Due to circumstances beyond my control, it’s been a few weeks since I last reviewed anything here at Shiny Book Review (SBR).  To make up for that lack, I thought tonight was as good a time as any to review Sherry Thomas’s two latest Victorian romances, BEGUILING THE BEAUTY and RAVISHING THE HEIRESS.

BEGUILING THE BEAUTY is the story of twice-wed, twice-widowed Venetia Easterbrook, and her unlikely romance with never-married Christian de Montfort, Duke of Lexington.  Venetia, you see, is a famed beauty, someone everyone knows but no one really knows, while Christian is a scientist and academic.  And, of course, the first thing that we see is the young Christian falling in love at first sight with Venetia; however, she’s already married, which means Christian doesn’t approach her and his love goes unrequited.

Then, Venetia’s first husband, Anthony Townsend, slanders Venetia’s character in a quick, private conversation with Christian; not long after that, Anthony takes his own life, but that’s covered up by Venetia’s brother, Fitzhugh, as is the fact that Anthony left Venetia penniless.

Next, Christian finds out that Venetia has cheated on her second husband, Arthur Easterbrook — but once again, Christian has heard falsehoods, and credited them wholeheartedly, which is nearly impossible to believe considering Christian is a man of science.

Finally, the oddest coincidence happens; Venetia, her sister-in-law Millie, and her younger sister Helena, are in New York at the same time Christian gives a scientific speech.  As Venetia herself is a scientist — a paleontologist — she insists on going.  But once she’s there, she hears her good name slandered as the woman Christian has lusted after for a good ten years, and vows revenge.

I say this is an odd coincidence, partly because most talks of this nature would not be so well-attended that Venetia, as a great beauty, would be able to blend in.  And considering the fact that Christian has been obsessed with Venetia for years, he should’ve focused in on her like a laser beam — oops, wrong century — rather than slander her to the point she’s recognizable even without the use of her first and last name.

So at this point, I was rather frustrated with the story, even though Ms. Thomas’s writing remains as clear and lucid as ever.  I had the sense that the writing was great, but the story was contrived — and it just grew more contrived the longer it went on.

Don’t believe me?  Well, how about this — Venetia ends up on an ocean liner with Christian, calling herself the Baroness von Seidlitz-Hardenberg and speaking only German and French.  She wears a veil whenever she’s around Christian, one which obscures her features completely, and tells Christian she’s disfigured; however, the rest of her is on full display, and if Christian really has been obsessed with Venetia for years, he should recognize her body, or her voice, or something. 

But for whatever reason, he doesn’t.

Anyway, if you can get past all the plot contrivances — and there are many, as the ones I’ve listed are just the tip of the iceberg — this is an interesting and sometimes moving love story that’s extremely well-written.

However, as I can’t quite get past the plot contrivances (especially as I do not understand whatsoever how Christian doesn’t recognize Venetia, veiled or not), and especially because I know Ms. Thomas can do better than this (see this link for further details), this book struck me as an unsatisfying effort by a fantastic writer.  (And please, don’t get me started on the ending, because if anything, it’s even more contrived than the rest of it.)

Next up is RAVISHING THE HEIRESS, where we meet Millie Graves, an heiress, and Lord Fitzhugh (always called “Fitz”), a penniless Earl.  Millie’s father wants Millie to marry a title, so all of her education has gone toward that end, while Fitz would rather marry the love of his life, Isabelle Pelham, but has no choice as his ancestral seat is a moribund wreck.

Once married, Fitz falls into a deep depression on their honeymoon; Millie, being a quiet and selfless young woman, does everything she can to help him while keeping his secrets.  Eventually, she proposes an eight-year moratorium on procreation — partly because she’s desperately in love with Fitz and figures if she can’t win him in eight years, she doesn’t have a prayer anyway, and partly because she believes it’ll get him out of the dumps.

And so it goes; they rebuild Fitz’s house, they take over Millie’s father’s business (as the father dies young, and Millie’s mother is uninterested in running it), and they find out they’re more alike than not.

Sounds good, right?  But there’s a catch — Fitz has Millie’s OK to go outside the marriage, while Millie herself does not.  So Millie remains chaste, while Fitz sows whatever wild oats he wants . . . this is not palatable to modern readers, especially as Millie seems quite modern in many other ways (she figures out a way to run the business quietly with her husband being the “point man,” which, while manipulative, was probably one of the few ways a woman — married or not — had to actually run a business in the 1880s or 1890s).

Going on, Millie’s quiet suffering, while heart-wrenching, made me want to shake her.  She’s bright, accomplished, and has built a solid friendship with her husband despite the circumstances of their marriage, all good; that she can’t open her mouth to say, “I’m in love with you, Fitz, so why don’t you get your act together already and let’s get on?” just defies credulity.

Finally, when the widowed Isabelle shows back up, Millie not only accepts this, but welcomes Isabelle in public while seething in private.  Yet Millie’s seething is something her oblivious husband doesn’t pick up on, even though he seems to know her so well otherwise . . . what gives?

At any rate, RAVISHING THE HEIRESS, too, is a disappointment, considering it comes from the august pen of Sherry Thomas.  It’s well-written — better written than its subject matter deserves — and the story made a bit more sense than BEGUILING THE BEAUTY.  But despite the fine writing, the story just did not convince.

Overall, while these are better than average historical romances, they aren’t up to the standard of previous Thomas efforts like PRIVATE ARRANGEMENTS and NOT QUITE A HUSBAND (reviewed elsewhere at SBR): they’re good, but not great.  And when an excellent writer like Ms. Thomas puts out two books like this, when you know she can do better, it’s extremely frustrating.

That being said, these are romances that will divert you for a few hours due to the high quality of Ms. Thomas’s writing.  And you may well want to re-read them, too; if you do, focus on the emotion rather than the plot contrivances, because the emotions are right even if much of the rest of it isn’t.

Grades:

BEGUILING THE BEAUTY: B-minus

RAVISHING THE HEIRESS: B

— reviewed by Barb

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**Note: For whatever reason, right now I’m unable to add links to Ms. Thomas’s books.  My apologies.

Ever read a novel that you had high hopes for and were summarily let down when you realized that the events of the book does not seem to affect the characters within?

I had this feeling about midway through Harry Turtledove’s latest offering, Supervolcano: Eruption. The story begins with police detective Colin Ferguson waking up from a hangover near Yosemite National Park. Ferguson’s wife had just left him and he decided to simply drive somewhere to be away from it all (i.e., Southern California) before he stopped at Yosemite. While there, he meets an attractive scientist named Kelly Birnbaum who is studying the increased earthquakes and “dome activity” (lava pushing through the Earth’s crust) of the park. They get to talking, exchange numbers and promise to meet up again.

Meanwhile, Ferguson’s oldest son is traveling with his band across the U.S. Life is good for the struggling musician, and the band seems to be doing well enough for what they want to do. Ferguson’s youngest son is in college still, and his daughter is in the process of moving from to L.A. area to Denver to follow her older lover. His ex-wife currently lives with her younger boyfriend/yoga instructor.

Character view points established, Turtledove then erupts the biggest active volcano in the world. And…

…nothing happens. A shock wave, refugees moving out to Kansas and beyond, some ash falling. Mostly all these characters seem to be struggling with is their cars and such. I literally pulled a Ned Stark and muttered “Winter is coming” as I was reading this. Minor characters get some screen time, surviving a plane crash (water landing with nobody hurt) and getting back to Los Angeles. Most of the story seems to revolve around the Ferguson family, who are separated and scattered across the US, doing absolutely nothing and carrying on as if nothing really happened.

I’m sorry, but what part of “volcano big enough to cause shock wave to stretch across the US” did we not grasp here? For the book being called “Supervolcano”, I’ve seen more reasonable (and feasible) society reaction on made-for-TV movies about the same thing. The title is misleading, but it is not the only part. No, that is just the beginning. The promo blurb, for example, must have been written when the author sold the rights to the trilogy (and it’s going to be a trilogy, just wait and see) because nowhere in the book is Ferguson “racing against time” to reunite his family. No, Ferguson is too busy marrying his scientist and chasing a serial killer (who it is becomes painfully obvious midway through the book… and the killer isn’t identified by the author in this book) instead of trying to get his daughter and eldest son home. His daughter is in a refugee camp somewhere in Kansas (or Oklahoma, not sure), which, if Yellowstone erupted, would be no safer than Colorado. Why refugee camps aren’t set up in New Mexico (outside of the wind stream effect that would carry all the soot and corrosive ash that kills people) are beyond me. Not my book. His eldest son is currently in Maine, preparing for one hell of a winter without fuel or much food with his band at a very strange hotel. But there’s not so much going on except for the possibility of the feeling of impending doom. In no way is there any looting, Army/National Guard involvement seems to be nil, and somehow Ferguson’s daughter manages to smuggle a loaded revolver into a refugee camp. They took security more seriously on Hogan’s Heroes than these troops seem to.

Seriously. Nothing feels urgent despite the fact that the last major volcanic eruption of this magnitude bottle-necked the human population. Look up the Toba theory.

Part of Turtledove’s style in previous books is to let the characters drive the story. Unfortunately for this one, because such a huge premise is the entire basis for the plot, it needed more than characters going about their every day lives while dealing with subtle aftereffects of a massive volcanic eruption. It needed drama, action, passion. Hell, it needed more Bruce Willis and less of people sitting around waiting for their Lord Darcy to magically appear.

I wouldn’t recommend this book. It’s not very good and, in the end, it leaves the reader unfulfilled and wondering why they plunked down that much money for so little.

–Reviewed by Jason

The war against the vampires by the exiled British Empire has stalled and is threatening to peter out, which could lead to a complete loss of the British Empire’s ancestral lands in England. To reclaim that momentum, the rulers in Alexandria — specifically, Queen Adele — mount a desperate attack upon the vampires with the assistance of the legendary warrior Greyfriar in the besieged town of Grenoble. The Greyfriar knows that time is short, for though the humans have made strides, they are now losing the war.

Thus begins Clay and Susan Griffith’s finale of their Vampire Empire series, book three: The Kingmakers. Everything across Europe is in disarray for both the vampires and humans alike. Cesare, younger brother of Gareth (aka the Greyfriar), has ascended to the throne of England’s vampire clans after murdering his father. However, Cesare doesn’t understand just what hole he had dug himself into as he attempts to unify the clans to wipe out the human resistance once and for all. For getting vampire clans to work together is much akin to herding cats.

Using her new-found powers of geomancy, Adele has come to Grenoble to assist General Anhalt and the Greyfriar in retaking the town. A dangerous mission for the Empress, but her growing powers have to be used or else the entire army will be overrun. Sensing this, Greyfriar guides her into the vampire-held city — even though the geomancy is just as dangerous to him as it is to every other vampire. Even death, though, would not be able to keep the Greyfriar from protecting his love.

This book is a strong finish to the Vampire Empire series. Not a stunning conclusion, as there are little surprises to be had this late into the game. The reader, by this point, is intimately familiar with the main characters and know that there will be no deviation from their destinies. Any change of path by the characters at this stage of the game would be off-putting, and fortunately the authors stay true to their creations. The pacing is not nearly as fast this book as with the previous two, though the plotting and action are tighter wound this time. A few of the minor characters continue their progression to either the light or dark, with the key to it all being the love between Adele and Greyfriar. Can their combined powers defeat the mighty vampire clans? Can their love save one another from the ultimate betrayal?

The only quibble with the book is the absence of Senator Clark through the beginning half of the book. While his overtures for the Empress were shot down repeatedly (including Adele running off with Greyfriar at the moment before her wedding to the American Senator was to commence), his dogged nature would have been an added and welcome element to the beginning stages of the book. However, even Clark’s fate is interwoven with the Greyfriar and Adele, and the authors deftly handle the senator in perfect fashion. However, his absence doesn’t take anything away from the book, merely leaving the reader with the thought of “What happened to that one guy?” as the story moves along.

A splendid book, one that fittingly concludes the trilogy. It is sad to see this series come to an end, but as they say, all good things must. A must-buy for fans of steampunk, fantasy, or who need to read a great story.

—Reviewed by Jason