Kinsale, Laura - The Hidden Heart

[oyceter]

Laura Kinsale's more famous book The Shadow and the Star is a sort of sequel to this one, in the sense that Shadowheart is the sequel to For My Lady's Heart.

Anyhow, Tess Collier is an heiress who grew up travelling in the tropics with her botanist father. He's now died, and his last wish is apparently to see her married well. So she heads back to England on Gryphon Meridon's ship. Gryf is, of course, the lone survivor of the Meridons, except he's got no real proof of this, and so someone else has his marquessate (I had to look that up in Wikipedia! I was thinking... marquessdom? marquesshood? eh?). They pretty much instantly fall in love, except Gryf hides it because he doesn't think he's good enough for an heiress, and Tess because she doesn't think he loves her back.

Much angst ensues.

Gryf is then appointed Tess' surreptitious guardian by her solicitor so that Tess doesn't get seduced by a fortune-hunting jerk.

Much more angst ensues.

Tess gets a proposal from the guy who has taken over Gryf's marquessate.

Much more angst ensues.

There are many mixed messages and big misunderstandings involving Gryf's surreptitious guardianhood (I don't think Wikipedia has an entry on this one).

Even more angst ensues.

I was sitting back reading and enjoying because I like Tess and I adore Gryf, who is sort of shy and unsure and hides it behind a somewhat aloof exterior (he doesn't hide it too well). Gryf is, of course, afraid of emotional connection because he has been Hurt in the Past! Woe! Thankfully, he reacts to this by merely being distancing and polite, as opposed to being a fullblown jerk. Anyhow, I got to the mixed messages and big declarations and stuff, and I was only about 150 pages into the book. It was strange. It was normal.

I mean, it was somewhat cracktastic, but only with the normal romance trope crack of mix-ups and long-delayed desire. This is Kinsale, though! I was expecting romance trope crack, but I was also expecting absolutely insane, ninja-appearing, mutiny-laden, hidden-assassin-ful, penguin-ness crack. For anyone who has not read Kinsale, I am totally not making that up.

Then comes the plot twist, and everything pretty much goes absolutely haywire, with more angstcakes than you can shake your fist at, including (but not limited to), another sort-of shipwreck, a sexually-twisted villain (ok, that's pretty standard, but still), marriages of convenience, tropical islands, a trial scene, a kidnapping, a murder, and Gryf being extremely repressed. None of these are particularly non-standard in romances, but it's the fact that it's all there in the book and that one keeps leading to another.

In case anyone can't tell, I enjoyed it a great deal and I adored the main characters. Also, the parrot was pretty good too.

(I do feel somewhat bad about my tongue-in-cheek reviews but... crack! Pure crack! Kinsale-special-brand-extra-refined crack!)

Links:
- gwyneira's review

Comments

[riemannia.livejournal.com]

I loved it because I love all Kinsale, though perhaps I loved this one a little less. Nevertheless, the final scene where Gryf was crying gutted me. No one does emotion quite like Kinsale.

[jinian.livejournal.com]

I think your review expresses exactly the essence of Kinsale. Really.