Did you ever read the Angelique books?

I hope Angela Toscana is reading this because she was asking about flawed heroines recently.

I'd forgotten about the Angelique books. I don't know how that happened. And then suddenly, recently, I remembered them again. I read loads of them when I was about 16. That was back in the late 80s and you could pick up the old Pan edititions (see above) easily in second hand and charity shops. At the time I was excruciatingly embarrassed by the covers but now they seem to have all the glamour of vintage pulp fiction.

The first books were late 50s/ early 60s. My mum had some of them when I was a child. I didn't read them till I was a teenager though and I think I ended up reading the first 6 or 7 from memory. They're good, you know? Well-written and researched. Spoilers ahead.

Book 1 starts when Angelique is a teenager. She is forced to marry Joffrey, a Marquise I think, and much older man. Angelique is a bit Scarlet O'Hara-ish. Very beautiful and she knows it. Very young. She is appalled by Joffrey who is scarred and who limps and who is much older; who is learned and charming and unflappable. He loves her and decides to court her. Eventually (this is all book 1) she falls in love with him - they have a son - maybe two - in this book. However, a plot results in Joffrey being accused of witchcraft. Angelique risks everything to save him - placing her trust in a poverty-stricken lawyer who is the only one who will take Joffery's case.

They fail. Joffrey is - Angelique believes - burnt at the stake. It's not till several books later - after Angelique has had many adventures in France and abroad - that they are reunited. I can't remember which book it happens in but I remember being transported by that reunion. In between, Angelique has numerous lovers. I'm sure there is at least one child by another man.

I didn't know there had been Angelique films till I Googled Angelique when writing this post. Turns out there were five. Here is a You Tube video posted by a fan. The soundtrack is last year's Eurovision Song Contest winner (Norway won). This is wonderfully cheesy.

I always had Brigitte Bardot in mind as Angelique though, when I read the books. And this chap is a little .... chunky, for Joffrey. A French Liam Neeson. I always imagined Joffrey as being rather slender. Almost effete.

Dual Feature: Friday Music/Cover Version

This is amazing. Antony and the Johnsons' version of Beyonce's Crazy In Love.




It's been killing me who Antony's voice reminds me of and I've just realised that it's Jeff Buckley. They're not the same at all, but there's something about the tone and emotion. Here's my favourite Jeff Buckley (RIP) track, Lilac Wine.

I am reading a fabulous book - thanks Katiebabs

The Hero:


The Heroine:

KB: if you catch this, I am loving this book so much it hurts. Thank you.

I'm officially glomming... Sarah Mayberry

When I glom, I really glom. Call it dedication, call it OCD. Whatever is at the root of it, there are times when I simply eat up every word.

I read my first Mayberry (Take On Me) in December. It's not a book I would have normally picked up - I basically don't read Mills & Boon's Blaze line. I have a soft spot for the Modern line (Presents) but that's tended to be the only category line I really read since in the past I've tried other lines and, having been unimpressed, have steered clear of that line thereafter (this is one of the weaknesses of a strong brand like Mills & Boon - but that's another discussion).

Having read one or two really risible Blazes, I'd sworn off. However, I saw positive mentions of Mayberry's books at a few different blogs, RRR, DA amongst them, and without me noticing it, the name must have stuck. Because as I was rifling through the British Heart Foundation's romance section, her name leapt out at me and I thought, not very hopefully, let's give this a try.

Take on Me turned out to be the first in a trilogy about three couples who worked together on a daytime soap. And very enjoyable it was too. I ordered books 2 and 3 and devoured them. And that's when the glom really started. Next was She's Got It Bad (tattoo artist and custom bike builder), then Amorous Liaisons (dancer and sculptor), then ... well suffice to say I've *coughs embarrassedly* I've ..... *whispers* .... read ten books and a novella by Mayberry since mid December and I've ordered all her remaining books. *blushes*

Plus, I've done something I never do. I emailed Sarah Mayberry to let her know how much I've been enjoying them.

Really, I never do that.

Anyhoo, it behoves me to explain this phenomenon so here goes. A major factor is that I love contemporary romance but tend to find its execution often unsatisfactory and - crucially - difficult to believe in. I've blogged a lot recently around the whole issue of reader belief (here and here) and for me, one of the difficulties I've experienced with contemporary romance is characters who are nothing like the people I see around me every day. This is what Mayberry excels at: creating characters I can believe in.

Mayberry's characters act in a way that is appropriate/ believable for their age and generation. They have the concerns and motivators of men and women in their 20s and 30s in the modern world. They have generationally accurate attitudes to sex, alcohol etc. There is equality of fiscal and social power between the H/H. And the conflict that keeps them apart is of the type that I see people struggling with in the real world: commitment issues, lifestyle conflicts, not wanting the same things out of life.

The dialogue is witty and natural; the sex scenes are earthy and blissfully devoid of astronomical activity (no rainbows of exploding stars) and the H/H actually have friends and family. With whom they have relationships. *shakes head in amazement*

And then beyond this, there is the added bonuses: the engagement with wider issues like infertility in She's Got it Bad; neat little metaphors like the empty window-boxes at the hero's house in A Natural Father; the fact that a book like Amorous Liaisons is almost as much a love story between the heroine and dance as it is between her and the hero. I've found with each book something beyond the straight story to enjoy.

Really, I can't tell you how much pleasure I've had out of these books over the last month. Not without reviewing each and every one.

So consider this a catch up post. It's taken me a few years to discover Mayberry, but now I'm well and truly on board and I will be reviewing at least one of her books in detail in the coming weeks. The only question is which one.

Friday music and one of Tumperkin's secret crushes

Everyone loves Father Ted, don't they? One of the best ever sitcoms bar none, and definitely the best ever theme tune, Songs of Love, by Neil Hannon of the Divine Comedy. Written in 6/8 and with great lines like, Pale, pubescent beasts; roam through the streets; and coffee shops, it's a great favourite of mine.

This is not one of today's featured songs, however.

Because the divine Mr Hannon also penned My Lovely Horse, Father Ted and Father Dougal's Song for Ireland entry. There are so many laughs crammed into this single minute of material.



But enough of Father Ted, what of Mr Hannon?

I have a bit of a thing for him. He's not strictly speaking handsome (*shrugs*). He's a little bit weird (so my kind of guy). Plus tall and lanky (oh yeah!). Big nose (now you're talking, baby). And hilarious (*high fives all round*).

And he seems to have a bit of a thing - at times - for facial hair....(*melts into puddle*)

Here's a fabulous and funny song about unrequited love in which he totally works the Elizebeathan bard look.




And here's another incredible song (is that Antony from Antony and the Johnstons performing with him?) with him sporting a fabulous handlebar moustache, a pair of fine muttonchops and channeling late Victorian country gentleman like mad.

Lovely.

A catch up, a film review and a plea

It's been a while - or it feels like it - since I came to blogland.

It's no secret that I have been hugely busy with work for the last few months. Comes of specialising in - oh shut up, self! - I don't talk about work here. This is my escape from work!

As a consequence of work demands, whilst my blog posting remains a steady weekly event, my visiting of other blogs has been curtailed and my commenting has plummeted. I've kept an eye on things with Google Reader but I've not been reading as much as usual. I will be back.

In the meantime, a little wee catch up post, a paean and a plea.

1. My reading remains steady. I need reading more than I need blogging. If I work in the evening, I use books to relax my brain in readiness for sleep. I'm still glomming Sarah Mayberry (on which obsession I shall post presently) and greatly enjoying the Pamela Regis book my husband bought me for crimbo.

2. Mr T and I went to see Up In The Air at the weekend (see above). It is the best film I've seen in a long long time. Mr T and I used to go to the cinema a lot. They're are some really nice cinemas in Edinburgh. Our two favourites are the arty Cameo and an old-fashioned family one, the Dominion. I love empty cinemas and my favourite time to go is in the afternoon. Pre-kids, Mr T and I used to catch quite a lot of Sunday double-bills at the Cameo - 4 or 5 blissful hours. Those days are gone now but sometimes we leave the kids with my parents and slip off.

The last film we went to see was 500 Days of Summer. Which was risible. It was terribly terribly self-involved and had an irritatingly contrived whimsy about it that grated on me. Up In the Air was everything that 500 days was not. And it uses the medium to the full. I can't imagine that any other medium could have delivered this story to such amazing effect.

The story is very simple but the way that that story - and the character Clooney plays - is used to explore so many ideas, and such big and such current ideas, is so very satisfying. And it does that while still delivering a film that works purely at the level of the story. There is a plot. Things happen. And there is character development. Clooney's character goes on a journey of painful self-discovery and reconnection with his roots.

One of the many things I loved about this film was the eye of it; the lens through which you view what is happening. (It's the same as the author-lens you read a book through, an invisible thing that is nevertheless there). The eye of 500 Days was very immature. And shallow. It was self-obsessed and magpie-like. Whereas the eye of Up In the Air was - sympathetic non-judgemental. Wise.

It has an amazingly ambitious question at its core: what does it mean to be human? I thought again of EM Forster's Only connect afterwards.

It's been a few days now and I'm still musing on this film, revisiting some of the scenes. There's a scene near the end where Clooney is staring at a departure board in the airport. Just that. Just the most everyday sight. But because of what's gone before, it's the most poignant and loaded and heartbreaking sight.

3. So finally, my plea. It is for recommendations. I keep reading nice things about Victoria Dahl and Laura Lee Ghurke. So: any reccs re what a good first read would be for either of those?

I hope you're all well? I will be popping by your blogs very soon I hope....

Falling at the Last Fence or Soaring Over?

How much does the ending of a book affect your final view of it?

If you've been enjoying a book and the ending disappoints, does it colour the whole experience? Or do you still appreciate what went before? Can a great ending leave you feeling more positive about an otherwise average read?

I've been thinking a bit about endings this weekend thanks to Your Wicked Ways by Eloisa James. This is the final in a quartet of books that I've read the first and second of already, enjoying both of those more than the previous James books I've read. And when I started YWW, I thought Heigh-ho! This is the best James I've ever read!

Lady Helene Godwin and her estranged husband Rees eloped when they were very young but the consummation of their marriage was a disaster and within a short period of time, Rees threw Helene out the house, filled it with opera dancers and proceeded to live a life of debauchery. Meanwhile, Helene lived a nun-like existence with her mother. Rees is a composer of comic opera and Helene is also a musician and composes a little. When the book starts, they have been estranged for over a decade and he is living with his mistress Lina. Helene has asked Rees to divorce her many times already and he has refused. She is desperate to have a child and when he refuses (again) she decides to have a child out of wedlock. Cue one makeover (repressed thin woman with long hair becomes short-haired Regency vamp). When Rees hears of her plan through a friend, he decides he doesn't want a 'cuckoo in the nest' and turns up at a ball to 'do his duty' by Helene.

It was at this point I began to get intrigued. Rees is something you really don't come across very often in a romance: inadequate between the sheets. For some reason, even virgin heroes seem to be intuitively wonderful at cunnilingus in romances. Not Rees. He whacks out Little Rees, inserts in Tab A and two minutes later, Robert's your avuncluar kinsman. Helene, having been introduced to the wonders of marital bliss by Rees a decade previously regards this as a superior performance - since at least it wasn't painful this time. Rees begins to think about bringing Helene back to the house at this point, but doesn't tell her. He likes the idea of having his heir under his roof.

So I'm thinking: great. I'm going to get the journey they take to mutual sexual satisfaction plus I'm going to get the explanation for why Rees behaved like such a towering penis towards Helene (throwing out, installing mistress etc.)

Then James ups the ante even more! Rees' brother Tom arrives. He is a vicar. We're told that Rees and Tom's father set them up to be a reprobate (Rees) and a saint (Tom) but without really explaining how he did that, or indeed why and while I'm puzzled by that I'm thinking, ok, this will make sense later. Anyway, when Rees mentions casually to Tom that he's thinking of bringing Helene back to the house, Tom expresses some consternation and bizarrely, this makes Rees want to suddenly shock him (a decision he can obviously never go back on) so he decides to force Helene to come back to the house, instal her in the nursery and keep his mistress Lina in Helene's bedroom that adjoins his own. Because that's what you do when your little brother annoys you, isn't it?

Now ok, I'm being a bit snarky here, but naturally, I am loving this.

So, where was I? Yes. Rees proceeds to force Helene to move in by basically going through her various life options one by one and describing in detail just how he can ruin each and every one, leaving her in humiliated poverty for the rest of her life. Finally, she agrees to his demands and having achieved this, he trips back home, very pleased with himself.

Meanwhile, Tom the vicar and Lina the singing mistress have been getting frisky with one another. Of course, it transpires that Lina and Rees haven't had sex for over a year: she's really a wholesome lass who fell in love with him and let him 'ruin' her and he was only ever in love with her voice. Oh, and they didn't really enjoy sex. (On the first night they meet, Helene and Lina joke about how few minutes Rees lasts in bed).

So that's the basic set up. High jinks ensue, and there are a number of scenes between Rees and Helene during which they gradually begin - mainly through their shared passion for music - to acknowledge their bruised hearts, re-explore the love they once apparently shared and also (through the age-old plot device of trying to conceive a child) very gradually discover how to enjoy the marital bed. And there's a romance sub-plot with Tom and Lina.

Until I was about 90% through the book, I was thinking, this is great! I'm really enjoying this! I liked the set up, the conflict, the unusual element of sexual inadequacy. I thought the two protagonists' preoccupation with music was well-executed and if I thought they melted towards each other rather quickly after such a long and bitter estrangement, I did like the way the thaw was paced out over a number of scenes. Similarly the sexual thing. There was a particularly great scene where it's all going rather well and Helene is actually enjoying herself and Rees allows himself to hope for more, but then she doesn't get beyond that and he climaxes alone again and you get see how sad and inadequate he feels about that. That was great.

And then I got close to the final fence. There was the requisite eleventh hour drama; Helene was about to be ruined. It was all Rees' fault and clearly, it was his job to sort out the mess. This was the moment for him to come through for Helene and redeem his appalling behaviour preferably with a reveal on his childhood to explain the bewildering reason for wanting to be a callous reprobate, oh, and a side of grovelling hands-and-knees apology.

It. Never. Came.

None of it. Not the coming through for Helene (her friends sorted it out); not the explanation on the childhood/father/saint/sinner thing that was mentioned early on (it was shrugged off); not the grovelling apology (just: I've been a fool, Helene).

What?!

Endings. They're not just the last 10% of the book, are they? They are the denouement; the delivery by the author on that initial set up. It doesn't mean I didn't enjoy that 90% that went before, but it does mean that I felt a bit unfulfilled at the end and that affected the overall experience.

And there really was no need for the epilogue, even if I did rather love the closing sentence.

What about you? Which endings have disappointed? Or redeemed?

Things

Thing 1: Had a lovely Christmas

Highlights include:-

1 ~ The forest walk we took the children on about 20 miles out of the city. There was snow; lovely deep snow. So much snow that it weighed down the branches of the conifers, bending some of them to the ground. As we traipsed along, there would be spontaneous shakedowns of snow from the tops of the trees, like little fairy showers. It was magical. (Although Littley howled when he fell in it face first. He cheered up when I gave him some crisps though).

2 ~ The panto. Such fun. We go to the proper one at The Kings with panto dame, cheesy songs and lots of audience participation. It's always the same panto dame and villain at the Kings so they have lots of in-jokes and things going deliberately wrong.

3 ~ Mr T's thoughtful presents: A Natural History of the Romance Novel by Pamela Regis, Ys by Joanna Newsom, a Nigel Kennedy CD featuring The Lark Ascending by Vaughn Williams and some perfume. Oh, and some Green & Blacks.

Thing 2: I am on a GLOM

Yes, a glom. My last glom, in mid-2009 was of Kresley Cole. So who is it this time?

Sarah Mayberry. And yes, I know that everyone else in the world has read her books already. I am very slow. And I've never been a Blaze reader.

I picked up Take On Me in a charity bookshop. I remembered Mayberry's name when I saw it because of Jessica at RRR raving about Mayberry and Jane DA too. And boy, they are so right. I relished that book. It was a real pleasure. The characterisation was good and the dialogue sparkling. The execution of the romance arc was spot-on. And it had a few excruciating moments which I love. Oh - and Mayberry did something that is very difficult to do: she showed two characters who had a history and who each hated the other for their own reasons. And she made their feelings - which were based on entirely different interpretations of the same events - seem rational and excusable. Just great. Oh and the setting was fun - a daytime soap (of which Mayberry had personal experience - and it shows).

So, I immediately purchased the other two books in that trilogy: All over You and Hot for Him. I've already read AOY (great) and I'm halfway through HFH (pretty good). And I've ordered Anything for You which seems to be universally loved.

Thing 3: I read an Eloisa James I really liked!

Fool For Love. Why did I like this more than any other EJ book I've ever read? Characterisation I think. I liked the H/H. I've previously spoken about my lack of blown-away-ness vis-a-vis the oeuvre of Ms James. This one though, I really did enjoy. It got past my brain and engaged my romance trigger. There was visceral enjoyment. (I get this - fizzle - in my tummy at particularly great moments in romance novels. This is a very true thing.)

Thing 4: At this time of the year, one reflects on the year past and considers the year ahead...

My conclusions:

1 ~ My family is more important than my job - that's a no-brainer but I need to hold that thought because life's all about the little moments really

2 ~ For everything there is a season (turn turn turn). The season that beckons now is one of thrift and virtue. Indulgence is out

3 ~ Change is good and often necessary


So that's my Things. You?