in which there is escapism
Briefly, though, I should mention the one-off authors I've been reading in between.
As impressed as I was by the darkness in The Duke, I realised I am utterly unmoved by the dense quality of Gaelen Foley's style. And the fact that our hero fell instantly in love with our heroine, quite literally went "She's an angel!" made me shriek with outrage and close the book. Curious, though, that reaction. Makes me realise just how much reality one reader can demand of what is essentially a fantasy experience. And just how much purple prose one writer can take from another writer.
Because ohhhhhmygoddddd Rendezvous down in Melbourne recommended Rona Sharon's Once A Rake to me when I ordered a book from them and I was quite predictably hooked by the Beauty and the Beast meta wotsie. So I began the book with happy optimism, quite cheered by the first chapter I read online. By the time I finished the book, I was ashamed all over again on behalf of romance readers everywhere because this degree of purple prose is exactly why our favoured genre is so often derided and dismissed as piffle. *moans* It was soooooooo bad it was ridiculous. Painful. And I say that even as a Phantom Of The Opera devotee! Oh christ on a brick. I don't know what the hell was going on there. Have now repressed all memory of the plot and even the horrific prose. All I know was I came very close to being traumatised.
And ah, I just found what I wrote about it at the time so here goes: That Rona Sharon began in such awesome fashion and then became so florid in language that I ended up wincing and skimming for fear of hurting my eyes. It was TOO MUCH! And coming from me, that says so much, I reckon. An overabundance of purple --- practically indigo? Fuchsia! --- prose and then way too many complications and delays and argh just give me my happy ending already. Honestly, it was so ludicrous I'm almost inclined to think it was parody. And to turn those bizarre descriptions into stock phrases was just the height of torture. Eeyuurgh.
It's such a tricky line to tread, isn't it? To write vividly enough to properly illustrate all the fervour and complexity of the psyche in lust and love, and hold back enough to retain some elegance and dignity and beauty of language ...
Damned good thing I had my extra copy of Lord Of Scoundrels to salve that sore. Have I mentioned what a truly wonderful book that is? I have now read it for the second time in less than two months. And yes, it was equally as hot, equally as moving, equally as funny, and even more skilful the second time around. Because this time I saw with far greater clarity just how she set up the intricacies of our hero right from the word go, how tiny little things from the start manifested in his behaviour almost at the end, exactly why he pushed and pulled as he did. And christ, how awesome was our heroine for intuiting just how to deal with him because he is in essence an unloved little boy ... And oh no, not just the cliche. Loretta Chase draws that unloved little boy in exquisitely ruthless detail and it is sheer brilliance. As if I couldn't love her any more.
In complete contrast, an author I was really looking forward to after reading an online excerpt turned out to be one of the most appalling reading experiences. Sally MacKenzie's The Naked Marquis and a bit of The Naked Earl. Cos apparently the excerpt I read was the only bit where the heroine actually displayed some intelligence. For the rest of the novel, she was the most horrifyingly naive creature I've ever met within the pages of a book and that's including Wally Lamb's girl in She's Come Undone.
You want to talk virginity taken to the excruciating degree? Omg. Because okay, yes, in that day and age, I can see the logic of a young woman not knowing what a penis is, not knowing what it looks like, what it does, where it goes and all the rest of it. But that just illuminates just how far from that I am as a distinct non-virgin in this day and age cos reading that girl's reactions made me want to scream, cringe, throw the book from me and hide. When I have to read a fully grown young woman pointing to a real penis and going "What's that?" then I'm mortified on behalf of the human race, man.
And rather unforgivably, I found the writing crass. And vulgar. When it got to the point of our heroine dripping on the floor, that was it. That was enough for me. I may write incredibly violent incredibly explicit porn but at least I keep my characters in some dignity. Dripping?! *shudders* How many ways can I say nightmare?
Again from my offline journal: I feel quite aggressively disappointed with Sally MacKenzie. That excerpt was so wonderfully droll and fiery. But my god, the characters were AWFUL! She was a completely annoying adolescent and he was just thick and penis-led. And the worst thing was how appallingly virginal she was. I mean, ignorant! Just AAARRRGGHHH!! Her reaction to his arousal, to his erection, to his finally revealed phallus. Just made want to scream and hide my head under a pillow. It wasn't even funny, it was crass and AWFUL. I felt slightly violated.
The book I ordered from Melbourne was The Bridal Season by Connie Brockway. Also a purchase inspired by an online excerpt, this one, actually, not the one on her official site. So I was a bit nervous and actually put off starting it for a while. When I did pick it up, it was late one night out of sheer boredom.
And aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh sweet sweet succour to the starved soul. I read half of it that night, woke up the next morning and went right back into it. Cos it was so deliciously funny, both in terms of plot as well as dialogue, great sparkling wit, lovely supporting characters, gorgeous setting, fascinating glimpse into a different strata of English Victorian society. And best of all, the most vibrant alchemical couple of protagonists. I mean, these two ... I will remember these two, they've kinda joined the list of Most Awesome Couples Ever in my head. And Connie Brockway writes with enough flair and assurance that she is my newest writer!crush.
Which makes it particularly frustrating that not a single damned shop in Sydney carries her books so I'm currently trying to coordinate all of them from all the online shops within my budget.
And heh, tomorrow I'm taking the 6.58am CountryLink down to Canberra purely so I can walk cheerily into Intrigue Romance in Garema Centre and stagger out with an armload of paperbacks --- one of which is an out of print Loretta Chase, eeeeeeeee!! --- and then maybe kill time in the real National Gallery until five in the evening when I get the train back to Sydney.
Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeecause I can. *beams*
As impressed as I was by the darkness in The Duke, I realised I am utterly unmoved by the dense quality of Gaelen Foley's style. And the fact that our hero fell instantly in love with our heroine, quite literally went "She's an angel!" made me shriek with outrage and close the book. Curious, though, that reaction. Makes me realise just how much reality one reader can demand of what is essentially a fantasy experience. And just how much purple prose one writer can take from another writer.
Because ohhhhhmygoddddd Rendezvous down in Melbourne recommended Rona Sharon's Once A Rake to me when I ordered a book from them and I was quite predictably hooked by the Beauty and the Beast meta wotsie. So I began the book with happy optimism, quite cheered by the first chapter I read online. By the time I finished the book, I was ashamed all over again on behalf of romance readers everywhere because this degree of purple prose is exactly why our favoured genre is so often derided and dismissed as piffle. *moans* It was soooooooo bad it was ridiculous. Painful. And I say that even as a Phantom Of The Opera devotee! Oh christ on a brick. I don't know what the hell was going on there. Have now repressed all memory of the plot and even the horrific prose. All I know was I came very close to being traumatised.
And ah, I just found what I wrote about it at the time so here goes: That Rona Sharon began in such awesome fashion and then became so florid in language that I ended up wincing and skimming for fear of hurting my eyes. It was TOO MUCH! And coming from me, that says so much, I reckon. An overabundance of purple --- practically indigo? Fuchsia! --- prose and then way too many complications and delays and argh just give me my happy ending already. Honestly, it was so ludicrous I'm almost inclined to think it was parody. And to turn those bizarre descriptions into stock phrases was just the height of torture. Eeyuurgh.
It's such a tricky line to tread, isn't it? To write vividly enough to properly illustrate all the fervour and complexity of the psyche in lust and love, and hold back enough to retain some elegance and dignity and beauty of language ...
Damned good thing I had my extra copy of Lord Of Scoundrels to salve that sore. Have I mentioned what a truly wonderful book that is? I have now read it for the second time in less than two months. And yes, it was equally as hot, equally as moving, equally as funny, and even more skilful the second time around. Because this time I saw with far greater clarity just how she set up the intricacies of our hero right from the word go, how tiny little things from the start manifested in his behaviour almost at the end, exactly why he pushed and pulled as he did. And christ, how awesome was our heroine for intuiting just how to deal with him because he is in essence an unloved little boy ... And oh no, not just the cliche. Loretta Chase draws that unloved little boy in exquisitely ruthless detail and it is sheer brilliance. As if I couldn't love her any more.
In complete contrast, an author I was really looking forward to after reading an online excerpt turned out to be one of the most appalling reading experiences. Sally MacKenzie's The Naked Marquis and a bit of The Naked Earl. Cos apparently the excerpt I read was the only bit where the heroine actually displayed some intelligence. For the rest of the novel, she was the most horrifyingly naive creature I've ever met within the pages of a book and that's including Wally Lamb's girl in She's Come Undone.
You want to talk virginity taken to the excruciating degree? Omg. Because okay, yes, in that day and age, I can see the logic of a young woman not knowing what a penis is, not knowing what it looks like, what it does, where it goes and all the rest of it. But that just illuminates just how far from that I am as a distinct non-virgin in this day and age cos reading that girl's reactions made me want to scream, cringe, throw the book from me and hide. When I have to read a fully grown young woman pointing to a real penis and going "What's that?" then I'm mortified on behalf of the human race, man.
And rather unforgivably, I found the writing crass. And vulgar. When it got to the point of our heroine dripping on the floor, that was it. That was enough for me. I may write incredibly violent incredibly explicit porn but at least I keep my characters in some dignity. Dripping?! *shudders* How many ways can I say nightmare?
Again from my offline journal: I feel quite aggressively disappointed with Sally MacKenzie. That excerpt was so wonderfully droll and fiery. But my god, the characters were AWFUL! She was a completely annoying adolescent and he was just thick and penis-led. And the worst thing was how appallingly virginal she was. I mean, ignorant! Just AAARRRGGHHH!! Her reaction to his arousal, to his erection, to his finally revealed phallus. Just made want to scream and hide my head under a pillow. It wasn't even funny, it was crass and AWFUL. I felt slightly violated.
The book I ordered from Melbourne was The Bridal Season by Connie Brockway. Also a purchase inspired by an online excerpt, this one, actually, not the one on her official site. So I was a bit nervous and actually put off starting it for a while. When I did pick it up, it was late one night out of sheer boredom.
And aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh sweet sweet succour to the starved soul. I read half of it that night, woke up the next morning and went right back into it. Cos it was so deliciously funny, both in terms of plot as well as dialogue, great sparkling wit, lovely supporting characters, gorgeous setting, fascinating glimpse into a different strata of English Victorian society. And best of all, the most vibrant alchemical couple of protagonists. I mean, these two ... I will remember these two, they've kinda joined the list of Most Awesome Couples Ever in my head. And Connie Brockway writes with enough flair and assurance that she is my newest writer!crush.
Which makes it particularly frustrating that not a single damned shop in Sydney carries her books so I'm currently trying to coordinate all of them from all the online shops within my budget.
And heh, tomorrow I'm taking the 6.58am CountryLink down to Canberra purely so I can walk cheerily into Intrigue Romance in Garema Centre and stagger out with an armload of paperbacks --- one of which is an out of print Loretta Chase, eeeeeeeee!! --- and then maybe kill time in the real National Gallery until five in the evening when I get the train back to Sydney.
Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeecause I can. *beams*