Elizabeth Hoyt’s The Raven Prince hasn’t been around long enough to be “classic romance,” but give it another ten years and it will be. Miss Bates is jumping the gun, but she’ll stick by this claim. Hoyt’s been in Miss Bates’s “get-to” pile of romance novels for a long time. Silly spinster should have read them ages ago because, if The Raven Prince is typical of Hoyt’s writing, she missed out. She now says with confidence that the reading of The Raven Prince is “the beginning of a beautiful friendship.” This is as wonderful a romance novel as one can get and especially so because it plays with references to Miss Bates’s most beloved romance, Jane Eyre. Continue reading
Category: Review
REVIEW: Colleen Coble’s ROSEMARY COTTAGE For Remembrance
Miss Bates thought Colleen Coble’s Rosemary Cottage an innocuous read. It’s heavy on the mystery, light on the romance and faith. The writing is weak, but the suspense is tense and interesting in places. Because Miss Bates reads for the “romantic” in “romantic suspense,” she didn’t enjoy it all that much and hankered for more emotional intimacy between the hero and heroine. Miss Bates did work up quite a bit of curiosity about the mystery and read through pretty steadily to the end. She’d guessed the culprits, but not the revelatory and quite surprising twist. Coble’s novel kept her interest, but didn’t capture her heart. Continue reading
REVIEW: Jeanette Murray’s THE OFFICER AND THE SECRET: What Happens When Nothing Happens?
Miss Bates thought Jeanette Murray’s The Officer and the Secret (#3 in the Semper Fi series) one of the most peculiarly non-plotted romance novels she’s read in a long time. Less-than-stellar romances tend to too much plot to mask weak characterization, lack of atmosphere, and rehashed themes. In the case of Murray’s Officer/Secret, the bare-plot consists of the everyday details of ordinary people ambling along, going to work, spending time with friends, and eating a lot of pizza and ice cream. Until the 80% mark of Miss Bates’s Kindle, the sheer niceness of it all made for one boring romance novel. Yet, in the final few chapters, she kinda found herself rooting for the hero and heroine and enjoying the book. Does that make up for poor Miss Bates being trapped in an episode of Friends for most of the novel?
Here’s as close to a non-synopsis as Miss Bates will ever get. Recently deployed Marine, Capt. Dwayne (awful name) Robertson returns stateside, is reunited with good friends (Madison, Skye, Jeremy, and Tim who, Miss Bates gathered, starred in books #1 & 2), and re-acquaints himself with Veronica Gibson, one of their friends with whom he’d struck a Skype friendship. Dwayne and Veronica are attracted to each other and start a little dating dance which continues till 80% of the book has elapsed. Um, they hang with friends a lot; they attend Tim and Skye’s “re-commitment” ceremony. They watch movies; they work (she’s a waitress). Um, they do have one date, not sure where they’re going, but Veronica decides she’d rather eat pizza and watch a DVD on Dwayne’s big-screen TV … and here silly Miss Bates thought the romance genre was a female fantasy!
Dwayne is obviously the “officer” in the title; but what of The Big Secret? It’s a tad confusing: is the secret Dwayne’s PTSD? It can’t be because he behaves like a mature adult and immediately tells his best friend and then promptly asks for counseling from the chaplain. Whew! This is great … great that Murray acknowledges the problem and points the way to recovery. One can only hope that all our veterans who suffer thus can experience this kind of resolution. But it doesn’t carry any conflict for the novel. Is the secret Veronica’s? Maybe. She was brought up by indifferent missionary parents, who carted her around the world while they saw to others’ salvation, all the while neglecting her. She never received an education and at 26 has to study for her GED. She is clueless … about pop culture and American slang, but she’s studying and learning so she can be normal! Because globalization hasn’t ensured that American culture permeates even the most remote of regions. Or, as Veronica says, “Coming from living in the jungles or barely populated areas of third world countries didn’t lend itself to modern American social practice. Nobody from the African Zulu tribe was going to ask her to the prom.” Gah. She reads magazines and watches TV and eats ice cream with her friends, Madison and Skye, while learning about pop cultural icons such as Lady Gaga. When we first meet Veronica, she’s dressed in baggy clothes and can’t bear a man’s touch. Miss Bates thought, oh no, sexual abuse, or assault? an eating disorder? … nope, wrong, just hasn’t studied enough fashion magazines.
In this conflict-less romance, Dwayne and Veronica do eventually get it on, though she never tells him she’s a virgin, whereupon we read one of the most idyllic deflowering scenes ever written. (Really, if Woodiwiss could have made that Heather girl enjoy her “first time,” as much, there wouldn’t have been any flame to singe the flower.) They enjoy physical happy times … also watch sports and eat ice cream and pizza with the guys/gals. The friends are in and out of various apartments, giving advise, delivering pizza, tubs of ice cream, having heart-to-hearts that poor Miss Bates didn’t know who was who. This novel has a serious case of series-itis … and that pun is most definitely intended. And no conflict What So Ever. (Watch out! Possible spoilers ahead!) At most, in the last 20% of the novel, the hero and heroine have qualms about being together, largely due to the Other Woman, the oldest line in the book about the mhphmh breaking, and Veronica’s ignorance about basic human biology. Oh, there’s also a bad burrito … but Miss Bates has already neared spoiler territory. Nuff said.
What did endear this novel to Miss Bates? Well, the hero is a real sweetheart. The heroine is, unfortunately, a bit of a nincompoop, but she does have a sense of humour. They both do. They’re also loveably clumsy: pizza bits fly on cheeks, they trip, sprain ankles; they’re adorably goofy, both of them. They’re really quite strong people, which is what makes their socalled issues such non-issues, which makes for the flat narrative. It’s nice to read about reasonable people making their steady way to an HEA. And, unlike Miss Bates’s previous read, the ethos of this novel is quite amenable to her (except for the crack about the developing world): even though you’re a big brawny guy in uniform, you recognize when you need help and seek it; even though life has thrown you lemon-parents, you pick yourself up by the bootstraps, even when your brain-wattage is on the low side, and make the best of life’s lemonade. You love and support your friends. You don’t let past bitterness, regret, and disappointment poison your present or your future. You take responsibility for your actions. You make amends. You say, “I love you” and mean it. It’s a nice read, but it really really lacks tension. If you like your romance novels angst-ridden, this isn’t where you’re going to find it.
Miss Bates says this is a harmless read and you can while away the time with it in “Tolerable comfort.” Mansfield Park
Jeanette Murray’s The Officer and the Secret is available on July 2nd. It’s published by Sourcebooks. Miss Bates received a generous e-ARC from Sourcebooks via Netgalley in exchange for this honest review.
REVIEW: “Rosanne Bittner’s PARADISE VALLEY: Old-Fashioned Western Or Bust”
Miss Bates loves American Western-set romances. She cut her teeth on Cheryl St. John and Lorraine Heath and hasn’t looked back since. If there’s a cowboy romance to be had, she be reading it. Bittner’s Paradise Valley is only a shadow of the heart-wrenching and well-written romances of St. John, Heath and the more recent Kaki Warner, and it was a near-bust for Miss Bates. Her spinster’s heart hardly beat for this old-fashioned Western romance. Miss Bates knew there was a lot wrong here, but struggled to articulate what. Yet, the pithy chapters and clipping-along plot kept her reading. Sometimes, she felt that she was clopping along on an old nag in a John Wayne film; sometimes, she thought she was caught in an episode of Deadwood. Those two contradictory views of the “Old West” pretty much sum up Paradise Valley. Bittner wrote the Wayne version, and maybe that’s what turned Miss Bates off.
Our hero and heroine are Sage Lightfoot and Maggie Tucker. (Getting used to a hero, a rough outlaw cowboy type, named Sage was challenging!) In 1886 Wyoming, Sage and Maggie meet on Sage’s land, the Paradise Valley of the title, over her husband’s grave. James and Maggie had been attacked by outlaws who robbed them, killed James, and raped Maggie. Sage had been riding for these very outlaws, who murdered his best hand and raped the hand’s wife. Sage returns to the ranch with Maggie, where she convinces him to bring her along when he seeks revenge against the bad guys. For the most part, though Miss Bates loved the idea of Paradise Valley as an idyllic place of plenty where innocence is restored, the novel really only took place “on the road.” This is a revenge road romance. As Maggie and Sage travel together to avenge the death of her husband, her brutalization, and the loss of Sage’s hand and money, they fall in love.
Conflict in this novel is two-fold: internal and external. The external conflict is obviously that between Maggie/Sage and the nasties. Internal conflict has to do with the Other Woman and the Big Secret, Sage’s former wife, Joanna, and Maggie’s “carrying” of a child bred of rape. Sage’s been hurt and, even though it doesn’t take him long to realize he loves Maggie, he can’t trust her. Maggie too loves Sage, but keeps the pregnancy from him, fearing his judgement of her and timorous about his mistrust of women. Keeping the Big Secret ensures that she deceives him. But, Maggie is “feisty,” she’ll take his love as long as she can get it … then, be willing to lose him to the Big Secret, rather than lose him on the trail to the bad guys.
Miss Bates had a hard time warming to the hero and heroine. Bittner’s aim in creating her novel’s characters was to capture something raw, harsh, and vulnerable about the people who’d settled this land at this time: does she succeed? She wants her characters to reflect the harshness and beauty of the landscape: does she succeed? Miss Bates would say “no.” She found the characters unsympathetic, unlikeable, and unlikely. A case in point is our first meeting of Maggie, digging her husband’s grave, having just hours ago survived a rape. She’s matter-of-fact and feisty, no trauma, no fear … just forges on ahead to revenge. Sage too is hurt, by his past, ex-wife, status of being half-white, half-Native. He derides “Indians;” Bittner creates a Native secondary character, a baddy named Cutter, whose stereotyping horrified Miss Bates. Sage keeps saying he loves Maggie, but behaves coldly and abandons her in several places when she’s obviously scared and uncertain, even sending her off to the murdered hand’s abandoned cabin to spend the night when they finally return to Paradise Valley. What’s he doing? Why just having dinner and having it out with the ex. He redeems himself finally, but does Maggie the Ninny deserve it? Miss Bates isn’t so sure. Moreover, Sage behaves with such brutal violence that Miss Bates was distressed, waving her sprigged hankie as she read. A successful romance novel pulls the reader closer to the characters; in this case, Miss Bates felt alienated from them.
Miss Bates’s troubles didn’t end with the H/h. Most problematic for her was the very ethos of the novel: the desire for revenge, taking the law into their own hands, the vigilante justice that Sage and Maggie pursue. Miss Bates had a lot of trouble with these ideas and the gratuitous violence that comes with them. Bittner tries to make a case for this by including passages such as, “It’s a strange sort of character you’ll find in country like this. There’s the good, the bad, and sometimes they actually work together to survive.” Miss Bates guesses this would be the idea that there are nuances of character here, but when you examine the actions of the badies and compare them to the hero and heroine, they don’t look all that different. The hero and heroine have no redemptive moments, which would have redeemed the narrative, where say, they realize that life and love are more important than revenge and go home to Paradise Valley and marry and breed many babies. Just on a practical level, Miss Bates wanted to shake them and say, “You’ve found each other, just let it go … why put yourselves at risk of being killed when you’ve got a chance for a good life?!” And boy, that violence visits our hero and heroine too: they are shot with arrows and bullets, attacked by a bear, etc. Bittner was trying to portray what passed as justice in that time and place and that may be accurate and true, but to sanction it is problematic for Miss Bates and will be, she might think, for readers.
This encapsulates Miss Bates’s criticisms of the novel, but she has two more niggling points that troubled her. One is Bittner’s propensity for the declarative sentence, especially at the end of chapters. For example, when Sage’s socalled good nature forces him to bring Maggie back to the ranch to heal from her ordeal, Bittner writes, “He cursed the awkward situation he’d got himself into.” Something we’d already figured out from the context of the chapter. And the love scenes, which are thankfully few and quickly over, are quite purple-prosy with a significant ick factor involved in phrases such as, Maggie’s “gasp” of ecstasy “with the splendor of his manhood.” Gah.
What can Miss Bates say in favour of this novel? It is a novel that at least tries to recapture the sheer sweep of Old Skool romance; Miss Bates just wishes it had left the ethos behind. It is well-paced; it does clip along and the chapters are nice and short. This helped Miss Bates at least finish the book and she wasn’t bored, just flabbergasted.
Miss Bates really really really wanted to like Bittner’s novel; in the end, she couldn’t and has to say, “Rubs and disappointments everywhere.” Mansfield Park
This review is made possible by a generous e-ARC from Sourcebooks Casablanca via Netgalley. Paradise Valley is available as of July 2nd from the usual places in the usual formats.
REVIEW: “Monica McCarty’s THE HUNTER: Or Two Mules for Sister Jenna”
The Hunter is Monica McCarty’s seventh Highland Guards novel and a solid read. McCarty is obviously enamoured of Scottish history; this comes through in the novel, as well as the extensive and interesting afterword. Miss Bates abandoned reading McCarty’s work after gorging on her Campbell trilogy and the first of the series, The Chief. Miss Bates enjoyed this one too, but had no desire to fill in the blanks between The Chief and The Hunter. Why? It has to do with McCarty’s love of Scottish history. After reading The Hunter, she noted McCarty’s strengths, but also pinpointed her weakness: McCarty loves her history more than her romance. Her historical research is interesting and fresh; her romance, on the other hand, is formulaic, effective but written to type. Miss Bates always learns something from McCarty; while she enjoys her hero and heroine and their journey to their HEA, she can’t help feeling that she’s read something similar in previous books. Her formula is a winning one, but it is a formula nevertheless.
What can McCarty consistently deliver? A competently written, well-paced romance novel, with the right balance of history, passion, endearing if one-dimensional characters, nasty villains, and a suspenseful build-up to a halcyon conclusion. A winning formula, yes? In this case, her interest in Scottish history focuses on the role that monastic couriers played in the establishment of King Robert Bruce in 14th century Scotland.
Her heroine, Sister Jenna, is a courier, though she has not actually taken the veil. She is Janet of Mar, a noblewoman disguised as a nun, working for Bruce as an intelligence agent on the English side of the border. Her hero, Ewen Lamont, is a member of Bruce’s elite Highland guard, on a mission to return Janet to her family and Bruce’s court. When Ewen finds himself attracted to the nun, not only does he have a serious case of libidinal frustration, but his Catholic conscience is in shambles! This part of the novel was quite charming and reminded Miss Bates of a beloved film, Two Mules for Sister Sarah, with a sexy, pre-Dirty-Harry Clint Eastwood and an unlikely nun in Shirley MacLaine. Amidst stealth and danger, with Janet’s disguise eventually compromised, these two fall in lust. It is charming, heart-stirring lust and the physical sparks between them are fun to read.
McCarty didn’t leave these two lusting and challenging the English, she wanted internal conflict driving a wedge between them. She gave Ewen some daddy issues, a daddy dissipated and wild. Ewen wants to be responsible, honourable, and dispassionate. He’s got quite a ways to fall as he struggles with conscience, honour, and his loyalty to the king to bring this noblewoman back to her family and king in tact. Ewen wants to do the right thing so much that he hurts Janet in the process. Janet’s block to her HEA, on the other hand, rings false. She loves Ewen, wants Ewen, but will not give up her work, or her independence to a man. Miss Bates has no doubt that intelligent women of the Middle Ages might have questioned their inferior status, might have yearned to be something more than what their societies afforded them. Nevertheless, Janet’s consideration of these issues makes her sound distinctly contemporary and renders McCarty’s novel anachronistic. The lady just simply “doth protest too much” to make her a viable historical figure. That Ewen comes to recognize Janet’s competence, intelligence, and usefulness, but still wants to protect her is more believable. What isn’t? The Disney-esque, castle turrets and all, ending. You’re better off not reading the epilogue, but don’t neglect the fascinating afterward.
In the end, Miss Bates enjoyed this novel, though she was nonplussed by the anachronistic heroine. McCarty delivers, and you’ll get exactly what you expect: nicely paced plotting, admirable hero and heroine who grow to love and respect each other. This is a very competent, enjoyable romance novel that’ll blend in with every other one you’ve read by her. McCarty is not interested in breaking any molds, or asking any questions of the genre. Sometimes Miss Bates wishes she’d try her hand at a contemporary, set in Scotland of course, but a novel where she can maybe let her emancipated heroine run freer.
Miss Bates was moderately pleased and renders a verdict of “tolerable comfort.” Mansfield Park
The Hunter was made available to Miss Bates as an e-ARC from Ballantine Books via Netgalley. It will be released on June 25th and available in the usual places and formats.
REVIEW: “Susanna Fraser’s THE SERGEANT’S LADY: Love Across the Class Divide”
“Let me not to the marriage of true minds/Admit impediments” is key to appreciating Fraser’s début novel. The Shakespearean sonnet’s opening line, quoted in the novel, points to the external and internal obstacles impeding the hero and heroine’s HEA. First and foremost, Sergeant Will Atkins and Anna Arringtons’s romance is impeded by class: Will is a soldier, an NCO, son of an innkeeper and Anna is a wealthy widowed heiress and niece to an earl. Their social status is solidly internalized; they are creatures of their time and place. They initially recognize these impediments as impossible to overcome, despite the love they share, and act accordingly and realistically.
As with every neophyte writer, Fraser is guilty of several bumps along the road to Will and Anna’s HEA; overall, however, this is a lovely little novel. It doesn’t break any romantic narrative moulds, but tells a solid story with likeable, believable characters, develops setting and mood, and stays true to its historical context. It provides some lovely dialogue, builds tension around their attraction, and weaves their growing friendship and affection with well-rendered love scenes.
One bump that Fraser’s novel exhibits is a slow start. It took Miss Bates ten chapters to warm to the story and another three before she felt the love. Fraser’s research into the historical context of the novel is to her credit. She obviously knows and loves her Napoleonic Era and sets Will and Ann in the midst of the British campaign, with Wellington’s army, against the French in 1811-12 Spain. How else to bring these two together? Considering the cross-class nature of their love affair, she has to bring them out of normal circumstances into unusual ones. The out-of-the-norm setting of wartime allows them to meet, if not as equals. Unfortunately, Fraser takes so long to bring us to this point that Miss Bates was tempted to leave the novel half-finished.
The other bump that is evident in Fraser’s novel is the cardboard villains, not only problematic vis-à-vis characterisation, but implicating her plotting. As with most début authors, there is too much plot. When we meet Anna, she is married to a cad who has humiliated her, wrongly accused her of adultery, and made her sexuality a thing of shame. Fraser conveniently does away with him and has Anna deciding to return to England via Lisbon, under Sergeant Atkins’s protection and escort. In the meantime, Fraser introduces a new character, a George Montmorency, whose description hints at later villainy. Unfortunately, his villainy doesn’t make an appearance till the last three chapters of the novel, leaving him dangling without purpose. On their way to Lisbon, Will, Anna, and the wounded convoy they accompany are captured by French troops, whose commander then tries to rape Anna. Will comes to the rescue and they escape from their captors. Their journey back to the British forces turns this slow-moving novel into an excellent road romance.
The strength of this novel clearly begins at chapter thirteen when the enforced intimacy of the journey back to the British Army allows Will and Anna to get to know each other, like each other, laugh together, work together to survive, and fall in love. It also gives them, and the reader, heartfelt love scenes. All the while, Fraser manages to evoke time and place and never relinquish the reality of the class divide that separates them or the danger that surrounds them. The final line of chapter thirteen echoes this beautifully, “And outside of this haven of solitude, the world would not allow Anna Arrington, sister of Viscount Selsley, niece to the Earl of Dunmalcolm and heiress to one hundred thousand pounds, to have anything to do with Will Atkins, sergeant and son of an innkeeper. Tonight was all they could have.” This is quite a feat for a début author and Miss Bates is very glad that she didn’t abandon the novel. She is equally glad that Ms Fraser has another two novels in this series that Miss Bates has yet to enjoy and … though she’s sworn off novellas, a soon-to-be-published historical novella centred around an inter-racial couple.
Another strength to this novel, post-chapter-thirteen, are Will and Anna. Will is, at first, too good to be true, too “knight-in-shining-armor.” These are not terribly original qualities in a hero; of course, a hero is strong and honourable, etc., but what won Miss Bates over is Will’s humility. Humility is a rare, but much more interesting, quality in a hero than the usual alpha-male arrogance; Fraser makes Will humble and manly. Will is in awe of Anna, not of her money or title, but her beauty, strength, and resilience. He can’t believe his luck in capturing her heart, but he knows his place and respects the way of the world from which they hail. Anna too is worthy of our admiration; she is everything that Will sees in her and more, for she also loves unconditionally and fiercely and is first to recognize that she and Will, despite their class differences, belong together. Again, Ms Fraser has some trouble letting go of her characters and the end drags, less so than the start, but the insertion of the third “bad guy” definitely makes the novel’s near-end melodramatic. Will and Ann and the reader endure quite a lengthy separation, but Ms Fraser manages to bring our hero and heroine together in a very original way, even while miles apart! Their HEA, when it finally arrives, is convincing, romantic, and poignant. As with the best romance novels, the characters experience growth and their HEA is the well earned result of it.
Though bumpy in places, Miss Bates came to have affection and respect for this romance novel. Will and Anna are eminently loveable, the history and romance very nicely balanced, the hero and heroine products of their time and place but still individuals, and the happy-ever-after bespeaks of shared love, family, and adventure.
Miss Bates is quite content with her read and endows Ms Fraser and her début with being, “almost pretty.” Northanger Abbey
The Sergeant’s Lady is available digitally at the usual places. It was published by Carina Press in 2010.
REVIEW: “Manda Collins’s THE PERKS OF BEING A BEAUTY: Contrite Mean Girl Gets Her Man”
Miss Bates hasn’t recovered from her snark regarding novellas, so don’t expect her to make nice in this review. Even though The Perks of Being a Beauty is better written and better all-around than The Misbehaving Marquess and Hot Under the Collar, Miss Bates is even less enamoured of the novella than in her previous reviews. Collins is in firm control of the form here; she doesn’t let the plot take over from the romance. She maintains a nice balance of character and narrative. Her transgression comes in the form of backstory; because Perks follows from her Ugly Ducklings series and centres on the bully-girl in those books, she provides a lot of filler to help the reader understand the heroine and how she arrived at this point in her life. After the first few chapters set up the love story, backstory takes over and makes for tedious reading. Therein lies the problem that Miss Bates has discussed before: because these novellas come from an understandable desire to sell an upcoming series or bolster a previous one, authors write them as marketing fodder, which should not diminish what is a pleasant read. So is blanc-mange … and even though Miss Bates is a 19th century spinster who often partakes of blanc-mange, she still prefers a cake-pop.
Amelia Snowe is the mean girl brought low by circumstance and a desire to make amends for her former nastiness. Her mother’s death has left her destitute and debt-ridden, working as a debutante’s companion in the bosom of an up-and-coming nouveau riche family, the Smithsons. Our hero, Quentin Fortescue, younger son of an aristocrat, Amelia’s childhood sweetheart and rejected suitor, reunites with Amelia when he attends the Smithsons’ house-party. Quentin’s addition to the party makes for an odd number of men and Amelia is recruited to “make up the numbers,” much to the chagrin of her haughty and resentful mistress, Mrs. Smithson. When straws are picked for partners in the scavenger hunt, of course Amelia and Quentin are thrown together. Here is another problem that Miss Bates finds with the novella: because length does not allow for a natural development of the romance, coincidence reigns and coincidence does not make for convincing characterization or interesting plot. Expediency seems the best an author can do under the circumstances.
One of the initial strengths of this novella, unfortunately not sustained, is the honest and open conversation between the re-united sweethearts. What is less convincing is the habit of authors, like Collins here, to endow their historical characters with modern sensibilities. Though it’s obvious that Quentin is attracted to her and willing to take up where they left off, Amelia resolves that she doesn’t want him. Let’s be realistic: why would a young woman of straitened circumstances, whose future holds nothing more than a journey from one genteel but menial job to another, reject a young, healthy, handsome and rich man? Though some reviewers have disliked Grant’s upcoming A Woman Entangled for the heroine’s mercenary attitude, it makes perfect sense to Miss Bates, all the more so when one considers her own straitened circumstances and spinster status.
Quentin is a lovely hero, forgiving, generous, and even more possessed of a modern sensibility. He is as much hero as psychologist, nursing Amelia through her self-hatred, even while making love to her (which, by the way, they do without thought for reputation or consequences, such as, well, pregnancy). When Quentin learns of the extent of Amelia’s bullying behaviour, he recognizes how she’s been trying to amend for it through reparation to those she wronged and by being a loving and nurturing companion to her ward. He is a dear when he soothes her self-recrimination thus, ” … you had no one to rely upon. And that made you a little … hard.” In lines such as these, you can see where Collins’s strength lies. Does this novella do it justice?
Miss Bates would say, these snippets of goodness are not enough to render a rating of more than “Tolerable comfort.” Mansfield Park (Collins’s novella is available on June 18, 2013)
As for the novella trend, Miss Bates is not pleased and joins Mr. Knightly in saying, “It was badly done, indeed.” Emma (Miss Bates thanks her readers for their forebearance as she spouted snark regarding novellas. She promises not to repeat the activity, unless you enjoyed it, in which case, let her know. She has plenty snark left over.)
This honest review was made possible thanks to a courtesy ARC from St. Martin’s Press via Netgalley.
REVIEW: “Leigh LaValle’s THE MISBEHAVING MARQUESS: Ain’t Misbehaving”
These days, says Miss Bates, romance novellas are like samples at the Costco: a delectation of good things to come, if you’re willing to dish out for a lifetime supply of candied ginger. Thus, Miss Bates has come to feel manipulated by the novella (she’s got one more to review and then she’s swearing off … ), even LaValle’s Marquess, which she enjoyed. Now, Miss Bates does not want to detract from the review at hand, which is a fairly positive one, but the romance novella, such as it is, annoys her. Why can’t publishers stand behind a stand-alone? Why does every romance novel spawn a series? Why does every series have a novella launch, or bridge between two longer books, such as this one?
To start, this marquess hasn’t misbehaved; he has merely pouted … a lot. The marquess, Jamie Forster, has been in a snit for five years because he thought that his wife, Cat, betrayed him mere weeks after their marriage. Even though she’s sworn up and down that she did not, immaturity and hurt pride ensued nevertheless. He nursed his amour-propre in parts unknown until making his appearance in the opening chapter in the marchioness’s sitting-room.
For five years, Cat has been holed up on this country estate, atoning for her non-sin by saving widows and their children from the workhouse. She is renovating cottages in which to house them and building a lace factory to provide work. She’s grown up; she’s changed. Jamie has as well; though he still harbors some hurt, he recognizes that his actions were hasty and immature. He sets out to win his wife back. Cat rightly wavers. Even though she still loves him, can she forgive and trust him? Ah, the marquess eats humble pie to redeem himself. He also bears gifts from his travels that would warm any woman’s heart, or in this case, thaw it.
This story was quite enjoyable. The prose was fairly smooth, a trifle overly impassioned in places, but it read with relative ease. It didn’t break any moulds, or enthral Miss Bates, but it didn’t jar either. Jamie and Cat are likeable and their hurt feelings make sense. LaValle handled the perimeters of the novella’s shorter length well and made the romance front and centre, unlike Miss Bates’s previous read (see her review of Jackie Barbosa’s Hot Under the Collar). She conveyed Cat’s and Jamie’s hurt and love and anger convincingly. She also developped their growing desire to release the hurt and anger in order to forgive each other, love each other, and give their marriage a second-chance. Miss Bates loves a second-chance romance.
In the end, however (Miss Bates picks up the snark again), LaValle’s novella is serviceable. It tells a nice story about two likeable people learning to forgive each other their wrongs and admit their love. By all means, read it; it is a pleasant way to while away an hour. And an hour is about as long as you’ll remember it after you’re done. (LaValle’s novella previously appeared in the anthology Three Weddings And A Funeral.)
Miss Bates would read one of Ms LaValle’s romance novels on the basis of this sampling, but for this diminutive effort, she can only say, “Tolerable comfort.” Mansfield Park
This honest review is the result of an e-novella offered by Heart Bay Publishing via Netgalley.
REVIEW: “Jackie Barbosa’s HOT UNDER THE COLLAR: Casting Stones at the Vicar Hero”
Miss Bates struggled with this novella, alternating liking and disliking it. The prose is polished and smooth; the story, reminiscent of 19th century novels like Trollope’s, except it’s set in 1803 and contains hot love scenes. The fact that the hero of this novella is a vicar makes for interestingly liberal Christian ethics, but the romance is a failure. It pales next to other more interesting aspects. The characters, especially the hero, Walter Langston, the fallen woman, Artemisia Finch, the townspeople of Grange-Over-Sands, their dilemmas, their quarrels are more engaging than the romance, as if Barbosa wanted to write about those things instead of torrid love scenes and a cardboard villain.
The plot of this novella is straightforward. Walter Langston, third son of a viscount, ignominiously injured in the army, unwilling to live on the charity of his older brothers, takes the position of vicar in a small English town. Among his parishioners is the beautiful Artemisia Finch, fallen woman and town outcast. At 16, Artemisia slept with the local aristocratic bad boy, who got her pregnant, sullied her reputation by claiming that she’d slept with other men, and abandoned her. She lost her baby and left for London where she became a highly paid courtesan. Now, she’s returned to nurse her ill father. Walter takes one look at Artemisia and determines to make her his.
Walter is a very sympathetic character, one who matures and finds purpose as the novella progresses. He recognizes the injustice done to Artemisia and embarks on a campaign to win her, as well as reconcile her with the town. There is a lovely scene where he openly calls on her, setting the example of Christian charity for the townspeople. She is lonely, isolated, and suspicious. He offers friendship. How refreshing, how lovely, how original, thought Miss Bates … above all, our vicar hero is kind. When he turns into alpha-vicar and yanks her to him and kisses her … Miss Bates thought, “Badly done.”
In several excellent scenes, Walter ministers to the townspeople, comforting, reassuring, and counselling them. In the process of doing so, Walter realizes that a sense of purpose had been missing from his life. He found it in this last-resort position of town vicar. As he states at the end, “All his life, Walter wondered what was wrong with him. Why he could find … no pursuit that engaged him … But now he understood.” By going through the motions of being a vicar, already by temperament a kind and charitable person, Walter becomes the very thing he took on so lightly and cavalierly. His journey is believable and engaging. His journey is so believable and engaging that the romance plays second fiddle to it. In the end, the love scenes are not moving, or interesting, or as subversive as Barbosa hoped. The romance doesn’t interest us as much as the individual fates of our hero and heroine. Maybe the shorter form of the novella didn’t give the romance much room to develop convincingly. We are not invested in it, whereas we are invested in Walter’s journey to acceptance and maturity. This is a novella of many interesting ideas, but not much feeling.
Miss Bates is enamoured of the vicar, but not his hotness and says, “Tolerable comfort.” Mansfield Park
This honest review is the result of an e-novella provided by Circe Press via Netgalley.
REVIEW: “Cecilia Grant’s A WOMAN ENTANGLED: Or How Jane Austen’s EMMA Triumphed”
Oh, Cecilia Grant, “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.” With a nod to Elizabeth Barrett Browning, it is what came to mind as Miss Bates closed Grant’s best novel yet, A Woman Entangled. She considers A Lady Awakened and A Gentleman Undone two of the most original and interesting romance novels she’s read. A Woman Entangled is great, less alienating, gentler too. Grant has you reconsider figures such as Samuel Richardson, Jane Austen especially, Mary Wollstonecraft, et. al.. She connects what she does in her novel squarely in the romance genre’s “founders” (and detractors?) and other literary influences. This does not make for a dry romance novel. It is great: memorable, witty, engaging, and heart-wrenching.
Grant’s novels are structured on the basis of one premise: putting her characters in a quandary. This allows her to focus on the most important literary element of the romance novel, characterization. Grant’s premise has been one where the heroine navigates the economic, legal, and social givens of her society. It relies on illuminating and critiquing questions of class and status. In A Lady Awakened, Martha contends with a woman’s inability to retain her deceased husband’s property. In A Gentleman Undone, Will and Lydia are both in straitened circumstances; however, Will is in this position because of honour and obligation. It is a free choice. Lydia’s dilemma, on the other hand, is darker, uglier, desperate. In A Woman Entangled, hero and heroine are caught in a similar dilemma: the desire to restore their families’ reputations. This binds them in friendship, but prevents them from acknowledging their love. Their marriage would result in thwarting their ambitions. Even when they’re willing to admit their feelings, they recognize the impossibility of their union in light of their aspirations.
Kate Westbrook hopes a society marriage will restore her family’s reputation, lost when her father married her actress-mother. Their family friend, Nick Blackshear, has the same mission, his family’s reputation shattered when his younger brother married a courtesan. To this end, Kate cultivates her father’s estranged sister-in-law, Lady Harringdon. When Lady Harringdon summons her, Kate is hopeful that her sponsorship will open society’s doors and lead to a respectable marriage, thus ensuring her siblings’ future. Kate’s father, suspicious of the ton’s Lotharios, asks Nick to watch over her. This proximity forces Nick to reconsider Kate’s rejection of his former suit (oh yes, there’s lovely history there!). It rekindles his love and desire for her, improbable as they are. Kate too harbours feelings she is unwilling to admit. Huis clos. Circumstance and obligation bring them close and the pull of attraction, friendship, desire, and love will leave no room for either to make a marriage of convenience.
We are introduced to Kate at a lending library. She holds a copy of Pride and Prejudice. She ruminates on the novel, dismissing Lizzy Bennett’s refusal of Darcy’s first proposal as impractical, even foolish. Kate is pragmatic. She self-identifies as an anti-Lizzy, content to settle for wealth, comfort, and status. In the end, however, it is a conversation with her blue-stocking sister, Viola, about Austen’s Emma, that helps Kate realize the importance of friendship and a love match, such as she would enjoy with Nick. It is Austen who helps her make up her mind about Nick, Austen who urges her to listen to her heart, not to compromise, to live honestly and openly with her deepest desires.
We meet Nick in court, an ambitious lawyer, pondering the likes of Blackstone, Goldsmith, Donne, Fielding, and a variety of law reformers. Nick yearns for a place in history as a barrister and parliamentarian. He yearns for the respect of his peers, a reward for his talent and work ethic. Kate, in turn, yearns for a place as a society wife. Marriage to each other would not alter their status, or serve their ambitions.
In the end, however, Nick and Kate are worthy of our love because they are essentially good people who love their families. They are worthy of our admiration because they have integrity. At the eleventh hour, they are honest about their feelings. They dismiss society’s hypocrisy and choose to live honestly, even though it means their life together will be spent on the fringe. But, maybe not … Grant describes a society in flux, the rigid hierarchies of early 19th century English society giving way to the stirrings of radical social change. This gives hope to Nick and Kate, but does not matter to them as much as it originally did. They’ve done some growing up since then.
The conclusion to this novel is one of sheer happiness, hope, contentment, friendship, acceptance, and forgiveness. How they reach it is all the pleasure of this novel. Read it. Grant’s novel posits the triumph of desire over intellect, heart over will, and love over pragmatism. It is a romantic, love- and life-affirming vision and a novel not to be missed. Grant takes her place in the romance novel canon alongside Heyer, Chase, and Balogh. Her novels are complex, beautifully written, conscious of their place in a tradition, original, moving, and a breath of fresh air in the miasma of derivative romance.
Miss Bates is so very pleased and says, “You have bewitched me.” Pride and Prejudice
A Woman Entangled is available June 25th.
This honest review was made possible thanks to a generous e-ARC from Random House/Bantam via Netgalley.
Miss Bates Reads Romance 