February Review. Yes, I know it's almost April.

RUSHED TO THE ALTER by Jane Feather 2010 - this book was given to me by a friend.

England 1761
Respectable country miss Clarissa Astley runs off to London after her dastardly guardian, Uncle Luke, absconds with her little brother (and the Astley heir), ten-year-old Francis Astley. She manages not to get herself killed and takes a servant's room in a nunnery (brothel). She has received an anonymous letter informing her that Francis is in a "babby farm" and will likely die from neglect.

Jasper Sullivan, Earl of Blackwater, must find and marry a woman of ill-repute, a woman that needs saving, in order to inherit his Uncle's wealth. With creditors nipping at his heels, he devises a plan to find a prostitute, make her his mistress, marry her then wait out his Uncle's demise, at which point they'll get a *gasp* divorce. Well, an annulment.  Clarissa practically knocks him over in Covent Garden while she's stalking Luke, and Jasper decides that she will do. They eat, she storms off (a habit of hers) and Jasper follows her back to the nunnery. Clarissa has let him believe that she is a prostitute and gives him a fake last name because she doesn't want it to get back to Luke that she is in London.

Clarissa decides that becoming this man's mistress will be the only way to provide a safe place for Francis until she turns 21 and has legal guardianship of him. When she turns 21 in a few months, she'll just take Francis and run off, leaving all of her "earnings".

So I've read several Jane Feather books and this one felt very different from the others. For one thing, it was S-L-O-W. Sure it takes place over maybe two or three weeks, but I just kept thinking, When is something going to happen? Also, one of the elements of tension is that this is just a business arrangement: he'll dress her up, show her off, marry her (which feels inaccurate for the time period, pre-Regency), then divorce her on the grounds that the marriage was never consummated. How in the world do you convince a church that you never consummated a marriage with your mistress?   And Jasper's Uncle converts to Catholicism, which, even for a Black Sheep who wants to infuriate the rest of the family, is a stretch in 18th century England. Perhaps that's the point, but it feels insincere.

On the whole, this book was passably entertaining. The final scene with Uncle Luke was anti-climactic. Clarissa's virginity was dealt with in an interesting way. Was I able to put this book down? Yes.
Will it deter me from other Jane Feather books? Probably not.

Coming out of Hibernation...

So there's been an involuntary hiatus of my blog postings, but not to worry, love bugs. Things should be slipping into their normal routine soon...

January Review for the TBR Challenge: Mistress of Pleasure by Delilah Marvelle

So, here it is, my first review. I am participating in the TBR challenge this year, and my review of Delilah Marvelle’s Mistress of Pleasure is my first entry.

Let’s start with the heroine. Maybelle is the motherless granddaughter of a renowned French courtesan who raised Maybelle after her father’s death. I’ll try not to give away too much here, because getting to know Maybelle is a delight, but let’s just say she has a rather unusual upbringing, as her grandmother is very forthright about sex and her own sexuality.  Since Maybelle never plans on getting married, she doesn’t need to “save her virginity for her dowry,” so when she sees the Duke, Edmund, well – I’ll just say that Marvelle creates the most delicious tension right from the start.  

Maybelle’s grandmother, Madame de Maitenon (which I think of as a clever wordplay on the French, maintenant, or “now”), opens a school to educate men on seduction, but because of an illness, one that hints at being false, Maybelle must assume the grandmother’s duties as instructor at the school.

Edmund, our hero, (are they even called hero and heroine anymore?) is charming and masculine in an almost knock –you-over-the-head-and-drag-you-back-to-the-cave kinda way. A duke who hasn’t married yet because of the unsavory rumors surrounding his father’s death, Edmund has some hang-ups about love and marriage. The one niggle in the back of my mind was the apparent “cut “ the ton had given the Duke.  The Duke’s mother (a likable secondary character) indicates that there were few ladies of quality that were willing to marry Edmund, and of the few that were willing, Edmund found something wrong with them. This seems inaccurate, that a duke would have a hard time finding a willing bride in English Society, though I admit, I have only just started reading up on Regency and Victorian history. Nevertheless, this aspect didn’t detract from the story in the least.

Now for the topic you’ve all been waiting for: the sex. As indicated in a previous post, my mother in law calls this stuff filler, but I think relationships (in real life and in fiction) can be gauged by the kind of intimacies shared. Having said that, I would describe Maybelle and Edmund’s relationship to be adventurous, perilously exciting and a bit naughty. Toe-curling, really.

I enjoyed this book immensely. Maybelle is spunky and shy, assertive and determined. I like the way she handled Edmund. But I think the aspect I appreciate most about this book is the underlying theme of empowerment. Of taking stock of society and circumstances of birth, and of not being afraid to buck those rules in order to learn more about who you are and what makes you happy.

I would definitely recommend this book, particularly for those who are looking for a heroine that isn’t the typical sheltered miss. I am looking forward to reading more of Marvelle’s books, with the anticipation of becoming a Marvelle junkie.

Happy reading, Love Bugs.

Full disclosure: I purchased the ePub of this book through iBooks. 

My Favorite Villain

So today I thought I'd talk about villains. I read primarily historical romance novels, so I don't know that my topic will be entirely relevant in regards to contemporary novels, but I definitely welcome contradictions or comments about your favorite contemporary villains.

I like a villain with a motive. An honest to God, legitimate reason for hating the heroine or hero. What I dislike is a villain going to great lengths to make life miserable for our hero for vanity, or even worse, because they are "mad." Using madness as a reason for the villains' actions seems like a cop out, an excuse not to put more work into the villain's character. And I hate the stereotypical petty, bitter, female villain who only causes trouble because her pride is wounded by the hero or heroine. If we're going to work towards legitimate female roles of power in romance novels, these kind of stereotypes aren't even good enough for our villains.

A satisfying villain is ruthless, clever, a little violent even, but also vulnerable. I like complex villains, whose back story is tragic and inevitable, who shows a little honor in the end, even if it is mis-guided.

What kinds of villains do you like? Any characteristics that drive you nuts?

I'm not sure if there will be a post next week, but I will tell you that one of my pet peeves is when the characters on the cover do not have the same hair color as the descriptions of the characters in the book. I doubt I'll be able to make a whole post out of that, but it's been on my mind.

Happy Holidays, season's greetings, and I hope you are snuggled up with the ones you love as we say goodbye to another year.

To fill or not to fill...

I've had over a decade long love affair with romance novels. Everything from Jean Auel to Jane Feather, Amanda Quick to Cathy Maxwell. After all that reading, I've developed a theory about filler. To me, there are three different kinds of filler: landscape, war, history. If you ask my mother-in-law, she'll say that excessive love scenes are filler, but it'd have to be some pretty convoluted and drawn out love-making for me to skim past it. So here's my breakdown:

1) Landscape. Don't get me wrong. I think the right amount of description of the characters' surroundings is pivotal to the emotional and physical fluency of the story. Page after page of descriptions about the grasses and flowers of the hills, extended direction on the proximity of certain landmarks to the hero/ine's ancestral home, detailed analysis of the chemical makeup of the rocks and cliff=not in the mood anymore. If I need to know which mushrooms in an English forest are safe to eat, put the characters in a situation where they have to forage for food.

2) War. I get that sex and a little bit of violence is a scintillating combination, and that facing death makes a man want to celebrate life (i.e. have sex) but detailed descriptions of battles, fields of wounded men bleeding and crying out, even excessive torture scenes leave a bad taste in my mouth. When done well, violence in a romance novel lends to the depth and breadth of the reader's emotional experience. And certainly, even in a work of romantic fiction we can't exclude other realistic elements of life. Ignoring that thousands and thousands of men died in the conflicts between England and France in the 1800's would be irresponsible. But page after page of battle descriptions makes my eyes glaze over.

3) History. I love history. I love how history can enhance and shade the pertinent details of the characters lives, adding a tangible richness to the plot. History helps make a satisfying, complex story. Unless it reads like a graduate-level thesis. I don't need paragraph after paragraph explaining the succession of kings, the effects of wars and why who started what. I'm already there, ready to believe that the Hero is decended from gods if you want me to. Just give me a good story.

So what about you? What kind of filler has you skimming pages? Any author that is particularly good at avoiding filler?

Next post: my favorite villain.