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

Adore Laura Kinsale, but this is probably my least favorite...agree with your review.  Early part of the story is the best, the parts in England are frustrating.  I’ve not re-read this one...however, Seize the Fire and Shadow Heart are calling me for a re-read. 

I heard she was taking a break and regrouping, any news of a new book yet?

This is probably my second-favorite book by Kinsale ... exactly because of everything you guys hated. And so I’d give it an “A.”

This is my least favorite Kinsale book, and I found your analysis intriguing.  I think you both highlighted some of the problems I experienced while reading it, and why it’s probably the only book of hers I haven’t bothered to re-read.

If I was recommending Kinsale books to people, and I often do, I’d start with Flowers from the Storm and also recommend For My Lady’s Heart for the adventurous, and Midsummer Moon just for fun.

Flowers From the Storm...YES!

See, you all sold me on FLOWERS FROM THE STORM, so I ordered it from Amazon. I tried to read it. I gave up last night at p. 140. Just after the retchingly cute “kittens in the garden” scene (pun intended).

I simply loathe the namby-pamby heroine. I’m simply sick to death of her hesitancy, her shrinking-violet syndrome, etc. Jeebus, lady, get off your duff and DO SOMETHING TO HELP HIM already.

It’s clear to me that LK is a beloved author, and that she can WRITE, but FFTH is so not to my tastes. I gladly laid it aside and picked up Pam Rosenthal’s latest, THE SLIGHTEST PROVOCATION which I almost couldn’t bear to put down and go to bed.

Dang I worship Kinsale.  She writes a book that Candy hasn’t read in 10 years and still has that strong of emotions about.  Maybe you do hate the heroine, but you remember her.  Which is more than I can say about most of the romances out there.  In fact the romance I’m currently reading, I have to stop to remember the heroine’s name.

I remember Zenia.

I liked the beginning of this book, but after she was outed as a woman, it lost some of its magic for me for many of the reasons stated here.

On an unrelated note, if you’re feeling generous, click my name and give me an opinion; I need all the input I can get.

I got this book on impuse because of the mention of Hester Standhope - that’s it, through a little know historical figure at me and I’m hooked and now it looks like the heroine isn’t going to live up to Hester’s standards, so well I’ll read anyway and enjoy it for the writing if nothing else.

The Shadow and the Star, Sarah. It must be your next. You can dislike TDH or FMLH or Shadowheart or jaysus, any of them - but if you don’t fall in love with The Shadow and the Star, it’ll be positively intriguing to know why.

Um, intriguing for me. Because it’s all about me. Duh. (Note as well that it’ll make me gnash my teeth and rend my robes, etc, to hear a WORD said against the characters in TSATS.)

PS: I worship TDH, and like sherryfair, for all the same reasons you hated it.

I do love me some Kinsale and I too found this book to be oh so grating.  This is my next to least favorite of hers, my least fave being The Prince of Midnight.  I just could not get into that one.  My taste must be very different from everyone else’s because I adore Shadowheart in a big way.  Also very fond of FFTS and TSATS

SB Sarah.  Either Seize the Fire because the hero’s so incredible.  Or For My Lady’s Heart, but that one’s in Middle English, so be warned.  Or I think you’d adore Midsummer Moon.

But I have to admit that I didn’t grok The Shadow and the Star.  I know it’s a lot of people’s favorites, but I just didn’t GET either the hero or the heroine.  I think their romance was great and very true to character, but I didn’t understand either of them as characters.

But God, STF and FMLH are on my “have to have no matter what” lists.  They’re incredible romances.

I adore The Shadow and the Star and may have to read it again. It is a sequel of sorts to The Hidden Heart but I read them backwards and I rather liked it that way, knowing where the hero and heroine were headed in THH.

Don’t have to read The Hidden Heart before reading TSATS, not at all. In fact, in comparison to TSATS, THH kinda sucks. But then, in comparison to TSATS, about 98% of all literature sucks, so there ya go.

TANGENT ALERT: What’s always confused me is the undying love for STF. I hated that book when I read it. And I mean HATE. Upon re-reading STF, there’s tons I love and my hate calmed down to occassional (and affectionate) exasperation. But it still always amazes me that so many people worship that book. It’s so totally clearly a case of Not My Cuppa Tea.

I must be the only one here who adored My Sweet Folly.  I *think* I read somewhere that it’s one of Kinsale’s least favorites because it was squeezed out as writer’s block was taking over, but I loved how atmospheric (nightmarish, intense, dark, haunting, amazing!) it was.  And of course, the prologue itself is worth the price of the book.

I loved the letters. The rest didn’t measure up to those but it was still a good read.

O/T but you just don’t hear about writer’s block the way you used to.  I remember Marion Zimmer Bradley writing about going through it at one point-- she felt she cured it by pounding out one sentence at a time until she had the book finished.  But Kinsale and Elizabeth Neff Walker (Laura Matthews) are the only two romance writer I can remember mentioning it.

Kinsale’s books boast a richness of nuanced character development and literary denseness that few others in the genre have--which is why I’m so often puzzled or even pissed off by the endings.  What starts off as this rollicking, exotic adventure in The Dream Hunter devolves into Dr. Philesque clips of marital strife till finally an abruptly prosaic resolution is reached, with very little moments of true intimacy or union in between. 

Same with FFTS: it crescendoes to a passionate intensity, and ends with Maddie and Jervaulx shrugging at each other.  “Oh, you’re still here.” “Yeah.” “Okay then.”

I’m passionately in love with some of Laura Kinsale’s books (TSATS, FMLH, Shadowheart) and mostly indifferent to the rest. 

And I think that’s a good thing.  Because every one of her book is different, every character is different, every relationship is different.  If you know a family of ten kids, how many of them will you be friends with?  Chances are no more than half, realistically not more than a quarter.

The dynamic is the same here.  The only trademark of a Laura Kinsale book is the quality of the writing and the intensity of the emotions she invokes.  The stories are nothing alike.

So every time you pick up a new, or new-to-you LK book, it’s going to be an adventure. I might love it, I might not.  But I have never faulted her as an author for not delivering what she promises, because even though the story might not grasp me by the collar, it is still true to itself.

I like that.  I admire that.  I plan to be that kind of a writer myself.

The Dream Hunter, The Shadow and The Star and Flowers From The Storm are the only three Kinsale books I’ve put away and never plan on reading again.

The Dream Hunter because of all you mentioned.

The Shadow and The Star because I thought that it was one of the *worst* romance I’ve ever read. Poor Leda, she deserved better than Samuel.

Flowers from the Storm because, like TSATS, it failed as a romance for me. I just never could believe in Maddie and Jervaux together.

Still like many here i’m in awe of Kinsale’s talent. You may hate one of her characters but you sure do remember them! And the writing is always superb.

I’d recommend Seize the Fire. Sheridan is one of the best anti-hero I’ve ever read.

I just wanted to say that I’m glad I’m not the only one that wanted to do Zenia bodily harm. She drove me batfrigginlooney!

I’m also one of those Kinsale readers who adores TDH—and My Sweet Folly and Seize the Fire.  Except for the mild BDSM (which I thought was the most compelling aspect of the book), Shadowheart was the only Kinsale novel that felt, well, rusty, to me.  MSF, which had incredible lows, also had, IMO, incredible highs, even beyond the letters.  I actually think it’s the most erotic book Kinsale wrote.  Midsummer Moon is also a great fave of mine, in part because I love the backward motion of the relationship.  And IMO For My Lady’s Heart is Kinsale’s best novel, technically speaking, featuring one of my favorite Romance heroes ever (and heroines, for that matter). 

While I understand why some readers might not like Flowers From the Storm, the comment about Maddy being namby pamby (was that the phrase) almost made me choke on my coffee. She may be Kinsale’s most stubborn heroine, although the competition among her, Zenia, and Leda for that honor is pretty stiff.  Even Melanthe seems flexible next to those three ladies, IMO. 

But a word in defense of The Dream Hunter (Candy, I wish you would re-read it and see if your thoughts have changed):  in addition to all the things Sarah and Candy hated about the book that I loved, there is what I think is the absolute brilliance about the way Kinsale brings Zenia around in the end. 
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I loved the way Kinsale used all of Zenia’s superstitutions, all of the conflicts she felt as a result of the way her mother “raised” her, to drive her back to Arden in the same way they drove her away from him.  Her understanding that she’s being haunted by her mother and her need to have Arden make the charm to protect her—I just thought that was so brilliant and so perfect for the novel, because it was 1) absolutely consistent with Zenia’s character, and 2) a perfect reconcilliatino of her dual identity as Selim and Zenia, and 3) it brought her and Arden full circle to where they had begun in the desert.  That Kinsale could take a heroine who so resisted happiness and make her choice of Arden to understandable and logical to me really made TDH a near perfect reading experience for me.

I’m also a big fan of My Sweet Folly though I have yet to reread it.

I, too, was frustrated with Zenia, though not to the extent of Sarah and Candy, I don’t think. I suspect that on a reread, I would have more sympathy for her. This definitely happened when I reread Flowers From the Storm—my frustrations with the heroine disappeared and she made total sense to me and I admired her. Kinsale’s books are certainly rich enough to reward rereads.

All that said, I loved the time in the desert in TDH.

Kinsale’s books boast a richness of nuanced character development and literary denseness that few others in the genre have--which is why I’m so often puzzled or even pissed off by the endings.  What starts off as this rollicking, exotic adventure in The Dream Hunter devolves into Dr. Philesque clips of marital strife till finally an abruptly prosaic resolution is reached, with very little moments of true intimacy or union in between.

I have an image of the top of Kinsale’s head being blown off after reading this comment, but I also find it interesting.  Although I disagree with the characterization of the ending of TDH (I think it’s one of the best Kinsale endings), there have been some awkward ones.  My Sweet Folly probably tops my list, in part because it felt as awkward as Folie and Robert seemed on that staircase, but also because it felt rushed and anticlimactic. 

And yet, I think that some of the awkwardness of some of Kinsale’s endings (think of The Shadow and the Star, for example) may have more to do with the difficulty of shutting down this incredibly complex story with a reader-anticipated HEA.  And in a sense, I think Kinsale’s books perhaps demonstrate how very difficult it is to have rich and conflicted and multi-layered Romance wind up very neatly and nicely at the end (especially with page counts down as they are). 

Perhaps this goes back to Kinsale’s comments about readers resisting conflict in Romance—i.e. that with more conflict comes more difficulty in tidying all the loose ends up in the end.  I have seen more than a few complaints about Kinsale’s novels that they don’t feel “romantic” or that the ending doesn’t provide a convincing HEA.  And that leads me to another question about how readers identify with Romance novels and their characters.  For example, does a reader who has to find the story personally romantic have different overall expectations for the genre than a reader who does not have this requirement?  And if those expectations are different, how do they impact Kinsale’s argument about the importance of dramatic license in Romance (i.e. that the novel is a stage upon which these larger and deeper conflicts are being acted out, and where the material circumstances are more symbolic than literal)?  In science fiction, for example, we routinely see the plot, characters, and actions of the novels as symbolic of other things (especially because sci-fi and fantasy are so often direct allegories).  But do we do the same in Romance?  And if we don’t, then why?  Is it simply that readers are being dumbed down, or conflict-avoiding, or too literal, or are there different expectations in Romance for many readers that makes such symbolic reading problematic?  Even for the reader like myself, who does not need to personally find a hero romantic and does not need to identify with the hero or heroine, I wonder how a genre that is so focused on female sexuality and identity and romantic love should or shouldn’t be read.  While there are some ways in which I agree with Kinsale about the importance of reespecting the unconscious drives of fantasy and the way fiction represents those drives in a non-literal way, I also am concerned about completely disassociating Romance from the material world, since so many aspects of Romance DO have literal significance, as well.

This definitely happened when I reread Flowers From the Storm—my frustrations with the heroine disappeared and she made total sense to me and I admired her.

For me it was The Shadow and The Star.  It was one of the very first Romance novels I read, and it took me a full three times through before I actually embraced Leda as a strong and independent heroine.  I absolutely think that Romance has a distinctive paradigm, which is why it’ so difficult to convert people to the genre based on one or two books.  You have to learn the language of the genre, IMO, before you can really read it on its own terms.

Of all Kinsale’s work, this is the book that drives me nuts. I can’t finish. It’s still an ongoing project.

It’s clear to me that LK is a beloved author, and that she can WRITE, but FFTH is so not to my tastes.

I’m with you on that, Tonda. I powered through Shadowheart, because it’s supposed to be fabulous, but my only thoughts about it can be summed up in 13 words: I just wanted to set the heroine on fire. All. Through. The. Book. For that matter, I wanted to set the hero on fire, too. One big, toasty, Italianate bonfire upon which to roast marshmallows.

It’s not that it was boring, or that it was poorly written, it’s just that I’ve got enough torture going on in my real love life, I’d like to read books about people whose love lives DON’T suck big hairy ones, you know? And frankly, aside from the hot-Hot-HOT--OH, DAMN THAT’S HOT! sex, there was nothing about those two that was going right. Absolutely *nothing*.

I may take this discussion off on a tangent. I am one of those who has enjoyed every one of Kinsale’s books (except I’m not sure I ever read My Sweet Folly--I think I was mixing it up with For My Lady’s Heart (I know, how is that possible?), but I’m not sure), some of course more than others, but loved all of them anyway.

Some of them, however, were kind of painful for me to read. My older Kinsales are in the garage behind new sofas that have yet to be moved into the college dorms, so I can’t get to them to hunt, but one of them had scenes within a cult-like group that I found very difficult to read. I had to skim there, because it made me so very angry. Which is what the writer wants, right? To engage the reader’s emotions…

Which is where the tangent comes in. There are authors who write books that are even more painful for me to read. They tend to be older contemporary romances--the ones with the very, very, very arrogant, even more alpha heroes. (Early Jayne Ann Krentz’s like Man With A Past and Call it Destiny, or Linda Howard’s, the titles of which I can’t remember)Those books make me almost shake with rage--I can feel it blowing the top of my head off--and yet some of them are so very satisfying at the end. Some of them aren’t--and those are the ones where I don’t think the hero has suffered enough. I want to see him Destroyed!

It’s that emotional intensity that I always find in Kinsale’s books, that I’m looking for--and she always does it so well. I love that her characters are so different--and I agree with whoever said that Maddie was an incredibly strong character. She was a person of very strong faith, which some people can see as weakness--especially considering the Quaker beliefs of pacifism and quiet workshop. I found that inclusion of her faith fascinating and it made her character all the more real to me.

But do we do the same in Romance?  And if we don’t, then why?  Is it simply that readers are being dumbed down, or conflict-avoiding, or too literal, or are there different expectations in Romance for many readers that makes such symbolic reading problematic?

I think the answer is partly that Romance, at least to me, is much more personal, or at least feels like it should be, than the sci-fi/fantasy novels I grew up and teethed on as a junior reader, and that I enjoy now, as an adult. Mostly because I’m probably not likely to meet a unicorn in my backyard, but it is generally accepted by society that I will, one day, fall in love with (and have that feeling reciprocated) another human being. There’s an emotional distance, if you follow.

I tolerate a lot more emotional conflict in a straight-out fantasy novel than I do in a romance novel. Why? BECAUSE of the emotional distance I can maintain. I can handle more...circumstantial conflict than flat out emotional conflict in a romance novel--ie, lovers who are threatened by an outside force, but maintain their personal connection and acknowledge it openly.

Then again, perhaps because human relationships are not my forte, I find reading about very emotionally painful and difficult ones too close to the truth to entertain. At that point, it becomes a book that replays my worst moments and not a diverting fantasy.

Maybe if I’d ever had a truly happy romantic relationship (hell, at this point, I’d settle for “enjoyable” or even “passably pleasant”,) I would be more likely to read and enjoy something as intense as Kinsale. But with all the scorched earth in my past, I just can’t tolerate it. Because then it’s not fiction, it’s reality, and if I wanted reality I’d just shut the book and be in it.

I do, however, accept that there are those who like that sort of painful, tormented love story. I just wish they’d mark those books more clearly on the shelves--it would save me a ton of time and money!

I do, however, accept that there are those who like that sort of painful, tormented love story.

I suppose I should point out the use of the terms “painful” and “tormented” are subjective on my part. Some may prefer to title them “wistful” or otherwise.

Although I did just realize I have read another of her books before--Uncertain Magic. I recall it being emotionally difficult, but I think the addition of the psychic heroine made it a little easier for me to distance myself.

there was nothing about those two that was going right. Absolutely *nothing*.

It’s the journey from “nothing” going right to getting it right that is fascinating and gripping, isn’t it? No author has universal appeal and that’s fine. Kinsale does emotional intensity like nobody’s business. I love that her characters are flawed and her stories are dark and they sometimes have to travel a torturous journey to their HEA. She is a awesome storyteller to me for those very reasons I listed. Plus, it helps that I prefer dark to light anyday of the week. I know some readers prefer light and that’s fine. We all like something and look for something different in our reading.

Plus, it helps that I prefer dark to light anyday of the week. I know some readers prefer light and that’s fine. We all like something and look for something different in our reading.

Are you talking about light, Keishon, or lite?  Or both?

I think it’s really, really difficult to write good lighter Romance (i.e. Kinsale’s Midsummer Moon or Chase’s Carsington brothers series), for the same reasons it’s difficult to write really good comedy.  So I can appreciate a well-crafted Romance that has a lighter tone, because I don’t feel that lack of substance.  But there are many “lite” Romances that often have a lighter tone and just aren’t as substantial to me as either good light Romances or dark Romances.  Basically, I guess, I go for substance before tone.  But maybe for other readers tone is more important than it is for me.  I hadn’t actually thought about it until I read your comment.

Robin, I meant “lite” in tone because comedy rarely works for me especially in romance. I like my readings to have substance too, but I shy away from slapstick or comedy in romances while others seem go looking for it. I prefer dark, meaty, complex stories.

I prefer dark, meaty, complex stories.

I admire your stomach.  ;-)

You know, I think I burned myself out on serious, emotionally-wrought literature when I did the entire series of Lord of the Rings on one day when I was 11, from The Hobbit all the way through to The Return of the King, plus the annexes. I nearly slit my wrists--I got so emotionally involved in those characters that reading about their deaths just about killed me.

After that, I just can’t tolerate heavy literature anymore. A nice, cheerful Katie McAllister is a fabulous change of pace from my real life, and gives me hope that love isn’t constant emotional torture until about 30 minutes before the wedding.  :lol:

It’s the journey from “nothing” going right to getting it right that is fascinating and gripping, isn’t it?

Yes, but when the journey consists of the hero and heroine behaving as adversaries until about ten pages to the end, it gets a bit much. Take Shadowheart--the entire book had me thinking “God, how lonely those people are! Even his/her lover is his/her enemy!” Most lighter romances at least let the protagonists like each other a little!