Wrede, Patricia C., and Caroline Stevermer - The Grand Tour

[oyceter]

I had a lot of fun reading this. Not quite as much fun as I had reading Sorcery and Cecelia, but I think much of that can be attributed to the lack of the epistolary format. Kate and Cecy are now married (to Thomas and James, respectively, not to each other), and all four of them are embarking on a Grand Tour of the Continent. Of course, this being Kate and Cecy, things happen.

I have to say, I loved the title: The Grand Tour, or The Purloined Coronation Regalia, being a revelation of matters of High Confidentiality and Greatest Importance, including extracts from the intimate diary of a Noblewoman and the sworn testimony of a Lady of Quality, which should give unfamiliar readers a pretty good taste of what the tone of the book is like. Kate and Cecy and Thomas and James galivant around while getting into all sorts of trouble, meet shady characters, along with the Duke of Wellington, and Kate and Cecy finally have a chance to go shopping in Paris.

The tone is a little different from Sorcery and Cecelia, not quite so comical largely because of the extracts from Kate's diary. Kate is much more insecure and unsure of herself in her diary than she is writing to Cecy, which makes sense. And it was very interesting reading the two writing about the same events from different angles. One of the things I missed, though, was the camaraderie between Kate and Cecy... because the book is taken up of Cecy's testimony and Kate's diary, there is much less interaction between the two, and I miss the friendliness and the sensed history behind all the letters they wrote to each other for Sorcery and Cecelia. So the strangest thing for me was that while the two were physically together throughout the book, unlike S&C, they felt more emotionally distant.

Links:
- coffeeandink's review
- rilina's review

Comments

[oyceter]

I did like Kate and Thomas together very much ^_^. But I missed Kate and Cecy together a great deal -- there's such a lack of good female friendships in genre fiction, I feel.