At some point I'll be finished with the Deveraux reviews and I'll be able to talk to you about other stuff I'm reading, but that time hasn't come yet.
So! Velvet Song, by Jude Deveraux. It's the third in the Velvet series, and it stars Raine Montgomery (yes, the man's name is Raine. This starts to seem normal after you've read enough Deveraux) and a singer, Alyx, who manages to convince us that she may be the most talented musician in history, despite the fact that it's a book and we can't hear her. (I wonder what the audio edition is like -- they probably don't do anything cool with it.) Deveraux, one gets the impression, is quite the opera buff, and you can tell how much she enjoyed doing the research for this one.
In terms of the overall plot, this one continues the feud with the Chatworths and the Montgomerys, but when you get right down to it, the story is about excessive pride (as in, not just justifiable pride from being awesome, but being too proud to accept help or talk to people you consider "beneath" you) and how it gets in the way of relationships. There's only one Deveraux-standard moment of Heroine Realizes She's Wrong And Hero Is Right, and it's not so much that kind of moment as Hero Is Frustrated And Gives Heroine A Spanking (which I think is much better done in Outlander, but hey).
I actually didn't like this one as much as I remembered, though I liked it a bit better than the first two. It frustrates me now to see how powerless and non-impressive most of the women are in these romance novels--even most chick lit is better--and I hope to find more interesting female characters as time goes on.
Tags: historical, jude deveraux, reading, romance
I love knitting lace. I mean, I love knitting most things, but lace is one of my favorite things. It looks so delicate and fragile, but it isn't. It's complicated, but in a way that suits me. It comes out looking beautiful, and you do have to do some detail work when you're blocking it to get everything just right. I've done several lace shawls, and I've got a few currently in progress, but I've never done anything in the Orenberg style.
Gossamer Webs is a book that both covers the history of Orenberg lace knitting (a style local to a small town in the former Soviet Union -- under the USSR, people who were lace knitters had to turn out 24 shawls a year, and that was often very difficult for a single person, so daughters were often recruited to help) and shows a few pattern options, but this is more a book about how to design your own shawl than how to follow a specific pattern. (The same author, Gamina Khmeleva, also put together a pamphlet called "The Gossamer Webs Design Collection" that does have three gorgeous shawls in it.)
I'd recommend this book to lace lovers, and anyone who's really interested in the international history of knitting, but if you're just looking for lace patterns, this probably isn't the book for you.
It took me a while to start watching Buffy. I don't know why, but I was never particularly interested, even though I really loved Firefly and more Joss Whedon didn't sound like a bad idea. Eventually, though, Grant decided he was curious enough to give it a shot, and we started watching.
I knew a bunch of things going into it -- such as the fact that fandom loves Spike. Why? I had no idea. And it took a season or two to really catch on, but when James Marsters got the accent down and interesting things started happening to Spike, I definitely understood what fandom kept going on about.
So Spike, it turns out, is one of my favorite redeemed bad guys ever. He'd probably hate the term, which is one of the reasons why he's one of my favorite redeemed bad guys ever. Add a favorite character and get one of my favorite writers to write him (that'd be Peter David), and I make happy squeeful noises and pounce on the graphic novel. I hear there are other Spike graphic novels, though I fear Peter David probably isn't involved.
This particular graphic novel is made up of three stories. The first one is the only one by Peter David, and it brings Spike together with Cecily/Halfrak, a character who may or may not have been meant to be the same person on the show, but who was played by the same actress. It's definitely got the Peter David sense of humor running throughout, and it makes me wonder how Spike would get along with PAD's Supergirl.
The second and third stories are by another author, and they mostly dig into Spike's Big Bad Past. They're definitely good, and they definitely feel like Spike, but they don't have nearly the same sense of humor as PAD's story, and I'm not as impressed by them. Still, more Spike is always good, and I'll certainly take what I've got. :) I may have to look up more of these graphic novels.
Tags: buffyverse, comics, peter david, reading
After reading The Velvet Promise and discovering that my biggest problem with it (besides the '70s tropes) was that Gavin was dumber than a bowl of mice (and not lab mice, either), I wasn't sure what I'd think of Highland Velvet. I remembered that Stephen goes off to marry a Scottish laird, who turns out to be a beautiful woman, and that things go pretty well for them, but was it going to be full of more '70s tropes and stupidity?
Actually, it's not, which was a pleasant surprise. In fact, most of this book revolves around the problems too much pride can cause (and I'm not talking about simply having pride in one's abilities, but rather the stubborn type of pride that makes people refuse to ask for directions or refuse to tell other people why they're hurt or upset -- both of which happen in this book). Stephen and Bronwyn have a surprisingly easy courtship; it's easing into marriage that gives them difficulty.
This is one of the better Deveraux books in terms of female competence. Like Judith of The Velvet Promise, Bronwyn grew up with the expectation that she could and would make her own decisions, as well as taking responsibility for many people other than herself. She does a really good job of it, and it's rather startling when held against the example of Jura from The Maiden. Bronwyn's purpose isn't to support her mate, it's to be the laird of her clan -- Stephen has to fit in around that.
There are some misunderstandings and miscommunications, but they happen on both sides. There are some problematic moments from a feminist perspective -- a female character we haven't seen much of ends up being little more than a plot point to convince us a character is bad when we already knew that, and Bronwyn has what I'm coming to understand is a Typical Deveraux Heroine Moment Of Realization (in which a woman realizes that the guy she's with has been Right All Along and she's been Wrong All Along, and to make up, she has to go grovel) -- but they don't make up the bulk of the story.
(It occurs to me that if that Typical Deveraux Moment were left out of most of her books, I'd still be okay with them as an adult. As a 13-year-old, I didn't much see the problem with it, but women having to grovel to men who are acting like selfish, jealous jerks does not sit well with me now.)
I'd thought I might go on to a different book at this point, but I believe I'll finish the series first. It's nice having books to read that are so quick (I only just started this one two days ago), and events happened in this book that pushed the series further along in its ultimate overarching plot (the conflict between the Montgomerys and the Chatworths). I can't completely remember where that's going, but I'm very curious, and I won't mind padding my book totals for the next couple of days! I'm at 96 books for the year -- unfortunately, there's very little chance I'll finish four more in the next three days, no matter how easy the reads are. I'd have to pick up really short books, which seems a bit like cheating.
Tags: historical, jude deveraux, reading, romance
When I was a kid, my mom was in the hospital for a procedure (she was fine!), and one of the things she asked for was a copy of the newest Jude Deveraux book, A Knight In Shining Armor. I was about twelve, and I read everything that wasn't nailed down, from cereal boxes to Sweet Valley High. When Mom was done with it, I picked it up.
I think my reaction was something like "ZOMG!!! Romance novels!!! AWESOME!!!" (Well, except for the fact that the acroword "ZOMG" hadn't been invented yet.) I was totally hooked, Mom was hooked, and we both started reading pretty much everything Jude Deveraux had put out. Recently I've started to get interested in re-reading some of those books -- I'm not entirely sure why unless it's to get into the historical aspects, as I've been interested in various historical eras lately -- and after re-reading Twin of Fire and Twin of Ice (technically "Ice" comes first, but I like it so much better that I always read it second), Wishes (still one of my favorites, though I laugh really hard at the idea of a 5'6", 160-lb. woman being considered "fat"), The Maiden (ugh! Y HALO THAR ANTI-FEMINIST THEMES), The Awakening (not as awful; major emphasis on migrant workers and unions, very interesting perspective, definitely brilliant research), and The Princess (how did I like either of these characters for even a split second when I was a kid? They're both horrible!), I thought I'd go back and read the first series Deveraux wrote, with the first instance of the Montgomerys (kinda; one of the progenitors of the Montgomery family shows up in her very first book, The Black Lyon).
It's been really interesting going back and reading these books, because I'm never sure what I'll make of them. I remembered The Maiden as starring a strong female character, someone wicked cool awesome, because she could physically fight at her husband's side, but after the last 20 years of watching movie after movie, book after book, TV show after TV show (etc. etc. etc.) prove that the only kind of "strong female character" they know how to write is one who's strong physically, I totally don't give that any extra credit. A female character needs to be able to do more than beat the crap out of people to be a character I can respect -- and the female lead in The Maiden is treated so badly I was disgusted on her behalf. She definitely doesn't qualify, and it's not entirely her fault; it's pretty easy to blame the author (or perhaps her editor) for that.
As far as the Velvet series is concerned, I remembered liking the first, second, and third brothers a lot, but finding the fourth hard to sympathize with. After re-reading The Velvet Promise, I have to say that I like Wife #1, but I'm not so sure about Brother #1...
Tags: historical, jude deveraux, reading, romance