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

Allow me to back up a step and explain the plot. Warning! Herein be paranormal action romance cliches, but fear not! They are served up marvelously. Rardin manages something rare and downright awesome: she takes what could be a retread of so many stock characters and plots and does that thing with the frying pan and the huge flaming leap of fire from the burner and behold: awesome sauce.

Jaz Parks is a CIA assassin whose targets are paranormal villains. Some of what she’s after are known paranormal creatures - vampires and the like - and some are creations of Rardin’s imagination that are seriously, seriously creepy. At the start of the novel, Jaz is teamed with a vampire named Vayl, also an assassin, and one of a few vampires who isn’t trying to snack on humanity. Vayl is also one of the most accomplished assassins in their field, and she’s plenty intimidated by him. But Jaz and Vayl’s partnership is brilliantly balanced, despite his being immortal and all super powered and undead. Technically, she is his bodyguard and is meant to protect him as an elite asset of the US government’s paranormal assassin team. But in their interaction, you rarely see her subjugating herself for his sake. His asskicking is neatly met by her asskicking, and never once is there an upset of power that allows the reader to think less of either character.

In the first book, Jaz and Vayl are sent to find a plastic surgeon in Miami with ties to a terrorist, find out what said surgeon knows and then kill him and go get the bad guy. Obviously, that’s not exactly what happens.

The plot is fiery. En fuego, in fact. The action is fast paced and relentless, and it took me more than a few days to read the last 30 pages because this is not a book you can skim. It’s literally nonstop, and because the book is narrated in the first person by Jaz (haters of first person, sorry to burst your bubble) you get her perspective of the action as it unfolds, as well as her own nervousness and slightly bitter, sardonic humor. There are times when her narration is too detailed, and I expect her to say, “And then I put my left foot down, and then my right, and then my left...” but when those same details are applied to a fight sequence, I have a sharp picture of the scene. The detailed narration that drags at some points is likely part of Jaz’s character - because she’s an assassin who spends much of her time under cover, she has to notice the fine points of every moment.

I’ve said elsewhere that series books that feature the same protagonist pair work well for me when each book contains an individual mystery or action plot that is solved at the end, and when there’s a smaller happy ending for the protagonists. Rardin must have heard me ranting because the spicy attraction between Jaz and Vayl is delicious. Both have issues and emotional trauma to overcome, and flaws to work through and grow through. The attraction between Vayl and Jaz is acknowledged equally, but is slow igrowing. He’s terribly into her but she tells him no repeatedly - and stands by her resistance to him because she is aware of what she needs emotionally. She’s recovering from personal loss, and she knows she needs time to repair herself. It’s not often you have a heroine saying, “No” to any increased intimacy and the hero and heroine both respecting that “No.” As a result, the slow build is delicious.

Vayl, aside from being a vampire, and hundreds of years old, and possessing of some ancient badass powers, yadda yadda yadda, is a Guy. He acts like a guy sometimes, despite his antiquated formality. He is boneheaded like a guy, occasionally jealous like a guy, and it’s refreshing to see a vampire with personality flaws. Usually they’re stone perfect and so damn dull with their perfection, like an overpriced armoire for sale with no nicks or scratches that’s allegedly 300 years old. Come on now, someone’s toddler scratched the side with a toy in the last hundred years. No way is something that’s so old supposedly so perfect. And yet so many vampire heroes are so freaking perfect it bugs the crap out of me. It’s almost as if there’s an assumption that after many hundreds of years of living one would have all the answers of how to handle any situation, that is, if the immortal person in question didn’t eschew society in general and go live in a cave like I would. I find it much more fascinating that Vayl, despite his power and age, is flawed and often acts like a petulant butthead. Moreover, Jaz calls him on his behavior.

Once Bitten, Twice Shy has a lot of story to build, and does so without collapsing under the weight of its own history. The plot has to follow the duo to Miami while also introducing the characters, explaining the origins of Jaz’s own mysterious abilities, and revealing Vayl’s history in small portions as well. Much to my delight, Rardin forces Vayl and Jaz into positions of increased intimacy under duress, and because it’s narrated by Jaz, she reveals slowly how she feels about Vayl, while she also observes Vayl, leaving the reader room to interpret Vayl’s actions in one way while Jaz explains them in another. Jaz is a master of taking in a potentially emotionally conflicting moment and convincing herself of an alternate meaning or dismissing her initial reaction in favor of a scenario she can handle. Witnessing her realization that she’s deliberately misreading Vayl is also delicious because her reaction is mixed with insecurity, hope, fear, and unwillingness to rock the not-entirely-tranquil boat of their partnership. Seriously, can you tell I really like Jaz? It’s rare that I dig a heroine this much.

As the series progresses, I have to wonder if Rardin has an endpoint in sight, or a goal towards which she’s working with Jaz and Vayl, because their attraction will eventually come to a point where they either act on it or don’t, but either way they face changing their partnership irrevocably. While I have my regular familiar fears about series books that feature the same protagonists building a bonfire of attraction toward one another, based on what I’ve read so far, I trust that Rardin has both hands steering the plot of the story, and if Jaz and Vayl’s relationship does change, it will be satisfying and ultimately for the better of both parties.

And if not, given the skill of her writing, I’ll enjoy it anyway. Because did I mention I like Jaz a LOT? Yeah. Kick ass.

Amelia Hathaway is the managerially inclined sister of the new Lord Ramsey, aka her brother Leo. She also has three sisters, Win, Poppy and Beatrix (sequels ahoy!) and since her brother has sunk into a dark party of alcohol, drugs, and depression following the death of his fiancee, Laura, Amelia has taken charge of the family. And by “taking charge” I mean she manages every detail of their new lives as a titled family with a new estate with a relentless “can-do” attitude that would come across as completely annoying as hell if it weren’t for the humility of her character. Amelia doesn’t get off on bossing her family around - she recognizes that she’s the only one who can take care of everyone, and so she steps up and does so, even if it causes her pain as she realizes that some of the problems of her family are somewhat insurmountable, and that her managerial years have put her on the fast track to spinsterhood.

Cam Rohan, the hero, was last seen in the Wallflower Quartet books as a red-hot dark-haired temptation to Daisy and the factotum to the gambling club owned by Evie and St. Vincent. Cam is half-Gypsy, and as such occupies a miserable border between society and the nomadic, tribal life of the Romany. He’s accepted by some out of fear, intimidation, or, in a few cases, respect, but that acceptance has firm boundaries: because he’s Rom, he’s never an equal, no matter how high he ascends above servant or employee status.

Amelia’s first meets Cam while hunting down her wastrel brother in one gambling hell or brothel or another, an after an illicit kiss, she assumes she’ll never see him again. Never see him again? This is a romance novel, silly woman. Of COURSE you’re going to see him again!

Imagine Amelia’s surprise when she learns that her brother’s new estate borders Lord Westcliff’s, and since Westcliff is married to Lillian (It Happened One Autumn) who is best friends with Evie, who, with her husband, owns the gambling hell that employs Cam (The Devil in Winter), they cannot help but run into one another.

Cam tries to resist his attraction to Amelia, and in doing so focuses on the freedom he’s lost from spending too many years in the company of non-Roma society. Convinced he will be cured of his attraction to her if he leaves English society and returns to his own tribe, Cam keeps trying to leave- only to find that he can’t bring himself to do so. Amelia, no matter how well she may think she has her family’s multiple troubles in hand, needs his help, and the chemistry between them makes it equally difficult for her to stay away from him.

Therein lies my biggest problem with the book: can I truly believe in the happy ending for Cam and Amelia? Because this seems to be a continuing arc involving older stories from the Wallflower Quartet (though it was enjoyable to see those characters again) and a new arc that may follow the courtships of Amelia’s sisters, the answer to that question may lie in future books - and really, I want the answer to be in THIS book. Unfortunately, it’s really not. No matter how devoted to one another they may be, Cam is still half-Gypsy, and by choosing him, Amelia is electing to occupy that rather frosty border of polite society that doesn’t 100% accept her husband, and in turn won’t 100% accept her. Even though her family is new to the peerage and skirts that chilly border of society on their own terms, being married to a half-Gypsy exposes her to a great deal of prejudice and rejection, and it’s hard to believe in their happy ending as a result.

The other complaint I have is that there are times when characters speak or ruminate on facts of Roma society, language or culture that sound less like actual people talking or thinking and more like a lecture on Romany life. I tagged those pages with the thought, “Tidbits of research ahoy!”

However, no matter how stilted the dialog may have been at points, Kleypas clearly did her research, and it makes for a rich and layered story that touched on Irish and Romany legends and folklore, and the prejudice and violence that Romany tribes endured at the time. In addition, there’s a touch of the paranormal in the plot that, instead of taking over the story and making it into some kind of historical romance-caper, add to the larger story or stories that will be told with the likely issue of each sister’s romance. 

Wait, no, there’s one more thing I have to say - and I’m really only getting this out of the way so I can talk about what I did like about this book - and that which I liked I liked a LOT. This may be the first time I’ve griped about a sex scene or scenes, but it seemed that during every sexual encounter between Cam and Amelia, he was in control and orchestrated the entire sequence of their intimacy. While having the hero remain in control of the sexxoring can be very delectable for me, having him control things every time? No thanks. Not only did it get repetitive but it didn’t ring true for Amelia’s character. I kept waiting for her to try to take charge of their sexual adventures in some way, or at least show some of the spunk and relentlessness with which she approached the other parts of her life, but it didn’t happen. Except for a scene where she hides in his bed, Amelia never got to climb in the saddle first, so to speak, and take the reigns of their sex life, and I wish she had.

Now for the good parts. The one thing that Kleypas does consistently well, and that makes for the comfort factor in her books that I mentioned earlier, is her development of heroines and their friends and sisters. Kleypas is brilliantly skilled at writing loving, caring, supportive relationships between women. They’re not all perfect visions of perfection having perfect superficial friendships that consist of shopping and tea. From the earlier quartet of friends to a new family of sisters who lean on each other in a realistic and truly caring fashion, Kleypas’ heroines are profoundly likable, and that makes reading about them more than pleasurable. I, as a reader, like them, and more importantly, they genuinely seem to like each other. Really, I don’t know many women like the ones she writes, in romanceland or in real life. Even if the sisters in this novel don’t fight nearly often enough, the ways in which they take care of one another is truly touching.

There is one scene I read three times in which Amelia is horrified to see her brother offending their host at dinner, and before she can divert attention from her brother’s conduct, her sister’s pet lizard escapes his home in her dress pocket and starts meandering down the dinner table. Not only is it hilarious, but the lecture Amelia gives her sister immediately afterward had me giggling out loud.

Most often I read romances to witness that spark and start of a loving relationship between the hero and heroine, but the growing skill that Kleypas demonstrates in writing loving relationships between sisters and female friends adds an entirely new type of relationship to follow and enjoy. Loving families, even dysfunctional, slightly daffy and troubled ones, are rare in romanceland, and when I find one that is genuinely rendered and pleasing to read about, I am more than comforted and definitely happy.

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.