Chance, Megan - A Heart Divided

This is, I think, a more standard romance novel, in terms of gender roles and the like, which was rather disappointing. The story still oozes angst out of every pore (Betrayal! Betrayal again! And... wait for it... more betrayal!), seeing as how the hero was an undercover Pinkerton agent who ended up giving the evidence for the heroine's husband's death sentence while seducing her. Unfortunately, Chance doesn't get around to subverting the genre tropes as much as she normally does. I like her generally because it's her women who are emotionally withdrawn, as opposed to the rake who is unable to love, blah blah, transformed by the love of an innocent woman. I like that her women are very seldom innocent and never cute or cuddly. Sari is a little more within the standard heroine template -- she has been betrayed, which means she is granted that aura of martyrdom, and for some strange reason, Conor (the hero) does one of those weird things in which he somehow thinks she managed to betray him. I feel if one is a Pinkerton agent out to seduce a woman to get closer to her husband and brother so he can turn them over to the police, who subsequently give them death sentences, one does not really get to feel betrayed when said woman *gasp* warns her brother away.

I could insert a rant about how the hero always manages to somehow suspect the innocent and martyred heroine of some stupid betrayal, the worst, of course, being sleeping with someone else. I think some heroes would rather have their loved one murder someone than sleep with someone else.

Anyhow. It doesn't get to the very badly melodramatic levels, but the presence of the cliche sort of irked me throughout the entire story. Another standard cliche that irked me was the matchmaking uncle who somehow knew the double-crossing Conor was the perfect match for Sari, despite said betrayal, and that he immediately turned against Sari's brother, set up as the villain of the piece. Too good to be true yenta character.

But, like her other books, I liked very much how Chance never shied away from the non-romantic nature of being a homesteader. I like how her books are about real people who aren't society darlings and who live in sod houses and wash their own clothes and in general have to struggle for their own survival. It's gritty and it makes the romance somehow feel more real. Good romance novel in general, but not up to her own standard, imho.

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Haven't read the FL for a while because my brain has been sucked into Harry Potter fanfic -- mostly Resmiranda's Shadows trilogy, which is very vaguely Hermione/Snape. I have also now been seized with a desire to reread OotP. Hrm. I fear I am developing a new fandom -- I've read HP fic before, generally the highly recced gen stuff, but this fic is seriously eating my brain. And there seems to be an incredible dearth of Snape/Hermione fics out there. Well, good ones. More strangely, for fanfic, I'm not actively looking for very shippy fics. Really, all I want is Snape and Hermione interaction because her braininess and his snarkiness interests me. I have also run into what feels like fanon already (although I haven't read enough to really tell). Apparently, in fanon, Snape has an incredible sense of smell. Hrm.

Several buys at the store this weekend had really nice copies of books I read! This actually doesn't happen that often -- so my name is now on the Firebird ed. of Peter Dickinson's The Kin, Maureen F. McHugh's China Mountain Zhang (in the trade paper edition, because I hate the covers for the hardcover and mass market), the trade paper of War for the Oaks (finally!) and the hardcover of In the Forests of Serre. I am starting to itch to get all the McKillip's in hardcover just because the covers are so pretty. Oh dear. And I finally found a copy of The Mysterious Disappearance of Leon (I Mean Noel), which I am now happily trying to solve.

I posted my resume to Monster.com, finally. Have gotten strange email from an insurance company via it, which looks vaguely weird and boring, but I should follow-up anyway. Job searches suck.

I also managed to do a very horrible parking job yesterday and as such, now have a giant dent in my car door. Sigh. Fixing it is going to make my bank account not so happy with me -- maybe I can put it on the credit card and wait for next month to pay it off. Argh. Why am I such a bad driver?

The No Parking song from OMWF also keeps playing through my head, and I keep wanting to sing the lyrics whenever I'm looking for parking.