Samuel, Barbara - The Black Angel
Sun, Jun. 6th, 2004 01:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oyceterPretty good! I haven't been reading romances for a few weeks and now I am craving more books. Except none of the local libraries have Barbara Samuel/Ruth Wind. Argh!
It was one of the kinds of romances in which I found myself actually liking the characters as actual people I would enjoy knowing, as opposed to the more standard liking the character but never actually wanting to meet them in real life (Wesley from Angel, say). One of the problems with that was that I spent about half the book wondering if the author was going to end up writing an entire series on the heroine's family (two sexy older brothers, one interesting sister, two other sisters that weren't developed as much).
I particularly liked the way Samuel didn't ignore the double standard re: sexual promiscuity for the heroine and the hero in romances or in society at the time... The heroine, Adriana, was the center of a scandal a few years back for having a lover, who was later killed by her brother in a duel (insult to her honor, etc.). It actually reminded me a bit of Almost a Gentleman in that regard, and in the fact that the hero finally gets called on being insulted/jealous/whatnot when he learns of the "sordidness" of the heroine's past when he is a rake beyond all reckoning. Or not even a rake. And I liked how the hero was Irish in a not necessarily overly romanticized way -- it probably was romanticized (I know nothing about that area), but not as drastically as many Irish (and Scots) heroes are.
And I also liked how it began as one of those seduce the heroine who fears her sexuality plot and quickly discarded that halfway through when it became quite obvious that Adriana and Tynan actually liked each other, as opposed to being in serious lust with each other.
I did have a quibble with the ending though. Spoilers ahoy!
While I really liked how Adriana fought her own duel (and won), I was sort of questioning how realistic that would be on a historical level. But that's not my real quibble, since generally I am vague enough on Western history to not care much about such things. But while her plot thing got resolved rather satisfactorially (although a bit too neat), why does she have to go and adopt Tynan's lifework as her own? I can't really count off the top of my head, but I have a general impression that the heroine's big cause tends to be abandoned after marriage. I hope I'm wrong -- right now the example in my head is Connie Brockway's My Dearest Enemy, in which Lily in the end abandons her principles to not marry. And I was a bit confused by the constant comments about Adriana being a fairly spoiled and weak-willed girl in the book, considering that the author didn't show much evidence to support that. Of course there is always the bluestocking heroine to consider... Hrm. Don't read enough in that area of romance to know enough.
Hrm, just checked on Amazon, and it seems as though there is a book on Adriana's sister, which is possibly of the good. I liked her sister very much (intellectual type who represses her feelings, haha, I so have a type).
It was one of the kinds of romances in which I found myself actually liking the characters as actual people I would enjoy knowing, as opposed to the more standard liking the character but never actually wanting to meet them in real life (Wesley from Angel, say). One of the problems with that was that I spent about half the book wondering if the author was going to end up writing an entire series on the heroine's family (two sexy older brothers, one interesting sister, two other sisters that weren't developed as much).
I particularly liked the way Samuel didn't ignore the double standard re: sexual promiscuity for the heroine and the hero in romances or in society at the time... The heroine, Adriana, was the center of a scandal a few years back for having a lover, who was later killed by her brother in a duel (insult to her honor, etc.). It actually reminded me a bit of Almost a Gentleman in that regard, and in the fact that the hero finally gets called on being insulted/jealous/whatnot when he learns of the "sordidness" of the heroine's past when he is a rake beyond all reckoning. Or not even a rake. And I liked how the hero was Irish in a not necessarily overly romanticized way -- it probably was romanticized (I know nothing about that area), but not as drastically as many Irish (and Scots) heroes are.
And I also liked how it began as one of those seduce the heroine who fears her sexuality plot and quickly discarded that halfway through when it became quite obvious that Adriana and Tynan actually liked each other, as opposed to being in serious lust with each other.
I did have a quibble with the ending though. Spoilers ahoy!
While I really liked how Adriana fought her own duel (and won), I was sort of questioning how realistic that would be on a historical level. But that's not my real quibble, since generally I am vague enough on Western history to not care much about such things. But while her plot thing got resolved rather satisfactorially (although a bit too neat), why does she have to go and adopt Tynan's lifework as her own? I can't really count off the top of my head, but I have a general impression that the heroine's big cause tends to be abandoned after marriage. I hope I'm wrong -- right now the example in my head is Connie Brockway's My Dearest Enemy, in which Lily in the end abandons her principles to not marry. And I was a bit confused by the constant comments about Adriana being a fairly spoiled and weak-willed girl in the book, considering that the author didn't show much evidence to support that. Of course there is always the bluestocking heroine to consider... Hrm. Don't read enough in that area of romance to know enough.
Hrm, just checked on Amazon, and it seems as though there is a book on Adriana's sister, which is possibly of the good. I liked her sister very much (intellectual type who represses her feelings, haha, I so have a type).
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Mon, Jun. 7th, 2004 06:22 am (UTC)(no subject)
Tue, Jun. 8th, 2004 12:30 am (UTC)I remember eventually giving up on various occasions when you were asking for recs in your journal, so this is nice ^_^.
(no subject)
Tue, Jun. 8th, 2004 05:37 am (UTC)Heh.