WOW! What a moving, wonderful, inspiring, unique romance this was! I can definitely see how it makes the Top 100 time and time again - it's a classic and it's truly unique, and so incredibly well written. It's also longer than the "usual" romance novel, well over 500 pages.
The back cover blurb is cleverly written to hide the true conflict - the Duke of Jervaulx, Christian, suffers a massive stroke near the beginning of the book, is declared insane and must struggle to regain his position in the world. The blurb only says he's "lost to the world" so that the reader learns what is going on as it happens. He has symptoms for several days ahead of time - his arm is stiff and unmoving, he has headaches, he forgets important details of his daily life - and in a duel, just as the other fellow shoots, he blacks out completely. Of course, in those days (sometime in the 1820s - it was close to 1828, around the time King George appointed Wellington Prime Minister) stroke victims were thought to be lunatics because they could not speak or if they could, it didn't make any sense. Christian's own reaction to his predicament was violent, so he was locked up in an asylum.
Maddy Timms is a Quaker who lives with her blind, ailing father. Mr. Timms is a brilliant mathmetician - as is Christian, and he has been corresponding with Christian about a particular theorem. Maddy delivers the correspondence to Christian, but neither she nor her father have ever met him. But she's read about him - he's notorious in all the gossip sheets for his bed-hopping and profligate behavior. Of course, she has a completely negative opinion of him, without ever having met him - typical of rigidly religious people, no? She does actually recognize that trait in herself and she admonishes herself to be more... well, perhaps open-minded is the word I mean here. But Quakers and non-Quakers are not to mix and mingle.
Maddy and Christian meet before he has his stroke, at a mathmatical society meeting where he and her father present a paper, to great acclaim. They take note of each other that day - the day before the stroke. When he has the stroke, he is pronounced dead - and with that, her dreams of her father's advancement die as well, since Christian had promised him a fellowship at a college. It's by chance that she and her father then move to help out her cousin Edward, who runs... wait for it... an asylum. Yes, the asylum where Christian is chained to his bed.
Maddy, who has been struggling with her faith, decides that helping Christian is God's mission for her, since she seems to be the only one who can communicate with him and who understands him. And throughout the book, it is only when she is strong in her conviction to help Christian that she is truly happy, and when she has doubts that standing by him is the right thing to do that she is conflicted and unhappy. Is Christian the Devil, tempting her? Or are the Friends who try to convince her to renounce their relationship the ones who are wrong?
Christian's POV is told from his muddled mind, and it's incredibly effective in putting you inside his head. He's treated as a violent imbecile, and in his own mind, as things come back to him - slowly, and never completely, he struggles with reaching out and regaining his position. He comes to depend on Maddy, but there's more there - he recognized her from the beginning as being something other than the Quaker front she presented and tried so hard to maintain. He sets out to humiliate her through seduction, to prove a point to his muddled self, but soon realizes that he needs her, he depends on her, she is his strength and his courage and his only way to his own personal salvation. If only Maddy could believe that. It was a struggle that had my heart aching almost the whole time I read it...
I did have some unanswered questions at the end - did Durham set up all the chases and conflicts, and if so, was it for some nefarious purpose? Was Durham simply doing whatever it took to get what Christian needed, or were the brothers-in-law lying to Maddy to get her to leave Christian, and therefore make him vulnerable to them? You'd have to read it to see what plot points I refer to, but these charges were never fully explained, mainly because we only saw Maddy's and Christian's POVs, and never anyone else's. I guess I wonder mainly because it seems to change Durham's character and motives in my mind.
It's a true 5 star read - and if I hadn't borrowed it from the library, it would be a true keeper! I guess when I'm moved to read it again, I'll get my own copy.
Showing posts with label Laura Kinsale. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Laura Kinsale. Show all posts
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
For My Lady's Heart by Laura Kinsale ****
This was a hard book to read and digest, with much of the dialogue written in a sort of pseudo-Middle-English-speak to give it the flavor of medieval thought and speech. In addition, the author used different forms of English to convey speech in Italian and French. I felt like my brain was being taxed the entire time.
Also, it was so hard to feel anything positive for the heroine. Melanthe was English by birth, but married into an Italian family at age 12, to a man many years older, and then a widow. There were 3 Italian families represented - I think - as being enemies each of the other, and many of the characters were aligned with one of the 3, Riata, Monteverde (Melanthe's husband) and Navona.
Allegreto Navona is a youth of 16 traveling with Melanthe to England so that she could claim her father's lands and then return to Gian, his father, to be his wife. Allegreto is an assassin and is also portrayed as a eunuch so that he can stay close to Melanthe at all times, even in bed. (How she never knew the truth, I'm not sure...)
The hero is Ruck, an English knight - the Green Knight - who swore his loyalty to Melanthe when he and she were just 17. He was accompanying his wife Isabelle to become a nun, when Melanthe - already a princess - saved his life by telling the religious leaders he wasn't chaste, that he was staring at her and having lustful thoughts about her. Although he had loved Isabelle, he didn't understand her - she was portrayed as either having a gift or being insane, having visions and prophecies. By not being chaste enough for the religious leaders, he wasn't allowed to join his wife - which eventually saved his life.
It was all pretty confusing, to be honest. 13 years go by, and Ruck has managed to become an anonymous knight - something about not having proof of his birth/ownership of his father's property since everyone in his family died in the plague. He was concerned if he said where he was from and what his name was, it would come to the attention of the king that his family's lands were without owner and they would be taken. He meets Melanthe again, and again swears his loyalty to her - only this time he announces it so everyone knows (whereas before this, it was just in his own heart and mind).
Melanthe, in truth, is scared to death of everyone, and mostly for good reason. Her husband taught her not to trust anyone, and from him she learned to be aloof and disdainful in manner, as a way to save herself. She pits her servants one against the other as a way to keep them from harming her, and for them to be ever afraid of her and each other. When Ruck leads a small party of her servants and her into England, she pretends to be struck with the plague - and she and Ruck are abandoned by the entire party. At this point, when it's just the 2 of them, she is alternately in his debt and falling for him, and playing him for a fool. It was very hard to feel sympathy for her, even though you were meant to believe she was constantly in fear of her life even from Ruck.
They make their way not to her lands, but to his, where for a time they live as husband and wife, an idyllic life where she is loved by his people and seems to have relaxed and started to enjoy life. Unfortunately, Ruck is now never sure when she is telling the truth, and when she is acting (aka Lying). He keeps thinking that she will want to leave and go to her own lands and people - and therein lies his mistake. When he sends a youth to her property to see if it's safe, the youth is caught up in the web of intrigue to find her and bind her to Gian Navona again.
So not only was it hard to read because of the language issues, it was hard to be sympathetic for this lying, wheeling-and-dealing heroine who pretty much shot herself in the foot everytime she opened her dang mouth! Poor naive Ruck was truly led on a not-so-merry chase to save her from everyone including herself.
I think I would classify Ruck as a Besotted Hero - after all, he was able to remain celibate for 13 years in his pursuit of her! And even not knowing her, not understanding her, he never gave up on her, and followed her into the snake pit that was her home, where Gian and Allegreto and Cara and nameless others meant her harm - and from where she did everything she could to push Ruck away, meaning to save him again. He was more faithful, more patient than any hero I've read about so far. For that, and for the artistry of the prose (as hard as it was to digest) I give the story 4 stars. It's the first in a 2-book series (Serial Reader's Challenge) and it's an AAR Top 100 of 2007 which also puts it in the Spring 2009 Challenge under that category!
Also, it was so hard to feel anything positive for the heroine. Melanthe was English by birth, but married into an Italian family at age 12, to a man many years older, and then a widow. There were 3 Italian families represented - I think - as being enemies each of the other, and many of the characters were aligned with one of the 3, Riata, Monteverde (Melanthe's husband) and Navona.
Allegreto Navona is a youth of 16 traveling with Melanthe to England so that she could claim her father's lands and then return to Gian, his father, to be his wife. Allegreto is an assassin and is also portrayed as a eunuch so that he can stay close to Melanthe at all times, even in bed. (How she never knew the truth, I'm not sure...)
The hero is Ruck, an English knight - the Green Knight - who swore his loyalty to Melanthe when he and she were just 17. He was accompanying his wife Isabelle to become a nun, when Melanthe - already a princess - saved his life by telling the religious leaders he wasn't chaste, that he was staring at her and having lustful thoughts about her. Although he had loved Isabelle, he didn't understand her - she was portrayed as either having a gift or being insane, having visions and prophecies. By not being chaste enough for the religious leaders, he wasn't allowed to join his wife - which eventually saved his life.
It was all pretty confusing, to be honest. 13 years go by, and Ruck has managed to become an anonymous knight - something about not having proof of his birth/ownership of his father's property since everyone in his family died in the plague. He was concerned if he said where he was from and what his name was, it would come to the attention of the king that his family's lands were without owner and they would be taken. He meets Melanthe again, and again swears his loyalty to her - only this time he announces it so everyone knows (whereas before this, it was just in his own heart and mind).
Melanthe, in truth, is scared to death of everyone, and mostly for good reason. Her husband taught her not to trust anyone, and from him she learned to be aloof and disdainful in manner, as a way to save herself. She pits her servants one against the other as a way to keep them from harming her, and for them to be ever afraid of her and each other. When Ruck leads a small party of her servants and her into England, she pretends to be struck with the plague - and she and Ruck are abandoned by the entire party. At this point, when it's just the 2 of them, she is alternately in his debt and falling for him, and playing him for a fool. It was very hard to feel sympathy for her, even though you were meant to believe she was constantly in fear of her life even from Ruck.
They make their way not to her lands, but to his, where for a time they live as husband and wife, an idyllic life where she is loved by his people and seems to have relaxed and started to enjoy life. Unfortunately, Ruck is now never sure when she is telling the truth, and when she is acting (aka Lying). He keeps thinking that she will want to leave and go to her own lands and people - and therein lies his mistake. When he sends a youth to her property to see if it's safe, the youth is caught up in the web of intrigue to find her and bind her to Gian Navona again.
So not only was it hard to read because of the language issues, it was hard to be sympathetic for this lying, wheeling-and-dealing heroine who pretty much shot herself in the foot everytime she opened her dang mouth! Poor naive Ruck was truly led on a not-so-merry chase to save her from everyone including herself.
I think I would classify Ruck as a Besotted Hero - after all, he was able to remain celibate for 13 years in his pursuit of her! And even not knowing her, not understanding her, he never gave up on her, and followed her into the snake pit that was her home, where Gian and Allegreto and Cara and nameless others meant her harm - and from where she did everything she could to push Ruck away, meaning to save him again. He was more faithful, more patient than any hero I've read about so far. For that, and for the artistry of the prose (as hard as it was to digest) I give the story 4 stars. It's the first in a 2-book series (Serial Reader's Challenge) and it's an AAR Top 100 of 2007 which also puts it in the Spring 2009 Challenge under that category!
Sunday, February 15, 2009
The Shadow and The Star by Laura Kinsale *****
Wow.
That is my first gut reaction to this book. It's a new favorite for me - the sensual writing, or maybe I mean sensory - or - the picture she paints is so vivid, so touching, in the book.
I wrote a few paragraphs about this book right after finishing it, then I read Lisa Kleypas' review on AAR. Of course, being an author, she manages to write a wonderful summary of the book and its high points without even going into much detail of the story, and I felt I needed to revise my own review as too wordy and not nearly sufficiently descriptive. (It's ironic that I'm not really of fan of Lisa Kleypas' books...)
Basically it's the story of a tortured hero, Samuel, who was rescued from a childhood of sexual abuse by a wealthy British family living in Hawaii in the mid 19th century. Samuel mentors with the family's Japanese butler in martial arts and Japanese ways of living and thinking. As Kleypas points out, the training is a way of healinb - but one area of his life, the sexual side of him, is too dangerous for him to reveal or even experience. While he's aware of the feelings, he suppresses them as too violent.
His heroine is prim and proper Leda - she lives in genteel poverty but while she's naive in the ways of things between a man and a woman, she's worldly in the ways of Society. When she catches Samuel in the act of stealing items from rich people, he gets her to help him - he's actually on a campaign to expose child prostitution, by hiding the stolen objects in houses of ill-repute and sending the police there to find them.
He manages to hire Leda as his personal secretary, and enlists her help in courting the woman he imagines he's loved most of his life - Kai, the daughter of his benefactors. But his love for Kai is chaste - he builds a house for him and her, but builds her a separate bedroom - his fantasy of love and marriage with Kai does not include sex. When confronted with the truth - Kai will want children - he's horrified but tries to go forward. Meanwhile, his lust/attraction to Leda builds, and because he has imagined that she is actually a courtesan, he steals into her room one night to indulge his seamier, sexual longings.
It's obvious from the story that both of them are virgins - well, he is a virgin in the sense that he has not, as an adult, chosen to have sexual relations before this encounter. When his benefactors insist he marry Leda, he does so reluctantly. Leda, it seems, is the one who brings true healing to him, though.
The story is told in flashbacks, one chapter in the present, one chapter in the past, revealing Samuel during his years in Hawaii, undergoing his training and his relationship to Kai as a child.
There's a suspenseful ending, with the Japanese trying to get back the last item stolen in England, as well as a truly satisfying HEA. I know I'll want to read this one over and over, because of the wonderful way the words sorta washed over me while I read it. Her convincing portrayal of Samuel's childhood in Hawaii, what he was thinking and longing for, made his character real and gave the story its depth.
5 stars and a keeper
That is my first gut reaction to this book. It's a new favorite for me - the sensual writing, or maybe I mean sensory - or - the picture she paints is so vivid, so touching, in the book.
I wrote a few paragraphs about this book right after finishing it, then I read Lisa Kleypas' review on AAR. Of course, being an author, she manages to write a wonderful summary of the book and its high points without even going into much detail of the story, and I felt I needed to revise my own review as too wordy and not nearly sufficiently descriptive. (It's ironic that I'm not really of fan of Lisa Kleypas' books...)
Basically it's the story of a tortured hero, Samuel, who was rescued from a childhood of sexual abuse by a wealthy British family living in Hawaii in the mid 19th century. Samuel mentors with the family's Japanese butler in martial arts and Japanese ways of living and thinking. As Kleypas points out, the training is a way of healinb - but one area of his life, the sexual side of him, is too dangerous for him to reveal or even experience. While he's aware of the feelings, he suppresses them as too violent.
His heroine is prim and proper Leda - she lives in genteel poverty but while she's naive in the ways of things between a man and a woman, she's worldly in the ways of Society. When she catches Samuel in the act of stealing items from rich people, he gets her to help him - he's actually on a campaign to expose child prostitution, by hiding the stolen objects in houses of ill-repute and sending the police there to find them.
He manages to hire Leda as his personal secretary, and enlists her help in courting the woman he imagines he's loved most of his life - Kai, the daughter of his benefactors. But his love for Kai is chaste - he builds a house for him and her, but builds her a separate bedroom - his fantasy of love and marriage with Kai does not include sex. When confronted with the truth - Kai will want children - he's horrified but tries to go forward. Meanwhile, his lust/attraction to Leda builds, and because he has imagined that she is actually a courtesan, he steals into her room one night to indulge his seamier, sexual longings.
It's obvious from the story that both of them are virgins - well, he is a virgin in the sense that he has not, as an adult, chosen to have sexual relations before this encounter. When his benefactors insist he marry Leda, he does so reluctantly. Leda, it seems, is the one who brings true healing to him, though.
The story is told in flashbacks, one chapter in the present, one chapter in the past, revealing Samuel during his years in Hawaii, undergoing his training and his relationship to Kai as a child.
There's a suspenseful ending, with the Japanese trying to get back the last item stolen in England, as well as a truly satisfying HEA. I know I'll want to read this one over and over, because of the wonderful way the words sorta washed over me while I read it. Her convincing portrayal of Samuel's childhood in Hawaii, what he was thinking and longing for, made his character real and gave the story its depth.
5 stars and a keeper
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