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May. 24th, 2013 02:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsSo there was a period of time last month when I was capable of doing not much of anything except wheezing on my sickbed and reading library e-copies of historical romance novels on my Kindle.
Over those two days or so, I read:
1. The entirety of the Brothers Sinister series by Courtney Milan as published so far, which currently consists of two novellas and a novel:
- The Governess Affair, which was recommended to me byizilen when I delivered to her one of my semi-regular rants about how I was SICK of ARISTOCRATS and ROMANCE NOVEL HEROES WHO DON'T DO ANYTHING. "I just want to read about historical people who have REAL JOBS!" I said. The Governess Affair is indeed a novella about a governess and a man of business, and deals with her efforts to get monetary compensation for her rape by his employer and subsequent pregnancy. Like all Courtney Milan books, it does its very very best to be explicitly careful about consent; of the three, I probably liked it best. I can see why people would be put off by the moral ambiguity of the hero in working for someone with no morals whatsoever, but . . . competent people doing things!
- The Duchess War, a full-length novel about a quiet, calculating strategist of a wallflower with a SCANDALOUS PAST, the details of which I love tremendously because it is such a weird and unusual kind of scandal and has NOTHING do with sex or illegitimacy! So novel! Anyway she has a thing with a duke (back to dukes) who is VERY ENTHUSIASTIC but kind of ineffective about helping factory workers and promoting unionization. I loved the heroine a lot; the book also won points for me for the complex and sympathetic portrayal of the hero's mother, and for actually letting first-time sex be uncomfortable and awkward EVEN WITH the magic of consent and true love! And then it lost about half of those points again for a deeply frustrating plot twist at the end that took a lot of the heroine's agency away again. :(
- A Kiss For Midwinter, another novella with middle-class protagonists, about a pessimistic doctor who tries to woo a cheerful young lady with a TRAGIC PAST who thinks he is a dick. Mostly because he . . . spends a lot of time acting a dick. This one alas left me fairly cold, which is a shame, because I liked the heroine (who shows up as the best friend of the protagonist of The Duchess War) and would have wanted a better story for her.
2. What Happens in London, by Julia Quinn, which is probably the most hilariously plotless romance novel I've ever read. Seriously, NOTHING HAPPENS. The protagonists live next door to each other and flirt. There is a Russian prince who looks like he might be a vaguely villainous, but is then won over by a dramatic reading of a bad Gothic novel. The book is so entirely devoid of conflict that at the end Julia Quinn is forced to make her heroine completely horrified to find out that the hero, contrary to an earlier assertion, speaks Russian. If he lied about speaking Russian, WHAT ELSE MIGHT HE HAVE LIED TO HER ABOUT?! WHAT IF HE DOESN'T REALLY LOVE HER?!?! Fortunately this too is resolved within about two pages and everyone will be very relieved to learn that they live happily ever after.
3. His at Night, by Sherry Thomas, which I put on reserve while I was sick but didn't end up becoming available from the library until about two weeks later. I really wanted to read this one because it was advertised to me as involving Scarlet Pimpernel-ish hijinks about an AGENT OF THE CROWN who PRETENDS TO BE A GOOD-NATURED FOOL, which is, for the record, a plot trope I really love. However, inexplicably to me, the book decided to play this aspect of the plot by having our hero spend all his time ANGSTING about how NO ONE CAN EVER KNOW HIS TRUE SELF and having no fun at all. And what is the point of doing a Scarlet Pimpernel plot if nobody is enacting any hijinks or having even a little bit of fun with it?!
The other half of the plot is about the heroine's efforts to get herself and her aunt out from the clutches of her deeply emotionally abusive uncle, and that part all in all I think is actually very well done, and I respect her ruthlessness about it and the way in which she grows into herself. So perhaps it is for this reason that the book as a whole does not have much of a sense of humor; still, I think it's possible -- nay, even desirable -- to strike a balance, and I remain kind of sad that it turned out to be ALL ANGST, ALL THE TIME.
As a sidenote, I am sure this is something that the romance novel-reading community has come to terms with well before I did, but it never fails to be hilarious to me how little the titles of romance novels have to do with their actual content. What Happens in London is my new favorite, though, because, as I have explained, NOTHING HAPPENS IN LONDON. NOTHING.
Over those two days or so, I read:
1. The entirety of the Brothers Sinister series by Courtney Milan as published so far, which currently consists of two novellas and a novel:
- The Governess Affair, which was recommended to me by
izilen when I delivered to her one of my semi-regular rants about how I was SICK of ARISTOCRATS and ROMANCE NOVEL HEROES WHO DON'T DO ANYTHING. "I just want to read about historical people who have REAL JOBS!" I said. The Governess Affair is indeed a novella about a governess and a man of business, and deals with her efforts to get monetary compensation for her rape by his employer and subsequent pregnancy. Like all Courtney Milan books, it does its very very best to be explicitly careful about consent; of the three, I probably liked it best. I can see why people would be put off by the moral ambiguity of the hero in working for someone with no morals whatsoever, but . . . competent people doing things! - The Duchess War, a full-length novel about a quiet, calculating strategist of a wallflower with a SCANDALOUS PAST, the details of which I love tremendously because it is such a weird and unusual kind of scandal and has NOTHING do with sex or illegitimacy! So novel! Anyway she has a thing with a duke (back to dukes) who is VERY ENTHUSIASTIC but kind of ineffective about helping factory workers and promoting unionization. I loved the heroine a lot; the book also won points for me for the complex and sympathetic portrayal of the hero's mother, and for actually letting first-time sex be uncomfortable and awkward EVEN WITH the magic of consent and true love! And then it lost about half of those points again for a deeply frustrating plot twist at the end that took a lot of the heroine's agency away again. :(
- A Kiss For Midwinter, another novella with middle-class protagonists, about a pessimistic doctor who tries to woo a cheerful young lady with a TRAGIC PAST who thinks he is a dick. Mostly because he . . . spends a lot of time acting a dick. This one alas left me fairly cold, which is a shame, because I liked the heroine (who shows up as the best friend of the protagonist of The Duchess War) and would have wanted a better story for her.
2. What Happens in London, by Julia Quinn, which is probably the most hilariously plotless romance novel I've ever read. Seriously, NOTHING HAPPENS. The protagonists live next door to each other and flirt. There is a Russian prince who looks like he might be a vaguely villainous, but is then won over by a dramatic reading of a bad Gothic novel. The book is so entirely devoid of conflict that at the end Julia Quinn is forced to make her heroine completely horrified to find out that the hero, contrary to an earlier assertion, speaks Russian. If he lied about speaking Russian, WHAT ELSE MIGHT HE HAVE LIED TO HER ABOUT?! WHAT IF HE DOESN'T REALLY LOVE HER?!?! Fortunately this too is resolved within about two pages and everyone will be very relieved to learn that they live happily ever after.
3. His at Night, by Sherry Thomas, which I put on reserve while I was sick but didn't end up becoming available from the library until about two weeks later. I really wanted to read this one because it was advertised to me as involving Scarlet Pimpernel-ish hijinks about an AGENT OF THE CROWN who PRETENDS TO BE A GOOD-NATURED FOOL, which is, for the record, a plot trope I really love. However, inexplicably to me, the book decided to play this aspect of the plot by having our hero spend all his time ANGSTING about how NO ONE CAN EVER KNOW HIS TRUE SELF and having no fun at all. And what is the point of doing a Scarlet Pimpernel plot if nobody is enacting any hijinks or having even a little bit of fun with it?!
The other half of the plot is about the heroine's efforts to get herself and her aunt out from the clutches of her deeply emotionally abusive uncle, and that part all in all I think is actually very well done, and I respect her ruthlessness about it and the way in which she grows into herself. So perhaps it is for this reason that the book as a whole does not have much of a sense of humor; still, I think it's possible -- nay, even desirable -- to strike a balance, and I remain kind of sad that it turned out to be ALL ANGST, ALL THE TIME.
As a sidenote, I am sure this is something that the romance novel-reading community has come to terms with well before I did, but it never fails to be hilarious to me how little the titles of romance novels have to do with their actual content. What Happens in London is my new favorite, though, because, as I have explained, NOTHING HAPPENS IN LONDON. NOTHING.
