Smart Bitches Trashy Books | All of the romance, none of the bullshit.

Let’s try that description again, this time with Dahl-ripples: Molly Jenkins is an epubbed erotic fiction author who moves back to her home town after a breakup that went on way too long, thanks to her ex’s manipulating, overbearing behavior. Her career, her pen name, and that entire side of her life are a secret from everyone, including her parents. Ben Lawson lived through a deeply embarrassing scandal as a teen, and abhors secrets. He knows she has one. He knows she’s not telling. Despite the degree to which that drives him batty, he can’t stay away from her.

First, there’s the dialogue, the humor, the comedy, and the lightheartedness, along with the genuine awesome that is the pair of protagonists. Both the heroine and the hero are charming and marvelous. I loved the fact that Molly Jenkins is unabashed and unapologetic about her sexuality. She happy to be turned on, and to turn other people on as well. More power to her.

And yet, she’s not full of bravado, nor does she demand that everyone adopt her view: she’s not ashamed of her job or her skills as a writer, but she knows it would embarrass her parents and her family, not to mention cause undue gossip about her personally, so she keeps her pseudonym and her career a secret. I admired her spunky charm and her determination to be herself and live her life while remaining mindful of other people’s boundaries and expectations. Molly is a realistic combo of tough and tender: she’s happy to get attention personally, and dresses with a style designed to attract the attention of one particular person, but she wants that attention on her own terms, not based on someone else’s conjecture as to her morality. After all, if she writes dirty books she must be a ho, right? (Of course not.)

And oh, did I love the hero. Love love love. Ben is, as I mentioned, the town sheriff, and a long-past scandal keeps him living a very quiet, straight and narrow life with few risks and fewer passions. He has hidden artistic talents, and comes across initially as a character who one would think doesn’t give a crap what you think about him. But yet, he very, very much wants to avoid undue attention. Ben is happy to not be noticed, but when he notices Molly again, and their past interactions heat up in the present, he’s as much unsettled by the fact that he can’t keep his eyes off her as he is by the fact that everyone around him has noticed his attraction. And the two of them together are impossible to ignore.

While casting Ben as law enforcement lent a somewhat tired and overused quick-dash of nobility to his character, Dahl doesn’t rest on the easy way out. Molly’s ex is in law enforcement as well, in a very high-profile position, and the degree to which he abuses his authority makes him a foil for Ben, and a complete douchebag besides. The ex isn’t the only antagonist, either. As with any small town, there’s nebby old dudes and gossip, secrets and old scandals, and additional shady characters galore. But there’s also the beginnings of true friendships for Molly and a sense that neither character operates in a vacuum.

But even though there is an established community in Tumble Creek, there are characters who we are told are important figures, but we never see them. The degree to which her family didn’t appreciate or even notice her was underdeveloped portion of backstory and her personality. While I think it was complimentary to her character that she’d consider their feelings about her somewhat off-beat career and the ramifications thereof, the fact that they weren’t such a presence in her life growing up, or even now, made me wonder why she bothered to worry about them so much in the first place. Their role as damaging or encouraging factors in her life was underdeveloped and could have been stronger.

The subplot of stalking and harassment went on a bit too long - and I’d guessed the solution before it was revealed - but the joy of their relationship overshadowed the frustration I had in figuring out whodunit. One note: if you’re going to set a novel in a small town, you’re already working with a small cast of characters to begin with. The limited cast can be cumbersome because it’s increasingly easy to figure out whodunit.

What I enjoyed most about the book, however, aside from the simple and enjoyable pleasure of watching two confident, likable people act on their attraction - in some hilarious scenes, I might add - is that the plot examined and played with themes of identification in each character. Who can see and appreciate the “real you,” and who truly knows you, down to the last shameful secret? Dahl’s writing gets busy evaluating and examining relationships and personal history for each of the characters, exploring the significance of seeing (or not seeing) through the bullshit other people throw in front of themselves to hide behind. Within that exploration of identity and artifice is a hero and a heroine who face down past demons (figurative, not literal) and move past shame to decide to be happy.

Furthermore, I’m floored at the idea that RT would label Molly a “dog in heat.” This, folks, is realistic sex. Gritty sex. Passionate pent-up sex. And most of all? FUN sex. How long has it been since sex was comic and passionate simultaneously in a contemporary romance? It’s emotional, erotic, and often hilariously funny. And the heroine knows what she wants, knows what turns her on, and has spent pages upon pages exploring those turn-ons in fiction - and hello, Molly, she has the chance to act those fantasies out with the object of her desire, fantasy, and passion. This heroine, in short, is a grown up, with adult passions. So is Ben. There is no shame in being horny, or in being happy.

Dahl takes a handful of familiar setups and molds them into something new, something that’s adult, witty, smart, and utterly fun.  I’m looking forward to the next contemporary offering from this author, because what she does, she does laugh-out-loud excellent.

This book can be purchased at Borders.com with $1.00 coupon (enter HAR1222D at the checkout) available now in pre-order, shipping January 1, 2009. The coupon is good from December 15, 2008, through January 15, 2008. Stay tuned, and you might win a copy today.

ETA: 11:00 am EST: Borders is working on a known error with the coupon, and it will be working within the hour. Thank you, Borders!

The book developed like a fascinating game of what-if: what if a woman could make her way into society in the off-season by assuming a connection to a family so scattered and fractured across the country that one person’s say-so was good enough for the rest? What if a heroine showed open and deliberate ambition for money, and demonstrated a knowing appreciation for sex despite a deeper-set fear of it? What if erotic elements were introduced to a historical romance, like bondage, domination, submission, and role playing, without those elements taking over the entire story? And what if the hero was really yummy, too?

I was flying through this story when I read it, and I can tell you where I was (the NJ Transit train in the Jersey wetlands) and what I was doing (crying) when the story fractured for me. I was so happy with so much of it, and the last tenth of it, the wrapping up of the ending and the explanation of past trauma, was so crushing that I was left despondent while the characters went off and embraced each other and their happy ending. Obviously I don’t want to give away the finale, but I’ve had a very, very difficult time getting one image out of my head, and that image is so painful that it’s spectre haunts the happily-ever-after and causes me to doubt the provenance of it, and, I know this is silly, causes me to resent the heroine for unloading that painful story on me so that I could deal with the fallout while she goes and boinks Hart into epilogues of sunsets and sparkly happiness. The resolution of the mystery within the story was a little too pat, and too easily blamed on a stock character who I wish had demonstrated more nuance, especially next to the multi-dimensional hero and heroine.  And the “Why are you so sad?” “Oh, fine I’ll tell you!” Therapy Ending just about sent me over the edge when I read the final pages. Their happy ending came at a cost for me as a reader and I wish I didn’t have to pay it.

That said, there is no doubt that Dahl wields some serious talent, both in her use of imagery (Janet quoted one scene I read at least three times to re-experience its art) and her development of fascinating characters who grab you by the chin and yell, “Pay attention! I’m different and I’m awesome!” Too often I find myself reading historical romance characters that I can classify as ‘Yet-Another’ : yet another ingenue, yet another tortured rake, yet another drunken abusive parent. Dahl demonstrates her familiarity with historical tropes and the confidence and skill to play with them in such a manner that her name is one I’ll recognize and gravitate to every time I see it on a bookshelf. Even if the heroine ripped my heart out and handed it to me, and even if I was pissed as hell at the heroine for doing so, I have to give Dahl credit: she made me feel heights of benevolent pleasure for the protagonists, and agony over their pasts. To borrow a phrase from the esteemed theologians All 4 One, “She’s got skills. Makes me wanna scooby-doo.”

So what worked for you?

There were so many elements of this book that worked marvelously, like effortless harmony so flush with style that you can’t separate the individual tunes woven together.

Such as?

You’re a real pain in my ass. I was getting there.

The setting is incredibly vivid, as I was introduced to India during the Empire through Emma’s eyes, and since she is a bit of the stereotypical iconoclastic heroine who doesn’t fit in her own world, her overly modern sensibilities were a clear vehicle through which I, as the reader who knows little of the time period, could approach it. Things that bothered Emma, such as the society within the society, the absurdity of “pretending we’re all in England when we’re not,” the limitations on women, all of it gave me a greater understanding of the location, and the people within it, particularly Julian.

Duran’s use of color and symbolism is particularly deft, and simply marvelous. She references varying shades of color both in the reality of the madness in the Indian mutiny, and in the layers of color in Emma’s paintings which reflect that madness. Moreover, the use of the globe, which is a pivotal scene referenced by several reviewers, was particularly touching to me because it illustrated the dichotomy inherent in Julian: the world is so small it fits under your hand, and it brings them together through chance. But the world is so big that breaking it causes a wide range of rippling repurcussions, both literally and figuratively, and its size can get in the way of them finding each other again until it is almost too late. That scene alone is exquisite in its art.

And speaking of art, Julian was a work thereof. He was a tremendously heroic hero, but Duran crafted him with flaws that almost take the better of him, until his core of nobility pulls him back. He’s a dreamboat.

So what didn’t work for you?

Emma. She was innocent, then angry, then tortured, then angry some more, and much of the time I felt while reading the book that I was missing the key to understanding her. I didn’t actually feel a great deal of empathy for Emma when I probably should have. On one hand, I could certainly understand her reaction to the horrors of what she lived through, but her behavior often seemed superficial and angry - conveniently so for the plot - more than deeply, deeply troubled. From her enigmatic conversations with Julian that didn’t reveal any subtext or sparkle that hadn’t already been covered, to her hanging-by-a-thread sanity that came and went with the needs of the story’s resolution, Emma remained an enigma when I would have wanted to rely on her as a protagonist more.

Further, the villain, Marcus. He’s racist, he’s evil, he’s abusive, and he’s so completely dissolute that while Emma mentions kindnesses in the past, and more honorable behavior when they were younger, I never see even an inkling of it. There were no nuances to his behavior - he was just plain bad. He was two out of three in the Trifecta of Evil Villain, in fact.

Just Plain Bad isn’t always a bad thing - sometimes the polarity of Knowing Your Evil can be reassuring and appropriate in a story. But given the rapidly shifting and ambiguous heroism and justifications of violence in the setting amid uprising, oppression, mutiny and murder, a starkly Just Plain Bad hero was a detriment to the story.

If Julian were a food, what would he be?

Mine. My food in my lunchbox, please. Wait, I didn’t mean for that to sound dirty.

You didn’t?

No comment.

So what’s your grade, and why?

B-. A “B"-range book because I couldn’t put it down once she and Julian were both located in London, and because the depictions of violence were heartbreaking and haunting. Further, because Julian was tortured and noble, and though he didn’t change so much as come to own himself and the power at his disposal in both of the cultures that shaped him, his journey was fascinating. Julian was marvelous, and did things I wished heroes in other historical novels would do, including beating the ever living shit out of someone who truly deserved it, and being vindicated for doing so. YUM.

A minus because the villain was Just So Damn Evil, and because Emma was often wooden, stereotypical, and a cliche of trite composite heroines of historical romance. Part virgin, part iconoclast, educated yet showing an absence of that education at key moments, I didn’t relish the scenes that featured her solely as much as I did any and all that revealed Julian. I’m going to be thinking of the hallway in his home from the end of the book for a long time - a simple description that reveals so much about that character.

Duran’s strengths, however, with development and care, could yield future novels of impeccable quality. The Duke of Shadows was often uneven, but those parts that were marvelous were even better than the heights of other books, which shows the talent Duran can wield, but also highlights the flaws to greater detriment. Either way, I will watch for her next novel. 

Gull is a young girl born of rape, whose mother was taken in the sack of Wilusa, the Hittite word for Troy. After an accident that hobbles her leg, Gull is chosen to be an acolyte to the Lady of the Dead, and she sees visions of future events, starting with an omen of black ships. The black ships arrive, carrying the remnants of her lost home after yet another sack of Wilusa, and she sails away with them, even though doing so violates many of the rules of being the Dead’s handmaiden. Gull walks between knowing what the future will look like and not knowing when it’ll show up, and not knowing at all what will happen to her or to the tiny portion of Wilusa that travels with her.

The beginning of the story is demanding. It demands your attention and your time, and it demands that you not put the book down because something is always about to happen within the first few chapters, to the point where reading becomes an exercise in apprehension. In addition, the visual imagery used in the opening scenes is bleak - white paints, black cloaks, white stones, black ships - and belies the complexity and nuances of the story ahead of it.

And the story....

If you are disturbed by discussions of war, by depictions of battle, death, and the harm of children or the rape of women, I would caution you about reading this book. I’m immensely disturbed by these things, and I have to remind myself that I’m still “post partum” with hormones and hair loss to match (oh, my freaking God, the hair loss) and I need to be cautious when I pick up material like this.

That said, this book was important to read right now, not only because it’s haunting and vivid, but it raises questions about war, about the wars that are being fought right now, and about defining countries and societies, and about how we treat prisoners of war and the widows and fatherless children left behind after battle. This story is based on the Aeneid, so fans of that particular time in history will be happy as clams in mud, but because it’s about war and the loss and recovery of peace, it also matters as a reflection of current times.

Moreover, while the writing is often elementary in tone and the heroine didn’t grow so much as grow older, the imagery and the characters - particularly the men, Neas, Xandros, Kos, and Hyl - are marvelously crafted and vividly entertaining. The flaws and distance in Gull, who is held apart from the group both by her vocation as an Oracle and her role as observer, not quite a member of the group and too important to be left behind, lessened my attachment to her, but through her observations I deeply appreciated the other characters.

Gull was my biggest problem with the book, which is difficult because she’s the narrator. She’s a reliable narrator in that she’s not given to deluding herself, but I found myself losing patience with her, and with the story. Gull’s role as avatar for the Lady of the Dead means that she’s an oracle, and as such she’s telling the reader the story as she’s telling the other characters pieces of stories. It wasn’t until the last third that Gull took actions on her own that weren’t at the direction of the Lady, and I wished I’d seen more of the contrast between her own life and that of her office as the Lady’s oracle. I thought sometimes she was merely a window through which to view the story just as she was a voice for the Lady of the Dead, and with my experience with other books of historical fiction, I wanted to connect more with her than I could.

Deciding how to grade this book was a challenge, and I almost didn’t review it because it didn’t fit in the existing rubric of romance novel grades assigned in years prior. However, the book held my attention and even when it hurt to read I kept going, through images that twisted my heart and made me shudder. This story leaves an aftermath in the reader.

Graham tackles some huge subjects in this book, such as peace and war, as I’ve mentioned, and what happens when children become parents but still must answer to their own parents, or, as in the case of Neas, be a parent to a society while still growing up and having to grow up quickly. Graham’s writing style is spare - at times I felt like I was reading a novel meant for an elementary reading level for the simplicity of the dialogue - but the imagery left behind after the words is bleak, and meaningful. This book will definitely leave an impression. And it will make you appreciate peace when you have it, and hold it all the tighter for its fragility.

One of the two major conflicts to be resolved in the larger story arc is a love triangle, and I am not rooting for Sebastian. He has more screen time in this book, and perhaps because I’m rooting for a different character pairing, I didn’t enjoy or become more sympathetic to Sebastian as a result of this book. And I’ve been navel gazing about why it is that the fact that *my* choice didn’t get enough face time makes me both disappointed with the present book while simultaneously eagerly awaiting the next because in my opinion? OMG MAX ANGST = HOT HOT HOT. WANT MORE MAX PLS KTHXBYE.

In this book, Sebastian has to settle one of his major conflicts - his loyalty to his powerful vampire grandfather vs. his desire for Victoria - and has to reveal the true nature of his character. By the end of the novel he is only slightly less ambiguous than it has been in previous novels, but still a large and knobby mystery to Victoria, and to me as a reader. 

The scenes between them read to me as if they were more carnal, and not so much emotional, which of course gives me real hope for Max, because I’m a pleated-skirt skimpy-top color-coordinated-scrunchie-wearing cheerleader for Team Pesaro. Rah rah rah. But then, I have to ask whether my preference for Max could have colored my perceptions of the scenes with Sebastian, and if any reader who hopes Victoria ends up with Sebastian could have reveled in their hot attraction and erotic chemistry.

In any triangle-based conflict, I have a fear that the author will invent a shallow reason to tarnish the nobility and worth of one of the characters so the other becomes an obvious choice. I don’t think that Gleason will pull such a shabby trick; my big fear now is that I’ll feel genuinely bad for the character Victoria doesn’t choose because the three of them, Max, Victoria and Sebastian, are layered, flawed, and fascinating characters individually. The three of them playing off one another is more than a little sparky as well.

Further, Gleason definitely has her eye on the larger story arc, the development of the Big Bad that will likely return to face Victoria and the other Venators, and the development of Victoria into a female leader who hopes to equal the legacy of her grandmother’s time as Illa Gardella. While this installment didn’t leave me breathless and edgy as the previous two books did, The Bleeding Dusk did cover my curiosity with accelerant and light a big ass match.