"The Summer of You," by Kate Noble

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

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

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

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 SentimentalizationWith 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

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)

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

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

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

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

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

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-