Dear Author » Ireland

What Jayne has been reading and watching in early October

Jayne — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 15:00:42 +0000

A lot of my time the past week or so has been taken up with washing machine repairs and acclimating my new kittens to their new home. Guess which has been more fun. But I have gotten a little reading and movie watching squeezed in now and then.

Flawless by Carrie Lofty – A book about a bastard heroine involved in the diamond trade in south Africa in the late 19th century. How more interesting can a premise be? Not much in my opinion which makes the fact that I gave up 150 pages into the story that much more disappointing. Lust, lust, lusting and more lust filled most of those first 150 pages and really nothing was shown of Viv’s diamond business until page 125. By that point, I found I didn’t care. Oh, and the chummy relationship the heroine and her Viscount husband appear to have with the servants aided things not at all. DNF.

Heart Strings and Diamond Rings by Jane Graves – Funny, filled with realistic dialog and featuring four cats. I went into it with no expectations but had a lot of fun reading this one. Enough fun that I plan to go back and read the preceding books at some point. Full review to come.

Lawman by Laurie Grant – This is another Harlequin Treasury reissue. It’s 1869 Texas and Cal Devlin is finally returning to the hometown he left to fight for the Union. Livy Gillespie is the girl who not only didn’t wait for him but who ordered him off when she learned whom he would fight for. Now they’re both older, wiser and scarred from what happened in the years between. This is a slower paced book from 1997 and one which, after I got used to that, I found myself enjoying. Full review to come.

Sandman Slim by Richard Kadrey – Darlynne mentioned this novel in our last Open Thread for Readers and the excerpt she provided got me to try it. Stark (called Sandman Slim while he was “Downtown”) is back from 11 years in hell, literally, and he’s out for revenge against his former friends who sent him there and specifically the ones who killed the only woman he’s ever loved. Fast and filled with biting humor and fantastic one liners, this one started great then wound down a little as it went on. Kadrey avoids big info dumps, allowing us to discover Stark’s world and his past as we go along which I liked. Rules for this world are laid down then broken plus all sorts of new paranormal creatures are introduced as the story goes along which I didn’t like. Also, Stark is revealed as not quite what he and we thought he was. I plan to read the next book in the series since I already have it but it will determine how much farther I go with the series – providing the series goes past two books. B

I’m now reading the new Kathy Love paranormal Devilishly Hot, the Nora Roberts contemporary The Next Always and Addison Fox contemporary Baby It’s Cold Outside arcs. So far, I’m liking but not loving the first two and have just started the Fox but so far, so good.

*****

Paul – In my review of “Hot Fuzz,” Maili mentioned that she views that film – as compare to “Shaun of the Dead” – as an embarrassment for Pegg and Frost. It wasn’t for me but after viewing this movie, I understand what she’s saying. In “Paul,” Pegg and Frost play two Englishmen on holiday to the US. They’re SF fans and after attending Comic-Con and various SF pilgrimage sites in the US Southwest, they come across a real space alien who is running for his life from MiB. As they try and help him to reach a place where a space ship can pick him up, they run across various other characters including a Fundamentalist young woman with whom Pegg falls in love. Parts are funny but the film is overloaded with puerile humor and is obviously Out. To. Make. A. Point. about Fundamentalist Christians – who are mocked – and beer guzzling rednecks – who are humiliated. I’m far from Fundamentalist but this part went beyond any amusement. Beer guzzling rednecks, on the other hand, can be humiliated until the cows come home.

Amazon Instant Rental

Ondine – Darlynne recommended this film to me and I wish I could say I enjoyed it but sadly I couldn’t even finish it. Syracuse, an Irish fisherman, brings up a mysterious lovely woman in his net while out working. She can’t remember anything about her past and nice man that he is – where are these men in my life? – he takes her to his deceased mother’s country cottage to stay. His young daughter Annie is one of these preternaturally wise young characters who quickly starts to imagine the woman is a selkie – even though those are Scottish and they’re in Ireland. This is basically as far as I got – 40 minutes into the film – when I just couldn’t take not understanding one word in three of the dialog. Irish accents are lovely to listen to, so they are, but only if you can figure out what the hell is being said. Since it only comes with Spanish subtitles, I was out of luck. One part I did really like was Syracuse’s time spent in at confession with his parish priest played by Stephen Rea.

Amazon

Stray Dog – This is a fairly early Akira Kurosawa film done shortly after the end of WWII. A Tokyo detective has his service Colt stolen while on a crowded bus. Humiliated, he works to track down the criminal who has rented the gun from an underworld gangster and suffers shame and guilt as that man’s crimes escalate. Part police procedural, part film noir, part view of life in post war Japan, I found myself riveted to it and to Toshiro Mifune as the young policeman who took one path in life while the criminal, who suffered many of the same setbacks in life, took another.

Amazon

The Lives of a Bengal Lancer – “Gary Cooper, Franchot Tone and Richard Cromwell head the cast as a trio of British soldiers in this sweeping saga set in colonial India. While stamping out an insurrection in the country’s northwest frontier, the men wrestle with one another. They also struggle with their internal dissonance. The adventure film racked up eight Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director (Henry Hathaway) and Best Screenplay.” I rented this because it’s such a famous film but at the 30 minute mark I hit the pause button then sat there thinking “I’m not enjoying this. It’s boring. I’m tired of Cooper’s character harshing on one soldier while exchanging snarking comments with Tone’s character. Meanwhile the rest of the cast is either doing the ‘stiff upper lip, old boy network’ thing or barking commands at the natives.” That’s when I decided that this is an older film which, to me, just hasn’t stood the test of time.

Amazon [VHS]

REVIEW: Wild Romance: A Victorian Story of A Marriage, A Trial, and A Self-Made Woman by ChloÃ« Schama

Janet — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 19:00:23 +0000

Dear Ms. Schama:

I approached Wild Romance: A Victorian Story of A Marriage, A Trial, and A Self-Made Woman with appreciation and excitement at the possibility of an academic study of cultural history crossing over to popular contemporary readership. The volatile story of Theresa Longworth's secret marriage to an Irish peer and subsequent battle to prove its validity in Scotland, Ireland, and England, may not be well known, but it is emblematic of conflicting Victorian attitudes toward marriage, sex, and social propriety. Having finished Wild Romance and being relatively familiar with the general historical context of the book, I found the book interesting but not, ultimately, successful as a crossover work of narrative popular history.

Although somewhat obscure to us now, Theresa Yelverton's legal crusade to prove bigamy against Charles Yelverton, British officer and son of Viscount Avonmore, was nothing short of a sensation in the late 1850s and early 1860s. Its tabloid appeal lay both in the possibility that Yelverton had caddishly married two women and in the possibility that he had merely cavorted with one woman before marrying another. In the first case, Yelverton was a cad who scoffed at the sanctity of marriage; in the second, Theresa Longworth was either a victim or a liar and a seducer herself, and both implications involved sex. In any of these cases, the intimate details of Theresa and Charles's relationship could satisfy prurient curiosity and still be applied to any number of moral lessons and social messages.

Theresa, the daughter of an English manufacturer who was convent educated in France following the early death of her mother, was attractive, vivacious, intelligent, and free-spirited. When she met Major William Charles Yelverton on a steamer in 1852, she recognized another unconventional spirit, a man who, Schama argues, "gave her direction" in the limbo of her somewhat itinerant post-convent, pre-marriage life. Subsequent correspondence by letter founded a long-distance relationship Schama characterizes as one both instigated and maintained by Theresa's insistent, idealistic pursuit, which consistently "turned [Yelverton's] apathy into a sign of his commitment." Nonetheless, Yelverton was apparently interested enough to travel with Theresa as Mr. and Mrs., and undergo not one, but two, irregular marriage ceremonies, one in Scotland and one in Ireland.

At the time of Theresa and Charles's relationship, a legally binding marriage did not necessarily require uniform formalities. In Scotland, for example, a spoken pledge of marriage between couples, witnessed only by the Book of Common Prayer, could stand as legitimate. In Ireland, Catholics could be married by a priest, without the usual banns. England, not surprisingly, failed to recognize either as automatically legal, and once Charles married another woman – a widow named Emily Forbes – with all the "regular" formalities, it was English law, and English men (via the House of Lords), that would ultimately decide whether Theresa was legitimately married to Yelverton. The implications of legitimating a putative spouse were huge, and even with an Irish priest's declaration of marriage (which raised questions about whether the Catholic church would itself legitimate the ceremony, since Charles was Protestant), finding the couple legally wed under English law could imperil the reputations and freedom of countless men. That Theresa even attempted to have Charles prosecuted for bigamy is remarkable.

The story of Theresa Longworth Yelverton (as she referred to herself) is fascinating on many levels. First there is the extent of Theresa's legal claims of bigamy against Yelverton and his countersuit against her claim of marriage, trials in Ireland (which was decided in her favor), Scotland (which was decided against her and then for her on appeal), and finally England (decided against her), over the course of eight years (1859-1867). Should Theresa be found the legal wife of Charles, he would be responsible for her financial sustenance, as well as her reputation. Considering the speculation that Yelverton married Forbes for a $250,000 inheritance (reported by The New York Times in 1861), as opposed to Theresa's modest $1,000/year, that financial burden was no small issue. In fact, as Schama discusses, one of the strangest aspects of the relationship between Charles and Theresa was its secrecy, insisted upon by Charles because, he claimed, his uncle would discontinue his small allowance if he ever married or had children. That the uncle later disclaimed this assertion adds to the curiosity around Charles and his intentions toward Theresa.

Then there is the forbidden eroticism of their relationship and its tension with the propriety the otherwise unconventional Theresa sought in marriage. While Charles often seemed distant in his letters to Theresa, physical proximity clearly made him more amorous and assertive in trying to hold on to her. In fact, at one point during the trials Charles admits that he found the severe black gown Theresa wore as a Soeur de Charité nurse during the Crimean War particularly titillating, and numerous people testified that the couple cavorted as spouses would during the times they spent together. Whatever was going on emotionally and physically between the couple, at some level Theresa seemed to understand she needed something objectively legitimating, and, in fact, she insisted on the Irish wedding because she was worried the Scottish ceremony would not suffice. To be publicly known as a sexually engaged woman, Theresa wanted the protective respectability of marriage, which is understandable given the power men still clearly had in fashioning, interpreting, and imposing the marriage laws.

Charles, of course, had much more to lose through a declaration of bigamy (his new wife gave birth seven and a half months after they married), while Theresa had much more at stake without it. The irony of the public's fascination with all the sordid details of the relationship, all the while superficially keeping up the appearance of moral rectitude (women were strongly encouraged to leave the courtroom during the most salacious testimony, so as to protect their reputations – to hear about everything later, in private) is not much so much removed from contemporary double standards. However, I think sometimes we underestimate just how much social and economic protection women have gained (and in many cases continue to gain) from marriage, and Theresa's case is a poignant example of that reality. The presumption of legitimacy for her children, the stringency of inheritance and intestacy laws, as well as many other less tangible consequences of marriage represented protection for women of modest economic means. While a woman of means most certainly had more freedom outside of marriage, a woman of Theresa's economic standing would receive substantial economic protections in marriage, especially if she became pregnant.

However, Charles's lawyers wanted to portray Theresa as the seductress, the sexual instigator who ruined him with her persistent advances. And one of the most compelling aspects of this case is the way these competing stories about Theresa and Charles continue to vie for final authority, well beyond the legal decisions themselves. Was Theresa the victim of a man who all but admitted that he "planned" to possess Theresa sexually and then let her believe they were legally married to continue to affair? Did they conspire to pretend marriage until Theresa's jealousy over Charles's relationship with Emily Forbes drove her to falsely accuse him of bigamy? That Theresa and her story could not then and cannot now be easily corralled into neat categories illustrates the conflicting social attitudes and realities around Victorian love, sex, and marriage.

Perhaps this is why the book focuses so much more heavily on Theresa than on Charles – after all, this is Theresa's story. However, many times during the narrative I wished for a clearer picture of the man Theresa was so enamored of that she would endure trials in three countries to stake a legal claim to him. In her letters, Theresa invited Charles into "'the land of dreams,'" and Schama characterizes Theresa's sensibility as "visionary in both senses of the word – ahead of its time, and made from the fabric of dreams." Her insistence multiple times that Theresa was in love with a dream in Charles, not a real man, is reflected in his enigmatic presence throughout the book, and it remains unclear to me whether Schama herself isn't indirectly excusing his meaningful absence from the narrative. Perhaps the research reveals no more of him than what she introduces. Still, his distance from Schama's narrative weighs uneasily for me on her characterization of Theresa as the one chasing a phantom, especially in other sections of the book, where Schama seems more judgmental about Theresa's romanticization of Charles, her "plaintive cries for affection" perhaps forcing Charles into maintaining the connection.

Also, despite the wealth of historical information in the book, the section in which Charles finally seems to abandon Theresa raises numerous questions the book does not answer – questions related to whether or not Theresa was pregnant (she seemed to suspect she was, and Charles was clearly not pleased with this idea), and how/why/what illness she contracted soon after Charles visited her and that thoroughly debilitated and virtually blinded her. Thanks to Carolyn Jewel, who listened to me talk about this book and mentioned a New York Times article on the trial she had (and consequently forwarded to me), I discovered an 1861 article that recounts the story and trial, asserting that Charles poisoned Theresa – most likely in order to end a pregnancy – and then abandoned her to waste away, because her modest income did not match the substantial inheritance of Emily Forbes (another disparity not detailed in Schama's book), whom he had been seeing for months. Even if these "facts" are in dispute – as they most likely are – why not include them for the purpose of de-legitimating them, especially when they bear so heavily on later events? True or not, they fill in quite a few blanks in that section of the book.

For all the details included, Wild Romance still feels unfinished to me. Part of the problem may be that the scope of the book is quite expansive, covering Theresa's early life and correspondence with Charles, the years of their relationship and then the trials, and finally Theresa's post-trial travels to America, Asia, and South Africa, which comprise almost half the book in pages but are simply not as compellingly rendered. Despite a relationship with John Muir and an ambiguously characterized relationship with a Senegalese "boy," as well as numerous (barely) fictional and travel narratives Theresa wrote, it is as if as Theresa's scandal-ridden star fades, so does the conviction and interest with which her story is told.

In the epilogue, Schama characterizes Theresa's life as somewhat heroic, a "harbinger of a new era," inspiring numerous books like Mary Elizabeth Braddon's Lady Audley's Secret and Wilkie Collins's No Name:

The Yelverton-inspired literature shows the myriad social and legal problems made explicit by the trial; Theresa's biography shows the numerous historical forces reified in one woman's life. The problems with the law that these events illuminated and the literary inspiration they provided were significant, but the weight of the story cannot be boiled down to nuggets of legal or literary impact. Theresa's full, vivid story shows the ebb and flow of historical change, and how one woman navigated these shifts – specifically, how outdated mandates for women's lives linger, and how those ideas are subverted and overcome.

Indeed, the complexity of Theresa's life and her story, the conflicting historical records and the secrecy of the relationship between her and Charles, makes the challenge of this book one of compensating for the limitations in knowing who Theresa really was by making a compelling case for what she represented. And perhaps because the book began as a Master's degree thesis turned creative non-fiction, the balance is not soundly maintained.

In the end, Wild Romance seems torn between its roots as a Master's thesis and a work of narrative history for a more general readership. While Theresa herself seemed to be walking the line between sentimental heroine (idealized romantic happy ending) and sensational heroine (demoralization through a romantic debacle), Schama's book lacks the dramatic tension that makes real lives crackle and shine as narrative history as well as the analytical depth that would make this a substantial piece of academic work. And while I wish anyone interested in or, especially, who writes about, the Victorian period would read Wild Romance for its illustration of an independent, intelligent, and ultimately unconventional 19th century woman, I cannot recommend the book as a robustly successful work of narrative history. C

~Janet

Book Link | Amazon | BN | Borders

REVIEW: The Pig Did It by Joseph Caldwell

Jayne — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 20:00:29 +0000

“The world, young man, you’ll find, is the strangest place in which we’re ever going to live. And strangest of all is the people in it.”

Dear. Mr. Caldwell,

The title alone, “The Pig Did It,” was sufficient to make me want to at least try this novel of love, death or maybe murder, the sea reclaiming its own and a pig. The lovely cover, complete with the pig insert at the bottom, sealed the deal. I had to read it and there unto I used the last of a gift certificate given to me this Christmas past which had only been waiting for the right book to be spent on. Alas, that the book didn’t quite live up to my expectations of it.

Aaron McCloud has returned to the land of his ancestors, his quite recent ancestors as his young Aunt Kitty, older than he by only two years, still lives there, in order to feel sorry for himself. He has decided that “the domesticated hills would be his comfort, the implacable sea his witness” as he obsesses over a young woman in his writing workshop who didn’t fall in love with him. But his plans for his self pity party keep getting put on hold as he runs into first an escaped group of swine, followed by the discovery of a shallow grave under his aunt’s cabbage patch. It is after this that his aunt Kitty, Lolly McKeever – who denies that an escaped pig who followed Aaron to his aunt’s house is hers – and Kieran Sweeney – a local man who obviously has strong feelings for Kitty – each accuse the other of murdering the man in the grave, one Declan Tovey, refuse to call in the police, then throw a riotous Irish wake which ends in a grand burial for Declan that literally brings the house down.

Poor Aaron has come to Ireland to wallow nobly and manfully in his disappointment over his non love affair with the indifferent Phila but never quite seems to get around to it. There’s always something to distract him whether it’s the pig which decides to claim Aaron as its own, the sea which Kieran declares has decided to claim Aaron for itself, a darts contest in the local pub or the skeleton which the pig uproots during its destruction of Kitty’s entire garden. Aaron wants to brood, he plans to brood but even with the best intentions, he is slowly cured of what he ultimately realizes is merely thwarted obsession rather than true love.

As I kept reading the book, it finally dawned on me midway that the book isn’t really about who killed Declan or whether the sea has decided to snatch Aaron, or if Kitty and Kieran, who love to hate each other and hate to love each other, will finally get together. Or even if Lolly and Aaron decide to start their own romance. It’s a slow, gentle, stately send up of Irish mist and mysticism at a pace which never hurries or rushes along.

There is humor throughout the story. The magical use of words transports me to the West coast of Ireland to a house about to fall into the sea or a pub filled with good hearted people. The pig amuses me and the soliloquies to which most of the characters seem prone delight me. And yet….the ending of the story is too quick and the declaration of love between one set of lovers comes from almost nowhere which in the end causes enough disappointment that I doubt I’ll continue on with the published second book in the trilogy much less the upcoming third one.

~Jayne

Book Link | Amazon | BN | Borders | No ebook

REVIEW: Straight Up by Deirdre Martin

Jane — Wed, 05 May 2010 10:00:59 +0000

Dear Ms. Martin:

I am really ambivalent about this book. On the one hand, it’s a straight contemporary in an usual setting (Ireland) featuring a very strong heroine. I should love that. On the other hand, it features my least favorite type of hero. I came away from the story dissatisfied, wishing that Aislinn could have hooked up with someone more worthy of her.

Aislinn McCafferty grew up loving Connor McCarthy and then Connor did her wrong. Already believing that men weren’t really worth her time (and that Connor was the exception), Connor’s betrayal made her give up men altogether. The local men are uniformly portrayed as meatheads.

For example, Fergus Purcell, David Shiels, and Teague Daly are a threesome that Aislinn refers to as “Ballycraig’s Holy Trinity of Arseholers. As boys, they’d made her school years hell, always teasing her about being a tomboy and for wanting to be a sheep farmer just like her dad.”

Liam, the hot Yank who is hiding out in Ireland from the Irish mob in New York, tries to practice his wiles on Aislinn who turns him down flat. Liam tends bar at the local pub Oak. Rebuffed and then egged on by the locals, Liam lays down a bet that he can be successful with Aislinn where all the others have failed. Even though Liam realizes this is not a very nice thing (cruel he admits), he doesn’t call it off because his pride is more important than Aislinn. Lovely. Everyone does get their comeuppance, though, in a scene I particularly relished.

There was a certain episodic nature of the story. As one conflict was resolved, another would raise itself up kind of partitioning the book into three sections.

In one of the sections, I recognized what the conflict was going to be but didn’t necessarily believe in it. I knew that the hookup between Liam and Aislinn would be impaired by their geographical differences. Liam loved New York and Aislinn was Baillycraig. Yet, because we spent nearly the entire book in Bailycraig, I never really was shown Liam’s strong connection to his family or New York. He had one visit from his brother, but we never saw him calling home, writing home. We were told Liam missed NY and his family but I saw little evidence of it.

Aislinn was a great character. She was devoted with a big heart that had been bruised and broken too many times. The family dynamics from the family created by the locals at Oak, the rediscovered ties Aislinn was building with her sister, and the new relationship Liam had found with his extended family in Ireland form the center of the story . These, more than the romance, were the heart, the laughter, and the tears of the story.

Much comic relief was achieved through Liam’s persistent wooing of Aislinn both when he was trying to win the bet and when he was trying to prove that his feelings went behind the bet.

There’s a lot to like in Straight Up but I admit that I never warmed up to Liam who seemed to be all charm and no substance. He brought most of his misfortune down upon his own head. I wasn’t convinced that he was a changed man in the end. Being with Aislinn was easy for him, despite leaving his New York ties behind. In the end, there was almost a too neat conclusion to all the conflicts. B-

Best regards,

Jane

This is a mass market from Penguin (Berkley Sensation) and thus one of the Agency 5. Penguin prices its digital books $1.00 below the mass market price, if the book is in mass market which is my long ass way of saying the book is $6.99 but not at Amazon because Amazon and Penguin are feuding. Still.

Friday Film Review: The Closer You Get (aka American Women)

Jayne — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 09:00:09 +0000

The Closer You Get (aka American Women [US title]) 2000
Genre: Comedy/Romance
Grade: Not a bad way to spent 95 minutes.

I liked “The Full Monty” and “Waking Ned Devine” which are two films, along with the “Ballykissangel” series, which are mentioned in the “if you like these you’ll like “The Closer You Get” lists. Yeah, I pretty much agree though I also agree with several people who’ve said this one isn’t quite as good as the others. Small town Irish charm, nice people acting a little foolishly but no one’s out to deliberately harm anyone else.

After being stimulated by a screening of Bo Derek’s 10, a group of lonely young Irishmen cook up a foolproof plan: They’ll post an ad in the Miami Herald, inviting American ladies to come to them. But when the town’s womenfolk find out about it, they launch a counter-scheme to fend off foreign competition.

Basically the movie is predictable all the way through but it’s also fun and likable. It’s got sweet humor and there’s only one “bad guy” and we can see his final actions coming from a mile off but his missus ends up getting a much better guy who’s loved her from afar (though he thinks he’s hiding it well) for years. I question how that is going to work in this small, Catholic village but the priest doesn’t seem to mind so why should I?

I laughed to see how the womenfolk at first are amused or rolling their eyes about the whole plan then smiled as they turned the tables on their men by inviting some other men who might actually be expected to make the dance to which the Americans are invited via the ad in the Miami Herald. And it was at this point that the men began to see the lovely, though highly opinionated, women who have been right under their noses the whole time.

It’s a “men vs women” film but everyone, or almost everyone, wins in the end. There’s one scene I did like and it’s when one of the young men sits down to talk with his mother about men. He earnestly assures her that not all men are like his Da who drank a lot and ended up running off. “I might occasionally do some of the things he did but that doesn’t mean I’ll end up like him,” he assures her. It was also kind of sad that she needed to be told this by the younger generation.

So, do any Americans actually buy plane tickets and fly from Miami to this small, remote village on the Northwest coast of Ireland? Well, maybe though the response they get might not be what they were expecting. But there are a few unclaimed gents left at the end of the film so…perhaps.

~Jayne

REVIEW: One-Night Love Child by Anne McAllister

Jayne — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 19:00:43 +0000

Dear Ms. McAllister,

Click here to go to eHarlequin.com
Recently a friend of mine recommended you as a “Presents” author whose heroes aren’t assholes. She said something like, “They don’t suck.” Telling me something is different from the normal is like baiting a juicy worm on a hook for a hungry fish. So yeah, I bit. And guess what? She’s right. Flynn doesn’t suck.

What Flynn does, actually, is try and take the entire weight of the Earldom of Dunmorey on his shoulders after his disapproving father, the eighth Earl, drops from a heart attack. Flynn was never supposed to be the next in line, that would have been his brother Will who died coming to fetch Flynn at the airport from one of Flynn’s many overseas adventures as a journalist.

And one of those adventures was a brief stay in a small town in Montana. Almost six years later, a beat up letter finally catches up with Flynn in Ireland and informs him that the woman he flung with for three days got preggers. Knowing his son is almost six now and frantic for having missed this much of his life, Flynn heads across the pond and back to Elmer, Montana. But can he win back the woman who thinks he turned his back on her all those years ago?

Thank God the book doesn’t match up to the typical Presents blurb which makes Flynn seem like a caveman hell-bent on dragging Sara back to his damp, bucket filled Irish castle. No, he’s not the millionaire the miniseries description would lead a reader to believe. Instead he is tearing his hair out trying to avoid having to sell off the ancestral pile in order to fund his younger brother, Dev’s, hoped for horse stud which both of them hope will turn the Earldom into a paying enterprise. Jane reviewed another of your books and lamented that the hero’s family leach off him while giving him no support. Thankfully, that isn’t the case here. Dev is almost as delightful as Flynn himself.

Flynn also writes books but those royalties won’t be enough to get the bank to loan the kind of moolah needed to refurbish Dunmorey Castle. Frankly, Flynn would be happy to dump the whole thing but his stubborn pride rebels at turning out to be the kind of failure his father always predicted he’d be.

His bad relationship with his father also fuels his desire to be a better father to his own son. Liam is convinced his father loves him but Sara still isn’t too sure about this charming man who won then broke her heart. I love that she lets him verbally have it when he shows up on her doorstep.

Flynn’s initial proposal makes Sara wonder where his charm went (“We’re not indifferent to each other.”) But after Flynn beats himself over the head for that lame effort, he sticks with the program, slowly wooing the skeptical Sara. She’s almost willing to believe in him and his love when events bring them all back to Ireland. Which Flynn is terrified will send Sara screaming away in horror at the state of the Castle.

Instead, to his utter amazement, she loves it. And she’s the wellspring of ideas and plans that gooses the bank into letting them have the renovation money. I love that she takes such an active part at this stage, helping Flynn and Dev to see the potential of the place they’ve just always considered as home. (But I do wonder if some of her suggestions would actually work in real life.)

Well, not home to Flynn exactly as he never felt as at ease here as he does in Sara’s Montana house. That is until he hits on doing the thing which brings him a sense of “home,” lets him spend more time with his son and finally proves to Sara how much he loves her.

There’s a slight misunderstanding at the end which, thankfully, is quickly cleared up but other than that, I really like this book. So note that the Earth has started spinning backward, the sun is rising in the west, Jayne actually read a modern “Presents” and, glory be!, she likes it. B+

Jayne

PS, bad as this title is, it’s still better than “Mother of the Earl’s Love Child!” [G]

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

REVIEW: Highland Rebel by Judith James

Janet — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 21:00:39 +0000

Dear Ms. James:

One of my favorite things about your new book, Highland Rebel, is the author’s note at the very end, in which you discuss the historical context of the novel and its fascinating protagonists. This may seem like a trivial thing to highlight, but the thoughtfulness of that note and the enthusiasm for research that you convey in it is reflected throughout book itself, in the detailed attention to the political upheaval marking late 17th century English history and to the era’s cultural and intellectual vibrancy. When I read Historical Romance, I want the history to be as much a character as the romance, and I hope that readers who feel the same way will pick up this book. Because while not a perfect read, Highland Rebel is a rich and ambitious novel with compelling protagonists and an expansive political and geographic scope.

For all of his political cynicism, James (Jamie) Sinclair just can’t resist a woman in trouble. When he realizes, along with the men who currently hold her in capture, that the young Highlander is not a man, but rather a woman, Jamie, unlike the other men, cannot abide her inevitable rape and torture. So he talks himself into a hasty and somewhat cockeyed scheme in which he declares his intention to marry her until he can get back to England, collect his reward from King James, annul the unconsummated union, and accept the hand of the heiress promised him for his loyal service to the Crown. Jamie does not even stop to consider the fact that the woman might not feel grateful, or indebted, or even interested in sticking around through their wedding night.

Because Catherine (Cat) Drummond has other priorities. She needs to get back to her uncle and her cousins, to assess their losses and help plan their next steps. The moments she spent in front of the priest with the Englishman were a blur of shock and fear and cold, and even though she understood each language spoken, she did not comprehend that she was being married. And even after the man took her to his tent and proceeded to concoct a scheme by which their marriage could appear consummated, Cat was not feeling cooperative or trusting or even grateful for her spared life. So while the Englishman’s attention was distracted by the unexpected return of her kinsmen, Cat was able to escape and make her way back to her kin and her home.

Unbeknownst to Jamie, Catherine is not some ignorant and impoverished camp follower. A countess and an heiress educated in France, Catherine wants nothing more than to take her dead father’s place as leader of the Drummonds, but few of the men in her family see the wisdom in that, preferring instead to marry her off imminently as a valuable political and economic asset. So perhaps an otherwise inconvenient marriage to an absent Englishman is not such a bad thing, after all. She never actually expects her errant husband to track her to her home, and she only hopes that he a) survives the severe thrashing the men give him, and b) does not say a thing indicating his connection to her. When both these things miraculously come to pass, Catherine realizes the importance of keeping the Englishman alive and getting him back home as quickly and secretly as possible. She could not imagine, at that point, that she would eventually follow her husband to England any more than Jamie would have expected to see again the woman who had proved to be most inconvenient in matters of marriage and political favor.

One thing that has always confused me about Historical Romance is the obsessive focus on the Regency, especially when you compare that barely a decade (officially!) to the century and a half preceding it. There is just so much action(!), so much intrigue(!), so much drama(!) to write against, and Highland Rebel is wonderfully illustrative of that, taking full advantage of the political instability of the years leading up to the Glorious Revolution (in which Protestant William of Orange and Catholic James II battle for the throne of England after William deposes James) without sentimentalizing the Highlanders, demonizing the French, or ennobling the English. And if there is a reader of the historical subgenre who does not believe that much has changed there since the 1970s and 80s, Highland Rebel indicates otherwise. Because this is a novel that both takes history seriously and seriously considers the impact it would have had on the characters.

For a man like Jamie, inflexible political principles were just too dangerous, because "with these mad Stuart kings-’Protestant one day, Catholic the next-’a fellow needed to be quick." It was not that he was dishonorable, merely that his honor was first to himself and those he cared about. When he saves Catherine, for example, it is not merely a whim, but more specifically a loyalty to the people who were little more than political pawns in an inherently unstable and incessantly violent moment in history. And for that loyalty Jamie pays, because when news of his marriage reaches England, mingling with the machinations of a thwarted mistress with the ear of the king, everything that James promised him is withdrawn, leaving Jamie an outcast at court and vainly trying to avoid his creditors.

Catherine, too, has substantial consequences to face, because her marriage only exists on her word, and despite her ability to fight fiercely and strategize with more acuity than most of the men of her clan, she cannot conquer the patriarchal power structure of the warrior clan culture. So unable to lead the men her father had trained her but did not legally endow her with the authority to, and without a flesh and blood husband to prevent her from being sold to an advantageous ally, Catherine has little choice but to go in search of the husband she shipped back to England more than a year before. And her appearance is greeted with both admiration and frustration:

"I’m seldom bested at games of strategy or chance, yet you did so twice. A fellow can’t help but admire that."

"I have but two ways of making a living, Catherine, on the battlefield or at the gaming tables, and both are seriously curtailed by my current circumstances. I need to be accepted in society and at court if I wish to pay my servants, feed my horses, maintain my properties, and clear my debts. Unless, of course, you’re here to offer an alternative? An annulment, is it? Too late for me to marry a fortune, but just in time to confirm the rumors? I can hear it now," he said, mimicking the clipped phrases, lengthened vowels, and malicious drawl of court gossip. ""Even his savage Scottish bride lives in fear of him! Ravaged her too, poor thing, then tried to steal her land, but the chit escaped him and the Pope himself intervened to grant an annulment.’ Frankly, my dear, I fail to appreciate how that will be of any benefit to me."

In other words, these two are stuck, for a while, at least, as husband and wife. And Catherine initially has substantial influence with James, enough to bring her and Jamie back into court. But she also has an appeal that makes her desirable to the lecherous king, and a husband who cannot be fully trusted in his political loyalties, further complicating both the political and personal fortunes of the couple.

Because of the political complexity of the time in which Highland Rebel is set, there are many things that happen in the novel that are driven by the ever-changing circumstances in England, Ireland, and Scotland, all of which serve as part of the novel’s setting. Because Jamie tends to back the political power he feels will best serve his personal safety and prosperity, his fortunes are as likely to change as those of his patrons. And with these changes can come severe consequences. Similarly, Catherine’s steadfast loyalty to her clan will inevitably put her political priorities in direct conflict with Jamie’s at some point, especially since she is not the official chief of her clan and therefore unable to singlehandedly change the hearts and minds of her kinsmen.

Then there are the personal issues between Catherine and Jamie. Married as strangers and estranged for their first year plus of marriage, these two strong individuals are not used to being reined in by commitment and emotional interdependence. Jamie, for example, was abandoned very young by his mother and pummeled by his father, seeking security and comfort among the servant and working classes. Consequently (and unusually, given the Romance tradition), he has an abiding respect and affection for women of the working and serving classes, which helps to explain his seemingly quixotic decision to save Catherine at the beginning of the novel. But he also has a vast discomfort with his softer side, so to speak, and he tends to disguise it behind the face of the jaded, "prancing courtier":

"-I’ve always tried to avoid strong feelings, Catherine. They say bad blood runs deep, a man takes after his parents. I’m the offspring of a vicious bully and a slut. I wanted a wife who- didn’t excite strong emotions. One of whom I wouldn’t be jealous, and who wouldn’t be hurt when I strayed-."

Cat, on the other hand, is far more comfortable on a battlefield than in the contested terrain of the heart. While sharp and composed on the outside, her insecurities about Jamie’s feelings and her own make her seem younger and more like the "mouse" Jamie so often calls her, uncustomarily uncertain:

Catherine was having difficulty finding the man underneath the performance. She’d thought herself perceptive, but the Englishman was nothing like her blunt, straightforward Scottish brethren, and she found him impossible to read. She suspected that if she succeeded at stripping one layer away she’d only find another, and then another, peeling until he was gone like smoke, and there was nothing left to find. She found herself following his lead more often than not, forced into communicating through glib repartee and barbed wit when she wanted to shake him and ask, Are you as confused and anxious as I am? Are you glad to see me? What are you thinking? What do you feel? Instead, she pointed to the settee. "Do you mind if I sit by the fire?"

The reality, of course, is that Jamie and Cat are two of a kind:

"You and I are much alike in some ways, love. We can’t accept the world as others serve it to us. We want to choose our own dinner. Always asking questions, always asking why, always wanting to see for ourselves.”

With two people who don’t know when to take personal things at face value, is it any surprise that Jamie and Cat are at their most comfortable when literally in disguise? In fact, it is through various covert adventures as other people that they develop a strong, authentic friendship. Cat already has some experience dressing as a man, and with Jamie’s tutoring, as well as his own vast skills in various disguises, they travel to many areas of London, to the coffeehouses where the likes of John Locke are discussing the provocative ideas of the day, to the alehouses, where valuable information is unofficially exchanged, to court, where they play at embodying their noble titles. Yet their camaraderie eclipses the intention of the costumes, breaking down invisible emotional barriers that exacerbate their insecurities when they are not otherwise occupied with these disguises. It is, perhaps, the only way these two independent people can gradually accede to the interdependence and mutual trust that love requires and a clever way to accomplish it within the structure of the novel.

I have seen some criticism of Highland Rebel for not being overtly romantic until the last section of the novel, but I did not see this at all. In fact, I relished the slow pace of the relationship development, the palpable sexual tension mixed with emotional wariness. It struck me as much more realistic and respectful to the complexity of the situation in its totality. Because the novel is working on several levels at once, juggling multiple big themes – loyalty, authenticity, fidelity, vulnerability – I was glad to be able to appreciate these elements at less than breakneck speed. And while I did sometimes get frustrated at the back and forth nature of the trust/distrust rhythm of the relationship, I also felt that with two characters who are so afraid of letting down their masks, the mutual unveiling needed to reflect the intensity of the fear.

Where the novel really stumbles for me is, like with Broken Wing, in the twining of history and the story. Although a much more confident and tightly plotted novel than the last, Highland Rebel stiff suffers from what I fear some readers might view as info-dumping, because of the awkward moments in the text where the history is narrated to the reader documentary-style:

The king, intent on restoring Catholic rule, and lacking the charm, wit, and political acumen of his older brother Charles, relied on intimidation and military might to guard his throne and bully his recalcitrant subjects into obedience. He’d built himself a standing army, a cause of great concern to many so soon after Cromwell’s, and he wasn’t above the judicious use of foreign mercenaries.

The narrative shifts, even when the perspective is loosely attached to one of the novel’s characters, kept me from being completely immersed in the novel, which was a shame, because this was a book I wanted to be swept away in – it is so clearly that kind of book. While reading it, I was thinking about all Candice Proctor’s Whispers of Heaven and all the wonderful Laura London Regencies I’ve enjoyed, the ones where the jaded but surprisingly sentimental hero cannot help himself where the bright and sassy heroine is concerned, where Shakespeare rolls off the characters’ tongues effortlessly, and where the sexual tension between the lovers is palpable but still only one aspect of their relationship development. I hope that as James continues to write (from her website I found that she has a three book deal with HQN, which, at least, should mean ebooks) that her books show more and more mastery of these subtler elements, because the moves are all there now, just too recognizably. Still, and despite the annoying lack of an e-version (and I can only tell Sourcebooks that several people to whom I’ve tried to recommend the novel demurred because they can only get it in print), Highland Rebel is definitely a book for all those readers of Historical Romance who like their history as much as their Romance: B.

~ Janet

This book can be purchased at Amazon. No ebook that I can find.

Friday Film Review: The Abduction Club

Jayne — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 09:00:11 +0000

The Abduction Club (2002)
Genre: Historical/Comedy/Drama/Romance
Grade: B

Ever since I first heard about this movie, while looking for art pics to be used for Lynne Connolly’s “Richard and Rose” series for my reviews “back in the day” when these weren’t available anymore after the original epublisher did an early version of what we now call epublisherfail, I’ve wanted to see it. Problem was, and still is, that it’s only out in a region 2 or 4 DVD which leaves me, in region 1, basically SOL. Or so I thought. Then I discovered a way to see it. On youtube! God bless youtube which allows people to put all kinds of crap up for public viewing or, in this case, a movie that it doesn’t look like I’ll be able to legitimately buy any damn time soon.

So I watched it (in either 9 [German subtitles] or 10 [Spanish subtitles] part sections depending on which version you watch).

ETA: Sorry but this looks like it’s now been taken down from youtube. Only clips are left.

It’s a simple plot which is supposed to be based on actual, though much less fun than depicted on screen, events. We’re in eighteenth century Ireland. As in England, the eldest son inherits all the family loot leaving any younger sons to find some other way to support their expected lifestyle. The Abduction Club is a band of young men who meet, woo then kidnap rich women in order to marry for money and avoid being forced into the priesthood or military by their families.

Our group nobly insists that the women have the right to refuse to marry their abductors in which case the women will be returned to their families the next morning. But the lads count on having discovered the interests of their brides-to-be, detected a mutual attraction and then using their charm to carry the day. The film opens with one successful abduction during which we learn what it’s all about and the rules by which the club operates. After each event, they draw lots to determine the next to try his hand.

Garrett Byrne (Daniel Lapaine) wins the next opportunity and sets out to gain the interest of Catherine Kennedy (Alice Evans) the daughter of a wealthy gentleman. During their meeting, his friend James Strange (Matthews Rhys) meets the younger daughter Anne (Sophia Myles). It’s a meeting during which sparks fly as these two spar with each other. Meanwhile Byrne is practically oozing oily charm as he shamelessly flatters Catherine. Thinking it’s all in the bag, he announces he’s ready and the abduction is planned.

Only it all goes tits up. Catherine is abducted from an evening musicale but evinces no interest in marrying Byrne, much to his surprised dismay. Strange shows up with Anne who has apparently flirted him into taking her with him only to change her mind once he flubs the proposal. Then Anne’s rejected suitor (Liam Cunningham) rides to the rescue along with a company of soldiers and things really go wrong. Now the couples are on the run, finally seeing each other for who they truly are and falling in love. But is it too late for their HEA?

Why do I like it? It’s like a romance novel on screen! It’s fun to watch but probably has little relation to reality when it comes right down to it. Though the storyline is fairly predictable, we’re used to this in romance novels, right? We even like the predictability for the most part. It’s got two heroes, one who’s handsome and one who’s cute but not quite handsome enough to be the main guy. Plus loads of secondary men who could have ended up as heroes of other movies. I can just see the sequel potential now.

It’s got two heroines who are sisters. One gets to play the responsible heroine who we just know is going to have her martyr moment and a younger, feisty heroine who plays the irrepressible role until her chance to be a martyr arrives, because we all know that all heroines are martyr wannabes. I do like that Catherine calls Byrne on his reasons for marrying her in a nice “turn the tables on him” moment. While Anne basically flips Strange the verbal bird after his spectacularly inept marriage proposal.

All this takes place after the “meet cute,” or maybe I should say the “abduct cute,” scene where everything does go wrong that can go wrong. Lots of one liners and merrie mayhem abound. Plus the intro to a great Bach concerto. There are also chase scenes, fleeing from the heroes scenes, introspection scenes and narrow escapes. Then an “amazing rescue from death at the last moment complete with all the male buddies” scene before a final “overcoming the villains” ending leading to romance for all as the closing credits roll.

The girls’ father (John Arthur) is every father I’ve ever hated in a romance novel. A widower, he’s more interested in gambling than watching who his daughters meet at racetracks. He then abdicates all parental responsibility and expects one of the girls to pay for his mistakes before finally wising up to his nonsense and agreeing to let the girls marry penniless men who have no prospects and who are on the run from the law!

We also get two villains for the price of admission. One is either a heartless, manipulative asshole (Cunningham) or merely misunderstood depending on whether or not anyone would want to redeem him in a sequel book – uhm I mean movie. While the secondary villain (Tom Murphy) plays the “hero envy” role or could possibly be gay – and thus obviously a villain because all homosexuals in historicals are eeevil.

Great costumes and scenery plus rousing music round out the experience. Though I think the hair stylists did better by Lapaine than Rhys in the hair extensions category

Most of the actors look like they’re having a good time with their roles. Except maybe Alice Evans who has to be so sober during much of the film. Sophia Myles is a bubbly delight. Lapaine and Rhys have that great buddy chemistry going.

I do wish whoever owns the rights would eliminate the regional freeze out that has most of the world twiddling their thumbs waiting to buy a legitimate copy. But until then, there’s youtube. At a little over 90 minutes, it doesn’t take that long to watch. You can manage the roughly 9-10 minute long sections on work breaks or in delinquent moments when your supervisor isn’t looking. Go on, it’s a fun movie.

~Jayne

REVIEW: Now and Then by Jacqueline Sheehan

Jayne — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 21:00:31 +0000

Note: There are going to be some spoilers later on.

Dear Ms. Sheehan,

I’m glad that your publishers have figured out how to spell your first name. On the arc I received, it is spelled without a ‘c.’ When I checked the spelling to make sure I had your first name correct, I noticed it should have a ‘c’ in it. Such things make me think your publisher doesn’t love you. I hope that isn’t the case.

Anna O’Shea has hit what she thinks is rock bottom. After three miscarriages, her husband has left her. After a trip to Ireland, she arrives home to discover that her nephew is in trouble with the law in New Jersey and her older brother has been in a terrible car accident on his way from Massachusetts to get him. After driving to get Joseph herself and falling exhausted into bed, she awakes to discover her nephew going through her still packed suitcase and opening a package given to her in Ireland by a strange woman. And then the really weird stuff starts to happen.

Anna has never given much thought to the possibilities of time travel but it’s the only explanation that makes sense after she feels like she’s been turned inside out and sucked through the ocean. She’s pretty sure Joseph was along with her but now she’s alone on a cold, rocky shoreline until a local couple rescue her. As a lawyer, Anna has been trained to weigh possibilities. Once she’s eliminated most of the ones she’s faced with, the only one that makes sense is that somehow, she’s been flung back 164 years in time.

Joseph finds himself in a strange situation as well. Wisely he keeps his mouth shut as he begins to settle into an existence totally different from his modern life. Anna and Joseph both wonder about the other but it’s Anna who actively seeks her nephew while Joseph revels in a world in which he’s finally on top of the heap. Will they ever find each other and their way back home? Or will discovering why they’ve traveled back in time force them to give up all they’ve found in the past?

After reading the back blurb and the info letter included in the arc, I still wasn’t sure if this was a traditional romance or something different so forgive me if I flipped to the end to see what would be in store for me before committing to read the book. I can stand bittersweet endings but would rather know ahead of time. Whether or not readers will like the ending for “Now and Then” will depend on if they feel that this is a romance that should come complete with a HEA.

I enjoyed discovering the two different strata of society as seen through the experiences of Anna and Joseph. And also watching as both characters were inverted from what they were used to in modern life. Anna’s been a successful lawyer with all the trappings who now finds herself living in an Irish blacksmith’s hovel among smugglers who must finesse their way through the harsh, repressive laws under which they’re forced to live. Joseph has always been on the bottom of the hierarchy in school but suddenly finds himself living the high life under the patronage of an English landowner. It’s a wonderful way to show, as you put it, the “political shennanigans” of the time.

You don’t spend much time explaining how the time travel works. Which is fine with me. I find TT books work better for me if an author just presents it as a fait accompli and then gets on with the story. The historical details are well done without being overdone. Anna and Joseph notice certain things that are especially important to them which adds a nice “fish out of water” feel to the story without bogging the narrative down with too many details.

Thank you for not forcing faux Irish brogue dialogue on me. One character mentions to Anna how Gaelic speech patterns are different from English ones and it appears that this is what you attempted to replicate at times. Though I’ll be honest and say that I wish you had done more with this. Most of the time, the Irish characters speak more like English ones than anything else.

The humor sprinkled throughout the book is delightful. The opening chapters are more wry, black humor whereas the exchanges between Donal and Anna seem a little different in ways I’m finding hard to categorize. For instance when Anna tells Donal that “I’ve never ridden much,” Donal replies, “Both the horse and I have noticed.” And then there’s the tooth extraction scene. If anyone ever told me I’d laugh myself silly to read something like this, I’d have looked at them like they were demented. I also love the list of modern terms that Anna empties herself of like a burst balloon when she reaches the point that she can’t hold them in anymore. Fucking A, Anna.

Warning: Here Be Spoilers

My first exposure to a time travel book was “Knight in Shining Armor.” I loved it, once I’d gotten past the first 50 some pages. The ending made the book for me. But when presented with such an ending, like Anna, I need to know that there’s a damn good reason for it. And you gave me a damn good reason. What’s already happened can’t and shouldn’t be changed but lifetimes of pain are over and the poison which had coursed through the lives of the O’Shea family is finally at an end. I do think that Anna comes out of the experience with slightly more than Joseph does though I am happy to see his newfound maturity and confidence.

End of spoilers

“Now and Then” is certainly different from what I normally read but different in a good way. The descriptions of nineteenth century Ireland are vivid, the people are believable, and I was totally caught up in their experiences. While I might have wanted a more romantic HEA, it’s not the book you wrote and truthfully such an ending would not have dovetailed with the reality of the upcoming Great Famine. My final grade? B

PS. loved the Irish Wolfhounds!

~Jayne

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

REVIEW: Upside Down Inside Out by Monica Mcinerney

Jayne — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 09:00:21 +0000

Dear Mrs. McInerney,

Since it doesn’t look like I’m going to get to Australia any time soon, your book will have to serve as a travelogue of sorts. The Australian Tourism Board can use it as a reason why people should fold themselves into tiny airplane seats for an ungodly number of hours. Screw the koalas, people should read “Upside Down Inside Out” to prime them for a visit Down Under and to watch two nice people fall in love.

When I read the back blurb, I had visions of Aussie Chick Lit which thankfully this book isn’t. One reason I’m getting tired of the traditional CL style is the pratfall laughs. Let’s watch the heroine make a cake of herself preferably in her undies! No, not so much my humor style anymore and not what’s found here. I enjoyed the subtle, gentle humor sprinkled throughout the story. And the fact that both Eva and Joe can take a joke as well as dish one out.

I loved the chance to “see” Dublin, the Irish countryside, Melbourne and South Australia. I take it you’ve had the – ahem – pleasure of both economy and business class travel to and from Australia? I remember the main character in “People of the Book” mentioning that if you’re from Australia, you get used to long haul flights very early in your traveling life! The descriptions of Sydney Harbor, the different ethnic areas of Melbourne, the wide open skies were great. I loved Joe’s comment about what the fairy penguins probably think of all the humans sitting there staring at the ocean, waiting for them. But Eva never got to see a kangaroo!

I liked that you make the point of Eva and Joseph realizing that despite all the lies and exaggerations they told about themselves, basically they did get to know the persons underneath the surface. And who hasn’t gone to a party and had some fun telling whoppers to people you never expect to see again just to make things more interesting? I read a story one time about a woman who lived in DC who, before she went to a dinner party, would randomly pick a profession or job just to note people’s reactions to it. The one she had the most fun with was telling people she’d just gotten home from work carving a gargoyle on the National Cathedral. I also appreciate that you give Joe and Eva plenty of time to get to know each other in their new roles before having Lainey haul out the pink taffeta dress.

I can easily see how Eva would think she could be swallowed up by Lainey’s outgoing exuberance. Such high wattage people are fun to be around but they do tend to overshadow the quieter ones among us. The misunderstanding between Lainey and Eva shows how different the perspective can be on the same event as experienced by two different people and how important communication is. I’m glad that they finally got the air cleared.

Thank you for making Eva and Joseph’s jobs and careers central to them. So often authors pick a background for their characters then barely include it in the story. Eva can tell you all about the quality of the food Joseph picks out for their “picnic” in the hotel, she takes the chance to learn more about sit down restaurant management while working in Greg’s bistro and can confidently suggest items her regular Dublin deli customers might want to try. Joseph “sees” room decor from a design perspective, notes specific improvements that could be made to products and thinks of how to construct things from the ground up.

The way you engineer the changes to Eva and Joseph’s lives fits neatly into the plot without being extreme. Eva can use the opportunity presented by Meg’s damage to the delicatessen to expand it and put her plan for a small bistro into effect. The embezzlement to his company offers Joe a chance to cast off a career that was beginning to strangle him. The change from practical designing to more decorative turns him in the direction of the art school in Dublin. Voila, their paths converge smoothly from events that flow instead of via wrenching changes.

I’m a cat person so I adored Rex the Shiraz tasting kitten! Poor Rex gets his ‘just operated’ self hauled on a whirlwind tour of his homeland, doesn’t he? But…what’s the deal with the cover of the book? Eva has long, straight, dark hair and the cover model has short, blonde curly hair. Having just read some of those disgusting ways restaurant try to save money, I loved Joe’s “implied threat” take down of snotty Greg.

I enjoyed my trip to Ireland and Australia, getting to know Eva and Joe, watching them avoid misunderstandings as they fall in love and am looking forward to watching Lainey find Mr. Cholera in your next book. B for this one.

~Jayne

This book can be purchased in trade paperback from Amazon or Powells or ebook format.

REVIEW: Love and Lore by Gia Dawn, Sela Carsen and Carolan Ivey

Jayne — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 09:00:17 +0000

Ladies, I’d like to thank all three of you for the opportunity to review your newest novellas in the “Love and Lore” anthology at Samhain. The covers are gorgeous, the stories are hot and the Samhain content warning is, as always, fun in and of itself. Who comes up with those warnings? If I’m reading the site correctly, Samhain is offering all three books together in print or individually as ebooks and there’s a short video as well.

Ms Dawn, your story, “A Fairy Special Gift” starts us out with rowdy fairies, a lovelorn Celtic god, a banshee who needs a makeover and two special humans who can both see them all. Meara Magee hates the nasty little fairies who’ve pestered her since she was a child. I loved the image of her defending herself with flyswatters and putting out wasp traps. Jamison Murphy has come to terms with them and always carries his anti-fairy secret mix with him. But since the fairies brought them together, maybe Meara can finally admit that they have their uses. Her cat thinks otherwise.

Since your novella is the shortest of the three, you have to bring your leads together a bit faster than I usually like to see. That’s just my preference though. Things heat up quickly between them but you did build some time into the story for them to get to know each other. What brings my grade down is the almost Mary Sue quality to Meara. Everybody’s hot for her from the fairies who won’t leave her alone to Lugh, the seven foot god who pesters her constantly, to Banshee who can’t seem to figure out how to fix herself up without Meara’s help, to of course Jamison who has to constantly adjust his pants after he meets her. Then there’s a misunderstanding to almost end things. However I like the way the fairies come to their aid in the end and can just see the rainbow colored night light. Very nice image there. C

Ms Carsen, you’re next up with “Heart of the Sea.” After reading the first novella you sent me, I said I’d be interested in reading more of your work. This story works much better for me and I’m glad you sent it along. Merial Byrne had only dreamed of her handsome, rich boss Ronan Burbank until the day of his annual party at his family’s 100 year old Rhode Island mansion. That’s the day she tripped, fell backwards off the only damn cliff in the area and tumbled into the sea. It’s then that she discovered the ancient curse put on all the descendants of the woman with whom a selkie had fallen in love. Spurned by her, he cursed any Byrne who touched the sea into becoming a selkie for life.

Merial’s disappearance didn’t only ruin her day but started a downward slid for Ronan. Suspected of her murder, though cleared, his business and personal life were torn apart by the tabloids. It was then he discovered the financial misdoings which caused him to have to sell off his businesses piecemeal until now he’s hanging on with only a yacht building enterprise left. When the two meet again, Merial saves his life and is granted a 24 hour chance to reverse her curse. Can the two work out their differences, discover how to undo what was done and still have time to fall in love?

There’s lots of humor here from Meriel’s views on sushi to Ronan’s disbelief that a seal talked to him after saving his life. I was starting to write down some questions about how certain things were known by certain people (how’s that for a vague attempt to avoid a spoiler?) when you answered it a little later in the story. I was puzzled about why the villain didn’t make a move against Merial for seven years. And I assume that his intense interest in Merial is what caused Ronan to mess up his multiplication answer? I liked that the seals were ready to help Merial save her true love and the acknowledgment that Ronan and Merial were going to have some work on their hands to fit her back into society. After all, they can’t explain away her absence for that long by telling authorities she’s been a selkie for seven years! B

Ms Ivey you conclude the anthology with “Wildish Things” and indeed the story gets pretty strange at times. It took me awhile to wrap my mind around a goddess who’s actually the land of Ireland. Or part of Ireland. And a sexually insatiable goddess at that. The Hag wants a man and she senses that wildlife artist Beith Molloy can deliver one. Kellan O’Neill doesn’t realize he’s the chosen man. All he wants is a short, hot fling with the woman his brother was hired to guide to wildlife sites. A brief glance at the information faxed over about Beith and he’s off to the airport to pick her up and whisk her off on his Harley to the west of Ireland — and straight to the Hag.

Pretty soon they both sense a presence but Beith’s going to give the Hag a run for her money. And despite the year old extensive injuries she’s barely recovered from, they manage a night even the Hag would be proud of. But how can Beith believe in what she thought she’d found with Kellan when his lies are exposed and reality rears its ugly head?

I’m glad you had your characters raise some of the questions that I had about this story. When Kellan is amazed that Beith is willing to leave the airport with him without even asking for any id from him, I was nodding my head. I could understand that Beith wanted to conquer some demons by climbing on the Harley for what she thought was going to be a short ride. I was amazed at her stamina, given her severe injuries, for the night after she spent all day being jounced around on it. From your dedication, I can see that you do know what you’re talking about in regard to those injuries. I like that Beith and Kellan take time to sort out their feelings for each other and neither rushes things to a HEA. I also think I agree with Beith about spending any time under that dolman pictured on the cover. Even Hag spit has to wear down after a few millennium! I do have one question though. I never was quite sure if the Hag actually wanted Kellan or just the sexual energy the two produced. B

~Jayne

These stories can be bought as one print anthology or individual ebooks at Samhain

REVIEW: Novellas by Jennifer Mueller

Jayne — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 09:00:24 +0000

Dear Ms. Mueller,

My decision to buy some of your novellas was a good choice. Whether writing hot contemporaries or period detailed historicals, I’ve enjoyed all the ones I’ve read so far. In “A Little Roman Scandal” a heroine with a backbone of steel meets the hero to appreciate her intelligence and join with her to thwart the demeaning actions of her villainous father.

The Renaissance heroine of “Behind the Mask” decides to turn the tables on the bridegroom who’s neglected her.

A Boston schoolteacher in Ireland for a 2 week course in Gaelic discovers there’s more than Irish charm in the saucy barmaid who corrects his pronunciation in “Angel of Ballyferriter.”

And when a woman’s fiance leaves her right before their luxurious cruise around Tahiti, she doesn’t waste any time in filling his empty berth with a hot native dancer from the “Finest Island in the World.”

A British spy who reminds me a lot of Sidney Reilly discovers that he can’t complete his mission to WWI Istanbul without the help of “The Dancer’s Secret.” You write with humor, intensity and eroticism and I’m looking forward to more escapes to the past and present from you.

~Jayne

REVIEW: Dangerous Temptation by Kathleen Korbel

Jane — Fri, 10 Nov 2006 09:00:33 +0000

Apparently this is the conclusion of the Kendall series started in the 90s(?). I haven’t read that series but I understand that there is some who have great affection for this family. To some extent, I felt that this book was written for them because I lacked any real connection to ~~Zach~~ Zeke which inhibited my ability to stay interested in what happened next. I wanted to like this story because it was a different type of paranormal. The fantasy theme: a fight of between the faerie clans was also appealing. Unfortunately, too little time was spent on the faerie politics and too much spent on describing the fantastical scenery.

~~Zach~~ Zeke Kendall is an anthropologist who studies Northern American indigenous societies. At the invitation of a colleague, ~~Zach~~ Zeke is looking at burial and rituals of the migratory cultures of the eastern hemisphere, specifically, Ireland. ~~Zach~~ Zeke, while looking at burial grounds in Ireland, falls down a cairn and like Alice, awakens in a new and strange world. Nuala, heir to the throne of Mab, is there to catch him. Faith, for sure, because she has been looking after him since he was a wee thought in the heart of his mother. Sure, and wouldn’t the magic of that story and the uniqueness of the fantasy setting excite me?

I guess not. While you did a great job of describing the setting providing a rich and atmospheric environment, there was little time spent making me appreciate ~~Zach~~ Zeke as a character or Nuala as a character or their connection. Perhaps it was the constraint of category length but the first 40-50 pages were just descriptions. At times, I felt like I was reading a travelogue and not a novel.

The entirety of the story was too predictable. The villian was immediately revealed. It was also apparent how the villian would attempt to ensnare ~~Zach~~ Zeke. The good and bad characters were drawn with broad and obvious strokes. The villian wanted power. Good, kind, heroic Nuala did not want power. The villian used sexuality as a tool. Nuala would nevuh! do something like that. The resolution to the conflict was broadcasted from the beginning and lacked tension.

~~Zach~~ Zeke is set three tests that he must overcome in order to win his freedom from Faerie land and possibly win Nuala. There was never any doubt to the outcome and two of the three tests were redundant and despite your attempts at making me feel that he was in danger, I never really believed it.
There was an emotional ending, but because I hadn’t connected with the characters I didn’t feel invested in the outcome. I never felt that Calgon moment. C.

Best regards

Jane

REVIEW: Various Short Stories by Jennifer Mueller

Jayne — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 22:00:21 +0000

Dear Mrs. Mueller,

After I enjoyed your short story “Till Death Do Us Part,” I knew I had to try some more of your work. The problem still is that a lot of them are very highly priced. So when I noticed you have ~~some freebies~~ at your website, I was very happy. I love freebies!

All of these stories are short (range 21-32 kb) and all use different locations and eras from Roman Britain to Dark Ages Ireland, 17th century Bermuda to the Western prairie. I’m coming to expect strong women in your works and am delighted with these four. They look life in the face and stand up for themselves. All have faced various hardships and tragedies and managed to not only survive but to triumph. Only one of these might be considered a romance but all are filled with evocative descriptions and interesting characters. I do have to mention that I wish the editing was a little stronger.

A New Beginning – Western
Warrior – Roman Britain
Absolution – Dark Ages Ireland
Black Angel – 17th century Bermuda

These stories convinced me to lay out some hard cash for your books at various publishers (and wow, your books are spread out over hell and half of Georgia to different publishers) and I’m looking forward to them.

~Jayne