June books
Jul. 24th, 2013 01:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lokifanSO MUCH REVIEWING
PROBABLY BECAUSE I'M NOT VERY GOOD AT IT
Twilight Robbery by Frances Hardringe
This is a sequel to Fly By Night, which I hadn’t realised. It’s not as good, honestly - or rather, it’s just as good on the adventure-romp side, maybe even better, and there are competing factions and intrigues... I just happen to love me some radical free-thinkers, rise of literacy, and a person transformed by the stories told about him. So yeah. But that wasn’t the strongest part of Fly By Night anyway, so probably focussing on and improving what works is a good idea.
The religion of Mosca’s country involves lots and lots of Goodmen/Goodladies - basically little gods, each with their own personality and physical look (expressed in little statues) and duty - whether it’s sunlight or keeping flies off the jam. They also have a part of a day in each year which is dedicated to them. When a baby is born, they’re given a name appropriate to the Goodman or Goodlady they’re born under; Aurora if you’re a girl born under Goodman Boniface, associated with sunlight, for instance. Mosca was born under Palpitattle, who is associated with houseflies. It’s not a nice name.
In this novel Mosca and Clent, having had to leave Mandelion in a hurry, end up in a somewhat mad city. It’s sort of like China Mieville’s The City and the City, actually, except way better. The rulers, on the basis that a person’s personality is predicted by their name (and the god they’re born under), have split the city into two: the day city and the night city. The day city is reserved for those with ‘daylight names’ - names and gods that show they’re good and wholesome and respectble. The night - well, you can guess. There’s a super-strict curfew and it’s all pretty bloody grim, but because you have to pay a fee to get into the city and out again, a lot of people are stuck. The city has grown up around the only bridge over this enormous terrifying river, so it has a certain amount of power around that.
So yeah. There is quite a bit of grimness, particularly in what one character ends up doing. But it’s basically another romp with lots of adventure and incident, and if that’s what you’re into you’ll almost certainly like this. Also Mosca remains fabulous, and I love her goose and her middle-aged conman.
The Small Hand by Susan Hill
This was an actual physical book sent to me by my mum’s godfather (he and his wife, though we all call them Auntie and Uncle, are basically psuedo-maternal godparents to me and my sisters and pseudo-parents to my mum, to the extent of asking my dad’s intentions when they met him). Very beautiful it is too, this weeny little hardback with a beautiful dustcover.
It’s very short, which makes sense; the book is a classic ghost story, written in a clean and elegant if slightly old-fashioned style and not padded out. I don’t want to spoil, so I’ll just say that I enjoyed it enormously. It’s very much in the tradition of English ghost stories and stands up to the best of them; I especially like the way the supernatural incidents, while very real and physical and scary to the protagonist, nevertheless are set up so that there’s nothing visible happening to him.
For My Lady’s Heart by Laura Kinsale
Having created something of a barney with a couple of flisters with my rant about the way romance gets slammed in very gendered terms, I was in the mood to read some Romance with a capital R. Which this definitely is: it’s medieval romance with a scheming lady and a noble knight. There is a beautiful, wicked young Italian assassin and an eeeevil Italian noble and some swordfighting and attempted poisonings and a fight for the lady’s hand. It is just what I was in the mood for.
The heroine, Princess Melisande, is introduced from the hero Ruck’s perspective (the book switches between them, though he gets more POV time) as a wicked, licentious, long- widowed noble lady, who is rumoured to be a witch. She is scheming and ruthless, for sure. There is this young Italian courtier hanging around her - fifteen to her thirty, and beautiful as anything. Ruck, who is painfully celibate because he still considers himself married to the wife who left him for a nunnery a decade ago, is ENORMOUSLY SCANDALISED by her and her young lover and her spoilt wicked behaviour.
It becomes clear very quickly that Melisande is in a very difficult position, threatened in various ways - although she has schemed and plotted as hard as she can, and is very nearly out of it, free and unmarried and safe in an English castle of her own. So although she’s a schemer, she’s certainly very sympathetic. I was very disappointed by the reveal that she is TOTALLY NOT a ho, and has in fact only ever slept with her late husband - and him only three times. This is because of outside pressures, so maybe she’d have been sleeping with everybody if she could have, but I was sad because I found the whole painfully celibate honourable knight/hedonistic courtly scheming lady thing really awesome. The reason she didn’t sleep with Allegreto, her young Italian courtier (and it’s clear she wasn’t even getting oral sex from him, which... stop ruining my dreams, Laura Kinsale) is again really unusual and cool and then... revealed to be less so.
But even with all of this, it’s complex and cool and interesting and I liked it a lot. Melisande is absolutely fabulous, Ruck is brilliant, and their wedding is absolutely not the end of either the plot or the misunderstandings and conflicts between them. Ruck is terribly heroic and tries very hard to be, and I like that. Melisande is clever and desperate and makes thiugs harder for herself because she just can’t believe they could be easy, and is occasionally vicious to her retinue and to Ruck, and generally I couldn’t love her more.
I suspect a number of you will adore Alledgreto to pieces if you read this book - he reminds me a bit of fanon!Draco, being young and beautiful as the sunrise, the illegitimate son (but only possible heir) of a SUPER EVIL nobleman who had him trained up as an assassin and sent him off to protect Melisande and also to make sure she never married anyone else or even looked at them. Even without certain elements which were introduced then revealed to be false, I really enjoyed the relationship between Melisande and Allegreto. It’s nuanced and involves mutual distrust but also the two of them fooling the world together. When Eeeeevil nobleman shows up their bond is especially clear - they both know he loves them and they’re both terrified of him and understand how the other acts for fear of him.
I am excited for the sequel, in which Allegreto is apparently the romantic lead. Particularly since apparently he likes pain. :D
The sex in this book, actually, is pretty hot. Melisande does a lot of playful threatening to ravish Ruck, and eventually she does get to have him. And she likes to be on top.
Ugh. Seriously, canon hotness, but... maybe I’ll try Yuletiding AU fic/fic in which it’s all illusion & delusion so Ruck will still like her, and Melisande was totally topping the fuck out of Allegreto and making him give her head in return for her hurting him.
PROBABLY BECAUSE I'M NOT VERY GOOD AT IT
Twilight Robbery by Frances Hardringe
This is a sequel to Fly By Night, which I hadn’t realised. It’s not as good, honestly - or rather, it’s just as good on the adventure-romp side, maybe even better, and there are competing factions and intrigues... I just happen to love me some radical free-thinkers, rise of literacy, and a person transformed by the stories told about him. So yeah. But that wasn’t the strongest part of Fly By Night anyway, so probably focussing on and improving what works is a good idea.
The religion of Mosca’s country involves lots and lots of Goodmen/Goodladies - basically little gods, each with their own personality and physical look (expressed in little statues) and duty - whether it’s sunlight or keeping flies off the jam. They also have a part of a day in each year which is dedicated to them. When a baby is born, they’re given a name appropriate to the Goodman or Goodlady they’re born under; Aurora if you’re a girl born under Goodman Boniface, associated with sunlight, for instance. Mosca was born under Palpitattle, who is associated with houseflies. It’s not a nice name.
In this novel Mosca and Clent, having had to leave Mandelion in a hurry, end up in a somewhat mad city. It’s sort of like China Mieville’s The City and the City, actually, except way better. The rulers, on the basis that a person’s personality is predicted by their name (and the god they’re born under), have split the city into two: the day city and the night city. The day city is reserved for those with ‘daylight names’ - names and gods that show they’re good and wholesome and respectble. The night - well, you can guess. There’s a super-strict curfew and it’s all pretty bloody grim, but because you have to pay a fee to get into the city and out again, a lot of people are stuck. The city has grown up around the only bridge over this enormous terrifying river, so it has a certain amount of power around that.
So yeah. There is quite a bit of grimness, particularly in what one character ends up doing. But it’s basically another romp with lots of adventure and incident, and if that’s what you’re into you’ll almost certainly like this. Also Mosca remains fabulous, and I love her goose and her middle-aged conman.
The Small Hand by Susan Hill
This was an actual physical book sent to me by my mum’s godfather (he and his wife, though we all call them Auntie and Uncle, are basically psuedo-maternal godparents to me and my sisters and pseudo-parents to my mum, to the extent of asking my dad’s intentions when they met him). Very beautiful it is too, this weeny little hardback with a beautiful dustcover.
It’s very short, which makes sense; the book is a classic ghost story, written in a clean and elegant if slightly old-fashioned style and not padded out. I don’t want to spoil, so I’ll just say that I enjoyed it enormously. It’s very much in the tradition of English ghost stories and stands up to the best of them; I especially like the way the supernatural incidents, while very real and physical and scary to the protagonist, nevertheless are set up so that there’s nothing visible happening to him.
For My Lady’s Heart by Laura Kinsale
Having created something of a barney with a couple of flisters with my rant about the way romance gets slammed in very gendered terms, I was in the mood to read some Romance with a capital R. Which this definitely is: it’s medieval romance with a scheming lady and a noble knight. There is a beautiful, wicked young Italian assassin and an eeeevil Italian noble and some swordfighting and attempted poisonings and a fight for the lady’s hand. It is just what I was in the mood for.
The heroine, Princess Melisande, is introduced from the hero Ruck’s perspective (the book switches between them, though he gets more POV time) as a wicked, licentious, long- widowed noble lady, who is rumoured to be a witch. She is scheming and ruthless, for sure. There is this young Italian courtier hanging around her - fifteen to her thirty, and beautiful as anything. Ruck, who is painfully celibate because he still considers himself married to the wife who left him for a nunnery a decade ago, is ENORMOUSLY SCANDALISED by her and her young lover and her spoilt wicked behaviour.
It becomes clear very quickly that Melisande is in a very difficult position, threatened in various ways - although she has schemed and plotted as hard as she can, and is very nearly out of it, free and unmarried and safe in an English castle of her own. So although she’s a schemer, she’s certainly very sympathetic. I was very disappointed by the reveal that she is TOTALLY NOT a ho, and has in fact only ever slept with her late husband - and him only three times. This is because of outside pressures, so maybe she’d have been sleeping with everybody if she could have, but I was sad because I found the whole painfully celibate honourable knight/hedonistic courtly scheming lady thing really awesome. The reason she didn’t sleep with Allegreto, her young Italian courtier (and it’s clear she wasn’t even getting oral sex from him, which... stop ruining my dreams, Laura Kinsale) is again really unusual and cool and then... revealed to be less so.
But even with all of this, it’s complex and cool and interesting and I liked it a lot. Melisande is absolutely fabulous, Ruck is brilliant, and their wedding is absolutely not the end of either the plot or the misunderstandings and conflicts between them. Ruck is terribly heroic and tries very hard to be, and I like that. Melisande is clever and desperate and makes thiugs harder for herself because she just can’t believe they could be easy, and is occasionally vicious to her retinue and to Ruck, and generally I couldn’t love her more.
I suspect a number of you will adore Alledgreto to pieces if you read this book - he reminds me a bit of fanon!Draco, being young and beautiful as the sunrise, the illegitimate son (but only possible heir) of a SUPER EVIL nobleman who had him trained up as an assassin and sent him off to protect Melisande and also to make sure she never married anyone else or even looked at them. Even without certain elements which were introduced then revealed to be false, I really enjoyed the relationship between Melisande and Allegreto. It’s nuanced and involves mutual distrust but also the two of them fooling the world together. When Eeeeevil nobleman shows up their bond is especially clear - they both know he loves them and they’re both terrified of him and understand how the other acts for fear of him.
I am excited for the sequel, in which Allegreto is apparently the romantic lead. Particularly since apparently he likes pain. :D
The sex in this book, actually, is pretty hot. Melisande does a lot of playful threatening to ravish Ruck, and eventually she does get to have him. And she likes to be on top.
Ugh. Seriously, canon hotness, but... maybe I’ll try Yuletiding AU fic/fic in which it’s all illusion & delusion so Ruck will still like her, and Melisande was totally topping the fuck out of Allegreto and making him give her head in return for her hurting him.
