Ages ago, CJ was complaining about the small weedy child who plays Robin Hood in the latest BBC series. So I thought I'd post a wee little video (under 2 mins!) of the 80s-tastic Robin of Sherwood series featuring the perfect profile and shiny, mulleted hair of pretty Michael Praed doing his very best Man O' The Woods - inspired RH. For those of you across the pond, this is Prince watzsisname from Dynasty.
I cannot tell you how I much I loved Michael Praed as Robin Hood. I wanted to brush his hair and stroke his perfect jawline. He was sooooo pretty. And it wasn't just Michael. It was everything. The cod paganism with Herne the Hunter. The ginger girl as Maid Marian who just screamed pre-Raphaelite. A young Ray Winstone as Will Scarlet. Nickolas Grace as the Sheriff who I loved loved loved in Brideshead. And soundtrack by Clannad!
Anyway, ignore my over-excited meanderings (and the Polish[?] over dubbing). Here it is.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Friday, June 26, 2009
Sunday, June 21, 2009
I neglected to mention....
.... that I have been blogging over at Racy Romance Reviews.
I've been doing the occasional 'musings' posts and a monthly dual review with Jessica. I really should've pimped these before now. The latest one went up this weekend, a dual review of the fabulous The Madness of Lord Ian MacKenzie by Jennifer Ashley.
There's also quite a recent musings one about sweat in romance.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Tremulations on the Ether
"Let us learn from the novel. In the novel, the characters can do nothing but live. If they keep on being good, according to pattern, or bad, according to pattern, or even volatile, according to pattern, they cease to live, and the novel falls dead. A character in a novel has got to live, or it is nothing.
We, likewise, in life have got to live, or we are nothing.
What we mean by living is, of course, just as indescribable as what we mean by being. Men get ideas into their heads, of what they mean by Life, and they proceed to cut life out to pattern. Sometimes they go into the desert to seek God, sometimes they go into the desert to seek cash, sometimes it is wine, woman, and song, and again it is water, political reform, and votes. You never know what it will be next: from killing your neighbour with hideous bombs and gas that tears the lungs, to supporting a Foundlings Home and preaching infinite Love, and being correspondent in a divorce.
In all this wild welter, we need some sort of guide. It's no good inventing Thou Shalt Nots! What then?
Turn truly, honourably to the novel, and see wherein you are man alive, and wherein you are dead man in life. You may love a woman as man alive, and you may be making love to a woman as sheer dead man in life. You may eat your dinner as man alive, or as a mere masticating corpse. As man alive you may have a shot at your enemy. But as a ghastly simulacrum of life you may be firing bombs into men who are neither your enemies nor your friends, but just things you are dead to. Which is criminal, when the things happen to be alive.
To be alive, to be man alive, to be whole man alive: that is the point. And at its best, the novel, and the novel supremely, can help you. It can help you not to be dead man in life. So much of a man walks about dead and a carcass in the street and house, today: so much of women is merely dead. Like a pianoforte with half the notes mute.
But in the novel you can see, plainly, when the man goes dead, the woman goes inert. You can develop an instinct for life, if you will, instead of a theory of right and wrong, good and bad. "
from Why The Novel Matters by D H Lawrence
I love this essay, and read it regularly. You can read the whole thing here. It is a permanent fixture on my sidebar.
We, likewise, in life have got to live, or we are nothing.
What we mean by living is, of course, just as indescribable as what we mean by being. Men get ideas into their heads, of what they mean by Life, and they proceed to cut life out to pattern. Sometimes they go into the desert to seek God, sometimes they go into the desert to seek cash, sometimes it is wine, woman, and song, and again it is water, political reform, and votes. You never know what it will be next: from killing your neighbour with hideous bombs and gas that tears the lungs, to supporting a Foundlings Home and preaching infinite Love, and being correspondent in a divorce.
In all this wild welter, we need some sort of guide. It's no good inventing Thou Shalt Nots! What then?
Turn truly, honourably to the novel, and see wherein you are man alive, and wherein you are dead man in life. You may love a woman as man alive, and you may be making love to a woman as sheer dead man in life. You may eat your dinner as man alive, or as a mere masticating corpse. As man alive you may have a shot at your enemy. But as a ghastly simulacrum of life you may be firing bombs into men who are neither your enemies nor your friends, but just things you are dead to. Which is criminal, when the things happen to be alive.
To be alive, to be man alive, to be whole man alive: that is the point. And at its best, the novel, and the novel supremely, can help you. It can help you not to be dead man in life. So much of a man walks about dead and a carcass in the street and house, today: so much of women is merely dead. Like a pianoforte with half the notes mute.
But in the novel you can see, plainly, when the man goes dead, the woman goes inert. You can develop an instinct for life, if you will, instead of a theory of right and wrong, good and bad. "
from Why The Novel Matters by D H Lawrence
I love this essay, and read it regularly. You can read the whole thing here. It is a permanent fixture on my sidebar.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
February Book Club: The Edge of Impropriety by Pam Rosenthal
As explained in my last post, myself, Jessica, Meriam and RfP agreed to do a Book Club-style group review some months ago. RfP nominated The Edge of Impropriety by Pam Rosenthal.
Finally, we're ready to go! So here's my review. Pop on over to Racy Romance Reviews (Jessica), Rape and Adverbs (Meriam) and Read For Pleasure (RfP) to read the others - hopefully very soon if not straightaway. Without giving too much away, I think I can safely say that I rated the book the most highly of all of us.
The best word I can think of to describe this novel is 'rich'. It is rich in ideas, and indeed it is principally the ideas in the book that I'd like to focus on this review. But it's more than just the ideas; it is rich in the quality of the writing. On every page there is something to savour and enjoy. I found myself reading lingeringly and going back to re-read particularly enjoyable sentences again.
Having read and been impressed by Carrie's Story and Safe Word (erotic novels written by Rosenthal under the name of Molly Weatherfield) I had been somewhat disappointed by Almost A Gentleman and hadn't troubled to seek out The Bookseller's Daughter or The Slightest Provocation. RfP had suggested The Edge of Impropriety for the book club and had she not done so, I may never have read it. How glad I am that she did!
Briefly then, the plot. There are two romances in this book. Firstly and principally, Jasper and Marina, and secondly Anthony and Helen. Many years ago, Jasper - a classical scholar - had fancied himself in love with his brother's wife. They had an affair and she became pregnant. But instead of wanting to run away with him to Greece as he hoped for, she went back to her husband and pawned the child off as her husband's son and heir. That child is Anthony.
Thirteen or so years later, Jasper visits his brother and sister-in-law at Lake Como. Anthony is still in England at school but their small daughter Sydney is with them. Jasper's brother and his wife are suddenly drowned in a boating accident and Jasper has to take over bringing up his niece and nephew (who is in fact his own son). The main part of the book begins over a decade later when Anthony is a grown man of twenty five.
Marina is Lady Gorham, a widow and celebrated novelist who is well known for her short lived peccadilloes with young men. She and Anthony are friends and this brings Jasper into her house. In fact, Marina and Jasper have already shared a moment's observation of one another in the British Museum, a moment that made a strong impression on them both. In short order, Jasper and Marina become lovers but agree that this will be a temporary state of affairs, believing that this is something they can easily compartmentalise.
Anthony is the handsome, careless Earl of the somewhat depleted estate that Jasper has been trying to restore the fortunes of. He is the very antithesis of Jasper and the two do not share a close relationship, unlike Jasper and Sydney, who, like her uncle, is fascinated by classical mythology. Helen is Sydney's governess. Her buttoned-up appearance disguises a bright-burning torch for Anthony.
This is a book rich in ideas and I'm going to concentrate on some of these in this review, perhaps to the detriment of other aspects of my reading experience. But since there are four of us simultaneously reviewing this book, I'm hoping that others will cover the areas I am not. My thoughts can be collected under three headings: Connection, Recognition, Balance.
Connection
I don't think that Rosenthal's decision to have two love stories running together is coincidence. Nor do I think it is coincidence that we have one set of older lovers and one set of younger lovers. Nor that one story is conventional (the secondary one; poverty-stricken governess and handsome Earl) and that one is not (thirty six year old former harlot and forty seven year old classical scholar with libidinous depths).
The involvement of the four characters enables Rosenthal to compare and contrast innocence and experience, youthful ideals and hard-won realism, youth and age, lovers and beloveds, separation and connection.
There is something too about time and motion here. References to the movement of bodies through time and space. And a fascination with the idea of coincidence, by which I mean coincidence in its most literal sense: the co-incidence of events and existences, giving rise to unexpected connections. The various references to weaving and tapestry lend a further dimension to this sense of lives that knowingly and unknowingly overlap throughout the story.
This idea of overlapping is introduced at the very beginning with a prologue that belongs entirely to Jasper yet which features Marina. On the day that Jasper's brother and sister-in-law are drowned in Lake Como, Marina arrives at the same resort with her new, much older husband. We are given to understand that Jasper and Marina would certainly have met had not the accident occurred. As it is, it is a decade before they set eyes on one another, by which time, Marina is no longer the 'ravishing' girl in her twenties and Jasper is no longer the dashing 'romantic adventurer'.
There are references throughout the novel to connection and separation; time and opportunity. There is a lovely passage at a masked ball where Jasper recalls the advice of dance master. The advice is memorable because he was humiliatingly singled out as a boy to receive it:
Never cling to a partner's hand, Master Hedges. You must learn to balance force and weight, support and freedom.
Later he muses as he is dancing with Marina:
His dance master had been right about one thing. You couldn't cling. You moved through time. You moved with time. Moments counted: If you wanted to make a compliment, it couldn't take longer than the few beats needed to pass and circle - as he and she were doing now, paying precise attention to the measure.
Reading this book, I was reminded more than once of E M Forster's famous mantra: only connect.
In both of the romances, and in the relationship between Anthony and Jasper, there is a sense of a connection made against the odds. For Marina and Jasper, age means some wisdom, but it also means lost ideals and an inability to trust others. For Anthony and Helen, there is a yawning social gap that makes her invisible to him. For Anthony and Jasper they are utterly different to one another and lack common ground. In each story, Sydney (a delightful character) is a key agent in bridging these gaps and bringing the connections about. For me, Sydney was a sort of personfication of coincidence. Or perhaps a storyteller within the story capable of active agency.
Recognition
Recognition may not be the best word to use here, but the idea of 'being seen' comes up again and again. And there are numerous references to costume and disguise. At various points in the story the characters both see and fail to see one another; at times taken in by another's costume, at other times, seeing below the surface to the truth of the person below.
The novel is set in 1829, a year before the death of George IV, previously the Prince Regent. The choice of period is significant. We are in the last days of the Regency period and moving towards the Victorian era with its preposterous crinolines and tiny waists. Already, fashion is headed that way and Marina mourns 'the passing of the fluid, Grecian-inspired white muslins of her youth' loathing the wide skirts and voluminous sleeves that have replaced them. Marina wears clothes with expertise, making the most of her beauty, seeing herself as an advertisement for her novels and her social position as part of their 'puffery'. She tells Jasper that 'Sometimes the name Lady Gorham feels to me rather like a costume for a fancy dress ball.'
Jasper, by contrast, is positively threadbare, the combined result of a lack of interest in his appearance and the 'cheeseparing life' he has been living in order to restore his son's inheritance after the excesses of his brother and sister-in-law depleted the estate.
Poor Helen is hidden away inside her dreary clothes. Anthony notes that he can barely see her face inside the long poke bonnet she wears. It is only when he sees her at a masked ball dressed in an old-fashioned Regency gowns as the goddess Athena, that he sees the true Helen. (Interestingly, he is dressed as an Albanian at the ball, underlining the gap between these two).
As for Anthony, like Marina, he is decorative and used to admiration. He is famous too for his exquisite taste in waistcoats (a seemingly frivolous expertise that Jasper eventually accords some weight to).
Marina and Anthony are the beautiful, showy ones whilst Jasper and Helen's attractions are much less obvious, though recognised powerfully by Anthony and Marina at key co-incidental moments. It's interesting that in each romance, the visual appeal that is most concentrated upon is the appeal of Jasper for Marina and Helen for Anthony. Not nearly as much is said about the more obvious attractions of Marina and Anthony. Incidentally, I think I read in this book the very best description I have ever read of hazel eyes: 'the bronzy green of ripening pears'. Gorgeous.
There's a lovely bit where Jasper talks about the appeal that mortals held for the classical gods:
The gods you see are like big spoiled children who like to sneak down to the servants' hall - or the wealthy young dandy who'll stand his coachman to mug after mug of ale in return for being allowed to take the ribbons now and again. Like all of us, the gods want what they can't have.... And what thrills them, what torments them with curiosity and desire, Lady Gorham, is the possibility of death. Mortality. The fragility of our bodies. Their vulnerability to the passage of time. Human limitation is something the gods can never truly know, but they find its pathos quite beautiful. And the only way they can experience death's pathos is through a human's touch.
Balance
I'm brought back to the advice of Jasper's dance master here that I quoted above: 'You must learn to balance force and weight, support and freedom.'
This is the ideal of love that - to my mind - Marina and Jasper eventually find. (If I'm going to be picky, I can't say the same for Anthony and Helen. In all honesty, that secondary story didn't fully work for me and was the weakest part of the book).
It's not insignificant that the villain of the book, Rackham, is the antithesis of this ideal.
The very nicest expression of this idea is the story of a statue that Jasper had found on his adventures, 'the little kneeling Aphrodite'. This little statue follows a parallel path to Marina, and first features in the prologue. Jasper is showing the statue - and another in the form of Eros - to his sister-in-law. The statue has left her home in Greece but Jasper (unlike most Englishmen of the time) wants to repatriate her. At the same time, Marina has arrived in Lake Como with her older husband, a man who - from the little we hear - likes to have Marina on her knees or other submissive positions.
Marina doesn't meet Jasper in Lake Como and the Aphrodite doesn't make it home. Jasper has to compromise his ideals and sell the statue given how depleted the estate is. However, a decade on, he is able to buy her back again and his dream of sending her back to Greece is renewed. At the same time, Marina comes into his life and through Jasper she too comes a point of freedom and return. **SPOILER** At the end of the book, Marina goes back to Ireland to make peace with her own past; her own repatriation. We are told that Jasper will go to Ireland with her one day - but not for the first visit. He follows his dance master's advice. He does not cling; merely supports. He is no would-be conqueror, like Marina's first protector and her husband and Rackham. There are references to Imperialism that pick up further on this theme (and that the statue storyline is also a neat symbol of). However, for me, the ideas of Imperialism that were hinted at, were not explored as fully as they might have been.
Nevertheless, I really loved this book. And I found I didn't judge it quite as I usually judge romance novels. Although the secondary romance of Anthony and Helen didn't really work for me as a romance, its inclusion worked on so many other levels, helping to develop the themes so satisfyingly, that I cannot fault its inclusion.
All in all, it's a highly recommended from me.
Having read and been impressed by Carrie's Story and Safe Word (erotic novels written by Rosenthal under the name of Molly Weatherfield) I had been somewhat disappointed by Almost A Gentleman and hadn't troubled to seek out The Bookseller's Daughter or The Slightest Provocation. RfP had suggested The Edge of Impropriety for the book club and had she not done so, I may never have read it. How glad I am that she did!
Briefly then, the plot. There are two romances in this book. Firstly and principally, Jasper and Marina, and secondly Anthony and Helen. Many years ago, Jasper - a classical scholar - had fancied himself in love with his brother's wife. They had an affair and she became pregnant. But instead of wanting to run away with him to Greece as he hoped for, she went back to her husband and pawned the child off as her husband's son and heir. That child is Anthony.
Thirteen or so years later, Jasper visits his brother and sister-in-law at Lake Como. Anthony is still in England at school but their small daughter Sydney is with them. Jasper's brother and his wife are suddenly drowned in a boating accident and Jasper has to take over bringing up his niece and nephew (who is in fact his own son). The main part of the book begins over a decade later when Anthony is a grown man of twenty five.
Marina is Lady Gorham, a widow and celebrated novelist who is well known for her short lived peccadilloes with young men. She and Anthony are friends and this brings Jasper into her house. In fact, Marina and Jasper have already shared a moment's observation of one another in the British Museum, a moment that made a strong impression on them both. In short order, Jasper and Marina become lovers but agree that this will be a temporary state of affairs, believing that this is something they can easily compartmentalise.
Anthony is the handsome, careless Earl of the somewhat depleted estate that Jasper has been trying to restore the fortunes of. He is the very antithesis of Jasper and the two do not share a close relationship, unlike Jasper and Sydney, who, like her uncle, is fascinated by classical mythology. Helen is Sydney's governess. Her buttoned-up appearance disguises a bright-burning torch for Anthony.
This is a book rich in ideas and I'm going to concentrate on some of these in this review, perhaps to the detriment of other aspects of my reading experience. But since there are four of us simultaneously reviewing this book, I'm hoping that others will cover the areas I am not. My thoughts can be collected under three headings: Connection, Recognition, Balance.
Connection
I don't think that Rosenthal's decision to have two love stories running together is coincidence. Nor do I think it is coincidence that we have one set of older lovers and one set of younger lovers. Nor that one story is conventional (the secondary one; poverty-stricken governess and handsome Earl) and that one is not (thirty six year old former harlot and forty seven year old classical scholar with libidinous depths).
The involvement of the four characters enables Rosenthal to compare and contrast innocence and experience, youthful ideals and hard-won realism, youth and age, lovers and beloveds, separation and connection.
There is something too about time and motion here. References to the movement of bodies through time and space. And a fascination with the idea of coincidence, by which I mean coincidence in its most literal sense: the co-incidence of events and existences, giving rise to unexpected connections. The various references to weaving and tapestry lend a further dimension to this sense of lives that knowingly and unknowingly overlap throughout the story.
This idea of overlapping is introduced at the very beginning with a prologue that belongs entirely to Jasper yet which features Marina. On the day that Jasper's brother and sister-in-law are drowned in Lake Como, Marina arrives at the same resort with her new, much older husband. We are given to understand that Jasper and Marina would certainly have met had not the accident occurred. As it is, it is a decade before they set eyes on one another, by which time, Marina is no longer the 'ravishing' girl in her twenties and Jasper is no longer the dashing 'romantic adventurer'.
There are references throughout the novel to connection and separation; time and opportunity. There is a lovely passage at a masked ball where Jasper recalls the advice of dance master. The advice is memorable because he was humiliatingly singled out as a boy to receive it:
Never cling to a partner's hand, Master Hedges. You must learn to balance force and weight, support and freedom.
Later he muses as he is dancing with Marina:
His dance master had been right about one thing. You couldn't cling. You moved through time. You moved with time. Moments counted: If you wanted to make a compliment, it couldn't take longer than the few beats needed to pass and circle - as he and she were doing now, paying precise attention to the measure.
Reading this book, I was reminded more than once of E M Forster's famous mantra: only connect.
In both of the romances, and in the relationship between Anthony and Jasper, there is a sense of a connection made against the odds. For Marina and Jasper, age means some wisdom, but it also means lost ideals and an inability to trust others. For Anthony and Helen, there is a yawning social gap that makes her invisible to him. For Anthony and Jasper they are utterly different to one another and lack common ground. In each story, Sydney (a delightful character) is a key agent in bridging these gaps and bringing the connections about. For me, Sydney was a sort of personfication of coincidence. Or perhaps a storyteller within the story capable of active agency.
Recognition
Recognition may not be the best word to use here, but the idea of 'being seen' comes up again and again. And there are numerous references to costume and disguise. At various points in the story the characters both see and fail to see one another; at times taken in by another's costume, at other times, seeing below the surface to the truth of the person below.
The novel is set in 1829, a year before the death of George IV, previously the Prince Regent. The choice of period is significant. We are in the last days of the Regency period and moving towards the Victorian era with its preposterous crinolines and tiny waists. Already, fashion is headed that way and Marina mourns 'the passing of the fluid, Grecian-inspired white muslins of her youth' loathing the wide skirts and voluminous sleeves that have replaced them. Marina wears clothes with expertise, making the most of her beauty, seeing herself as an advertisement for her novels and her social position as part of their 'puffery'. She tells Jasper that 'Sometimes the name Lady Gorham feels to me rather like a costume for a fancy dress ball.'
Jasper, by contrast, is positively threadbare, the combined result of a lack of interest in his appearance and the 'cheeseparing life' he has been living in order to restore his son's inheritance after the excesses of his brother and sister-in-law depleted the estate.
Poor Helen is hidden away inside her dreary clothes. Anthony notes that he can barely see her face inside the long poke bonnet she wears. It is only when he sees her at a masked ball dressed in an old-fashioned Regency gowns as the goddess Athena, that he sees the true Helen. (Interestingly, he is dressed as an Albanian at the ball, underlining the gap between these two).
As for Anthony, like Marina, he is decorative and used to admiration. He is famous too for his exquisite taste in waistcoats (a seemingly frivolous expertise that Jasper eventually accords some weight to).
Marina and Anthony are the beautiful, showy ones whilst Jasper and Helen's attractions are much less obvious, though recognised powerfully by Anthony and Marina at key co-incidental moments. It's interesting that in each romance, the visual appeal that is most concentrated upon is the appeal of Jasper for Marina and Helen for Anthony. Not nearly as much is said about the more obvious attractions of Marina and Anthony. Incidentally, I think I read in this book the very best description I have ever read of hazel eyes: 'the bronzy green of ripening pears'. Gorgeous.
There's a lovely bit where Jasper talks about the appeal that mortals held for the classical gods:
The gods you see are like big spoiled children who like to sneak down to the servants' hall - or the wealthy young dandy who'll stand his coachman to mug after mug of ale in return for being allowed to take the ribbons now and again. Like all of us, the gods want what they can't have.... And what thrills them, what torments them with curiosity and desire, Lady Gorham, is the possibility of death. Mortality. The fragility of our bodies. Their vulnerability to the passage of time. Human limitation is something the gods can never truly know, but they find its pathos quite beautiful. And the only way they can experience death's pathos is through a human's touch.
Balance
I'm brought back to the advice of Jasper's dance master here that I quoted above: 'You must learn to balance force and weight, support and freedom.'
This is the ideal of love that - to my mind - Marina and Jasper eventually find. (If I'm going to be picky, I can't say the same for Anthony and Helen. In all honesty, that secondary story didn't fully work for me and was the weakest part of the book).
It's not insignificant that the villain of the book, Rackham, is the antithesis of this ideal.
The very nicest expression of this idea is the story of a statue that Jasper had found on his adventures, 'the little kneeling Aphrodite'. This little statue follows a parallel path to Marina, and first features in the prologue. Jasper is showing the statue - and another in the form of Eros - to his sister-in-law. The statue has left her home in Greece but Jasper (unlike most Englishmen of the time) wants to repatriate her. At the same time, Marina has arrived in Lake Como with her older husband, a man who - from the little we hear - likes to have Marina on her knees or other submissive positions.
Marina doesn't meet Jasper in Lake Como and the Aphrodite doesn't make it home. Jasper has to compromise his ideals and sell the statue given how depleted the estate is. However, a decade on, he is able to buy her back again and his dream of sending her back to Greece is renewed. At the same time, Marina comes into his life and through Jasper she too comes a point of freedom and return. **SPOILER** At the end of the book, Marina goes back to Ireland to make peace with her own past; her own repatriation. We are told that Jasper will go to Ireland with her one day - but not for the first visit. He follows his dance master's advice. He does not cling; merely supports. He is no would-be conqueror, like Marina's first protector and her husband and Rackham. There are references to Imperialism that pick up further on this theme (and that the statue storyline is also a neat symbol of). However, for me, the ideas of Imperialism that were hinted at, were not explored as fully as they might have been.
Nevertheless, I really loved this book. And I found I didn't judge it quite as I usually judge romance novels. Although the secondary romance of Anthony and Helen didn't really work for me as a romance, its inclusion worked on so many other levels, helping to develop the themes so satisfyingly, that I cannot fault its inclusion.
All in all, it's a highly recommended from me.
Right, I'm off to read what about the others thought.
Friday, June 12, 2009
Coming up.... February Book Club
Back in November, some seven months ago, a few bloggers (myself, Jessica, Meriam and RfP) exchanged some excited emails about doing a book club group review thingy. RfP quickly proposed The Edge of Impropriety by Pam Rosenthal as our first read.
Time moved on and we thought it would be prudent to assume that we wouldn't get round to actually posting our reviews till Feb 2009. Hence the title: February Book Club.
We are now ready to post. The big day is Sunday, 14th June 2009.
However, in recognition of this perfect illustration of Best Laid Plans, it seems appropriate to retain the previously agreed name. Tune in for our reviews on Sunday.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Reading update and some mini-reviews
My reading was falling a wee bitty flat, and so I went on an ordering spree. My book buying is haphazard, impulsive and not very organised. My guilt-free TBR pile was dwindling (the guilty TBR pile has the same worthy reads in it that have been there for over a year now).
Two stints of online book-shopping and a visit to my local British Heart Foundation shop have brought forth the following bounty:-
1. The Last Hellion by Loretta Chase (already read - see below)
2. Untouched by Anna Campbell (already read - see below)
3. Playing Easy to Get (anthology - bought for The Warlord Wants Forever by Kresley Cole - already read - see below)
4. It Happened One Night (anthology - bought for a double Mary Balogh novella fix)
5. The Duke by Gaelen Foley (I've only attempted a GF once before and it was a DNF but I think she deserves another chance - part of the DNFishness was down to my skimming)
6. Lessons of Desire AND Secrets of Surrender by Madeline Hunter (glomming this enjoyable series)
7. [insert category title - something to do with a Tycoon] by Maya Banks (new to me author who I've read nice things about)
8. Silent Melody by Mary Balogh (*punches air*; this is one of those classic out of print Balogh categories that usually cost some ridiculous amount of money secondhand but this was less than a fiver. I'm on tenterhooks about this one)
Aaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnnndddddddd:
9. The Madness of Lord Ian MacKenzie by Jennifer Ashley (recommended everywhere - Jessica and I will be reviewing)
There's much to anticipate in this haul. I'm particularly intrigued by the anthologies. I usually only buy anthologies when there's a novella by an author I really want to read. Sometimes this results in an introduction to a great new author. That's how I discovered Mathilde Madden. The new-to-me authors in the anthologies mentioned above are Sherrilyn Kenyon (yes, I know. I'm probably the only person in the world who hasn't read any SK), Jaid Black, Jacqueline D'Allessandro and Candice Hern. So that will be interesting.
So, onto the (very) mini reviews.
1. The Last Hellion by Loretta Chase
This is a kind-of sequel to Lord of Scoundrels. I'd got it into my head that the hero was going to be Dominic, Dain's illegitimate son who Jessica rescued. I was wrong. It's about Vere, the chap Dain beats up in the courtyard of the pub for insulting Jessica, much to her delight.
I'm afraid to say that this book disappointed me. If I'm honest, none of Chase's books have lived up to LOS for me (and if I'm completely unashamedly honest, I think LOS is a flawed masterpiece - I love it but there are parts that don't really hang together that well for me).
It's not easy to put my finger on what didn't work for me with Vere and Lydia. I suppose Lydia is a heroine type I'm not hugely keen on - the sort of invincible type. Not flawless so much as unassailable. And Vere was possibly just a bit too much like Dain except not enough. Like a watered down version.
2. Untouched by Anna Campbell
I bought this at the same time as I bought Tempt the Devil which I reviewed with Jessica. This one came from the USA though and took ages to arrive.
Untouched is very similar in tone and feel to Campbell's other two books, Claiming the Courtesan and TTD. It's melodramatic and highly charged; the sex scenes feature prose that I would regard as having a Tyrian hue. It has a 'high concept' (hero is the prisoner of his evil uncle and thought to be mad by the world; heroine is kidnapped to give him a bedmate and keep him compliant).
For me, the story was more cohesive than CTC or TTD and the characters' actions more consistent with plot. My gripe with it (you're not going to believe this): too much sex. Or rather too many sex scenes doing exactly the same thing. It didn't help that I'm not keen on the way Campbell writes her sex scenes (the planetary movements; the multiple multiple orgasms) but my real problem with it was that the story was not moving forward in a number of these scenes.
I liked the virgin hero though.
3. The Warlord Wants Forever by Kresley Cole
Well, you've got to keep the best for last, haven't you?
I loved this. It's a longish novella, not far off category length I'd have thought, and I tore through it. I've enjoyed this series very much and this is the last I've read despite it being the first one. Interestingly, it's almost a change of genre from the others in the series, more an erotic romance novella while the others are hot paranormal romances.
TWWF is the story of Myst the Coveted and Nikolai Wroth. It reads rather like one of the others in the series stripped of external and series plotlines but with what felt to me like near enough the same level of character development and romance story arc as are in the longer books. Nearly all the action is between Myst and Nikolai but we meet some other major characters and get a decent introduction to Cole's Lore world.
There's a great little erotic plot device used which is neat and sly. It was an interesting way of visiting the popular but slightly tired-at-times BDSM-lite world of much erotic romance.
I loved the characters. Myst is vivid and funny and impulsive and Nikolai is a typical Cole hero: very alpha but so completely into the heroine and so ready to grovel at the end that you forgive every domineering minute.
This is such a quick and enjoyable read - and so focused on the romance - that I think it might end up being my favourite of the series.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
A very great honour indeed
Need I say more?
I have been awarded the Little CJ Blog Award by The Book Smugglers. I cannot tell you how delighted I am. I craved this award. I meet all the criteria: I can work blog software.
That's it.
I meet all of the criteria.
Some people think that Little CJ is scary. I think she's a nice little girl. Sure, she's a little driven, but I think that is a good thing. And I think it's cool that a young girl in today's crazy world has a nice wholesome interest in indigineous crafts.
It's cool and not even a little bit scary.
In other news, I've been getting some strange pains in my arms and legs.
Weird.
Anyhoo, I've got to pass this enviable award onto two more bloggers (forgiiiiiive meeeeeee!). I hereby award the Little CJ Blogger Award to Meriam of Rape and Adverbs and Jessica of Racy Romance Reviews.
Congratulations! (I'm ssooooooooooorrrrrrrrrryyyyyyyyyy!)
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