Once upon a time, in a land far far away...
mstallulahbelle recommended Tregaron's Daughter, either in her journal or in a comment to mine. Tallulah, I am here to say that you have excellent taste in books. Tregaron's Daughter was magnificent-one of the most enjoyable books I've read in a long time. I gave up on Mary Stewart almost a year ago after the first fizz of excitement after reading Nine Coaches Waiting faded and I realized that all of her books were the same, but this book has re-converted me to Gothic romance-I'd forgotten how wonderful it could be. Cadi Tregaron, a fiery and independent fisherman's daughter living with her widowed father, finds her life changing as her adventures take her from a small fishing village in Wales to the fairy-tale luxury of a wealthy English family in Kent to the mystery and romance of Venice. Maintaining her steady head and sense of herself throughout, Cadi finds danger, excitement, love, and family in the large world, and eventually wins a place for herself through sheer spirit and personality. Although beginning with the traditional tale of the orphaned child with the mysterious background who is adopted by a wealthy benefactor, this very well-written and riveting story is part mystery, part suspense, and part romance, and constantly enjoyable. The plot twists are unexpected and occur each time I think the story is starting to get into too much of a groove, and I ended up loving a certain dark mysterious hero. It had a few flaws-not enough romance, for one, and lacked enough character development of the leading men to make it a completely satisfactory romance, and the end felt a bit - cut off - but other than that absolutely lovely and highly recommended. I particularly enjoyed the father-daughter relationship between Cadi and her benefactor and the element in it of a growing-up story, similar to Anne of Green Gables with more danger involved. (and guh! I knew there was a reason I liked a certain person's name, even before I knew any good of them!)
Directly after, by way of further Gothic romance, I read Mary Stewart's Rose Cottage, a minor but lovely book that reminded me why I loved Mary Stewart in the first place(although nothing can really hold a candle to Nine Coaches Waiting) Strong female lead, constantly fascinating and interesting plot, and a nice balance of nostalgia, love for the country, homecoming, mystery and romance, although it had the same flaws as Tregaron's Daughter, namely a failure to develop the male lead and the inexplicable development of the romance only in the last a third of the book(whatever happened to throughout it? Are female writers really so incapable of creating and maintaining an interesting relationship/romantic suspense for the duration of the novel, that they must cram it only into the last one- third and still call it a romance?). Still, I would recommend this too, as it had a highly satisfying(in spite of the skimming) hero and some nice flavors of Thomas Hardy's Far from the Madding Crowd.
And finally, I fell in love yet again, this time with Straight from the Heart, one of those cheesy, low-budget, Hallmark-type films that made me absolutely happy and contained several "GUH" moments that I haven't experienced since North and South a few months ago. (Unexpectedly wrapping a blanket around her when she's cold! Unexpected sensations of jealousy leading to cutting-in on a dance!) If you liked at all those absolutely wonderful films Love Comes Softly and Love's Enduring Promise or even just have a weakness for romance of all kinds, watch this film. :) A combination of the traditional stories of the mail-order bride and the hate-first-love-later of Pride and Prejudice, there's nothing particularly surprising in the plot itself-what is surpsing is how endearing it is and how well it works, how completely I found myself sold on it very soon into the film. Teri Polo is occasionally irritating but always charismatic as a struggling New York photographer who flies to Wyoming in answer to a Country Connections ad her friend answered on her behalf, hoping to make her long-time commitment-shy boyfriend jealous. There, she immediately clashes with blunt, rough-edged cowboy Tyler Ross, who as a still-grieving widower doesn't want her there and whose match-making sister put out the ad in the first place. They clash and rebound on each other delightfully, although it took me a few scenes to warm up to Andrew McCarthy(Tyler) who isn't classically good-looking and behaved as much like a jerk as is possible for a romantic lead. But I instantaneously and thoroughly warmed up to him (and the film)during a certain "Got Me!" moment, at which I knew I was going to love it. The first couple of scenes between the two are rather iffy - and then The Chemistry materializes and from there the film just goes upward. Yes, the dialogue is simplistic and more than occasionally cheesy, yes it's not a particularly surprising plot, yes it's occasionally a little bit too much like the ordinariness of real life for an actual film. But it's lovely, in the fullest version of that over-used term "heart-warming"-basically just something that makes me happy. Rave rave rave about Andrew McCarthy, who after my initial iffyness becomes luscious and is throughout unusually convincing as both the cowboy and the grieving widower - I can't tell you many times I've seen the whole grieving-person-gazes into-distance-and-memory-and confesses-love-and-grief-to-sympathetic-new-love-interest-and-then-is-surprised-that they told them as they've kept it bottled up all this time-scene - but this time, amazingly, I actually believed it-Andrew McCarthy actually made me believe in his loss, made me see the loved ones he lost.
This is indubitably a Guh film, along with maybe only 10 other romances I've seen in my whole life. Watch it.
