Sakura of DOOM

Alas, one of my favorite romance novel authors has moved into the field of "real" fiction. This is her second non-romance novel; the first was on the Salem witch trials, and I haven't read it.

Chance's romances (past reviews here, here, here, and here) are usually far from happy and uplifting. Her happy endings feel like they won't quite last, and all her protagonists are damaged in some way or the other. I also like her because her heroines are as tortured as her heroes.

An Inconvenient Wife focuses entirely on the heroine, and while there is a bit of a romance, it's in no way a love story or anything but the story of a woman's escape from her restrictive life.

Lucy Carelton suffers from hysteria; she's gone to numerous doctors who have suggested a stay at an asylum, an ovarectium (sp) and laudunum. Nothing works. Finally, she and her desperate husband William find Dr. Victor Seth, a neurologist who believes in the power of hypnotism and electrotherapy.

I loved the setting of the book (New York 1885), and I think Chance is particularly good at conveying how limiting the life of an upperclass woman was, how so many choices were dictated by societal rules. The book wasn't particularly pleasant to read, though, because of how stifling it felt, but I don't think that's a particularly bad point. It reminds me quite a bit of Age of Innocence, actually.

The only problem is that I'm thoroughly unconvinced by the turn the plot takes about three-fourths of the way through -- what began as a look at imprisonment and limitations becomes a little more sensational, and I don't think it works with the tone of the book. I mean, I enjoy the ending from a romance-novel-cliche-bender kind of way, but I'm not convinced of it, if that makes sense.

Anyhow, it was interesting, and I'll keep a watch out for more Chance books.

This is, I think, a more standard romance novel, in terms of gender roles and the like, which was rather disappointing. The story still oozes angst out of every pore (Betrayal! Betrayal again! And... wait for it... more betrayal!), seeing as how the hero was an undercover Pinkerton agent who ended up giving the evidence for the heroine's husband's death sentence while seducing her. Unfortunately, Chance doesn't get around to subverting the genre tropes as much as she normally does. I like her generally because it's her women who are emotionally withdrawn, as opposed to the rake who is unable to love, blah blah, transformed by the love of an innocent woman. I like that her women are very seldom innocent and never cute or cuddly. Sari is a little more within the standard heroine template -- she has been betrayed, which means she is granted that aura of martyrdom, and for some strange reason, Conor (the hero) does one of those weird things in which he somehow thinks she managed to betray him. I feel if one is a Pinkerton agent out to seduce a woman to get closer to her husband and brother so he can turn them over to the police, who subsequently give them death sentences, one does not really get to feel betrayed when said woman *gasp* warns her brother away.

I could insert a rant about how the hero always manages to somehow suspect the innocent and martyred heroine of some stupid betrayal, the worst, of course, being sleeping with someone else. I think some heroes would rather have their loved one murder someone than sleep with someone else.

Anyhow. It doesn't get to the very badly melodramatic levels, but the presence of the cliche sort of irked me throughout the entire story. Another standard cliche that irked me was the matchmaking uncle who somehow knew the double-crossing Conor was the perfect match for Sari, despite said betrayal, and that he immediately turned against Sari's brother, set up as the villain of the piece. Too good to be true yenta character.

But, like her other books, I liked very much how Chance never shied away from the non-romantic nature of being a homesteader. I like how her books are about real people who aren't society darlings and who live in sod houses and wash their own clothes and in general have to struggle for their own survival. It's gritty and it makes the romance somehow feel more real. Good romance novel in general, but not up to her own standard, imho.

Now I've read all the Megan Chance romances, with the exception of The Portrait, which I just got from Half.com. Too impatient to wait for it to come in at the bookstore or something. I'm still debating picking up Susannah Morrow, since melymbrosia says it's the weakest of her books.

So, these few days I have been reading:

After the Frost -- her second romance. I didn't like it as much as most of them, and the story takes a little time to get started. Subverted trope in this case would be the custody battle, except this time, it was the mother who came back for her daughter and the father trying to protect his happy household. I wonder what it says about me when I say I didn't like the heroine as much as the other ones because she wasn't as cold? Anyhow, again, I enjoyed small things like having there be no Big Misunderstanding and having Belle give up her idea of taking her daughter away instead of hanging on to it with her last breath, and a daughter who was luckily not too twee. And while Megan Chance's books generally don't focus so much on the physical side of the romance, this one does much more. I did feel a bit squicky about the fact that Rand and Belle conceived the girl when Belle was fifteen and he was twenty-two. Not so sure of the historical accuracy, and I'm guessing that enough girls at fifteen were married even, but it was still a bit squicky. Also, the traumatic past event, while not a Big Secret, also did not put the hero in the best of lights. I was a little hazy about his reasoning there (or lack thereof). Not Megan Chance's best, but better than a good many romances out there.

A Season in Eden -- I literally cried while I was reading this. Not sniffled, not teared up, but had to go blow my nose and wipe the tears off my face at least three times, and I in general do not cry while partaking in fiction. It quite likely could be hormones or something. And while it's being marketed as a romance novel, it really doesn't fit in the genre. More women's fiction marketed as romance (as opposed to Jennifer Crusie). The story is Lora's, who has had the hope torn out of her about a year ago. Her husband Eli decides to go off to a logging camp for money to pay off their debts, and has Will, a hired man, come in to help Lora out. I particularly loved the slowness of the book and its emphasis on the details of life in that area. Much like Fall from Grace, the life is very hard, and Chance makes it very clear just how desperate their situation can be and how precarious their hold on the land really is. I think that's what I love the most about the Western setting -- it reminds me of the Little House books.

I also very much liked how the reason behind Lora's loss of hopes was revealed slowly and almost naturally, given that it was told in first person, so when we finally find out what happens and why Lora does some of the things she does, it makes sense and it hurts. It didn't feel like the author was arbitrarily giving her signs of grief/trauma (as opposed to the fear of dead babies in SEP's First Lady). And I adored the letters. I never quite realized before, but I really love letters in books. I loved them because they weren't romantic, and yet, they were, and because I remember writing emails to the boy over summers when we were an ocean apart and how different it made communicating. And most importantly, I understood Lora's pain and why she reacted the way she did, which made her sympathetic instead of potentially whiny or annoying. Not that I think she was even close...