Dreißig
Book Title: "Lady Audley's Secret"
Author: Mary Elizabeth Braddon
Page Count: 362
First Published: 1862
Rating: superfunk - golden - sweet - blah - superblah - blergh - goatfood
One of the best-selling novels of the Victorian age, a scrumptious combination of detective novel, sensation novel, shilling shocker and romance. I loved it, of course, but I did have one issue with it. The case, as it were, is presented so that the reader knows from the beginning what is going on, and only has to lean back and let the hero draw his own conclusions. It would have been more satisfactory, for me, if the secrets hadn't been revealed until the end. But the hero is such a charming one, and the villainess brilliantly, because unassumingly evil, that it's a joy to read. Robert, our hero, is a good-for-nothing lazy bonvivant when the novel begins, and matures only when his friend (*cough*lover*cough*) George mysteriously disappears and he suspects that his uncle's new wife has something to do with it. His love for George is so deep and true (seriously. I mean it's not explicitly homoerotic or anything but if George were Georgiana they'd get married) that he becomes a completely different person for him, solves the mystery, ties up all lose ends and develops into a true hero by the end. I don't really want to say too much about the plot, because I didn't know much beforehand and liked it that way, but there's a spooky, stately house, scheming servants, secrets, everything one could possibly want from a book like this.
Author: Mary Elizabeth Braddon
Page Count: 362
First Published: 1862
Rating: superfunk - golden - sweet - blah - superblah - blergh - goatfood
One of the best-selling novels of the Victorian age, a scrumptious combination of detective novel, sensation novel, shilling shocker and romance. I loved it, of course, but I did have one issue with it. The case, as it were, is presented so that the reader knows from the beginning what is going on, and only has to lean back and let the hero draw his own conclusions. It would have been more satisfactory, for me, if the secrets hadn't been revealed until the end. But the hero is such a charming one, and the villainess brilliantly, because unassumingly evil, that it's a joy to read. Robert, our hero, is a good-for-nothing lazy bonvivant when the novel begins, and matures only when his friend (*cough*lover*cough*) George mysteriously disappears and he suspects that his uncle's new wife has something to do with it. His love for George is so deep and true (seriously. I mean it's not explicitly homoerotic or anything but if George were Georgiana they'd get married) that he becomes a completely different person for him, solves the mystery, ties up all lose ends and develops into a true hero by the end. I don't really want to say too much about the plot, because I didn't know much beforehand and liked it that way, but there's a spooky, stately house, scheming servants, secrets, everything one could possibly want from a book like this.