Review: A Woman Entangled by Cecilia Grant

While I admired much about Cecilia Grant's debut novel, I didn't love it. A Woman Entangled caught my eye because it promised all the things I love most. Class conflict. Toxic family dynamics. Social climbing beauties. Younger sons. I was ready for Grant to bring it on. Ultimately the experience was the same as our prior hook up. A Woman Entangled took me months to finish and left me dissatisfied. (Is there a reading equivalent of bad sex?)  Our heroine, Kate, is a social climbing beauty desperate to reclaim the social status her father's uneven marriage cost him. She alternatively positions her goal as being for herself, or for her father, or for her siblings. It's never for her mother, because everything about Kate's goal is a rejection of her mother's self and that is something Kate would rather not consider. Kate prefers to consider more reader friendly things. Here Kate is reflecting on a potential suitor:

"Perhaps he followed Mr. Brummell’s regimen of a daily bath, instead of the usual cloaking of one’s odors in perfume. Though it was difficult to imagine he paid much heed to any of the Beau’s dictums. Likely he disdained the man for living profligately and then fleeing his debts, if he hadn’t already disdained him for an excessive preoccupation with the trivial matter of personal style. And that was presuming he even knew who Beau Brummell was. He very well might not." - Cecilia Grant, A Woman Entangled

There's no point whatsoever to this passage. Much like the later passages on various Jane Austen books it feels forced and indulgent. A shouting of "Regency Tropes, I am in you!". Beau Brummell never comes up again. He isn't a friend. He's a celebrity that our characters may or may not have followed in the media of the day.

"Perhaps he followed Miss Kardashian's regimen of a daily bath, instead of the usual cloaking of one’s odors in her designer perfume. Though it was difficult to imagine he paid much heed to any of Kim's dictums. Likely he disdained her for living profligately and then fleeing her wedding debts, if he hadn’t already disdained her for an excessive preoccupation with the trivial matter of personal style. And that was presuming he even knew who Kim Kardashian was. He very well might not." Cecilia Grant and Meoskop

I strongly suggest we institute an immediate Kardasian test on the inclusion of historical characters not directly involved in the character's lives. If Kim can wear the shoe, toss it out of the wardrobe.

I wanted to love Kate. She was my favorite character in the book. Kate is so very self aware. She wants a path out of the middle class life her parents value and one back to the life of empty luxury her father left behind. I was frustrated by the resolution of her desires. In the end Kate comes to realize she valued the striving more than the goal itself. As the reader, I can't agree. Kate barely tastes the gilded world she longed to inhabit before embracing the economically cautious one in which she was raised. During that experience she lives at the edges of the family disharmony without fully exploring it's depths. Kate is neither embraced nor renounced. She is unspoken, even when being spoken to. We are to believe that Kate comes to value her open relationship with Nick more than her constrained and conditional one with her extended family. I can get behind that but only if I believe it. Kate goes too quickly from a cautiously shocked kiss under the stairs to a total willingness to have her first sexual encounter in a stranger's crowded home. I found it hard to believe that a woman of her control would so easily cast that aside.

Nick is hungry for status of his own. His life on the edges of the nobility has become painfully difficult following his brother's marriage. Having rejected his brother in an attempt to preserve his own ambitions, he initially castigates Kate for hers. Willing to have sex in stairwells and with casual acquaintances, he harshly judges his brother's wife for doing the same. A woman who fucks you for free is a friend. A woman asking for financial support is a whore. it seems a curious line to draw, but draw it he does. Granted, the misalliance of courtesan and gentry is not to be understated. It is completely authentic to me that Nick would lose status and find his ambitions beyond reach.

Yet Nick is still greeted by old friends. He is still welcomed in many fine homes. We are not shown Nick struggling for clients. We are told he is and invited to watch him wallow. I had the same problem with Nick that I had with his sister Martha in Grant's first book. Why, when his focus has been solely on maintaining the good opinion of Kate's family, would he take her to his rooms? Why would he consider her an unsuitable wife for a man with upwardly mobile goals when she herself is rigidly in pursuit of them? Why would he blame her for having an actress mother yet bring his most important client to that women for instruction? Why? Why? Why? Nick is a straight up whiner. His better moments elevate him to sequel material but he fails to convince me he is not going to disappoint Kate.

A Woman Entangled is likely to have many readers swooning. It's a Masterpiece Theater set piece of a book, hitting all the right marks in all the right order but ultimately leaving me distant and cold. The sexuality is original and important enough to the story development that I skimmed little of it. The reinforcement of family over finance is not seen often enough in the genre, despite my overall dissatisfaction with it's implementation. Grant remains at the edges of my awareness. She is an author I can neither embrace nor dismiss.

*This review first appeared at Love In The Margins.

Double Review: The Sweetest Dark and The Deepest Night by Shana Abe

*If you haven't read Abé's earlier Drakon books there will be mild spoilers in this review. Read on with that in mind.

Shana Abé moved her Drakon series to young adult and it's taken me time to catch up. While book two is stronger than book one (and neither is free of all the issues I had with her romance series) overall I prefer this take on her girls who turn to smoke and dragons. We left the Drakon rebuilding their ruined world in an attempt to curb extinction. In The Sweetest Dark that appears to have been a futile endeavor. Jumping forward to WW1, Abé focuses on a young orphan whisked away from London and into an exclusive boarding school. Here our Littlest Princess meets the requisite young lord and the silent groundskeeper.

Eleanore (Lora), Armand (Mandy) and Jesse begin an uneasy relationship (cue dramatic drum roll) destined to change all their lives! The Sweetest Dark is a languid read. It hits all the notes of the orphan amongst the privileged as it slowly acclimates readers to the world of the Drakon and the place these three hold within it. (The companion novel, The Deepest Night is a much more action driven read.) Abé has made multiple adjustments to the Drakon universe to fit the YA market. Both books hint at sexuality more than they explore it. Jesse is almost ridiculously understanding of Lora's age and Mandy's actions. If Jesse was black he'd be the book's Magical Negro as his primary purpose appears to be filling out the triangle and imparting wisdom. It's a shame that Abé leaves him underdeveloped as it's been a long time since a character perceived as mute has been a romantic lead. She has also toned down her Fated Mate fetish. While still drawn to characters who self describe as Alpha and whose actions are excused as beyond their rational reason, the relationships between Jesse, Mandy and Lora do not skirt the edge of abuse as found in Abé's romantic genre series.

Lora is largely passive for The Sweetest Dark. In The Deepest Night she is actively controlling her life. Where the flaw of the former is a lack of action the flaw of the latter might be an excess of it. Events happen at a rapid pace, with barely a breath between them. England is at war and Lora is ready to fight it. This is not a conflict with nuance. Lora is Team England. It's her or them and she consistently chooses them. The brief interactions she has with German soldiers give her no reason to examine if her actions are the right ones. She is the weapon. They are the target. I found the scenes behind enemy lines the weak point of the book. There is a point where Lora's lack of regard for her own life is meant to feel significant but (given her near suicidal state for much of our time together) seems only expedient. As well,  this section of the book includes a quick introduction of a Gay Predator from Mandy's past. I'm incredibly tired of the only representation of a same sex attracted person being negative. The point this blink-and-you'll-miss-him stereotype makes could easily be presented through other means. It's a regrettable flaw in an overall excellent read.

While I tend not to respond to YA as a category, Abé has done an excellent job in taking the best parts of her romance series and molding them into a YA read with a powerful female lead. The characters read age appropriate overall. Late in The Deepest Night they seem matured beyond their years, but not their experiences. The reader is surprised to realize Lora has a year of schooling left to complete. Although the events of the war and her past make us ready to launch her fully into adulthood, the demands of the series require that she remain a schoolgirl. Depending on your tolerance for alcohol as a casual beverage this series could be read anywhere from fourth grade up. I'm looking forward to the next book.

Review: A Lady Awakened by Cecilia Grant

Dude, I totally hated this book. I know everyone and their mother loved it. I struggled to finish it for a month and only brought it home as an end of 2011 resolution, complete with live tweets. Grant and I, we're just going to quietly settle the bill and agree not to share a Taxi. To explain why is going to require spoilers. Lots and lots of them. Don't read this review unless you have already finished A Lady Awakened or have sworn off reading books. Maybe both. I am thinking of you here.

Grant can write, her talent isn't in question. I can see Grant writing a book I would rave over as people are raving over this one. The problem is after finishing A Lady Awakened I don't think I'd pick up a second title. I hate books where I spend a lot of time wondering why. Why doesn't Martha want to live with her family? Why is Martha willing to have sex with a stranger for a month when she clearly despises it? Why is Theo ready to have sex every possible moment? Why does he return to sleep with a women so disinterested that her contempt causes him impotence? There are so many WTF moments in A Lady Awakened and the answers shift about like sand. Martha doesn't want to live at home because she just doesn't want to. Then she doesn't because she earned her home in her 11 months of marriage. Then she doesn't because the heir is a creepy rapist and her school will close. Then she totally wants to give the house up because the creepy rapist has sons. Creepy rapist is going to sign an agreement (oh, well then!) that will give his wife and kids rights to the house and he (after an intervention by the neighbors explaining that they don't like him) will abandon that family. In what year?? How is that binding on him, rational of him, or even slightly likely? Plus, Martha is claiming her child is the rightful heir, obviously (if she is willing to give up the property) it is not - so why wouldn't he seize on that tidbit? It is a bucket of WTF. Things happen because they have to happen for the story to happen not because the people (as brilliantly drawn as they are) would be likely to do these things.

Take Theo. Some chick he doesn't know approaches him and offers a small fortune for sex (which he never claims) so he says hey, why not? I will give him that. I will even give him being willing to cheat a neighboring landowner simply on the say so of a widow. When Theo shows up, it's as close to rape as consensual sex can be. She not only dislikes sex she ruminates to herself on how disgusting the male body is when compared to a female one. (Gaydar! Our heroine is either asexual or lesbian. Oh wait, all this falls away later when we discover she does like the male figure and secretly self pleasures thinking about it. WTF?) Ok, so long story short, Martha had a year of bad sex and her answer to that is to deny herself any physical responses so she can maintain power and control in her life. Because of course the rational choice of a woman embarking on a month of sex is to make it as unpleasant for herself as possible. Anyway, she says awesome things to Theo like "Are you done yet?" and he discovers a new world in impotence. But hey, his word is his bond, so back in the saddle he comes. WTF? He's attractive, 26 and not exactly destitute. There have to be options that don't involve fraud and pseudo rape!  (I asked others their view of Theo's actions. The response was "Is it science fiction? Because that's not happening in this world.")

Through unsatisfying sex they discover social crusades, invent collective farming and fall in love. (No, they pretty much do.) Martha resolves to make him a better man through the careful nudging of female approval, as though this poor simple minded man needs only her warm regard to change. In her defense, apparently she is right. Suddenly Theo is roofing homes and building economic safety nets. Also, he vomits when someone implies he'd rape a disabled teen - seems a bit extreme, but maybe he has a sensitive stomach. The disabled teen has a perpetually pregnant mother. On one occasion Theo slips and calls Martha by her first name in front of the woman. Martha is distressed and shocked so naturally she turns to the woman and says hey, I heard my brother in law raped you. (Martha, WTF?) For most of the book this woman is portrayed as stressed beyond her ability to cope, her children neglected by her fatigue and her home in utter disarray. Suddenly we discover she has a loyal and caring husband, a childhood sweetheart who lets her take the lead in life and who puts her cares above his own. So why are his kids neglected? Why is his wife overburdened? She grew up in the community so why does she lack support? If it is because of a rape 16 years ago why does that same community suddenly rally for the aforementioned intervention with the brother in law? See all the Why we've got going on?

Martha, who considered offering this woman cash for her unborn child, never puts anything together. A woman who keeps a mentally disabled child arising from rape is going to sell you her son so he can be lord of the manor? How do you think that's going to happen? How is her husband going to be down with that? Martha's rationale is that obviously the woman has too many children to handle already and will be glad to lighten her load. Martha goes from unsympathetic to evil in one musing. Class issues, she has them. Luckily Martha changes her mind because Theo finally teaches her to like sex! All it takes is him asking her to tie him up and they're off to the races. Is this a new convention? From I-can't-stand-you-touching-me to let-me-blow-you-baby all with one carefully placed stocking? Now we have the inevitable failure to communicate as estate-free Martha finds Theo has fled from her lack of love. Because telling him you've decided to marry him would have made too much sense. Obviously Martha's control issues have overridden her planning personality. Faced with no estate and a return to her family, Martha is saved by Theo's determined return.

I gotta wish him luck. God only knows what Martha's going to come up with next. That chick has crazy eyes.