Apparently I own this on Kindle so this will be my next read because I'm all about that dark shit life lolApparently I own this on Kindle so this will be my next read because I'm all about that dark shit life lol...more
As of 10/04/17, this book is currently only $1.99 for Kindle.
I really enjoyed this little book. Granted, my hopes were low. I'd looked through the reviews of DARKWATER and many of them were saying that DARKWATER was dull and flat, with a raging Mary Sue of a heroine who wouldn't STFU.
To my surprise, I found myself with a rather delightful Gothic romance written in the vein of such popular favorites as Victoria Holt or Patricia Maxwell (AKA, Jennifer Blake). Better yet, I got to buddy read it with one of my new Goodreads friends, Elena.
Fanny is the ward of some awful relations. Her uncle, Edgar, is an enabler to his cold and greedy wife, Louisa, and air-headed, vain daughter, Amelia. Much to the rage and annoyance of Louisa and Amelia, Fanny is far prettier than Amelia, the heiress, and is constantly turning heads despite being poor. When Edgar finds out he has two new wards to take care of, he's the only one who seems indifferent, even pleased. Louisa is annoyed and Amelia, disenchanted. Fanny is the only member of the family who truly harbors a soft spot for the young children, and despite having planned to use their pick-up as a chance to escape, voluntarily stays on in order to care for and nanny them.
I just want to pause here, and say that I often hate seeing children in fiction because they're either way too precocious and cutesy, or else used as plot points without much in the way of characterization. These children, Nolly (Olivia) and Marcus were incredibly well-written and actually acted like children (i.e. at times sweet, at other times, bratty). They added a lot of comic relief but they also stood on their own as characters. I also thought that Fanny's family was well done. Amelia was far from being the b*tchy, jealous rival... she had moments of thoughtless kindness, and even Louisa had some humanizing emotions. I felt like that made their dynamic so much more interesting.
Oh, and then there's George. Fanny's creepy, "no maybe means yes" cousin. Ew, George. Ew.
The love interest, Adam Marsh, appears mysteriously (such is the way of the gothic romance) and leaves just as mysteriously. When he returns, he seems more interested in Amelia than Fanny (much to Fanny's devastating) and he strings Fanny along while cavorting with Amelia, which I really disliked him for. Obviously there is an explanation towards the end, but I so did not buy that.
Call me slow, but I didn't guess the perpetrator(s) until the very end. I wasn't trying to figure it out, though. I was reading DARKWATER in between reading Stephen King's IT, and this cozy mystery was the perfect balm for sleepless nights inspired by psychotic, murder-happy clowns. I just sat back and let the story carry me away, and found myself pleasantly surprised by the journey.
If you enjoy Gothic novels, this is a great addition to the collection. I want to read more Eden now!
I missed out on V.C. Andrews as a teen, so I'm accumulating as many of them as I can now. You know, for science. So far, I've mostly been reading the ones that were originally written by V.C. herself and not her ghostwriter, Andrew Neiderman. The Dollanganger series was excellent and so was her one standalone book, MY SWEET AUDRINA. HIDDEN JEWEL was a Neiderman effort, but I thought that one was reasonably okay, even if it lacked that special brand of spiciness that the Dollanganger books had. DAWN is one of Neiderman's earlier efforts, published just four years after the real V.C. Andrews died. I expected it to be even better than the Landry book I read, since it was published earlier and - I figured - he'd probably be working extra hard to do her justice.
Ha - nope!
DAWN is one weird book. Parts of it are just boring and badly written, with words repeated over and over again (especially "quickly", for some reason, which seemed to appear at least once per page), and emotions being told instead of shown via dialogue tags. "Don't be so obvious," she yelled angrily. "Be subtle!"
Plus, we get gems like these:
Good-bye to my first and what I thought would be my most wonderful romantic love, I thought. Good-bye to being swept off my feet and floating alongside warm, soft white clouds. Our passionate kisses shattered and fell with the raindrops, and no one could tell which were my tears and which were the drops of rain (227).
Sounds like she's confusing an acid trip with love, don't you think?
***WARNING: SPOILERS***
The plot is one part THE FACE ON THE MILK CARTON, one part MY SWEET AUDRINA, and one part FLOWERS IN THE ATTIC. Dawn and Jimmy Longchamp have always been on the move but now their dad is determined to bring some stability to their lives: he's taken a job as janitor at a private school, which means that both kiddos get free tuition as a bonus.
Obviously the rich kiddos do not take kindly to poverty in their midst, and begin hazing like it's rush week at a d-baggy party college. People mock and laugh at Jimmy, but it's Dawn who really bears the brunt of the bullying - they stop just short of parading her through the streets with a shorn head while screaming SHAME! SHAME! The only rich kiddo who's actually nice to her is the brother of Clara Sue, the mean Queen Bee who has a rage-boner for Dawn: Philip Cutler.
"Nice guys" in V.C. Andrews books can never be trusted and Philip is no exception. He quickly begins pushing Dawn to go all the way with him, fondling her in his car, kissing her passionately in public, etc. Jimmy is, of course, super jealous, even though he's her brother. And oh, by the way - did I mention that the Longchamp parents seem to think it's cool to not only have their teen children share a bedroom, but also have them both sleep in the same bed? Also, he watches her get dressed.
Anyway, Dawn thinks she's finally gotten the better of her bullies and her evil headmaster... but then her mother dies and makes a cryptic statement about forgiveness and the police come to take her father and siblings away - and Dawn finds out that she isn't Dawn Longchamp. She's Dawn Cutler. The Longchamps kidnapped her from their employers when she was just a baby to replace a stillborn.
Dawn is pulled out of school and whisked away to the elite Cutler Cove hotel, where the grandmother matriarch (who seems to be inspired by the grandma in FLOWERS IN THE ATTIC) runs a tight ship. Think Dunstin Checks In (1996) without the orangutan-provided comic relief. While there, Dawn experiences even more bullying... this time at the hands of her new relatives: Psycho Grandma and Queen Bee Mean Girl. Psycho Grandma forces Dawn into what is basically child slave labor, forcing her to work as a maid free of charge; steals and destroys some of Dawn's belongings; gives her a new name (Eugenia) and then starves her when she doesn't use it; and when someone (*cough* Clara Sue) steals a necklace from one of the guests, she basically gives Dawn a cavity search looking for it.
Philip is at the hotel, too, and at first he seems nice, but then it turns out that he's still not over that heavy petting they did together before they realized they were brother and sis. Towards the end of the book, he rapes her, saying that it's important that he "teaches" her how sex works and that it's her fault for leading him on, etc. Dawn is so upset, because she doesn't want to have sex with this brother - she wants to have sex with her other brother now that she knows that they're not related, and even takes a moment later on to wish how Jimmy was the one who got her v-card instead of Philip.
But wait - there's more!
Dawn tracks down the maid who was responsible for her and finds out that she's the product of an affair that Mama Cutler had with a musician. Angry, Grandma Psycho had arranged for a kidnap by paying the Longchamps to take her away. She had second thoughts later, but was willing to let the Longchamps take the fall for it rather than have scandal befall the family. What a betch, right? So Dawn whips out the blackmail, and Grandma Psycho admires her balls and decides that maybe Dawn and her can reach an "agreement." Dawn gets send to NYC to study music and bought all manner of expensive clothes while Philip and Clara seethe, dreaming of the day when she and Jimmy can reunite and have it's-not-incest-anymore-let's-party style sexings.
This left such a bad taste in my mouth. It might actually be worst than the time that I ate a piece of dark chocolate for dessert after having kimchee for dinner (although that was pretty bad, too).
The fact that this is shelved as a romance by so many people shows a fundamental misunderstanding of how romance novels work. DRAGONWYCK is a genre-crossing gothic with romantic elements, but I'd say it's closer to a dark love story with a nontraditional HEA. People coming to this book expecting gothic romance in the vein of Victoria Holt and Mary Stewart are going to be incredibly disappointed.
I picked this up as part of my Jane Eyre derivatives challenge that I'm doing. I would say that this is more derivative than straight-up retelling, because it's more of a collection of the same tropes that were in Jane, but Seton makes the novel completely her own. Miranda is the beautiful, idealistic daughter of a farmer, who looks down on her family and envisions a fairytale sort of life for herself (as all teens do). When her rich Dutch cousin, Nicholas Van Ryn, sends for her to be a governess/nanny for his child, it feels like a dream come true. Of course, her religious father is against it, but she ends up tricking him by thumbing to a bible passage at their family reading that makes it seem like it is her God-given destiny to go.
Once she is at Dragonwyck, things are immediately sus. First off, a caveat: there is so much fat-shaming in this book. Nicholas is married to a heavy woman named Johanna, and the narrative wastes no time in immediately portraying her as a sickening human being. Which is doubly awful because it's clear from the story that she is suffering postpartum depression and emotional abuse, and has turned to food as comfort. She is ruthlessly shamed for it, by the narrative, by Nicholas, by Miranda, and virtually everyone else who looks at her. Her young daughter, Katrine, who is plump, is also repeatedly fat-shamed. It was honestly hard to read, and a little infuriating, so I think people who are sensitive to this shouldn't read this book at all. I was honestly surprised more people weren't discussing this, tbh. I had to comb through the negative reviews before I found someone mentioning it. So be forewarned.
Right away, Nicholas begins flirting with his cousin, and Miranda is only too happy to flaunt their relationship in the face of his wife, because she thinks Johanna is pathetic and doesn't love Nicholas the way she would. When Johanna dies suddenly and conveniently, Nicholas tells her literally the next day that he'll marry her instead, and gives her a betrothal ring before sending her home. For a year, Miranda angsts and sulks, and drives her family crazy with her selfishness and her new airs, wondering if he's actually going to marry her, or if she was just yet another thing that he became interested in before exchanging for a new and shiny bauble. But send for her he does, and that's when shit gets weird.
Nicholas is basically a straight-up sociopath and Miranda is very vain and self-centered, so if this is a Jane Eyre retelling, it's a retelling that explores the dynamic if it occurred within a vacuum of moral bankruptcy. That dynamic is interesting but not particularly romantic. Which is why I feel like this is less a romance than it is a morality play. Seton comments on a lot of things in the metatext, like the hypocrisy of the rich, the double standards of decency for rich versus poor, people's reluctance to overthrow systems of oppression even when it would benefit them because the fear of change and flouting tradition is worse than the abstract pain they receive from it now, and the soul-crushing emptiness of a sociopath's inner-workings when they run out of things to live for.
It's a chilling book, and an interesting one, but I had to set it down halfway through because it was just so frustrating. I think most contemporary readers would find this work off-putting, and even people who enjoy vintage romance might not like this because, as I said, it's HEA is definitely non-traditional. This honestly reminded me of a happier version of Marilyn Harris's BLEDDING SORROW, another gothic tragedy that shows a doomed family in all of its deterministic horror.
Phyllis A. Whitney is probably my favorite Gothic romance writer that I've ever read to date. While a lot of her contemporaries could come across as prudish, dated, and problematic when reading them today, I've found that the exotic locales in Whitney's books always seem incredibly well researched (she wrote a really dark one set in Japan), her rep of people of color holds up mostly even to this day without too many ridiculously over-the-top stereotypes (even the ones published in the 1980s and before), and her heroines are usually strong and intelligent.
Reading the abridged biography of the woman in the backs of the ebooks, this doesn't really come as a surprise, though. Whitney grew up in Japan and traveled extensively, researching her locations on site, such as going on tour in the Virgin Islands (as mentioned here), flying in a helicopter over Hawaii for SILVERSWORD, and even going up in a hot air balloon for one of her other books. Her unconventional upbringing, travel, and the privilege she had to do all these things really translate to her heroines, who are open to new experiences, and tend to be no-nonsense but also empathetic and interesting in a way that Victoria Holt and Dorothy Eden's heroines are, well, not. I love her.
COLUMBELLA is no exception to the "Phyllis A. Whitney is awesome" rule. Set in St. Thomas, in the Virgin Islands, it is about a governess named Jessica who has come by request of the family matriarch, Maud, to the Clair/Drew family to look after their youngest family member, Leila, and put some sense into her. As it turns out, Leila is the pawn in a bitter war between all of the younger family members. It's a little confusing, so I'll lay it all out for you. Maud has two daughters, Edith and Catherine. Edith is the matronly sister, in an unhappy marriage of her own with Alex, a man who sells and collects exotic seashells and has a wandering eye.
Catherine is the beautiful sister and lets no one forget it. She's also a thrill-seeker, narcissistic, impulsive, and vengeful. Her husband is a man named Kingdon, although they're probably going to separate at some point, since there is no love between them. They have a daughter, Leila, and Catherine has mostly succeeded in turning Leila against her father. Kingdon wants to get Leila out from under Catherine's influence and send her to his sister in Colorado, but Maud knows that if Leila is forced to leave, she will leave idolizing her mother and despising her father in her heart.
So the burden falls to Jessica to "fix" things.
Oh boy.
I thought the shell angle was really interesting and it was really cool to read a book set in the Virgin Islands, even though there are some gross throwaway lines about the history of its colonizers and plantations, and how some of the characters long for the glory days of having people-- slaves-- to manage and obey them. Some books ignore where the characters get their money, but not this book. It's very uncomfortable but I think it's supposed to be, and considering when this was written, there were still people around, old people, who were alive and old enough to remember a time when people owned living human beings and exploited them for profit, and some of the racist ones probably did miss it.
Gross, but it added a touch of grim realism to the otherwise beautiful setting.
The drama in this family had me turning pages like nobody's business. Catherine is absolutely awful and the way she treated her daughter alternately like a pet or a rival was disgusting. Kingdon, the love interest, wasn't really attractive to me because he comes off as incredibly patriarchal and also he's married, although his wife was openly seeing other people, which made it feel less bad to me when he started to become attracted to the heroine. I found all of the side characters equally interesting, and thought the portrayal of Leila was pretty realistic to how a teenage girl at the time would behave.
If you like Gothic romances but are tired of the typical "woman moves to a manor home in the English country side and finds out it's sus" plotlines, Whitney's are such a breath of fresh air, because they're literally set all over the world, and the plots are always so interesting and unique.
BLOOD ROOTS was an impulse buy for me because I've read and really liked Richie Tankersley Cusick's Point Horror novels. This book-- this book is quite another type of beast. First, people are shelving it as young adult-- a danger whenever a YA author branches out into genre fiction. This is NOT YA. It is an incredibly disturbing, genre-defying book that I would probably classify as erotic horror. It's a haunted house story, a doomed family story, and a coming of age story, wrapped in the rotted, maggot-crawling shroud of a crumbling Southern Gothic. The best way of describing it, I think, would be saying that it's like a cross between Tanith Lee's DARK DANCE and Amy Engel's ROANOKE GIRLS.
The plot is deceptively simple. Olivia returns to her family's Louisiana mansion after the death of her crazy mother. But once she gets to the mansion, she's creeped out and has second thoughts. Too bad that the cab driver is a jerk and drives away, with her purse and wallet no less, leaving her there with literally nothing but the clothes on her back. Once inside, she meets the family matriarch, Miss Rose, an uncomfortable matronly Black servant stereotype named Yoly, an evil Black voodoo seductress stereotype named Mathilde, and two guys named Jesse and Skyler. Skyler is a cruel and sadistic rake, whereas Jesse plays the role of the consummate gentleman.
Instinct warns her not to tell them who she is, so she pretends that she was just an innocent tourist who was taken advantage of by an unscrupulous cab driver. She gets a job as a servant and does light housework while exploring the grounds, and I literally cannot convey to you how brilliantly done the swampy, claustrophobic backdrop of the house is, and how utterly smothering it makes the story. The stereotypes date the book, but I did kind of wonder if it was meant to be a parodying homage. Even if it wasn't, it certainly reads that way, replete with all of the melodrama that made Cusick such a popular teen horror author. This is honestly my favorite type of horror-- the kind that's psychological and leaves most of the real horrors to the reader's imagination. I think this is a keeper. Just don't get it for your kid.
"V.C. Andrews" as we knew and loved her died in 1986. Subsequent titles are published by a ghostwriter hired by the estate, Andrew Neiderman. The first Neiderman/Andrews book I read was one of the later titles published in the mid-2000s, when I guess he decided that he gave no f*cks and was going to write whatever, because it was about a creepy school and not a Gothic family drama - what. It actually put me off Andrews books for a while, because it was so bad.
One of my friends intervened and told me that what I had read was V.C. Andrews in the same way that New Coke is Coke - AKA, not. So I went back and read MY SWEET AUDRINA and FLOWERS IN THE ATTIC and was blown away at the difference; V.C. Andrews is not high literature, but she writes trash with glitz and glam and rhinestones the hell out of those old musty newspapers, so even though you know that you're reading garbage, you're reading sparkly garbage (which is better).
With that in mind, I decided to go back and revisit "V.C. Andrews" (as done by Neiderman), thinking that the early books - the ones written when he actually still gave f*cks - might be better.
To my surprise...they were!
HIDDEN JEWEL is actually the fourth book in the Landry series, about Ruby's daughter, Pearl, but I decided to treat it as a standalone and just dove in and man is it insane. Pearl is a socialite with a popular boyfriend and a graduation party coming up, and she wants to be a doctor. Her boyfriend dumps her for an evil slutty type on the day of her party since she doesn't put out. After that, every male character tries to sexually molest Pearl, including her father (well, sort of - he just disrobes, thinking she's her mom, and pulls some "Paint me like your French girls"-type Titanic BS which, understandably freaks Pearl out), an interning doctor (aka, Dr. Bad Touch) who invites her to study only to lecture her about vaginismus and dyspareunia and then attempts to determine whether or not she's frigid (the leading cause of vaginismus, according to him) by undressing her and telling her she has "wonderfully healthy skin" (86), a creepy swamp dude who tries to pull some Craster-type BS by abducting her and forcing her to be his shed-wife via a chain and some beatings, and then the actual patriarchal-type love interest who's supposed to be a good guy but comes across as a not-so-smooth-talking-creep circa 1959.
It's got all sorts of wacky hijinks, like family curses, voodoo (Pearl's grandmother is a traiteur), deaths, alcoholism, and sex, all set against the backdrop of Louisiana, with some half-hearted attempts to imbue it with some Cajun culture. I fully expected to despise this book like the other "V.C. Andrews" book I read, so you could color me surprised when I actually found myself enjoying this trashy dreck. Neiderman is trying so hard and it's actually endearing, because he is almost successful at capturing that elusive V.C. Andrews Classic style and there are some genuinely beautiful descriptions in here, mostly of the food and the nature variety.
The sex? Not so much.
We exploded against each other. I bit down on his ear so hard I thought I tasted blood (279)
...it was a long, flowing stream of passion that climbed higher and higher until it burst in a waterfall, pounding rocks below again and again and again, each time punctuated with a bigger, happier Yes.
I would read the other books in this series, and maybe also the Cutler & Casteel series, too. I'm digging this early Neiderman vibe. It's not as good as the original, but at least it's trying.
Stepback pic from the die-cut Pocket Books edition:
[image]
I'm not sure who the creepy dude in blue is, but I think it's supposed to be Dr. Bad Touch(?).
The only Catherine Coulter books I've read prior to THE COUNTESS were two of her bodice rippers. One of them was okay (it was the "extensively rewritten" edition of one of her bodice ripper classics). The other was annoying and I hated it. This, averaged out, did not seem particularly reassuring and I told myself that if I picked up THE COUNTESS and hated it that I would simply chuck all of her books into the donation bin unread. To my surprise, however, I actually enjoyed THE COUNTESS quite a bit!
Andrea "Andy" Jameson is a headstrong heiress who has been indulged by her grandfather and has serious issues with her actual father. She falls for a young man named John who seems to like her dog almost as much as he likes her, but finds herself afraid of him (for reasons that will be explained later). She ends up marrying herself off to a much safer option - an older man who promises that he won't touch her. Unfortunately, this older man is the uncle to John. Oops.
Awkwardness abounds as Andy lives in the same house as both John and Lawrence (the uncle) as well as John's brother, Thomas, his wife Amelia, and the daughter of Lawrence's previous wife, who allegedly committed suicide by jumping out from one of the windows of the rooms adjoining Andy's. The relationships between these various family members are complex and fraught with rivalries. Plus, there's a creepy mystery surrounding Lawrence's previous wife's death. Especially since several attempts are made on Andy's own life in increasingly bolder attempts.
Andy is a great heroine. She's headstrong and brave without being an idiot (the previous heroines written by this author were both idiots). I see that this book was also published as THE AUTUMN COUNTESS and, like the bodice ripper I read, is also "extensively rewritten." I'm not sure what the author changed, but it actually works here. The plot is spooky, the heroine is brave, the hero is dashing and manly, and the supporting characters are all interesting and serve as more than just hapless plot points to pepper the story with mystery and red herrings.
Also, the villain is creepy AF:
"I have decided to take you, Andrea, as a man takes a woman. You are a virgin. I have not enjoyed a virgin in a great number of years. It will be exciting. I won't mind you fighting me, but not all that much. Just a bit to give excitement to the taming. Since you (spoiler), you must obey me. Ah, to have your virgin's blood on me, to feel my seed deep inside you. I will enjoy that. I will be the only man ever to have you" (319).
Creepy.
P.S. Since I noticed nobody else has posted it yet, here's the stepback to the 1999 edition:
This is one of those books where even though the execution is weak, it taps into enough of my favorite tropes that I found it compulsively readable and wanted to push through to the end. SUSPICION is about Imogen, a pretty spineless example of a teenage girl, who is like third in line to inherit the fabulous duchy of Rockford. Her parents have the title of lord and lady, but it's her grandfather who is the Duke, and her cousin who is next in line to be Duchess when her parents die.
Imogen lives in New York but spends her summers in England at Rockford, where she crushes on Sebastian, dreamy marquis heartthrob who seems to have eyes only for her beautiful cousin. But one night, everything ends in flames, leaving Imogen an orphan, where she lives with her will-appointed guardians, the Normal Normalsons (I forget their names) and their daughter, Zoey. But it turns out the Normalsons have been busy hiding Very Important Information from Imogen all these years: news that her grandfather and cousin died, news that she's now the heir apparent, news that this makes her an emancipated minor.
Obviously Imogen is not pleased.
So Imogen goes to England, after all of her New York friends and enemies make a big deal of her being royalty (as Americans do), and it's like Downton Abbey meets the Hallmark channel. I actually checked to make sure the author wasn't from the UK (and no, she doesn't seem to be) because so much of it seemed kind of ridiculous. This is supposed to be a retelling of REBECCA but it plays fast and loose with the original and also incorporates magic that is never really explained all that well and ends up feeling more of a deus ex machina than something whimsical that is integral to the plot.
When I put this book down, I rolled my eyes a little. I don't think this book deserves the hate that it got from a lot of my friends but it's definitely bottom-of-the-barrel YA, the kind that makes a bit of a stir when it's released and then is promptly forgotten by everyone except me, who turns it up at a sale table a couple years later and reviews it when nobody cares. It's fun but forgettable and the heroine isn't much of a compelling narrator at all, so much as a passive vehicle to keep the plot moving.
I do love that cover, though. I'd hang a full-size version of that on my wall.
Remember when TWILIGHT was at the height of its popularity, and people began opening up Wikipedia to search for paranormal creatures to have fall in love with some ditzy teenage girl so they could write the Next Big YA Paranormal Romance, too? Yeah. I think we all remember the "girls in prom dresses" period of YA fiction. Those were dark times, my friends. Dark, dark times.
I feel like ASHES ON THE WAVES is definitely influenced by TWILIGHT. The male love interest speaks in an archaic way and seems a bit too naive. He also tries and fails to convince the heroine to stay away from him because he's dangerous, although in this case it's because he might be a demon instead of a vampire. The heroine, by contrast, is a pretty girl without a lot of substance. She moves from a big city to a dreary, isolated small town - except instead of the Olympic Peninsula, it's an island sandwiched between Scotland and Ireland and entrenched in Celtic folklore.
Liam, the hero, is regarded by everyone on Dorcha with suspicion because they think he killed his mom at birth (like, legit killed her, with scratch marks and gushing blood and everything). He's drop-dead gorgeous, has a paralyzed arm, and has absolutely zero knowledge about the world. He's so sheltered and naive that when he gets jealous over a girl, he thinks his anger is a result of a demon possessing him. Everyone on Dorcha wants him dead, and most of them try.
Anna, the heroine, is a rich heiress who lives in the big mansion on the island. She's being exiled because of some racy behavior she displayed in her parents' ritzy circles. She doesn't really have much of a personality. Her two conflicts in this book are 1. fall in love with Liam and 2. act out because her parents don't love her enough. She and Liam even meet when he stops her from jumping off a cliff. Ashes on the Waves? More like Ashes on the New Moon. *tips wineglass*
The paranormal element in this book is interesting, but not utilized very well. Here you have creatures like Na Fir Ghorm, the Cailleach, the Bean Sidhe, and Selkies - and what do they spend their time doing? Making bets on the purity of the love between two teenagers. I am not kidding. We're talking Shipping Wars. Mary Lindsey turned the Fae into a crude facsimile of Tumblr.
Likewise, the Edgar Allan Poe connection is also tenuous. I liked the snippets of poetry at the beginning of each chapter and the book itself is supposed to be a retelling of Annabel Lee, but it feels kind of weird to base a book on a song...especially when you have all the Fae stuff thrown in as well. The author had some creative ideas but she ended up throwing them all together in the hopes that they would fit, and they really didn't. It was not a cohesive effort by any means, in my opinion.
"Just go with it" me enjoyed how easy it was to read this book. "Feminist" me was annoyed by the instant love, the lack of development of the female character, and the fact that a fourteen-year-old is engaged to and then almost raped by a man twice her age, because on this island, due to the shortage of men, it's apparently okay to marry children to adults. Even though this takes place in the twenty-first century. "Amateur critic" me was annoyed by all the other things, like the characterization, the cheesy plot, and that bizarro ending.
Seriously, what was that ending. I looked to see if there was a sequel because I thought I was missing something important, but nope; I guess that's how it ends. Not with a bang, but a whimper.
ROSEBLOOD is about three of my favorite things: The Phantom of the Opera, the Comte de Saint-Germain, and vampires. All three together? Oh, heck yes. Set in a gloomy boarding school/converted opera house in the middle of France, I was certain that this neo-Gothic, ROSEBLOOD, would be able to do one of my favorite classics justice in a new and interesting way.
I was wrong.
It kills me to say this, because the writing in ROSEBLOOD is so beautiful that it actually almost convinced me that ROSEBLOOD was a better book than it actually was. A.G. Howard can write. However, her characters and story-telling choices are odd. Like, campy 80s horror movie odd. There were so many moments in here that had me blinking, and going, "Did that really happen?" Towards the end of the story, it happened more and more.
**WARNING: THAR BE MAJOR SPOILERS**
First, let me get something out of the way that really bothered me. I hate this new YA trend of taking the "ugly" characters in classic stories and making them beautiful. Sarah J. Maas did this in A COURT OF THORNS AND ROSES, taking the "beast" and making him a gorgeous fairy prince cursed to wear a mask. A.G. Howard does this in ROSEBLOOD, with the "phantom" love interest being not the tortured, disfigured genius, but the tortured, disfigured genius's adopted (but gorgeous) son, Thorn. Coincidentally enough, Thorn also wears a mask, just like Tam Lin, only for fun. When you do this, it takes all the original meaning out of the story. Part of what made Beauty and the Beast such a powerful story was that the beast was a horrible man when he was attractive and human; it took being ugly and monstrous to make him realize how lonely and awful it is to be despised when your exterior matches your interior, and it took a love that was based on more than looks (well, you can argue about that, since, you know, "Beauty" and the Beast) to redeem him. Likewise, part of what makes Phantom of the Opera such a tragic story is that Erik's genius and artistry goes unappreciated because of his lack of looks; what draws him to Christine isn't just her ethereal beauty and innate talent, but also because he sees her as his soulmate; the beautiful foil to his hideous appearance.
STOP MAKING THESE CHARACTERS GORGEOUS AND SHALLOWING EVERYTHING UP.
Anyway, to the plot of the story. Our heroine is named "Rune." She has a tragic history. She doesn't want to go to this special school because she has a special ability: she is compelled to sing at certain moments, and always does it beautifully. Naturally, she is "compelled" to do this while the resident Queen Bee is auditioning, before pretending to pass out. Her mother sticks around for a while but is about to go on honeymoon with Rune's new stepfather, so like Bella Swan's mom, or Mindy from Animaniacs, she goes, "Okay, I love you, bye-bye," and swans off, leaving Rune to her own devices. Luckily, Rune makes a whole bunch of friends, immediately, who are so fascinated by her lack of personality and her special secrets that they see absolutely zero problems about sneaking into her room and snooping into her belongings. This happens several times.
Rune meets a boy named Thorn who appears around the Opera House. He always wears a half-mask, but is super attracted to the half of the face that she can see. He tells her that they're "twin souls." No, literally, they are two halves of the same soul: incarnations of the Christine from the Phantom of the Opera myth. Only, Thorn can't sing because when he was young, he was kidnapped by sex traffickers, and his voice scared them so much that they poured lye down his throat. So instead of singing, Thorn plays the violin, and when he plays, Rune no longer feels sick after she sings.
This is because Rune, Thorn, and the Phantom (Erik), are all PSYCHIC VAMPIRES who use their magical abilities to draw out people's life force.
Psychic. Vampires.
Erik even owns a themed club in Paris. A rave club, where he picks off victims when he's so inclined. This is one of many moments, when I was just shocked and could only mumble, "Phantom...of the Rave? Phantom...rave...huh? Rave...phantom...rave..."
PHANTOM OF THE RAVE.
I'm sorry, I can't let that go. Erik doesn't belong anywhere near a rave. I refuse to believe that his artistic integrity would allow him to tolerate dub-step.
If you're wondering where Rune fits into all this, it ties back to the Phantom. Apparently, he and Christine got together at one point and had a baby (YESSSSSS). The baby was stillborn, but Erik has been keeping it alive in a Frankenstein-style incubator for all these years, waiting for Christine's reincarnation so he could kidnap that person, cut out their vocal chords, and implant them in the baby...because this will bring the baby to life again for some reason. All his attempts to get to Rune have been to activate her power, have Thorn seduce her, and then basically cut out her throat.
What.
The.
Fork.
I've seen and read several Phantom of the Opera adaptions, and this was one of the worst because it was so weird. It reminded me, actually, of that bad Italian remake, Il fantasma dell'opera(1998), which features Julian Sands looking less like the Phantom of the Opera and more like a reject from Interview of the Vampire since a) he's not disfigured (and is actually pretty hot), and b) the movie is less about him pursuing Christina for his sensually artistic purposes and more about sex (if I recall correctly, it actually features an orgy scene) and countless violent murder sprees. Not that ROSEBLOOD was gratuitously violent or needlessly sexual - it wasn't; it's similar because, like Il fantasma dell'opera, it was so over the top that in its attempt to differentiate itself from the work it was paying homage to, it pretty much lost sight of the original's purpose and become something totally and completely different. For better or for worse.
P.S. I'm disappointed to say that the Saint-Germaine connection basically goes nowhere, which is a shame, because he was a fascinating guy. For another story about Saint-Germaine and vampires that's actually pretty good, I suggest you check out Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's Saint-Germaine series.
The best question to ask yourself before picking up this novel is: "Did I enjoy Daphne du Maurier's REBECCA?" MENFREYA is REBECCA redux; a romance about a young, insecure woman who doesn't feel as if she deserves the man who whisks her away to the magnificent house of her dreams - and also a mystery, involving death, murder, secrets, and an insidious other woman.
Honestly, it's magnificent how so many of Victoria Holt's (or Jean Plaidy's or Philippa Carr's - they're all the same novels) are good, considering how quickly she churned them out. Granted, there are some rather glaring misses on her repertoire, but the bijous outweigh the blights. I keep coming back to her again and again, which says something because quite often there's no sex, and often no romance even until the very end. I come for the atmosphere, and the layers of mystery and strange events, with the Eyresque heroine at the focal point of it all, steadfastly navigating through the oddities & terrors.
Harriet Delvaney is an interesting and sympathetic character because unlike so many other gothic heroines, she isn't beautiful; she's plain with good but unremarkable features, and a limp. Her father resents her, since her mother died in childbirth, and at one point she actually attempts to run away...to Menfreya, where she's friends with the Menfreys, especially their children Bevil and Gwennan. (Those names, though - omg.) The Menfrey's are everything she wishes she was: beautiful, mysterious, with a rich, epic family history that is both dark and romantic and doomed.
As Harriet grows older, she becomes clever, sarcastic, and bitter. She's in love with Bevil, but his ease with women makes her heartbroken and insecure. Various people around her die in unpleasant ways, diminishing the already small circle of people who care about her at all. She gets more and more involved with the Menfreys, and her fascination with them continues even when they tumble off their respective pedestals to reveal the flaws in their seeming perfection. And even when she does finally marry, it isn't what she expects: her marriage is plagued with insecurities and suspicions that her husband only married her for her fortune, that he's seeing other women on the side, and, toward the end, that someone might actually be trying to murder her to steal her husband!
MENFREYA is probably one of my favorite Holt novels to date. There's a lot of emotion in this book, and passion too. Harriet is a great heroine, who is selfish but also smart, and whose insecurities actually feel relatable. Bevil is a more typical gothic hero, in the sense that you're never 100% sure whether he's hero or villain until the end. The difference, I think, is that Bevil's sinister attributes were more realistic, like his cold anger and tendency towards mockery (and there's a rape/forced seduction scene in here, that's of the blink-and-you'll-miss-it variety). The atmosphere of this book, which is set in Cornwall, is so gloomy and dramatic, but romantic and a little fanciful. Honestly, it's like you took Dodie Smith's I CAPTURE THE CASTLE and du Maurier's REBECCA and mashed them up to glorious effect. A must-read - especially if you're a fan of Holt already, like me.
Here's a picture of the lovely hard cover I had with my fancy Pokemon card bookmark:
MASQUE BY GASLIGHT is one of those books that I've just had sitting around. I bought it on impulse, because I love the vintage Gothic novels from the 60s and 70s - they're so melodramatic, everyone's a potential villain, and yeah, they're just great. >:D
The heroine of MASQUE is a girl named Kitty Temple, who comes from America to France in 1858 to stay with her godmother, the Comtess Adele de Sens. Accompanying her as a chaperone is her harmless but rather self-centered aunt. There, they meet the godmother and her young maid, the beautiful Pepine Flan.
Paris is beautiful and glamorous, but the parts of it that Kitty sees reveal a darker side. Her godmother's house is spooky and rundown, threadbare beneath the rich trimmings, and a murderer is running loose through the streets of Paris, a man the locals call the "monster", stabbing young women. Hot on the case is the attractive Inspector Giles Debray, upholder of justice, breaker of hearts. He intends to bring the murderer to justice.
The murders seem to be loosely inspired by a play that's currently all the rage in Paris. A vampire play, inspired by the work of Polidori. The actor in the play is the dashing Colin Venner, son of disgraced nobility. He seems to enjoy Kitty's company - far too much for Pepine's liking, as she would like to be his paramour, as well, despite the fact that she's engaged to the butcher. Drama!
As the story goes on, and Kitty makes a couple of near escapes, she begins to wonder if perhaps she's the next victim of the monster - or if not him, somebody who's intent on copying his work - and why.
Sometimes these Gothic novels can be hit or miss. I read a particularly insipid one not too long ago called MISTRESS OF THE MOOR (and look, I describe them as hit or miss there, too). When they try to get too cute, or feature a heroine that's a little too TSTL, the story can be wearing. MASQUE was decent, though, because the writing style is lively and fun, Kitty is a rather sneaky heroine who enjoys her rivalry with Pepine over the various cute boys' affections, and the atmosphere is quite well crafted. Between the sinister masquerades and the vampire plays, it was pretty engrossing.
If you get the edition that I have, though, don't read the back - it has a major spoiler. -_-
Oh, and check out what I found in the heart of my copy: an ad for a brand of cigarettes that isn't even made anymore! I thought that was too funny, and just had to snap a picture. (The back of the ad features the "male" version, with a 70s action hero-type guy sitting on a log with his feet buried in the sand and his mustard-yellow sweater tied around his neck. Above his head, it says, "After all I'd heard I decided to either quit or smoke True. I smoke True." Copyright on both is 1976.)
This book was written by the same lady who wrote SATAN'S MISTRESS, a book that I enjoyed (sort of??? check out my review for that shit, because it manThis book was written by the same lady who wrote SATAN'S MISTRESS, a book that I enjoyed (sort of??? check out my review for that shit, because it managed to be both boring and insane). Also I bought this for the cover and the title. And also it's published by Playboy Press who ACTUALLY used to print books that weren't just pictures of naked ladies. Wat....more
If you've read the Dollanganger series, you probably remember that the grandmother character in FLOWERS IN THE ATTIC had serious issues. But how did she get that way? Aren't you curious?
GARDEN OF SHADOWS is about a girl named Olivia. Tall and plain, she's been raised her whole life as the son her father wanted but never got. Beneath that homely brow of hers is a sharpened mind, and an almost heartbreaking desire to be loved and adored. She's absolutely thrilled when she finds out she's to marry a protege of her father's: the dashing and debonair Malcolm. He seems to like the fact that she's not like other woman, and proposes to her early on. But things are not what they seem, and happiness is elusive.
***WARNING: SPOILERS***
This is one of those books that, like the first two in the series, actually had me setting the volume aside, taking a deep breath, and thinking to myself, "WOW, THAT WAS SO MESSED UP." Over the course of the novel, we see Olivia, maddened with jealousy, betrayal, and impotent rage, slowly lose her desire to please and be loved; instead, she becomes cruel and controlling, using fear to influence where she failed at charm.
And oh, her husband, let's not forget about Malcolm. He never got over his mother leaving him when he was a child, and it's given him a severe complex about women. When his wife still loved him, he flirted with other, prettier women in front of her eyes and let them mock her without saying a word. When his father remarries Alicia, and Malcolm lays eyes on the stepmother who is the spitting image of his own beloved mother in her prime, he sneaks into her room at night and rapes her for months. When she becomes pregnant, Olivia locks her away in the attic and Alicia eventually goes mad.
Then there's Corinne and Christopher, the two who started the Dollanganger legacy...
I'm honestly shocked that this is marked as young adult on Goodreads. Maybe it's because so many people managed to get their hands on these volumes as children and teens, and the parents were none the wiser because of the innocent (but creepy) looking covers and titles. They're tawdry, and full of abuse, incest, sex, and corruption, and people being murdered or tormented.
That said, as a Gothic novel for adults, it's quite compelling. Andrews has a unique and adaptable style, which she manages to tailor for each of her narrating characters while also keeping true to her own style. She's excellent at foreshadowing and providing just enough drama to keep readers turning the pages without every overwhelming them. They're atmospheric and trashy, but not dumb in the slightest. I've thoroughly enjoyed every book in this series I've read, even if they're a bit much.
Now I kind of want to reread the first two books in the series to see if Olivia's narrative reveals any further clues with the power of hindsight...
He could not imagine her, could not even see her except through the eyes of his dark madness (168).
I've owned my copy of this book since I was in high school, which doesn't sound too impressive until you realize that that was ten years ago. (Fun fact: my nickname for this teen horror writer back when I was in high school was "Deathkins." Because her stories always involved death. I know, I know, I'm so original.) My bookshelves have undergone several purges over the years, but SWANS IN THE MIST always made the cut because it's such a weird book.
A very weird book.
**SPOILERS TO FOLLOW***
Lyda is a seventeen year old girl whose older, glamorous model sister has gotten married. It's the classic story: pretty young thing meets suave older guy. Except not quite. Because Lilli's new husband, Jason Ducat, is more than a little creepy. His daughter, Victoire, acts more like a jealous girlfriend than his offspring. He doesn't allow Lilli, Lyda, or Victoire to wear makeup or perfume. He caresses a pocket watch whenever he's in thought. And he gets much too close to Lyda.
At first, Lyda tries to get along with Jason and his creepy family for Lilli's sake. She's only visiting Northwind for a short while before she goes back to school, and she misses her sister. But the more Lyda finds out about the family dynamic, the more she wants to leave. Jason has two children, Jon and Victoire, from two different wives. Both of those wives are now dead. He likes to go hunting, and he takes the whole family with him. And on more than one occasion, Lyda is almost positive that he's been watching her sleep. She's more than happy when it's time to go back to boarding school.
Except girlfriend just can't catch a break, because she's summoned to the dean's office to find out that her sister is dead...and Jason is now her legal guardian. That's when things get especially creepy.
He drugs her and then locks her in a tower. Every day, he visits her to give her lessons on how to act like what he considers a proper woman. Humility and obedience.
"Here you will learn what is really important: obedience, courtesy, respect, humility, neatness. Above all you will learn to be a dutiful daughter, to never give me cause to worry, or to be jealous the way" - he caught himself up, paused, and then concluded. "The way some people have" (144).
He gives her a notebook, which he calls the Book of Obedience, and forces her to write her "sins" in it every day - or she doesn't get food or water. Lyda's new father figure is determined to mold her into the perfect daughter, and if she resists, he's made it clear that she will die.
Did he sense it? Revel in it? Enjoy her submission and revulsion? (170)
SWANS IN THE MIST is so messed up, so cheesy, so over the top. You know what you're getting into with that purple cover with the bad Photoshop, and it just goes down hill from there (or uphill, if you're like me and find that kind of thing amusing). Deathkins likes to use bizarre slang, like "yo bro" or "meow mixing it up" (for cat-fighting) that gives the book a weird, sitcom-y feel. The plot is so insane, and it's precociously creepy. I mean at one point, Lyda actually catches Jason banging the housekeeper against the wall. It's not descriptive, but it's obvious what they're doing. At the same time, the story line is tense, and Lyda is a likable enough character that you're constantly rooting for her. She's resourceful, clever, persistent. You know if anyone can outmatch Jason, she can.
SWANS IN THE MIST kind of reminds me of those lurid Gothic novels from the 60s and 70s. Even the title kind of feels like it could be one of those Victoria Holt knock-offs (and I love me some Victoria Holt). I've kept this book because it's so weird, and there really isn't an audience for it because it's simultaneously too adult and too childish; like V.C. Andrews, if V.C. was a little less explicit and melodramatic. If you come across a copy of this, it's certainly worth the read.
Okay, so here's the thing. All Anne Stuart books are basically varying degrees of sameness. There's always the prudish and possibly tortured, but still determined heroine who meets the mysterious and possibly evil, but still ultimately noble hero amidst some sort of sinister backdrop of nefarious circumstances. The hero probably seems like he's going to be the villain for a while-- and sometimes he even is-- but there's always some greater evil that makes him realize that, sigh, he has to abandon his nihilist ways to care about something, so it might as well be her, I guess.
This is literally the formula in every single one of her books-- and to be honest, I don't even care, because when it works, I love it. Unfortunately, not all Anne Stuart books are created equal. I actually think, for the most part, her older historical romances are the best. PRINCE OF MAGIC is one of the really good ones, and it comes across as kind of being like a cross between LORD OF DANGER and RITUAL SINS.
Lizzie is forced to leave Dorset after shaming her family by being caught dancing in the woods in her underthings, thus terminating her engagement with a hypocritical lecher and earning her family's scorn. She's sent to live with a cousin who lives in this idealistic woodsy town with a crumbling abbey and a sinister forest. The cousin's family consists of a prudish aunt and uncle, her good-hearted cousin Jane, spoiled twins named Edwina and Edward, and the mysterious Gabriel, a recluse known as the Dark Man who lives in a tower.
Gabriel used to be a monk but then he became more interested in druidism and paganism, much to the interests of the pathologically sadistic couple, the Chiltons, who have a rather, ahem, incendiary plan for Beltane. Gabriel thinks they're idiots who are basically just using the trappings of a religion they don't understand as window dressing for their own debaucheries-- which is actually excellent and still-relevant commentary on cultural appropriation that continues to happen to this day to Native and Eastern religions-- but anyway, he's basically doing his best to stall and rebuff them, while still holding on to his "I don't care" mentality, but obviously, this being a romance novel, that doesn't work.
The villains in this book were appropriately twisted, as befitting a book that has cults and ritualistic sacrifice. There were scenes in this book that gave me chills, and the climax was like something out of a horror movie. I also actually really liked the secondary romance. Anne Stuart includes a lot of those in her books and sometimes they take up way too much page time, but I actually loved Peter and Jane almost as much as I loved the main couple. The forbidden romance, high stakes, and sense of danger really added a lot of spice to the romance, and the sex scenes were hot. Plus, there's a heavy Gothic atmosphere and two rather hilarious ghosts. I ended up loving virtually everything about this.
I think I have a new favorite Anne Stuart book to grace my god-tier romance list.
I enjoyed Laura Kinsale's SHADOWHEART so much that I immediately went out and bought all of her ebooks that were on sale. I'm very picky about what I enjoy in historical romances and SHADOWHEART had all of it - a strong heroine, a brooding hero, kinky sexy times, court intrigue, love, danger, gorgeous writing. I wanted to quote the entire book, it was so beautifully, passionately written. The only reason it didn't get five solid stars was because sometimes the angst was so intense and so unpleasant that reading actually became a chore, especially since the hero's Broody McBrooderson attitude was a total 180 from his character in the first half of the book. But the slightly-too-long length and inconsistent characterization were just minor qualms I could afford to nitpick about because I loved the book so much. As soon as I put it down, I said to myself, "I need to read ALL the things by this author!"
UNCERTAIN MAGIC is one of Kinsale's earliest books. SHADOWHEART was published in 2004, and this book was published in 1987. Sometimes I'll read a book by an author whose later works I like and I'll be totally shocked by how different (read: bad) their earlier works are (e.g., Lisa Kleypas). My expectations going into UNCERTAIN MAGIC were tempered by the expectation that as an earlier book written nearly twenty years before the book I had just read, there was a possibility it might not be as good.
I'm a little blown away by how awesome UNCERTAIN MAGIC was. Especially as a backlist title.
Like SHADOWHEART, UNCERTAIN MAGIC has a lot of the elements that I love in historical romance. Faelan Savigar is a sexy Irish Earl, called "the Devil Earl" by the townsfolk. He's dark, brooding, dangerous... and possibly mad. "OH YES," I bet you're thinking. "GIVE ME THAT HOT, HOT BYRONIC LOVING." The heroine is also pretty cool, even if her name "Roddy" hearkens back to those unfortunately-named protagonists penned by author Jennifer Wilde (it's short for Roderica). Roddy is gifted (or cursed, depending on how you look at it) with the ability of empathy: she can read the minds of both people and animals. The only person she's ever met who she can't read is Faelan.
They end up getting married out of convenience, and the sex scenes are numerous and steamy. But Faelan has secrets. Even if he's not mad, it's clear that he has involvement in the Irish rebellion, and won't balk at violence when it comes from dealing with the people who get in his way. His home in Iveragh is Gothic and appropriately spooky, and I loved the atmosphere of the Irish countryside.
One thing that makes UNCERTAIN MAGIC unusual is the paranormal element. There weren't a lot of paranormal romances back in the day - I don't feel like the genre really took off until the late-1990s, with the advent of things like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Interview with the Vampire (the movie), and the Anita Blake series. Until that point, I feel like paranormal creatures were viewed more from a horror lens than a romantic lens, although there would still be crossover occasionally with things like Fright Night. I like the way Kinsale incorporated the magic element into this book. There's a Tam Lin-twist towards the end, and I thought the reason that Roddy could never read Faelan's mind (which is never explicitly stated, only implied) was very, very clever.
SHADOWHEART was a four-star read that fell just short of the five-star mark. Even though I'm also giving UNCERTAIN MAGIC four stars, it's a four-star read that only just rises above the three-star mark. The last 20% is incredibly slow, and it annoyed me how much Faelan hid from Roddy and vice-versa. If they had just sat down and talked for fifteen minutes tops, none of the last-minute gotchas of the last act would have even been an issue. I really don't like Big Misunderstandings.
Thanks to Minerva for BR-ing this with me. I can't wait to pick up the rest of this author's works!
The first half of this book was very good, a solid medieval-inspired gothic fantasy with insane kings, mysterious plagues, religious corruption, and sexy basements. I also liked the selfish and vain heroine, the eponymous Vivia. She reminded me a lot of some of the early 1970s bodice-ripper epics I've read, that follow the heroine's journey from childhood to adulthood, as she grows into a flawed and real person.
VIVIA is an interesting story because it tries to do so many things. I feel like that also becomes its weakness towards the end, but I did enjoy most of it. Vivia ends up becoming a vampire, as her kingdom falls into a slow ruin, and her hero's journey occurs after she is transformed. She marries a really weird and creepy dude who performs Island of Doctor Moreau experiments on his people, and falls under suspicion from superstitious peasants who exercise their own sort of witch hunt when girls go missing.
This is a dark and ugly story, about dark and ugly souls. The writing is beautiful and the world-building is so creative, but like I said before, the first half and the last half end up feeling very disparate, almost like separate books. I wouldn't read this again but I did like it.
Thank you to my friend Caro for buddy-reading this with me!
Nenia ✨ I yeet my books back and forth ✨
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