Milan, Courtney - Carhart duology

[oyceter]

As with Nicola Cornick, I picked up Courtney Milan because of rosefox's Best, and Next-Best, of 2010. The difference is that while I found the first book not really worthy of a next best spot, the second book is promising.

Proof by Seduction

Jenny Keeble acts as Madame Esmerelda, a Gypsy fortuneteller, and Gareth Carhart, Marquess of Blakely, is out to wrest his cousin Ned from her grasp. I have many issues with this book, from Gareth basically bulldozing his way into Jenny's life despite her attempts to keep him away and his using his wealth and status to get what he wants, to Jenny basically doing Romany brownface. Dear romance novels: please stop making your white heroines fake Gypsy fortunetellers profitting off stereotypes, especially when you have no actual Romany characters in the book. I also mocked Gareth's Secret Angst relentlessly. The bits that were interesting were Ned Carhart, who is bipolar and not magically cured by the end of the book, and his marriage of convenience.

Trial by Desire

As noted, Ned Carhart married in Proof by Seduction, but by this book, he's left his wife Kate alone for three years as he goes gallivanting off in China. Despite my interest in the characters from the first book, the marriage of convenience hook, and the husband and wife falling in love hook, I put off reading this for a while because China + Opium War + romance novel = OMGWTFBBQ.

I am happy to say that I did not want to throw this book against a wall! Ned is indeed in China around the time of the Opium War, and he is there to oversee the Carhart family's "investments" in China (brief pause as I do not write a giant rant about British trade in China). However, he gets points for quickly realizing the East India Company basically sucks. Not only that, but there's very little we see of him in China. He does not magically save Chinese people from the British and do "what these people need is a honkey." He does not find himself in China by saving China. Instead, he finds himself by being an utter failure in trying to help. I appreciated this a lot. I mean, yes, it would have been nice to have more Chinese characters, but you know, given all the romance racefail I've read, I'm happy with just a mention of the Opium War that a) doesn't excuse the British by b) blaming the Chinese or the Qing Dynasty and c) lacks a Great White Savior. My expectations, they are so low.

Ned is a very interesting romance hero for me; his undiagnosed and largely untreated bipolar makes him try to be a stoic hero, but he's not so great at it. I also enjoy how his stoicness and Kate's anger at her husband's withdrawal battle against each other, but I can't say how well it's done because that is one of my buttons. I further liked that Kate wants sex moe than Ned does. Also, IIRC, Ned doesn't get a miracle cure for bipolar at the end, and although there is a happy ever after, I felt Milan didn't gloss over the difficulties Kate and Ned would face. I thought Milan also did a good job in walking the line between "OH NOES he is disabled and HIS LIFE IS RUINED" versus "magic wand makes everything go away" without also romanticizing Ned's bipolar. That said, I do not have bipolar and am still futzing around quite a bit with trying to look at disability in fiction, so YMMV and giant grain of salt.

Overall, much more interesting set up than her first book, and unconventional in ways I like a lot.


Also, I read part of her novella in The Heart of Christmas, and all I can say about it is: using money to try and buy the company of a woman fallen on hard times doesn't make my heart flutter.

Comments

[meganbmoore]

The only Milan I've read is a few chapters of that novella, which I ditched for the same reasons you did (I think I liked the other novellas in the anthology, though). Is she worth trying again?

[rachelmanija]

Trial by Desire sounds like something I might like. I'm fascinated by depictions of mental illness at times when they weren't well-understood (not that they're totally understood now) or even named.

[rosefox]

Part of the struggle for Ned is trying to figure out how to describe or explain what he's going through. Cyclothymia runs in my family and I really have no words for how much I appreciated the depiction of his illness and the ways he tries to deal with it.

[oyceter]

I definitely would ditch the novella and the first Carhart book, but I think Trial by Desire is worth reading, and I'm in the middle of her third book, which looks like it may do some interesting things with class and the "I am out for vengeance!" trope.

[oyceter]

I think you'd enjoy it! I mean, YMMV and I speak as someone with unipolar depression, not as someone with bipolar, but so far, it's one of the portrayals of mental illness in romance that didn't make me want to throw something. Also, I felt the dynamic between Ned and Kate was fairly atypical for a romance.

[daedala]

I really liked Trial by Desire. I especially liked how Ned did not learn Magical Eastern Meditation Techniques to Cure his Illness, a la...lots and lots of stupid novels. The novella and the first novel annoyed me a lot (though I liked parts of the first novel, such as how the fortune telling was handled aside from the brownface aspect, which I did not like. (You know how often in romances belief in psychic powers becomes part of how the skeptic Proves Their Love and Worthiness? I HATE THAT. And at least that wasn't what she was doing here.)

Re: Your low expectations of any romance book that mentions the East India Company. I am trying to handle this issue in the book I'm writing; would you be willing to let me run that piece by you? If not, that's totally ok.

[oyceter]

ME TOO! I really liked Ned and how his time "finding himself" in China was basically... him being humiliated and clearly not saving anyone. It was a nice reversal of the "what these people need is a honky."

I'd be really interested in seeing what you're doing with it, although I will warn you that I probably get offended much faster than the average person re: Opium War. So take my opinion with a grain of salt!

[daedala]

How did you like Unveiled? I was really impressed, though the hero the hero's Disability Superpower was kind of annoying.

[oyceter]

I actually haven't finished it yet! I keep forgetting I'm in the middle of it... I suspect I am getting less into historicals and more into contemporaries, huh.