Business Time

Mr Tumperkin thinks I don't have a very sophisiticated sense of humour.

This is not true.

However, along with all the witty sophisticated humour I enjoy, I have a tendancy to laugh at lavatorial jokes, have a soft spot for The Brittas Empire and, most damningly, I hoot at comic songs.

Yes. I know Everyone In The World has seen this but it is hilarious.

Confessions of a compulsive skimmer

I am not a patient reader.

In fact, I have an overwhelming compulsion when I'm reading to skim ahead. Usually this will be when I have decided to stop reading for the night but am still feeling curious about something or other. Unfortunately, skimming is random by nature so often I'll discover something I haven't even anticipated and immediately I'll be kicking myself.

It's rather like having one of those personal habit compulsions, like pulling out hair or something. I know I shouldn't do it and I always regret it but I still do it anyway.

For example, right now, I have Games of Command by Linnea Sinclair in my 'being read' pile. Well. I wasn't very far in before I decided to go searching for the bit where Kel Paten gets his oats (I'm afraid that that is often the scene I am looking for. Not cos I'm a perv but cos it's an important part of the romance arc of course!).

Well, it was a really really long way in to the book and I read way too much other stuff on the way and consequently, I've now I've lost my curiosity about reading it. So I'll have to leave it for a couple of months now. I'm in the same boat with a J R Ward and a Kresley Cole. All three have been shelved until further notice.

Some skims I never really recover from.

I'm going to try and be really good with the book I've just started reading: Midsummer Moon by Laura Kinsale (1987!). It has one of the most arresting first chapters I've read in a long time. It also has SPOILER...............................................

.........a very early sex scene. Which does help control my tendancy to skim. Consummation is a big issue for me in the romance novel. This one's been on my TBB pile ever since I read the great Smart Bitches post on the best Laura Kinsale novels - but it wasn't available second-hand on Amazon when I read that post. I've been checking periodically since then and suddenly there it was. Joy!

Must.... resist urge.... to ..... turn.... page.... *seizes right hand in left and starts pulling it away from page corner*.

The language of kissing

Overall I prefer my romances on the page but there are times when a picture really is worth a thousand words.

These two clips beautifully show two very different kisses.

In Gone with the Wind, Scarlett and Rhett are very much at odds. She wants to be in love with Ashley and he's determined to show her she is 'his'. This is one of my favourite screen kisses of all time. It's all in Vivien Leigh's left hand. You see her - very reluctant - submission and it's so very eloquent.

It would be impossible to write that I think. Words slow everything down. They make everything considered. Which I love. But ...

Here are Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr in From Here to Eternity. It's years since I saw this film and from memory, their story is only a very small bit of the movie. But let's just look at this kiss. These two are having an affair and they want to be together. There is external conflict but no obstacle between them. There is no internal struggle here as with the GWTT example.

This is one of the fantastic screen kisses of all time. It feels incredibly modern despite the lack of tongues and panting. It's all in the eyes between these too. There is yearning there and passion too - it's incredibly romantic.

I struggle to think of romance novels in which a mere kiss is as powerful as these clips.

Bugger it. I'll cheat, and resort to poetry.

Edwin Morgan. Strawberries.

There were never strawberries
like the ones we had
that sultry afternoon
sitting on the step
of the open french window
facing each other
your knees held in mine
the blue plates in our laps
the strawberries glistening
in the hot sunlight

we dipped them in sugar
looking at each other
not hurrying the feast
for one to come
the empty plates
laid on the stone together
with the two forks crossed
and I bent towards you
sweet in that air

in my arms
abandoned like a child
from your eager mouth
the taste of strawberries
in my memory
lean back again
let me love you

let the sun beat
on our forgetfulness
one hour of all
the heat intense
and summer lightning
on the Kilpatrick hills

let the storm wash the plates

Romance and Me, and Penny Jordan

This post was inspired by reading an ancient Penny Jordan cateogry romance I picked up in a charity shop just before Christmas.

I read my first Mills & Boon romance when I was about 10. I might even have been 9 - can't really be sure. My mother was and is an avid reader - and at that time mainly a romance reader. She devoured M&Bs and for a meatier read, favoured those 900 page blockbusters that were so popular in the 70s and 80s. There wasn't enough room for all her M&Bs in her own bedroom so she put them in my wardrobe, thereby inadvertently introducing me to the romance genre when most girls were still reading Enid Blyton. I've always assumed she didn't know I was reading them but - well, who knows. Maybe I'll ask her one of these days.

M&Bs are thrilling when you're 10. To me they seemed to show a world that was impossibly glamorous. The first one I can remember reading is Fever by Charlotte Lamb (hence my love affair with Charlotte Lamb). The heroine - Sara - was an artist and the hero - Nick - a merchant banker (and mere millionaire back in those days). Nick spent the entire book being ridiculously angry at Sara, believing her to be a promiscuous slut because she lives with a guy (who in fact is her stepbrother and who is in love with someone else). God, I loved it.

Mum went to the library a lot and I went too. She'd get out romance and I'd get out kids books. But by the time I was about 14 I was going to the library alone (I needed a weekly fix by then) and browsing the adult section. I allowed myself one or two romances along with the literary fiction/ classics / non-fiction. Perhaps one category and one regency (usually Georgette Heyer). And then I'd make myself read the Penguin Classic and/or non-fiction and/or the Booker Prize Winner type ones before I hit the romances. It stood me in good stead - I'm glad I've read those classics now.

Penny Jordan was pretty prolific in those days. My mum really liked her books and always borrowed them from the library. I wasn't so keen, although I thought they were ok. There was always a lot of conflict in them (and a lot of interior decorating). I read a lot of those in the 80s.

And then, suddenly, it was 1990. I went to university.

And guess what? I gave up reading romance. I just gave it up. I didn't really miss it. I had a busy social life for the first time in my life and lots of hard legal stuff to read and when I did read books, they tended to be those Booker prize winners types. Because I was very earnest about all things literary then.

About 15 years went by. University. Starting out in career. Developing career. Getting married and having first baby. And with the arrival of children, came the demise of my social life. For the first time in a really long time, I had time to read. And I read - a lot. Only not romance. Romance had by this time been relegated to having the same sort of profile as children's books in my mind.

And then one weekend, we were in the Lake District in a hired cottage. Mr T and the number 1 (then only) son had gone to bed but I wasn't tired. I had nothing to read.

I browsed the cottage's little bookshelf. And there sat a 1980s Penny Jordan! One I hadn't read (or at least couldn't remember having read) before. It featured a bad-tempered redhead with a fear of commitment as a heroine. I read it and thought (cue the frustrated writer) I could do that. And so I formed the idea that I would read some M&Bs and have a bash at writing one - why not!?

And how could I have known how that would turn out? That I would start reading categories and that would lead me to read a category of such knuckle-chewing awfulness that I would google its name and discover Romancelandia and start reading reviews of paranormal and historical and contemporary romance and begin to read romance again properly? That the Penny-Jordan-novel-reading-experience would not so much lead to a writing exercise (as I insisted on thinking of it) as it would launch me into rediscovering my own, forgotten love of romance as a reader. That I would finally understand that I hadn't read romance novels because I was 15, but because I liked romance novels.

[I did embark on that 'writing exercise' incidentally. I wrote a category length novel. It was crap. I never even submitted it. It was written in the wrong way. Trying to follow a formula. Still, that was a lesson in itself.]

I was reminded of all of this over Christmas when I read that Penny Jordan novel from 1988 that I'd bought in a charity shop (Payment in Love if you're interested). It (again) featured a nervy red-headed heroine with a quick temper. It even featured one of my most-hated features in a romance novel - a hero who has previously been part of the heroine's family: in this case as a sort of foster brother. Nevertheless, I enjoyed it. I can see Jordan's skills now. How she puts conflict on every page; how she gave her heroine flaws and still made you sort of like her. Needless to say, there were some interior decorating references. But that was part of the enjoyment. And just to show I'm not imagining the obsession Penny Jordan has with interior decorating, check out her website. She actually has a section on it dedicated to interior decor.

Happy romance reading, fellow nutcases.

I've already posted on why I don't grade my reads and on emotional versus objective reactions to romance novels. Yet here I am again, trying to grapple with the issue of how it is I engage with the books I read.

What has prompted this? A couple of things. I've been reading The Edge of Impropriety by Pam Rosenthal. (Myself, Meriam, Jessica and RfP are doing a simultaneous book club post on this later this month (am so excited) so I won't talk about the book except to say that Meriam has also felt moved to mention it).

The other thing was CJ's post about novels in which the hero and heroine complete one another; the satisfaction of that. It made me think (again) about what I am looking for in my endless and obsessive reading of romance novels.

For me, it's two things, that may - ideally - overlap. On the one hand, there is the writing. In the romance genre (as in any other I suppose) there is a huge range of quality: poor - tolerable - competent - good - excellent. Anything from competent upwards may satisfy me but those rare novels in which the writing is excellent can overcome - or more accurately, overshadow - plot and character defects.

The other thing is the romance. Every romance story has a sort of shape. Proportions. And a pace. There is no 'one size fits all' for romance readers. We all favour different combinations. For example, I find it difficult (though not impossible) to be convinced by stories in which the protaganists fall in love in just a day or two but I'm cool with stories in which the H/H are separated for a long time. I like snow-ins but am not keen on road romance. I like conflict between my H/H but don't want them perpetually at each other's throats. I love romances which explore power play between the H/H but am creeped out by ones in which the hero has been in loco parentis or has any sort of brotherly role vis-a-vis the heroine.

It's as though my personal romance preferences form a little jigsaw shaped piece and every time I read a book, it's like I'm trying it against that little shape. Does it fit? Sometimes, it really doesn't fit. Sometimes, it's so close, but not quite there. Occasionally, fleetingly, magic happens.

The magic does not often coincide with that very excellent prose.

Sometimes, it does.

As recommended: My Lord Footman by Claire Thornton

I've reviewed quite a few books on this blog that I've bought as a result of recommendations by other bloggers. And here's another.

This recommendation came from Jessica and the very next day after I read her enthusiastic post, I came across this out of print category historical in a charity shop; what luck!

There are quite a few bloggers out there - such as Jessica - whose opinions I take note of but no two readers are alike. Lisabea and I like a lot of the same books but I couldn't love Caine's Reckoning as much as she did. And I disappointed Meriam with my failure to properly adore My Reckless Heart by Jo Goodman. As for me, RfP recently grieved me with her less than enthusiastic comments on a Dear Author post (by Jessica) about Flowers From the Storm by Laura Kinsale. As did Little Alys about the same book (though fair dooze: she was very sweet about my criticisms of Nalini Singh's Psy/changeling books and she adores that series). So yes, a book is a very subjective thing, to which we bring our own preferences and triggers and prejudices.

And so, what did I think of My Lord Footman?

Well...... I thought it was ok.

I was very intrigued by the premise: Pierce (an English peer who can pass as a native Frenchman) enters Melusine's household as a footman because he believes she may be blackmailing his stepfather. His aim: to stop the blackmail. His arrival in Paris coincides with the eve of the Revolution. Indeed, within a few days of his appointment, he is caught up in the storming of the Bastille.

This premise promised much to me. Jessica had divulged in her review that as a footman, Pierce's duties included dressing Melusine's hair (this is a time of elaborate hairstyles) and acting as a sort of personal escort/ guard. I liked the idea of all of this. The tension of a mistress/servant relationship is interesting enough, but the enforced physical intimacy added an extra dimension and to set it in soon-to-be Revolutionary France, where such class structures were about to be annihilated struck me as a mark of genius.

I've got to say that Claire Thornton absolutely delivered on the setting and her grasp of period was overall pretty sound. Her prose was decent and the parts of the book that deal with episodes of spontaneous rioting, the storming of the Bastille and the sense of building anger in the populace are really very good.

What didn't work for me was the romance between Pierce and Melusine. First of all, the fact that their love develops over an incredibly short period - just a week or two - really didn't work for me. I'm not a fan of that sort of story at the best of times but that is particularly so with this story which, to my mind, required much more patience: the breaking down of the mistress/servant protocols doesn't happen overnight. Perhaps the idea was that in 'extraordinary times extraordinary things happen' but if that was the reason for the exceptionally swift development of their relationship, I didn't feel that came across to the reader.

From the beginning, Melusine treated Pierce as an equal. There was no sense of a mistress/servant relationship here. I find the whole notion of the master/servant relationship in this period very interesting. This was a time in which a woman of Melusine's station would have been brought up with servants from birth and trained to treat them in a particular way. Yet the reader is subtly informed that Melusine is strangely not confident around servants. She has been intimidated by her previous footman (appointed by her late husband), is worried by a remark made by her maidservant about 'great ladies' and spends much of her time fretting over whether she has angered Pierce.

In an early scene in the book when Pierce is doing her hair for the first time, he grasps her wrist and speaks to her in a surprisingly dominant fashion for someone who has been her footman for all of two minutes:

Pierre gripped her wrist in his hand. “Madame, the Duchesse was not my lover. Tell me why I should believe you don’t have a lover when you persist in believing that I do, despite the fact that I tell you it is not so?”

She caught her breath and then bowed her head. Her hair tumbled in disorder around her shoulders. He could see pins sticking out at odd angles. He released her wrist and began to gently untangle the pins, beads and remaining feathers from her hair.

She jerked her head up and gave a small squeak of pain when her hair pulled. “What are you doing?”

“You’re moulting,” said Pierce.

“Oh.” She lowered her head again and let him continue his ministrations.

There was no need for the author to worry about chipping away at the mistress/servant relationship because it was never really there in the first place. This bothered me for more than one reason. There was the obvious annoyance that this was frankly unconvincing. But there was also the frustration that a wonderful opportunity for a really interesting tension and conflict between the hero and heroine was just thrown away.

In fairness, perhaps the scale of this book did not allow for the sort of patient exposition I was hoping for. The wordage on these Harlequin Historicals is, what 65-75K tops? And the basic storyline was structured so as to take place over a short time period. Nevertheless I was disappointed.

The mistress/servant relationship was not the only area in which there was a lack of conflict though. In general there was simply no tension between the hero and heroine. Unless one counts their periodic internal monolgues in which they wonder what the other thinks of them. I do realise that not everyone looks for conflict between the hero and heroine. But I like a reasonable amount of conflict between my H/H. And whilst I can live without it if the story doesn't call for it, I can't bear it when obvious areas of tension seem to not concern the characters one bit.

For example, Pierce enters Melusine's household because he believes she may be a blackmailer. But he abandons that suspicion with remarkable ease. It's just dealt with in a throwaway line quite early on - Melusine 'isn't like that' so she can't be the blackmailer. And this on an absurdly short acquaintance. Similarly, Melusine isn't one bit put out that Pierce entered her household on false pretences. Not one bit. Not even slightly perturbed It's not even alluded to.

Some may feel that the lack of internal conflict is made up for my the copious external conflict. As well as impending revolution, we have a murder and blackmail storyline. Maybe so, but not for me. I'd rather she'd done away with some of the external conflict. As it was, I wasn't convinced by Pierce or Melusine and I didn't care about either of them.

So all in all, this is hovering around the sort of C grade territory. It's ok. Readable. I learned a few things and it entertained me at a relatively low level, though if it had been much longer I think it would have turned into a DNF.

Keep your New Year's Resolution? Oh no you won't! Oh Yes I will!

This is the King's Theatre, which I attended on Hogmanay for the purposes of our family ritual: attending the Edinburgh pantomime. The fact that this is only the second year of this particular tradition is a measure only of the youth of our children.

It was the highlight of our festive season. A fabulous bit of out-there unabashed entertainment. Aladdin. I will admit to laughing like a drain and having an embarrassing tear on several occasions including when the Emperor sang A Whole New World and when Widow Twanky got a wee girl out of the audience to help them get rid of the lamp.

And so, after well over a week of gluttony and slothfulness, this is the point of the year at which I would usually be making resolutions about exercising and eating dried fruit and a hundred other things. Not this year. This year I've only got one: keep writing.

2008 has been challenging, particularly the second half thereof. I returned to work in January after a relaxing period of maternity leave. And then in late summer started on major renovations on the house. Work has been mad, children demanding and time very short for anything or anyone else. Only a month ago there was dust and boxes everywhere and a very chill wind blowing through the plastic sheeting that separated my old living room from the extension. Really it's amazing I've managed to keep (very slowly) writing. For which I must thank my CP (thank you!). If I hadn't had her and our agreement to exchange something every week, I'd've ground to a halt. And ok, maybe I didn't have something every week, but I pretty much did!

But now the renovations are complete, and I'm feeling uncharacteristically chilled after a couple of weeks off work. And the last two weeks with the kids have just been great. Delightful. And the idea of keeping writing all of next year doesn't seem impossible at all.

Keeping writing. That's all. Finish the MS. Just finish it.

That's my resolution.