Review: Her Ladyship's Companion by Joanna Bourne

 Oh, Joanna Bourne. 

While some girls have it bad for sparkly vampire triangles, I am all about the traditional regency with a cliff and a few dead governesses. Give me a mysterious guardian and his young imperiled ward over melting folds and throbbing pleasure poles any day of the week. I am all about the nicest room she's ever had and the strange dysfunction of the new household. With all of this being true, how did I ever miss Her Ladyship's Companion? (I can answer that, actually. In 1983 I was buying most of my books used. As well, I was an imprint snob. Signet and Dell Candlelight were my drugs of choice.) While I am sorry that I read Her Ladyship's Companion already knowing the primary players, I can't regret coming to it so late in it's life. Too many beloved authors never published again. Imagine, however, a world in which Bourne had continued publishing gothics, a world where I could find a backlist dozens of volumes deep. I can never be new to Carla Kelly or new to Edith Layton, but I could have been new to Joanna Bourne, if Joanna Bourne hadn't gone and had a life. 

What's done is done! The popularity of Downton Abbey makes this the perfect time to republish older Regencies. The spoiled daughter of the house, the frustrated member of the house party, the acerbic and all seeing matriarch. and of course, always, the young ingenue trying to discover true love before someone kills her. In this case Giles has recruited the unfortunately named Melissa to act as a companion to the lady in question. He'd have done better to replace the recently deceased governess of the house, but putting Melissa in a slightly different role gives her a broader view of the action. Is someone trying to kill the young master? Is he a lonely and overly imaginative child? C'mon! They have a cliff AND an island! What do you think?

Her Ladyship's Companion also features the first appearance of Bourne's personal Rothgar, the beloved Adrian Hawkhurst, I expected Bourne would have reinvented these characters for her newer works but Adrian certainly works both as Hawker and as the charming houseguest we see through Melissa's eyes. A reader approaching Her Ladyship's Companion looking for a modern tale may be slightly disappointed, but the fault lies in their desires. In 1983 Bourne delivered a pitch perfect tweak of the gothic regency and it holds up very well today. I longed for a shelf full of books just like it as soon as I closed the cover. Is that always the effect of Joanna Bourne? In some ways, she hasn't changed her style at all.

Review: The Black Hawk by Joanna Bourne

That is a cover only it's mother could love, and she's lying. So much has gone wrong. From the colors to the fashion to the font and the hands - it's just a crying shame. I loved this book. I hate to see it go all ugly duckling in the packaging. First of all, our hero is not a Duke. He isn't the lost son of a Duke, the unexpected 15th cousin of a Duke left standing after an outbreak of the plague or a Duke impersonator. Our Hawker is a straight up street rat with no apologies about it. I don't understand the publishing fascination with bloodlines. Once you establish 'rich' I'm just as happy to have my fantasy tale happen without a Princess. Think about Paris Hilton for a moment. She's had all the advantages money and ducal connections can grant. Now think about her siblings. Or her parents. Right. We're done here. (I am sure all the Hiltons are perfectly lovely people, smart as whips every one.)

So back to Hawker. He's a spy of course, because all of Bourne's characters are in some fashion involved in the Napoleonic Wars. (In a good way!) It's easy to do the French Revolution wrong. We've all read the books. It's muddy, you meet Wellington, French Royalists are good, French Loyalists are bad, the English walk on water and everyone make a run for the Dover coast. (Sorry, I fell asleep for a second.) Bourne's world is a more complicated one reflecting the true nature of people. Hawker isn't sure why he's loyal to Britain, he just is. Owl, his enemy counterpart, believes as completely in France. The difference between Justine and most French Loyalists is that she never changes her mind. What she is fighting for is the right of self determination. She is not blinded by the failings of an individual leader, her focus is on the goal of freedom for her nation. It's easy to see why Hawker doesn't hold that against her.

Bourne has a downright Walt Disney (the man, not the logo) gift for setting an atmosphere. When her characters are in France, they're in France right down to the smell of bread in the air. When they're in a cramped enclosure, you'll throw the blanket off your feet to take the squirms off. While The Black Hawk is a story fans have been calling for after every one of Bourne's books, readers have met Owl before. In The Forbidden Rose she makes her first appearance in Hawker's life. That appearance (as well as other events from his life) are revisited seamlessly in The Black Hawk. Never feeling like a rehash, several events we already know from his life are illuminated as we discover the details of hers. As with all Bourne's books, not every detail is answered. Some things, as we discovered in earlier books, are meant for later. There is more than enough here to satisfy, as two people who never had childhoods eventually find the way to their futures.