Back in March, I read and reviewed your terrific debut, Midnight Riot (Rivers of London in the UK), an urban fantasy/police procedural narrated by an endearing London police constable named Peter Grant.
Peter is a new recruit in a secret (and very small) department of the London Metropolitan Police which investigates supernatural crimes. Moon Over Soho is the second book that follows Peter, and I’m pleased to say that like Midnight Riot, it was highly enjoyable.

The two books are closely related so it’s impossible to review the second without revealing spoilers for the first. Therefore, readers who have not yet read Midnight Riot and who don’t want to read spoilers for that novel should read no further.

Moon Over Soho begins a few months after Midnight Riot has ended. Due to the events that took place toward the end of Midnight Riot, Peter’s superior officer, wizard/Chief Inspector Nightingale, is very frail, and Leslie, a coworker on whom Peter had a crush, has been horribly scarred. Beverley Brook, another potential love interest of Peter’s, is still away from London, and the murder that took place at the end of the last book remains unsolved.

As Moon Over Soho opens, Peter is visiting Leslie, who conceals her disfigured face beneath a hood, a scarf, and sunglasses. Leslie wants to know whether magic can “fix” her face, but Peter doesn’t think it can. Soon after parting from Leslie, Peter gets a call from Dr. Walid, the department’s coroner, about a body which may belong to a victim of supernatural foul play.

At the morgue, Peter senses vestigia, the remnants of magic, emanating from the body in the form of the jazz tune Body and Soul. The dead man is a saxophonist named Cyrus Wilkinson. At Cyrus’s house and in the vicinity of his address, Peter meets Simone Fitzwilliam, Cyrus’s girlfriend, as well as Melinda Abbott, Cyrus’s fiancée. Later he locates the rest of Cyrus’s band, and in this way he learns that Cyrus died shortly after a big gig.

Further investigation reveals that Cyrus isn’t the only jazz player to die immediately after a brilliant performance. There appears to be some kind of supernatural being hunting down these talented men, and Peter is determined to find out why, how and who.

Meanwhile, two other murders with a very different MO take place. A dark haired, pale skinned woman seduces men only to bite off their sexual organs with her own. The vagina dentata case (featuring a killer with teeth in her vagina) from the previous book remains unsolved, but when a journalist/amateur practitioner of magic is killed in this same way, Peter is pulled in on the case.

Then there is Peter’s private life. While the investigation unfolds, an attraction blooms between Peter and Simone Fitzwilliam, the deceased Cyrus’s girlfriend, and their mutual infatuation grows consuming. Concurrently, Peter’s father, a former saxophonist somewhat famous in jazz circles, takes up the keyboard and hooks up with Cyrus’s band members.

Is Peter’s father in danger? Is Peter himself in danger? Who are the killers in each case, and can Peter track them down before they do further harm?

Moon Over Soho answers these questions and the joy of reading the book is at as much in Peter’s narration as it is the process of solving a paranormal mystery. The book crackles with wit and humor even as it tackles some dark subject matter. For example, here is a brief description of Camden Market, one of many funny bits in the book:

The important thing about Camden Market is that nobody planned it. Before London swallowed it whole, Camden Town was the fork in the road best known for a coaching inn called the Mother Red Cap. It served as a last-chance stop for beer, highway robbery and gonorrhea before heading north into the wilds of Middlesex.

The dialogue is equally wonderful. Take for example this bit, which deftly handles the race and diversity issues. Here’s Peter, who happens to be biracial, discussing the case his white supervisor, Inspector Nightingale, while they walk Toby, their dog. Since they are searching for the magician who trained the dead journalist, and Nightingale says there weren’t many people who could have done so in England, Peter asks about magicians from other parts of the world.

I asked about other countries—China, Russia, India, the Middle East, Africa. I couldn’t believe they hadn’t at least some kind of magic. Nightingale admitted that he didn’t really know, but had the good grace to sound embarrassed.

“The world was different before the war,” he said. “We didn’t have this instantaneous access to information that your generation has. The world was a bigger, more mysterious place—we still dreamed of secret caves in the Mountains of the Moon, and tiger hunting in the Punjab.”

When all the map was red, I thought. When every boy expected his own adventure and girls had not yet been invented.

Toby barked as we overtook a juggernaut full of God knows what going God knows where.

“After the war it was as if I was waking up from a dream,” said Nightingale. There were space rockets and computers and jumbo jets and it seemed like a ‘natural’ thing that the magic would go away.”

“You mean you didn’t bother looking,” I said.

“It was just me,” he said. “And I was responsible for the whole of London and the southeast. It never occurred to me that the old days might come back. Besides, we have Dunlop’s books so we know his teacher wasn’t from some foreign tradition—this is a home-grown black magician.”

“You can’t call them black magicians,” I said.

“You realize that we’re using black in its metaphorical sense here,” said Nightingale.

“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “Words change what they mean, don’t they? Some people would call me a black magician.”

“You’re not a magician,” he said. “You’re barely even an apprentice.”

“You’re changing the subject,” I said.

“What should we call them?” he asked patiently.

“Ethically challenged magical practitioners,” I said.

“Just to satisfy my curiosity, you understand,” said Nightingale, “given that the only people ever likely to hear us say the words black magician are you, me and Dr. Walid, why is changing them so important?”

“Because I don’t think the old world’s coming back anytime soon,” I said. “In fact, I think the new world might be arriving.”

As I stated in my review of Midnight Riot, Peter is a loveable character. He genuinely cares about every life he attempts to save and wants to believe that a good outcome is possible. At the same time, he isn’t blind to flaws, especially flaws in systems, and can snark with the best of them.

Still, I liked him a little less in this book than I did in Midnight Riot, perhaps because he struggled less in this one. It seemed like he had grown not only better at his work, but also significantly more physically coordinated, to a degree that seemed less than completely believable given the span of three months that had passed between the two books. It also bugged me that he was occasionally distracted from his casework by his involvement with Simone.

Additionally, I found the vagina dentata idea sexist and if the female character this subplot centered around hadn’t been treated so respectfully I might have been offended. That I was able to go along with it is a testament to the sensitivity and humor with which every subject in this book was approached.

In other ways, though, Moon Over Soho was a stronger book than its predecessor. The mysteries at its center were even more compelling, the investigative legwork was still there, and this time, the villains’ paranormal abilities were explained more clearly than in Midnight Riot.

Most importantly, though, I felt that this book dug deeper into the characters and I got to know them better. Though I am starting to get the sense that Peter will never be the kind of touchy-feely guy who talks about his emotions, those emotions nonetheless came through more in this book.

Readers who are looking for a great urban fantasy series with a fresh setting, endearing and vulnerable characters, a threatening villain, humor as well as substance, and smart writing can’t do much better than this one. B+/A-.

Sincerely,

Janine

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Related posts:

1. REVIEW: Midnight Riot by Ben Aaronovitch
2. Nicholas Sparks to Write Novel to be Turned into Movie for Miley Cyrus
3. REVIEW: Bayou Moon by Ilona Andrews

Your novella, Gaijin, caught me by surprise. A friend recommended it to me on Twitter and then loaned it to me through my Kindle. I had heard about it and investigated purchasing it once before, but shied away from making an actual purchase. Somehow, I wasn’t expecting as much thoughtfulness as I got.

To begin with, I want to make it clear to readers of this review that Gaijin is in no way a romance. It is erotica, but whether or not a reader finds it erotic will likely depend on that reader’s feelings about reading rape scenes. All the sex scenes in Gaijin are non-consensual, and for me, the novella’s strength was that it doesn’t shield readers from that knowledge, and yet, despite its toughness, it was bearable to read.

There is not much plot to Gaijin. Instead, there is a situation, and it is a tough situation.

Jennifer awoke to a dull throbbing pain in her chest. She opened her eyes to blackness and felt an immediate flare of panic. She wasn’t at home; this wasn’t her room, her bed. The pain in her breasts, a hot, pulsing, generalized ache, was all that distracted her from the strangeness she had found herself in. Someone, something had tried to hurt her.

Instinctively, she tried to pull her arms up to cradle her chest, but her arms wouldn’t move. They felt frozen and useless, numb, behind her back. Another bright bloom of panic surged up her throat and exploded in her head and, this time, no amount of pain could stop its eruption. Jennifer rolled onto her side and screamed into the darkness.

Jennifer has been in Japan for a year, working at a place called the Blonde Chicks bar. Now she has been kidnapped by a man whom she had refused to serve instead of the table she was booked to work at. Shindo has had Jennifer’s nipples pierced while she was passed out, but he has waited until she is awake to rape her.

I don’t want to spoil exactly what befalls Jennifer and what she does to try to change her situation. Instead, I would rather talk about the novella’s themes. At 57 pages it is pretty short, and it comes to an end quickly, but what I liked about it was that it left me thinking.

At its center were two issues, rape and culture clash. No character was fully sympathetic, not even Jennifer, despite her plight. She has little cultural sensitivity and seems to have been drawn to Japan for its surface beauty and then stung by a bad case of culture shock.

She knew nothing about the Japanese male psyche. A year of flattering them hadn’t given her any insight into what made them tick, really. All she knew was that, at some level, they were all insane; the outrageous lengths they would go to, just to avoid having their pride hurt, their “face.” Face, she didn’t understand it. She only knew that their whole world revolved around it. And how would piercing her nipples and then killing her save anyone’s face?

Here’s what I liked about Gaijin: how in one paragraph you can take me from feeling alienation from Jennifer’s racism, to feeling terrible pity for her and almost understanding her warped point of view.

I wasn’t sure if I was meant to share her perspective or meant to revile it; in a discomifiting way, I was reminded of my first year as a new immigrant in the US, when, at age eleven, I hated the fricking squirrels because they were so alien to me. For me, Jennifer’s hatefulness toward Japanese men was at once horrible and believable and in no way justified Shindo’s treatment of her.

Jennifer isn’t the only ethnocentric character in the story. Shindo and his cohorts throw around the term gaijin a lot, and it feels as though some of them don’t see her humanity or acknowledge her suffering.

Shindo is a mystery, in that we never get his POV and like Jennifer I didn’t quite know what to expect from him. He seems to have some kind of obsession with Jennifer, he rapes her over and over and demands to know why she is cold, yet his demands came across as absurd, since there is far greater coldness in his actions toward her far than in her honesty with him.

There are moments when we glimpse Shindo’s humanity. For example, at one point in the story we learn that Shindo’s father was in one secondary character’s view, far worse than Shindo. In a lesser book, this would be our cue to sympathize with Shindo – to pity him for having possibly been abused. Here, it’s just one more signpost on a road to purgatory. Nothing, not Jennifer’s racism, not Shindo’s crappy childhood, and not the orgasms he inflicts on his victim, serves to justify his actions.

The friend who loaned me the story said that it was almost an exercise in forcing reality on the reader through Jennifer’s POV, and one that casts a harsh light on the rape fantasy. That was how I felt about it too. It didn’t matter to me that the sex was erotic at times. In some books with non-consensual scenes, I consent for the heroine. Here, I couldn’t consent, but what enabled me to keep reading was the beauty of the language.

He sat up, straddled her hips, and began to unbutton his shirt. Jennifer turned her head, fixing her gaze on the snow beyond the window. Now it was dark, all she could see was the flurry of white particles, illuminated by the light inside, brushing chaotically against the black pane.

Life was like that, she thought as she heard the fabric of his shirt rustle, sometimes you got elected president, sometimes you got raped. Life was mindless chaos.

“Look at me.”

It was hard to drag her gaze away from the window. There was something stupidly Zen and comforting in the fact that she hadn’t done anything to get here. She was a snowflake that had brushed up against a plane of black obsidian.

“Look at me!” he barked.

Gaijin isn’t perfect. There are some copyediting errors and the novella feels abbreviated, more of slice-of-life vignette than a story. Also, at $3.99 for 57 pages, the price seems kind of steep. For me it was worth reading nonetheless, thanks to the discomfort I felt at what happened and the odd comfort provided by the imagery and words. B.

Sincerely,

Janine

PS Since a spoiler was requested in the comments, I have added one below:

[[Visit blog to check out this spoiler]]

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Related posts:

1. REVIEW: Jessie’s Girl by Amber Scott
2. REVIEW: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
3. REVIEW: Not That Kind of Girl by Susan Donovan

On Sunday, April 22, I attended the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books.

Part 1 of my report on the festival

Part 2 of my festival recap

And now for Part 3:

Fiction: Love, Actually

My friend Bettie and I left the Anne Rice panel while Anne Rice was taking questions from the audience and snuck into the only romance genre panel at the festival, “Fiction: Love, Actually.” The moderator was Dee J. Adams and the panelists were Tessa Dare, Jill Sorenson and Deanna Cameron. For those among our readers who may not have heard of them, here are their festival guide bios:

Cameron writes romantic historical fiction. Before turning to fiction, she worked as a journalist, writing and editing for several Southern California newspapers and magazines. Her novels include “The Belly Dancer” and “Dancing at the Chance.”

Dare is a librarian, mother and writer. She is the author of “A Night to Surrender,” “Once Upon a Winter’s Eve,” and most recently, “A Week to be Wicked.” She lives in Southern California.

Sorenson writes sexy romantic suspense for Harlequin and Bantam dell. Two of her novels, “Crash Into Me” and “Set the Dark on Fire,” have been excerpted in Cosmopolitan magazine. Her most recent title is “Caught in the Act.”

Born and raised in Texas, Adams is the author of “Danger Zone,” “Danger Races” and the upcoming “Dangerously Close,” which will be published in July. She is a former actor.

After introducing the panelists, Adams kicked off the questions with one for Cameron, asking what drew her to write a book set in turn of the century New York when vaudeville was losing its luster.

Cameron replied that her previous book, “The Belly Dancer” had been set during the 1893 World’s Fair. She wanted to follow one of the characters from that book in her next book, and the historical fact was that most of those dancers went to vaudeville. Cameron said her research revealed that there were class tensions in this time period, and that interested her. Because of the rise of the movie industry, vaudeville, which had previously appealed to the middle class, began sliding.

Adams then asked Dare a question about Minerva Highwood, the nerdy heroine of her most recent book, A Week to Be Wicked, and whether it was a challenge to make readers believe that the hero would find a nerdy heroine attractive. Dare said that Minerva was based on her own nerdiness and then joked that she didn’t worry about how the hero would find her attractive because everyone knows librarians are hot. The audience laughed.

Adams asked Sorenson about her plots and Sorenson said she is a bigger plotter now than she used to be – her editor has made her into one. She mentioned that she had to rewrite the ending of her last book.

This brought up the topic of plotting vs. pantsing and Adams asked the others which they were. Dare said she was halfway in between being a plotter and being a pantser and Cameron said she was a plotter.

Adams asked about the changes in the romance industry in the years since Dare was first published and Dare said there had been a lot of changes due to digital publishing.

Sorenson added that her Harlequin categories only stay on brick and mortar bookstore shelves for one month while her single titles stay on shelves anywhere from a couple of months to maybe six months or more. But now, thanks to digital publishing, the books are always available. The problem is (said jokingly) that everyone else’s books are also always available. So there is so much to choose from.

Cameron said that publishers are looking more toward niche books and unusual settings like those of her books due to digital publishing.

Adams then asked Cameron about her writing influences. Cameron said she was influenced by Anne Rice’s historical novel The Feast of All Saints and the historical details in that book made her want to write in a historical setting.

Sorenson was asked when she knew she wanted to write. She replied that she started reading romance at age eleven – category romances which she loved – and also read a lot of Stephen King. She knew early on that she wanted to write but not what she wanted to write. While briefly working as an English teacher she read a book by Lori Foster which made her realize that romantic suspense was the genre she wanted to write in.

Adams asked all three panelists what was the hardest part of writing.

Cameron said “Knowing when to stop revising.” Dare said “Sitting with the blank page.” Sorenson said “Twitter and the internet,” and added that she wastes a lot of time lurking on the internet. Cameron said she thinks social media is so exciting and so much fun.

Dare said that if it isn’t social media, there are times when cleaning the keyboard is the most exciting thing in the world. So if it wasn’t social media, it would be something else.

Sorenson said she is a stay at home mom and writing can be isolating so she loves meeting readers.

Adams’ next question was about writer’s block and what they do to counter it. Sorenson said she doesn’t get writer’s block but she went to a workshop with Christie Ridgeway and got a technique she uses, called a “character read.” She reads all the scenes from just one character’s POV and she believes that helps keep her from getting stuck.

Cameron said that when she’s stuck, she’ll figure out what to write next when away from the computer, “in the shower or something.” What blocks her is a problem with character motivation.

Dare said writer’s block means she has to go back a few scenes and fix the problem that is causing the block.

Adams asked the other authors about their tools for writing and mentioned three tools that help her, “discipline, drive and desire.”

Sorenson said the question had made her think of actual physical tools, like the notebook and pen she takes everywhere with her to jot down ideas, and her laptop.

Dare said that her tools were her support network, writers who can celebrate her successes or commiserate with her.

The next question was about the authors’ typical writing day. Dare said that the mystique of being a writer is that the writing “all comes in this pretty package” (she held up her novel as she said it) “and you don’t see the pajamas and dust bunnies.”

Sorenson said “Wasting time” was her typical writing day and Dare countered that, saying: “It’s not wasting time. Sometimes you have to go on walk or do the dishes and that gets your imagination going so it’s not wasted time.”

Sorenson added that she loves 4:00 AM. She is a morning writer and gets up early and writes for as many hours as she can.

Cameron said she gets up at 4:30 AM since it’s the only time her baby isn’t up to distract her. She writes in the morning for two hours and also during naptime. She can do research and other writing related activities during the rest of the day, but not writing.

Adams asked Sorenson if any true stories were the basis of her work and Sorenson replied that she has recently been working on a book called Aftershock, about a group of people trapped in a subway collapse, which was inspired by a subway collapse that happened in California.

When asked what advice she would give to writers who are starting out, Sorenson said she wrote six books before she got her first publishing offer. Finishing a book is a great accomplishment but you need to be able to start the next one.

Dare said that was good advice and that she would also advise joining a writer’s group. Cameron said “Definitely stick with it – if you stick with it, it will happen.”

Constantly trying to improve also came up, and then Sorenson said she still gets projects rejected by her editor. Getting rejected is such an important lesson and unfortunately lost with self-publishing. You can learn a lot from the feedback you get after self-publishing too, but there is a lot to be learned from the rejection process.

The next question was, “What is the strangest thing you’ve done in the name of research?”

Dare shared a hilarious story about a time she visited England for research, took a country path on foot, and ended up walking through a barley field (it turns out “country path” means something different in England than what it means in the US). The barley made snake-like hissing sounds with every step she took, and then, after a long time she finally arrived at sheep pastures. She then got to a field in which a sign was posted, “Caution, bull in field.” She was faced with a choice of either walking all the way back or walking through the field with the bull, and ended up choosing the bull over the long walk back.

Sorenson talked about going on a ride with a gang unit in San Diego as research for The Edge of Night. For Crash Into Me she interviewed surfers and one male surfer started changing out of his wet suit during an interview. He kept a towel around his waist as he changed, but it was still a little uncomfortable.

Cameron said she had a lot of belly dancing in The Belly Dancer but since she has been belly dancing for years herself she didn’t need to do a lot of research on that. Because she dances in a troupe but her character danced solo, she interviewed solo dancers to learn more about what that was like. In addition, she has also visited Northern Louisiana to do research on a French colony there.

The next question was “How old were you when you read your first romance?”

Cameron said that in seventh grade she read V.C. Andrews Flowers in the Attic which was passed around at her school. The book is based on a romantic relationship between brother and sister. She wouldn’t want her daughter to read it at that age, “But look how well I turned out.”

Dare said she can’t say that her books are appropriate for teens but she knows she read much worse as a teenager.

Sorenson said she was contacted by a young girl who wanted to read her books. Sorenson suggested to the girl that she have her parents read the book first and decide if it was appropriate for their daughter to read it.

Adams asked which was each author’s favorite book from among the ones they had written. For Dare it was A Week to be Wicked. “It was a joy to write the characters.” She added that her favorite is always the one that is on sale at the time. For Sorenson, it is “The one I just finished” and at this time that is Aftershock. Cameron also likes the one she finished writing most recently best.

The next question was about changes anticipated in the industry in the future. Sorenson suggested that in romance digital would continue to grow and books for a small audience might come out in digital first.

After that came a question, “If you could do something differently, what would it be?”

Sorenson said she had one book that didn’t work and that she had a feeling couldn’t be made to work, but she tried to rewrite it to show her editor she could turn it into gold. She rewrote it and it still didn’t work, so if she had to do it over again she would trust her gut instinct that the book wasn’t going to work. She needed to move on sooner than she had.

Somewhere in here (I’m not exactly sure where since my notes don’t say) the questions were opened up to the audience. Someone asked Sorenson if any of the five books she wrote before her sixth book was published were eventually published later and the answer was yes.

A woman got up to point out that this was the only panel on romance at the festival and ask why it was so hard to get legitimacy for the romance genre.

Dare said that it is often said that the genre is written for women by women and that’s the reason why, but she also thinks it’s also because the genre deals with female sexuality which some people like to make into a joke and some people feel uncomfortable with.

Cameron said that the 1970s bodice ripper image persists and for this reason, some people haven’t tried the modern romance.

Dare said “I’m over apologizing for that,” and added that romance readers aren’t ashamed, it is just others who like to embarrass or shame them.

Cameron said that chick lit was denigrated because it was for young women and by young women as well, and it is a shame that that persists.

The next question was about the covers and Cameron shared a story of how the original cover for her first book was of a woman looking into a mirror. She was happy with it until her husband looked at it and said “Why are there two women kissing on the cover of your book?” She waited until 5 AM in the morning – 8 AM in New York – to call her editor and luckily, the cover was changed.

Dare said that the original cover for Goddess of the Hunt used curvy typography that made the H look like a C. Needless to say, the font was changed.

Sorenson said that her latest Harlequin has a Latina heroine who looks light skinned. She spoke to Harlequin about it and they apologized to her but the cover remained the same and it’s the only one of her covers that she feels she should apologize to readers for.

I didn’t record what the next question was but it must have been something about classic literature because Cameron said her favorite literary classics were books by Lily Bart, Kate Chopin, The House of Mirth and other books by Victorian women, but she felt there were a lot of tragic endings to Victorian women’s lives in classic books.

Sorenson mentioned a French Lit class she took and how in every book, the female characters died. She said she loves that the romance genre celebrates romance and female sexuality and we get a happy ending.

Dare said she loves Jane Austen, where Regency society views and manners work against the characters. The historical genre is influenced by Austen and a great fit for her because there aren’t many kidnappers and killers which she is not good at writing.

Another reader said she read a lot of bodice rippers and missed those sweeping sagas but they were not PC. She asked if the authors felt constrained by having to be more feminist in today’s books. Dare said she got into the romance genre with Julie Garwood’s books, which came after the bodice rippers and so she doesn’t feel constrained. Sorenson said she’s all for bodice rippers and a variety of books but does not feel constrained by writing the books she writes.

At this point my notes on this panel ran out. When we tried to take a picture of the panelists for this post, we were told the room was needed for the next event, so we followed them outside to their signings and Bettie snapped a photo there.

Young Adult: Future Tense

Then it was off to the YA stage for a panel called Young Adult: Future Tense. This panel was comprised of three authors of dystopian or futuristic YA, Marie Lu, Lissa Price and Cecil Castellucci. The YA stage emcee was Aaron Hartzler. Here are their bios from the festival guide.

Castellucci is a writer, filmmaker, actress and singer-songwriter and engages in many other creative pursuits. She is the author of many young adult novels. Castellucci’s latest titles are “First Day on Earth” and the forthcoming “The Year of the Beasts.”

Lu writes young adult novels and has a special love for dystopian books. She was born near Shanghai and attended college at USC. Lu is the author of “Legend.”

Price’s debut novel is “Starters.” She is a member of the Apocalypsies, a group of 2012 debut young adult and middle-grade authors. Price resides in the Southern California foothills with her husband.

Hartzler, formerly the creative director of the Society of Children’s Books Writers & Illustrators, redesigned the look and feel of the SCBWI presence in all print, online, and mobile media platforms. He is currently working on several books that will be published in the near future.

It took us a little while to locate the YA Stage and as we arrived there, Marie Lu was talking about high school being “kind of dystopic” and saying that was why the dystopian genre was a good fit for teens. Price mentioned that her novel Starters was about “starters” vs. “enders.” She said she had thought the theme would work because “teens have a lot to carry on their shoulders.” Castellucci said that her book was about alien abduction, which serves as a good metaphor for the teen years when “You feel like your body is being taken over.”

Lu mentioned that she was really stressed about the SATs as a teen and so when she wrote Legend she invented “The Trial,” a test ten year olds are required to take. She also talked about living in China at the time of the Tiananmen Square protests and said that even though she was only five years old at the time, she was affected by that.

Castellucci said that her novel, First Day on Earth deals with psychic trauma and originally had a female narrator, but when she was a few pages into writing it, she realized her character was actually a boy.

Lu said that of the two first person narrators in Legend, the boy’s character and narration came to her more easily because that character had been with her since high school and “feels like an old friend.”

Price said that flu shot restrictions had made her hypothesize what the world would be like if everyone who hadn’t been given a flu shot died and only the very young and the elderly survived. That’s when she came up with the idea of teens renting out their bodies to seniors who wanted to experience what it was like to be young again.

Hartzler asked the authors about some of their favorite books. Lu said she was a fan of Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game and Ender’s Shadow, Lois Lowery’s The Giver and fantasy masters like Tolkien and Robert Jordan. Price mentioned The Hobbit and Castellucci gave another mention to Ender’s Game as well as listing John Christopher’s The Tripods Trilogy and SF authors Isaac Asimov and Ray Bradbury among her favorites.

Lu was asked how she came up with the dystopian, futuristic downtown Los Angeles in Legend and said that LA was a little dystopic to begin with, but added that she saw an online map simulation of what the world would like if the water rose 100 meters. In the map, California had “a ginormous lake from LA to San Francisco” and Lu incorporated that into her book.

Lu also said that one of the challenges with Legend was to make the voices distinct enough because the book is written in alternating first person POVs. To help with that, she made the girl a Sherlock Holmesian kind of character who notices small details while the boy is more emotional and casual.

Castellucci said her new book coming out this May will be her first in third person. She usually writes in first person.

Hartzler asked Castellucci to talk about her experience writing for comic books and she said that she had art directed her first one, but now she just does loose scripts with dialogue and collaborates with the artist on the art direction, and that’s much better. She said that what’s great about writing for comic books is that you don’t have to describe everything, you can just throw out words. “It’s fun.”

The next question from Hartzler was about whether the books they write are targeted to teens or whether they write for all ages.

Price said that she loved the way The Hunger Games doesn’t talk down to readers. Instead the story is told straight out and the character just happens to be sixteen. Lu said she wrote YA for years without realizing that it was YA, and Castellucci said that before there was a YA genre, teens turned to science fiction and fantasy because their bodies had become alien to them.

Lu said that her agent had taught her that YA was defined by the characters’ coming of age while Castellucci said that in YA the characters don’t nostalgically look back on events of the story with greater knowledge but that instead there is much more immediacy.

Hartzler opened up the discussion to audience questions and I got up and asked one. My question was “Why are so many adults reading YA?” Price replied that she has a theory that the most creative writing is allowable in YA. Castellucci said “It’s really exciting because it’s the Wild West now.” Price concurred, saying, “They’re allowing us to do what we want,” and Lu added that in the YA section of the bookstore all genres are shelved together and therefore genre-benders are easier to sell and market.

Price said that her own book was originally marketed not as SF but as a “futuristic thriller” because the dystopian genre was thought to be going away, but now, with the success of the Hunger Games movie, the SF label had become trendy again and the book was being marketed as SF.

The authors were asked if they read while writing and Lu said she doesn’t read anything similar to her writing when she is writing. Price said that her publication schedule was so tight right now that she had no time to read, and Castellucci replied that she does read while writing, but chooses different genres from the one she is writes in.

The stress of writing on deadline came up next and Lu quipped that “Baths, chocolate and alcohol all help.” Castellucci said it was kind of ironic that she hated homework all through high school but now she’s in a profession where she constantly has to do homework.

The next question was about naming characters. Lu said she named the male protagonist of her book Day because it reflected his philosophy that every day everything is possible. Price said she chose the name Callie for her protagonist by combining the names of Katniss from The Hunger Games and Tally from The Uglies. Castellucci said the narrator of her book started out with the name Molly but when she realized the voice belonged to a boy, Molly became Mal.

One of the audience member asked what the authors do to get into the world of their books. Castellucci said she had a playlist that she listened to which helped her access that world. Price said she was working on the book nonstop and therefore constantly felt immersed in that world. Lu said she had used sketches of the world in which Legend was set to help her envision it.

Castelluci, Price and Lu were then asked about how long it took them to get published. Castellucci said she had heard a theory that it takes ten years to get from when you get serious about writing to get published and that’s how long it took her. Price said it had taken her nine years, and she had had an agent who didn’t believe in Starters and didn’t want to sell it, so she emphasized the importance of getting a good agent. Lu said she started writing seriously at age fifteen and sold twelve years later.

The next topic was revisions, and Lu said Legend had had three major revisions with her agent before her editor got it, while after it sold, only one round of fairly minor revision was needed. Her second book, which was just an idea in her head at that time, had required a lot more revision after selling than the first.

Price said that Starters was very close to being ready to publish when her editor got it. The second book in the series was much more difficult to write because she had to write it from scratch on deadline while promoting the first book.

Castellucci said that she was writing her first series now and that she planned to write the second book before the first book came out in order to avoid the problem of having to write while promoting book one. “That way madness could lie.”

Related posts:

1. My Sunday at the 2012 Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, Part 1
2. My Sunday at the 2012 Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, Part 2
3. My Saturday at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books

I attended the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books on Sunday, April 22. The first part of my report on the festival can be found at this link.

And now onto Part 2.

Anne Rice in Conversation with Scott Timberg

After the mornings panels described in part 1 of my report, we stopped at the food trucks for lunch, which took longer than we expected due to long lines. We ended up hoofing it to the darkened Bovard Auditorium where Anne Rice and Scott Timberg sat on stage discussing various aspects of her writing and her career.

Rice needs no introduction but I will include her festival guide bio anyway:

Anne Rice is the author of 31 books, including “Interview with the Vampire” “The Witching Hour” and “The Wolf Gift,” her latest. She lives in Palm Desert.

As for Scott Timberg:

Timberg is a former L.A. Times arts and culture writer, sometime New York Times and GQ contributor, the coeditor of “The Misread City: New Literary Los Angeles” and an enthusiast of film, wine, indie rock, retro culture, arctop guitars and California history.

As we walked in, Rice was finishing up talking about her latest novel, The Wolf Gift. We missed much of that topic but came in time to hear Timberg ask her about why she was drawn to writing about the supernatural.

Rice replied that she was not interested in characters unless they have a conscience and moral concerns. She said she tried to write realism and it was only when she started writing about vampires that she was able to connect with that mattered to her. Themes like the Catholic Church and fear of death were subjects she could approach with vampire characters. A lot of genre and speculative writers say they had a similar experience, Rice said.

Timberg asked Rice if she had a difficult time with selling or marketing Interview with a Vampire due to its supernatural aspect. Rice said that Knopf put a lot of stock in originality and a fresh voice so Interview sold for publication easily but the bigger problem was going against the bias of reviewers. The book got bad reviews in the major media outlets and good reviews in other places.

Interview with a Vampire was originally a flop as a hardcover and what saved it was the commitment on the part of its paperback publisher to print many copies. The number of copies printed kept it alive and it became an underground hit. The good reviews in smaller outlets helped save it as well, and so did the gay community, who saw the book as a gay allegory.

Rice said she was stunned when Interview with a Vampire didn’t get taken seriously. Now it’s easier to get original fiction with fantasy elements taken seriously than it was back then.

Timberg asked about Rice’s childhood in New Orleans and Rice said her mother would make up stories when she was a child (she described an eerie, imaginative story her mother told her as a child). Her mother was also familiar with the life stories of real people which she told to Rice, and she would tell her the plots of movies like The Count of Monte Cristo blow by blow. She told her the stories of the Bronte sisters, and they had books by Dickens at their house.

She also grew up listening to the radio and in those days, the radio was full of stories and soap operas, as well as radio shows like The Lone Ranger, Superman, and storytelling shows. There was so much on the radio.

Rice said that in New Orleans you couldn’t grow up without meeting people who were Catholic and/or had gone to Catholic school. Catholicism and its rituals, music, and art such as stained glass windows had a profound effect on her.

Her love of history also came from church, from stories about saints from earlier centuries, and there were priests and nuns at her church who came from Europe, so she learned about other times and places and became fascinated with them in this way.

Timberg asked why Rice’s erotica had to be written under a different name, and Rice replied that “Putting a fake name on it just freed me to write total pornography.” This got some laughs from the audience.

“I saw myself as writing authentic pornography,” Rice said. She was tired of flipping through books to find the sexy parts and wanted a book where these were on every page. “I thought people wanted to read stories of dominance and submission and if I could just write the Disneyland of S&M they’d be happy.”

Rice’s editor at Knopf was not interested in the project and her agent also thought it would not sell well and tried to encourage her to write something else. But her editor recommended the editor at another publishing house who was interested and did publish it.

Rice eventually claimed the Sleeping Beauty books but first, she told her father she had written them so that he wouldn’t hear about it from someone else, and asked him not to read her erotica.

Timberg asked her about her Facebook page and her contact with readers. Rice said that contact with readers is very good for her – she loves hearing from readers even if their responses to the books are mixed.

As the signings for her books got bigger and bigger, she got to meet a lot of her readers in person and she enjoyed it. For a while she had a phone line readers could call to leave messages for her. She would reply to those messages on her website. She had a website early on thanks to her tech savvy cousins.

Her current Facebook page has 600,000 people on it and she asks her fans for recommendations of movies, books, television and music. When something is troubling her, she asks them about it and gets a thousand comments within a few days which she prints out and reads, or sometimes reads on the screen.

Timberg asked Rice about her political views which she frequently discusses on her Facebook page. “What is going on in the world of politics that interests you or troubles you?” Rice said that she posts links to Nick Kristof’s columns at The New York Times — he is a hero of hers because he goes into famine stricken countries to report. She also likes Maureen Dowd and Fareed Zakaria.

Rice said she wants to see health care reform happen in this country. Early on she worked as a health insurance examiner and she never forgot the way insurance works – how they try to get out of paying people for claims. It troubles her.

She said sometimes people try to shut down her Facebook page because they don’t agree with her political views.

Timberg then said, “You’re interested in women’s issues like reproductive rights and human trafficking, I don’t know what you call that–” and Rice said, “Social justice.” The audience applauded.

Rice then said that she understands the passion on both sides of the abortion issue but she is very disturbed by the attacks on those she sees as the most vulnerable people in the debate – pregnant women. There has recently been a lot of low level legislation that makes it hard for women to get information about contraception, and she feels the attacks on Planned Parenthood are “unconscionable.”

She added that she hasn’t been able to write about this in her novels so she posts about it a lot on her Facebook page. Another issue that worries her is the kids who are abused in religious camps.

Timberg asked Rice about the sense of place in her novels and she said that she thrives on change, moving and trying new places – things like flowers, yards, and trees mean a lot to her. She finds Palm Desert, where she now lives, very beautiful.

Where she is always creeps into her fiction. Interview with a Vampire started in San Francisco where she was living at the time. The opening scene is set on Divisadero Street and she still remembers how she got the idea for the book. She had just been to a radio interview – her husband had been interviewed – and she saw an old Victorian house on Divisadero Street and started thinking “What if a radio interviewer was interviewing a vampire here?”

She added that she loves writing lush books where place is almost a character.

Timberg said that unlike the era of writing realism in which Rice was first published, today’s era is the era of Harry Potter, Twilight, Young Adult fantasy and dystopian novels, and Deborah Harkness. He asked Rice if she feels she played a role in bringing about this change.

“I don’t know if I played a role,” Rice said. “I think a time came when people were just hungry for it.” She related her first experience of seeing Star Wars at a convention in the seventies before the movie came out, and how wonderful the movie was. She said that Star Wars had been turned down by every studio but the people who worked on it made the movie they wanted to see and people loved it.

Superman with Christopher Reeve was made soon afterward and it got into Superman’s backstory. People wanted that, and they wanted the vampire’s backstory.

Rice: “I don’t know how much of a role I played. I think I was responding like everyone else.”

Timberg: “You had the same hunger readers had?”

Rice: “Yes.”

Timberg asked “What’s next for Anne Rice?” and Rice replied “I want to write more supernatural monsters and write more classic horror. I keep coming back to classic horror.”

She added that she wants to develop The Wolf Gift into a series. She loved writing the vampires but the problem is that she’s writing in a world she developed twenty years ago. She wants a new playground now.

Next up in Part 3 of my report on the festival, “Fiction: Love, Actually” (a romance panel!) and “Young Adult: Future Tense” (dystopian and futuristic YA).

No related posts.

After reading and reviewing your impressive novella, Ghost in the Machine, I was eager for more of your work and curious as to what your writing was like in other genres. Silent Surrender, your new Spice Brief, caught my attention and I decided to try it.

Alexia arrives at the Rivera hotel and resort for a vacation harried by her phone. Alexia is a trader on Wall Street and it is difficult for her to carve out even two days to get away from her stressful job. She doesn’t know she is being watched by Carlos Rivera, who observes her dealing with a couple of crises as she checks in.

Carlos is impressed and intrigued, and he later approaches Alexia, who is sitting at the bar, with two champagne glasses. Alexia is appreciative of the fine champagne, and even more of the man’s gorgeous appearance. He speaks no words, but his eyes say volumes. Soon Alexia and Carlos are dancing together, and not long after that, sexxoring in a private dining alcove.

Rivera spirits Alexia away to his penthouse suite, where they spend the night, still saying not a word. But will Rivera’s silence content Alexia, and how will she react when she learns why he won’t speak?

This was a charming little short. Your writing here is atmospheric and seductive, so the absence of dialogue worked almost as well for me as it did for Alexia. I can’t say that I didn’t guess where the story was going plot-wise, because I did, but though not as compelling as Ghost in the Machine, it was still enjoyable.

What surprised me was that the sex was pretty vanilla for an erotic story. Also, some of the metaphors, such as “the dress sighed into a forgotten fabric puddle at her feet,” worked for me beautifully while others did not – for example: “Butterflies? The thrill that arced from her nipples to her stomach and beyond was more jet airplanes engaged in aerial acrobatics.”

But the characters were so very easy to like and want the best for, and I was glad for the outcome of their encounter (not things I take for granted in a Spice Brief these days), so this one gets a C+.

Sincerely,

Janine

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Related posts:

1. REVIEW: Ghost in the Machine by Barbara J. Hancock
2. REVIEW: Wilderness by Barbara J. Hancock
3. REVIEW: The Silent Tower by Barbara Hambly

Last year on I attended the Los Angeles Festival of Books and reported on the event for DA. My biggest negative takeaway that year was that the romance genre was not represented at the festival. This year (Halleluja!) they actually had a panel devoted to romance. A single, lonely panel mind you, but it was still a huge improvement to my mind. Here’s hoping for more next year!

I spent the day taking so many notes for my report on the festival (which is long enough to run in three pieces) that I lost one pen, got another bleeding, and finally had to borrow a third from a friend. My wrist was aching by the end of the day, but my notebook had been filled with notes. I did the best I could to capture what the speakers said but they talked fast so in many cases these notes aren’t exact quotes but rather paraphrases. I also missed some of the things that were said. My apologies to anyone I may have misquoted.

And now, onto the festival report:

Sunday, April 22, the second day of the festival and the only one we attended, dawned cloudy, so we didn’t slather on sunblock or even bring hats – something we lived to regret when the sun came out in the afternoon. Still, the USC campus, where the festival was held, was not an inferno like last year. We met up with our friends (Bettie Sharpe and her husband) and headed into our first panel of the day.

Fiction: World Building

The speakers on this panel were authors Frank Beddor, Lev Grossman, and John Scalzi. The moderator was Charles Yu. I will be quoting the bios of the speakers from the festival guide throughout this series of articles, and here are theirs:

Frank Beddor is a film producer whose credits include “There’s Something About Mary.” He’s also a screenwriter, professional skier, online gamer and novelist. He is the creator of the bestselling “The Looking Glass Wars” among many other books and graphic novels.

Grossman, an international best-selling author, began his writing career as a freelance journalist. In 2002 he became Time magazine’s book critic as well as one of its lead technology writers. Grossman has written four novels, including “The Magician King.”

Scalzi’s debut novel, “Old Man’s War,” was a finalist for the Hugo Award for Best Novel. His other novels include “Agent to the Stars,” “The Android’s Dream” and the “Ghost Brigades.” In 2006 he won the John W. Campbell Award for best new writer. His most recent book is “The Last Colony.”

Yu is the author of “How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe” and received the National Book Foundation’s 5 Under 35 award for his story collection “Third Class Superhero.” His work has been published in the Harvard Review and the Gettysburg Review, among other journals.

We snuck into this panel a couple of minutes late and missed the introductions, but Yu began the discussion by posing the question “Worldbuilding – what is it?”

Lev Grossman replied that a world is not exactly a static thing but it is not a story. He said that in his youth, he played a lot of Dungeons & Dragons and practiced worldbuilding. To him this was not the same as storytelling and he cautioned writers that worlbuilding can overwhelm your fiction by keeping the story from moving forward.

Scalzi disagreed with Grossman and said that worldbuilding is a form of fiction because it comes from the imagination. He did agree, however that Grossman was right, “You can spend all your time building a world without creating a story.”

Scalzi also added his “heretical view” that the Lord of the Rings movies were superior to the books. He said that was because Tolkien created a detailed world and was deeply involved with the worldbuilding whereas Peter Jackson was more involved with the storytelling.

He contrasted this with “The C.S. Lewis approach” and this led to a discussion of how some authors create the world first while others start telling the story and then build the world according to the needs of the story. It was a question of “Are you writing from the inside out or from the outside in?”

The C.S. Lewis approach was to create what the story needed – even Lewis scholars can’t make a continuity out of the world of the Narnia books because that wasn’t what Lewis was trying to do. Scalzi said his approach was similar and that he doesn’t describe things (for example, aliens) that are part of his world unless a description is needed.

Frank Beddor said he uses concept artists to draw some things so that he can describe it in his writing and the image draws readers in.

Beddor also said that he outlined his first book and spent too much time describing the rules of the world. With the following books he had more confidence and wrote more fluidly.

Yu then asked the authors to describe their books. Beddor shared an elevator pitch for The Looking Glass Wars, a reverse-Lewis Carrol world. I didn’t get all of it in my notes but it went something like this: Princess Alyss of Wonderlandia is enjoying her seventh birthday when it is interrupted by a coup. Alyss escapes to our own world through pools in Wonderlandia and ends up in Victorian England, begging an Oxford don to writer her story (he gets it all wrong and writes Alice in Wonderland) while Hatter, her bodyguard, ends up in Paris.

Scalzi described Old Man’s War as “Starship Troopers with old guys” and Grossman, who declined to pitch or describe his books, instead read an excerpt from The Magicians.

Yu brought up an Amazon review that said that Grossman’s book was not a fantasy, and speculated that this may be because his worldbuilding pokes a hole in the fantasy world.

Grossman explained that as a child he was disturbed by C.S. Lewis’ Narnia world because of the way Narnia ends. In The Last Battle (the final Narnia book) Narnia collapses and the kids go to Aslan’s land. When Grossman read this he thought, what if Aslan’s land collapses too? What happens to the children then? And so when he began writing he wanted to explore a situation where worlds keep collapsing.

Yu brought up the subject of social media and connecting with readers. He asked Scalzi about his blog and Scalzi went on about it at length (I didn’t get good notes here). He said that some of his readers are politically conservative and when they arrive at his blog they are surprised to learn that he espouses liberal views like support of same sex marriage. He also added that he withholds a lot of personal information on his blog and so his blogging also creates a fictional construct, a John Scalzi author persona that isn’t the same as the real Scalzi.

Frank Beddor mentioned that he created a game space for the readers where they could play the characters in his books in order to create a community for readers. Readers write fanfiction set on his world and one thirteen year old boy even created a claymation video book trailer for his book on YouTube.

Fanfiction then came up and Scalzi said he views fanfiction favorably — it’s a sign that readers are really addicted to the world and can’t wait for the next book.

A fascinating discussion emerged about how J.K. Rowling announced that Dumbeldore was gay and some fans reacted negatively, with cries of “Dumbeldore can’t be gay!”

Scalzi said he believed that if Rowling says her character is gay, he is gay. Grossman disagreed with Scalzi on this point and argued “The world is what is in the book, not outside of it.” To which Scalzi replied “There’s the torah and there’s the commentaries.” Grossman said, “I don’t know what that means.”

Scalzi explained that there was evidence, in Rowling’s advice to a screenwriter on one of the Harry Potter movies not to make Dumbeldore a womanizer, that she knew all along that Dumbeldore was gay. Because it’s not inconsistent with the world Rowling created and “Everything that Rowling says about Dumbeldore being gay checks out,” Dumbledore is gay.

Lev Grossman still disagreed, saying: “The book has a beginning and an end.” He added that “No one reads the same book – that’s what’s great about reading.”

Scalzi agreed with that but still insisted that Rowling was the authority on Dumbeldore.

Grossman said: “I don’t think writers are the only ones who do worldbuilding. Readers worldbuild too.”

Yu, the moderator mentioned that now people want worldbuilders rather than fiction writers or storytellers. Paramount is making a movie of Scalzi’s book, Old Man’s War, and there’s a television show in the works for Lev Grossman’s book. Beddor, a producer of Something About Mary is planning to produce The Looking Glass Wars into a movie as well.

Scalzi responded to this by saying that readers of science fiction and fantasy select for immersive experiences but added that readers don’t always want worldbuilding. Sometimes what they want is a consistent reading experience which is why authors like James Patterson and Nora Roberts are so popular.

The authors discussed the temptation of continuing to write in the same world of their most popular series. Scalzi said he could write more books in the same world as Old Man’s War and readers would buy those books but indicated that he could get bored doing that so it’s a double edged sword.

Yu asked the authors about their next projects and Grossman said he is working on another book set in the same world as The Magicians as well as on another book set in a different world. Beddor said he wrote a murder mystery set in a high school but his publisher said it was out of his demographic. Scalzi said he was working on a book called Red Shirts and had two more projects in the works in addition to his work on the movie.

The discussion was opened up to an audience Q& A. The first of the audience questions was “How do the novels interact with real life for readers?”

Grossman replied that literature is not realism and that traditionally (in earlier centuries) literature was fantasies like Hamlet and The Faerie Queene and “Fantasy was all there was.” He explained that Fantasy is “a way for you to encounter the problems of the real world but in a transformed way.” He said that made the experience of reading about those problems easier for readers than it otherwise would be.

The next question was whether fan fiction was hijacking. Scalzi replied to this by saying there will always be people who feel proprietary about worlds but fan fiction is purely for the joy of it.

Grossman said that this idea that fiction should be original is relatively new – an eighteenth century attitude and a “bizarre literary singularity.” He said that “The Iliad is Aeneid fanfiction” and that “Story is not the property of the author.” The author is only the caretaker of the story.

I got to ask a question and asked if the authors’ story conceptions began with the worldbuilding or with the characters and also, whether they discover new things about their worlds during the writing process.

Scalzi said “I make shit up as I go along.” He explained that upon request for a sequel to Old Man’s War, he had to explain the conception of the earth he’d created out of laziness, and the reason why the earth was the way it was in his world.

Beddor stated that he starts with the characters rather than the world and that the stuff to solve, the problems, begins with the characters. Grossman nodded along with Beddor’s comment.

Fiction & Fantasy: Otherworldly Adventures

The next panel we attended was also on a science fiction and fantasy topic. This panel’s participants were authors Greg Bear, Raymond E. Feist and Boyd Morrison. The moderator was Rob Latham. Here are their bios, taken from the festival guide:

Bear is the author of more than 30 books, which include thrillers, science fiction and fantasy. Some titles include “Blood Music,” “Eon,” “The Forge of God” and “Hull Zero Three.” “Halo: Primordium: Book Two of the Forerunner Saga” is his newest book.

Feist is the author of the best-selling Serpentwar Saga: “The Shadow of a Dark Queen,” “Rise of a Merchant Prince,” “Rage of a Demon King” and “Shards of a Broken Crown.” His latest book is “A Crown Imperiled: Book Two of the Chaoswar Saga.”

Morrison has worked as a mechanical engineer, Microsoft video game usability manager and professional actor and writer. In 2003, he became a “Jeopardy!” champion. “The Catalyst,” “The Ark,” “Rogue Wave” and “The Vault” are his novels.

Latham teaches contemporary American and British literature, cultural studies and science fiction at the University of California, Riverside. He is the author of “Consuming Youth: Vampires Cyborgs and the Culture of Consumption.”

Once again, we walked in a little late (this happened to us with every single panel, because they overlapped with each other or with lunch), this time in the midst of a discussion of writing in other people’s worlds.

Greg Bear was talking about writing books in other people’s universes including Star Wars books and books set in Isaac Asimov’s world. He said he’d written about Darth Vader as a teenager and along the way he created a planet that has appeared in nineteen other Star Wars books.

Feist then said that he feels he writes historical novels about a place that doesn’t exist. He mentioned that he played a lot of Dungeons and Dragons as a kid. Three years after that he started writing bad books set in the same universe to amuse other kids, and in the process of doing so he started stretching storytelling muscle and realized he wanted to write.

Because he and his friends had already created the world during their games, he didn’t have to do much worldbuilding but did have to create the politics and other aspects. He said that you have to be consistent with what had already been established when you write in someone else’s world. Because the world reflected the personalities of Feist’s friends who had been involved in its creation, the story also reflects them.

Latham mentioned that Morrison has engineering training and writes books that read as though they require a tremendous amount of research. Morrison said that for a lot of writers research is the most fun part of writing. He has stories he wants to write and he just does the research those stories require.

Morrison added that he started researching Rogue Wave one and half years before the Asian tsunami and researched what could happen in such an event. The Ark involved archeology which is not his background, but he made his character an engineer so that he could use his engineering knowledge. His Tyler Locke books present an alternative, science fictional explanation for ancient mysteries.

Latham asked to what extent genre categories are an important concern to the panelists when they decide what to write.

Bear replied “Marketing strategies don’t mean a hill of beans.” He added that through most of history writing didn’t fit into these categories. Homer was half fantasy and half real.

Feist said that the sales of categories like romance, fantasy, science fiction and horror dwarf the sales of the mainstream writing that is reviewed in the New York Times and considered highbrow. He said “There has to be a fundamental understanding of what you’re trying to write” and that he writes what he likes to read.

He said he’d written a series of magical books where the trope is “There is no magic.” He loves Grimm and once upon a time – “Great examples of Urban Fantasy” and added that “If you’re writing a western there better be a gunslinger in it.”

Morrison said he loves thrillers and it doesn’t matter where they are set. He considers The Hunger Games a thriller. He added that in genre you know the experience you’re going to get and mainstream is anything that doesn’t fit into the genre categories.

Feist then said that fiction is otherworldly and that when Fitzgerald wrote The Great Gatsby he wrote about a world – Long Island – that was alien to people in the Midwest.

Bear talked about scientific discoveries and said “Reality beats us out there.” He said this was grist for the mill and that “Anyone who says you should write what you know doesn’t realize English majors don’t know a hell of a lot. You have to research.”

Feist added “If you want to be a writer, don’t study English—study philosophy, history, or political science, because you’ll have to write about something.”

Latham threw in “I’m an English professor” and got some laughs.

Morrison said that he doesn’t include anything supernatural in his books – no gods or demons that affect the plot — but he does give an alternative explanation for things. One of his books was set in Naples and while researching it, he discovered the Greeks dug tunnels under Naples. He went to Naples to explore these tunnels and while there, he realized they were the perfect setting for his book, which takes place in those tunnels.

Latham talked about reading fantasy and science fiction when he grew up. He doesn’t remember these genres getting as much attention back then, but when Star Wars came along it brought along an explosion of media tie-ins. He asked the panelists if fiction has changed as a result of media attention.

Bear replied that writers have always reflected other writers so the media had always been there.

Feist said that the old days were no different from today, it’s just bigger now – the media is saturated. He gets on the internet after waking up and his son has the Xbox in the middle of the living room. There are tons of cable channels, Hulu, and other media outlets. It’s overwhelming. It’s the same but there’s a hell of a lot more of it. When he and Greg Bear were first published, self publishing was vanity publishing – now it’s a real, attractive, potentially viable option.

Bear said he was fascinated by how, as the media ages it gets very jealous of new media and there is not a lot of cross-marketing.

Feist gave an example from a time he talked to people who worked at Time Warner about video games. Every movie at Time Warner had to be self-sustaining. Around this time “Batman” came out, and because of that policy, rather than giving “Batman” to Time Warner’s video game platform, Activision got it. Eventually Time Warner stopped producing video games.

Morrison said that nowadays there is more cross-marketing. If something is popular, they want to put it into every media.

Feist said his original agent sold The Winds of War to CBS for what was the most successful television miniseries at the time. That was as big as a book could get back then but nowadays big stars, HBO, etc. are looking for content.

Latham asked a question (I’m guessing this was because the panelists on this panel were all male) about writing female characters.

Bear said he’s always had strong female characters in his books, scientists and mathematicians.

Feist said that historically women have been better writers of male characters than men are of female characters for reasons that have to do with what has been published in literature.

His first three books were written from the male POV and it was easy for him to portray women through the male POV, but he had a much harder time when writing from the female POV after that. He co-wrote the following three books with Janny Wurts to learn how to do it and since then he has gotten better with practice. He added that his female characters think more globally while his male characters are more linear.

Morrison said that his wife is his first reader and his agent and editor are both women so he actually has to worry more about his male characters and how they are portrayed.

Bear added that if you try to portray women as more intuitive than men or some such stereotype, “You’re going to lose definition on your characters and they will fight back.”

Next up in Part 2 of my report on the festival: “Anne Rice in Conversation with Scott Timberg”

Related posts:

1. My Saturday at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books
2. Los Angeles Times Book Review Section Is Folding
3. Sunday News Roundup: Free Books from All Romance eBooks

The Temporary Wife by Mary Balogh

This is one of Balogh’s most beloved traditional regencies, up there with The Notorious Rake as far as being many Balogh readers’ favorite Balogh. It was recently reissued in a 2-in-1 edition with A Promise of Spring and I took the time to reread and review it. I found that it was even more enjoyable the second time around. What I love about it is the transformation of the hero (and his relatives) from joylessness to joy. Grade: B+/A-

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A Promise of Spring by Mary Balogh

This one, on the other hand, was a disappointment. It started out wonderfully, as a sweet and tender older woman/younger man romance. The heroine had lost a child who happened to be illegitimate in her youth, and the hero’s total acceptance of her was so romantic. If only the book hadn’t gone downhill from there, with kitchen sink plotting, rushed resolutions, and contrivances that made both characters (but especially the hero) seem stupid or inconsistent. Review here. Grade: C-

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Midnight Riot by Ben Aaronovitch

I’m so glad this urban fantasy/police procedural was recommended to me. Its hero, Peter Grant, is a new London Metropolitan Police constable who discovers that he has some paranormal abilities. Under the tutelage of an older (who knows how much older?) police inspector/wizard, Peter learns to cast spells and pursues a dangerous supernatural villain who threatens those close to him. Witty, snarky, and immensely entertaining. Review here. Grade: B+

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Fair Game by Patricia Briggs

What a blast I had reading this book. It wasn’t perfect by any means but I was grateful to discover that even three books and one novella into the Alpha and Omega series, my love for Charles and Anna has not faded. I especially loved seeing how strong Anna has grown. Her cleverness shines in this book. I didn’t love the way Charles’ conflict was resolved, but there is something so tender about their relationship, especially considering they are up against violence their own monstrous nature, and I find that so touching. Here’s Josephine’s review. My grade: B+/A-

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Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor

My husband and I recently finished reading this YA fantasy which Jia reviewed a while back (the book was also in DABWAHA). A mystery wrapped in a roller coaster ride, Daughter of Smoke and Bone is poetic and romantic. The more time goes on, the more the book stays with me. I think it’s the kind of novel that can be reread as soon as one finishes it because once the secret at its center is uncovered, it casts the whole book in a new light. I love books that do that. Oh, what the heck. I think I’ll grade this one A-.

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Confessions from an Arranged Marriage by Miranda Neville

This book took a while to really grab me, but once it took off, it became a very emotional story. We recently had a guest post on heroines and shame, but in this book, it’s the hero who carries a shameful secret, one that causes him to pretend an indifference that he does not feel. The journey Blake and his new bride, Minerva, undergo, is bumpy to say the least, but it leads them both to grow into people who can understand and accept one another, and that’s a big part of what love is about. Review here. Grade: B+

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Thunder and Roses by Mary Jo Putney

I saw that Putney’s classic Fallen Angels series has been reissued electronically and since once upon a time it was a favorite series of mine, I decided to revisit it. I’m currently rereading this, book one in the series, and so far, it’s not holding up to my memories of it. It’s never been one of my most favorite Putneys but now I find I have mixed feelings about both the hero and the heroine, as well as their central values conflict over whether sex outside marriage is wrong (her view) or natural and desirable (his) . I still love the strip billiards scene but it isn’t enough to make up for the other problems. Review here. Grade: D

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A Monster Calls: Inspired by an idea from Siobhan Dowd by Patrick Ness

This was another one I read with my husband. It’s a fantasy about a thirteen year old boy whose mother has cancer. One night a monster comes to visit Conor, and as these visitations continue, the monster tells him stories and insists Conor will have to repay in kind, by telling the true story that terrifies him. The book was inspired by an idea from Siobhan Dowd, who died of cancer herself before she could write it. This made me feel Scrooge-like for being underwhelmed. My review can be found here. Grade: C+

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Tangle of Need by Nalini Singh

Book #11 in the Psy/Changeling series won’t be out until May 29 but I read the ARC in March in preparation for a joint review Jennie and I have in the works. There are developments on several fronts here, but the central romance is that of Adria (Indigo’s young aunt) and Riaz, both wounded souls. Their relationship is complicated by the fact that Riaz’s wolf has already recognized its mate, and it isn’t Adria. While this wasn’t one of my top favorites in the series, I did very much appreciate that it dared to explore some tough questions about the nature of the mating bond. Joint review with Jennie to come.

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What about you? What have you been reading lately? Have you read any of the books I mention above and if so, what did you think of them? And are you on a hot streak or in a reading slump?

Related posts:

1. What Jia’s Been Reading in February
2. Dear Author Recommends for March
3. What Janine is Reading – Late 2011/Early 2012

I was a big fan of your books in the 1990s. They came along at a time when I had not read anything like them. If the characters made mistakes or committed wrongs, your books actually examined the of the characters’ motives for doing so in some depth. And your characters actually had spiritual lives, often in conflict with a troubled conscience. Concepts like honor mattered to them. Your side characters could be Jewish, gypsy, or gay, yet never the villains in the story. And sometimes even your main characters belonged to minority groups.

Understand, I came to historical romance in the 1980s via the American single title blockbuster books, at a time when they were quite different from today’s romances. The heroes of many of those 1980s books just took what they wanted, and didn’t spend much time agonizing about wrong and right. The heroines embodied feisty. While those books were filled with adventures in exciting locales, and had some qualities I still miss, your books, when I discovered them, were so different from the pack that they were a breath of fresh air.

The Fallen Angels series, while perhaps not the very first series about a group of men who went to Eton together and earned a nickname for their closeness there, was certainly one of the first, and without a doubt the first I read. I remember the books being prominently displayed in bookstores at a time when most historical were still standalone, so I’d venture to guess that for good or ill, the Fallen Angels’ success played a part in setting the series trend.

I was an avid reader of your books at the time and eagerly awaited each release (This changed for me somewhere around the time you switched to writing contemporaries). I remember reading Thunder and Roses, the first Fallen Angels book, when it was released, and while it wasn’t among my most favorite of your books, I think I would have graded it a B or B+ at that time.

When I heard that the series was being reissued in electronic editions, I dug out my old paperback (yes, I still have it – I hate to separate related books from one another) and decided it might be fun to revisit this book in a review. I wanted to see how the book held up. Unhappily, the answer (for me at least) is not well.

Thunder and Roses begins with a prologue in which a gypsy woman delivers her son to his grandfather, the Earl of Aberdare. Marta’s motives for handing her son over to the earl aren’t revealed until late in the book, but Nikki, Marta’s son, is devastated and anguished by his mother’s abandonment, and it is clear the earl is perturbed by his grandson’s dark skin. Marta was legally married to Kenrick, the earl’s son, so the earl is forced to accept a gypsy as his heir.

Flash forward twenty-three years, and Nicholas Davies is now the Earl of Aberdare. Rumors have it that “the Demon Earl” seduced his grandfather’s much younger wife, bringing about the previous earl’s death, and then capped off the crimes by murdering his own wife. But Clare Morgan still goes to confront Nicholas about failing in his responsibilities to the villagers on his Welsh estate.

Clare is a schoolteacher as well as the daughter of the deceased Methodist Reverend Morgan, and is therefore respected in the local village of Penreith. Nicholas has just returned from four years abroad. He is drunk and wants nothing more than to be rid of Clare when she shows up at his home and insists that the dearth of jobs and the dangerous conditions at the coal mine in Penreith are forcing the villagers to risk their lives and that since Nicholas owns both a slate quarry and the land on which the mine is located, he must do something about it.

To get rid of Clare, Nicholas proposes a trade –he’ll help the villagers only if she’ll sacrifice her reputation to the cause.

To be clear, Nicholas is not asking Clare for sex. He merely wants her to move in with him so that everyone will think they are having sex. If Clare, Reverend Morgan’s daughter, is willing to destroy her precious reputation to save the same villagers who will condemn her, she will enlist his help. Otherwise, it’s a no go.

Oh, and there’s also the matter of a little side bet about whether Nicholas can actually succeed in seducing Clare during the time she’s in residence at his home. To that end, Clare must allow him a kiss a day. He will not go beyond that without her consent.

This being a romance novel, Clare agrees rather than telling Nicholas to go to hell. Nicholas, who mostly wanted her to go away, is instead obliged to check out the quarry and visit the mine. Clare takes on the redecorating of his house and discovers that a portrait of his late wife infuriates Nicholas.

Eventually the two travel to London where Clare gets a new wardrobe and Nicholas introduces her to his other “Fallen Angel” friends, Lucien and Rafe. A fourth friend, Michael, owns the mine on Nicholas’s Land, but Lucien warns Nicholas that while he was traveling, Michael conceived a hatred for him for unknown reasons.

While Clare and Nicholas await an opportunity to approach Michael about the mine, their daily kisses grow more passionate. But though Nicholas thinks that being “ruined” could only be a good thing for Clare, Clare vehemently disagrees. Since she’s never felt a deep spiritual connection to God, she feels she’s a fraud both as a Methodist and as the reverend’s daughter. Nicholas’s kisses amplify that feeling and therefore Clare both looks forward to them and dreads them.

I had a number of problems with Thunder and Roses this time around, but I’ll start with the nature of Clare’s conflict. I have no problem, at least in principle, with a heroine whose religious beliefs prevent her from sleeping with the hero. That was the case with the heroine of your medieval romance, Uncommon Vows, and it worked for me in that novel. But in that book, Meriel was deeply devout and had almost become a nun as a teen. She was also held captive by the hero who wanted her to agree to become his mistress. So she had very strong reasons to refuse.

With Clare, the religion vs. premarital sex conflict did not work nearly as well for me, and here’s why: Clare’s fears focused on her reputation and what others thought of her and it was in this context that she seemed to find sex sinful. But she couched her objections in terms of religion and spirituality.

As events in the book later proved, her experience of spirituality was in no way harmed by sex; the real issue was what others thought of her. I think I would have had more sympathy for Clare if she had called a spade a spade and just admitted that it was her reputation and her standing in the community that mattered to her most, not the state of her soul.

Moving on to Nicholas. I think I was supposed to find Nicholas a charming rogue, but I found him pretty off-putting. First, there was his hypocrisy. He goes on about how he doesn’t force women, but he insists on the daily kiss a number of times when Clare is reluctant. He also touches her in casual ways early on in their relationship when he knows she’s not entirely comfortable with it.

Second, Nicholas also insists that losing her reputation would be the best thing in the world for Clare. Dude, if she cares about her reputation, and you really want the best thing in the world for her, then get a clue: destroying her reputation isn’t it.

Third, there’s the fact that even after Nicholas realizes conditions at the Penreith mine are horrendously dangerous, he threatens to withdraw his support from that cause when Clare tries to leave him. That’s right – he doesn’t force women, but a bunch of villagers will have to die unless Clare stays at his side and puts up with his kisses.

Okay, yeah, Clare is turned on by these kisses, and obviously so is Nicholas. Maybe he’s even falling for her. But threatening to endanger the lives of the miners, which include children, in order to have this chick is not cool.

But here’s my most important point: I think I might have been fine with all of the above had Nicholas been portrayed as a morally ambiguous character. If he’d owned up to his dark side, the way the hero of Uncommon Vows does. Sadly, that doesn’t happen here. A couple of people chide Nicholas for what he’s doing to Clare but Nicholas himself doesn’t seem to realize what a jerk he’s being.

Moreover, Nicholas is continuously referred to as charming. He has peacocks and penguins and a sad life story about all the people who betrayed him, and all that is somehow supposed to make him a nice guy even when he’s being selfish, childish, and obnoxious.

The book does have some good points – interesting details about mining conditions, a sexy game of strip billiards, and a nice suspense sequence involving fire. I appreciated that Nicholas was frequently described as dark skinned (even now the historical romance genre is too white), and liked side characters like Clare’s friends Owen and Marged. And when the conflict between Nicholas and Clare came to a head, it finally got compelling.

Other aspects I felt less keen on. The pacing of the story felt slow, though that may be partly because I’d read the book before and knew where the story was going. The language was occasionally pleasing but occasionally anachronistic. The gypsy side characters were portrayed stereotypically, but at least that they were also portrayed as a safe harbor for Nicholas. I mildly liked the resolution of Michael and Nicholas’s relationship, but hated what came between them in the first place.

[[Visit blog to check out this spoiler]]

On the whole, a good part of Thunder and Roses frustrated me, and I was a little surprised that I managed to finish it. I feel like I am slaughtering a sacred cow here, since I know how beloved the books in this series were for many readers, myself included. It feels churlish to write this after the many, many hours of reading pleasure I have received through your books in my years of reading, but as a reviewer, I have to be honest, and the truth is that while my 1993 self enjoyed this book, my 2012 self found it dissatisfying. D

Sincerely,

Janine

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I feel like quite the scrooge because while I liked your YA novel, A Monster Calls, I didn’t love it the way everyone else I’ve seen reviewing it seems to have done. The book has a powerful and moving story of how it came to be. The idea behind it was the brainchild of author and activist Siobhan Dowd, who died of breast cancer before she could execute her vision. Instead, you wrote the book.

The book centers on Conor O’Malley, a thirteen year old boy whose mother is suffering from cancer. Conor and his mother live in the UK, but his parents are divorced, and his dad, remarried and father to a new baby, now lives in America. Conor has a grandmother who sometimes comes to visit, but she is atypical of grandmothers in ways that irritate Conor. For the most part, it is just Conor and his mum and that’s the way Conor likes it.

But the treatments his mum promised would work don’t seem to be helping her. She is getting frailer, but keeps promising Conor that the next treatment will make her better. Conor feeds himself and does the dishes so that she won’t have to. Meanwhile, things at school are bad for Conor. He is being bullied and whispered about thanks to his one-time best friend, Lily, who told everyone about Conor’s mum.

As the book begins, a monster comes to visit Conor seven minutes after midnight. Conor doesn’t believe in monsters, which are for babies, yet the monster seems perfectly real and very frightening. It resembles a yew tree that grows behind Conor’s house, a yew tree whose berries are poisonous. A tree Conor’s mother is fascinated with.

Conor is antagonistic to the monster, but as frightening as the monster is, it doesn’t frighten Conor because its presence is preferable to the recurring nightmare Conor suffers from. But the monster makes a promise to Conor. Conor will be afraid of it, “before the end.”

When Conor wakes up the next morning, he believes the monster’s visitation was just a dream – until he discovers yew tree leaves all over his bedroom floor. He cleans them up so that his mum won’t see them. Later that day, Conor feeds himself breakfast and has an encounter with the school’s three bullies, which he welcomes. When Lily tries to put a stop to it, Conor gets angry.

The monster comes to see Conor again that night. This time, the monster promises that he will tell Conor three true stories, and then he will demand Conor’s story from him. Conor isn’t afraid of the monster’s stories, but the monster’s insistence on hearing Conor’s true story terrifies him.

”Stories,” the monster tells Conor, “are the wildest things of all.” “Stories chase and bite and hunt.” The monster has come walking because Conor called him, and the stories he will tell Conor are the stories of the earlier times he was called and came walking. If Conor doesn’t tell the monster the fourth tale, the truth that terrifies him, the monster will eat Conor alive.

Conor wakes, believing the monster’s visitation was a dream, to find his floor covered in poisonous yew tree berries.

As time passes, things at home and school become even more difficult, and the monster continues visiting. It begins to tell the first story, one that makes no sense to Conor since to his thinking there is not much justice in it. And then things go from bad to worse, and Conor’s mum tells him his dad is coming for a visit and that Conor will have to stay with his grandmother for a few days while his mother goes to the hospital.

What will happen to Conor at school, at his grandmother’s house, and when his largely absent father comes to visit? What will happen to Conor’s mum in the hospital? And what is the yew tree monster’s role in the story? Has he come to destroy or to heal, and if so, whom?

As mentioned before, I like this story but did not love it. I liked the imaginative way that reality and fantasy were woven together and I especially liked the way the theme of dealing with the possibility of a loved one’s death was tackled head on. I liked the realism of Conor’s reactions, the way he hated the special treatment he got from authority figures, for example, and I loved the last cathartic fifth or so of the book.

But on the whole, I didn’t love the book, and here are the reasons why. First, I am an adult who enjoys a lot of YA, but this book read younger than most of the YA I read. I think that may have been a combination of the short and simple sentences and some of Conor’s thought processes. There was also a timeless quality to the story which is something I often find appealing but one downside was that we never see Conor doing the things boys his age do, like playing videogames or listening to his ipod.

The result of all of the above was that I feel this book was not written to cross over to older teens and adults, the way say, books like Jellicoe Road or The Hunger Games are. Of course, a lot of adults are loving this book, so I may be off my rocker to feel this way, but speaking from my own adult perspective (the only one I can bring to a book), it didn’t read to me as if it were aimed at me.

Additionally, the characters didn’t feel engaging to me. What I mean by this is that to the degree that I was engaged by the book, it was the situations portrayed that engaged me, but not the people. I never got a good sense of what Conor had been like before his mother got sick. I didn’t know who he was outside of his experience as a boy whose mother suffered from cancer.

The same was true of the other characters. Conor’s mother seemed defined by her cancer, Conor’s father was defined by his emotional absence from Conor’s life. Lily wanted to be Conor’s friend, but who was she outside of that? Were the bullies anything more than bullies? Everyone seemed defined by his or her role in the story, but didn’t seem to have a life outside of it.

Also, the plot felt mostly predictable. While I didn’t know the exact nature of Conor’s nightmare, the one he had to tell the monster about, I knew whether or not he would tell it and I knew whether his mother would live or die. There were minor things I did not guess at or expect but I could see exactly where the book was heading when it came to the big things that mattered most and since this is a short book, I felt a little cheated of surprises.

Another issue is that after finishing the book, I still don’t know if the monster was real or something Conor imagined. There were times Conor saw the monster but other people were present and did not. Were the monster’s actions Conor’s actions? And if so, how did the leaves and berries get into the house?

I know that I’m being literal by asking these questions. In the end, this is a fable about coping with the very scary possibility of losing a loved one, and therefore the answer is that I can choose to view the monster as something Conor imagined without viewing Conor as delusional or psychotic. But this inconsistency still niggled at me.

As mentioned earlier, the final 20% of this book rocked. A Monster Calls went from being only mildly interesting to me to breaking my heart and putting it back together. There was such an impressive truthfulness to the way the issues at the center of the book, the truth of Conor’s nightmare, were handled. It made for an extraordinarily powerful denouement.

I did love that part but still, I am torn about the book overall, and weighing the first 80% that didn’t do as much for me as I expected (probably due partly to sky-high expectations after all the book’s great press and award nominations) with the last 20%, I give A Monster Calls a C+.

Understand, this is me as an adult grading a book for young people. Some adults are calling it a classic, and from my point of view, it is a great book to give to a child who has to face death. I think that the eleven year old me would have been deeply moved by this book. Still, it is not, for the adult me, a classic like some books I read at age eleven which I still love to pieces to this day.

Sincerely,

Janine

Related posts:

1. REVIEW: You Know When the Men Are Gone by Siobhan Fallon
2. REVIEW: The Name of the Wind: The Kingkiller Chronicle, Day One by Patrick Rothfuss
3. REVIEW: He Calls Her Doc by Mary Brady

I should probably preface this review by saying that I’ve chatted with you on Twitter and what I know of you, I really like.

Ever since they met in The Dangerous Viscount, book two of your Burgundy Book Club series, I’ve wanted to see Minerva Montrose and the Marquis of Blakeney (known to his acquaintances as Blake) hook up. Confessions from an Arranged Marriage, Blake and Minerva’s story, opens with a London ball in Minerva’s honor.

As a favor to their nephew, Minerva’s brother-in-law, the Duke and Duchess of Hampton have agreed to hold the ball. Their son, Blake, is to open it with Minerva. But Blake is enjoying his mistress’s company, and arrives too late. By the time he dances with Minerva, she is greatly irritated. She and Blake snipe at each other and are both glad when the waltz ends.

Minerva has already picked out a husband – a Member of Parliament named Mr. Parkes whom she believes she can groom into the next Prime Minister. Very much in favor of political reform, Minerva believes she can help bring it about by steering the sober, responsible Mr. Parkes through the waters of politics and diplomacy. But Minerva’s hopes to encourage this courtship are thwarted by a migraine. She takes headache powders and goes to lie down in the library.

Meanwhile, Blake is having an even worse evening. Though handsome, athletic, and heir to a dukedom, he carries a shameful secret. Blake suffers from what contemporary readers will recognize as dyslexia, although back in 1822, its existence was unknown. Consequently Blake believes his inability to read is due to pure and simple stupidity.

Blake does tries to cover up this flaw by pretending to be arrogant, lazy, and disinterested in anything intellectual. To Blake’s misfortune, his family has a long history of being in the thick of politics, and Blake is expected to follow in the same tradition. Relations between Blake and his cool, standoffish parents are therefore strained.

Even more unfortunate, Blake has confided his secret in an Eton friend, Mr. Huntley, and Huntley has used the secret to blackmail Blake. Now, just when Blake’s resulting debt has finally been paid, Huntley corners him. Blake manages to extricate himself from the conversation before Huntley can launch into his next demand, but he feels flooded with shame.

Escaping into an unoccupied room, Blake gets drunk on champagne overhears his friend Lamb planning a tryst with the amorous Duchess of Lethbridge, with whom Blake has slept in the past. As Lamb and the duchess plan to meet in the library in an hour’s time, the drunken Blake has a brainstorm. He and Lamb have a tradition of playing pranks on one another. Wouldn’t it be hilarious to arrive at the library first and take Lamb’s place with the duchess?

In the library, Blake discovers a tall woman lying on the couch, her hand covering her eyes. Believing her to be the duchess, Blake feels certain she is feigning sleep, playing at a naughty scenario. Blake has his head under her petticoats when the woman wakes up and shrieks “What are you doing?” Only a moment after her realizes she is the irritating Minerva Montrose, Blake turns and sees a group of people in the doorway.

Thus Blake and Minerva reluctantly become engaged. But when Blake realizes what his father wants most from him and Minerva is a grandson, an heir more worthy of the dukedom than his son, Blake indulges his hurt and anger with a petty decision: he will refrain from consummating the marriage so as not to give his father his heart’s desire.

Blake also believes all Minerva cares about is whether or not he can satisfy her political ambitions, and at first, he’s not entirely wrong. Minerva is so upset that her hopes of marrying Mr. Parkes were dashed that she is terribly disappointed that her husband will be Blake. Never having seen him read or discuss books or even events in the newspapers, she is not at all convinced that he is intelligent.

Since Blake believes himself lacking in intellect, Minerva’s initial lack of respect for him, and later her desire to mold him into a political figure, something he knows he can never be, hurt him enough that even after they are engaged, he does not dismiss his mistress.

Minerva’s is disappointed and unhappy to learn that Blake was seen with his paramour at the theater. When the two marry and travel to Paris for their honeymoon, there is a great deal of tension between them. Although Minerva is dreading her wedding night, she is also hurt and upset when Blake doesn’t come to her room.

But Blake was tasked by his politically inclined brother in law Gideon with finding which of the French are loyal to the crown and which to Napoleon’s son, and when he finally shares this objective with Minerva, they turn it into a friendly contest. The hunt for political intelligence brings the couple together, and Blake realizes what a fool he was not to touch his smart, confident and appealing wife.

Minerva for her part begins to see that Blake is intelligent as well as handsome, but wonders why he doesn’t apply himself more. She feels certain he could be so much more than he is, and if only he would allow her to persuade him to enter the political arena, they could be a couple to contend with.

Standing in the way of both Minerva’s ambitions and the romantic relationship is Blake’s secret. How can he trust a woman as bright as Minerva with the knowledge that he is stupider than he appears?

Confessions from an Arranged Marriage engaged me only partly in the beginning, because Blake and Minerva were so preoccupied with their personal needs and desires that neither looked beyond the surface of the other at first. While there is something refreshing about a pair of lovers who start out disinterested in one another, I would have liked for a few more hints of attraction to pierce that disinterest a little sooner.

Additionally, though this is a minor concern, the presence of most of the characters from the earlier books in the series during the ballroom scene felt like prequel baiting. While I realize there were natural reasons for them to be there, even so it can still feel artificial when several characters from earlier books appear in the same scene.

(As long as I’m on the subject of characters from earlier books, I’ll add that I felt a little sorry for poor Diana, in her third pregnancy in roughly as many years. I wondered how many children she and Sebastian would have by the end of the 1820s!)

Once Minerva and Blake began their honeymoon trip, though, their interest in each other as people sparked, and I started really caring about them as a couple. The more they started understanding and caring about each other, the more invested in them I became.

Blake starts out self-focused, but he grows up a lot over the course of the book. I didn’t always like him, since his decisions not to dismiss his mistress right away and not to consummate his marriage struck me as insensitive to Minerva. But even at his most immature, I felt for him over the dyslexia issue.

As the story progressed and Blake showed greater and greater maturity and love for Minerva while still fearing to disclose his secret, I understood more and more what a source of fear and shame his belief that he was stupid was, and how sensitive he had always been under his indifferent exterior.

Minerva, though more concerned with the greater good and England’s fate than Blake, and outwardly much more mature, had a different flaw. Her self-confidence was such that she started out certain that she knew what she wanted in a husband and that Blake was about as far from what she needed as a man could get.

But the more Minerva realized that Blake was not an idiot, the more I came to care about her. One of the pleasures of this book was her growth into a woman capable of seeing that intelligence comes in many stripes and therefore, one capable of not just accepting, but also respecting and admiring the man Blake grew into being.

By the middle of the book I was totally rooting for this couple, though their trials were far from over. I smiled at their witty repartee, found their love scenes hot, and one scene between Blake and his father even made me tear up a little for Blake.

Having now read all four books in the Burgundy Book Club series, I can say that your characters’ vulnerabilities, insecurities and quirks are consistently well conveyed. There is a warmth to the writing that comes from acceptance of the idiosyncrasies that make human beings imperfect and human.

I have just one more issue with the book, which is that sometimes I feel that the style of narration has an effect that is slightly distancing. At times I feel I’m being told about the characters rather than experiencing their emotions from the inside.

Even so, I ultimately had great sympathy and affection for Blake and Minerva, and was so glad to see them triumph over all the obstacles their relationship faced. I closed the book smiling and satisfied. B+.

Sincerely,

Janine

Related posts:

1. REVIEW: The Wild Marquis by Miranda Neville
2. REVIEW: The Dangerous Viscount by Miranda Neville
3. REVIEW: The Amorous Education of Celia Seaton by Miranda Neville

I’ve been recommending enough books here lately that I have started to worry that my grades are overgenerous. But when a book is as much fun as your debut urban fantasy/police procedural, Midnight Riot, what is a reviewer to do?

I picked up Midnight Riot (also known as Rivers of London in the UK) to read with my husband after I saw it recommended three times. The first recommendation came from a good friend whose taste in books is a bit lighter than mine. She loved your book and thought I might too. The other two recommendations were made by readers here at DA – this comment and this one. As it happens, I agree with the comments, and my friend was right— I thought your book was a delight from start to finish.

The first book in a series, Midnight Riot opens with Peter Grant, a young probationary constable with the London Metropolitan Police and the book’s narrator, guarding a scene in Covent Garden where a decapitated body was found. Peter’s friend and fellow probationary constable Leslie goes for coffee and when she is gone, a man who answers to Nicholas Wallpenny tells Peter that he witnessed the murder.

Only this was no ordinary murder and Nicholas Wallpenny isn’t an ordinary witness. When Peter asks him come and give a statement, Nicholas states that this would present a problem, since he is dead, and Peter “must have a touch of the sight” to be able to talk to him. And indeed, when Wallpenny steps into the light, Peter sees that he is transparent.

The ghost tells Peter what the victim and killer were wearing and where they passed one another and nodded in acknowledgement. He describes killer knocking off the victim’s head with what looked like a stick, and then going down New Row. He also says the killer was uncanny in his ability to change not just his coat and hat, but his face as well.

As soon as Leslie returns with the coffee, the ghost disappears. Peter thinks he’s losing his mind, so he does not share the ghost’s account with anyone.

Peter and Leslie are at the end of their probationary periods and the next day, they get their new assignments from Inspector Neblett. Peter is given a “horrifying assignment” – paper pushing in the Case Progression Unit. He is devastated to realize that “What Neblett was saying to me was that I wasn’t a copper, not a thief taker, but I might play a valuable role freeing up real coppers.”

To make matters worse, Leslie, to whom Peter is attracted, gets a far better assignment. The two go out to celebrate/drown sorrows and get plastered. Afterward, they discuss the differences in their approaches to police work and Leslie gives Peter a candid assessment of his professional flaws. The scene contains some great dialogue:

“Okay,” I said. “Why are you in the job?”

“Because I’m really good at it,” said Leslie.

“You’re not that good a copper,” I said.

“Yes I am,” she said. “Let’s be honest, I’m bloody amazing as a copper.”

“And what am I?”

“Too easily distracted.”

“I am not.”

“New Year’s Eve, Trafalgar Square, big crowd, bunch of total wankers pissing in the fountain—remember that?” asked Leslie. “Wheels come off, wankers get stroppy and what were you doing?”

“I was only gone for a couple of seconds,” I said.

“You were checking what was written on the lion’s bum,” said Leslie.”I was wrestling with a couple of drunken chavs and you were doing historical research.”

“Do you want to know what was on the lion’s bum?” I asked.

“No,” said Leslie. “I don’t want to know what was written on the lion’s bum, or how siphoning works or why one side of Floral Street is a hundred years older than the other side.”

“You don’t think any of that’s interesting?”

“Not when I’m wrestling chavs, catching car thieves, or attending a fatal accident,” said Leslie. “I like you, I think you’re a good man, but it’s like you don’t see the world the way a copper needs to see the world—it’s like you’re seeing stuff that isn’t there.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know,” said Leslie. “I can’t see stuff that isn’t there.”

But as it happens, it is exactly Peter’s ability to see stuff that isn’t there that gets him a better assignment. A depressed Peter tells a dapper stranger about his encounter with the ghost and the stranger turns out to be Inspector Nightingale, who comprises by himself a secret police unit in charge of investigating the paranormal. Within a day or two, Peter moves into The Folly, an old building protected by supernatural means, and begins training in wizardry and paranormal police work.

But Peter’s studies have only begun, and he and Nightingale are in a race against time, since no sooner do they find the killer of the decapitated man, than that man commits another crime and then dies, his face collapsed. And that is only the beginning in a string of violent London crimes.

Meanwhile, there is also a feud between a god and goddess of the River Thames which threatens to escalate. Can Peter get the god and goddess to make peace, and more importantly, will he solve the murders before someone he cares about dies?

One of the most charming things about Midnight Riot is its wit. Not only is the dialogue frequently snappy and funny, as in the example I quoted above, but Peter’s narration is at least equally witty. Even the descriptions are frequently amusing or snarky. For example, here is Peter describing his parents’ building:

The flats were solidly built, so at least I didn’t grow up listening to next door’s live docusoap, but they were built on the dubious assumption, so beloved of postwar planners, that the London working class was composed entirely of hobbits.

Beyond that, Peter himself is endearing and sweet. Despite his cleverness and his newly acquired magical abilities, his characterization feels grounded in reality. He is an ordinary policeman just learning how to solve extraordinary crimes, yet he is made heroic by the courage he shows even when he feels afraid and the tenacity he exhibits when giving up would be understandable.

The side characters are interesting and distinct. For example, Inspector Nightingale, to whom Peter apprentices himself, wears herringbone tweed, carries a silver-topped cane and drives an old jaguar. Leslie is “short, blond and impossibly perky even when wearing a stab vest.” But they are both more than these descriptions might make the reader think they are. Nightingale is older than anyone might guess and may be involved with his housekeeper, Molly, who has strange powers and a taste for raw meat. Leslie is keen witted, the furthest thing from ditzy despite her blond hair and her perkiness.

I also appreciated the way the book dealt with race, neither dodging the issue nor centering the story around it. Peter is biracial and prejudiced people sometimes mistake him for a thug, but this is just one of many facts in his life. While it is clear that he does face discrimination at times, and we get glimpses of both his parents, his ethnic background isn’t the be-all of his existence. Since I’m neither English nor black, I don’t feel qualified to say whether or not the book is authentic in its portrayals, but for what it is worth I enjoyed them and was never struck by any jarring notes.

I cannot confirm whether the book is well researched, but Peter comes across as knowledgeable about everything from the various departments of the English police to the history of a number of places around London, to his mother’s cultural background (she is an immigrant from Sierra Leone), and these details make the world of the book come alive.

In addition, the paranormal and police procedural aspects are melded beautifully in this book. It is an entertaining blend of fantastical goings on and investigative legwork. The mystery is at the center of the story, and yet it is also a vehicle for so much more: humor, fantasy, action, excitement, but best of all, the humanity that makes Peter so very worth rooting for.

I have just a couple of complaints – one is that even at the end of the story, after the villain was nabbed, there were still things I did not fully understand about that villain’s fantastical nature. The other is that I liked Peter so much that I wanted to get to know him even better and see more of the hopes, dreams and fears beneath his witty surface. In the end, though, Midnight Riot was such a good read that I gladly recommend it. B+.

Sincerely,

Janine

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Related posts:

1. REVIEW: Lord of Midnight by Jo Beverley
2. REVIEW: Midnight Moon by Lori Handeland
3. REVIEW: Midnight Sun by Rene Lyons

Dear Ms. Balogh,

A Promise of Spring, now being reprinted in a 2-in-1 volume with The Temporary Wife, has a gripping opening. The residents of Abbotsford, a village in Hampshire, are trying to decide what is to be done about Grace Howard. Grace is the spinster older sister of their rector, Reverend Paul Howard, who recently died saving a small child from being gored by an enraged bull.

Grace had been living in the rectory with Paul and doing her brother’s housekeeping. The people of Abbotsford believe her to be destitute and without family, and since she is respected there and they feel deeply indebted to her deceased brother, none of them can bear to see her without means. While several of the Abbotsford residents try to figure out what should be done, Sir Peregrine Lampman visits Miss Howard and asks her to marry him.

Sir Peregrine – Perry to friends – is a sunny natured and gregarious man in his mid-twenties with whom ladies, young and old, love to flirt. He was a close friend of the intellectual rector with whom he shared interests in wide ranging subjects. Although he doesn’t know Grace well, Perry admires her dignity, her self-containment and the beautiful environment she created for Paul with her embroidery and gardening.

While paying his respects to the grieving sister of his friend, Perry realizes that he wishes that he knew Grace better. Rather than letting her disappear from his life, Perry impulsively proposes marriage. Grace refuses Perry on the basis that she is ten years older than he, but he asks her to reconsider.

They go back and forth a bit and finally she gives him a stronger reason not to marry her. Grace grew up with Gareth, a neighbor and playmate whom she loved. When Gareth decided to fight in the war, she gave herself to him. Gareth died, she tells Perry, and left her with her son, Jeremy.

Because Jeremy was a bastard, he was considered inferior to his legitimate cousins and did not receive enough attention from the governess who watched the children swim. Jeremy drowned, and Grace was told that since he was a bastard, it was for the best. Paul, she tells Perry, was the only one to show her sympathy and compassion after her son’s death, even quarreling with their father, taking Grace with him and cutting off the family.

After hearing the whole story, Perry again asks Grace to marry him. Feeling too vulnerable to do the right thing and refuse once more, Grace accepts.

Perry and Grace marry. The residents of Abbotsford think theirs is a mismatch and will not work out well, but against the odds, their marriage thrives. Grace is surprised by her enjoyment of the marriage bed, and Perry learns that there is pleasure to be had in gardening. They find they enjoy each other’s company even when he is reading and she is embroidering silently beside him.

But Grace is afraid that happiness will not last. Eventually Peregrine will tire of his much older wife and realize that he made a mistake. Even though she has begun to come alive again, she resolves to keep a part of herself dead, so as not to suffer more when Perry realizes he should not have married her.

This state of affairs is disrupted when Grace receives a letter from her estranged sister-in-law, Ethel. Grace had written her family to inform them of Paul’s death and Ethel’s reply is a subdued invitation to come home for a visit and bring her new husband.

Grace is torn – she realizes that her younger, proud and willful self also played a role in her estrangement from her family, but it is difficult for her to forgive them their treatment of Jeremy. Yet she also wants to visit her son’s grave, and to see her aging father again before he dies. In the end, she and Perry decide in favor of going.

Grace and Perry arrive at her father’s home, Pangam Manor, and are greeted with politeness by Ethel and by Grace’s brother Martin. Grace’s niece, Priscilla, is glad to see Grace again, while Grace’s father, Lord Pawley, is stiff in his manner. Still, if the family is surprised by Perry’s youth, they don’t show it, and they don’t make Grace feel unwelcome.

The family relationships begin to thaw and just when Grace’s wounds start to heal, an invitation to a dinner party from Viscount Sandersford arrives. Grace remembers how Gareth’s father ignored her and the illegitimate grandson she had given him. Ethel suggests that they refuse the invitation, but Grace feels it is time to make peace, so the family attends.

At the dinner, Grace is shocked to realize that Gareth’s father isn’t Viscount Sandersford any longer. Gareth’s father passed away, and the new viscount is Gareth, the father of her child — the same Gareth she had told Perry was dead. Gareth, very much alive, is now intent on pursuing Grace. He tells her that he realizes that he made a huge mistake and insists that she cannot ignore the passion that has always been between them.

And he goes further than that: after Grace and Perry depart Pagnam Manor, Gareth follows them to London. He refuses to take no for an answer and will not stop pursuing Grace until she admits that her love for him has never died.

There were many reasons I wanted to love this novel. First, the beginning was so wonderful that I spent the first fifth or so convinced that I was reading a gem. Perry’s total acceptance of Grace, his lack of condemnation of her past, and his eagerness to marry her even after learning about it, as well as given that she was thirty-five to his twenty-five, made me love him.

Grace’s vulnerability, the loss and suffering in her past, and the way she kept her emotions bottled up really got to me. I was rooting for her and for Perry from the beginning and I couldn’t wait to see their marriage blossom.

And blossom it did. I loved the way they slowly and quietly came to love each other, without fanfare or fireworks. As much as I enjoy more combustible pairings, I also love a subtle, unexpected, quiet romance. Also, the older woman-younger man is a trope I’m fond of and I enjoyed that aspect of the story. I did wish that Grace was a little less insecure about her age but I suppose that was natural in her circumstances.

I also loved the contrast between the soft-spoken, non-threatening Perry and the dashing, older, handsomer and better titled Gareth. In another book Gareth would have been the hero and Perry the second fiddle whose love for Grace went unrequited so I *loved* that here this dynamic was reversed.

Unfortunately, the strengths I loved were offset by weaknesses. A Promise of Spring suffers from kitchen sink plotting as well as multiple contrivances. I’ll start with the former.

There is Perry and Grace’s age difference and the ways it affects their confidence in their marriage, Grace’s estrangement from her family over her son’s birth and death, the lie Grace tells Perry about the very-much-alive Gareth being dead, Gareth’s dogged pursuit of the married Grace, and finally…

[[Visit blog to check out this spoiler]]

A couple of these conflicts would have been enough to fill a short book like this, and because there are so many, most of them get short shrift and are resolved in ways that feel unconvincing.

The conflict between Grace and her family dissolves away very quickly. We never learn which of them it was who said that it was fortunate Jeremy died because he was a bastard, but that issue, a major one to my thinking, isn’t explicitly hashed out between Grace and her relatives. Instead everyone turns out to have admired or loved Grace all along, feelings of competition or rebellion are admitted, and the cruelty to Jeremy and even the possible responsibility for his neglect at the time of his death are glossed over.

Other conflicts also resolve too easily. Perry realizes on his own that Grace didn’t intend to lie about Gareth and never confronts her about it. Gareth goes away after it’s been implied that he is dangerous and after, as Grace prepares to give him the final brush-off, Ethel warns her of him:

“Oh, be careful.” Ethel looked troubled. “Do be careful, Grace. That man frightens me.”

Because of that buildup I was expecting Gareth to either try to rape Grace or to run off with Priscilla, Grace’s niece, in retaliation, but instead he just abruptly accepts his loss with good grace and slinks off into the sunset.

Then there are the contrivances. First, Grace tells Perry that Gareth is dead. This is explained as something that didn’t seem like a lie to Grace at the time because Gareth was dead to her after his refusal to marry her. I was fine with that until she did it again: when Perry asks if Gareth was a friend of her lover’s, she inadvertently confirms Perry’s statement. It no longer felt like a one off to me after that, but the deception was still portrayed as unintentional on Grace’s part. By the second time she bungles communicating the truth, this feels contrived to keep Perry in ignorance of just exactly who Gareth was.

Second, Grace and Perry don’t discuss their problems with Gareth much even when they both know Gareth is pursuing her. And this goes on and on. And on. They also each fear the other doesn’t love them and may come to regret the marriage or even take up with someone else, but neither confronts the other with their fear. Even when Grace attempts to include Perry in her concerns about their relationship by showing him a letter Gareth sent her in secret, Perry doesn’t destroy it or read it with her and his actions and words encourage her to read it alone.

I can believe that insecurities would keep them from communicating to some degree, but this went on so long that it started to feel like a contrivance rather than a natural pattern of behavior for the characters.

Third, Perry doesn’t interfere in Gareth’s pursuit of Grace. This is said to be because he wants Grace to resolve her feelings for Gareth and make a free choice between them, but it starts to feel like a convenient device after a while because even when Gareth pulls Grace for a moonlit walk Perry allows it despite the fact that Grace’s refusal to fall into Gareth’s arms angers Gareth.

I would say that it doesn’t seem to occur to Perry that Gareth could harm Grace, except that’s evidently not true because immediately after the walk, Perry tells Gareth that he won’t ever call him out unless Gareth forces himself on Grace. If Perry feels Gareth is capable of rape, why permit him to take walk with Grace alone in a dark garden where they can argue out of hearshot? The contrivance here makes the otherwise loving and intelligent Perry seem either borderline TSTL or an inconsistently drawn character.

Fourth, Grace’s backstory also seems doubtful. She had Jeremy at age twenty-one and never had a London season. Why did her family never try to take her to London before then? Why did they not insist Gareth marry her? Why didn’t they try to marry her to someone else when Gareth refused? Why didn’t they try to get her to give Jeremy up for adoption or else send her away when she gave birth and then maintained her pride in her son? I could accept one or two of these unanswered questions about Grace’s past, but this many makes it difficult to suspend disbelief.

Fifth, I thought it was passing strange that no one outside of Grace’s family and Gareth seemed to know that Grace had borne Gareth a child. Jeremy lived for four years and his existence doesn’t seem to have been hidden, so one would expect there would be rumors about Grace, a baron’s daughter who had a child out of wedlock. But instead only her family seems to have noticed this event. No one gossips about her in London, Leicestershire or Hampshire.

[[Visit blog to check out this spoiler]]

To its credit, A Promise of Spring absorbed me while I was reading it, and I really wanted to love it. When I finished it, I felt dissatisfied despite the fact that the book sucked me in. I knew my dissatisfaction had to do with the kitchen sink plotting but as I thought about the reasons more, I also started seeing contrivances, plot holes and slapdash conflict resolutions. I have enjoyed many of your trad regencies, but (to make what I know is a horrible pun) this is one that did not deliver on its promise. C-.

Sincerely,

Janine

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Related posts:

1. JOINT REVIEW: A Christmas Promise by Mary Balogh
2. REVIEW: A Chance Encounter by Mary Balogh
3. REVIEW: The Trysting Place by Mary Balogh

I first read The Temporary Wife, one of your most beloved trad regencies, several years ago. At the time, I liked it but was distracted by an initial similarity to another of your regencies, The Ideal Wife, which I had read first and liked even better.

The opening premises of the two books are very much alike, but they shoot off in very different directions soon after that. Still, the similarity in how they begin makes it difficult not to compare them and choose a favorite. I suspect that in many cases, whichever of these two books a reader reads second will feel somewhat less original to that reader as a result of having read the other first.

Now that The Temporary Wife is finally being reprinted in a 2-in-1 edition along with A Promise of Spring, I was curious to revisit it and see how I would like it since it’s now been over a decade since I read The Ideal Wife and that book has faded from my memory. Happily, this time I enjoyed The Temporary Wife even more.

The Temporary Wife begins with the following sentence:

It not being quite the thing to advertise in the London papers for a wife, Anthony Earheart, Marquess of Stuanton, eldest son and heir of the Duke of Withingsby, advertised instead for a governess.

Anthony omits his title from the advertisement, which entertains his friends no end. They tease him mercilessly about his apparent need for a governess, when he has no children. It’s only later that he explains his purpose to one of them, Lord Rowling. He requires a wife, one who is a gentlewoman, but at the same time “impoverished, plain, demure, very ordinary, perhaps even prim,” with “all the personality of a—a quiet mouse.”

Lord Rowling asks if Anthony feels a strong need to dominate his future wife, and the marquess replies that his father the duke has summoned him home to marry a seventeen year old girl. Although the duke is ill and Anthony is his heir, they had a bad falling out eight years earlier and have not seen each other since. The family, under the duke’s influence, has remained in the country in all these years (something I found unlikely) while Anthony has lived in London, establishing a reputation as a rake.

To Rowling’s protestation that “you cannot marry the dullest creature you can find merely to annoy your father,” Lord Staunton replies “Why not?” He explains that has no intention of spending his life with the woman he marries. She will be pensioned off to the country. His brother will serve as an heir. The woman he chooses will only remain with him for the length of his visit to Enfield, his father’s ducal mansion. She will be a temporary wife.

After interviewing five unsuitable applicants, Staunton finds his dull mouse in Miss Charity Duncan, whose self-effacing mien is matched by her drab and brown clothing. Miss Duncan keeps her eyes downcast and her voice is soft.

Her face looked pale and ordinary in the shadows. The brown of her hair blended so totally with the brown of her bonnet that it was difficult to know where the one ended and the other began. Her garments were decent and drab. He was given the impression that they were not quite shabby but very soon would be. They were shabby-genteel.

She was perfect. His father would be incensed.

What Anthony doesn’t know is that Charity is less timid than she looks. In fact, she was dismissed from her previous position as a governess for reporting to the mother of her charges that their father molested a maid.

But Charity needs employment badly. Due to a debt her father left behind after his death, her family is impoverished. Her brother has had to find work as a clerk and she insisted that she could also seek employment to help support their younger siblings. Charity dreams of finding a get rich quick scheme that would actually work, but since such a thing isn’t possible, she is resigned to doing whatever she can to find another position, even if that includes keep her eyes lowered and her voice quiet.

Of course, when Anthony offers Charity five thousand pounds a year for the rest of her life if she marries him and accompanies him on his visit to Enfield for a few weeks, Charity accepts. Charity finds the dour and businesslike Anthony unlikable, but to support her family so well, she is willing to marry him. She doesn’t realize until after they marry that Anthony is not just wealthy, but also a marquess.

Anthony and Charity journey to Enfield together (Charity having told her brother that she got the position, but not what the position was). They stop to spend the night in an inn where only one room is available and there they share a bed. At first, all they intend to do is sleep, but Charity can’t fall asleep and Anthony gets the idea that sex could solve that problem. It is their wedding night after all. Charity wants to experience sex and knows she may never get another opportunity. And so, they go for it.

The sex is spectacular, but the next morning Anthony kicks himself for having suggested it. He noticed Charity’s blue eyes and lovely hair in the process and now he can’t think of her as a drab mouse any longer – and yet that is what he needs her to be when they reach Enfield. Charity, for her part, cannot believe that Anthony is just as dour and abrupt with her as he was the day before.

But once they arrive in Enfield, Charity is in for worse shocks. The house is palatial and imposing. The housekeeper takes in Charity’s clothing and mistakes her for a servant. But worst of all, the family members are toplofty and cold. Charity immediately senses undercurrents of anger and resentment in the way they treat her husband, and being a kind-hearted meddler, she decides to try and heal this breach.

But can there be mutual forgiveness between Anthony and his siblings? Will Anthony make peace with his ill father before the duke dies? And will he realize what a gem he has in his wife before their temporary marriage comes to an end?

I enjoyed The Temporary Wife immensely though for me at least, this is a book that reflects fantasy at least as much as reality. The premise of a duke’s heir advertising for a wife is quite far-fetched. This was probably the biggest hump I had to get over in the book, but it was not the only one. Still, I can usually go with the flow if something unbelievable is presented from the beginning as the premise of a story.

Doing so wasn’t easy in this case, but after I got over it, I found a thoroughly rewarding emotional journey for the main characters. Charity, although courageous to begin with, comes into a family alienated from its eldest son. Not only does she have to close that rift, she first has to get to know them despite their standoffish exteriors. In the process she discovers that the man she married does have a heart, and that he was badly hurt when the falling out took place. She also, very gradually, falls in love with Anthony.

As for Anthony, while he is a less overtly sympathetic character than Charity, he is fascinating. His expression is often described as “shuttered” and his is the journey of a closed man gradually opening up. He doesn’t believe he needs love, but of course he does need it, and he very gradually allows himself to be convinced of this. His love for Charity also grows in slow steps but once he falls for her, he is head over heels in love, which is all the more satisfying since he began the book pretending (and even convincing himself of) complete indifference to love.

As readers of this review may be able to tell from the above two paragraphs, the growth of the romantic relationship is thoroughly blended with the family’s healing, to a point where it is hard to separate the two. I think the first time I read the book, I wasn’t expecting this and therefore felt it took something away from the romance, but this time I loved this aspect of the book.

Besides the premise, a couple of other things also struck me as difficult to buy. I thought Charity’s boldness in calling the duke “father” rather than “your grace” and interfering in the affairs of such a forbidding and high-in-the-instep family was unlikely given that she came from such a different background, but I was able to suspend disbelief because courage and meddling were presented as integral aspects of her personality.

The other instance involves a spoiler:

[[Visit blog to check out this spoiler]]

Finally, one of the biggest pleasures of this book is the writing, which is sharply observant and true to the characters. In this regard, as well as in the transformation of Anthony and his family from joylessness to joy, I feel that this book is one of your strongest. Despite its imperfections, The Temporary Wife is now among my favorites of your books. B+/A-.

Sincerely,

Janine

PS The Temporary Wife has been reprinted in a 2-in-1 edition with A Promise of Spring. While The Temporary Wife is a DA Recommended Read, A Promise of Spring is not.

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Related posts:

1. REVIEW: The Famous Heroine by Mary Balogh
2. REVIEW: The Plumed Bonnet by Mary Balogh
3. REVIEW: A Masked Deception by Mary Balogh

Here’s what I read between mid November and early February:

The Danger of Desire by Elizabeth Essex – This sensual regency era historical had its share of historical inaccuracies but the endearing heroine and hot love scenes made it worth reading. Review here. B-

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke – My husband and I tried to read this historical fantasy novel set during the Napoleonic Wars. The book is deliberately written in the style of a regency era book, for example using “shewed” in place of “showed.” The writing style is lovely, and the narration filled with wry asides like “They were gentleman-magicians, which is to say they never harmed any one by magic—nor ever done any one the slightest good.”

I was initially charmed and thought I was going to love this book, but the problem was that very little happened in the section we read. For a fantasy novel, there isn’t very much magic (not usually a complaint for me), and not much eventfulness of plot to make up for it. Nor is Norrell, the main character, sympathetic or likable. The book is over eight hundred kindle pages long, and since it takes more than 130 of these for Jonathan Strange, one of the two title characters, to appear, by that point I didn’t have the patience to wait for the much hinted at conflict between Strange and Norrell to materialize. 155 pages in, we quit. DNF.

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The Plumed Bonnet by Mary Balogh – I’ve been reading a lot of Balogh’s older traditional regencies and this is one of the better ones. It had a terrific beginning, a pretty good but less compelling middle and a wonderful ending. I loved the hero, and while I had a doubt or two about the heroine, I thought it was so interesting that her resentfulness stemmed from having been done a kindness she could not possibly repay. Review here. B+

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How the Marquess was Won by Julie Anne Long – I had high hopes for this one since I’ve loved some of Long’s books but the hero and heroine’s feelings deepened so much so soon after one meeting in which some repartee was exchanged and I couldn’t buy into that level of emotion. Before someone pipes up to say they fell in love at first sight, I will say I know that love at first sight exists, and I have bought intense, immediate feelings in books before. But I didn’t find it convincing here, and as a result I didn’t feel invested in the relationship and the couple. There were more minor flaws, too, as well as strengths like Long’s lovely writing style and amusing humor, but ultimately, I felt this was one of her weaker books. Review here. C/C+

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Ghost in the Machine by Barbara J. Hancock – This 88 page post apocalyptic romance novella was a wonderful surprise – different from most romances I read, eerie, haunting and romantic. I don’t have much negative to say about it aside from mentioning that it wasn’t always clear what was going on in the world, technology wise, and the ending was a touch too happy to match the story. Review here. High B+

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Kushiel’s Dart by Jacqueline Carey – My husband and I read this together and we came close to quitting in the first third due to myriad issues detailed in my review. Good thing we didn’t, though, because the story improved considerably after the one third point. I can’t say I adored this book like so many readers but neither did I dislike it intensely like others. I am the rare reader who averages out the disappointing first third with the strong latter two thirds to come up with a C+/B- (I gave it a B- when I reviewed it, but in hindsight I think the grade should have been a touch lower).

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Graceling by Kristin Cashore — What a suspenseful, breathtaking, emotional read. This was another one I read with my husband. Jia reviewed this YA fantasy back in 2008. While I agree with her criticism of the villain’s one-dimensional nature and the resulting lack of complexity to the external conflict, I disagree with regard to the heroine. Where Jia felt that her killing Grace (power) was the only thing that made Katsa interesting, I was actually touched by the sense of isolation Katsa experienced as a result of being feared.

I also thought that Katsa began the book so out of touch with her own emotions as to almost be stunted (one reason she read younger than 18) and while this annoyed me at first, her growth in this area over the story’s course ultimately made me really root for her. Like Jia, I loved the romance between Katsa and Po, which hung on the issues of independence/interdependence/dependence. But in my case I also adored the survival story in the middle of the book which involves a secondary character. This was a wonderful book. B+/A-

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Not Wicked Enough by Carolyn Jewel– I recently reviewed this Regency set historical. My main criticism was that I didn’t feel there was much conflict to the story (either internal or external). The heroine’s protestations that she couldn’t fall in love again and the hero’s intention to eventually get engaged to someone else felt like mere lip service. The story was less than fully compelling, but whenever I picked up the book I enjoyed it because the characters were so endearing and the writing was beautiful. Review here. B-

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Angelfall by Susan Ee – What a disappointment this was, though on the bright side, I only paid 99 cents for it. This book has been selling well and earning raves so I thought it would be a good one to read with my husband. It started out quite promising but both of us were ultimately disappointed. Angelfall is certainly competently written, with a fair amount of action, so that even though we were tempted to quit reading partway, we kept reading to see what would happen next.

The biggest problem IMO is that the characters had such a limited emotional range. Raffe in particular was almost a one note character but even Penryn did not display a wide range of feelings. They both felt relatively flat to me as a result. You know it’s bad when a small secondary human character like Dee Dum is more intriguing than the supernatural hero of the story.

The worldbuilding was more interesting than the people, but as Jane notes in her review it didn’t always make sense. There were other things that didn’t make sense, for example, it was strongly implied that Penryn’s mentally ill mother had harmed Penryn’s little sister Paige, which is why Paige was wheelchair bound. If that was so, why wasn’t the mother ever arrested and locked up? These events took place before the angel attacks.

To make matters worse I also felt that Penryn lacked agency, since she spent much of the book following Raffe’s orders. I thought it was ironically symbolic when, in a crucial scene, she is literally paralyzed. Also the book, which starts out dark enough, turns into a full-fledged horror novel at the end, and the disturbing scenes late in the book left me in need of a palate cleanser.

I couldn’t help comparing this book to Ghost in the Machine which has a similar setup (both books have dystopian settings, heroines attempting a hopeless rescue her kidnapped younger sibling, and heroes who aid the rescue, have special powers and may be on the opposite side), but Ghost had a lot more heart. Despite the compelling plot, I can’t grade Angelfall higher than a C-.

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Have you guys read these books, and if so, what did you think of them? And do you ever find yourself more critical of books that many others love, as I did with Angelfall and Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell?

Related posts:

1. What Janine is Reading, Late Summer/Early Fall 2011
2. What Jia’s Been Reading, Late October/Early November
3. What Jia’s Been Reading, Late August/Early September

I loved your 2009 book, Scandal, and very much enjoyed Indiscreet, which came out later the same year. So when I learned that you were publishing a new historical called Not Wicked Enough I got excited, and asked Jane if she could send me the ARC. Having now read it, I have mixed feelings about Not Wicked Enough. The novel has quite a bit of elegance and charm, but it’s in a lighter vein than Scandal and Indiscreet and was not quite as satisfying to me.

Lily Wellstone arrives in Bitterward, the home of her widowed friend Ginny, at night and in the middle of a downpour. Occupying the entrance hall is an unsmiling gentleman in rough clothes. Yet despite his ill-fitting attire, Lily correctly identifies him as Ginny’s older brother, the Duke of Mountjoy. Lily and Mountjoy converse and when Lily mentions that she is rarely tired enough to sleep before four in the morning, Mountjoy shows her to the library.

Once there, Mountjoy learns from Lily that she is a wealthy heiress, the owner of Syton House, a very prosperous property, and that she was once disowned by her father for her wild nature. Lily offers to leave Bitterward before Ginny learns of her arrival, but Mountjoy, who finds her uncommonly attractive, welcomes her into his home despite the misgiving that Lily may “disrupt his peaceful country existence.”

Mountjoy is not wrong about that, since Lily proves to be a “managing” kind of woman, a bit like Sophy in Heyer’s The Grand Sophy, but more whimsical and less madcap. Lily likes to take others in hand and assist them in finding happiness by enticing them to have fun.

Lily’s first and foremost project is Ginny, who has been mourning her late husband too long, to a point of isolating herself and not allowing herself to enjoy life. Under Lily’s encouragement, Ginny begins to blossom once more, to wear colors and smile again.

But Lily does not confine herself to amusing Ginny alone, she also engages Mountjoy’s near-fiancée Miss Jane Kirk, and his brother Nigel, in such experiments as writing with glowing (and flammable) phosphorous ink. Which would be bad enough, to Mountjoy’s thinking, even without Jane’s suggestion that she write “Mountjoy has not smiled these seven years.”

Although Mountjoy and Jane are not betrothed, the entire neighborhood, Mountjoy included, expects they eventually will be. That Jane is shy and even fearful in his presence is disconcerting to Mountjoy.

Mountjoy and Lily encounter each other at night, when Lily wanders the house or the gardens because she has difficulty sleeping. The first time they meet in the garden, they kiss and then restrain themselves from succumbing to their mutual attraction.

That same night, Lily shows Mountjoy the medallion she says she received from a gypsy king in thanks for rescuing his dog. The gypsy king promised the medallion would unite its wearer with the person with whom he or she “is happiest in love.” But Lily does not expect that will happen for her, since she has already met that man.

Lily loved and still loves Greer, a soldier she meant to marry who died in the war before their union could come to pass. It’s been five years since Greer’s death, but Lily does not believe she will ever love again. Nonetheless, she still has an appreciation for a man’s body and has not forgotten carnal pleasure.

Thus it happens that Lily and Mountjoy become lovers, although neither of them admits that is what they are. During their nighttime encounters, one thing leads to another, and another, and another. Eventually they become what today would be termed “friends with benefits,” neither intending to fall in love with the other, although they like each other very much.

Lily will never love again. Mountjoy will someday marry Jane. Yes, he should stay away from a gentlewoman who is also his sister’s friend. Yes, she shouldn’t touch her friend’s brother. But when there is so much pleasure to be had, how can they keep their hands to themselves?

Not Wicked Enough has considerable strengths to recommend it. First, the characters are delightful. Lily, for all she takes charge of others’ happiness, is endearing because of her generosity of spirit. Her desire to bring joy to her friends makes her appealing, as well as charismatic and outgoing.

Although she had a lonely childhood, Lily looks forward rather than back, and displays a great deal of strength of character regardless of the occasional moment of vulnerability. Her love of color, clothing, and other beautiful things, her sense of whimsy and adventure make her stand out in Mountjoy’s eyes like a bright, exotic flower.

Mountjoy is just as appealing, though in a subtler way. He was a gentleman farmer who came to prominence when it was discovered he was the heir to a dukedom, but he continues to dress like a gentleman farmer in an attempt to prove something to people who are superficial enough to dismiss him on the basis of his garments.

And that is not the only difference between him and Lily. Whereas she is extroverted, he is shy of crowds and social occasions. While she looks for ways to enjoy life, he is dedicated to hard work. And when she takes risks, he feels protective of her. (I especially appreciated that despite those protective feelings, Mountjoy does not attempt to control Lily but gives her the freedom to be herself. He also acknowledges at times that she is in the right and he is in the wrong.)

The affection between these characters is palpable, for all that it grows out of a physical relationship. Their energetic lovemaking sessions are filled with humor and teasing, and I could see them bonding with each other in a way that reminded me of some of Susan Johnson’s earlier erotic romances.

To add to the novel’s strong points, your writing style has a beautiful clarity that I love. There is smoothness to the writing that made me want to savor the words.

Still, while I liked Not Wicked Enough I found myself reading a few chapters and then putting the book down for the day. The reason, as best as I can articulate it, has to do with the relative absence of either external or internal conflict.

While Mountjoy was almost engaged, his near-betrothal never felt like a real obstacle to me. Although he kept thinking that he ought to propose to Jane, his heart was never in it, and it was also evident that Jane’s affections had settled on someone else.

Yes, Lily believed her own heart belonged with Greer and she could never love another, but since she rarely thought of Greer except to repeat this mantra, it was hard to feel that her disloyalty to Greer ever truly upset her. I also didn’t get much indication of what Greer had been like as a man, so I did not feel that Lily was haunted by her past love.

Additionally, the subplots didn’t have much forward momentum except near the very end of the book. Lily’s cousin the Marquess of Fenris skulks around Bitterward’s neighborhood for much of the story, but doesn’t really reveal his motives until close to the end. Nor do we find out the reasons behind Nigel’s odd behavior any sooner, although I guessed what was going on there early on.

Because of the above, and because Mountjoy and Lily were such good friends and lovers, and clearly got on like a house on fire, I didn’t feel their relationship faced real obstacles. The stakes felt relatively low, and consequently I wasn’t deeply driven to find out what would happen next. I also don’t know how much this book will stick with me. Still, while I read about them, the characters charmed and entertained me, and I enjoyed their sexy relationship and the hours I spent in their company. B-.

Sincerely,

Janine

Related posts:

1. CONVERSATIONAL REVIEW: Indiscreet by Carolyn Jewel
2. REVIEW: Scandal by Carolyn Jewel
3. REVIEW: Indiscreet by Carolyn Jewel

Kushiel’s Dart, your fantasy novel, is the story of Phedre, who begins life in the Night Court of Terre D’Ange. The Night Court is peopled by prostitutes, known in this world as Servants of Naamah, the goddess of such things.

Terre D’Ange is modeled on Renaissance France, but with some substantial differences, including a religion worshipping an angel/god named Blessed Elua, believed to be a child of the messiah’s blood and the Magdelene’s tears, and Elua’s companions, angels who left Heaven to accompany Elua in his journey and peopled Terre D’Ange along the way.

Young Phedre is “a whore’s unwanted get” and at a very young age, she is sold to Cereus House, one of the Night Court Houses. Although she is brought up and trained there in her early years, the Dowayne who runs Ceresus House does not intend that Phedre remain there. Phedre has a blemish, a red mote in one of her eyes, which makes her flawed, and therefore she is not considered perfect enough for Cereus House.

The Dowayne plans to sell Phedre’s “marque” – her worth, which Phedre will eventually have to earn back and spend on having a design tattooed on her back. When the design (the physical marque) is complete, Phedre will be free, belonging only to herself, but until then she’ll have to work for the house or person to whom the Dowayne sells her marque.

Phedre slips away from Cereus House briefly and meets with a boy named Hyacinthe, whose mother is a fortune telling member of the Tsingani, a nation of travelers. Hyacinthe becomes Phedre’s only friend.

One day Phedre is called before a man named Anafiel Delaunay, who identifies the red mote in her eye as something other than a flaw. It is “Kushiel’s dart” the mark of Elua’s companion Kushiel, and it identifies Phedre as an anguissette, someone who experiences pain – not just sexual pain, but any kind of physical or emotional pain — as pleasure.

Delaunay purchases Phedre’s marque and when she is ten years old, she leaves Cereus House and comes to live with Delaunay as his pupil. Delaunay has another pupil, a beautiful boy named Alcuin. At Delaunay’s house, Phedre and Alcuin learn how to carefully observe, how to think, and also study languages and geography. They have a tutor who trains them in sexual arts as well and in their teens they become prostitute-spies for Delaunay.

Phedre does not know why Delaunay needs the information she learns from her patrons, but she strives to get it for him and sometimes succeeds. Although her patrons know she is Delaunay’s spy, they succumb to her sexual wiles to such a degree that they occasionally forget themselves.

The only one who does not is Melisande Sharizai, a peer of the realm and acquaintance of Delaunay’s whose purposes are different from his. Melisande is clever and seductive, always three steps ahead of Phedre, and Phedre can’t help but love her.

Throughout the early part of the book, a tragedy is foreshadowed, and when it finally comes, the course of Phedre’s life changes. Now Phedre must find a way not only to triumph over what has befallen her, but to save Terre D’Ange as well.

I started out Kushiel’s Dart having several issues with the first hundred or so pages of this long book. The prose, on the flowery side, took a lot of getting used to. My husband and I read the book aloud to each other and for a long while we stumbled over some of the phrasing, and weren’t sure how to pronounce many of the characters’ names.

In addition, the use of Hebrew names and phrases sounded odd and jarring to me as a native speaker of that language. For example at one point the opening phrase of Jewish prayers is used as a greeting by a Yeshuite (Christ-worshipping) character to another person. This phrase is (A) traditionally addressed to God, and I have never heard it used to address another person or spoken outside of prayers, and (B) is used in Jewish, not Christian prayers. So I was pulled out of the story by this usage, and by the part-Hebrew names.

Some aspects of the religion took getting used to, but I did very much appreciate that there was a religion, since it is something that lends depth to the worldbuilding.

Speaking of worldbuilding, I was confused about how the marque system worked. Phedre’s marque was purchased by Delaunay from Cereus House, and she had to earn the money to buy it back from him by paying to have it tattooed on her back. But Alcuin also had to buy his marque back and have it tattooed, yet Delaunay had never purchased Alcuin’s marque to begin with. Alcuin had been given into his care.

The first hundred or so pages also made for frustrating reading because Phedre was studying sex and spying but not actually engaging in these activities. Once Phedre began sleeping with her patrons, the story improved because she was finally spying, and because I appreciated that unlike in many other fantasy novels, where bedroom doors remain closed, here we got actual sex scenes.

A few of my problems with the book were more significant. I was unsure whether the anguissette premise made sense because wouldn’t an anguissette, as a young child, seek ways to inflict pain on herself that would be dangerous and threaten her survival? The first time she burned herself, would she know to cry out or move away from a flame? It wasn’t clear in the beginning of the book that she would.

I also felt that Alcuin and Phedre’s spying for Delaunay on patrons who knew them to be spies was a contrivance, because if such a scenario happened in real life, I would think that some of Delaunay’s enemies, knowing that Phedre and Alcuin were there to glean information from them, would be smart enough to use Alcuin and Phedre to feed false information back to Delaunay, and Delaunay would never know which information was false and which was true.

An additional issue for me was that Delaunay is portrayed as someone without moral blemishes, but when I looked at his actions in whoring Alcuin, I found that suspect. Phedre would have been a prostitute one way or the other, but Alcuin hated that work and it seemed highly unlikely to me that someone as perceptive and observant as Delaunay would not have figured it out.

Moreover, Delaunay had raised Alucin from early childhood, yet they end up becoming lovers, which struck me as more than a touch incestuous. For both these reasons I found Delaunay’s characterization inconsistent.

Finally, another thing that took away from my enjoyment of the first third or so of the book was the foreshadowing. The beginning of the book is chock full of phrases along the lines of (paraphrasing from memory) “If only I had known what was to come, but I did not.” After a while it felt repetitive and heavy-handed.

But by the one third point, the foreshadowed event took place, and something very bad happened, both to Phedre and to Terre D’Ange. This ended most of the foreshadowing and dissipated many of my other concerns as well.

Even better, at this point Phedre’s fate was intertwined with that of Terre D’Ange, and Phedre and the reader were no longer ignorant of the impact the knowledge in Phedre’s possession could have on the kingdom. The stakes rose as a result, and the book became far more compelling.

Kushiel’s Dart became a story filled with dark deeds, hatred, friendship, romantic love, adventure, battles, and more. The latter two thirds of the book were much, much better than the beginning and I was glad I had stuck with the book.

The worldbuilding was detailed and huge in scope, and Phedre, once her mettle was tested, grew into a heroine well worth rooting for – smart, sympathetic, determined and yet compassionate. There was also a romantic triangle with two men, both brave and loyal in their way, and obstacles facing both relationships. I wasn’t sure who to ship for, so I just rooted for Phedre.

I wish I could go into the later part of the book in more detail, since describing the thing I liked about it would balance out my criticisms, but I try to make it a policy not to discuss later sections so as not to spoil books for readers who have not read them.

Suffice to say instead that Kushiel’s Dart becomes a very exciting and moving novel, and one which, despite its shaky beginning, was well worth reading. B-.

Sincerely,

Janine

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Related posts:

1. REVIEW: Kushiel’s Scion by Jacqueline Carey
2. REVIEW: Naamah’s Kiss by Jacqueline Carey
3. REVIEW: Naamah’s Blessing by Jacqueline Carey

Your 88 page post-apocalyptic romance novella, Ghost in the Machine, published by Samhain, was unlike any other romance I’ve read before. As I was reading it, I kept thinking of movies like the original “Terminator” and “28 Days Later” – dark yet ultimately uplifting stories about human beings struggling to survive in a world gone grim and terrifying.

Ghost in the Machine is narrated largely in the first person POV of Bet, a young woman who was left orphaned in the wake of the invasion of New York City by a biological computer known as the SoulEater.

The SoulEater consumes humans and mutates them into the Shadows, who seek out more humans for its consumption when they aren’t glitching by haunting their own pasts. After being located by Shadows, the humans (known as Warmbloods) are collected by the SoulEater’s other creations, the human/machine hybrids called Sweepers, who bring the Warmbloods to the SoulEater and enable it to make more Sweepers and Shadows.

Since the SoulEater’s invasion, New York has been covered in ashes and inhabited by growing numbers of Shadows. The number of Warmbloods has dwindled. Bet is a survivor but a tired one. Ever since her parents died years before, she has raised and sheltered her younger brother Douglas, foraging in the Shadows’ dangerous terrain to feed him.

Bet is on one such trip, having just found a precious can of peaches with which to feed her brother, when the warren in which she lives with Douglas is invaded by Sweepers. She abandons caution and with it, her pretense of being a Shadow, to race back to the warren. In doing so she draws the Shadows’ attention, but even so, she still arrives at the warren too late: Douglas has been taken by the Sweepers.

The realization is devastating because for years, protecting Douglas was the sole thing that had given Bet’s life purpose. When she makes her decision to pursue the Sweepers who took Douglas, it’s not merely because she is devoted to her brother but also because her own survival isn’t enough to sustain her.

I rise and center my pack between my shoulder blades. The precious can of peaches is my promise. One day Douglas will eat them. One day he’ll enjoy every juicy bite. I won’t give in to my hunger. Not for one single slice.

I don’t look back at the warren as I walk away. Beneath my feet are Sweeper tracks in ash. Shadows are coming. I feel their threat closing in. Logic says I should run in the opposite direction and avoid them at all cost. My heart and soul say otherwise. And until those things are lost or eaten, I’ll follow them.

The Shadows do indeed attempt to track Bet and one, shaped like a spider with a human head, attacks her. It’s at this point that she is rescued by a beautiful man in a soldier’s body armor. But the man has shimmering wings, and eyes hazy with static. He is not really a man, but another Shadow.

Except that unlike other Shadows, he has eyes that indicate he may be capable of independent thought. A different kind of Shadow, and one who has just saved Bet’s life. But Bet, taking no chances, uses her disruptor on him and sends him back to his maker, the SoulEater.

The Shadow, once a soldier named Gabriel Sanchez, is a ghost in the SoulEater’s machine. And he returns, resurrected, an hour later. He tells Bet that each time that happens, it is harder to pull himself free.

Bet finds herself talking to him. It is beyond dangerous to do so, since Gabriel is not just the ghost of a soldier who died years before, but the SoulEater’s creation. Is the SoulEater filing away whatever she tells Gabriel? Is it toying with her? Will it use Gabriel to attack her? Bet isn’t sure if she has a death wish, now that Douglas is gone, but when Gabriel offers to help her save Douglas, she gives in to her weakness and allows him to come along.

She knows he can’t be trusted. She knows that even if he wants to help her, he is still the SoulEater’s creature. And yet she also knows that she can’t save Douglas without Gabriel’s help. Worst of all, she recognizes that she feels desire for this Shadow, and wanting to find the sense of connection that has been missing from her life with him, with a Shadow, is the most frightening thing of all.

All that I have just summarized happens in the first ten percent of the novella. Because the story unfolded in compelling and unexpected ways, I don’t want to spoil more of it for readers.

There are a few flaws to this novella – I didn’t understand how the Shadows worked, technology wise, or always get what was happening on the SoulEater’s end of things. A question rose in my mind about where the food Bet foraged was produced (rice was mentioned to be a staple). And I also questioned whether Bet really would have been able to shelter Douglas to the degree she had in such a world.

But for the most part, I didn’t care. I didn’t care because the atmosphere of the world you created was so haunting, the spare language a perfect match for it, and the characters’ situation wholeheartedly absorbing.

Bet was such a focused survivor, though nearing the end of her emotional and physical rope. Gabriel literally pulled himself together from bits of memory – memory of the humanity of the solider he had once been. Both of them kept going, kept putting one foot in front of the other in a world where bleakness threatened, where little was left but the need to survive.

They took tremendous risks in the attempt to save Douglas, and in the attempt to allow themselves to feel something for one another. More than just a romance, this was also a story about the struggle to hold on to one’s humanity, and about the qualities which make the human race worth saving. It left me filled with hope as only stories that go into the dark places and come out on the other side can do. High B+.

Sincerely,

Janine

Goodreads | Amazon | Sony |All Romance eBooks

Related posts:

1. REVIEW: Wilderness by Barbara J. Hancock
2. REVIEW: Silent Run by Barbara Freethy
3. REVIEW: Bride of the Rat God by Barbara Hambly

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Cecilia Grant’s A Lady Awakened is one of the absolute best debut romances I have come across in all my years (and they are many) of reading romances. When I was reading it I was reminded of novels like Judith Ivory’s Black Silk, Pam Rosenthal’s The Slightest Provocation and Patricia Gaffney’s Wyckerley trilogy; books that didn’t flinch from putting their characters in thorny situations; books which portrayed communities; thoughtful, often introspective books in which each word was carefully chosen.

At the same time, I also thought A Lady Awakened was unlike any other romance I’d read before. The morning after I started reading it, I began sending Jane emails containing the following sentiments:

I only had time to read the first chapter last night but I was so wowed by it that I woke up in the middle of the night thinking about how amazing it was.

I’ve just gotten to the end of chapter five. I can’t get over how much I’m enjoying this book.

I don’t get the feeling of this author taking her cues from anyone else; it’s like she’s bringing out her own ways of seeing, voicing them in an arrangement of words that no one else could compose. Being completely true to her vision.

Such smart writing, I just admire this book so much.

Needless to say, I jumped at the opportunity to interview Ms. Grant. Below are her answers to my many questions.

Janine: Tell us a little bit about how you got started writing. Also, how did you come to write in the romance genre? What made you realize this was the genre for you?

Cecilia Grant: I have a supremely non-inspirational “How I Became a Romance Author” story. I wasn’t one of those kids who was writing from the time I could grip a pencil; nor did I spend my adolescence swiping Johanna Lindsey or Rosemary Rogers off a relative’s shelf. (Not when there were the truly eye-popping Harold Robbins and Sidney Sheldon to be swiped instead.)

The sorry truth is that well into adulthood I decided on a whim to try writing, and I picked historical romance because I figured that was as close as I could get to the sprawling, wordy 19th-century studies of domestic life that were what I really wanted to write.

After a few pompous, ill-researched, frankly godawful efforts that were stamped all over with my ignorance of the genre (I think at this point I had read maybe three actual romances in my life), it dawned on me that romance must have requirements beyond being a story in which a couple of people fall in love. So I started reading them and, maybe even more importantly, found the online community and started to really think about the genre and its place in the world of literature as well as in the culture at large.

You know that thing Jane Austen said, about working with a fine brush on a two-inch bit of ivory? I suspect that resonates with a lot of romance authors the same way it does with me. There’s something poignant, hopeful, subversive, and defiant, all at once, about choosing so small a canvas as the emotional intersection of a couple of individuals. It’s a way of asserting the importance of things that are so often dismissed as trivial. Falling in love does matter. The private dramas of the human heart do matter. People who died hundreds of years ago, and never left a mark on history – their lives matter.

Janine: What was your road to publication like? Was there a lot of rejection along the way?

Cecilia Grant: Not a lot of rejection, but not a lot of risking rejection, either. I was writing for years before my ferocious internal editor (who moonlights as a ferocious pre-emptive slush-pile gatekeeper) allowed me to send anything out, and even then it was only after I’d finaled in a contest and had some manuscript requests. Then, when four requests met with four rejections, she ordered me to scuttle that book and start writing something better. Which turned out to be A Lady Awakened.

Janine: Describe A Lady Awakened in a few sentences.

Cecilia Grant: Desperate to keep her estate, and housemaids, out of her brother-in-law’s hands, strait-laced widow Martha Russell recruits scapegrace neighbor Theo Mirkwood to help her conceive a child that she can pass off as her late husband’s. What ought to be a simple, straightforward bargain turns out to be anything but, as the two clash on everything from bedroom expectations to the importance of duty to the merits of Mrs. Edgeworth’s Belinda.

But with mandated daily proximity, they eventually begin to glimpse one another’s better qualities. And that’s when things get complicated.

Janine: What was the genesis of A Lady Awakened?

Cecilia Grant: I think it began with my love for really over-the-top romance plotlines. I’d come across a few books with the “desperate widow + virile stranger = fraudulent heir” premise, and, fabulous as it is, I couldn’t help thinking that in real life it would be a recipe for the most awkward, excruciatingly un-sexy sex you could imagine.

Then it struck me that awkward, un-sexy sex could make a great hole for a hero and heroine to have to dig themselves out of. So for maximum awkwardness I cast the story with a pair of opposites: a sober-minded woman impatient with indulgence of any kind, and a straight-up man-whore who thinks their bargain will be all his dirty dreams come true.

Janine: How long did it take you to write the book, from start to finish?

Cecilia Grant: About two years, counting time wasted due to a stupid mix-up. Someone had told me I should ignore Word’s word-count figure and just assume 250 words per page, without telling me that this rule came from the days of nonproportional fonts.

I was somewhere past 100,000 words, with a quarter of the story left to tell, when I found out my mistake. I couldn’t just cut here and there – I had to restructure the whole plot. Which ultimately I think was a good thing. But I have a boatload of deleted scenes that I can’t even put up on a “deleted scenes” page on my website because they no longer make sense.

Janine: The conflict between Martha and Theo at first appears to be a conflict between responsibility and irresponsibility, as well as between sensuality and self-denial. What is it that drew you to writing about these themes?

Cecilia Grant: My subconscious probably has a more interesting answer, but consciously, all I can say is that the themes, like pretty much everything else in my writing, came directly out of the characters. As I constructed Martha and Theo, and put them through their paces, these were the issues they kept returning to, and this was the ground on which they wanted to clash.

Janine: Let’s talk a little bit about the awakening theme. One of the things I loved about this book was that Martha’s awakening wasn’t so much an awakening to sexual pleasure, but rather an awakening to possibilities she hadn’t foreseen in both her relationship with Theo and in her other relationships. I wondered as I was reading the book if you were consciously riffing on the genre convention of the sexual awakening, and whether that convention was one of the things that made you set out to write this type of arc for Martha.

Cecilia Grant: My agent came up with the title, and it initially gave me pause because I’ve been adamant from the start that this isn’t a sexual-awakening story. (Martha knows how to have an orgasm; it’s just not about to happen through intercourse with a guy she barely knows and doesn’t think much of.)

The title grew on me, though, and took on a kind of perverse, ironic logic. Partly because it’s an acknowledgment of the fact that this story premise usually would be a set-up for a sexual awakening, and partly because Theo absolutely assumes he’s going to be presiding over one of those. And then of course the story does turn out to be about awakening – to a world beyond the narrow one she’s regulated for herself; to the validity of viewpoints that don’t happen to agree with hers, etc. – just maybe not the awakening you’d first expect.

I suppose there is some riffing, mainly in their early encounters, which I think of as a sort of skirmish between a hero who knows his role by heart and a heroine who never got the script. But too much riffing gets in the way of telling the story, so I tried not to go overboard.

Janine: I’m also fascinated by the idea of the rude awakening, and in A Lady Awakened, Theo has one of those. He has had a lot of success with women in the past, so it comes as an unpleasant surprise to him that Martha is at first underwhelmed by his lovemaking. I loved those scenes because they were so different! And I wondered where you got the courage to write them. Can you talk about where they came from?

Cecilia Grant: (Courage? Uh-oh. Is this where I find out I’m the only person in Romanceland with a thing for bad sex?)

I guess the bottom line is that I just don’t think sex has to be good in order to be compelling. And sex in romance novels tends to be so relentlessly spectacular that those rare occasions when it’s otherwise have an immediate visceral appeal to me. Think of the first encounter in Anna Campbell’s Untouched, where it’s a revelation for him and… a big fat disappointing nothing for her. Or those awful flashback scenes in Sherry Thomas’s Not Quite a Husband, where he’s doing everything he can think of for her and she’s all but physically shoving him away.

It’s a genre-fiction author’s job, isn’t it, to make her characters uncomfortable; to subject them to disappointments and disasters. Why should we let them off the hook in bed? Getting naked with someone you don’t know that well can put you in a place of extreme vulnerability – What if he’s disgusted by my mismatched breasts? What if she goes and tells all her friends I only lasted thirty seconds? – and I think we’re passing up a golden opportunity if we don’t occasionally make our characters’ worst fears come true.

Janine: On one level A Lady Awakened is the story of a severe widow and the seemingly feckless son of a baronet attempting to conceive a fraudulent heir. But on another level it is a story about community, about a community coming together, and about putting community before oneself. Did you always know that the book was going to deal with this topic, and be steeped in Regency era village life, or was that something you discovered through the process of writing it?

Cecilia Grant: I had no idea, when I started, that the story would go there. But at some point I had to get them out of the bedroom and interacting with other people, and once I did that, the community started to take shape.

Also, within a few chapters it was clear that most of Martha’s flaws, the areas in which she needed to experience growth, sprang out of the fact that she was self-reliant to a fault. She didn’t trust other people’s judgment, she had an aversion to asking for help, and she didn’t know how to make friends.

So it naturally followed that a big part of her journey would be learning to recognize the value of community, and that, at that critical moment where the protagonist typically has to leave her friends behind and face down Darth Vader on her own, she would have the opposite task: to reach out to people all up and down her spectrum of acquaintance and say, “This thing I thought I could do alone, I can’t. I need your help.”

Theo’s journey dovetailed with Martha’s. He was way ahead of her in the social-skills department, but what he needed to do was step up to the responsibilities of a landowning gentleman. And for him it made sense that he’d find his way into that through caring about the individual people who depended on him. Again, that aspect of the plot really came out of the characters.

Janine: Your characters are out of the usual mold and felt very much like real people. What is your characterization process like? How do you build these people?

Cecilia Grant: It’s odd to hear readers say that, because both these characters were very broad in the initial conception. (Theo, in particular, I first started writing with a mantra of “Part Bertie Wooster, part Beavis and Butt-head.”) If they do come off as real, I suppose it might be because I try not to skimp on their flaws, particularly the petty, un-sexy flaws. So Theo is spoiled, complacent, and inclined to screw things up, while Martha is self-righteous, withholding, and a bit of a hypocrite.

As to process, because I write in close 3rd-person POV, I like to start by finding the characters’ voices. Before I knew what Theo looked like, where Martha had grown up, or what internal motivations powered them, I knew that he had a playful and sensual appreciation for words, and that she observed a formal, impersonal tone even in her private thoughts.

Once the characters have voices, they can start talking and reflecting, and then I can figure out the rest. In general, I like to follow a guideline I once saw attributed to the agent Donald Maass – “Write a heroine whose heart opens to more than the hero” – as well as my own corollary, which is “Write a hero who’s thrown off balance by more than the heroine.”

Janine: What about your plotting process? Do you begin with an outline and a complete sense of the plot, or do you begin writing and see where the story takes you?

Cecilia Grant: I’m still in search of a plotting process. I keep reading all these craft books – Debra Dixon’s Goal, Motivation, and Conflict, Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat series – and thinking, yes, I’ve discovered the secret; now I’ll be able to plot efficiently, but so far none of those methods has worked in practice for me. I just sort of wind up the characters and set them spinning and hope they pick up enough plot-lint to sustain a book. Then I go back and try to squash it into shape, with properly spaced turning points and all that.

Janine: Describe a typical writing day. How many hours do you work? How many words do you typically write in an hour?

Cecilia Grant: There’s really no such thing as a typical writing day, because my schedule varies depending on whether I’m working that day, whether it’s my turn to make dinner, whether the kids need chauffeuring someplace, etc. Of necessity I’ve learned to write ad hoc, in a notebook I always carry around, though I do dream of having my own office with a door.

My word-per-hour average is not impressive. I’m in awe of those people who can knock out a thousand words in an hour. I can spend nearly that much time writing and re-writing a single sentence.

Janine: What aspect of writing comes most easily to you, and what aspect is most challenging?

Cecilia Grant: The blank page is the most challenging. Putting something where there was nothing just daunts me to no end.

I’m not sure there’s any aspect I’d say comes easily to me, but what I enjoy most is writing moments of intimacy – which might be sex, or might be the exchange of first names – and awful, can’t-believe-this-is-happening arguments, where people are saying things they’re later going to regret.

Janine: What authors have influenced and inspired you, both in the romance genre and out?

Cecilia Grant: The writers I like best don’t tend to influence or inspire me, because they do what they do so consummately that there’s nothing for me to add in that direction, if that makes sense. The closest I come to feeling inspired is when I read certain authors – Pam Rosenthal and Alex Beecroft spring to mind – and think, “Boy, you’d better raise your game if you’re going to write in the same genre as these guys.”

Janine: Tell us a little bit about your next book, A Gentleman Undone.

Cecilia Grant: Card counting, reckless trysts, and high-octane angst, with a smattering of probability theory: Martha’s soldier brother, Will, is the hero. He’s home from Waterloo, haunted by dark secrets and debts of honor, just ripe for some determined young lady to haul him out of the darkness with the strength of her love – except instead he falls for a cold-blooded cardsharp who’s a) another man’s mistress, and b) so twisted-up and angry as to make Will look like a paragon of stability.

Here’s a mini-excerpt from an early turning point in their relationship: heroine Lydia has just shown him how she can stack a deck after a single look at all the face-up cards.

By the time he set down the king of spades he was sitting up straight, his whole face alight with such a look as Paris of Troy must have worn when those three goddesses showed up to demand he judge one of them most beautiful.

No man had ever looked at her that way. No man would likely ever do so again. But he made her insides feel like clockwork for a moment, ingenious subtle clockwork instead of fallible flesh, and it occurred to her she might stay in that moment forever, given the choice. She might bask wordless in such a transformative gaze for as many moments as remained to her life.

No. Not transformative. This was who she was, quick and gleaming and intricate. She’d known that already. Now someone else knew.

She suggests they join forces at the gaming table, and in spite of the attraction that he knows could be his undoing, he agrees. All kinds of complications ensue. Available May 29.

Janine: Do you have any more projects in the works? What can we expect in the future?

Cecilia Grant: I’m up to my elbows in the story of Martha’s and Will’s barrister brother, Nick. He’s struggling to advance his career in the wake of Will’s scandalous marriage (hope that’s not a spoiler!), while running interference in the social-climbing schemes of his mentor’s daughter, a girl who believes her rare beauty would be wasted on anything less than a viscount. I haven’t titled it yet, but it should be out in about a year.

That’s the last book of my contract, and I’m not sure yet what’s next. There’s been some talk about a prequel novella featuring the eldest Blackshear brother, and a couple of other supporting characters in the series have meanwhile been lobbying me for romances of their own. But I also have an idea for a new series, this time with a vocational instead of familial link between the books’ protagonists, so I might start on that. I’ll alert the world via Facebook, Twitter, and my blog when I know more.

Thank you so much for having me, and for the thought-provoking questions.

Janine: Thanks for answering so many questions!

A Lady Awakened is released tomorrow and Dear Author is giving away 10 copies, either print or digital to 10 random commenters.  We really believe in this book and want to get it into the homes of as many readers as possible.

Related posts:

1. REVIEW: A Lady Awakened by Cecilia Grant
2. Dear Author Intro Interview:  Beverley Eikli, author of Lady Farquhar's Butterfly
3. Dear Author Intro Interview & Giveaway: M.K. Hobson, Author of The Native Star

I’ve been reading your books since I discovered Beauty and the Spy back in 2006. Beauty and the Spy is still on my keeper shelf, and three others of your books have since joined it: The Secret to Seduction, I Kissed an Earl, and What I Did for a Duke. What’s more, I’ve read every book you’ve published since then. Even those I haven’t kept I have generally enjoyed or appreciated, so I am sad to say that your latest entry in the Pennyroyal Green series, How the Marquess Was Won, did not live up to my hopes.

How the Marquess Was Won opens with a man stumbling into Pennyroyal Green’s pub, the Pig & Thistle. The man has been shot and when Chase and Colin Eversea rush to his aid, he identifies himself as the Marquess Dryden. Julian Spenser, the marquess, appears close to death, and although his reputation as a cool customer, “Lord Ice,” precedes him, he cannot stop talking about a woman who appears to have devastated him in some fashion. Chase sends for the vicar, an Eversea cousin, and the action then shifts six weeks back in time.

Phoebe Vale and “Jules,” as Dryden is called, first meet in Postlethwaite’s Emporium of Lady’s Goods. Phoebe, a schoolteacher, jokes with Mr. Postlethwaite, pretending to be wealthy. The two also gossip about Lord Ice, whose exploits are detailed in the London broadsheets, emulated by many young men and sought after by young women. Though Pheobe has never met the reckless Dryden, she believes she is an expert in that subject.

While at Postlethwaite’s, Phoebe picks up a letter from Lisbeth Redmond, a former pupil now being courted by Dryden. Apparently Lisbeth’s parents are in Italy and her mother wants Phoebe to act as “a suitable friend or chaperone” at a two day house party in the home of her aunt and uncle, Isaiah and Fanchette Redmond.

(I found this puzzling since surely Lisbeth’s aunt would have been a more appropriate chaperone than a twenty-two year old schoolteacher who, as we later learn, spent her early childhood in Seven Dials).

Phoebe is pondering the offer, inclined to accept, when who should arrive at Postlethwaite’s but none other than Dryden himself. He carefully selects a silk fan whose intended recipient is surely Lisbeth Redmond. Waterburn, a viscount with a penchant for wagering, enters the shop shortly afterward, and wagers Dryden that he cannot steal a kiss from the “unkissable” Phoebe.

A hurt Phoebe leaves Postlethwaite’s intending to turn down Lisbeth’s offer, but she runs into Dryden again when he arrives at her place of work, Miss Endicott’s academy for young ladies. Dryden is there on the behalf of a recalcitrant niece, and Miss Endicott asks Phoebe to give him a tour of the academy. There Jules and Phoebe make a connection – each manages to surprise the other – and Phoebe is well on her way to being in love with Jules, so much so that she not only reverses her decision about attending the house party, but also thinking—though she rejects the thought—that he is meant for her.

As for Jules (who is far from being reckless as his reputation suggests and has amassed the fortune his father lost only through very careful planning), he too is smitten, though it takes him a long, long time to recognize it. But he does realize that he wants to impress the startling Miss Vale, and once the house party gets underway, he spends an unseemly amount of time in Phoebe’s company, endangering his plans to marry Lisbeth.

Yet Jules is determined to marry Lisbeth. It so happens that Lisbeth’s dowry is the last piece of land that once belonged to Jules’ family. Because Jules cannot let go of that piece of land, and because there is no other way to obtain it than to marry Lisbeth, he believes that no matter how he feels about Phoebe, he can’t offer her a place in his life except as his mistress. But when Waterburn makes another wager, this one with the potential to damage Phoebe, things become complicated…

Several weaknesses kept me from loving this book. The foremost is the speed with which Phoebe and Jules fell in love (It happens within a day or two of their first meeting). It’s not that I don’t believe in love in first sight. I do. But to sell me on love at practically first sight in a book is exceptionally hard, and in this case I wasn’t sold.

As a consequence, the falling in love part of the book felt rushed, and the result was that the chemistry between Jules and Phoebe seemed forced. While I very much liked Phoebe and very much liked Jules, I just didn’t care all that much about the two of them as a couple. And since I felt detached from the fate of their relationship, I wasn’t all that engaged in the narrative.

Another problem was that despite Phoebe’s thoughts about how people are more complex than surface appearance would indicate, but for two or three exceptions, the side characters came across as flat. There’s not much depth to Lisbeth or such members of the ton as Waterburn, d’Andre, and the Silverton twins. Sophia Licari, who was such a memorable “other woman” in The Secret to Seduction, makes an encore appearance here but shows little of the facets that made her so interesting in the earlier book.

Jonathan Redmond does show a glimmer of depth, and Olivia Eversea is as intense as ever. The most interesting side character to me, even off stage, is Lyon Redmond, but I think that has a lot to do with his terrific portrayal in I Kissed an Earl and the fact that ever since I found out his reasons for staying away from Olivia, I’ve been dying to see more of him. Alas, he does not actually appear in How the Marquess Was Won, nor does his sister Violet.

I don’t recall reading about Lisbeth, a Redmond who is cousin to Lyon, Violet and Jonathan, before this book. It’s possible I did and I just don’t remember. In any case, I think I would have felt more invested in the triangle between Phoebe, Jules and Lisbeth if I had remembered Lisbeth from earlier books or if she’d been a Redmond sibling. It is hard to have much sympathy for her, and while that makes it easier to root for Pheobe and Jules, it also makes the central conflict feel less significant.

For example, a scene in which Jules and Phoebe are nearly caught kissing in the woods dragged instead of riveting me. In addition, Jules’ determination to marry Lisbeth at all costs did not seem in keeping with his perceptiveness. It was easy for me to see through Lisbeth so I felt he should have been able to do so sooner. I understand that Phoebe’s background was unsuitable for a marchioness but surely Jules could have found another well-born girl to engage himself to, one who was more tolerable than Lisbeth. Yes, Lisbeth had the land he wanted, but she was so clearly not a match for him.

Perhaps because I was less engaged in this book than in earlier ones in this series, I found the anachronisms more glaring. I was able to gloss over some of them, but one in particular stood out: a botched waltz between Jules and Lisbeth starts a fad reminiscent of disco. Some readers may find this cute, but I was pulled out of the story each time the fad was mentioned.

It may sound like I didn’t enjoy or appreciate anything about this book, but that would not be true. I appreciated that the prose was as usual, much above average, with many lovely turns of phrase. And I enjoyed, albeit mildly, getting to know Jules and Phoebe. Each was sympathetic and appealing, Jules careful and methodical in his focus on keeping his promise to restore his mother’s dowry to her family, Phoebe at once young and filled with wonder yet clever, crafty, and also careful, in her own way. Both guarded their hearts and had no one to whom to “surrender their cares” which made me want to see them find happiness.

I just wish I could have felt more invested in Phoebe and Jules’ romantic relationship. Because I didn’t, much as it pains me, I cannot grade How the Marquess Was Won higher than a C/C+.

Sincerely,

Janine

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Related posts:

1. REVIEW: Since the Surrender by Julie Anne Long
2. REVIEW: I Kissed an Earl by Julie Anne Long
3. REVIEW: What I Did For A Duke by Julie Anne Long

Update:

Here are the winners of one of the re-released Gaffney titles:   1) Karenmc 2) Vidhya 3) Asia M 4) Evangeline Holland 5) Danielle D 6) Brenda C   7) EmilyW   8) Kathryn 9) TaraR 10) Frekki

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Jennie and I are the original Patricia Gaffney fangirls. Back in 1997, I read my first Gaffney, the brilliant and controversial To Have and to Hold, and proceeded to write its author an embarrassingly long and gushy fan letter. Around about 2001, we were reprimanded for discussing her books too much on the AAR boards. And, I’m not sure I should be relating this — Jennie stop me if I shouldn’t — but in those days, Jennie was fond of referring to Ms. Gaffney (along with Laura Kinsale and Judith Ivory) as part of “the Holy Trinity.”

Needless to say, when Jane emailed the two of us to tell us that some of Patricia Gaffney’s historical romances were being reissued electronically, and ask whether we were interested in doing an interview, we leapt on the chance like terriers on a gourmet dog biscuit. (Ms. Gaffney is surely worthy of a classier analogy, but the enthusiasm of a true fan knows little of class).

Here are the questions we came up with, and the author’s answers:

Janine: Open Road has recently reissued six of your historical romances in e format: Fortune’s Lady, Another Eden, Crooked Hearts, Sweet Everlasting, Lily, and Outlaw in Paradise. Are there plans to also reissue Sweet Treason, Thief of Hearts, Wild at Heart and the Wyckerley trilogy, which consists of To Love and to Cherish, To Have and to Hold and Forever and Ever?

Pat: Yes, eventually.

Janine: Any word on when those will be available as ebooks?

Pat: No, not yet. Soon, I hope.

Jennie: Do you miss writing historical romance? If so, what do you miss about it?

Pat: Well, first, I really miss being part of the Holy Trinity.

After that, I miss knowing what I’m doing.

You know there’s an f-word associated with romance. Not “formula”— framework. A romance is a courtship story with a happy ending, so I always knew, before writing a word, that I was going to have a heroine and a hero (vs. “protagonists”), they would fall in love, overcome the obstacles keeping them apart, and live happily ever after. On that framework you can hang a thousand different stories, but underneath them all, there it is, the scaffolding. Steady as a rock.

Now—now I can write anything. I can kill off your favorite character in Chapter 10! I’ve still got a framework, but it’s widened out to “tell a coherent story and try to make it interesting.” Those are really all the rules I have to go by. Which makes the whole enterprise much harder.

Janine: In a video you recently made, you discuss the way a cancer diagnosis gave you the impetus to write your first book, Sweet Treason. What was it that kept you from writing before you got that diagnosis—

Pat: Fear.

Janine: –and how did thinking you might not have long to live affect the way you viewed writing?

Pat: Nothing to lose. Fear (of failure) had kept me from even trying to write, even though it was just about all I’d wanted to do since age 8. Now I was almost out of time, with nothing to show for my life. I was horribly depressed, positive it really was curtains for me. I figured I had about two more years. Might as well go for it, try to write the sort of book I’d been having so much fun reading—historical romance novels.

Jennie: Sweet Treason has a rather controversial rape scene – how do you feel about that today? Do you think you’d write it differently today?

Pat: What can I say? It was the ’80s.

Yes, I’d write it differently now, 25 years later. But readers were different then, too, don’t forget—Sweet Treason won the Golden Heart award. She said defensively.

Janine: Fortune’s Lady was inspired by the Hitchcock movie “Notorious,” which stars Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman. What was it about the movie that made you want to write your own version?

Pat: Oh, I love “Notorious,” especially that final scene when Cary Grant finds out evil Claude Rains and his mother have been poisoning Ingrid Bergman. So he rescues her, and they can’t stop kissing long enough to say how much they love each other, and then he carries her down the stairs while evil Claude and his mother watch helplessly as their Nazi cronies close in on them, and then Cary and Ingrid drive away and live happily ever after.

I just moved Fortune’s Lady to the 18th century and pretended it was my idea. The evil villain doesn’t try to poison the heroine, but he does try to hang her.

Janine: It’s been over a decade since I read Thief of Hearts and what I remember is that the hero impersonated the heroine’s husband, the setting was aboard a ship, which made a stop in Italy, and eventually, there was sex in a closet. How am I doing?

Pat: You’re bringing it all back to me. Keep going.

Janine: The setting of this book makes me think about your settings, which were a bit more varied than the Regency, Regency, Regency, Victorian, Regency that we get in today’s historicals. Did you have fun researching those settings, and do you have a favorite?

Pat: Some fun, but I’m not a historian, so I’d eventually get impatient to move along to the writing part. One of the nicest things about book-writing is the balance among the three components, conception, research, and composition. By the time I’d get sick of dreaming up the idea for a book, it was time to research for it, and just when I’d get sick of that, it would be time to write it. Ideal job for the short attention span.

As for the variety of settings, chalk it up to a low boredom threshold. Except for the Wyckerley trilogy, I don’t think I’ve ever set two books in the same time and place. It used to worry me. “Shouldn’t I be trying to get associated with something?” I’d ask my editor, and she’d say, “You’re getting associated with being versatile.”

Favorite setting . . . whenever women’s clothes were the prettiest. So—Regency? No, Gilded Age. I think.

Jennie: Lily was one of my early favorite romances, and still holds a warm place in my heart. Do you feel like a romance like Lily – long and tempestuous, with separations and an ultra-tortured hero – could get published today? Or has romance changed too much?

Pat: I haven’t been keeping up with the market very well lately, so you’d know better than I. Lily is one of my favorites, too, and it was great fun to write. I just kept throwing trouble at that poor girl. (She has a baby in a cave!) Not sure why, but sometimes I really enjoyed making my heroines suffer. Maybe it’s that I knew they were going to win big in the end, and I was looking for balance. Heroine-ly equilibrium.

Janine: Another Eden featured a heroine trapped in an abusive marriage – and the hero was the architect her husband had hired to build their summer house. In Sweet Everlasting the heroine had also been abused – by her stepfather. Though the hero, a doctor, fell in love with her, he wasn’t certain that love could transcend social barrier of class.

There’s some similarity in the themes but these two books also marked a transition for you because Another Eden was your last book for Dorchester under the Leisure imprint and Sweet Everlasting your first book for Penguin under the Topaz imprint. I have always found your Penguin books more sophisticated and wide ranging. Does that have to do with the editors you worked with at these houses or with your development as a writer?

Pat: Must be the latter, because I’ve had fantastic luck with editors from the beginning. Alicia Condon edited my books at Leisure, and I have nothing but warm thoughts and good things to say of her. Her assistant was the wonderful Audrey LaFehr—who moved to Penguin just before I did and became my editor there. Smooth transition: one great editor to another great editor. Lucky me.

Speaking of themes—looking back, I see that class as social barrier is an enormous one in almost all my romances. Class, or some form of mistaken identity—those are the two I came back to again and again.

Janine: Crooked Hearts and Outlaw in Paradise are both humorous westerns with con artist protagonists. Your recent novella, Dear One, in the J.D. Robb headlined anthology The Unquiet, has a “psychic” main character. What is it that appeals to you about con artists?

Pat: And in the anthology before that, The Other Side, my story’s hero was a fake ghost detective. So I guess I do love con artists. The trick is making them likeable in spite of their profession. I think Crooked Hearts works because they’re both con artists, so you never feel one’s being taken by the other. They’re flim-flamming each other simultaneously.

Janine: The heroine trapped in an unhappy marriage was a theme you returned to in To Love and to Cherish but this time your heroine fell in love with her husband’s friend, who, to make matters worse, was a minister. To Love and to Cherish is a book which many consider among the finest books written in the romance genre. Christian Morrell (Christy for short), the hero, is such a sweetheart, and yet for all his innate goodness, he’s more appealing than many romance rakes. What gave you the idea to make a romance hero out of a vicar and how did you pull it off?

Pat: I think what prompted this story was that, in the 20 or so years I’d been reading romance novels, I’d never come across a hero or heroine who gave a moment’s thought to whether sleeping with his/her beloved was a “sin,” in the old-fashioned sense. They had plenty of misgivings, doubts, second thoughts, fears, neuroses, and qualms, but no moral reluctance to hop into bed. As a former Catholic schoolgirl, I found that odd. As if there were an elephant in the room no one was acknowledging.

So, rather than give some poor heroine a religious conscience, which would just be dull, I decided to give one to the hero. And to make it extra hard on him, I put him in the business of morality—a minister. I guess it’s that sadistic streak in me again. At least it’s not gender-specific: I like ’em all to suffer.

Janine: Anne Verlaine, the heroine of To Love and to Cherish, was a cynic and an atheist. I loved the role reversal in this book — that the hero was the trusting innocent, and the heroine was the cynical one. Was it risky to write this type of book in 1995? And looking back on it, why do you think it stands the test of time?

Pat: I think I was starting to get the hang of this writing business, and beginning to feel confident enough to ignore some of the conventions. Anne Verlaine—except for being prettier, smarter, younger, and nicer—is me. I was writing about myself. In first person, even, via her journals. Anne’s journals were the most fun I’d had in writing up to that point, and it was because, turns out, first person is my natural voice. I’ve written three of my five contemporaries in first person since then. In fact, one of them I wrote originally in third, then went back and changed it all to first. (Nightmare.)

Janine: To Have and to Hold is my favorite book in the romance genre, and topped our Top 100 Romance List here at DA. To say that its “hero” is morally ambiguous is perhaps an understatement. Sebastian offers Rachel, a convict released from ten years of imprisonment, the position of his housekeeper, in order to have her at his mercy. I think it can be fairly stated that Sebastian is the villain of the story for half the book. My heart was in my throat during the scene in which Sebastian turns on a dime (I don’t want to give away how and why) and changes the course of his life.

What was it that drew you to make a protagonist out of a true, corrupt rake, and how did you get so many readers to root for him despite his many transgressions against the heroine? What do you think makes his ultimate redemption convincing to so many readers?

Pat: Saintly Christy needed an antidote?

It’s hard to reconstruct all my choices and motivations for that novel, and other people—you and Jennie, for instance—have written about it so eloquently, I feel comparatively inarticulate. Speaking just for myself, what makes Sebastian bearable, even likeable, is that (a) he’s very funny, (b) he’s self-aware and never makes excuses, and most of all, (c) being bad doesn’t make him happy. Oh, and (d) after he reforms he gives Rachel a puppy. What a guy.

One little writerly trick I used, not a very sophisticated one but still effective, I think, was to introduce him first. I could easily have started with Rachel getting out of prison, but I wanted you to imprint on Sebastian and assume he would be your hero. Because I knew he was going to need every bit of stored-up goodwill he could possibly get.

Janine: You “went there” in To Have and to Hold – Sebastian uses Rachel’s dependency on her position in his household to force her to sleep with him, and something that makes him unusual in the genre is that he doesn’t try to make excuses for himself. It’s not a case of mistaken identity. He doesn’t think she’s a slut. He’s not out for revenge. As far as we know, he wasn’t abused as a child. He’s not so overcome with passion that he can’t control himself. Can you speak to why you made this choice with his character?

Pat: I didn’t want him to have any excuses. That would’ve been copping out on his character. Plus I was sick of borderline rapist heroes having all those excuses—your list is excellent. (I used one myself, the old “But I thought she was a prostitute!” in Sweet Treason. ) I think with Sebastian I was testing myself, seeing how far I could go. I remember, during the writing process, repeatedly asking myself, “Are you really going to do that?” And each time the answer was yes. I just kept pushing it, pushing it. It was a little bit perverse, a little bit in your face. It’s a wonder the book worked.

Janine: Rachel was also a fascinating character because of her horrifying experiences in prison. I don’t think I’ve ever encountered another romance heroine like her. Before To Have and to Hold, no other romance had made me so deeply conscious of the inequities inherent in the class system. Reading about the conditions Rachel faced – having her hair shorn, being given a number in place of her name, being forbidden to look at or even smile at other inmates – horrified me and made me angry. She’s probably my favorite heroine in the genre so I’m curious about how she came to be and why you chose this background for her.

Pat: Thank you. It’s true, Victorian prison conditions were utterly appalling, beyond “Dickensian,” completely barbaric. And my research was accurate, I didn’t exaggerate anything. If she’d been a man, or a woman in some prison other than Dartmoor, Rachel might have had to climb on a treadmill. A treadmill. The mind reels. Why did I choose that background for her? Same reason I made Lily give birth in a flooding cave, or made Cass almost die from hanging in Fortune’s Lady. The worse the better! It raises the stakes, it puts the reader on the edge of her seat, it conflicts your characters within an inch of their lives. It’s fun.

And Sebastian needed an opposite number as unlike him as I could think up. Again—balance. Powerful and powerless; decadent and pure. Rachel had to be helpless, “erased,” reduced to a figure of her own basic survival, in order to make her final “victory” over Sebastian, if you will (and that works if you’re right and he’s actually the villain for the first half of the story), succeed in narrative terms.

Janine: Forever and Ever had a heroine who was a mine owner and a hero who was a union organizer. What started out as a clash over mining conditions grew into a romance. You also dealt with miscarriage and depression in this book. Are those subjects as heart wrenching to write about as they are to read about?

Pat: Not at all. As you may have gathered by now, I enjoy putting my characters through the wringer.

But if I had to do it again, I think I’d let Sophie Deene keep her baby. Why did I make her have a miscarriage? That was so terribly sad. Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time. Which I’m not ashamed to say, because isn’t that phrase, “it seemed like a good idea at the time,” almost the definition of growth?

Janine: Before I close the subject of the Wyckerley trilogy I want to ask about William Holyoake, the secondary character whose story is woven throughout the three books. I loved William! And I thought it was wonderful to see a bailiff get such a significant role in the story. Was the triangle between William, Sidony, and Jack something you’d planned on from the beginning of To Love and to Cherish? Because I have to tell you, by Forever and Ever, I was completely in William’s corner.

Pat: I know, he was lovely. I modeled him on one of my favorite characters in fiction, Gabriel Oak in Thomas Hardy’s Far from the Madding Crowd. I like his stalwart patience, his steady intelligence, and under all that, his passion. Gabriel gets the girl in the end—and, yes, I planned from the beginning for William to get Sidony. They had some rough sailing before their happy ending—but hey, that’s my job.

Jennie: I once read that you wrote Wild at Heart in part in response to Alice Hoffman’s Second Nature, not liking the lack of HEA in Hoffman’s book. Since moving into a genre where more ambiguous endings are the norm, have your feelings about the HEA changed?

Pat: Such interesting questions.

No, I still love the HEA. All of my women’s fiction novels have, if not 100% delirious, at least extremely upbeat endings. Still, a part of me worries that that’s not very grown-up. Real grownups read books with “realistic” endings. There’s a new play out with the fun title Spoiler Alert: Everybody Dies. Yes, that’s the most realistic ending for a book I can think of, but would I want to read it? Not much.

But that doesn’t stop me from making fun of my friends who have to read the last page of any book they’re considering buying lest, God forbid, they should get depressed. I make fun of them, and yet—I feel the same way. Right now I’m looking at a newspaper article on “50 Notable Works of Fiction” for 2011. Here’s a novel about abused children. This one, about Hurricane Katrina, “evokes the tenacious love and desperation of classical tragedy.” This one is “a harrowing portrait of men at war.” Here’s another one about abusive priests. This book’s “sad heart” is about a couple whose lives unravel after the loss of their infant son. This one is “Savage with a soupcon of tenderness.” I think I’d rather read one that’s tender with a soupcon of savagery. If that.

All of which is to say, I’m still that same ultra-sensitive—okay, cowardly—Gentle Reader who wanted to fix Alice Hoffman’s book. (I mean, really. Have you read Second Nature? What a horrible ending.) So as a writer, one of my responsibilities is to create stories whose satisfying endings are, in their own contexts, deserved, believable, and just right.

Jennie: Do you have a favorite among your historical romances?

Pat: To Love and to Cherish.

Jennie: Why?

Pat: I just had it all going on.

Jennie: You are best known for your women’s fiction novels, including the bestselling The Saving Graces. Do you approach writing women’s fiction differently than you did writing romances? What are the differences?

Pat: I’ve talked about the absence of the romance “framework” making mainstream fiction harder to write. That’s the downside. The upside is the broader range of stories I can tell. I can write a whole book about mothers and daughters (say), or friendship, and even though I’ll probably include a romantic relationship or two, simply because that’s life—there is such a thing as romance, after all; it’s not just a fantasy!—I don’t have to make it the book’s focus. Unless I want to. So that’s freeing.

Otherwise, no, I don’t approach the two kinds of stories differently. That surprised me at first, finding out that a book is a book. They’ve all got beginnings, middles, and ends; they all need compelling characters and smart pacing, plenty of conflict, and themes people care about.

Jennie and Janine: What are your favorite books? Who are your favorite authors/literary influences?

Pat: Recent favorite books—I loved Room by Emma Donoghue. Loved The Help. Anything by Alice Munro, the best short story writer in the world, IMNSHO. Elizabeth Stroud’s Olive Kittredge. Anything by Ann Patchett. Jane Smiley’s The Age of Grief. The Master, by Colm Toibin.

Jane Austen, George Eliot, and Thomas Hardy were my literary influences when I wrote historical romances.

Jennie: Had you stayed in romance, can you see yourself following some of the trends now proliferating – e.g. paranormal, vampire, steampunk?

Pat: Paranormal’s never been exactly my cuppa (all my characters in Nora’s paranormal anthologies are faking it), but I can certainly understand the appeal. Steampunk is pretty cool. Maybe I’ll start a new subgenre: geriatric steampunk.

Jennie: Are there other genres you’d like to explore?

Pat: I’d like to write a murder mystery.

Jennie: How much do you consider saleability when you are deciding what to write?

Pat: Honestly, not at all. Writing’s hard enough, even when it’s your passion. If I threw money into the mix, I’d be paralyzed.

Janine: Would you ever consider writing historical romance again? And would it help if we offered to come to your house and do your chores?

Pat: What I really need is dog walkers. Let’s talk.

****

Dear Author would like to introduce new readers to a classic author.  To that end, we’ll gift 10 readers a digital copy (either from BN, Kobo or Kindle) of Patricia Gaffney’s digital re-releases: Fortune’s Lady, Another Eden, Crooked Hearts, Sweet Everlasting, Lily, and Outlaw in Paradise.  Just drop a comment in the comment box.  You can find out more about her books at http://www.openroadmedia.com/authors/patricia-gaffney.aspx

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