Empress Dowager Cixi: the concubine who launched modern China, by Jung Chang: some notes

I've been frantically trying to listen to Jung Chang's Empress Dowager Cixi this week, thinking that I couldn't renew my loan of it (I have it on e-Audio loan through Bolinda BorrowBox).  I've just been able to renew it for another three weeks, so I can calm down a little bit and even occasionally listen to other podcasts!

But I'm really enjoying this book so far.

I was in about year 9 at high school when Jung Chang's first book, Wild Swans, was published.  My mother and I were reading the same copy simultaneously - I had it during the day, and when she got home from work, I had to hand it over so that she could read it.  (I believe I perfected my ability to read while walking to and from school during that time.)

I also have a copy of Chang's biography of Mao, but I haven't read that one yet.  It's so big that these days it would come under my personal purchasing rule of 'easier in eBook' (I have applied this rule to, for example, Alexis Wright's Carpentaria and Clare Wright's Forgotten Rebels of Eureka.)  I really do need to read the Mao biography at some point, to compare how Chang writes when her main subject is male, but I really like the way she writes about women.

I'm listening to segment 20 of 57 at the moment; having reached the point just after where Cixi's son, the Emperor Tongzhi (I think, I'm getting this information from Wikipedia) has died.  And this is one thing I find difficult about listening to this book instead of reading it: I have no idea how she's spelling the words (obviously there are issues in terms of romanisation, etc, as well - just think of the multiple ways westerners spell/have spelled Mao's name over the years,) and if there are footnotes or endnotes, I can't look them up.  There are times when I really want to know what Chang's sources are, and the only way I'll manage that is if I eventually get my hands on a hard copy of the book. (Okay, or an electronic copy that has managed referencing well.)

Which, this is me.  I'm enjoying listening to this - and the awesome kickass-ness that is Cixi - so much that if I do see it second hand, I will almost certainly buy it, despite the shelf space it will take up.

(Wednesday) Reads - 21 October 2014

I've let this drop a little, in part because I felt like I was only reading sci-fi: and I'm reading so many things and taking so long to finish them, that my lists were getting monotonous.

But this week I've got two new genres (one of which I don't entirely know how to classify) in my "in the middle of": queer action-adventure/thriller/romance, and something vaguely girlsowny.

The Honor series by Radclyffe
This is not the Honor Harrington series by David Weber.  That one is military sci-fi and although I'm getting close to the point where there's going to be a marriage between three people, I'm not entirely sure that Weber can cope with queerness all that well.  (If I'm wrong, I apologise.)

This is the long (looong) running series starting with Above All, Honor starring Blair Powell, daughter of the US President, and Cameron Roberts, Secret Service agent.  In the last two weeks I've reread books two and three, and purchased and read books four and five and started book six.  I've also got book seven already, and am planning to buy the final book in the series as well as the First Responsders series, which contains a crossover in the third book.

So: my recent reads from this series are

• Honor Bound
• Love and Honor
• Honor Guards
• Honor Reclaimed
• Honor Under Siege - currently reading.

I Capture the Castle, by Dodie Smith (Audio, read by Jenny Agutter)
For my trip down to Melbourne, I - not realising that the e-version of Dowager Empress Cixi by Jung Chang was only available as an e-Audio, not as an e-Book, I'll get into this later - borrowed the CD book of I Capture the Castle, mostly because it was read by Jenny Agutter, who I adore.

I've never previously gotten past the first chapter, and since I read A Brief History of Montmaray I've not entirely wanted to go back to it, simply because I adore Montmaray and am a little uncomfortable with just how similar it feels at the beginning to Castle.  But the name "Jenny Agutter" on the cover was enough to get that set of CDs in my hand.

I got through the first three CDs on the drive down.  I will admit that I'm not entirely sure when I'll get to listen to the rest, necessarily, but I do own the book (the film tie-in cover, and given that Henry Cavill is in the film, I'm pretty sure we'll be watching it fairly soon, as M is a massive fan of Cavill.  But I am really enjoying it, far more than I expected, even though The Starlight Barking is a dear and favourite book.  I love the way Smith writes, and I do love a lot of the characters already.

I know I have a few friends for whom this book is a favourite, and I'm looking forward to finishing it and being able to discuss.

A note: this book is not a historical, because it is set in the 1930s and published in 1949.

Another tracking post - Honor Harrington series

You'll remember my "Skating School" tracking post from some time back.

Having returned to reading David Weber's Honor Harrington books (now at 13 (or 14 depending how you count it) main books, six anthologies, and eight (or seven) spin-offs in three series for a total of 27 titles - I think), I realised  at the beginning of At All Costs (book 11 in the regular series) that events were being referenced that I hadn't read about and clearly was expected to know more about.  Making my way to the ever-helpful Honorverse Wiki, I found a table of the current books and short stories in reading order, which I have, in part, reproduced below the fold.  This helped me work out that I should have branched off to the two spin-off series' before attempting At All Costs.  I've been looking forward to reaching those two series, so it's not like it's a hardship.

(Book titles are in italics, short stories are in plain type with the title of the anthology in the next column.)

I'm now thinking there may need to be some more posts on Honor and the odd way in which I love the books but can totally see the problems in them as well.

Review: The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf

The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf by Ambelin Kwaymullina

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



It took me a while to get into this, but once I did, *what* a ride!

Ashala Wolf is in Detention Centre 3, watched over by her betrayer, Connor, and interrogated by the Chief Administrator Neville Rose. They want her to give up her family, her Tribe - the group of Illegals, the possessors of rare abilities, who live together in the Firstwood, protected by a Pact they have made with the Saurs who live on the grassy plains between the Firstwood and 'civilisation'.

This is utterly brilliant dystopian spec fic. There's just enough world building to get me wanting so much more about this post-Reckoning world. The novel is structured in three almost-perfect acts, and despite being marketed as part of a series, works absolutely as a stand-alone book.

People have been raving about this book since the ARCs became available, and they're absolutely right to rave. The ideas that run through this book are twisty and fabulous: you can see Kwaymullina's view of the world and the way it has evolved in this 300-years-from-now future. And I have to assume that she knew exactly what she was doing naming the Chief Administrator "Neville Rose". It was that fact that made my gut churn all the way through the first third of this book. That fact that made the interrogation that much worse than if he'd been named, say, Gary. It has *such* a profound effect and surely anyone with an ounce of understanding of WA history would have the same reaction. It's not just me, right?

I am so looking forward to there being another book set in this world. I want to know so much more about it, and the people in it. But in the unlikely event that that doesn't happen, I will still have had *this* book, and that is a really important thing.



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[Review] Trisha: As I Am, by Trisha Goddard

Trisha: As I Am by Trisha Goddard
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

There's a moment, late in the book, where Goddard says to her readers that there's no reason to explain the format of her UK tv show, because if you've picked up this book you'll know all about it. She really is writing for a British audience, and her comment merely confirms what I'd sensed earlier on.

But I picked up this book because I remembered Goddard from Play School and from Everybody. It was listed under 'Australian authors' on the Bolinda Borrow Box ebook app, and I'm counting it as such for AWW, because it's an extra, not one of the listed books. (I really must get on with reading those listed books, actually). I know Goddard grew up in the UK, and moved back to the UK, but she lived and worked in Australia for 15 to 20 years, and those were years when I watched her on Australian television, and although that's not a great reason for counting her as Australian, it's good enough for me right now.

I chose this book on a whim, but I'm really glad that I read it. It was difficult to read: because of what Goddard went through, because of the way she was treated by others, because of the difficulty of reading something so open and honest, especially where mental health is concerned. But not surprisingly, the things that make the book difficult to read are also the things that are most important about the story. The racism she experienced in Australia (have we really moved on at all since?) the stress she suffered and her ways of dealing (and not dealing) with it, and the consequences of that; it really is a narrative written for her UK audience, but even without that context, I valued the book and learned a lot from it.

It's the subject matter rather than the writing style that makes this difficult to read. The style itself tends towards the breezy, and there often seems to be a surface shallowness. But I think the breeziness belies a great deal of hurt for Goddard, and that skimming over the surface is the only way that the story was going to be told.

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And because I hadn't linked it here earlier...

My Storify for Anita's day at the Wodonga Library...

Anita Heiss visits Wodonga

I may possibly have mentioned that Anita Heiss(!) came to our library at the end of November.  Getting her here as part of the National Year of Reading was one of my big ticket items of the past 18 months, and a couple of weeks ago, on a scorchingly hot day, she arrived.

And now, she's blogged about it!  She writes about five libraries she's visited recently - in alphabetical order.  So scroll down to the end for her lovely words about Wodonga Library.

Anita Heiss - I'm grateful for library love

And my Storify from the day...

Review: Port Arthur: A Story of Strength and Courage

Port Arthur: A Story of Strength and Courage by Margaret Scott

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



This is a remarkable book.

I know I visited Port Arthur in 1992, and I think I also went there in 1994. Both of these visits were prior to 1996, when the events of this book take place. I remember coming home from a driving lesson with my father on the 28th of April 1996 to find my mother crying, telling us about what had happened.

Margaret Scott is an icon of Australian television, comedy, and literature. When my mother saw this book, she said "I think Margaret Scott was my lecturer in Children's Literature." As someone who watched Margaret Scott on Good News Week, that was an amazing revelation - I am so incredibly JEALOUS of my mother!

But anyway: this book is written by a legend, about an event that will forever be part of my memory - and she does it so very well. As a local to the peninsula, she writes about the community surrounding Port Arthur in a way that only a local could. She writes about the events of that terrible day with an urgency and effect that grabbed at me, so many years afterwards. She gave me a vision of how horrible it must have been: that day, and then in the times thereafter.

What I found particularly interesting to contemplate was Scott's comments on the ways in which history has always been artificialised at Port Arthur, and the ways in which some people wanted to either sweep the events of April 28, 1996 under the carpet, or equally artificialise them. It was a way of thinking about history, memorials, and how we mark and remark upon events that I think will really sit with me in the weeks and months to come.

It's another Australian book that I'm grateful to have read - glad to have read - and that I know I will think back to in the future.





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Review: Above All, Honor by Radclyffe

Above All, Honor by Radclyffe

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Maybe it's something about books with "Honor" in the title (see also the series by David Weber that I'm slowly working my way through) but having found the first three books in this series and read through them at a clip in the past few days, I'll certainly be buying the rest, and the Justice Series, and probably the First Responders series as well. I'll have to ration the buying out as rewards, but I definitely want to read more of these.

Review: Mercy

Mercy by Rebecca Lim

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



The back of the book tells us that Mercy is a fallen angel, and there are hints here and there within the text, especially if you know your angelology (yes, it's a word, I had cause to look it up some years ago when I found myself reluctantly dragged into a discussion on the TV show "Supernatural", which I don't watch). But by the end of the book, I don't believe it's been said outright that we're dealing with angels here. And I wonder how many people would realise that we were if the blurb didn't tell us so. It's not a criticism, mind you. Just a note.

I really enjoyed this book. Although I'd seen it in the stores I probably wouldn't have thought to pay much attention to it if Rebecca Lim (the author) hadn't been a speaker at a seminar on Public library services to YA that I went to. I was so impressed by her, and by what she said about this series, that I started buying the books soon thereafter. It took until January to find a copy of the first in the series (Mercy) and then until now to get to picking it up and reading it. But it was well worth the wait, and now I know that I'm going to want to stay on top of this series in the future. In addition, can you imagine how gleeful I am that I have three more books in the series to read *right now*?

In an interview I found, Lim described Mercy as "a YA mystery/crime novel – but with angels and Latin, choral music, school bullies and a whisper of romance thrown in." Which is basically exactly what it is. (And yay for YA books where choral music - albeit Mahler - is part of the plot.)

Things I loved: the way Mercy talked about Carmen: the sometimes disconnected/sometimes fluid connection between the two selves. I hope that if Ryan continues to appear through the series (I really want him to: I much prefer him to Luc. Although of course he may *be* Luc, which I don't like so much. After all, my angelology tells me who Luc really is... :-) ) that we find out what happened with Carmen; I'll be disappointed to leave her story here, as much as I really love Mercy.

Things I found interesting: the fact that I spent most of the book trying to work out whether it was set in the USA or Australia (the author is Chinese-Singaporean-Australian). I still can't tell. I was fifty pages from the end when I found one Australianism (mention of an Anglican church) which was followed on the next page by an Americanism ("First Presbyterian Church" - the few Continuing Presbyterian churches in Australia do not number themselves.) The issue is exacerbated by the fact that the town in the book has the exact same name as the town in the TV show "Bunheads", which is in California.



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Review: Nzingha: Warrior Queen of Matamba, Angola, Africa, 1595

Nzingha: Warrior Queen of Matamba, Angola, Africa, 1595 by Patricia C. McKissack

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



The thing is, I'd avoided this book because I didn't think the author was black. My thing with the Royal Diaries series is that I will only read them if the author is of the ethnicity of the Royal Princess in question. But then I discovered that Patricia McKissack was African American, and so I was okay to read this book.

There is such strength of character that comes through this book. A beauty in her awesomeness (and strength, and if I repeat strength a lot, it's because that word needs to be part of any mention of this story...) I didn't know about Nzingha before this, but I will know to look for her in African history from now on.

The extra pages of information after the story itself are important. The explanation of how much is known and how much is NOT known is always important in the Royal Diaries books, but this one really was fabulous. I have so much respect for the writers of these books, as there is so much research that needs to be done.



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Review: The FitzOsbornes At War

The FitzOsbornes At War by Michelle Cooper

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



When I finished this book, I hugged it because I couldn't hug the characters themselves. And then five days later, when the news came through that the Australian Girl Guides were changing the wording of the promise, I wondered what Henry would think of it.

Dear, dear Henry. And Sophie! And Veronica! And Julia!

This whole series has been brilliant.

I mean, okay. This book is totally in my area of love, and the characters are so brilliant, and I have to say, if they'd just sent Henry to the Chalet School as they should have done, she'd still be alive because they'd never have allowed her to join the WRENS at that point. I almost want to try that out, in fact. (But that'd be admitting to writing fic, wouldn't it?)


I gave my mother "A Brief History of Montmary" a week ago, and she's now demanding the next two books. Which is at it ought to be.

I adored "FitzOsbournes at War", I mean, I really adored it. Part of it is that when I look at the list of references I've read most of them, and other parts of it is that I know this era quite well. And yet it's also that Cooper brought us along, even thought I knew someone was going to die, but made me cry when it was Harry. Made me get to the end of the book and hug the book, because I couldn't hug the characters. Made me adore these people, made me want them to get back their fictitious island, made me hate the Nazi use of Spain even more than I already did, made me want victory for Montmaray while knowing that it didn't even exist.

It was awesome. It needs to be read. I will re-read, over and over again. And I will probably even write fic. No finer accolade exists. Michelle Cooper, you are awesome.



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Review: Three Gates To Paradise: Articles & Reflections

Three Gates To Paradise: Articles & Reflections by Clare Boyd-Macrae

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



Knowing the author's husband - considering him a friend - made this an exceedingly odd read. A good one, never doubt that, but an odd one, nonetheless.

It's a book of Boyd-Macrae's columns from The Age, many of which I remember reading at the time. If I don't remember reading them, I remember hearing about the events from other points of view.

The writing is beautiful. I thought I owned my own copy of this book, it seems that I don't and I'm kicking myself for it. I want to put this book beside Madeline L'Engle's The Rock That Is Higher: Story as Truth to use it in meditation and prayer, to quote bits of it in sermons that I'm yet to preach.

This is a book of beauty. Of calm, solemn faith; of family life, of the heat of India and the cool of a Melbourne winter. Of contemplation, of conviction, of certainty and doubt. Of the warmth of a hearth and the chill of a football ground.

I am so glad to have read this, and feel privileged. I feel bereft without my own copy to read and re-read: to contemplate and to soak into my soul. To listen, to argue with, and to ponder.

This is a book that makes the world better. This is a treasure.

Review: Bitin' Back

Bitin' Back by Vivienne Cleven

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



Vivienne Cleven is a triple threat for this years challenges. She's an indigenous Queer Australian woman, which means that I can count her book against three challenges. Plus, she's an awesome writer.

I did find "Bitin' Back" a bit difficult to get through. I raced through the first fifty pages, captured by the dialogue and the life and the in-your-face-ness, but then I got bogged down by the difference between Mavis' attitude towards Nevil's presumed homosexuality and my own attitude. It wasn't until I began reading Marie Munkara's Every Secret Thing that I found the way to read Mavis Dooley. I think it's because I personalise things so very much; I kept internalising Mavis' issues and placing her opinions on myself. There was something in Munkara's book that reminded me to read Mavis as her own person without imposing her ideas on me.

I needed that distance from Nevil and Trevor and Mavis in order to be able to read this. The language, the art of writing in this book is absolutely first class. The topic was too close and that's what caused the issues in reading it, but the book itself is amazingly awesome, and I'm so very, very glad that I found my way through.



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Review: The FitzOsbornes in Exile

The FitzOsbornes in Exile by Michelle Cooper

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



I'm a book behind with this series. My twitter feed has been full of people reviewing the third book (and loving it) so I know that I've got something good still to come.

I adored the first book (although my Goodreads review might not seem like it, I did give it five stars), and I equally adored the second book. I also got a laugh out of the fact that while reading it, I was wondering whether Cooper had used particular sources, and when I got to the end, yes, she had. :-) There is so much to love in this book: Henry, who is just plain awesome, Simon the mostly stalwart, Veronica the Magnificent, especially when speaking to the Foreign Secretary's Office, and later in her final big scene... I can't wait to see how Colonel Stanley-Ross' character develops in the next book, and I have to admit that if he wasn't already married and ridiculously too old for Sophie, I'd be shipping the two of them right now.

Which brings me to Sophie. The wonderful, strategic, clever, and far too good for the fluffiness of débutante society Sophie. The line I quoted in a status update about feeling like a one-person League of Nations is marvellous, and I can just imagine her, in Geneva, meeting Edith Campbell Berry and the two of them getting along like a house on fire.

I hope I find a reasonably priced copy of FitzOsbournes at War sooner rather than later, because it's a while until the British edition is released, and I don't like the cover of that one nearly as much as the Australian version.



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Review: The Hunger Games Trilogy, by Suzanne Collins

I read this trilogy in eight days flat.

After many months of hearing everyone around me talking about The Hunger Games, books and movie #1, I

I consider myself luckier than those who had to wait between books, although I will say that I could have been entirely happy without any sequels to The Hunger Games the book at all.  It had a good, sudden ending, with a certain amount of resolution and yet some uncertainty nevertheless.

Katniss is awesome, but undeniably flawed.  Far from perfect, her flaws make what could be a Mary-Sue-like sacrifice for Prim engaging rather than wearing.  Peeta is adorable all the way through until he's not, and by the time that happens, I already loved him anyway.  By midway through the second book I would say that I was Team Peeta if pressed; by midway through the third, I was a despairing Team Peeta-ite.

I've heard from a lot of people that they don't like the second and third books because of the politics, but I loved them.  I wanted more and more and more of the world building, not less.  I

And then there was that epilogue.  It's even more pointless and annoying than the Harry Potter epilogue and that's saying something.  I love the way Mockingjay proper ends - real or not real?  Real, says Katniss - and it didn't need any of what came after.

And I had a discussion with a colleague today about the ending of Mockingjay and the decision Katniss makes at that point.  We were diametrically opposed: I approved the ending and what led to it, in terms of authorial choice: colleague disagreed.  (In case you can't tell I'm trying to avoid spoilers.)  The thing is, over all, I enjoyed the trilogy a lot more than I expected to, given the widespread popularity of it.  They're certainly engaging, gripping books; I was so VERY glad that I had each subsequent book to keep going with as I finished the previous.  Is this the way someone feels these days reading the Tomorrow series?  While I had to wait the year or more between each book?  (A similar thing happened with West Wing, where US viewers had to wait a summer between "What Kind of Day Has it Been?" and "In the Shadow of Two Gunmen", while Australian viewers only had to wait a week.  It's not a perfect analogy.)

Anyway.  I enjoyed it more than I expected.  I have a lot of affection for many of the characters.  And I think that I do adore Katniss. Flaws and all.  As you do.

Review: Hotspur

Hotspur by Rita Mae Brown

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



I loved this.

It's not the first in this series, but I totally fell in love with the whole thing: the crazy-privileged fox-hunters, the certainty within the text that American fox-hunting is very different from English fox-hunting, getting all the thoughts of the animals... All of a sudden it's not so odd that Rita Mae Brown credits her cat with co-authoring her mysteries.

It harked back to one of the guilty pleasures of my late teens - Francine Pascal's "Caitlin" series. I don't think Francine Pascal actually wrote them, as she often had ghostwriters, like other ridiculously prolific authors of the time. In any event, the Caitlin books were about a ridiculously rich Virginia heiress who adored horses. I don't recall there being any fox-hunting involved (although there may have been) but I loved them, for all their ridiculousness.

I loved this book for the same reason: the horses, the bizarre Englishness of this patch of the USA that I have had little to do with, and the fabulousness of Sister Jane.

Ah, Sister Jane. It seems a pity that she is so straight, and so very widowed. This is a series written by one of the great queer writers, and certainly in this book the queerness of Ralph Assumptio is very matter of fact and generally accepted by all the other characters. But Sister Jane could have been an awesome, AWESOME dyke heroine, but she's not. And I'm sad about that.

It's not going to keep me from reading every other book in this series that I can get my hands on. Because this is total mind candy. And as I said, I loved it.



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Review: A Woman's War: The Exceptional Life Of Wilma Oram Young, AM

A Woman's War: The Exceptional Life Of Wilma Oram Young, AM by Barbara Angell

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



I accidentally left "Bad Faith" at work for the three-day weekend, and so hot on the heels of that review comes this one.

This review is probably the more scathing one. Sorry 'bout that.

This book is about a woman who is awesome. Who achieved an amazing amount in her life, and possibly the most amazing thing was that she survived the Japanese Prisoner of War camps along with her fellow army nurses. I don't want this review to take away from that at all.

This book is about a remarkable old biddy. However. She would hate me, and I doubt I'd be all that enamoured of her as a result. So there's that from the beginning. She's just far too much like my grandmother. (Odd that Keating's 1993 election win is mentioned negatively, and yet no mention is made of Howard's 1996/7 win. Suspect bias on the part of the author, but have not yet determined in which direction this suspected bias lies.)

Anyway. The first two sections of the book are fine. The first describes Wilma Orem (Young)'s childhood and training as a nurse; the second her time as an Army nurse and then as a prisoner of war; the third her life following her return to Australia after the war.

The second section is the most impressive and thought-provoking; in particular the gruesome yet matter of fact descriptions of war, violence and torture.

However the whole is negatively impacted by Angell's unimpressive writing; while the drama of the second section carries the reader along, in the first and third, the pedestrian nature of the writing makes the reading experience drag. The third section is particularly tedious: every ANZAC Day and Remembrance Day, every reunion with her fellow-prisoners is described as 'particularly special'. I would have expected more from a writer with Angell's apparent credentials as a screenwriter and teacher of writing, but there was just so little energy once the prisoner-of-war section was over.

In sum: the story is important, and I value it. The presentation lets the story down, as does the confusion relating to the politicisation of Orem Young's later years (ie, why the mention of the Labor win but not the Liberal? Was that because the author wanted to emphasise or minimise the difference (or lack thereof) of Veterans policy between the governments of the two parties. As I said, I'm unsure.)

This past January I went to the Australian War Memorial's special exhibition on nurses in war. I also saw (briefly) some of the work done by the nurses in the PoW camps. What these women survived was amazing. I only wish that the book I just read had been more worthy of what they themselves went through.

(Betty Jeffrey's "White Coolies" is going on my To-Read shelf despite my automatic flinch at its title.)





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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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