"The Burning Sky," by Sherry Thomas (HarperCollins, 2013)

The Protagonist: Iolanthe, a.k.a. "Archer Fairfax." A mysterious orphan with the power to work all four magical elements.
Her Angst: Since her country's Evil Overlords keep a sharp eye out for powerful mages they can enslave/destroy, she has to keep her own powers a secret.

The Other Protagonist: Prince Titus. The ruler of the Domain in name only, he's organizing a secret rebellion to avenge his mother. The only thing missing from his plan is an Oblivious Empowered Orphan.
His Angst: He's bent on organizing this rebellion and freeing his people from the cruel reign of Atlantis - all the while knowing (thanks to a prophesy) that it will result in his own death.

Secondary Cast:

Master Haywood: Iolanthe's cheating, stealing, lying drug-addicted guardian - but don't worry! He has a magical excuse for being A Terrible Person so it's all good!

Kashkari: An Eton student from India who seems to know more than he lets on.

Wintervale: An exile from the mage realm who's also a student at Eton with Prince Titus.

The Bane: The High Commander of Atlantis - is supposedly 200 years old and impossible to be killed.

The Inquisitor: The Evil Minion of the Bane who investigates possible rebellions.

Angst Checklist:

• My teacher is a dishonest, cheating drug-addict but he has a magical excuse for it
• I have super magical powers and no one will tell me how to use them
• The power of fate
• Consent-optional blood oaths
• My mum foretold my death so I'm kind of bummed out
• Man this chick is way hotter when she's dressed as a dude - should I be worried?
• Cricket matches

The Word: Keep writing romances, Sherry Thomas.

Your romance novels are some of the best I have ever read. Not Quite a Husband, Private Arrangements and Delicious are exquisite stories with gorgeous details and fantastic dialogue. 

Unfortunately, for some inexplicable reason Sherry Thomas' skills with detail, storytelling, and character building do not translate into Young Adult Fantasy. After reading about a hundred pages of her first YA effort, The Burning Sky, with all of its cliched tropes, bland character development, and utterly absurd worldbuilding, I had to start skimming.

Our heroine, Iolanthe, is an Oblivious Empowered Orphan in a realm known simply as the Domain, currently under the cruel usurping thumb of Atlantis, an empire that likes to make mages who get a little too powerful disappear. Everyone in this world is familiar with elemental magic (wordless control of fire, air, etc.) and "subtle" magic (verbal spells using wands a la Harry Potter). Iolanthe, of course, has Way More Elemental Power than the average bear but, being an Oblivious Empowered Orphan (with a Destiny, no less!), no one's willing to explain her powers to her in anything other than Meaningless Riddles.

She's currently practicing minor magic in a small village with her inept, drug-addicted guardian, Master Haywood. When he ruins one of her potions because he's A Terrible Person, Iolanthe notices a scrawled note on her potion book that says a thunderbolt will make her potion as good as new.

Now, despite the fact that she has no idea who wrote that note, no one in their Domain has been able to cast lightning in a thousand years, and the only one who did it is a figure from folklore, Iolanthe decides to try poking her finger at the sky and shouting "Lightning!"

I'm dead serious. And it works. Because of course it does. 

Her magical lightning milkshake brings all the Evil Minions of Atlantis to the yard, and Iolanthe is barely rescued in time by Titus - the teenage Prince of the Domain. Rendered a powerless figurehead by Atlantis, Titus has been secretly scheming to topple their empire once he finds the Destined Oblivious Empowered Orphan. Now that he has her, he spirits her into the human world, where he disguises them both as male students at Eton. The rest of the novel plays out like a reverse-Harry Potter, with the magical students pretending to be normal in a famous British boarding school, as they try to dodge the spies of Atlantis and train Iolanthe to fulfill her Destiny as the World-Saver.

Now, okay, I don't mind hoary fantasy cliches so long as the Oblivious Empowered Orphan is a developed and memorable character. Unfortunately, Iolanthe is a pert Mary Sue for much of the novel. Despite a haphazard and impoverished upbringing in a series of podunk towns, she is inexplicably flawless at pretending to be a boy at an upper-class all-boy's school, is a star player at cricket on the first try despite knowing nothing about the game, and, oh yeah, can call down lightning by poking her finger at the sky and asking for it. 

Titus, meanwhile, is a fairly bland Mentor with Mummy Issues. He spends most of the novel whining about his responsibilities and what a Duplicitous Angsty Trickster he has to be to outsmart the Atlantis spies and keep his secret rebellion a secret. Wash, Rinse, Repeat. 

The magical worldbuilding is similarly overly-convenient. There is no cost to doing magic, and no barriers or limitations to what it can do. It can hem sheets and cook food. It can predict the future. It can teleport people over hundreds of miles. As a result, whenever Iolanthe and Titus run into a problem, there's always a Handy Magical Item on hand for just about every occasion. Magical typewriters, magical Dead Mother Prophesy diaries, magical wardrobes. It makes it very difficult for the author to establish true stakes when magic is capable of just about everything.

It also begs the question of why Atlantis doesn't just try taking over England and the human world, seeing as Thomas establishes how literally everything about Victorian England is inferior to the Domain - at one point, Titus worries that Iolanthe won't know what a salt shaker is because the food in the Domain is always perfectly salted. Really, truly. 

And on top of the by-the-numbers characters and nonsensical worldbuilding, the pacing is also fairly slow - lots of angsting and training and whining and Etonian hijinks from the other schoolboys. There is no real goal in this novel, apart from Not Getting Caught and Killed. Our characters spend the novel reacting instead of acting - and even the big climax is a reaction to the Bad Guys' initiative rather than any decision on the protagonists' part.

While I am a long way from taking Sherry Thomas' romance novels off my autobuy list, I doubt I'll be continuing with this series.

D

Re-Review: "Private Arrangements," by Sherry Thomas

For the last post of my ReRead Rollout, I chose a very special book.

I am a huge Sherry Thomas fangirl. She is one of my absolute favourite writers, regardless of genre. She just has such a grasp of language and historical detail that lend her environments and characters a depth that most other historical writers just can't match.

But I just "didn't get" her debut novel. Everyone absolutely raved about this book when it came out - for its unconventional use of flashbacks, for its original characters, for its gorgeous language.

On my first read of this novel, I appreciated the skill that went into it, but I just couldn't emotionally connect with it. I didn't get it. I didn't dislike it, I just didn't love it.

One of my favourite personal anecdotes from my first RWA Conference was when I ran into Sherry Thomas at the Smart Bitches' Blogger Party, and exclaimed, "Oh I liked Private Arrangements!" because it was the first novel of hers that came to mind and the only novel of hers at that point that I'd read. To my mortification, she responded, "Really? Because your review said you didn't like it very much."

But a lot's changed since then. Not Quite a Husband, His At Night, Delicious and Beguiling the Beauty later, I'm totally hooked. So what better time to revisit her first book to see if my opinion's changed than during my ReRead Rollout?

I'm quite happy to say that it has. I think maybe the first time I read it, I was put off by the amount of detail, the delicious complexity she injected into her stories - a complexity that a lot of romances lack, to be honest. Perhaps because it was such a different tone from the vast majority of historicals. I was used to historicals with simplistic settings that went for the gut-punch of drama with Secret Mistresses and Tarnished Pasts and whatnot. Sherry Thomas, instead, includes the setting and the historical period and makes it all relevant to the story, rather than as a pretty backdrop.

Also, none of her protagonists are Angsty Islands whose only friends are Equally Angsty and often Sequel-Baiting chums - all of them have family members, friends, acquaintances, histories and complex connections to the outside world. I love that about her writing.

For this second read, I found I could dive into the complex marital tangle between Gigi and Camden more easily, now that I was used to (and highly addicted to) Sherry Thomas' writing style. I enjoyed so much more and remembered more about the characters this time around - how reluctant Gigi was to give up on her attachment to Freddie, because she'd come to fear the passion that made her abandon her morals as well as her good sense. How deep Camden was in denial, to the point where it took him nearly the entire book to realize he'd subconsciously started this whole mess (by demanding an heir) in order to win Gigi back from the start.

I adored how Sherry Thomas convincingly depicts both protagonists at two different stages of their lives - their heady passions and rages at 19 and 21, and their restrained but no less powerful feelings at 29 and 31. Although the flashback periods of the novel are clearly marked, the subtle differences in the characters' maturity levels also indicates which period of time the novel takes place in.

True, Not Quite a Husband remains my personal favourite of Thomas' novels, but now I can definitely agree that Private Arrangements deserves a place on my Keeper Shelf.
A

"Beguiling the Beauty," by Sherry Thomas

The Chick: Venetia Fitzhugh. When the arrogant Duke of Lexington condemns her as a scheming beauty during a university lecture, she decides to seduce him in disguise in order to prove him a hypocrite.
The Rub: She's in for a dilemma once she falls in love with him - will he still love her and be able to see beyond her staggering beauty once he knows who she really is?
Dream Casting: Kate Winslet.

The Dude: Christian de Montfort, the Duke of Lexington. The first time he sees Venetia Fitzhugh, he falls in love with her beauty, only to hate himself for it once he apparently learns he true character.
The Rub: While he comes to love his anonymous baroness lover aboard the ship Rhodesia, he can't quite shake his obsession with Venetia.
Dream Casting: Christian Bale.

The Plot:

Christian, Age 19: Wow, Venetia Fitzhugh's a looker!

Mr. Townsend: Too bad she's a terrible wife! Remember me as a flawless, faithful, totally trustworthy husband.... *kills himself*

Christian, Age 29, at Harvard: Wow, Venetia Fitzhugh's a gold-digging tart!

Venetia: *LE GASP!* Wow, what a prick! I shall revenge myself by seducing you!

Venetia and Christian: *anonymous veiled sex!*

Venetia: Wow, that backfired spectacularly.

Boat: *docks in England*

Christian: Marry me!

Venetia: Wow, look at the time! *flees*

Christian: *researches* She was Venetia the whole time? Wow, what a gold-digging tart!

Venetia: I love you, you moron.

Christian: Wow, I am a moron. Let's be happy together!

Venetia: HOORAY!

Romance Convention Checklist

• 1 Secret Identity
• 1 Inappropriate Harvard Lecture
• 1 Monumental Case of Misogynist Sour Grapes
• 2 Dead Husbands
• 2 Cases of Sequel Baiting
• 1 Awesome Stepmum
• 1 Sexy Cruise
• 2 Romantic Fossils

The Word: Oh, Sherry Thomas. You're like Mary Balogh. I will never not like your books (except that first one which I did like, I just didn't connect with, but it's one I should probably reread now). And I did enjoy this book, even though the hero is kind of an asshole.

Venetia Fitzhugh is hot. I mean super hot. Spontaneous-marriage-proposals-from-strangers hot. Our 19-year-old hero, Christian, the Duke of Lexington, takes one look at her during a cricket match and is immediately obsessed with her. Unfortunately, his infatuation is thwarted by the fact that she is married. A few years later, he runs into her distraught husband Mr. Townsend in a club. Mr. Townsend confides in Christian how his marriage to Venetia has ruined him, and he kills himself shortly thereafter.

As Mr. Townsend's enormous debts to jewellers come to light, Christian, in probably one of the most epic cases of Sour Grapes ever, convinces himself that Venetia Fitzhugh is a greedy, callous gold-digger who uses her beauty to snare men. When she marries an incredibly wealthy older man when her mourning period is scarcely over, this only cements her tawdry whorishness in Christian's mind. 

But he's still obsessed with her. And this makes him hate her even more - even though he's never even spoken to her in person.

Nice guy, right?

Venetia, with two unfulfilling marriages under her belt and a comfortable income, has no idea who the Duke of Lexington is until she sees a flyer for a lecture he's giving at Harvard University. Venetia and her sister-in-law Millie are in the United States in order to keep Venetia's sister Helena occupied and supervised. Helena, it appears, has been carrying on an affair with a married man and her family hopes to keep scandal at bay by keeping her an ocean away from her lover and throwing other eligible men in her path. Eligible men like the Duke of Lexington, an influential scientist (I quite enjoy how many of Sherry Thomas' heroes are scientists and mathematicians). 

During the lecture, however, Christian is speaking about the evolutionary purposes of beauty and decides to use Venetia as an unnamed example of how a beautiful woman can still be welcomed in society despite her obvious slutty man-ruining ways. Venetia, present at the lecture, is horrified and humiliated. She decides to get her revenge by proving Christian a misogynist hypocrite (which shouldn't really be all that hard) and books a ticket on the same boat home as he, under an assumed name and a veil, intending to seduce him.

However, their romantic encounter does not go as planned. Venetia finds it liberating to interact with a man unaware of her physical beauty, and discovers that Christian is actually a charming, intelligent chap when he's not busy blaming women he can't have for his boner. Christian, for his part, loves Venetia's scientific interests and sense of humour, and most especially, for how her presence makes him utterly forget about his obsession with Slutty McGolddigger. 

But what will happen when the ship lands in Britain?

Okay, so as you can probably tell, I wasn't a huge fan of Christian at the beginning. However, the ultimate hypocrisy of his beliefs (his anger at women relying on their beauty leading him to think the very worst of Venetia because of hers) is not lost on the reader or on the heroine. He's still a fascinating character and the progression of his relationship with Venetia is intriguingly layered. Sherry Thomas's clever writing turns the cliche of love at first sight on its head. It's clear that Christian's initial obsession with Venetia is just that - obsession. One-sided, narrow-minded and ultimately selfish, it has everything to do with Christian's sexual gratification (or lack thereof) and nothing at all to do with Venetia's thoughts, interests, or feelings. Christian's obsession with Venetia and his love for the Baroness (her alias) are two different things that Christian has to reconcile with as the story progresses.

That being said, I rather wish Venetia had been a bit stronger of a heroine. I appreciated how she defended herself, how unselfconscious she was of her looks, how confident she was in her own character, and how she refused to kowtow to Christian's opinion of her. At the same time, however, once she falls in love with Christian she becomes rather meek and cowardly, terrified of losing his esteem once she's obtained it. She comes into her own at the end, but it's a little sudden.

Barring that, with the use of thoughtful themes on beauty and obsession, some excellent writing, period detail, and secondary characters, Beguiling the Beauty is a solidly enjoyable read.

A-

"Delicious," by Sherry Thomas

The Chick: "Verity Durant," a.k.a. Lady Vera Drake. A talented chef and former mistress of Mr. Bertie Somerset, until he dies unexpectedly.
The Rub: With Bertie's passing, his half-brother Stuart will inherit his holdings - will Verity be able to maintain her employment without Stuart recognizing her as his one-time paramour?
Dream Casting: Kate Winslet.

The Dude: Stuart Somerset. A high-profile barrister with the Liberal Party, he has a duty to uphold a moral standard while pushing forward the Irish Home Rule Bill.
The Rub: His uncontrollable reaction to his chef's food and her presence threatens everything he's ever striven for - but could giving in and possessing her be worth it, after all?
Dream Casting: Hugh Jackman.

The Plot:

Verity: Oh no! My employer's dead!

Stuart: Looks like I've inherited all my brother's stuff!

Verity: Might as well not dump my employer while he's on an empty stomach!

Stuart: *taste soup* Wow, this tastes like delicious flashbacks!

Ten Years Ago...

Stuart and Verity: *SexyTimes*

Stuart: Let's get married!

Verity: Um, let me sleep on it... *flees*

Stuart: :(

Present Day

Stuart: Even though I've very conveniently never seen your face, I'm in love with you!

Verity: Oh good. I thought you'd be mad.

Lizzy: Why should he be? I'm off to marry/shag his hot secretary!

Verity: I thought he was gay.

Lizzy: SO DID I ISN'T THAT HILARIOUS?

Stuart: *recognizes Verity* OMG HOW DARE YOU. GET OUT!

Verity: Really? It took you that long?

Stuart: ... now that I think about it, yeah. Not that mad anymore! Be my mistress!

Ornery Relative: How'd you like some Convenient Backstory first?

Stuart: Even better! Be my wife!

Verity: HOORAY!

Romance Convention Checklist

• 1 Interclass Romance
• 1 Amazing One-Night Stand
• Several Flashbacks
• 1 Not-So-Secret Baby
• 1 Nasty Aunt
• Dozens of Delicious Madeleines
• 1 Accidentally-Walked-In-On Moment of Self-Pleasure
• 2 Beloved Galoshes
• 1 Delightful Secondary Romance

The Word: While perusing my shelves for something to read, I realized it had been more than a year since I last read one of Sherry Thomas' novels, and I realized I had to do something about it.

While I enjoyed the last novel of hers I read (His At Night), particularly the storyline, for some reason I just couldn't click with her characters, primarily because the hero spent the majority of the novel pretending to be two apples short of a fruit salad.

This time around, my experience was the opposite - I loved both characters - hell, all four characters - and the delicious writing so much that I could easily ignore some of the story's repetitive quibbles.

The heroine, Verity Durant, is a notorious chef with a past as spicy and varied as a good paella. When her employer (and former lover) Bertie Somerset dies unexpectedly of a heart attack, she realizes she will have to vacate her position now that Bertie's half-brother Stuart will inherit his holdings and estate. Verity and Stuart share A History but she decides that she owes it to him to cook him a few truly mouthwatering and life-changing meals before she looks for other employment.

Stuart is an upstanding barrister and Chief Whip for the Liberal Party. He's devoted to his calling, but he also knows that society is always waiting to hold his illegitimate birth against him (even though he was later legitimized by his father), so he strives to be rigidly practical, proper, and moral in all things, including his engagement to the well-heeled Elizabeth Bessler. One sip from Madame Durant's soup suddenly floods him with a passion, a hunger, a sensuous craving that terrifies him so much he can barely tolerate a few bites before he sends the meal back. The fact that Madame Durant is infamous for being his hated half-brother's mistress is an even bigger reason to sack her.

But he doesn't. He hasn't felt such longing in ten years, ever since he spent one life-altering night with a nameless Cinderella who ran out on his impulsive but truly-meant offer of marriage. And Verity doesn't quit - even though she was that Cinderella and she knows that nothing can ever come of it. Her own relationship with Bertie dissolved when it became clear he considered her too far beneath him to marry.

Meanwhile, Stuart's fiancee Lizzy Bessler, who sees marriage to Stuart as the way out of all her past vanities and mistakes, must fight her growing attraction to his secretary, disinherited aristocrat William Marsden.

First of all, this is a terrible book to read on a diet. The descriptions of the food are simply gut-clenching. This is an incredibly sensuous book and Sherry Thomas's magnificent gift with words is put to very good use here. She's so talented at describing sensations (both mental and physical), that it's impossible not to be swept up in the drama.

And there is a lot of drama. Very unconventional, complicated, multifaceted drama - it's a pure pleasure to read and uncover it all. It's become quite a bore to read an historical romance with an angsty hero only to learn his only major problem was one woman who did him wrong by running off with someone else. That's it? You won't find that in Delicious. It's very condensed that way - there is a lot to experience and take in, and it's wonderful, even if there are a few gaps (to this day I still can't understand how the situation where William mistakes Lizzy for a lesbian came about).

Was this story absolutely perfect, however? No - again, there are some quibbles. My main annoyance with this novel is how long it's forced to hide Verity's face from Stuart as they develop their romance. I realize it's integral to the plot that Stuart not recognize Verity as his One Night Stand until the end, but that didn't make the scenes where they're face to face less contrived or annoying.

Either Verity will insist Stuart turn off the lights (which he obeys, for no reason), or he comes across her by accident while she conveniently has a handkerchief over her face, or they meet in a fog, or he buys her a mask even though he has no possible reason I can think of for doing so. I couldn't really understand why Stuart feels no qualms about being in love with a woman whom he's never seen above the neck.

It's one of those things that made sense at first, but was stretched out far too long until Verity became an erotic version of Mr. Wilson from Home Improvement (Touchstone Television).

"I'm not wearing anything underneath this hat!"

My other quibble involves a sudden and all-encompassing revelation at the end by an Ornery Relation that made very little sense to me and tied up everything with all-too-neat bow.

But this is the kind of novel where the gorgeous writing and the lovelorn characters and the entertaining secondary romance clearly make up for it. This became an immediate favourite of mine and I highly recommend it.
A+  

You can purchase Delicious here.