JOINT REVIEW: Sapphire Flames by Ilona Andrews
B Reviews / B+ Reviews / Recommended Readsfamilies / Hidden Legacy / joint review / magical powers / private investigators / romantic-elements / Texas / UF / Urban-Fantasy35 Comments
Janine: Wherein Sirius and I discuss the latest Hidden Legacy novel. Let’s jump right.
In a world where magic is the key to power and wealth, Catalina Baylor is a Prime, the highest rank of magic user, and the Head of her House. Catalina has always been afraid to use her unique powers, but when her friend’s mother and sister are murdered, Catalina risks her reputation and safety to unravel the mystery.
But behind the scenes powerful forces are at work, and one of them is Alessandro Sagredo, the Italian Prime who was once Catalina’s teenage crush. Dangerous and unpredictable, Alessandro’s true motives are unclear, but he’s drawn to Catalina like a moth to a flame.
To help her friend, Catalina must test the limits of her extraordinary powers, but doing so may cost her both her House–and her heart.
Janine: Catalina is a departure from Andrews’s heroines (at least the ones from the books I’ve read), in that she does not come across as toughened or as someone who even wants to toughen up. Yet there is a lot of courage there. I felt her vulnerability more, but her fears made her seem all the braver when she fought to overcome them. What did you think of her?
Sirius: I loved Catalina. As much as I enjoyed most of their tough as nail heroines. I appreciated so very much how much mental work Catalina had to do in order to present a facade of herself that will make other Primes from the hostile and not hostile houses respect her. I wondered after reading Diamond Fire what kind of further changes Catalina will undergo in the next book and I really liked what I saw.
I actually thought that she was a better Head of the House than Nevada. No, scratch that – not better necessarily, because Nevada clearly did a bang-up job saving them all, but more suitable because she understood that she could not do everything herself and delegated and more importantly stuck by her decision to delegate important tasks and not micromanage.
Janine: That’s a great point, that she makes a better team leader than Nevada, even with all her self-doubts. I really liked her too.
Sirius: For me, her self- doubts really work. I am not saying that I want to read about heroine who hesitates every time she needs to make an important decision, especially if that decision leads to life or death situation , but Catalina doubts herself before she makes the decision and when she determined that she needs to do something – kill people, or fire people or whatever for the good of the people she protects she is all in in my opinion. I guess I like when person hesitates before deciding to do some killing even if it is completely in self-defense and in the fictional realm so very justified.
Janine: Yes! I think that little internal conflict before a big decision is a lot of what makes for interesting characters in fiction.
Sirius: Let’s talk about “Smoochie Poo.” What did you think about Alessandro’s reintroduction? Did you find connection that Catalina still felt to him believable?
Janine: I thought he was retconned a bit–he didn’t seem like the same person he was in the earlier books. But I mostly bought their connection.
Sirius: Considering that we saw very little of him in the past books I actually was ready to buy that we only saw one facet of his personality and here we discovered fuller picture (although of course still not a complete one IMO).
Janine: Hmm. I agree up to a point. I liked the filling out of the picture to a certain degree but the scene in Wildfire where he showed up under her window and pleaded with her to take a ride with him was out of character to the way he was portrayed here.
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One thing I really appreciate in these authors’ books is that there’s always more to the romance than *just* sexual attraction. I liked the way Catalina and Alessandro complemented one another—he is a touch reckless where she is careful, he is used to taking lives where it’s a really big deal to her. She makes a home wherever she is, and he doesn’t have one. And of course, they have fighting the bad guys in common. How did you feel about their relationship?
Sirius: I agree with you about their connection *in this book* and how well they complemented each other *in this book.*
What bothered me a little bit (not much but enough to note that) is why Catalina would still remember him and long for him that much. I mean the authors did say several times that she built a fantasy in her head, but the real guy turned out to be much more fascinating person than she thought, right? I suppose I feel a little disconnect between “she thought he was just a pretty face. Okay a very pretty face” and “that was a beginning of a true love.” Does that make sense?
Janine: Yes, it makes perfect sense. And I agree with you. It didn’t really fit in with Catalina’s personality that for three years she would carry a torch for a man who was gorgeous but who seemed to be shallow.
Let’s talk a bit more about Alessandro. He’s got this facade that Catalina dubs “Instagram Alessandro,” someone who loves to pose and preen. But there’s another story under that surface that we slowly begin to get to know. How did you like him compared to heroes like Rogan and Curran, who are more straightforward, where what you see is what you get?
Sirius: See I don’t know yet. I mean considering that he is Catalina’s love interest I think it is a pretty safe bet that he is not a bad guy at all, but I still think we know too little about him to figure out what he is hiding.
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I think right now I am mostly intrigued by him. Oh, and his magic is very cool. Whatever we are allowed to see of that mysterious Antistasi magic.
Janine:
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His magic was the coolest of all the magics introduced in this book. I wanted to know if the Antistasi power (trying to be vague here) applied strictly to what he used it on, or to other stuff too.
But I also feel that I don’t know him well enough yet. Intellectually I know he is a good person, but his persona is slick enough that it’s hard for me to fully trust him. Maybe for that reason I was less invested in this romance than I was in Nevada and Rogan’s by the end of book one. You?
Sirius: Not sure yet if I think his magic was the coolest for me but certainly one of the best. Oh, definitely I want to know everything he can do and I don’t think we saw all of his skills yet.
Considering that I had very little investment in Nevada and Rogan at the end of book one, it is not a high barrier for me to overcome :). I guess I don’t think we saw everything about Rogan initially either. I thought he was an ass basically. But yeah as much as I think we don’t know lots about Alessandro yet I like him better with Catalina than I liked Rogan with Nevada at the end of book one.
Janine: I thought Rogan and Nevada’s chemistry was off the charts, and that was very exciting and sexy. Alessandro and Catalina feel quieter to me. So while I like Alessandro as a person a bit better than I did Rogan or Curran (who I thought was too much “Me Tarzan, you Jane”) at this early stage, I’m not as invested in this relationship as I was in Nevada’s with Rogan.
Any thoughts on the pacing? I’m asking because I wondered if Catalina and Alessandro’s relationship was maybe moving a touch too fast for a relationship with a three-book arc.
More generally, the book was a little less frenetic than in the earlier ones, with more quiet down time, and that suited Catalina’s personality. This book was a little less entertaining for me as a result, though still very enjoyable. How did you feel about it?
Sirius: Just to clarify, I liked Rogan way better after the second book when we learned more about his motivations (and Curran will always be my favorite Andrews’ male lead), but not after the first book.
I liked that this book let me take a breath at times and as you said it suited Catalina’s personality.
As to whether the relationship is moving too fast? I guess we are supposed to think that ending slows it down? Otherwise yeah I am not seeing what internal conflicts they may have to overcome in order to be together.
What did you think about mystery/suspense storyline?
Janine: The mystery itself was not all that suspenseful to me–all the arrows pointed to the head bad guy early on, so it was not a question of who was behind it or why.
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But with regard to the main storyline here, I thought the action scenes were exciting and I really liked the way Catalina was thrust into the political structure of this world–I think that could lead to some great stuff in the next book. So basically, there was a lot of good setup here. What did you think of it?
Sirius: I agree with your assessment – that mystery was not very mysterious and I enjoyed action scenes in this book, but also for some reason the subject of the mystery so to speak was a bit disappointing to me. I don’t know why exactly – it all made sense and fit within the story and obviously was very related to the world of Primes. I just didn’t care for what they uncovered if that makes sense. OH I know. I think because it reminded me too much about certain plot turn in some comics.
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Janine: I agree re. comics. Also, it didn’t feel like a big story, if that makes sense.
Several characters from previous books were absent or mostly absent from this book. Of course, Rogan and Nevada had to be far away so that Catalina could spread her wings (an unintended but horrible pun). But I also missed Cornelius, Matilda, Sergeant Teddy and Zeus. They were all there, but only in tiny doses. Even Arabella was more talked about than involved in the story. The book might have been too cluttered if they had all been involved but I missed them! They bring a lot of humor to the books and I thought there was a little less humor in this one than in the Nevada books. Who did you miss most?
Sirius: I missed Cornelius for sure – I like him a lot and enjoy characters like him but I do think it is a constant issue for them (although not really a bad thing to me). They create so many likable secondary characters that I want to get to know all of them but as you said the book might have become cluttered.
Janine: Cornelius was the one I missed the most too. On the upside we see a lot more of Runa Etterson and meet her brother, Ragnar. What did you think of them and of their storyline?
Sirius: I really liked Runa from her tiny appearance in the previous books. I thought she was very believable here dealing with the horrible circumstances thrust upon her and her brother. I also hope her friendship with Catalina was not just a plot device and will continue in the next books. Ragnar was a teenager hurt beyond all measure but we could see the glimpses of formidable prime he could become later on.
Janine: That’s a great description of Runa and Ragnar. I liked them but they were (understandably) more serious and they gave this book a more serious, less humorous tone. I didn’t buy that they would have been so weak without the help of the Baylors; anyone who can poison others to death from a distance in minutes is a force to be reckoned with. But like you, I’m hoping the Catalina / Runa friendship continues to develop.
Three years have passed since the last time we visited with House Baylor and company. How do you feel the characters have grown or changed? Is there anyone you find less or more interesting now than before?
Sirius: My favorite characters after the first book of the previous trilogy were not Nevada and Rogan but her family members. I loved that the writers let her with the support system and older female family members were alive to provide it too not just her sisters and cousins. I appreciate that her mom was given a chance to make and fix her own mistake not just give support to her daughters.
I thought Bern and Leon remained very static although maybe they will be given their own books and writers don’t want to reveal their full potential earlier than necessary. What about you?
Janine: I agree that Nevada’s support system was one of the best things in the earlier books although I loved Nevada to bits, too. We’re on the same page about Penelope, too—but I was annoyed with her storyline. Abarca’s bad security seemed contrived. I thought Penelope would be too smart to allow that to go on for so long given the dangers and the Baylors’ need to project a strong image.
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Bern didn’t change at all but I’m wondering if
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Leon was much less interesting to me in this book. Part of it was that he had a storyline before (the question of whether he had a magical ability) and now he doesn’t. Another part of it was that what is fascinating in a kid can be less interesting in an adult.
Two characters are forces to be reckoned with, Victoria Tremaine and Linus Duncan. What did you think of their roles here?
Sirius: I like Linus.
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Janine: I loved Linus’s scary power and position, as well as his moral ambiguity. I think I’ve figured out what may be a huge spoiler about him (a different one from the one you just mentioned) that will be revealed in future books. I can’t wait to see how it all unfolds.
Sirius: I don’t like Victoria at all. Clearly most Primes care about their Houses and stuff a lot but we see that a lot of families really love their children. Certainly, Runa’s mom was trying her best and House pride or not, Rogan’s mother seemed to really love him. I don’t see that Victoria loves her granddaughters for themselves as opposed to their blood at all.
Janine: I really like Victoria. I don’t need to like a fictional character the same way I would like a person in real life to enjoy them, and with villains that is all the more the case. What I appreciate most about Victoria is that she comes across as complicated. She doesn’t seem to love her granddaughters, I agree, but she is a delicious villain.
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One of the questions I sometimes like to ask myself when I read a book is whether the story could take place in a different setting, or if it could only happen in this time and place. Here the world and the story are completely integrated. I also find the world and the politics of the Houses really interesting even four books and one novella in. You?
Sirius: Not :) I mean I don’t usually ask myself that question. I care very much about the world building especially in SFF books but I am not particularly concerned with whether the same story can unfold in another time and place.
Janine: I’d argue that if the world building is really strong, then the story is integrated into it.
Sirius: I thought politics in the earlier books signaled a little bit different direction than where I think the story will go. We shall see.
Janine: I’m interested in
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Sirius: What is your grade Janine? I am between B and B+. Closer to B+
Janine: It’s a B+ for me.
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@Janine, I wonder if we are on the same page about Linus and your mention of the possibility of a huge spoiler in regards to him. The Gordons do an excellent job of sprinkling in small clues that can be easily overlooked. The revelation about Linus’s “true calling” (trying not to be spoilerish here because while I don’t mind them, I know others get teeth-gnashy) was a 180 from my suppositions at the ends of WILDFIRE and DIAMOND FIRE.* I’m looking forward to the rest of this series. While I’d love for Bern and Leon to get their own trilogies, I suspect they will get novellas and after Catalina’s arc, Arabella will likely get hers. I have thoughts on the Penelope/Abarca situation that stem from my knowledge of PTSD and military life. I want everyone to read this book so I can speak freely. Anyway, great review. I enjoyed the discussion between you and @Sirius.
*See previous comment about small clues
Great review! I read finished reading this Tuesday night and have been re-reading it since I know I missed some elements. I’m still very interested on how House Baylor will move forward now that the probation period is over.
I’m really enjoying how all the characters have changed and not remained static from the first trilogy. Made me have to rethink some assumptions. Now, to impatiently wait for the next intall.
I was struck by what happened to put Catalina in charge of House Baylor. I feel there is still a lot to be mined there as well as the whole backstory with Alessandro.
I liked this book a lot as a set-up for the next two novels in the trilogy. I also think I may need to re-read the original Nevada-Rogan trilogy to remind myself of some things (like, I forgot who Linus Duncan was).
Silver James thank you now I wonder about other huge spoiler both you and Janine appear to suspect about Linus ( I didn’t discuss this part with Janine :)).
Wendy it was definitely unexpected for me to see what happened to put Catalina in charge . I was imagining simply that Nevada got married and for that reason joined House Rogan before I started the book but I thought it was well thought out and made sense .
MarieC thank you I hear you about rereading . Before working on the review with Janine I read it twice and still wonder if I missed stuff .
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@Silver James @Sirius: Okay, I’m going to post my Linus theory in a hidden spoiler, but please everyone, keep in mind that if I’m on the right track, it is truly a whale of a spoiler and will have reverberations for all future books. And it could really spoil future books for anyone who likes big surprises.
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I was testing the spoiler hiding thing before, but now the spoiler theory is posted above.
Silver, is this the same as your speculation?
@Silver James: I would love to hear your thoughts about the PTSD thing. If you email me, I’ll show you how to hide the spoiler. My email is janineballard at gmail dot com.
@Wendy: We are on the same page regarding the setups. Although the solution to the romance conflict is, as Sirius said, obvious so there needs to be more to keep Alessandro and Catalina apart in future books.
Linus Duncan is the scary friend of the Baylor family whose house Catalina and Alessandro visited in this book. He was heavily involved in the second half.
@MarieC: Thank you! :)
@Sirius: I’m curious, did you feel that way about Curran after book one of the Kate Daniels series? I didn’t start liking him until the second half of book three.
@Janine: I LOVE it. Would love for your spoiler to be true.
@Janine: Considering that I started reading the series from book three – no not really :). I really loved Curran in book three and when I read first and second I kinda agreed with authors that those were weaker books. I never reread them and I reread others in the series except the one where Curran and Kate went stupid many times.
@Janine – I had a similar thought to your Linus theory above although I haven’t figured out how that might work in regards to what Nevada was told happened in Wildfire
Something I haven’t seen mentioned anyway in relation to the deal Catalina made at the end is the comment that Alessandro’s ex-fiancé made at the gala. To me that was one of the little clues IA drops in and it made me wonder about his house and the rest of what we don’t know about him. (So hard to speculate without spoilers! Lol)
@Sirius: I love it too. I’m pretty convinced of it, due to item #2.
@Sirius: LOL. That explains a lot!
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@Heather Greye: You can email me too (email posted above), and I’ll tell you how to hide a spoiler.
Re. Wildfire, here are my thoughts:
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I agree with the Janine’s Linus spoiler. I immediate thought something similar because of the way the scene was written.
I hope we get a few more dribs and drabs of events that happened in the three year gap.
I am glad Catalina was so much at the forefront, I really liked how her character was conceptualized and how different he vibe of this book is from Nevada’s trilogy. The ‘voice’ is perfect.
I think Alessandro’s power is pretty cool. And I find him really intriguing. Can’t wait to find out his secrets. And Honestly, I would be happy if I never saw Victoria again. She is no Roland.
Finally, one thing that immediately stood out to me as I was reading this book, is that whenever Catalina met a new person and she described that person she would include the skin color of the person even if the person was white. The reason this jumped out is because is most books, when a character is white, it is presumed to be the default ethnicity and that skin color as a descriptor is absent. Typically only skin color is present when the person being described is if it is a person of color. The presence of it in this book is so notable because of its absence in most books. The only other author who routinely does this is Ben Aaronovitch in his Peter Grant series. But that makes sense because Peter is a POC and he’d view the world through a different lens.
@Tina: Regarding the gap, yes.
Re Victoria, my feeling is that we don’t know her well enough to say she’s no Roland definitively. I think there may be more to her story than we know.
Good point re. Aaronovitch. I may be wrong, but I think Nalini Singh does this too. I have a friend who feels very strongly that using white as the default others POC (regardless of the ethnicity of the main character). I can totally see her viewpoint.
@Tina: I agree about Victoria. Janine I also wanted to clarify that even though I indeed meant that I didn’t like her “as person”, I didn’t like her as a character either. But I see your point that she may show hidden depths in the future books. Oh I know – I would love to hate her, but so far not even close for me.
@Tina: Aah, I noticed that too and I really like it. I was thinking about the Peter Grant series as I read your comment and I was going to mention them. But you were on it. : )
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@Janine: Thanks for the refresh. I’m nowhere near my copies right now. I did think that look was significant and implied something like your theory. Can’t wait to see what happens.
So here’s my speculation:
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@Heather Greye: My thoughts on that:
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@Sirius: Ah, I see. I apologize for mischaracterizing your thoughts on Victoria. In general, I think the authors’ villains have gotten better than they used to be.
I remember when I read On the Edge (I know you didn’t like it but I did), the biggest flaw in that book for me was that villain. He was just a one-note villain and didn’t even have a history that would make his villainy more understandable. And the villain in Magic Bites was similarly flat. Then when Spider came along in Bayou Moon, I felt he had more dimension and was a big leap above the On the Edge villain (see I don’t even remember that guy’s name, just that he was related to Declan!). And when I got far enough in the KD series to read Magic Rises (#6) where Hugh was still a villain and where we first really get to know him and hear his story in his own words (I think Magic Rises came out after Bayou Moon), he was a huge leap above Spider. And. When Roland shows up in book #8 of KD and has that dinner at Applebee’s with Kate, Curran and Julie, that was still yet another leap.
So this is why I’m hoping there will turn out to be more to Victoria. I could be wrong, though.
BTW, I meant to say earlier that I’m opposite of you when it comes to Curran. He will never be my favorite Andrews hero and it’s probably because I read Magic Bites first. It shows how much first impressions matter, in fiction as in life.
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@Janine: I thought about taking it at face value but
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@Heather Greye: That’s very possible.
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Regards first impressions of Curran: I have to agree a bit with Janine in that at first I did not like Curran. The Romance reader in me really just had a knee jerk reaction against Curran. But the SF and UF reader in me who understood the world the authors was building and the code the shifters lived under and how they crafted the background and culture of the shifters, I completely understood where Curran was coming from. He correctly assessed Kate as a threat and treated her accordingly. In the end I think I respect him a bit more because of it. One of my romance pet peeves is when hormones overcoming common sense or danger instinct. It did take me a couple of re-reads of the series to get there, but I finally did. Once it was clear there was romance a-happening, Curran does a couple bonehead things, but overall I think he is also my favorite of the the IA heroes.
Regards first impressions of Alessandro: I listened to Wildfire and the novella Diamond Fire on audio. The Narrator of the books did Alessandro no favors. She gave him this terrible Mario & Luigi Italian accent that bordered on the insulting. So I pretty much welcomed the characterization of of him in this book as this sleek, enigmatic spy/assassin. His first intro to me was tainted so I kinda disregarded it.
@Tina: I don’t think it was Curran’s treatment of Kate as a threat that made me dislike him. Rather, that I didn’t respect his decision or decisions (I can’t remember the details), and I felt similarly about Kate. I only wrote a mini-review of the book and since it was short, I didn’t go into the details there either. Now I wish I had! TBH, I have forgotten most of the book and what I mainly recall is that it was a slog to finish. FWIW, my mini review can be found here:
https://dearauthor.com/misc/reading-lists/what-janine-is-reading-june-2012/
@Tina: “…Mario & Luigi Italian accent that bordered on the insulting. Nearly fell over laughing with that comment.
And that’s why I have a hard time with audiobooks…
Just finished reading the book, and overall I liked it. I had a hard time understanding and articulating why the romantic aspect of the Cathalina and Alexandro did not seat well with me, something was bothering me. Your review put in perspective. Nevada and Rogan chemestry was off the charts and it was easy to believe and root for them. Not so with C&A, for me their romantic relationship felt a little off.
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Regarding your theory, I thought exactly the same thing, but it does not feel exactly right. Maybe it’s a close relative like an uncle (don’t want to spoil ). He does not seem like a type who would take money for that kind of services that Victoria required but he might be a relative of a person who did take the money.
[email protected]Janine: I am curious about his sister too !
@Sirius: I’m also curious about who they’ll pair Arabella with. Will it be someone as fun-loving as she is, or someone more serious, whose life she will shake up?
Chiming in to say I have the same theory about Linus as you do Janine.
Ohhhh. I love this! Thanks for sharing; especially about the speculations around Linus.
Without knowing how to make a “spoiler warning”, I just wanted to keep my input a little vague, but it relates to the Linus theory and I’ll pause a bit here if you don’t want to read it… SPECULATION SPOILER WARNING!!!!!!
… To continue the thread of the quote someone posted from Wildfire, in the scene where Nevada had contacted Linus cus she wasn’t sure how to deal with her grandmother after the hospital-Madero attack: Linus goes on to express his own experience of being in love with a woman where their relationship was similar to the natural power struggle between Nevada and Connor and their Houses. One of them is an emerging house, but you have their best interests at heart, and yet they’re vulnerable. You want to …”lock you in a windowless room, and stand guard… I sympathize. I once had to go through a similar thing… It was a uniquely frustrating experience. It gave me grey hair. See?”
Just an additional +1 for this theory! Nothing really to add, but I didn’t connect all this before, but it’s an interesting speculation!
@Jo: I didn’t connect all of this either, but I think it is very plausible now when Janine and other readers connected the dots for me :).
@Jo: You’re welcome! This discussion was so much fun and I enjoyed reading everyone’s theories. I love your quote.. It makes everything so much more interesting, doesn’t it?
@Janine:
I hope it’s someone fun-loving. I adore Ilona’s books, but I have to say I was a (bit) disappointed that Alessandro wasn’t just a handsome, rich, slightly spoiled playboy who would grow into someone more over the course of the books as he helps guide Catalina through the dangers of being part of a house. I think my expectations of him sort of tainted a portion of my reading as I found this character very outside of who I was expecting.
Also, I agree with your theory about Linus. That was my first thought when Alessandro did the double-take.
@J: Fun-loving would be great but I can see either one working, if the guy is intense and focused on a goal, the way both Rogan and Alessandro are.
You know, I never thought about that type of plot for Alessandro but it would have been great! I’m glad to find someone who agrees that he was retconned. I am not a fan of retconning because it can be jarring to readers.
@J: It just occurred to me to add that Arabella would make a great screwball comedy heroine.
A lot of readers had that Linus theory! Let’s hope we are all right.