Believing the Lie - Elizabeth George
I'm really hoping EG keeps the appalling female love interests at a minimum on this outing.
Catherine the Great - Robert K. Massie
Maybe I'll even get around to reading that Potemkin biography I bought ten years ago.
Love Her to Death - M. William Phelps
Phelps is my True Crime find of 2011, I'm trying to meter out his books. Knowing there's reliably good true crime available makes the bad books bearable.
Showing posts with label Romance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Romance. Show all posts
The dead may travel fast but this book does not
I selected The Dead Travel Fast on the strength author Deanna Raybourn’s Lady Julia Gray mystery series. While Silent in the Grave is not perfect, it a decent first-in-a-series that showed real promise. I assumed that this book would be another mystery. The Dead, however, is not a mystery. It is a quasi Gothic Romance, more Victoria Holt than Ann Radcliffe, with strange goings on at a remote castle. It is also a romance. That last part leaves me under qualified as a reviewer for this book. Set in 1858 Scotland and Transylvania, this is the story of an independent woman, Theodora, who visits an old friend (at that remote castle I mentioned earlier) and the friend’s very odd indeed relatives. Handsome brooding Count Andrei Dragulescu is on scene to make cryptic remarks, gesture haughtily, wash the heroine’s hands and, well, brood. He’s part of the set piece and either the reader is willing to play along or not. I kept thinking that he was a bit of a jerk but some may find him fascinating. Theodora sure does. Even when the locals start to suspect Andrei is a vampire she isn’t all that put off. Is Andrei half-man, half-bat? Is his whole family batty? How does Theodora manage to climb “The Devil’s Stairs” and a narrow turret staircase during the heyday of the hoopskirt?
If you can hang on for all 300 pages you’ll find the answers to most of the above. Portions of this book annoyed me – the random Romanian words, for one – and the repeated references to basil put me in the mood for a caprese salad. For those who like historical romances this is probably decent fare.For mystery fans it will be a disappointment. (Vampire fans will likely be disappointed too.)
Big Pimpin' Tudor Style
I tried to like The Other Boleyn Girl. Truly. Friends of mine love it. Smart, intelligent, capable women without a hint of victim in them couldn't put this book down. I, on the other hand, am happy to put it down literally and figuratively.
It's not that Philippa Gregory plays fast and loose with the facts. This is fiction, she's allowed. I loved Elizabeth and that used chronology like an accordion. I love, nay, worship The Lion in Winter and that doesn't let the facts get in the way of a story or anachronisms in the way of a good line. If Philippa Gregory wants to pretend that Mary Boleyn was younger than Anne Boleyn and that George Boleyn was flaming, go right ahead. And if she wants to use dialogue that sounds like it came out of the mouths of the interns at my office, rock on.
No, this book is easy to mock for other reasons. Let's start with the fact that the premise of the book is that the Howard/Boleyn clan has decided that the way to raise the fortunes of their family is to pimp out the available females. And it's not just the them, the Seymours are at it, too. As my mother says: now, really. If it were that easy to get into the King's favor the man would never have gotten out of bed. He'd have spent his days surrounded by naked women and Windsor Castle would have been a Tudor Playboy Mansion. It just doesn't play.
Then there are the characters. Mary Boleyn has middle child syndrome. She's always whining about how she was overlooked during her childhood in favor of Anne. She's gratingly slow on the uptake. After her family has dropped her into Henry VIII's bed for the good of the family it comes as a shock to her that the family doesn't care about her feelings. She's shocked to learn that the king is a tad self-enchanted and spoiled. Wow, you mean someone who has their every whim catered to, is never told "no" and holds the fate of all around him in his hands could be selfish? The best part is, Mary realizes this long after the opening scene in which Henry has a friend and cousin executed. Most people would have taken the hint after Buckingham's head rolled in the hay without his body being attached.
Mary's sister and brother aren't any better. Anne is simply put, psycho. The highlight of this psychoness is when a half-naked Anne demands that her brother George says she's "the best" in front of their sister Mary. George thinks this is just the usual sibling rivalry hijinks. Oh the fun they have, those wacky Boleyn kids. George is useful to have around. For one thing, he invents tampons. For another, he's always happy to father a child even if the mother in question is his sister. George also invents "coming out" and he's miserably married - he's just an all around busy guy. Thankfully this doesn't keep him from participating in a boat race, I am not making this up, between the Howards and the Seymours with Anne urging on her team with "Come on, Howards." Anne is just a loyal family girl at heart.
While Anne is out whoring for the family cause, Mary is busy doing her thing. And by "doing her thing" I mean annoying the living crap out of me. Mary is married and having an affair with the equally married Henry VIII but she's put out when Anne replaces her in the King's affections. She's always going on about how she's "a Howard" and "a Boleyn" and she has "no choice." Blah blah blah. Naturally she remarries a poor man for love and then watches Anne's execution thinking that "the long rivalry between me and the other Boleyn girl was over." I was thinking that Mary was a complete cow.
It's not that Philippa Gregory plays fast and loose with the facts. This is fiction, she's allowed. I loved Elizabeth and that used chronology like an accordion. I love, nay, worship The Lion in Winter and that doesn't let the facts get in the way of a story or anachronisms in the way of a good line. If Philippa Gregory wants to pretend that Mary Boleyn was younger than Anne Boleyn and that George Boleyn was flaming, go right ahead. And if she wants to use dialogue that sounds like it came out of the mouths of the interns at my office, rock on.
No, this book is easy to mock for other reasons. Let's start with the fact that the premise of the book is that the Howard/Boleyn clan has decided that the way to raise the fortunes of their family is to pimp out the available females. And it's not just the them, the Seymours are at it, too. As my mother says: now, really. If it were that easy to get into the King's favor the man would never have gotten out of bed. He'd have spent his days surrounded by naked women and Windsor Castle would have been a Tudor Playboy Mansion. It just doesn't play.
Then there are the characters. Mary Boleyn has middle child syndrome. She's always whining about how she was overlooked during her childhood in favor of Anne. She's gratingly slow on the uptake. After her family has dropped her into Henry VIII's bed for the good of the family it comes as a shock to her that the family doesn't care about her feelings. She's shocked to learn that the king is a tad self-enchanted and spoiled. Wow, you mean someone who has their every whim catered to, is never told "no" and holds the fate of all around him in his hands could be selfish? The best part is, Mary realizes this long after the opening scene in which Henry has a friend and cousin executed. Most people would have taken the hint after Buckingham's head rolled in the hay without his body being attached.
Mary's sister and brother aren't any better. Anne is simply put, psycho. The highlight of this psychoness is when a half-naked Anne demands that her brother George says she's "the best" in front of their sister Mary. George thinks this is just the usual sibling rivalry hijinks. Oh the fun they have, those wacky Boleyn kids. George is useful to have around. For one thing, he invents tampons. For another, he's always happy to father a child even if the mother in question is his sister. George also invents "coming out" and he's miserably married - he's just an all around busy guy. Thankfully this doesn't keep him from participating in a boat race, I am not making this up, between the Howards and the Seymours with Anne urging on her team with "Come on, Howards." Anne is just a loyal family girl at heart.
While Anne is out whoring for the family cause, Mary is busy doing her thing. And by "doing her thing" I mean annoying the living crap out of me. Mary is married and having an affair with the equally married Henry VIII but she's put out when Anne replaces her in the King's affections. She's always going on about how she's "a Howard" and "a Boleyn" and she has "no choice." Blah blah blah. Naturally she remarries a poor man for love and then watches Anne's execution thinking that "the long rivalry between me and the other Boleyn girl was over." I was thinking that Mary was a complete cow.
From War of Nations to Class War
Maybe it's time for me to accept that I like subjects that are depressing. Evidence for this? After reading volume two of history of the Hundred Years War and a novel about World War II in which nearly everyone gets fired on by the enemy I am now reading two books that focus on the nasty brutish and short lives of the proletariat.
Red Mutiny tells the story of the 1905 mutiny on the Russian battleship Potemkin. Bascomb doesn't have to work hard to have you rooting for the sailors. They are all but kidnapped from their homes, treated like animals by the officers, beaten at the slightest provocation and then forced to eat maggoty meat. Down with the Tsar, indeed. Tangentially, I'm listening to the audiobook of this and I have to say that narrator John McDonough would be a perfect choice to read a Victorian era ghost story.
Eric Hobsbawm has been flying the red flag from his mast for years. His histories are rightly regarded as classics. I'm finally tackling The Age of Revolution in which he tells the story of the "dual revolutions" of Britain (Industrial) and France (class). For a writer with an agenda, Hobsbawm never puts that agenda first. Still, only 37 pages in and he's already provided such quotes as:
I'm also reading Dennis Lehane's Gone, Baby, Gone and anyone who's read Lehane knows his genius for depicting the lives of the permanent underclass that preys on itself. So that's hardly light relief.
Why can't I read books with happy endings? A nice story about a family of happy kittens that throws a party for the family of kittens next door. Well, maybe not. Chicklit? I'd have to blind myself first to read it, and I can't believe they can pay someone enough to read that crap out loud without vomiting repeatedly so audiobooks are out. Besides, bad writing is more depressing than oppression.
I think it's time to break out the Georgette Heyers.
Red Mutiny tells the story of the 1905 mutiny on the Russian battleship Potemkin. Bascomb doesn't have to work hard to have you rooting for the sailors. They are all but kidnapped from their homes, treated like animals by the officers, beaten at the slightest provocation and then forced to eat maggoty meat. Down with the Tsar, indeed. Tangentially, I'm listening to the audiobook of this and I have to say that narrator John McDonough would be a perfect choice to read a Victorian era ghost story.
Eric Hobsbawm has been flying the red flag from his mast for years. His histories are rightly regarded as classics. I'm finally tackling The Age of Revolution in which he tells the story of the "dual revolutions" of Britain (Industrial) and France (class). For a writer with an agenda, Hobsbawm never puts that agenda first. Still, only 37 pages in and he's already provided such quotes as:
- "extorted from the miserably peasantry"
- "battening on the surrounding peasantry"
- "extortionate money-rents"
I'm also reading Dennis Lehane's Gone, Baby, Gone and anyone who's read Lehane knows his genius for depicting the lives of the permanent underclass that preys on itself. So that's hardly light relief.
Why can't I read books with happy endings? A nice story about a family of happy kittens that throws a party for the family of kittens next door. Well, maybe not. Chicklit? I'd have to blind myself first to read it, and I can't believe they can pay someone enough to read that crap out loud without vomiting repeatedly so audiobooks are out. Besides, bad writing is more depressing than oppression.
I think it's time to break out the Georgette Heyers.
The Wrong Impression Entirely
That's what I'm leaving. If you look at what I've written so far and the books in my Library Thing one might get the idea that I spend my days reading nothing but admirably fiction and non-fiction with the occasional foray into the mystery genre. Sadly, this is not the case.
I'm way shallower than that and nothing proves that more than my seasonal attempts to clean out my book shelves. This effort reminds me every time that I'm still hoping for a revival of Gothic Romance Novels a'la Phyllis Whitney and Mary Stewart. And that if Gothic with a touch of the Supernatural came back, I'd be happy too. And that I am the reason that CourtTV (now TruTV) exists. There's nothing wrong with a little trash. Not just genre fiction. Trash. It just needs to be good trash to stay in my library. Unfortunately, I've yearned you need to read a lot of crap to find the gems in genre fiction.
Ghost Moon by Karen Robards isn't exactly crap, but it's in the donation bag.
The back cover promises the ingredients reminiscent of a Phyllis Whitney novel. The returning disgraced heroine, the long ago mystery, the sexy yet seemingly taken man from her best, the beautiful, bitchy rival and the buried secret. On the plus side, the writing is ok, the grammar shows signs of either an editor on the job or a high school diploma in action, the heroine, Olivia, isn't a complete wimp and opening scenes where the heroine returns home are nearly kick-ass good. The negative side, you ask. The first chapter is a flash back - rarely handled well in any circumstances - that involves a pedophile murdering child after hiding in her closet. The first line is: "Mom, I wet the bed." How's that for a grabber? It ends with the father of said child being falsely convicted of her murder. This is what is commonly known as a "downer". Better yet, it isn't tied to the main story for hundreds of pages. I found myself trying to figure out who among the characters, main and ancillary, could be the pedophile. There were only two candidates and one of them died early on. So either it was a lame mystery or the author was going to pull a villain out of ... nowhere.
Then we had the bratty over privileged child who is contrasted with the well-behaved yet Kmart clad little angel that Olivia dragged home with her. Of course, said brat is just acting out. Then we have the way that Olivia is related to the wealthy yet troubled Archer clan - I really wanted to draw up a little family tree so I could keep track of why it was that it was ok that Olivia is attracted to her step cousin, Seth, the aforementioned sexy yet taken one. Nearly everyone in this book is one thing YET another. It's that kind of book. Olivia's long beautiful brown hair gets described a lot and the menfolk of the town are all very happy Olivia is back. But this is a Romantic Thriller so you need to just go with that kind of thing. The little issue of whether Seth is taken is resolved well before the end as is the somewhat lame attempt to have Seth be hostile and disapproving toward Olivia. It's because her hair is just so damn beautiful, you see.
A good mystery could have save this. Now, whether a mystery involving a pedophile can be a good one when I'm the critic is probably a lost cause. I hate two things in fiction: serial killers and pedophiles. This was a serial killer pedophile at work. It was bound to suck. Then the villain was "unmasked" for anyone reading the book who couldn't do the math this character was the only one still standing who was old enough to commit the crime in the first chapter and the suckage went over the edge dragging the entire book with it.
Robards gets points for giving her characters relatively normal names, the good grammar and using Kmart as a plot point. Not a keeper, but not one I felt the need to hurl away either.
Because Plagiarism is SO Romantic
What is it with romance writers and plagarism? Ok, I know I'm guilty of using a very broad brush here. Hundreds of romance writers ply their craft on a daily basis without resorting to plagiarism. Still, when I saw this headline in today's New York Times, A Romance Novelist is Accused of Copying, I got that old feeling.
Romance novelist Cassie Edwards is accused of plagiarizing a number of sources including a novel by Nora Roberts. Poor Nora Roberts, she's apparently the plagiarizers preferred source. Is this her punishment for being so damn productive? Or was Cassie Edwards hoping that she could join Janet Dailey in committing "mind rape" on Nora? I remember the Dailey case vividly, as much for the sheer lameness of her excuse - a psychological disorder made her do it - as for her dedication to her source. A kind of monogamy, really. It was only Nora Roberts for her. Lucky Nora.
But my original question remains: what's up with this? Cassie Edwards, Janet Dailey, Kaavya Viswanathan. (And I won't even mention writers who, literally, plagiarize themselves.) Is it the economics of this genre? The expectation that a romance novelist will churn out a minimum of two books per year. Is it a wacky coincidence? Do publishers put too much pressure on the semi-talented? Do the writers themselves lack respect for the readers of the genre? Do publishers lack respect for this genre and fail to do their due diligence?
Clearly there's no one answer but the lack of respect issue is ringing bells for me. Most genres don't get the respect they deserve. There are good and bad writers, good and bad books in all genre yet romance novels seem to be treated little better than porn. I think I read one book last year that would qualify as a romantic thriller. I'm not a major consumer of the genre. That said, I have fond memories of reading through every Phyllis Whitney one summer, all the Victoria Holt's another. I'm still planning on tackling a goodly batch of Georgette Heyer's one day. I respect the greats of this genre the same way I respect Agatha Christie or Arthur C. Clarke, and I respect their readers too. It's a shame a few authors seem to think that romance readers have zero recall.
Kudos to the women at Smart Bitches Who Love Trashy Books for living up to their smarts and bringing this wretched behavior to light.
Romance novelist Cassie Edwards is accused of plagiarizing a number of sources including a novel by Nora Roberts. Poor Nora Roberts, she's apparently the plagiarizers preferred source. Is this her punishment for being so damn productive? Or was Cassie Edwards hoping that she could join Janet Dailey in committing "mind rape" on Nora? I remember the Dailey case vividly, as much for the sheer lameness of her excuse - a psychological disorder made her do it - as for her dedication to her source. A kind of monogamy, really. It was only Nora Roberts for her. Lucky Nora.
But my original question remains: what's up with this? Cassie Edwards, Janet Dailey, Kaavya Viswanathan. (And I won't even mention writers who, literally, plagiarize themselves.) Is it the economics of this genre? The expectation that a romance novelist will churn out a minimum of two books per year. Is it a wacky coincidence? Do publishers put too much pressure on the semi-talented? Do the writers themselves lack respect for the readers of the genre? Do publishers lack respect for this genre and fail to do their due diligence?
Clearly there's no one answer but the lack of respect issue is ringing bells for me. Most genres don't get the respect they deserve. There are good and bad writers, good and bad books in all genre yet romance novels seem to be treated little better than porn. I think I read one book last year that would qualify as a romantic thriller. I'm not a major consumer of the genre. That said, I have fond memories of reading through every Phyllis Whitney one summer, all the Victoria Holt's another. I'm still planning on tackling a goodly batch of Georgette Heyer's one day. I respect the greats of this genre the same way I respect Agatha Christie or Arthur C. Clarke, and I respect their readers too. It's a shame a few authors seem to think that romance readers have zero recall.
Kudos to the women at Smart Bitches Who Love Trashy Books for living up to their smarts and bringing this wretched behavior to light.
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