Romance Reviewed
Title: Defy The Eagle
Author: Lynn Bartlett
Alternate Title: A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Vomitorium, Roman Hands On My Thighs, Iceni Baby, Shakin’ That Ass, Is That A Gladius In Your Pocket Or Are You Just Pleased To See Me?…I could go on. But I won’t.
Genre: Hysterical romance.
Our Heroine: Jilana. Yes, really. Jilana Augusta, daughter of Roman merchant Marcus Basilius. Apart from the fact that she’s not his daughter - he knows she’s the product of his wife’s adultery with a brawny Celt so legally she and her mother could well be dead before this fucking abomination even begins. I always thought Roman law somewhat draconian when it came to adultery laws but in these circumstances? Oh, I’m in favour. Killing the missus might be a bit immoderate, but by all means expose the violet-eyed brat on a hillside to die before it grows up to star in horrific ‘historical’ novels like Defy the Eagle.
And seriously, what kind of name is Jilana anyway? Wouldn’t she be named in the luggage-label style of all Roman daughters where they’d have Julia the Elder, Julia the Younger, Julia the Even Younger, Julia the We Really Hoped This One Would Be a Boy and so on and so on? She should be named Basilia, (Or Basilica. Just for lolz.) but that’s just not mellifluous enough for a flame haired, violet-eyed Mary Sue who infiltrates the dreams of bulging trousered ancient Britons and turns up in their heads at night taming fawns in flowered forest glades (She does, honestly). So she has to have a stupid made up name instead. To indicate just how special she is.
In case we are left in any clue about how special she is, she has violet eyes that turn a ‘deep unfathomable’ purple when she is aroused. Much like the prose in this book.
Our Hero: Caddaric - mighty Briton warrior! He’s buff, he’s sexy, he’s bulging muscle all over the place and smiling a smile filled with suspiciously beautiful teeth. Come to think of it, all the ancient Britons in this book have great teeth. Anyone seeing a problem here? He was a Roman auxilliary at one point but now hangs out with his Dad the druid and all his hairy ancient Briton mates grinding their teeth and muttering ‘What have the Romans ever done for us?’
To whoever came up with this myth of Braveheart Britain, whoever is responsible, whoever has contributed to this odious, patronising CRAP over the years, I would just like to take this moment to tell you personally that I hate you with a passion you can only dream of. And all of you cunts who gave us the cliché of the nasty-wasty moustache twirling Roman imperalists versus the plucky little native resistance. (Except for Gossciny and Uderzo, obviously. You’re allowed.) Really - this is the mentality that can only end in thinking that in Ye Olden Dayes princesses in pointy hats rode around on fucking unicorns or something. This is my country, my heritage and this shit is frankly offensive.
If my ancestors ever stood around comparing the squareness of one another jaws and saying shit like “Mayhap the Roman dogs will be running from these sacred shores come Samhain,” then I fucking disown them for being pompous pricks. I much prefer the notion that some way back ancestress of mine was caught nicking sheep from a garrison up by Hadrian’s Wall and offered a legionary a bunk up for turning a blind eye. It’s a much more British way of going about things.
Anyway, yes - Caddaric. He dreams about Jilana doing her Bambi-whisperer act in the forest in advance and his Dad the druid keeps blithering on about ‘destiny’, which is the weakest plot device for boning like crazed weasels ever invented. He’s all ‘Caddaric, she is your destiny’ (In an Obi-Wan voice, natch) and Caddaric’s all ‘Nay, Druid - your Gods sucketh verily. As does my antiquety speaky…verily. Yea.’
The Plot: Our dreadfully historically inaccurate protagonists are caught up in Boadicea’s revolt. Yes, that’s right. Boadicea. Not Boudicca.
Jilana manages to avoid pwnage because she helped Boadicea (Henceforth to be known as Bodie, because on the cover she has an awesome seventies mullet worthy of The Professionals) up after Bodie was publicly flogged and all the Romans, except lovely wuvley lickle Jilliepoos and her cuckold fake-dad cackled and rubbed their hands like pantomine villains. But because it’s that type of book, Jilana is captured as a POW (cue feisty pounding of delicate fists on the back of her capturer) and given as a slave to…dun dun daaaaaan…Caddaric the Crap!
There then follows over six hundred pages of Stockholm Syndrome interspersed with nude bathing scenes. They wash a lot in this book - almost continually. The Celts bleach their hair with ‘lime’, although it’s not mentioned that they occasionally employed good old freely available wee wee for the purpose. Or that you’d be lucky to live to fifty and if you had all your own teeth at thirty you were something of a curiosity.
There’s also a lot of blithering about ‘the sight’, which naturally Mary Sue has, being half myyyyyyyyystic Celt. And Caddaric’s dead mate’s dad turns out to be her real dad. (Bet you didn’t see that coming.) Basically it’s complete fucking bollocks. She hates him, she loves him, she hates him again, she wants to be freed, she hates him more, she bones him anyway and yeah…they just carry on like that until they get married and have six children.
Steamy Bodice Ripping Bits: Well, it’s got smut. I’ll give it that much, but smut in the best fucked-up tradition of slave!porn.
“’Tis meant for us, wicca. Fight me if you must; I will understand and do my best not to hurt you.’
Jilana swallowed, aware of the drumming of her pulse.‘You will rape me?’
A smile, sadly amused, touched his mouth and was gone. ‘Nay, Jilana, I will not rape you. I will not have to. Your pride, your strength, will exhaust themselves and then I will have only to kiss you, caress you and you will be mine’”
Date rape - it was much more complicated before the Bacardi Breezer was brought to Britain.
“A fierce heat consumed Jilana as she found the rhythm. Everything faded save the seductive curl of Caddaric’s tongue and the tension that heightened when Caddaric repeatedly sheathed his manhood in her softness.”
Hot.
“When he flavoured her womanhood with wine she would have protested but his mouth was there before she could voice the words and then she was incapable of speaking.”
Oh…wait…what’s this? Holy shit, I do believe that the myyyyyyyyystic Celtic blood in my myyyyyyyyyyyyyyystic Celtic veins is giving me a vision at last! Yes! I see all! I see that before the sun sets on the next day, Jilana will have a powerful itching in the crotchal region. A fierce and burning itching. A yeasty itching!
Assuming, that is that by ‘womanhood’ the author means he slurped wine out her minge. I mean, ‘womanhood’…really.
I think there was a ‘fiery staff of longing’ in there too somewhere, which was nice. It’s not really a romance novel without some ridiculous cock euphemisms, is it?
What’s Right With It: Ridiculous funny cock euphemisms. Inadvertant hilarity caused by antiquey-speaky and outrageous historical inaccuracies - like women wearing togas. Gets even funnier when you realise the author must have looked up female dress in Roman times halfway through the manuscript, goes into loving ‘Look, I dun research!’ detail about stolae and pallae but obviously didn’t read back to correct her toga mistakes at the start of the novel.
Inclusion of a purple eyed, flame haired heroine who talks to shy, big eyed fawns in forest glades. That’s got to be worth some kind of Crack!Disney Award in itself.
What’s Wrong With it: Pretty much everything you can think of. Destiny, for one. Like I say, this is lamesauce city as plot devices go. It’s like the het romance equivalent of the much beloved sci-fi slash standard ‘Aliens Made Us Do It!’ Although if a romance writer attempted ‘Aliens Made Us Do It!’ it would be the funniest and crackiest romance novel ever written. If aliens had made them do it in this book then it would be fucking awesome - little grey bug eyed voyeurs who scoop them up from the smoking Bodie-ravaged ruins of Colchester and make them bone one another in the interests of pervy alien ‘science’. It would be amazing.
“Go on. Do it.”
“But…forsooth, mayhap, verily…whateth the shit be this?”
“Please? It’s like…2000 years before the American redneck is invented and what are we gonna do for anal probe action until then?”
I’d buy it.