Review: "By Winter's Light", by Stephanie Laurens

I actually still have two first generation Cynster books left to read (the final two sisters), but this one

is something of a transitional book between the first and second generation.  It comes before the latest two that I've read and is referenced in the first of those - The Tempting of  Thomas Carrick.

In many ways the plot of By Winter's Light is slight.  The action takes place across only a couple of days, there is a great deal of feasting and merry-making, and most of the actual drama is unrelated to the romance, which is basically about Claire sorting out her own thoughts in her head.  As I finished it, I thought to myself, 'If Laurens wrote Chalet School fiction, this would be it.' There's a group of young people trapped in a cottage by a snowstorm, and on another occasion, a number of children play on an icy stream, with not-unexpected dramatic results.

It's a Christmas story, and a gathering of the clans, and the romance isn't even among the Cynsters themselves, but between the tutor of Alastair and Phyllida's sons, and the governess of Gabriel and Alathea's daughter.  The setting at Casphairn Manor (seat of Catriona) allows for a totally snowed in  Christmas tale, and sets the scene beautifully for the next two novels (focused on the eldest twins of Catriona and Richard - Lucilla and Marcus).

The romance is satisfying, and even when the main characters are not aristocrats but "members of the household", Laurens' heroines still get to have sex before getting married. (Although in this case that's less of a shock to the standards of the day, as Claire is a widow.)

I don't think missing this book would do anyone any harm in terms of understanding the rest of the series, but it was a lovely, light read, well suited to reading over a couple of days while still sick in bed.

Books read in January/February 2016

I really haven't been reading much this year.  As proof, have my "books completed Jan-Mar" Project Life layout... (It says Jan-Feb, because I didn't finish any books in March.)  But I'm planning to get back to reading now.  I have to, or my TBR pile will overwhelm me.

Loving Rose: the Redemption of Malcolm Sinclair (Stephanie Laurens) - I honestly didn't remember who Malcolm Sinclair was, although as I was reading I knew I should know him.  It had been a long time since I read any Laurens, and I think this one may have reignited my love of Laurens.

Netherwood (Jane Sanderson) - This one has a sticker on the front saying "For fans of Downton Abbey" (or something like that).  It's set prior to the Downton era (Edwardian era, late 1890s), and very far from what's going on in London, but I'm really quite enjoying it.  The working class aspect of the story is less likely for this genre, but I really appreciate it.  

The Kingmaker's Daughter (Philippa Gregory) - Oh, my.  I do NOT agree with Gregory's view of Anne Neville in this book.  On the other hand, having read the first three books in this sequence, I suspect the genius of Gregory is her ability to get inside the skin of her major characters - because Jaquetta in Lady of the Rivers and Margaret Beaufort in The Red Queen are the same.  I'm looking forward to The White Princess now.

The Tempting of Thomas Carrick (Stephanie Laurens) - There's at least one Cynster I've missed (By Winter's Light) which apparently contains the first meeting of Thomas Carrick and his feted partner, Lucinda Cynster, daughter of Catriona, the Lady of the Vale.  Lucinda is awesome, and kickass, and Thomas gets there eventually.

Wednesday reads... 17 Feb 2016

And then I realised that it was Wednesday...

What I've just finished reading:
The Kingmaker's Daughter, by Philippa Gregory
Netherwood, by Jane Sanderson
The Tempting of Thomas Carrick. by Stephanie Laurens
The Life-changing Magic of Tidying Up, by Marie Kondo

What I'm reading now:
The Queen's Choice, by Anne O'Brien
Epitaph for Three Women,  by Jean Plaidy
Blood Sisters: the hidden lives of the women behind the Wars of the Roses, by Sarah Gristwood
A Match for Marcus Cynster, by Stephanie Laurens

What I plan to read next:
The Virgin Widow, by Anne O'Brien
By Winter's Light, by Stephanie Laurens
The White Princess, by Philippa Gregory

And all of a sudden, I'm back into the historical fiction in a big way.  Laurens and Gregory have captured my imagination (with Gristwood as a non-fiction addition.)

Wednesday Reading Meme

So it's Thursday, so I've completely missed Top Ten Tuesday for this week.  So, instead, the Wednesday Reading Meme, which seems to have taken over certain other parts of the webs in which I spend my time.

What I'm reading

- "Take this Bread" by Sara Miles.  This month's book for our church book club, I need to have it read by Tuesday, while also working on two assignments, one of which is due by midnight Monday.  I'm through the first 100 pages, and finding it fascinating, challenging, difficult and wonderful.

I've just finished reading
Somehow I've ended up back in a Stephanie Laurens mood.  In the last week I've read Scandal's Bride and In Pursuit of Eliza Cynster, and to be perfectly honest this morning I basically skimmed through A Rogue's Proposal. Not that it counts as "reading".  Anyway.  I'm in a Laurens mood and as much as these books are shelved in my Goodreads account as "trashy trashy romance" I still love them.  To the point that  I was really REALLY annoyed to find that although a bunch of Laurens books are currently on sale in e-form, all the titles on sale are those I've read.

What I'm reading next
Next cab off the rank is definitely Tony Kevin's Walking the Camino: A modern pilgrimage to Santiago.  Kevin isn't religious, and I think it's going to be an interesting read.  I'm hoping to follow it up with seeing Emilio Estevez' film The Way.

Recent Romances

Given Laura Vivanco's post yesterday on the Australian Women Writers Challenge blog, I feel that I ought to post proper reviews of two recent romances I've read, both by female Australian authors.   Both by the *same* female Australian author, actually: Stephanie Laurens.  (I have already reviewed Elizabeth Rolls' His Lady Mistress.)

I currently read and have in my past read romance novels.  I went through a massive glut when I was about 17/18 years old, with a particular focus on the "Loveswept" label.  They seemed to my teenaged brain to be of a higher quality of writing than your average Mills & Boon.  (I had a friend whose mother practically lived on M&B; I read a few, but the repetitiveness got to me.)  Between the ages of 16 and 20 I also went through a Danielle Steele phase, with particular focus on her historicals, like Jewels, Zoya, No Greater Love and Message From Nam (all of which I still own, as I enjoy re-reading them so very much!)  Danielle Steele was my favoured author for airplane reading at a time when I was doing a lot of 14-hour flights, and every so often, one of her titles will occasionally appeal to me.

But it has to be said that I've gone along with giving the romance genre a bad rap.  On Goodreads my tag for romance is "trashy trashy romance".  This shelf includes Stephanie Laurens, Jane Feather, Elizabeth Rolls, and an attempt at Amanda Quick (or if it doesn't, it ought to.)  I unreservedly love Stephanie Laurens, in particular, for her message that love is at the centre of all that is: that marriage without love is lacking, and (in "The Edge of Desire", for example) that love is love, no matter what the pairing.  And because of that unreserved love, I feel rather bad about the shelf-label of "trashy trashy romance".  I still believe that Laurens is a light read as compared to someone like Chloe Hooper or perhaps even Sulari Gentill (wait until I've read her).  But although  I think there's still no liklihood of a flat romance winning any literary awards anytime soon, I don't know why we don't acknowledge writers like Stephanie Laurens, who has to be one of Australia's best known writers when you come down to numbers.

And so: here are my reviews of the latest two Stephanie Laurens books that I've read.:

The Edge of Desire

Viscount Breckenridge to the Rescue

Review: Viscount Breckenridge to the Rescue

Viscount Breckenridge to the Rescue by Stephanie Laurens

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



Heather. Is. Awesome.

There are no two ways about it. Heather is simply awesome. Brilliant. Beyond description. Heather is a Girl Guide and a Regency Heroine bound up in one. Heather is awesome. Intelligent and thoughtful and after she's thought for a while, able to cope with the concept that Timothy Davers isn't actually ridiculous.

It's still a regency romance. It still comes under my personal definition of "trashy trashy romance". And yet it still is readable, the characters loveable, and the thing is, it's just totally Stephanie.

I enjoy Regency Romance. Somehow the historical moment overcomes the sickliness of what can be a contemporary romance. And having said that, it's the modernity of SL's characters that appeals to me: the fact that - like an Austen heroine, they've rarely been entirely on the shelf. They have almost always managed to refuse someone first, before finding their True Love. And the fact that they mange to have sex well before marriage is all about "yay" for the fact that these are liberated ladies who don't belive that a priestly blessing is requried prior to pleasure (even though it always strikes me as historically anachronistic).

Anyway. Love the book: looking so very much forward to books two and three.





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Review: The Edge of Desire

The Edge of Desire by Stephanie Laurens

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Possibly one of the most engaging Bastions I've read so far, due to the depth of the mystery on the one hand, and the intransigence of the heroine on the other. I simply adore a heroine who refuses to let the hero coddle her, and in Letitia that's exactly what the reader has. She is awesome, in the true sense of the word. She refuses to let Derne, Dalziel, or any of the Bastion club overrule her, and she is as much a part of solving the puzzle as any of them.

For as much of a puzzle as there is to solve.

Of course, I'm coming at this book from the wrong angle entirely, having already read the book in which Dalziel's true identity is revealed and the traitor hunted to ground. In fact, I read that book quite some time ago. And yet, I still think this one of the most engaging Bastion Club novels of the series.

I have to admit that I really don't tend to expect much of a Laurens: an enjoyable romp, Regency-style balls and accoutrements, and a happy ending.

The Edge of Desire gave me all this, and a frolicking, rolicking mystery as a side dish. Twelve points to Stephanie Laurens!



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