Sakura of DOOM

Francesca Brown was half of a husband-and-wife team of spiritualists, but after Lord Greyson Sheffield exposed her as being a fraud, she retreated to a small town in Scotland to watch over young Amelie Chase. Several years later, Grey makes his way to Little Firkin with his nephew Hayden in tow. Amelie and Hayden promptly fall in love as Grey tries to reconcile the emminently practical, sarcastic, and skeptical Fanny Walcott with the fey creature he knew before.

I was so disappointed when I first heard about this book: Yes, Connie Brockway was returning to historicals (yay!), but the book was set in Scotland with magic. Never a good sign. But I found it on the library shelf and figured I could always chuck it at something if I hated it. Lucky for me, because this is incredibly charming and funny. There are no mystical Scottish powers, no macho Scottish lairds, and despite the back cover trying to bill the book as a thriller-type adventure ("unseen enemy," "danger and desire" what?), it is a romantic comedy through and through. It reminds me a great deal of Brockway's The Bridal Season, albeit with even less angst.

That said, I am bothered by the portrayal of the residents of Little Firkin; we don't see much of them, but they are largely consigned to being broad comic relief, continuing that wonderful romance tradition of only allowing upper-class characters to be fully fleshed. Of course, if you are lower class and you are the hero or the heroine, you may get good characterization, but only because you are marrying "up," and quite frequently because you have secret upper-class blood flowing through your veins. Because, you know, blood always runs true...

I'm slightly mollified because it is a comedy and because Grammy Beadle is awesome, but YMMV.

While Grey and Fanny have a little angst, most of the book is about their verbal sparring, which delights me. It is actually funny! I actually like both of the characters! I can actually see why they're attracted to each other! It is sad that this is fairly rare in romances for me. I also love the portrayal of Amelie and Hayden, both of whom are very young and very much in love. They're your more standard romance novel protagonists, and it's great how Brockway and Grey and Fanny poke fun at them, even as we get to see how Amelie will most likely grow up to be a very cool woman.

Overall, everything is so charming and funny and cute! Even the threats on Amelie's life! I'm so glad I picked this up. It completely lives up to the title.

The excerpt on Brockway's website gives a very good idea of the overall tone of the book.

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.

Noooooo!! Connie Brockway is going to stop writing historicals (interview here)?? Because people say hers are too dark and berate her for having characters like Lettie in The Bridal Season?! And apparently people are already criticizing My Surrender (I had no idea it was out! Is it? Must get!) for being too dark and depressing. Which means I, the contrary romance reader, am now anticipating it, despite being rather disappointed in the first two books of the trilogy. I am continually irked that my level of tolerance for the not fluffy is considerably higher than that of reviewers or something. *bangs head against wall*

This is why I can't find romances I want to read!

At least she seems interested in the same kinds of themes that I am interested in, and I am glad that the reason she's moving to contemporary women's fiction is because she wants more complex heroines and darker stories.

But still.

The boy was just watching "The James Bond Story" on Tivo, which had one of the Bond girls saying something about how sexism is most harmful when it is insidious, the point being that the sexism in the Bond movies was so overt that it was harmless. Err, right...

So that got me off on my now standard rant as to why there are not more cool female secret agents/spies/ninjas/actions heroes out there, and my god, I so wish that Alias had let Sydney be all dark and slightly amoral and sleep around and such like a female James Bond (but then we start getting into my multitude of issues with Alias). Then I started wishing that someone had written some sort of fanfic in which James Bond wakes up female and all sorts of cool things would happen and while it would have a good and nice point, it wouldn't be too polemic or anything to get in the way of the story. At that point I decided maybe I should go to bed, because some very strange thoughts were coming out of my head.

Read the last bit of Connie Brockway's My Pleasure. Alas, some of the book was ok, but I was just not in the right mood, or something, because I was getting very snarly with the book. At the end I sort of threw my mental hands up and out and out started ranting in my head on why in the world the guy always gets to be the super-cool fencer who was tortured in some French dungeon and slept around because *gasp* he had been hurt by love. And of course the heroine is more concerned with his sleeping around than his, oh say, sort of stalking her without her knowing it for the past few years or so. And of course if a heroine in a romance novel is ever hurt by love, she would never take it out on the opposite sex by having sex willy-nilly with everyone, because heroines hurt by love in romance novels always remain completely celibate and virginal so that the more experienced hero can warm her up to sex. And, ohhh, the heroine was feeling so bad for the poor widdle hero whose heart had been broken in the past and so slept around and felt debauched afterward.

I realized that if the situation had been so that the heroine were the promiscuous one and the hero had been the one feeling bad for her, I would have been wholeheartedly cheering for the hero and the heroine. I don't know if that is reverse-sexism or whatever you call it, but a lot of it is being completely fed up with how often the first situation happens in romance novels and how infrequently, if ever, the second ever occurs.

And I do realize that given the history of the world and such, it really isn't so historically accurate to have my nifty keen female assassins and spies and fencing masters and whatnot, but why why why can't I at least have heroes and heroines on a more equal level -- I mean, if the heroine can't be all stealthy and cool and such, maybe the hero could just be very nice and sweet and intellectual. But no, it's always the big, brawny alpha male. And the James Bond thing was saying how James Bond was the fantasy of every girl, at which point I sort of yelled at the TV. Maybe he was for me at a very tender age because I am not immune to the cuteness of Pierce Brosnan (I haven't watched many of the older ones at all), but I feel I really don't need a fantasy hero who goes and ruthlessly sleeps around with everyone and is in general pretty misogynistic, because despite what lots of fiction seems to think, I do not secretly wish to be dominated in the bedroom or anywhere else.

I feel a little better now that I have gotten this out of my system.

Anyway, now I want to read books with really kick-ass heroines. Bonuses for books that don't conform to standard gender stereotypes regarding sex and virginity and blah blah the girl must never sleep around if she's the heroine (evil girls, naturally, get to have evil villain sex) while the guy can go do whatever because he's a guy. Actually, what I really want is a romance novel in which the heroine is all tough and alpha-like and rescues the sweet but somewhat naive guy, but somehow, I'm thinking there aren't very many of those around. Also, the next book in which I encounter the good, virginal girl vs. the evil, skanky girl (remind me again why I stopped watching Alias?) I will throw against a wall.

I could immediately tell the Regency period story was Connie Brockway's.

The other three are kind of meh, and I am sad, but my dislike of Christina Dodd continues to be justified. Mostly I just got this because I was at the airport, realized I only had half of The King of Elfland's Daughter and Crusie category to finish, and that would be maybe four hundred pages total. Definitely not enough for my flight. And this one looked like a surer bet than getting JoAnn Ross or etc.

The book's four short stories framed around the famous Masterson bed, and it begins with Brockway's story set in the medieval period. It's ok, but it doesn't quite hit my buttons, and it suffers from, well, being a short story. I don't know. I've never quite found a good romance short that really worked for me, I think because the characterization and the tension and the love really needs some sort of length to get established for me. Also, there's the problem with medieval dialogue... while I like reading about the period, the whole knights and Saracen prisons thing can get kind of old. But! The knight is a Nice Guy despite Saracen prison, which is more than can be said about most heroes, and I like Nice Guys. They are sorely lacking in most romances. So while it wasn't a stunning short, it was happy and warm and kind of funny. However, points off for the mention of "male nipples."

The next one, set during the Elizabethan period, not so good. It had one of those heroines I really dislike, and while I didn't quite dislike Helwin the way I dislike most of her type (maybe because of length again), I was really not incredibly enthusiastic reading about how she wins over Rion Masterson's household and cooks for them and cleans and makes life wonderful and a domestic paradise! *rolls eyes* I generally do not like wide-eyed innocent heroines who create warmth and happiness wherever they go out of their sheer existence.

The last one finishes up the framing story (a tour guide regaling stories about the bed) with the tour guide's love story, which is frankly, pretty dumb. I feel like I am not really spoiling anything when it turns out her love interest is *gasp* a Masterson (who woulda thunk). Plus, a really weird sideplot on stolen antiques from the Masterson Manor. And the guy falls in love with her and proposes marriage after a night of sex or something. Of course, he highly regrets that he has deflowered possibly the only twenty-three year old virgin in England (here I roll my eyes again -- is virginity that big of a deal these days?) and is a gentleman and offers to marry her. Excuse me? This is supposed to be the present day, yes? I mean, I'm sure people do this, but... uhh... yeah. Plus, the sex scene is really bad. And then they get married! What? I know Crusie characters get married after a week or so in general, but you know, I at least have had two hundred some pages of time to spend with them, as opposed to under a hundred. And then they have sex without protection and it's a giggly funny thing because when a Masterson sleeps with his twu wuv in that bed they inevitably conceieve a son nine months later.

Sorry. But it's supposed to be a contemporary! I read contemporaries so I don't have to deal with this stuff!

Highlight of the book was, as previously mentioned, Brockway's short set in the Regency. I think a lot of this was because we were walking in on a couple with significant backstory (as opposed to the tour guide's "significant backstory" of one night of sex), and hey, angst! I love angst. And it had the hero completely, head over heels in love with the heroine but afraid to let her know (otherwise known as the Rhett Butler syndrome), which is also my kink. Plus, chaining to the bed. Um. Okay, too revealing of my kinks ;). But the characters talked, and there was actual tension! Most romance shorts that I read tend not to have tension because it takes so long to develop and resolve. It worked here because the beginning of the story sounded a lot like an excerpt from a longer novel or something, which I appreciated. Unfortunately, it's all a Big Misunderstanding, and a particularly stupid one to boot, so the resolution left me with a rather sour taste in my mouth. Too bad it wasn't a real excerpt with loads of angst ala All Through the Night.

I have also read about ninety pages of Connie Brockway's new book My Seduction, and am dying to read it now. The hero looks like a genuinely nice and noble guy, plus, there's a completely guh exceprt at the end of this book in which he pledges obedience to the heroine. I like it when heroes are actually protective or something to the heroine instead of hauling her off her feet, or god forbid, spanking her, and otherwise manhandling her. That is not a hero to me.

Have been going on a romance reading streak lately. I suspect it's because they're sort of comfort books and because I miss the boy. Also I sort of rediscovered The Romance Reader and had fun going through essays, and went rampaging through melymbrosia's romance conversion kit.

Read another Connie Brockway because I was quite impressed with All Through the Night. I like My Dearest Enemy. It was enjoyable, though not as hard hitting as All Through the Night. And while I enjoyed having the hero and the heroine meet, I almost wish that there had been a sort of supplementary book that the author refers to, The Unabridged Love Letters of Avery Thorne and Lillian Bede. The letters, particularly Lily's rather acid ones, had me laughing in delight. And I think the rest of the romance never quite lived up to them, with Lily being too attracted to Avery to make as many of her stinging remarks, all couched in that very polite yet scathing tone of voice. I also just liked the idea of Avery reading them aloud to his friends over fires in various remote parts of the world.

Then went on to Judith Ivory's Sleeping Beauty. I will admit, although everyone and their mother seems to think Judith Ivory is absolutely wonderful, I've never quite been able to get into her books. I recognize that they do interesting things to romance tropes and that she doesn't fall back on the often used means of expressing that the hero and the heroine are in love, but they've just never quite resonated with me. For Beast and Black Silk, the writing managed to put me off just enough so that I admired the books but didn't really like them. Black Silk more so than Beast, because I can never refuse a fairy tale retelling, much less a retelling of Beauty and the Beast. I very much liked Louise in Beast and I loved the first half of the book, but got rather sick of waiting around for the Big Misunderstanding to be cleared up. The Indiscretion and The Proposal I don't even really recall much. But Sleeping Beauty had the older heroine who was rather jaded and closed off to love, with the understanding that the hero will of course be the one to touch her hardened heart, which is one of my hot button setups. And for once the book lived up to it. Loved the small references to Sleeping Beauty and enjoyed the rather odd setting for a romance novel -- Victorian England, Cambridge, the dentist's office. And I loved Coco and James. I also liked how the ending wasn't perfectly happy with everything resolved, just enough of a few bitter notes to make it believable.

Started watching La Femme Nikita yesterday (netflix is wonderful). I've put off Stargate for a bit, feeling a little burnt out from watching two seasons in a very short period of time. So now I'm overdosing on yet another show! I love TV on DVD. Anyway, I've only seen three episodes so far, but I rather like it, and I am rather disappointed that news seems to be that S2 is not going to be put out. I feel it's got the cool bits of Alias without falling into the bits of Alias that I disliked. Although I will admit that LFN so far does not have Jack and Sloane, who are really really strong votes for Alias. LFN is kind of clunky, tries a little too hard and leaves too many seams exposed, but I like Nikita and Michael is really enough to eat with a spoon. I like Nikita because she's so often the opposite of Sydney. She doesn't have much of a personal life so far, so I don't have to watch her commiserate over her friends' lives when I really just want to see cool gadgets. Nikita's also not as open and vulnerable as Sydney, which strangely makes me like her more. And Michael is really interesting. Well, not really so far, but he's an archetype I like with a French accent and a killer coat. Plus, UST up the wazoo. I think I never quite liked Alias because the leads, Sydney and Vaughn, were too intrinsically good (I say this only having seen half a season). I get hints of danger in Vaughn, of what he might be capable of, but he's really very uncomplicated when compared to Jack (who is awesome). I love Jack because he can be given a gun and told to shoot Sydney, and I can actually think, you know, he might really do it. Whereas I know that Sydney and Vaughn will be good people. I find this odd because I'm a stickler for disliking gratuitous violence and for liking good people, but I find it more interesting when my heroes and heroines aren't shiningly good. I like watching people who may not be perfectly kind and lovely (which is why most standard romance heroines piss me off, with their campaigns for the poor orphans, etc. etc.) and Michael very much fits this. I like having the slickness of a spy show, with the intrigue and the distrust and the aura of fear. Sigh. I miss X-Files.