(no subject)

[skygiants]

Apparently Anna Cowan's Untamed was Controversial in the Romance Novel Community, and to be honest the plot was total nonsense but I'm not gonna lie, I enjoyed the hell and a half out of it.

Untamed's hero is the Cold, Emotionally Tortured Bisexual Duke of Darlington, who has a lot of very public affairs, a harem of hot boys living in his house, and a death-wish. The heroine is impoverished, awkward, plain but extremely well-muscled Kit, currently living with her beautiful baby sister Lydia. Lydia has married a wealthy husband who loves Lydia very much but is big and shouty and regrettably triggers Kit and Lydia into remembering their abusive father; therefore, Lydia is avoiding her husband and banging Darlington. Kit has never met Darlington but thinks he is the worst in all ways. They meet, of course, when Darlington is at a party disguised as someone else.

DARLINGTON: So ... I heard Darlington was a MONSTER. Like, pure evil. Pure evil with an 8-pack.
KIT: lol as if. I heard Darlington was the worst in all ways but, like, stupid ways, you know? Very stupid ways.
DARLINGTON: I find you strangely intriguing.
KIT: Anyway, can't wait to meet Darlington and tell him to stop banging my sister or --
DARLINGTON: Or what? I mean, he's a duke and you're an impoverished young woman, so ...
KIT: -- OR ELSE, is what. I have muscles.
DARLINGTON: Hell yeah you do. *__*

But then Kit accidentally wanders in on Darlington seducing the party's hostess while secretly being not into it at all.

KIT: ...wow. WOW. Nobody should be pretending to be really into having sex with someone when they're not into it at all, it is offensive to everyone involved, that's gross and I'm DISGUSTED.
THE NEWSPAPERS: Darlington seduced the lady of the house, news at 11!
KIT: Also, whoa, that cute guy I was flirting with was Darlington? GROSS.

So Kit marches off to find Darlington and make him promise he'll lay off her baby sister!

DARLINGTON: Sure! I will leave town and leave your sister alone! .... if you take me back to the country with you and let me just like follow you around for a few months.
KIT: That seems like a weird, kind of contrived request.
DARLINGTON: Well, I'm a weird, kind of contrived sort of guy, as you may have noticed.
KIT: Uh, how you gonna work that without destroying my reputation? As you may have noticed, we are kind of sort of technically in something that might resemble the Regency era.
DARLINGTON: Because I'm gonna disguise myself as my beautiful cousin LADY ROSE and just spend the next couple months cross-dressed and fluttering around the countryside in beautiful gowns while leaning on your sexy, well-muscled arms!
KIT: ..... ............ ......................
DARLINGTON: Also I'm afraid of the dark so I'm going to have to sleep in your room with you like besties, is that cool?
KIT: NO IT'S NOT COOL, IT'S NOT COOL AT ALL
DARLINGTON: Too late, I already said I wanted to in front of your mom and brother Tom, who think I'm your beautiful BFF, and you can't turn me down without making it weird!
KIT: oh my god, I hate you so much.
DARLINGTON: Is it because I'm so hot and delicate and you're worried about accidentally compelling me into having sex with you when I'm not really into it?
KIT: A LITTLE.

So Kit and Darlington spend a couple of months as roommies in the country, negotiating their power dynamics and various complex emotional issues resulting from abusive-parent backstories while Kit flexes her protective instincts and Darlington gets weak at the knees about Kit's strength and power and ability to coolly chop wood and butcher a pig, all very much in the constant-emotional-shattered-glass-mixed-with-points-of-high-hilarity vein of Authors Formatively Inspired By Dorothy Dunnett. However, just as Kit and Darlington have tipped straight over from love into ridiculous emotional codependency without having yet actually banged: LYDIA SHOWS UP. With Darlington's favorite cute boytoy in tow!

LYDIA: NOPE.
KIT: But --
LYDIA: nope nope nope nope nope nope, NONE OF THIS, my douchebag ex is moving OUT of your bedroom and I am moving INTO it and we are going to have some NICE SISTER BONDING and WORK THROUGH OUR CHILDHOOD ISSUES and NOBODY IS HAVING ANY SEX AT ALL.
KIT: Wait, nobody is having any sex? I mean -- but I thought you were into him!
LYDIA: Sure, we're great friends with benefits, but dating Darlington is a terrible idea! He is a total mess of a human! I threw myself on this bullet so you would never have to and NOW LOOK AT YOU.
KIT: Well, I threw myself on this bullet so you wouldn't have to, and --
LYDIA: And now you're in love with him, right? Ugh, this is why I wanted to make sure you NEVER MET, I knew that I definitely wasn't gonna fall in love with him and you would and that is why there will be NONE OF THAT.
KIT: .... >:(
LYDIA: ALSO I can't BELIEVE you didn't tell brother Tom that Lady Rose was a dude, I am telling him right now before he falls in love with him because that is just the LAST thing we need --
TOM: Rose is a DUDE?
KIT: Yes, um, sorry about --
TOM: oh my god this is so disappointing, this is the first time I have ever been attracted to an actual woman? and I had such hope??
KIT: ...
LYDIA: ......
DARLINGTON'S FAVORITE CUTE BOYTOY: ........>:D!

And the next several chapters mostly just consist of Kit and her family and Darlington and Darlington's boytoy hanging out and bonding in a cottage and working through their various childhood sibling issues, and everyone is happy except that every time Kit and Darlington start making googly-eyes at each other Lydia or Tom rushes in shouting "NOPE!!!" and it's basically the best part of the book.

(Tom and the boytoy, however, get to make all the googly eyes they want and NO ONE CARES, which Kit finds deeply unfair.)

However, this (hilarious) idyll of sibling bonding and sexual frustration is interrupted when Lydia's husband follows everyone else to the countryside! And, alas, Darlington has to flee into the night, WITH his boytoy, WITHOUT the pet pig he adopted to save it from the slaughterhouse, and then Lydia and her husband reconcile, and Tom moves to London and joins the gay scene, and Kit chases Darlington down, WITH the pet pig, WHILE designing herself a fabulous breeches-and-military coat makeover, and challenges the woman Darlington seduced in Chapter 1 to a duel for Darlington's honor in front of the entire Regency world, and the entire Regency world is just like '....yeah, seems legit, I hope those two crazy kids can make it work.'

AND INDEED I AM SURE YOU ARE ALL SHOCKED TO HEAR THAT THEY DO.

Comments

[watersword]

There's going to be a major motion picture of this, right?

[skygiants]

WE CAN ONLY HOPE

[rymenhild]

So what you're saying is that this is the PERFECT BOOK to read while fighting strep throat and refusing to grade papers, right?

*purchases, at once*

[skygiants]

I am saying this ONLY if you come report back once you've read it >:D

[sovay]

And the next several chapters mostly just consist of Kit and her family and Darlington and Darlington's boytoy hanging out and bonding in a cottage and working through their various childhood sibling issues, and everyone is happy except that every time Kit and Darlington start making googly-eyes at each other Lydia or Tom rushes in shouting "NOPE!!!" and it's basically the best part of the book.

Was this traditionally published?

[skygiants]

Penguin Books Australia, apparently! BELIEVE IT OR NOT.

[st_aurafina]

Omg, this is so rtmi, I have to run away and acquire it immediately.

*running*

[skygiants]

It is well worth the few bucks you will spend on it in entertainment value, imho!

[brigdh]

I LOVE THIS BOOK. I read it shortly after it came out (last year? two years ago? whenever that was) and have been on a mission to make everyone I know read it. It is so fun, and in such a fanficcy way!

[skygiants]

It's EXTREMELY fanficcy. I was the exact opposite of surprised when the afterward featured her thanking S.U. Pacat -- like I haven't even read Captive Prince, but just through fannish osmosis, if I was going to pick one author in the whole wide world I would have expected Anna Cowan to be thanking, that would be it!

[ceitfianna]

This sounds amazing and silly. I need to read it. I remember reading some of the chaos around it but don't recall the details.

[skygiants]

EXTREMELY RIDICULOUS, EXTREMELY ENJOYABLE

[thewickedlady]

I thought you were going to say you read A DIFFERENT controversial romance novel, and I would have screamed NOOOOOOO, BECCA, NOOOOOO, NOT THAT ONE.

But I didn't even realize this was was controversial. Is it because the hero is bisexual???

[skygiants]

Now I'm afraid to ask which one you thought I was reading! But yeah, apparently there was a LOT of talk about this one -- here's a review of all the reviews! People arguing about everything from the gender roles to the historicity to the suspension of disbelief to the name Lord BenRuin (which, to be fair, is a pretty stupid name.)

[wingstodust]

this sounds like the most excellent literature and imma add it immediately

[skygiants]

an excellent choice and one of which I fully approve

[annotated_em]

Right, adding this to the download sample pile.

[skygiants]

>:D >:D >:D

[bookblather]

You know, initially, I was gonna be like "nope" and drop this one but then LYDIA SHOWS UP NOPING ALL OVER THE PLACE and that was BEFORE Tom and now I have to read this.

[skygiants]

Lydia's dramatic NOPE is AMAZING. The only kind of love triangle I like: when both parties are like 'HE'S THE WORST, I SHALL PROTECT YOU BY THROWING MYSELF AT THE TERRIBLE CHOICE YOU'RE ON THE VERGE OF MAKING!'

[themadpoker]

I was sold two sentences into your review and having completed it I can only say I am even MORE SOLD. To Amazon!!

[skygiants]

I regret NOT A PENNY of that purchase.

[cyphomandra]

I also liked the sibling squabbling and the bits in the country (especially bits where it was actually grim and poor, although I do think it might have gone a bit too far in that direction - if you end up reading Josephine Tey's To Love and Be Wise there is a writer called Silas who writes relentlessly grim books about farm life in which the only upwards element is, if I remember correctly, the steam on the manure, and that's only going up because it has to). The bits in actual (ha!) Regency society did not work at all for me and I was much fonder of Kit than Jude.

I would read something else by the author but I would prefer it to either be contemporary, totally weird or about a historical period about which I know nothing.

[kore]

Oh Jesus is that where that comes from? I remember reading something like that, like -- the only uplifting element was the steam rising off the manure, and if the author could have somehow made it possible that the steam could go downwards, he would have. Is that in Daughter of Time, when the inspector has the pile of awful books?

[kore]

As you may have noticed, we are kind of sort of technically in something that might resemble the Regency era.

//just laughs helplessly


OMG I must see if the library has this right now.

[skygiants]

Empire waists and corsets ... are involved .......? AN ATTEMPT WAS MADE.

[agonistes]

yoooooooo *goes to download immediately*

[kore]

I love how everyone's reaction (including mine) is just "SOLD."

[rachelmanija]

This sounds like Laura Kinsale and Courtney Milan's books had a lovechild.

[skygiants]

I've still only read the one Laura Kinsale (the one where the heroine invents airplanes!) but I think I would describe it more as if a Courtney Milan book was being written by someone who really, really imprinted on Francis Crawford of Lymond. (I mean, perhaps Courtney Milan did too, but if so she's much better at disguising it!)

[dimestore_romeo]

This has been on my wish list for a million years, and I'M GOING TO GO AND BUY IT NOW BYEEEEEEEEEE.

[skygiants]

PLEASE ENJOY

[alias_sqbr]

Oh my goodness this is so ridiculously relevant to my interests.

[skygiants]

So much cross-dressing!

[brownbetty]

This sounds amazing.

[skygiants]

I THOROUGHLY enjoyed it!

[allchildren]

OH MY GOD TAKE ME TO THERE.

eta: also it is on this goodreads list of romancess with straight and bi effeminate heroes, which is weird that that's a trope, but of course it's a trope, anyway, ???, investigation pending.

[skygiants]

IF YOU GO DON'T FORGET TO REPORT BACK

...wow, of course it's a trope. (Of course there's a book called "VISUAL KEI ROCK STAR" included in the trope list.) I will look forward to hearing the results of your investigation :O

[dhampyresa]

Sounds great.

[skygiants]

I super enjoyed it!

[jinian]

I am enjoying this novel extremely, but my one problem with it is: how many things does this author think are in a brace? She has referred to "a full brace" as if it were a large number twice now.

[genarti]

Maybe she thinks it means... like... some kind of mechanical brace with lots and lots of pheasants (or whatever) attached to it? *grabbing at straws* Which makes no sense, but neither does what I gather of the Seduction Plot To Fight The Corn Laws, so.

Or maybe it's just BRACE, SCORE -- ENH, ONE OF THOSE.

[yasaman]

You are so good at this, I bought this book immediately. I am 2% in and already feeling the delightful frisson of "yes. this is my garbage. garbage for me. 1000% MY GARBAGE." Anyway, Formatively Inspired By Dorothy Dunnett is my jam, thank you for this rec.

[skygiants]

"1000% MY GARBAGE" is such a good way to describe this book, and also my reaction to this book. >:D I'm so glad you're enjoying it!

[starlady]

Wow, Penguin Australia gives us so many amazing gifts.

[skygiants]

What other gifts has it given us?? PLEASE SHARE

[wakuchan]

This sounds delightful and I have already requested it from Overdrive, I hope the library will buy it. (They've bought most of the other questionable romances I've asked for so...here's hoping!)

[skygiants]

I hope your library responds to your request posthaste!

[shiegra]

I skimmed down the front of your DW and came away with a bad case of 5-or-6-books-I-want-desperately-to-read. I think I may need to flee for my own safety.

[skygiants]

YOU'RE WELCOME. :D (There's no such thing as too long a to-read list, right.....?)