Anne Stuart Trifecta!
Ahhh Anne Stuart, she of the romance thrillers/romantic suspense books. I wouldnt call her a favorite author or even a very good author (though not a bad one either) But she is undoubtedly a guilty pleasure of mine. Her novels are basically CRACK and you shouldnt be doing it and you know it's not good for you & gonna eat away your brain tissue but YOU CANT STOP. I always go through her novels faster than anyone elses. Dunno what that says about me...no wait of course I do. I have a love of dysfunctional couples and love/hate relationships, something stuart is much more likely to explore than most romance novel authors. Bleh at fluffy romances, bleh I say!
Ice Storm = B+
Of the Stuart novels I've read so far I think I've liked this one most. It's part of Stuart's Ice series which focuses on the lives of various operatives to some shady spy organization called "The Council", this is the fourth novel in the series. The hero here like every hero in every Stuart novel ever is a Jackass with a capital J. and I dont feel like I got to know Killian as well as Luke or Nick (although maybe that was a blessing...) but it was all in all still pretty enjoyable and in fact out of the three books I think this one has the most humor, the most (interesting) secondary characters, the most crazy action packed plot and the most kickass heroine, which considering this is a Stuart novel is not saying much. Most of her heroines tend to be either innocent lambs, ineffectually angry women, or relatively ordinary women who exhibit TSTL behavior (aka "Too stupid to live" behavior). Not so our Isobel, the heroine of this novel. She is the head of "The Council" and is apparently a very effective, cold and capable leader. I say apparently because well....we dont actually get to SEE her do very much at all, most of the plot involves her and Killian the guy she is sent to bring back to her organization for debriefing, going on the run from mysterious forces out to kill them both. Killian pretty much runs the whole show, and Isobel has to just kind of go along with it, while she doesnt do so completely passively, she is surprisingly easy to push aside for someone who is supposedly the head of a large scary spy organization. But there you are. I decided to hand wave this since Isobel and Killian's scenes are really interesting to watch and full of tension and intensity. The crazy stuff that happens all throughout the book also keep it from getting boring and stale. Something worth noting is, Killian does tell Isobel he loves her at some point but she never actually says it back and i feel like stuart missed an opportunity here to show a more vulnerable side to our hero. Killian was interesting and near the very end we finally see him show some damn humanity and of course he was never as bad as he first appeared to be (big twist about what he does for a living, most of you will see a mile away but I will admit it didnt become apparent to me until later on, even though I never suspected for a second that he was ACTUALLY a world class terrorist) but it does a feel bit too little too late. He does have alot of turmoil go on in his mind but even that is rather ambiguous as to his feelings for Isobel and why he feels the need to taunt and provoke her on a regular basis. That being said, the final lines uttered by the heroine are quite possibly the best ending for this kind of story: "Get into bed, I can always kill you the morning". See, this is much better than them going gaga starry eyed like little kids and shouting "I LOVE YOU" from the rooftops and having beautiful babies behind a white picket fence ala "A rose at midnight". It might not be romantic, but it's hell of alot more satisfying and true to the characters. Speaking of characters, I liked the secondary characters in the book, especially Reno, who is some kind of punk rock loving weirdo from Japan and is related to one of the assassins in "the council". Apparently Anne Stuart likes Japanese rock music, who knew? I could have done with less cameos of characters from the previous books but it was tolerable enough. All in all, Ice storm is a decent read and less dark than Sins and far less irritating than Midnight but still unabashedly unromantic and twisted enough to fulfill anyone's kink for fascination with suffering or an antagonistic couple. and by anyone I do mean me. mmmmm hate!sex.
Ritual Sins = B-
I feel like I shouldnt have liked this story, but I did, quite a bit actually. It was completely fucked up, the power dynamics were skewed, some of the plot developments were right out of a B horror movie or a lifetime tv movie and the hero was an obligatory unapologetic psychotic jackass. but I still had such a blast reading it. It's one of those stories you read where you just turn off your brain and enjoy the very trashy ride.
Set up is simple enough, angry young woman confronts creepy but alluring cult leader in order to expose him for the fraud he is because her mother who she was not on very good terms with gave up all her (the heroine's) inheritance to the creepy cult. Ok not that simple a premise afterall, but a very eye catching one all the same. Our cult leader anti-hero pretty much spends a big chunk of the novel fucking with the heroine's head (and then later on the rest of her too) and it's kind of morbidly fascinating for me I must confess. and I wanted to feel bad for rachel (ze heroine) I did but girl was just throwing herself headlong into trouble again and again and I think she even realized she was doing it. It was very much a moth unable to resist the lure of the flame even knowing she's gonna get burned. In a way I almost dont blame Rachel cause Luke I will confess was pretty damn sexy, you know despite the jackass psycho part. In the end Luke's attempts to "break" Rachel backfire on him because he finds himself very strangely drawn towards her or rather a better word might be "Obsessed". I think it's worth noting that Luke sort of loses some power and control in the relationship was they actually have sex. Interesting, since in romance novels usually the opposite happens. The first sex scene between them was of what I will call "dubious consent" even though if this was a real world case I would say it was rape without hesitation but within the confines of the novel and it's bizarre little universe I will say it was a bit more ambiguous as such it didnt completely disgust or upset me the way rape in romance novels (which i have largely been able to avoid so far) normally would. In fact the scene is very much like the one in "To have and To Hold" between Sebastien and Oooh what do you know? The heroine of "To have and To Hold" is also called Rachel. I wonder if Anne Stuart is friends with Particia Gaffney.....Anyway if you know the scene you'll realize what I mean by ambiguous. Although the setting of the scene in Ritual Sins is infinitely more unnerving and creepy. The entire book is very unnerving and creepy actually, which I loved of course. It was a cracked out mess and I'd recommend it to anyone with appreciation for darker twisted or dysfunctional romances, if you can even call it a romance because it's hardly romantic and in the end neither Luke nor Rachel outwardly says "I love you" (I dont even remember luke thinking it but he does ask her to settle down with him and have babies by the end so perhaps that speaks for itself?) Basically Ritual Sins is what it is, a creepy thriller with lots of sexual tension and then actual sex, the plot isnt very intelligent and you probably wont be surprised by most of the twists and turns but it manages to keep from being completely predictable. I managed to finish it in a day or so, a fun fast read. Well fun if your idea of fun is stalkers, murders, cults, conspiracies, evil old ladies, homicidal dwarves and sex in the back of a creepy hearse during a violent thunderstorm. Hey man, I dont knock YOUR interests.
A Rose at Midnight = C-
There is so much that went wrong with this story for me that I'm not even sure I know where to start. It's not even that as a book it was really bad, because it wasnt. Although it was miles away from good. "Midnight" started out with such a fabulously dark and interesting premise, the heroine starts out trying to poison the hero who she blames for the horrible demise of her family. So the heroine who is *gasp* french and had the misfortune to be living in france during the time of the revolution, has to watch helplessly as her aristocratic family is sent to the guillotine. Fucked up right? You bet! So of course I was intrigued. That's basically as much as I knew about this book before reading it, well that and the fact that since anne stuart wrote it, so of course the hero would be a royal douchebag/tortured angsty self loathing alpha male. However I'm open minded and willing to accept this so long as the heroine gives as good as she gets and doesnt behave like a wet dishrag. For a while the book was very dark and kept a good pace going. I was wondering "ooooh what's gonna happen next?" for the early parts of the novel and then slowly as the novel progresses it just becomes more predictable, conventional, convoluted, ridiculous and worst of all DULL. It's not that stuff wasnt happening, stuff was always happening but for one I didnt give two shits about the secondary couple this time around. I normally find the secondary couples/love stories w/e in the romance novels I've read so far to at least be tolerable if not very interesting, but Ellen's and Tony's story was B-O-R-I-N-G. I liked ellen but she was your typical "spunky" and "spirited" virginal anglo heroine and it's just been done. Likewise Tony was typical douchey alpha just without the angst, twistedness and self loathing of Nick, thusly making him a jerk AND predictable. I would so have preferred to see more page time devoted to ellen and ghislaine's friendship instead. Also Ghislaine who started out so snarky, rough around the edges, jaded and basically pretty kickass, just devolved into this weepy low self esteemed starry eyed martyr by the end and the change was so jarring for me that I just I cant believe that they were the SAME person. Nick was interesting at first and then just became irritating, and I so did not get how he even had the NERVE to whine about his life after he heard the shit Ghislaine had to go through in her past and YET she comforts him and is so understanding and sweet about it! YUUCK. Especially when he didnt show nearly as much compassion for her suffering, which brings me back to Ghislaine (SPOILERS here on down)
She's upset about her past NOT because she was abused and had to be poor and starving and suffered so much, but because she feels GUILTY that she sold her body....I just...WTF? She only sold it to ONE guy. The previous time it was AGAINST HER WILL and when she did sell it for her own will, it was because she and her brother were STARVING they couldnt even eat let alone had a place to stay. and she feels GUILTY that is her big fucking issue for most of the latter half of the book. So basically two guys in all and one she ends up shooting cause he's so damn vile and is the one who sold her into prostitution the first time against her will. Which brings me to the point where I nearly slammed the book against the wall, she finally realizes she loves nicholas and spending time with him or whatever. Hurray right? WRONG. She decides after a week or so of amazing happiness (her words) that she has to leave. and "there is no choice, not at all" and she has to do it for "his sake" cause she's unworthy and she only cause him trouble and she cant be happy she knows that and I just...WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK? WHAT KIND OF LOGIC IS THIS? ARE YOU STUPID? Like she spends half the book trying to either kill this guy or get away from him, then gives up, starts to fall for him (since she loved him once w/e w/e sounds like stockholme syndrome to me) and he starts being sweet to her and now they get one all swell and nice and she decides NOW is the point where she must leave. I seriously, wanted to hurl the book against the wall so very badly. It was such a transparent lazy way to try to squeeze out some more drama for the remaining 80 pages of the book. What's doubly irritating is, if she really wanted to go off into this stupid sub plot she could have triggered in a variety of much more understandable ways. For example Ghislaine has EVERY reason not to trust nick fully or think he is not exactly "happily ever after" material. I mean if she felt like she was betraying her principles to stay with him and that made her have doubts, or that he was just playing her and lying, or that she simply didnt trust in happiness and was afraid of it and cant relax in this sedate existence cause she spent so much of her life feeling bitter and hateful to the world, then yeah those are all fairly valid (albeit a bit late to emerge) reasons for her to have doubts and considering running for it. Maybe even she felt suffocated by him, I mean at this point she was till kind of his prisoner. He never actually gave her a choice to leave, he did give her an open opportunity to kill him (twice but only the second one was obvious to her) but he never told her "Hey ghislaine, if you wanna leave you can" which is kind of really fucked up if you think about it. But again, I can accept that in fiction if the couple is mutually antagonistic/insanely possesive w/e with each other. Which leads me to how upsetting it was to to see how starry eyed Ghislaine gets over Nick. The thing that made other Stuart novels ok for me even when the heroes are being assholes is the heroines dont have illusions about them, they see them as assholes, the asshole heroes seem themselves as assholes and in both cases I saw either the heroine or both characters never go right out and say I love you. So yeah the relationships are fucked up and the power balance is often skewed but it tends to even out by the end and the books dont masquerade as romantic. The final 50 pages of this book is just pure dreck. Her brother she thought was dead isnt dead, the guy she thought she killed is still alive, the same guy who helped on the streets is still ALIVE and well despite being a homeless old man all that time (???) and the guy she first had sex with was alive and of course nick who is such a hero got to kill him and the other guy was killed by tony cause heaven forbid Ghislaine, who was plotting murder for the first half of the book, dirty her delicate hands. Even though that seems to hardly even be the reason that the guys got to do everything. and of course the book ends with the requisite baby/pregnancy. blech.
I know it was written in the 80's and who knows back then it might have been groundbreaking storytelling but right now it's just the most played out cliches to plague the romance genre stuffed into a book that could have been really cool if the author had just been a bit more adventurous or hell even a bit more twisted. In the end "A rose at midnight" was a massive dissapointment and I had to force myself to get through the final 80 pages. I wouldnt recommend it unless you like hitting yourself in the face cause that's what you are going to do the whole time while reading the latter half of the book. The sex scenes also it should be noted, did nothing for me and they were very conventional and lacked the kick of the sex scenes in the other two books I reviewed. They felt rather lackluster and again I wonder if this book being written so long ago has something to do with this.
Vitriol aside, I will keep reading anne stuart and try to stick to some of her later novels, especially her contemporaries, cause so far those havent been too bad. I will however avoid her historicals like plague for now on. Also I cracked up when the word "cash" was used in this book because uh...I dont think they used that term for money in 19th century England. :x
In un book related news I went to the mall and got myself a dress to wear at my sister's graduation (that my mother insisted I attend, and before anyone gives me the evil eye for being a bad sis and not wanting to attend my lil sister's graduation, let me just say that she doesnt want to go either. We are both hostages! Our mother is forcing us to dress up and converse with stuffy old arab ladies! WILL THE HORRORS NEVER CEASE?) I will take pics of said dress once I actually manage to locate my camera.
Ice Storm = B+
Of the Stuart novels I've read so far I think I've liked this one most. It's part of Stuart's Ice series which focuses on the lives of various operatives to some shady spy organization called "The Council", this is the fourth novel in the series. The hero here like every hero in every Stuart novel ever is a Jackass with a capital J. and I dont feel like I got to know Killian as well as Luke or Nick (although maybe that was a blessing...) but it was all in all still pretty enjoyable and in fact out of the three books I think this one has the most humor, the most (interesting) secondary characters, the most crazy action packed plot and the most kickass heroine, which considering this is a Stuart novel is not saying much. Most of her heroines tend to be either innocent lambs, ineffectually angry women, or relatively ordinary women who exhibit TSTL behavior (aka "Too stupid to live" behavior). Not so our Isobel, the heroine of this novel. She is the head of "The Council" and is apparently a very effective, cold and capable leader. I say apparently because well....we dont actually get to SEE her do very much at all, most of the plot involves her and Killian the guy she is sent to bring back to her organization for debriefing, going on the run from mysterious forces out to kill them both. Killian pretty much runs the whole show, and Isobel has to just kind of go along with it, while she doesnt do so completely passively, she is surprisingly easy to push aside for someone who is supposedly the head of a large scary spy organization. But there you are. I decided to hand wave this since Isobel and Killian's scenes are really interesting to watch and full of tension and intensity. The crazy stuff that happens all throughout the book also keep it from getting boring and stale. Something worth noting is, Killian does tell Isobel he loves her at some point but she never actually says it back and i feel like stuart missed an opportunity here to show a more vulnerable side to our hero. Killian was interesting and near the very end we finally see him show some damn humanity and of course he was never as bad as he first appeared to be (big twist about what he does for a living, most of you will see a mile away but I will admit it didnt become apparent to me until later on, even though I never suspected for a second that he was ACTUALLY a world class terrorist) but it does a feel bit too little too late. He does have alot of turmoil go on in his mind but even that is rather ambiguous as to his feelings for Isobel and why he feels the need to taunt and provoke her on a regular basis. That being said, the final lines uttered by the heroine are quite possibly the best ending for this kind of story: "Get into bed, I can always kill you the morning". See, this is much better than them going gaga starry eyed like little kids and shouting "I LOVE YOU" from the rooftops and having beautiful babies behind a white picket fence ala "A rose at midnight". It might not be romantic, but it's hell of alot more satisfying and true to the characters. Speaking of characters, I liked the secondary characters in the book, especially Reno, who is some kind of punk rock loving weirdo from Japan and is related to one of the assassins in "the council". Apparently Anne Stuart likes Japanese rock music, who knew? I could have done with less cameos of characters from the previous books but it was tolerable enough. All in all, Ice storm is a decent read and less dark than Sins and far less irritating than Midnight but still unabashedly unromantic and twisted enough to fulfill anyone's kink for fascination with suffering or an antagonistic couple. and by anyone I do mean me. mmmmm hate!sex.
Ritual Sins = B-
I feel like I shouldnt have liked this story, but I did, quite a bit actually. It was completely fucked up, the power dynamics were skewed, some of the plot developments were right out of a B horror movie or a lifetime tv movie and the hero was an obligatory unapologetic psychotic jackass. but I still had such a blast reading it. It's one of those stories you read where you just turn off your brain and enjoy the very trashy ride.
Set up is simple enough, angry young woman confronts creepy but alluring cult leader in order to expose him for the fraud he is because her mother who she was not on very good terms with gave up all her (the heroine's) inheritance to the creepy cult. Ok not that simple a premise afterall, but a very eye catching one all the same. Our cult leader anti-hero pretty much spends a big chunk of the novel fucking with the heroine's head (and then later on the rest of her too) and it's kind of morbidly fascinating for me I must confess. and I wanted to feel bad for rachel (ze heroine) I did but girl was just throwing herself headlong into trouble again and again and I think she even realized she was doing it. It was very much a moth unable to resist the lure of the flame even knowing she's gonna get burned. In a way I almost dont blame Rachel cause Luke I will confess was pretty damn sexy, you know despite the jackass psycho part. In the end Luke's attempts to "break" Rachel backfire on him because he finds himself very strangely drawn towards her or rather a better word might be "Obsessed". I think it's worth noting that Luke sort of loses some power and control in the relationship was they actually have sex. Interesting, since in romance novels usually the opposite happens. The first sex scene between them was of what I will call "dubious consent" even though if this was a real world case I would say it was rape without hesitation but within the confines of the novel and it's bizarre little universe I will say it was a bit more ambiguous as such it didnt completely disgust or upset me the way rape in romance novels (which i have largely been able to avoid so far) normally would. In fact the scene is very much like the one in "To have and To Hold" between Sebastien and Oooh what do you know? The heroine of "To have and To Hold" is also called Rachel. I wonder if Anne Stuart is friends with Particia Gaffney.....Anyway if you know the scene you'll realize what I mean by ambiguous. Although the setting of the scene in Ritual Sins is infinitely more unnerving and creepy. The entire book is very unnerving and creepy actually, which I loved of course. It was a cracked out mess and I'd recommend it to anyone with appreciation for darker twisted or dysfunctional romances, if you can even call it a romance because it's hardly romantic and in the end neither Luke nor Rachel outwardly says "I love you" (I dont even remember luke thinking it but he does ask her to settle down with him and have babies by the end so perhaps that speaks for itself?) Basically Ritual Sins is what it is, a creepy thriller with lots of sexual tension and then actual sex, the plot isnt very intelligent and you probably wont be surprised by most of the twists and turns but it manages to keep from being completely predictable. I managed to finish it in a day or so, a fun fast read. Well fun if your idea of fun is stalkers, murders, cults, conspiracies, evil old ladies, homicidal dwarves and sex in the back of a creepy hearse during a violent thunderstorm. Hey man, I dont knock YOUR interests.
A Rose at Midnight = C-
There is so much that went wrong with this story for me that I'm not even sure I know where to start. It's not even that as a book it was really bad, because it wasnt. Although it was miles away from good. "Midnight" started out with such a fabulously dark and interesting premise, the heroine starts out trying to poison the hero who she blames for the horrible demise of her family. So the heroine who is *gasp* french and had the misfortune to be living in france during the time of the revolution, has to watch helplessly as her aristocratic family is sent to the guillotine. Fucked up right? You bet! So of course I was intrigued. That's basically as much as I knew about this book before reading it, well that and the fact that since anne stuart wrote it, so of course the hero would be a royal douchebag/tortured angsty self loathing alpha male. However I'm open minded and willing to accept this so long as the heroine gives as good as she gets and doesnt behave like a wet dishrag. For a while the book was very dark and kept a good pace going. I was wondering "ooooh what's gonna happen next?" for the early parts of the novel and then slowly as the novel progresses it just becomes more predictable, conventional, convoluted, ridiculous and worst of all DULL. It's not that stuff wasnt happening, stuff was always happening but for one I didnt give two shits about the secondary couple this time around. I normally find the secondary couples/love stories w/e in the romance novels I've read so far to at least be tolerable if not very interesting, but Ellen's and Tony's story was B-O-R-I-N-G. I liked ellen but she was your typical "spunky" and "spirited" virginal anglo heroine and it's just been done. Likewise Tony was typical douchey alpha just without the angst, twistedness and self loathing of Nick, thusly making him a jerk AND predictable. I would so have preferred to see more page time devoted to ellen and ghislaine's friendship instead. Also Ghislaine who started out so snarky, rough around the edges, jaded and basically pretty kickass, just devolved into this weepy low self esteemed starry eyed martyr by the end and the change was so jarring for me that I just I cant believe that they were the SAME person. Nick was interesting at first and then just became irritating, and I so did not get how he even had the NERVE to whine about his life after he heard the shit Ghislaine had to go through in her past and YET she comforts him and is so understanding and sweet about it! YUUCK. Especially when he didnt show nearly as much compassion for her suffering, which brings me back to Ghislaine (SPOILERS here on down)
She's upset about her past NOT because she was abused and had to be poor and starving and suffered so much, but because she feels GUILTY that she sold her body....I just...WTF? She only sold it to ONE guy. The previous time it was AGAINST HER WILL and when she did sell it for her own will, it was because she and her brother were STARVING they couldnt even eat let alone had a place to stay. and she feels GUILTY that is her big fucking issue for most of the latter half of the book. So basically two guys in all and one she ends up shooting cause he's so damn vile and is the one who sold her into prostitution the first time against her will. Which brings me to the point where I nearly slammed the book against the wall, she finally realizes she loves nicholas and spending time with him or whatever. Hurray right? WRONG. She decides after a week or so of amazing happiness (her words) that she has to leave. and "there is no choice, not at all" and she has to do it for "his sake" cause she's unworthy and she only cause him trouble and she cant be happy she knows that and I just...WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK? WHAT KIND OF LOGIC IS THIS? ARE YOU STUPID? Like she spends half the book trying to either kill this guy or get away from him, then gives up, starts to fall for him (since she loved him once w/e w/e sounds like stockholme syndrome to me) and he starts being sweet to her and now they get one all swell and nice and she decides NOW is the point where she must leave. I seriously, wanted to hurl the book against the wall so very badly. It was such a transparent lazy way to try to squeeze out some more drama for the remaining 80 pages of the book. What's doubly irritating is, if she really wanted to go off into this stupid sub plot she could have triggered in a variety of much more understandable ways. For example Ghislaine has EVERY reason not to trust nick fully or think he is not exactly "happily ever after" material. I mean if she felt like she was betraying her principles to stay with him and that made her have doubts, or that he was just playing her and lying, or that she simply didnt trust in happiness and was afraid of it and cant relax in this sedate existence cause she spent so much of her life feeling bitter and hateful to the world, then yeah those are all fairly valid (albeit a bit late to emerge) reasons for her to have doubts and considering running for it. Maybe even she felt suffocated by him, I mean at this point she was till kind of his prisoner. He never actually gave her a choice to leave, he did give her an open opportunity to kill him (twice but only the second one was obvious to her) but he never told her "Hey ghislaine, if you wanna leave you can" which is kind of really fucked up if you think about it. But again, I can accept that in fiction if the couple is mutually antagonistic/insanely possesive w/e with each other. Which leads me to how upsetting it was to to see how starry eyed Ghislaine gets over Nick. The thing that made other Stuart novels ok for me even when the heroes are being assholes is the heroines dont have illusions about them, they see them as assholes, the asshole heroes seem themselves as assholes and in both cases I saw either the heroine or both characters never go right out and say I love you. So yeah the relationships are fucked up and the power balance is often skewed but it tends to even out by the end and the books dont masquerade as romantic. The final 50 pages of this book is just pure dreck. Her brother she thought was dead isnt dead, the guy she thought she killed is still alive, the same guy who helped on the streets is still ALIVE and well despite being a homeless old man all that time (???) and the guy she first had sex with was alive and of course nick who is such a hero got to kill him and the other guy was killed by tony cause heaven forbid Ghislaine, who was plotting murder for the first half of the book, dirty her delicate hands. Even though that seems to hardly even be the reason that the guys got to do everything. and of course the book ends with the requisite baby/pregnancy. blech.
I know it was written in the 80's and who knows back then it might have been groundbreaking storytelling but right now it's just the most played out cliches to plague the romance genre stuffed into a book that could have been really cool if the author had just been a bit more adventurous or hell even a bit more twisted. In the end "A rose at midnight" was a massive dissapointment and I had to force myself to get through the final 80 pages. I wouldnt recommend it unless you like hitting yourself in the face cause that's what you are going to do the whole time while reading the latter half of the book. The sex scenes also it should be noted, did nothing for me and they were very conventional and lacked the kick of the sex scenes in the other two books I reviewed. They felt rather lackluster and again I wonder if this book being written so long ago has something to do with this.
Vitriol aside, I will keep reading anne stuart and try to stick to some of her later novels, especially her contemporaries, cause so far those havent been too bad. I will however avoid her historicals like plague for now on. Also I cracked up when the word "cash" was used in this book because uh...I dont think they used that term for money in 19th century England. :x
In un book related news I went to the mall and got myself a dress to wear at my sister's graduation (that my mother insisted I attend, and before anyone gives me the evil eye for being a bad sis and not wanting to attend my lil sister's graduation, let me just say that she doesnt want to go either. We are both hostages! Our mother is forcing us to dress up and converse with stuffy old arab ladies! WILL THE HORRORS NEVER CEASE?) I will take pics of said dress once I actually manage to locate my camera.