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Aug. 17th, 2004 09:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annathepiperLady Dragon, by Jewell Mason. With a title like that and a name like that, it's probably no surprise that this was one of the historical romances that I got as a freebie in the raffle basket I won at Writer's Weekend.
Now, I have nothing against historical romances as a genre. I've even looked over a couple I actually kind of liked. A book called Gossamer comes immediately to mind, though I didn't actually finish it--it was one of the ones I borrowed out of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lyricae's stock while I was still working for her at her bookstore, to read during lunch. THAT was a nicely written romance novel, with good character development and an interesting plot, with more going on than just the hero and heroine making gooey eyes at one another. (I'd like to actually finish that book if I get a chance.) I like Tami Hoag's romance novels, too, the one or two she wrote before she swung over into writing romantic suspense.
However, Lady Dragon was not a nicely written romance novel. Let us count the ways as to why:
* The cover art sucked. It looked like a badly Photoshopped photograph slapped in on top of a painting, and a poorly done painting at that. Now I know you're not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but as we all know, prospective readers do just that. And if I had been in the market for a romance novel in the bookstore, this cover would have put me right off.
* The author failed the Get the Hero Wounded And Have the Heroine Have to Selflessly Tend Him test. I mean, GEEZ, how can you miss a basic staple of a romance novel plot like this? She gets the guy clonked over the head by a stone hurled by a slingshot, makes a big point of having him fall unconscious and be all dizzy and nauseous, which tells ME the guy has a concussion--and then not only is he pretty much fine the next day, but she completely misses the opportunity for the heroine to go "oh gosh! This poor man! I must selflessly tend him even though I've been really pissed off at him for the last six months!"
* And speaking of the heroine being pissed off at the hero for six months, it's a pretty damned specious reason for her to be in that state to begin with. We start off with the heroine's family getting attacked in a raid, her beloved brother getting murdered, and her mother inexplicably abandoning them in the middle of chaos and mayhem. The hero, whom the heroine has been admiring from afar throughout her childhood, bravely swoops in to save their lives--and does so. And yet, the heroine is pissed off at him for six whole months afterwards. Why? Because he didn't come back to see if she was all right. She harbors this petty little grudge against him, and convinces herself that he's an inconsiderate asshole, basically.
* The vast majority of conflict between the hero and heroine is driven by them getting inordinately pissed off over things that would not even be problems if they would just bother to TALK TO ONE ANOTHER. They hurl all sorts of wild accusations at one another, and at no point do either of them say to one another, "Uh, no, that is NOT what happened, and if you'd just shut up for a minute and listen to me, I will TELL you what happened!" Which is reason #1 as to why I spent a good chunk of the book wondering what the hell these two see in one another.
* The hero is a total jerk to the heroine. He finds out that she's not what she seems and decides unilaterally that she is a deceptive bitch. At no point does he actually ask her what the hell was going on; rather, he just flat out condemns her. And, moreover, when he places her under house arrest in her own family's castle and tells her she's going to start learning how to properly manage a household (in other words, to be a proper 'lady'--ugh), and she does this, he gets pissy when she doesn't do it in exactly the way he thinks she ought to be doing it. She tries to make him a gift, for fuck's sake, and he decides without even talking to her that she's making herself a black gown to try to get around his edict that she has to not dress like a pauper. He not only yells at her, he stomps on the shirt she was trying to make him, and grinds it into the dirt. He is a complete and utter asshole, and yet, she has decided she loves this man. WHY?!
* The author really drops the ball on what actually could have been interesting intrigue if she'd done it right. She has this scenario where the heroine is masquerading as her own dead twin brother and maintaining the illusion that he is alive--because she's taken up arms and is trying to help her village defend itself from the raiders who've been attacking it. Because of this, she's funneling all her funds into the village defenses, so she doesn't have the money to buy herself nice clothing or have any other sorts of luxuries around her family hall. She's got bruises in suspicious places, because she's been in combat. Now, our so-called hero takes this all wrong, and decides that her 'brother' is secretly beating the hell out of this girl. But does he call her on it? Does he ask her what the hell is going on? He does find out of course, but at this point he flips out completely and just decides that the heroine is a deceptive bitch, rather than actually investigating her reasons for what she's been doing. If he'd actually bothered to check out what was going on, the plot could have milked that for all sorts of fun intrigue; the hero and heroine might have teamed up to use the masquerade of her brother still being alive in order to trap the raiders. And, for that matter, the slimy villain who is out to steal the girl.
* I really, really, REALLY hated how the heroine was set up to be this bold, unconventional woman who takes up arms and learns to fight--only to turn herself into a 'lady', and cook and sew, when her man commands her to. I hated it when Anne McCaffrey made most of her strong female characters turn all gooey and domestic when they scored a man, and I hate it in this book, too.
I managed to keep reading solidly till about 2/3rds of the way through, at which point I gave up and just skimmed the rest to see if there was any sign of the ending improving things any. I saw no such improvement, and in fact, from what I could tell, the ending was absolutely incoherent. There wasn't much resolution with the whole 'raiders invading the village' problem--and the subplot with the slimy villain trying to kill the hero and heroine both was handled in a deeply lame fashion as well.
All in all, tripe. And annoying tripe at that. Not recommended!
Now, I have nothing against historical romances as a genre. I've even looked over a couple I actually kind of liked. A book called Gossamer comes immediately to mind, though I didn't actually finish it--it was one of the ones I borrowed out of
lyricae's stock while I was still working for her at her bookstore, to read during lunch. THAT was a nicely written romance novel, with good character development and an interesting plot, with more going on than just the hero and heroine making gooey eyes at one another. (I'd like to actually finish that book if I get a chance.) I like Tami Hoag's romance novels, too, the one or two she wrote before she swung over into writing romantic suspense.However, Lady Dragon was not a nicely written romance novel. Let us count the ways as to why:
* The cover art sucked. It looked like a badly Photoshopped photograph slapped in on top of a painting, and a poorly done painting at that. Now I know you're not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but as we all know, prospective readers do just that. And if I had been in the market for a romance novel in the bookstore, this cover would have put me right off.
* The author failed the Get the Hero Wounded And Have the Heroine Have to Selflessly Tend Him test. I mean, GEEZ, how can you miss a basic staple of a romance novel plot like this? She gets the guy clonked over the head by a stone hurled by a slingshot, makes a big point of having him fall unconscious and be all dizzy and nauseous, which tells ME the guy has a concussion--and then not only is he pretty much fine the next day, but she completely misses the opportunity for the heroine to go "oh gosh! This poor man! I must selflessly tend him even though I've been really pissed off at him for the last six months!"
* And speaking of the heroine being pissed off at the hero for six months, it's a pretty damned specious reason for her to be in that state to begin with. We start off with the heroine's family getting attacked in a raid, her beloved brother getting murdered, and her mother inexplicably abandoning them in the middle of chaos and mayhem. The hero, whom the heroine has been admiring from afar throughout her childhood, bravely swoops in to save their lives--and does so. And yet, the heroine is pissed off at him for six whole months afterwards. Why? Because he didn't come back to see if she was all right. She harbors this petty little grudge against him, and convinces herself that he's an inconsiderate asshole, basically.
* The vast majority of conflict between the hero and heroine is driven by them getting inordinately pissed off over things that would not even be problems if they would just bother to TALK TO ONE ANOTHER. They hurl all sorts of wild accusations at one another, and at no point do either of them say to one another, "Uh, no, that is NOT what happened, and if you'd just shut up for a minute and listen to me, I will TELL you what happened!" Which is reason #1 as to why I spent a good chunk of the book wondering what the hell these two see in one another.
* The hero is a total jerk to the heroine. He finds out that she's not what she seems and decides unilaterally that she is a deceptive bitch. At no point does he actually ask her what the hell was going on; rather, he just flat out condemns her. And, moreover, when he places her under house arrest in her own family's castle and tells her she's going to start learning how to properly manage a household (in other words, to be a proper 'lady'--ugh), and she does this, he gets pissy when she doesn't do it in exactly the way he thinks she ought to be doing it. She tries to make him a gift, for fuck's sake, and he decides without even talking to her that she's making herself a black gown to try to get around his edict that she has to not dress like a pauper. He not only yells at her, he stomps on the shirt she was trying to make him, and grinds it into the dirt. He is a complete and utter asshole, and yet, she has decided she loves this man. WHY?!
* The author really drops the ball on what actually could have been interesting intrigue if she'd done it right. She has this scenario where the heroine is masquerading as her own dead twin brother and maintaining the illusion that he is alive--because she's taken up arms and is trying to help her village defend itself from the raiders who've been attacking it. Because of this, she's funneling all her funds into the village defenses, so she doesn't have the money to buy herself nice clothing or have any other sorts of luxuries around her family hall. She's got bruises in suspicious places, because she's been in combat. Now, our so-called hero takes this all wrong, and decides that her 'brother' is secretly beating the hell out of this girl. But does he call her on it? Does he ask her what the hell is going on? He does find out of course, but at this point he flips out completely and just decides that the heroine is a deceptive bitch, rather than actually investigating her reasons for what she's been doing. If he'd actually bothered to check out what was going on, the plot could have milked that for all sorts of fun intrigue; the hero and heroine might have teamed up to use the masquerade of her brother still being alive in order to trap the raiders. And, for that matter, the slimy villain who is out to steal the girl.
* I really, really, REALLY hated how the heroine was set up to be this bold, unconventional woman who takes up arms and learns to fight--only to turn herself into a 'lady', and cook and sew, when her man commands her to. I hated it when Anne McCaffrey made most of her strong female characters turn all gooey and domestic when they scored a man, and I hate it in this book, too.
I managed to keep reading solidly till about 2/3rds of the way through, at which point I gave up and just skimmed the rest to see if there was any sign of the ending improving things any. I saw no such improvement, and in fact, from what I could tell, the ending was absolutely incoherent. There wasn't much resolution with the whole 'raiders invading the village' problem--and the subplot with the slimy villain trying to kill the hero and heroine both was handled in a deeply lame fashion as well.
All in all, tripe. And annoying tripe at that. Not recommended!
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Date: 2004-08-17 11:48 pm (UTC)I have a weakness for Regencies, myself, since they lend themselves so well to having likeable people unable to get together due to a wide variety of social restrictions that they have to wiggle around. Enough conflict to be interesting, but without having to have really dumb characters in order for the plot to work. :) I especially recommend Julia Quinn's stuff -- they're pretty funny and sweet at the same time. And there's another writer who writes about these guys who were spies against Napoleon, and after the war they come home and their mothers all start trying to make them get hitched (as the aristocracy always had to do, it seems). Fun and usually a fairly interesting plot. Can't remember the name but I'll try to find it. :)
I've been reading a ton of romance novels since I came to Japan, since I managed to *cough* find a bunch of them on the internet in easily downloadable form...129 romance novels are a lot more portable on a laptop than in a suitcase. :)
no subject
Date: 2004-08-18 05:16 am (UTC)A Knight in Shining Armor and Sweet Liar by Jude Deveraux are well worth reading, as well. Actually, Deveraux's another romance author that I read regularly. There's a third author I trust whose name escapes me at the moment.
The whole 'if they'd just bloody talk to each other' thing is a common theme in romance novels that makes me want to poke people in the eye.
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Date: 2004-08-18 05:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-18 09:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-18 09:54 am (UTC)And this is my big problem with most romance novels. The conflict is not really conflict; it's the H&H making really annoying, incorrect assumptions and never confronting one another about them. There are some other basic conventions of romance novel writing that I don't care for, but in well-written romances, the conflict is /real/, at least. Gnrg.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-18 10:12 am (UTC)BUT, in the meantime... I am a big fan of Jane Austen, so I have a weakness for novels set in that time frame. I've got four novels of a nice little mystery series set in that era as well (there are only four of them because the author died before she could write any more). And hell, this is what drew me to the mystery series about Jane Austen herself being an amateur detective. So a good Regency romance? Sure, I'd give it a shot. ;) So, duly noted on the recommendations!
no subject
Date: 2004-08-18 10:33 am (UTC)I bet I could figure out some of the other romance novel conventions that'd drive you wiggy! Let me see if I can name a few...
* See previous commentary re: the The Hero Gets Wounded and the Heroine Has to Selflessly Tend Him test. About which I was MOSTLY joking, but hey, it IS a romance novel staple! With all the wounded men collapsing at the feet of romance novel heroines, it's astounding that the Romance Novel Universe has any men in it who are conscious. ;)
* Are there any romance novel heros who aren't brusque on the outside, harboring secret angst on the inside, hugely muscular, expert warriors/riflemen/swordsmen/fill-in-favorite-weapon-here, good to small children and animals, and occasionally scarred but never in an actually disfiguring way?
* Once, just once, I'd like to see a hero and heroine whose story is set in a timeframe where the virginity of a woman is a huge deal actually refrain from having sex until they're actually like, y'know, MARRIED. (The medieval centuries in the Romance Novel Universe must really prize virgins, given the number of nubile young women who decide to toss their virginity out the window because they can't hold back their passion for those big brawny warriors over there that they're not even certain actually love 'em.)
For extra bonus credit, let's see a plot where the hero and heroine don't have sex until they're married--and the marriage is not an arranged one!
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Date: 2004-08-18 10:37 am (UTC)I remember she had a lot of Deveraux, too. And Garwood, as well.
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Date: 2004-08-18 10:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-18 03:59 pm (UTC)Cathy
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Date: 2004-08-18 07:00 pm (UTC)Er, not that it isn't sometimes (or even often) assumed that they've been going at it like rabid, horny weasels since Hero or Heroine fell ill with whatever fever/blow to the head/random injury afflicted them and necessitated personalized nursing from the other. :)
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Date: 2004-08-19 10:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-19 10:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-19 07:14 pm (UTC)Just makes it easier for me, since I skim the sex anyway. :)
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Date: 2004-08-20 10:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-22 01:29 am (UTC)...But no. She must keep her vow to her poor dead mother, no matter that it will mean the end of the world and an additional 3-book contract for the author! Melodrama, melodrama, angst, woe, weep.
Gah.
And I might even have been able to overlook that if the author hadn't found it necessary to make all his characters speak like they're refugees from a 1950s-era Nurse Nancy meets Shakespeare horror.
"He came in revenge," Elion sobbed, blinking away the tears as the pyre burned. She took the bowl and traced the love legend with her little finger, then she shook her head and looked up into Thane's eyes. "He knew my name and came in black terror to Woodsedge, but Mother would not lie before us now if she had not tried to take my place. It was not only your doing, Thane."
(oh, way to go Elion. way to reassure your loverboy.)
Thane closed his hands around Elion's so that the cup was between them. "Do you wish that I had never lifted the finger cup in ignorance to my lips at the honor feast in your father's house?" he asked her in despair.
(yes. now shut up.)
And on, and on, and on. Oh, and Mr. Formal-Speech Thane was supposedly raised by an ignorant candlelighter and a seamstress, abused and tormented in his free schooling, what little he got, and yet he speaks like that. It's like George Lucas dialogue. Pain and misery and suffering, and that's just how I feel reading it!
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Date: 2004-08-22 01:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-22 11:03 am (UTC)I've read my share of doozies in the fantasy and SF genre--though to date, I've found more angst and melodrama in fantasy than in SF. This may just be my choice of authors. ;) But OH the angst in the Aurian series! And let's not even talk about the book by Irene Radford on which I bailed 40 pages in when I hit the part where the hero tells the heroine that all she needs is a good man in her life. ;P
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Date: 2004-08-22 11:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-24 01:26 am (UTC)It's not that it's a badly-written book- it was pretty well written, and I really liked the concept. This guy is an artist, a painter, and he can pull things out of his paintings, leaving blank spots in the canvas, and they become real.
But I had this major objection to the whole.. well, to the Pygmalian aspect, only it seemed worse. See, this guy paints his dream girl- perfect in all ways- and pulls her out, makes her real- and she's supposed to be essentially a brain-dead love slave, existing only for his whims... etc. Bothered me a just a wee bit, especially when he goes and paints her into some deserted island and just leaves her there without a thought- hello, he made her living and breating and thinking, and then goes and stuffs her away in the magical equivalent of a closet when she gets inconvenient. Nice. She did get a bit of revenge for that, at least. Not enough, though!
The book that really takes the cake, though, was a children's book that a friend of mine found while working at a university library. The library had a juvenile section, presumably for the edification of education majors since the whole rest of the library only contained fiction if you could classify it as esteemed literature. Anyway, it was a retelling of fairy tales- or maybe it was just one fairy tale, I forget now, it's been awhile. Whichever- there's this peasant boy who falls in love with a princess, only she's a rude, snotty, impolite princess who tells the peasant boy to get lost- so the peasant boy's fairy godmother gives him a magic stick. And she tells him to take the stick and beat the princess with it, and no matter what the princess says or does, he has to keep beating her, and eventually he will beat all the badness out of her and she will become good.
That book is mysteriously "lost", these days.
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Date: 2004-08-24 11:49 am (UTC)