Monthly Archives: November 2013

Flowers from the Storm by Laura Kinsale

book review November 5, 2013 Comments: 2

If such a thing exists, Laura Kinsale’s Flowers from the Storm is part of the historical romance canon. It’s a classic of the genre that still appeared at #6 on All About Romance’s 2010 Top 100 List 18 years after publication. I voted on their list for 2013 and included it myself. An intense and sometimes painful read, Flowers from the Storm’s status as one of the best romance novels ever written is completely understandable.

Christian, Duke of Jervaulx is a mathematician and a rake. We meet him acting on both inclinations early in the book: the latter leads to a duel, the former to working with a Quaker academic and his daughter Archimedea, called Maddy. When Christian has an “apoplexy” (stroke) shortly after presenting a mathematical paper, he disappears from their lives until Maddy and her father come to live at a rest home/psychiatric hospital run by her cousin. Christian is a patient and a troublesome one at that. When Maddy meets Christian again, he has been brought very low and is presumed mad. She realises he is “not mad, but maddened” and approaches her cousin saying she has “An Opening”, a spiritual calling, to help Christian. The apoplexy left his language processing centers damaged, but Christian finds he is able to communicate first through mathematics and later with language as Maddy works with him. He recognizes in her a chance to escape the hospital and seeks to do so by any means necessary.

Progressive for The Regency, the hospital is every dehumanizing psychiatric care nightmare rolled into chapters: abuse, restraints, ice baths, isolation. Kinsale shows us Christian’s muddled, struggling mind and I found these sections harrowing and must confess to jumping forward to a less upsetting section of the book to console myself before going back to continue reading chronologically. Mercifully, Maddy and Christian get away from the hospital, but a marriage of convenience is required to prevent him from being sent back as it will give the impression of a fuller recovery.

Romance novels can succeed on many levels, but the best ones have the same thing in common: If a writer can honestly portray the emotional lives of her characters, everything else will fall into place. Flowers from the Storm is not a light-hearted romance, it can be a tough read precisely because the characters are so well drawn and the reader feels their struggles. Christian and Maddy are two puzzle pieces that fit together only because of the situation they find themselves in. In either of their previous lives, their relationship would not have worked. Forced by circumstance, they build something together that is more than they ever would have been separately.

Thank you, Malin, for reminding me that I had not read this yet and for promising me Christian and Maddy would leave the hospital soon when I emailed her in a heart-wrenched panic.

Links to my other reviews can be found on my complete reading list of books sorted by author or Author Commentary & The Tallies Shameful.

Love and Other Scandals and The Truth About Love by Caroline Linden

book review November 4, 2013 Leave a comment

Caroline Linden is on my woefully short Fingers Crossed for Potential list. Last year, I stumbled upon her The Truth About the Duke trilogy and would recommend those books as follows: One Night in London is really good; Blame It on Bath worked well and was [fans self]; and The Way to a Duke’s Heart had a charming male lead, but some story issues. Linden’s latest historical romance, Love and Other Scandals got off to a great start, but lost its momentum due to structural choices.

Joan, the heroine of Love and Other Scandals , is a delight. Pert and cheeky, she has a wastrel brother with a very attractive, rascally friend, Tristan. The two are introduced, they banter, I wasn’t quite sure of the reasoning behind Tristan’s actions, but things proceeded apace when there was an abrupt shift in the story about a third of the way through. Have you seen Moonstruck? Do you remember the scene when Cher arrives at Lincoln Center to meet Nicolas Cage and the soundtrack includes a wry “ba-bum” as she steps out of the taxi and the love story proper begins? The transition in Love and Other Scandals is a lot like that, but instead of building on what went before, Linden reorganized the setting and the story lost its way. It’s not that it was horribly transformed, just disjointed, so, in spite of appealing leads, I can’t recommend the book.

On another note, Caroline Linden has a delightful short story, The Truth About Love, in a collection called Once Upon a Ballroom. Not about two people finding love, it’s a vignette in the life of a plain, bookish woman who has married a notorious former rake. Damien, the erstwhile rake and current besotted husband, has been away from Miranda for several weeks and rumours have begun to circulate of an affair. Prurient friends and relatives gather around Miranda, ostensibly to commiserate, but really to revel in saying, “I told you so.”  Using Miranda’s perspective, it is a take on the happily ever after readers rarely see. Romance novels are full of overlooked spinsters discovering connubial bliss with gorgeous, fascinating men, but just how easily does a reputation die and how does a woman who has found herself the subject of unexpected male attention trust that he really is a reformed raking making the best husband? It was really enjoyable, so I did some research to see if The Truth About Love was an epilogue to one of Linden’s novels, but had no luck. If you happen to know of such a book, I’d be grateful for the title so I can review it and bump my Cannonball Read total from 61.5 to 62.

Links to my other reviews can be found on my complete reading list of books sorted by author or Author Commentary & The Tallies Shameful.