Review: Beyond Seduction, by Stephanie Laurens
**Before I continue and sound ungracious, thank you dihong for this book, without which I would not have been able to spend three pleasurable hours going "WHAAAAAAT? DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND CONFLICT, YOU DAFT COW?!" to the narrator. I haven't felt the urge to write a critique in a while, so know that though the writing itself gave me pain, the shredding of it has brought infinite pleasure.
Title: Beyond Seduction, A Bastion Club Novel
Author: Stephanie Laurens
Genre: Historical Romance
Grade: D+
Brief summary: The Bastion Club is a marriage club, where seven former spies and military types band together at the end of the Napoleonic Wars to form an alliance to help them navigate London Society and woo themselves good wives. Five of its members have married women of matchless birth, breathless passion, deathless love, and peerless character. Gervase (or number six) is a former spy who is persuaded to look amongst the women in his area's Cornish society to find such a woman to wive. He sets his sights upon Madeline Gascoigne, a woman with an unusual degree of independence and responsibility.
This book is a train wreck. An Acela on a nice, straight track headed right into the Hogwarts Express. Just wait for the magical 'sploding.
It was clear the narrator's voice had been subjected to an unfortunate combination of thesaurus.com and Smirnoff. It seems that Laurens wanted to evolve her writing style into something more Nora Roberts-ish--gritty, visceral and a little bit terse. Sadly, the only indication of this is a series of randomly fragmented sentences that only jar the reader out of dialogue, action, voice, THE STORY, etc. and random SAT words used improperly.
If faulty voice was the only problem, I would have been fine. But having the faulty voice made me aware of the massive problems with character and conflict. This story becomes so mind-bendingly awful that I'm less than fifty pages from the finish and I'm not sure I can continue.
First, let's talk characterization. There are no problems with the hero and heroine, or even our six secondary child characters. They're ALL perfect. Perfect, perfect, perfect. Like bloody Barbie and Ken, Skipper, Kelly and the whole brood. Gervase is a battle-jaded ex-spy whose decided to retire to life in harsh--but gorgeous, as she rarely forgets to tell us--Cornwall and therefore must take a wife. For a thoroughly stupid reason, he accedes to his sisters' wishes and decides to look around the local gentry for a suitable bride, instead of hieing off to London.
Enter Madeline. Or was she already in the house? I can't quite recall. She's tall (so he can kiss her more easily), eligible, as passionate in bed as a courtesan just given the Hope Diamond and supposedly brilliant. Her only flaw is that she thinks she's too much of a spinster to be the best match for him.
Would someone please pat me on the back for NOT getting sick all over my bed?
In regards to conflict, it appears that Stephanie Laurens has TONS of problems with accepting tension in a story. When we finally get a little action and adventure, she's quick to nip it in the bud for fear we might actually quiver with interest. Someone gets kidnapped, but everyone else is rushes to point out that there's little chance they'll be killed. SO WHY THE RUSH TO RESCUE THEM?! Someone else gets kidnapped shortly thereafter--because she sapped the life out of the first kidnapping so adroitly that I was surprised to find that plot-point done--AND SHE DOES THE SAME BLOODY THING! I can take the tension, dammit! Think piano wire, not overcooked spaghetti!
I will attempt to stop channeling CAPS LOCK Harry Potter from Book 5, but good grief!
What should have been a mildly mediocre story becomes a disaster of epic proportions. The story doesn't propel you with tension or character development or dialogue or description or anything. It's immediately clear that Gervase and Madeline should be together, if only because anyone else would have to commit suicide instead of living with their perfection every single day. It's saved from being a Wallbanger because there's no emotional investment in the story whatsoever. I gave it a D+ because there were a few words that I had to look up--even if she did use the words wrong; however, it would have gotten a C- if she would have used the thesaurus on the word "sensually".
Et tù, Avon? Where have all the editors gone? And Di, thanks! I haven't felt that much righteous, Nemesian indignation (how's that for redundant?) in a while!
Title: Beyond Seduction, A Bastion Club Novel
Author: Stephanie Laurens
Genre: Historical Romance
Grade: D+
Brief summary: The Bastion Club is a marriage club, where seven former spies and military types band together at the end of the Napoleonic Wars to form an alliance to help them navigate London Society and woo themselves good wives. Five of its members have married women of matchless birth, breathless passion, deathless love, and peerless character. Gervase (or number six) is a former spy who is persuaded to look amongst the women in his area's Cornish society to find such a woman to wive. He sets his sights upon Madeline Gascoigne, a woman with an unusual degree of independence and responsibility.
This book is a train wreck. An Acela on a nice, straight track headed right into the Hogwarts Express. Just wait for the magical 'sploding.
It was clear the narrator's voice had been subjected to an unfortunate combination of thesaurus.com and Smirnoff. It seems that Laurens wanted to evolve her writing style into something more Nora Roberts-ish--gritty, visceral and a little bit terse. Sadly, the only indication of this is a series of randomly fragmented sentences that only jar the reader out of dialogue, action, voice, THE STORY, etc. and random SAT words used improperly.
If faulty voice was the only problem, I would have been fine. But having the faulty voice made me aware of the massive problems with character and conflict. This story becomes so mind-bendingly awful that I'm less than fifty pages from the finish and I'm not sure I can continue.
First, let's talk characterization. There are no problems with the hero and heroine, or even our six secondary child characters. They're ALL perfect. Perfect, perfect, perfect. Like bloody Barbie and Ken, Skipper, Kelly and the whole brood. Gervase is a battle-jaded ex-spy whose decided to retire to life in harsh--but gorgeous, as she rarely forgets to tell us--Cornwall and therefore must take a wife. For a thoroughly stupid reason, he accedes to his sisters' wishes and decides to look around the local gentry for a suitable bride, instead of hieing off to London.
Enter Madeline. Or was she already in the house? I can't quite recall. She's tall (so he can kiss her more easily), eligible, as passionate in bed as a courtesan just given the Hope Diamond and supposedly brilliant. Her only flaw is that she thinks she's too much of a spinster to be the best match for him.
Would someone please pat me on the back for NOT getting sick all over my bed?
In regards to conflict, it appears that Stephanie Laurens has TONS of problems with accepting tension in a story. When we finally get a little action and adventure, she's quick to nip it in the bud for fear we might actually quiver with interest. Someone gets kidnapped, but everyone else is rushes to point out that there's little chance they'll be killed. SO WHY THE RUSH TO RESCUE THEM?! Someone else gets kidnapped shortly thereafter--because she sapped the life out of the first kidnapping so adroitly that I was surprised to find that plot-point done--AND SHE DOES THE SAME BLOODY THING! I can take the tension, dammit! Think piano wire, not overcooked spaghetti!
I will attempt to stop channeling CAPS LOCK Harry Potter from Book 5, but good grief!
What should have been a mildly mediocre story becomes a disaster of epic proportions. The story doesn't propel you with tension or character development or dialogue or description or anything. It's immediately clear that Gervase and Madeline should be together, if only because anyone else would have to commit suicide instead of living with their perfection every single day. It's saved from being a Wallbanger because there's no emotional investment in the story whatsoever. I gave it a D+ because there were a few words that I had to look up--even if she did use the words wrong; however, it would have gotten a C- if she would have used the thesaurus on the word "sensually".
Et tù, Avon? Where have all the editors gone? And Di, thanks! I haven't felt that much righteous, Nemesian indignation (how's that for redundant?) in a while!