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

Frances never goes to London. She’s either in Scotland, or at the Rothermere country estate, which is fifteen miles from York. Forgive my ever-dependable lack of UK geographical knowledge, but York is a mighty ways away from London, and I think the farthest Frances and Hawk travel during their marriage is to Newmarket, which is still some distance from London by carriage. Frances is never in London as a “leading lady” and while she is fashionable and ravishing, she hasn’t snuck into the ton to reveal herself. She’s still near York most of the time.

Moreover, while Frances does disguise herself as a dowdy mouse to avoid Hawk’s interest, when she returns to her normal, beautiful state, he knows exactly who she is, and is absolutely furious about the transformation and the deception.

The cover copy alone is ample evidence of what was wrong with romance covers back in the day - my copy was published in 1987, I believe - but then, consider the cover image itself:

We’ve snarked this cover hard, as it is one of the more fabulous examples of “Invisible Buttsecks” covers in romance history - not to mention the dubious decision to put a red-haired woman in an orange dress while wearing silver and turquoise eyeshadow. Also, did he just fart out a swan?!

But behind (hur hur) the cover, there lies one of my favorite old-school romances. And when I mentioned it last week as part of a larger discussion of alpha males, I realized that it’s been so long since I read this book that it might be time to revisit it, just in case my memory is faulty as usual, only this time instead of giving me a total blank, my doofy memory has added a patina of quality that the original book didn’t have.

Nope, my memory and I are in accord: the book is still marvelously good, despite the misleading cover copy, the cover image, and some of the worst typesetting errors sprinkled throughout the entire book. Typos, missing quotations, missing capital letters - Jesus Flapjack, who typeset this thing?! Even with all these distractions, I still love this book, and it’s not just the sentimental value talking.

Frances Kilbracken is one of three Scottish sisters whose father, Earl of Ruthven, made a pact with the Marquess of Chandos some years before. Seems Ruthven saved Chandos’ life, and Chandos promised to marry one of his sons to one of Ruthven’s daughters. When Chandos suddenly takes ill, he asks his heir, Phillip (more commonly known as Hawk - yes, of course he has to have a nickname of a predatory bird. This is old school romance after all!) to go on up to Scotland and marry one of the daughters, completing his oath to Ruthven.

Hawk is not at all pleased with this idea. He recently inherited the title at the sudden death of his brother, Nevil, and has been enjoying his new life. Instead of a soldier in Wellington’s army, he’s a Lord of the realm, complete with amorous mistress, neverending nightlife in London, and a healthy amount of wealth to his name.

Frances thinks the entire idea is barbaric, and when she hears of Hawk’s life in London, she figures he’d want a wife as festive, gay, entertaining, and social as the women he currently spends time with. So Frances turns herself into a dowdy, frumpy, socially inept sourpuss and tries to drive Hawk away.

Trouble is, Hawk figures that if he marries Frances, dumps her in the country and heads on back to London, his life can continue as it was, and he won’t have to change a thing.

Consider the multitude of plot elements that could go horribly wrong with this setup: the foundation of the relationship is essentially a Big Misunderstanding. Both parties are horribly blind to one another, plus there’s the aspect of sex between the unwilling protagonists to deal with. But Coulter balances out these tricky elements admirably, and this is still one of my very favorite old school romances.

First: the hero. Yes, the hero forces Frances to have sex with him. This is indeed the romance wherein he has to use cream to ease his way up her tender virgin passage because she wants nothing to do with him, but he has a responsibility to beget an heir, and she’s half the equation required for that result. She knows it, he knows it, and so she lies still, tries to hide from him at times, but submits to his passionless ministrations.

But Coulter’s master stroke (har har) in creating empathy for Hawk is in the first chapter: Hawk rushes from London because he is told his father is dying. The entire chapter reveals how much Hawk cares for his parent, how unwilling he is to live up to an oath he didn’t make, and how, despite that unwillingness, he is aware of the responsibilities of his new life as Earl of Rothermere. In 16 pages of writing, Coulter establishes a hero who is noble, caring, dedicated to his family and his role as heir to the title, and empathetic - because who hasn’t had to do something they really, really did not want to do?

Second: the heroine. Frances is headstrong, intelligent, clever, and utterly hoisted by her own petard. Hawk is gorgeous and she is undeniably attracted to him, but she doesn’t want to marry him, nor does she want to leave Scotland. She doesn’t want her life to change any more than Hawk wants to give up his social life in London.

Yes, there are parts that made me dog-ear a page and laugh out loud, such as Frances’ completely incongruous need for “something more” in her life:

“I want to marry a rich man. I want to be somebody. What else can a woman look forward to anyway?” Viola said.
That was perfectly true, of course, Frances thought, suddenly depressed, but it wasn’t fair. She repeated her thought aloud. “It’s not fair. We should be able to do anything we wish to do.”

I can hear the music from Mary Poppins now: No more the meek and mild subservients we! We’re fighting for our rights, militantly! Well done! Sister Suffragette! Frances at times is a blooming ludicrous example of contemporary mentality shoved into an historical heroine. Even with all that posturing, I like her anyway.

There are some other flaws to the writing, such as an incredible propensity toward head hopping, like the narrator is a Jack Russell terrier on amphetamines. And there is also some marvelously purple prose, plus one of my very, very favorite phrases in all of romance to describe female arousal: To her utter consternation, Frances felt a deep spurt of something very warm and urgent between her thighs.

Now, between you and me? If I feel that, it probably means my water broke. But for Frances? Her arousal “spurts” a few times here and there through the book. It’s enough to make you want to send a gyn back in time to help her out with that problem.

By far the largest topic to discuss regarding this novel: the sex scenes where Frances lies still, an unwilling partner, as Hawk does his best to cause conception as quickly and painlessly as possible. This is one of the few romances I’ve read that has multiple scenes that depict what sexual intercourse could have been like for a couple that wasn’t sexually interested in or even friends with one another. It’s a duty and an obligation, and it’s disturbing, but in this case, the process reveals a good deal about each character. Hawk will rise (har har) to his responsibilities, even if they make him lonely and sad, and Frances will acquiesce to her own duties, even if they also make her lonely and sad.

Hawk, of course, has friends and a very passionate mistress. Frances is in a new place with no one she knows, forced to make a new life for herself despite her best efforts. Frances was caught in her own trap, and in the end, only by revealing who she really is can she find happiness. The same, of course, is true for the hero. He doesn’t enjoy the passionless sex that is his marital duty, and only by admitting he too longs for “something more” between his wife and himself can he find happiness.

Pamela Regis, in her book A Natural History of the Romance Novel outlines the primary differences between what Candy and I call “Old School” and “New School” romance. One of them, and the one I find most interesting, is the requirement in “New School” romance that the hero make his own journey to become worthy of the happy ending. Despite Midsummer Magic bearing many of the hallmarks of “Old School” romance, Hawk evolves through the story into a hero worthy of Frances and worthy of their happy ending. He wasn’t a complete buttmonkey to start with, either - he started from a place of some established empathy: he thought his father was dying and had to honor his wishes - and evolves to a place of greater heroism: he finds a purpose in life, a suitable vocation he can indulge in with his spouse, and a path toward leaving a greater inheritance for his children. And on top of that, he finds a passionate and unique relationship with his wife. They were forced to marry, but as they reveal their true characters, they find that, as is proper in a romance novel, they are perfectly matched.

The Leopard Prince is an innovative and profoundly different type of romance: the heroine, Lady Georgina Maitland, is a wealthy woman with several estates. The hero, Harry Pye, is her new land steward. He’s her servant, though that doesn’t mean she’s not fascinated with him, though it does mean that he tries his damndest not to notice her.

There are two subplots and themes at work here, and Hoyt does a marvelous job of weaving them together, though the potential third, the fairy tale Georgina tells through the story, lost me after the second or third installment. The first, the story of Harry and Georgina, is woven through the second, which is really Harry’s story - and as a result, this book is very much in my mind a hero-driven story.

What fascinated me most was Hoyt’s exploration of class, and the different worlds that Harry had to simultaneously exist within - Georgina is his social superior, but as her steward he has access to parts of her world, a world that those he supervises would never see. But he also lives and works among those for whom the estate is their life and livelihood. He has to both care for those who live and work on the estate, while explaining to Georgina how important her decisions are and how they affect those same people. His job is to guide her towards a profitable estate, while advocating for everyone beneath her whose lives depend on her estate, and he exists between those people, not quite fitting in with them, or with her.

Hoyt does a masterful job of depicting how different classes of people interacted personally, and I read and re-read the scenes where Harry talks with ancillary characters. The use of language and colloquialism was intriguing. I learned a great deal about the difference in dialogue and the manners used among lower classes, and those varied encounters established Harry as a character who seems more real than most heroes.

He’s not cardboard or manufactured from Ye Olde Deck of Romance Cliches; even when discussing the most horrible aspects of his childhood, he maintains a realistic perspective and still manages to break my heart with his candor to Georgina. When he says, after telling Georgina the circumstances of his birth, that “All little boys love their mothers,” I literally had to stop reading for a moment and wipe my eyes. He’s a hero who is not afraid to admit his vulnerability to those who have earned his trust, and instead of coming across weaker for having divulged so much, he evolves into a marvelous character. Can you tell I’m crushing on this guy? Seriously, I am.

What I found most delicious was Harry’s confidence. He was a bastard, plus he had an active, identifiable and powerful enemy, whose villainy and vitriol was most often so over the top I literally expected his end would come when his head exploded all over the walls, and yet despite those circumstances against him, Harry had a deeply sexy confidence in himself, especially once he realized that Georgina returned his feelings of attraction. It became a pleasure for him to take care of her as well as of her estates. Certainly an uncommon balance and rebalance of power in a romance novel relationship.

Sadly for me, Georgina was not his equal in characterization or in depiction. She made several really doofy decisions in the course of the story, and while I respected that she did not waver in her belief in Harry, even when others tried to frame him for horrible crimes committed on her land, I wished she’d been at least as solidly crafted as Harry. She resembled the fairy tale she told through the story: not quite real, and somewhat nebulous in purpose.

Yet when I look back on this book, or pick it up to flip through it, Hoyt’s exploration of the status differences located between labels like “bastard,” “nobleman,” “gentleman,” and “honorable man” continues to enthrall me with subsequent re-readings. The degree to which this book continues to resonate in my mind is as much a testament to her prose as to her characterization, and I’m looking forward to her next novel.

Cat Crawfield is a half human, half vampire 20-something, with a small town life and an upbringing regularly hosed down with shame from her grandparents and mother. Her mother was raped by a vampire, and Cat, born at 5 months gestation yet perfectly formed, was the result. She deliberately tries to hide her differences, but there’s no way to hide that she’s faster, stronger, and more resilient than the other humans in her life, to say nothing of her temper, which makes her eyes glow green.

Cat’s mother, who wields the Trowel of Guilt better than most, and I have a Jewish mother in law so I know whereof I speak, has preached long and loud to Cat that vampires are evil, horrible no good very bad things. Cat, with her superior skills and hunger for asskicking, has devised through trial-and-error and much independent research a tried and true method for dispatching vampires, and goes out nightly to hunt, lure, and kill vampires, trying to avenge her mother’s rape and her own misery.

This nocturnal badassery comes to a screeching halt when Cat is kidnapped by an exceptionally strong nosferatu named Bones, who is really, really old, really, really strong, and really, really, really sure that Cat is working for someone, someone who wants him dead. When Cat, sure her end is about two seconds away, tells him the truth about her life and mission, Bones refuses to believe her, until Cat’s emotions get the better of her and her eyes glow green. Bones, who is not a dumbass after many hundreds of years of existence, makes her an offer: train with him, and work with him as a vampire bounty hunter, or die.

Cat agrees, and the two of them team up to kill particularly evil vampires who have prices on their heads. They train, work, and, hellooo there, explore and attempt to resist the yummy sexual tension between them. Bones isn’t telling Cat everything about the vampires they’re stalking, and Cat, because she knows she’s being kept in the dark and because she’s been force-fed the “vampires are evil so kill ‘em all quick” routine from her mom, isn’t sure she can trust him. But man, she sure wants to find out more about Bones’ bone. (Sorry, couldn’t resist).

The action scenes are one after the other, leading to an incredibly spanking pace to this novel, with spicy revelations from Bones and Cat peppering the plot, and mixing my metaphors. I loved that Frost crafts an authentically British/Australian hero in Bones, with dialogue and colloquialisms that scan correctly - though, let’s see, blonde, pale, British old vampire… remind you of anyone? The larger story that parallels Bones and Cat and drives their mission together is also fascinating, and Frost doesn’t skimp on the worldbuilding, either. There’s also a fascinating examination of Who Art More Evil, the vampires or the humans, and the manner in which vampire society and social rules is described and revealed isn’t infodumpy, but instead arrives through the characters’ dialogue and actions. The revelations and explorations of the dichotomy between vampire society and human society is particularly intriguing because Cat herself stands on the border of both.

The only flaws, and I tempt spoilerage here so allow me to tread carefully, are in the backstory. There isn’t enough shown of Cat’s family to understand fully what motivates her, particularly in the end of the book where the plot takes a right hand turn and heads mightily towards the cliffhanger that yearns for book 2. As the reader, I had a hard time appreciating Cat’s anger and desire for revenge in the end of the book because those for whom she sought revenge weren’t all that much to begin with. I had a much more thought-provoking and involving read while Cat was struggling with her feelings about vampires, and her feelings for one vampire in particular, than I did at the end, which functioned mainly as setup for book 2. By the time the setup for book 2 arrived, I felt like I was reading a completely different character in Cat, and am not sure I bought all the changes in her personality that were evident by the final page.

And wherefore this book 2? Could there have been a happy ending to the story as-is, without the sudden arrival of The Plot Of the Next Book 30 pages from the end. To be fair, probably not. The issues that Cat struggles with, from her family to her personal strengths and weaknesses to her evolving understanding of her own place in her world are not easily solved in the novel-sized space, so I’m definitely curious as to how Frost will resolve those issues in the coming book. It would soothe my ornery self to know about how long the series will be, and if Frost has a definite end in mind, because I liked these two characters enough to want to witness their permanent and unquestionable happy ending.

So at the end of Book One, we find out Our Very Own Temeraire is actually a Celestial dragon, the most rare Chinese breed of all. The British are quite pleased, because Celestials have the power of Divine Wind--and no, it’s not the same thing as Savage Thunder, though both involve the forceful expelling of copious amounts of air. The Chinese, however, are rather less than thrilled when they find out that not only has one of their precious Celestials fallen into a commoner’s hands (according to tradition, only members of the imperial family are suitable companions for them), but he has been pressed into military service, too. A delegation, headed by the hostile Prince Yongxing, is sent to England to retrieve Temeraire and return him to his rightful station.

Except Temeraire has his own thoughts about that, and he refuses to leave without Laurence and his crew. And so Our Merry Band of Adventurers depart the shores of England for the Orient on a massive dragon transport ship. There, Laurence and Temeraire begin to learn about the great differences between the treatment of dragons in the West vs. the treatment of dragons in China, as Yongxing is not especially shy about attempting to woo Temeraire away from Laurence’s side. Adventures abound, as the ship encounters a hostile ship, storms, attempts on Laurence’s life (...or ARE THEY? Perhaps Laurence was just being being paranoid! *dun dun duuuuun*) and even a wild creature of the deep (which was an especially exciting episode that led to some interesting, if rather perfunctory, explorations on the nature of consciousness and sentience).

And all that’s before they get to China, where the real politicking and maneuvering begins, and where Temeraire and crew have an opportunity to witness the rather more progressive state of dragon rights in China. Between that and first-hand observations of the treatment of human slaves, Temeraire becomes quite the advocate for dragon rights, with Laurence agreeing with his assessments but feeling a great deal more cautious and less optimistic about the enterprise. Will Laurence discover who’s trying to kill him? Will Temeraire wish to return to England after experiencing for himself the disparity in the treatment of dragons? Will the Chinese court relent in their attempts to separate Laurence and Temeraire? How many of Temeraire’s crew will remain at the end of the book? Tune in to My Brother the Big-Ass Dragon.

This particular installment suffers from certain classic second-book issues: we get to know the characters better, but the action slows down, and a lot of the book feels like set-up for future books and not just a story in its own right. Don’t get me wrong; it’s cracking good fun, but it wasn’t quite as satisfying as the first book, and I was actually able to put it down for hours at a time, instead of risking life and limb by pulling it out and reading it in the car when traffic came to a standstill on I-5.

Its attempts to engage in a conversation about natural rights also felt somewhat half-baked; the implications of the status of dragons in China are interesting, but not adequately explored.

“But Candy,” you cry, “Give it a break! It’s a freaking fantasy novel!”

Well, yeah. Which makes it an excellent venue for this sort of conversation. Speculative fiction, with its rampant “what-if"-ism, has spawned some of the best fictional treatments of thorny political and philosophical issues, from 1984 to Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? to Oryx and Crake. I’m sure the conversation will continue and improve in future books; it’s just that its treatment in this particular installment felt slight, when it wasn’t being a touch ham-handed.

However, enough with the niggling and the nagging, because there’s quite a bit to love about this book. Novik continues to do a stellar job with her characters. Laurence continues to unbend, and Temeraire continues to charm--so much so that I wish Novik would give us some passages from his point of view, though limiting the POV strictly to Laurence provides a certain power to the narrative as well. Secondary characters like Granby (on whom I have a small crush, I have to confess) are also being developed quite nicely.

Her attention to detail and narrative voice are also excellent. Her portrayal of 19th-century China is especially detailed, fascinating and even-handed, even as she convincingly filters the experience through the lens of Laurence’s point-of-view, with all its attendant preconceptions and cultural biases. That takes some doing.

All in all, if you loved His Majesty’s Dragon, this sequel is worth reading, even if not quite as crackastic as its predecessor, and there’s quite the doozy of a set-up for the third book, Black Powder War. As far as I’m concerned right now, Novik can’t write these fast enough for me.

Like the first book, the second offers seriously nonstop action. The pace is so quick and so fast that it’s stimulating reading instead of relaxing reading. This isn’t a book you ruminate over each passage. This is high octane move-your-ass reading that draws the reader in immediately.

Most notably, Gleason - and I won’t give away the plot twist no matter what fancy things I can do with font colors - managed to shock the hell out of me AND the heroine at the same time. I didn’t believe what was going to happen would actually happen and my reaction mirrored the heroine’s at each paragraph. I won’t say more because I feel guilty for potentially revealing the Big Secret but, damn, this was not good for my blood pressure.

Oddly, one continuing theme to the story has me baffled. As the series progresses, the tendency to keep Victoria in the dark by most of the senior and experienced characters drives me more and more batty. Victoria goes to Italy with her grandmother, and her grandmother takes care of setting everything up for their households, including Victoria’s identity as she investigates undercover, and all manner of secret details - and involves Victoria in none of it. Later, they go to the center of Venator headquarters, where her grandmother is treated akin to royalty. She is The Gardella, the matriarch of the Venators, with Victoria as her heir. Despite being the heir to such a huge mantle of responsibility, her grandmother and other characters still keep her largely in the dark as to the details and logistics of being a Ventator, to the point where I want to smack them all upside the head. On one hand Victoria is moving from a role as a newbie innocent Venator into one with more experience killing Guardians and Imperials in sets of two and three, but on the other, she’s coddled and cared for even as she’s told by those same people doing the coddling that she needs to grow up and face her difficult future.

However many times Victoria is thrown into the deep end of the bloody Venator pool, she manages to tread water and kickass at the same time, which is reassuring to say the least. Her strength and resilience is impressive, and makes for a compelling heroine. Add to that the men of mystery, Max and Sebastian, neither one of whom she is sure she can completely trust, and the book ends with half the questions answered and even more created.

Among my questions:

1. Why does Sebastian forever take his damn jacket off? Every scene: he’s taking his jacket off, or he left his jacket in the carriage, or he tosses it over a chair. The man lives in shirtsleeves. At some point this is either going to be a clue of some sort, like he’s signaling faraway observers with his white sleeves and manly arms, or it’s a peculiar affectation. But either way, it’s like David Caruso’s sunglasses: On! Off! On! Off! WTF?

2. Why does Victoria dismiss as coincidence the repeated surprise arrivals of people she knows in locations she shouldn’t likely see them? Surely this would make her suspicious, as it did me.

3. What happens next?

Like any series worth keeping track of, the Gardella Vampire Chronicles leaves as much unanswered as it does solved in the first two volumes, and the larger story arcs, from which man Victoria will choose to how she’ll face the final showdown with the Big Bad that lurks in the background, are intriguing. My patience with series books is thin, as I’ve said often on this site, but in Gleason’s hands, the mix of action, emotional punch and intrigue serve to keep me interested in books three through five. For example, I can go back and forth about which man she’s likely to choose, and why each is better, and that kind of well-wrought triangle is hard to find. I almost dread the final answer since the balance between them is so well maintained.