MOVIE REVIEW: "Love and Friendship" (2016)

What.

Even.

Is this movie?

When I received free passes to see Love & Friendship (based on Jane Austen's novella Lady Susan), I was excited. I loves me some Austen costume drama, and as I hadn't yet read Lady Susan, I was looking forward to being surprised.

Well, I was a little surprised, but I spent most of the film feeling super confused. While the film is occasionally charming and funny (truly funny at moments), the pacing is absurdly drawn out, the staging is dull, and the plot is an incomprehensible mess.

The story (such as I could make out) is this: Lady Susan (Kate Beckinsale) - an impoverished widow with a scandalous reputation - comes to stay with her in-laws after being kicked out of her last domicile for tarting around with a married man. Once her last suitcase is unpacked, she precedes to spend the next two hours gaslighting hot dudes, ruining her daughter's life, and bitching with her sardonic BFF Mrs. Alice Johnson (Chloe Sevigny).

I think we're meant to root for Lady Susan, the sly and cynical outsider who offers clever observational quips about the follies of gentry life. But she really is The Worst, and what's more, there's no real explanation for her behaviour. She just seems to like messing with people with no apparent end goal or motivation. You might think she's out to catch herself a meal ticket, but she throws away every romantic attachment she appears to make, seemingly on a whim. Perhaps she's determined to secure her daughter's future - except for those long stretches of time when she forgets her daughter exists because she's too busy convincing hapless dudes that Up is Down and Black is White.

What does Lady Susan want? Why does she do what she does? I've never read Lady Susan, so I had no context to understand her myriad changes of heart. Nearly every character in the movie actively hates her and with good reason.

On top of that, despite some truly hilarious moments, the movie is boring and clumsy. Characters are introduced by name (with personalized title cards, even), only to vanish after a single scene without leaving any impact on the story. Several scenes go nowhere or end abruptly.

The filmmakers make no effort to frame the novel's events in a visual context. Instead of showing what happens, the filmmakers have the characters sit down and tell each other what happens - staging that's fine in a novel but glaringly dull on film. Compare that to the Mansfield Park adaptation that starred Frances O'Connor - despite being a wretched representation of the novel, as a film it was visually dynamic and the story was told through an even mixture of action and dialogue.

The actors do the best that they can - Kate Beckinsale, in particular, gives a breezily cunning performance that convinces the viewer she's a misunderstood snarky outcast even as her actions reveal her to be an amoral, manipulative sociopath. It's not enough to save the movie, however.

Perhaps I might have enjoyed this movie more if I'd read the book first. But as a film on its own merits, Love and Friendship is a hot mess. Give this one a pass.
C-

"True Pretenses," by Rose Lerner

The Chick: Lady Lydia Reeve. A genteel lady whose family has traditionally held a high political interest in the town of Lively St. Lemeston.
The Rub: Now that her father's dead, her skittish younger brother  is content to let that interest lapse in order to pursue his own desires. And Lydia has no money of her own to maintain her family's influence.
Dream Casting: Isla Fischer.

The Dude: Asher Cohen, a.k.a. "Ashton Cahill." A Jewish con artist on the run with his brother and partner in crime, Rafe.
The Rub: Rafe is tired of their life and wants to go straight, so Ash needs to concoct a truly lucrative swindle to give Rafe safer life options than the army.
Dream Casting: Mark Ruffalo.

Romance Convention Checklist:

• 1 Inconvenient Inheritance
• 1 Inconveniently Dead Parent
• 1 Stolen Baby
• 1 Plot-Propelling Urchin
• Several Fake Names

The Word: You know what time it is? TIME FOR ANOTHER ROSE LERNER NOVEL! To set next to In For a Penny, Lily Among Thorns, and Sweet Disorder, we have True Pretenses.

Our novel opens on two brothers, Ash and Rafe, in the midst of escaping after a successful swindle. Orphaned, impoverished, and Jewish, they've eked out their outcast existence through theft, trickery and clever con artistry. However, Rafe (the younger brother) has tired of the game and wants to go straight. His protective older brother, Ash, reluctantly agrees, with one caveat: they must perform one more swindle, to set Rafe up properly for his new life of law abidance. 

Ash travels on ahead to the town of Lively St. Lemeston (the same setting from Sweet Disorder) and discovers low-hanging fruit ripe for the plucking: Lady Lydia Reeve. Her highly political father, Lord Wheatcroft, held a heavy interest in Lively St. Lemeston before his sudden death, but his son Jamie now balks at the idea of continuing the tradition. Lydia's determined to hold onto their family's interest until her brother comes to his senses, but the only funds at her disposal come from a trust that will only be released upon her marriage. 

I'll be honest - the set-up to this novel doesn't make a whole lot of sense. It's kind of confusing - at first, the brothers plan to offer Lydia access to her trust through a sham marriage to Rafe (in exchange for 3000 pounds) but then Ash wants Rafe and Lydia to marry for realsies because they're so cute together and it'll keep Rafe out of the army. What?

Um, WHAT?

Thankfully, before that ridiculousness can happen, Rafe and Ash get into an argument that ends with their estrangement, leaving Ash to offer himself to Lydia instead. The plot is probably the weakest part of the novel, and the weakest of all Lerner's novels to date. After the initial set-up, the rest of the book is virtually conflict-free until the too-sudden Black Moment at the end. Ash and Lydia get along famously about 99% of the time, with the other 1% devoted to depressing self-examination. 

So why did I keep reading? Despite the fact that there is relatively little drama between Ash and Lydia, their individual characters and habits are fascinating - Lydia's, especially. She is very much a conservative, devoted to maintaining the traditions of the past, suspicious of change, and almost pathologically afraid of showing weakness or negative emotion of any kind. At the beginning of the book, her methods of expression are all but muzzled by her refusal to utter anything that might possibly reflect badly on her father or brother. She has been raised to cater to the needs of others while repressing her own. It becomes a relief to talk to Ash, someone who cannot judge her since his social status is virtually nonexistent.

Ash is a more nebulous character, but perhaps that's intentional. His Jewish identity is important to him (sex with random ladies is a worry because how does one explain the lack of a foreskin?), but otherwise, he's afraid to define himself as anything other than "Rafe's brother." Finding and committing to an identity is a new experience for him. He's a con man without an emotional off-switch. His success at conning developed from his ability to empathize with and draw closer to the rubes he fleeced, leaving him incapable of trusting other people's emotions - and his own, least of all. Does he really enjoy Lydia's company? Or is he just desperate to be liked, because likeable people get what they want? The only emotional stability he's ever preserved is his love for Rafe, and without him, he's adrift.

The enormous status gulf between Lydia and Ash is also entertaining as it allows for a thorough examination of privilege. Ash was no Dickensian urchin - his past involves theft, graverobbing, fencing, and sex work. The contrast between the protagonists is especially potent because their childhoods were superficially similar - both Lydia and Ash were motherless children unfairly thrust into parental roles over their younger siblings. However, the vast difference in their upbringings and environments invites interesting comparisons, most especially in how they've learned to lie to other people.

At the same time, even as Lydia's pampered upbringing is contrasted and compared, her own feelings of dissatisfaction, grief and loneliness are not invalidated just because she's wealthy.

While True Pretenses is not the strongest of Rose Lerner's novels when it comes to plot, it's still a refreshing, pleasantly entertaining read.
B

Reread Book and Film Review: "A Little Princess," by Frances Hodgson Burnett

For my last reread pick, I went with a book from my childhood - A Little Princess, by Frances Hodgson Burnett.

While I remember enjoying it at the time, I always loved The Secret Garden more. This was for a number of reasons. First, Garden was pretty much Jane Eyre for kids and I was all over that. Think about it - the moors, the orphaned narrator, the dark angsty lord of the manor, secret damaged relatives locked away somewhere in the house. Also, Garden inspired an obscure Mandy Patinkin musical with an absolutely mesmerizing soundtrack which strengthened my devotion still more.

Finally, even as a young adult I recognized that Garden's Mary had more of a definite character arc than Princess' Sara. Mary starts her book as a pampered brat, then grows to appreciate the environment and the people around her. Sara, meanwhile, is a preternaturally kind, thoughtful, and compassionate child and, well, remains one throughout the book. At the time, I thought she was a little bit dull, even as the story itself was deliciously melodramatic and interesting.

However, reading it again as an adult gave me a little more insight. In case you're not familiar - A Little Princess is the story of Sara Crewe, a little girl adored and cosseted by her rich, silly father who sends her to school in England where she is further adored and cosseted by the headmistress, Miss Minchin. However, when her father abruptly dies after losing his fortune, Miss Minchin shows her true colours and forces the now-penniless Sara to work as a servant alongside Becky, the school's mistreated scullery maid.

If Secret Garden was Jane Eyre for kids, then Little Princess is the Book of Job. The book is not so much about how her character changes, but how her character endures in the face of hardship. Despite an extremely pampered upbringing, Sara isn't spoiled or unkind. She's always thinking of others and using her imagination to solve problems - she still does this when she's forced to live in an attic, with little to eat and under constant derision from almost everyone at the school, but it's just so much more difficult. Some of these scenes, even for me as an adult, were legitimately heartbreaking. In a lot of ways, Sara reminded me of Anne Shirley (of Green Gables) - another youngster who used her brilliant brain to escape a loveless initial upbringing.

As much as I adore narratives about flawed characters redeeming themselves, I think I've underestimated stories of Genuinely Good People who struggle to maintain that goodness despite dire obstacles.

A Little Princess also shines a pretty bright and painful light on privilege. A lot of this comes from Sara's friends Lottie and Ermengarde who attempt to maintain their friendship with Sara after her fall from grace. Most of their interactions end with Sara using her imagination and willpower to pretend her situation is better off than it is in order to make her friends feel more comfortable about her change in circumstances.

As often as I tried to remind myself that these two were upperclass children with no frame of reference for poverty, some of their interactions with Sara were excruciatingly awkward to read. In one scene, Ermengarde sighs that she wishes she was as thin as Sara - her starved orphan attic-dwelling bestie. Yeah, that's awful, but it's kind of the point - FHB points out how even the most well-meaning wealthy person can be utterly oblivious to the suffering of others.

Of course, with all that realness, there's also a fair about of delightful fantasy and melodrama - loving descriptions of expensive doll clothing, diamond mines, bad investments, intuitive Indian manservants, and mischievous monkey sidekicks. Reading it felt like eating my cake and my vegetables at the same time.

Once I finished the novel, there was really nothing else to do but watch the 1995 film adaptation, directed by Alfonso Cuaron (better known for his work on Gravity, Children of Men, and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban).

There are a lot of things this film does right - the sumptuous visuals, the creative cinematography, and the gorgeous music, to name a few. The actress who plays Miss Minchin is flawlessly cast (Eleanor Bron), and you might recognize Sara Crewe's father as Sir Davos from Game of Thrones (Liam Cunningham).

While I was irked at them moving the setting from England to America (and from 1888 to 1914), some of the changes added interesting layers - particularly the casting of scullery maid Becky as African-American. That added an extra visual and contextual oomph to just how Becky was the lowest of the low in the school's social hierarchy.

That being said, all this goodness melts away the moment the actress playing Sara (Liesel Matthews) opens her mouth. Oy. While the visuals and the music for this movie are beyond compare, the acting and dialogue are laughably ham-handed, a stampeding bull of overacting through the exquisite china shop of FHB's original story. The underage acting in this movie is just awful.

The film's biggest deviation from the source material lies in the ending (mild spoilers). In the novel, Sara's father dies of a brain fever after learning he's been ruined. It's his guilt-ridden business partner who tracks Sara down and rescues her from drudgery to atone for fooling around with her father's money. In the movie, Sara's father is still alive - albeit mustard-gassed into amnesia. He conveniently recovers his memories in time to save her from the police (long story).

Unlike many others, I didn't take issue with this change. Both endings are equally, outrageously melodramatic - plus the film avoids the vaguely classist ending of the novel by having the Crewes adopt Becky. In the book, Becky remains a servant - albeit Sara's better paid, better fed servant. Appropriate to the politics of the time in which the novel was written, FHB always maintained a boundary between the torments of Sara (an upperclass girl forced into a servant's position) and Becky (a member of the servant class in her natural sphere who simply has the misfortune of a cruel employer).

The only real beef I have with the film (other than the acting), is the fate of the horrid Miss Minchin. The film takes an outlandishly childish and nonsensical turn with her cosmic punishment, showing us that this educated, well-connected woman of means has been reduced to a chimney sweep's assistant in a matter of a few weeks. A fate which makes absolutely no damn sense. If you really want to see Miss Minchin suffer, read the book, in which her humiliation is far more realistic, far more searingly personal, and thus much more delicious.

A+

I'm Late! I'm Late! Drive-By Reviewings

Okay, my bad.

I fell a little behind on reviewing. Okay, a lot behind. For several reasons, some of which weren't my fault but most of which totally were.

I was promoted to a new position at work (the day job), I've become (officially!) an editorial assistant at Entangled (a second job), I signed up for NaNoWriMo, and I discovered obsessively-absorbing role-playing video games.

The result: not a lot of time or inclination to review. After a stressful day of new-job training and reading manuscripts, I was more in the mood to explode darkspawn and romance knights in Dragon Age (which I will also be reviewing soon!). Now that NaNo is over and I have a bit more time on my hands, I'm just in time for my Annual Re-Reading Month.

But for now, let's recap the books I did read in October and November that aren't super-special enough to merit their own reviews:

Just Listen, by Sarah Dessen.

Yes, I finally read my first Sarah Dessen. From what my YA-focused blogger friends tell me, she's kind of the First Lady of Contemporary YA.

My first impression wasn't wholly strong - her language seemed too bare and simple for my taste, but she slowly and surely hooked me in so by the midpoint, I was pretty strongly invested in her heroine.

Our protagonist, Annabel, is someone incapable of speaking her mind for fear of hurting others. She experienced a terrible trauma at the end of the previous school year, but she can't tell her family - with them so focused on her older sister's recovery from an eating disorder, and her mother's history of depression, she can't bear to add to their burden or risk undoing her mother's progress. But the truth is eating her up inside.

The novel is all about truth-telling, and believing you're important enough to be heard, and Dessen aptly conveys how difficult it is for Annabel to speak up for herself and put herself above (or at least on the same level as) others. The novel has a deceptively simple start that reveals itself as more layered later on. However, it wasn't a perfect book. I felt the romantic interest's obsession with honesty was a little over-the-top and unreasonable, even with the novel's theme, and the treatment of rape and rape victims seemed a bit simplified by the novel's end, but otherwise, I understand where Dessen's fans are coming from.

The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender, by Leslye Walton.

I had to read this novel for the FYA Bookclub, and let's just say this book sparked a lot of ... debate. And by debate, I mean rage.

The story explores three generations of women all leading to Ava Lavender, a girl born with wings. The story meanders along through unreliable narrators and magical realism - Alice Hoffman levels of magical realism. Spells, ghosts, girls with bird parts, all that jazz.

Walton is a splendid writer, and 90% of the novel is fine, if unfocused and a bit derivative. The ending, however, absolutely kills this novel - spoiler and trigger warning: the climax (not the conflict, but the climax) of the novel comes when Ava is brutally raped and mutilated by an obsessed stalker. And all of her family's  problems are solved by how they rally around and care for her.

Nothing in this novel - not the story, not the tone, not the theme - suggested or fit with a brutal rape. That event doesn't fit organically within the plot at all. Moreover, the rape is used as a disgusting plot device to better the lives of other characters, not the actual victim. Ava's character doesn't change or progress. In fact, she recovers and gets a boyfriend within the span of the epilogue and gets magical new white wings FOR SOME REASON. WTF. Mindbendingly stupid and offensive garbage.

Please, please, let's not make Magical Rape a trope.

Ravishing the Heiress, by Sherry Thomas

I'm still a general fan of Sherry Thomas, and this novel wasn't terrible, but that's about it.

This novel - wasn't terrible. It was interesting enough but it didn't grab and wow me like her earlier novels. Our heroine, Millie, is a merchant-class heiress whose parents arrange for her to marry a debt-ridden earl named Fitz. Millie falls for Fitz immediately, but discovers Fitz is deeply, passionately in love with another woman - someone he now has to give up in order to save his family from ruin.

Fitz ... does not take this well. He's such a flamboyant ass about what a terrible SACRIFICE he had to make by marrying Millie, that Millie spends the next six years of their marriage keeping her feelings under wraps and allowing him to pursue his various emotionless, extramarital flings. However, when Fitz learns that the former love of his life is now widowed, he plans to leave Millie to set up a household with his ladylove - but not before "fulfilling his end of the bargain" and giving Millie a baby.

There were certain things I liked - Fitz finds it difficult to reconnect with his former love as he slowly comes to understand how meaningful the last six years of marriage with Millie have been to him. His attraction to Millie grows out of their deep and abiding friendship rather than instant lust. But their actual romantic development is remarkably spare on the page, and Millie is almost pathological in her emotional repression (not that I can blame her). It was a pleasant and even a relatively original romance, but I feel the romance was lacking.

The False Prince, by Jennifer Nielsen

Here was another extremely-hyped novel that just underwhelmed me. Sage is an orphan who's picked up off the street along with two other orphans by an unscrupulous, obsessed noble determined to save his nation at any cost.

The nobleman reveals that the king, queen and crown prince were recently poisoned by an unknown party. The truth of their deaths is not publicly known yet, but once it gets out, their nation's enemies will waste no time in taking advantage of the political chaos. However, if another viable heir to the throne is discovered in time, the crisis may be averted. The noblemen chose orphans who best resembled the long-lost second prince who was supposedly killed by pirates years before, and he plans to train them to impersonate the kingdom's last heir. The most convincing fraud will accompany him to the capital - but the other two will become dangerous loose ends.

None of the characters here were particularly interesting. Sage was kind of a smarmy know-it-all, and the "twist" near the end of the novel had me rolling my eyes at the ridiculousness of it. The novel was just boring from beginning to end and there's not much else I can say about it - I read it a while ago and nothing else remained memorable enough for me to recall today.

And that's it for now! More reviews to come later.

"The Game and the Governess," by Kate Noble

The Chick: Phoebe Baker. A former debutante forced into servitude when her father was swindled of his life savings by a con artist the Earl of Ashby refused to prosecute.
The Rub: Now she lives as a governess, in the very house where the Earl is visiting. Will her hatred rise up to consume her?
Dream Casting: Chloe Sevigny.

The Dude: Lucky Ned, Earl of Ashby. He thinks he has it all because he's an awesome person, but his best friend thinks it's because he's a privileged asshat. Naturally, he decides to make a wager at it, switching places with his secretary friend.
The Rub: Being a secretary is hard. Who knew?
Dream Casting: James McAvoy.

The Plot:

Ned: What?! Are you really saying the reason everyone loves me, caters to my every need, and waits on me is because I have money and power?

THE ENTIRE WORLD: YES.

Ned: Oh. Be my wife?

Phoebe: Despite my 5-year-long hatred of you and disgust for privileged aristocrats and the fact that you literally lied to me about everything, I inexplicably agree!

Ned: HOORAY!

Phoebe: ...hmm, maybe it's because of all your money and power.

Ned: DAMMIT.

Romance Convention Checklist:

• 1 Asshat Hero
• 2 Sequel-Baiting Dudebros
• 1 Desperate Sequel-Baiting Countess Who Gives Us NO CLOSURE AT ALL
• 1 Poisoned Blackberry Tart
• 1 Random Murder Attempt

The Word: Okay, so I kind of fell off the Kate Noble fan wagon after the awful Follow My Lead. Revealed is still one of my favourite romances, but the rest of her novels never really lived up to the perfection of that one. However, I was quite intrigued by the plot of The Game and the Governess and thought I'd give her another try.

Lucky Ned, Earl of Ashby, has it all - he's one of the wealthiest men in the country, he's handsome, healthy, and a sure hand at cards. However, when his best friend/war buddy/secretary John Turner calls him on his privilege, Ned gets all butthurt. Turner, who has been pleading with Ned for years to lend him the money to help his family's mill, says the only reason Ned is "lucky" is because he's an earl. Ned, who's refused to lend Turner the money because ... mills are boring and working for a living is stupid, believes it's his naturally cheerful disposition that grants him Lady Luck's favour, and John has only his sourpuss personality to blame for his own misfortunes. Yeah.

Turner decides to turn it into a wager. The two are headed to a small English village neither has visited in decades to sell off Ned's mother's property. Turner proposes they switch places - Turner will pose as the earl, and Ned as the secretary - for two weeks, and in that time Ned has to win the romantic favour of a noble lady in spite of his "lowly" status. If Turner wins, Ned owes him 5000 pounds. If Ned wins, Turner loses his family mill. Yup - Ned's the hero of this novel.

They arrive at the house, and Ned's eye is caught by the whippet-thin, stern-faced governess of his host's children. Unbeknownst to him, this governess, Phoebe Baker, harbours a deep grudge against the Earl of Ashby. Years ago, Ned discovered his previous secretary was embezzling from him and he chose to cover it up rather than lose face, leaving the thief free to swindle Phoebe's father of his inheritance and drive him to suicide. Phoebe's reconciled herself to her reduced circumstances but she wants nothing to do with anyone associated with the Ashby house.

So, what was good about this novel? Noble does an excellent job examining privilege. Ned is an ass, and the narrative both acknowledges and commits to this and uses it to develop his character. Ned thinks the wager will be easy, he'll just use his abundant charm on the ladies, but his tried-and-tested moves blow up in his face - and the narrative doesn't only imply his earldom made womenfolk more receptive. It also suggests his high station could have scared women who would ordinarily have resisted his advances. I loved that aspect, and I loved that Ned had to really start thinking about consent and willingness and the enjoyment of his partners.

So what didn't I like? Pretty much everything else. Phoebe's an impractical Mary Sue who turns down an offer for five hundred pounds because she's become a "better person" in poverty than she was as a sheltered gentleman's daughter. Um, it's money - not a time machine. You're not magically going to turn back into a Terrible Person the moment you float above the poverty line. I also didn't buy her romance with Ned at all - it happens far too quickly, with almost no real development, and it skirts most of the thorny issues that ought to keep them apart.

More than anything, however, I hated this novel's pacing. Was it written under a really strict deadline? This novel reads like it was taken out of the oven fifteen minutes too early, still raw in the middle. The ending is laughably rushed - it introduces a murder plot that's barely solved a few pages later, we don't get to see anyone's reactions to Ned and Turner's switcharoo, and Phoebe overcomes her five-year-grudge and the horror of being lied to within the span of one page. Even more egregious, the secondary romance between Turner and a desperate countess, a romance that took up precious time that the primary romance sorely needed, turns out to be a ridiculously blatant cocktease for the sequel.

This novel is nothing but build up until a shoddy last-minute resolution.
C

"Midsummer Moon," by Laura Kinsale

The Chick: Merlin Lambourne. A famous lady inventor.
The Rub: She's dumb as a post at anything that isn't mechanics. How will she cope?
Dream Casting: Alison Brie.

The Dude: Ransom Falconer, Duke of Damerell. A high-handed duke who must protect Merlin from evil French spies who want to kidnap her for her inventions.
The Rub: Unfortunately, after "accidentally" having sex with her, protecting her becomes a whole lot more complicated.
Dream Casting: Cillian Murphy.

The Plot:
Ransom: Hey, I'm here to save and protect you!

Merlin: What are you wearing?

Ransom: ... a hat.

Merlin: Mercy me, a hat! How exciting! I've never seen a hat before, what is it for?

Ransom: Huh. I somehow find your utter ignorance of everything somewhat arousing! *accidentally eats Magical Salt* Now it's completely arousing!

Ransom and Merlin: *knock boots*

Ransom: Crap. Now we have to get married!

Merlin: Why?

Ransom: Well, you might be pregnant.

Merlin: Doesn't the stork bring babies?

Ransom: Wow I am already regretting this a LOT. And yet your baby behaviour is so inexplicably erotic!

Merlin: I don't want to get married! I don't want to make babies! I want to stay up all night and eat candy and play with my toys--I MEAN INVENT MY FLYING MACHINE.

Ransom: No! Bad Merlin! GO TO YOUR ROOM RIGHT NOW!

Literally Every Other Character: Hey there, we're totally interesting and have really intriguing backstories but go ahead and focus the story around the Teletubby and her babysitter. We'll wait.

Evil French Spies: *kidnap Merlin a lot*

Ransom: *rescues Merlin a lot*

Merlin: *falls into a coma, wakes up with amnesia*

Literally Every Other Character: ... really? You'd rather read about AMNESIA than us? When we have secret lovers and acrimonious divorces in our pasts? Oh well. There's no accounting for taste.

Ransom: *recuses Merlin again*

Merlin: Okay I'll marry you now! How do we petition to stork to bring us babies?

Ransom: ....hoo....ray....

Romance Convention Checklist:

• 1 Romance-Aiding Pet (a hedgehog)
• 1 Condiment-Induced Deflowering
• 1 Infantalized Heroine
• 2 Flying Machines
• Several Barrels of Gun Powder
• 1 Bout of Fountain Sex
• 5 Infinitely More Interesting Supporting Characters
• Several Evil French Spies

The Word: I will hand it to Laura Kinsale - her heroines are a varied bunch. Some are practical, some are romantic, some are stone-cold bad-asses, and others are emotional and compassionate. Unfortunately, with Midsummer Moon, I spun the Kinsale Heroine Wheel and wound up with Helpless Baby Duckling Woman.

Our heroine, Merlin, is a wide-eyed, chipmunk-cheeked, oblivious dithering idiot of a woman who is (allegedly) a genius at physical engineering and a sleep-deprived six-year-old at literally everything else. Perhaps the author intended her to be an Absent-Minded Professor, but she wound up closer to Nell, instead. And of course, the novel presents her as the Cutest Widdle Special Snowflake, rather than a woman with severely stunted social, interpersonal, and self-preservation skills thanks to an abusively isolated upbringing that is only barely hinted at.

Our hero Ransom Falconer, named in the ancient English tradition of picking two random words out of the dictionary, is a duke/government agent who has been sent to protect Merlin because one of her inventions has attracted the notice of Evil French Spies. His task is to figure out what Merlin's trying to invent, and protect both it and her from falling into Evil French hands.

Ransom makes his own task (among other things) much harder when he accidentally ingests Magical Sex Salt and winds up despoiling Merlin (twice!) on her dead uncle's bed not five minutes later. This contrived coitus-causing condiment is never explained nor mentioned again. But that makes sense - why write Ransom as an Irresponsible Rake when you can just give him a magical potion that makes him one for three pages? Then he can go back to being your Man of Honour Hero without taking any pesky responsibility for his actions. The magical salt made him do it. Right.

Adding a crank of Creepy Pepper to this Gumbo of Stupid is the fact that Merlin clearly has no idea what's going on while it's happening, giving us a scene that reads pretty darn close to statutory rape.

See, this is why you don't have sex with children. If your partner is incapable of understanding what sex and its consequences are, you're doing it wrong. And if you write a heroine who talks like a baby, thinks like a baby, and fiddles with her lower lip like a baby, it's going to look really creepy when your hero fucks that baby.

Anyway, Ransom recovers from his, uh, sodium-induced boner to realize he's been an Exploitative Dick, so he decides to kidnap Merlin so she can continue to work on her inventions under his supervision and protection.

The novel picks up a bit at this point, because Ransom's family members are also in residence, and each one of them is about a billion times more nuanced, colourful, and interesting than our main pair. How could Laura Kinsale write women as complicated and interesting as Ransom's politically-minded sister Blythe, or his dramatic opera-singer ex-sister-in-law Jacqueline, and decide to make Professor Honey Boo Boo the heroine instead?

Yeah, I absolutely despised Merlin. While she's not quite as unbearable as Olympia from Seize the Fire, at least that book acknowledged Olympia was an idiot once in a while, whereas Merlin's utter incomprehension of language, social conventions, adult behaviour, and advanced reasoning is depicted as Just So Precious by everyone in the novel. Merlin acts like a child - and the other characters coddle and treat her like one, which makes her burgeoning relationship with Ransom come off like Regency Lolita.

The secondary characters are pretty much the only reason I didn't DNF the novel. The main conflict between Ransom and Merlin is that Merlin's determined to build a flying machine, which scares the utter bejesus out of Ransom because he's so terrified of heights he's never even visited the second floor of his own house. Merlin tries to work on her machine, Ransom tries to talk/force/trick her out of it, Merlin gets angry, Ransom whines and apologizes, then tries a dirtier trick - until Merlin winds up kidnapped and has to be rescued. She gets kidnapped (and subsequently rescued) a lot. Because she's about as sharp as a bowling ball.

Their relationship is founded on Ransom constantly saving or easily tricking Merlin away from the danger she constantly puts herself in, and that is the last kind of romance I care to read about. I grew out of the Babysitters' Club books when I was in elementary school.
C-

"A Lily Among Thorns" Re-Release Celebration!

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful romance novel.

It was one of the most well-written, addictive romances in the land, with an absolutely stellar ex-courtesan heroine, a dashing m/m secondary romance, and one of the sweetest, handsomest, smartest, amazingest, chemist-tailor-detective Beta heroes EVER.

Unfortunately, this astounding romance was stuck on the sinking ship Dorchester, and when Dorchester went down, so did the novel. And for a while, that was the last anyone saw of this amazing book.

Until now.

It's BAAAAAAACK! A Lily Among Thorns is back! 

Thanks to Rose Lerner's new publisher, Samhain, they're re-releasing it in eBook format! She's also holding an amazing contest to celebrate this masterpiece's much-anticipated return. 

Still not sure? Try my 2012 review! Lily Among Thorns is seriously one of the best romance novels I've ever read. It's complex, it's sweet, it's unconventional, and it's become a fast favourite, along with all of Rose Lerner's other novels. 

I'm just saying - if you don't want to wait all the way until January for the next book in her Lively St. Lemeston series, take a chance with this magnificent, and magnificently odd romance. 

"Farthing," by Jo Walton

The Corpse: Sir James Thirkie, the politician renowned for arranging the Peace with Honour with Hitler. Found in his bed, with a Star of David affixed to his chest with a dagger.

The Gumshoes: 

Inspector Carmichael: An up-and-coming investigator for Scotland Yard.

Lucy Kahn: A wayward daughter of the aristocracy whose Jewish husband falls under suspicion. She knows anti-Semitic sentiment will doom her husband if he's arrested, so she must find the real perpetrator first.

The Suspects/Secondary Characters:

Lady Thirkie: The deceased's flighty, shifty, newly pregnant wife.

Normanby: The deceased's brother-in-law, married to Lady Thirkie's sister Daphne. Has a shot at being the next Prime Minister.

Daphne Normanby: The deceased's sister in law - was married off to Normanby after a scandal in her past. A scandal that might have involved Sir James Thirkie himself.

Lady Eversley: Lucy's chilling, devious, class-obsessed mother, and one of the leaders of the Farthing Set.

David Kahn: Lucy's idealistic Jewish husband, who believes (or at least wants to believe) that England remains a just and decent country, immune to fascism.

The Word: How good was this novel? So good, I went out and got the next two books in this trilogy (Ha'Penny and Half a Crown). Consider me a new Jo Walton fangirl. This sinister, layered novel takes the luxurious discontent of an English country house murder mystery and wraps it within the increasing dread of an all-too-likely alternate history.

In this version of history, England ducked out of World War II by arranging the Peace With Honour with Hitler - a treaty which guaranteed England freedom from the war so long as they left Hitler to his own devices on the Continent. This peace was arranged by a loosely-connected group of politicians and aristocrats known as the Farthing Set - more specifically, by Sir James Thirkie, whose appeasement of Hitler made him a national hero.

However, not long after Sir James arrives at Farthing, the country seat of Lord and Lady Eversley (and headquarters of the Farthing Set), he is found murdered in his bed, a star of David pinned to his chest by his own knife.

The novel divides itself between the POVs of two characters determined to find out what really happened. The first is Inspector Carmichael, an up-and-coming investigator for Scotland Yard who is summoned to the crime scene. Thirkie died during a house party attended by all the closest and most influential members of the Farthing Set, so Carmichael knows he'll have to tread carefully in this politically-delicate situation.

The second is Lucy Kahn, Lord and Lady Eversley's black sheep daughter who scandalized high society by marrying a Jew. Neither she nor her husband David were expecting an invitation to one of her mother's parties - but now Lucy suspects her parents' olive branch may have been an intentional plot to set up her Jewish husband as a scapegoat. With anti-Semitic sentiment in England on the rise, she knows her husband will be condemned if he's ever formally arrested.

But who could have done it? And if it was a member of the Farthing Set - why kill the man responsible for their power and influence?

This division of the point of view is the novel's greatest strength. Carmichael and Lucy come from very different backgrounds and their separate observations contribute equally to the final picture of what really happened. Lucy, in particular, is a marvellous character. While she bucked convention to marry a Jewish banker (with whom she is madly in love), she's also very much a product of her privileged environment and upbringing. While more aware than most of the hypocrisy and bigotry beneath aristocratic privilege, she's not above its influence. She's been raised to think of herself as a rather flighty, not-too-clever daddy's girl, even though her tenacity and her loyalty ultimately reveal her to be a much stronger, smarter woman than she thinks she is.

Carmichael's investigations, meanwhile, reveal more about this alternate England. While Great Britain outwardly appears bucolic, prosperous and peaceful because it bowed out of WWII early, its decision to ignore Hitler rather than fight him has allowed the disturbing infection of Nazi ideology to take root in its populace. Lucy's idealistic husband David may believe that England is "safe" from the fascism of the Continent, but Lucy and Carmichael come to know better.

Jo Walton's brilliant novel is gripping, right down to the last page. The intricate mystery, the dynamic characters, and the disturbingly vivid alternate history combine to make Farthing a powerful, and powerfully addictive read.
A+

"The Lady's Secret," by Joanna Chambers

The Chick: Georgy Knight. She works her fingers to the bone as an assistant to a theatrical troupe - even though the blood of an earl runs through her veins.
The Rub: A chance to prove her true parentage comes up - but it involves dressing as a boy and waiting hand and foot on a super-hot aristocrat.
Dream Casting: Gwyneth Paltrow, circa Shakespeare in Love.

The Dude: Lord Nathan Harland. A cultured dandy who discovers, to his cautious delight, that his mysterious valet is secretly a woman in disguise.
The Dude: Even as he means to toy with her, he discovers he's starting to love her - in earnest.
Dream Casting: Cillian Murphy

The Plot:

Georgy: I need to find evidence of my parents' marriage! I'll disguise myself as a valet!

Nathan: What an awesome valet you are! Your neck rubs are oddly erotic and for some strange reason I'm cool with that!

Georgy: *caught taking a bath*

Nathan: OH THANK GOD YOU HAVE BOOBS. I am TOTALLY cool with that. But secretly.

Georgy: *caught breaking into Nathan's friend's study*

Nathan: I am less cool with that.

Nathan and Georgy: *knock boots*

Nathan: Cool cool cool.

Georgy's BFF: OMG, you totally ruined a lady.

Nathan: Not cool! Let's not just throw silly words around!

Georgy: *leaves in heartbreak, almost gets killed by Crazy Murderer*

Nathan: OMG, Georgy, don't ever leave me, lets get married and have gender-norm-defying babies!

Georgy: Cool!

Nathan: HOORAY!

Romantic Convention Checklist:

• 1 Heroine In Pants
• 1 Bout of Gay Panic
• 2 Actual Gay Dudes Who Are Occasionally Panicked
• 1 Evil Mum
• 1 Awkward Erection
• 1 Carriage Accident

The Word: Full disclosure, Joanna Chambers and I are Twitter buddies. I bought a copy of her novel thanks to a great review and because I followed her on Twitter, but - then I kind of forgot about it. It's harder to remember the books I have on my Kobo since they aren't staring at me every day the way my aggressive paper books do.

Anyhoo - Georgiana "Georgy" Knight and her brother Harry have spent the better part of their lives trying to prove their parents were married. Their mother was a humble actress, but their father (now deceased) was the younger son of the Earl of Dunsmore. When the eldest brother died, the title should have fallen to Harry, but all evidence of their parents' scandalous marriage had been hushed up years ago by their disapproving grandfather, so the earldom went to a cousin instead. Then their mother was murdered by an anonymous cutpurse mere hours after applying to the Dunsmore family for help.

Harry's continued their search for legitimacy since then, but now he knows they have to be discreet about it. The impostor Earl of Dunsmore clearly can't be trusted.

While Harry's searching the countryside for parish registers, Georgy seizes an opportunity to infiltrate Dunsmore's household when she learns his close friend, Lord Nathan Harland, is looking for a new valet to accompany him to Dunsmore's for a house party. Posing as a man, she gets the position, but serving the sophisticated Lord Nathan proves to be more of a challenge than expected. The duties of her position bring her into shockingly close proximity with him, and Nathan is an extremely intriguing, attractive man with hidden depths.

I love clotheshorse heroes. Nathan is someone who puts a lot of care (or else hires an expect willing to put a lot of care) into how he looks, as well as someone with an appreciation for beautiful things. Not because they are valuable - but because he likes to look at them. Like his valet George. He finds out about Georgy's true gender quickly enough (albeit not before he gets a confusing boner during a neck massage) and then he becomes fascinated by the mystery of her deception.

Of course, Nathan is a very privileged character, and Chambers makes pleasingly dramatic hay from the distorted power balance of the master/servant (in disguise!) pairing. Nathan is initially interested in Georgy as an object of mystery, an object he feels entitled to puzzle out and manipulate because a) she's a servant and b) she's a lying servant. However, he soon starts to care about her as a person, someone of worth. But Georgy isn't a fake valet - she performs all the same tasks and duties, and now Nathan has to reconcile how much he cares about her with what he's made her do and see in her line of work. Which is quite interesting. It doesn't resolve in any serious way (Nathan doesn't really come to care about any of his other servants), but it's an interesting dynamic.

Chambers' writing style is simple and elegant, describing the sumptuous luxury of Nathan's lifestyle (and Georgy's servitude in it) with clean, beautiful phrases. However, the villain is clearly telegraphed from the beginning, and the "twist" at the end even more so. I also felt Nathan and Georgy missed a few opportunities to go deeper (emotionally) into the power dynamics of their relationship. Otherwise, though, The Lady's Secret is a charming romance with an interesting cross-dressing twist.
B

"Lady of Persuasion," by Tessa Dare

The Chick: Isabel Grayson. Her greatest desire is to marry a powerful lord and become a "lady of influence" who changes the world with her charity and good works.
The Rub: The man she falls for is a mere baronet, and a lazy one at that. Nothing a novel's worth of nagging won't fix!
Dream Casting: Minka Kelly.

The Dude: Sir Toby Aldridge. Still recovering from the emotional pain of being jilted, he seduces the sister of his enemy and winds up falling for her instead.
The Rub: Toby distrusts his ability to keep women happy - how can he make sure this wife doesn't desert him like his fiancee did?
Dream Casting: Tom Hiddleston.

The Plot:

Toby: Hey there, pretty lady....

Isabel: OH HAI DO YOU HAVE POWER AND MONEY I CAN EXPLOIT?

Toby: Uh, no...

Isabel: BORED NOW - I MUST FLEE! A THREE-LEGGED PUPPY IS IN PERIL!

Toby: *manly wiles* Let's randomly get married!

Isabel: I RANDOMLY AND UNCHARACTERISTICALLY ACCEPT!

Toby: Awesome.

Isabel: BEE TEE DUBS, WE CAN'T HAVE SUGAR OR FANCY CLOTHES OR DO ANY FUN THINGS BECAUSE ORPHANS.

Toby: Couldn't we talk this out...

Isabel: YOU COULD HAVE SAVED THREE ONE-EYED CHIMNEY SWEEPS SINCE YOU STARTED THAT FRIVOLOUS, EXPLOITATIVE SENTENCE, YOU HEARTLESS FIEND!

Toby: But....

Isabel: BTW YOU'RE RUNNING FOR PARLIAMENT.

Toby: But -

Isabel: ORPHANS, TOBY. ORPHANS. THINK OF THE ORPHANS. THINK OF ME HAVING THE MONEY AND ACCLAIM AND ATTENTION TO CURE MY DEEP-SEATED PARENTAL ISSUES HELP THOSE POOR, STARVING ORPHANS.

Toby: OMG, fine, I'll do it, just shut up already!

ISABEL: HOORAY WE ARE HAPPY IN LOVE!

Toby: .......yay.

Romance Convention Checklist:

• 1 Lazy Beta Hero
• 1 Self-Involved Martyr Heroine
• Crazy Mama Drama
• 1 Failed Attempt at Election Rigging
• Several gun-toting thugs
• 1 Personal Sugar Boycott
• 1 Secondary Romance (Gray's bro Joss and Hetta the prickly country doctor)

The Word: Our hero, Sir Toby, is in a snit over his fiancee, Sophia, jilting him to marry a glorified pirate who is now the toast of the Ton (the events of Surrender of a Siren). Even worse - Toby's reputation was ruined by her flight when an anonymous caricaturist drew a series of cartoons depicting Toby as a degenerate rake who frightened Sophia off, and that's the version most of Society now believes.

When he sees a gorgeous woman dancing with that same glorified pirate (Benedict Grayson), Toby swoops in and puts the moves on her, only to find out she's Isabel Grayson, Benedict's sister. He toys with her a bit - although he quickly gives up on designs to seduce her in revenge, because he's not an asshole - but winds up impulsively proposing marriage. To his surprise, Isabel excepts.

Toby's a sweetheart. He's a gadfly layabout beta male who's still suffering from crippling insecurity over Sophia's jilting. He's determined to make his engagement and eventual marriage to Isabel work, if only to prove that he can win a woman without losing her. In the process, he makes a lot of promises he doesn't really mean, promises that come back to bite him in the ass once he realizes he's actually in love with Isabel and disappointing her is no longer an option.

The only problem? Isabel is a selfish, sanctimonious, insufferable little martyr who'll only marry a man in (or planning to run for) Parliament - so she can use him as a tool to further her own designs. Her devotion to charities and Righteous Works borders on obsession (she can't eat sugar without thinking of the slaaaaves! The slaaaaves!), she has very little regard for the feelings of the people around her, and she'll piously condemn anything that doesn't have a strictly utilitarian use as being a Frivolous Sin Bought with the Blood of Innocents. Flavoured ice is a sin! Walking sticks are a sin! The Elgin Marbles are a sin! You could have helped starving orphans with that money! 

Isabel's unpleasantness would have been easier to take if the novel had been even a little self-aware of what a self-righteous, mercenary, hypocritical pill she is. She's appalled once she discovers Toby is "not a lord, but a sir." Once they're married, she pushes Toby into running for Parliament so that she can become a "lady of influence." It never occurs to her to ask or care if Toby actually wants to be an MP.

Isabel is a Righteous Activist whose motives are entirely self-serving - she cuddles consumptive orphans to escape the shame of her Crazy Slutty Parents. And had the novel actually examined this aspect of her, I might have sympathized.

But instead, the novel paints Isabel as this Paragon of Innocence, Nobility, and Virtue and Toby spends the rest of the book proving he's "worthy" of her. Toby eventually surrenders and becomes an MP - and it's definitely a capitulation, he still expresses no talent or interest in politics - instead of discovering his own passion. Isabel compromises nothing in her relationship with Toby. It's not really an equal relationship, so it didn't really work.

Man, I could have sponsored a Third World Child for months on the money I spent on this book! Months!
C

"The Girl You Left Behind," by Jojo Moyes

The Protagonist: Sophie Bessette. The owner of a little hotel called Le Coq Rouge in a small French town under German occupation in WWI.
Her Angst: Her artist husband's away at the front, and the only reminder of him is his portrait of her - a painting the local German  Kommandant covets.

The Other Protagonist: Liv Halston. A widow in 2006 still living in a grieving fog four years after the death of her husband.
Her Angst: The only reminder of him is a portrait he bought for her in Europe - a portrait she's being ordered to return for being looted in WWI.

The Word: How much is a painting really worth? Jojo Moyes, who blew me away with Me Before You, examines this in The Girl You Left Behind.

The title refers to the name of a portrait painted by Edouard Bessette, a minor student of Matisse who is away fighting during the Great War. His wife, Sophie, has not seen her husband for two years - two miserable years spent in a French village occupied by the Germans. Her only solace is The Girl You Left Behind, one of Edouard's portraits of her. Both the portrait and Sophie catch the attention of the Kommandant of her village. When Sophie learns that her husband has been sent to a horrific war camp, she decides to make the Kommandant a trade in exchange for her husband's safety.

Almost a hundred years later, in 2006, Liv Halston is living a similarly sad and narrow life. Mired in grief, drowning in debt, her life is devoted to preserving her deceased husband's house, even though she can no longer afford to live in it. She, like Sophie, takes comfort from The Girl You Left Behind, a beautiful painting of uncertain provenance that her husband bought for her during their honeymoon.

She manages to break from her comfort zone long enough to meet and fall for Paul, a shy but righteous ex-cop who works for a company that rescues looted works of art - until he sees The Girl You Left Behind on her bedroom wall and recognizes it as a painting thought to have been stolen by the Germans during WWI. Awkward. Now the artist's descendants are demanding the painting be returned, but Liv refuses. In order to save the only joyous thing she has left from her marriage, she sets out to discover what really happened to Sophie Bessette during the war.

The novel reminded me a bit of the film The Monuments Men, which argued that great works of art transcend war and time and the paltry label of "just paint on canvas." They are more then mere objects, mere possessions. Liv holds onto a lot of things in her life, to her social and emotional detriment. She still lives in her dead husband's enormous, empty, cold house. She still lives in her grief. She doesn't socialize and has few friends. Her attachment to her painting, however, is different, because it's not a cold object. It's a connection to life, and not just hers - Sophie's, too. Her search for evidence, any evidence, that the painting's transfer of ownership was legal draws her out of her own isolation and and into the mystery of Sophie's life, and the myriad things they have in common.

For Paul, he has to learn the hard way that morality rarely comes in black and white. He used to be proud of his work, returning stolen portraits to war victims and their descendants, and at first he cannot understand why Liv refuses to part with The Girl You Left Behind. What about the Bessettes and what they suffered? Shouldn't the situation be cut and dry? However, lately all the people he meets at his job are disaffected grandchildren eager to recover their family's paintings in order to sell them for the millions they're now worth.

Okay, I'll admit, this aspect of the novel bothered me. It's not like a few restitution-seekers (like the ones claiming The Girl You Left Behind) wind up being soulless philistines who only want a quick cash grab. Every restitution-seeker depicted in the book is depicted that way, to the point where I wondered if the author was trying to send a message condemning restitution in general.

The rest of the book is lovely. While not quite as heart-wrenching as Me Before You, the novel is filled with small, startlingly beautiful details - like when, in Sophie's time, the villagers bury their valuables to hide them from the Germans but are foiled when the clock beneath the rutabagas begins the chime the hour. Moyes has a deft hand with description and throw-away details of human absurdity.

The Girl You Left Behind tells a lovely story about how two women in different centuries can share the same experience thanks to a single piece of art. It's also a telling examination of when holding onto something is an act of bravery, and when it's an unhealthy act of desperation.
B

"Sweet Disorder," by Rose Lerner

The Chick: Phoebe Sparks. The widow of a freeman, whoever marries her inherits her husband's right to vote - which makes her a target for unscrupulous election agents.
The Rub: Despite her unwillingness to marry again, Phoebe's hands are tied when her sister is impregnated by a callous seducer. Phoebe will need to marry before the next election in order to preserve her sister's future.
Dream Casting: Ginnifer Goodwin.

The Dude: Mr. Nicholas Dymond. Tired of the pitying looks from his zealously political family, he agrees to help his brother's campaign by finding a suitable Whig husband for the recalcitrant Mrs. Sparks.
The Rub: Nick's matchmatching hits a speed bump when he starts falling for Phoebe himself.
Dream Casting: Chris Evans.

The Plot:
Phoebe: Even though I'm poor, I refuse to marry again!

Helen: Oops! I'm pregnant!

Phoebe: DAMMIT.

Nick: Even though I'm rich and privileged, I'm going to stay in bed and angst!

Nick's Mother uses MATERNAL GUILT! …It's SUPER-EFFECTIVE!

Nick: DAMMIT. Well, Phoebe, I found you a sexy baker to marry!

Phoebe: We have sexy baker, we have a sexy baker. Can I get a sexy factory owner?

The Tories: We have a sexy factory owner with a motherless daughter!

Phoebe: You're going to have to up the ante, Nick.

Nick: Uh, uh, um... I HAVE ABS!

Phoebe: We've got abs, we've got abs, can anyone here beat Hot British Abs?

The Tories: Um, our candidate has Racism and White Privilege?

Phoebe: LOL NO. SOLD! To the Angsty Wounded Lord's Son with Abs!

Nick: Yay!

Helen: Except my Secret Baby has a dark past!

Phoebe: Welp.

Nick: DAMMIT.

*several fistfights, bribery attempts, and family shenanigans later*

Nick: Screw it! I'll dump my crazy family for you!

Phoebe: SOLD! To the Angsty Wounded Regular Dude with Abs!

Nick: HOORAY!

Romance Convention Checklist:

• 1 Merry Widow Heroine with a Great Rack
• 1 Bad Husband (Deceased)
• 1 Surprisingly Decent Brother-In-Law
• 1 Angsty Limp
• 1 Scandalous Elopement
• 2 Horrible Mums
• 1 Little Sister in Trouble
• 2 Lacklustre Romance Rivals
• 1 Excellent Batch of Brown Bread Ice Cream

The Word: Rose Lerner is kind of like the Olympics. Sure, a book of hers only comes out once every two to four years - but when one does, I lose my everlovin' mind over it for two weeks. 

In the small town of Lively St. Lemeston, only freemen are allowed to vote in elections. Our heroine, Phoebe Sparks, is the widow of a freeman - which means whoever marries her acquires that freeman status, and thus the ability to vote. With such a close election coming up, both the Whigs and the Tories see Phoebe as the perfect way to guarantee a vote for their sides: by providing her with a husband. 

Nicholas Dymond, the older brother of Tony Dymond (the Whig candidate), is charged by their mother to interact with Phoebe and find a worthy (and Whig-loyal) husband for her. Feeling depressed and useless since his military-career-ending injury in Badajoz, Nick feels he should at least try to do this much for his ambitious and highly political family. The only problem? Phoebe Sparks, despite her impoverished status, has no desire to get married and repeat the experience she had with her first husband, a newspaper editor. 

Unfortunately, fate forces Phoebe's hand when her teenage sister Helen shows up on her doorstep - desperate, pregnant and unwilling to name the father. The only way Phoebe can acquire the resources necessary to provide for Helen's baby and protect her reputation is by marrying a political party's chosen husband in return for their protection. Nick promises to help her - for reasons that grow increasingly less political and more personal.

Rose Lerner once again provides a thoroughly entertaining and unerringly insightful romance rife with fascinating historical detail and unconventional situations. There is a sharp political divide between the Orange-and-Purples (Whigs) and Pink-and-Whites (Tories) in this town, and almost everyone has a political opinion one way or the other. Phoebe, although politically Whig, has to consider turning Tory if that party offers more security for her fallen sister, and her observations are thought-provoking - even as she worries about the compromises she's making.

Of course, the great thing about Rose Lerner is that not only does she give us great settings and unconventional situations, but she's a master at creating realistically flawed and nuanced characters. Both hero and heroine are Good People, who do Good Things - but they're not above feeling the occasional surge of resentment at having to sacrifice so much for a foolish sibling.

Phoebe is a strident, intelligent, passionate woman who's convinced, thanks to her manipulative mother and unhappy marriage, that such traits make her a shrew and unfit to be a wife. She's constantly struggling between her instinct to storm in and fix things and her fear of being perceived as a crass, interfering harridan. Despite her tendency to shoulder the blame for other people's unhappiness, she never comes across as a hapless martyr.

Nick, meanwhile, isn't just any ol' Angsty Loner Noble With a Limp from Romance Central Casting. His limp is a cunning physical metaphor for Nick's feelings of uselessness and inferiority as the apathetic black sheep in a family of flamboyantly political overachievers. Having grown up with campaigners and double-speak his entire life, he's instinctively trained to say what other people what to hear - and utterly unable to speak for himself.

The secondary cast is also stellar - including star-crossed lovers, racist Tories, gormless bakers, oily election agents, and two of the most brilliantly-characterized Bad Mothers I've ever encountered in romance.

As much as I joke about how I wished Rose Lerner wrote faster, it's worth the wait when each novel she writes invokes such a superb balance between romance, humour and history. Absolutely flawless.
A+

"Empire of Ivory," by Naomi Novik

The Protagonists:

Will Laurence: Captain of Temeraire - he's horrified to return to England to discover all of its dragons are sick or dying - and hopes the same doesn't happen to Temeraire.

Temeraire: Will's dragon, whose dreams of introducing freedom of expression to his scaled compatriots has to take a backseat to helping them recover from the mysterious illness.

Secondary Cast:

Admiral Jane Rowland: Leader of the aerial corps (and Laurence's companion-with-benefits), she's run ragged both by the dragons' health crisis and the effort needed to keep it a secret from Napoleon.

Mrs. Erasmus: The wife of a freedman preacher who travels with Laurence and Temeraire to Africa in order to spread the gospel - and winds up reuniting with the tribe she was kidnapped from.

Kefentse: A wrathful African dragon whose tribe was kidnapped by slavers who seeks vengeance on the white invaders.

The Plot: In this fourth entry in Naomi Novik's endlessly detailed and inventive historical fantasy series about dragons in the Napoleonic wars (here are books one, two, and three, Laurence and Temeraire return to England after fleeing France at the end of Black Powder War.  Upon landing, they discover why England failed to send the twenty dragons promised to the Continental war effort: England has no dragons to send.

A horrific plague has struck England's dragons (in a nice ironic twist, brought over on a Native American dragon from the New World), and they are dying by slow inches with no hope of recovery. Jane Rowland - now Admiral Rowland - is desperately trying to keep this information under wraps. Should knowledge of the plague reach France, Napoleon would not hesitate to launch a full-scale invasion.

Upon discovering that Temeraire is immune to the disease thanks to some medicine he received in the previous novel for what was thought to be a head cold, Laurence and Temeraire are ordered (along with six other valuable sick dragons) to set sail for Africa (where the medicine was made) to see if they can discover and reproduce a cure.

Much like the previous books in the series, Empire of Ivory has an over-arcing plot, but it approaches it with a series of amusing and detailed episodic scenes. This makes for a slower read than might be expected, but the levels of detail and social commentary more than make up for it. I have yet to encounter a novel with a more thorough worldbuliding than this one.

Inevitably, due to the book's major setting (coastal and interior Africa), the issue of slavery is an important theme in the novel. Laurence is devotedly anti-slavery, but England has not officially abolished it yet - and the politics, bureaucracies, and red tape involved in abolishing it are not easily explained to the more literal-minded British dragons - or to the extremely angry and vengeful African dragons they run into during their explorations.

Although the fantasy element of Novik's books is wonderful and scrupulously developed and explained, I love how she uses the relationship between humans and dragons to explore the social context of Napoleonic England - the use of women in warfare, the treatment of unwed mothers, the strained relationship between oblivious politicians and actual soldiers, and of course - the legality and politics of slavery. Laurence is an exceedingly decent chap - but he is the gentlemanly son of a peer, and he is constantly having to learn and adapt and rethink his priorities thanks to his discussions with Temeraire and the other members of the aerial corps.

That being said, it is a slow-moving, episodic book, but by now I'm pretty much used to it. I love the worldbuilding, I love the historical detail, I love the language - and I love Laurence and Temeraire.
A-

"A Christmas Bride/Christmas Beau," by Mary Balogh (Dell, 2012)

Mary Balogh's bundled Christmas Bride/Beau is an interesting book because it clearly establishes what Mary Balogh does well - and what she doesn't.

Christmas Bride is first, and it is excellent. Our heroine, Helena, Lady Stapleton, is the slutty stepmum who flashed her ta tas at the hero of A Precious Jewel and turned him into a misogynist. Now a wealthy, vaguely-scandalous widow of 36, she is cynical, jaded - and deeply, desperately remorseful for her actions thirteen years ago.

When she meets Edgar Downes, a prosperous merchant, at a party, she is immediately and inexplicably attracted to him. Edgar, in order to fulfill a promise to his father, is looking to marry a well-bred lady by Christmas - hopefully one who's able to look past the fact that he's not a gentleman. However, he's drawn to Helena as well, and the two share an uncharacteristic but hotly passionate one-night stand. Then Helena gets preggers. Whoops.

Part of the reason I loved this novel is that it indulges one of my favourite tropes - the Witty, Troubled, Morally-Ambiguous Heroine. Helena is not a very nice person and Balogh doesn't sugarcoat her, but the majority of her bitterness is directed inward. She hates herself for what she did to a stepson who trusted her, and her self-loathing has caused her to retreat from all forms of commitment or happiness. It takes some reckless bravery on Edgar's part - combined with Edgar's endearing family and the Christmas season - to convince her to forgive herself and move on with her life.

Balogh ably balances dark and light in this novel. Helena's sarcasm and anxiety prevent the Christmas aspects of the story from becoming too cutesy or cloying - the gathering of holly and the creation of a kissing bough are adorable but Helena's observations keep the story grounded. For his part, Edgar is a very controlling hero who finds he's happier with a mature woman who can counter him than the dewy eighteen-year-old marriage prospects he was initially looking at.

Christmas Bride also has a superbly organized supporting cast of previous Heroes and Heroines who contribute to rather than clutter up the storyline. The novel even improves upon the story of Priss and Gerald from A Precious Jewel. Balogh has stumbled before when including Prequel characters (see the bloated mess of Simply Love) so this was a delightful surprise.

Christmas Bride hits all the right spots for a Christmas story - warm, loving, but spiced with angst.

Christmas Beau, on the other hand hand - oy.

The story is as follows - once upon a time, Judith and Max, Marquess of Denbigh were engaged to be married. It was an arranged match, and Judith found Max creepy, cold and heartless - so she ran off with another dude a month before the wedding. That marriage didn't turn out so well either, but now that dude's dead and Judith is preparing to celebrate her first Christmas out of mourning with her two young children, Rupert and Kate, and her self-pitying dishrag of a sister-in-law, Amy.

However, for the first time in eight years, Max has returned to London as well - with revenge in mind. During their betrothal, Max was madly in love with her, and was horrifically brokenhearted by her desertion. He now plans to inflict the same pain on her - by seducing her children.

Creeped out yet? Yes, he cozies up to her kids and tempts them with horsie rides, candy and fairs and invites them to his isolated manor house which he's filled up with Christmas trees and abandoned street urchins (for reals). And Judith - despite being royally grossed-out by his overtures - is simply forced to comply because, in this novel, any mother who doesn't utterly martyr herself for her children at every opportunity is a Horrible Person. Man up, Judith. Your kids are under six - they'll get over it.

Every character has something to hate about them. Max is an asshat of the highest order. So he was crazy in love with Judith - but not crazy enough to demonstrate or express that love in any way. According to Judith, he never even smiled during their entire courtship. But he still plans to punish Judith for not MAGICALLY cluing in to his Secret Squishy Feels.

Judith, meanwhile, is an insufferably short-sighted martyr who believes her children's immediate happiness is worth more than getting them away from a Creepy Stranger With Designs On Her. Her reasons for disliking Max during their courtship were perfectly valid, but the novel is determined to Teach Her A Lesson for not giving cold, unsmiling, silently awkward dudes the sympathy they deserve.

We also get a drippy secondary romance for Amy, the sister in law who simply can't shut up about how Unlovable and Ugly and Childless and Futureless she is, and some random dude who inexplicably finds her self-pitying whining charming.

It's strange - while Christmas Bride was all about how the heroine who has actually done something wrong should forgive herself and be happy, Christmas Beau was all about how the heroine should be stalked and mistreated until she's forced to apologize for her relatively minor sins as a teenager. No thank you.

Christmas Bride: A+. Christmas Beau: C. 

"To Have and To Hold," By Patricia Gaffney (Penguin Reissue)

The Chick: Rachel Wade. A convict who's just been released from a ten-year prison sentence for the murder of her abusive husband.
The Rub: She's saved from returning to jail when she's hired by a local viscount - who has seduction in mind even as he holds her freedom in his hands.
Dream Casting: Anne Hathaway.

The Dude: Sebastian Verlaine, Viscount D'Aubrey. A bored and debauched viscount who's looking for a challenge, any challenge, to amuse him out of his apathy.
The Rub: When he encounters an emotionally frozen woman charged with the murder of her husband, he sets out to untangle her secrets for his own entertainment - until he realizes he's far out of his league.
Dream Casting: Jake Gyllenhaal.

The Plot: 

Sebastian: I'm bored.

Local Magistrates: Oh hey look, we're about to send a convicted murderess back to prison because the convicted murderess job market is in a freefall these days.

Sebastian: SOLD! ... I mean hired.

Rachel: ....

Sebastian: I hope you like sex! Because we're totally going to have that at some point!

Rachel: Fine.

Sebastian: I totally mean it! Because I love sex. And you have to do it or I'll fire you!

Rachel: *shrug*

Sebastian and Rachel: *nonconsensual funtimes*

Sebastian: ....that was less fun than I expected.

Sebastian's Douche Bros: 'S'up dude! Let's shag girls and get wasted! Whooooooooo!

Sebastian: OMG I am a terrible person who's accomplished nothing with my life! *falls into depression*

Rachel: For pete's sake, snap out of it.

Sebastian: But now I love you! For reals! And I will prove it with puppies and sexy baths and fully consensual lovemaking!

Evil Conspirators: Too bad Rachel's going back to prison!

Sebastian: LIKE HELL SHE IS!

Random Character From a Previous Novel: Hey look guys, a random letter that completely excuses Rachel of any wrongdoing!

Sebastian: Let's get married!

Rachel: Okay! Yes!

Sebastian: HOORAY!

Vine Review

Romance Convention Checklist:

• 1 Bored Little Rich Boy
• 1 Strong-Yet-Damaged Heroine
• 1 Bitch Maid
• 3 Asshole Friends
• 1 Puppy Gift
• 1 Very Bad Husband (Deceased)
• 1 Spurned Mistress
• 1 Incestuous Sister out of Freakin' Nowhere
• 1 Sexy Bath

The Word: I've spoken up about rape in romance before. I do not like it Sam I Am, I do not like Rape Eggs and Ham. I do not like it in McNaught, nor in this Bonnie Vanak I got.

But ... I'd heard a lot about Patricia Gaffney's To Have and To Hold, a classic romance from the '90s that's recently been reissued in eBook form. However, several reviewers that I trust (or at least whose reviews are enjoyable and comprehensive) reviewed it positively, despite its controversial plot line that has the hero raping the heroine. After finding out it was on sale from Kobo, I nabbed it and decided to see for myself.

And, you guys, I loved this book. Even with the rape scene and the hero's behaviour towards the heroine in the beginning. I'm normally someone who despises abusive heroes and rapes in romance - so why did I still enjoy this novel to the extent that I did? And moreover, how did I still buy the romance between Sebastian and Rachel?

Well, I think one difference is that the narrative does not support the hero's actions at all. At the beginning of the novel, Sebastian is very clearly a jaded, cynical, selfish and manipulative cad. Growing bored with his luxurious life, he turns to debauchery and mind games to entertain himself. When he drunkenly agrees to serve as a magistrate to the village on his property, he hears the case of Rachel Wade, a woman picked up for vagrancy. Even better - she's only just been released from a 10 year prison sentence for murdering her husband a week into their marriage.

Intrigued by Mrs. Wade's indifferent numbness to the world around her (especially the prospect of being sent back to jail for the "crime" of not finding work), he hires her on as his housekeeper in order to toy with her implacability and eventually seduce her.

I was able to tolerate this plotline because the narrative refuses to frame any of these actions in a positive light. Sebastian is a cruel child with a stick and Rachel is the anthill he's eager to poke in order to see how its insides work. The narrative never ascribes any secret selfless meanings to Sebastian's choices, or offers up any Abusive Childhoods to blame for his failings. Moreover - the heroine is fully aware of what Sebastian intends, even though she knows her employment with him is the only thing keeping her from returning to prison.

And, yes, he rapes her. Whitney My Love portrayed Whitney's rape as a punishment that Clayton took a wee bit too far because he's Just Such An Overwhelmingly Passionate Manly Man. The Lady and the Libertine enforced the idea that it wasn't rape because the Hero Had a Secret Heart of Gold and also the Heroine Liked It. In THATH, however, it is clearly depicted as rape - despite the fact that it's not violent and Rachel physically acquiesces. It's an intense and interestingly written scene, because it's so clear that while Rachel physically capitulates to save her job, she mentally, emotionally, and spiritually resists Sebastian's attempts to get under her skin.

The reason I could tolerate Sebastian's behaviour is that his horribleness is the point of the story and something he learns to recognize as his character develops. Sebastian's attempts to play at being evil help him realize what evil really is as he discovers more about Rachel's past, as he finds out there is nothing he can do to her that she hasn't already endured, survived, and recovered from. As a result, while he pursues Rachel to find out more about her - he only finds out more about himself, and it's not pretty. Sebastian's epiphany (i.e. that he's a shitful person) is a mesmerizing scene that makes the entire book. For the rest of the novel, Sebastian struggles to pull himself out of the jaded rut he's found himself in and defeat his boredom by pursuing meaning, rather than distraction.

And Rachel - wow Rachel. She is such an amazing and complex character. When we first meet her, she is a bare husk of a person, pared down to the essential drive of surviving in the moment. There is no past, there is no future, there is only existence - but as she spends more days in freedom, she slowly expands the limits of her perception.

I loved the parallels between Sebastian's and Rachel's development: they both struggle to break free from their habitual ways of thinking. Of course, Sebastian's limited life is due only to his own selfish indulgence whereas Rachel's was forced upon her (and the "mystery" of who really killed her husband ... isn't really a mystery), but they both have to break free of their comfort zones and I appreciated how their characterization dovetailed.

And really, Patricia Gaffney's writing is exquisite. She has a gift for cutting into her characters' thoughts and intentions and picking them apart with careful thoroughness - and I think that's how I could never truly hate Sebastian. Because I knew him too well, and I could see how hard he tried to change in the second half of the novel.

There are probably lots of people who still won't like this novel because of the rape element, and they are more then entitled to. The first half of the novel is meant to be excruciating - and your enjoyment of the novel hinges on how well the second half convinces you that things can be different.

For me, the brutally objective portrayal of Sebastian in the first half, coupled with the gorgeous writing and characterization in the second half, sold me on this novel, and on Patricia Gaffney's awesomeness. It's refreshing to find awesome new romance authors while I'm still struggling with my apathy with the genre.
A+