Loretta Chase's The Last Hellion.

Ah my friends, after about twenty books, I've FINALLY discovered good fluff. A rare thing that...and a writer with something to say. Goes to show you..if you keep hunting, you will find it. Even if you have to blunder through a few sexist boddice rippers in the process. This is NOT one of those by the way - most definitely not. The heroine dresses like a man on occassion, writes, and has a deadly right hook. She can defend herself. Oh and she smokes cigars. Granted everyone is pretty in the book and described in the typical fashion (I've yet to discover a romance novel in which this isn't the case, but that's true of Jane Austen, Dickens, the Brontes, and well tv shows and movies too mostly. So if this a trigger for you...)

Here's another blurb from Loretta Chase's touching, slightly sentimental and often comical romance "The Last Hellion":

"The gods must have given you the talent cousin," Dain told her. "I've never heard of any of our lot who had it. We've some fine letters in the archives, and any number of stirring political speeches. But what poetry I've seen is abominable. I've never come across a Ballister-written tale spun out of thin air."

"My wife holds that talent cheap," Vere said. "She refers to The Rose of Thebes as 'sentimental swill' - and that's the kindest epithet she bestows upon it. If Macgowan hadn't let the cat out of the bag, she'd never have admitted she wrote it."

"It serves no useful purpose," Lydia said. "All it does is entertain. With simple morals. The good end happily, the bad unhappily. It has nothing to do with real life."

"We have to live real life, like it or not," Vere said. "And you know, better than most, the sort of lives the great mass of humanity lead. To give them a few hours respite is to bestow a great gift."

"I think not," Grenville said. "I begin to it socially irresponsible. On account of that wretched story, girls take it into their heads to bolt in search of excitement they can't find at home. They'll imagine they can dispatch villains with sharpened spoons. They-"

"You're telling me the members of your sex are imbeciles who can't distinguish fact from fiction," he said. "Anyone fool enough to try one of Miranda's tricks is either reckless by nature or doesn't own a grain of sense. Such people will do something stupid with or without your suggestions. My wards offer a perfect example."

"Your wards prove my point."

"Dreadful girls, you called them, before you'd ever clapped eyes on them." Vere's voice rose. "They're Mallorys, Lydia, and the Mallorys have been spawning hellions since the dawn of time. You will not use Lizzy and Em as an excuse to stop writing those wonderful stories you please to call 'romantic claptrap' and 'rubbish'...[....]

I should be illiterate were it not for romantic claptrap and sentimental swill and improbable tales. I cut my teeth on The Arabian Nights and Tales of the Genii. My father read them to me, and they made me hungry to read more books, even without pictures."

It is good to be reminded of the importance of stories. In bleak times, where jobs are hard to find, is it really any surprise people spend money on pulp novels? Once Upon a Time is at the top of the ratings...because it is not bleak. It doesn't show poverty and pain. Twilight series is at the top of the best-seller list because it is rollicking fun romance - an escape. As was Harry Potter.

Chase's book reminds me a little of a poor man's PG Wodehouse's Bertie Wooster novels, with a touch of Georgette Heyer, intermingled with Rosemary Rodgers and Elizabeth Peters...witty, and fun. I remember a friend rec'ing PG Wodehouse to me back in the late 1990s, as happy books - and I devoured nearly all of them in the span of six weeks. Then I rec'd Harry Potter to her - for much the same reason. This book fits into that category - a happy book, that springs a smile and twinkle to the eye. Are they great literature? No. And e-books do have a few, shall we say, regrettable typos,
but nothing more than I've seen in all the others I've read. They are fun though and moving. And provide for a bit of time some respite. Happy endings.

As for subversive? Well it is a heterosexual romance. The male hero is above six foot and well muscled. The woman is also almost six foot and athletic, with a big bust, and a fine rump (having a tight and flat rump myself...it's hard to identify). And yes they are all wealthy more or less and part of the aristocracy. But other than that...there are some subversive things. The heroine has a job. She does not need to get married. He tricks her into it and persuades her. Not the other way around. And she does it for love, no other reason. Same for him. The heroine can fight and most of the fist-fights are her's, not his. She plays the hero in the book more often than not. He really never saves her, so much as she saves him. And there are comical characters and comical situations. It is in many ways far less sexist than the cotemporary romances and chicklits I read.

The plot is rather simple - to describe it would give away the book. Let's just say a reluctant Duke who became a Duke after losing his friend and his friend's family, and has been on a self-destructive streak ever since (ie. a self-proclaimed libertine) - runs into a female journalist and adventure writer, hijinks ensue. And leave it at that? It has a lot more plot than most of these novels do and the writer comments on numerous issues through it.

Highly recommend to people who like this sort of thing, fluffy romances with wit and a bit of sex and well something to say.

(no subject)

1. Rather impressed with Fringe - Season 3 is actually fairly interesting. It's a mixed bag of course, but overall innovative. If you want to try the series? Skip Season 1 - which spends most of its time on Olivia figuring out what happened to her lover, who appears to be a traitor, and introducing Walter and Peter. All you really need on that season in the last four episodes. Since the series tends to be fairly episodic in nature up to about the last four episodes in S2, you can more or less leap into it there. Far more interesting than X-Files in my opinion and a little less predictable and cliche in places. (ie. no stupid alien abduction coverup storyline that has been done to death since 1950.) This story is about parralell universes...and weird science, as well as the consequences. So far the highlights of Season 3 are Marionette, Entrapte, Olivia, and Consequences and Asked. The Peter/Olivia relationship angst is extremely interesting.
Far more so than expected. It reminds me, oddly enough, of Farscape. Here, Peter (we aren't in his pov, but Olivia's), has to choose between two Olivia's who are exactly the same yet completely different. He has relationships with both, but much like Aeryn Sun in Farscape, he consummates his relationship with one, while the other is trapped elsewhere - away. He loses the one he consummated with, and ends up with the original or other. It's a fascinating way to cause conflict between the leads - and by far my favorite. The character of Olivia, much like John Crichton, is in competition with herself. Except in Fringe, the Olivia - Peter chooses, could well mean which parrallel universe survives, and how he chooses, may alter the outcome. To complicate things, Olivia has reasons to want both universes to survive, not one over the other. Oh, multiple things going on at the same time. Very cool. [I'd cut for spoilers, but I think that just confuses anyone not watching the series. OR it may intrigue you.]

2. Ever wonder why you read or watch what you do? Maybe not. I've decided it's often to resolve issues that are bugging me on either a conscious or subconscious level, and to a degree to help turn off my brain. To calm it down. To comfort. Other times to stimulate. But always to resolve some issue that is bugging me.

The problem though with the information, the internet, etc...is we are constantly inundated with other's opinions about things we love or hate to watch, read, etc. Constant flow of information.
I find myself retreating from it at times. The modern day version of the tower of babble - except in English. Reading reviews is an odd experience now - I find myself critiquing the reviewer more than the work, analyzing them, trying to figure out what made them dislike it. Was it something they ate that day? Or hormones? Or their background? And why did they like it? I often will read the review like a code-breaker...hunting a pattern that does not exist. And find myself discounting stuff like "badly written" or "morally reprehensible", because seriously? It's all about perspective isn't it? In reading these books, I've often read the reviews first, then I'll read the book and think...uhm okay, are these reviewers insane? How is this brilliant? Or why did they think this was boring??? And..okay, how can't you see this as rape? I'm often bewildered.
People are bewildering, aren't they? Particularly when their opinion differs. Sometimes I wish people would keep their opinions to themselves...but hey, as the Popster states, Democracy is dirty and complicated. As is free speech. In order to have the stuff you love and to squee and whine about it, you sort of have to be tolerant of stuff you don't like, hate or makes you nutty - goes with the territory. Can't have one without the other. Not possible. Will state this is not necessarily bad thing...since it does make life a heck of lot more interesting and at times incredibly entertaining.

3. Sims is addictive...I feel like I'm playing god. Building homes. Sending people to work. Setting up romances. Friendships. But I'm a nice god. I want everyone to be happy and get along, and have love. Complaining and arguments, not so much. My Sims are happy people...well when I remember they are there and aren't busy elsewhere.

Back to work tomorrow...sigh. Well did accomplish the following: I'm no longer coughing and managed to remove the elephant from my chest, cooked a quiche, finished another book, finished watching three of the four DVD's that have been sitting on my tv stand for the last four weeks,
and made it to church where I met new people. Not too bad.