Wed Reading Meme...
Dec. 14th, 2016 10:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatStill reading escapist fiction.
What I just finished reading?
I think it was The Raven Prince? No wait, it was His at Night by Sherry Thomas.
I wrote review about it on Good Reads.
Disappointing and not as well written as her other novels. It's a reworking or reboot of The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orzy --which I recommend reading instead, because it is a far better written novel. Where Orzy's character masquerades as fool for a precise purpose and has no other choice, Thomas' appears to do it for selfish and rather silly reasons. He could easily have done the things he'd done without being a fool. There were other options.Also, unlike Percy Blakeney's subtle performance of foppery, Vere's is rather excessive and over the top. Add to this the heroine -- her crime is that she sets it up for a gossip to find her naked in his arms, so he'll have no choice but to marry her. So he can't trust her, even though he knows why she did it, and that she was desperately trying to save herself and her aunt from her Uncle, whom he is investigating. In the Scarlet Pimpernel, Percy mistakenly believes that his wife is conspiring with his enemy, Chavelin. That she had sent someone to the Guilliatine in France. While he loves her, he doesn't believe he can trust her and can't quite forgive this act of vengeance on her part. See? Better plotting. Thomas' feels rushed at times, and plotting falls apart in places. Also the mystery is difficult to follow, not helped by the rather boring and irrelevant interludes with the hero's younger brother and his lady-love. IT was like being interrupted by another story, and not one I was all that interested in. I spent a great deal of time skimming.
I get what Thomas was attempting, but she pulls it off far better in Private Affairs, Not Quite a Husband, My Beautiful Enemy and Luckiest Lady.
This is part of her London Trilogy and like the rest of the books in that trilogy, the hero is a twit, and a tad on the abusive side. He spends 60% of the book needlessly punishing and abusing the heroine, to the point that I wanted to smack him upside the head and was rooting for her to leave him in the lurch. The problem in each of the three books is his motivation doesn't make a lot of sense. Her crime isn't that bad. It's actually understandable. And she redeems herself repeatedly. But he's such an idiot and nasty about it, I wondered why she bothered.
And like I said before, the hero's idiot act is excessive. It's also not that consistent. He either goes way over the top, or he's sensible. There's no middle ground -- when he is allegedly playing the fool. So I began to wonder why no one figured it out. The fact that the heroine does is unsurprising.
No, this was much better done by Baroness Orzy. Go read it instead. Or, go read Elizabeth Hoyt's Maiden Lane series. If you want to read Thomas? I recommend skipping the London Trilogy, and focusing on Not Quite a Husband, My Beautiful Enemy, and the Hidden Blade.
What I'm reading now?
To Steal a Heart by KC Bateman. I think this may be self-published. It has a few typos here and there, but I'm rather tolerant of typos.
Mainly because I happen to know how easy they are to make and how difficult it is to find your own typos. True, that's what copy-editors and line editors are for. But all they do is mark them in the doc and you accept their changes, and if word gets funky, it may not accept all the changes and you don't know. Also Kindle conversions are dicey.
Then add to all of this how frigging expensive copy-editors and line editors are -- they generally charge something like 5 to 15 cents a word. So, 97,699 words is a bit on the pricey side. Or a 300-400 page document can cost you up to $2000 for a line edit. I'm in the wrong business. Plus, if typos still appear in your document, no skin off their nose. (Pissed off one of my readers on my behalf that a line editor made that much and still hadn't corrected all the errors.)
The only writers who tend to be typo free are the one's who have editors that go through their work a hundred times, and don't charge them a dime, because they are being "traditionally" published by someone like Simon and Schuster. So they get about three-five passthroughs, and when they check their galleys and make corrections, no additional charge. When you are self-published and do it -- it's an additional $1000.
The nice thing about the non-traditionally published off the beaten track books? They are different.
Less formulaic and more original. I think because they've managed to skirt past the evil marketing people that are currently driving the acquisitions departments at publishing houses. (A negative side-effect of the information age is that marketing has too much power.)
Anyhow, off soap box now.
The plot? A spy who is allegedly working for Napoleon manipulates a young circus performer into helping him rescue Prince Louis from one of Napolean's prisons. So clearly not entirely working for Napoleon, actually he's a double agent. Half French and Half English. The young circus performer, Marianne Bonnard is French, and she helps him after he buys her and her sister from her wicked uncle.
In return for protecting her sister, she agrees to help him rescue the prince. All she has to do is sneak into the prison and change places with the prince, then escape from the prison herself.
She's a skilled knife thrower and tight-rope walker. The Spy, Nicolas Valette, who despises Napoleon, is skilled at practically everything and from the description looks a bit like Ian Sommerhandler who plays Damon on Vampire Diaries. Amber eyes. Pitch black hair. Lean. Cat like. With a perpetual smirk and a wicked gleam in his eyes. She's somewhat boyish, lean, and smart.
There's a lot of banter. The writing is better than most in this genre. There is implied sexual assault, but she is never really raped and it's off-page and by her impotent uncle. (Hence not really raped so much as molested.) The hero is kind and would never do such a thing. (Which is how you can tell that this book was written in the 21st Century and not the 20th. Most 20th Century historical romances had a twinge of the boddice ripper.)
What I'm reading next?
No clue. Whatever strikes my fancy, I suspect. I'll be on vacation. Finally. So more time. I need a vacation, work has been crazy lately. Considered killing Lando today. His idea of a joke was putting my name on his outgoing out of office email -- as a contact person. I know nothing about what he is doing and taking off myself. The nitwit. I have no idea why he thought this was a good idea. The man has an odd sense of humor.
What I just finished reading?
I think it was The Raven Prince? No wait, it was His at Night by Sherry Thomas.
I wrote review about it on Good Reads.
Disappointing and not as well written as her other novels. It's a reworking or reboot of The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orzy --which I recommend reading instead, because it is a far better written novel. Where Orzy's character masquerades as fool for a precise purpose and has no other choice, Thomas' appears to do it for selfish and rather silly reasons. He could easily have done the things he'd done without being a fool. There were other options.Also, unlike Percy Blakeney's subtle performance of foppery, Vere's is rather excessive and over the top. Add to this the heroine -- her crime is that she sets it up for a gossip to find her naked in his arms, so he'll have no choice but to marry her. So he can't trust her, even though he knows why she did it, and that she was desperately trying to save herself and her aunt from her Uncle, whom he is investigating. In the Scarlet Pimpernel, Percy mistakenly believes that his wife is conspiring with his enemy, Chavelin. That she had sent someone to the Guilliatine in France. While he loves her, he doesn't believe he can trust her and can't quite forgive this act of vengeance on her part. See? Better plotting. Thomas' feels rushed at times, and plotting falls apart in places. Also the mystery is difficult to follow, not helped by the rather boring and irrelevant interludes with the hero's younger brother and his lady-love. IT was like being interrupted by another story, and not one I was all that interested in. I spent a great deal of time skimming.
I get what Thomas was attempting, but she pulls it off far better in Private Affairs, Not Quite a Husband, My Beautiful Enemy and Luckiest Lady.
This is part of her London Trilogy and like the rest of the books in that trilogy, the hero is a twit, and a tad on the abusive side. He spends 60% of the book needlessly punishing and abusing the heroine, to the point that I wanted to smack him upside the head and was rooting for her to leave him in the lurch. The problem in each of the three books is his motivation doesn't make a lot of sense. Her crime isn't that bad. It's actually understandable. And she redeems herself repeatedly. But he's such an idiot and nasty about it, I wondered why she bothered.
And like I said before, the hero's idiot act is excessive. It's also not that consistent. He either goes way over the top, or he's sensible. There's no middle ground -- when he is allegedly playing the fool. So I began to wonder why no one figured it out. The fact that the heroine does is unsurprising.
No, this was much better done by Baroness Orzy. Go read it instead. Or, go read Elizabeth Hoyt's Maiden Lane series. If you want to read Thomas? I recommend skipping the London Trilogy, and focusing on Not Quite a Husband, My Beautiful Enemy, and the Hidden Blade.
What I'm reading now?
To Steal a Heart by KC Bateman. I think this may be self-published. It has a few typos here and there, but I'm rather tolerant of typos.
Mainly because I happen to know how easy they are to make and how difficult it is to find your own typos. True, that's what copy-editors and line editors are for. But all they do is mark them in the doc and you accept their changes, and if word gets funky, it may not accept all the changes and you don't know. Also Kindle conversions are dicey.
Then add to all of this how frigging expensive copy-editors and line editors are -- they generally charge something like 5 to 15 cents a word. So, 97,699 words is a bit on the pricey side. Or a 300-400 page document can cost you up to $2000 for a line edit. I'm in the wrong business. Plus, if typos still appear in your document, no skin off their nose. (Pissed off one of my readers on my behalf that a line editor made that much and still hadn't corrected all the errors.)
The only writers who tend to be typo free are the one's who have editors that go through their work a hundred times, and don't charge them a dime, because they are being "traditionally" published by someone like Simon and Schuster. So they get about three-five passthroughs, and when they check their galleys and make corrections, no additional charge. When you are self-published and do it -- it's an additional $1000.
The nice thing about the non-traditionally published off the beaten track books? They are different.
Less formulaic and more original. I think because they've managed to skirt past the evil marketing people that are currently driving the acquisitions departments at publishing houses. (A negative side-effect of the information age is that marketing has too much power.)
Anyhow, off soap box now.
The plot? A spy who is allegedly working for Napoleon manipulates a young circus performer into helping him rescue Prince Louis from one of Napolean's prisons. So clearly not entirely working for Napoleon, actually he's a double agent. Half French and Half English. The young circus performer, Marianne Bonnard is French, and she helps him after he buys her and her sister from her wicked uncle.
In return for protecting her sister, she agrees to help him rescue the prince. All she has to do is sneak into the prison and change places with the prince, then escape from the prison herself.
She's a skilled knife thrower and tight-rope walker. The Spy, Nicolas Valette, who despises Napoleon, is skilled at practically everything and from the description looks a bit like Ian Sommerhandler who plays Damon on Vampire Diaries. Amber eyes. Pitch black hair. Lean. Cat like. With a perpetual smirk and a wicked gleam in his eyes. She's somewhat boyish, lean, and smart.
There's a lot of banter. The writing is better than most in this genre. There is implied sexual assault, but she is never really raped and it's off-page and by her impotent uncle. (Hence not really raped so much as molested.) The hero is kind and would never do such a thing. (Which is how you can tell that this book was written in the 21st Century and not the 20th. Most 20th Century historical romances had a twinge of the boddice ripper.)
What I'm reading next?
No clue. Whatever strikes my fancy, I suspect. I'll be on vacation. Finally. So more time. I need a vacation, work has been crazy lately. Considered killing Lando today. His idea of a joke was putting my name on his outgoing out of office email -- as a contact person. I know nothing about what he is doing and taking off myself. The nitwit. I have no idea why he thought this was a good idea. The man has an odd sense of humor.