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Jul. 13th, 2009 10:30 amAccording to the Smart Bitches, Laura Kinsale writes THE BEST MOST AMAZINGEST ROMANCE NOVELS EVER, bar none! So, I decided that I was going to foray into romance novels, I should start with a Laura Kinsale and got out Midsummer Moon from the library.
I - okay, I am feeling the need to summarize the plot for you guys in GREAT DETAIL, so bear with me.
CAST:
MERLIN: Our heroine! A GENIUS INVENTOR who has devoted her life to inventing the airplane! Along the way she has absentmindedly invented the short-wave radio! Did I mention this is Regency England and she's also a drop-dead gorgeous orphan of noble birth with a formerly tragically deaf and currently tragically dead mother, raised by eccentric twin servants? Did I also mention that she is conveniently completely ignorant of sexual propriety due to aforementioned eccentric upbringing? Did I also mention the constant presence of the pet hedgehog?
RANSOM: Our dashing, noble hero, a Duke who spies for the crown! He is assigned to protect Merlin from EVIL FRENCH SPIES! He would be perfect for Merlin the would-be daring aviatrix, EXCEPT that he is TERRIBLY AFRAID OF HEIGHTS! His backstory angst: he stuttered as a kid. (No, really, that's it.)
RANSOM'S FRIENDS AND RELATIONS: A wacky cast including a spendthrift gambling brother, his dramatic opera singer French wife, his uptight sister, her prim priestly suitor, her less prim super-Irish suitor/Ransom's subordinate spy, and several adorable moppets of nieces and nephews.
EVIL FRENCH SPIES: Periodically enter the book, drug Merlin, carry her off, and stash her somewhere where she can be conveniently rescued, and then disappear again for large swathes of plot.
( THE PLOT; cut for extreme length and hilarious spoilers! )
Snark aside, there really were a lot of genuinely (and intentionally) funny scenes, and there's the core of a book in there that I could really quite like if separated from the romantic plot. But I continued to get bored every time Ransom and Merlin went off into rhapsodies about each other's eyes/hair/breasts/muscles what have you and started acting like morons, and I was not convinced they were actually very good for each other and did not really want them to end up together.
But the hedgehog was awesome.
I - okay, I am feeling the need to summarize the plot for you guys in GREAT DETAIL, so bear with me.
CAST:
MERLIN: Our heroine! A GENIUS INVENTOR who has devoted her life to inventing the airplane! Along the way she has absentmindedly invented the short-wave radio! Did I mention this is Regency England and she's also a drop-dead gorgeous orphan of noble birth with a formerly tragically deaf and currently tragically dead mother, raised by eccentric twin servants? Did I also mention that she is conveniently completely ignorant of sexual propriety due to aforementioned eccentric upbringing? Did I also mention the constant presence of the pet hedgehog?
RANSOM: Our dashing, noble hero, a Duke who spies for the crown! He is assigned to protect Merlin from EVIL FRENCH SPIES! He would be perfect for Merlin the would-be daring aviatrix, EXCEPT that he is TERRIBLY AFRAID OF HEIGHTS! His backstory angst: he stuttered as a kid. (No, really, that's it.)
RANSOM'S FRIENDS AND RELATIONS: A wacky cast including a spendthrift gambling brother, his dramatic opera singer French wife, his uptight sister, her prim priestly suitor, her less prim super-Irish suitor/Ransom's subordinate spy, and several adorable moppets of nieces and nephews.
EVIL FRENCH SPIES: Periodically enter the book, drug Merlin, carry her off, and stash her somewhere where she can be conveniently rescued, and then disappear again for large swathes of plot.
( THE PLOT; cut for extreme length and hilarious spoilers! )
Snark aside, there really were a lot of genuinely (and intentionally) funny scenes, and there's the core of a book in there that I could really quite like if separated from the romantic plot. But I continued to get bored every time Ransom and Merlin went off into rhapsodies about each other's eyes/hair/breasts/muscles what have you and started acting like morons, and I was not convinced they were actually very good for each other and did not really want them to end up together.
But the hedgehog was awesome.
