Dear Author » 16th-century

REVIEW: High Seas Stowaway by Amanda McCabe

Jayne — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 18:02:48 +0000

Dear Ms. McCabe,

Last year when I read your book “A Sinful Alliance,” the secondary Italian character Balthazar Grattiano caught my eye. Well, he and the Tudor setting. So I was a happy woman when I learned that he was going to get his own book and that it would take place on the early Spanish Main. I know I don’t have to say that this setting isn’t a dime a dozen in romance novels.

Bianca Simonetti and Balthazar Grattiano share a common history. Years ago when she was a younger woman, they met, talked and shared their dreams while his powerful father visited her tarot card reading mother in Venice. Bianca never dares dream that this handsome man might be a more a part of her world than that since his family is one of the richest and most influential in the city.

The hopes she does have for her future, finding a merchant to marry, bearing his children and helping run his business, are destroyed on the day that Ermano Grattiano murders her mother. Knowing he might come back to eliminate her as a witness, Bianca flees for her life and leaves behind her girlish fantasies about Balthazar – who for all she knows is an accomplice to the crime.

Now it’s 1532 and seven years since those events. Bianca runs a small tavern in Santo Domingo. It’s not fancy but it’s hers and the bedrock of the life she’s built since her Spanish sailor husband died. Then, of all the ~~gin~~ rum joints, in all the towns, in all the world, ~~she~~ he walks into ~~mine~~ hers. And Bianca decides he’s not walking out again until she gets some answers. But there’s someone else who wants something from Balthazar – and that’s to see him dead. So…who’ll get what they want first?

The book starts with Bianca and Balthazar as two fairly young and idealistic people. They sense a connection with the other. Though from different social circles, each understands the other’s desire to see new places, venture beyond the Venice they know and to see below its dark surface – beautifully illustrated in imagery of the city’s canals.

Bianca has heard all the rumors about Balthazar – how good a lover he is, the fine palazzo his family lives in – and listens to women of all social strata sigh over him when they come to her mother for a tarot reading. But she gets to know the real man – his love for ships and navigation and travel. Which all confuses later on when she tries to untangle the events of her mother’s murder and her feelings for Balthazar. Is he the honorable man she thought she knew or just a younger edition of his ruthless father?

She’s more educated than most young women of her day but still has trouble imagining herself anywhere else or anything other than some man’s wife and mother of his children. What sights/sounds there are in the known world of Europe, much less in the New World, are almost beyond her comprehension. This little bit background on her set me right down in the age and time. Today we know so much more than people of that time, even educated people, could possibly fathom but to them most of the world truly was terra incognito.

I could feel Bianca’s desire for vengeance as she stood over her murdered mother and her fear of what could happen to her if the Grattianos discovered she still lived. I’m thinking, yeah baby, we’re going to get some revenge scenes! Whoo-hoo, don’t mess with an Italian who’s been wronged. And even seven years later, Bianca’s initial feeling when she sees Balthazar is to avenge her dead mother. Which all makes her almost immediate subsequent confusion over the issue hard for me to understand

When Bianca initially plans on hiding out on Balthazar’s ship, she seems to have a plan. She’s going to find out what happened all those years ago in Venice. She’s going to demand and get answers from Balthazar. Yet, once she’s onboard and he questions her about her reasoning for her actions, suddenly she truly seems to have no clue why she did what she did. There doesn’t seem to be any dissembling on her part or efforts to lie to him in order to throw him off the scent – she just genuinely appears to have forgotten why she ditched her tavern – which was all she had – and took this gamble. WTF?

While onboard ship, Balthazar muses that he wants to make Bianca smile and take the wary look out of her eyes. But everyone else seems charmed by her – these are more charm school sailors who instantly adore her than rugged men of the sea.

The middle sequence is very slow, very lazy, very laid back in a drifting kind of way. Which is okay but, sorry to say, the slow aspect is what stands out for me. Then we reach Balthazar’s island of Vista Linda and it all becomes like an artsy European film with lots of slow-mo scenes, montages of happy Bianca and Balthazar – sleeping, dancing, making love, eating, dancing, making love, Bianca dancing with a broom and them making love. After which, they make love.

Then there are the emo sections in which Balthazar talks about his evil father, how he was afraid he’d be like his evil father, how he feels about killing his evil father and again that he worries his blood will tell and the evil will continue. Very, very emo but then he’s Italian.

And Bianca wonders why she doesn’t feel the need for any more vengeance, how she longs to be with Balthazar, how she’s worried about him possibly having a family back in Italy then – whoops – he’s really got one on the way here. See above with all the making love.

Diego seems to stand for vengeance run amok and as a foil to Bianca. His desire for revenge ruled him and ruined his life while Bianca overcomes her need for revenge on the family in general and Balthazar in particular. At first he’s kind of interesting when he thinks Balthazar is dead and realizes that this doesn’t take care of the empty, hollow feeling he has about his wife’s death. But then he becomes just a cardboard pop-up villain who we all know is going to show up at the end of act III.

The fight sequence was kind of interesting but not really enough to slake my thirst for swashbuckling. I’m kind of disappointed that I didn’t get more of that. When I see a book about ships in the Caribbean anywhere from then to the 1750s, I expect swordplay, more swordplay and then some swashbuckling to finish it off. I don’t expect the heroine to dance around a room with a broomstick like a Disney movie. Obviously, it’s not your fault that I didn’t get what I mistakenly expected but I’m still fighting that let down feeling.

What happened to the last part of chapter 19? My copy of the book just cuts off in the middle of a sentence with them reaching Balthazar’s house on Vista Linda and Bianca checking out the furniture. And what happened to her first husband? I wanted to know more about the lost seven years. Why she married him? How she/they ended up in Hispanialo? Did I miss all this?

It turned out to not be the book I was looking for but just might be the book others want to read. Not everyone wants duels to the death or massive amounts of sword scenes. Again kudoes for using the Spanish Main of 1532. More praise for having an Italian hero and heroine because God knows we need more of them in Romance Land. C+

~Jayne

This book can be purchased in mass market from Amazon or ebook format from the Sony Store and other etailers.

REVIEW: Shipwrecked and Seduced by Amanda McCabe

Jayne — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 10:00:25 +0000

Dear Ms. McCabe,

I think this is an example of one of the best titles I’ve seen in a long time. Why? Because it basically covers just about everything in the plot. Like the first of the new Harlequin Undone line I read, “Libertine Lord, Pickpocket Miss” by Bronwyn Scott, it’s a short story – a very short story – about two people who meet and fall almost instantly in love.

Maria Gonzales has lived a hard life so I wouldn’t blame her for grabbing a chance to improve her lot. Though family connections, she’s advanced to being a maid for a young Spanish noblewoman on her way to the Caribbean be married. When the ship goes down in a violent storm, only Maria survives. When she’s mistaken for the Contessa by the ship’s crew who rescue her, she decides to go along with it. Good food, nice clothes, people to wait on her – what’s not to like? But she knows she needs to be careful around Carlos de Alameda as the man has eyes like a hawk and misses nothing.

Carlos isn’t sure of the young woman who was brought to Santo Domingo. She’s the right age, and very pretty, but her hands tell a different story than do her words. She’s known hard labor – something a pampered daughter of Spain would not. But his plans to watch her fall to pieces when their overwhelming attraction overwhelms them. So to speak.

I’m not sure if I’ll continue reading this new Harlequin line. It’s not because the story lines are bad, nor because the writing is slipshod. The short length is just too short for my tastes. Carlos and Maria are both characters I would have loved to have seen for a longer time. Maria is smart, shrewd and open to advancing herself by any means she can. Unlike the other women, she keeps her head as the ship goes down and manages to live to tell the tale. She’s a survivor and I find these characters to be fascinating.

Carlos is also a strong person. From being the son of a disgraced nobleman in Spain, he’s managed to claw his way back up the social ladder and now commands a position of importance in the New World. He’s made the most of his opportunities but without being ruthless.

However, there’s simply too much to tell for the amount of space you have. Add to that the fact that there’s a multipage sex scene and the story runs out of word count before I wanted it to end. I wanted to know how Carlos was going to reconcile his ambitions with marriage to a tavern maid and how Maria was going to be able to pull off a lifetime impersonation. Only the fact that you bring these two together with a neat twist at the end prevented the use of a deus ex machina to wrap up the HEA.

The characters interested me, the setting of the Spanish Main in 1535 makes me salivate but the amount of time is just not enough. I do plan on reading “High Seas Stowaway” and hope to see more of Carlos in it. B- for the things I liked but C for the length.

~Jayne

This book can be purchased in ebook format only from Sony or other etailers.

REVIEW: A Question of Guilt by Julianne Lee

Jayne — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 22:00:54 +0000

Dear Mrs. Lee,

I used to read a fair number of biographies about Mary Stuart. She started life with everything going for her. A Queen while still only days old, she was raised in the luxurious court of France, and became its Queen until the death of her first husband. She was cultured, educated, beautiful and had men throwing themselves at her feet – though it was chilling how many of those men came to bad ends. One of those men was her second husband, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley.

She was executed for plotting the death of her fellow Queen, Elizabeth I, and many people felt she got what she deserved not only for the plotting but also for Henry’s death. After all, any woman who might have killed her husband was looked on with horror by any man of the day for fear his own wife might get ideas. But did she sanction or even take part in the death of the father of her only living child? Or is this merely a scurrilous charge concocted by those who wanted to depose her in favor of her baby son?

After Mary’s execution, one Scottish woman, married for nearly twenty years to an English merchant, decides she wants to know for sure. Was the Queen of Scots a murderess or merely a woman at the mercy of men far more ruthless and powerful than she? Lady Janet de Ros begins to ask questions of those who knew the Queen and in so doing, she puts not only her life but also her marriage in peril.

I wanted to like this book far more than I ultimately did. Lady Janet de Ros starts as a strong character. You present her as an intelligent woman, who has a good marriage to a man she respects and who works in quiet partnership with him in his business since he respects her as well. It is with misgivings that he watches her begin her inquiry.

I completely understand why he doesn’t want Janet to attract any attention with her questions. Poking one’s nose into royal doings is never smart in this age when a hint of treason is enough to cost one his head. We’re told Janet is the politically astute member of this marriage yet she’s unbelievably naive at times as to the political consequences of her questions and the fact that even though the supposed murder was 20 years ago, there are a lot of powerful people who still wouldn’t want questions asked nor their potential involvement uncovered.

As the book progressed, it was amazing to me that Janet found someone in the position to give her the details of the next phase of Mary’s life just when she needed it. Plus Scottish Janet’s speech was mainly English with an occasional brogue word thrown in when you remembered she’s supposed to be from Scotland. Indeed even when the mostly Scottish cast of characters are relaying their stories to Janet, while they may speak a little bit in brogue, most of the narrative is in flawless English. I might not care for much brogue in books, but if you’re going to use some, then it makes sense to carry that through all of a character’s speech.

The fact that so much of the tale is told in past tense, and the way the book is set up I know there’s no other way, removes us from the action and slows things down. It’s huge chunks of telling instead of showing and it got boring. The fact that Mary is already dead when Janet starts her questioning removes any urgency from Janet’s actions. It’s only her own curiosity that she’s trying to appease and when faced with the possible negative consequences to herself, Henry and their livelihood, why does she persist? Yet another reason I question her intelligence.

When she’s finished with her questions, I had to wonder – what did it get her? Her marriage, which she had bragged was one of the few good ones of the times, is broken almost beyond fixing. Though I certainly don’t agree with the way Henry imposed his authority, he did give her numerous opportunities to stop. He warned her many times of the real dangers they might face and she did little but blow him off each time. In the end, given the fact that men were raised to see themselves as head of their household, and he had to publicly save face, I marveled that he let her disobedience (as he would have seen it) go on as long as he did.

In the end, what do we the readers gain from Janet’s quest? Not much. There’s no way, now or then, for anyone to ever be positive if Mary knew of the plot against her second husband, much less whether or not she approved it or took an active role in it. Several other authors have already reached the same conclusion you give to Janet so it’s not as if new ground is broken on the subject.

The book is certainly readable and doesn’t veer off into the bizarre in an effort to offer possible answers to the questions that still persist about Mary’s life. Janet finds peace in her own mind about the Queen’s supposed involvement in the murder but again in the end, what does that get her? Does Janet gain more than she loses? IMO, no. As a reader I was left feeling this is a depressing book about the depressing end of a woman who should have had it all going for her but who, in the end, lost any control of her own life. C

~Jayne

This book can be purchased in trade paperback from Amazon.

REVIEW: The Other Boleyn Girl By Philippa Gregory

Jayne — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 09:00:39 +0000

Dear Ms. Gregory,

Once again we get to see the adroit tight-rope walking that it took to live in the Tudor court. While it’s more history than romance, the story of Anne Boleyn’s sister (the first Boleyn girl in Henry’s bed) is definitely fascinating. It could also be titled “Life in the Snake and Scorpion Pit.” Those courtiers would have sold their souls to advance at court. It makes me goggle at the amount of energy, creativeness and effort a whole group of people expended to keep one man amused.

You take the bare facts that are known about Mary’s life and use them to tell the family’s hard slog to the top of the food chain of Tudor England. And it’s equally sharp drop from favor when Anne couldn’t give the king what he craved most in life, a son to succeed him.

Mary comes across as a sometimes not too bright, sometimes selfish, sometimes devoted sister who was willing to do what her family told her in order to advance their power. I got frustrated with her for allowing herself to be kept from her children but then who knows what she really felt? She could have felt as her mother was portrayed as being, cold and willing to use her offspring as pawns. Or she could have truly agonized at their separations from each other. You mention that Mary was sent away from her family at the age of four. Just amazing to think about. I kept trying to put myself in her slippers and see life from the point of view of what was accepted for their class. It was probably better for her children to have been at Hever than at court. Much healthier anyway. I was also surprised at how recently the Boleyn family had jumped into a position of prominence in the country. Really, rather upstarts.

The book presents some interesting “what ifs” and “perhaps” in telling Mary’s story. What was the relationship between the two sisters? Rivals or coconspirators? And what really went on with their brother George? Was he a sodomite or just bored with the empty courtly flattery towards the Queen’s ladies? Was Anne really the bitch/whore/sorceress of history or a woman desperately trying to maintain her footing in the slippery new world she had helped create when good Queen Katherine was ousted?

I thought William was a great character. Poor guy got stuck with a lot of the Boleyn dirty work but he and Mary did seem to have a loving relationship which truly was a rarity in those days among their class. I also noted that he remarried after Mary’s death and had several children. The endnotes list them as having a long and loving life together but actually, in modern terms, Mary appears to have died fairly young, in her late thirties. I guess long for that age but still…at least she didn’t die by the axe! I do wish that you could have somehow told more of the story about Anne once she was arrested and in the tower but I guess having Mary’s daughter Catherine there was the best she could do with a first person POV book.

I would love to know the ins and outs about Henry’s promise to let Anne retire to a nunnery if she signed the annulment papers, then changing his mind. Was he ever serious about this or was it just a ruse to get his way and he always intended Anne to die? It’s really amazing that she stayed in control of him and their relationship for as long as she did. If only she’d have had a son, she could have shimmied naked down the halls of Hampton Court Palace and he’d not have care. Much.

After finishing the book, I spent some time rereading “The Wives of Henry VIII” by Antonia Frasier and her take is that the trial was staged to produce a guilty verdict and that Anne was doomed from the start. Which makes sense when you consider that Katherine of Aragon had finally died a few short months before and why would Henry want another ex wife hanging around and mucking up the scene. Frasier feels than any thoughts of a nunnery or exile were merely the products of Anne’s hysterical mood swings before the trial.

She goes on to list the final resting places for all the wives and mentions that Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard are buried (or were reburied) close to Tower Green where they were beheaded. The Beefeaters who show visitors around are of the opinion that Anne was most probably innocent of the adultery charges while Katherine was probably guilty.

I do know I’d rather lie down with a pack of hungry hyennas or clasp a pit viper to my chest than rely on any of those people to stand by me in a crisis. B+

~Jayne

This book can be purchased in mass market, trade paperback or ebook format.

REVIEW: By Love’s Command by Helen Carras

Jayne — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 22:00:45 +0000

Dear Ms Carras,

This one starts out as a tad more like a historical novel than a historical romance. Kind of in the Plaidy/Lofts style. But the second half turns up the romance.

It’s 1558 and 17 year old Jean Hamilton is a spirited Highland lass who’s been sent to the French court to wait on her sovereign Queen, Mary Stuart. At 14 Mary is still more a girl than a Queen and the two form a friendship as Jean begins to learn her way around the sumptuous royal palaces and the intrigues that abound in them. She has an up close view of the political maneuvering among France, Scotland, England and Spain in which royal personages are just so many chess pieces to be wielded in marriages and alliances. There is one man she can’t get out of her mind and heart, a handsome young Englishman named Thomas Randolph who travels to the various courts of Europe in the official service of his Queen, Mary Tudor and with the secret friendship of his friend, Elizabeth Tudor.

When she is taken prisoner by an English privateer during her Channel crossing back to Scotland, Thomas comes to her rescue and takes her for safe keeping back to his Oxfordshire home. But the new Queen Elizabeth desires to learn first hand about her royal Stuart cousin and Jean is called to London where she becomes an unwilling lady-in-waiting to the imperious monarch. But fate isn’t through with Jean and Thomas yet and they find themselves in Scotland and embroiled in further backstage politics before finally finding their happy ending.

I liked Jean Hamilton bunches. She’s sometimes naive but is intelligent and never TSTL. She starts out as an impressionable 17 year old but quickly begins to form her own opinions and settle for less than her due. I’d have liked to have seen more of Thomas’s POV but what we do see is an honorable man who loves Jean enough to dream of their future even though things look grim and he fears that he might have to give up any hope for them. They both face the realities of the number of obstacles in their path and never act like idiots who blithely believe that sheer love alone will conquer all.

The details we see of the important personages and events of the day are meticulous and conform to the history of the period that I’ve read. You don’t use them as mere wall paper but integrate them into the story. I know that this book is about a specific time not just because you tell me it is but because you show me it is. However, there is a 100 page section during which the hero and heroine are separated and the heroine is courted by another. Also, the very detail that shows you know the period might be tedious for some. Overall, I give it a strong B+.

~Jayne

REVIEW: Forbidden by Helen Kirkman