Wednesday, February 27, 2008

The Gentleman Caller


Title: The Gentleman Caller (1998)
Author: Megan Chance (HarperTorch)
Period: American-Antebellum (1856 New Orleans)
Grade: D-


This isn’t a romance novel. When the hero and heroine have zero chemistry and only a handful of scenes together what is even the point of marketing it as romance?


I wanted to like this book. New Orleans is my favorite city and my favorite American setting. I’m a big fan of Chance’s heavy, but romantic The Portrait. In The Gentleman Caller, she failed to craft a plot or characters worthy of her effort or talent. When the most interesting character in a romance is the heroine’s bitchy, manipulative sister the author has missed the mark. The younger sister should be grateful she at least got some human emotions.


Rosalie and Jack are the WonderBread of romance characters. They are devoid of personality or human emotion. She is supposed to be pious and selfless, but she just comes of as a spineless dolt. He is supposed to be brooding, but instead comes of as fickle moron. Jack is in lust first with his fiancĂ©’s beautiful sister and then suddenly discovers he’s fallen in love with Rosalie. How? They are never together. Why? On the rare occasion she is with him she is a raging bitch. Rosalie is obviously tentative toward men and has a dramatic reaction to her sister’s plight. The signs about her BIG SECRET are so obvious Helen Keller saw it coming. Jack? Not so much.


You could drive a truck through the book’s plot holes. Why would the patriarch of an long-standing Creole family want to marry his favorite daughter of to a lowly ex-con American who doesn’t even share his family’s faith? A faith that is the hallmark of said daughter’s life? Traditional Creole families usually despised the uncouth bourgeois Americas who migrated to New Orleans. They didn’t offer up their daughters and their fortunes on a whim! Why the father despises and belittles the youngest daughter is never illuminated. Worst, The Gentleman Caller is chocked full of stereotypes about women who have ambitions beyond marriage and motherhood, women who have abortions, slavery, and voodoo. It is creepy and red state-y and would have made even a good romance suck. And this wasn’t a good romance.

Monday, February 11, 2008

Love Only Once


Title: Love Only Once (1985)
Author: Johanna Lindsey (Avon)
Period: European Historical-Regency (1817 England)
Grade: B-


Vintage Johanna Lindsey is my romance novel kryptonite. She has a routine formula of alpha hero + minimal character development + abduction plot + secret pregnancy = true love. I don’t know why, but it works for me. Maybe I just expect less in terms of plot and storytelling from 1980s romance. Maybe it is because I love old-school bodice ripper covers. Whatever the case, provided the she avoids the rape and forced sex of her earliest book, I can almost always enjoy a Johanna Lindsey. Love Only Once is happily no exception to that formula.


Nicholas Eden, a handsome rogue of a Viscount with some mommy issues, accidentally abduct orphaned beauty Regina Ashton one evening. He drunkenly mistakes her for a former mistress whose coach Regina has borrowed. They are, of course, immediately in lust. The word of her brief abduction quickly makes the round of Ton gossips and Regina’s powerful Mallory family fears she is near ruin. Regina’s uncle would like to arrange a dawn appointment, however Regina believes her near ruin perfectly fit with her current scheme to have her over protective uncles pick her husband. She insists that Nicholas is a perfect candidate and her uncles reluctantly force his hand. The Viscount, like many a romance novel hero, plans never to marry. In Nicholas’s case it is because he believes any society wife will shun him when she discovers his Big Family Secret. Nicholas treats Regina shabbily during their engagement period in the hopes she will cry off, excluding one night of gazebo nookie. He flees the country after their wedding in desperation.


Lindsey adds a half-cocked shipping/pirate plot that isn’t fully fleshed out to establish a back-story (however fleeting) between Nicholas and Regina’s uncle, James. When Nicholas does return to England he is forced to confront his unresolved family issues while attempting to win back the love and good graces of his wife and unknown son. Regina doesn’t give a fig about Nicholas’s Big Family Secret and is happy to reconcile all the parties involved. Nicholas has been an ass to Regina and thus offers her a heartfelt, if confused, apology for his behavior. Too many romance authors believe that a confession of love is enough to excuse poor behavior. The affective use of an apology along with Lindsey’s charming cast of characters makes the predictability of Love Only Once an asset rather than a detriment.

Monday, February 4, 2008

The Seduction of an English Scoundrel

Title:The Seduction of an English Scoundrel (2005)
Author: Jillian Hunter (Ivy)
Period: European Historical-Regency
Grade: D

The Seduction of an English Scoundrel reads like a historical romance Mad Lib. The plot, characters, and setting are all familiar but appears to have been constructed together with no rhyme or reason. Hunter offers a standard cookie-cutter Regency without even enough historical elements to call itself a wallpaper historical. The hero is a handsome rogue with a heart of gold. The heroine is a beautiful bluestocking. Why a woman with no scholarly pursuits and the intellect of a cocker spaniel is considered a bluestocking offers some insight into Hunter's character development. Jane is smarter than the other women in the book, so perhaps her half-cocked schemes make her something of a Jeopardy finalist compared to the Grayson's "spunky" (read: annoying) sister. The plot revolves around a collection of ludicrous schemes and misunderstandings that throw our hero and heroine into constant contact for no discernable reason. They naturally fall in love, but rather than have an adult conversation about their feelings they engage in competing asinine plots to dupe the other into marriage.


The author stresses repeatedly that Jane and Grayson have never meet before despite

  1. her lifelong engagement to his cousin;
  2. his hosting her aborted wedding;
  3. she, her "spunky" best friend, and his "spunky" sister are all friends;
  4. they travel in the same Ton social circles, including Jane's family's annual attendance at Grayson's family ball.

The real failure of plot comes when book reaches a climax of discovery. Grayson has fallen in love with Jane. He believes she is love with him. He learns about her role in the conspiracy to stop her own wedding, confirming that she was never in love with his cousin. Does he confront her with the truth? No. Does he ask his love to marry him? Nope. He concocts a bullshit plan (with the support of Jane's dopey parents) to pretend he wants her only as his mistress. Hunter attempts to incorporate a sexual manipulation plot appears out of the blue in a novel that offers PG-rated sexuality throughout. At her raunchiest, she includes a double entendre about rhubarb. Yes. Really.

The Seduction of an English Scoundrel is a routine novel of misunderstanding that any romance reader has read before, only worse.