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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}
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.