Sakura of DOOM

Lydia Joyce writes gothic romances, some more gothic than others. This one felt very gothic, given the use of spiritualists and seances. Thomas Hyde, Viscount Varcourt, has been suspected of killing his older brother for years. His mother is currently enamored with spiritualism, particularly the veiled spiritualist Esmerelda. Thomas is worried Esmerelda is using his family to further her own ends and tries to drive her away from his mother.

Em is using her role as Esmerelda for reasons we don't know, and soon, Thomas coerces her to investigate what his mother knows about his brother's death. I don't particularly like Thomas, but I find his relationship with Em fascinating. There's a lot of power play involved, and although Thomas does the stupid alpha male thing of thinking it's okay to be threatening non-virginal women, Em responds not by protesting her innocence, but by continually forcing herself to be icy and unafraid. It has the effect of making the reader and Thomas judge his actions without the "this would be okay if she really were a Gypsy*/fallen woman/whatever." Also, as we all know, I am a total sucker for icy women.

This is definitely a dark romance, and I don't buy the happy ending at all. However, unlike Anne Stuart's Moon Rise, I like that the darkness in this book is more centered in the heroine, as opposed the more traditional innocent heroine/dark and mysterious hero dynamic. Also, as a plus, Joyce's plotting doesn't completely fall apart as much as it usually does. There is still a totally random solution to one mystery (who killed Thomas' brother), but since I didn't care about that one, I was okay with it.

... Now I want to read a gothic romance by Joyce that features a non-aristocratic hero and a brooding, secretive, possibly murderous heroine.

Actually, I would read a book like that by anyone!


* Am annoyed with the book's use of the Roma, and while it's in character for everyone to think of them as Gypsies, they're basically used as exotic flavor. There's only one speaking Roma character, and most of it is about Em and how she fits in or doesn't with the Roma community. Bah.

Victoria Wakefield has agreed to stay with the mysterious Byron Stratford, Duke of Raeburn, in the dark, forbidding, and architecturally insane Raeburn Hall for a week so discharge her brother's gambling debts. He's very mysterious and lurks about in darkness and refuses to stand in the sunshine. She's a maidenly spinster with hidden sensuality. Together, they fight crime have hot sex!

So far, out of all of Joyce's books, this has my favorite romance, as Raeburn is the most interesting hero (all her heroines have so far been interesting). Also, the book basically consists of the two of them talking to each other and getting to know each other, which was very welcome. Victoria is your standard icy heroine; she thaws more quickly than I would like, particularly given Raeburn's reluctance to give up power, but she reads very differently from the two other Joyce heroines I've read. I also like her story of secret angst-that-isn't.

Unfortunately, the latter half of the book is not quite as good. Most of Victoria's secrets have already been revealed, whereas Raeburn is being stupidly stubborn. This should lead to more tension, but instead, as I am not interested in Raeburn's secret angst and wanted to know more about Victoria, it only led to me wanting to beat him over the head for not telling her. Especially after we found out what it was!

The other thing that I found very interesting was how Gothic this was, even more so than her two other books. (Please let me know if I'm wrong about any of this! All my knowledge of Gothics is taken from Jane Eyre and reading other people's posts about Gothics.) It's very much Girl Meets House, and the houses figure prominently in the story. While Raeburn's not threatening to kill Victoria, there's the sense of shadowed menace and deformity that seems to accompany Gothics. I wish I had more to say on Gothics, only I need more genre knowledge.

Also, this book read to me like a take on Beauty and the Beast, from the woman in a dark castle to save a relative from debt to a beastly figure to the mysterious servants to the final plot twist. So, for people who read Gothics: would you classify "Beauty and the Beast" as Gothic (in whichever form, though I am thinking largely of Cocteau's movie, the Disney movie, and the Mme de Beaumont version most, though I further note that I haven't seen the Cocteau)?

Caught up now, will stop spamming!

Colin and Fern have just gotten married after a fairly standard courtship. Fern has images of herself miraculously becoming the perfect society wife without quite knowing how that happens, and she's dismayed to find that she doesn't know the man she's married and frightened at the loss of control in both sex and in other aspects of her life.

Colin is simply unthinking and inconsiderate; he's not a Gothic hero with a wife in the attic, he's just a normal man in Victorian England who has never thought about his wife having thoughts and emotions, much less how he would react to that. He's done what's expected of him his entire life; after a bit of marriage, he plans on resuming his relationship with his mistress.

But after a simple argument, Fern slaps him, and Colin feels alive for the first time, while Fern wrenches back some of the control she's lost. It's not the S&M relationship in Shadowheart, but it's a very realistic portrayal of two people beginning to discover who they are underneath the trappings of societal expectation, and of two people gradually learning about each other as well.

I wanted Fern's sadistic tendencies in sex to be less forced by Colin (he basically goads her into hurting him several times), and I wanted him to back down a little more, but I am not complaining much at all, as Fern and Colin feel like real people. While I like Colin and enjoyed watching his examination of his own privilege and his assumptions about Fern, I adore Fern, who is frightened and stubborn and trying to be who she thinks she should be even when she's questioning the roles she's taking.

There's a plot about Colin's ancestry that is incredibly boring; I don't even remember how it ends.

Overall, definitely recommended, and I'm now hunting for Joyce's other books.

Links:
- coffeeandink's review