A Gentleman Never Tells, by Juliana Gray

Title: A Gentleman Never Tells
Author: Juliana Gray
Year of Publication: 2012
Length: 310 pages
Genre: historical romance
New or Re-Read? New!
Rating: 3.25 stars

I didn’t like this one as much as the first in the series, which is a little strange, since I really did like both the hero and the heroine. The story is still strong, but I ended up feeling that there was just so much more that could’ve been done with it.

A Gentleman Never Tells works in concert with Gray’s debut novel, A Lady Never Lies, telling the same story of three gentlemen and three ladies inadvertently renting the same Italian villa for the summer. In this book, Gray brings us the story of Countess Somerton, formerly Elizabeth Harewood, “wife of one of England’s most brutal and depraved aristocrats.” Or so we’re told. She’s fled England with her five-year-old son, hoping to raise her boy far away from her husband’s influence, but she doesn’t want to divorce, because she knows her husband could claim custody of their son. She’s sort of too tense to be enjoying herself in any fashion, and that doesn’t get better when one of the three men turns out to be a long lost love.

Roland Penhallow, younger brother of the Duke of Wallingford, leads a double life as a secret agent for the crown. While he pretends to be a shallow playboy for London society, he really spends much of his time out of the country doing… secretive things. I wish I could be more specific, but the book isn’t. This is just one of several under-used elements in the story. Roland’s agreed to join the trip to Italy with his brother and Finn because his position has been jeopardized. Someone’s accusing him of double-dealing, and though his superior believes him, until they can prove who’s setting him up, Roland needs to make himself inconspicuous.

The romance between Elizabeth and Roland is compelling enough, but I could’ve done with more on their background. We get a brief version of the story, but not a lot of insight. They met, fell in love, but then Roland had to leave the country on state business, and in his absence Elizabeth lets herself get talked into marrying Somerton for his wealth and position. Despite her protestations of virtue and her desire not to do anything scandalous, it’s a matter of hours after she sees Roland again before they’re going at it in a stable. It’s a good scene, but it does make Elizabeth seem a little haphazardly written. Gray sets up an interesting scenario — a really interesting scenario, considering she’s making her heroine an actual adulteress, which isn’t something I think I’ve seen before. But I don’t feel like she really did enough with it, besides a little exploration of just what you had to do to get a divorce in the 1890s. The stakes never feel but so high.

The villain of the piece, Earl Somerton, also failed to feel all that villainous. The reader hears over and over again that he’s a dissolute wretch, utterly depraved, and yet we never see any real evidence of this. He has a series of mistresses, apparently, which while not exactly admirable, in 1890 did not automatically make a man an utter debaucher. We only ever hear about two of them in any detail, and they both seem to have been participating with enthusiasm. He also seems to enjoy a particular relationship with his male secretary, but, however the Victorians may have felt about it, that certainly shouldn’t paint a character as depraved in a modern novel. Even at the height of the novel’s supposed tension, he shies away from doing anything truly dastardly.

Ultimately, A Gentleman Never Tells didn’t feel as innovative as A Lady Never Lies, and the innovation was a lot of what I liked about that book. Without that spirit, the book is a perfectly serviceable but not particularly exciting historical romance. It could as easily be a standard Regency as a late-Victorian, but for a few quirks of window-dressing. Gray doesn’t seem to use the situation she’s built as effectively in this book as in the first. So, this book gets a just-slightly-higher-than-average rating. I’m still interested to read the third book in the series, but this one didn’t grip me as much as the first.

The Bookman’s Tale, by Charlie Lovett

Title: The Bookman’s Tale
Author: Charlie Lovett
Year of Publication: 2013
Length: 352 pages
Genre: historical mystery
New or Re-Read? New
Rating: 4.25 stars

The Bookman’s Tale is the story of Peter, an antiquarian bookseller who, in the midst of grieving for his recently-departed wife, finds what appears to be a Victorian-era watercolor of her, pressed inside an old copy of Edmond Malone’s An Inquiry into the Authenticity of Certain Miscellaneous Papers (the book exposing William Henry Ireland’s forgeries of Shakespearean manuscripts). Though he knows the painting can’t possibly be of his wife, he feels compelled to find out the identity of both painter and subject. Hunting down this information leads him to stumble across an early edition of Robert Greene’s Pandosto, the source material for The Winter’s Tale. While this would be an extraordinary find on its own, what makes this particular book even more astonishing is the marginalia: a series of notes apparently written by Shakespeare as he composed his play. Peter thinks that he may have realized his life-long dream to find evidence proving once and for all that Shakespeare wrote the plays attributed to him, but he knows enough of the history of forgeries to be wary of deception, and so he sets out on a quest to determine the book’s authenticity. He’s not the only one on the trail, however, and people with a lot to lose if Pandosto proves authentic are willing to kill to preserve its secrets.

The book moves along three separate but interrelated storylines: the first set in 1995, when Peter finds the copy of Pandosto and goes on his quest; the second set in the 1980s, when Peter begins his career in rare books at college, and which also charts his relationship with Amanda from their first meeting to its tragic end; and the third spanning from 1592 through the 1870s, tracking the transmission of one copy of Pandosto through time and through the exchange of many hands. The historical plotline delves into the world of playmaking and printing in the 16th and 17th centuries, showing what a cutthroat business it really could be, driven by rivalries, egos, and personal vendettas. Of the three storylines, the least relevant to the driving plot is the 1980s thread — but that is the storyline which gives this book its heart. It’s what makes you care about Peter, and it’s what makes you feel that his quest matters not only scholastically, but personally as well. It also provides a lot of the connective tissue which ultimately ties the loose ends of the story together, because the reader gets to see Peter learn his trade as well as learn to come out of his shell and engage with Amanda’s family and friends.

I received this book from the publisher, in exchange for a review, and I will freely admit that I had a lot of reservations — and I will just as freely admit that they were all, thankfully, rendered irrelevant. I worried this would be yet another Da Vinci Code knockoff, and while I have nothing against that genre of book in general, the quality can be alarmingly varied. I worried it would have an anti-Stratfordian bent, because I have learned to be leery when I see phrases like “prove the truth about Shakespeare’s identity” on book jackets (as turned out to be the problem with Interred with Their Bones). I worried that the dead-wife angle would make it too maudlin, too Gothic for my personal tastes (as was my trouble with the well-written but not-to-my-preference The Thirteenth Tale). I’m very happy to say that, as it turns out, I had nothing to fear on all three counts.

The biggest problem, I think, is that the summary really doesn’t do the book justice. For one thing, it makes it sound like the book is a lot more about the painting and the Victorian angle, when the far greater focus is on textual transmission and the development of the Shakespeare brand through the centuries. It’s also not nearly as mournful in tone as the jacket makes it out to be, nor is the vaguely paranormal element the jacket hints at as prevalent. Peter is a strong protagonist without needing to be an action hero, and I appreciate him for that. He is, definitely, a scholar and a bookseller, and at no point during the story does he morph into a super-spy or an Indiana Jones. He remains what he is, using his intelligence, his inquisitive nature, and his training in the field of early modern publishing to hunt down the mystery. I also appreciated that Lovett could give us an introverted protagonist with social anxiety problems and still have him be a strong character. Peter struggles a lot, both early in the 1980s storyline and in the 1995 storyline, with social interaction, but the reader gets to see him learn how to deal with that. He finds his safe spaces and safe people. Unfortunately, since Amanda was the one who drew him out to begin with, after her death, he retreats from the world and isolates himself entirely — so a lot of the story isn’t just his quest to find the truth behind Pandosto, it’s about him finding closure with her death and learning to be that more-adjusted version of himself again, even without her. It’s a deeper and more emotionally satisfying angle than I was expecting the book to have, and it strengthens the narrative.

I only have a few minor complaints, most of which didn’t really impede my enjoyment of the book: Some of the twists and turns are a little predictable, but that doesn’t bother me much. After all, as Shakespeare so often reminds us, knowing the plot isn’t the same as knowing the story. The Bookman’s Tale is less a fast-paced thriller and more a historical-psychological exploration with a dash of mystery, and I appreciate that Lovett didn’t seem to feel much need to hammer it into another form. The threat of danger towards the end is the only place it gets a little Da Vinci Code-y, but even there, The Bookman’s Tale strains plausibility far less than other books in this genre. There were only a few details throughout which I found far-fetched, such as a professor of Shakespeare at an esteemed university never having heard of Q1 Hamlet (but perhaps, in the 1980s, that could have been true? I don’t know). The secondary romantic interest felt a little tacked-on and unnecessary. The book definitely would have worked just as well without that aspect, but Lovett also isn’t too heavy-handed about it, so it’s easy to ignore.

I can cheerfully recommend The Bookman’s Tale as a great summer read for any Shakespeare enthusiast, but particularly, I think, for the sort who has a real interest in the early modern world of playmaking and printing. There’s more substance here than to your typical novel of this sort, and a lot more “Easter eggs” slipped in for the benefit of readers-in-the-know. I think those of a scholarly bent will appreciate the attention to detail which Lovett gives the history of textual transmission. The sections set during Shakespeare’s lifetime are full of wonderful details, intriguing cameos, and cheeky off-hand references. Lovett clearly knows his stuff when it comes to the playhouses and the print culture of early modern England. The Bookman’s Tale would actually be a great companion book to Shapiro’s Contested Will, in some ways, because it takes a fictionalized look at the true history of how Shakespeare mania grew over the centuries into a force which spawned forgeries and erroneous theories. It just released this week, so pick it up at your local bricks-and-mortar or on Amazon.

Cross-posted, with some additions and adjustments, from the American Shakespeare Center Education Blog.

The Bridgertons: Happily Ever After, by Julia Quinn

Title: The Bridgertons: Happily Ever After (Bridgertons #9)
Author: Julia Quinn
Year of Publication: 2013
Length: 374 pages
Genre: historical romance
New or Re-Read? New!
Rating: 4 stars

The Bridgertons are one of the best-loved families in historical romance, and for good reason. JQ did something extraordinary, creating a family that was close-knit and loving, but not cloying — always believable, full of rivalries and frustrations, rife with inside jokes, and ultimately, always there for each other. Even more incredible, she managed to sustain the charm across eight books — easily twice as long as most romance novel series. I always thought that the first half of the series was stronger than the second half (as you can see from my reviews), but they’re all solid and enjoyable.

Because this family is so cherished by her fans, JQ decided to do something special — a collection of Second Epilogues, showing just what happens in Happy Ever After. Some of these had been released before, but as I don’t have an e-reader, I hadn’t read any of them, so they were all new to me. And they’re pretty delightful. In so many ways, diving into this book was like revisiting old friends and discovering them, not unchanged, but just as dear and warm and lovely as ever they were.

I’m not going to review each one individually, because it’s really the collection as a whole that made the biggest impression on me. I just love the idea of it — of showing that the story doesn’t end at the altar. The stories in this collection span a wide range of time, some of them coming just weeks after the corresponding book ends, others stretching decades into the characters’ future. The ones I ended up liking the best were in that second category — showing our beloved heroes and heroines years and years on and still madly in love with each other. I appreciate the… I don’t know, the reassurance? So much conventional “wisdom” states that passion inevitably fades over time, that fires bank down to embers, and you’re lucky if you have warmth and comfort enough to sustain a relationship past that. But I have always wanted to believe that that doesn’t have to be true — not for everyone, anyway. And the Bridgertons show me that in fictional form — couples who still desire each other even after many children, even after their own children have children. Who still tease and laugh and flirt, decades into their relationships. Who continue to face challenges and continue to grow stronger from them. I love it.

The two Second Epilogues that stick out in my mind the most are Kate & Anthony’s and Francesca and Michael’s — unsurprising, since those are among my favourite books in the series, anyway. With Kate and Anthony, we get a glorious return to Pall Mall and the Mallet of Death. This Second Epilogue is as cheeky and tempestuous as I could’ve wished, really recapturing the spirit of the original. Francesca’s Second Epilogue, much like her own story, is told in a much different tone, slower and more introspective, but absolutely brimming with passionate emotion. Colin and Penelope’s was, sadly, one of the less sterling sections — sad because they vie for the top spot of my favourite Bridgerton novel. It’s a midquel, actually, for To Sir Philip, With Love, where we find out how Eloise learned Penelope’s great secret; unfortunately, the events aren’t that gripping, and the story sort of meanders.

I do sort of wish that at least one couple out of the eight had remained childless but content with that, even if it wouldn’t really be historically accurate, just because it’d be nice to see childfree families represented in the genre at all — but, I know that’s sort of an unreasonable request, given the market. I also wish that Violet’s novella had been longer — hell, I wish she’d get a whole book of her own, but JQ has always said that will never be the case. But I would’ve liked to have seen more of her and Edmund’s courtship — and of their marriage. The vignettes didn’t fully satisfy, as JQ moves on to the tragedy and its aftermath rather quickly. I see where she wanted to go with it, to show Violet’s entire arc, but I would’ve appreciated a little more

I very much can’t recommend this book to anyone who hasn’t previously read all of the Bridgerton novels — but, of course, I recommend those to all readers of romance, so this can just be the cherry on the sundae. And I do feel it fair to warn that there isn’t a lot of heat in any of these vignettes — JQ drops a few sizzling moments the readers’ way (in Anthony’s and Francesca’s stories, notably, which may also contribute to my favorable impression of those), but on the whole, these stories just aren’t long enough to sustain real sex scenes. By their very nature, they also don’t stand alone very well. Nostalgia definitely plays a large role in my enjoyment of them, but if you’ve missed the Bridgertons as I have, then I thoroughly recommend returning to their world with Happily Ever After.

A Lady Never Lies, by Juliana Gray

Title: A Lady Never Lies
Author: Juliana Gray
Year of Publication: 2012
Length: 311
Genre: historical romance
New or Re-Read? New!
Rating: 4 stars

This is a historical romance with a unique premise, all the more surprising since it is, in fact, loosely borrowed from Shakespeare. Gray transposes the improbable plot of Love’s Labour’s Lost to 1890, and somehow, it works — largely because she doesn’t feel compelled to hold to it too strictly, allowing the “Little Academe” of Navarre to inspire her work without hemming it in. Phineas Burke, a successful scientist whose inventions have made him quite wealthy, convinces his friend the Duke of Wallingford and the Duke’s younger brother, Roland, to spend a year with him at a remote Italian villa, away from the torments of matchmaking mamas and the evils of over-indulgence. Finn wants to spend the year perfecting the engine for his electric automobile so that he can enter it in a race in Rome.

Enter the ladies. Thanks to a mix-up (or to deliberate interference on the part of the real estate broker?), the three gentlemen have rented the same estate as Lady Alexandra Morley, her sister Abigail, and her friend Lady Lilibet Somerton. Alexandra has fled England ahead of the creditors left to her by her late husband and a nephew with catastrophically poor investment strategies. Lilibet has fled an abusive husband,  with her five-year-old son in tow, and while her circumstances are not detailed yet, I’m sure they will be in her book. Stuck together for the foreseeable future, the two groups make a bet on which will crack and head back to England first. Or which will break their vows of chastity and isolation first? It’s a little blurry just what, exactly, constitutes losing the bet.

There are hijinks worthy of Shakespeare throughout the book, as Finn and Alexandra experience a powerful attraction to each other but have to hide it from the others in the house. Finn expects to hate socialite Alexandra, but finds himself charmed by her forthright nature and startling intelligence. They are both imperfect characters with shady pasts, but their ragged edges fit together nicely. There’s also a charming air of rustic mystery surrounding the story, as the housekeeper and groundskeeper interfere freely with everyone’s business, occasionally dropping hints about an old curse upon the villa that needs to be broken — I can only assume we’ll be hearing more about that later on.

There are a few things that don’t come together, and I honestly don’t know if they’ll get better treatment in the remaining two books or not. The whole concept of the bet is sort of flimsy, as is Alexandra’s decision to sort-of-kind-of-not-really engage in industrial espionage. Turns out some of her nephew’s investments were in an automobile company, and she half-heartedly tries to spy on Finn to get some ideas that might save the company… but you never get the feeling that she actually has strong intent there, and the story swerves away from it pretty quickly. The chemistry between Finn and Alexandra carries us along far better than that abortive attempt at intrigue.

Fortunately, Gray doesn’t pull Shakespeare’s ending stunt on us, so don’t worry that you’ll finish this book feeling as awkwardly interrupted as I always do at the end of Love’s Labour’s Lost. My biggest complaint is that I feel it could’ve been longer — the standard 370-380 pages rather than this slightly scant 311 would’ve given a little more room for character exploration. I totally believed in Alexandra’s and Finn’s attraction to and affection for each other, but the initial draw felt a little lacking. It also might have smoothed over some of the leaps in the timeline — the book hops along rapidly, but I could’ve done with a bit more idling, particularly at the beginning, to see them all settle into the house rather than jumping so soon to a month into their tenancy. But — I’m someone who likes world-building a lot, whether fantasy or historical, so I will always permit an author that indulgence. I know not everyone’s patience runs so long, and so many readers might appreciate the rapid pace of the novel.

I found the premise of this story refreshing, both in terms of the time period and the details behind the plotline. Gray does herself some great favours by breaking the mold in those ways, putting us in Italy rather than England (even with English characters) and moving to the opposite end of the century. It gives her more room to play, I think, and she clearly has had a lot of fun with it. She sprinkles the story with as much historical veracity as invention and artistic license, and sharp-eyed history buffs will enjoy the cameos.

I also appreciated that Gray didn’t give away everything with regards to the other couples. We sort of see them dash in and out as teasers, but there doesn’t appear to be a lot of overlap in what scenes Gray chooses to show us in this book. I believe that will help this series escape some of the problems I had with Julia Quinn’s Dukes of Wyndham duology. A Lady Never Lies was a fun read, unusual for a historical romance but not in ways that were distracting or disturbing, and I look forward to the rest of the series.

Etiquette and Espionage, by Gail Carriger

Title: Etiquette & Espionage (Finishing School #1)
Author: Gail Carriger
Year of Publication: 2013
Length: 320 pages
Genre: YA steampunk
New or Re-Read?: New
Rating: 4 stars

I was super-excited to get my hands on Ms. Carriger’s latest novel, her first foray into YA fiction. I thoroughly enjoyed her Parasol Protectorate series, and I’m so glad that she’s decided to continue on in this world even though she wrapped that series up. Etiquette & Espionage did not disappoint me.

Sophronia, a fourteen-year-old youngest daughter in the 1850s, is unusual. She climbs dumbwaiters and gets herself into terrible fixes and is generally an embarrassment to her family, a socially-aspirant gentry . Little does her mother know that when she packs Sophronia off to finishing school, she’s actually giving the girl just what she needs. Her unusual new circumstances first become apparent when she chats with Dimity, also headed to Mademoiselle Geraldine’s Finishing Academy for Young Ladies of Quality, and her brother Pillover, destined for Bunson and Lacroix’s Boys’ Polytechnique. As Dimity chatters cheerfully about evil geniuses, covert recruits, Picklemen, and Custard Pots of Iniquity, Sophronia begins to suspect something is odd. When her carriage is attacked by flywaymen, their escort goes into unconvincing hysterics, and Sophronia has to take command of the horses and rescue them all, her suspicions are rather confirmed.

It turns out that Sophronia has landed at a school designed not only to turn her into a lady but to turn her lethal as well. Or, rather, the Academy has landed at her — for it’s a floating school, suspended from enormous balloons. A werewolf named Captain Niall (!) serves as ship-to-ground transport and teaches combat, a vampire covers history and deportment, mechanical staff patrol the hallways as prefects, the students learn poisons and manipulation alongside powders and manners, and the headmistress has no idea that any of it is going on. Sophronia begins to settle in at the Academy and into an easy friendship with Dimity, though she has more trouble with the others in her dormitory. Sidhaeg (!) is prickly and recalcitrant, Agatha a shy wallflower, Preshea a snob, and Monique is none other than their escort, demoted back to debut rank for refusing to give up the whereabouts of the mysterious “prototype” which the flywaymen were after. Sophronia and Monique do not get on at all, and their rivalry drives much of the action in the book. Sophronia also uses her climbing abilities to sneak into the restricted areas, where she makes friends with the sooties who keep the ship running, including Soap, a London-born boy of African descent (and props to Carriger for including a non-white character in an English historical novel!). Sophronia, never having seen a black person before, is startled by him at first but gets over it quickly. The two become friends, and Soap introduced her to Vieve (!), niece to Professor Beatrice Lefoux (!) and a budding inventor. As the plot progresses, Sophronia finds them tremendously useful in her various schemes and maneuvers.

I felt as though the story bobbled a bit at the end of the first act and the beginning of the second. There’s a stretch where the sense of character isn’t particularly strong. It is interesting to have a leading character who is so introverted and private, but it also damages the narrative a bit, at least for me. When the POV character is not particularly reflective or emotive, I (a consummate extrovert) find it harder to engage with her. It was hard to feel emotionally connected to Sophronia, and sometimes her actions seemed very abrupt because there had been little build-up to them. I admire that Sophronia is such a practical and plain-dealing heroine, but I could’ve used a larger window into her soul.

The other problem that I had was that when Sophronia first arrives at the floating school, she has absolutely no idea what’s going on, and no one will tell her. Maddeningly, nothing gets explained for a very long time. After a while, this starts to frustrate me as a reader — and I recognise that not everyone may feel this way. It’s a valid literary trope and one frequently used in YA, but I personally struggle with it. I hate being left totally in the dark. It tends to make me rush, hoping I’ll get to the explanation, but then I end up having to go back and re-read chapters in case I missed something. I understand delaying gratification and teasing the reader, but some information in this book gets played a little too close to the chest.

There are still a lot of questions left unanswered at the end of the book, and I’m hoping we’ll get more information on them in future installments — I want to know why this extraordinary pair of schools exists. Right now, the answer seems to be “just because.” I find that unsatisfying. What need does England have for an elite cadre of female assassins and a coterie of admittedly evil geniuses? What role in society are they fulfilling? For what purpose? If the Headmistress has no idea what’s going on, who does? Who drives this whole thing? Who founded it? For what reasons? I love Carriger’s world-building, but I wish we’d gotten just a little bit more on this front at the outset.

I did think, though, that I saw a glimmer of potential for change in the school’s directives, one that I hope we’ll see expanded in future books in the series. Right now, the school seems quite competitive, designed to set these ladies against each other. Sophronia, though, sees more benefit in bringing her cohorts together, drawing on their disparate skills to achieve a communal goal. I would like to see that theme develop further. So much popular opinion, especially when it comes to teenage girls, likes to promote their potential for cattiness, sniping, and backstabbing; I would love to see more YA fiction promoting healthier ideas on what they’re capable of.

The second half of the book improves greatly, though, as a few things do finally get explained and as more action enters the narrative in the final act. Sophronia deduces that Monique must have hidden the prototype at Sophronia’s family home while collecting her, and so she determines to retrieve it with the help of her friends (and new pet, mechanimal dog Bumbersnoot). Sophronia’s skills really get to shine here, and the sense of action and excitement is wonderful fun.

For anyone who wondered why I (!)ed a few times in this review, it’s because there are several connections in Etiquette & Espionage to the Parasol Protectorate series. This book is set some twenty-odd years before that series begins, so there’s a lot of potential for crossover cameos. Even the MacGuffin of the book, the prototype, is a component of technology that becomes crucial by the time of the Protectorate series. Carriger also takes a few moments to poke fun at the steampunk world in general, through a clique of boys at Pillover’s school, the Pistons, who sew gears to their clothing for no reason but fashion, smudge their eyes with kohl, and like to crash parties and spike the punch. It’s a good-natured and, let’s face it, well-deserved ribbing.

Overall, I’m quite pleased with Etiquette & Espionage. There were a few bumps that kept it from perfection, in my opinion, but — that’s true of the first couple Harry Potter books as well. For a first foray into YA fiction, Carriger’s done a lovely job. I absolutely devoured this first installment, and I’m excited to see where the rest of the series goes.

Mine Till Midnight, by Lisa Kleypas

Title: Mine Till Midnight (Hathaways #1)
Author: Lisa Kleypas
Year of Publication: 2007
Length: 360 pages
Genre: historical romance
New or Re-Read?: Re-Read
Rating: 4 stars

The Hathaways have accidentally inherited a viscountcy, and oldest sister Amelia is trying desperately to hold the family together with both hands. Their inheritance comes with massive expenses and no money, the manor house could be knocked down by a strong breeze, brother Leo, the new viscount, is attempting to drink himself into oblivion as an escape from grief, sister Win is nearly an invalid after scarlet fever, sister Poppy is beautiful but entirely unprepared for the social whirl, sister Beatrix has an obsession with animals and mild kleptomania, and adopted brother Merripen is a prickly and protective Rom with a dangerous temper.

While trying to sort this mess out in her head, Amelia wanders onto familiar territory and into a familiar character (at least for continuous Kleypas readers) — her family’s new lands, as it turns out, stand adjacent to those of Lord Westcliff, of the Wallflowers series. The man she encounters is Cam Rohan, half-Roma factotum of Lord St. Vincent’s gaming club, out in the country for a weekend. Cam’s struggling through some personal challenges of his own at the moment, feeling shame over his inexplicable ability to accumulate wealth and over the extent to which he has become tied down, to one location, in conflict with his Romany roots.

The cultural differences provide the first hurdles — Kleypas doesn’t succumb to “gypsy” stereotypes and treats the Roma with a great deal of respect (though I honestly don’t know with how much accuracy or romanticizing, in spite of the careful treatment), but she also doesn’t gloss over the prejudices (which are not only historical but very much still extant). Both Cam and Amelia start out viewing a relationship between them as impossible for this reason. When Cam makes up his mind that Amelia is the girl for him, however, he won’t be gainsaid — even by the lady herself. Amelia seeks to retain her independence, having mentally placed herself on the shelf, devoted entirely to her family. Cam has to tease out her romantic side, but also proves himself indispensable when it comes to managing the family. He’s a great hero — as I knew he would be when we first met him — dark and mischievous, practical yet cheeky. He coaxes Amelia into loving him — or, at least, into admitting what she already feels — with a great deal of charm and sly humour. I’ve seen from some reviews on Goodreads that other readers have been frustrated with Amelia’s delay in succumbing, but I find it quite realistic, both for the social considerations and for emotional veracity. That feeling of not wanting to surrender independence, particularly when you’ve just gotten used to the idea of it and the responsibility it entails, can be powerful, and I was glad that Kleypas gave us a  heroine who didn’t melt immediately and forget her own values and goals at the first sign of interest from a dark and handsome stranger. I like Amelia for her stubbornness and her occasional fits of pique; they make her a far more interesting and relatable character.

The conflicts in this book are a lot less predictable than in many romance novels — as is often the case with Kleypas, since she frequently steps outside the traditional bounds with her subject matter. Ex-fiances, rooms covered in bees (a personal horror for me), possible hauntings — they all swirl together, giving Mine Till Midnight an extra edge of excitement alongside of the romance. As ever, Kleypas shines best with the ensemble, and the Hathaways are certainly no exception. From the first book, we get a cast of three-dimensional characters, each with their own quirks and foibles — and some with darker demons to face down. The seeds of the rest of the series are all here, but they never threaten to overwhelm the main plotline. Overall, Mine Till Midnight is a thoroughly enjoyable book and a great start to another lively, engaging series from Ms. Kleypas.

Worth Any Price, by Lisa Kleypas

Title: Worth Any Price (Bow Street Runners #3)
Author: Lisa Kleypas
Year of Publication: 2003
Length: 388 pages
Genre: historical romance
New or Re-Read?: Re-Read
Rating: 3 stars, on credit

I always find this one disappointing. I think it’s because I don’t care as much for the heroine as I might. It’s not that there’s anything really wrong with her — there are just ways in which I feel she lacks substance, and that makes this the weakest of the three Bow Street Runners novels. And that’s a shame, because Nick Gentry deserved better. Unfortunately, with so little to play against, he’s not exactly showing to his best in this book, either, and so the whole thing just ends up feeling like it missed the mark.

Well. The plot. Nick Gentry is three years into his forcible reformation as a member of the Bow Street Runners, atoning for his past as a criminal mastermind. He’s also still taking some private commissions, and one of them involves hunting down the would-be bride of the much-older and creepily-obsessed Lord Radnor. He finds her, but quickly realises she’s not what he had assumed — rather than a willful, spoiled girl being petulant, he finds an openly terrified young woman who still doesn’t let her fear jeopardise an iron core. Nick is impressed enough — and attracted enough — to offer to marry her as an alternative, to remove her from Radnor’s influence forever; Charlotte is desperate enough to accept. Then they have to figure out how to be married to each other, and there’s lots of negotiating back and forth, and a lot of Lottie trying to break through Nick’s defenses. It’s somewhat predictable, and without enough flair to make the predictability of the plot worth it. Kleypas does do a nice job with the villain; Radnor is a pretty scary creature, who invested a lot of money trying to turn Charlotte into “the perfect woman”. It’s sort of 19th-century Stepford thinking. It’s also implied that he molested her when she was a teenager, and when he realises Lottie is out of his reach, he kidnaps her younger sister to lure her away from Nick. Despite the promise of that set-up, the action sequence at the end deflates pretty quickly.

The other side of the plot comes from Nick’s sister Sophia, from (obviously), Lady Sophia’s Lover. Sophia is nudging Nick to reclaim his latent viscountcy, and her husband is supporting her — rather forcefully managing Nick’s life from a distance — because they’re both worried that Nick is going to get himself killed working for Bow Street. There’s also the matter of Bow Street’s tenure coming to an end, ceding to make way for the Metropolitan Police, which is an interesting but under-used historical tidbit. This plotline had potential, but didn’t get explored nearly enough; Nick has a temper fit, but then acquiesces in a grumbling sort of way. But Kleypas doesn’t do much with it past that. The announcement is the setting for a plot point, but we never really get to see Nick come to terms with his responsibilities in an emotional way.

The sex scenes were still good. I do appreciate that we open with Nick learning how to be a lover from a famous madam, and I like that Kleypas toys with a little bit of bondage play in this book. A little. Not much, because, well, historical romances just never seem to want to go there, much to my dismay. But it is there, and I’m glad for it. Other than that, though — I just don’t have a lot to say about this book. It’s serviceable; it closes out a trilogy; it could be skipped without feeling like you’re missing too much.

Gone with the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell

Title: Gone with the Wind
Author: Margaret Mitchell
Year of Publication: 1936
Length: 1024
Genre: historical fiction
New or Re-Read?: Re-Read
Rating: 4.75 stars

This is a book I read when I need a moral lesson.

Scarlett O’Hara is, for me, a cautionary tale — and probably not for the reasons you’d assume. I adore Scarlett, and I see so much of myself in her — and so she is a cautionary tale about the high cost of pride, about wanting the wrong things, about not appreciating what has real value. But she also has a lot of traits I admire — and most of what she gets vilified for as a woman wouldn’t be blinked at in a man. I would love to say they wouldn’t be blinked at now, in the 21st century, but, well, women are still held to far different standards than men. She’d get further now than she got in the 1860s, though, and she’d have a lot more company. She’s ruthless and intelligent, and once she gets a taste for where that can take her, once she gets to liking independence, who can blame her for wanting to cling to it? She has charm and knows how to use it. She’s passionate and high-spirited and makes no excuses for herself. She has an iron core. She acts with plenty of self-interest, but she’s not nearly as selfish as she gets painted; if she were, she’d never take on the burdens that she does, she would never do the things she does for the people who are dependent on her. All of that, I adore her for.

I used to say the one thing I couldn’t forgive her for was the was she treats her children, but I’m softening even on that — it’s clear she’d be childfree by choice if that was, y’know, an option in the 1860s. She never wanted children, but at least hers are cared for and looked after — there’s always Melly and Mammy and others to give them love and affection, so it isn’t as though they’re growing up entirely bereft. And, she’s an idiot about Ashley and no mistake — but she’s also still very young, and what’s interesting is that you can see throughout the book where the cracks in her adoration begin to form. It’s just hard for her to admit that. I have a lot of sympathy for her there, and Ashley never does her the favour — as she points out at the very end — of setting her free from her own imaginative construction of him. The entire situation is one big tragic error, the consequence of people not looking deeply enough into themselves, or doing so but lacking the courage to face up to it.

I both love and hate Rhett Butler. He’s a magnificent character, and there’s no denying that. But the one thing I can’t get past, and that pisses me off a little more each time I read this book, is this: he’s the one who coaxes Scarlett into throwing away her reputation. He opens that door and practically shoves her through it. And then he blames her for following his lead. When he changes his mind, when he decides he’d rather be respectable, he doesn’t just change his own stripes — he shames her for having left that behind and not wanting to go back, once she realises how sweet freedom tastes. He absolutely throws her under the bus the first chance he gets. So too, he seems to blame her for not realising that he really loved her all along — and while, yes, it is pretty obvious, he also denies it at every turn. He outright refuses to say that to her, tells her doesn’t and couldn’t and won’t. So she’s to be blamed for taking him at his word? He demands honesty from her, but offers none in return. And I really can’t countenance that.

This book is billed as one of the greatest romances of all time, but the more I return to it, the central relationship is actually less and less about Scarlett and Rhett, and more and more about Scarlett and Melanie. The biggest shame of the story is that Scarlett realises too late what a tremendous friend she has in Melanie — but I think it’s in her subconscious. Scarlett’s biggest problem, in many ways, is that she is not reflective by nature, that she never examines anyone’s feelings, including her own, beyond the surface of what they present. And so she doesn’t really consciously notice when she starts to genuinely care for Melly — which is, I believe, in the final days of her pregnancy — or when she starts to genuinely think better of her — which is, I believe, when Melly takes up the sword with the intention of helping Scarlett kill the Yankee. Melanie really is a brilliant character — unfailingly good, but not stupid for it, nor even as impractical as her husband Ashley. And so loyal, so undyingly, wonderfully, defiantly loyal. Who doesn’t yearn for a friend like that, who will loop her arm through yours and dare the world to challenge her for it?

I feel as though I have to say something about the historical perspective this book provides, which is pretty interesting on a number of levels. You’re getting a view of the 1860s from the 1930s; we’re now further removed from Mitchell’s world than Mitchell was from the Civil War (weird thought). So, obviously, there are a lot of issues, mostly related to race but also related to class and education, that would never pass muster in a book today. It is, absolutely, a romanticised view of the Old South, and the tvtropes page sums up all of that fairly well. It glosses over the uglier aspects of slavery (in places outright attributing them to Yankee hysteria), implying that blacks were better off in slavery because they were taken care of. You get just about every Magical Negro/Mammy/Sassy Black Woman/White Man’s Burden/etc trope you can think of.  This is all true, all morally unacceptable, and all a product of the book’s time — which is not an excuse, but an explanation. I don’t see these as reasons not to read the book; they are things to be aware of, especially reading it as a white girl from an upper-middle-class Virginian background. There are some ways, though, in which the book does have a few redemptive points on that score as well. Scarlett, for all her faults, treats the black characters better than just about anyone else in the book does (and better than she treats most whites); it comes from a position of condescension, but — well, she could be worse, so there’s that. She’s also the only character to call the KKK out for being a damned stupid idea. The book also touches, if briefly, on some of the other prejudices of the era — like how the women from New York don’t seem to register the Irish as full-fledged humans any more than the Southerners do the black population. So it is, if nothing else, instructive on the viewpoint from the 1930s.

I’ve read this book several times since I was fifteen, and different things stick out to me each time. There was some little stuff in this re-read — like remembering how some of my favourite characters (Granny Fontaine, Will Benteen) didn’t make it into the movie. But there are bigger things, too. I started out this review by saying that I return to Gone with the Wind when I need a moral lesson — but I wasn’t quite sure what it was this time. Sometimes it’s been about enduring hardships. Sometimes it’s been about thumbing my nose at the rest of the world. Sometimes it’s been about appreciating what I have. This time… I’m still not sure. What I’ve come away with most is the sense of unfairness in how so many of the characters treat Scarlett. The shame and scandal that gets heaped on her for doing what needed to be done is just monumentally unjust. Melanie alone, I think, actually sees Scarlett for what she is, for all so many characters talk about her blindness; she sees the iron core and does not judge for it. And both Melanie and Ashley give Scarlett more credit for goodness than the narration gives her, or honestly than I think she gives herself. I read her as someone whose better nature sneaks up on her, so stealthy that she’s hardly aware of it. But most people in the book, Rhett who loves her included, demand impossible things of her, and then shame her for the egregious fault of succeeding. That’s what’s sticking with me. I don’t know what moral lesson that gives me, but — being far more introspective than Scarlett — I’ll be contemplating it.

Lady Sophia’s Lover, by Lisa Kleypas

Title: Lady Sophia’s Lover (Bow Street Runners #2)
Author: Lisa Kleypas
Year of Publication: 2002
Length: 377 pages
Genre: historical romance
New or Re-Read?: Re-Read
Rating: 4 stars

I remember being seventeen years old and recommending this book to a friend because “it has lots of different kinds of sex in it”. This is probably something of an odd trait to tout, and yet, it’s a lot of what sticks with me out of Lady Sophia’s Lover. That’s not to say that the plot and characters aren’t engaging — they are — but Kleypas somewhat pushes the norm for eroticism in historical romances here, and I say, bless her for it.

Sophia is a woman fallen both from grace and circumstance, and she’s looking for revenge. Born the daughter of a viscount and orphaned in her youth, Sophia only barely managed to keep her head above water by entering the household of a distant relative. Her brother wasn’t so fortunate, and got trapped in a life of crime in London, eventually sentenced to a prison hulk for his part in a highway robbery. The man responsible for his sentence and thus, in Sophia’s eyes, his death? Sir Ross Cannon, head of the Bow Street Runners. Sophia concocts a plan to bring the famously virtuous magistrate down, which hinges on seducing him and then embroiling him in scandal. She presents herself as an employee, and against his better judgment, he agrees to let her work as his assistant. Heat smoulders between them from their first meeting — but, as is the case when you’re headed for a HEA, Sophia’s heart gets overinvolved. She discovers that Ross is not at all the heartless tyrant she’d imagined, that he’s done a lot of work as a reformer, and it rather dampens her desire for vengeance. For his part, Ross is utterly entranced by the charming woman who has stepped in and rather ruthlessly organised his life, adding all the little domestic touches that he’d been missing. A widower, Ross rediscovers love and newly discovers real passion with Sophia.

I don’t know that I’ve felt this way about this book in the past, but on this re-read, I was sort of wishing for more of the revenge angle. Kleypas drops it pretty quickly. Honestly, Sophia’s heart never really seems in it, even at the beginning. There’s always a hesitation, and it rather lowers the stakes. This is one case, however, where I can at least believe the oddity of a woman choosing to insinuate herself into a man’s house in order to ruin him (unlike, say, The Rake, where it strains credulity) — Sophia clearly has nothing left to lose, so it’s not quite such a strange step for her to take. The twists that come later in the book are handled deftly and are definitely out of the norm as well.

This is a solid historical romance. If the circumstances of Sophia and Ross’s situation are improbable, the emotions are portrayed quite believably, and the sex sizzles. As always, I appreciate Kleypas’s willingness to step outside the usual class boundaries for historical romance. Lady Sophia’s Lover isn’t an all-time favourite, but it’s a book I always enjoy coming back to.

Someone to Watch Over Me, by Lisa Kleypas

Title: Someone to Watch Over Me (Bow Street Runners #1)
Author: Lisa Kleypas
Year of Publication: 1999
Length: 362 pages
Genre: historical romance
New or Re-Read?: Re-Read
Rating: 3 stars

This book starts with an interesting conceit, combining and altering a few more typical plot devices to create an unusual situation. Grant Morgan is a Bow Street Runner — the intermediate stage in the development of London’s law enforcement between the constabulary system and the Metropolitan police. This alone is a fairly unusual choice for hero material, but Kleypas is really great at that. She never shies from venturing outside the typical ranks of the aristocracy for her material, and the Bow Street Runners are interesting material to draw from. They provide a grounds for not only a new view on late-Hanoverian/early-Victorian society, (it’s hard to tell precisely when this book is set, for what it’s worth, and that is always something that will bother me. I would generally put it somewhere in the 1830s, however, so either William IV or Victoria is on the throne), but also for professional life and the underworld.

So. Our story begins when Grant arrives on the scene of an attempted murder; a woman was strangled and thrown in the Thames, but she didn’t quite die. He recognises her as Vivien Duvall, a notorious courtesan who had embarrassed him at some time in the past. Except, when she wakes up, she has amnesia, with no idea who she is or how she ended up in the river — and the personality she displays is entirely at odds with what he knows about Vivien. Far from being the brazen, caustic gold-digger, she is sweet, modest, and compassionate. Attempts to jar her memory by exposing her to her past — including a rather lurid diary, scandalous clothing, and a nude painting of herself — only result in embarrassing her. And then we learn that Vivien was visibly pregnant not long before she disappeared — but definitely is not now.

This might be a spoiler, but, honestly, I think you’d have to be pretty dense not to figure it out quickly, so I’m going to go ahead with it: Vivien is not, in fact, Vivien. When Grant seduces her, they find out — whoops! — she’s a virgin. Eventually, as her memory trickles back in, she pieces together that she’s been mistaken for her (gasp!) twin sister. Her name is actually Victoria, and she’s been living in genteel poverty out in the country somewhere. Vivien told her that she was in a spot of trouble, and she came to London to try to help, at the same time that Vivien fled London for the country; someone else mistook her for her sister and tried to kill her.

There are some logic-holes in this story. The “secret twin” thing is a little cliched, though at least spiced up with the courtesan angle. That a respectable man would just up and decide to keep a notorious woman in his house under the guise of figuring out her near-murder case is a little odd. (I mean, even if you were keeping a courtesan, you don’t bring them home, you get them their own apartments). But, then, Kleypas rarely lets things like good sense stand in the way of her plots. Vivien is a little too good to be true, and that makes her, honestly, a little bland as a heroine. The book doesn’t have as much quick wit and humour as I like from my romances. But, it is serviceable as a story, and it opens a nice trilogy on the Bow Street Runners.