Pope, Elizabeth Marie - The Perilous Gard

I don't even know how many times I've read this book, but it's still one of my favorites from childhood, and it still holds up very well.

Reread it after the Lymond Chronicles (and because reccing it to minnow1212 made me want to read it again), and now I keep wanting to call Kate Sutton "Kate Somerville." She is certainly quite like the Somervilles though.

I love The Perilous Gard because of Kate and her stubborn, practical, resolute self. She may have been one of the first heroines I read who felt distinctly anti-heroine -- she wasn't romantic, she constantly poked holes in the dashing and angsty Christopher's dashing and angsty nature, and she said things that I often thought while reading this kind of book. She seems to be the kind of person in a horror movie who would actually remember to turn on the lights in the basement.

I also love how distinctly anti-Romantic this book is, despite its grounding in the Tam Lin ballad. Christopher's big dream, despite his angstiness, is to drain and mulch a manor. And I think the way Pope has the two of them fall in love has forever made me sort of snort at the more romantic and epic type love. They talk, and they listen to each other.

I just sort of realized that the creature from the Well was basically talking Christopher into suicide, which is a rather frightening thought.

And on a small, fun note, Christopher's proposal goes down with Mr. Darcy's (the first one) and Lymond's as some of the worst ways to propose ever.

minnow1212 has just posted on it as well ^_^.

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Yay!! The boy bought me the Lymond Chronicles, and they are sitting on my shelf, and they are beautiful and new and lovely with no creases. I, er, flipped to the "Languish locked in L!" scene in Ringed Castle while I was shelving, and read on with a huge grin on my face.

They're mine now!! *cackles* Hee, the library can have its copies back now (I was hanging on to them and doing the "good parts" reread).

I've also started Pamela Dean's Secret Country trilogy, and why why why why didn't anyone ever give this to me when I was a kid?! Maybe it's for the best, because if I had read them as a kid, I would have been sorely disappointed about my own secret games never coming to life. Very glad I splurged and bought them yesterday.