This was one of my first forays into romance novels, and I got it as an audio book - almost exactly 2 years ago! I don't recall liking it all that much, even though my original rating was 4 stars, so I figured I would revisit it now to see if it had changed.
I didn't make any notes about it or review it at all, but this time it struck me that the narrator, Violet Primm, must be Davina Porter. I mean, it's just not that possible for a woman to so completely copy everything about another's voice for a 10-12 hour audio book, it just isn't! The speaking patterns, the pronunciations, everything about her voice screamed Davina Porter - and since I have listened to 5 of the 7 books in the Outlander series at least 4 times (I don't own the other 2 in audio) as well as 4 of the books in Alexander McCall Smith's Isabel Dalhousie series, I think I can recognize her voice! (that would several hundred hours of this woman's voice directly in my ears, mind you) In fact, I found 2 other references from people online saying exactly the same thing.
Some of Ivory's other books are favorites, but - 4 stars notwithstanding - this one isn't. I think it's sort of a 3.5 star. Of course, the narration was superb, so that didn't count against it! But the storyline - even if it was fable-based - just didn't "speak" to me. OK, it is supposed to be Sleeping Beauty. I found it hard to think of Coco as a Sleeping Beauty. For one thing, she was an extremely poor French child who was ruined by her employer and then tossed out on her ear, to raise her child alone. It soon became obvious to her that her charms were best used to make money, so she became a courtesan. (a very lucky woman to be able to do that in her teens - although perhaps we are supposed to believe first she was just a common prostitute?) In fact, she became a very well-known courtesan and then at some point married well, to man who gave her son his name.
The hero is James, a young scholar just returned from an ill-fated journey to Africa where he was the only survivor of his rather large contingent of scholars. He is lauded for his scholarly efforts, invited to all the best parties, has private meetings with Queen Victoria and is given a rather high post at Cambridge. He also had humble beginnings but will soon have an earlship, or is it earldom, bestowed on him. But the politics at play here go against his own wishes - to leave the Africans who helped him survive and their gold alone.
I listened very hard and paid close attention to the story to see if it would be better, seem a little different this time. Coco was in no way sleeping, or hidden away from the world, so I still didn't find the Sleeping Beauty metaphor. Oh, and there was this disparity in their ages - Coco a worldly 37, and James a naive, wet-behind-the-ears 29, who even admits that Coco is only his 4th sex partner. Oo la la, you would think she had some things to teach him.
He does seem to have a problem with the fact that apparently she has already slept with most of the men he knows - his mentor, the bishop, various other dons at the college. Yeah, frankly, I can see where this would be a problem. I kept trying to do that math in my head - it's been more than a decade since she slept with men for money; her son is 22; she has just turned 37; she was married to someone who gave him a name (when was that?); she's been a widow for, if I recall correctly, 3 years. So, she gave birth at age 15; she stopped sleeping around at age 27 when the child was 12, but when was she being a courtesan and entertaining the Duke of Wales and when was she married?
So the story is, James and Coco meet at the dentist - he becomes besotted with her, not knowing a thing about her past since he's been in Africa - then he learns about her past - then she tries to shoo him away - and he's having to deal with the politics of people accusing him of wrong-doings associated with the Africa trip - and... then they do get together and then there's some things that keep them apart and then... they go to France? I dunno.
It was a little too disjointed for me. Then there is the ending. I read some complaints that it was done too quickly, ended too abruptly. Au contraire - once he publicly declared his love, I was ready for a short epilogue and then the HEA statement, not 3 more chapters of blah blah blah.
I think that was my last re-read of this book, and I'll save my Ivory re-reads for The Indiscretion and Untie My Heart. Oh, and probably The Proposition.
Showing posts with label Victorian. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Victorian. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Monday, August 23, 2010
Mine Till Midnight by Lisa Kleypas ***
OK, what is wrong with me? I've read 7 - count 'em, 7! - of Kleypas's historicals and I do not like her writing. Do. Not. So, why do I keep torturing myself and trying to read them?
I dunno. But somehow I got caught up in the excitement of one of her series - HISTORICAL - and decided to try it, from the beginning, on audio. Free audio, I might add, since I did download it from my library.
Bleh. Meh. It's ok, but nothing great. This is the first book in her Hathaway series, about a group of orphaned siblings whose eldest somehow inherited a title that included a run-down estate and very little money. The next in line wasn't Madeline but (sheesh, what was her name...) - oh right, Amelia, who is the actual Adult (in her own mind) who must take care of the bunch. Then there's Wynn, and Poppy and Beatrix. I assume there's a book for each, not that I'll actually find out since I WON'T BE READING HER AGAIN (I'm trying to promise myself).
I really believe Kleypas is the first author of all the popular authors out there that I really just can't get into, and I keep thinking it must be a character flaw within myself. I mean, can all those thousands, maybe millions of fans be wrong, and me right? Maybe.
And, to make it worse, I did like the contemporaries by Kleypas - it's just the historicals that leave me yawning and wondering when it will be over. I give them 3 only because I did manage to finish them. Oh, maybe I should change it to 2.
The narrator for this book was Rosalyn Landor. I can't say whether I've listened to her before (without doing some research) and she had a sort of odd vocal thing that drove me to distraction, mostly with the hero Cam (half Gypsy who sweeps Amelia off her feet). I guess she was trying to do a Brit/Romany accent thing, and instead it sounded like maybe he had asthma or something. There was what seemed to be a big puff of air behind several of the opening consonants, like maybe he was coughing. You know how people say something in a cough? That was almost what it was like. Her girl-voices were good, and - I don't know her own nationality - her American character accent was good. She read in a British accent. But Cam - well, I didn't like it.
There was a story - you know, Amelia can never marry because she has to take care of everyone, and Cam wants her so he boinks her thinking she'll see that they HAVE to marry, but noooooo, that doesn't persuade her. There's a bit of quasi-paranormal when the dead fiancee of the brother appears twice as a sort of vision, and once as a cold wind. There's Wynn, weak from scarlet fever (think Beth in Little Women, only Wynn didn't die - at least not in this book); there's a 15-year-old (Poppy? Beatrix?) who SCAMPERS (right). and the eldest, whatshisname, who pines for the dead fiancee and tries to off himself but instead they exorcise the ghost. Hmm, a house fire, some boinking, some more boinking (alright, already, haven't they boinked enough?)
So, yada yada, blah, blah, blah, boink boink, ghost woooooooo, boink boink, yes I'll marry you. The end. almost 3 stars.
I dunno. But somehow I got caught up in the excitement of one of her series - HISTORICAL - and decided to try it, from the beginning, on audio. Free audio, I might add, since I did download it from my library.
Bleh. Meh. It's ok, but nothing great. This is the first book in her Hathaway series, about a group of orphaned siblings whose eldest somehow inherited a title that included a run-down estate and very little money. The next in line wasn't Madeline but (sheesh, what was her name...) - oh right, Amelia, who is the actual Adult (in her own mind) who must take care of the bunch. Then there's Wynn, and Poppy and Beatrix. I assume there's a book for each, not that I'll actually find out since I WON'T BE READING HER AGAIN (I'm trying to promise myself).
I really believe Kleypas is the first author of all the popular authors out there that I really just can't get into, and I keep thinking it must be a character flaw within myself. I mean, can all those thousands, maybe millions of fans be wrong, and me right? Maybe.
And, to make it worse, I did like the contemporaries by Kleypas - it's just the historicals that leave me yawning and wondering when it will be over. I give them 3 only because I did manage to finish them. Oh, maybe I should change it to 2.
The narrator for this book was Rosalyn Landor. I can't say whether I've listened to her before (without doing some research) and she had a sort of odd vocal thing that drove me to distraction, mostly with the hero Cam (half Gypsy who sweeps Amelia off her feet). I guess she was trying to do a Brit/Romany accent thing, and instead it sounded like maybe he had asthma or something. There was what seemed to be a big puff of air behind several of the opening consonants, like maybe he was coughing. You know how people say something in a cough? That was almost what it was like. Her girl-voices were good, and - I don't know her own nationality - her American character accent was good. She read in a British accent. But Cam - well, I didn't like it.
There was a story - you know, Amelia can never marry because she has to take care of everyone, and Cam wants her so he boinks her thinking she'll see that they HAVE to marry, but noooooo, that doesn't persuade her. There's a bit of quasi-paranormal when the dead fiancee of the brother appears twice as a sort of vision, and once as a cold wind. There's Wynn, weak from scarlet fever (think Beth in Little Women, only Wynn didn't die - at least not in this book); there's a 15-year-old (Poppy? Beatrix?) who SCAMPERS (right). and the eldest, whatshisname, who pines for the dead fiancee and tries to off himself but instead they exorcise the ghost. Hmm, a house fire, some boinking, some more boinking (alright, already, haven't they boinked enough?)
So, yada yada, blah, blah, blah, boink boink, ghost woooooooo, boink boink, yes I'll marry you. The end. almost 3 stars.
Sunday, July 4, 2010
His at Night by Sherry Thomas ***
I'd been looking forward to the 4th book by the author of Delicious and Private Arrangements. Sherry Thomas' first 2 books reminded me of the style of authors Jo Goodman and Loretta Chase. They seem to all use wordplay to bring the story to life - rich, full characters and descriptions, with an underlying sophistication and humor. This style is still evident in His at Night but somehow the story itself didn't rise to the occasion for me.
Lord Vere is the elder brother of Freddie, a character from the previous novel Not Quite A Husband. He pretends that an accident in his teens included a head injury that rendered him an idiot while he is actually a spy in the service of the British Crown, around the turn of the last century. His idiocy - mainly he blathers on and on and on about subjects he knows nothing about - is the cover that allows him to do his work.
Elissande is a desperate woman, trying to escape the horrors and abuse of her uncle. Desperate enough, it seems, to trap an idiot into marriage, although it almost goes beyond even what she would do to save herself.
So - we have the cliche of the forced marriage, because she puts herself in a compromising position with him so that he'll marry her and save her. He is immediately attracted to her, but sees through her smiles to the scheming witch she is, or rather, appears to be. He wants to remain as far away as possible, and lets her know it fairly early on - he'll spend whatever it takes for an annulment as soon as she is safe.
Of course, there is also a mystery around the circumstances of her uncle - why is he under the scrutiny of the Crown if he is actually a successful diamond miner? What would make someone like him be considered for murder or blackmail?
And poor Freddie, left by his love in the previous book, turns to his best gal friend - a woman who has done everything she knew to throw herself into his path and get him to see her as a woman, and not just a childhood friend.
So, Vere slinks about investigating the uncle, Elissande quickly picks up on the truth about Vere's intelligence, the uncle is b-b-b-bad to the bone, and Freddie takes a while to wake up and smell the coffee.
It was ok - I liked it, 3 stars, but it just didn't carry me away to exotic locales (ok, now I'm quoting that voiceover in Harlequin audio books). At least I have several more books to start - and maybe even finish! - this holiday weekend!
Lord Vere is the elder brother of Freddie, a character from the previous novel Not Quite A Husband. He pretends that an accident in his teens included a head injury that rendered him an idiot while he is actually a spy in the service of the British Crown, around the turn of the last century. His idiocy - mainly he blathers on and on and on about subjects he knows nothing about - is the cover that allows him to do his work.
Elissande is a desperate woman, trying to escape the horrors and abuse of her uncle. Desperate enough, it seems, to trap an idiot into marriage, although it almost goes beyond even what she would do to save herself.
So - we have the cliche of the forced marriage, because she puts herself in a compromising position with him so that he'll marry her and save her. He is immediately attracted to her, but sees through her smiles to the scheming witch she is, or rather, appears to be. He wants to remain as far away as possible, and lets her know it fairly early on - he'll spend whatever it takes for an annulment as soon as she is safe.
Of course, there is also a mystery around the circumstances of her uncle - why is he under the scrutiny of the Crown if he is actually a successful diamond miner? What would make someone like him be considered for murder or blackmail?
And poor Freddie, left by his love in the previous book, turns to his best gal friend - a woman who has done everything she knew to throw herself into his path and get him to see her as a woman, and not just a childhood friend.
So, Vere slinks about investigating the uncle, Elissande quickly picks up on the truth about Vere's intelligence, the uncle is b-b-b-bad to the bone, and Freddie takes a while to wake up and smell the coffee.
It was ok - I liked it, 3 stars, but it just didn't carry me away to exotic locales (ok, now I'm quoting that voiceover in Harlequin audio books). At least I have several more books to start - and maybe even finish! - this holiday weekend!
Friday, March 20, 2009
So Enchanting by Connie Brockway *****
This was truly So Enchanting! It's a book with a magical premise, and it's even magical to read. I'm not sure why I hadn't heard much about Brockway before, but I've liked the ones I've read and this one is a real keeper too.
Grey has spent his adult life devoted to debunking all sorts of paranormal shyster activity - people who prey on those hoping to make contact with the dead especially - because his father lost the family fortune to people like this. During his raid on a seance by Alphonse Brown, Grey is entranced by Brown's wife, Francesca - but pushes aside his feelings.
Fanny, formerly Francesca Brown, soon thereafter widowed, gets a chance at a new life. She has some power over animals - when she is upset, the nearby animals react, and as a child, animals attacked and crippled her brother, so she became a sort of pariah in her family and her neighborhood. When a neighbor comes to her after her husband's death and asks her to be his daughter's companion, she agrees only if she can use a new name and identity, and no one but the 2 of them will know.
Then she spends the next 6 years in the Scottish Highlands as Fanny Walcott, with Amelie as her ward. Now that Amelie is 18, though, she's tired of being cooped up in a small town away from all the excitement of town, and yearns to be free and travel. Unfortunately, she has 3 more years to go before she comes into her inheritance and freedom.
Her guardian, a Lord Collier, receives a letter warning that Amelie's life may be in danger, so he sends his brother in law and son to check out the situation. Coincidentally enough, Grey is the brother in law - and his son is Hayden, a young man of 21. Amelie and Hayden immediately take to one another, and in the space of one day are declaring their undying love, and spending long moments mooning about.
The spark is also still there for Grey and Fanny - but there's no declarations of love or mooning - their sparks are more the flint v steel type. Brockway's style is so humorous and witty - while the young lovers are chastely holding hands and murmuring endearments on the terrace, Grey and Fanny are first fighting like cats and dogs, then the next minute they are passionately kissing and ripping at each other's clothing in the next room. Meanwhile, Fanny's spell over the animals has them all howling and hollering and tweeting and boinking like mad in the garden, on the paths and pretty much everywhere they look - it's laugh out loud funny!
She continues to contrast the 2 couples - one chapter starts with Hayden declaring it's the most wonderful day, and describing his day with his love Amelie. The next chapter is Grey declaring it's the most dreadful day - the same day, only from Grey's POV. When the plot to harm Amelie becomes more real - a large pot is pushed off a balcony and barely misses Amelie - Grey and Hayden try to figure out who is behind the plot. Meanwhile, Grey cannot let himself be enchanted by Fanny - he does remember who and what she is - and tries to figure out how she is scamming Amelie and her guardian.
I enjoyed every minute of this story! It fits as my second book for the novel set in Scotland category of the Spring 2009 Challenge, and I think I'll tag it Besotted Hero - Grey was slightly besotted, but Hayden was truly smittenly besotted!!
Grey has spent his adult life devoted to debunking all sorts of paranormal shyster activity - people who prey on those hoping to make contact with the dead especially - because his father lost the family fortune to people like this. During his raid on a seance by Alphonse Brown, Grey is entranced by Brown's wife, Francesca - but pushes aside his feelings.
Fanny, formerly Francesca Brown, soon thereafter widowed, gets a chance at a new life. She has some power over animals - when she is upset, the nearby animals react, and as a child, animals attacked and crippled her brother, so she became a sort of pariah in her family and her neighborhood. When a neighbor comes to her after her husband's death and asks her to be his daughter's companion, she agrees only if she can use a new name and identity, and no one but the 2 of them will know.
Then she spends the next 6 years in the Scottish Highlands as Fanny Walcott, with Amelie as her ward. Now that Amelie is 18, though, she's tired of being cooped up in a small town away from all the excitement of town, and yearns to be free and travel. Unfortunately, she has 3 more years to go before she comes into her inheritance and freedom.
Her guardian, a Lord Collier, receives a letter warning that Amelie's life may be in danger, so he sends his brother in law and son to check out the situation. Coincidentally enough, Grey is the brother in law - and his son is Hayden, a young man of 21. Amelie and Hayden immediately take to one another, and in the space of one day are declaring their undying love, and spending long moments mooning about.
The spark is also still there for Grey and Fanny - but there's no declarations of love or mooning - their sparks are more the flint v steel type. Brockway's style is so humorous and witty - while the young lovers are chastely holding hands and murmuring endearments on the terrace, Grey and Fanny are first fighting like cats and dogs, then the next minute they are passionately kissing and ripping at each other's clothing in the next room. Meanwhile, Fanny's spell over the animals has them all howling and hollering and tweeting and boinking like mad in the garden, on the paths and pretty much everywhere they look - it's laugh out loud funny!
She continues to contrast the 2 couples - one chapter starts with Hayden declaring it's the most wonderful day, and describing his day with his love Amelie. The next chapter is Grey declaring it's the most dreadful day - the same day, only from Grey's POV. When the plot to harm Amelie becomes more real - a large pot is pushed off a balcony and barely misses Amelie - Grey and Hayden try to figure out who is behind the plot. Meanwhile, Grey cannot let himself be enchanted by Fanny - he does remember who and what she is - and tries to figure out how she is scamming Amelie and her guardian.
I enjoyed every minute of this story! It fits as my second book for the novel set in Scotland category of the Spring 2009 Challenge, and I think I'll tag it Besotted Hero - Grey was slightly besotted, but Hayden was truly smittenly besotted!!
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
Saturday, January 3, 2009
My Dearest Enemy by Connie Brockway *****
I enjoyed this book all the way through, but it was the ending that turned it into a 5-star read for me.
It was fun to watch 2 intelligent protagonists spar with words as they corresponded for 4.5 years - she trying to keep up with him to send his "allowance" so that she could keep the inheritance, he trying to stay one step ahead while he waited her out. When he finally shows up, a few months early of the 5 year deadline, the 2 then have to "fight" it out - who will inherit the property? It's funny that in the description it says "the woman whose love brings him home" because he does indeed fall in love with her letters, even though he has no intention of letting her get the better of him.
It's an unusual theme for a historical - Lily is a staunch feminist who is out to prove that, not including things which require physical strength, women can do anything men can - including successfully run a homestead and even make a profit. Avery is just waiting to inherit the home he was promised as a child and is just waiting for Lily to fail so that he can.
But it was the romantic ending that got me - Avery risked it all in a gamble to win over the woman who swore she would never marry anyone.
It was fun to watch 2 intelligent protagonists spar with words as they corresponded for 4.5 years - she trying to keep up with him to send his "allowance" so that she could keep the inheritance, he trying to stay one step ahead while he waited her out. When he finally shows up, a few months early of the 5 year deadline, the 2 then have to "fight" it out - who will inherit the property? It's funny that in the description it says "the woman whose love brings him home" because he does indeed fall in love with her letters, even though he has no intention of letting her get the better of him.
It's an unusual theme for a historical - Lily is a staunch feminist who is out to prove that, not including things which require physical strength, women can do anything men can - including successfully run a homestead and even make a profit. Avery is just waiting to inherit the home he was promised as a child and is just waiting for Lily to fail so that he can.
But it was the romantic ending that got me - Avery risked it all in a gamble to win over the woman who swore she would never marry anyone.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
As You Desire by Connie Brockway *****
Wow! I can't believe that I've been reading romance for more than a year and can still find authors I'd not even heard of who are writing incredibly wonderful books that no one seems to be talking about!!
Wait, of course, this is an AAR Top 100 of 2007, so someone has talked about it and read it. I just don't see this name (Connie Brockway) mentioned frequently on the forums. Why is that? Well, she's still writing, so I don't know how I have missed out on her books before.
OK: plot first. Desdemona Carlisle is a prodigy - an Englishwoman who, as a child, learned to read a dozen languages. Not speak, just read. Her parents - uhm, archeologists? well, whatever they were, they dragged her all over Europe, displaying her talents and simultaneously depriving her of a real childhood, with friends and school and such. She used romance novels to fill in her lonely life, and in her head has a constant inner monologue that translates her experiences into Romance-speak. That is one of the funniest parts of the entire book!
Her parents died when she was 15, and her only living relative is her grandfather, an Egyptologist living in Cairo, so she has lived there with him for 5 years. She does translating and other odd jobs to help support them, as grandfather is not a good businessman and they live on the edge of genteel poverty.
Harry Braxton has made a life for himself in Egypt, trading antiquities both above and below board, as it were. He has a rather sordid past - he was thrown out of Oxford for cheating, and left England "under a cloud". He suffers from dyslexia, known in Victorian times as "word blindness" - he cannot read. He discovers he can read hieroglyphics, and he has a wonderful memory and ability to mimic what he hears, so he picks up Arabic and other local dialects very easily.
Desdemona, or Dizzy as Harry calls her, has been in love with Harry forever - and, to be honest, Harry harbors the same for her but cannot bring himself to act on it. For one thing, there is the age issue: when she finally declared herself to him, she was only 17. For another, there is the shame of being unable to read - some even call it retardation. So he rebuffs her, and keeps her at arms' length, even though he does have to keep rescuing her - over and over - from the many scrapes she finds herself involved in.
Harry's hand is forced when his cousin arrives from England and tries to woo Dizzy for himself. And Dizzy is put into a more serious situation, requiring one more rescue by her knight-errant.
Ok, it's more complicated than that. There's another woman in Harry's life - well, she wants to be in his life anyway. And there are several feuding elements - grandfather feuding with other explorers; Harry feuding with an unscrupulous site foreman; Harry and his cousin feuding over their ancestral lands and Dizzy's hand. And of course, the English, Turks, Arabs and native Egyptians feuding over who is in control, of the government and also of the discovery and transportation of antiquities.
Yes, it's complicated, and it's fun, and there's intrigue and kidnapping and sandstorms and relics - there's really only one evil villain, and a number of rather misguided folks whose actions take on more than they intended, and the wonderful love story of Harry and Dizzy.
5 stars and a keeper to boot!
Wait, of course, this is an AAR Top 100 of 2007, so someone has talked about it and read it. I just don't see this name (Connie Brockway) mentioned frequently on the forums. Why is that? Well, she's still writing, so I don't know how I have missed out on her books before.
OK: plot first. Desdemona Carlisle is a prodigy - an Englishwoman who, as a child, learned to read a dozen languages. Not speak, just read. Her parents - uhm, archeologists? well, whatever they were, they dragged her all over Europe, displaying her talents and simultaneously depriving her of a real childhood, with friends and school and such. She used romance novels to fill in her lonely life, and in her head has a constant inner monologue that translates her experiences into Romance-speak. That is one of the funniest parts of the entire book!
Her parents died when she was 15, and her only living relative is her grandfather, an Egyptologist living in Cairo, so she has lived there with him for 5 years. She does translating and other odd jobs to help support them, as grandfather is not a good businessman and they live on the edge of genteel poverty.
Harry Braxton has made a life for himself in Egypt, trading antiquities both above and below board, as it were. He has a rather sordid past - he was thrown out of Oxford for cheating, and left England "under a cloud". He suffers from dyslexia, known in Victorian times as "word blindness" - he cannot read. He discovers he can read hieroglyphics, and he has a wonderful memory and ability to mimic what he hears, so he picks up Arabic and other local dialects very easily.
Desdemona, or Dizzy as Harry calls her, has been in love with Harry forever - and, to be honest, Harry harbors the same for her but cannot bring himself to act on it. For one thing, there is the age issue: when she finally declared herself to him, she was only 17. For another, there is the shame of being unable to read - some even call it retardation. So he rebuffs her, and keeps her at arms' length, even though he does have to keep rescuing her - over and over - from the many scrapes she finds herself involved in.
Harry's hand is forced when his cousin arrives from England and tries to woo Dizzy for himself. And Dizzy is put into a more serious situation, requiring one more rescue by her knight-errant.
Ok, it's more complicated than that. There's another woman in Harry's life - well, she wants to be in his life anyway. And there are several feuding elements - grandfather feuding with other explorers; Harry feuding with an unscrupulous site foreman; Harry and his cousin feuding over their ancestral lands and Dizzy's hand. And of course, the English, Turks, Arabs and native Egyptians feuding over who is in control, of the government and also of the discovery and transportation of antiquities.
Yes, it's complicated, and it's fun, and there's intrigue and kidnapping and sandstorms and relics - there's really only one evil villain, and a number of rather misguided folks whose actions take on more than they intended, and the wonderful love story of Harry and Dizzy.
5 stars and a keeper to boot!
Saturday, October 4, 2008
The Indiscretion by Judith Ivory *****
I listened to this on my iPod on the plane trip to Cairo, Egypt, and WOW! It's truly a new top favorite, maybe top 3 with To Die For (LH) and A Season To Be Sinful (JG). To be honest, I think Barbara Rosenblat's incredible narration raised it ABOVE what I might have felt about reading it! Her Sam Cody voice was a masterpiece and her Liddy simply perfection - a heroine who could have been read as spoiled and willful came across as whimsical, credible, witty - really, delightful, even when she was being really too hard on Sam.
Plot redux: Texas cowboy and titled Brit heiress meet in a coach on the moor. It's 1899 - the driver falls off at some point, a few miles later the coach is wrecked, and as the only passengers, they have to spend 4 days roughing it before being rescued. Miss Prissy Brit is none too honest about her background, and later we learn Sam, while technically honest, wasn't as forthcoming as he might have been about his. Part I is on the moor, where they develop a friendship and then step beyond the boundary (The Indiscretion, as it were). Part II is, well, the reckoning of all their actions - the truths, half-truths and outright lies as well as The Indiscretion itself.
I laughed out loud several times - again, Rosenblat's narration was so - perfect - I can't even describe it. She flipped from hung-over, raspy Texan male drawl to prissy Brit aristocrat to common ladies' maid to stuffy Brit boyfriend to... well, she nailed every character. Even her intake of breath was meaningful in her narration.
There was an odd background noise that, if I recall, some reviewers on audible.com thought was the narrator sucking on candy. I have no idea what that noise was (papers rattling?) but there's no way it was Rosenblat making that noise, because she speaks and breathes while the noise is being made.
5 stars and definitely worth a re-read! (update, 2/23/09, I did do a re-read/listen!)
Plot redux: Texas cowboy and titled Brit heiress meet in a coach on the moor. It's 1899 - the driver falls off at some point, a few miles later the coach is wrecked, and as the only passengers, they have to spend 4 days roughing it before being rescued. Miss Prissy Brit is none too honest about her background, and later we learn Sam, while technically honest, wasn't as forthcoming as he might have been about his. Part I is on the moor, where they develop a friendship and then step beyond the boundary (The Indiscretion, as it were). Part II is, well, the reckoning of all their actions - the truths, half-truths and outright lies as well as The Indiscretion itself.
I laughed out loud several times - again, Rosenblat's narration was so - perfect - I can't even describe it. She flipped from hung-over, raspy Texan male drawl to prissy Brit aristocrat to common ladies' maid to stuffy Brit boyfriend to... well, she nailed every character. Even her intake of breath was meaningful in her narration.
There was an odd background noise that, if I recall, some reviewers on audible.com thought was the narrator sucking on candy. I have no idea what that noise was (papers rattling?) but there's no way it was Rosenblat making that noise, because she speaks and breathes while the noise is being made.
5 stars and definitely worth a re-read! (update, 2/23/09, I did do a re-read/listen!)
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