Rape and Adverbs

3 (more) REASONS I LOVE...

2010-07-19T21:36:00.004+01:00

... Meljean Brook's Guardian series

1. They're long

I really feel I get my money's worth with this series. Each book is really dense - but in a good way! It's not often that more is actually more, but it certainly is in this case. There's action and plot and romance on every page and I love every minute of it. Hurrah for 400+ pages of goodness.

2. You have to concentrate

None of that lazy page skimming. If you want to know what's going on, and why, you have to read actively. Otherwise… it's go back 5 pages and start again. It's nice when a book makes you work.

3. Characters

I've said it before, but I really like Brook's characters. How they are all so carefully drawn and unique. No two central romances are the same so every new book is fresh and appealing in its own right. And I think Demon Blood was one of my favourites because Rosalia and Deacon are so screwed up.

(bonus) 4. Covers

The last two covers have been awesome.

Mini plea to the Interweb:

To spare me having to send a girlish, fan-ish email to the author (okay, I'll probably do that anyway), does anyone know who the next two books will be about? I know there are two books and a novella left in the series, and I imagine Michael and Taylor will feature in the final… but what about the remaining two?

Also, also… doesn't it sound like an awfully long time to wait for the end of the series? 2012?!

Also, despite loving the Guardian world and all that urban fantasy, I'm quite excited about the new steampunk series (The Iron Duke) and will add it to the list of books I'm looking forward to in 2010.

EXCITED TREPIDATION...

2010-05-30T00:25:00.005+01:00

... Much like a virgin heroine on her wedding night, I am all aflutter. I have Dead in the Family in my hands and it is hugely exciting. (Okay, I'll stop there.)

But.

I have concerns. Is it just me or is Harris paving the way for Sookie and Sam? The last two books in the series, which I devoured back to back over two sleepless nights, were dropping some rather heavy hints.

Who did Sookie think of when she lay close to death? Whose good opinion does she value above all others? Who can she always depend on without qualification?

Sam! Boring, lame, SAM!

Gah! I guess it's obvious that I'm not a fan. And I suppose I should add that if I were somehow controlling Harris, Eric Northman, Sookie's super-hot-and-sexy-and-slightly-evil-vampire-lover, would be on every other page...

So it fills me with concern to find this on the blurb:

Just about the only bright spot in her life - besides the fact that she is, after all, still alive - is the love she thinks she feels for vampire Eric Northman.

(emphasis mine)

This doesn't bode well. I am filled with foreboding.

Yet also excited. New Sookie Stackhouse. Woo.

WHY WORLD, WHY??

2010-05-16T22:25:00.007+01:00

Earlier in the year, I made a list of all the romances I was looking forward to, my must-reads for 2010. Below is a sample:

April: Patience, by Lisa Valdez
May 4: Dead in the Family, by Charlaine Harris
May 25: Married by Morning, Lisa Kleypas
June 29: Love in the Afternoon, Lisa Kleypas
June 1: The Time Weaver, by Shana Abe
June 1: Dreamveil, Lynn Viehl
July 6: Demon Blood, Meljean Brook
August 1: Last Night's Scandal, Loretta Chase
August 31: Demon From the Dark, Kresley Cole
October 5: The Iron Duke, Meljean Brook

(I know! If someone had told me a year ago that Lisa Kleypas would author the only historicals I'd enjoy reading, I would have laughed them out of town.)

ANYWAY, long story short, it sucks to be British for the avid romance reader. Not only do I have to wait a whole month longer for the latest Sookie Stackhouse (agony!) but the two Kleypas romances are due out in October and December! As The Book Depository helpfully points out, that's 144 days between me and Leo Hathaway.

My pain doesn't end there. Should I choose to spend my hard earned pennies shipping the books over from the US, I get crappy floral covers that give me no aesthetic joy. By waiting the interminable 144 days, I get the much nicer UK edition.

Sophie's choice, people!

PATIENCE IS ITS OWN REWARD

2010-04-11T00:15:00.003+01:00

RIGHT?!

When Patience came through the post this morning, it was quite literally the culmination of 5 years of waiting.

Seriously! I remember reading its predecessor Passion at university. Which was quite some time ago.

What I remember about Passion was the aggressively purple prose, all that humping behind the scenes at the Great Exhibition and – despite everything I say that might indicate otherwise– how much I enjoyed it.

So I looked up Patience (there was quite a titillating excerpt at the end of Passion). And waited for its release. And waited.

And waited.

I know, it’s a bit of joke, but it’s great Valdez got her groove back. And whether or not Patience lives up to the great weight of expectation I’m still glad I’ve got the chance to read it. Finally.

IS IT JULY YET?

2010-01-31T16:55:00.006Z

I’ve just finished the latest two Guardian novels in two sleep deprived days and CANNOT WAIT for the next installment. Literally, I have sat down and calculated the days to July 6^th.

There are a lot of days, people.

So I don’t think I’m going to review the books, per se. That would be too hard a task for this lazy blogger. The one thing everyone will tell you about The Guardian series (lovers and detractors alike) is how very complex and detailed the plotting is, sometimes even convoluted and perplexing.

Instead I think I’ll tell you what I like about the series overall and hope that if anyone hasn’t given this talented, witty and imaginative author a go, they might now.

Mythic Arc and Scope

There’s an immense scope to the series. We’re talking Demons, Angels, Heaven, Hell. The fate of the world hanging in the balance. It’s all very Epic. Whilst I think the series lost it’s way a little in Demon Night, Brooks ratchets up the stakes to suitably apocalyptic levels in Demon Bound and Demon Forged, so that by the end of the latter I was as involved in the on-going story as the self-contained romance between the principal characters.

Similarly, Brook is as comfortable taking us into her magical realms (be it the heavenly Cealum or the hellish Chaos) as Regency England or the medieval world. As a reader, this keeps each story fresh and intriguing.

Characters

Oh, where to begin? The characterisation is crazy good. I think this might be what I love best about the entire series, how very beautifully Brook draws her characters, so that each is as distinct from the next, and unusually unique within the romance genre to boot. Characters like Colin and Savi and Alice and Irena are so wonderfully fresh to me, like brand new people I want to know better.

In Demon Bound, Alice Grey comes to life in an incredibly rich and detailed way, right down to her unsettling walk. I love how every little physical detail about her contributes to my understanding of her character. It’s very impressive.

Romance

Despite all the action, multiple plotlines and insane amounts of adventure, Brook never stints on the romance, with her hero and heroine firmly front and centre of the action, their relationship and conflicts thoroughly explored. Brook is not a demure writer (thank God), but it’s to her credit that the romance I liked best (in Demon Bound, between Jake and Alice) was also the most chaste. When a writer can do that, she’s nailed it.

As a side note, the two weakest romances were Charlie and Drifter (Demon Night) and Irena and Alejandro (Demon Forged). The former just didn’t work for me, but the latter… I think they were the victims of too much happening elsewhere. In future books, Brook will have to maintain a careful balance between her protagonists and the on-going story, which is getting more interesting.

According to her website, Brook says she has mapped the series into eight full -length novels, which is GOOD, because I really, really want to know how it ends. She also has a new series out this year, which is BAD because it means fewer and far between Guardian books…. Less selfishly, I’d be interested to try something different because I think Brook is talented and imaginative writer.

So what are you waiting for? Get thee to a bookshop!

Otherwise, feel free to discuss the burning issues of the day: can Deacon be redeemed? What’s up with Taylor and Michael, was the conflict between Irena and Alejandro too flimsy? Will Becca get a book? Will Khavi??

Does anyone have an advanced copy of Demon Blood?

Sidebar: Although this was not a review by any stretch, the series overall merits an A

WICKED INTENTIONS, BY LYDIA JOYCE

2009-06-17T23:57:00.007+01:00

Ever since I read and greatly enjoyed Voices of the Night, I’ve always intended to review a Lydia Joyce. Unfortunately, following a strong start, Shadows of the Night became a rare DNF (major let down) and I didn’t want to write a bewildered negative review when there’s so much about Joyce’s style and content that I enjoy.

So I bought Wicked Intentions in the hope that what I loved so much about Voices would be recaptured and sustained.

Joyce writes a series of loosely connected Victorian romances, set in the mid-Victorian era and positively steeped in the dense, oppressive atmosphere of that time. Instant winner for me, as I absolutely love those repressed Victorians. What I enjoyed particularly in Voices was the way in which she mixed the grim realities of Victorian Britain with a romance that worked within that context – a sort of grim, desperate love story that suited the moody, heavily mannered world of her characters.

In Wicked Intentions, Joyce retains her dark and dreary London setting with a most excellent starting chapter, which set the tone for a really meaty, angst-ridden romance:

In Parliament’s new limestone palace, already damp and lichenous where it crouched beside the stinking Thames, debate raged. And so the season limped on, with the endless rotation of dinners, dances, operas and soirees, accompanied as always by the constant, grating murmur of politics and gossip, marriage and legislation, secret cabals and open scandals that took place in the myriad stifling rooms.

I love the visual of Parliament crouching besides the stinking Thames.

Our hero Thomas Hyde, Lord Varcourt is introduced in a parlour setting, amidst his fellow aristocrats, and notes:

The world was made and unmade in rooms like this, and already, Thomas could begin to read the threads that went into its making. Soon he would have enough gathered into his hands that he could pull them and watch men dance…

Yes. So Thomas fancies himself a puppet master of sorts, steeped in political intrigue, sniffing out secrets for the advantage of the Whigs. He is regarded with wariness by his peers following the suspicious death of his older brother some six years earlier.

In the same parlour sits the mysteriously veiled spiritualist, Esmeralda, without whom a fashionable parlour is incomplete:

Esmeralda heard the dead, she claimed, and saw visions – and collected like pearls the secrets of the noblewomen who confided in her.

She is nothing but a charlatan to Thomas, who watches her, infuriated and reluctantly fascinated. Esmeralda’s biggest patron happens to be his mother, whose fragile mental state he believes Esmeralda is manipulating to her own mercenary ends.

For a man like Thomas, who sees schemes and plotting everywhere, Esmeralda is an unknown quantity, a threat. So when she leads his mother to the ‘discovery’ of an expensive piece of jewellery, he is roused to action and pursues her for answers.

This is an excellent set up. In fact, the first chapter was a masterpiece of brooding repression and angst.

Unfortunately, every chapter thereafter saw my interest dwindle. Is there such a thing as too much melodrama? Despite the fact that both characters carry the sort of emotional baggage that makes a Thomas Hardy novel cheerful by comparison, there was something unrelenting about the dialogue, particularly between Thomas and Em who love to make grand and sweeping statements to each other.

“I could kill you,” she said, her words almost wistful. “I don’t mean that I have the power but that I have the will, a far more difficult thing. People sometimes wonder if they are capable of taking a life. I know that I am; I almost took my own. After that, life itself seems so insignificant.”

On it’s own, this is a little rich. But when every interaction between Thomas and Em carries the same level of hysterical intensity – well, intensity leaves the building. What’s left are two people who take themselves far too seriously.

Thomas saw an emotion behind the glassy clarity of her eyes: pain. It was as distant as a star, and yet he knew that if the distance could be bridged, the vastness of it would dwarf his being, the heat sear the flesh from his bones. It was turned not on him, but inward, and he wondered what stuff she was made of that she could survive it…

Puppet master Thomas, for all his brooding darkness and supposed political acumen, spends the entire novel acting on impulse; from kidnapping Em, which leads to their first brutal sexual encounter; then kidnapping her (again), drugging her, tying her up, and accosting her pretty much as the need arose… these were not the actions of a sophisticated thinker. There’s never any evidence of the operator we are supposed to believe him to be.

There are two mysteries in this story; the truth behind the death of Thomas’s brother, and the mystery of Esmeralda’s stolen birthright. Neither of them are precisely gripping, and the story is essentially a series of encounters – all turgid, overwrought and overwritten – between Thomas and Em in the lovingly created settings of Joyce’s Victorian London.

A disappointing C for this.

Two Caveats
1. For some reviewers the sex scenes were a too dark. These did not bother me; in fact, I thought the relationship between Thomas and Em was best expressed through their physical interactions, better by far than their ridiculous conversations.

2. I bought this book to read on my iphone. Big mistake. I really didn’t enjoy the experience and I wonder if part of my irritation stemmed from the dissatisfaction I felt with the format. iphone as reading device: FAIL.

FEBRUARY BOOK CLUB: THE EDGE OF IMPROPRIETY

2009-06-14T18:41:00.008+01:00

What a pleasure to read a book as beautiful as it is smart. Seriously, what resides between the covers of The Edge of Impropriety is a match for the cover itself; a gorgeous, sensual rendering that reflects the story without resorting to the garish, demeaning, lowest-common-denominator trashiness I so despise and despair of. Let’s hear it for Penguin, who Got It Right. (Anti-man-titty rant of the month over.)

In short, it was a pleasure to own this book and a pleasure to read it, for no more reason than its physical perfection. This is a very shallow way to start a - mostly serious – review but the very act of reading The Edge of Impropriety put me in a good mood. I was predisposed to love this book.

More so because I am a secret admirer of Ms Rosenthal, a smart and thoughtful writer and blogger. Her last book was one of my best reads of 2008.

Even the fact that I wasn’t immediately immersed in the story – indeed, it took me a week to get past the first chapter – didn’t unduly upset me. The writing was beautiful, the setting unusual, the premise intriguing. I can be patient. Particularly when the writing is so good, and the cover is so beautiful.

Jasper Hedges is a noted scholar and antiquarian, which is pretty much as exciting as it sounds. In order to compensate for some youthful indiscretions (his orphaned nephew, for example, is actually his son), Jasper has settled into a life of bucolic responsibility, a steady, perhaps even somewhat boring authority figure to his young wards. A rare trip to London brings him into contact with the beautiful and scandalous Marina Wyatt.

Marina writes scandalous stories about the ton and is savvy enough to encourage speculation that these stories are based on her own titillating experiences. To wit, she has recently rebuffed her latest lover, the young and obscenely handsome Anthony Hedges – Jasper’s ‘nephew.’

When their paths cross, Jasper and Marina are instantly attracted to one another, despite their many obvious differences. They embark on a passionate affair, purely for the length of the season, and struggle, unsuccessfully, to keep their feelings checked.

Jasper and Marina’s relationship develops from strong physical attraction, liking and mutual respect to love in a wonderfully natural way. The fact that they are older than the usual heroes and heroines of romance – 30s and 40s respectively – might partly explain their refreshing maturity, the freedom from angst over the silly things. They both take an uncomplicated pleasure in each other’s bodies, for example. A secondary romance involving Anthony is a pleasant and diverting contrast.

The real star of the story is the story-telling. Rosenthal steeps the reader into her early 19th century London. She is assured enough with her description of artefacts and classical references that I can’t easily find fault, and her seamless bringing together of cultural references and historical events, coupled with pretty authentic sounding ‘regency speak’ left me beaming. Rosenthal is particularly dazzling when she details the minutia of the London Season, that ‘rich tapestry of event and festivity.’

There is a particularly wonderful passage halfway through the novel - halfway through the Season - when Rosenthal takes the reader outside the lives of her characters and casts a sweeping gaze over London itself – the ladies maid ‘squinting by candlelight;’ ‘the kitchen slavey in Gunters;’ ‘ink-stained wretches in Grub Street.’

“Shopkeepers stayed open late; hackney drivers jostled for place in front of the opera. Bow Street Runners did their best to police a metropolis most people didn’t believe need policing. Parliament were still debating the possibility of an actual police force, though there were still some who thought the idea too foreign, too French a notion for London.”

The Edge of Impropriety is stuffed with sly nods and winks to historical figures, events, and literary references. Jasper’s past plundering of historical artefacts is examined, as are the politics of imperialism (too modern?); there is even meta-commentary in the form of a young would-be writer. And a delightful little passage that made me laugh out loud:

… “Well, yes,” she’d said one evening. “Absolutely, Empire is like theft. But then, I’m Irish.”
Which, as he’d been about to respond, wasn’t the same thing at all, Ireland simply being a part of Britain…

It’s always interesting when a writer creates a character who is also a writer. I couldn’t help but wonder how much of Marina-the-writer came from Rosenthal herself: the growing boredom with the work she is doing (Rosenthal herself is moving away from straight romance), and even Marina’s introduction at the very start of the novel, when she laboriously correcting proofs.

I finished The Edge of Impropriety happily enough, but a nagging voice in my head wondered – did the excellent writing compensate for a tepid romance? Or did the quality of the writing draw attention to the paucity of the romantic plot, which did nothing wrong, except perhaps follow too closely the formula of all romances. For, despite everything, Rosenthal took no real risks with her story. With such tools to hand, such assured skill, I wish Rosenthal had strayed into less formulaic, more unchartered territory.

But the cover! The writing! The sly humour, the secret affairs; the clever in-jokes and the general feeling of having read a book that required my concentration to be fully enjoyed…

B+ from a hopelessly biased reader. I look forward to whatever Rosenthal has planned next.

---

The February Book Club is the brainchild of Tumperkin, who thought we might review and discuss select romances between us. Us being Jessica, Tumps, RfP and myself. Flattered to be counted amongst such illustrious bloggers (in all seriousness), I was quick to agree. However, our ambitious February launch date was thwarted by that fickle thing 'life' and we commenced many months later.

To read what the other members thought of this book click on the links below

Jessica

RfP

Tumperkin

COULD THERE BE A GREATER HONOUR?

2009-06-06T23:16:00.002+01:00

OH, AMAZON

2009-04-13T21:56:00.004+01:00

Seriously?

Over the weekend, thousands of books have lost their sales rank – the number that Amazon uses to show how well one title sells compared with another – as the company apparently seeks to make its bestseller lists more family friendly.

But thousands of users have voiced concern after the seemingly random application of the new rules not only affected a number of high-profile authors, including Annie Proulx, EM Forster and Jeanette Winterson, but also led to thousands of gay and lesbian titles being stripped of their sales rank, regardless of their sexual content.

This family friendly approach has also impacted romance and erotica authors.

So. To anyone out there still thinking of buying from Amazon - why?! There are alternatives.

Some other things:

Smart Bitches googlebomb Amazon.

Of course, DA and the Smart Bitches are amongst those leading the charge against this, the latest in a string of Amazon-related scandals (and are, thrillingly, linked to in this Guardian article).

PHEW!

2009-04-07T00:45:00.007+01:00

Gab deadline just about met. Okay, almost met.

I need to go somewhere dark and quiet and lie down now.

Why is it so hard to talk about romance as a genre? Sometimes I think it's too big and unwieldy a topic to grapple with. Which is why I so greatly appreciate posts that do. Such as -

The Subgenre Slide

Is Happy For Now Happy Enough?

What is Romance Really All About?

The Romance Insider, the Reader, the Fan, and the Academic Researcher

Generation Gap

French Dressing, from which:

The real conflict in genre fiction, I believe, is the endless argument between the helpless part of us that wants – that has -- to go there once more, and the wisecracking intellectual part of us that can’t quite believe we’ve been suckered, again and forever seduced by the worn old props and operetta costumes.

Cute ferret for Tumperkin's benefit.

AMAZON - YOU STILL SUCK

2009-03-28T00:22:00.006Z

Amazon chief Jeff Bezos has gone back to the floor, working in a company warehouse (or 'fulfillment center'...) for a week.

According to The Guardian:

And you know what Amazon is like about work in its warehouses. Back in April 2001, the Guardian noted that the retailer had been accused of running "the worst of old economy working practices" by staff in the UK...

...the issue surfaced again last Christmas, when the Sunday Times reported that staff at the same location - Marston Gate near Milton Keynes - were required to work seven days a week and "punished" for being ill (where staff with a sick note received a "penalty" point; six points meant dismissal). The quotas for packing - 140 items an hour, which is only slightly below the 5 items per two minutes of 2001. Collecting items for packing can mean walking up to 14 miles during a shift.

Now, I've been wondering if my anti-Amazon stance, which includes total boycott of the store, was a little extreme. This article has firmed my resolve for a little longer. Thanks!

KLEYPAS DOES WUTHERING HEIGHTS

2009-03-15T00:10:00.006Z

OR: SEDUCE ME AT SUNRISE

Passion and angst seethe in equal measure from the tortured hero of Lisa Kleypas’s latest historical. Kev Merripen is a gypsy taken in by the generous and loving Hathaway family when his own tribe left him for dead. Feral, miserable, sullen and instinctively violent, the only light in Kev’s black existence is the beautiful and angelic Winnifred Hathaway. Despite the strong connection between them, Kev is determined to keep their relationship platonic, for Winifred is an invalid. Moreover, Kev hates himself (no low-born Kleypas hero thinks he’s good enough for the pure-bred Kleypas heroine…) and doesn’t consider himself worthy of Win.

Of course, Winifred is equally in love with Kev, and so she resolves to get better and win him over. The story takes off when Winifred returns from a two-year sojourn in a French clinic, restored to rude health and towing with her a handsome and admiring doctor…

For all that Kev Merripen is a larger than life, angst-ridden hero very much in the mould of Heathcliff, for me, Winifred is the standout character. Despite her delicate frame, fragility and ‘purity of character’– this girl is a total minx. In the first chapter alone she has maneovered Kev into kissing her and then – seconds later – she’s groping his man-bits like a seasoned pro. Honestly, at times, it’s as though Kev is the delicate virgin.

With such a decisive, take-charge heroine and a completely bonkers (though endearingly so) hero, there’s plenty to like here. Let’s say, 85% of this book is excellent and deserves praise for it’s relatively fresh storyline (it’s unusual, I think, in a romance when both characters are completely and intensely in love right from the beginning). On top of that Kleypas is amusing and deft with her plotting - I read this book in one sitting.

So, naturally, I’m just going to concentrate on the negatives.

Once in a lifetime love…

For this story to really work, we have to believe that Kev and Winifred are soulmates – connected powerfully, almost preternaturally. Their passion must be surpassing; one cannot live without the other. This is done wonderfully by Kleypas – when Win is close to death, Kev is pretty much on the brink of ending his own existence, Romeo and Juliet style (see: bonkers). They are both given to grand declarations –

“I love you,” she said, wretchedly. “And if I were well, no power on earth could keep me away from you. If I were well, I would take you into my bed, and I would show you as much passion as any woman could -”

and

He jerked her upward. “All the fires of hell could burn for a thousand years and it wouldn’t equal what I feel for you in one minute of the day. I love you so much there is no pleasure in it. Nothing but torment."

When they kiss and mess around, it’s suitably hot and theatrical. But the effect is diluted considerably by the fact that there are at least four other couples who feel exactly the same way. How are we supposed to believe in the rabid, all-consuming, once-in-a-lifetime, Heathcliff-on-the-moors type love when everyone’s at it? It becomes a little – yes, pedestrian.

And therein lies my second gripe. The recurring couples from previous novels – AKA the Authorial Cash Cow.

As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, I’m one of those readers who is quite happy to leave a couple to their happy ever after – no drippy epilogue for me, thank you. I’ve enjoyed the journey, but I’m happy to get off the train once everything is neatly tied up. So it’s endlessly boring for me when characters from previous books turn up blissfully in love, often swelling with child, sharing tender looks and having (totally boring) sex, and generally chewing up the scenery – because here’s the thing: I don’t care. You’re married, you’re happy, you’re boring. Where’s the drama? Where’s the tension, where’s the story progression?

At best, it’s indulgent. At worst, it’s cynical.

I’m talking to you, SEP, Laurens, Kleypas, Balogh and [insert culprit of your choice].

The only time I would be interested if there was trouble in paradise.

Or is it just me?

Anyway, a B+ and a thank you to Ms Kleypas for such a pleasant first step back into romance.

A CONFESSION

2009-03-12T23:30:00.004Z

I have a guilty confession to make.

It’s been two months since I read my last romance.

I have no explanation for this, except that I’ve been very busy, and perhaps I needed a break from reading. When I do read, I feel like short things, like short stories, or news articles, or better yet, magazines with lots of pictures… (The US Vogue with Michelle Obama, fyi, was deeply disappointing).

And, reading less, I haven’t been blogging or doing my regular blog checks. So I feel as though I’ve fallen off the face of the earth.

I identify myself as a reader, but I’m not reading anymore. What does that make me?

In a panic, I have picked up a couple of books. I’ve got Dreams from my Father, which is very hard to avoid at the moment. I did my best, but it’s my book group’s latest choice, so -. Then there’s 2066 (I can already tell it’s going to be one of those books, the ones that sit, untouched, on my shelf, forever weighing on my conscience). I’m also determined to finish Watchmen before I go and see the movie…

But what about romance?

There are different kinds of romance readers. I fit into the always-read-it category. Not the other kind, the fully grown adult finding a genre they had hitherto overlooked. I read my first romance was I was indecently young. It has had an indelible effect on my tastes.

These days, I find that I’m less interested in following a story from beginning to end; I’m skimming. I look for high concepts, high stakes and lots of gratuitous sex. Naturally, this doesn’t lend itself to quality reading, so I end up feeling more jaded than ever.

I feel like the hero in an old school romance: burned out, tired of empty, meaningless sex with women (books) whose names (title) he can't remember the morning after. He just wants the love of a good woman. I just want to read general fiction.

Do I need a break? Am I done with this genre?

Well, despite all my angsting, I don’t think so. I think I needed this break, but I’ve found my curiousity piquing this past week – Nalini Singh’s latest release sounds intriguing. I agree with Tumperkin’s assessment of her Psy books ("Good author. Excellent writer. Not for me"), and never ventured beyond the first. A new series might bring a fresh dynamic between the heroine and hero, which was my biggest gripe with her last one.

What about Carolyn Jewel? The premise of Scandal sounds interesting.

More promising yet, I picked up a Kleypas today and I’m tentatively looking forward to reading it. (Don't let me down, Kleypas!)

I'm not ready to quit yet, but I wonder if it's possible to reach saturation with a preferred genre. Has it happened to anyone else? Is there a remedy for this, the mother of all reading ruts?

... AND WHY I LIKED IT ANYWAY

2009-01-09T23:05:00.008Z

In her excellent post, CJ observed the hugeness of Kresley Cole’s plots. Everything is so extreme. The stakes are high, the obstacles to HEA are near insurmountable; everything is larger than life, particularly the heroes.

Take the first sentence of Dark Desires After Dusk:

Cadeon Woede came upon the headless bodies of his foster father and brothers first, the three slain in a desperate defense of their home

.
Naturally, Cade blames himself for the gruesome death of his foster family, and he blames himself (and is blamed by others) for the loss of his brother’s kingdom, now ruled by an evil sorcerer who - naturally, he's evil - brutally oppresses its people. So Cade is like the guiltiest person in the world.

To top it off, the only way he can win back the kingdom and redeem himself is by grossly betraying his fated female.

Holly the heroine is also The Vessel (see previous post) and she will bear a child of ultimate evil or ultimate good, depending on the father.

The extremes don’t stop there. Cade is a larger-than-life, slobbish, hedonistic, philandering rage demon. Holly is a tightly repressed virgin mathematician with OCD.

Cade is huge, and he has horns. Holly is a tiny, demure blond.

And so on.

But it’s all very compelling: of course it is. Mix in a little self-referential humour and most times even a grumpy reader is disarmed. A little.

Her brows drew together. “Wait. I’m called a Vessel? Could there be a more derogatory term? By its very definition, a vessel is of no importance compared to its contents… Couldn’t these Lorekind have gone with baby maker or bun oven?

“I lobbied for cargo hold, but just lost out.”

Reading the Immortals is like going on an old fashioned adventure: there are quests, and magical swords and maps marked with X; there are talismans and ancient curses and journeys to the outer reaches of the world (okay, Alaska).

In another nod-and-wink moment, Holly likens her predicament to being in a computer game (“Level one, defeat pervert. Level two, engage army of revenants…")

Throw in some wacky side characters, like the soothsayer Valkyrie Nix (or, Nucking Futs Nix), who enters the story with characteristic élan:

Half an hour had dragged by when a red Bentley pulled up behind them, hopping the curb in an alignment-wrecking jounce…. There were dings in the body, mud all over the tires, smoke tendrils rising from the hood, and at least two bullet holes. A Garfield doll was stuck to the rear window.

That Garfield makes the description gold.

What you get is a perfect cupcake* of a story; light and fluffy with a dramatic swirl of icing on top. Just don't think too hard about the ingredients.

A solid B for Dark Desires After Dusk, though all my points in the post below are still there, niggling. I suppose there’s a lot to be said for charm and slapstick, and a personal chemistry with the writing that can make allowances for all kinds of wrong.

*The cupcake analogy might be flawed, but I spent half an hour looking at cupcakes on the internet. Who knew?

Oooh: Alien cupcakes!

Is anyone else hungry?

A GRUMPY READER REVIEWS DARK DESIRES AFTER DUSK, BY KRESLEY COLE

2009-01-08T23:34:00.006Z

Have you ever read a book in a bad tempered sort of way, picking out faults and trying very hard not to be won over?

I’ve been doing that a lot recently, and the latest victim of my reading blues was Kresley Cole. This was particularly sad as I truly enjoyed her Immortals After Dark series last year; I even glommed.

What set me off (other than a generally grumpy disposition)? The Glossary of Terms preceding the story. In it, The Vessel is described thus

At the cusp of each Ascension, a chosen female will beget a child who will become a warrior of either ultimate evil or of ultimate good –

(gah!)

- depending on the father

(Double gah!)

Way to strip the female of even the faintest whiff of autonomy.

Riled, I continued on and sure enough poor Holly the heroine/ vessel is summarily stripped naked and placed on a ceremonial altar by evil demons, so that she might be raped/ impregnated. In the first twenty pages. Later that night, Holly’s bare legs are ogled on by the hero, who admires their smooth, sleek and toned perfection.

(Yeah, I thought sourly. If I were unexpectedly kidnapped by demons and stripped naked, my legs too would be smooth and sleek and worthy of admiration. Except, no, they wouldn’t.)

Cade, the ne’er do well demon hero veers towards the obnoxious. Any guy who ends the majority of his sentences with a ‘yeah?’ would probably drive me nuts, but then he has the temerity to label an amorous lady bar owner ‘a slag’ to dispel Holly’s suspicions, which – hello, if anyone’s a slag, it would be the unrepentantly lecherous and horny Cade, whose reputation as a man-slut precedes him.

But it’s different for boys.

Cade also has the cheek to say:

“For the record, male Lorekind have higher opinions of females than human males do. The playing field’s more equal in our world.”

This coming from a breed of Demon who ‘claims his female’ by turning fully into his demon form and biting her into submission… plus, Vessel, anyone?

The other thing that really irked was all the rampant consumption that goes on between the covers of an Immortals novel. Burbury, million dollar sports cars, Ipods, Wiis, Bentleys, and expensive silk and lace undergarments that are the staple of any self-respecting virgin heroine’s attire.

I found myself hoping Holly and Cade are affected by the global financial crisis in a brutal way. (Also tiring: nauseating articles about how the mega-rich are really glum about losing their money.)

And while I’m on my nit-picking rampage – why does Holly have to be delicate?

What exactly is a ‘masculine jaw’?

What is a ‘feminine scent’?

Grumpy Romance reader will stop there.

In tomorrow’s post: why I loved Dark Desires After Dusk despite everything.

ULTIMATE WEAPON, BY SHANNON McKENNA

2008-11-16T18:28:00.006Z

When I stated my intention to read and review the latest McKenna, despite my troubled relationship with this author’s previous work, it was suggested that I might end up reading ‘with extra suspicion,’ or ‘looking harder for the wrongness.’

Guilty. Despite my protestations, that is exactly what I’m doing. See, I’ve read up to page 71, and - most un-Mckenna like - the hero (Val) and heroine (Tamara) haven’t even met. I mean, sure, Val has inappropriately purloined video footage of Tamara naked, and gotten suitably worked up over it (there should be a drinking game), and there has been some disturbing Skanky-Villain-Sex, and a most satisfying torture/execution of Random Henchman No. 1 (more to follow), and the evil guys (there are two sets of insane villains in this one - neat) are so over the top Eeevil they positively cast the last lot (the child ‘organ pirates’) into the shade.

And yet... and yet, I'm not hooked/ enraged/ cackling with glee and self-hate.

Is it because Val is supposed to be a cold blooded killer, without conscience, personality or desire - an efficient operative - and yet everything he does belies this? Despite constantly reaching for his analytical calm, employing his mental ‘data processing technique,’ Val has so far been jerked around by everyone he's met.

As for Tamara, deadly assassin, seductress and unrepentant badass in previous appearances - well. Tamara has a developmentally challenged adopted daughter, and nightmares of a past in which she had to bury her mother and baby sister. And nightmares, and crying jags. And endlessly long inner dialogues in which she questions her suitability to mother.

It’s been 71 pages and no one has even mentioned any ‘yummy girl juice.’ Could it be... am I disappointed?!?

Actually, no. A little bored, though.

WAS THERE TOO MUCH SEX AND PROFANITY IN THE HBO PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE?

2008-10-20T23:14:00.003+01:00

To those of you who give not one fig, apologies, but this was far too funny not to share.

Warning - profanities galore (including one inventive turn of phrase I've never heard before; but then, that's HBO for you).

BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE LETTER "C"

2008-10-13T23:40:00.009+01:00

Many moons ago, I agreed to take part in a meme over at Tumperkin's. This involved getting a random letter from Tumperkin (in this case, the letter ‘C’), then thinking up five fictional characters whose names begin with that letter.

Easy, I thought. Easy peasy.

Not so much, as it turns out.

I ran out of steam after two. Strange how the names of so many romance heroes and heroines are totally interchangeable: I couldn’t think of any. Below, I’ve listed two romantic characters from the classics. I guess they’re classics for a reason, no?

Cyrano de Bergerac

Ah, poor Cyrano. Witty, smart, creative, sensitive, dueler extraordinaire - and in possession of a large, a huge, nose that completely inhibits him. Believing himself to be hideous and unlovable, he is too scared to admit his love for the beautiful Roxane.

This story has been done to death by Hollywood, in various permutations (including Steve Martin’s Roxane and The Truth about Cats and Dogs) but the play written by the French poet Edmund Rostand in 1897 came to my attention when I found this quote -

A kiss is a rosy dot over the ‘i’ of loving

This is the passage that the above quote came from. I think you’ll agree it’s a whole lot better. (Cyrano is pretending to be his handsome friend, Christian, who is also in love with Roxane).

CYRANO:
A kiss, when all is said,--what is it?
An oath that's ratified,--a sealed promise,
A heart's avowal claiming confirmation,--
A rose-dot on the 'i' of 'adoration,'--
A secret that to mouth, not ear, is whispered,--
Brush of a bee's wing, that makes time eternal,--
Communion perfumed like the spring's wild flowers,--
The heart's relieving in the heart's outbreathing,
When to the lips the soul's flood rises, brimming!

Catherine Earnshaw, Wuthering Heights

I can’t say anything about this that hasn’t been said before, but I loved Wuthering Heights when I read it as a teenager, then read it again when I was older and wondered what crack Emily Bronte was on when she wrote it. Its a great classic for teenagers, actually, and a great romance, too, disregarding the death and tragedy of it all. I think Kinsale has a bit of the Emily Bronte crack in her, and there are some Kleypas heroes that might fit the Heathcliff mould.

Here’s a snippet from the mouth of the delightful Catherine.

"It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now; so he shall never know how I love him: and that, not because he's handsome, Nelly, but because he's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same; and Linton's is as different as a moonbeam from lightning, or frost from fire."

Ah, romance.

(Feel free to suggest all the obvious C's I've missed)

CATCHING UP

2008-09-28T21:51:00.006+01:00

I’ve been underground these last couple of days, watching season three of Supernatural, emerging periodically for fresh air, then going back to ground. After the atrocity of season 2 (with a season ender that was worse, even, than the infamous racist monster truck episode), I vowed never to watch the show again, no matter how cute the boys - see left - and stuck to my guns for all of three months... until I saw the season 3 box set on sale. Who can resist a bargain? A bargain with cute boys? (see left) Not I.

So where season one was spooky and scary (I have a low fear threshold), and season two was lame and emo, season three was GORE-TASTIC. For real. We are talking forks in eyes, decapitation by garrote, evil, demonically possessed children, evisceration, torture and a really bloody death by electric saw. Eek. And cool.

Better yet, it seemed as though the writing improved, the storylines got tighter, with a more comfortable tie-in to the overall season arc (Dean selling his soul to save his brother’s, leaving him a year to live). Jared Paladecki, who plays the younger brother Sam, is the weaker actor, and I think he’s improved tremendously. No more strange facial twitches to signify emotional upheaval/ hard thought. Which is good.

Overall, the show seems to have a better idea of where it’s going, with a mythology that puts me in mind of Meljean Brook’s Demons and Angels series (The Guardians, rather).

Anyhoot, amongst the better writers of the show is one Sera Gamble. From past interviews, I know she writes stories, and I remembered that the last time I visited her site, I found a link to a short story I liked, called Off, by Aimee Bender.

The story is about a woman, an heiress, attending a party held by an old high school friend. The woman has a goal for the evening; to kiss three different men: ‘one with black hair, one with red hair, and the third blond.’ As she goes about fulfilling her mission, a confrontation with an ex leaves her momentarily shaken, confronting for a moment her life and her actions.

This character is hard to like (though I do like her); she is disdainful of the other guests, of people in general. She is lonely and cold, contrary and perhaps a little damaged. Upon discovering the other guests' coats and purses, she thinks - I am rich but I consider stealing some of the stuff because they are so trusting, these people, and I feel like wrecking their trust.

There are so many things I like about this story, the landscapes the protagonist used to paint, with ‘something bad in it’ and the teacher who never noticed. The dog she called called Off, and her anger towards other women.

Read it!

And while I’m talking about difficult women, I might as well mention the book I finished recently, The Awakening by Kate Chopin, which I enjoyed tremendously.

So if you're hankering after some early American feminist writing...

In romance related news

The last couple of romances I've read have left me feeling mildly dissatisfied. I can't remember the last time I really enjoyed one, but I'm going to mention a couple that rose above the average mark.

Never Romance a Rake, Liz Carlyle. I've enjoyed this series, and I think Carlyle is a great writer, but she's also hugely frustrating. As with NRaR, she sets up brilliantly tortured, complex characters, with really gripping conflicts, and then... she pulls her punches. And I end up feeling a little cheated. I can't really explain it better than that. This is a solid B for me, but it should have been more.

Miss Match by Jo Leigh (Harlequin Blaze). Jane reviewed this in one of her lightening reviews, and I find myself in agreement with her assessment. A pretty decent beauty and the beast romance (the heroine is no beast, just no where near in the same league as the hero), with a strong female lead and very sympathetic characters. The hero's character arc was not entirely plausible, and the heroine's family was completely cartoonish, but it still proved to be an absorbing read. I don't read categories as a rule, but I think I'd read another Leigh. Another B.

Courting Midnight by Emma Holly. Having read the other two in this series I decided to give this a go. The only thing holding me back had been the horrible cover; my Sony reader took care of that. For a Holly (and I'm a fan) this was rather tepid fare. The romance was nice, the writing was nice (channeling the regency vibe I thought. Holly has a very good ear for dialogue and always captures the right tone for her various series). However, I was utterly underwhelmed. C+

To end on a positive note, I found in my possession an old-ish Lisa Klepas I don't remember buying - Scandal in Spring, the last in her Wallflower quartet. I'm no Kleypas fangirl (for the most part, I don't get the fuss), but I enjoyed it tremendously. It even made me laugh out loud in one scene, when the hero is playing a very silly parlour game against his inclination. When did romance novels lose their sense of humour? I can't remember the last time I chuckled my way through a good historical - any suggestions? (And Scandal in Spring gets a very glowing B+)

I'm embarking on the Joanna Bourne express and won't be back until I've got an opinion on The Spymaster's Lady. About bloody time, don't you think? I might be the last person in the blogsphere. I can't wait to weigh in with my opinion. From what I can tell, opinion is mostly favourable, with one or two voices of dissent. Bourne is kind enough to link to these reviews, both positive and negative, on her blog, which I think is very cool of her.

MY NEW TOY

2008-09-03T21:44:00.008+01:00

Oh yes, at long last, I can consider myself a member of that oh-so-cool crew of e-book reading, techno-babble spouting, device-toting vixens (you know who you are). For I have in my hot little mitts, my very own SONY READER.

BEHOLD:

It is a thing of beauty. I have spent the evening in earnest contemplation of the manual, and all the advice available on-line for getting the Reader to a state of Mac compatibility. Which I've done (phew). All that remains is the actual reading.

Alongside the 100 free classics Sony were kind enough to send me (The Sonnets! Crime and Punishment! The complete Jane Austen...) I've got a couple of e-books I've been holding off on until the arrival of this, my precious, my baby, my Reader...

Rumors, Anna Godbersen
Dark Desires after Dusk, Kresley Cole
Never Romance a Rake, Liz Carlyle

Just to conclude - Woot!

THE LUXE, BY ANNA GODBERSEN

2008-08-31T00:36:00.000+01:00

I've just had a lousy week (make that a lousy month, with no foreseeable end in sight). Precisely the time when you need a really good, escapist read.

Which is why this book captured my attention in 'Smiths.

"All of the glitz of The O.C. but with bigger frocks and more dashing boys" cried the endorsement from Elle.

Hmm, I thought, pausing by the bookshelf. I did love The O.C (seasons 1 and 4) and I love big frocks...

I turned it over to peruse the meager blurb:

Imagine if you will,
New York City, 1899...
Society's elite: the glamour, the grandeur, the glittering parties, the most handsome beaux, the most beautiful debutantes... the rich girl, the humble boy, the forbidden love, the stolen glances, the whispers, the scandal, the mystery, the revenge.

Ah, perfect.

The concept - Wharton meets Gossip Girl - appeared to be targeting the Young Adult market. No problem. As I mentioned, escapism was key, and nothing beats the angst of a good YA romance.

Did it do the trick?

Well, yes. Sometimes, a disconcertingly large font, two dimensional characters, transparent plotting, pretty dresses and soap operatic levels of melodrama can work their magic on a mentally tired and restless reader.

So in the spirit of the novel - which is ridiculous, let's be clear - I'm going to do a dramatic review. (Props to this site, for the idea).

The Luxe: a review in four parts

Cast of Characters

Elizabeth Swann

Mama Swann

Little Sister Swann (Diana)

Will, the poor but *OMG Totally Hot* Stableboy

Lena, Elizabeth's sullen maid

Henry Schoonmaker "The baddest bad boy in New York...'

Papa Henry

Evil Brunette, Penelope Hayes

Her Sidekick, the gay BFF

Greek Chorus of Elizabeth's Male Admirers

Pictoral representation of New York society c. 1899

PART 1: ELIZABETH'S FUNERAL

What a tragedy that someone as young and beautiful and pure and good as Elizabeth should die under TRAGIC and MYSTERIOUS circumstances

Oh, how we loved Elizabeth. She was so beautiful and pure and kind and good.

But why is Elizabeth's younger sister smiling?

DUN DUN DUN

PART TWO: PENELOPE'S BALL, 5 WEEKS EARLIER

Elizabeth, I want you to dance with all the rich boys, however repulsive you might find them. Yes, even that cross-eyed Percy with his poisonous breath and groping hands.

Because I am a doormat with no personality or strength of character, I will do as you say, even though I love Will, the totally hot but poor stableboy

My ball is a success! Very soon my plan to conquer New York society will be complete, and I will be more popular than Elizabeth Swann, who is my best friend though I secretly despise her. I will marry Henry, the baddest boy in New York, and together we will rule the city! MUHAHAHA!

You go, girl

*smoking ciggerette* Sigh, I am far too cool and unconventional for this place. Kiss me, random handsome stranger!

Okay.

Nope. Nothing. Will I ever fall in love?!

LATER THAT NIGHT

Life is so monotonous and dull. I need a drink

You are a disappointment as a son and a human being. To make up for your complete uselessness, you will marry Elizabeth Swann, for reasons that make little sense but serve the purpose of the story.

Elizabeth is so boring and pure. Also, I'm totally boning her best friend Penelope.

I will cut off your allowance!

Jeez! Okay, I'll do it!

PART THREE: THE SWANN MANSION

Oh, how I hate my crappy, low wage job as lady's maid to that stupid Elizabeth Swann. But oh, how I love Will, the beautiful stableboy.

Wait, what's Elizabeth doing in the stables in the middle of the night?

I love you, Will! Let's do it, but it won't mean anything because I am rich and posh, and you are a stable boy

Let's run away together. We can go to the West and be ranchers!

See above. But, let's totally have sex anyway.

Okay

GRR!

A CLANDESTINE MEETING

Let's have some skanky villain sex and talk about our future together as King and Queen of Manhatten.

Do you love me?

What is this love you speak of? I want world domination!!!

I need a drink.

PART 4: THE ENGAGEMENT

You must marry Henry or else we will be POOR!

Okay. (Note to self: don't tell Will)

Psst, Will! Elizabeth is totally marrying Henry!

D'oh.

Elizabeth, even thought I think you're boring and bland, will you marry me?

Sure. I guess.

LATER, THE SAME DAY

I really need a drink. Hey, why are you wearing my hat?

Because I am daring and bohemian! Kiss me!

Okay.

Finally - a tingling in my groin! I think I'm in love!

Diana is so daring and bohemian. I think I love her. But I must marry her boring sister or my allowance will be cut

Even though I love Will, I will marry Henry for the sake of my family

Even though I love Elizabeth, I must go to California and seek my fortune. But first, I will leave her letter in case she wants to join me.

She will never see this letter! Will will be mine!

REVENGE WILL BE MINE!

Ice cream?

I'll stop there, in case you actually want to read the book and find out for yourselves how these tangled and emotionally complex story lines are resolved.

One thing's for certain: I can't wait to read Rumors!

I THINK I'M IN LOVE... (not really)

2008-07-24T22:46:00.006+01:00

Spot the difference:

"I can't think of a nicer place to sit this spring over a glass of rosé and watch the boys and girls in the street outside smiling gaily to each other, and wondering where to go for a nosh."

and

"I can't think of a nicer place to sit this spring over a glass of rosé and watch the boys and girls in the street outside smiling gaily to each other, and wondering where to go for nosh."

Yes, that's right. Well spotted. There's an indefinite article missing in the last sentence of the second passage.

This indefinite article was removed from restaurant critic Giles Coren's review by a foolhardy sub. The result is an epic 1,000+ word rant emailed to the guilty parties.

Starting with a benign 'Chaps,' (I love it), Coren continues, I am mightily pissed off...

I don't really like people tinkering with my copy for the sake of tinkering. I do not enjoy the suggestion that you have a better ear or eye for how I want my words to read than I do...

It was the final sentence. Final sentences are very, very important. A piece builds to them, they are the little jingle that the reader takes with him into the weekend....

There is no length issue. This is someone thinking "I'll just remove this indefinite article because Coren is an illiterate cunt and i know best".

Well, you fucking don't.

Of course, Coren goes into great detail at this point to explain exactly why this was "shit, shit sub-editing." It really is too good not to share in its full, virulent glory.

1) 'Nosh', as I'm sure you fluent Yiddish speakers know, is a noun formed from a bastardisation of the German 'naschen'. It is a verb, and can be construed into two distinct nouns. One, 'nosh', means simply 'food'. You have decided that this is what i meant and removed the 'a'. I am insulted enough that you think you have a better ear for English than me. But a better ear for Yiddish? I doubt it. Because the other noun, 'nosh' means "a session of eating" - in this sense you might think of its dual valency as being similar to that of 'scoff'. you can go for a scoff. or you can buy some scoff. the sentence you left me with is shit, and is not what i meant. Why would you change a sentnece aso that it meant something i didn't mean? I don't know, but you risk doing it every time you change something. And the way you avoid this kind of fuck up is by not changing a word of my copy without asking me, okay? it's easy. Not. A. Word. Ever.

2) I will now explain why your error is even more shit than it looks. You see, i was making a joke. I do that sometimes. I have set up the street as "sexually-charged". I have described the shenanigans across the road at G.A.Y.. I have used the word 'gaily' as a gentle nudge. And "looking for a nosh" has a secondary meaning of looking for a blowjob. Not specifically gay, for this is soho, and there are plenty of girls there who take money for noshing boys. "looking for nosh" does not have that ambiguity. the joke is gone. I only wrote that sodding paragraph to make that joke. And you've fucking stripped it out like a pissed Irish plasterer restoring a renaissance fresco and thinking jesus looks shit with a bear so plastering over it. You might as well have removed the whole paragraph. I mean, fucking christ, don't you read the copy?

3) And worst of all. Dumbest, deafest, shittest of all, you have removed the unstressed 'a' so that the stress that should have fallen on "nosh" is lost, and my piece ends on an unstressed syllable. When you're winding up a piece of prose, metre is crucial. Can't you hear? Can't you hear that it is wrong? It's not fucking rocket science. It's fucking pre-GCSE scansion. I have written 350 restaurant reviews for The Times and i have never ended on an unstressed syllable. Fuck. fuck, fuck, fuck.

I absolutely love point 2, Coren going into lengthy detail to explain his mightily unamusing and laboured 'joke.' This conceit is only equalled by his drawing parallels to his restaurant review and a renaissance fresco. Bless.

Lest we think Coren is losing his grip on reality, his continues on an ameliorative note:

I am sorry if this looks petty... but i care deeply about my work and i hate to have it fucked up by shit subbing... I woke up at three in the morning on sunday and fucking lay there, furious, for two hours. weird, maybe. but that's how it is.

Now this kind of wins me over. And, in case you think it can't get any better than 'fuck fuck fuck,' Coren concludes with - wait for it -

Right,
Sorry to go on. Anger, real steaming fucking anger can make a man verbose.
All the best
Giles

I am charmed.

This is not the first time Coren has let loose on a sub. In 2002, the bastardization of the sentence 'The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog' led to a less epically proportioned (though no less impassioned) email, which concluded

never ask me to write something for you. and don't pay me. i'd rather take £400 quid for assassinating a crack whore's only child in a revenge killing for a busted drug deal - my integrity would be less compromised.

I confess, I didn't know Coren from Jack until this afternoon, and I don't really want to know any more. There is something hugely amusing about a curmudgeonly, self-important, articulate man with an ax to grind. Romance is crying out for a Giles Coren! (any suggestions?)

Also, writers, writers of any kind, does the editing process ever reduce you to Coren-like levels of spittle-flying, eye-bulging, vein-popping anger?

IN CASE YOU WERE WONDERING...

2008-07-04T20:55:00.029+01:00

...Yes, this is still a blog about romance novels and to prove it, I'm going to go Covers Crazy.

As I might have mentioned here and there, I'm a huge Goodman fan ("ever since I picked up My Reckless Heart eight years ago..."). Like any self-respecting fan, I've made a concerted effort to read the Collected Works and, Goodman being obliging enough to have started out in the early 80s, that makes it a grand total of twenty-eight full length novels, with another due out in September.

Out of those twenty-eight, I've three left to read (Velvet Night, Violet Fire and Scarlett Lies - there's a whole topic on titles right there), and last week I bought these remaining books. Glancing over what I own already, I couldn't help but think how, over the course of a quarter of a century, Goodman's covers encapsulate the many make-overs and questionable face-lifts historical romance has endured as a genre.

From the traditional bodice ripper of the eighties and early nineties, I've picked some of my favourite examples

I don't know if it's the passing of time, or knowing what comes later, but I have a certain fondness for these covers. The garish colours, the shirtless hero with his wavy mane; the loosened bodice and heaving bosom... it's very old school. Also, say what you will, the covers had some relevance to the story: each of the above depict a scene, or a location in the book. Again, knowing what follows, I appreciate these little details.

Come the mid-nineties, something happens. I'd love to get my hand on that memo, because, half-way through the Dennhey Sister's series, the covers go BLAH.

It's like they vomited birds, flowers and ribbons all over the books and the result - whilst still garish - just becomes a little sad and uninspiring. I wonder what happened in this period to bring about the change - market research, re-branding the genre to move away from the now unpopular 'bodice-ripper' connotations? In any case, between 1994 and 2000, the covers are of this ilk.

Titles, too, change. So the first two Dennhey novels are tempestuously entitled Wild Sweet Ecstasy and Rogue's Mistress and the last three are sweeter - Forever in my Heart, Always in My Dreams, Only in My Arms (mid-series!)

The Hamilton Series in 2000 heralds another change. The front remains twee, but the back cover gets a makeover. The Clinch is back!

Wavy hair? Check! Bosom? Check! Canoodling? Check! Of course, it's a lot more tender and whimsical - less wind-blown-high-seas-adventure-with-forced-seduction and more rose-tinted-let's-make-gentle-love-and-talk-about-our-feelings. Still, there's a sense that change is afoot.

Which is why the next three are a puzzle. The first three books of Goodman's well received Compass Club series get some of the blandest covers I have ever had the privilege to own. And the last one - in a complete change of style, goes retro.

Note, the title changes too. I begin to wonder if Zebra gives a crap about consistency.

The next three books - 2005 onwards - though not part of an official series, are nonetheless connected in time period (regency), location and characters. The first two continue the latest full body clinch...

... but not the third (remember, same author, same publishing house, books linked by time, theme and characters)...

If His Kiss is Wicked, possibly Goodman's most successful book to date, has a cover that departs dramatically from those before it. We all know hot men sell, and this cover appears to have done the job. It's in keeping with a general trend I've noticed, one that either decapitates the heroine or cuts her out of the picture entirely.

You'd think Zebra would be sticking to a successful formula. Think again.

The Price of Desire is due out in September, and they've opted for the Headless Heroine.

The titles shift 'subtly' once again. 'Wicked,' 'Sinful', 'Forbidden:' from emo, we're moving onto something a little more sexy and dangerous.

Spanning almost twenty-five years, Goodman's books provide an interesting record of the trends the genre - and a publishing house in particular - have undergone in that time. It would be interesting to compare with the backlist of an Avon author, just to see if it follows the same general pattern, whether changing the look and tone of a series mid-way through it is normal, and what influences affected those changes.

SOME THOUGHTS ON GEORGE GISSING

2008-07-03T21:59:00.011+01:00

George Gissing is an useful writer if you're after late Victorian fiction less involved with the minutia of character (Henry James et al ) and more concerned with the wider social issues of the day. He writes in broader strokes, is far more accessible than most of his contemporaries, and his depiction of a generally overlooked class - the lower middle class - is both enlightening and refreshing.

I've read three of his books. The Odd Women, based around the question of the New Woman, New Grub Street, and Born In Exile. Gissing's portrayal of genteel women, caught in the trap of poverty with no realistic means of escape (too posh for labour, untrained for the 'male' professions, so their only recourse is to accept degrading and pitifully paid jobs in the limited professions open to them - governesses and teachers) is deeply moving, even when his general attitude to the emancipated woman remains ambivalent.
Similarly, New Grub Street explores the lower rungs of the literary world, how society rewards opportunism and networking over genuine literary endeavour.

Born in Exile, which I have just finished, is also his most striking - and provoking. Its main character, Godwin Peak, a fiercely intelligent and proud man born to a vulgar, lower middle family, seeks to improve his social connections and find an idealised perfect woman by becoming a member of the clergy. The year is 1884 and Godwin is a committed atheist, both by nature and training, yet the only way he can gain equal footing with men he considers his intellectual equals (the upper middle class), and the woman he considers his ideal, is through the social mobility offered by the church.

"There is a case in which a woman will marry without much regard to her husband's origin. Let him be a parson, and he may aim as high as he chooses."

Godwin is an egotist, a snob, proud to the point of self-destruction and one of the most unlikeable characters I have read about in a long time. I got through the first half of the book only because I longed to see his comeuppance. Yet, the sneaking suspicion came upon me that Gissing actually sympathised with Godwin's plight - that this hypocritical, self-justifying egotist was in fact the hero of this bitter, strange novel. The crazy thing is, by the end, Gissing had almost convinced me of it. Not wholly, but I sympathised with Peak - a man frustrated by his class and lack of means in finding a natural place for himself within society.

The double standards to which Godwin is subjected become clear when his dishonesty is denounced as vile, hypocritical and inspired by greed; social-climbing of the most dishonorable order, yet clergymen like the handsome and well-born Bruno Chilvers, who has patently little, if any, actual belief in Christianity is feted as a great, 'broad minded' man, a credit to the modernising church. This is highlighted in an amusing, somewhat heavy-handed exchange between the two men.

[Bruno]'The results of science are the divine message to our age; to neglect them, to fear them, is to remain under the old law .... Less of St Paul, and more of Darwin! Less of Luther, and more of Herbert Spencer!'

'Shall I have the pleasure of hearing this doctrine at St Margaret's?' Peak inquired.

'In a form suitable to the intelligence of my parishioners, taken in the mass. Were my hands perfectly free, I should begin by preaching a series of sermons on ~The Origin of species~. Sermons! An obnoxious word! One ought never to use it. It signifies everything inept, inert.'

Did I mention how objectionable I found Godwin Peak? Here is a sample of his views on womankind:

Conventional women--but was not the phrase tautological? In the few females who have liberated their souls, was not much of the woman inevitably sacrificed, and would it not be so for long years to come? On the other hand, such a one as Sidwell might be held a perfect creature, perfect in relation to a certain stage of human development. Look at her, as she sat conversing with Moorhouse, soft candle-light upon her face; compare her on the one hand with an average emancipated girl, on the other with a daughter of the people. How unsatisfying was the former; the latter, how repulsive! Here one had the exquisite mean, the lady as England has perfected her towards the close of this nineteenth century. A being of marvellous delicacy, of purest instincts, of unsurpassable sweetness. Who could not detail her limitations, obvious and, in certain moods, irritating enough? These were nothing to the point, unless one would roam the world a hungry idealist; and Godwin was weary of the famined pilgrimage.

Popular culture (of a book that has gained widespread appeal):

'...I couldn't read a page. Whatever the mob enjoys is at once spoilt for me, however good I should otherwise think it. I am sick of seeing and hearing the man's name... This book seems to me to have a bad smell; it looks mauled with dirty fingers. I despise Oldwinkle for his popularity. To make them laugh, and to laugh ~with~ them--pah!'

Working class Londoners:

But the London vulgar I abominate, root and branch. The mere sound of their voices nauseates me; their vilely grotesque accent and pronunciation--bah! I could write a paper to show that they are essentially the basest of English mortals.

In a character, these attitudes are startling and unpleasant, but when you suspect that they are the voice of the author - well, it's difficult as a 'modern reader' to adjust to it, to accept with a blithe 'oh, well, it was different then.'

Still, what is extraordinary about Gissing for me is how very real he makes the experiences of these Victorians, with their economies (absorbing to read about the cost of a meal, rent for a room, the price of meat - survival. And then to compare it to the aristocrats I regularly read about in romances, with their thousand pound Worth gowns and flashing jewels). He makes the London fog real (for the best description, there's an incredible passage in The Odd Women), and the petty struggle of maintaining a social standing; the rigid immobility of the late Victorian class structure. The problematic reception to the 'emancipated woman,' and 'radical politics' - in other words, the spread of democracy, which necessarily meant bestowing rights and powers upon the 'unenlightened mob' Godwin so despises. Fear and loathing of commercialism, consumerism and the 'dumbing down' of culture pervades his work.

Most astonishing of all (though perhaps I am being naive) is the battle between science and religion that raged over a century ago, and shows no signs of abating even today. That the debate is alive and well, and its parameters so unchanged seems incredible. Reading Gissing, I feel I can reach out and touch these faraway people, the space of years reduced by the similarity of our day to day struggles, both material and otherwise.

A troubling, infuriating writer, but worth the effort, I think.

-----------------------------

A snippet from a review of Gissing's biogrpahy:

Orwell, who admired him, once proposed that every writer eventually produces a book whose title summarises their attitude to life. Gissing's, you suppose, would be Born in Exile, but the gate-keeper who barred him from the paradisal park of his imaginings - a thousand a year, intellectual company and a "lady" to love - was substantially his own inner self.

Here’s a bio on the Victorian Web

And a website devoted to all things Gissing.

TIRED OF AMAZON

2008-06-13T21:47:00.013+01:00

For the sake of convenience, I buy most of my books from Amazon. Or, I used to. Ever since the ruckus with Reba Belle and the case of the deleted reviews, I haven’t been able to make myself buy from there.

I thought my unease would subside in a few months (and that this would be a great opportunity to make a dent in my tbr pile), but the more I hear about Amazon, the less I’m inclined to throw my money their way.

This morning I woke to a Radio 4 spot recounting a recent dispute over terms between Amazon and Hatchette, Britian’s biggest publishing group.

The story was originally broken by Bookseller last month, when Amazon removed from sale key front and backlist titles from across the Hachette Group (taking away the ‘buy new' button).

According to the radio segment, publishers and retailers split profits on 90% of the price of a book. However, Amazon is pushing "too hard for too great a share." Currently, more than half of the price of the book already goes to the retailer.

Where does this leave the authors? Well, it punishes them - a publisher giving the bookseller a really deep discount effects the author’s share of the pie.

Says bookarazzi,

The ultimate losers are the authors, who get a smaller and smaller slice of the pie. I got 70p per book with a cover price of £10.00. When books are sold at a discount, the author gets significantly less than that (percentages vary according to contract, but they're typically less than 10% of cover price).

In a letter to authors, Hachette C.E.O. Tim Hely Hutchinson stated:

[Despite advantageous terms] “Amazon seems each year to go from one publisher to another making increasing demands in order to achieve richer terms at our expense and sometimes at yours.”

Since then, the agent and author community has come out in support for Hatchette, with one rival publisher stating: “Taking the ‘Buy’ button down is the equivalent of going to a bookseller on the high street and saying, ‘Can I buy that book?’, and them saying, ‘No.’ It’s disgraceful.”

Quite.

I think it’s time to find myself another online retailer. Listed below are some UK alteratives if, like me, Amazon is beginning to smell a little off.

http://www.abebooks.co.uk/
The Book Depository
Waterstones
Play.com

Or... I guess I could buy a mantitty emblazoned book over the counter... yikes.

WANT TO READ SOMETHING GOOD?

2008-06-08T22:37:00.004+01:00

There's a brilliant post up at Reader, I Married Him on romance, colonialism and Brockway's As You desire.

And, while you're there, why not cast your eyes over this post, Masculinity and the Problem of Chivalry. Ever since reading it, I've been looking at romances a little differently. I wanted to use it in my McKenna post, but that thing needed to be put out of its misery, not expanded so that I lost every last reader by the halfway mark...

Anyway, go and be impressed.

EXTREME DANGER, BY SHANNON MCKENNA (an exorcism)

2008-06-03T00:08:00.006+01:00

Shannon McKenna is One of Those Authors.

You know the kind.

I bitch endlessly about her books; after reading one I immediately log on to Amazon to write 1-star reviews. I rant about her to anyone who'll listen. I think her heroes have the emotional depth of teaspoons, her heroines are doormats and her writing so purple, it borders magenta.

But I read every damn one of her infuriating books. That’s right. Every. Last. One. And I hate myself.

After the debacle of Hot Night (a genuinely awful book, with a disturbing and dysfunctional central relationship), I found myself reluctantly won over by The Edge of Midnight, largely thanks to the sweet secondary romance. So I decided that if I was going to read another McKenna, I would do my honest best to analyse what it is about her work that makes it so hard to like and yet so - consumable.

And here I am. Get comfortable, this is going to take some time.

Just to get you into my mindset, I read Extreme Danger right after Kresley Cole’s Dark Needs at Night’s Edge (Thank you Kresely Cole for breaking my book-rut). McKenna and Cole share a certain modern sensibility. I’m not sure how best to put it, but their work is littered with pop culture references, zippy dialogue, techo-talk and women who are more recognisable to me than many others I encounter in contemporary fiction. But the similarities end there. For example, Cole is all about drawing out the sexual tension. In this instance, the heroine Neomi is a ghost and it is more than half way through the book before she actually kisses her hero. Despite this, DNaNE was hot as hell, with some truly sizzling foreplay - all the more impressive for the fact that they cannot touch for such a large portion of the story.

Contrast with Extreme Danger. On page 15, a wet and nude Becca Cattrell encounters Nick Ward for the first time. By page 30, he’s brought her to the big O, and by page 58, she is groped intimately by the villain. And that’s notwithstanding the skanky villain sex. McKenna isn’t wasting any time, here.

Oh, the plot? Nick Ward was due his own book after making perfunctory appearances in four earlier novels, revolving around the McCloud brothers and their respective doorma - heroines. Ahem.

Nick. Right. Nick has been a surly constant in the previous books: ex-FBI, a tattooed, foul mouthed presence paying penance for his unwitting betrayal of Connor McCloud in Standing in the Shadows. However, in Extreme Danger, we quickly learn that Nick has plenty of other reasons to be sulky, bad tempered and socially retarded: a bad childhood (natch), a string of failed relationships, job dissatisfaction. You know, the kind of really dark stuff that would turn any ordinary human being into a suicidal vigilante.

You heard me. Nick plans to take down the villainous Vadim Zhoglo, or die trying. Zhoglo is so evil, his latest money making scheme involves selling the organs of unwanted children for millions of dollars. He is also an arms dealer, human trafficker and all round evil-doer. In his very first scene, Zhoglo punishes one of his henchmen by adding his son to the human shipment “to defray the cost of your errors.” (this, you sense, is the gun that will go off in the third act).

So our Nick is on a suicide mission, infiltrating Zhoglo’s operation by acting as caretaker for one of his properties.

Enter Becca Cattrell. Becca has been a Good Girl all her life, but the end of her engagement to a cheating scumbag (who, of course, has never satisfied her sexually and yet accuses her of coldness) (duh) has liberated her to the extent that she plans to go skinny dipping in the pool house next door - also, coincidentally, the property that Nick is guarding.

And so ordinary, plain-Jane Becca stumbles into a situation wildly out of her realm of experience. So far so Anne Stuart. Nick assumes that the naked, luscious Becca must be a deadly assassin and ‘interrogates’ her to a quivering, lilac hued climax. Despite this, it soon becomes obvious that Becca is exactly what she claims, and Nick is forced to blow his cover to save her life, incurring Zhoglo’s wrath in the process.

And so on. In a campy, cartoonish way, McKenna’s overblown plots, florid prose and EEEVIIIIL villains make for an entertaining read. Even her protagonists, so often the embodiment of all that is wrong with the genre, have their peculiar charm. Her heroes are brawny, inarticulate alphas longing for domestication. As soon as they hone in on their woman, they become drooling, idiotic, erections on legs, prone to all sorts of over-protective, Neanderthal behaviour. Her heroines are quite likeable - relatable, even. Young, modern, single women with jobs, families and the attendant complications. Of course, they fall for the musclebound hero, but they are also dominated and overwhelmed by them. Sex scenes are almost always power struggles in which the hero overcomes and then subdues the heroine. This balance is never redressed.

The elements in Extreme Danger that leave me uneasy are the same in McKenna’s other novels. I’ll list them below and try to explain why they rub me the wrong way.

Sex. McKenna is known for her steamy novels, and Extreme Danger is no exception to this rule. Her prose is explicit and leaves little to the imagination. One reviewer from AAR, described it as cold, crude and juvenile.

My feelings are closer to Mrs Giggles, who said:

The love scenes are very nice, but because there is an emotional disconnect between me and the characters (especially with the heroine who comes off like a fragile ragdoll that needs to be coddled and pampered 24/7), the well-done love scenes are like well-choreographed scenes in an adult movie. Nice moves, yes, but where is the love?

Now, I don’t have a problem with the heroines (until they’ve been utterly cowed by the heroes and transformed into sex-dolls) but there is something about the sex that comes across as vaguely ‘adult movie-esque’ as opposed to erotic and romantic. It could be the excessive use of words like tits, ass and pussy in referring to the heroine, so that she is ultimately reduced to these body parts, objectified and sexualized to the point - half way through the novel, usually - that she loses every other aspect of her personality. It doesn’t help that McKenna’s heroines are all small with large breasts, and that the sex is hilariously, porn-tastically, non-stop.

Even Becca, a ‘plain’ heroine, isn’t spared this objectification. As Nick helpfully points out about her glasses:

“It’s a classic porn motif. The formerly frigid sex bomb secretary, right after her sexual awakening, but before she thinks to ditch the specs and lose the tight bun. Add virginal lingerie and you have yourself a fantasy.”

This might be amusingly meta if McKenna actually subverted the ‘classic porn motif.’ Instead, it is later enacted, in a scene where Nick asserts his sexual dominance in response to Becca putting herself in a dangerous situation and scaring him. Becca remains, to the end, the willing receptacle for Nick’s raging, domineering libido.

Women. This is tied to the sex. Strong themes of male domination run through McKenna’s books. Heroines might be plucky, they might save themselves from the bad guy, but they are small and vulnerable and must be protected by the hero. This protectiveness is cloaked in a jealous possessiveness. In the scene where Nick and Becca discuss being exclusive, this bizarre moment takes place:

He gripped [his erection], fixing a steely gaze at her. “Don’t even look at other guys,” he said softly.

Yikes!

Earlier in the novel, former-hero Seth, ‘playfully’ growls to his wife, “Don’t talk to other guys in a language I don’t know.”

When heroines from past books make an appearance, it is as brides, or mothers/ mothers-to-be. They are excessively interested in match-making and weddings (“Oh God!” shrieks Margot when she discovers Nick has a girlfriend. “I have got to go call Raine and Liv and Erin right away... This is so juicy. I love it. I just love it.” Exit Margot), whilst the menfolk play with their guns and chase the bad guys.

And then you have the glaring exception to this rule, Tamara, a mysterious, ball busting femme fatale who scares the other men with her dark skills and underworld contacts. Tamara is everything the other women are not - McKenna’s most brilliant creation - a woman who says nasty things, who kills and manipulates for her own gain. Who uses her sexuality as a weapon when she needs to, or just for fun. Tamara is the coolest character in these books, the author’s secret voice, perhaps. “She’s succulent” Tamara says of Becca, “I congratulate you on your lovely acquisition.” Even Tamara can see Becca is little more than an appendage.

Add to this potent cocktail, aforementioned Skanky Villain Sex (so last century), some unpleasant depictions of violence against women and girls, and I am left with conflicted feelings, consisting largely of regret and self-loathing.

Am I in an abusive relationship with this writer? Will I ever break free? For how long can I resist the temptation of Baddest Bad Boys?

C- for Extreme Danger.

VAMPIRE LOVER, BY CHARLOTTE LAMB

2008-05-08T21:42:00.012+01:00

(You can see the actual cover of this book on the post below: I thought I'd mix things up a little. The picture above is Vampire by Edvard Munch, also known as Love and Pain).

What an incredible book.

It's so good, I'm not even grading it against other Mills and Boon novels, or Presents. It is, quite simply, a dark, subversive, utterly insane (and I mean batshit crazy) romance. It is a category ON CRACK. And I loved it.

To begin with, a summary. Denzil Black is the Vampire Lover in question, darkly handsome and irresistible to women. Clare Summer, our heroine, is a cool blond ice queen, a successful estate agent with an armoured heart. From the beginning, she fears and distrusts Denzil, noting the effect he has on his lovers. First they are hopelessly infatuated and then, as his interest wanes, so they appear to physically weaken, become pale, listless and ghostlike (indeed, one hapless woman is diagnosed with anaemia). Clare wants nothing more than to stay out of his way, but when Denzil begins to show an interest in her young sister - beautiful, childlike and dangerously vulnerable to his charms - she knows she must act.

And boy, does she act.

I loved lots of things about this novel, but I'll mention a few. Firstly, all the allusions to vampires. It's quite cheeky and not at all subtle, but Lamb goes to town with her hero, Denzil Black, who comes into Clare's town in a swirling black coat and buys the large Victorian gothic house called Dark Tam. ...she saw the man's long black coat blowing around his legs, as if he had wings and might take off at any moment and flap away into the night. At one point, Denzil enquires, "Do you like bats, Miss Summer?" Denzil himself is a big shot director and his last project is a darkly erotic 'vampire film.' Then there is the time Clare can't find his reflection in a glass window (ha) and the dreams she has, in which Denzil 'floats' towards her and bites her: she was fainting, sighing with something between horror and intense excitement, her eyes closing again, the darkness overwhelming her.

And let's not forget, Lucy, Clare's younger sister, shares the name of Dracula's beautiful victim in Bram Stoker's novel.

I also love the physical malaise of Denzil's 'victims' (as Clare thinks of them). No less than two of his ex-lovers are hospitalised and Clare watches with horror as her sister becomes 'pale and edgy, living on her nerves; that was how he made women look.' I love the idea of this, the physical manifestation of heartbreak, the consequence of Denzil' emotional vampirism.

Clare is the antithesis of his victims, who are characterised by their emotional fragility and neediness. She is smart, cool and intelligent. Her reaction to Denzil's other women is a combination of horror and contempt, thinking at one point that a woman who lets a man treat her badly 'deserves a good slap.' (Denzil remarks, 'One day I must find out whether or not you have any blood in your veins.") Of course, Clare has a reason for her coldness; a past betrayal that has taught her to protect herself at all costs. This is threatened by Denzil, whose very presence seems to terrify her, and around whom she constructs the fantasy of a deadly, life-leaching monster, a demon lover.

Clare knows she is beautiful, that her legs are long and slender, her hair sleek and that men like the way she looks. Unlike the other categories I've read recently (mostly Presents), it is Clare who jumps to all the wrong conclusions about Denzil, who judges him harshly for his sexual past. Moreover, Clare is definitely the active agent in this novel, acting decisively when she finds her sister threatened, and taking outrageous steps to stop Denzil from ruining her life.

Which leads me to That Scene. The scene where, unbelievably, Clare decides to take matters into her own hands by drugging the hero, tying him up and, effectively, raping him.

Even warned, I could not believe what I was reading. Let's face it, if a guy tried any of this, he would be roundly and rightly condemned. So what makes this any better? At one point, dying to kiss her trussed victim, Clare considers taking advantage of his unconscious state -

She stared fixedly at him, trembling. He was out of it. He'd never know. She could do what she liked and he wouldn't know anything about it.

Yikes. It is a truly creepy moment and at this point, my outrage and sympathy were all for poor, drugged Denzil. But the very next page, I'm rooting for Clare. Yes, she's made him powerless, yes, she's touching him against his will, but hasn't he done the same to her (hasn't every hero of every Presents done the same?):

"A game was it? You touched me against my will, remember? Like this..." She ran her long index finger over his chest... "'helpless' was the word you used - you said we were at war, and I was a helpless prisoner. Well, look who's the prisoner now. How does it feel?"

He looked stupified.

As did I, reading the passage. Seriously, in one scene, it felt as though Lamb threw away the rule book and let it rip. There is something extraordinarily compelling about Clare's (forced?) seduction of Denzil, and how it frees her of her inhibitions and ultimately forces her to confront her true feelings. "I think I want you," she said, conversationally.

And she takes him.

Of course, things have to go back to 'normal.' In the end, after Clare has dealt with her sister and saved the day, she returns to her shackled lover, frees him, and consequently loses some of her power when Denzil cuffs her to his wrist. He takes the lead in their lovemaking this time, and Clare recognises that she is losing her power and her control over him, that she is as vulnerable to him as he is to her.

There is plenty wrong with the story. I found the depiction of the other women - needy and helpless - deeply unsympathetic. And there's no denying Clare is a little brutal in her manipulation of her little sister (when Denzil points this out, I cheered). Moreover, the description of Clare's outfit - the one with which she practically rapes her lover, no less - made me laugh and cringe at once:

She was wearing a pale blue angora sweater, a string of pearls around her throat, a pale grey pleated skirt and over that a short grey jacket...

Oh, dear.

But anyway, an enthralling read. Refreshing and shocking and highly readable. An A. Why not.

For another take on this tale, try Sandra Schwab's review.

DEADLY WOMEN

2008-04-29T23:59:00.014+01:00

I got Vampire Lover in the post recently, which I bought for a dazzling £0.01 (how is that even possible?!)

The cover impressed me immensely: how cool is the cover? I love that it's the heroine who is biting/ drinking at the hero's neck, I love what it suggests about the power dynamic in the relationship. I love that she might be the 'vampire lover' in question. (I haven't read it yet, so I have no idea how truly subversive/ innovative it is. Right now, I'm simply content to anticipate).

Trying to find an on-line image of the cover led me to the discovery of another picture, called The Vampire by Sir Philip Burne-Jones (1897). I love this image, too. The senseless, supine man laying helplessly as the vampiress straddles him, neck arched and teeth bared. It might have been a direct inspiration for Vampire Lover.

It certainly inspired Kipling’s popular poem of the same name:

The Vampire
A fool there was and he made his prayer
(Even as you or I!)
To a rag and a bone and a hank of hair,
(We called her the woman who did not care),
But the fool he called her his lady fair--
(Even as you or I!)

Oh, the years we waste and the tears we waste,
And the work of our head and hand
Belong to the woman who did not know
(And now we know that she never could know)
And did not understand!

A fool there was and his goods he spent,
(Even as you or I!)
Honour and faith and a sure intent
(And it wasn't the least what the lady meant),
But a fool must follow his natural bent
(Even as you or I!)

Oh, the toil we lost and the spoil we lost
And the excellent things we planned
Belong to the woman who didn't know why
(And now we know that she never knew why)
And did not understand!

The fool was stripped to his foolish hide,
(Even as you or I!)
Which she might have seen when she threw him aside--
(But it isn't on record the lady tried)
So some of him lived but the most of him died--
(Even as you or I!)

``And it isn't the shame and it isn't the blame
That stings like a white-hot brand--
It's coming to know that she never knew why
(Seeing, at last, she could never know why)
And never could understand!''

As it turns out, this notion of the Vampiress, or the femme fatale was at its height towards the end of the 19th century; besides Kipling and Burne-Jones, there was Oscar Wilde’s Salome, Conan Doyle’s Irene Adler, the art of Klimpt and Audrey Beardsley to name a few. (Edvard Munch’s painting Love and Pain is more commonly referred to as ‘Vampire’ and depicts a helpless man in the embrace of a red haired ‘medusa like’ woman.)

The Victorian obsession with the femme fatale has obvious roots: prostitution and syphilis, feminism and the New Woman, which led to a fear of female sexual power and its potential malevolence. As Meier observes -

The myth of the femme fatale, a female character that erotically fascinates and enchants a usually male partner who eventually is ruined or destroyed by this relationship, seems to be a male myth from the very beginning. The various explanations of its origins converge in the concept of patriarchal fear in the face of the suppressed female principle in general - and of female sexuality in particular.

Which brings us to the flip side. Far from empowering women, feminists have long noted that there is an underlying misogyny inherent in the early depictions of femme fatales, a hostility stemming from fear, be it of economic marginalisation or the threat of that ‘dark continent,’ female sexuality. Bram Dijkstra goes so far as to suggest that these images represent the transition of women from victims to the victimizers of men.

So where does that leave me? I love the idea of the empowered, sexually confident vamp, the anto-heroine. But is she a male creation, a combination of masochism and wish fulfillment? A cautionary tale? I can think of hundreds of femme fatales in romance - most of them evil, and punished in the end for their rapacious sexual drive, for shamelessly exploiting men with their sexuality.

Is there a place for the femme fatale in romance as a heroine, and can you think of any good examples? (though I am loath to admit it, Shannon McKenna’s Tamara springs to mind).

The Climax
"Salomé", Oscar Wilde and Aubrey Beardsley (illus.)
1907 ed.

IDENTITY THEFT

2008-04-28T22:18:00.005+01:00

This is a subject many non-Londoners will be tired of by now, but on May 1st, we get to vote for the next Mayor of London.

Politics has no place on a romance blog - right? - but I really can't keep quiet about my hatred for the Conservative candidate, Boris Johnson. The video below does a good job of listing all the reasons why, but it is also the fact that Johnson represents the 'anti-London' vote. To me, living in a city as vibrant, diverse and welcoming as London, a place where multitudes of cultures and communities come together, the idea of an old Etonian toff, a member of the detestable Bullingdon Club - which one blogger describes as "an elite network whose general agenda involves gorging themselves on pate de foie gras and suckling pigs, then wrecking restaurants while singing "Rah, rah, rah, we're going to rule the world". Then they rule the world." - is repugnant.

Like Charlie Brooker (a miserable bastard), I am predestined to hate everything about Boris Johnson because a) he is a Tory b) he is a product of his privileged, upper class upbringing and c) he has said and written things that should immediately disqualify his eligibility to run for public office. In Brooker's words -

Johnson - or to give him his full name, Boris LOL!!!! what a legernd!! Johnson!!! - is a TV character loved by millions for his cheeky, bumbling persona. ... he's magnetically prone to scandal, but this somehow only makes him more adorable each time. Tee hee! Boris has had an affair! Arf! Now he's offended the whole of Liverpool! Crumbs! He used the word "picaninnies"! Yuk yuk! He's been caught on tape agreeing to give the address of a reporter to a friend who wants him beaten up! Ho ho! Look at his funny blond hair! HA HA BORIS LOL!!!! WHAT A LEGERND!!!!!!

Basically, the thought of this buffoon becoming the Mayor of my city makes me ill. It's like taking my identity as a Londoner (which I prize) to a dark, smelly alley and mugging it.

So if the worst happens, if my beloved City becomes the playground of this raging idiot, I'm packing my bags. I'm moving to Scotland. I hear it's great. Although the Scots might not see it that way...

(Warning, the video contains some swearing)

Many more videos here. The Rainbow debate is priceless.

THE OUTCAST, BY SADIE JONES

2008-04-27T14:14:00.003+01:00

Aren’t I supposed to be reviewing books, or something?

This endeavor is hampered somewhat by the fact that I haven’t been reading a great deal recently, and what I have been reading doesn't neatly fit into the definition of ‘romance.’ Next on the list is Lee Child’s latest testosterone fueled offering, Nothing to Lose, so unless I want this blog to wither on the vine, I thought I’d just go ahead and review something.

Lewis Aldridge is the Outcast in question, a 19 year old boy straight out of jail. The year is 1957 and Lewis returning to his middle class home in the English suburbs, where he has long been an outsider, treated with suspicion and distrust because he won’t - can’t - conform to the norms of this closed and affluent community.

The story switches from the present (the summer of Lewis’ return) to the events that led to his incarceration; his father’s return from the war, the death of his mother and the emotional isolation that followed this devastating tragedy.

I haven’t read a great many books set in the 50s (oddly, though, I’ve started to watch the excellent Mad Men and it bears an uncanny similarity to The Outcast in its depiction of affluence and dysfunction), and I wasn’t sure I’d like this. But I read it in one sitting. In one sitting, with tears streaming down my face (I’m easy) and my heart utterly wrenched for poor little Lewis. Why won’t someone hug him, I wondered, wiping fat drops from my cheeks.

Jones has a distinctive writing voice, spare, matter of fact, and she moves the story along very briskly (interestingly, she started out as a screenwriter and this has served her well; the pacing is excellent). I found the writing style - with its very long sentences and multitudes of ‘and’s and then’s - annoying at first, but it’s a deliberate choice to get us inside Lewis’ active ten year old mind. As Lewis grows, so the voice shifts and matures.

What I liked best about the book was the world itself, the claustrophobic, affluent world of the middle classes in the 50s, the glossy exterior and the seething, dark underbelly - best demonstrated by the wealthy Carmichaels, headed by the violent and brutish Dicky:

Dicky often hit Claire, it was his habit, and part of the pattern of the family, and it wasn’t questioned between them at all. None of them had ever, ever referred to it, but Kit got so angry it made her cry with rage.

This from the point of little Kit, another outcast.

What I found absolutely fascinating was the almost ritualised nature of the violence Dicky inflicts on the women in his family, and their acceptance of it, which often bordered on complicity.

Jones’ depiction of the women in this period is also fantastic; from Lewis’ mother, the vibrant, unconventional Elizabeth; the cold emptiness of Claire Carmichael and the growing discontent of Alice, the pretty trophy wife. Again, on the surface everything is fine, but just beneath it, these are deeply unhappy and dissatisfied people, who drink too much, who are abused or neglected by their husbands, who have no means of escape.

She tried to have strict rules about her drinking, but the wait for her sherry at half-past twelve made the morning seem very long. She absolutely wasn’t allowed a drink after her coffee at lunch, so that meant fitting it all in and knowing she then had to wait till half-past six for her cocktail. She knew it shouldn’t mean so much and it was important to stay in control, but she often found it hard to remember why...

Of course, the heart of the story is Lewis. Bright, thoughtful, sensitive Lewis who is very close to his mother and whose death leaves him utterly adrift in a world where he cannot express his grief, and where his repressed emotions leave him prone to violent outbursts. He becomes an outsider, because he cannot be like the others, and his obvious dysfunction is not tolerated by a tight knit community determined to pretend everything is just fine.

I could go on. There is Lewis’ grieving father, who cannot console his son and is the unwitting agent of his son’s downfall. There is Kit, the observer, who knows everything is wrong but it powerless to do anything about it. Beautiful, vain Tamsin and the weak wiled Alice. Then there is the powerful, evil, monstrous figure of Dicky Carmichael, the embodiment of all that is wrong with the world.

There are many dark moments, and few bright ones. At times, I wondered if things could get any worse - and they did. It is a desperately sad story, but ultimately uplifting. If you’re wondering why on earth you should pick this book up - well, there are moments of grace, and the story ends on a good note.

Sadie Jones said she wanted to write about an outsider, an outcast, someone who is rejected by society, but it is society itself that is damaged and corrupt. I think she did a really good job. This is her first novel, and it has been nominated for the Orange Prize (which she is strongly tipped to win).

I met her at a reading a few days ago and I can only add that she is also quite the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. Doesn’t really seem fair.

An A. Not a romance, exactly, but an engrossing and intelligent read.

HOUSEKEEPING

2008-04-12T13:16:00.010+01:00

I've decided to change my profile picture to something a little more representative of me (if you look at the new picture sideways, through squinted eyes, it looks vaguely Mariam-like). But it is with regret that I say goodbye to Lady Colin Campbell.

A few years ago, I read a fascinating account of her notorious marriage and divorce to Lord Colin Campbell, the second son of the Duke of Argyll: Victorian 'Sex Goddess.' Lady Colin Campbell and the sensational divorce case of 1886 by G. H. Flemming. This very public divorce case enthralled the country and filled the pages of newspapers with salacious detail, containing as it did all the elements of a good scandal - sexually transmitted disease (syphilis), various infidelities, allegations of cruelty and endless other examples of the upper classes behaving badly.

Her husband accused Lady Colin of conducting affairs with some of the most eminent men in Victorian society, including George Spencer-Churchill and Captain Eyre Massey Shaw, Chief of the Metropolitan Fire Brigade. Although found not guilty on these counts, she was nonetheless a intelligent and attractive woman who attracted many notable men, including George Bernard Shaw (who described her as a 'goddess') and the artist Whistler.

Born Gertrude Blood, Lady Colin stands out for many reasons unrelated to her sensational divorce. Her first article was published at the age of 14. Her first work of fiction (published when she was 21) went through seven printings. She was a singer who often gave recitals and her art was frequently exhibited. After her separation from Lord Colin (she was not granted a divorce, though it was accepted her husband had given her syphilis), Lady Colin survived on the proceeds of her writing, principally for newspaper articles and journals. She contributed to the Saturday Review and eventually became one of the first female editors of a London paper that was not for women (World).

Although I can't find any reference to it just now, I think she also wrote an impassioned defense of smoking, which is also kind of cool.

An astonishing, unconventional woman brought to life through a series of newspaper articles, transcripts, letters and reminiscences. In the words of one journalist, she posessed -

the unbridled lust of Messalina and the indelicate readiness of a common harlot.

I prefer to think of her as the kind of kick-ass Victorian I would like to see between the covers of more historicals, a bright, intelligent, unconventional figure who is no less admirable for all her flaws and foibles.

BOOK LEARNIN'

2008-03-10T22:13:00.007Z

Woot! I just got Pamela Regis's A Natural History of the Romance Novel in the post today.

I've been meaning to read this forever (well, since the Bindel Fiasco) and the first 16 pages have been very instructive.

The book is a refutation of the claim that "the form of the romance novel genre - its ending in marriage - extinguishes the heroine and binds the reader." (11)

Regis argues that it's not in the HEA (or 'the betrothal') that the true meaning of a romance novel is found, but the 'barrier' and the 'point of ritual death.' The freedom our heroine achieves in overcoming these elements is what we the readers relate to. It is the heroine's freedom to choose the hero that we celebrate at the end of a novel.

I think.

That's me at page sixteen. I remain to be convinced, sitting somewhere in the middle of Bindel and Regis in this great never-to-end debate. Behold:

WHEN PEANUT BUTTER TASTES BAD

2008-03-05T20:44:00.009Z

I've been meaning to write about this for an age, but a recent article in The Guardian tipped me into action mode. Where The Guardian leads, I follow.

"Unrequited love is nearly a universal experience. It is the stuff of literature (Cyrano de Bergerac had it badly but carried it nobly) and of deep despair. A study of 155 men and women in the Journal Of Personality And Psychology, from Case Western Reserve University in Ohio, found that only 2% had never experienced unrequited love (defined as an intense, passionate yearning that is not reciprocated). The study counted being rejected and rejecting someone as such an 'experience'. Men were a third more likely to have suffered unrequited love because of rejection."

Continues the wise Dr Dillner,

"Some people are more prone to unrequited love. If you are anxious (about relationships), emotionally needy and fall in love rather easily, then you're courting disappointment. Passion is great, but too much, too soon can push people away."

What brought on my interest in this neglected area of romance were the lyrics of the Harrow Sparrow, our very own warbling and tweeting Kate Nash. I kind of love her album, and I was struck by two tracks in particular, which articulate so well the highs and particularly the lows of unrequited love, or a giant crush. Listening to them made me remember all those times I've been in the throes of an agonising infatuation: the sweaty palms and the clumsy tongue and the excruciating blushes.

Nash has songs that go on forever, so I've plucked some choice lyrics

We Get on
Simply knowing you exist
Ain't good enough for me
But asking for your telephone number
Seems highly inappropriate

Seeing as I can't
Even say hi
When you walk by

[After a very funny and rambling narrative, Nash concludes on these prosaic and sweet words]

I don't ever dream
About you and me
I don't ever make up stuff about us
That would be classed as insanity
I don't ever drive by your house to see if you're in
I don't even have an opinion
On that tramp that you're still seeing
I don't know your timetable
I don't know your face off by heart
But I must admit
That there is still a part of me
That thinks we might get on
That we could get on
That we should get on

And then The Nicest Thing, wistful and full of longing,

I wish I was your favourite girl
I wish you thought I was the reason you are in the world
I wish my smile was your favourite kind of smile
I wish the way that I dressed was your favourite kind of style...

I wish you had a favourite beauty spot
That you loved secretly
'Cause it was on a hidden bit
That nobody else could see
Basically, I wish that you loved me
I wish that you needed me
I wish that you knew when I said two sugars,
Actually I meant three

There's just something about the way Nash blends the everyday mundane with sadness and longing that really got me. I'm not usually a fan of yearning and angsting and wishin' and hopin' but these songs have made me want to read some romances that deal effectively with the torments and obsessiveness of unrequited love.

In the past, I've shied away from this type of romance, possibly because pining heroines in the classics I was forced to read as a kid - books like Sense and Sensibility, Mansfield Park, Villette, The Professor (the entire works of Charlotte Bronte, let's face it) - left me angry and frustrated. Do something, damnit! Stop moping, ladies! Not to mention, the object of all this repressed longing was rarely worth the trouble.

Another practitioner is Mr Charles Dickens, who creates intensely passionate feelings in the hearts of his male protagonists. The foolish passion Pip felt for Estella (I never had one hour's happiness in her society, and yet my mind all round the four-and-twenty hours was harping on the happiness of having her with me unto death); the deep love John felt for Bella in Our Mutual Friend, which was ultimately returned; and Sydney Carton's love for Lucie Manette in A Tale of Two Cities ("You have been the last dream of my soul..." ).

Which brings me to my next point: I think men are intrinsically more sympathetic as the victims of unrequited love. Where Elenaor and Fanny made me gnash my teeth, Mr Darcy, Rhett Butler and Gilbert (Anne of Green Gables) made me sigh and melt. Perhaps it's a female thing: the thought of powerful, handsome men pining away for a woman must appeal on a wish-fulfillment level.

One of the few sympathetic portrayals of female unrequited love is Cassandra's for Simon in I Capture the Castle, an absolutely fantastic book about being young and in love.

More recently, romances I've read with one half of the couple secretly in love with the other include The Smoke Thief, That Linda Howard Sarah's Child - and - and -!

Not much else, really.

Some recommendations, please! Anything that makes you sigh with fellow feeling as you recall in excruciating detail the follies of your youth will do.

I leave you with the immortal words of Charlie Brown -

"Nothing spoils the taste of peanut butter like unrequited love."

GRIMSPACE, BY ANN AGUIRRE

2008-03-01T01:48:00.009Z

Are you afraid of falling, baby?
No, I’m afraid of landing.

[He’s laughing and I’m smiling.]
Stupid idiot smile, don’t you know what comes next?

Sirantha Jax is a jumper. A carrier of the J-gene, she has the rare ability to navigate through Grimspace (and if you want to know what that is, read the fragging book). The story opens with Jax incarcerated in a Corporation facility in the aftermath of a jump gone bad. She is the sole survivor of a crash that killed 82 souls, including her pilot and lover, Kai. Jax has been jumping for fifteen years - a record high; for jumpers burn out fast and end up either dying mid jump, or quitting when they sense they are close to burnout. She is in deep grieving for Kai and her mind is close to destroyed, in no small part thanks to the interrogation techniques employed by the Corp Psychs, who are trying to get her to confess to crashing The Sargasso.

Jax is rescued from her cell by a mysterious man called March, the leader of a renegade band of fighters seeking to break the Corp monopoly on intersteller travel - and they need Jax in order to create a new breed of jumper.

Right. I was worried when I started Grimspace that I would be ill-equipped to deal with the sci-fi aspect of the story, as I don’t read in the genre. Luckily, my background in TV sci-fi is fairly solid (the various incarnations of Star Trek, Firefly, the new Battlestar Galactica) and I found myself settling into Aguirre’s world comfortably enough. Too comfortably, perhaps: I kind of wish one of the reviewers hadn’t said it reminded her of Firefly/ Serenity, for I immediately began to make comparisons with the show, and Whedonverse in general:

A rag tag assembly of quirky characters who quip at the most importune of times? Check.

Small women with immense power? Check. (looking forward to finding out more about Kerri)

Scary intersteller organisation seeking to impose hegemony over all civilised worlds, against which our heroes are fighting? Check.

More generally, any sci-fi from Star Trek to Battlestar has a certain core group of characters aboard a ship - captain, hot shot pilot, grumpy engineer, Doc, and the alien who allows us to gain perspective on our own humanity. (I suppose in romance parlance, these characters are the equivalent of the Other Woman, the Bad Mommy, the Slimy Rapist, the Fairy God Mother etc etc).

So anyway, sci-fi conventions all present and correct. (‘Jumping’ is also a term I've encountered in Battlestar Galactica, although Aguirre has taken this beyond the FTL travel and into grimspace, which is a very cool and interesting concept, particularly in the interdependent relationship it creates between jumper and pilot.)

Indeed, as I was reading Grimspace, I noted it was like watching an action movie, lots of action, great visuals. And Aguirre creates a vivid set of characters and locations, each more strange and exotic than the next. It is an eminently readable book, with short, crisp chapters and a constantly moving story that picks up speed nicely towards the end. The immediacy of the present tense-first person narrative means we experience everything with Jax, which adds to the excitement. (On the down side, there are times when everything is exploding and lives are in danger and Jax is explaining something utterly mundane and I’m thinking - run now, cogitate later!)

What makes Grimspace stand out are three things. Firstly, the writing. Aguirre is good and shows promise of getting better. I loved bits like this - The sky looks like a boiled potato - and this - A smile like a corrupt halo file flickers at the edges of her mouth. Her evocation of Jax’s loss and emotional fragility is also very good. I liked reading this book.

Secondly, there is Jax herself. So often authors attempt to create tough female protagonists and end up with wimpy losers. With Jax, you get what it says on the label. She is tough; she fights first, thinks later (thinking isn’t her strong suit, she readily admits). When it comes to saving her own skin, she’s a committed survivor and when it comes to making hard decisions, she doesn’t think about the children, she thinks about the odds. I love it. Plus, she enjoys sex, is more than happy to have good sex with a hot guy if it ensures safe passage (seriously!) and even remarks at one point, I know I don't look as good as I did before the crash, but I’m a rocket in bed. Cool, no?

Thirdly, the body count. I appreciate an author who can kill off her characters, and Aguirre really piles up the body count.

What doesn’t work for me is the romance, and part of that is related to the character of March. In a story bristling with quirky, unusual characters, there is something depressingly familiar about March. He is a Romance Hero and there is no escaping it. His fate is revealed from the first, when he is described as having a 'rough hewn, authoritative face’ and a ‘saturnine smile.’ I have no idea what he looks like, but I know he’s the Romantic Interest. Show me a rough hewn face that isn’t.

The romance between Jax and March is almost shoehorned in, and most clumsily at first. Jax is annoyingly juvenile in her initial interactions with him - There’s a five year old inside me that wants to kick his shins. This sort of elementary school flirtation just sits wrong, particularly when she is simultaneously recovering from the recent death of her lover. I could have done with a less antagonistic relationship between these two, perhaps based on mutual, grudging respect and a strong attraction.

March has a troubled past and a hyperactive saviour complex. He develops over the course of the story, but I guess there’s no breaking the mold, for in the end he remains a familiar creature: an incredibly powerful male - he’d kill the world for me - with a tortured past. It is his love for Jax that saves him and any threat to her life that unleashes his terrifying power.

I thought the resolution to the story was rushed and a little too easy (did no one else think to check the agenda?), but like a well executed action movie, it left me with a good buzz.

A highly recommended B.

[An aside: I would be really interested to know what a sci-fi reader thought of Grimspace. Does it break new ground? What kind of sci-fi is it? Leave a comment.]

AN EARLY BIRTHDAY PRESENT

2008-02-19T19:15:00.013Z

The older I get, the more I dread them.

So this piece of timeless wisdom hit me in a particularly vulnerable spot:

Despite her frailty, Nani's voice was steady, strong. You're twenty-six, naantin. You are beautiful, but if you wait much longer you will have only divorcés and shop owners to choose from."

Demon Moon, Meljean Brook.

NOOOOOO!!! Not (gulp) divorcés!

(Good book, btw).

Anyway, Fate - perhaps sensing my delicate emotional balance at this most unhappy of times - sent me an early birthday present today. I got home to find:

The Vampire Queen's Servant, by Joey W. Hill
Queen of Dragons, by Shana Abe (shiny!)
Demon Night, Meljean Brook
The Spymasters Lady, Joanna Bourne
London in the 19th Century, Jerry White

AND

The thrilling ARC (hey, my first ever) for Ann Aguirre's Grimspace.

So my birthday will pass in a happy haze of oblivion, with no Nani to warn me of time's decay. Unless she turns up in Demon Night.

Incidentally, one of the most annoying things about growing older is when heroines start getting younger than yourself. It'll be the heroes next... (see: The Scream)

TWENTY FOUR REVIEWS AND A POLL

2008-02-10T18:53:00.015Z

Polls are good fun and I regret not taking part in last year's top 100.

So I thought the AAR Annual Readers Poll would be a great opportunity to atone for that piece of laziness. Just one problem: I haven't read a great many books published in 2007 and there are 32 categories in the poll. 32. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I didn't read much last year, and what I read was sometimes uninspiring. However, to rectify the matter, I have spent the past week and a half catching up on some of the notable reads of 2007. Namely, If His Kiss Is Wicked, Untouched, Never Deceive a Duke and Not Quite a Lady.

This brings my total reads in 2007 to an underwhelming 24, which I have put in a groovy table (there's no stopping me). Of those 24, I've highlighted the books that stood out for me in particular.

Behold! (Or, rather, squint... Clicking on it will make it bigger. Shut up.)

It's clear my ballot is severely compromised by my limited reading and I am left with some troubling questions.

9 books for 32 categories? Is 32 categories 22 too many? Can I really say Wicked Deeds on a Winter's Night was the best paranormal of 2007 when I've only read two other Paranormals from the same year? Why haven't I read any Sci-Fi? Why is there a 'tortured hero' yet no 'tortured heroine' category? Can't heroines be tortured? They seem like increasingly tortured creatures to me.

How can I create proper tables on blogger?

ETA: Creating a proper table will take me a few more sleepless nights. Watch this space.

IF HIS KISS IS WICKED, BY JO GOODMAN

2008-02-09T21:41:00.002Z

IN WHICH MERIAM APPROPRIATES A FAMILIAR FORMAT

Dear Jo Goodman,

Please stop writing regencies.

Let me be clear. I love your work. In the last eight years I’ve read all but three of your books and I wouldn’t rate any of them below a B. In a genre brimming with stock characters and recurring plots, you have consistently created characters and stories that shine with originality, plotting that shows careful thought and intricate implementation. You have mysteries that genuinely mystify, twists I don’t see coming and characters I can’t easily decipher.

I’m a fan. My Reckless Heart (which I must blog about) is one of my top 3 romances of all time.

In the twenty plus years you’ve been writing romances, your heroines have ranged from reporters, engineers, actresses, photographers, doctors and artists. There was even a nun thrown in, for variety. You’ve set your stories in Colorado, New York, Australia, San Francisco during the Gold Rush, the South during Reconstruction, the revolutionary period - and that’s just off the top of my head. More recently, your last seven novels have been set in Regency England. I believe your next novel is also a regency. Sadly, the hackneyed plot description does nothing to ease my mind.

XOXO
Meriam

----

If His Kiss is Wicked is the story of Emmalyn Hathaway and Restell Gardner (first seen in One Forbidden Evening) and it begins with a familiar Goodman premise: Emma is a woman mired in mystery, her life is quite possibly in danger and her closest family and acquaintances cannot wholly be trusted. She goes to Restell - the younger son of an aristocratic family - because she has heard he solves problems. And Emma has plenty of problems. You don’t really want to be Emma, even though she has blue-green eyes and a perfectly pared nose (all Goodman heroines do). I don’t want to spoil anything by being too specific for those of you who haven’t yet read it, because Goodman is the master of unexpected twists and there’s a pretty good one right at the beginning.

So, Emma hires Restell to protect her. Of course, Restell is fascinated by Emma. And credit to Goodman, all her heroines are more than worthy of their heroes, and vice versa. Forgetting their beauty for a moment (honestly, I don’t think Goodman needs to have beautiful heroines; they don’t need to be), a Goodman heroine is always

• Incredibly smart
• Gifted

• Selfless to the point of martyrdom
• Emotionally closed up (she always has the power in the relationship because the hero is constantly unsure of her whilst being utterly besotted himself)
• Carrying enough baggage to sink a barge
• Her family is almost always evil and consequently, she needs to hero even if she won't accept it at first (glaring exception: the Dennheys).

So, of course, this combination is fatal and heroes are snared all too easily. Restell is no exception. And, truly, you’d be into Emma too. By the time her really annoying traits are revealed, it’s far too late in the book for Restell to turn back: he’s well and truly hooked.

Restell is also a typical Goodman hero in that he is:
• A thoroughly good guy
• Not macho, but his masculinity is never compromised
• Smart enough to keep up with Emma
• Respects and admires her from the start
• Has a decidedly sane and healthy background which allows him to provide an emotional sanctuary for Emma.

Emma lives with her Uncle - a famed artist - and her cousin Marisol, who is everything that Emma is not: outgoing, vivacious, utterly self-absorbed and consequently a bit of a selfish monster, but charming enough to get away with it. Someone’s life is in danger but, because Marisol and Emma are very similar in appearance, it is up to Restell to discover whose.

Emma’s worst trait is her willingness to think the best of everyone, in spite of glaring evidence to the contrary, and a lack of care for her own well-being.

A deviation: I’ve been catching up on my shameful reading past, that is to say, I’ve discovered a wonderfully snarky blog about the Wakefield Twins and because the two things happened at the same time, I can’t help but compare Jessica and Elizabeth to Marisol and Emma. Because... they look alike and have blue-green eyes. Below, I've listed some further characteristics to illustrate these similarities.

Casey (over at the Diari Burger) diagnoses Jessica with a Histrionic Personality Disorder, which, hilariously, fits Marisol rather aptly - here’s a checklist
• Constant seeking of reassurance or approval.
• Excessive dramatics with exaggerated displays of emotions.
• Excessive sensitivity to criticism or disapproval.
• Inappropriately seductive appearance or behavior.
• Excessive concern with physical appearance.
• A need to be the center of attention (self-centeredness).
• Low tolerance for frustration or delayed gratification.
• Rapidly shifting emotional states that may appear shallow to others.
• Opinions are easily influenced by other people, but difficult to back up with details.
• Tendency to believe that relationships are more intimate than they actually are.
• Make rash decisions
• Threaten or attempt suicide to get attention

But I digress. My point is that Emma takes a little too much of Marisol’s crap and suffers for it by looking like a bit of a idiotic do-gooder/ enabler. In fact, like Liz, you could say that Emma is a typical co-dependent.

Criticisms aside, there are many reasons you should pick up a Goodman if you haven’t already. For one thing, she writes very well, and evocatively. Here’s a scene from the story:

Oak leaves turned their silver-green undersides upward as a rush of wind swept through the park. Slim birches shivered. Two young women walking side by side had to make an instant decision whether to save their bonnets or their collective modesty. They simultaneously put both their hands on their heads and let their skirts snap and flutter so that silken ankles , calves and even knees were revealed. Giggling, they spun about. ...

Can’t you just see it? Goodman’s dialogue has been praised, too, for its authenticity and whilst I agree that it is very good, I see her more as a late Victorian (truly, her tone is more a sly Wildean than breezy Austen. You can just picture Restell’s mother as a Lady Bracknell type). This is partly why I wish she would leave the Regency period behind. Her tone is really too dark for it. Plus, her characters deserve to be set in a period when their horizons are wider - all those smart and capable heroines would do so much better in a time when they could actually utilise their talents to become reporters, actresses, doctors, businesswomen.

Lastly, seven Regencies on the trot? Goodman is too good (heh) an author to go stale. The best - like Gaffney or Kinsale - experiment. They try new times and places. I don’t want to be a lone voice of dissent when Goodman is finally getting the recognition she deserves, but I’ve felt her last couple of novels have bled into each other to the point where I can’t even begin to tell the characters apart.

A B for If His Kiss is Wicked. Were it not for the deja vu my grade would be higher.

TOPLESS ONCOLOGY: WHY I LOVE HOUSE

2008-02-09T00:01:00.000Z

Well, there's Hugh Laurie. Then there's Robert Sean Leonard and the sizzling Lisa Edelstein. I really don't need to go on.

However, my incorrigible shipping tendencies have become all confused and muddled since watching the last two episodes of House, because I can't work out who has the best chemistry; House and Wilson, or House and Cuddy.

Take a look. I would add a third (Wilson and Cuddy) but, quite frankly, this cropping and chopping of videos has really strained my mad techno-skillz. I'll leave it at this. For now.

LIKE A THIEF IN THE NIGHT, BY BETTIE SHARPE

2008-01-28T23:48:00.003Z

This is a big impact read, like a swift kick in the gut, but in a good way.

Arden is a cold-blooded assassin. No, really. She's nasty and lethal and entirely lacking in scruples or sentimentality. Her weapon of choice is a garrote. She's really good at her job and her next victim is the beautiful thief Sevastien Aniketos. In another time and place, thinks our ruthless, bloodthirsty, lusty assassin, they would have been lovers.

Things don't go as planned and Arden finds herself at the mercy of the Thief, gorgeous, enigmatic and immortal. Power games of a highly charged and sexual nature ensue.

This is one twisted, violent, bloody read and I kind of loved it. Secretly, don't we all want to be Arden, in a slinky black stealthsuit that eats up the light?

At 89 pages, it is a quick read - I read it in one sitting - and extremely satisfying.

B+

HEARTS AFLAME, BY JOHANNA LINDSEY

2008-01-23T21:45:00.002Z

If you have to read story about love in the time of slavery you could do a lot worse than this one.

Published in 1987 - over twenty years ago! - this book earns its B+ honestly, keeping me turning the pages long after 3am on a work night. (Lindsey used to do this to me on school nights, too, although back then I was young enough to shrug off four hours of sleep).

I read Heart's Aflame for the first time more than ten years ago, and remember enjoying it tremendously. After the curiously flat Virgin Slave, Barbarian King, I decided to give it another go, wondering if my enjoyment was a result of my a) youth b) newness to the genre or c) genuine discernment.

I can't claim it as an example of good taste, but I really got into this one.

Kristen Haardrad is the daughter of a wealthy Viking merchant. The year is 873 AD - some 400 years after the events of VS,BK - and Kristen is a young woman looking for love. For Kristen’s parents - who got their own master/slave treatment in Fires of Winter - are deeply in love and her mother has filled Kristen’s young mind with dreams of true love and finding her perfect mate. Unfortunately, none of the studly young men in Kristen’s part of Norway seem to set her pulse fluttering and so - with characteristic impulsiveness - Kristen stows away on her brother Selig’s ship, ostensibly on a trading voyage to the east, where she hopes to meet Mr Right.

Unfortunately, the trading voyage is but a facade for an old fashioned raid, the sacking of a monastery in the kingdom of Wessex. There, the planned raid is curtailed by an Saxon ambush and the surviving Vikings (of which Kristen is one, disguised as a boy), are taken captive by Royce of Wyndhurst, one of King Alfred’s nobles.

Royce hates Vikings. Five years ago, Danish Vikings raided Wyndhurst, killed his father, brother and fiance. His first instinct is to kill every captured Viking, but wiser council prevails and he puts them to work doing hard labour. To the smaller Saxons, the brawny Vikings are viewed with awe and fear. They are kept shackled and under constant guard.

Smooth faced and slight (-er than the others), it isn’t long before Kristen’s ruse is discovered and she is separated from her fellow Vikings and sent to the kitchens as a domestic slave. Royce is initially disgusted by her, thinking she is the Vikings’ whore, and a ‘big, manly woman’ to boot. Of course, all this changes when Kristen emerges from her bath, nice and clean, and ‘too lovely to be real.’

And so the battle begins. Only, it isn’t much of a battle. Royce is appalled to find himself attracted to a Viking, is constantly unsettled by her mercurial temperament and confident sensuality. Accustomed the delicate ladies of his household, with their easy tears and emotional manipulation, Kristen is refreshingly honest and unafraid of his size or temper.

Similarly, Kristen is immediately taken by the handsome Saxon ...she couldn’t stop herself from admiring him, too. She had always enjoyed watching strong, well-proportioned male bodies. Just that last night of the feast at home, her mother had caught her staring overlong at Dane... A strong, handsome body was a feast for the eyes, and her mother had taught her not to ashamed that she thought so. And the Saxon lord had not only a superb body but a very handsome face as well.

What I particularly loved about this book was Kristen. She’s a five foot ten Nordic super woman. Her mother has filled her mind with all sorts of nonsense, and then armed her (naturally she can wield a knife/ dagger - duh). To top it off, she’s smart, brave, funny, good natured and beautiful. I should hate her, but I somehow don’t.

The things that would make me hate her - TSTL behaviour, inconsistency, lazy character building - are absent. Kristen makes sense. She’s grown up with men - her hulking alpha male father, her brothers, her cousins, her friends - and is entirely comfortable around them. Her impulsiveness is her worst characteristic and it is what leads her to stowaway on her brother’s ship. (There is also her pressing need to find her True Love, but I’m blaming her mother for that). Kristen is no stranger to hard work and accomplishes her gruelling tasks with ease. She hates her shackles and does not wear them willingly. It is the biggest source of conflict between her and Royce. She is refreshing in her recognition and acknowledgement of the attraction she feels for Royce: It was ironic that the first man that she should desire herself, after being desired by so many, should be the one man who resisted her. She was sure she could have him if she set her mind to it. But would he be honourable enough to marry her afterward?

What is also ironic is that Kristen’s role in this tale is one usually reserved for the hero: she is the sexual aggressor. More than once, she tricks and manipulates Royce into bed. She is attuned to her sexuality, finds Royce physically attractive from the start and acts on this where Royce is initially unwilling. She is also brave and strong. The first scene of the story - like VS,BK, like many bodice rippers in this vein - is an attempted rape. Kristen saves herself with the first of many displays of strength and cunning. She also saves Royce’ life, outwits bad guys and takes it as a personal affront that she failed to kill her brother’s killer (part of the reason she remains shackled for so long is her stated intention to kill this man, Royce’s charming cousin). This Viking is bloodthirsty and merciless when she has to be.

One of my favourite scenes from the book is when Kristen is taken to the bathing room with a small army of terrified women (for she is a giant freak to them) and two male guards. Kristen accepts the women’s assistance but balks at the male presence. Consequently -

Royce could hear the shrieks and screams as he approached the hall. He entered just in time to see Uland literally tossed out of the bathing room. Aldous stumbled out right after him, and then tripped over the younger man and went sprawling too....

“What the Devil is going on here?” Royce bellowed from the door.

“She would not let us bath her!”

“Tell him why, lady,” Kristen managed to gasp.

She was lying flat on her back on the floor, with four women sitting on top of her. They had come at her from behind just as she chased the old man from the room. Tripping her to the floor, they had pounced on her immediately. She could barely breath now, with one on her chest, another on her stomach.

Tee and hee. I can’t help it. It’s great fun. There’s another scene where Kristen kicks ass with her chains and I lap it up.

Royce is pretty cool too. He has his baggage - the dead fiance, whom he loved, and his consequent hatred of all things Viking - but he is not unjust. His treatment of Kristen is fairly reasonable (and I say this despite the chains, whipping and one spanking!) He has a temper, one that sends the women in his life into hysterics but that fails to daunt Kristen. In fact, Royce is quite the grouch and it is Kristen who lightens him up.

There are so many problems with this book I could highlight, but the irreverent nature of the story (clearly, it is not taking itself too seriously), the charming cast of characters (Vikings and Saxons alike), the brisk plotting and the humour that imbues every page makes it impossible to dislike.

A B+ for a great read. And a nostalgic sigh for the Lindsey Golden Age.

ON FERRETS: WHY PLAGIARISM IS BAD AND SOME OTHER THINGS, TOO

2008-01-13T02:24:00.000Z

The Smart Bitches have used their mad investigative skillz to uncover some veerry interesting information about Cassie Edwards. Of course, by now none of this is news to any sentient being in Romance Land, but I think it warrants a mention in passing. If only to say - Plagiarism Bad. Tree Pretty.

Also, as a reader and a blogger, it's cool to see The New York Times and, more locally, The Daily Telegraph (though, boo! right wing rag) pick this up. It's certainly newsworthy. For one thing, Edwards has more than 10 million books in print! Ten. Million. 10,000,000. In print. In the world.

A couple of points worth mentioning.

I find it interesting that it took a non-romance reader to discover the initial discrepancies. I could make a sweeping assumption about the average Cassie Edwards' reader, but it's more than that. I don't think many romance readers read critically, and I think we - I- have a high tolerance for The Bad. The chaff. Our senses are dulled to it. In other words, we can wade through a great deal of crap in the hopes of discovering that next great read, so much so that we barely flinch at the dire and we certainly don't question it.

In the last week, I have found and read a Cassie Edwards. At first I was appalled. Now, reflecting on the experience, I can't help but wonder if Edwards is some sort of satirist. Because if that's the case, lines like these -

When she had made brief eye contact with Shadow outside her father's study, she had seen enough gentleness in his eyes to know that he would not harm her. Even now as he bound and gagged her he had done it with a keen gentleness! His eyes, as the moon revealed them to Maria, spoke of much that touched her heart and unleashed her passion! (Savage Dream, p76)

"Having to pay to have my woman returned to me is the last straw!" he said to himself, his heart paining him to think that Maria might have been raped, perhaps even repeatedly! (Savage Dream pp276-277)

I want to see things right with my parents before I enter into a marriage with you. While riding alone in the desert before passing out from exhaustion and hunger, I had much time to think." (Savage Dream p291)

- Lines like these take on a sort of mad brilliance. Add a hero who refers to himself in the third person and you have a masterful and layered parody of the romance genre.

In other news, black footed ferrets are seriously cute. For weasels.

ETA, The Smart Bitches have discovered that numerous passages in Savage Dream bear 'remarkable similarities' to a Pulitzer winning novel, Laughing Boy.
ETA This is very funny indeed. For posterity.

And score one for the ferrets. Perhaps Cassie Edwards can look back on the whole episode with a tinge of pride; for were it not for her copious and badly done plagiarism, the black footed ferret would be languishing in obscurity, forever overshadowed by its glamorous counterparts.

VIRGIN SLAVE, BARBARIAN KING BY LOUISE ALLEN

2008-01-05T21:53:00.001Z

This was a particularly difficult review to write because I wanted to address two points. Firstly, my impression and enjoyment of the story at ‘gut-level,’ purely as a reader of romance novels. Secondly, my analysis of the novel in the context of the remarks made by Julie Bindel. Ironically the novel succeeds as an argument against Bindel’s most outrageous claims, yet fundamentally fails to satisfy as a historical romance.

The Virgin in question is Julia Livia Rufa, a pampered Roman virgin and the daughter of a powerful senator. The Barbarian is Wulfric, a Visigoth, and the story begins during the Visigoth sacking of Rome in 410 AD.

Wulfric saves Julia from a near rape at the hands of her own countrymen and decides that she will do nicely as his house slave - purely on impulse, as he later acknowledges to himself; for she is “neither the wife he should acquire nor the domesticated slave who would make life more comfortable.” Despite the attraction he feels for her, Wulfric is an honourable man who disapproves of rape and makes it clear to Julia from the outset that he has no intention of violating her.

Julia has always done as she is told; “shop here, wear this , go to this party, not to that one. Be friends with those girls, this one is unsuitable... Marry Antonius Justus Celsus. Yes father, yes mother. Whatever you say...” She has to, for the first time in her life, rely on herself, fight for herself if she wants to be free and return to her civilised world. Her stubborn rebellion is pitted against Wulfric’s implacable resolve and the two butt heads as Julia rails against her new life as a slave.

Reluctantly at first, she is drawn into Wulfric’s world, the world of the (to Roman eyes) uncouth, unsophisticated and primitive barbarians. As his slave, she learns to cook and clean the tent she shares with Wulfric and his young ward, Berig. She forms a close friendship with Una, a neighbouring kinswoman, and unsuccessfully fights her growing attraction to the gold skinned, musclebound barbarian who owns her. As the story progresses, Julia finds herself more at home amongst the Visigoths than she ever felt in Rome, recognising that her previous existence was lonely and sterile by comparison.

Julia and Wulfric’s mutual attraction and growing love is challenged by Wulfric’s eminent status among his people: as ‘king-worthy,’ he is a strong contender for kinghood once the ailing Alaric dies. Consequently, Wulfric knows he has to make a good marriage that will bring him key allies and ‘many spears.’ He cannot afford to marry a Roman slave if he hopes to succeed Alaric.

VS,BK follows the Visigoth’s sacking of Rome and the aftermath - the Visigoths’ journey to the south in search of a homeland. You could even say it’s a road-trip romance, with much of the story taking place on the move. There’s plenty of historical detail, enough to satisfy a reader who, like me, has a limited knowledge of the period. Indeed, there were times when I was more interested in domestic minutia or the inner workings of the famous public baths than the romance taking place between Wulfric and Julia.

As anyone reading my recent blog entries must know, I am currently disenchanted with my favourite sub genre - historical romance. In particular, I find myself gnashing my teeth over what I vaguely describe as the ‘wallpaper historical,’ which, to my mind equals at least one of three things: shoddy research, inappropriate dialogue or a too-modern sensibility (it is, I grudgingly concede, impossible to shed entirely our modern attititudes). My problem with Virgin Slave, Barbarian King was the sinking realisation, as I progressed into the novel, that I was reading a story about two very nice 21st century people supplanted into the year 410 and forced to enact a master/ slave paradigm about which both were very uncomfortable and mildly embarrassed.

In particular, I found Wulfric almost laughably perfect. This tall, golden, king-worthy warrior, wise in council, fierce in battle, loves animals and small children. Wulfric is the perfect man; sensitively appreciating when Julia might need space, holding her when she cries at night in her sleep, soothing her when she is sick. He - naturally - abhors rape and assures Julia she has nothing to fear from him. After taking Julia’s virginity in a (SPOILER!) consensual and mutually satisfying encounter, this gentle warrior - wracked by guilt - compares his action to plucking a lily and watching it wilt in his hands.

The problem was this: Allen has taken a situation ripe with conflict and then effectively removed the heart of the conflict. Julia’s initial resistance to her situation lasts about two days and is illustrated in a series of cheeky, defiant gestures that are easily quashed. As it says on the tin (blurb), “Julia realizes that she’s more free as a slave than she ever was as a sheltered Roman virgin.” This realisation dawning so soon in the book, I was left with two thirds of the novel left to read, and very little compelling me to continue.

In her excellent response to Bindel’s comments on Mills and Boon Romances, Robin says: ...”some of my favourite books are those that struggle with very difficult power imbalances and all sorts of attendant anxieties.” to which Sarah Frantz replied: “I absolutely think romances represent our attempts to work through some of the more threatening aspects of power imbalances in patriarchal society.”

These comments struck me because some of my favourite romances deal with this imbalance beautifully - To Have and to Hold, My Reckless Heart, Voices of the Night, The Smoke Thief. These stories work so well because the imbalance is compellingly portrayed, before it is negotiated and then redressed to achieve a satisfying HEA (to put it very simply). Having failed to present a compelling power imbalance with suitably high stakes (incredible as it seems, in a master/ slave dynamic) the romance fails to take off in VS,BK.

I was left thinking that the only other master/slave romance I have read - Johanna Lindsey’s Hearts Aflame, complete with spanking, chains and a giant Viking heroine - worked better as a romance. Johanna Lindsey!

Does the provocatively titled, limply portrayed Virgin Slave, Barbarian King challenge Bindel’s assertions? Is this misogynistic hate speech? Does it promote patriarchy and fuel rape fantasies? This is particularly interesting because, of course, women did not fare well in Greco-Roman thought and many of these misogynistic attitudes were prevalent in early Christian society. I have no idea whether Wulfric was a particularly enlightened Visigoth or if the Goths as a whole had a less repressive attitude towards women. In any case, Julia’s ‘feisty’ and ‘stubborn’ behaviour is approvingly considered Goth-like in the story. Indeed, Wulfric declares that women of spirit and courage are valued among his people, ready to defend their hearth or settle ‘insults.’ Julia uses her wit, her strength and her courage to return to Wulfric when he tries to send her home. She fights a tougher, stronger woman in self-defense (earlier on Wulfric fights a much larger man). Over the course of the novel, she wins over the surly Berig so that he becomes her champion. Her character is developed so that she becomes a worthy mate to the king-like Wulfric. She finds her place within his world and feels she belongs for the first time in her life. Of course, this is in the capacity of a house slave - cooking, cleaning and mending for her master. Her close friend, the fecund Una, is mother to a small tribe and a happily married woman - the ideal? Julia’s options throughout the novel are domestic options - she can return to Rome and become the wife of an influential senator, or stay with Wulfric and keep his home, most likely as his slave.

Wulfric, for all his qualities as a leader, is a man in search of a home. Always on the march, he has clung “to the vision of a villa somewhere in Gaul, shady courtyard, lush fields...” and finds that Julia has “given him a home wherever she [is].” In the end, he achieves this vision. Although Julia and Wulfric’s happy-ever-after is predictable and breaks no new ground - marriage with kids on the way - it is not achieved without sacrifice. Julia gives up her life in ‘civilised’ Rome, her parents, her powerful fiance and a position in the top reaches of society to be with Wulfric. Wulfric gives up his claim to the kingship. His more symbolic gesture, the (SPOILER!) cutting of his ‘sacred’ hair for Julia is huge. “You might as well cut off his balls,” says Berig earlier on in the novel. That’s some symbolic castration for you, and an element of this - civilizing the barbarian hero, or ‘taming’ the bad boy/ rake, is evident in every romance Bindel might choose to pick up. As Sarah Frantz asks over at TMT: Who is the subjugated?

To conclude, Bindel’s comments have brought to the forefront issues about the genre I’ve never considered before in a serious or critical way. To be sure, Bindel echoed many of my own prejudices about Mills and Boon romances (particularly the Presents line), which I am now keen to reevaluate. Moreover, it has forced me to make a stand in my own mind about what, if any, role romance has in promoting a patriarchal agenda. All popular culture is guilty of promoting the dominant ideology of any time, and romance is most definitely not exempt from this. There are recurring themes in the romance novels I read, enduring trends that remain popular - the alpha male; bliss in domesticity; the almost ritualised mistreatment (emotional or physical) of the heroine before a moment of enlightenment; male as the sexual aggressor - that would make it impossible to argue otherwise. I am left with a comment that struck me over at Teach Me Tonight (I love you guys!):

angel:

Bindel's article made me think that a Romance doesn't have to be like those horrid twenty M&B books she read to be patriarchal. All it has to do, imo, is be written by someone who's not actively trying not to be patriarchal. The unexamined assumptions are just going to come through, whether in a "funny" conversation where the hero razzes his male friend for being "like a girl" to show male bonding... or where the hero's allowed an active sex life, and the heroine must be a virgin to be worthy, or where the hero "tames" the heroine by forcing sex on her... whatever, it's going to be there to a greater or lesser extent. Much like the way that racism is... going to be in any work created in a racist culture, if only in the complete unrealistic absence of people of color, or the fact that the behavior of the token of a particular ethnicity follows racist assumptions.

In Virgin Slave, Barbarian King, Louise Allen is certainly not guilty of ‘unexamined assumptions.’ Indeed, in her painstaking care to ensure a level balance of power between slave and barbarian, paradoxically - tellingly? - something crucial is missing from the romance.

This gets a grade C+ from me. In order to ensure my review was pure and uninformed by the opinions of the Witty and Wise, I have refrained from reading the plethora of reviews gracing blog-land for this novel. I'm now off to see what the others made of it.

MY YEAR IN READING

2007-12-31T21:17:00.001Z

It should probably come as no surprise that, in the year I spent more time than ever reading and writing about romance, I read less than ever before.

Looking at my list of reads over the past year, I’m struck by how underwhelmed I was by most of it. My favourite sub-genre is historical romance, but I only read a handful in 2007. On the other hand, I delved deeply into ‘vic-lit’ and greatly enjoyed the likes of Tipping the Velvet, The Glass Books of the Dreameaters (more a steampunk fantasy historical, but...) and the excellent The Crimson Petal and the White. I'm tired of 'wallpaper' historicals: one of the few I enjoyed was Lydia Joyce's well written and atmospheric Voices of the Night.

New authors I tried and liked included Lydia Joyce, Kresley Cole, Lynn Viehl and Shana Abe. Which makes me think that the paranormal/ fantasy elements in Romance are beginning to win me over. I have a stack of JR Ward's Black Dagger novels beckoning. Similarly, I'm awaiting the release of Meljean Brook's Demon Night before I dip into her much lauded Guardians series.

And so, without further ado, I present my Top 10 Winners and Losers of 2007

Best Reads (in no particular order)
Half of a Yellow Sun, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Lord Perfect, by Loretta Chase
Shark Music, by Carol O'Connell
Tipping the Velvet, by Sarah Walters
Glass Books of the Dream Eaters, by G W Dahlquist
Dirty, by Megan Hart
Voices of the Night, by Lydia Joyce
Smoke Thief, by Shana Abe
No Rest for the Wicked, by Kresley Cole
Indiscretion, by Jude Morgan
The Erotic Secrets of a French Maid, by lisa Cach

Worst Reads
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, by J K Rowling
Up Close and Deadly, by Linda Howard
Dangerous Lover, by Lisa Marie Rice
All About Men, by Shannon Mckenna
The Raven Prince, by Elizabeth Hoyt
A Lady's Pleasure, by Rennee Bernard
The Petrakos Bride, by Lynn Graham
Wedded by Contract, Bedded by Demand, by Carole Mortimer
The Unfortunate Miss Fortunes (not terrible, but very disappointing), by Crusie, Dreyer and Stuart

...And books I am eagerly anticipating in 2008
The Spymaster's Lady, by Joanna Bourne
Private Arrangements, by Sherry Thomas
Evermore, by Lynn Viehl
Queen of Dragons, by Shana Abe
Shadows of the Night, by Lydia Joyce
Dark Needs at Night's Edge, by Kresley Cole

... to name but a few.

Here's hoping 2008 is a more rewarding and entertaining reading year. Certainly, there are a number of books on the list above I am very excited about.

MY LIFE AS A SHIPPER

2007-12-16T20:23:00.000Z

I've just finished Volume I of Buffy Season 8. In comic form. Packed with all the wit and action of the TV series, it brought all my love for the series flooding back. It helps that a lot of the characters I grew to hate were largely absent (take a bow Spike, Kennedy and Anya). On the other hand, characters I loved were back with a vengeance - funny, capable Xander; sweet Willow; quippy, ass-kicking Buffy. Ah, good times.

Unfortunately, it also brought forth my latent shipping tendencies. In this case, Buffy and Xander. Or, Xuffy if you will. Bander?

Buffy's indifference to Xander - surely the most courageous and undervalued Scooby - has always been one of my biggest peeves. The guy is clearly devoted to her. Why can't she see that?!

The sad truth of the matter is, I cannot watch a show without shipping the characters. I am one of Those People. And I wish I wasn't, because I am very bad at it. There's always a strong possibility one half of any couple I ship will end up dead. Or evil. Or evil, then dead. Or headless.

Let me give you a few examples:

Angel and Cordy. We all know how that ended. DEATH (via treachery, under-age sex, demon pregnancy and character assassination).

Apollo and Roslin. This was one of the relationships that drew me into the series. Mary McDonnell is beautiful and amazing and generally awesome in every way. Great legs. Will she ever be paired with the young hottie Lee Adama? No, she's for his grizzled old man. Of course. The world would obviously explode in a fiery apocalyptic cataclysm if an older woman and a younger man ended up together in a popular US TV show.

Alex and Addy. What happened?! Okay, the stupid spin-off.

CJ Cregg and Sam Seaborn.
CJ: Sam, Sam, the sunshine man. Get on the couch, I'm gona to do you right here.
Sam: Okay.

House and Cuddy. This could happen. But would - obviously - end in disaster.

Michael and Sara. Now here's a perfect example of me shipping = grizzly death. RIP Dr Sara. Sniff.

I could go on. But I won't. The avid romance reader in me sees simmering attraction and UST everywhere. Seriously, I thought Scully and Skinner had a shot. Lorelai and Christopher. Paris and Janeway. Veronica and Leo! I'm hopeless. It ruins everything I watch and I wish there was a cure.

I will end on a high note. When things go my way, when the stars align, the payoff is sweet.

I bring you Pacey and Joey - the ship that began this whole sad mess. Damn you, Dawson's Creek!

A Follow-Up

2007-12-12T11:12:00.000Z

Of course, it couldn't end there. Louise Allen has written a response to Julie Bindel's now notorious critique of the genre and Mills & Boon in particular.

Allen writes:

"All Mills & Boon authors, writing for the varied lines - a broad spectrum of contemporary stories as well as the historical novels - aim to meet the fantasies and interests of their readers within parameters they feel comfortable with. My heroes appeal to me - sexy, successful, strong men with a sense of honour and humour. My heroines - independent-minded, resourceful and far from submissive - respond to them in ways a 21st-century reader can identify with. That is not "patriarchal propaganda".

Bindel's words have sparked a fascinating debate all over the (romance) blogging world. In particular, I urge you to read the smart, provocative, thoughtful and challenging comments here, here and here. And here.

Daisy Cummins took the time to respond to my post below, which was very cool of her. Unsurprisingly, many romance writers were upset at Bindel's assertion they were writing misogynistic hate-speech. Go figure. Some readers felt the piece was patronising in its assumption that they were unable tell the difference between reality and fantasy, whilst others were willing to take a more analytical approach to the debate.

I wonder if anyone has approached Bindel with an interview request.

On a related note, on Monday The Guardian printed a letter from one Sam Shuttleworth enquiring:

According to a secondhand bookseller in Oldham, young ladies of Asian heritage can't get enough of Mills and Boon (100 years of heaven or hell?, G2, December 5). Whose opinion of the books, and their readership, does that confirm - Daisy Cummins's or Julie Bindel's?

I don't know what clumsy truths Mr Shuttleworth would like us to draw, but certainly 'young ladies of Asian heritage' form a large part of the M&B readership in the library service I work for. Having said that, as in Oldham, 'young ladies of Asian heritage' are a large customer base full stop.

To conclude, my own foray into the world of Harlequin/ M&B has ground to a halt at page 52 of Lynn Graham's The Petrakos Bride. There's only so much rampant masculinity, scorching black eyes (with the mysterious ability to turn gold at moments of extreme emotional turmoil) and overweening arrogance I can take from my reading material, and I can only assume that the Presents line is not for me.

The Darkyn Novels

2007-12-10T00:27:00.001Z

I’ve been rabbiting on about paranormals for a while now, my desire to read a JR Ward (US edition of Dark Lover has duly arrived) and compare it to others in the genre. In the middle of all this prattle, I’ve managed to get unexpectedly hooked on a vampire series I haven’t heard much about in blogland. It has flaws (none of the books I’ve read - three so far - come above very solid B+ grades for me) but it works and the characters manage to avoid a lot of the pitfalls I find so frustrating in romance novels.

It helps, I guess, that the series doesn’t quite fit the ‘romantic’ label. It has strong elements of horror, suspense, fantasy and some science fiction thrown in for kicks. The tone is dark, gothic and not a little melodramatic (making a nice change from the effervescent Kresley Cole and testosterone fueled Lara Adrian).

If Angels Burn, the first in the Darkyn series, centers around Dr Alexandra Keller, a successful plastic surgeon in Chicago with the distinction of having ‘the fastest scalpel in the world.’ This earns Alex the attentions of a reclusive and mysterious New Orleans’s millionaire, Michael Cyprien. For Michael is a grotesquely disfigured vampire (vrykolakas for those of you in the know) desperately in need of Alexandra’s unique skills. When money won’t tempt Alex to New Orleans, she is snatched from the streets and taken to Michael’s underground lair, forced to perform a radical and unorthodox surgery on a man who regenerates within minutes and can only be operated upon with instruments made from copper. Appalled and fascinated, Alex reconstructs his face to its former glory and, in return, Michael almost kills her (bloodlust will do that to you). To make amends, he infects her with his blood in the faint hope that it will heal her, for Darkyn blood is poison to humans. Days later, Alex wakes up in Chicago with little memory of where she has been for the past week - and some very unusual symptoms.

From there, things only get more complicated as an angry Alex is drawn reluctantly into the dark and complex world of Michael Cyprian and the immortals known as the Darkyn.

How much do I like these books? Let me count the ways.

1. Alex. Here’s a woman who initially skates very close to the dreaded Mary Sue syndrome but somehow manages to steer clear. Alex has a successful practice in Chicago, she takes on pro-bono cases to help the poor and disfigured. Naturally, she is overly invested in her job, with little time for a personal life, although she has a causal lover who takes care of those needs when they arise. What’s great about Alex is that her profession is not something that is tacked on because the plot demands it and forgotten thereafter. On the contrary, that Alex is a physician and a scientist is an integral part of the character - it is evident in her response to Michael’s disfigurement, her reaction to her own infection and how she deals with it. The latter, particularly was an unexpected pleasure. Confronted by her imminent vampirism, Alex uses her medical knowledge to understand what is happening to her and control it. She is an active participant in the story and its progression - more so than Michael, in fact. She is - refreshingly - a skeptic. Where the Darkyn are overly superstitious (fitting for creatures of the Dark Ages) and melodramatic, she is pragmatic and logical:

[Michael] “God cursed us for our sins, and condemned us to walk the earth as demons, feeding off the blood of the living.”
...
[Alex] “Maybe you’re not cursed. Maybe you’re just infected with something extraordinary. Say two or even three pathogens that together altered your physiology on the molecular level. Something that made you evolve into another kind of human. If you carry that in your blood, then you can infect anyone.”

Ignoring the wacky science, Alex is a strong and unusual character. Far from being overshadowed and overwhelmed by her vampire lover, she is often in danger of eclipsing him.

2. The Darkyn. Viehl has clearly given time and thought to her vampires, providing them with a backstory steeped in the bloody history of the Crusades and an ambivalent relationship with God. On top of that, the Darkyn are a complicated lot, with tangled allegiances and entrenched customs. Michael is suzerain of the New Orleans jardin, answering to the Darkyn’s mysterious and rather creepy leader Richard Tremaine. Each Darkyn has a special scent - l’attrait - that can enthrall humans, and a psychic talent unique to each. As the series progresses, more is learnt of these talents, their physical traits and potential vulnerabilities.

3. The bad guys. These are the Brethren, a bloodthirsty lot of religious freaks (cliche!) loosely connected to the church. When I say bloodthirsty, I mean it. There is torture aplenty, and gruesome descriptions of death. The Brethren attempt to recruit Alex’s brother - a priest - into their order and John Keller’s ambivalence towards the Darkyn and the freaky Brethren is a running thread through the series.

4. Plot plot plot. There’s so much going on in these stories it’s sometimes hard to keep track. Each novel has at least one too many balls up in the air (often involving the tiresome John Keller), and what makes the stories so gripping - the frenetic pace, the tight plotting, the intriguing array of characters - is also its biggest weakness. At times, it is too much to absorb and I sometimes wished more attention was payed to the primary story.

5. The romance. Alex and Michael’s story does not end with If Angels Burn. This relationship continues to develop in the next two books, albeit taking a back-seat to the primary romance, and the struggle of these two ‘alphas’ to accommodate one another grows more fascinating as the books progress.
Moreover, no two couples are the same. Private Demon (2) has a gentle romance with two damaged protagonists whilst Dark Need (3) is darkly erotic and edgy. The change in tone and dynamics is welcome - there are no stock characters here.

I could go on. But for now it is enough to say that the Darkyn have pleased me greatly, sidestepping a whole bunch of cliches, whilst neatly subverting others. It’s particular strength lies in the depiction of its female leads (no blushing virgins, no doormats and no tstl moments to serve the plot) confident plotting, and a rapid pace that leaves me wanting more.

Rape embellished with meaningful looks?

2007-12-05T13:13:00.000Z

Over at The Guardian, Daisy Cummins and Julie Bindel celebrate/ deride a hundred years of Mills & Boon. It's just another instalment in the regular love-hate tug-of-war between M&B writers and 'serious' feminists. And, of course, there are plenty of gaudy covers and choice snippets from back covers to besmirch the genre. Although, honestly, don't we shoot ourselves in the foot with the likes of "The Desert Sheikh's Captive Wife"?

Some pertinent points.
Cummins:

I consider myself a feminist. Not perhaps in the sense that my mother would have called herself a feminist. That fight was fought, and necessarily. For me, feminism means being economically independent; able to pursue the career of my choice without being thwarted; free to make decisions concerning my body, or my vote. I have never struggled with sexual discrimination.

Bindle:

My horror at the genre is not directed towards either the women who write or, indeed, read them. I do not believe in blaming women for our own oppression. Women are the only oppressed group required not only to submit to our oppressors, but to love and sexually desire them at the same time. This is what heterosexual romantic fiction promotes - the sexual submission of women to men. M&B novels are full of patriarchal propaganda.

Now, I am not a reader of M&B (though some of Tumperkin's reviews have tempted me to pick them up again) and I decidedly dislike the Presents line, but arguments like Bindle's patronising notion of women as willing participants of their own oppression drive me up the wall.

Misogynistic hate speech? Patriarchal propaganda? Er, not quite. A part of me finds it difficult to reconcile my love of romance with some pretty entrenched feminist principles (indeed, I have yet to 'come out' to my more strident friends), but there is a distinct line between reading escapist fiction and colluding with the forces of patriarchy. Right?

A recent post at Teach Me Tonight discusses the "inextricability of Harlequin romance from the ideology of democracy and capitalism." Laura Vivanco wonders if Harlequin Presents are "narratives of capitalist success." So if we can confidently point to a symbiotic relationship between Presents and the economic system underpinning Western civilisation, why not the social system that supports it? Of course, my perspective is one in which Patriarchy is still very much in force and will continue to be until women are earning as much as men, rape convictions go up and the leader of the free world is finally a woman (go Hilary!)

Capitalism, Democracy and Patriarchy? It doesn't sound too far fetched.

ETA: I take issue with Cummins "the fight was fought" and "I have never struggled with sexual discrimination." IMO, this is an extremely complaisant and short-sighted attitude, particularly since I believe the fight for equality between the sexes is far from over.

PEEVED!

2007-12-02T17:33:00.001Z

What's a girl to do?!

Two years after its debut, I'm considering picking up a Black Dagger Brotherhood book. I've been on a paranormal glut these last few months and think it's past time I experienced this much discussed series. Even though these days all I come across are bitter, disillusioned ex-Ward fans with dashed expectations and stony hearts, there must have been something there to stir such emotions, to cause such a backlash in the first place. Like Buffy after season 5. My anger and betrayal was that much greater because I loved everything before the travesty of season 6 so damned much.

JR Ward has four Black Dagger novels on AAR's recent top 100 poll. She has a string of decent reviews over at AAR and Dear Author. Sarah at Smart Bitches calls this stuff crack. At Teach Me Tonight, Sarah G Frantz mentions the BDB is her favorite paranormal series.

Perhaps I should stay away for my own peace of mind, but I'm hopelessly intrigued. I want to know what the fuss is about.

Which brings me to my current peeve.

The covers.

Over here in the UK, the books have been released with covers dissimilar to what I have come to associate with the series. I like the US covers (see above) and I particularly dislike the UK version. Take a look.

The UK covers are awful. Still don't believe me? Look again!

Unh. I prefer the US versions. They are bolder, more striking and relevant to what I imagine is the tone of the stories. I don't want to own six copies of the crappy UK editions. But in order to gratify my own fickle notions of what is right and good, I will have to pay significantly more to buy from the US (shipping is murderous). Am I being ridiculous? Are the differences minimal? Quite possibly.

In my quest to find better covers, I went to JR Ward's website. There, the German editions caught my eye. So much better!

As I dither and pontificate over what to do, I can't help but feel let down by my country. In the past, I've felt rather smug about our covers. Take Eloisa James for example. Where my US counterparts had to suffer the garish absurdity of this:
I could buy the infinitely more tasteful:
And poor Loretta Chase. Some of her covers are deadly. Look at the US Lord Perfect...
How civilized the UK cover looks by comparison!
It's maddening that something so very petty is going to take a huge chunk out of my (potential) enjoyment of the series. Also, not to beat a dead horse, but just why are romance novel covers so bad? I can't help thinking that the genre would be taken that much more seriously if the covers weren't quite so garish. It would certainly make the purchase of these novels easier for me.

Off to sulk.

Bareback, by Kit Whitfield

2007-11-05T02:03:00.000Z

This was the second of my two unexpected pleasures. And it couldn’t be more different from a gentle regency romp if it tried.

Not exactly a romance, although there is a love story at the heart of the novel, it isn’t precisely a paranormal either. Yes, there are werewolves involved, but the manner in which Whitfield tells this story - so prosaically and with such matter-of-factness - makes the extra-ordinary very ordinary indeed.

In fact, it is our heroine Lola Galley who is out of the ordinary. As a ‘bareback’ she is part of the minority: the 2% of the population born with a rare defect that makes them unable to turn.

Life is easy for the ‘lycos,’ or the majority. Once a month, on the full moon, they lock themselves up and 'fur up.' A full moon means something entirely different to the ‘nons’. They get to patrol the eerily silent streets and parks, on dogcatching duty. For there is always a were or two breaking curfew - the winos, the serial re-offenders, those wanting to roam free. And so the barebacks provide a valuable social function: they regulate the world when the werewolves can’t.

The reality of this existence hits you fast. In the first page Lola mentions her scars - ‘we’ve all got scars.There’s a deep slash running up the inside of my left forearm from my first dogcatch; a heavy dent in one of my hips from when I was twenty-two; a map of lacerations around my calves - and I’m a good catcher, I get mauled less than most.” This is normal. The maiming or death of a catcher does not make the news.

For the rest of the month, Lola works as a legal advisor for DORLA, the Department for the Ongoing Regulation of Lycanthropic Activity. There’s no choice involved; every non-lyco is conscripted into the service at the age of eighteen, where they are taught everything they need to know in their chosen field of work, plus administration, animal handling and marksmanship. Lola’s life could not be any more different to her lyco sister, Beth, with whom she has a strained and distant relationship.

The story begins with the mauling of Lola’s good friend, Johnny, who loses his hand on a catch gone bad. Lola is forced to defend his attacker, a lyco with a mean streak and a very patchy defense. A few days later, Johnny is shot dead. When a second DORLA agent is killed in a similar manner, Lola is left to solve the case before she becomes the next victim. Naturally her investigation uncovers anomalies, lies and deceptions that lead her to the very heart of the organisation she works for. Alongside this, she falls into a relationship that challenges all her closely held prejudices, reexamines her relationship with her sister and attempts to make peace with her own troubled and violent past.

It’s a paranormal, a whodunnit, a love story and a cautionary tale all wrapped up in a dark and unrelenting package of cynicism and gloom. In a nutshell.

This is Whitfield’s debut novel and there are many things to praise. The world building - so perfectly rendered that every fantastical detail seems normal and mundane. In her blog, Whitfield mentions how important it was that the book, set in a fictional city, seemed as local as possible to the reader. Thus, the US edition adjusts language and references to make it as un-jarring as possible. She deftly weaves historical and contemporary events and situations into the story, from the Inquisition to dealing with HIV, until you can’t tell where the unreality begins.

Perhaps the best thing about the novel is how the differences between the lycos and the nons is portrayed. Through Lola’s eyes, you see how she and her kind are percieved; as a social stigma, a family embarrassment, a ghoul and a bogeyman. “Be good or the barebacks will get you.” Lola wears gloves in public - no matter the weather - so no one will see her tender, uncalloused palms and know her for what she is. Nons live apart, socialise apart and work apart. They are feared by the general populace, representing terror, imprisonment and a draconian system of rule that falls outside the remit of the ‘normal’ world. When it becomes clear that nons are being targeted for assassination, Lola’s anger is bitter and fierce:

“It’s so perfect. Of course. They lay down rules that set us to guarding them from each other every month. We bleed and die and have to treat them with tender caution because if we hurt them the least little bit when they try to kill us, then the next morning they’ll rise from their beds and sue. For this they call us names and pay us nothing and let it be known that they despise us.”

But there is a flipside. We get to experience the brutal and unchecked power of DORLA. When a lyco is brought into the system, there is nothing to save them from violent interrogation or prolonged detainment with no charge. It's a two-way thing, a dark and symbiotic relationship.

This mutual fear and resentment is reinforced through the names they have for each other ‘barebacks,’ nons,’ ‘doggies’ and ‘lycos;’ through popular childhood nursery rhymes and cautionary tales.

Whitfield writes well, and powerfully. There are scenes of tenderness, of brutality and gruesomeness and it’s all held together by some very lovely prose and striking imagery: “I can hear his breathing dragging over his shredded throat like metal over stone.”

B+ for this. At 550 pages, it’s a long read but gripping and thought provoking.

Note: the US version of this novel is called “Benighted.” According to Kit Whitfield’s FAQ, the US publishers thought Bareback would give the wrong impression. Or something.

Indiscretion, by Jude Morgan

2007-10-23T00:04:00.000+01:00

I read Indiscretion in one sitting and enjoyed it immensely. Partly because I had absolutely no expectations approaching it and partly because it was light, witty, smart and entertaining. What more could I ask of it?

Caroline Fortune has had an unconventional upbringing in the shadow of her rakish, unreliable father - a dandy, soldier, actor in one incorrigible bundle. Dodging debt-collectors and making do with less than desirable accommodations is second nature to her. So when her father confesses to losing every thing he owns, she determines to make her own way.

But Captain Fortune finds her an eminently suitable position - companion to the childless, fearsome and formidably rich Mrs Catling. They remove to Brighton, where the first part of the story takes place. There, Caro enjoys polite society and befriends Mrs Catling’s young relatives - Matthew and Maria Downey, and their good friend the elegant Mr Leabrook. Beautiful, pleasant and well bred, Caro is attracts plenty of attention in Brighton - but not all of it is welcome. Her time there comes to a climactic end with a dishonourable proposition and a personal tragedy.

From there, the story shifts to a small parish in Huntingdonshire, where Caroline moves in with her mother’s relatives and attempts to adjust to country life. In particular, she befriends beautiful and gentle Miss Isabella Milner and makes the acquaintance of her provoking brother Stephen. But trouble is soon to catch up with Caro and the story descends into a good natured comedy of manners as the past and present collide in a witty, Heyer-esque romp through regency England.

That’s the bare bones of the story. What I loved above all was the easy, flowing language, peppered with witty asides and a cast of characters - caricatures, certainly - that stayed true to themselves. Caro was a delight. Mature, composed and practical, there might have been an element of the dreaded Mary-Sue about her, but I cheerfully ignored it. Her reactions and feelings always felt true and real. When she is propositioned by a gentleman her response was so right, so what I thought a woman in her situation might feel I actually nodded approvingly to myself....

... she had been put in such a situation that no usual emotions seemed appropriate. There was anger, indignation, humiliation - yet none in a strong enough measure to be purgative. Her sense of self had been dealt the severest blow. If... had seen her as fair game, then was that how she habitually appeared? Did she bear some Cain-like mark that incited the adventurer, that roused the rake? Nonsense, said Reason: as well say the fox invites the hounds. But Reason’s voice could not always be heard above the clamour of self-doubt, especially when she fell into a melancholy wondering whether this kind of offer - the kind that was hardly distinguishable from an insult - was the best she could ever hope for.

Other great things - the dialogue. In particular, I loved the banter between Stepehn Milner and Caro. Behold -

“You are very silent, Miss Fortune.”
“Oh - I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be: I consider it a promising development.”
“Indeed: perhaps you can consider something else while you are about it, and that is how it is possible to be very silent , when silence is an absolute. You would not say that I was very perfect, would you?”
“No,” he said gravely, “I certainly would not say that.”

Jude Morgan writes with wit and assurance, and the story trips along lightly and irreverently. I know some reviewers fold down the pages of passages they find particularly repugnant: I do the opposite and, at last count, I had 14 pages marked for repeat reading. There are times when the characters and situations felt very familiar - oh, here’s Lydia Bennett, I thought. This must be Mr Collins. This guy is totally Col. Brandon... but what the hell. I liked it anyway. I liked it enough to order Morgan’s next book (sounds very much like Bath Tangle...)

I discovered after reading the book that Jude Morgan is in fact a man. I have no idea why I found this so surprising, except that most romances I read a written by women. I had no inkling until I went on-line and read the author bio. The book itself gave nothing away, but I am left wondering if my bemusement reveals a certain prejudice about men and romance.

Overall, a grade A from me.

Two Unexpected Pleasures

2007-10-17T22:55:00.000+01:00

Although I have stuck ‘librarian’ on my profile I don’t physically work in libraries any longer, although I do work for them. As a result, the amount of time I spend there has dropped quite significantly, not least because I now prefer to buy my books. Last week, however, I found myself in a number of libraries for extended periods of time and discovered two excellent novels whilst browsing the shelves.

This is noteworthy because:

I can’t remember the last time I came across a book like this. (It’s so old fashioned!) These days, I visit my favourite blogs/ review sites and pick up recommendations from reviewers I trust. I just don’t have the time to read books that merely sound promising - see monstrous and growing TBR pile. I need a little more insurance.
I don’t visit libraries much, as mentioned, and since I tend to bulk buy online, I don’t really visit bookshops either. Thus, the simple pleasure of browsing rows and rows of bookshelves at my leisure has been lost to me. And it is a pleasure. I found some of my favourite reads completely by chance - the innocuous, clothbound I Capture the Castle, Regency Buck (my first Heyer), Little Women, Jo Goodman's My Reckless Heart etc

Anyway, browsing through the shelves last week I found Indiscretion by Jude Morgan, a book I immediately began to read and finished the same evening. And then a few days later, Bareback by Kit Whitfield. I haven’t read this yet, but the first chapter was incredible.

All of which may sound very mundane, but it brought home the sad truth of my reading habits and how stale the whole process has become. Perhaps my ever-growing tbr pile, and my inability to confront it, has something to do with the lack of spontaneity and risk involved in my choices.

Reviews to follow.

Beast of Burden

2007-09-26T23:20:00.000+01:00

My TBR pile is overflowing; quivering on the verge of insurmountable. It stares at me accusingly, an ungainly presence on my troubled conscience. etc.

This (sideways) pile is by no means exhaustive. There are books I own that I can’t even begin contemplating at the moment (Moby Dick, anyone? What was I thinking? That is definitely one for a long vacation). There are also the two books currently weighing down my bag - Murder on the Leviathan by the Russian writer Boris Akunin and Voices of the Night, by Lydia Joyce.

Now, I must admit I have seen worse piles, but not in my house. Never have I spent so expansively and read so slowly. I blame the blogs. There are so many great books out there, read and recommended by all and sundry, that I simply can't resist. Combine this with my trigger happy internet shopping 'problem' and there is no saving me from my own folly.

This is the list as far as I can tell:

Demon Angel
Demon Moon (These books have come sooo highly recommended I don't know why I keep putting them off. Anticipation? I think I'm waiting for the third to come out, so I can read all in a happy, gluttonous haze.)
Kafka on the Shore (Murakami)
Dead Sky (Hoag)
Duke of Sin (Ashworth)
The Devil to Pay (Carlyle)
Theft (Carey)
Cold Comfort Farm (Gibson)
Slightly Married (Balogh)
Simply Love (Balogh)
Slightly Wicked (and again)
Simply Unforgettable (I've never read a Balogh and went a little mad here...)
The Victorian House (Flanders)
Midsummer Moon (Kinsale)
For My Lady's Heart (Kinsale)
My Sweet Folly (Kinsale)
The Crimson Petal and the White (Faber)
If his Kiss is Wicked (Goodman)
Special Topics in Calamity Physics (Pessl)
The Inheritance of Loss (Desai)
Skylight Confessions (Hoffman)
The Editor's Wife (Chambers)
Absurdistan (Shteyngart)
The Plot Against America (Roth)
Consuming Passions, Leisure and Pleasure in Victorian Britain (Flanders)

Also - but not pictured

The Tin Drum (Grass)
Lady Audley's Secret (Braddon)
Not Quite a Lady (Chase)
Disobedience (Alderman)
Jane Eyre (one day...)
The Dream Thief (Abe)
Bliss (Cuevas)
Dance (Cuevas)
Moral Disorder (Atwood)
The Tent (Atwood)

Gah!

On Football (or "soccer" to the unenlightened)

2007-09-22T16:32:00.001+01:00

I've had a general interest in football for a couple of years now, which has only recently developed into a fully-fledged love affair. I love the game (obviously) but there's the other stuff that I love just as much. I love the sports pages, I love the feuds and the history and the antics of players and managers both off and on the pitch. I love the tea-time football newsletter I get every weekday and my favorite football podcast and of course I love my football team (Manchester United - I know, know, but I love them, I can't help it!) and my favorite Manager (Alex Ferguson) and I loved to hate Jose Murhino; that dark, satanic, provocative imp. Ah, Jose, you will be missed.

This week I entered "Pick the Score," The Guardian's new predictions game. It's devilishly simple (which is a good thing). All I have to do is predict the score for upcoming premiership games. If I predict the score correctly I get 3 points, if I merely predict the outcome I get 1. Simple! So I joined belatedly this week and started with the average number of points accrued by the participants so far - 26.

My current rank: 9,514

Top score currently: 60

I've predicted my first set of scores and those games begin today. I have to be honest, I've checked the latest scores and it's not looking good. At this point if I can get my rank up to 5,000 I'll be a happy camper.

ETA: Congratulations to the United State's women's football team, who soundly spanked England in the quarter-finals of the World Cup. And to England, dammit, for getting so far.

The Smoke Thief, by Shana Abe

2007-09-19T22:19:00.000+01:00

Ten minutes into this book (I was on the bus, bored) left me enthralled and excited, as I feel when I know I’ve got hours of great reading ahead of me.

“Imagine a place so ripe and thick with the promise of magic that the very air breathes in plumes of pearl and gray and smoky blue; that the trees bow with the weight of their heavy branches, dipping low to the ground, dropping needles and leaves into beds of perfume.”

Isn’t that pretty? Overwrought, yes, but pretty!

Clarissa Rue Hawthorne is a halfling. A member of the Drakon tribe, living in seclusion among the green hills of northern England, she is a perpetual outsider in this closely knit society - for her father was a mortal. The Drakons are a beautiful and mysterious breed, with the ability to shift from human to smoke to dragon and back again. There’s just one problem; only a dwindling number of males can Turn and no woman has for generations. Thus the tribe lives in fear of its own extinction.

From a young age, Clarissa has loved Christoff, son and heir of the tribe’s Alpha, the Marquess of Langford. She loves in vain, however, as Christoff - older, beautiful, bored - pays her scant attention, sowing his wild oats among the impressionable young women of the tribe.

And so Clarissa contrives the impossible - she escapes the tribe (runners are hunted down and brought back without fail) and contrives to make a life for herself in London. As the Smoke Thief, she steals the brightest, most dazzling of jewels from the highest echelons of society.

Years later, her fame has reached the ears of the tribe, most particularly the new Marquess of Langford, Christoff, or Kit. Using the famed Langford Diamond as bait, a trap is set for the Smoke Thief. It is only when Kit catches Clarissa that he realises the thief is a woman - and she is the only drakon female alive able to turn. This makes her the female Alpha and his mate.

From there, the story twists and turns, revolving around these compelling characters and their passionate, absorbing relationship.

I don’t think Abe strikes a wrong note throughout the book, sustaining elements of romance and fantasy and adventure in a very particular time and place (18th century England). Her writing is assured and poetic, her dialogue never jars. I gobbled up the book in one day and immediately went on-line to order the next. (To my disappointment, the third in the series is out next spring, not as Amazon claim in December).

What did I like? Everything! Kit - his golden hair and sleepy green eyes; an Alpha in the true sense, without resorting to the ass-holism so often synonymous with the term. He is the leader of his tribe, and this is an integral part of him; his duty to the tribe and the sacrifices he makes for its greater good have shaped him.

Clarissa (or Rue) is the perfect mate for Kit - strong, brave, loyal and smart. Her decisions are logical, her desire for freedom and autonomy real and valid - indeed, I was utterly indignant on her behalf when this freedom is threatened by the tribe. Often novels have heroines acting wildly out of character to serve the plot - didn’t happen here. Rue is great. My only quibble was with her great and unearthly beauty, but all drakon are beautiful, so I suppose I have to let that go.

The dragon aspect is well done. Abe skillfully avoids the cheesy and creates magical, wondrous creatures of beauty and grace. Rue and Kit’s first flight - more of a midnight chase - is high octane, thrilling, brutal.

What a wonderful surprise this book was. I haven’t read an A-story in months. Highly recommended!

(As an aside, there are some excellent reviews of this book out there, on the big wide web. I recommend Dear Author as one such place).

Match Me If You Can, by Susan Elizabeth Phillips.

2007-09-16T00:19:00.000+01:00

I’m a huge SEP fan and have been for years. YEARS. I read my first one when I was school all those years ago... she’s consistently smart, funny and her characters are alive. Larger than life, brash, unrepentantly outrageous.

So why did I put this book off for an entire year?

Her last two left me feeling a little flat. Writers evolve, grow in confidence and skill, become more serious. In her last couple of books, I think SEP toned down the high camp of her earlier novels, giving her characters more maturity and self-awareness. Which is fine but, necessarily, some of the dramatic tension, the highs and lows of a roller-coaster romance are also missing. In its place was more of the earnestness, the self-growth, the finding-yourself-in-your-lowest-moment stuff that is always central to an SEP novel. Whilst enjoyable, I was left feeling a little unsatisfied.

So does this latest - a return to her popular Chicago Stars series - turn things around?

Annabelle Granger is a professional matchmaker. Her small struggling company - Perfect for You - desperately needs business and that’s where Heath Champion(!) comes in. Heath is a very successful sports agent and the hottest bachelor in town. Wealthy, driven and gorgeous Heath is Annabelle’s polar opposite. For - of course - Annabelle is a bit of a flake. Her life is as unruly and out of control as her wild red hair. She is the disappointment of her uber-successful family, the perpetual failure. What saves Annabelle from annoying the hell out of me is her very droll sense of humour and her amusing sparring bouts with Heath.

Annabelle manages to (very cleverly) trick Heath into hiring her services. Heath’s looking for Mrs Champion - refined, beautiful, upper class, the very antidote to his humble beginnings - and Annabelle brings him fresh candidates to consider. Heath insists that Annabelle sit through every introduction and thus their odd, quirky relationship begins. Indeed, thinks Heath, If Annabelle were a few inches taller, a hell of a lot more sophisticated, better organised, less bossy and more inclined to worship at his feet, she’d have made a perfect wife.

The good: My favourite romances are the ones where I don’t want the verbal foreplay to end. When the flirting, bickering, falling-in-love-and-not-knowing goes on and on and I just love it. This was perfect. Heath and Annabelle had a great, fizzing chemistry, sparkling repartee and the whole friends to something more was handled with just the right touch. And how great was it that they were friends first? (I’m reading some Shannon McKenna short stories at the moment and I think my eyes were starting to bleed...) Pretty damn great. These two, the reader thinks, fit in more ways than good old sexual compatibility.

The bad. Well, I would say this begins when Heath and Annabelle start to get serious about their feelings. From this point on, it’s all self-doubt and denial and angst. As per practically every SEP book in existence, the heroine can’t believe that the hero loves her and throws his declaration back in his face (how many times does SEP use this device? How many times has the hero publicly declared himself, only to be rejected and humiliated?) There is that moment of self-realisation when the heroine thinks “I DESERVE to be LOVED” and, of course, there is much abasement of the hero before she gets that yes - YES - he really, really loves her as she so rightly DESERVES to be LOVED.

Unh. After the fizz and crackle of the first two thirds of the book, this was a real downer.

The other thing that brought me down were all the visitors from previous Chicago Stars novels. This is such a tired device, the author really milking her franchise - buy the other books, buy the other books! At one point, as the women approach their men, Phoebe murmurs “Welcome to the Garden of the Gods, ladies.”

I mean, come on! The premise - that footballers are smart, articulate, romance novel material - is shaky enough to begin with. When they stand together - Gods among men - I felt my credulity stretched beyond repair.

The secondary romance - featuring a rival matchmaker and Heath’s friend - was tacked on and slightly jarring even though there is a very funny bit at the end that had me snorting to myself.

Overall, a solid B.

Dangerous Lover, by Lisa Marie Rice

2007-08-11T23:41:00.000+01:00

This book came dangerously close to becoming a wall-banger. Unfortunately I bought it as an ebook and, well, I didn’t hate it enough to toss my MacBook.

So here’s the premise. Ben is a homeless kid in love with the lovely young girl who visits the shelter in which he resides with his father, an unlovely drunk. Caroline is everything beautiful, kind and generous; dispensing bounty like a latter day Mother Theresa, and Ben loves her with an unhealthy intensity. The night Ben’s father kicks the bucket, Ben resolves to see Caroline. It’s Christmas eve and I’m not entirely sure what Ben intends to do, but he is a young man of Resolve and so he trudges through a snow storm to his beloved’s house.

Witnessing Caroline from the window, in the loving bosom of her elegant, wealthy family, smooching with a handsome blond stranger, Ben decides to disappear into the night, never to return.

Six years later. Ben is now Jack Prescott, a lean, mean man of war. A veteran of some of the most nasty war zones in the world; Iraq, Afghanistan and Sierra Leone - truly, the trifecta. Jack’s been sorting out a nasty mess in Sierra Leone, killing some bad guys and selling off the security company his late foster father (young Ben found himself a kindly colonel) left him. A free agent, he resolves to find the young woman who so haunted his dreams in the intervening years - the woman he could never forget, even as he fucked his way through countless other women; never committing, but satisfying his manly urges with one night stands (or three nights - if he really liked them) and his best friend, Mr Right Hand.

Life hasn’t been all that great to Caroline, we soon learn. Her parents died, leaving her poor and debt-ridden. Her brother, surviving the crash that took her parents, lived on for six years but as a cripple. Alone now, caroline runs a bookstore - purely on whimsy as it doesn’t get any business (seriously - huh?), and struggles to make ends meet by having lodgers in her beautiful old house - beautiful but falling apart, naturally.

Jack finds out that Caroline is single, poor and in need of a lodger and makes his move. Pretty soon (and I mean, PRETTY SOON), he’s in her home and her bed. There is much sex and angsting. Naturally, Jack tells her nothing of their shared past and his unwholesome obsession with her; he tells her nothing of his more recent past either, so later on there can be all sorts of misunderstandings and ‘tension’ and shenanigans.

Here’s my first and major problem with the book: almost all of it is internal musing, endless retrospection and soul searching. Worse - and SHAMELESSLY - there are pages and pages of info-dumping; exposition on a grand scale. Shameless because - ugh! - it’s lazy! it’s boring! it’s endless! It makes the story drag! We get 2-4 pages of back story, a page of dialogue and then a little sex, to perk things up. That’s the formula, and Ms Rice sticks to it.

Next, the secondary plot. Presumably tacked on to add some element of ‘suspense,’ this revolves around one of the bad guys Jack thought he took care of in Sierra Leone reappearing to steal back the diamonds Jack took away with him. This bad guys gets loads of storytime, but he is a cliched romance-land villain; pure E-vil, so scheming and fiendish and cartoonish I ended up skipping his bits. So don’t ask me.

Some of the writing is overblown and eye-rollingly earnest. Here’s what Jack had to say about the diamond trade:

...An entire country was tearing itself apart because of dull rocks just like these—over eighty thousand people killed over the past year in Sierra Leone. Countless others had had their hands, lips and ears chopped off by the drugged-up baby soldiers fighting in the Revolutionary Army....

No wonder they called them blood diamonds. It was a miracle that no blood oozed from the stones. But no—they were as neutral as they were inert—just rocks, for fuck’s sake. Just rocks...

Yep, Jack’s a deep guy. Here’s some more wisdom.

“It’s a bad world out there, Caroline,” he said gently. “You have to be prepared.”

Fuck, but that was true. He’d seen it, he’d lived it. In the shelters he’d grown up in, a beauty like Caroline would have been raped the instant she’d reached puberty, probably even before. In Afghanistan, she’d have been dressed in a head-to-toe burqa and beaten if a man could hear her footsteps. There, too, she would have been raped, with the added pleasure of being sentenced to death for fornication. In Sierra Leone—Jack’s back teeth ground together. He’d seen the shattered remains of the women who’d fallen into the hands of the Revolutionary Army. Death for them had been a release.

Blimey! Good job she’s a middle class white woman living in the West.

Notwithstanding the nonsensical political claptrap, there’s also the perpetual hard-on Jack carries about in his tight jeans, his inability to tell an emotion apart from a heart attack (“Fuck, maybe he should see a cardiologist”) and Caroline's unremitting Mary Sue-ness. For, of course, Caroline is truly perfect; beautiful, plucky, feminine, gentle, well bred, honest and fair. Verily, an angel come unto the earth to spread her light.

I read the book feeling as though I’d read it all before. Jack is supposed to be a taciturn hard man, a man of few words but great depth, brought to his knees by a beautiful damsel in distress. I found him boring, and so - I get the feeling - did Caroline.

“It was humbling to think that her body wasn’t paying any attention at all to what he was saying, what books he might have read, what his politics might be.”

Good job Caroline has that massive ding-dong to keep her entertained, because the internal Jack is a bit of a windbag.

C- Were it not for the relentless exposition, I think this book would have been a lot better.

I Hate Harry Potter

2007-07-20T23:17:00.000+01:00

It’s true, I hate him. Whiny, annoying, loathsome boy. I hate Ron. What an idiot. Ron is a fool. Hermione I like. She does not deserve to end up with a fool. At the very least, Hermione ought to be with the series’ hero, even if it is Harry Fucking Potter with his incessant carping and his - roll eyes - destiny and his swollen sense of entitlement.

I love Snape, of course. I think I could live with his being evil if he got to spank Harry, even a little. The only thing that would upset me is his death. So don’t do it, Rowling!

Why do I read the damn books? Reader, I cracked. I think it happened just after book 6 was released. My friend Veronica had given me the first few as a present and for years I ignored them. Then, one day I picked up HP and the Philosopher’s Stone. After an excruciating start I found myself following the story, reading it in a gulp. The rest followed.

I hate Harry; I hate Ron; I hate the simplistic black and white morality (I’m rooting for Voldemort. Maybe Hermione could become his Dark Queen/ child bride?), but I like the books and I’ve enjoyed the series. I’m going to get my book tomorrow morning, Amazon willing, and I’m going to do my damndest to stay in bed until it’s finished. I can’t wait.

The First Time is the Hardest

2007-07-20T01:08:00.000+01:00

It’s 2007, I’m 25 and in possession of a spanking new MacBook... the only question is, why didn’t I do this sooner?

Well, lot’s of reasons. Primarily, my life does not a lively, must-read blog make. We’re not talking The Intimate Confessions of a London Call Girl, or the Internal Musings of a Troubled Genius. More like, The Distracted Ramblings of a Timid Librarian. And if you want to know what I look like (ignore my alter ego in the profile for a moment, the gorgeous lady Colin Campbell), imagine a slightly quizzical sheep. Or - depending on the context - a mildly terrorized sheep. Or a hungry sheep.

Yes, it’s a bandwagon; yes, I’m leaping abroad.

And did I mention? I have an unhealthy obsession with romance novels, which I will attempt to review in this here blog.