![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cyphomandraTwo books this time, for a change.
. I bought this for 50 cents while waiting for coffee, and it was definitely worth at least that, so I feel I’ve achieved a bargain. A Regency, second in a loose-linked series of at least two; poor resourceless companion accepts proposal of marriage in order to look after newly motherless baby for Napoleonic wars soldier with a death wish. I thought it was done pretty well, overall, with the emotions being fairly earnt and a few surprises in the story. Not Georgette Heyer, but then not everyone can be (and, as I crashed and burned on The Masqueraders – I felt like I was reading it through thick glass, it was so unclear what was happening – maybe she can’t always be either, or at least I can't always be the ideal Heyer reader).
. I like Lucy Rees as a writer – the two books of hers I’ve managed to track down are both excellent, especially Horse of Air; blunt and real and immersive. I’m guessing from the coyly sensational authors’ blurbs (both state the year their respective author’s marriage was dissolved in, which is what you get for a British book published in 1981 by a small press that also manages to fit in the phrases “permissive age”, “Rabelaisian social life” and “incorrigible playboy” on the flap copy) that the two of them were or had been together at the time of writing. It feels more like her book, even with the male viewpoint, though, and it works well as the illustration of a particular way of life, the people in it, and I particularly like the way Luke’s disintegration is hidden from the others to a large degree, because he lets go of all the less essential things – university, family – before he lets go of climbing and his two intimate relationships. His violence towards Kate is harder to accept, as a reader, although the book has less of a problem with it than I think it should have; I think, actually, moving out of Kate’s viewpoint there weakens things a little by making Luke more understandable.
I did have a problem with the ending. It’s the obvious ending, the final tragedy; but my knowledge of climbing is poor enough that I’m not sure whether to read Luke as complicit (and, if not, why no reaction?), and I’m not sure it’s the worst that could happen. Bob killing Luke would break them all apart, and be less expected. Luke suiciding would allow for some redemption. Still, I enjoyed a lot of this.
. I bought this for 50 cents while waiting for coffee, and it was definitely worth at least that, so I feel I’ve achieved a bargain. A Regency, second in a loose-linked series of at least two; poor resourceless companion accepts proposal of marriage in order to look after newly motherless baby for Napoleonic wars soldier with a death wish. I thought it was done pretty well, overall, with the emotions being fairly earnt and a few surprises in the story. Not Georgette Heyer, but then not everyone can be (and, as I crashed and burned on The Masqueraders – I felt like I was reading it through thick glass, it was so unclear what was happening – maybe she can’t always be either, or at least I can't always be the ideal Heyer reader).
. I like Lucy Rees as a writer – the two books of hers I’ve managed to track down are both excellent, especially Horse of Air; blunt and real and immersive. I’m guessing from the coyly sensational authors’ blurbs (both state the year their respective author’s marriage was dissolved in, which is what you get for a British book published in 1981 by a small press that also manages to fit in the phrases “permissive age”, “Rabelaisian social life” and “incorrigible playboy” on the flap copy) that the two of them were or had been together at the time of writing. It feels more like her book, even with the male viewpoint, though, and it works well as the illustration of a particular way of life, the people in it, and I particularly like the way Luke’s disintegration is hidden from the others to a large degree, because he lets go of all the less essential things – university, family – before he lets go of climbing and his two intimate relationships. His violence towards Kate is harder to accept, as a reader, although the book has less of a problem with it than I think it should have; I think, actually, moving out of Kate’s viewpoint there weakens things a little by making Luke more understandable.
I did have a problem with the ending. It’s the obvious ending, the final tragedy; but my knowledge of climbing is poor enough that I’m not sure whether to read Luke as complicit (and, if not, why no reaction?), and I’m not sure it’s the worst that could happen. Bob killing Luke would break them all apart, and be less expected. Luke suiciding would allow for some redemption. Still, I enjoyed a lot of this.
