"The Serpent Prince," by Elizabeth Hoyt

The Chick: Lucy Craddock-Hayes. An innocent member of the country gentry, she discovers Simon Iddesleigh lying in a ditch - naked, unconscious, and beaten to within an inch of his life. She takes him home to nurse him back to health.
The Rub: Simon is a sophisticated, urbane aristocrat, while Lucy is a simple country miss. What could they possibly have in common?
Dream Casting: A younger Jennifer Connelly.

The Dude: Viscount Simon Iddesleigh. Attacked while hunting for the men who conspired to kill his older brother, he quickly falls for the purehearted goodness of Lucy, whom he considers to be "his angel."
The Rub: Most of the men who murdered his brother are still out there, and Simon's determined to hunt them down one by one and return the favour. However, he's fully aware of the wrongness of his murderous intentions, and believes himself too damaged for a pious angel like Lucy.
Dream Casting: Buffy the Vampire Slayer's James Marsters.

The Plot:
Lucy: I say! A naked man! Finders keepers!

Simon: Wow, I feel better already. Want to get married?

Lucy: Sure!

Simon: I'll be back in a minute, I have to go powder my wig.

Two Skeezy Men Who Helped Kill His Brother: What?! You're still alive?

Simon: I challenge thee to a DUEL!

Two Skeezy Men: SHIT. *overwhelmed by Simon's sword prowess**die horribly*

Simon: *overwhelmed by brooding angst**still alive, though* The only murderer who remains is Sir Rupert Fletcher!

Christian, Simon's BFF: But he's my dad! And a cripple! I challenge thee to a DUEL!

Simon: Wait, seriously? Okay, fine.

Lucy: No more duelling, and I mean it!

Simon: Anybody want a peanut?

Lucy: *leaves in a huff*

Simon and Christian: *hack! slash! stab! poke! angst!*

Sir Rupert: No! Stop! Uncle! UNCLE, DAMMIT! Spare my son!

Simon: Leave England, then.

Sir Rupert and Christian: *banished*

Lucy: *returns* You're alive!

Simon: Merry Christmas!

Romance Convention Checklist:

1 Brooding, Angst-Ridden Hero

1 Naive Country Virgin

3 Bloody Duels

1 Pair of Sexy Red Heels (Simon's!)

1 Act of Self-Pleasure Accidentally Walked In Upon (Lucy's!)

1 Precocious Child

1 Murderous Conspiracy

1 Skeevy Villain with a Noticeable Nervous Tic

1 Skeevy Villain with Unconventional Sexual Proclivities

1 Romantically Lacklustre Rival

1 Cameo From Previous Author Characters (The Raven and Leopard Princes make an appearance)

The Word: Lucy Craddock-Hayes is having a regular walk near her country home when she encounters a horribly beaten man left to die in a ditch. Without further ado, she has him carried to her house to convalesce. Once he regains consciousness, the man introduces himself as Viscount Simon Iddesleigh. Even though Simon won't tell her the exact details of his attack and Lucy's father makes his passionate dislike for the man perfectly obvious, Lucy and Simon hit it off. Lucy's bored with dull country life and her dull country courtship with a listless young vicar, and Simon is a welcome breath of charming, witty fresh air. On the other side, Simon believes himself to be a dark creature of sin and evil who likes taking refuge in the company of a good-hearted innocent like Lucy.

The hero who believes himself to be evil (or at least too evil for the heroine) is a common romantic trope. The reasons for these beliefs can range from the silly ("my father was an asshole, therefore I am destined to become an asshole") to the common ("I have sex and gamble way too much for the heroine to like me") to the realistic ("I am mentally scarred from fighting in the war").

Thankfully Simon has very understandable reasons for believing himself to be a demon. His brother, Ethan, was killed by a conspiracy of men who did not appreciate Ethan's moral objections to their plans. They did so by slandering Ethan's wife's name until Ethan (a terrible swordsman) was forced to challenge them to a duel, in which he died in less than a minute. Simon, in return, plans to do the same to the conspirators - force or trick them into calling duels, and then brutally defeat them. He's already taken one down, but has three more to go.

Again, revenge plots are common in romance novels, but this is the first one I've personally read where the hero acknowledges from the start that what he is doing is immoral and wrong, and experiences serious psychological consequences as he performs these crimes anyway. The oft-idealistic setting of the romance novel is usually very supportive of killing the "bad guys," but Hoyt refuses to demonstrate any righteousness in Simon's actions. The novel also (and this was the biggest surprise to me, who found the villains in Hoyt's earlier novel Raven Prince to be rather cartoonish) provides one of the most human romance novel baddies I've come across in a long time. Here we have a man who knowingly committed an evil act to cover up a serious mistake, but he had sincere, realistic, and understandable motivations for doing so. Yes, Virginia, there do exist people who do bad things for good reasons that don't make the bad things they do any less bad.
All of this serves to put Simon in a pretty serious moral, emotional, and psychological quandary as he continues his mission of vengeance, and also serves as the main romantic obstacle between himself and Lucy, who condemns his actions outright.

The disappointing thing about this novel, was that Simon's dueling was pretty much the only big romantic obstacle. Lucy is a bit of a non-character - she has no dark past, she has no niggling personal flaws that are solved by book's end, and she has no serious issues to deal with. She's human enough to escape being a Mary Sue, but she really has no personal investment in the romance. With her innocent country ways, she has an excellent influence on Simon and his personal darkness, but there's nothing that Simon can really do for her (besides the obvious - really good sex and financial security).

This made the romance rather lopsided, as Lucy served more as a catalyst who spurs Simon's personal recovery than a romantic character in her own right who is improved by Simon's company. In other novels, both hero and heroine come into the relationship with emotional baggage, and one of the joys of a good romance is watching how the union of two peoples helps them both to recover from their own problems.

This is why I gave this generally well-written novel this particular grade - because, frankly, the excellently realized revenge portion of the story completely overshadowed the romantic aspect of the book - turning it into something akin to an action movie where the scarred, hardbitten cop is the centre of the film's narrative but he has some winsome B-movie starlet as the requisite love interest who inspires him to greater heights of heroism but doesn't really contribute anything other than estrogen and the occasional damsel-in-distress scene.

I've always seen romance as a partnership between the hero and the heroine, but in The Serpent Prince, Simon ran the show while Lucy watched lovingly from the balcony. Sorry, but she really wasn't quite my cup of tea. B.

Whoring For Books

Regular visitors to my site will notice that I've added a few book widgets to my blog - first, I added Julie Anne Long's Like No Other Lover widget, and now I've added the Smart Bitches/Dear Author Buy a Contemporary widget. They've both had mentions about the book Flat-Out Sexy on their blogs, while bemoaning the fact that ordinary contemporary romances that don't involve spies, vampires, serial murderers/rapists, but are instead just extraordinary stories of love between two ordinary people, are becoming an endangered species.

I can relate. While I'm more of an historical fan myself, I love the books of Jennifer Crusie, Christine Ridgway and Susan Elizabeth Phillips. I'm also a big ol' meanie when it comes to vampire/spy/thriller romances - I just don't like 'em (in general - there are exceptions).

So Dear Author and the Smart Bitches have started a contest with crazy prizes - one of which is a $100 gift certificate to Amazon to a random person who's posted this widget on their blog. Which is what I have done.

I don't care if I'm shameless - it costs nothing to post one on my blog and the books are free - my Julie Anne Long widget won me a signed copy of The Perils of Pleasure which is on its way to my mailbox as I type this.

Books books books. Free free free. I'm a simple-minded creature at heart.

In the "That's Just WRONG" Category:

I've been looking up new romance authors on the internet. Even though I've been reading romances for well over a year now, I'm still exploring new authors because there are so many, dear God. Plus, romance authors have some of the most beautifully designed websites out there (ironically, sci-fi authors, whose characters fight robots and insanely developed technology and the Singularity, often have really crappy-looking websites).

I like looking at the covers, the author's bio, and of course - their books!

Today, however, I came across an author's new book, and the book trailer explained the plot: girl tells lies, a boy gets the boot from his family and nearly dies, and years later comes back to work revenge. Oh, well, that sounds good.

AND THEN I READ THE EXCERPT.

The excerpt ... wow. The writing wasn't bad, but the plot it explained was. In the excerpt, our hero, ostracized from his family (and nursing a wicked throat wound) remarks on the cold, devious beauty of our heroine, calls her a "lying bitch," remarks upon her "calculated betrayal," and how he wants to choke her until she begs for mercy.

Our heroine? She's all of TEN YEARS OLD. Dude! Hero! Don't be talking about her pure alabaster skin and her ringlets that "saucily [frame] her face", you perv! SHE'S TEN! Has no one told you "You can't play cricket until there's grass on the pitch, old chum"?

And then there's the implications for the rest of the novel. Years later, when she's (thankfully) of marriageable age and engaged to another, he steps in with the intention of seducing her in revenge. In revenge for something she did when she was TEN. DUDE! Seriously? What is this, Atonement? She was TEN, you ASS. YOU have anger management issues, buddy!

The plot rings all kinds of creepy. But you can be sure that if I can get my hands on this novel without actually paying for it, I will definitely read it and see if it follows through on this idea, and write an hysterical review of it.

For the curious, this novel is:

"A Dangerous Beauty," by Sophia Nash

The Chick: Rosamunde Baird. As a teenager, she was caught stealing a kiss from a duke's son, but refused to marry him and eloped instead with a country squire who turned out to be an abusive monster. Her actions led her to be ostracised from both her family and her community. Now widowed and penniless, she has nothing to lose.
The Rub: On top of the fact that she believes she's barren and nearly the entire country thinks she's a whore, the one man who shows her kindness is the younger brother of the duke's son who ruined her reputation.
Dream Casting: Bionic Woman's Michelle Ryan.
The Dude: Lucifer (I'm not kidding) "Luc" St. Aubyn, Duke of Helston. A former Navy commander and war hero, he inherited the dukedom when his older brother died at sea. He's known far and wide as "Lord Fire and Ice," for his passion in the bedroom and subsequent refusal to commit afterwards.
The Rub: Growing up in family with not one, but two abusive husband and father figures has convinced him that "happy marriage" is an oxymoron. His estate is also in secret financial straits, which is he secretly trying to fix with the secret royalties from his secret novel, which he's written secretly.
Dream Casting: Clive Owen.

The Plot:

Rosamunde: *kisses Henry St. Aubyn*

Rosamunde and Henry: *CAUGHT!*

Rosamunde: *elopes*

Eight Years Later:
Ata, Dowager Duchess of Helston: Come join my Widows' Club and celebrate my granddaughter's wedding!

Rosamunde: Oh, no really I can't...

Ata: What? Are you BUSY?

Wedding Guests: *SHUN* Whore!

Luc: *Dukely Glare*

Wedding Guests: Oh hey, Rosamunde welcome to the party.

Luc: I want to love you, but evilness is genetic, don't you know!

Rosamunde: I want to love you, but everyone thinks I'm a slut!

Luc: Hey, Random Best Friend Countess, want to get married?

Random Best Friend Countess: Don't be an idiot.

Luc and Rosamunde: *married*

Romance Convention Checklist:

1 Dastardly Duke Drenched in Deadly Devil Symbolism

1 Big Misunderstanding

1 Orgasmless Widow

3 Very Bad Husbands (deceased)

1 Meddling Grandmother
1 Very Bad Parent

1 Secondary Romance (Sylvia and Rawleigh)

2 Secret Talents (writing and singing)

1 Case of Temporary Blindness

1 Attempted Molestation

1 Royal Smackdown as Reward for Attempted Molestation

1 Romantically Lacklustre (but still fairly decent) Romantic Rival

1 Obvious Sequel Setup (widow Georgianna - what's she been up to?)

The Word: I read romance the way my father reads science fiction - with the expectation that 70% of what I read will be awful, 20% will be pleasantly enjoyable, and 10% will be a glorious joy to read and is the reason I'm willing to slog through the other 90%. Mary Balogh's The Secret Pearl is one such novel, Jennifer Crusie's Bet Me and Welcome to Temptation are others, and this book, A Dangerous Beauty, by Sophia Nash, is another.

Rosamunde Langdon, daughter of an earl, is the family favourite. At seventeen, she's a rides-horses-astride, hair-blowing-in-the-wind, beat-boys-at-sports kind of fiesty female heroine who is sadly not uncommon in many lesser romances. Her behaviour has never been checked because her daddy and her big brothers love her to pieces. She also believes herself to be in love with Henry St. Aubyn, son and heir to the Duke of Helston, and steals a kiss from him after beating him at a horse race. However, Henry admits he's in love with another.

Unfortunately, they were apparently caught, and her and Henry's outraged fathers insist that they marry. Rosamunde doesn't understand why everyone is so upset by what she saw as a harmlessly flirtatious peck on the lips (and for much of the novel, neither could I). In a lesser romance, this fiesty Welsh lass and this nervous cold duke's son would enter into an unwilling marriage only to (could it be?) truly fall in love later.

Not so for dear Rosamunde. Instead of conceding to her father's demands, she hastily elopes with a country squire - her pride believing it better to marry a man she barely knows than a man who loves someone else. However, this is a mistake she lives to regret. Her father and brothers sever all ties to her, the community shuns her as a whore, and her husband turns out to be a heartless golddigger who insists on controlling every inch of her life. Only her sister Sylvia stays true to her.

Eight years pass. Rosamunde is no longer an adventurous, winsome girl. The eight years of misery under a cruel husband's thumb, and all thanks to one bold kiss, have taught her to hide her high-tempered nature under a dampening blanket of submission, passivity, and compliance. She blames her natural spirit for the mess made out of her life and reputation, so she's spent her appallingly miserable marriage determined never to let her passionate heart come out of hiding.

Now widowed and penniless, she receives an invitation from Lady Ata, Dowager Duchess of Helston, to attend her granddaughter's wedding and join her Widows Club, an elite circle of husbandless women Ata entertains and discretely obtains livings for. Rosamunde (as well as Sylvia, who's been living with her and her husband for all these years) has no other option - unless she wants to return to her deceased husband's cottage and submit to the lecherous intentions of his disgusting cousin. With deep misgivings about appearing in public again, she accepts.

The other wedding guests are all too obviously aware of her past, and (despite Ata's support), bitterly resent her presence. All except for Luc, Duke of Helston, and younger brother to the now deceased Henry. He notices the hints of fire that simmer underneath Rosamunde's quiet and reserved exterior. He's also a person who hides his true nature - in this case, a bookish intellectualism and literary ability he masks with a prickly shell of scalding cynical wit. Intrigued by the hidden depths lurking underneath Rosamunde's tranquil exterior, he makes it a quest to provoke, encourage, and please her in order to reveal the strong woman hiding within.

This was a delightful novel to read, on a number of levels. Mostly, this was thanks to Rosamunde's character. I've encountered so many devil-may-care heroines who somehow manage to get away with being anachronistically feminist that I enjoyed reading about a similar heroine who actually encounters social repercussions to her heedless actions. While even I thought her downfall at the beginning of the novel seemed exaggerated and a little contrived, the book surprised me by explaining it very well at the end with a twist that truly came as a surprise while still being heralded with significant hints.

Similarly, Luc was a surprise - a literary-minded writer who masks his true skills under an alpha male exterior. However, I felt his "devilish" nature was a bit overdone - I could understand how he could believe himself to be evil, or at least prone to evil behaviour, being the descendant of two generations of cruel men who abused their wives terribly, but did he really have to be named Lucifer Judas Ambrose St. Aubyn, Duke of HELston? And this isn't just me getting angry over a small detail - the novel plays on the pun of Helston being "Hell-ston" way too often.

That being said, the pairing of Rosamunde (who hides a dominant spirit beneath a submissive appearance) and Luc (who hides a vulnerable heart beneath an abrasive exterior) led to beautiful (and darkly funny) exchanges of dialogue and action. In the true spirit of opposites-attract romance, their differences turn out to be complementary rather than contradictory. Luc's provoking comments stir Rosamunde's bold temper, while Rosamunde's patience and acceptence win through to Luc's hidden tenderheartedness.

Also (and this is similar to one of the reasons I loved The Secret Pearl), the sex scenes are few, pointedly relevant, and have realistic consequences. The book is deeply sensual regardless thanks to Sophia Nash's lush writing style, and the scenes of intimacy are all the more potent because they are carefully used.

Rosamunde is, in this case, an Orgasmless Widow, a romantic cliche that is often derided, although I frankly don't understand why. In contemporaries, of course, the Orgasmless Widow cliche is a bit silly because it's often a contrived way to both demonize the heroine's previous husband and render her sexually inexperienced without being a virgin. In historicals, though, the Orgasmless Widow is fairly realistic. Sex Ed wasn't a big issue back then, and sex wasn't as clinically understood either. While there probably were a few talented lovers back then, it wasn't unreasonable to assume that many marriages, while happy, probably weren't mutually sexually fulfilling.

Anyway, back on topic - Rosamunde's husband abused her in many subtle ways, one of which was his selfish and possessive way of having sex, which taught Rosamunde to despise the feel of a man's hands. To ease this, Luc proceeds to make love to her in a long, detailed, several-pages-spanning love scene - without using his hands. I won't explain more than that, because it's a beautifully written, narratively relevant, and sexy scene that needs to be experienced firsthand.

Romances can be written in almost any setting (because love happens everywhere), with any type of people - but the true test of a good romance resides in the strength of the heroine and hero and the chemistry they experience together. Sophia Nash provides a fantastically detailed setting, appealing secondary characters, real social drama - but it's the combination of these two unique, damaged, multifaceted characters that made A Dangerous Beauty such wonderful experience to read. A few flaws (such as Rosamunde's sister Sylvia's martyr complex, and an epilogue that seemed unrealistic and overcompensating), keep this from being a perfect A, but I still want to buy this book (I've borrowed my current copy) and keep an eye out for her next Widow's Club novel, The Kiss. A-.

"The Heir and the Spare," Maya Rodale

The Chick: Emilia Highhart. An American heiress, she travels to Britain to try and land a titled husband in order to please her industrialist father. She falls hard and fast for a man others identify as Lord Phillip Kensington, but is confused by his contradictory treatment of her.
The Rub: Along with being as clumsy as a three-legged giraffe, she has the bad luck to fall in love with an identical twin - so who is she really in love with?
Dream Casting: Bryce Dallas Howard.

The Dude: Lord Devon Kensington. Born a minute after his twin brother Phillip, he's always been referred to - by both his brother and his cold Duke of a father - as "the spare," and therefore not as worthy of respect or attention. Forced to flee Britain years ago after impersonating Phillip in a duel that went bad, he turned to trade and became successful and wealthy on his own merit.
The Rub: Returning to Britain after hearing news about his father's failing health, he is dismayed to discover that Phillip has convinced everyone in the ton that his twin Devon died in a shipwreck - so when Emilia falls into his arms, it's Phillip she thinks she's in love with.
Dream Casting: Milo Ventimiglia.

The Plot:

Emilia: Oopsie! *trips*

Devon: *catches* A beautiful girl!

Phillip: A cure to my money problems!

Devon and Emilia: *smooch*

Emilia: Oh my!

Phillip and Emilia: *grosser smooch*

Emilia: EW!

Phillip and Devon: We're twins.

Emilia: I figured that out, thanks.

Phillip and Devon: We hate each other!

Emilia: Yeah, I knew that too.

Phillip: Marry me and be a duchess!

Emilia: How about NO.

Devon: Marry me, then, since I've compromised you.

Emilia: Now that I can live with.

Butler: Congratulations - by the way, Devon, you're actually the firstborn! So you're the Duke!

Devon and Emilia: HOORAY!

Phillip: SHIT.

Romance Convention Checklist:
3 Instances of Twin Switcheroo

1 Stumblebum Heiress

1 Convenient Compromisation Attempt (failed)

1 Convenient Compromisation Attempt (successful)

1 Very Bad Parent

1 Big Misunderstanding

2 Meddling Chaperones

1 Regency-Era Equivalent of Car Sex (in a moving carriage!)

1 Instance of Ungentlemanly Fisticuffs

1 Attempted Rape

1 Deadly Fever (unsexy variety)

1 Ignored Butler with an Important Secret

The Word:Emilia Highhart is a stumblebum - she's renowned for bashing into tables, falling down stairs, and tripping over carpets, loose cobblestones, and her own feet. So she's not completely surprised when she loses her footing going down the stairs at her first ball of the Season. However, she is pleasantly surprised to land in the arms of a handsome dashing gentleman who later steals a kiss from her before leaving mysteriously. According to her aunt and chaperone, the man is Lord Phillip Kensington, a scandalous rogue (is there any other kind?). Around Emilia, however, he displayed all the manners of a gentleman, so she figures the rumours can't all be true.

However, the man who caught and kissed her wasn't actually Phillip, but Devon Kensington, Phillip's twin brother. Separated in age by barely sixty seconds, Devon, as the youngest, was all but ignored by his father, who rested his attention on Phillip, the all-important heir. Nicknamed the "spare," and treated as such by society, Devon spent his life striving to be better than his brother and gain a measure of his father's approval. When his father requests that Devon stand in for Phillip in a duel with another Duke whose wife Phillip debauched (so that, again, the all-important heir's life need not be risked), Devon complies, but when the duel goes bad, he flees for America, determined to achieve his own success freed from the restricting expectations of his father and society.

And succeed he has - but when he hears his father's health is failing, he returns to Britain in order to pay his last respects. He tries to lay low (as he is unsure of how welcome he may be in his mother country after seriously injuring one of the Prince Regent's BFFs), but soon realizes it's not necessary: during the years of his exile, good ol' Phil convinced everyone that his brother had died at sea. While he's instantly attracted to Emilia, he leaves after kissing her because he doesn't want to follow in his rakish brother's footsteps.

Hilariously enough, Phillip's roving eye lands on Emilia as well. He's amassed a huge debt through partying, and sees the plucky heiress as the solution to his mounting financial problems. The fact that she already seems disposed to like him (mistaking him for Devon) is a bonus. He brushes off the fact that he can't remember doing the things she insists he did as a result of his binge drinking.

Emilia observes the surprising changes in "Phillip's" behaviour with confusion and concern - at times he seems caring and affectionate (Devon), while at others thoughtless and perfunctory (Phillip). Thankfully, she discovers her mistake quickly enough to save the novel from turning into some cutesy Regency remake of the Olsen twins' It Takes Two - once the twins are aware of each other's intentions for Emilia, it turns into a fierce competition built on years of spiteful, bitter twin rivalry.

However, although the plot steers away from the silly "which twin is which?" antics, the romantic tension and conflict dissolve soon afterwards. Emilia and Devon admit their love for each other fairly early in the plot. What remain are frivolous obstacles that compete to be the silliest and most irritating - most of these involve Phillip's ever more desperate attempts to marry Emilia by any means necessary (including faking a compromising position), Devon's painful tendency to misunderstand Emilia's feelings for Philip (what she evinces as utter disgust Devon somehow interprets as a hidden ambition to one day be a duchess), and Emilia's distress that Devon, despite showing her he loves her in a rainbow of magical ways, won't actually say he loves her, in those exact words, to her face.

The plot is ridiculous cotton candy fluff, but the characters are compelling enough to read on. Emilia showed every potential of being a character I despise, and yet never became one - she's girlish, naive, falls in love very quickly, has a "delightful" tendency to "adorably" trip over everything, and responds to problems by baracading herself in her bedroom with the promise to never come out. However, she treats her clumsiness as an ordinary flaw to be recovered from and dealt with as professionally as possible, rather than as an "aw-shucks" mannerism to be nurtured as an essential part of her personality. She also learns the difference between Phillip and Devon very quickly, and has the smarts to recognize Phillip's cold and rude behaviour as a sign he is a cold and rude person, and something she's not willing to put up with, unlike some other romance heroines (*cough*Bella from Twilight*cough*).

However, The Heir and the Spare is really the Phillip-and-Devon show. Both are driven by jealousy and bitterness thanks to an upbringing by a father who liked nothing better than pitting one brother against the other. Devon hates being denied a father's respect and affection simply because he exited his mother's womb sixty seconds later than his brother, and dedicates his life to earning success on his own terms.

And Phillip .... Oh, Phillip. Unbeknownst to Devon, the spoiled heir didn't spend his childhood basking in his father's love, either - rather (out of Devon's hearing), Phillip was always compared to his brother and found wanting. He hated the fact that he was the heir to a Dukedom and thus one of the biggest catches of the ton and would inherit a fantastic estate and couldn't be the smartest, most responsible, most talented brother as well. It reminded me a bit of the relationship between twin brothers George and Oscar Bluth from the TV show Arrested Development. George, the businessman, had a wealthy successful company. Oscar, the hippy, had a full head of hair. In one scene, George orders a hooker and spends the night blubbering about how unfair it is that Oscar has all that great hair. "Why can't I have the company and the hair, and Oscar have nothing?" he wails. "It's not fair!"

It's much the same way with Phillip. Cry me a river, Phil. He's mesmerizing to watch - not because he's a sexy rake, no, quite the opposite - he's such an complete, over-the-top fuckup it's like watching a train wreck in slow motion. He has no tortured backstory (other than the "wah wah my daddy didn't love me" one), he has no dark past, he's just a spoiled selfish pig who is entirely motivated by narcissism. His entire mindset is, "I'm a sexy, powerful manly man! It is beneath me to feel second best to ANYTHING!" and I get to read with increasing glee as his overriding self-absorbed desire to make himself look better digs himself an even bigger hole to bury himself in. This is a guy who told his family and friends that Devon was dead in order to get more attention.

To be a devilish, sexy villain one has to succeed at being a devilish sexy villain - and Phillip can't even do that. All of his half-cocked drunken schemes (and there are many) to snag Emilia end with him flat on his face with Devon's boot halfway up his ass, every time. Amazingly enough, Phillip eventually gets his own book - The Rogue and the Rival. But he's no Sebastian St. Vincent (of Devil in Winter fame), so I have no idea how he'll come close to redeeming himself. The characters were fun to read about, but the plot fizzled out the halfway mark. B-.

That Special Music Redux

A few days ago, I mentioned how I'd finally come across a musical score I'd been hearing since I was very little but had never been able to identify. Well, it turned out to be a score composed by Jerry Goldsmith called "The Final Game" from Rudy. I'd never seen Rudy, so I suppose that's my loss and why I went fifteen years never being able to listen to this song. A few commenters who are similarly interested in film scores asked if I could post a clip of it, and thankfully I found a YouTube montage to the song, here:


Enjoy.

CLASSIC REVIEW: "Clarissa," by Samuel Richardson

The Chick: Clarissa Harlowe. Beautiful, fashionable, kind, loyal, with an unimpeachable moral character, this third child of a wealthy, untitled family is forced to fend off her relatives' repeated attempts to marry her to the repulsive Mr Solmes, as well as Robert Lovelace's ruthless advances.
The Rub: She's a self-righteous doormat, and borders on Mary Sue territory. Also displays an unfortunate 18th-century heroine tendency to render herself physically ill due to emotional overstimulation.
Dream Casting: There's really no one I could possibly cast as Clarissa, who is repeatedly lauded as the "best of all women," and perfectly perfect in every way.

The Dude: Robert Lovelace. Wealthy, handsome, charming, and the heir to a title - his courtship of Clarissa becomes increasingly obsessive, as he becomes determined to have her, by any means necessary.
The Rub: He's an unabashed rake - and not one of those pansy rakes with a ridiculous code of honour like "never defile the innocent." He's not above using lies, manipulation, mail tampering, elaborate disguises, drugs (on himself and others), and rape to get what he wants.
Dream Casting: Again, can't really cast this dude, who makes every other rake in romantic fiction look like a lovestruck schoolboy.

The Plot:

Clarissa's Family: Marry Solmes!

Clarissa: No thank you.

Lovelace: Marry me!

Clarissa: Nope.

Anna Howe, Clarissa's BFF: Marry nobody!

Clarissa: Now there's an idea.

Lovelace: Hey, look! A distraction!

Clarissa: What - ?

Lovelace *absconds with Clarissa*

Clarissa's Family: You WHORE. *shuns*

Lovelace: Now will you marry me?

Clarissa: Care to take a raincheck? *flees*

Lovelace: *catches her*

Clarissa: Family, help me!

Clarissa's Family: WHORE. *shuns*

Lovelace: *date rapes*

Clarissa: *imprisoned**released**flees again*

Clarissa's Family, Uncles, and Anna: Well, you might as well marry Lovelace now.

Clarissa: NEVER! *dies*

Messenger: Hey - I just got this letter saying the family's willing to totally forgive Clarissa for everything that's happened and ... oh, am I too late?

Lovelace: Mother$%&"#$! *duels* *dies*

Clarissa's Family: WE ARE ALL IDIOTS. *PUNISHED*

Romance Convention Checklist:

1 Rapacious Rake

1 Put-Upon Virgin

1 Sassy Best Friend

1 Moronic, Control-Freak Family

Several Big Misunderstandings

1 Use of Ipecac For Romantic Purposes

2 Ho's in Disguise

1 Wrongful Imprisonment

The Word: This is the reader's Everest. Something that people will read once in their lives in order to say that they did it, but might never read ever, EVER again. Clarissa is well-known as the longest novel originally written in the English language, clocking in at just under a million words. Like Richardson's previous (and much shorter) novel Pamela, it's written in letter format. Half the novel involves Clarissa's letters to and from her family and friends regarding her changed circumstances, and the other half involves Lovelace's letters to and from his family and rakehell buddies as he cooks up his dastardly plans to snare Clarissa into marriage, all the while scrawling pages' worth of self-justification for his actions.

Clarissa is, as I've mentioned previously, perfectly perfect in every way. At the start of the novel, she's the darling of her wealthy bachelor uncles, her friends, the community, and her parents. When Robert Lovelace, a handsome cad, starts courting her, her perfect world starts to slip and long-hidden resentments in her family bubble to the surface, particularly among her jealous siblings James and Arabella. James knew Lovelace at university and hated him for being popular, rich, and handsome. Lovelace previously courted Arabella, only to dump her for Clarissa. The siblings also possess a deep resentment and jealousy of Clarissa herself, as she's the family favourite who unexpectedly inherited the largest share of her late grandfather's wealth just because she's so darn cute, and now stands to inherit the money of the bachelor uncles as the Apple of Their Wealthy Unmarried Eyes.

Together, James and Arabella conspire to convince the family that Lovelace's intentions are dishonest, and that the only way to protect Clarissa from his dastardly intentions is to marry her off to Mr Solmes - an elderly, wealthy widower with a reputation for being a miser. Clarissa doesn't particularly care for Lovelace, either, but when she refuses to marry Solmes, her refusal - a completely unexpected act of defiance from a previously perfectly obedient daughter - is construed as an indication of her illicit passion for the rake. This only stokes her family to go to greater lengths to try and force her to marry Solmes.

Clarissa maintains her refusal - she disapproves of Solmes' miserly character and his unkind treatment of his family. However, through James and Arabella's machinations, Clarissa's defiance is interpreted as spoiled selfishness and soon the whole family turns against her. Imprisoned in her room for disobedience, she retains only one friend, to whom she must write in secret: the fantastically bitchy spitfire Anna Howe.

Of course, when Lovelace hears about her stubborn refusal, he also interprets her unwillingness to marry Solmes as a sign that she harbours feelings for himself. He maintains a secret correspondence with Clarissa through subtle emotional blackmail - he writes that he's so passionately on fire for her that if he doesn't communicate with her he's sure to do something uncontrollably drastic. Clarissa, to maintain propriety and shield her family from scandal and violence, agrees.

The pressure from her family rapidly escalates, to the point where Clarissa becomes convinced that they are planning to forcibly marry her to Mr Solmes, whether she wills it or no. Lovelace suggests that Clarissa run away and, with his assistance, stay with a female relative of his until she's allowed to inherit her grandfather's wealth and become independent. Clarissa reluctantly consents, then changes her mind at the last minute. Lovelace, however, has planned ahead and promptly tricks Clarissa into fleeing with him, and things go downhill from there.

Clarissa's family, convinced she has eloped with Lovelace and has sacrificed her virtue, wants nothing more to do with her, and Lovelace shows an increasing desire to have entirely too much to do with her. Clarissa's only hope lies in protecting herself from Lovelace's advances while trying to negotiate with her family through letters and her friend Anna's assistance.

The rest of the novel is a battle of wills - with Lovelace rifling through every trick in the rake's handbook to take advantage of Clarissa, and Clarissa using all the powers of gentle persuasion she possesses to maintain her distance from Lovelace and salvage enough of her reputation to regain her family's approval.

I read this book for Lovelace and Anna Howe, easily the two most entertaining characters in the novel. Lovelace is a complex character - a rake, to be sure, whose initial intentions for Clarissa are far from pure. To him (at least for the first 750 pages!), Clarissa poses the ultimate challenge, the white whale to his Ahab. To tarnish the reputation of such a renowned, kind-hearted, chaste virgin would immortalize him within the ranks of the world's most notorious seducers for eons. His seduction of her is also motivated by anger - insulted by the presumption of the Harlowe family for expressing a low opinion of him (considering them to be untitled upstarts whereas he is the child of peerage), the shearing of their fluffiest, most spotlessly white sheep would be a cutting blow indeed.

However, around the novel's mid-point, his pursuit turns more into obsession, as he realizes that he might just be falling in love with her, for real. Does this change the nature of his seduction? Not a whit. His game plan remains essentially the same - he'll stoop to any means, fair or foul, to snare Clarissa. At one point, hilariously, he intentionally drinks ipecac and makes himself sick in order to ellicit sympathy from Clarissa - and it WORKS! The only difference after the midpoint of the novel is that he fully intends to marry her, and justifies that he'll then have the rest of their lives to make up for his deceit and prove his whole-hearted devotion.

As for Anna Howe, had I not known this book was actually written in the 18th century, I might have considered her character a bit of an anachronism - she's fiesty, she's sassy, she's whiptongued and smart as a tack, and has no problems speaking her mind. Whereas Clarissa is far too polite and tranquil to condemn her family's short-sighted and selfish actions, Anna has no such compunction. Clarissa is all too willing to take shit from her family and sit quietly - whereas Anna takes a gleeful delight in composing searing diatribes against the narrow-minded Harlowes, Lovelace's machinations, and the stupidity of the world in general for causing any stress whatsoever to Clarissa's well-being. Most of Clarissa's plans for redemption involve waiting out the storm of her scandal with saint-like patience, while Anna councils direct action.

My only disappointment with Anna is that the novel obviously paints her as Clarissa's "problem" friend - a well-meaning but imperfect lady meant to improve under Clarissa's benevolent influence (her opposite number is Lovelace's confidante Belford, whose knowledge of Lovelace's machinations horrifies him into eventually abandoning his rakish ways). When Anna sends letters of vitriol against Clarissa's family and suggestions that Clarissa take legal action against them, Clarissa responds with pages and pages of lectures on the virtues of familial loyalty, temperance, and tranquility, to which Anna will respond with slavish gratitude that Clarissa (perfect, lovely Clarissa) is so willing to tolerate her devilish temper and instruct her on the proper manners of a lady.

This is particularly apparant when the girls discuss Anna's boy problems - throughout most of the novel, she's courted by Charles Hickman, a man who's upright, well-off, kind-hearted and gentle. However, Anna also thinks he's boring and her inferior in intellect - a trait she cannot abide. In one of her most articulate letters, she rails against the unfairness of society that makes the husband the representative of the family. She can't stand the thought of her person, status and reputation being subject to a man who's not as smart as she is - an opinion I completely agreed with and found entirely refreshing to read in an 18th century novel. However, Clarissa naturally responds with more lectures on the natural state of wifely submission, etc. etc., along with a few well-aimed jabs at how difficult smarter men can be (in one letter, Anna whines that Hickman is not as exciting as Lovelace, to which Clarissa responds, "And that's bad HOW?").

With all of this, Clarissa is an interesting but difficult read, mainly because of the main character. In theory, I admired her actions, but in practice it was frustrating to read. In a nutshell, the plot is: "Clarissa says no." That's it, really - "no" to her family's demands, "no" to Solmes' marriage proposal, "no" to Lovelace's plots and schemes. But despite the fact that she actually shows enough spine to refuse to perform things she doesn't believe in, she also never says "yes," - that is, take an active role in her future and fight for her rights. Of course, doing so (gasp!) wouldn't have been ladylike, and Clarissa is never permitted to be anything less than the 18th century feminine ideal. Thank goodness for Anna Howe. B.

"Goddess of Spring," by P.C. Cast

The Chick: Carolina "Lina" Francesca Santoro. A lonely forty-something divorcee whose bakery faces financial ruin, she is contacted by the Greek Goddess Demeter and offered a deal: if she'll spend six months in the mythical Underworld masquerading as Demeter's daughter Persephone, then Persephone will take Lina's place and turn her bakery into a success.
The Rub: Lina is forbidden from telling anyone that's she not really a goddess - even Hades, King of the Underworld, who turns out to be much sexier and accommodating than Demeter led her to believe.
Dream Casting: As Lina, Laura San Giacomo. As Persephone, Anne Hathaway.

The Dude: Hades. As in, Greek God, brother to Zeus and Poseidon, and ruler of the Underworld.
The Rub: His connection with the dead, and the fact that he's not an air-headed moron, renders him particularly unsuited to the company of his fellow deities, so he's a bit of a celestial outcast. Also, turned one of his mortal ex-girlfriends into a sprig of mint when she tried to throw herself off a cliff to escape from him (for reals).
Dream Casting: Heroes' Sendhil Ramamurthy.

The Plot:
Lina: My bakery is failing!

Demeter: *poof* I can help! Just switch bodies with my daughter Persephone!

Lina: Wha? *Goddess-ified*

Demeter: Have fun in the Underworld!

Lina: DAMN IT TO HEL--

Hades: Excuse me?

Lina: ...lo. Holy Dark Tormented Hero, Batman!

Crowds of Peaceful Ghosts: Persephone, you're awesome!

Underworld Animals: Woof! Neigh! Rrowr! (Translation: "We think you're MORE awesome!")

Hades: I think you're the awesomest of all.

Lina: Really?

Demeter: Sorry, time's up!

Lina: *Middle-Aged-Woman-ified*

Hades: *SHUN*

The Actual Persephone: Hades, don't be an ass.

Hades: I'm sorry, Lina. Let's make up.

Lina: Oh, alright.

Romance Convention Checklist:

1 Dark, Brooding, Outcast Hero

1 Middle-Aged Heroine with Body Issues

1 Mystic Pizza (for reals)

1 Romance Involving Secondary Characters (Iapis and Eurydice)

1 Meddling Maternal Figure

Several Fawning Animals

1 Shower Peep-Show

The Word: Carolina Francesca Santoro, or "Lina" to her friends, is in a bit of a fix. Thanks to an error made by her slimy accountant, she owes the IRS a huge debt and runs the risk of losing her bakery. In an attempt to find new recipes to attract more customers, she comes across a used cookbook for "Italian Goddesses." In it is a recipe for a delectable pizza that requires meditation and invocations to Demeter along with flour, butter and spices. When she performs the spell, she gets zapped into another world and finds herself face-to-face with Demeter.

Yes, Demeter. Goddess of the Harvest, and mother to Persephone, Goddess of Spring. Demeter is annoyed because the mortals in her world have been pestering her about the lack of feminine attention in the Underworld. Demeter's daughter Persephone, as the goddess of light and flowers and springtime, etc. etc., would be perfect for the job, except that Demeter worries her daughter is too immature and frivolous for the responsibility. So she switches the soul of her daughter with that of Lina, sticking forty-three-year-old Lina in the body of a smokin' hot young Goddess.

Lina, Demeter tells her (she doesn't really offer Lina a choice), will take Persephone's place and sojourn in the Underworld for six months to bring some sweetness and light to the inhabitants. Meanwhile, in Lina's body, Persephone will use her natural light and sweetness to make Lina's bakery a financial success, and maybe grow up a little, too. Lina, knowing her Greek mythology (particularly the story about the Rape of Persephone by Hades), balks, until Demeter conveniently tells her that most of the mythology humans have heard in her world is false, and that Hades is actually a boring loner killjoy, uninterested in women.

After that, she swears Lina to secrecy and plunks her down at the entrance to Hades, where things begin to take a very familiar turn if you've read Cast's other novels, particularly Divine by Mistake. However it's not nearly as good. Like Divine, Lina has to pose as a Goddess while people a) fall in love with her, b) swear eternal loyalty to her, c) plead to serve her hand and foot. And she also gets to ride fabulous horses. And she's pampered in every conceivable way. And everybody loves her.

Divine by Mistake's Rhiannon was able to escape being a Mary Sue because the novel also had an overarching conflict - evil demons to fight in the first book, her Bizarro-world evil twin in the second. There's no such unifying story in Goddess of Spring, which made it by turns tedious and irritating. Most of the book is like reading about someone else's trip to Disneyland, as Lina gasps with delight over the endless beauties of the Underworld (over and over again), and sickeningly cute creatures (fairies! fireflies! nymphs!) crawl out of the woodwork and shower her with praise, adoration, and sparkly drool, and as Hades becomes increasingly moody and horny around her.

This lack of conflict repeatedly irritated me. No one figures out until the very end that Lina's not a Goddess - she conveniently has a magical voice in her head that spits out ready-made infodumps about the weird things she encounters, and she miraculously manages to perform a number of celestial tasks without so much as tripping or breaking a nail. She possesses some unexplained charm over animals as well. Everyone - literally everyone loves her and it was enough to make me want to puke.

As such, the characterization is fairly one-note. Along with Lina, there is Eurydice (yes, the dead bride of Orpheus) - who's turned here into an infantalized, dithering twit who would like nothing more than to don sparkly pink lipgloss and kiss Persephone's ass all day, if the Goddess so commanded it. There is also Iapis, Hades' number-one manservant, who's wise and jovial and - oh, did I mention he approves of Lina? And that Hades' horses like Lina? And Cerberus likes Lina?

Hades is the only one who gets more characterization than the simple "would eat broken glass if it meant Lina'd be happy" personalities of the others. He falls for Lina as hard and fast as the others, but he alone manages to restrain himself because he reasons that the sunny, sparkly Goddess of Spring deserves better than the somber, emo God of the Underworld. Lina tries on at least TWO occasions to jump his immortal bones and he refuses because she deserves better than a quick tumble. Still, most of my goodwill towards him dissolves at the end, when he makes the same bonehead, inexplicable, inexcusable mistake TWICE in the span of a chapter just to add some much needed, but last-minute conflict. Sadly, because it came so late, and without so much as an augmentation of tension for a lead-in, the one time something bad actually happens to Lina it feels as contrived and fake as the rest of the entire novel.

Part of the reason I'm angry is that I'm not new to P.C. Cast's work, nor am I unfamiliar with her unique literary charms. I loved Divine By Mistake and Divine by Choice. Hell, in the latter novel she managed to satisfactorily explain away rape and adultery performed by the novel's good guys, and that's saying something. The protagonists of all three novels are middle-aged women who are zapped into magical worlds where they're treated like royalty, but still get to use their modern-day skills. However, Rhia had to confront some pretty nasty problems and use her inherent smarts and daring to overcome them. Conversely, Lina wasn't challenged by anything. It was all ointment and no fly. I never really got a sense of the strength and goodness that everyone else seemed to see because she never got the opportunity to express such talents under real pressure.

I still have Goddess of Light, unread, on my bookshelf, which deals with the god Apollo (who actually had a couple of funny cameos in this book). While I eventually will get around to reading it, I'm going to wait and let the cloying sweetness of Goddess of Springtime leave my mouth before giving it a go. Meanwhile, Goddess of Springtime gets a C+.

"Spellstruck," by Jaclyn Reding

The Chick: Jenna Wren. A single mother to two kids, and owner of a popular spa in her hometown of Ipswich-By-The-Sea, she treats the town's women to fantastic herbals treatments that leave customers feeling refreshed and changed ... almost as if by magic.
The Rub: ... Because it is. Jenna, along with her mother and sister, are descended from a long line of hedgewitches, but they have to keep their powers secret - mainly because the town is infamous for banishing a woman suspected of witchcraft to a desolate island three hundred years prior.
Dream Casting: Small New England town? A young mother? I immediately thought Lauren Graham.

The Dude: Jack Gabriele. Formerly Jenna's husband, they married right out of high school, but after years of struggle and an unspoken misunderstanding, their marriage crumbled. While they've been divorced for four years, Jack still carries a torch for her.
The Rub: During senior year, rumours broke out that Jack had cheated on Jenna with the school tramp, rumours that Jack never refuted. Jenna, being pregnant, married Jack anyway, but never quite believed that he'd been faithful.
Dream Casting: Alex O'Loughlin.

The Other Dude: Declan Cavanaugh. A gorgeous, wealthy, charming mystery man who stops into town and has an eye for Jenna.
The Rub: He just might be a figment of Jenna's seven-year-old daughter's imagination. Or eeeeeeeevil.
Dream Casting: The Mentalist's Simon Baker.

The Plot:

Jenna: I wish I had the perfect man.

Haillie, Jenna's sister: Let's make a list!

Cassie, Jenna's seven-year-old daughter: *swipes list* Hocus pocus!

Declan Cavanaugh: *poof* Hey baby. Seen any buried treasure around? You're pretty.

Jack: Oh no!

Cassie: Oh no!

Jenna's Mom: *magical meddling*

Jack and Jenna: *luuuuuuuuurv*

Declan: Not so fast! I haven't even BEGUN my evil plans yet!

Jenna, Eudora, Haille, Cassie: Hocus pocus!

Declan: *de-poofed*

Jenna and Jack: Hurray!

Romance Convention Checklist:

2 Precocious Children

1 Decidedly NOT Romantically Lacklustre Ex

1 Big Misunderstanding

1 Small Town

1 Too Sexy For His Own Good Villain

1 Buried Treasure

1 Secret Great-Great-Grandma

1 Public Shunning

1 Storm-Induced Session of Lovemaking

The Word: Jenna Wren worked as a homemaker for years, raising her two children while her husband Jack became more and more distant. When their marriage crumbled, Jenna was left with no college education and no experience. Somehow, through sheer determination, her supportive family, and her own unique skills, she pulled herself up by her bootstraps and became a small-town (and beyond!) success.

In the picturesque New England town of Ipswich-By-The-Sea, Jenna's hair salon and spa, IpSnips, has become the number one place for a woman to relax and gain some inner peace. Partly, this is because Jenna (along with her sister and her mother) are witches - hedge witches, to be more precise. Using herbs and spells, Jenna creates products and treatments that grant peace, self-confidence, attractiveness, and even fertility. Her family has kept it a secret, mainly because the town is infamous for the legend of the Ipswitch - a woman who was banished to a nearby island 300 years ago on suspicion of witchcraft who has become the town's boogeyman and supernatural scapegoat. "Coming out" as a witch doesn't seem too wise in a town that takes great glee out of demonizing them.

Despite her success, Jenna is lonely. The problem with living in a small town is that she knows everybody and everybody knows her - and everyone also knows her ex-husband Jack and his jovial Italian family, which means that the pool of willing daters is infinitesimal. In a moment of frustration, Jenna and her sister Hallie dream up a recipe for the Perfect Man - including blond hair, green eyes, money, humour, and a host of other fantasy properties. Unbeknownst to them, they're overheard by Jenna's seven-year-old daughter Cassie. Cassie swipes the list to try out her own burgeoning magic powers, with the intention of creating a boyfriend for Hallie.

However, things go awry. The next day, a mysterious stranger appears in town, the exact match for Jenna's list, but instead of hitting on Hallie he sets his eyes on Jenna, who is bewildered but pleased.

I thought I knew how this novel would turn out - that the novel's plot would revolve around cutesy antics between Jenna and the spell-made hunk, but no. The appearance of Declan Cavanaugh acts more like a catalyst for the plot, rather than the plot itself. Jack, you see, still has feelings for Jenna. He's slowly been building himself into a better man - improving his education, learning his own craft (architecture), all under the assumption that he'll be able to re-enter Jenna's life whenever he's ready. The sudden appearance of a sexy stranger who shows attention to Jenna gives him a none-too-gentle jolt.

This is one of the reasons I loved this book - while there is an element of magic, and it's important to the characters, I don't think I could categorize this book as a fantasy because the magic isn't a huge element of the plot - most of it revolves around Jack and Jenna reuniting, town politics, and the secrets that caused Jack and Jenna's first marriage to dissolve.

If you've read the Romance Convention Checklist, you'll notice the "Big Misunderstanding" convention. It's common enough to be a cliche, and is usually one of the least tolerated. But Reding shows us that even though something is a bit of a cliche, doesn't mean it can't be done well.

The Big Misunderstanding plot is usually such a howler because it's usually maintained by character flaws that readers despise: jealousy and idiocy. What usually happens with Big Misunderstandings is that one of the protagonists will perform an action that, while innocent, is interpreted out of context by the other. For instance, the heroine might kiss her male cousin on the cheek at the train station, and the lurking hero might think "She has another man! The whore!" Big Misunderstanding plots are egregious because the misunderstanding is usually so tenuous, because it stretches out a problem over three hundred pages that could be easily solved by a simple, pointed conversation.

However, the misunderstanding in Spellstruck is one that helps the novel, because it isn't the only means of support for the plot. Basically, back in highschool while Jack and Jenna were going steady, rumours ran rampant through the school that Jack and Diana, the school tramp, had hooked up. While Jack told Jenna personally that nothing happened, for reasons of his own he refused to openly discredit the rumours.

However, unlike typical Big Misunderstanding plots, this misconception doesn't immediately put a halt to Jack and Jenna's relationship. Jenna married Jack anyway. In a realistic fashion, the Big Misunderstanding did not directly affect their relationship - in this case, it affected how Jenna understood Jack's character. Married right out of highschool (Jenna found out she was pregnant at about the same time the Jack/Diana brouhaha began), her unquenched suspicions created a snowball effect that gradually accumulated all kinds of other, realistic marital problems that all contributed to their eventual divorce.

Just as the misunderstanding wasn't the only contributor to their divorce, so it stands that revealing the truth behind the misunderstanding doesn't immediately heal their relationship - which is another reason why romance readers tend to despise the Big Misunderstanding Plot, that upholds this idea that revealing one secret will immediately smooth over any and all previous arguments.

However, it certainly helps. This reunited-lovers tale was a cozy delight to read. Jack and Jenna's relationship started when they were teenagers, when they had to struggle to make ends meet with two small children, when they were forced into difficult roles out of necessity. When they reunite, both are successful, accomplished adults who've taken a stab at their dreams, so their relationship blossoms in new, and wonderful ways, and they are more able to share themselves, because they've finally come to understand who they are as people.
There were a few flaws, but most of these are a matter of preference. The biggest flaw: I thought there was a little too much exposition for my taste - I understand that Reding wants to give the reader a detailed portrait of everyday life at Ipswich-By-The-Sea (heaven knows now I want to live there), but it sometimes comes at the expense of a pages-long infodump or tangent on one of the minor characters' personal lives that I didn't feel was particularly relevant to the story. Also, readers who like a little surprise in their novels will want to steer clear of this one - while beautifully written, the outcome is easily predictable from within the first couple of pages.

However, these flaws are easily overlooked, especially by the fact that a book with a plot like this could have turned out much worse if written by a lesser writer. The magic in the story is ultimately a supportive device, and Reding wisely keeps it that way. Even the eventual showdown with Cassie's mixed-up spell is dealt with quickly and finally, with little angst. Jaclyn Reding instead delights readers with a different type of magic: that of wonderful writing. B+.

That Very Special Music

I love movie scores. Yes - not just the songs by Aerosmith or Kenny Loggins that accompany the more dramatic scenes, but the wordless, instrumental music that accompanies all the scenes. They fire up the imagination. I'm a huge fan of John Williams, Danny Elfman, Alan Menken, Howard Shore, and others, and the hours I've spent daydreaming while listening to the themes for Saving Private Ryan, Edward Scissorhands, and Beauty and the Beast.

But there's always been this one song that escaped me - this one theme that I've heard since I was a kid, almost exclusively on movie trailers to movies like Angels in the Outfield and Pocahontas during the 90s. I loved that theme - a sweeping, repetitive anthem that rallied the mind to all sorts of epic victories. I could never find out that song, but whenever I heard it on a commercial or a trailer, I'd recognize it and listen as hard as I could. But I didn't know who composed it or what movie it was from so how could I find it?

Well, thank you Youtube. While watching a random video about horseracing, I heard the song. The song, the one I could only hear in snatches but always sounded triumphant. To my everlasting gratitude, the video's author provided the source of the song: it's a theme by Jerry Goldsmith (composer for Mulan) for the movie Rudy, called "The Final Game." I'd never seen Rudy, although I knew roughly what it was about.

It took me all of five seconds of indecision before I downloaded it onto my iPod. I finally found the song. It only took me all of fifteen years to find it. I'm listening to it right now. It's nice to be able to hear the whole thing, and imagine. It'll certain help inspire me as I try to teach myself screenwriting over the next year.

"Again the Magic," by Lisa Kleypas

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The Chick: Lady Aline Marsden, younger sister to Marcus (It Happened One Autumn) Marsden. She fell in love with McKenna, a servant of illegitimate parentage, but was found out. Her cruel father threatened to ruin McKenna's life if he ever came back, so she lied and told McKenna that he was an "amusement," but too lower-class to love.
The Rub: A few months after McKenna was sent packing, she was involved in an accident that left gruesome scars up and down her legs.
Dream Casting: Frances O'Connor, despite her involvement in that terrrrible Mansfield Park adaptation.

The Dude: John McKenna, a servant who left the Marsdens' service after Aline allegedly betrayed him. He moved to America and became a wealthy, talented, but ruthless businessman - albeit one who could never forget the love of his life.
The Rub: After twelve years, he returns to Stony Cross Park (the Marsdens' seat) - publically, to do business with the new Earl (Marcus), but secretly to punish the supposedly cold, calculating woman who broke his heart.
Dream Casting: It wasn't easy, but eventually I settled on Christian Bale.

The Plot:
McKenna: I love you!

Aline: I love you, too!

Evil Earl Dad: *shakes fist*

Aline: Wait, no I don't!

McKenna: *leaves*

Aline: Oh! Nothing could hurt more than this!

Oven: *explodes*

Aline: *on fire* I STAND CORRECTED!

Twelve Years Later
McKenna: That bitch. I know how I'll get my revenge! Give her dozens upon dozens of orgasms! That'll teach her!

Aline: *fully revenged*

McKenna: Dammit, now I love you again.

Aline: Really? Because I could do with a bit more of your vengeance, if you don't mind.

McKenna: Well, is there anything else you haven't told me?

Aline: Um, I have scars on my legs I was afraid to show you in case you rejected me.

McKenna: You BITCH.

Aline: That's more like it!

Romance Convention Checklist:

1 Interclass Romance

1 Revenge Scheme

1 Gay Best Friend

1 Romance Involving Secondary Characters (Livia and Gideon, gettin' it on)

2 Meddling Siblings

1 Very Bad Parent

1 Matronly Servant

1 Set of Disfiguring Scars

The Word: This novel was suggested to me by the folks at Eloisa James and Julia Quinn's message board, when I mentioned to them the revenge plot I found so sickening in Susan Mallery's Sweet Trouble. Some suggested I read this offering by Kleypas, as it also had a revenge plot, so that I could see how a revenge scheme between the hero and heroine could be done well.

Well... the good news is that the revenge plot of Again the Magic did not make me want to slit my wrists with the pages of the book. The bad news is that Again the Magic was altogether a stilted, tedious, melodramatic read all on its own.

Aline Marsden and McKenna, a stable boy in her father's household, enjoy a secret, idyllic romance at the novel's start. Both are teenagers, passionate, and carefree, and yet both are still very aware of the dangers of their feelings for one another. Aline's father is one of the most powerful earls in England, and McKenna is a stable boy, and one of illegitimate parentage, at that.

When someone tattles on Aline and McKenna's trysts, Aline's father, the Earl, informs her of his plans to send McKenna away, and then he threatens to destroy him if he ever comes back. Aline knows that McKenna won't go quietly as long as there's a chance to maintain their relationship, so she pretends to dismiss him, claiming her feelings were only exploratory and that she'd rather flirt with real gentlemen and forget the embarassment of dallying with a servant.

Heartbroken, McKenna leaves. Twelve years pass. Aline, still unattached, acts as hostess for her brother's endless house parties with American businessmen. One day, a large contigent of wealthy industrialists shows up - one of whom is McKenna, now the business partner of millionaire Gideon Shaw. On the outside, McKenna's intentions are to conduct business with the new Earl, but he also harbours a secret desire to revenge himself upon Aline, preferably through seduction and then abandonment.

One of the differences between the revenge plot in Magic and, say, that plot in Sweet Trouble, is that Aline isn't fooled for a moment by McKenna's cold civility. She instantly recognizes his thirst for vengeance and, in an odd move, desides to fulfill it. If she gives him a few lusty tumbles, she figures, maybe he'll get over his obsession with her and find some peace, which is more than she can say for herself.

Even though her cruel father is many years dead, Aline still finds herself unable to reveal to McKenna the true extent of her feelings and the lie she'd been forced to tell him all those years ago. A few months after McKenna's initial departure twelve years past, an unfortunate kitchen accident left Aline with disfiguring burns all over her legs. In the present day, she can't bear the thought of revealing her hideous scars to McKenna and risking rejection, so she maintains the lie that she doesn't love him and never did.

Sounds like a delightful set-up, doesn't it? Sadly, no. In a nutshell, Again the Magic is the perfect example of the dangers of excess. I don't mean that the characters do things to excess, I mean excess in writing: an excess of sentimentalism, an excess of melodrama, an excess of sex scenes, and an excess in purple description. Do you know how when you eat a box of chocolates, the first ten pieces are delicious, but after that, you can't really taste the candy anymore? That's what started happening about thirty pages into this novel.

No one this book does anything by halves. All emotions are vivid, huge, and exaggerated: burning rage, deadening sorrow, heart-rending bliss, searing passion, blah blah blah. The characters are constantly battered about by hyperactive sentiment - no one is slightly perturbed, or somewhat disappointed, or more or less content. I could understand this in the first few chapters of the novel, which dealt with the protagonists when they were teenagers - young, and inexperienced and sensitive. However, by the time they're adults, they're still perpetually consumed by some particular emotion that is nearly always painful and that effectively hinders rational thought. Also, and this is a complaint I've often had with Kleypas' novels (even the pleasant Wallflower quartet): there are way, WAY too many sex scenes. I don't mean that they're too graphic, or raunchy - I simply mean that there are too many of them.

Every writing class and mentor I've ever had has told me that if something isn't directly relevant to the story I'm writing, it should be cut. No one, apparently, told the author this when she was writing the novel. Not only do we get dozens of mind-blowing moments of sexual congress from Aline and McKenna, we are also treated to a myriad of sexcapades from the completely unnecessary secondary romance between Aline's sister Livia and McKenna's business partner Gideon that seems to have been shoehorned in at the last minute.

It goes back to the box of chocolates metaphor - the sex scenes at the start are significant, but the more they happen, the less meaningful they get, and they less meaningful they get the less they contribute to the story, and the less they contribute to the story the more they bog down the plot. Very quickly, the intimate scenes became the literary equivalent of a commercial break, with Ryan Seacrest's voice booming in my brain, "Aline and McKenna discover new feelings for each other - BUT NOT UNTIL AFTER THE BREAK." *American Idol music*. Every time Aline and McKenna started panting for each other, I could feel the narrative pace coming to a dead stop.

With nearly every aspect of the novel dialed to 11 from start to finish, the book was the opposite of exciting: instead, it was dead boring. There were no dynamics - no heightening of tension, no quiet moments between scenes of significant action, no subtlety or adjustments to the tone or pace. It was just page after page of "OMG THIS IS BEAUTIFUL AND EPIC." This reminds me of another quotation, this time from The Incredibles - "If everyone is special, than no one is." It's the same thing here - if every single aspect of the novel is epic and grandiose and fantastical, than nothing really is. The total effect is lost.

As for the revenge plot - while I wasn't as offended by it as I was in Sweet Trouble, part of that could have been that McKenna's "dastardly" plan to avenge himself on Aline was so frustratingly vague. McKenna's plan at first seems to be merely to seduce and embarrass Aline into lowering herself to, ahem, dally once again with a servant. He puts this plan in motion by telling Aline precisely this, to which Aline responds, "Okay." Um, alright.

McKenna is an overpoweringly dominant character (as most of Lisa Kleypas' heroes are), so most of his seduction consists of telling Aline in no uncertain terms what he plans to do to her, while Aline squirms and giggles in secret delight at McKenna's "self-confidence." So ... McKenna's plan is to have great sex with Aline which she will also enjoy? That's not exactly a dish served cold. Also, McKenna, with all of his "dastardly" schemes, completely forgets to consider the threat posed to him by Aline's brother Marcus - a man with enough power and connections to do very, very unpleasant things to McKenna should Aline come to any real harm.

I'm sorry to say, that this wasn't a story that swept me away. Like a meal that's all dessert and no meat, it started sweet but soon became sticky, unsatisfying, and tasteless. C.

"Sweet Trouble," by Susan Mallery

The Chick: Jesse Keyes, the youngest sister to Claire (Sweet Talk) and Nicole (Sweet Spot). Five years after leaving Seattle, pregnant with her ex-boyfriend's child, she's come back into town to make things right with her sisters and to help her son Gabe get to know his father.
The Rub: Jesse has a wild-child past that people are slow to forget. Plus, Jesse and her ex, Matt, did not part on the best of terms - when she told him she was pregnant, he called her a whore and turned her out.
Dream Casting: Throughout the series, it's been Kirsten Bell.

The Dude: Matt Fenner. A former geek, Jesse's guidance helped the wealthy computer programmer to gain some style. He ended up falling in love with her, but when he heard that she'd supposedly cheated on him with her own sister's husband, he vowed never to see her again. Even when she told him she was pregnant with his child.
The Rub: Even though Jesse told him about the baby, in the present day he's outraged and surprised that she never involved him in the child's life, and plans nasty revenge.
Dream Casting: Before I knew for sure that he'd turn out to be an abusive monster, I thought Topher Grace. Now, I think Saddam Hussein.

The Plot:
Five Years Ago...
Jesse: Matt, I'm pregnant!

Matt: WHORE.

Jesse: Matt, it's yours!

Matt: Don't care!

Present Day...

Jesse: Matt, meet your son!

Matt: WHAT?! How could you keep this from me? I will have my vengeance! I'll get you, my pretty, and your LITTLE BOY TOO! MWAHAHAHAHA!

Jesse: Matt, I love you.

Matt: Fantastic. *sues for sole custody*

Jesse: ... YOU BASTARD.

All of Jesse's Friends and Sisters (with their powerful rich husbands): YOU'RE FUCKING DEAD.

Matt: I didn't mean it! It was a clerical error! Here, have some shiny diamonds!

All of Jesse's Friends and Sisters: Aww! How romantic! Marry him!

Jesse and Matt: *married*

AnimeJune, and any reader with a shred of feminist sensibility or common sense: Motherfu@#%^&&@#$@#%!!


Romance Convention Checklist:
1 Revenge Plot

1 (Totally Not Secret, The Father's an Asshole) Baby

1 Geek-to-Chic Makeover

1 Asshat Lawyer

1 Repentant Mother-in-Law

1 Surrogate Father Figure

3 Absolutely Mind-Blowing Brownie Recipes

1 Precocious Child

1 Inconvenient Slutty Past

1 Big Misunderstanding
The Word: Five years ago, Jesse Keyes thought she might get over her slutty, irresponsible past. After years of mindless, empty partying with boys and booze, she finally found a man who adored her: Matt Fenner, a dweeb who, with her help, ditched his geeky duds and turned out to be smokin' hot underneath. Who had millions of dollars. Who knew about her past and didn't care.

However, it didn't last. During a vulnerable moment (she'd found an engagement ring in Matt's luggage), her sister's husband tried to take advantage of her. When they were caught in the act by Nicole, the husband blamed Jesse, and because of her screw-up history he was believed. She got thrown out of the house, and worse - Nicole told Matt's mother, who told Matt, who then turned around and told Jesse that he never wanted to see her again. And when she tearfully revealed she was pregnant, he said "once a slut, always a slut," and that he didn't care if the child was his.

In the present day, Jesse's managed to clean up her life: she found a steady job and a support network in Spokane, where she's raised her son, Gabe, as a single parent. But Gabe's started asking who his daddy is, and Jesse's vowed never to lie to her son, so she heads back to Seattle to see if she can make things right. When Matt dodges her calls, she shows up in person, with pictures of Gabe, whose resemblance to Matt is worth as much as a paternity test.

Matt, when he discovers the truth, is astonished and outraged. He blames her for intentionally keeping the truth from him. When his nasty alpha-male logic collides with the rather elephantine fact that she did tell him (and he dumped her anyway), he justifies it under the ludicrous notion that she'd told him about the pregnancy at a time when she knew he wouldn't have believed her, and had done so on purpose because she's a devious whore. He immediately plans to destroy her emotionally, the first item on the list being to butter her up with friendship and (false) forgiveness, and the second being to sue for sole custody of Gabe. His first reaction to Gabe is one of total apathy - when his lawyer remarks that if he wins the battle, he'll actually have to take care of the kid, Matt reasons, "That's what nannies and boarding schools are for." Wow, what a sweetheart.

Matt Fenner is the reason I despised this book. I wanted to toss him into a burlap sack and have a gang of meth-crazed hobos beat him with sticks. I wanted him to be hit by a bus. I wanted the real hero to jump out of the bushes and sock Matt in the face.

I did not want him to end up with Jesse. There wasn't a single page of the novel in which I thought Matt was a good partner for Jesse. For the vast majority of the book, he's emotionless, callous, manipulative, vindictive, and malicious. The only thing worse than the first half of the novel, in which he says things about wanting her broken and bleeding by the side of the road, is the second half, in which he starts to actually bond with his son and develops an absurd self-righteousness about all the years he lost because Jesse had "kept" Gabe from him.

Part of my hatred is, surprisingly, thanks to the parts of the book I found enjoyable. As usual, Susan Mallery's female characters are relateable and evocatively written. Jesse, in particular - she was given pretty short shrift in the earlier novels, mainly because I think the author was trying to save her best material for Jesse's own story. Mallery movingly demonstrates, through flashbacks, Jesse's deep-seated insecurities about being the family screw-up, her wonder at finding herself in a steady, loving relationship, and the pervading terror that somehow her party-girl past will destroy her happiness - and that she might deserve to be destroyed. All of this, however, serves to make Matt's actions and intentions towards her all the more appalling.

Thankfully, Jesse's not an idiot this time. When she meets Matt again, although she still harbours feelings for him, she realizes that he's changed, and not necessarily into a nice person. He treats women like objects, he's emotionally walled-off, and is vindictive to a fault. Even through all this, Jesse still tries to repair the damage and reunite father and son, and even makes amends with Matt's mother - now a lonely, sad woman who's also a victim of Matt's selfish power-trip punishments.

The "revenge plot" is not an uncommon one in the romance world - that is, a story in which the hero or heroine initiates a relationship with their significant other for the express purpose of exacting vengeance, only to fall in love with them instead. I'm not too familiar with this type of storyline, but several romance fans have assured me that there are stories in which this type of thing works - mainly because it creates a psychological tug-of-war in the revenge-seaking protagonist between the polar opposites of love and hatred.

However, I felt this plot failed in Sweet Trouble's case because with Matt, there was no build-up of love. He consistently hates Jesse for the majority of the novel, without a sufficient resurgence of romantic feeling to balance it. While Matt acknowledges once or twice that he's still attracted to Jesse, he never considers her feelings or questions the righteousness of the pain he's planning to inflict on her. His Big Realization that he's still in love with Jesse is a Big Realization - precisely because there was no development of positive feelings for her beforehand. It was like flicking on a light switch - one minute, he's "I will destroy her," and the next it's "OH SHIT, GOTTA STOP HER FROM FINDING OUT ABOUT THOSE CUSTODY PAPERS!!"

However, I think what I despised most about this book were the ugly and misogynist undertones concerning Jesse's responsibility towards Matt. Throughout the novel, most of the blame for the five years Gabe spent without a father and Matt spent not knowing his son is placed squarely on Jesse's shoulders. Whenever Matt reflects on the years of "firsts" he missed with his son, he never, not once, at any point in the novel places any of the blame or responsibility for this on himself.

Never once does he reflect on that pivotal moment when he told Jesse that he didn't care if her child was his and derive any feeling of personal culpability for Jesse's exile to Spokane. His complete and one-sided belief in Jesse's total responsibility for their breakup remains unchanged even after he realizes that she never cheated on him. I might have been able to relate to his anger and his loss better if he'd had at least one thought of, "I'm part of the reason Gabe doesn't know me - gee, if only I hadn't lost my temper," but this never happens. I'm not saying that Matt should take all of the blame for their breakup, but he bears at least part of the responsibility. In the novel's flashbacks, a lovestruck Matt swore to Jesse that he'd never let her past affect their future, but when his vow was actually tested he broke it. The novel never dwells on this, Matt's most telling contribution to Jesse's flight to Spokane, nor acknowledges any part of his betrayal of her.

What's worse, is that even the other characters begin to think this way, too - Jesse's exile to Spokane is seen as a "mistake," yet another example of her irresponsibility and flightiness. If she'd only stayed, and waited for Matt to get over his pathetic man-boy insecurities, this could have all turned out fine. The only voice of reason seems to be Jesse herself, who believes that those five years in Spokane turned her into a better person and kept her from reverting to her screwup ways, and that Matt ultimately failed in his promise to love her despite her past.

And that's what it comes down to in Sweet Trouble - Jesse's slutty past. If she hadn't been such a whore, Nicole wouldn't have thought she'd slept with her husband. If Jesse had been a good little girl, Matt would have believed her and married her and lived happily ever after. If Jesse had obeyed society's rules, Gabe would have grown up with a father and society's happy natural order would have prevailed. The appalling connotations of this book, that Jesse's breakup with Matt, and the absence of Gabe in Matt's life, are ultimately consqeuences of Jesse being a floozy, are hideous.

Jesse, at least, proves to be a strong character who resists this bullshit for the majority of the book, but ultimately she gives in at the end, because Rat-Bastard Matt is inexplicably the hero of this piece. I closed this book after reading the last page with a mixture of rage and, yes, sadness. Rage that books are still being written that tout pathetic, abusive, self-involved and hypocritical males as the romantic ideal, and sadness, because after reading all three books in Mallery's Bakery Sisters Trilogy, I thought Jesse deserved better. F.