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shadowkatI really need to stop reading the page-turner romance novels before bed - stayed up way too late reading Sherry Thomas' Beguiling the Beauty.
Beguiling the Beauty appears to be Thomas' twist on Judith Ivory's Beast story. Or at least according to the reviews and blurbs that I've read. Ivory's Beast is a retelling of Beauty and the Beast - with a beautiful young girl's notoriously ugly but roguish fiancee - deciding to seduce her unawares on a cruise ship before she meets him. They don't see each others faces. But it back-fires on him, he falls in love with her - and she falls for well, the alias or the person he is on the cruise ship. Thomas does something similar, except it's the heroine who fools the hero, and instead ugliness being her curse, it's her stunning beauty.
What Thomas does, and I haven't seen this done before, is play with the beautiful heroine trope. The heroine, Venetia, has an overwhelmingly beautiful face. So beautiful that when the hero, Christian, first glimpses her from afar he is "overcome" and each time he sees her, again from afar, he becomes more and more obsessed. Then he hears a malicious rumor about her from her husband, Townsend, - that her beauty is only skin deep, and how horrible she is. (It's not true - her husband was a jealous, insecure man and horrid to her. And never saw beneath the surface.) The hero doesn't believe it at first - that is until he reads about her husband's death, and how the husband was driven bankrupt buying her jewels. Then he reads even more malicious gossip about her remarriage, and the subsequent death of her second husband, Mr. Easterbrook, who died when she was allegedly having an affair with his best friend. (Turns out that she was actually just his "beard" or it was a marriage blanc. He was much older, and an very good friend. Who offered to save her from the poor house that he previous husband had left her in, in return for a cover. He was in love with another man - and if it came out, he would be ruined in society. This was late 1800s or Victorian Period.) So the hero concludes, based on the malicious gossip and his own frustration, that she's a beast and dismisses her beauty as nothing more than a lure.
The hero is a naturalist - and is giving a lecture on naturalism at Harvard, which the heroine decides to attend with her sister and sister-inlaw - in the hopes of setting her sister up with him. During the lecture - he is asked a question about whether "beauty" is an inherited trait and its effects on evolution. For his response, he provides an example of how feminine beauty can be the downfall of most men, and how beautiful women are often "beastly" and shallow. The example he uses is the heroine, leaving her name out of it of course, but providing enough information - that she recognizes who he is talking about and is deeply wounded.
Her sister, Helena, suggests that when the opportunity arises the heroine should seek vengeance against him. Make the hero fall for her, then cut him. It does, the heroine wears a veiled hat...and takes on the identity of a German Baroness...he is not permitted to see her face. He falls in love with her, but never sees her face, and she with him. The only problem is that she is lying to him about who she is. And when he finds out - he will think the worst of her. Which of course he does. The conflict is that the hero has to get past his own prejudices and the heroine past her pride, so that they can be honest with each other.
See the gender flip? Thomas not only grabs the concept from Ivory, she flips it. And instead of doing yet another take on the Beauty and the Beast fairy tale, Thomas sort of references the Greek myth - Cupid and Psyche, except the woman is cupid, and the male is psyche. Rather clever that.
My only quibble - which is why this is three stars and not four - is it took too long for the hero to come to his senses. By the time he did, I was ready to throttle him. This is a problem that I've had with a lot of Thomas' novels, the hero (sometimes its the heroine) becomes after a certain point not likable and it detracts from the romance - ie. I stop rooting quite so hard for them to end up together and just want to see the hero (sometimes the heroine) get a swift kick in the rumpus. The angst takes up most of the book. Also, as if the hero/heroine angst wasn't enough - we have to add in two other relationships, which are clearly being set up for the next two books in the series. But unfortunately, and unlike Courtney Milan's novels, don't quite sync with the main story as well. They distracted from the main plot and often felt quite jarring. I'd have edited them out.
I think after two years worth of intermittent romance novel binge reading...I've managed to find a handful of consistently good authors, who step outside of the established tropes or at the very least play around with them, deconstruct them or subvert them.
They are: Sherry Thomas, Courtney Milan, Connie Brockaway, Eloisa James, Loretta Chase and now - I'm trying Judith Ivory. All are decent writers.
I've learned to stay away from contemporary and best-selling romance novelists...who tend to stick far too closely to well-established tropes - to the point that you sort of want to throttle them. Also, the New Adult and chick-lit romance novels really do not work for me. I suspect I may be too old to appreciate the wet-behind-the-ears 20something falling for the oh-so-experienced, dogmatic, controlling, and domineering, yet sexy as heck...30 something.
Half-way through, I have this overwhelming desire to smack both characters upside the head.
Currently reading Judith Ivory's The Proposition - based on![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
shipperx's rec. Actually every book that she's rec'd, I've liked. Same with flake_sake who rec'd Ellen Kushner's novels, and the people who rec'd The Captive Prince, as well as greenmai who rec'd The Fault in Our Stars. I'm finding live journal book, film and television rec's to be far more helpful and far closer to my eclectic tastes than either Good Reads or Amazon.
Beguiling the Beauty appears to be Thomas' twist on Judith Ivory's Beast story. Or at least according to the reviews and blurbs that I've read. Ivory's Beast is a retelling of Beauty and the Beast - with a beautiful young girl's notoriously ugly but roguish fiancee - deciding to seduce her unawares on a cruise ship before she meets him. They don't see each others faces. But it back-fires on him, he falls in love with her - and she falls for well, the alias or the person he is on the cruise ship. Thomas does something similar, except it's the heroine who fools the hero, and instead ugliness being her curse, it's her stunning beauty.
What Thomas does, and I haven't seen this done before, is play with the beautiful heroine trope. The heroine, Venetia, has an overwhelmingly beautiful face. So beautiful that when the hero, Christian, first glimpses her from afar he is "overcome" and each time he sees her, again from afar, he becomes more and more obsessed. Then he hears a malicious rumor about her from her husband, Townsend, - that her beauty is only skin deep, and how horrible she is. (It's not true - her husband was a jealous, insecure man and horrid to her. And never saw beneath the surface.) The hero doesn't believe it at first - that is until he reads about her husband's death, and how the husband was driven bankrupt buying her jewels. Then he reads even more malicious gossip about her remarriage, and the subsequent death of her second husband, Mr. Easterbrook, who died when she was allegedly having an affair with his best friend. (Turns out that she was actually just his "beard" or it was a marriage blanc. He was much older, and an very good friend. Who offered to save her from the poor house that he previous husband had left her in, in return for a cover. He was in love with another man - and if it came out, he would be ruined in society. This was late 1800s or Victorian Period.) So the hero concludes, based on the malicious gossip and his own frustration, that she's a beast and dismisses her beauty as nothing more than a lure.
The hero is a naturalist - and is giving a lecture on naturalism at Harvard, which the heroine decides to attend with her sister and sister-inlaw - in the hopes of setting her sister up with him. During the lecture - he is asked a question about whether "beauty" is an inherited trait and its effects on evolution. For his response, he provides an example of how feminine beauty can be the downfall of most men, and how beautiful women are often "beastly" and shallow. The example he uses is the heroine, leaving her name out of it of course, but providing enough information - that she recognizes who he is talking about and is deeply wounded.
Her sister, Helena, suggests that when the opportunity arises the heroine should seek vengeance against him. Make the hero fall for her, then cut him. It does, the heroine wears a veiled hat...and takes on the identity of a German Baroness...he is not permitted to see her face. He falls in love with her, but never sees her face, and she with him. The only problem is that she is lying to him about who she is. And when he finds out - he will think the worst of her. Which of course he does. The conflict is that the hero has to get past his own prejudices and the heroine past her pride, so that they can be honest with each other.
See the gender flip? Thomas not only grabs the concept from Ivory, she flips it. And instead of doing yet another take on the Beauty and the Beast fairy tale, Thomas sort of references the Greek myth - Cupid and Psyche, except the woman is cupid, and the male is psyche. Rather clever that.
My only quibble - which is why this is three stars and not four - is it took too long for the hero to come to his senses. By the time he did, I was ready to throttle him. This is a problem that I've had with a lot of Thomas' novels, the hero (sometimes its the heroine) becomes after a certain point not likable and it detracts from the romance - ie. I stop rooting quite so hard for them to end up together and just want to see the hero (sometimes the heroine) get a swift kick in the rumpus. The angst takes up most of the book. Also, as if the hero/heroine angst wasn't enough - we have to add in two other relationships, which are clearly being set up for the next two books in the series. But unfortunately, and unlike Courtney Milan's novels, don't quite sync with the main story as well. They distracted from the main plot and often felt quite jarring. I'd have edited them out.
I think after two years worth of intermittent romance novel binge reading...I've managed to find a handful of consistently good authors, who step outside of the established tropes or at the very least play around with them, deconstruct them or subvert them.
They are: Sherry Thomas, Courtney Milan, Connie Brockaway, Eloisa James, Loretta Chase and now - I'm trying Judith Ivory. All are decent writers.
I've learned to stay away from contemporary and best-selling romance novelists...who tend to stick far too closely to well-established tropes - to the point that you sort of want to throttle them. Also, the New Adult and chick-lit romance novels really do not work for me. I suspect I may be too old to appreciate the wet-behind-the-ears 20something falling for the oh-so-experienced, dogmatic, controlling, and domineering, yet sexy as heck...30 something.
Half-way through, I have this overwhelming desire to smack both characters upside the head.
Currently reading Judith Ivory's The Proposition - based on
shipperx's rec. Actually every book that she's rec'd, I've liked. Same with flake_sake who rec'd Ellen Kushner's novels, and the people who rec'd The Captive Prince, as well as greenmai who rec'd The Fault in Our Stars. I'm finding live journal book, film and television rec's to be far more helpful and far closer to my eclectic tastes than either Good Reads or Amazon.![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2014-02-17 06:51 pm (UTC)In a similar vein, just finished Eloisa James' retelling of Repunzel and quite enjoyed it. Definitely subverting tropes.
unlike Courtney Milan's novels, don't quite sync with the main story as well. They distracted from the main plot and often felt quite jarring. I'd have edited them out.
Totally agree. The difference in the way Milan handled it in, say, the Turner series is that the other brother's stories were used directly as relating to the story at hand, not to set up the next. In Unveiled it set up the emotional estrangement between the brothers and how Ash (hero 1) desperately wanted not to be shut out of the relationship between the other two brothers. So it served Ash's story, while in Mark's (hero 2), Mark's role as peacemaker in the family is used to highlight how desperately both the other brothers will do anything to accept the heroine because both of them need Mark so badly. With the final being about Smite finally working through his anger with Ash. Since it's dealing with the brother's relationship it doesn't feel intrustive. Thomas's use of the other two books in Beguiling felt downright INTRUSIVE. (Less so in "Tempting the Bride" where because of Helena's injury it made sense that Venetia and Fitz were beside themselves when it looked like Helena might die). The inclusion of Fitz's marital woes in Beguiling were particularly clumsy, I thought.
no subject
Date: 2014-02-17 09:01 pm (UTC)She has another one that I quite liked that is a retelling of a fairy tail - "Kiss at Midnight" - it retells Cinderella. But Cinderella is a stronger character and her stepsister isn't evil, but rather kind. Also the Prince is rather interesting...he's an archaeologist, who doesn't want to be a Prince.
BTW - am rather enjoying The Proposition - it really is a re-telling of Pgymallion/My Fair Lady, right down to the hilarious bath sequence. I'm amazed. The writer clearly has knowledge of both. Normally when they do it - it's rather superficial and in a modern setting. But this one isn't. Edwina reminds me of Henry Higgins. I also like the fact that neither character is portrayed as "insanely beautiful". And the examination of classism through language, along with sexism, is rather interesting.
Thanks for the rec! I'm considering picking up her "Sleeping Beauty" - a retelling of that fairy tale, except this round - Beauty is an experienced, cynical and high-priced courtesian who doesn't believe in love, and the prince, an adventurer who has come into a lot of money and wishes to win her heart. (I'm intrigued by that twist.)
no subject
Date: 2014-02-17 09:10 pm (UTC)Yes, I felt like I was leap-frogging into another novel. And considering the fact that I would probably have to re-read all of that in that novel, why bring it up?
Eloisa James actually is better at this sort of thing in her Sisters series.
Although that series suffers from continuity errors...one of the heroes goes from being almost 40 in the first book in the series to 35 in the last book in the series. While one of the heroines goes from being 15 to 18.
Milan's the only one that has pulled it off so far. Her Brothers Sinister series...does do a good job of referencing the other books, without jarring you. Although I don't think, based solely on what you've described regarding the Turner series, its done quite as well as she did it in the Turner series. But at least it's not jarring. And it makes sense.
What James and Milan do differently from Thomas - is they stick to their protagonists points of view. You are only in the HERO and HEROINE's of say The Heiress Effect, point of view, no one else's. But in Beguiling - Thomas decides for no apparent reason, to suddenly thrust you into Helena's point of view or David's or Fitz's or say Minnie's - but not in a way that contributes anything to the story of Venetia and Christian. It's as if she's putting in teasers for the next books. And I find that jarring and a bit annoying - particularly when I'm being held in suspense. I ended up skimming those chapters.
no subject
Date: 2014-02-17 06:52 pm (UTC)By the time he did, I was ready to throttle him. This is a problem that I've had with a lot of Thomas' novels, the hero (sometimes its the heroine) becomes after a certain point not likable and it detracts from the romance - ie. I stop rooting quite so hard for them to end up together and just want to see the hero (sometimes the heroine) get a swift kick in the rumpus.
The stubborness of the hero in Beguiling is nothing compared to the heroine in Tempting the Bride who I was still angry with at the end of the novel. Oh, bejeebus, I wanted to PUNCH HER! And I don't know whether or not that's an overreaction because somewhere in the "Tempting the Bride" I realize... Oh my frigging god, THEY ARE SPUFFY!
I don't know whether Thomas is literally a Spuffy fan (though the fact that David is spoken of as having blond curls that he tames with pomade, amazing cheekbones, and a square jaw doesn't dispel the possibility for all the fact that he's 6'2 and the heroine is 5'11") but the relationship dynamics are Spuffy.
Helena and David (who are one of the sub's in Beguiling), snark at one another incessantly. David is fully aware that he's been in unrequited love with her forever. He even ruefully acknowledges to himself that it was unfortunate that when he fell for her that he was an obnoxious, overbearing snot, with their dynamic from the get-go being he would say something cutting to get a rise out of her because getting a rise out of her was better than being ignored. It's funny for the reader because they are saying outrageous things to one another, but they do have a habit of saying truly horrible, beyond the pale, things to one another. And yet we know that David is totally in love with her. Meanwhile she's totally in love with
AngelAndrew, who was her first love as a teen. NOTHING David ever does is 'right' and nothing Andrew does is EVER 'wrong'. Even when Andrew is wrong, she just takes all of it on herself. So despite David always being the one who is there for her, despite the fact that when he pours his heart out to her it's clear that he's desperately in love with her, despite even when she has fallen in love with David, despite everything, at the drop of a hat she decides yet again to go rushing after Andrew.It felt like the episode End of Days where after Spike had poured his heart and devotion out to Buffy, at the drop of a hat, Buffy turned into a giggling teenager with PodAngel showing up in Sunnydale. Only... it was kind of worse because not only was Helena walking out on David, she was walking out on David's (Ausberger's syndrome(?) daughter.
By the time they had David patiently, desperately trying to deal with his daughter's meltdown in the wake of Helena leaving, with his inability to promise the girl that Helena would ever come back, compounding his emotional devestation, and even the death of the little girl's flipping PET and I was just -- damn you, Helena! How in the freaking hell could you leave David for freaking Andrew?!
It was enough that though I had enjoyed 90% of the novel, I couldn't work up joy at the conclusion because I was still so damn angry with Helena over -- even for a moment -- choosing Andrew over David (and his daughter) so near the end of the novel.
no subject
Date: 2014-02-17 08:50 pm (UTC)It doesn't sound like it gets much better.
Oh, I've read somewhere or other, that Sherry Thomas may have started out writing Spuffy fanfic, as did Lisa Keyplas, and Sylvia Day. Don't know for certain. But..another person on my flist pointed it out. And I noticed a couple of things that felt, well, deja-vue. (I've read a lot of spuffy fanfic and a lot of blurs together.)
It felt like the episode End of Days where after Spike had poured his heart and devotion out to Buffy, at the drop of a hat, Buffy turned into a giggling teenager with PodAngel showing up in Sunnydale. Only... it was kind of worse because not only was Helena walking out on David, she was walking out on David's (Ausberger's syndrome(?) daughter.
Okay, wait, after she's fallen in love with David, after she's seen him for the kind loving man that he is. After she knows what it could do to his sister... She still goes flying off to Andrew? WTF? Why? And he chooses to forgive her for it - that easily?
Now that would annoy me. I hate it when writers' do that. It kills the romance.
It was my difficulty with Spuffy - I began to wonder after a bit, why Spike hadn't just given up. Realistically? He would have. So by the time "Chosen" came along - I was so pissed off at Buffy that the burning hand bit barely registered.
Also in regards to End of Days? It was out of character for everyone involved. It made no sense they'd kiss - either one of them. Too much water under that bridge. To have them do so - was a betrayal of who those characters were and what they went through - and clearly a plot contrivance (they wanted that moment where Spike has to question his loyalities) or catering to fans (although, I'm pretty certain it's the former). Pissed off Angel and Buffy fans (the non-shippers) online at the time - because it was completely out of character and a betrayal of who they were. I can see why he went back to Sunnydale and wanted to play the hero...but I can't see them kissing...it just felt off somehow.
Hmmm...thanks for the warning on Tempting the Bride, I may skip that one. Beguiling the Beauty wasn't that irritating, thankfully.
no subject
Date: 2014-02-17 10:25 pm (UTC)Er...um... basically, yes. (I'm going to shamelessly spoil the plot below so, Spoiler Warnings!)
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The prologue is basically what's implied in Beguiling, that David discovered Helena sneaking out with Andrew and confronted Helena who defiantly said it was none of his business. David says that her brother would never forgive him if David didn't tell (since Fitz has been David's best friend since they were 14) and we get the bit from Beguiling where David says if she'll kiss him, he'll keep Andrew's name out of it. She kisses him and David tells Fitz about what's going on, but keeps Andrew's name out of it (all of which you have from Beguiling). Cut to: A few weeks after Beguiled (since it's still not known that Venetia is pregnant it's got to be less than 4 weeks). David confronts Helena that he knows she's still undeterred and that this is going to blow-up in her face. More he's heard that Andrew's wife is actively suspicious. Helena will have none of it, such that when Helena gets a message from Andrew to meet him at the Savoy Hotel, she goes. Meanwhile David discovers that rather than Andrew sending the note, that it was Andrew's wife who sent it. Presumably to scandalize Helena. (Unbeknownst to David, Andrew's wife's motivation is really that she wants to dump Andrew's ass and be free to go marry someone else and this is the only way for her to get a divorce from weak-willed, indecisive Andrew). Since such exposure would be scandalous for Helena and her family, David rushes to prevent Helena from being caught. They shove Andrew into the bathroom and David and Helena pose so that they are caught together in the hotel room, and (again to quell the scandal) David announces that he and Helena had just eloped. This of course erupts into a family argument with Venetia, Millie and Fitz agreeing with David that Helena probably does need to marry David to avoid the scandal. Helena, again, will have none of it, and literally goes running after Andrew... and is basically hit by a bus (or rather a coach and four). (And, no, Andrew does not coming running back. It's poor David who is left holding her bloodied, trampled body in the street).
David, Venetia, Christian, Fitz and Millie sit with Helena for days as she remains unconscious, with Christian bringing in every specialist he can but doctors not having anything they can do. David meanwhile refuses to give up on Helena, reading to her and swearing to her how much he loves her, and generally being remorseful and devastated. All hope is nearly lost before she finally wakes up, but (soap plot!) she has partial amnesia, meaning she recognizes her siblings but (as she said) she woke up to her 'family' and didn't recognize half of them. Not Millie (who she's known for 8 years) and not even David (who she knew for 14 years). And... not Andrew, either. (cont'd)
Cont'd Summary of "Tempting the Bride"
Date: 2014-02-17 10:27 pm (UTC)Without any of the baggage from the past, Helena falls in love with David (and at this point the reader is going, why the hell wouldn't she?!) She even meets Andrew and is unmoved by him. She gets her memories of her family and David back as well.
Helena and David are happily in love by this point and are really engaged to be married when Andrew's wife shows up and basically offers Helena to PLEASE TAKE ANDREW! That if Helena would tell Andrew that Helena wanted him, Andrew might consent to a divorce (that otherwise he denies his wife). And...during this confrontation, Helena gets her memories of Andrew back. And...bam. She leaves David for Andrew. AFTER throwing a massive hissyfit at David, saying that he had known how much she 'loved' Andrew (he TOLD her that, damn it!). She goes postal on David, leaving him (on the day their license to marry arrives) and runs after Andrew... AGAIN!
David is emotionally devastated by this and his special needs child cannot handle change in the best of times, so the two-for of her pet dying and Helena walking out, sends the child into a full-tilt withdrawal/meltdown. David is left sitting with his head bowed in the nursery trying desperately to comfort a child he cannot touch for fear of causing her further distress, who won't eat, who cannot verbalize her pain, who won't be comforted, and who can't stop crying!
So when Helena comes back after having gone to London to see Andrew and finally accepting that she was just obsessed with a crush from her teens while really having fallen in love with David, it just isn't enough. Not for me. She had broken not just David's heart (which he totally did not deserve by that point. He had been honest with her about EVERYTHING) but, worse, she had broken the heart of a special-needs five year old!! And all it took for Helena to win them back was... just coming back home! (Finding both David and his daughter STILL DEVASTATED on the nursery floor some nine hours after Helena had left them, BTW).
The scene I desperately wanted (but did not get) was Fitz telling Helena that he was done protecting her, that he should have protected his best friend FROM HER. (Not having read Fitz's story, but having read the story of Fitz's childhood sweetheart that he'd been obsessed over during the first years of his marriage, I also wanted a scene where Helena said that Fitz should understand what she was going through, with Fitz telling her that his first love was a damn site better person than ANDREW.)
At any rate, I was too angry at Helena to properly embrace that all it took her to have a happy ending was just to come BACK after having rejected David yet one more time.
I adored David by that point. Helena? Not so much.
Re: Cont'd Summary of "Tempting the Bride"
Date: 2014-02-17 11:07 pm (UTC)The scene I desperately wanted (but did not get) was Fitz telling Helena that he was done protecting her, that he should have protected his best friend FROM HER. (Not having read Fitz's story, but having read the story of Fitz's childhood sweetheart that he'd been obsessed over during the first years of his marriage, I also wanted a scene where Helena said that Fitz should understand what she was going through, with Fitz telling her that his first love was a damn site better person than ANDREW.)
This in a nutshell is my difficulty with Sherry Thomas' writing style.
It's as if she gets tired and just quickly wraps everything up. But denies me the scenes I desperately want, while Milan provides them.
Oh look, she came back, they talked. Everything is okay now. Uh...wait what about?
I had the same problem with Joss Whedon's writing actually - it's why I gave up on the comics. He did the same thing. Drove me bonkers. [Yes, yes, I'm glad you want to have that huge battle or sex scene or party, but can we please deal with THIS first? No, no, no...don't have it happen off-screen...ack. Okay, now I just don't care any more, damn you.]
I had the same problem in Beguiled, Not Quite a Husband, and Private Arrangements - I wanted something more from each of them. And at the end, I felt gypped (sorry can't think of another word for it at the moment). I think you may have put your finger on what it was - although not always the same thing in each.
The story in each one almost felt too quickly or neatly wrapped up. I wanted more or the aftermath, and the interactions with other family members...which Milan provides and Thomas doesn't.
Re: Cont'd Summary of "Tempting the Bride"
Date: 2014-02-17 11:12 pm (UTC)I adored David by that point. Helena? Not so much.
I can see why. Her actions sound insane. She ran after the ninny?
(I'm sorry the description of Andrew in Beguiled wasn't flattering either and that was from both Helena and Venetia's points of view.)
And it doesn't sound like the writer does much to redeem her. See at least Beguiled worked to redeem Christian. He goes out of his way to redeem himself in Venetia's eyes and apologize. So I was able to forgive him.
But from your description it doesn't appear that happened in Tempting.
And you do read fast - were you able to read Beast, Tempting, Beguiled and Ravishing all within the last three days???
I'm only 19% of the way through The Proposition - granted I haven't been doing all that much reading this weekend. At any rate, very happy chose Proposition over Tempting...Tempting would probably frustrate me.
Re: Cont'd Summary of "Tempting the Bride"
Date: 2014-02-17 11:25 pm (UTC)I have read Beguiled, Tempting, and Tower over the last five days. But, it's a bit misleading in that I have an Audible account so I whisper-sync with both the e-book and the audible book, so I half-listened/half-read Beguiled. I had listened to 7 hours of it while drawing at work on Friday (the office is technically closed Friday afternoon but several of us were making up time from Wednesday's snow day).
I actually read Tempting and Tower over the weekend.
I liked Tower. I thought it was an interesting take. You don't usually see your 'true love' coupling having repeated disastrous sex. The book was far more about making the relationship work than their falling in love, which they did fairly effortlessly. It was making the marriage work that they had to work on. I rather enjoyed that part.
Re: Cont'd Summary of "Tempting the Bride"
Date: 2014-02-18 01:23 am (UTC)Agreed on Tower. The focus was on how they made their relationship, sexual and otherwise work. And really it just came down to the two people learning how to listen and talk to one another - ie. communicate.
In most of these books - they just can't figure out how to communicate their feelings and fears to one another.
Ah...yes, I can understand being able to listen to a book while drawing.
That makes sense. Probably also can do it while driving?
It's harder for me to do it - too many interruptions at work, also, can't read/write and listen at the same time effectively. And while I can read on the commute, listening doesn't work as well - too many noisy interferences and distractions.
Do you find it easier to listen or read a book? When I listen to books, I sort of lose half of the story -- noticed that listening to the Dresden Files. Granted I used them to go to sleep...which resulted in some interesting dreams...
Re: Cont'd Summary of "Tempting the Bride"
Date: 2014-02-18 03:09 pm (UTC)Ah...yes, I can understand being able to listen to a book while drawing.
That makes sense. Probably also can do it while driving?
I think it's some sort of right brain/left brain thing. I cannot possibly listen to a book when trying to do anything remotely verbal. If it involves text or language I cannot listen to a book. However, drawing on CAD is so heavily visual, that for some reason it's like it occupies different corners of my mind and doesn't interfere. In fact it almost helps me concentrate because my mind doesn't then wander while drawing. If I have to compose e-mail or do remotely complicated math, I have to pause. But as long as I'm mostly drawing, it's no problem.
Do you find it easier to listen or read a book?
Audible has to be stuff I'm not overly concerned with remembering. It doesn't stick as well. I suppose I'm strongly visual. If I want to remember it well, I need to read the text. But as long as it's just to entertain myself, if it's an engaging narrator I can enjoy it. I listen to books and lectures all the time. I like Audible's Scholar's series and end up listening to history (and occasionally literature) lectures as well. I couldn't do it if I were to be tested afterward. For that, I'd need to read. Again it's a visual vs. audible thing. But when it's unimportant what sticks versus what just floats through, I'm happy to listen to audible books. I get 1 a month through membership and discounts (from a little to their sales which can reduce them a LOT, to just a couple of dollars) so I tend to listen to at least a dozen a year (though usually more).
Re: Cont'd Summary of "Tempting the Bride"
Date: 2014-02-18 11:32 pm (UTC)And I thought things were wrapped up with too much haste.
This appears to be problem with all of her books - so clearly a flaw of the writer's.
I think it's some sort of right brain/left brain thing. I cannot possibly listen to a book when trying to do anything remotely verbal. If it involves text or language I cannot listen to a book.
Am pretty much the same way. Only things I can listen to is music. Which while verbal just doesn't register or require the same degree of focus as a story.
[And hee...I actually know what CAD is. Looked at a drawing done on CAD today. We both appear to work in the construction of public works, just in different capacities. ;-) (I procure architectural, engineering, construction and planning services.)]
Audible has to be stuff I'm not overly concerned with remembering. It doesn't stick as well. I suppose I'm strongly visual. If I want to remember it well, I need to read the text. But as long as it's just to entertain myself, if it's an engaging narrator I can enjoy it.
I'm similar. Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall - which I purchased on audio, did not work for me. Too hard to keep track of all the characters and what was going on. Required too much concentration. But the Dresden Files - no problem. Well that and the fact that James Marsters has an incredibly sexy voice.
But I'm a strongly visual person.
Re: Cont'd Summary of "Tempting the Bride"
Date: 2014-02-18 12:21 am (UTC)Andrew was a complete nincompoop. Absolutely everyone but Helena (including Andrew's own wife and in-laws!) recognized that Andrew was a spineless, shiftless nincompoop.
I've never been all that curious about Fitz's and Millie's story because 8 years of marriage of convenience sounds like a bore, but I did read the novella of the first love that Fitz was so obsessed with during his and Millie's marriage. Having read her (brief) story, I am just a tiny bit curious how she comes off in Fitz and Millie's story.
In her own story, (I cannot remember her name because I read it a while ago), she was sympathetic. Fitz had married Millie for her inheiritance, so the childhood sweetheart sucked it up and married someone else after he married Millie... and she was actually happy with her husband. Unlike Fitz (it seemed) she was realistic and wasn't going to waste her life on what she couldn't have. So she and her husband moved to India, had two children, and were happy together. Unfortunately both she and her husband came down with some influenza-like illness. She survived and her husband did not. Heartbroken by her husband's death she returned to England and was tempted by memories of Fitz and first love and desperately wanted him (but you get the feeling that it was less about him than her simply been so full of grief). This was around the time Fitz realized he loved Millie, so he turned the childhood sweetheart away. She desperately wanted Fitz to come back to her and for a moment convinced herself that he had when a guy who looked a great deal like him came to her rented cottage.
With her children at her sisters, and in a bout of grief, she got hella drunk and came onto the guy who looked a lot like Fitz. This guy was actually a sweetie, though. He recognized how much pain she was in and didn't take advantage. He too was a widower, having lost his beloved wife a few years earlier. And when the heroine explained her story, he felt for her. They commiserated over their lost loves, how it hurt to lose a loving spouse and a future that you had planned together. Then they started up an ongoing letter correspondence with one another when she re-joined her family. This quickly evolved into falling in love via mail until he arranged to 'run into her' again in public when she wrote a letter to him saying she was visiting the Lake District.
Obstacle became her family having a suspicion that the reason she'd fallen for this was because he looked rather like Fitz. That couldn't be healthy, could it? Even the new guy briefly thought that might be the case when he finally caught sight of Fitz and realized that they did look rather similar. But then he&she realized that what had drawn them together was that they understood each other. That they had both been through grief and loss. They both had lost loved spouses and had felt the rekindling of hope when they met each other. That had nothing to do with Fitz, and it would be pretty damn stupid to let the fact that he vaguely resembled her childhood sweetheart get in the way their possible happiness.
Happily Ever After.
It being a novella it's really basically a short story, but she was a sympathetic character at least in her own story. I shudder to think of her as coming off as stupid in Fitz's story as Andrew does in Tempting.
Re: Cont'd Summary of "Tempting the Bride"
Date: 2014-02-18 01:13 am (UTC)I agree on the Fitz story - an 8 year marriage of convenience tale where the hero is pining for the woman he couldn't marry...while slowly developing a friendship with his wife, until he discovers wait, I love my wife, will most likely bore and frustrate the heck out of me. The reviews seemed to indicate that for the most part. Apparently the writer is playing with that particular trope? And apparently the childhood love trope...showing how it doesn't quite last or work?
The long lost love who moved to India, had two children, and a happy marriage and now wants to reconnect with Fitz, who is married and hasn't had any kids yet...I think I might have issues with. Although I liked the ending of her story - which you related.
Connie Brockaway also played with the long-lost love bit in All Through the Night. In that one, the widow's dead husband had married her over his childhood sweetheart who remained utterly devoted to him. What I liked about that one - was both her dead husband and his childhood sweetheart came across as ninnies. The dead husband had to be adored by people, but couldn't deal with sexual affection, unless he was bestowing it. Basically he saw love as being "worshipped", physical love was too messy. It was a nice deconstruction of romantic love.
Hmmm...I'm thinking Luckiest Lady sounds much more interesting and far more complex. I might go that route instead of Tempting the Bride. Although after The Proposition - I've decided to read the Milan trilogy that you rec'd. I like Milan better than Thomas...or rather, I like her characters better.
Re: Cont'd Summary of "Tempting the Bride"
Date: 2014-02-18 03:12 pm (UTC)I could see where she was confused by his situation because, realistically, who wouldn't be? It would have a way of not looking like a 'real marriage' (and yeah she was aware that it wasn't consumated so either Fitz or Millie must have told her.)
Re: Cont'd Summary of "Tempting the Bride"
Date: 2014-02-18 11:17 pm (UTC)The reviewers stated that Isabelle (Fitz's long lost love) comes across as a self-centered, whiny, nasty piece of work. (They really hated her in that novel.) So yes, a ninny. Apparently Fitz wants to use Minnie's money - which he acquired through marriage to take care of Isabelle and her kids? And Fitz has had several mistresses during his marriage to Millie...until Isabelle becomes a widow, and now he wants to be celibate for Isabelle...or that's what they said in the reviews.
This is a controversial little book. It's apparently not that long. But it's ratings on Good Reads...sort of give you the finger (as smartbitches would say.)
The reviewers either really really hate Fitz and Isabelle (and her dead husband aka the dormouse), and feel sorry for Millie (who they call the doormat). Or they adore the novel's depiction of friendship turning to love over time, and the discovery that the first love was little more than a romanticized crush.
Apparently Thomas got the idea from a Georgette Heyer novel entitled A Civil Contract. Where the hero does more or less the same thing. Except he doesn't fall in love with the heroine so much as grows accustomed to her and develops a friendship. Heyer's novels tended towards realism and satire.
At any rate - one of the reviewers, on Amazon and Good Reads, had issues with the book jumping back and forth in time, with all the flashbacks. She also had this tendency to call the hero (H) and the heroine (h) - to the point that I found her review unreadable. (That's my pet peeve. The H/h thing.)
I'm admittedly curious about it now - in part because of the Margaret Atwood novel (The Blind Assassin) that I'm reading at night - which has a nasty marriage of convenience in it. (The protagonist' father basically sells her in marriage to an associate who is in his 30s, while she's just 18. And the guy on their wedding night - is pleased that she finds the sexual act unpleasant and painful, because that way she won't go hunting for it elsewhere...she actually states that in the first person narrative.) So I'm curious to see another take - one
which shows how two people who aren't sleeping together and marry far too young make a marriage work. But can't tell from the reviews if it will annoy the heck out of me.
The problem with Sherry Thomas, and one reviewer stated it's definitely an issue in this novel as well, is she rushes her endings. So lots of angst, quick happy wrap-up. Reader frustrated.
Re: Cont'd Summary of "Tempting the Bride"
Date: 2014-02-18 11:29 pm (UTC)Re: Cont'd Summary of "Tempting the Bride"
Date: 2014-02-19 12:04 am (UTC)The reviewer really hated Isabella in that book. And wanted her to be miserable. Which does not bode well for her portrayal in the novel - which most likely is from Minnie's pov.
Re: Cont'd Summary of "Tempting the Bride"
Date: 2014-02-19 02:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-02-17 10:46 pm (UTC)Mystery novels yes. Romance novels no. Sort of like soap operas and Buffy, I sometimes spoil myself to ensure I won't want to kill the writers halfway through or if I do, at least I'm prepared.
(Unbeknownst to David, Andrew's wife's motivation is really that she wants to dump Andrew's ass and be free to go marry someone else and this is the only way for her to get a divorce from weak-willed, indecisive Andrew). Since such exposure would be scandalous for Helena and her family, David rushes to prevent Helena from being caught. They shove Andrew into the bathroom and David and Helena pose so that they are caught together in the hotel room, and (again to quell the scandal)
Oh dear, she's in love with a ninny. I hate that trope. The other character in the love triangle, the one the hero or heroine is obsessed with is either a ninny or an undeserving doofus. Making you wonder if the hero or heroine is insane or just dumb.