Wednesday Reflections #35 – Bewitching the Duke by Christie Kelly

Via: Daily Prompt – Tardy & Dominant

Title     Bewitching the Duke

Series     Wise Woman #01

Author     Christie Kelly

Genre     Historical Fiction | Regency Romance

Publisher      eKensington

Publication Date      December 6, 2016

Format      eBook

Setting     Regency England

ISBN     1601830289

Synopsis: It’s 1814 and while the upper crust English “Society” has come to consult certified physicians for their medical needs, plebeians continue to depend on the local wise women to take care of everything from delivering babies and setting bones to cleansing homes by burning sage and ensuring a good harvest for the season. Selina White, the wise woman at the Duke of Northrop’s country seat, takes her role in the community seriously, upholding generations of tradition passed down through the female line in her family. Her efforts are appreciated by one and all in the region except the Duke himself, who has deigned to grace his estate after having abandoned it to decline for nearly a decade. Colin Barrett’s disparage of wise women stems less from the growing belief that medicine should be administered only by university-trained male physicians and more from his history with Selina’s mother, the former wise woman of his land whom he blames for the death of his wife and baby during childbirth. So when he unwillingly returns to his ancestral home that holds so many tortured memories to arrange a wedding, only to discover Selina very much active in practicing her craft not only among his tenants but also within his household, he is incensed. First, he throws her out of his home and then he banishes her from his land. However, he miscalculates her determination to do her duty by his people as well as the loyalty said people harbor towards her in return. Pretty soon his servants are sneaking her back into Northrop, hiding her right under his nose in the unoccupied wing of his house, and business recommences as usual. To further complicate the matter, with every chance encounter, the instantaneous attraction that sparked between Colin and Selina when they first met continues to grow – an attraction that begins to transcend their individual prejudices and encounters that become less and less chance on both sides.

Experience: In all honesty, I’m a snob when it comes to book covers. The illustration absolutely plays a part in whether I’ll invest in the book because, to me, it shows that no effort was spared from start to finish. And this book’s cover instinctively warned me to not pick it up. Nevertheless, when I read the blurb and learned the premise of the book, I was intrigued and decided to risk it. It so happens that Bewitching the Duke confirmed both my earlier misgivings as well as my latter anticipations. The premise of the story does manage to uphold the originality it promised and the cover of the book accurately portends its poor execution. However, that is not to say this book was a total loss.

Let’s discuss the premise first, which after all helped me move past my superciliousness. Immediately, we are informed how the advent of modern medicine threatened both the livelihood and the tradition of wise women in the English society even as the poor continued to depend on them because male physicians were more expensive as well as due to the somewhat retained superstitions that surrounded these women’s healing capabilities. We are introduced – though it is kept in the background for most of the novel – the transferal of the role of the “caretaker” of people’s wellbeing from the female to the male, bringing into sentience yet another instance of how the culture of gender inequality became more dominant as the old religions receded further into obscurity. [I should acknowledge here that I love a story that makes me dive into a little history research of my own!] In Bewitching the Duke, the change comes in the form of the Duke of Northrop who openly declares Selina a hack upon his return to the country and uses her mother’s role in the fatal childbirth that prematurely terminated his domestic happiness as evidence. While his tenants and servants continue to store their faith in her powers, he does not make it easy for them to access her services.

This premise also neatly proceeds to generate not only the romantic conflict in the plot, i.e. a man who blames a wise woman for the death of his wife and child cannot fall in love with her daughter who also is a wise woman and vice versa, as well as the character arcs for both the hero and heroine, given that Colin is unable to move past the memories of his loss to allow himself to love again while Selina herself harbors a guilty secret surrounding the said loss. The trajectory of the story is set with ease and since romance novels generally promise happily-ever-after, we know that somehow the two main characters will have to get over their individual issues and the “wise woman” must rise to the occasion to reign supreme. Yay!

Except, maybe the historical accuracy is completely forsaken to keep the premise of novel adjustable to its length and, thus, the level of effort required, i.e. to say, the story was set a century or three too late. By the nineteenth century, wise women had largely receded into the background of society, most of them having suffered enough horrors related to being labeled “witches” to justly hide their abilities from the public. If these women still dared practice medicine, it was in secret. Say, for the sake of the plot, we, as readers, accept that wise women continued to openly practice their crafts in some remote corners of England where people were optimistically more open-minded, the novel completely avoids any mention of the religious persecution and social ostracism “alternative healers” suffered in the historical period immediately preceding the time in which the novel is set. For me, that was a no-no. Even if the author wished to have none of that “cloaked in the danger of religious persecution” mystery hanging ominously over the characters’ heads, why avoid any mention of what had once happened to Selina’s kind when her knowledge and powers still carried the same mysticism as witches? Alas, a lovely premise was thus unhappily stifled for the convenience of the narration and the result was a loss of intrigue and integrity that encompassed the true history of the subject.

The characters themselves were simple enough to follow. I felt, while they lacked depth, the romance between them brewed in a forthright fashion that I could appreciate. They were obviously each meant to grow out of their attractions and dilemmas towards one another rather than alone, which is always appreciated in a romance novel. It cries true of the notion that true love takes precedence over past conflicts. Yet, the characters were put upon more as plot devices than entities in and of themselves and kept switching foot on one another to add more twists that the story could have just as easily have done without.

There was one particular part of the novel where I could not reconcile with Selina’s character. When Colin confesses to her that he thought he saw the ghost of his dead wife in the unoccupied third floor window of his house, Selina does not set his mind at ease even though she realizes he had mistaken her passing the window for his wife’s ghost; instead, she enjoys a private bit of joke at his expense. This does not present a raving endorsement of her character as a human being, does it, especially when considering how tortured Colin has always been about losing his duchess?

I did enjoy a glimpse of the country life in the story though, which retained the essence of the hypothesis the author was aiming for, i.e. the continued importance of the wise woman in a country neighborhood where people can barter for her services and believe in the influences of pagan rituals without fear of ridicule. This is nicely reinforced with a scene in a fortuneteller’s tent at the traveling fair that all the primary romantic characters of the series attended. The fact the fortuneteller’s words are taken more seriously than a simple diversion shows the reader that here is a society that is not entirely jumping to relinquish the old ways. This I found refreshing and reason enough to keep reading.

Recommendation: Despite some flaws, the story is actually an original one and may be appreciated by readers who are suckers for historical romance and mysticism. Just remember, “a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down!”

WRITING CHRONICLE #24: the happily ever after

Via: Daily Prompt – Quill & Caper

 

Image: Pixabay, PD

There is a growing trend of romance novels with alternative endings to HEA (Happily Ever After). There’s HFN (Happy For Now) and also conclusions that are not so happy at all – like hero/heroine/both die(s). This post is not about them. I’m a traditionalist when it comes to romance novel endings. I’m perfectly fine putting my romantic MCs through the mills during the conflict phase, but the resolution must be that they live and enjoy a full life together. Anything less than that is an overpromise – nay, a prank on the unwitting reader.

 

Which brings me to my next point. For centuries, happily ever after has received a bad rep (among non-romance-readers, at least) and to no fault of its own. I don’t understand why people feel that romance novels set “unreasonable expectations”; if anything, I believe they set a standard we should all aspire to. Why should a person settle for anything less than happiness in love? What else would be the point? And for those people who think “happily ever after” is equivalent to a permanent cheering charm, let me assure you, it’s not. It means that our couple now knows that to stay together they will have to work at it and face the ups-and-downs of relationship; but long as they are teamed up, they will remain content and it will be okay. In fact, that the couple goes through so many obstacles during the novel to reach that place where they decide they were meant to be together is a testament to their commitment. So happily ever after really just translates to

“Committed ever after. Happily.”

Having said that, for a romance author, attaining closure is not that easy. I mean, as a reader, you must’ve realized how each time you reach the end of a good book you feel that sense of bereavement when finally putting the book down, right? Well, you have spent only a handful of hours getting to know those characters; imagine what the author must’ve felt closing the book on those wonderful characters after giving birth to them and then nurturing them for months, maybe years. So a romance author (or any kind, for that matter) needs all the help he/she can get to give their writing that flourish.

So what does a good romance ending make? 

Wednesday Reflections #22 – The Girl with the Make-Believe Husband by Julia Quinn

Via: Daily Prompt – Illusion

Title     The Girl with the Make-Believe Husband

Series     Rokesbys #02

Author     Julia Quinn

Genre     Historical Romance | Adult

Publisher      Avon

Publication Date      May 29, 2017

Format      eBook

Setting     Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA, 1779

ISBN     0062388185

Synopsis: When Cecilia Harcourt receives a letter from the British front in Manhattan that her brother Captain Thomas has been injured, she decides to travel across the Atlantic to take care of him regardless of the fact that the Colonies is in the middle of a war and the Brits are no longer welcome. The fact that her self-serving father has finally passed away and that her oily cousin has taken the opportunity to make untoward advances on her only fuels her cause. However, when she arrives at the war-torn continent, she learns her brother is missing and his best friend Captain Edward Rokesby – second son of the Earl of Manston, pen pal to Cecilia via Thomas’s letters, and righteously handsome to boot – has been injured and lying in a coma for some time. Nurses are scarce but given his station in life, only family members may care for him. So Cecilia does the only thing she can do – she claims to be his wife. When the local army believes her story, she promises herself she will come clean soon as he wakes up because obviously, he will know that they are not married. But when Edward wakes up, he can’t remember a thing about the past four months and confusedly accepts her as his wife. And when she learns that being the wife of the son of an earl can help her get the military assistance to locate her brother, she decides to prolong the charade. Soon the pretend-wife is working her magic to return Edward to his former health and the make-believe husband is helping Cecilia work through the mysteries of one missing brother. The only problem is, playing house with the handsome captain is churning Cecilia’s heart into deeper affections. And while he may only believe them to be married, make-believe is becoming all too real for her. Worse still – or maybe it’s the best of all – Edward is falling in love just as deeply.

Experience (Mini-spoilers ahead but maybe not): Sounds like the plot for a wonderful rom-com, right? I thought so too. That plus the knowledge that it is written by the very talented JQ had me salivating for over a year (ever since I finished Because of Miss Bridgerton last year in March). Unfortunately, the anticipation came to naught. The Girl with the Make-Believe Husband is not the stuff that makes reading Quinn’s books so giddily special. And I say this as a die-hard fan who is slightly heartbroken.

But first, let’s talk about the good stuff, which in this case is the ending. I know. It sounds wrong to go straight to the end of a novel but the ending really is where the book picked up that Julia-Quinn-esque charm that has me returning to her works over and over again. Edward was desperate-to-the-point-of-being-brash in his efforts to finally make Cecilia his wife, and I do love a hero who knows what he wants and is willing to raise the stakes to obtain it. And the dialogues also made the experience more authentic. Also, there was a brief entrance of a captain of a ship who was one of Edward’s classmates from Eton that I found intriguing and funny and wished there was a bit more of. Alas, just when things were beginning to look up, it had to end.

And speaking of Edward, he was also good. JQ’s heroes are invariably good because they are so honorable even when led awry. Even when they are belligerent or worrying about their own interests amidst personal dilemma’s, you can’t help rooting for them to succeed because you know they will do the right thing. And moreover, they tend to perfectly turn-out the grand gesture so readers are guaranteed to sigh. Edward was no different. Even with his brain addled with amnesia, he had faith in a woman he only knew through correspondences made via his best friend. JQ men know how to treat women right and that is sexy as all hell. And even in his physically weaker form, he tried his best to remain self-sufficient but sometimes ceded to needing a bit of help, another thing we twenty-first-century readers can admire. Also that he doesn’t completely disregard her deception when he cottons on but has to struggle to accept it for what it is only makes his love more valuable. Yup, Edward Rokesby is swoon-worthy.

Regrettably, same cannot be said about his heroine, who is heroine only situationally. While Cecilia’s initial reason for pretending to be his wife seemed totally selfless, this impression began to gradually disassemble as the plot progressed. Which is quite the opposite of usual romance novel MO where what seems to be a selfish act on the part of a hero/heroine gradually unfolds as a selfless sacrifice, so I’m hoping Quinn intended it that way? But I sort of doubt that is what happened with this novel. Cecilia risks life and reputation to sail across the Atlantic to war-riddled America to care for her injured brother but she probably would not have done it if her oily cousin at home (next in line to inherit the family estate) was not on her tail. Cecilia claims to be Edward’s wife to take care of him but probably wouldn’t have done that either if she didn’t need to stick around until he woke up and could shed some light on her brother’s disappearance. Cecilia continues to deceive everyone, including the man she is falling in love with, to bolster her search for her brother, and when she feels remorse over her actions, she treats herself to good food and better sex. When the truth about her brother finally unravels, her first reaction is to cry over what this means for her future. And when it’s finally time to come clean with the man she loves, she bolts for England, leaving him a letter (though she claims it is to release him from doing the righteous thing since she has been compromised). This final act is equivalent to breaking up over a voice mail, isn’t it? Cecilia Harcourt is weak and possibly almost as self-serving as her father. But maybe I’m being too harsh, I don’t know. I just feel she had plenty of opportunities to be honest but she kept taking the easy way out. She did not possess the integrity of Sandra Bullock’s character in While You Were Sleeping and that was a bust for me.

Which brings me to the plot. It was unnecessarily convoluted, where other characters do a bit of deceiving themselves to prolong Cecilia’s deception prolonged. I guess to give the hero and the heroine an opportunity to fall thoroughly in love. But given that Edward and Cecilia had a healthy dose of flirtation going on over letter exchanges and that Thomas aided and abetted such interactions, I think they had a good chance of falling in love without all the deception. I mean they were in the middle of a war – not many romantic prospects, are there? Besides, if Cecilia continued to help Edward heal and Edward continued to give her his protection, there is plenty of opportunities for them to mingle on its own. Yeah, it just did not click for me but I get the feeling Quinn herself did not have her heart in it. I’m thinking having deadlines sometimes gets to even the best of authors and, unfortunately, it showed.

Recommendation: If you are a Julia Quinn fan – and those who have ever read any of her previous works would be – then you have probably buckled in for the Rokesby ride. In which case, you have to read it so get on with it if you haven’t already. But if you are not planning to go through the series, still read it. I think every author goes through a phase and this is probably hers, which is fine with me because she is generally very very good at what she does.

WRITING CHRONICLE #22: ATTN Authors

Via: Daily Prompts – Wheel

I actually don’t have any pompous writing tips or savories for this week. Rather, I have been contemplating a conundrum regarding genres and I’m just going to throw it out there to see if any of you fellow novelists will pick it up and get it rolling:

How important are trending subgenres in selecting the premise for the stories you write?

Allow me to explain a bit more on why this question has been niggling me. I have noticed more and more publishers these days send out CTA for romance novel submissions in very specific subgenres such as:

“Big high concept contemporary romance”

“Sexy alpha-alien science fiction romance”

“HEA or HFN erotic romances without major focus on character development, extreme conflict or drawn-out plots”

Not to sound like a genre snob or anything but I don’t actually know what the first submission call is asking for, haven’t ever read anything from the second one, and regarding the third, well, really? But whatever these subgenres are, they seem to be selling like hotcakes. Somewhere along the lines of Twilight and 50 Shades of Grey, my commune with the genre of romance picked up a crossed connection.

Of course, because I write romances, I searched out CTAs for romance novel submissions but I get the feeling that authors from other genres must face similar dilemmas: to succumb to the trend or write what holds meaning for me as a storyteller?

Any advice, authors?

WRITING CHRONICLES #14: Mysteries of Life

Via: Daily Prompt – Heal

Image: dynamosquito, Flickr CC

If ever I coveted a superpower, it would be omniscience. I hate not knowing. Absolutely hate it. Each time I learn something new, my sense of accomplishment is so overpowering that I walk around and go to bed with a smile that would give Mona Lisa a run for the money. My engine runs on knowledge and I think it is what keeps me alive. I think this is the reason why I have a fondness for heroines with active brain matters.

I was once accused by a man that I cannot commit to a relationship because romance novels have filled my head with ideas of an implausible hero. This is an unjust accusation to both me and romance novels. First of all, romance novels are awesome and therapeutic. They set standards for both men and women as individual human beings and not for the sake of a relationship equation. There are no ratios to romances and each story is as different from the other as the two persons it comprises of.

Second, I have no problem committing to a relationship. My current manfriend was once my boyfriend, i.e. when we started dating 12.5 years ago he was still in his early twenties resisting to relinquish his late teens. So I think for a person who remained in a relationship without demanding to be made an honest woman out of, I deserve not to have gamophobia thrown outright in my face. My problem is not knowing what will happen after. I don’t fear divorce, I don’t fear unhappy endings. I just can’t abide going into anything without knowing the end result, whatever that may be. When I used to sit in exam halls, I would grade my own paper before handing it in – and I was pretty accurate in my gauges most of the time.

All this doesn’t mean that I’m a person who enjoys using knowledge to put others down, as know-it-alls are prone to do. Nope, I admire people who ask questions to blot out ignorance because I’m one of them. It also doesn’t mean that I go nosing in other people’s business. Other people’s businesses have generally interested me very little throughout my life, to the point where when I recently visited my grandma, I was shocked to learn that my youngest cousin from Mom’s oldest sister now has a two-year-old daughter. And this was not the only family news I had been oblivious to. I couldn’t apologize enough when the level of my callous indifference towards my relatives unfolded at the dinner table where four generations of labors of love were gathered. I’m just a bit interested in the general stuff – you know? knowledge stuff.

You can say my craving for knowledge borders on OCD. I eat peanuts out of a bowl even after I have lost any taste for it just to discover that perfectly sweet crunch. In fact, I cannot open any pack of snacks without hitting the bottom. That motto for Pringle, “Once you pop, you just can’t stop”? Yep, I’m the poster girl for that commercial. I just have to reach the end, even if the ending has been tried, tested, testified to be invariable. Now, thanks to boxed DVDs and Netflix, I also do not watch TV series until the season comes to a conclusion.

Why am I revealing my greatest weakness to the general public? Because it is also the source of my love for reading and writing novels. I love reading romance novels, instead of living one because I know the damn ending. Even if Will Traynor died and conveniently left Louisa Clark all that money to make her dreams come true in Jojo Moyes’s Me Before You, at least we know he will die. The knowledge that the end holds is at our fingertips. And the only place where I may be omniscient is a novel of my own creation, right? Ah, sweet relief.

Must be nice to be God.

Andy’s Green-eyed Monster

Via: Daily Prompt – Denial

 

Image: Pixabay

“I think the table is slanting on your side, love,” Bob observed. “Yep. Look at the water in my pitcher. It’s definitely tipped towards you.”

Andy squinted at Bob as she chewed her burger and swallowed. “C’mon, Bob. Let me push some of this stuff onto your side.”

The table was laid in halves. There was Bob’s side, which contained a big bowl of salad – full of crisp romaine, shredded roast chicken, and diced watercresses in a blue cheese dressing – a glass, and a pitcher of ice water, immaculate as his appearance. He would be having a black coffee later. Then there was Andy’s side, laden with a dish of tomato soup, a double patty cheeseburger with the works, a large basket of fries dribbled with salt and vinegar, and a whipped cream topped peach cobbler, the list ending with an ironic Diet Coke. She had an extra plate to pilfer some of Bob’s salad onto. She couldn’t go without her daily intake of the greens.

“No bloody chance,” Bob now shot down her wheedling with a chuckle. “Serves you right for ordering more than you can eat.”

“Oh, puh-lease! I can easily pack away all of it, you just watch. I worked up an appetite in the ring.”

Bob arched an eyebrow, his usual firm smile in place. “Yes, kicking my butt should do that.” He didn’t look like he minded in the least having his butt kicked by a woman as he forked up some lettuce and crunched into the freshness.

He had such great teeth, bright, straight, strong, healthy. Like the rest of him, Andy muttered to herself as she bit into the only type of beef she could allow herself to enjoy. It was the first week of the month. Her period was due any day now. Must explain why she was feeling so… ravenous.

“Tell me what has you so worked up?”

Andy started at his question, blushing profusely. “W-what?” 

Andy’s Boxing Ring

Via: Daily Prompt – Ordinary

Image: Pixabay

Andy clipped her client on the chin, forcing him to throw his head back with the blow. Next, she got down on her haunches and threw one leg out, swiveling it to push her client’s legs out from beneath him. All six-feet-three-inches and two hundred pounds of him came crashing down with an outraged gasp on the boxing ring bed, making her jump up to regain her footing as the structure quivered all around them. Grinning down at Bob around her mouthguard, she prepared herself to face his rebuke. However, he seemed less than inclined to satisfy her irritable mood today.

Bob groaned into a sitting position and rested his elbows on his upraised knees. Spitting out his mouthguard into a gloved fist, he leveled his resigned moss-green eyes up at her. “That must’ve been some meeting you had with your old man yesterday,” was all he commented.

Andy spat out her own mouthguard, disgusted by his consoling tone. She was itching for a thrash-out and he was refusing to take the bait. What must a gal do around here to get an able and willing male opponent in the ring? “Meetings with my dad are nothing if not out of the ordinary. You should know that by now.”

Bob grunted non-committally. He pushed himself off the bed with the sheer strength of his legs alone, his calf muscles bunching and releasing with the effort. Andy tried not to gulp audibly. Her pelvic floor muscles, however, she thought she heard squeak with yearning. Not that she would respond to such yearnings; Bob was her client, after all. 

An Absence of Passion

Via: Daily Prompt – Symptom

Should a slump be considered an absence of passion? I was watching Bones earlier. Episode 10 of Season 12, The Radioactive Panthers in the Party. While the main story revolves around the panthers, the secondary plot shows Bones regressing into deep reflection over the “passion for work” after meeting one of her senior colleagues who has retired upon “waking up one morning and feeling that her heart was no longer in it”. Throughout the program, I was thinking Bones must be considering quitting for good. It is the final season and she is plenty stable, so, yeah. [With a show of hands, how many of you think you might go into withdrawal when the show ends?]

Turns out it’s not her future she’s reassessing but her intern Wendell’s. It was all really well done. I was so sure that Bones was going to make an announcement at the end of the episode. Instead, she ends up advising Wendell that maybe he was having so much trouble choosing a topic for his dissertation because it wasn’t his calling to be a forensic anthropologist, maybe he is not passionate enough about the subject.

It got me thinking about how I left my work to start a new career path. I, like Wendell, was good at what I did but I always wanted to do something else. So now, when I hit a writer’s block, I panic twice as much. I never hit blocks in my old work, I just tackled each problem with my sheer force of logic. But my desperation to be a successful author has me questioning every piece I compose. 

TUSH

Via: Daily Prompt – Massive

 

Image: Wikimedia

To say she had an hourglass or pear-shaped figure would be euphemistic; voluptuous downright misleading. Hourglass was what Lexi’s body looked like when she was fifteen years old, while her bottom had expanded to resemble that of a pear’s before she even turned twenty. Now, at the age of twenty-four, all hopes of ever becoming voluptuous was lost and she was fated to lament over centuries gone by where fleshy women were the vogue. If she was one of Rubens’ Women, Michael would not have left her.

Michael cheated on you, you stupid cow! Thank your lucky star that you dodged that bullet.

Unfortunately, this detail was lost on her mother.

~ Zaireen Lupa, Still Falling for You, work-in-progress

 

 

Squandered

Via: Daily Prompt – Instinct

Image: Pixabay

“Animals tend to demonstrate natural instincts of self-preservation. So why don’t women when it comes to philanderers?”

~ Zaireen Lupa, Still Falling for You, work-in-progress