What You Will and Twelfth Night by Lily White LeFevre
Publisher: self-published
Genre: Romance
Sub-genre: Historical
Rating: 3 pints of blood
Both cover images are works of art in the public domain, unsurprising for self-published books. They do hint at romance and even at a masquerade ball, so to that effect I suppose they've done their job, but something about them puts me off. Too much yellow, maybe? They also look nothing like the characters described in the book, but I suppose if you're limited to art in the public domain, you can't get too picky about likeness.
What You Will and Twelfth Night are a pair of novellas, discovered through a review on another blog. I was intrigued enough to be willing to pay a whole dollar for the first one, and when I discovered the two were inter-connected, each telling the story of the same masquerade party through the perspective of a different twin, I figured I might as well do 'em both in one sweep. So I'm more or less reviewing them as one story, although they do come separately.
For their 19th birthday, Olivia and Viola Gardener will be having a masquerade, and both girls are determined to cause trouble. Ever since she was young, it's been assumed that Viola, the quieter and more demure sister, will end up married to long-time family friend Francis, son of the late Viscount Mabry. Viola doesn't want Francis, though, as she's always been in love with the Lord Carrick. In the past, he's admired her charming and outgoing sister but wallflower Viola hasn't attracted anyone's attention, much less the man she wants. Tonight, though, she intends to dress up as her sister and get Carrick's attention in a way she would normally never dare to do.
Meanwhile, the expectation of Viola and Francis's engagement being announced any day now is putting Olivia in a bad mood. She concludes a bit of misbehaving is in order to make herself feel better, and winds up making a rather scandalous and public bet: to prove her attractiveness, she will kiss Lord Carrick before midnight. Too late, Olivia realizes this might be a bit too much mischief, and such a public affair might wind up having more permanent consequences than she'd intended, but she can hardly back out, having already given her word and put money on the matter. Even more horrified is Francis, fully aware of how reckless Olivia can be and determined to try to save her from her own folly.
It's actually pretty interesting to read two totally different stories taking place at the same event. Each one stands alone enough you don't have to read more than one if you don't want to (and you can start with either one) but to read both gives new insight into some of the decisions the various characters make. There's actually a lot of give and take between all four characters, since not only are viola and Olivia twins, but Carrick and Francis are friends.
A lot of love stories move very quickly, but LeFevre has given herself an interesting challenge, since both novellas take space in the course of one party. In one evening, two couples have to come together in a believable manner. Does she succeed? Well... yes and no. Three out of the four parties involved worked for me, while the fourth just seemed rushed, making Carrick come across as flaky. It's hard to believe someone who could decide on a whim that this was the girl he wanted to marry would manage to keep his attention in one place for a lifetime. I could easily see him realizing he'd overlooked someone worth taking notice of, but instead of taking even the next couple of days or weeks to get to know her better, he's decided after one conversation that this is it, he's madly in love, and he'll do whatever it takes to get the girl. Since Olivia and Francis have known each other most of their lives, theirs is more a story of two friends realizing they've loved each other all along, which came with much fewer issues.
There's some neat commentary in there about the two sisters and the roles they've taken on, how both feel trapped by the public perception of them (to varying degrees), since Viola is supposed to be the quiet and demure sister while Olivia is charming and mischievous. They're treated differently because of these expectations, and while for the most part they accept it, there's a bit of sibling resentment about the other sister's advantages. The friendship between the gentlemen is much less deftly handled, with Carrick at one point thinking it perfectly acceptable to steal his friend's almost-fiancé without even bothering to do much justification over the matter:
Leighton was fairly sure already that Francis didn't truly want her. If he had, surely if he did, he'd have the sort of possessive feelings for her Leighton was already developing. Leighton's panic at the thought of being cornered by Olivia had only started after he heard what she was wearing; if Leighton had a fiancée with a twin, that would have been a warning bell. Francis hadn't heard it... or hadn't cared.
Leighton was also fairly sure that he did. He owed it to both himself and Viola to speak to her at least once with no masks on before he did something irreversible. But he was already thinking of her as his.
Yes, this is what's going on in his head after one conversation, at the moment he discovers it was Viola he was speaking to. This isn't the end of the party, after having spent an entire evening with the girl. His first reaction is not anger, or puzzlement, or the feeling that he'd been made a fool of, but a decision that it's totes ok to screw over his buddy for this chick, because obviously Francis should have realized one chat was enough time to give him serious competition.
Yes, the passage above is pretty characteristic of the writing. It's serviceable, if you can get past the often puzzling punctuation and at least one description of lips being "satiny smooth, but... mushy. Very fleshy."
Ok, I got nitpicky here, but I do think there's a lot here to like, especially if you're a fan of mistaken identities (and there are two cases of it, so double whammy!) This is a pair of novellas to read for the concepts involved, and considering the current price point it's worth spending an evening with the Gardener sisters.
Both novellas are available through Amazon's kindle store for 0.99$ (What You Will
, Twelfth Night
) or in a variety of formats through Smashwords (What You Will, Twelfth night).
Genre: Romance
Sub-genre: Historical
Rating: 3 pints of blood
Both cover images are works of art in the public domain, unsurprising for self-published books. They do hint at romance and even at a masquerade ball, so to that effect I suppose they've done their job, but something about them puts me off. Too much yellow, maybe? They also look nothing like the characters described in the book, but I suppose if you're limited to art in the public domain, you can't get too picky about likeness.
What You Will and Twelfth Night are a pair of novellas, discovered through a review on another blog. I was intrigued enough to be willing to pay a whole dollar for the first one, and when I discovered the two were inter-connected, each telling the story of the same masquerade party through the perspective of a different twin, I figured I might as well do 'em both in one sweep. So I'm more or less reviewing them as one story, although they do come separately.
For their 19th birthday, Olivia and Viola Gardener will be having a masquerade, and both girls are determined to cause trouble. Ever since she was young, it's been assumed that Viola, the quieter and more demure sister, will end up married to long-time family friend Francis, son of the late Viscount Mabry. Viola doesn't want Francis, though, as she's always been in love with the Lord Carrick. In the past, he's admired her charming and outgoing sister but wallflower Viola hasn't attracted anyone's attention, much less the man she wants. Tonight, though, she intends to dress up as her sister and get Carrick's attention in a way she would normally never dare to do.
Meanwhile, the expectation of Viola and Francis's engagement being announced any day now is putting Olivia in a bad mood. She concludes a bit of misbehaving is in order to make herself feel better, and winds up making a rather scandalous and public bet: to prove her attractiveness, she will kiss Lord Carrick before midnight. Too late, Olivia realizes this might be a bit too much mischief, and such a public affair might wind up having more permanent consequences than she'd intended, but she can hardly back out, having already given her word and put money on the matter. Even more horrified is Francis, fully aware of how reckless Olivia can be and determined to try to save her from her own folly.
It's actually pretty interesting to read two totally different stories taking place at the same event. Each one stands alone enough you don't have to read more than one if you don't want to (and you can start with either one) but to read both gives new insight into some of the decisions the various characters make. There's actually a lot of give and take between all four characters, since not only are viola and Olivia twins, but Carrick and Francis are friends.
A lot of love stories move very quickly, but LeFevre has given herself an interesting challenge, since both novellas take space in the course of one party. In one evening, two couples have to come together in a believable manner. Does she succeed? Well... yes and no. Three out of the four parties involved worked for me, while the fourth just seemed rushed, making Carrick come across as flaky. It's hard to believe someone who could decide on a whim that this was the girl he wanted to marry would manage to keep his attention in one place for a lifetime. I could easily see him realizing he'd overlooked someone worth taking notice of, but instead of taking even the next couple of days or weeks to get to know her better, he's decided after one conversation that this is it, he's madly in love, and he'll do whatever it takes to get the girl. Since Olivia and Francis have known each other most of their lives, theirs is more a story of two friends realizing they've loved each other all along, which came with much fewer issues.
There's some neat commentary in there about the two sisters and the roles they've taken on, how both feel trapped by the public perception of them (to varying degrees), since Viola is supposed to be the quiet and demure sister while Olivia is charming and mischievous. They're treated differently because of these expectations, and while for the most part they accept it, there's a bit of sibling resentment about the other sister's advantages. The friendship between the gentlemen is much less deftly handled, with Carrick at one point thinking it perfectly acceptable to steal his friend's almost-fiancé without even bothering to do much justification over the matter:
Leighton was fairly sure already that Francis didn't truly want her. If he had, surely if he did, he'd have the sort of possessive feelings for her Leighton was already developing. Leighton's panic at the thought of being cornered by Olivia had only started after he heard what she was wearing; if Leighton had a fiancée with a twin, that would have been a warning bell. Francis hadn't heard it... or hadn't cared.
Leighton was also fairly sure that he did. He owed it to both himself and Viola to speak to her at least once with no masks on before he did something irreversible. But he was already thinking of her as his.
Yes, this is what's going on in his head after one conversation, at the moment he discovers it was Viola he was speaking to. This isn't the end of the party, after having spent an entire evening with the girl. His first reaction is not anger, or puzzlement, or the feeling that he'd been made a fool of, but a decision that it's totes ok to screw over his buddy for this chick, because obviously Francis should have realized one chat was enough time to give him serious competition.
Yes, the passage above is pretty characteristic of the writing. It's serviceable, if you can get past the often puzzling punctuation and at least one description of lips being "satiny smooth, but... mushy. Very fleshy."
Ok, I got nitpicky here, but I do think there's a lot here to like, especially if you're a fan of mistaken identities (and there are two cases of it, so double whammy!) This is a pair of novellas to read for the concepts involved, and considering the current price point it's worth spending an evening with the Gardener sisters.
Both novellas are available through Amazon's kindle store for 0.99$ (What You Will
, Twelfth Night
) or in a variety of formats through Smashwords (What You Will, Twelfth night).