strange and random happenstance

Devil in Winter by Lisa Kleypas
Published by: Avon
Publication Date: February 28th, 2006
Format: Paperback, 368 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy

Evie Jenner keeps the true horrors of her life hidden from her friends. She can not hide the stutter she has developed from being broken by her mother's family, but she would never tell her friends about the abuse, both physical and mental, because she knows there's nothing they could do about it. All she wants to do is get away from her family and see her father before he dies. But Ivo Jenner runs a gaming hell and it wouldn't be "proper" for Evie to visit him. What's more, her family have their eyes on Ivo's fortune. Evie will be married to her cousin Eustace and then, well, she has a feeling they might do away with her. When the Viscount St. Vincent attempted to marry her friend Lillian Bowman by kidnapping her and running off to Gretna Green Evie realized how desperate the rake was. Desperate enough to swap one heiress for another? Showing up on his doorstep one night Evie tells him of her plan. They are to immediately set out for Gretna Green where they will be married. They will consummate their marriage to make sure it is legally binding in case her relatives have any ideas. They will return to London where Evie will take care of her father until he passes. At which time St. Vincent will get his money and they will live a marriage in name only. He will have his money and she will have her freedom, both getting exactly what they want. The only problem with this plan is that on their long trip to Scotland St. Vincent starts to be intrigued by his future wife. After they consummate their marriage he is shocked to realize how much he still wants Evie. This has never happened to him. Women chase him he will be damned if he will chase after his own wife! But his protective nature that he never knew he had is brought to the fore by Evie. He worries about the long hours she spends at her father's bedside. He has started to worry about the club. In fact he's rather taken with Jenner's and is taking over the business. For someone who has spent their entire life broke, idle, and a womanizer, the arrival of Evie Jenner in his life has changed everything. The question is, will he be able to hold onto it?

Going into Devil in Winter I had two questions that needed to be answered. One was how were they going to make Viscount St. Vincent palatable after he kidnapped and threatened to rape his best friend's fiance? The other was how would the book be structured after the first two books were basically the exact same premise with different wrapping paper? Both were rather quickly answered. The book has a structure all it's own and St. Vincent was desperate but would have never really raped Lillian and would have not even kidnapped her had he realized the depth of his friend's feelings. Yes, this is a bit of backtracking to make St. Vincent that most common of tropes in romance, the domesticated rake, but given as he's the hero it was to be expected. But what's interesting is that Lisa Kleypas doesn't fully reign him in. His reputation with women stands and it's by making Evie's life the worst nightmare that Charles Dickens could ever have dreamed up that St. Vincent is the only option for her. I actually really liked the darkness of Evie's life. With fellow Wallflower Annabelle's story we got a hint of the seedy underbelly that existed in this time period, but it was at a remove. The degradation was happening offstage in another room to her mother. Here Evie is being tormented and tortured by her own family. She literally would probably be better off dead than stay in her current situation so sure, a possible rapist really isn't that bad when she'd be holding the purse strings. By moving beyond St. Vincent and into the gambling den that is Jenner's we stay within this lower echelon while being shown that just because you live in the demimonde you don't need to be the evil that is embodied by Evie's family. You can be good and prosperous, just not of the higher ranks. Though once St. Vincent is done with Jenner's anything is possible. I just loved this story because it had more depth, more of a Deadwood vibe, and just wasn't at all what I expected. Now the question is, can Scandal in Spring surprise me as well?

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Abuse, Charles Dickens, Deadwood, Demimonde, Devil in Winter, Evie Jenner, Gambling Hell, Gretna Green, Lisa Kleypas, Rake, Rape, Regency Romp, Romance, Scandal in Spring, The Wallflowers, Viscount St. Vincent

It's in His Kiss by Julia Quinn
Published by: Avon
Publication Date: June 28th, 2005
Format: Paperback, 399 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy

Gareth St. Clair has one person in all the world whom he loves, that is his maternal grandmother Lady Danbury. His father would publicly declare Gareth a bastard if it wouldn't make himself look like a cuckold. But now that Gareth's older brother has died and he is to inherit, one would think things might change. Well they do, but not because of his father, because of Hyacinth Bridgerton. Much like Gareth, Hyacinth is a darling of Lady Danbury's. In fact they really are the only two. Which is why they are sitting next to each other at the Smythe-Smith Musicale. An evening of "entertainment" that Lady Danbury insists they go to because someone needs to cheer those poor Smythe-Smiths on. And for the first time in memory Hyacinth didn't hate the evening. Could it be because of Gareth? She's being continually hounded to get married, and she's under no delusions that it's because her family wishes to be ride of her. She knows she can be a bit much, but no one has ever even come close to getting near her heart. But is that because, as her mother says, she won't let anyone in? Well, the last person she'd let in is Gareth St. Clair. He's a hardened rake. Hyacinth has heard ALL the stories from his grandmother. Yet there's something about him. Something that is different. The next day, a Tuesday, Hyacinth is reading Miss Butterworth and the Mad Baron to Lady Danbury as she does every week when Gareth arrives and interrupts the two lamenting the heroine's fate. Gareth has just come into possession of his paternal grandmother's diary which his brother left him. He's dying to know what it says, perhaps she knew his real father! But the problem is the diary is in Italian. Hyacinth happens to mention she knows Italian, perhaps overstating her skills a little just to impress him. But she offers to have a go and is instantly obsessed with Isabella's life and a secret she held, a cache of diamonds she never told her husband about. Gareth and Hyacinth become frantic in their search for the jewels. Could there be a better revenge on his father than stealing the jewels out from under him? Perhaps marrying Hyacinth, the girl his father said would never accept him. Unless that is exactly what his father wants...

Hyacinth, as the youngest Bridgerton, hasn't played much of a role in the previous volumes due to her age. From Colin's book onward we've had hints that she's rather a handful with a love of gossip and an unguarded tongue she seems to share more DNA with Lady Danbury than she does with the Bridgertons. She's the sibling whom Anthony longs to have off his hands as, all things considered, while her family loves her, she's a bit of a nightmare. And this, right here, is why I so heartily love Hyacinth. Yes, she puts on a strong front and knows it's important, nay, imperative to always be yourself, but she knows that she can be "too much" for some people and I can so relate to this that it's painful. It took me a long time to find friends whom I could be myself around. Friends who didn't think I was too loud, or too enthusiastic, or just too much. It's painful when you know your faults are an intrinsic part of yourself. I have tried to be quiet, I've tried to tone myself down, but it's frustrating to the point of tears sometimes to feel that the world just doesn't get you. And when Hyacinth's mother had a rather frank conversation about her muchness that told the truth but blunted the sting with so much love and admiration for her daughter amongst the frustration I too cried. Why can't Violet be my mother? I've had the truth handed to me in harsh ways and to have someone love you enough to express the truth through love instead of through vindictiveness just makes me love this book all the more. And the fact that Hyacinth finds love with Gareth just makes me happy, because he loves her because she's different and outspoken and just Hyacinth. And as for Gareth, well, this might be the only Bridgerton novel where I connected with both halves of the couple completely. I totally related to his desolation that there was just one person in the world who loves him and whom he loves. That small unit can be scary. That one connection so fierce yet so fragile. Dammit, now I think I'm going to cry again. Thankfully whenever I feel maudlin I just have to remember how much Lady Danbury is in this volume. Dammit, she's just awesome. Her love of purple prose and romance underneath all that snark just adds another layer of perfection to someone I already thought damn perfect to start with.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Gareth St. Clair, Hyacinth Bridgerton, Illegitimate, It's in His Kiss, Italian, Julia Quinn, Lady Danbury, Miss Butterworth and the Mad Baron, Purple Prose, Rake, Regency Romp, Sarah Gorley, Smythe-Smith Musicale

It's in His Kiss by Julia Quinn
Published by: Avon
Publication Date: June 28th, 2005
Format: Paperback, 399 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy

Gareth St. Clair has one person in all the world whom he loves, that is his maternal grandmother Lady Danbury. His father would publicly declare Gareth a bastard if it wouldn't make himself look like a cuckold. But now that Gareth's older brother has died and he is to inherit, one would think things might change. Well they do, but not because of his father, because of Hyacinth Bridgerton. Much like Gareth, Hyacinth is a darling of Lady Danbury's. In fact they really are the only two. Which is why they are sitting next to each other at the Smythe-Smith Musicale. An evening of "entertainment" that Lady Danbury insists they go to because someone needs to cheer those poor Smythe-Smiths on. And for the first time in memory Hyacinth didn't hate the evening. Could it be because of Gareth? She's being continually hounded to get married, and she's under no delusions that it's because her family wishes to be ride of her. She knows she can be a bit much, but no one has ever even come close to getting near her heart. But is that because, as her mother says, she won't let anyone in? Well, the last person she'd let in is Gareth St. Clair. He's a hardened rake. Hyacinth has heard ALL the stories from his grandmother. Yet there's something about him. Something that is different. The next day, a Tuesday, Hyacinth is reading Miss Butterworth and the Mad Baron to Lady Danbury as she does every week when Gareth arrives and interrupts the two lamenting the heroine's fate. Gareth has just come into possession of his paternal grandmother's diary which his brother left him. He's dying to know what it says, perhaps she knew his real father! But the problem is the diary is in Italian. Hyacinth happens to mention she knows Italian, perhaps overstating her skills a little just to impress him. But she offers to have a go and is instantly obsessed with Isabella's life and a secret she held, a cache of diamonds she never told her husband about. Gareth and Hyacinth become frantic in their search for the jewels. Could there be a better revenge on his father than stealing the jewels out from under him? Perhaps marrying Hyacinth, the girl his father said would never accept him. Unless that is exactly what his father wants...

Hyacinth, as the youngest Bridgerton, hasn't played much of a role in the previous volumes due to her age. From Colin's book onward we've had hints that she's rather a handful with a love of gossip and an unguarded tongue she seems to share more DNA with Lady Danbury than she does with the Bridgertons. She's the sibling whom Anthony longs to have off his hands as, all things considered, while her family loves her, she's a bit of a nightmare. And this, right here, is why I so heartily love Hyacinth. Yes, she puts on a strong front and knows it's important, nay, imperative to always be yourself, but she knows that she can be "too much" for some people and I can so relate to this that it's painful. It took me a long time to find friends whom I could be myself around. Friends who didn't think I was too loud, or too enthusiastic, or just too much. It's painful when you know your faults are an intrinsic part of yourself. I have tried to be quiet, I've tried to tone myself down, but it's frustrating to the point of tears sometimes to feel that the world just doesn't get you. And when Hyacinth's mother had a rather frank conversation about her muchness that told the truth but blunted the sting with so much love and admiration for her daughter amongst the frustration I too cried. Why can't Violet be my mother? I've had the truth handed to me in harsh ways and to have someone love you enough to express the truth through love instead of through vindictiveness just makes me love this book all the more. And the fact that Hyacinth finds love with Gareth just makes me happy, because he loves her because she's different and outspoken and just Hyacinth. And as for Gareth, well, this might be the only Bridgerton novel where I connected with both halves of the couple completely. I totally related to his desolation that there was just one person in the world who loves him and whom he loves. That small unit can be scary. That one connection so fierce yet so fragile. Dammit, now I think I'm going to cry again. Thankfully whenever I feel maudlin I just have to remember how much Lady Danbury is in this volume. Dammit, she's just awesome. Her love of purple prose and romance underneath all that snark just adds another layer of perfection to someone I already thought damn perfect to start with.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Gareth St. Clair, Hyacinth Bridgerton, Illegitimate, It's in His Kiss, Italian, Julia Quinn, Lady Danbury, Miss Butterworth and the Mad Baron, Purple Prose, Rake, Regency Romp, Sarah Gorley, Smythe-Smith Musicale

The Convenient Marriage by Georgette Heyer
Published by: Sourcebooks Casablanca
Publication Date: 1934
Format: Paperback, 307 Pages
Rating: ★
To Buy

The Earl of Rule has decided that he will marry. What's more he has decided to align himself with the prestigious Winwood family who have fallen on hard times due to their fatal love of gambling. The problem is that he has chosen to marry the eldest daughter Lizzie and Lizzie is desperately in love with another, Edward Heron. What's worse, Edward is a penniless soldier so Lizzie's mother will never allow her to follow her heart when their fortunes could be saved. Lizzie therefore breaks with Edward breaking her heart in the process. But her younger sister Horatia has an idea. Very improperly she approaches Lord Rule with a compromise. He should marry her instead. The reasons being that her sister Lizzie is in love with another, her sister Charlotte would never marry him, and seeing as he just wants to align himself with their family he can have her and she will let him live his life however he wants. The adorably stammering Horatia's bargain intrigues Lord Rule so he agrees to marry her, a girl barely out of the schoolroom. This sends shock waves through the ton. His sister doesn't know what Rule is about, his cousin and presumptive heir Drelincourt is very put out, and as for Rule's mistress Lady Massey, she sees her hopes and dreams shattered and takes comfort in the arms of Rule's rival Lord Lethbridge. And while Horatia's family is shocked by her behavior, her brother Pelham, returning from the continent, welcomes Rule into the family as all his debts are swept away by his generous brother-in-law. But if Rule thought he'd have an easy time with his new bride he's in for a surprise. She seems to have inherited the family's fatal flaw and now that she has access to money she is gambling it away like nobody's business. Not to mention how much she's spending on clothes and fripperies and carriages. What's wrong with spending a fortune on diamond encrusted shoes? Yes, they pinch a little, but they look fabulous. Lord Rule is very sanguine about his new wife's spendthrift ways, after all she amuses him to no end, that is until she decides to befriend Lord Lethbridge. This is a step too far. A step she takes to be daring. But could this end their marriage or bring them closer together? Only when the farce is concluded will the victor be declared.

The fatal flaw of The Convenient Marriage is that the setup just doesn't deliver. Horatia seems rather put together with making this sacrifice for her family, so it's rather shocking to discover she is nothing but a flighty flibbertigibbet with the family's fatal flaw. You start out thinking, hey, this is someone I could root for, she's clever and is going to reform a rake. She is the classic too stupid to live heroine so by the end you are actually wishing for her to be thrown over by her husband and ruined by Lethbridge. Though Lethbridge himself was an ass. In fact every single character in this book is annoying. Except perhaps Pelham's friend Pommeroy, but he is amusing because he's an idiot and says the most shockingly stupid things. And all these characters and their farcical situations just can't make you care one little bit. They're staging fake attacks by highwaymen as what they see as a logical attempt to get back incriminating evidence. What!?! I mean, seriously, why am I supposed to find this interesting. I literally could barely finish this book. What's odd is that Georgette Heyer does go in for the farcical and can succeed, Devil's Cub being an example of something being so far over the top it somehow works. But there at least you could root for Sophie, here, literally there is no one to root for. Even Lord Rule is a rather removed rake. He is like this disinterested observer to his own life. If he can't even be bothered to take an interest why should we? What's more, with Lord Lethbridge and Lady Massey it seemed as if Heyer was going to bring a little Les Liaisons Dangereuses action to the scene, she was actually setting it up, and then, what, got bored? Because that doesn't even deliver. The Massey goes off to Bath and Lethbridge kind of just folds. Nothing follows through, it's all just a chatoic mess of characters I don't care for. I honestly didn't even know what to write for this review. The book is a nonentity. The Convenient Marriage can just got slink off to wherever it came from and never darker my door again. Because it did darken it. When I'm reading a book I don't like I get grumpy. And boy did this book make me grumpy. Not to the level of wanting to watch it burn, but close.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Bath, Devil's Cub, Earl of Rule, Gambling, Georgette Heyer, Horatia Winwood, Lady Massey, Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Lord Lethbridge, Rake, Regency Romp, Spendthrift, The Convenient Marriage, Too Stupid To Live

Devil in Winter by Lisa Kleypas
Published by: Avon
Publication Date: February 28th, 2006
Format: Paperback, 368 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy

Evie Jenner keeps the true horrors of her life hidden from her friends. She can not hide the stutter she has developed from being broken by her mother's family, but she would never tell her friends about the abuse, both physical and mental, because she knows there's nothing they could do about it. All she wants to do is get away from her family and see her father before he dies. But Ivo Jenner runs a gaming hell and it wouldn't be "proper" for Evie to visit him. What's more, her family have their eyes on Ivo's fortune. Evie will be married to her cousin Eustace and then, well, she has a feeling they might do away with her. When the Viscount St. Vincent attempted to marry her friend Lillian Bowman by kidnapping her and running off to Gretna Green Evie realized how desperate the rake was. Desperate enough to swap one heiress for another? Showing up on his doorstep one night Evie tells him of her plan. They are to immediately set out for Gretna Green where they will be married. They will consummate their marriage to make sure it is legally binding in case her relatives have any ideas. They will return to London where Evie will take care of her father until he passes. At which time St. Vincent will get his money and they will live a marriage in name only. He will have his money and she will have her freedom, both getting exactly what they want. The only problem with this plan is that on their long trip to Scotland St. Vincent starts to be intrigued by his future wife. After they consummate their marriage he is shocked to realize how much he still wants Evie. This has never happened to him. Women chase him he will be damned if he will chase after his own wife! But his protective nature that he never knew he had is brought to the fore by Evie. He worries about the long hours she spends at her father's bedside. He has started to worry about the club. In fact he's rather taken with Jenner's and is taking over the business. For someone who has spent their entire life broke, idle, and a womanizer, the arrival of Evie Jenner in his life has changed everything. The question is, will he be able to hold onto it?

Going into Devil in Winter I had two questions that needed to be answered. One was how were they going to make Viscount St. Vincent palatable after he kidnapped and threatened to rape his best friend's fiance? The other was how would the book be structured after the first two books were basically the exact same premise with different wrapping paper? Both were rather quickly answered. The book has a structure all it's own and St. Vincent was desperate but would have never really raped Lillian and would have not even kidnapped her had he realized the depth of his friend's feelings. Yes, this is a bit of backtracking to make St. Vincent that most common of tropes in romance, the domesticated rake, but given as he's the hero it was to be expected. But what's interesting is that Lisa Kleypas doesn't fully reign him in. His reputation with women stands and it's by making Evie's life the worst nightmare that Charles Dickens could ever have dreamed up that St. Vincent is the only option for her. I actually really liked the darkness of Evie's life. With fellow Wallflower Annabelle's story we got a hint of the seedy underbelly that existed in this time period, but it was at a remove. The degradation was happening offstage in another room to her mother. Here Evie is being tormented and tortured by her own family. She literally would probably be better off dead than stay in her current situation so sure, a possible rapist really isn't that bad when she'd be holding the purse strings. By moving beyond St. Vincent and into the gambling den that is Jenner's we stay within this lower echelon while being shown that just because you live in the demimonde you don't need to be the evil that is embodied by Evie's family. You can be good and prosperous, just not of the higher ranks. Though once St. Vincent is done with Jenner's anything is possible. I just loved this story because it had more depth, more of a Deadwood vibe, and just wasn't at all what I expected. Now the question is, can Scandal in Spring surprise me as well?

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Abuse, Charles Dickens, Deadwood, Demimonde, Devil in Winter, Evie Jenner, Gambling Hell, Gretna Green, Lisa Kleypas, Rake, Rape, Regency Romp, Romance, Scandal in Spring, The Wallflowers, Viscount St. Vincent

If you're a true Anglophile you have pondered, once or twice, about reading Samuel Richardson's Clarissa. Don't deny it, you know you have and you just as quickly realized you probably never would. Because while it is ranked as one of the greatest English novels it is also one of the longest. I am not saying this lightly. I've breezed through doorstop tomes in my life and this one makes me stop and consider if I'm that committed a reader. I mean yes I want to but realistically, no I won't. I remember seeing the book once physically at Borders and wondered if it was a dictionary. The type was so tiny! The tome so weighty! Which is why this miniseries is great. As I see it, if you can make this good a miniseries, which is only four episodes long, out of a book that has 943,000 or 984,870 words in it depending on which of Richardson's edits you're reading then the book might be a tad overwritten. The story is a simple one, girl inherits fortune, family try to influence her, drive her into the arms of the wrong man, and she dies in sin. Richardson was apparently pissed that people liked Clarissa being seduced by the wicked Lovelace, hence the different editions of the book. But this miniseries fully plays into this love of the unrepentant bad boy by casting Sean Bean. He's so deliciously evil. Sean Bean as Lovelace was also a major inspiration in a series I love by Lauren Willig. Without Sean Bean there'd be no Lord Vaughn! You want to think good of Lovelace, you want Clarissa to run from the original literary rake, and at the same time, you so want them to play out this doomed love affair to the very end. And oh, that ending! In fact, I think that is what made the greatest impression on me, when Lovelace falls to the blade wielded by someone he thought was his friend, and that someone is played by an even better Sean than Bean! Sigh. I'm talking about Sean Pertwee. Yes, as in the Third Doctor's son. I fell irretrievably in love with Sean Pertwee as Jack Belford. A few years back he was scheduled to be at a comic convention near my house and I was totally going to go just to see him. I even thought, would if be weird if I asked him to sign a copy of Clarissa? But then he had to film a guest spot on Prodigal Son. So while I haven't met him (YET!) at least that guest appearance was totally worth it. Seriously, you all need to be watching Prodigal Son!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Borders, Clarissa, Doctor Who, Fifty Years a Masterpiece, Jack Belford, Jon Pertwee, Lauren Willig, Lord Vaughn, Lovelace, Miniseries, Prodigal Son, Rake, Samuel Richardson, Sean Bean, Sean Pertwee, The Third Doctor