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

Sorcha, as the future queen, has been hidden in the innocent simplicity of a life in the convent, and as a result hasn’t had to grow up much or mature beyond her responsibilities as a novice- responsibilities that don’t include kingdom-running. She was educated by her grandmother, the dowager Queen, but she still has a great deal of trepidation at leaving the convent, and would prefer to pick the easy, though cold and windy, route than journeying home to a kingdom she hasn’t set foot in for years. But she has to leave the convent, because her identity has been discovered, and her life is in danger. She must run, hide, and find her way back to her kingdom to save her life and the lives of her people.

Arnou, it turns out, is Prince Rainger in disguise (don’t worry, I’m not spoiling anything. It’s revealed in the back cover copy) and is desperate to find and marry Sorcha so he can redeem himself and recover his country from a cruel despot who took Rainger’s throne in a humiliating coup. Rainger needs the stability of the Beaumontagne army, and the support of its people, to rescue his own, and he needs Sorcha to accomplish his ends. 

And there you have a few of my favorite romance storylines, tied up together: secret identity, and journey romance. I love the romances where someone hides who they are for whatever reason though I prefer it be a somewhat lucid motivation driving the idea. I love watching people reveal their true selves while hiding in plain sight, particularly when the someone hiding is someone whose presence would attract a great deal of attention. And I equally love journey romances that take place on a quest or on the road to a destination. While it’s easy to place a hero and heroine on the road, unsupervised, without parents or social demands watching over them at every moment, it’s also enormously effective at cutting right to the heart of the attraction between two people.

So with The Prince Kidnaps a Bride, we have Sorcha wishing she could hide in the convent, and, once she leaves it, wishing she could somehow reveal her identity as the Crown Princess without bringing her life into more immediate danger. Rainger (and you know I had to force my eyes to see the “i” and thus not picture a Cuban bounty hunter) needs to overcome some dreadful discretions that cost him his kingdom, and save the oppressed people who aren’t sure they can even count on him as a ruler or savior.

Thrust the two of them onto a dangerous assassin-filled journey home to their respective kingdoms, and it’s potentially delicious: he doesn’t want her to know who he is because he knows she’ll see him for the callous bonehead he was in his youth, and she’ll rightly assume he’s only interested in her because of her kingdom. He’s enjoying being a more simple version of himself, while keeping her safe and learning who she is. Meanwhile, Sorcha is drunk on the freedom of life outside the convent, and rushes headlong into any social interaction she can, since she’s been talking to the same handful of nuns for years. She thinks that Arnou couldn’t possibly understand her position as a royal, so she is herself as she had been at the convent. And beneath all that hidden agenda, they fall in love.

I wish the book had lived up to the delicious promise, but alas it did not. The biggest loss for me as a reader were the huge jumps in time: there were large gaps after an almost-daily accounting of their adventures from the convent to the ship that would take them home, like once they got to the ship it could warp time and drop them months into the future. Bam! We’re home! Bam! It’s the future! Bam! Prepare for the nursing home, Sorcha!

How would they manage becoming, or returning to an existence as royal betrothed as opposed to hunted fugitives? How did they transition? There’s little mentioned to reveal how their future romance would survive, even though that future is so very different from the beginning and foundation of their relationship. That’s the problem with many on-the-road romances: once the journey is over, I wish the hero and heroine would remove themselves from the static environment of their homes that stifles their romance and forces them to hide behind roles and expectations, and get back on the road already. Once the journey is over, the romance changes, and I wanted assurance that the romance that they had would survive that change.

Sorcha herself is perfect perfect perfect. She charms hos. She outwits horse sellers (with the intimidating yet hidden presence of Rainger behind her). She befriends everyone, even the most jaded, hardened person in town, and Rainger is driven batty trying to keep up with her and keep her from getting herself killed. Her innocence becomes grating even as she ponders and discusses her role as a ruler, and her education that prepared her for that life. At times, I wanted to smack her: Yes, dear, you’re going to have to rule a kingdom, so it’s time to grow up, grow a spine, and stop discussing blow jobs with the hos.

I did love the hero, but I’m a sucker for the flawed hero confronting his own foibles and committing himself to redemption, even as he nurses the same selfish intentions with Sorcha. She’s a means to an end, and he does make the mistake of saying so.

The best part of the book was the setting: the pressure of royalty and the expectations from others that genuinely affect the motivations of the hero and heroine. They were both crown royalty, born to leadership, but both have to work to restore themselves to their positions, and thus Dodd ensured that both characters earn their royal status in the readers’ eyes - smart move.

I also enjoyed the different questions and definitions of honor that surrounds the hero, and the heroine. They each had to resolve questions of their own worth in the face of future responsibilities, that is, if they could overcome the obstacles that stood in their way. To have a heroine who will be queen face similar issues as the hero when examining self worth and duty was entirely refreshing, and I have to believe that any person born into a position of monarchical authority would face similar doubts. Add to that a rich imagery of faith, and the idea that honor and love can protect your life, and I probably would have arrived at a better grade.

Because of the themes of worth and leadership that surround the protagonists, The Prince Kidnaps a Bride is more complex than most romance novels. I wanted to rank it higher since it did give me more to ponder, and gave me that rumination in the form of a empathetic hero and charming heroine. But there were too many “but’s” standing in my way, not the least of which was the resolution of the story of other two lost princesses. Add to that large gaps in storyline, and a feeling of a slow journey and a very rushed final denouement, and I arrived at a grade that, while not bad, isn’t as stellar as it could have been.

So much happens in the story that I don’t want to describe much more than that, because much of what keeps the story rolling in a crisp and exciting fashion is the constant surprise and action that face Kallista and her ilian. Add to that the additions of new members of the group, and the sexual tensions and explorations that go on, and it’s a hot story. If it was just a story about a family in a polyamorous culture with matriarchal traditions, it would be good. If it was just a story about a military captain who inherits incredible powers and no guidance but her own experience in how to handle and tame them, it would be good. But combine that with demon villains and acts of bravery and emotional depth on the part of an ever-growing family of well-rendered supporting characters, and it’s gooooood.

The well done parts of the story are many: it was easy to slip back into the world of Adara, and not a great deal of explication was needed. The worst example of sequel explanation is in the Sweet Valley High books, where every damn one began with a description of the perfect-size-six twins and blah blah blah. The mark of a good series is that a giant info-dump of backstory isn’t needed to bring a reader up to speed. Everything that’s part of the world-building in this story is done through context, and Dayton excels at creating a fantasy that’s completely different from the modern world yet still offers the reader many, many paths through which to relate to the characters, the society, and the rules as a whole.

Moreover, everything that’s different has flaws. I might not live in a matriarchal society, but when I read about what works so well in Adara, I also read about those elements of the society that weren’t perfectly functional, such as the treatment of men in the army, or the ability to welcome strangers, particularly male strangers. As peculiar as it is to say so, it’s a completely fantastical universe that maintains a realism that makes the fantasy accessible and yet maintains enough distance from current reality to allow the reader to really think about the ramifications of that alternate world.

On a more immediate level, the characters are enjoyable as well. Kallista is likable and not too perfect for an otherworldly superhero, and each member of her ilian is interesting, with motivations that inform their actions so that they contribute to the saga individually and collectively. Joining the ilian does not dilute secondary characters so that they serve only to highlight how great Kallista is. While some of them certainly serve as foils, they are each characters with stories in their own right, which makes the larger tale more compelling.

I don’t envy Dayton the task of writing a saga in three parts. For one thing, the middle of a trilogy has to be the hardest to write, particularly in a saga with three parts. Part one sets everything up, part three has a major climax with a resolution to the larger story. So part two continues the first third but doesn’t quite fix everything. The story has to continue and have an ending that leaves room for still more, and that feeling of incompletion is harder to overcome.

Kallista has had a book’s worth of demon fighting time to get herself acquainted with the magic she possesses, and is now figuring out why the members of her ilian are chosen by the One and Godmarked to join her. Much of the process is out of her control, which must be difficult if a higher power is picking your potential bedmates, but yet the challenge to master the additional power from each member of her ilian, and to blend them together to fight the demons that threaten Adara, rests solely on Kallista.

There’s one scene where Kallista is fighting a few demons, and figures out pretty rapidly, once her ilian and all their variations of power are together enough for her to switch from regular unleaded to high test demon asskicking, what she needs to do to destroy them, provided she’s in range for maximum effectiveness. And once they’re toasty, one of her iliasti says something along the lines of, “That was too easy.”

And once Kallista figured out the effects of their individual absences in her magic, it seemed easy. There were struggles and there were some fearful moments, but not so much for Kallista as the others. Book 2 is a bit more about them than her, which makes sense because Kallista had to decipher situations and strategize, and not kick ass so much, especially as her magic was slowly returning post-partum.

But the question with book 2 isn’t so much “Would Kallista win?” It was more a question of whether she and the others would be able to hold the ilian together physically and emotionally in the same space long enough to harness the power to win the latest battle. And since her ilian is not quite complete, book 3 should bring some seriously powerful asskicking.

I hope someone has the good sense to publish it, because I personally am eager to know what happens. Seriously. Don’t piss a Smart Bitch off.

Virginia Sauter is the newly-appointed drum major at her rural Alabama high school. She’s also a former beauty pageant queen who rebelled, cut her hair off, pierced her nose, quit the majorette squad and went band. WAY band. So far band that she was voted co-drum-major.

Unfortunately for Virginia, she shares drum major responsibilities with Drew Morrow, who held the position solo last year, and who has some degree of resentment about sharing the position with a girl this year. There’s never been a girl drum major, and to make matters worse, in their first performance, they suck.

Even worse: Virginia has had a crush on Drew for a long, long time, and he refuses to acknowledge that she exists - a decision that certainly contributes to their suckiness as drum majors.

Seems that drum majors, and I didn’t know this, keep the time and tempo of the band through their conducting. If the drum majors don’t work together, they sound like crap - or, as one character says, like a symphony warming up before a performance begins.

Fortunately for Virginia and the band, the new band director, Mr. Rush, intervenes, and lays down the law. They will work together or they’ll both lose their positions. And further, Mr. Rush has ideas about how they can work their differences to the band’s advantage in competition, beginning with a new, feminine drum major costume for Virginia, and a ballroom dance-style dip for both of them to begin their performance.

The challenge of working together forces Drew and Virginia to become friends, despite or perhaps because of the enormous attraction between both of them, and while there are complications - Drew has an evil girlfriend, and Virginia doesn’t feel sure enough of herself to make any move on Drew - the story gets it’s drama from so many clever, interesting characters and plot points that serve to set this book apart. From the guy who’s harbored a crush on Virginia since forever, to her African-American best friend and beauty queen who cannot wait to leave small town Alabama behind her, to her parents and their secret that Virginia’s keeping from everyone, there’s plenty of drama to keep the book moving.

One of Echol’s gifts in this novel is keeping the story very contemporary without making it seem like she’s name-dropping. Like the writers of a really good teen television drama, she’s able to portray a high school teenager’s thoughts (the book is told from Virginia’s perspective in first person) without sounding like she’s trying too hard. Authenticity of tone and setting come easily to this author.

The two best points of this book for me are Virginia herself, and her friendship with Drew. While it might be difficult for me, a 31-year-old schlubby lady living in Jersey to relate to a teenage beauty queen and drum major in rural Alabama, it is not hard for me to relate to someone feeling like they have been dropped into a situation that seems like too much, too fast, and too emotionally difficult. It’s a mark of brilliance on Echols’ part that the character who doesn’t fit in is a beauty queen who quits the pageant circuit to join the band. One doesn’t think beauty pageant contestants suffer often from feelings of awkwardness, low self-confidence, or alienation.

The other delicious part of this book is the dramatic sexual tension between Drew and Virginia. Forced to work together and talk to each other on long-ass bus rides all over the state, they form a friendship of sorts, and become each other’s confidantes, revealing the truth behind their public images. Virginia shares with Drew the secret she’s been hiding from everyone, and Drew tells Mr. Rush and Virginia why he’s gone from being a laid-back relaxed high schooler to a stressed-out responsibility-driven drum major obsessed about being perfect and getting the highest possible score on his SATs.

The one problem I had with the story was that the HEA didn’t seem 100% guaranteed, because one question -the financial security of Drew’s future - is left unanswered. There’s a throwaway comment by the band director that seems to indicate that everything will be fine, but I wasn’t sure at all by the end, and I wanted a complete happy ending for these awesome characters, because I was rooting for them the entire time.

I have a serious weakness for YA romances, from the 1-800-WhereRU stories to vintage SVH, and this one is a definite keeper. A full band salute to Jennifer Echols from this very giddy Smart Bitch.

Alessandra Cecchi is the daughter of a prominent fabric merchant in Florence at the end of Lorenzo d’Medici’s political dynasty during the 15th century Renaissance. Born with an unstoppable curiosity and considerable artistic talent, Alessandra understandably chafes at the restrictions placed on women at the time, and The Birth of Venus chronicles her life from her early teens as her sister marries and her brothers continue to torment her, through her own marriage and life outside of her parents’ home. 

Unable to study painting as she would have were she born a male, Alessandra tutors herself in secret, reading books on technique and hiding her contraband art supplies in various places in her room, supplies purchased for her by her slave, Erila. She sketches on scraps of paper, making her own paint tints from household by-products like egg yolks and burnt copper scrapings, while dreaming of her own studio, her own teacher, and her own commissions to paint.

Her father brings home a painter from northern Europe to paint the walls and ceiling of their family chapel, and Alessandra is unable to stay away from him. Intrigued and attracted to not only the painter himself, but his talent - what she calls “God in his hands” - Alessandra sneaks out of her room, creates fictional reasons to find him, and breaks just about every rule of daughterly propriety for just a few seconds of his time and for his evaluation of her untutored but enthusiastic artistic efforts.

Alessandra’s story is set against the swift, almost pendular political swing that occurred in Florence after the death of Lorenzo d’Medici. Girolamo Savonarola, a Dominican monk, orchestrates from his pulpit an almost complete reversal of the culture of Florence. Savonarola overthrew the Medici’s rule, and established a democratic republic focusing on moral rectitude, religious observance, and fear. Instead of the flourishing artistic development present under Medici, Savonarola subtly attacked the standing of the rich and opulent, creating laws against personal vanity, and sending out teams of boys to bully and cajole women into parting with fur collars, silver buttons, and anything else that would cause them to stand out apart from anyone else. Women were forbidden to attend church, and were forbidden from being present on the street without their husbands.

As her world is shifting, Alessandra is married off to an older gentleman, and is betrayed by her family and by her new existance as a wife when the future she had envisioned as a married lady is revealed to be built on lies. Worse yet, the freedom she had yearned for from her locked position as an unmarried female was taken away from her by the political shift in the climate of Florence. But Alessandra continues to attempt development of her artistic talent, and tries to ignore her attraction to the painter while seeking his opinion and perhaps his instruction, unable to stop fueling the curiosity and talent within her.

Alessandra is a marvelous character- she is foolhardy and brave, impetuous and clever, wicked smart and talented, but prone to nearly shooting herself in the foot on several occasions. It is Alessandra’s character that prevented me from putting the book down. While I grew irritated with her stubbornness at times, her negotiation of a changing society that no longer welcomed her gender or her passions as an artist or as a woman was inspiring and fascinating.

Further, Dunant’s writing style is lyrical, almost poetic, and evokes a tone appropriate for the memoirs of a Renaissance lady, the device used to tell Alessandra’s story. In online reviews and discussions I’ve found, more than one reader has mentioned that they went back to the beginning after finishing the book and started again, and that more was revealed in the second reading. Since this is a borrowed copy and I have a TBR pile that wants to pimpslap me into next year, I don’t have the indulgence of a second read, but the moments of foreshadowing and pieces of early story that mirror the ending were noticeable in my first reading, so much so that I put a post-it where I thought something significant had been referred to, only to flip back and find that I had been right. Dunant is a big fan of foreshadowing through symbolism. And, in case you are a member of a book club, there’s a reader’s group list of seriously softball questions in the back of the text I have - from “To what extent is Savonarola the villain of the novel?” to “To what degree is this novel about a city as much as a character?”

I won’t bore you with my answers.

But I will try to explain why this book, as addictive a read as I found it to be, did not merit an A: the ending. I don’t want to get specific because the experience of reading The Birth of Venus is worth borrowing your own copy, and I don’t want to spoil the finale, but suffice it to say that Alessandra’s choices at the end of the book, especially in regard to her opportunity for a happy ending, are infuriating and don’t accurately represent her character - at least, not the character in the first three-quarters of the book.

I laid awake last night thinking about the difference between a romance structure and the structure of this novel, and found myself asking in frustration why she didn’t make different choices when it was within her power at the end to do so. After seizing every chance to crack the border defining the limits of women in society, to see her take a seat one inch from the edge of her own completion was beyond frustrating and seemed to be an incomplete ending and a betrayal of her character.

Several reviewers in online discussions raised their own frustrations with the ending, wondering if the author phoned in the finale because she was done writing, and it’s comforting to know that other people found the Alessandra at the end to be a shadow of the Alessandra of the beginning, though no one could attribute the change in her character to any traceable reason.

Regardless of how the book ended, the middle of it and the characters within, from Alessandra’s mother to her husband Cristoforo (both magnificently infuriating and yet sympathetic creations on Dunant’s part) will stick in my brain for awhile as I chew over the fascinating elements of the story. With the obvious parallel to the increasingly conservative and religiously-fueled culture forming in many societies right now, the questions inherent in the balance of art and religion, creativity and divinity, are still valid and of importance then and now. Certainly The Birth of Venus has given me a lot to think about, and has left me with the feeling that I learned quite a bit- something every good historical novel should do.

But the best part of the book was reading the reviews when I finished, particularly this quote from the Reader’s Paradise Forum (beware: spoilers at site)

This story reminds me of what Harry Lime (Orson Welles) in “The Third Man” said:

“In Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.”

Substitute Florence for Italy and the Medicis for the Borgias and it would still be an accurate assessment.

The status of women, the value of art, and the question of the role of religion in society and politics are still subjects that have not been adequately explored or resolved, but within books like the Birth of Venus, the reader has the opportunity to learn from history and, with the exception of the readers guide at the back of the book, ask some very important questions. A poor ending to a fictional account cannot take away from the vital duty of repeatedly confronting these questions.

A lot happens in this book. So much that the words “a lot” aren’t nearly enough. There is more plot in this book than there is mantitty on our website. You hear what I’m saying? Plot, plot, puh-lot. Lots of it.

Kallista Varyl is a Captain in the Adaran army, an army made mostly of women. She’s a specific kind of Captain, though, as she is a wielder of magic, or naitan, who commands several others like her. Each naitan in the Adaran army has a bodyguard, and we meet Kallista just before a battle, inspecting the perimeter of the walled city she, the army, and the other naitani must defend, and outlining her strategy with her bodyguard, Torchay.

Adara has been invaded by the all-male army from Tibre, a country to the north. While the Adaran army bases its offensive and defensive strategies on the naitani and their abilities, which range from lightning throwing to food spoiling, the Tibrans use cannons and weapons and some big ass guns to attack - a battle between the magic and the phallic.

When the Tibrans attack, they reach 90% smackdown of the Adaran defenses, killing all the naitani but Kallista, and breach the walled city with hoardes of soldiers. Kallista calls upon the One Goddess whom they all worship, demanding assistance and decrying the goddess’s willingness to watch her people be slaughtered.

The Goddess delivers: everyone in the Tibran army is killed instantly, save for one man, a warrior named Stone. And after regaining consciousness, Kallista realizes she has saved the city and the lives of the Adaran soldiers around her- and then realizes that she has been Godstruck, and now bears a large compass rose on the back of her neck. And hello, Stone has one, too.

More importantly, Kallista is now gifted with some serious kick ass magical powers, far beyond the lightning magic she had originally.

It has been more than a thousand years since an Adaran woman has been Godmarked, and this development causes a great deal of interest within the army and within the royal circle surrounding the Adaran ruler, the Reinine. Kallista, Torchay, and Stone are summoned to court to discuss the events of her marking, and to discuss what to do with Stone, and the ever-pesky Tibrans to the north, who will certainly try again to invade Adara. Kallista, Torchay, and Stone, along with Aisse, a woman who ran away from Tibran servitude, are then bound together by the Reineine into an ilian, a polyamorous marriage, before they are sent to Tibre to stop the invasions.

That’s a very, very rough sketch of all that happens in this book, and it is hard to put it down and pick it back up again - one, because you want to keep going, no matter what time it is and how cold the bathwater has become, and two, there is SO much complex world building going on that if you put it down for some time, recalling all the intricacies once you revisit the story will be a challenge. Dayton is possessing of some serious world building skills, introducing the kingdoms of Adara and Tibre with gradual detail, so each seems equally real, but without an infodump overload that would assault the reader. While each kingdom has defined influences, from the femnocentric rule of the Adaran culture to the male-dominated culture of the Tibrans, the reader isn’t hit over the head repeatedly with the differences, so that in the end you recognize the forces driving each culture, and the motivations causing the men and women of each kingdom to act the way they do. Further, the exploration of matriarchal vs. patriarchal societies allows the reader to examine the flaws inherent within each, thus lending Kallista’s ilian, with members of both kingdoms, a curious balance of two extreme cultures.

The characters themselves are also well done. Each member of Kallista’s ilian, and more members are added as the story continues, is an individual character, instead of a facet of one element of Kallista’s character. This isn’t polyamory-as-character-device, where each person would reflect and accent a particular part of Kallista’s personality; each member of the ilian is a character in his and her own right, and as such, the book stands alone well but also leaves the reader looking forward to the second and third books in the trilogy - you want to learn more about the others, and to see what happens to Kallista.

The bravery in crafting a polyamorous romance is not to be overlooked, either: mad props to Luna, Harlequin, and Dayton for publishing a romance that is multilayered, multidirectional, and multi-amorous. The concept of an ilian is more than just a group of swingers, or bi-curious folks all humping one another. The ilian is a family with many leaders, and while there are pairings between some members, there are also couplings that occur across and between the established pairs.

The anchor to the ilian, and the story, is Kallista, and she’s marvelous. Sometimes I wanted to smack her for being stubborn, and sometimes I wanted to jump into her shoes because rwor, there is some hot action for her and her iliasti, but mostly I wanted to follow her like Torchay and the rest of her crew to see what happened next.

There were some flaws to the story that I questioned as the story came to an end, not the least of which is the resolution of the “primary” romance between Kallista and Torchay and the answer to how and why some characters were marked by the goddess and why others were not. The resolution of her relationship hinged on Kallista’s inability to relinquish control, though, and it makes sense for her character to stand in her own way until she wakes up and adjusts her attitude.

To return to my earlier question: is this a romance? Yes - it’s multiple romances, and multiple plotlines, and multiple relationships, interwoven and interpartnered so it breaks some of the rules of traditional romance, but also highlights some of the important foundations: a good story of a well-written set of characters who confront identifiable and dangerous opposition to their commitment to one another makes for a fantastic read, and this hybrid of fantasy and romance treats the reader to a very creative, and very sensual exploration of what fantasy romance can be.