Brockway, Connie - My Surrender

I cannot begin to say just how much I adored Charlotte Nash.

But I am getting ahead of myself. Anyhow, this is the third in Brockway's Rose Hunter trilogy, the premise being that three Scotsmen are saved from certain death by the Nash sisters' father. Ergo they decide to swear to protect the Nash sisters. Er, yes, not necessarily the most promising of set-ups for me, especially when burly Scotsmen are involved. Le sigh. But I read anyway, because it's Brockway. Charlotte is the third Nash sister, a bit of a coquette and a bit of a flirt. Enough to be sensational but not enough to be cast out of Society. Unbeknownst to her dear sisters, she's actually helping the effort against Napoleon in providing information, thanks to her ability to move around Society. Dand Ross is another spy.

Yay spies!

Ahem. Anyhow, I am tremendously, tremendously pleased that for once, the spies actually act something like spies, as opposed to doing really stupid things just because they're in love. I mean, I get that spies are people and all, but one would figure that after being tortured and whatnot, one could really keep one's head while in love. I also adore that this is the standard plotline where the heroine spy must sleep with evil villainous man to get information, but in this case, Charlotte is a little disgusted but entirely willing to do it and convinced of the necessity, that she goes about doing it in a fairly convincing fashion, and that Dand isn't stupid and misconstrues her motives or gets stupidly jealous or whatnot. I adored the first part of the book, in which Charlotte effects her fall from Society with Dand as the lover.

I think part of me is very pleased with this because more often than not, romance novels defer desire by having outside forces (oracne has a good post on this) interfere with the couple getting together, so that they are consumed by illicit desire, blah blah blah. In spy!romances, this seems to be especially prominent. I get this, given that usually spy!romances have spies from two opposiing sides who fall in love; the irksome bit for me is that because of this, they act completely unprofessional. Also, to get them together in the end, you eventually find out that one side is wrong and the heroine is only for that side because her brother is there or she's being lied to or whatever, and really, that just seems to be a copout. So I liked that instead of having extreme forbidden sexual tension fostered by impersonal antogonism (aka Romeo and Juliet), in this book, there is the unwilling sexual tension fostered by duty and that the main barrier to feeling it is the two spies' personal sense of integrity and honor and their desire to complete the mission.

I also very much like that Brockway doesn't in any way romanticize Charlotte becoming a Fallen Woman (as they say) and that the threat is pretty awful, not just to her, but to people she cares about. I always feel that too often, heroines in Regencies are so swept away by passion and etc. and don't think about the consequences. And I like that Charlotte is doing this out of a desire to help her country and that she continues to stick with it because of that. And that when she thinks Dand betrayed her, she is bitter but accepts that these things happen for a higher cause.

I was very disappointed in the ending though. I think it was because it was the proper ending for the trilogy but not for this book; all the conflicts and delicious angst set up in the beginning of this book are eventually pushed aside and ignored so Brockway can resolve the plot of the trilogy, which is frankly very boring. Also, the eventual climactic moment is one that unravels the big mystery of the trilogy, which isn't much of a mystery at all, and it in no way is the emotional climax of the series. In fact, I think all the wonderful angst set up between Charlotte and Dand never really does get resolved. It just gets magicked away, and I am irked about this because it was wonderful.

Ah well.