to whom Traditional English means "white." Their racism is all the more potent and painful to read because more than half of it is unintentional.

But the Major isn't perfect either - it's easy to see it that way when he's the major voice in the story, but from time to time Helen Simonson does give us tantalizing glimpses that show us how the Major's adherence to old-fashioned notions of inheritance and behaviour may have strained his relationships with his brother Bertie and his son Roger.

But mostly the Major is delightful - a lonely figure of common sense who must tight-rope walk between the old and new to discover that certain rules of decency, compassion and love don't alter with age.
A-

"One Night of Scandal," by Teresa Medeiros

2011-09-01T19:49:00.001-07:00

The Chick: Carlotta Anne Fairleigh - a.k.a. "Lottie." A spoiled and mischievous debutante who just wants to read, write Gothic novels, and collect cats. Oh - and violate people's privacy in order to spice up her novel.
The Rub: Her love for Gothic novels wanes when she winds up compromised with an infamous Marquess would could very well be the hero of one. Or the villain.
Dream Casting: Brittany Snow.

The Dude: Hayden St. Clair - a.k.a. the "Murderous Marquess," whom society believes killed his friend and his wife when he found them in bed together.
The Rub: After the way his first marriage turned out, he's not pleased to be roped into a second with a girl he barely knows. Ah well, it's only 'til death.
Dream Casting: Aidan Turner.

The Plot:

Lottie's Relatives: Time to be an adult, darling!

Lottie: *escaping out window* Five more minutes!

Lottie and Hayden: *compromised!*

Lottie's Relatives: Time to marry and save our darling Lottie's reputation! *mean glares*

Hayden: Five more minutes?

Hayden and Lottie: *married*

Hayden: Time to meet and tame your new Token Rebellious Stepchild!

Lottie: Snooze button, please.

Lottie and Token Rebellious Stepchild: *Token Rebellious Parenting*

Lottie: Okay, it's time for you to grow up and stop being such a stupid self-hating SadFace!

Hayden: Just a few more minutes?

Lottie: *leaves*

Hayden: *follows* Okay I'm done.

Lottie: HOORAY!

Romance Convention Checklist

1 Would-Be Writer

1 Stupid Ugly Friend

1 Crazy Wife (Deceased)

1 Token Rebellious Stepchild

Far Too Many Kittens

1 Highly Successful Novel

1 Confrontation with Duelling Pistols

I Stormswept Cliff

The Word: Just off of reading To Ruin the Duke, a story that tries to be Serious and Dramatic but is really just Unbalanced and Crazy, I found One Night of Scandal, a delightful meringue of a novel that doesn't just toe the line between Madcap and, well, Just Plain Mad, it tapdances.

One Night of Scandal is a particularly frothy example of a good Crazy Romance. It takes a certain amount of skill to take the archetypes, Animal Sidekicks, and Nosy Heroines of a Julia Quinn novel and mix it with the Deep, Dark Angst of a Bronte novel.

My previous flirtation with Teresa Medeiros started beautifully, had a fantastic twist, only to crash and burn at the very end, so I was a little tentative about this novel. Everything we initially know about Lottie Fairleigh, this novel's heroine, screamed Very Fucking Annoying. She 's into Gothic novels. She's cosseted by her family. She drove her finishing school teachers insane with mischievous pranks and is both the bane and the apple of her weary guardian's eye. I was all set to hate this Ritalin-deprived little monster.

And yet I didn't. I suppose one's person's Hyacinth Bridgerton (*shudder*) is another person's Anne Shirley. Okay, so Lottie's no Anne (I don't think any character could ever match that), but she's so lighthearted and charming and effervescent. She's a bubblehead, but with a touch of self-awareness.

The book opens on the night of her debut, as Lottie's sneaking out a window for one last immature hurrah before settling into demur adulthood forever. It seems the man living next door is Hayden St. Clair, the infamous Murderous Marquess, reputedly responsible for the deaths of both his wife and his close friend. Lottie, whose dream is to write Gothic novels, thinks this could be the perfect chance to spy through his windows and get some good hands-on research for the villain for her latest work-in-progress.

However, girls in slightly torn, violently-flounced ball gowns are not the most discreet of spies, and she's soon caught by this same Marquess, who mistakes her for a tart one of his old friends had threatened to send over to cheer him up. He doesn't go much further than a smooch before realizing his mistake, but since neither character was thinking clearly enough to close the drapes, they are witnessed together by half the guests of Lottie's debut. A hasty marriage is swiftly arranged.

The ensuing dramatics in the first half of the novel are quite entertaining - Medeiros pokes a great deal of fun at Gothic novel conventions (such as a mysterious locked trunk that does not contain anything remotely mysterious) and introduces a Token Rebellious Stepchild who is taken in hand by Lottie in a hilarious and original fashion. Also, for a man with such Deep, Dark, Angst - Hayden's sly and exasperated deadpan humour makes for witty and endearing dialogue when paired against Lottie's scatterbrained energy.

The novel slows, however, after the midway point when it stops poking fun at Deep, Dark Angst and starts, well, focusing on the actual Deep, Dark Angst of Hayden's first marriage. Frankly, the novel starts to drag here. Because there is also a thin line between a Sexy, Brooding Hero and a Lame-Ass SadFace Hero, and this is one line that the novel walks less gracefully. The pacing drags as he starts digging in his SadHeels because oh He's a Monster and He Doesn't Deserve Happiness and He's the Worst Father In the World, etc. etc. It's irritating and less compelling because he's passive rather than active in his brooding. When the Black Moment occurs to separate the hero and heroine, it's a surprisingly lax, anticlimactic scene where he politely asks Lottie to leave and Lottie leaves crying and despairing as if even she would prefer to pretend he'd done something more interesting.

All in all, however, everything I expected to not like turned out to be wonderful - specifically, Lottie. You go on with your Batshit Crazy Sunshine-Child self. I liked her immensely. Lord SadFace was a little less interesting, and I'll start caring about Token Rebellious Stepchildren the moment authors stop using Token Rebellious Stepchildren as Plot Coupons to Mature Our Heroine or your money back.

But all in all? One Night of Scandal is a solidly enjoyable romance with lovely dialogue, (mostly) spot-on humour, and nice tension.
B.

"To Ruin the Duke," by Debra Mullins

2011-08-28T20:17:00.001-07:00

The Chick: Miranda Fontaine. When her friend Lettie dies in childbirth, Miranda swears she'll do right by the child, James, and ensure his noble father doesn't abandon him like hers did.
The Rub: When Wyldehaven swears the child isn't his, she's forced to think of other options to gain income for herself and the child - and now suddenly Wyldehaven's interested.
Dream Casting: Hayley Atwell.

The Dude: Thornton Matherton, Duke of Wyldehaven, a.k.a. "Wylde." Determined to do away with his father's scandalous memory, Wylde's lived a proper and upstanding life - until an imposter starts committing offenses and blaming them on him - including fathering an illegitimate child a mysterious woman insists he claim as his own.
The Rub: This very woman makes him feel more alive than he has in years - but can he trust a woman whose background is so common and sketchy?
Dream Casting: Benedict Cumberbatch.

The Plot:

Wylde: Damn and blast it! An imposter is ruining my reputation and being a general ass to everyone!

Miranda: You break it, you bought it, my lord! *hands over baby*

Wylde: But it wasn't me! It was my Evil Twin!

Miranda: LOL, are you for real?

Wylde's Dude Friends: Yes, he is!

Wylde: The kiiiiid is NOT my SON!

Miranda: Well that sucks. Guess I'll become an Italian Opera Singer then, since it's so easy and all.

Miranda: *sings opera, Italianly*

Wylde: You look just like Miranda! Do you have an Evil Twin, too?

Miranda: No. Evil Twins are stupid, trite plot points. Also I'm pretty sure they don't exist.

Wylde: You mean you *gasp* sing in *double gasp* public for *le gasp!* MONEY?! Clearly you are an untrustworthy whore!

Miranda: God I hope the baby doesn't turn out as stupid as you.

Wylde: I not-so-secretly want to have sex with you, but you won't let me put on the moves. If only a plot device could help me!

Miranda's Mum's Friend: Sorry-I-stole-your-mum's-money-and-gambled-it-away-these-thugs-might-try-to-murder-you-don't-mind-them!

Wylde: YESSSS. We can have sleep overs and eat s'mores and have wild untamed just-for-tonight sex!

Miranda: I wouldn't mind that last part.

Boots: *are knocked*

Wylde: Wow, now I totally want to marry you and love you and give you legitimate babies and shower you with money and affection.

Miranda: I feel like we're forgetting something...

Wylde's Evil Twin: Look at me! I'm evil! I hurt babies and look like Wylde!

Miranda: Huh. They do exist.

Wylde: Not for long! *kills Evil Twin* Oh, and the manly righteous action of murder in self-defense has cured my fear of babies! Let's have lots!

Miranda: HOORAY! ... I think.

Romance Convention Checklist:

1 Not-So-Secret Baby

1 Evil Twin

1 Secret Daddy

2 Threatening Notes

1 DudeGroup of Anti-Bullying Dudes

1 Eeeeeevil Wife (Deceased)

1 Not-So-Best Friend

1 Secret Singing Identity

The Word: Romance is a crazy genre in a lot of ways. We have secret pasts and dead spouses, lies and phobias and general angst. And somehow in the midst of all this, our characters have to fall in love and make us believe it.

To Ruin The Duke, plot-wise, has an Overheaping Spoonful of Crazy, and while this plot is coupled with protagonists blessed with Surprisingly Bountiful Reserves of Good Sense, the result is, unfortunately, shallow, bland, and a little silly.

Thornton Matherton, Duke of Wyldehaven a.k.a. "Wylde" - has returned to London for the funeral of a close friend, and discovers that someone who bears a striking resemblance to him has been using his name and reputation to get away with beating hookers, running up debts, and cheating at cards.

Thornton has missed most of the fun because he's been in the country mourning his dead (and Evil) wife, but now that he's back, he's determined to find this imposter before he does anymore damage, and he enlists his completely useless Dudegroup of Dudes to help him. Since his Dudegroup of Dudes formed in school in order to fight bullies and read Beowulf (don't ask), they are completely out of their element, since finding an imposter can't be solved by a) running and telling a teacher or b) quoting Beowulf.

Enter our heroine, Miranda, who shows up at Wylde's door to demand he take responsibility for childbirthing her best friend to death. Her friend, before passing into the Great Beyond, made Miranda swear she would do right by her newborn son James and ensure his father raised him as befits a son of a Duke.

Wylde's denial that the baby is his holds very little water with her. The illegitimate daughter of an actress who turned to prostitution, the inexplicably genteely-raised Miranda knows all about the Evils of Man. However, not really having any Plan B when Wylde continues to deny paternity, she lets an old friend of her mother's convince her to pose as a famous Italian opera singer to sing at parties for enough cash to raise James on her own.

Apparently this works, despite the fact that Miranda doesn't speak Italian.

And apparently Miranda can sing opera and play the piano like a star, despite there being no set-up to this aspect of her character at all.

But this is a book about Secret Babies and Evil Twins, after all. Our hopes are already suspended fairly high above our heads.

And of course, Wylde spots Miranda singing under a false name and his Evil Wimmin Alarm goes off (see: Evil Dead Wife). They proceed to spit and bite and flirt with each other, until a Plot Device conveniently forces Miranda and baby James into Wylde's home, where Wylde's Distrust of Deceitful Women is briefly upstaged by his Fear of Babies (see: Evil Dead Pregnant Wife).

On the plus side for this novel, both Wylde and Miranda are, rather surprisingly given the melodramatic elements of this novel, quite sensible characters. Miranda has perfectly good reasons to suspect Wylde of fathering James (1: there are witnesses, 2: an Evil Twin is the lamest excuse in the world) and knows exactly what sheltering under Wylde's protection might and probably will entail (explaining why she initially resists the arrangement until a violent Plot Device forces her to do otherwise). Miranda is a very open-eyed character - she seems to know exactly what she's in for and whether or not she should do it.

However, the ultimate negative which pushes this novel down out of Enjoyably Crazy territory is that these characters, for all their preternatural common sense, are very shallowly drawn with no real depth or proper backstory, Miranda in particular. She lived in a tavern with a mother who was a whore, and yet somehow acquired extensive lessons in classical music, singing, deportment, and speech. Her childhood and upbringing are very sketchily established and didn't ring true, and "surprising" aspects of her backstory will suddenly appear, with little to no set-up, in order to conveniently help along a thorny Plot Device - such as her decision to become an Italian opera singer. Nothing about her character up to this point mentions music, singing, or an interest in either until her mother's friend suggests she sing - and then suddenly she's awesome at it and "suddenly" remembers her mother "somehow" managing to get lessons for it.

It's the same with Wyldehaven - he apparently had a father with a scandalous reputation (to the point where bastards and by-blows are dropping by for hand-outs every other week), which is meant to explain why he's such a stickler for propriety and dislikes how this imposter is resurrecting his father's memory. And yet, Wyldehaven himself never discusses why his father's reputation bothered him, and his mother gets mentioned in one line and then never brought up again. Whenever I considered these characters' actions and motivations and tried to tie them up with what I know of their pasts and upbringing, I kept coming up with question marks.

Similarly, the plot's quick descent into Total Crazy (an Evil Twin Gunfight, a Secret Dad, a Thieving Friend, a Traitor Friend, a Secret Murderous Sister) further kept me from enjoying the novel. I can tolerate (and often quite enjoy) novels with Crazy elements so long as they have well-developed and interesting characters - because then it's fun to watch them react and deal with the Crazy, and learn more about themselves in the process. With characters as flimsy and unattached as Wylde and Miranda, the plot bats them about like a cat with a ball of yarn, and I had little to no emotional investment in any of it.
C+

"Here on Earth," by Alice Hoffman

2011-08-25T17:21:00.001-07:00

Our Principal Cast:

March Murray: Returning to her hometown after years spent raising a family, she still feels inexorably drawn to the boy who claimed her heart all those years ago.

Hollis: Raised as an unwanted orphan, and rejected by the one he loved, now that she's back, he doesn't intend to let her go, and he won't let anything get in his way.

Gwen Cooper: March's daughter, a troubled teen who finds solace and meaning in caring for an abused former racehorse.

Hank Cooper: March's nephew, who was adopted by Hollis after his mother died and his father descended into alcoholism. While he's looked up to Hollis his entire life, as matters between March and Hollis grow more serious, even Hank begins to question his adopted parent's reasoning.

The Supporting Cast:

Susanna Justice: March's childhood frenemy, current pal, and eternal busybody. Knows something isn't right about Hollis, and she's determined to find out what before March gets into something she can't get out of.

The Judge: Susanna's father, and March's father's legal partner. While an upstanding citizen and a good man at heart, even he has his dark secrets.

Judith Dale: March's housekeeper and surrogate mother figure - a kindly, giving woman with an incredibly private past.

Alan Murray/The Coward: March's estranged brother who turned to drink when his wife died in a fire. Lives in a shack out on the Marshes, and hasn't seen his son Hank in years.

Belinda Cooper: March's sister-in-law and Hollis' wife - whose suspicious death the entire town secretly blames on Hollis. And are they right?

The Word: So, if you're new to the blog, I should probably let you know that Alice Hoffman is one of my favourite authors of all time. Regardless of genre. Practical Magic, The Ice Queen, Second Nature, and my all-time favourite, The Probable Future. She has such a powerful grasp of small town environments and communities (which are my crack), and such gorgeous imagery and use of magical realism, that I could even consider some of her books (particularly Magic and Future) to be fantasies. So I was all eager and set to read Here on Earth, which made it into the Oprah Book Club.

March Murray grew up in a small town in Massachusetts, the daughter of the town lawyer. When her kindly father adopted an abandoned orphan named Hollis, she and Hollis formed an immediate attachment that neither society, good sense, nor March's cruel older brother Alan could tear asunder. However, when her father unexpectedly died, her brother Alan made it clear that Hollis was nothing but a burden, and Hollis eventually left town, dissolving their romance if not their powerful, unspoken bond.

Years later, March returns to the town of her youth, her troubled daughter Gwen in tow, to attend to the funeral of her beloved housekeeper and surrogate mother, Judith Dale. While March's head tells her it's best to avoid Hollis - who has grown incredibly wealthy in the intervening years and bought up most of the town and March's own childhood home - her heart is still inextricably bound to his.

It took me about fifty pages to realize, with some dismay, that Alice Hoffman was rewriting Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights.

I love Alice Hoffman.

I despise Wuthering Heights. And this comes from a loyal Jane Eyre fan. After reading that "classic" the first time, I had no desire to re-experience a story about a romanticized sociopath who makes everyone's lives miserable just for the hell of it. But oh, if only he and Catherine had been allowed to be together, none of this would have happened...

Here on Earth succeeds because it knows better - and because Hoffman realizes that the secondary characters have just as much, if not more of a part in the story. The literary world already knows the ultimate story of Catherine and Heathcliff - Here on Earth gives us March and Hollis, but it also uses the points of view of characters like March's daughter Gwen, her friend Susanna, and Hollis' adopted son Hank to give us an outside perspective on what their relationship looks like.

And it's not pretty. Towards the end of the book it gets downright terrifying. As much as their relationship is compelling, I am thankful that theirs isn't the only one in the book. Love is both a transformative and a destructive power in Here on Earth, depending on the folks it ropes together, but in either case, it can't be controlled.

Again, I've never cared for Wuthering Heights, but I appreciated that Alice Hoffman showed the dark side of that passion and where it might have led to had it not been thwarted by fate. That being said, don't read this book for March and Hollis - read it for Gwen and Hank, Susanna and Bill Justice and Alan Murray - the folks whose Heights counterparts were treated as so much collateral damage, but in Here on Earth rise up to surpass and survive the passion that eventually destroys the protagonists.
B+

"A Dance with Dragons," by George R. R. Martin

2011-08-22T18:45:00.000-07:00

I'd like to think this goes without saying, but I might as well mention it just in case - if you are a fan of the HBO series Game of Thrones, this book is FULL OF SPOILERS. Season 5 spoilers, yes, but spoilers all the same. I highly recommend you read the books anyway rather than wait five years, but still - SPOILERS! YOU'VE BEEN WARNED!

The Principal Cast:

Tyrion Lannister: Brother to a queen, uncle to a king, and The Reason You Waited Five Years For This Book, now this clever dwarf is a fugitive on the run from several crimes, a few of which he actually committed.

Daenerys Targaryen: Thanks to her gumption, her dragons, and an army of freed slaves, she captured the free city of Meereen and abolished its cruel slave trade - but how long can she hold onto it?

Arya Stark, a.k.a. "No one": Last seen being trained in the art of being a holy assassin, Ned Stark's tomboyish daughter is about to take the ultimate Final Exam.

Jon Snow: Voted Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, Jon has some difficult decisions to make - about wildlings, wights, fire gods, and what the Night's Watch's true purpose is.

Bran Stark: Fleeing into the woods with a motley band of companions, Bran's only hope is to find the source of his visions of a three-eyed crow - which might just be a wizard or magic-user powerful enough to restore the use of his legs.

The Supporting Cast:

Cersei Lannister: The evil sex-crazed murderous incestuous queen who finally gets what she deserves!

Quentyn Martell: A young Dornish prince on a secret mission to capture Daenerys' hand in marriage.

Griff: This knight, disinherited and banished from Westeros, gave up his livelihood to protect a secret heir to the throne - whose day has finally come.

Ser Barristan Selmy: An elderly knight who has sworn himself to Daenerys' service after being cast out of the Kingsguard in Westeros.

Reek: The traitor formerly known as Theon Greyjoy, this tormented pet of a masochistic lord has endured years of torture only to be released as a pawn in a dangerous game.

Fantasy Convention Checklist

3 Vicious Dragons

1 (Mostly) Friendly Giant

1 Tree-Hugging, Dying-Out Mythical Race

1 Secret Prince

1 Jousting Pig

1 Ultimate Walk of Shame

1 Marriage of Political Convenience

1 Bungled Coup

Several Deaths of Characters You Loved and Were Intensely Emotionally Invested In

The Word: I can still remember when the book right before this one in the Song of Ice and Fire series came out. I remember waiting in line at Greenwoods' books to have George R. R. Martin sign it.

Ah, the halcyon days of 2005. Yes, it's been one long-ass wait for the latest book in this densely-plotted, irresistibly dramatic fantasy series. And is it worth it?

Yes.

Mostly.

While, like the other books in this series, this novel juggles about a dozen plotlines all told, the three main ones concern the characters left out of A Feast for Crows - Tyrion Lannister, Daenerys Targaryan, and Jon Snow. People who have this read this book and are now reading this review (for whatever reason), I apologize in advance for not mentioning your particular favourite character/plotline, but there are dozens and hundreds of them and I want this review to clock in under a million words.

Anyway, Tyrion Lannister is now on the lam for the murder of his nephew, Joffrey (which wasn't his fault) and his father, Tywin (which actually was). Still reeling from his father's revelation that the love of Tyrion's life actually had loved him (and wasn't a prostitute as his father and brother Jaime had both assured him), Tyrion finds shelter with a band of rebels harbouring an enormous secret that could seriously affect the line of succession. Tyrion, now seeking vengeance against his crazed sister Queen Cersei and his lying brother Jaime, is all too willing to participate in anything that will blow over their house of royal cards. Still, as much as he wants to convince himself (and others) that he's a completely amoral, selfish Imp - there's an undercurrent of compassion, wit, and plain human decency to him that's the main reason why Tyrion is the most popular character of the series.

Meanwhile, up at the Wall that protects the Seven Kingdoms from the ravages of the north, Jon Snow has been voted Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, i.e. The Most Difficult and Unwanted Position in Existence. Much like the author himself, Jon is forced to juggle a number of demanding problems and characters while keeping everyone satisfied. His ultimate goal is to keep the Wall defended, but it's against what that is the real problem. Everyone agrees that the wights (horrifying re-animated corpses who nearly stormed the Wall in the previous books) must been driven back, but many of Jon's men disagree with Jon's decision to try and ally with the wildlings - clans of humans who live in the lawless north who also nearly stormed the Wall. On top of that, Jon has offered shelter to rebel King Stannis but must also struggle to maintain the Watch's traditional neutrality in political affairs.

Across the Narrow Sea, Daenerys has crowned herself Queen of Meereen, a bloodthirsty slave-port brought to its knees with the might of her dragons and an army of freed, adoring slaves. However, her reign is anything but stable. Her rejection of the slave trade has earned her the enmity of the neighbouring city-states, as well as violently conservative factions within her own walls. To top it all off, her dragons are becoming larger and more unstable, and when one of them is accused of hunting The Most Dangerous Game, Daenerys may well be forced to take her three most valued assets off the table.

Of these three major plotlines, Daenerys' is probably the most prominent. Her conquest of Meereen made serious waves, and several of the smaller plotlines delve into the lives of people who seek to kill, ally themselves with, or marry her (particularly this last one - no fewer than four characters seek Daenerys' hand).

But, really, there are dozens of stories, both major and minor, going on in this jam-packed novel. I recently read an article in Entertainment Weekly that compared George R. R. Martin to Tolkien, and I've never found that comparison more accurate than while I was reading this book. A Dance with Dragons' biggest weakness is its pacing - despite the book's 1000+ pages, the surplus of characters, subplots, and description means that no storyline (even the Three Major Ones) gets very much done in the larger span of things.

Like The Lord of the Rings, however, what this book lacks for in narrative momentum it makes up for in scope. A cast of thousands. A wide-spanning world, each corner of which has its own unique cultures and traditions. Three different religions (at least!). A Dance of Dragons is like the world's most glorious and colourful travel book - so even if the story isn't moving too quickly, you don't really mind because it gives you time to look around.

Yes, the pacing can be slow, but the writing is stellar, the characters are vivid, the morals are grey and blurred (just how I like 'em), the punches are un-pulled, and the scope is epic. On its own, A Dance of Dragons does shift to the bloated and unwieldy side, but as an addition to A Song of Ice and Fire it serves its purpose admirably.
A-

"Indiscreet," by Carolyn Jewel

2011-08-15T19:48:00.000-07:00

The Chick: Sabine Godard. When a malicious rumour destroyed her reputation, her uncle took her and departed to explore Egypt, the Levant, and Turkey, where she now works as her uncle's faithful secretary.
The Rub: There, she encounters a man who was also hurt by the same rumour, but before their love can truly develop, an avaricious Turkish pasha sets his sights on her.
Dream Casting: Scarlett Johansson

The Dude: Edward, Marquess of Foye. Travelling to exotic locales in order to escape his own heartbreak, he falls for the lovely Sabine Godard, even though he was a witness to her ruin and a former friend of the man who did it.
The Rub: But is he bad-ass enough to rescue her from being sent to a harem? Do I really need to answer that?
Dream Casting: A younger Liam Neeson.

The Plot:

Crosshaven: Hey, this chick and I, we totally had sex.

Foye: TMI, dude.

Two Years Later...

Foye: Yeah, I used to be friends with the man who ruined your reputation and had you banished from your homeland. But if it helps, he did it to steal my woman.

Sabine: It does help, and I find you disconcertingly attractive.

Foye: Likewise! Well, this was easy!

Evil Pasha: Not so fast! Yoink! *steals Sabine*

Foye: DAMMIT. Well, I'm here to rescue you, but you'll have to dye your skin, cut your hair and dress as a boy.

Sabine: Will do! *does*

Foye: I still find you disconcertingly attractive.

Sabine: Huzzah!

Foye and Sabine's boots: *knocked*

Foye: There's only one spot on the boat to England, Sabine. You have to take it!

Sabine: I'll never let go, ~~Jack~~ Foye!

Foye: You're going to have to if you're getting on that damn boat!

Sabine: I arrived in England! Yay!

Solicitor: Too bad Foye died!

Sabine: NO!

Foye: JUST KIDDING!

Sabine: HOORAY!

Romance Convention Checklist

1 Vicious, Vicious Lie

2 Pomegranate Sherbets

Several Uncannily Accurate Tea Leaves

1 Evil Pasha

1 Daring Rescue

1 Inconvenient Shipwreck

1 Ingenious Disguise

The Word: Some books, some blessed books, grab you with the first page, with language so lyrical and hooked you're excited to keep reading even before you're entirely sure what you're reading, with settings so vivid and intricately described, yet never so vivid and intricately described as the characters.

Indiscreet is one of them. It has the plot of an Italian opera, the theme of a fairy tale, and a writing style as rich, textured and gorgeous as only romances can be.

The story begins with a rumour, started by an entitled and foppish gentleman in the company of other foppish gentlemen. Our hero, Lord Edward, feels out of place in such company even before his friend, the Earl of Crosshaven, lets slip that he and the lovely orphan niece of an Oxford don may or may not have had improper relations (wink wink). Although Edward does not doubt his friend's word, he thinks less of the fellow for being so callous and unfeeling of his paramour's reputation, which will doubtless be ruined now.

Two years later, a sadder, more cynical Lord Edward (now the Marquess of Foye) meets the object of that rumour while touring Turkey. From looking at Sabine Godard, the lovely niece and secretary of famed scholar Sir Henry Godard, you'd never guess that such a self-contained, demure woman was ever cut by her friends and English society for a faux pas she never committed. While her loving, if cantankerous uncle refused to turn her out and instead took her abroad to escape the scandal and help him with his book, even he was never wholly convinced of her virtue.

But now Foye is all too certain that Sabine was innocent. It turns out Crosshaven had started that rumour to divert suspicion while he eloped with Foye's fiancee, and two years later, Foye hasn't fully overcome that heartbreak. At first he approaches Sabine only to admit and apologize for his unwitting involvement in her unjust ruin, but he sticks around despite his better judgement, her wariness, and the disparity in their ages (he's 38, she's 23). Attraction sparks instantly and brightly, but the real meat-and-potatoes romance doesn't truly set in until Sabine and her ailing uncle come under the dubious hospitality of a devious pasha, and Foye must come to her rescue.

Indiscreet succeeds through its unconventionality of setting, character, and pacing. No blissfully damp English climes here - our characters eat sherbet in sweltering and dusty streets, warily pass Bedouin warriors (thankfully not the Bonnie Vanak kind!), and smoke honey-soaked tobacco with a narghile.

And while there is definitely a Beauty and the Beast theme running beneath the foundation of Sabine and Foye, these are no cookie-cutter characters from Romance Central Casting - or perhaps they would be, if written by a lesser writer with a looser grasp of description. Foye is repeatedly described as an ugly, brutish looking man - "His nose was hooked, and the remainder of his features were set irregularly in his face, as if someone had put the parts together and then given him a hard shake before everything has settled into place." And yet, for such a physically enormous, leonine man, he worships his tailor and a fine suit of clothes. And he treats the things and people he loves with unbearable gentleness and detail.

Sabine is a naturally wary character, given her upbringing and the scandal that banished her family from England. She treats the people around her like puzzles - she likes to take a person's measure and click all their pieces into place before she deals with them. And yet, with Foye, she always comes up one piece short. And the longer Sabine comes to know him, through their romance and their trials, the more her perception of his looks shifts from aesthetic to subjective, as the personality that burns beneath the face begins to give character to it.

Instead of Jewel's characters being based on a single popular Romantic Ideal (the Savage Aristocrat alpha male character who would ordinarily be tamed by the end of the novel, and the Feisty Orphan in Pants who tames him), they're each a collection of small, interlocking details and memories and personality traits that render them so multifaceted and fascinating - just when you think you know them, you spot them from a different angle.

Lastly, the pacing in this book is surprising but effective. Sabine and Foye's love for each other blossoms quickly - almost too quickly. Less than halfway through. But it's not the burst of burninating passion that makes the story - it's how that burninating passion survives under pressure. It's how the passion survives Sabine getting kidnapped, Foye rescuing her, and a series of lies and disguises both must endure in order to escape and reach their happy ending. The first half of the novel convinced me of their love, but it's the novel's second half that will convince you of their ultimate HEA.

If there was one, teeny, tiny, itsy bitsy thing that wasn't perfect, it was an event that happens at the very end which seemed to add extra tension at the last minute that I don't think we really needed - it was very romantic, enjoyable and angsty but it was a little bit much.

I enjoyed Indiscreet from beginning to end. I read it during my vacation in Ireland - it helped me through flights, and on my last night on the Emerald Isle I even stayed up late in the hotel lounge to reach the end. It's gorgeously written, it works as both an intimate romance and an epic, far-reaching lovestory, and it has an unconventional setting. If you haven't already read this book, you should.
A+

"Then He Kissed Me," by Christine Ridgway

2011-08-07T20:35:00.000-07:00

The Chick: Stefania "Stevie" Baci. When her younger sister Alessandra breaks her ankle, the middle Baci sister is roped into helping with the family winery's growing wedding business.
The Rub: Too bad this involves arranging the wedding of her recent ex-boyfriend and the beautiful blond princess he dumped her for.
Dream Casting: Michelle Monaghan.

The Dude: Prince Jacques Christian Wilhelm Parini - a.k.a. "Jack." Here to celebrate his sister's wedding, when he hears that his soon-to-be brother-in-law's ex is hosting the affair, he decides he needs to pay special attention to her to prevent any sabotage of his sister's perfect day.
The Rub: His interest quickly begins to get too personal - but he's got too much baggage to lay at any woman's feet.
Dream Casting: Zachary Quinto.

The Plot:

Stevie: Gah! I have to chauffeur my own ex and his new fiancee on New Yorks Eve! What could be worse?

Stevie's Sisters: You have to arrange their wedding!

Stevie: DAMMIT.

Jack: Hey! I'm a prince and can be both romantic and sleezy in five different languages! Don't fuck up my sister's wedding!

Stevie: I find you unsettlingly attractive, but as long as we don't end up in a fake engagement, we should be good.

Jack and Stevie: *caught smooching*

Engagement: *faked*

Stevie: DAMMIT.

Jack: I don't understand what's happening. I have a past. I'm afraid of the dark. And my sister stole your boyfriend. We shouldn't be together!

Stevie: Um, okay...

Jack: OH CRAP THE CONDOM BROKE YOU'RE PREGNANT WE GOTTA GET MARRIED I'M SO FREAKIN HAPPY ... I mean, *cough* you should get tested.

Stevie: ...

Jack: Yeah, I'm kind of in love with you.

Stevie: HOORAY!

Romance Convention Checklist

1 Handsome Prince

1 (Surprisingly Decent) Ex

1 Inconvenient Phobia

Several Stolen Doo-Dads

1 Broken Condom

1 Fake Engagement

1 Secondary Romance

1 Tiny Vineyard

The Word: As the second book in Christie Ridgway's trilogy concerning three sisters and their struggling family winery, I enjoyed Then He Kissed Me far more than Crush On You.

Mainly because Stevie has much greater emotional impulse control than her sister Allie.

Which is a good thing, as the story begins when Stevie is talked/coerced/emotionally blackmailed into helping out with the family winery's wedding business, a relatively new venture designed to save the Tanti Baci winery from certain bankruptcy. Unfortunately, the first wedding on the docket is none other than that of Emerson Platt (her recent ex-boyfriend who callously dumped her) and Roxanne Parini (the blond princess he callously dumped Stevie for). Awwwwwkard.

While Stevie violently objects, she has little choice - her younger sister Allie broke her ankle, and her older sister is too busy running the other aspects of the winery in between acting angsty and provoking Man Fights between the two men who shall no doubt be competing for her hand in Book Three. Stevie, since her limousine service is only part-time, is the only one able to handle the job, and without the boost of their wedding service, the family winery faces certain bankruptcy.

To further complicate things, Everyone is Aware of the Intense Awkwardness of the situation - including the bride-to-be's brother, Prince Jacques of Ardenia, commonly known as Jack Parini. He and his little sister Roxy (the children of the King's second, American wife) went through a traumatic experience in their teens, and he's determined to protect her from any more pain and humiliation. The idea of a possibly jealous and bitter ex-girlfriend arranging his sister's wedding sets off every alarm bell he has, so he decides to be "the fly in her ointment, the thorn on her rose" to make sure everything goes according to plan.

As is common in Ridgway novels, there are lots of surprising character layers, a touch of darkness, and many surprises. Instead of vilifying Emerson as the weakhearted, wrongheaded, public-image-conscious cheating ex-boyfriend - Ridgeway gives him some unconventional characterization as well as a positive secondary romance with Roxy, who has some serious issues of her own to deal with.

And Jack is an interesting character - he has a reputation worse than Prince Harry's. As teens, he and his sister Roxy were kidnapped and held for ransom - but the vicious rumour that he somehow conspired with the kidnappers never died down, and instead cut Jack off from his family, kept him from taking life too seriously and kept him from making any deep emotional bonds. He's a character so used to bad press that he's started to buy into it himself.

As for Stevie, I quite enjoyed her. Yes, she's a tomboy in the sense that she's comfortable joshing around with men, but she's not too overbearingly I Don't Need a Man to ask for help from one when she needs it. Her issues are milder - mainly stemming from her recent break up, and on a deeper level, being an isolated middle child and the fractious relationship she remembers having with her mother before she died. All of this was handled pretty well (except for a Miraculous Motherly Revelation at the end that seemed too contrived to be real).

That being said, something didn't quite "gel" enough in this story to make me give it an A grade. Part of it is the curse of reviewing books from a backlog (I read this one more than a month ago), but part of it is that I was never really sure what each romantic protagonist ultimately offered the other that helped them both towards an HEA. I could see the attraction, I could see how each overcame their own issues, but looking back on it, I honestly can't remember what it was about their relationship that made it special, that made it The One. Frankly, I remember Emerson and Roxy's romance subplot more than theirs.

Still a worthy, romantic read.
B.

"Forbidden," by Jo Beverley

2011-08-06T20:10:00.001-07:00

The Chick: Lady Serena Riverton. Recently widowed from a monster of a husband, when her greedy, feckless brothers decide to marry her off to another abusive lecher, her only option is to flee.
The Rub: Her only assets are her looks and "bed-work" skills, so when a gentleman rescues her from a storm, she tries to use both in order to secure him as a protector - with disastrous results.
Dream Casting: Christina Hendricks.

The Dude: Francis, Lord Middlethorpe. A man who is preparing to offer for another woman, he is not pleased to be roped into the trickery and games of an altogether too-attractive woman who is clearly Lying About Everything.
The Rub: However, he is an honourable man, and decides to take care of her - but the girl has more issues than Reader's Digest.
Dream Casting: James McAvoy.

The Plot:

Serena: My husband's dead! I'm free!

Creepy Brothers: ....Free to a good home, our slutty sister, in return for payment of our gambling debts? Who's ready to bid? Going once, going twice...

Serena: *gone*

Francis: What's a disturbingly attractive woman like you doing travelling alone? I immediately don't trust you.

Serena: "If you wish, you may mount me." **actual quotation from the book**

Francis: Um, NO.

Serena: *while Francis is asleep* Your mouth says no but your penis says YAY!

Francis: WTF??!!

Serena: No need to get snippy, I'm barren.

Three months later

Serena: *pregnant* Whoops. Guess I'm not.

Francis: *glare*

Francis and Serena: *married*

Serena: Woe is me, I'm broken and unwanted and he only married me because I raped him.

Francis: Woe is me, I love her but she's so delicate and fragile I don't want to break her with my lustful manhood!

Francis's Mum's Secret Boyfriend: Hey! Someone order a Big Misunderstanding?

Francis: SERENA, YOU TART!

Serena: FRANCIS, YOU VIOLENT FIEND!

Francis: I STILL HAVE YOUR HUSBAND'S PORNOGRAPHIC JEWELLERY.

Serena: I STILL HAVE YOUR VIRGINITY.

Francis: Touche.

Serena: Getting angry makes me horny. Let's kiss and make up.

Francis: HOORAY!

Romance Convention Checklist:

1 Virgin Hero

1 "Well Trained" Widow

1 Sexy, Supportive DudeGroup of Sexy Supportive Dudes

1 Not-Entirely-Consensual Deflowering Scene

1 Nasty Racehorse

1 Bad Ass Spinster Aunt

1 Set of Pornographic Jewellery

1 Unwanted Pregnancy

2 Evil Pervy Brothers

1 Evil Pervy Husband (Deceased)

1 Surprise! MILF

The Word: I loves me some virgin heroes. They're just so... rare, and oftentimes there's usually an interesting story behind their celibacy (since apparently guys need a Special Reason not to stick their dick in something, but I digress). Plus, they're almost always Betas. So when I heard a bit about the plot of Forbidden, I decided to find myself a copy - even though my first Beverley read (the so-so Hazard, starring Francis' abandoned TSTL fiancee Anne Peckworth), hadn't impressed.

And also, as per usual in Virgin Hero romances, the heroine is anything but. At fifteen years of age, Serena was married off to a degenerate, abusive lecher who spent the years of her marriage "training" her in the art of "bed-work" to maintain his flagging sex drive, please his kinks, serve tea at his orgies, that sort of thing (to be fair, given the descriptions of what he did, it might have made for quite a pleasant erotic romance had their relationship been consensual).

However, now His Kinkiness has kicked it, and Serena is back with her creepy, spendthrift brothers who are all too willing to hand her off to the next perv with a purse in order to clear their own gambling debts. Serena would rather die than be married again so she flees into the night with barely the clothes on her back and nary a thought in her head (a popular Beverley Heroine Move, it seems to me).

Fortunately, she is rescued from death from exposure by a passing gentleman, Francis, who's been sent on a wild goose chase by his flighty mother who doesn't want him to discover that she's been exploring her inner Cougar with a younger math tutor. Thinking he's on the trail of someone who's been blackmailing his mother, he's not too pleased when a storm and a mysterious woman who is clearly of ill-repute force them to take a detour and spend the night in a farmer's cottage.

By this point, Serena is desperate to get herself as far away from her brothers as possible, so she tries (very clumsily) to seduce Francis and gain him as a protector. Although Francis assures her he'll drive her to the nearest town, he refuses her advances. But life has given Serena little reason to trust men, so she waits until Francis is asleep and takes, uh, matters into her own hands until a half-asleep Francis takes things to their natural conclusion.

So, several things happen from then on - first off, Francis is appalled to discover that he lost his virginity a) without his consent and b) without being awake enough to properly enjoy it. Secondly, now his Honourable Man Instincts are all riled up, double standards or no, and he feels obligated to help Serena by finding her a place with his Bad Ass Spinster Aunt. Francis' plans are further entangled when, three months later, Serena discovers she's pregnant.

And so the Unwanted Lovemaking leads to an Unwanted Marriage. And Serena's Creepy Brothers are still very much in evidence. And the girl Francis was going to marry is Not Very Happy (her Manly Brothers even less so). And despite her (deserved) guilt, Serena can't help but feel Unwanted as well, and her deep-seated sexual issues thanks to her late husband's abuse throw up even more barriers between her and the inexperienced but still willing Francis.

And, I may have forgotten to mention this, but Forbidden is apparently part of a DudeGroup series (more info on such series in the first paragraph of this review), the Rogues, so there are a bunch of Dudes and DudeWives (and even a former DudeMistress) thrown into the mix as well - although, to Beverley's credit, they are not as much of an obstruction or annoyance as former Dudes tend to be.

Character-wise, I enjoyed Francis (when Jo Beverley signed this novel at RWA 2011, she wrote, "In praise of gentle men!"), mainly because - yes, he's just a Nice Dude who gets Crapped On for much of the book. He's a regular, somewhat boring Dude at the beginning of the novel, who's remained a virgin because he's too picky to bed experienced whores and too nice to bed virgins. And, through no real fault of his own, his life is completely thrown upside down, and as he struggles to overcome the troubles he's been unwillingly dragged into, his true character (that of a Super Nice Dude) becomes more apparent.

I was a little less sympathetic towards Serena - it's hard not to feel bad for Francis as various people give him shit for "taking advantage" of Serena. We know why she did it, and her motivations are all there, but she's still a very shaky, scared, limp female character who spends most of the book feeling Super Guilty and Mopey. Again, she's a victim of abuse and it's all understandable, but these sorts of heroines have never been my cup of tea. While she belatedly comes into her own in a surprisingly funny and hot way at the very end, I kind of wish she'd found her spine earlier than the final chapters.

That being said, the main problems I had with this novel are the same problems I had with Hazard - uneven, slow pacing and lots of Inner Whining. Once Francis and Serena are hitched, the novel's pace takes a nose dive and becomes rather episodic, as linear obstacles pop up one by one to be quickly dispatched like wooden ducks in a carnival shooting game. Francis and The Gambling Horserace. Francis and the Pornographic Jewel Collection. Francis vs. The Brothers of His Jilted Fiancee. Francis vs. Serena's Brothers, etc. etc. And all of these episodes are glued together with moping from both Francis and Serena on how Life Isn't Fair. While it's understandable to a certain extent (and would be unrealistic if it wasn't present at all), it seems like there's just a bit too much of it here.

When all is said and done, however, I enjoyed the novel. Francis is a sweet character and his romantic scenes with Serena are lovely. The Dudes and their Wives don't make too much of a fuss. The pacing, while slow, isn't as slow as Hazard and there is enough angst and drama to explain most of the moping. While not a favourite, and not enough to truly convert me into a Beverley fan, it's nonetheless a solid romance with good characters.
B

"Your Scandalous Ways," by Loretta Chase

2011-07-31T08:37:00.001-07:00

The Chick: Francesca Bonnard. Her husband divorced her, society turned its back on her, but she refused to die in the gutter and instead became one of the most expensive and celebrated courtesans in Europe.
The Rub: Her independence is threatened when shady men with shadier intentions start sniffing after some incriminating letters of her ex-husband she may or may not have stashed away...
Dream Casting: Anne Hathaway.

The Dude: James Cordier. Before his superiors let him retire from the spy game, his last job is to retrieve some letters by any (sexy) means necessary from a courtesan in Venice.
The Rub: He's a master of seduction and secrecy who's just looking to settle down with a nice, uncomplicated virgin to marry - too bad he starts falling for Francesca, the very opposite.
Dream Casting: Eric Bana.

The Plot:

Spy Superior: Go and steal some secret letters from a famous courtesan!

James: Piece of cake...

Francesca: Hey there, sailor!

James: ....sexy, delicious cake. Mmmmm cake. DAMMIT.

Evil Men: Die, whore, die!

James: *rescues* Hello, pretty lady. I am a totally trustworthy noble who is totally not trying to steal letters you've been hiding from the British authorities!

Francesca: Why thank you! Care for some free sex?

James: *so very tempted* Yyyyyyyyyyyno. No thank you.

Francesca: How DARE you refuse me! I'm awesome and expensive! Watch me go and have an affair with a boyish innocent prince!

Boyish Innocent Prince: Hi! You're awesome and expensive!

James: DAMMIT.

Evil Thugs: *loot Francesca's house*

James: For the love of all that is holy, Fran, would you give me those letters and have hot, semi-violent sex with me?!

Francesca: In that order? Wait, how the hell do you know about the letters? YOU LIED!

James: I LIED!

Francesca: I'M OUTRAGED!

James: SO AM I!

Francesca: I STILL WANT TO HAVE SEX WITH YOU BUT BECAUSE I'M HEAD BITCH IN CHARGE I'MMA JUMP OFF THIS BALCONY AND MAKE YOU DRAG ME OUT OF THE CANAL FIRST!

James: Wait, what?

Francesca: *jumps* Wheeeeee......

*several hot passionate lovemaking scenes later...*

Evil Sexy Villainess: Hey! Someone order a villain?

Francesca and James: *glare*

Evil Sexy Villainess: Well fine then. Rude. *jumps in canal, and is unrescued*

Francesca and James: Hooray!

Romance Convention Checklist

1 Evil Ex-Husband

1 Crazy Jewel-Hungry Whore

Several Very Nice and Well-Kept Whores

1 Innocent Boyish Prince

Several Expensive Jewels

1 Packet of Traitorous Letters

1 Surprise! Father

1 Instance of a Hero in Drag

The Word: Thank God for Loretta Chase.

Just when I thought I was getting tired of romance. Just when I thought I couldn't handle another book full of tired lustspeak instead of plot, cardboard characters, and meaningless sex scenes.

Thank God for Loretta Chase. I think one of the reasons I love her books is that in each one, she manages to break or at least challenge one of the Major Rules of Romance and get away with it.

In Your Scandalous Ways, she busts two of the biggies:

Thy Heroine Shall Not Be an Unrepentant HoBag
Thy Heroine Shall Not Enjoy Sex With Another Man After Meeting the Hero

But Francesca Bonnard couldn't give less of a crap. She's a courtesan - an actual courtesan. As in, one who actually has sex for money. No, she's not a courtesan's virgin twin sister who's taking her slutty doppelganger's place while Slutty Sis gets a mani-pedi. No, she's not a special "kink" courtesan for impotent men while preserving her virginity for a "special" customer. No, she's not earning money on her back to repair the leaky roof of the local Puppy Orphanage.

No, she's in it for the dolla dolla bills. And maybe a little payback. Francesca used to be the naive wife of an ambitious politician, until he decided he was better off without her. The ensuing divorce proceedings stripped her of every scrap of reputation, good name, and friendship she had. Knowing her ex-husband fully expected her to sink into impoverished, diseased obscurity - she threw herself in the opposite direction, turning herself into a celebrated, fabulously wealthy courtesan, the toast of the Continent.

James Cordier, an experienced British spy, has also earned enough of his pay on his back to apply for Francesca's union. He's had to play so many parts to save the British Empire from certain doom, that he wants nothing more than to retire and settle down with a nice, virginal English bride. Too bad he's got one last job: a powerful member of Parliament may be a traitor, and his now-infamous ex-wife may possess letters that prove it - and James needs to get those letters.

However, James is not the only one after those letters, and he ends up rescuing Francesca from hired assailants. So now he must juggle the daunting tasks of Protecting Francesca, Finding Those Damn Letters, and Avoiding Francesca's Wiles - and Francesca throws wiles like it's her job - oh wait, it IS her job!

Francesca is a fantastically involved character. She's not only an experienced whore, but she actually enjoys the life she leads and all the luxuries that come with it. None of this "secretly I cry myself to sleep in the shower trying to wash my soul free of sin" nonsense. While yes, she does harbour a small, secret yearning for England and the life she used to lead, she relishes the independence she traded it for and balks at the idea of giving it up for any reason, even her own safety.

But James? He's all about the protection. He can't understand why this stubborn woman won't let him swoop in and take over everything like the Captain Britain Superhero he's used to being. But she's not one to sit quietly by and sip tea while James does all the legwork. James is so used to going alone, or with the aid of women he seduces and manipulates, that he's engaged and enchanted by this woman who refuses to relinquish her hold on life - even if it's for her own damn good, the silly wench.

And honestly, I loved every minute of it. This whole book seemed, well, sumptuous. The descriptions, the dialogue, the setting of Venice - Loretta Chase's writing style makes reading this book like running one's hands down a string of pearls - each word smooth, polished, beautiful, just the right fit for its place, all running together into a luxuriant, rich piece. I don't know how else to describe it, for my own words fail me. But Chase doesn't stop with words - you feel for all her characters (Francesca in particular), their development and romance.

Your Scandalous Ways is perfect indulgence - the kind with substance along with style.
A+

"The Hunger Games," by Suzanne Collins

2011-07-25T19:55:00.000-07:00

Our Protagonist: Katniss Everdeen. A hardbitten teenage
survivor of impoverished District Twelve, she's gotten by with few resources and fewer emotional entanglements.
The Rub: When her one emotional entanglement (her younger sister Prim) is endangered by the brutal custom of the Hunger Games, Katniss takes her place in the fight-to-the-death tournament.

Our Supporting Cast:

Gale: Katniss' BFF and Possible Love Interest #1. A fellow hunter and scavenger like herself. Promises to look after Katniss' family while Katniss is gone.

Peeta: District 12's other tribute for the Hunger Games, and Possible Love Interest #2. A lowly baker who's never had to struggle for survival the way Katniss has, he still has a few canny tricks up his sleeve.

Haymitch: Katniss and Peeta's mentor for the Hunger Games, a previous Hunger Games champion who's quite capable and helpful - when he's sober. Which isn't often.

Cinna: Katniss' surprisingly sympathetic and helpful stylist for the Hunger Games.

Effie Trinket: Bitchy McBitchface.

Cato: A ferociously violent boy from a wealthy district who is the odds-on favourite to win the Games.

YA Convention Checklist

1 Dystopian Setting

2 Possible Love Interests

1 Fake Relationship that Evolves Into More (?)

1 Grizzled Rebellious Mentor Figure

Several Costume Changes

1 Thankful Loaf of Bread

Several Explosions

1 Convenient Poison

The Word: Katniss Everdeen is a survivor. An inhabitant of the impoverished District 12, her days are consumed by endless hours of searching, hunting, scavenging, trading, and stealing to make sure her family has food on the table. She wastes nothing - not time, not food, and certainly not emotion. Her father is dead, and her mother can't be trusted - at least in Katniss' eyes.

There are only two people in the world she spares feelings for - her innocent kid sister, Prim; and Gale, her friend and partner in food acquisition. Nothing and nobody else matters - not the privileged (few) rich folk, not the other eleven districts, and not the Capital.

Until the annual Hunger Games roll around - a barbaric tradition where two teenage "tributes" are selected from each district to participate in a brutal fight-to-the-death tournament for the nation's entertainment. The Games' lone winner goes home set for life - and the winner's District is showered with wealth and support for an entire year. The other twenty-three kids come home in boxes.

Katniss worries that her name might be selected (the tributes are chosen by drawing names, but teenagers who put in their names more than once are rewarded with extra food), but something far worse happens - sweet 12-year-old Prim's name is drawn instead, so Katniss volunteers to go in her place. The other tribute is Peeta, the son of the local baker whom Katniss recognizes but barely knows.

Now, at least for the first few chapters, The Hunger Games sounds a lot like the Japanese manga/film series Battle Royale, since they both involve corrupt societies forcing teenagers to kill each other until only one remains. But The Hunger Games goes further than that, showing us the media and societal aspect of the Games themselves.

Once Katniss and Peeta are chosen and taken to the Capital, they are given over to a professional team that involves their "mentor" Haymitch (a canny drunkard who is the last person from District 12 to win the Hunger Games), a prissie PR expert named Effie Trinket, and a stylist named Cinna. While Katniss and Peeta also receive some weapons training, they also get training in attitude, personality, and how to perform well in interviews. Because the Hunger Games, it seems, aren't just for the tributes - they're also the nation's entertainment. Enormous amounts of money change hands during the Games as people bet and place odds, and wealthy people can even "sponsor" a tribute who stands out from the pack by sending them hints and even supplies during the Games themselves.

It's the social aspect of the Hunger Games that fascinated me the most while reading this book - the fact that even once the Games have started and Katniss has to fight for her life, she still has to consider the millions of people who are watching her every move from hidden cameras. The more audience sympathy she has, the more sponsors she can get, and the more secret advantages she'll be given. However, if she appears too rebellious or starts openly questioning the Powers That Be, those same Powers can manipulate the Games to make them that much harder for her.

This plays especially well into the complicated relationship she develops with Peeta, her fellow tribute. At the beginning of the book, Peeta surprises them all by declaring to the media that he and Katniss are in a romantic relationship. The "tragic romance" angle gains them so much audience interest that Katniss plays along with the ruse in order to survive - even as she increasingly starts to question how much of it Peeta's actually faking.

Katniss is the central character of The Hunger Games and she doesn't disappoint. She's a girl who has had to fight for all the she has and she refuses to deal with deadweight - such as her mother, whom she rejected after the woman's depression nearly caused their family to starve. She's unaccustomed to trifling with people who can't keep up with her, so having to slow down and help Peeta (in order to support their cover story of being tragic lovers) goes against all of her stronger (if not necessarily better) instincts. Their interactions are fascinating, and I look forward to reading how they continue their relationship (along with Gale) in the following books.

As a book, The Hunger Games is excellently paced. The language is precise while still evocative. The worldbuilding - well, that's a shakier subject. The novel's focus is more on the story and less on where it happens, so a lot of the sci-fi, the technology, the history, and the dystopian aspects of the world itself seem a bit vague or convenient. But maybe I will learn more when I read the following books. As it is, The Hunger Games was thought provoking and entertaining with a strong female protagonist. Thumbs up!
A-

"Talk of the Town," by Karen Hawkins

2011-07-22T20:23:00.000-07:00

The Chick: Roxie Treymayne. Newly divorced from her cheating husband, she's all set to change her life, change her hair, and become the bad girl she never got to be.
The Rub: Until her mother suffers a heart attack, and she now has to drag herself (and her new hair, piercing, and tramp stamp) back to her hometown of Glory, North Carolina, where she was the perfectly-perfect Prom Queen.
Dream Casting: Rebecca Romijn.

The Dude: Nick Sheppard. Formerly the town troublemaker, he left
Glory to become a straight-arrow cop. Now he's back in Glory as the sheriff, just in time to see his first love, Roxie, roll back into town with a whole new look and a taste for trouble he no longer shares.
The Rub: He left his big-city cop job after his supervisor let a pretty young thing lead him into police corruption, so he's determined that no woman will let him stray from the straight and narrow.
Dream Casting: Harry Connick Jr.

The Plot:

Roxie: Hey now that my husband's run off with a dude I'm going to be all hawt and free-wheeling and tattooed and stuff! I'm going to see the world!

Mother: *heart attack*

Roxie: ...crud.

Nick: Hey now that I'm a sheriff after having to leave the big city when I ratted out my cop buddies, I'm going to have to stay completely clear of troublesome women in order to maintain my integrity!

Roxie: Hey y'all! I got a tattoo! Close to my BUTT!

Nick: ...crud.

Random Old People: Let's solve crimes! And be nosy busybodies and make snap judgements! We're old and sick and going to die soon, so that makes it funny and okay!

Nick: Don'thavesexwithRoxieDon'thavesexwithRoxieDon'thavesexwithRoxie.

Roxie and Nick: *have sex*

Nick: D'OH!

Roxie: Hey, remember when we were hot teenagers whose love burned out really fast for no reason?

Nick: I only heard the first half of that sentence.

Random Evil Assailant: Hey look! I'm evil! And not who you expected! Die, Roxy, die!

Nick: No, don't!

Random Evil Assailant: Okay.

Nick: Let's get married.

Roxie: Hooray!

Romance Convention Checklist

1 New Tattoo

1 New Body Piercing

1 Surprise! Gay Husband

1 Comic Relief Maid Who Is In Reality Incredibly Annoying

1 Possible Murrrrrder

1 Secret Murrrrrder Mystery Club

1 Secret Murrrrrrder Mystery Club Bong

The Plot: Roxie Treymayne has had it up to here with her charmed life. After years of being the perfect daughter, student, Prom Queen and wife, Roxie finds herself set adrift (albeit with a huge monetary settlement) after she discovers her husband in bed with another man (a development that is played, rather uncomfortably, for laughs).

So Roxie decides to HELL with being the Good Girl. She dyes her hair blond, changes her wardrobe, gets herself pierced and tattooed and is all set to jet off to Venice or Paris to live the high life she never allowed herself to - just in time for her overbearing mother to have a heart attack, necessitating Roxie's return to her hometown of Glory, North Carolina, to help care for her.

On the way into town, she runs into none other than Nick Sheppard - the former town bad boy, whose teenage fling with her was the only rebellious move Roxie'd ever made under her mother's roof. He's cleaned up into the town sheriff, and he's more than a little surprised by Roxie's new attitude on life.

Their attraction flares back to life almost instantly, now with the added spice of having their moral standpoints reversed - now Nick is on the straight and narrow while Roxie is determined to cause trouble. However, neither is willing to renew their relationship. Roxie wants nothing more than to settle her mother's affairs (one of which involves babysitting a senior citizen's club and their birdbrained attempts to solve a mysterious death) as quickly as possible so she can resume her plan to travel the world and have an adventure.

Meanwhile Nick's viewpoint on women has been tarnished by his past as a big-city cop who was forced to rat out a beloved mentor who turned corrupt thanks to the wiles of a Troublemaking Woman, and he's afraid that succumbing to his renewed lust for Roxie will lead him down a similar path.

First of all, for this book, I liked the protagonists and I really enjoyed the idea of the novel - that of the Bad Boy and Good Girl who reunite years later with their standpoints reversed. While I found the hyuk-hyuk Roxie's Husband Loves a Transvestite! plotline trite, unnecessary, offensive, and even a little nonsensical (Roxie feels she wasn't feminine enough for her husband - um, he's gay, femininity was the problem), I loved her new attitude and how she moved on from it. Similarly Nick Sheppard manages the toe the fine line between Distrusting Himself Around Women and Distrusting Women, so his romantic reservations come across as a little paranoid but not misogynist.

I also enjoyed the mystery element - the bad guy was not who I thought it would be, surprise, surprise.

But at the same time, I wasn't totally engaged. The two protagonists are generally reasonable but they also aren't very interesting beyond their initial problems. As well, the humour is pretty hit or miss. Madcap humour is especially difficult - there is a thin line between crazy-hilarious and crazy-annoying, and I felt most of the characters and their depictions fell into the latter category, particularly Roxie's housekeeper Tundy who seems to be there mainly to spurt anecdotes and wacky words of wisdom.

I'm also not a fan of mystery romances where the heroine, who is not in law enforcement and has no law enforcement training, gets butthurt when the cop hero won't let her ride along on a case or handle or keep crucial evidence. I'm sorry, but the reason he won't let you do that is because it's the law, not because he doesn't trust you. Calm your tits.

As it is, Talk of the Town was a pleasant but not very memorable read.
B-

AnimeJune Takes Manhattan: RWA 2011

2011-07-05T21:22:00.000-07:00

Well, now that I'm all rested and ready to leave for Ireland tomorrow (hectic jetsetter that I am), I thought I'd give you all a recap of my trip to the Big Apple for the Romance Writers of America's 2011 National Conference.

Did I do some things differently this year? Yes. I didn't attend as many workshops. I didn't pitch. I researched YA, and I didn't go hog-wild at the booksignings this year. In fact, I think I attended three signings and walked away with fewer than six books total.

Did I have a good time, though? YOU BET I DID!

Day One started on Monday. Flew into New York, and despite a bit of panic over a very, very tight connection, arrived in one piece and on time to reconnect with 2011 RWA Librarian of the Year Wendy and Rosie! We fell into chatting (while I unhinged my jaw and devoured a chicken quesadilla - due to the tight connection, all I'd had for lunch was a banana, some string cheese and a Fresca) just like old times, like we totally hadn't been separated by geography for a year!

And Times Square, let me tell ya, it's a glorious spectacle the first, oh, three times you walk through it to the hotel, but afterwards, well, it's kind of like being assaulted by real-life Internet pop-ups. All advertisements, all the time, great big neon letters. After a while, I totally understood why all the native New York attendees advised us to get the hell out of the Square to experience the real city life. Honestly, it made the merchandising in DisneyWorld look subtle.

Anyhoo, the next day (Tuesday) was my Annual Day of Not Pacing Myself. For my three years of attending RWA, I've turned Condensed Sightseeing into something of an art form. In 2009, I tramped over the National Mall in Washington DC in one day - taking the Metro, seeing the Smithsonian, the National Monument, and the memorials for three different wars. In 2010, I explored three Disney parks in two days swimming through Floridian humidity in July.

Firstly, though, I picked up my Conference Swag:

Bitches can't handle my swag! Books that I really wanted to read, a beautiful conference pen, a flashdrive (of course!), a booklight, a water bottle bag thing that leaked all over the place, and a really helpful New York map from Carina Press and the Smart Bitches!

After that, it was time to really explore New York. I decided to forgo the $17 waffle offered by the hotel restaurant and foraged through Times Square, eventually settling on an EZ Deli that made a mean pancake platter for $4.50 - so quite the bargain in comparison to the overpriced hotel meal.

After that, I took the New York subway to the Museum of Natural History. Now, I'm young and Canadian and watch far too much TV so I was really touristy about a lot of things - like how, "oooh! The subway looks like just it does in the movies!" A lot of New York appeared "just like the movies" or "just like TV" to me. Sad but true.

The museum itself was amazing - lots of dioramas, dinosaurs, giant whales, and stuff animals (not the cuddly kind).

After that, since the museum skirts Central Park, I decided to walk across Central Park to reach the Metropolitan Museum of Art (which also borders Central Park - on the other side). First, though, lunch - a soft pretzel and mustard. I shared the pretzel with a horde of fearless, well-fed New York pigeons and the mustard with my pants. And none with the homeless person sleeping on the bench since I didn't even notice him until I threw the rest of my pretzel in the garbage.

Central Park was glorious - everything was ripe and green, the day was hot but not too hot. Again, the movie-lover in me took over, because I flipped out over the bridge from Enchanted (and the New York episode of Glee) as well as Bethesda Plaza where the musical number of "That's How You Know" (again, Enchanted) was performed.

Central Park is a bit of a maze, though, and it turned out to be a pretty long hike from one end to the other, with a lot of twists and turns and misdirection.

But it was fun to walk. I mean, I had no real idea of how enormous Central Park was. I kept thinking, it's one park in the centre of an enormous city. How big can it be?

The answer - pretty fucking big. But after about an hour and a half of walking, I finally made it to the other side, to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

First of all, it's a gorgeous building all on its own, with loads of Palladian columns and people hawking their own art in front of it. Inside, there were loads of different exhibits. I wanted to see the Savage Beauty exhibit (dedicated to the art of Alexander McQueen's fashion) but there was an estimated 45 minute wait and a line of about two hundred people just to get in to that, and as it was already mid-afternoon I decided life was too short and went and explored the exhibits for 19th century portraits as well as armour and weaponry.

There was so much to look at - gorgeous pictures, cool swords, statues and sculptures and pastels... after a while it became a bit of a sensory overload and even then I had to pry myself away and cab back down to the hotel to get there in time for the Literary Autographing.

I arrived in time, starving and footsore as expected.

But I saw Christie Ridgway!

And Shirley Thomas! Who told me she'd read my review of His At Night and thought my casting for Spencer Stuart was spot on - and that it got her to watch Downton Abbey (always a plus!).

Then I saw Kate Noble and got her newest book, Follow My Lead.

Reconnected with Courtney Milan and bought a copy of Unveiled.

Fangirled over Rose Lerner! Although her new book still isn't out yet!

FINALLY FINALLY FINALLY got to meet Marjorie M. Liu! I love her books!

Met with Victoria Dahl and Joanna Bourne again, as well.

Checked out both Jennifer Echols and Simone Elkeles, too, as I'm now trying to write YA and they seem to be the best in the biz right now - I also went to Elkeles' very helpful YA workshop with David Levithan.

As well, I managed to snag the last copy of It Happened One Season (a project-sequel of sorts to the lovely anthology It Happened One Night) and got it signed by Stephanie Laurens, and I met Jo Beverley, who very kindly signed my old, yellowed, used copy of Forbidden (which I'd read on my flight over) instead of making me buy the new re-issue.

I couldn't stay for the whole signing however - I was swaying on my feet by then, not to mention starving. I'd also been invited to the Nelson Literary Agency party (for being an author-friendly blogger, as it turns out!) and if I didn't have anything to eat before then I wouldn't be fit company for anyone, much less a party of authors and literary agents and publishing industry professionals.

So - I caved. One of the things I wanted to do while I was in New York is find one of the great, fabulous, glamourously secretly awesome restaurants and eat there but I was short on time and long on hunger so I ate at the McDonald's on Times Square - but walking, food in hand, I ended up having an unexpected celebrity experience.

I'd noticed in the morning that the middle of Times Square had an enormous Transformers display, with smashed cars and cranes and a life-size replica of Bumblebee. Well, now that it was evening, I discovered it was actually for the New York premiere of the third Transformers movie, Dark of the Moon - and I actually got to see Josh Duhamel walk by. I got a video of him, actually, which was pretty cool. I didn't have time to wait and see if Shia LaBoeuf showed up, unfortunately, so I made my way back to the hotel, gussied myself up, and shared a cab with fab author Carolyn Jewel to the NAL party.

The cocktail party hosted by the Nelson Literary Agency was amazing - it was held at a restaurant on the roof of a twenty-story building, so I could see brilliant New York skyline at dusk. Spoke to some authors, some agents, ended up in a long conversation with Andrew Shaffer and one of the writers for GeekMom, a lovely women who also writes Viking erotica whose name I have forgotten, as well as a couple of people who worked with digital books whose names I have also forgotten (I'm still rifling through my business cards, bear with me). Great conversation. Amazing view. Open bar. I was in heaven, although honestly, by the end of the day my knees were wobbling - I'd probably sat down for maybe 20% of the day, with the other 80% spent walking, running, and standing.

So I poured myself into bed and woke up the next day to start with the full conference experience. Today I actually did cave and get a $17 waffle because this year the conference didn't offer complimentary continental breakfast, and yet the opening session still started at 8:30 in the morning. But whatever. The opening session with Diana Gabaldon, Tess Gerritson and Steve Berry was eye-opening (Outlander apparently started as a "practice" book that was never supposed to be published), and Madeline Hunter gave a lovely speech for her keynote address at the luncheon.

In between that and the Book Blogger Tea, I ran into Jodi Thomas (who wrote Rewriting Monday, which I reviewed), and had a lovely chat with her and her friends. I told her I wanted to be published, and she said, with absolute certainty, "You will be. You know why? Because you care enough about it to come here." What a sweetheart!

After that, I went to the Book Blogger Tea hosted by Harlequin's Digital Team. We got to fill out survey sheets about what we liked to read and review (although I doubt I'll get anything because I said I preferred print to e-pubbed books), and we all got handmade fascinators (I kept mine - I'm the one in the pink shirt on the photo on the right). Saw Kristie J there, too (the woman in the red plaid in the picture on the left).

I could only stay for about half an hour, though - I had other things to prepare for. Big things. One big thing in particular that's been on my Bucket List since I was about seven years old.

My first live, real, original cast Broadway show!
I saw The Book of Mormon at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre, and the experience was, well, pretty much beyond words. Amazing, hilarious, and life-changing are pretty mild, surface-scratching descriptors.

Needless to say, it was the highlight of my whole trip. The songs, the dancing, the actors, the jokes ... it was amazing! I sat in row B, close enough to spit on the actors (not that I would - they were awesome!), and I saw everything.

After that, well, the rest of the conference was still pretty good. On Thursday, I went to more workshops, cheered for SuperWendy upon winning the Librarian of the Year award, listened to Sherilyn Kenyon's depressing, inspiring, horrifying, uplifting keynote speech. Met author Lila diPasqua at our table (and she convinced me to pick up a copy of The Princess in his Bed at one of the signings the next day), and then did more sight seeing.

This time I went and explored 30 Rockefeller Plaza. The home of NBC Studios and the Top of the Rock Attraction. Weirdly enough, the security to get to the top of a building was more rigorous than the security at LaGuaria Airport, but the view was sure worth it!

You have to go up 67 floors to get to the top - the ride lasts 45 seconds and they play images and music on the ceiling of the elevator as it goes up and down.

But I got my sightseeing on and returned down in time to take the NBC Studio Tour - there we got to see Dr Oz's studio (getting renovated) and Jimmy Fallon's studio for The Late Show with Jimmy Fallon. Jimmy's studio was tiny. Like, living-room tiny. All the studios in NBC are small because they all started out as radio studios, so they've had to make due. Apparently, Jimmy can only seat an audience of about 182 people (Leno gets twice that, at least), and the producers use a wide-angle lens and never pan between Jimmy, the floor, and the band in order to trick people into thinking the studio's bigger.

Seeing that was nothing compared to seeing the studio for Saturday Night Live - a show I've been watching religiously for about ten years now. I actually got to walk down the hallway where you see all the pictures of the cast and the guest stars! They were renovating inside, too, but we still got to see the major stages - there are three. The middle stage is where they have the monologue and the easily collapsible stages like Weekend Update.

The right stage is the semi-permanent stage which they use for difficult-to-set-up bits like sets that require stairs or water falls or something. The stage on the left is the one for the musical guests, and the guide (an actual page! Like Kenneth!) told us they've now had to include the stage's size in their contract with the musical artists because both times Kanye West forgot and had to squeeze forty ballerinas and giant gospel choirs onto that tiny stage.

After that dream come true, I trecked up to see and pray at St. Patrick's Cathedral. It even had a teeny-tiny gift shop.

And after that was the Gathering, the party for the FF&P Chapter of RWA. Great hors d'oeuvres, chocolate fondue, and goodie bags for everyone.

After that, it was Friday. The last day of the conference. I actually went to a couple of booksignings today, mainly to get Jennifer Echol's Love Story (which I did!), and some other cool books, too.

For my last afternoon of sightseeing, I checked out the Paley Center for Media - the new name for the Television and Radio Museum. When I walked in, I was greeted by this small, neat British man who introduced me to the exhibits - it's not a museum for walking around. For the price of admission, you can go downstairs to the theatre and watch all the specials and retrospectives and documentaries about television, and you can go upstairs and have an hour and a half of time watching anything from their enormous, enormous library of shows and archival footage. I watched a little bit of everything - some of the original pilot of Sesame Street, to 13-year-old Alannis Morrisette in You Can't Do This On Television, to the incredibly silly pilot of Cop Rock (America's one and only musical police procedural).

I got back in time for dinner before the RITAs - with a pretty sad result. I asked a certain other blogger to a Japanese place a friend of mine had suggested. She accepted, then turned around with a bunch of other attendees and told me we were having Thai. We walk from the hotel to the famous Restaurant Row, and I discover I can't eat at the restaurant because they cook with a food to which I am fatally allergic. The response from everyone? Oh well. Everyone went in. I stayed out. I got ditched.

It would have been easier to take if the Thai restaurant had been in the middle of nowhere, but we were on Restaurant Row, where you could literally cannot throw a rock without hitting a restaurant. They were up and down ninth avenue, all different styles and ethnicities of cooking. We could have gone anywhere else. Literally. And while I'm used to eating alone, I guess, it felt so depressing to be left on my own for the my last dinner at RWA. I just wish they'd told me they didn't want to eat with me while I'd been at the hotel. Because then I could have flagged down someone else.

I ended up eating alone at a Cajun place (with a yummy fried shrimp po'boy), cheered myself up by reading Jo Beverley's Forbidden, then went to the RITAs. And that was pretty much my New York vacation. I had a blast, I saw some great sights, and ... well, I have to admit that it wasn't so much about the conference this time. Going back over my memories of the trip, 90% is what I saw around New York and The Book of Mormon, and about 10% was the conference itself.

I don't know what that means, exactly. I still like writing, and I'm still working on a novel and want to be published, but the conference experience just wasn't with me this year, I guess. I'd let myself grow apart from my writing (or at least that part within the romance genre), so I felt a bit of a disconnect this year.

But I still managed to carry home some swag! Yeah, that's what I wrote - carried home. No shipping for me this time. I just took the books I wanted, and only enough to fit in my suitcase Hurrah for tiny apartments and will power!

We'll see what next year brings! AND NOW - ONTO MY ENORMOUS REVIEW BACKLOG!

"Dark Angel / Lord Carew's Bride," by Mary Balogh

2011-06-02T17:12:00.000-07:00

Dark Angel

The Chick: Jennifer Winwood. Betrothed to a neighbouring lord since she was fifteen, she's eager to enter into marriage with him while enjoying her first proper Season.
The Rub: Despite his horrid reputation, the dastardly Earl of Thornhill insists on ensnaring her attention in ways her fiance can't.
Dream Casting: Bryce Dallas Howard.

The Dude: Gabriel Fisher, Earl of Thornhill. Society believes he impregnated his own father's wife and fled with her to the Continent out of shame - but he's returned to England to punish the real man responsible.
The Rub: What better way to punish the scoundrel who seduced his stepmother than by seducing his beautiful, pure fiancee, Jennifer Winwood?
Dream Casting: Ian Somerhalder.

The Plot:

Jennifer: I can't wait to meet my lovely fiance who is totally not a secret douchebag!

Gabriel: I can't wait to ruin the secret douchebag who porked my stepmum by seducing his lovely fiancee! Jennifer, look into my eyes, I am so tortured and and alone...*bedroom eyes*

Jennifer: *mesmerised* I will do whatever you say.

Gabriel: Cool.

Jennifer: Wait. Something's not right.

Douchebag Fiance: Hey look, Gabriel left a secret letter that totally mentions how he's been banging my lady this entire time. The fact that this secret letter's written in my own handwriting is of no account!

Gabriel: Guess we have to get married then!

Jennifer: I HATE YOU.

Gabriel: Love you too, I'm off t0 kick My Lord Douchebag's ass!

My Lord Douchebag: *is revealed to be a douchebag8

Jennifer: Okay, I love you again now.

Gabriel: HOORAY!

Romance Convention Checklist
2 Ruined Reputations
1 Secret Baby
1 Almost Secondary Romance
1 Caning (Unsexy Variety)

The Word: So, I was having kind of a downer week, feeling frustrated with romance, and I decided to pick up a Mary Balogh novel, because usually nothing wakes me up out of my reading slump like Balogh.

Dark Angel/Lord Carew's Bride are the somewhat-connected short novels about the romantic misadventures of two cousins, Jennifer Winwood and Samantha Newman, and their run-ins with My Lord Douchebag, Lord Kersey.

In Dark Angel, Jennifer is actually engaged to My Lord Douchebag and has been since she was fifteen, only she thinks he's My Lord Awesomeness. Experiencing her first Season rather late (at twenty), she's still eager to go to all the balls and dances and social events before becoming My Lady Awesomeness.

However, Gabriel, Earl Thornhill, wants revenge against My Lord Douchebag. Years ago, My Lord Douchebag seduced, impregnated, and abandoned Gabriel's young stepmother, leaving Gabriel to take the rap when he escorted her to the Continent to escape the scandal. Now he's back, a social pariah, and he's determined to make My Lord Douchebag pay for what he did - and he sets his sights on the scoundrel's young, innocent fiancee as the means to this end.

All this sounds well and good, and to his credit, Gabriel is very subtle with his seduction of Jennifer, but the main flaw in this story is that it really is too subtle and Jennifer looks like a doormat whenever she gives in. She repeatedly gives Gabriel leave to dance with her, touch her, get her alone, and kiss her and all because she somehow believes she has no other option but to do as he says or look terribly rude.

This being Mary Balogh, the writing is lovely and the characters are, for the most part, rational people, but story is a little unfocused. Again, the heroine comes across as a bit spineless as the hero leads her a merry chase, and when real scandal unfolds, her motivations for her following decisions are almost comically shallow. However, this story gains points for having a heroine who is genuinely is love with someone who is not the hero (even though he turns out to be My Lord Douchebag).

All in all, a pleasant but unremarkable read. B

Lord Carew's Bride

The Chick: Samantha Newman. The younger cousin of Jennifer Winwood, she swore off love after a devastating heartbreak in her past. But nothing's wrong with a platonic friendship with harmless gardener Hartley Wade.
The Rub: When that particular heartbreak from her past returns to haunt her, she decides a happy, passionless marriage to Hartley will keep her safe - but what if love and passion find her, regardless?
Dream Casting: Rosamund Pike.

The Dude: Hartley Wade, Marquess of Carew. A bit of a recluse as well as a cripple, he never thought he'd earn the affections of a gorgeous, sophisticated woman like Samantha Newman.
The Rub: However, the woman he loves comes with Boyfriend Baggage that hits surprisingly close to home.
Dream Casting: Lee Pace.

The Plot:

Samantha: No more love for me! Tra la la, life is so simple and uncomplicated!

Hartley: Why, hello there. Let's be friends. *in head* OMG a girl is talking to me, a real girl, she's so pretty, I love her hair, she smells nice, but not in the pervy way, does she have a boyfriend? Is it too early to propose? She smells nice.

Samantha: Wow! Spending time with you is so much fun! *in head* He's so sweet and caring and nice and fun to spend time with and considerate and respectful - gee, it's a good thing I don't find him attractive in the least or else this would be really complicated!

Samantha: Oh, look at the time, I have to get back to London! *in head* Complicated feelings are complicated.

Hartley: Have a good time then. *in head* SHIT, better get my ass down to London!

In London

Earl Douchebag: Hey sweet cheeks! Nice legs, what time are they open?

Samantha: Oh, crap.

Hartley: Well, hey! Fancy running into you in London! What a crazy random happenstance! Did I mention I want to marry you, and that I'm secretly a marquess?

Samantha: Sure, whatever. Let's get married.

Hartley: YES. *in head* YES YES YES YES *EPIC FISTBUMP* By the way, care to meet my cousin, Earl Douchebag?

Earl Douchebag: 'Sup. We've met. *winks*

Samantha: ... this is awkward.

Hartley: Um, if you need me, I'm going to be in my chambers writhing in the agony of embarrassed despair.

Earl Douchebag: Mwahahaha!

Hartley: No, wait, I've decided I'm going to be kicking you in the face instead, because I am a secret bad-ass street fighter!

Earl Douchebag: *royally ass-kicked*

Samantha: You are so awesome. *in head* I was in love with him the whole time. Who knew? I just got Shyamalan'd.

Hartley: HOORAY!

Romance Convention Checklist

The Word: Now, while "Lord Carew's Bride" is even lower in conflict than "Dark Angel," I found I enjoyed this short novel immensely.

Back in "Dark Angel," Samantha Newman, Jennifer Winwood's cousin, was seduced by My Lord Douchebag who thought he could use her feelings for him to influence Jennifer into breaking their betrothal. When a lovesick Samantha nevertheless refused, My Lord Douchebag threw her off and found other, less ethical means of breaking his engagement to Jennifer. Guilty, heartbroken, and ashamed, Samantha swore off love.

Six years later, despite entering into a seventh Season surrounded by loving admirers, Samantha has retained her independence, although her enjoyment of city life has begun to wear a little thin. While visiting Jennifer and her husband in the country, Samantha slips away for some precious alone time and strikes up a friendship on the neighbouring estate with a young gentleman with a crippled arm and leg whom she takes to be a gardener. She enjoys his company immensely, albeit in a platonic way, but when circumstances force her to return to London after four afternoons together, she feels the loss surprisingly keenly.

Unbeknownst to her, the "gardener" is actually the reclusive, shy, and adorably-Beta Marquess of Carew. Crippled by a childhood "accident" and yet owner of one of the wealthiest estates in England, Hartley decided not to correct Samantha's assumption that he was a gardener for fear of losing her genuine affection. However, it takes him all of five seconds to fall head over heels in love with her, so when Samantha returns to London he decides to follow her.

More drama arrives in the form of My Lord Douchebag, now Earl of Douchebag, who has returned from his exile on the Continent after his father's death. He almost immediately renews his attentions towards Samantha, who is alternately terrified/attracted to him. Fearing her old torch for him may reignite with disastrous consequences, she recklessly accepts Hartley's sudden marriage proposal, thinking a safe, passionless marriage will protect her from Earl Douchebag's insidious influence. No dice: Douchebag and Hartley are actually cousins, with a shady history of their own.

The main reason I enjoyed this story so much is due to Hartley - a sweeter, more self-effacing and yet brave Beta hero I have yet to meet. He is adorable. He is, in fact, such a lovely, beautiful man that I often found myself getting annoyed with the heroine, who spends much of the story in heavy Denial regarding how Perfect Hartley is. She says how thankful she is that Hartley isn't attractive more than once. She marries him to protect herself with little regard to his feelings and fails to realize until it's too late that he's crazy in love with her. She's not a bad person or a badly developed character, and she comes around in a truly subtle and realistic way in the end, but during these times of cluelessness I just felt so bad for Hartley.

But Beta doesn't mean weak, and Hartley finally gets to avenge both his wife and his childhood enmity with Cousin Douchebag in a truly awesome scene. For this one, I give it a high B+.

"Something Borrowed," by Emily Giffin

2011-05-24T20:40:00.000-07:00

The Protagonist: Rachel White. She's always come in second place after her hotter, luckier, more successful best friend Darcy, and for years she's been convinced that that's just her lot in life...
The Rub: ... until she sleeps with and falls in love with her best friend's fiance, Dex, and she starts to rethink just how unfun it is to live in her best friend's shadow.

The Supporting Cast:

Dexter: Darcy's fiance, and a former lawschool chum of Rachel's. Obviously likes Rachel, but it hesitant to end his seven-year (!) relationship with Darcy. Still - why not bang them both to help him decide?

Darcy: Rachel's lifelong bestie - who's presented as a shrill, superficial, selfish, grasping adulterous attention whore who basically deserves to be cheated on. I guess.

Ethan: Rachel's platonic male friend living in Britain. Believed to be gay by Darcy because he wouldn't sleep with her. Nursing his own heartbreak.

Marcus: Dex's slacker best bud. Charming and easygoing - Rachel sporadically dates him in an attempt to get over/cover up her affair with Dex.

Hillary: Rachel's much healthier friend, who happens to not Be a Slutty Pirate Hooker like Darcy.

The Word: The line - although Something Borrowed never quite crosses it, it tap dances along it so often that it's hard not to hate it, even when it never quite shifts into completely terrible.

Something Borrowed says it's about exploring love and female friendships, when really it's about toxic friendships, jealousy, bitterness, and adultery. It really isn't the chic little chicklit novel it appears to be.

Rachel White is our novel's ~~green-eyed-monster~~ protagonist. She's celebrating her 30th birthday, and of course her bestest best friend from childhood Darcy is celebrating it with her while simultaneously sucking up all the attention for herself. The story's instigating incident happens directly after Darcy leaves, when Rachel and Dex, Darcy's fiance, go to another bar, get even drunker, and end up falling into bed with each other.

Now, I understand where the novel is trying to go with this - examining the things that hold friendship together and where romantic relationships fit in and which relationships should be more important. I understand it's trying to examine the morality of adultery and whether it's better to go after the one you love or remain with the one you're committed to even if emotionally you're not.

But most of this message is scrubbed away by the depiction of Darcy. Right after the hook-up, Rachel gives us a long and detailed info-dump on her past which obviously depicts Darcy as a Boyfriend Stealing, Attention Whoring, Lazy, Directionless, Too Beautiful to Live Shrew Who Just Gets Everything So Easily.

The moral quandary really goes out the window when the book almost outright tells you that Darcy deserves to have her fiance cheat on her because she's a giant selfish bitch.

And on top of that we have a heroine who is very difficult to sympathize with. The novel isn't badly written, and we do understand Rachel and where she comes from and how her past has shaped her into the person she is, but I found it so difficult to truly enjoy the adventures of a woman who is so envious and passive.

That's what I mean by the line - Rachel is a well developed and understandable character, but it's still painful and boring to watch her whining about how Darcy always won this and Darcy always was better at that and everyone loves Darcy but not me boo hoo hoo. It's equally tedious reading how much she enjoys being with Dex but how for the vast majority of the book she can't bring herself to tell Darcy or even encourage Dex to break his engagement because of her low self esteem. I spent most of the book wanting to tell Rachel to get over herself, already.

Again, though, the book is well-written with some nice turns of phrase, and I enjoy the majority of the supporting cast, but I just couldn't get behind Rachel. No matter how well-written, a novel about a woman wringing her hands for 200 pages is still a book about a woman wringing her hands for 200 pages and I'd rather read anything else.
C

"Tangled Up In Love," by Heidi Betts

2011-05-03T19:14:00.001-07:00

The Chick: Veronica Chasen. When she needs to challenge Dylan Stone, a rival from another paper, she decides to bet that he can't learn how to knit in a month.
The Rub: She's on easy street until he comes knocking at her door with $1,000 asking her to tutor him in knitting. How can she resist his cash-- er, I mean his debonair charm?
Dream Casting: Chyler Leigh.

The Dude: Dylan Stone. A wannabe sportwriters in a mere columnist's job, he gets his kicks from teasing and challenging the hot writer from a rival paper - but she bets he can't knit an article of wearable clothing in a month, he knows he's in for a real challenge.
The Rub: He knows there's more to this girl than she lets on - if only she could teach him more than just how to pearl one, knit two.
Dream Casting: Ryan Kwanten.

The Plot:

Veronica: I hate you for no good reason!

Dylan: Well, I hate you for no good reason MORE!

Meddlesome Old Bag Character: You should totally hook up! Let me get my magic spinning wheel!

Veronica and Dylan: NO.

Veronica's Meddlesome Friends: We should totally get our gal pal drunk and leave her with the man she's professed to hate! That will end well!

Veronica: WORST FRIENDS EVER. Oh well, guess we have to have lots of protracted sex scenes.

Dylan: Okay, then.

Boots: *are knocked*

Veronica: Hey, you're not such a bad guy.

Dylan: Hey, you're not such a bad gal MORE.

Veronica: Wow, and while we were hooking up, it's like all of our personal problems up and solved themselves!

Dylan: Convenient, that. Wanna hook up some more?

Veronica: Sure!

Dylan: HOORAY!

Romance Convention Checklist

Several Annoying Matchmaking Meddlers

1 Inexplicably Intense Professional Rivalry

1 Secret Boxcar Child Past

1 Magic Spinning Wheel

1 Skein of Magic Yarn

Several Untrustworthy Sequel-Baiting Friends

1 Strongly-Worded Ass Tattoo

The Word: Lord, save me from Meddling Matchmakers. I have many reasons to be grateful that my life is not a romance novel, and one of them is the fact that none of my relatives or friends are "inspired" to go to ridiculous, "comedic" lengths to put me in uncomfortable situations with a guy I'm genuinely angered or creeped out by, thanks to the delusional belief that if you complain about a guy enough, it must mean you secretly love him.

I hate the Meddling Matchmaker characters. They're one of my pet peeves in romance novels, these nosy, invasive people who treat the heroine's distaste/discomfort with the hero as if it's some cute little flaw, and stridently engineer situations in which the heroine is forced to spend time with the hero regardless of her opinions or feelings on the matter.

Such is the case here in Tangled Up in Love. Our protagonists, Veronica and Dylan, are columnists from different papers who have carried on a heated professional rivalry for years, ever since Dylan got the columnist job that Veronica believed she deserved. They haaaate each other, so it's a good thing their wa-ha-hacky friends know their own feelings better than they do!

This novel is weird for me - the plot itself isn't very high-conflict, so what conflict there is, is hyped up to such an extreme level as to seem almost ridiculous. Veronica and Dylan's rivalry plays out mostly in challenges and one-upsmanship in each other's columns - in one, Veronica dares Dylan to skydive, in another Dylan challenges Veronica to get a tattoo, etc. etc. But for some reason, they see each other in terms of actual hate and continually think the worst of each other for no real reason. Their rivalry is based on professional jealousy - Dylan got the job Veronica thought she deserved. Where do all these assumptions about Dylan's character flaws come from? To me, this doesn't make the heroine look sassy and feminist - it makes her look like a petty bitch constipated from eating too many sour grapes.

Anyway, Veronica is recovering from having her ass tramp-stamped thanks to another journalistic dare from Dylan and needs to come up with something she'll beat him at, and she decides to challenge Dylan to learn enough about knitting to have a completed project by the end of one month. Veronica, of course, has the home court advantage as she's a member of a knitting group of Meddling Matchmaking Sequel-Baiting Friends, headed by a Meddling Matchmaking Crazy Old Lady Mentor Figure.

When Dylan's first attempt at knitting fails spectacularly, he decides to bug Veronica at her knitting group, and their bickering is like blood in the water to all the Meddling Matchmakers in attendance. The Crazy Old Lady Mentor Figure decides to use her magic spinning wheel that has been in her family for generations and has been known to bring true love to people who wear its wool - I am not even kidding. I wish I was kidding, because this plot point is so completely irrelevant, useless and cutesy.

But at least it's not as bad as what the Sequel-Baiting Friends do - which is take Veronica to a bar, get her drunk, and intentionally abandon her so that she'll have to go home with Dylan. The guy she has repeatedly said she does not like and doesn't want to be around, regardless of the sexual attraction.

LIKE, BEST FRIENDS EVER, RIGHT?

Of course, this leads to many scenes of humping (Dylan's ethical code is, "I don't do drunk girls" - unless a drunk girl asks him to), and while this doesn't change their attitudes towards each other very much, it does give them an incentive to get together more often. And somehow, in between the humping, their pillowtalk miraculously solves their long-held issues and problems - which, like the rest of this novel, are pretty low key and easily solvable but are blown up beyond their normal proportions.

For instance, thanks to an out-of-nowhere poverty past, Veronica is terrified of being left destitute so despite her successful job she hoards money and buys no-name products, will do almost anything for money, and is always on the lookout for a job that will bring in more cash. Oh, but one word of advice from Dylan to go and speak to an actual financial adviser and one tacked-on scene with her parents cures that pretty darn quick.

Also, Dylan's book-long angst about not having the job he really wants (as a sports writer) is solved in a face-palmingly easy fashion when Veronica reminds him that one of his Sequel Baiting BFFs is a famously press-shy hockey star. Yes, the heroine has to remind THE HERO of his own friends.

Honestly, while this novel isn't terrible, it's still lacklustre and annoying because the story sustains itself by making so many angst-mountains out of mere nuisance-molehills, and padding out the rest with ridiculously unnecessary and somewhat disturbing matchmaking antics. So this time, this novel gets a
C