Dear Author » lost heir

REVIEW: The Notorious Scoundrel by Alexandra Benedict

Jane — Wed, 12 May 2010 20:00:36 +0000

Note: I am so sorry for this posting and the not posting. I have a problem of prescheduling and then not paying attention to what is prescheduled.

Dear Ms. Benedict:

This is my first book of yours and while I liked that the characters were from the non landed class, I felt like you didn’t take advantage of the potential for an original setting. Instead the characters looked and sounded as if they were part of the ton, perhaps to evoke a sensibility in the reader unnecessarily.

Edmund Hawkins is the middle brother of the infamous Hawkins brothers. Their sister married the “Duke of Rogues” and so the Hawkins brothers are tangentially part of society. As Edmund describes it, “The haunte monde wasn’t interested in befriending the Hawkins brothers. The haute monde was interested in drawing the brothers out of their gilded cage, gawking at them, gossiping about them behind their backs.”

One bored night, Edmund goes to what is described to him as “the most wicked” whorehouse in London where he is entranced by a veiled dancer. The veiled dancer is Amy Peel. Amy, the heroine, provides one of the most contradictory form in the book.

Let’s examine Amy. Amy is an erotic dancer but she is a virgin and her employer ,”Her Highness, Queen Rafaramanjaka” wants to keep Amy a virgin. Yes, the purported former monarch from Madagascar runs the most wicked whorehouse in London but Amy is just hired to stir up the fires in the groin, not put them out.

How Amy kept her virginity, having lived in the slums for ten years (age six to sixteen) prior to being found by Queen Rafaramanjaka, is unknown and unexplained. Amy has a mysterious past. She was not slum born. The origins of her birth unexplained. Yet, Amy who grew up in the streets, flash houses, and rookeries speaks with the diction of the well educated. In an early exchange with Edmund who she believes to, Amy says “An educated thief. I’m impressed.” Her monologues match those of a learned individual (this is particularly noticeable given that Amy can’t read).

She looked back at Quincy. A good thing he was a gossip, for she'd learn little about their unique family dynamic from the surly Edmund. For instance, she'd discovered there was a significant age difference between the brothers, stemming from the fact that their father had been away at sea for more than a decade, pressed into naval service. Upon his return, the family had expanded, and so had their maritime ventures with the acquisition of the Bonny Meg , their ancestral ship.

Amy also is supposedly saving every penny she can to get away from her wretched life under Queen Rafaramanjaka. She plans to save enough money to live out the rest of her life in comfort. Yet she buys gilt hand mirrors, perfumes, damask window treatments, a croquet set, brass candlestick holders, and boxes and boxes of gloves.

I understand that you were trying to show us that Amy was a misfit and allude to some mystery of Amy’s past life, but not only was it heavy handed but it wasn’t consistent with the way in which she purportedly lived her life. It sounded like she was a spendthrift.

Edmund saves Amy from a kidnapping attempt, suffers amnesia and Amy houses him for his safety. Edmund chafes at Amy’s chosen profession. Rails at her choice and urges her to quit (and do what, Edmund?). Conveniently Edmund recovers from amnesia and whisks Amy off to his home, hoping to train her to become a lady’s maid or companion. Edmund is convinced that no one will discover her because no one pays attention to his home (but see infra the reference regarding how the haute monde likes to gossip about the Hawkins brothers? Who cares about internal consistency when forwarding the plot, right?)

Edmund has to fight for the right to house Amy when his older brother tries to suggest that it isn’t appropriate. Edmund doesn’t want to let Amy out of his sight and his brother, Quincy, addicted to opium, needs help as well. Edmund feels like he is always being treated as a child by his older brother and wants to prove that he isn’t the derelict bounder that he has been labeled.

When the true origins of Amy’s past are discovered, Edmund is beset with new insecurities while Amy tries to be happy with the life she thought she always wanted.

I felt like we had one trite storyline after another. First, the rags to riches portrayal of Amy. Then, the amnesia plotline followed by the Henry Higgins/Eliza Doolittle storyline. It is capped off by the lost heir, the unwanted forced marriage and the convenient virgin. The ending was a surprise though.

I did appreciate that Edmund and his brothers didn’t totally have a lovefest but that Edmund strained against his place as the middle and irrresponsible child. Amy was a fairly weak character and the romance between the two was flat. C-

Best regards,

Jane

This is a mass market published by Avon, a member of the Agency 5. Pricing is set by Avon for the digital books.

REVIEW: An Uncommon Whore by Belinda McBride

SarahF — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 23:12:03 +0000

Dear Ms. McBride.

The excerpt of this book on Loose Id really intrigued me. I liked the writing, I even liked the space opera set up. I was excited to read it. But the book itself is a book of missed opportunities. As I read it, all I could see was the idea struggling desperately but fruitlessly under the execution and that made me sad.

Pasha is a slave who can’t remember anything of his life and is alternately content as a slave and whore but also constantly trying to escape, to what he knows not. His reptilian owner (literally, not metaphorically) takes him to a space port to pimp him out and he sees a man he knows he has to connect with. Pasha’s owner plays cards with him while Pasha gives him a blowjob, and the man wins Pasha’s services for a night. The man, Griffin, reveals that Pasha is actually Helios Dayspring, the priest king of their displaced and war-ravaged people. Griffin, of course, has been looking for Helios for five years, ever since their people were exiled from their planet and Helios went missing. Now that Griffin has found Helios — and of course they are former lovers, too, and immediately restart that relationship — they do a little roaming around the galaxy for various reasons, including finding a way for Helios to get his memory back from under the control of the implanted slave microchip in his brain. They eventually make their way back to their new planet, where Helios takes his rightful place as king.

The plot is fine. The plot is all there. The plot is a little naive when it comes to interplanetary politics and the probable actions of vast mining corporations. The new planet on which Helios and Griffin’s people settled has vast resources of a crystal that can power cities. I find it very difficult to believe that this wouldn’t have been noted when the planet was first discovered. I also find it very difficult to believe that once this IS discovered by the rest of the galaxy, that the pastoral, idyllic vision of the future at the end of the book is at all believable. But the plot is…solid, with a few tweaks.

And the characters are great. Helios and Griffin have to get to know each other again, and have to negotiate the power dynamics of their relationship together. Helios has been changed by his slavery, but he also knows that he can survive pretty much anything. He knows that there is power in submitting (although this book is NOT a BDSM book at all), and power in companionship and he brings his new understandings to his new relationship with Griffin. I do NOT like, as I never do, that their exchange of “I love you” comes early, leaving little emotional conflict for the rest of the book, but their relationship dynamics are still interesting and well-thought-out.

In fact, everything’s well thought-out. It’s the execution that…is just boring, ordinary, meh. The idea is amazing! OMG, so interesting and brimming with possibilities. You could say incredible things about issues of slavery and power and companionship and loyalty. You could delve deeply into the minds of these men. They’ve suffered some truly awful things and have come out stronger and better and more realistic. But the execution is…throwing words on the page to tell the bare bones of the story. This book should be about 400 pages. Instead, it’s 122. This book should be an epic space opera with huge responsibilities. Instead it’s an erotic romance with a nifty premise. You could even KEEP the erotic stuff in. In fact, the erotic aspect of the story is perfect and integral to the plot and it would be a deep disservice to the story to get rid of it. But….oh, it’s like you’ve got this phantasmagorical image of a beautiful woman. It sparkles and shines in its beauty and depth and complexity, but it’s completely see-through, just air and dreams. And in front of you, all that is “real” of the woman’s beauty is a skull, bare bones and foundation, with no indication of the true beauty of the woman except for a haunting melancholy of loss and regret. That’s what I feel when I read this story, because it could be so brilliant but really, your writing is just not up to the task.

I love these characters. I love this idea and the possibilities of their story. But I’m so disappointed with this book.

Grade: C-

Best regards,
-Joan/Sarah F.

This book can be purchased at Loose Id.

REVIEW: Wild by Margo Maguire

Jane — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 10:00:20 +0000

Dear Ms. Maguire:

I’ve been meaning to read you for a year or so but I haven’t gotten around to it until recently. This book intrigued me, though, and I thought it was the perfect place to start.

When Anthony Maddox was 10 years old, he was lost on an African Safari. His father searched but could not find him, eventually going home and dying within a year of his return. Anthony’s grandmother kept up the search by offering a large reward. Twenty-two years later, while he was sick, two adventurers came upon him in a valley several hundred miles inland. The story of Anthony’s loss in Africa was legendary and coming upon a white man in this territory made the adventurers think of his story. They questioned him and are provided enough information to believe that he is the genuine lost heir.

In some sense, this was a captivity romance, but only in reverse. Anthony is captured and taken back to England where he is to learn to act, speak and comport himself as a gentleman worthy of the title, Earl of Sutton. If he cannot convince the House of Lords that he is Anthony, then the title will be stripped and likely given to someone else.

The problem is that Anthony’s emotional arc begins with him narrating his love for Africa but the path back to Africa seems easy enough.

But he had become part of Africa, and it was surely part of him in a way that England could never be. He belonged in his tropical valley, with its tribal people and fresh game, with its flowing waters and open sky.

When questioned about his past, he gives accurate answers. If he truly wants to return to Africa, why doesn’t he just lie about it. If they believe he’s an imposter, he’ll get a ticket back to his tropical valley. But the story needs Anthony in Africa so he ponies up all the right details to make others believe in him.

I felt like I was always questioning whether it was authentic. For example, Anthony speaks perfect English. I suppose that the excuse was that Anthony had a Bible left by the missionaries that he carried with him at all times and that he lived in England until the age of 10. I wasn’t necessarily convinced, particularly when you go to the trouble to insert the occasional African phrase here or there. (was that even his tribe’s dialect?). To a degree, the African insertions reminded me alot of the faux Scottish accents that characters are given via the usage of dinnae, cannae, and kin. This passage took place the day after his landing in England:

“You cannot imagine the violence of the downpour and the resulting mayhem on the boat. In the chaos, I-” Grace saw the flexing of a muscle in his jaw as he hesitated. “- I fell overboard.”

At another juncture, Anthony’s courtship/seduction of Grace is interrupted by another suitor and Anthony thinks to “throttle him.” His “barbarism is based on physicalities. He doesn’t wear shoes and he often acts on his lustful impulses toward Grace.

Grace Hawthorne is the companion to Anthony’s grandmother, Lady Sophia Sutton. She owes a great deal to Lady Sutton and therefore when Lady Sutton asks Grace to be Anthony’s tutor, Henry Higgins, if you will. The two are pushed into close, secreted quarters as Grace privately tutors Anthony on deportment, political structure, recent history, and the like. Anthony focuses on learning all that he can and defeating the challenge to his ascension to earldom because he has little love for his challenger (but then he really, really is going home to Africa).

Anthony’s real longing for Africa isn’t due to the appeal of his valley, but it is the fear of being abandoned. He has believed for years that his father left him and even when confronted with a differing story, that need to be self sufficient in all things is something that can’t be shaken off like bad manners.

Grace is grateful to Lady Sutton for taking her in. She has no money or position of her own and a lady’s companion to someone as decent as Lady Sutton is much as she can aspire to. She’s been abandoned too, in a sense, by her the deaths of her parents and the desertion of a suitor who couldn’t take Grace and Grace’s ailing mother. She has a certain sense of inferiority that allows herself to be manipulated into the uncomfortable situation with Anthony and then, when she succumbs to Anthony’s seductions, she believes herself to not be worthy to be his mate.

It’s possible that I don’t have enough imagination for this story, that I cannot simply be swept away without questioning this detail and that. Both the character arcs had a nice feel to them, although I thought that Anthony’s near constant physical attraction to Grace a bit overwhelming in this situation. I’m curious to read another book by you to see if I would have the same consistency/believability problems. This one, though, in my notebook is a C.

Best regards,

Jane

This book can be purchased in mass market from Amazon or ebook format from the Sony Store and other etailers (couldn’t find it at the Sony Store).