Force My Hand

By Agent Greene | June 25, 2009

force-my-handCase File #: 00025

The Perp: Brown, Em

The Crime: Force My Hand

Classification: Historical Erotica (novella)

The Weapons: Escalating sexual encounters, gambling debts, and escalating sexual encounters.

The Victims:

  • Darcy Sherwood: Is accustomed to dominating in the bedroom, is in serious debt, and bears a familiar sounding grudge against a powerful family.
  • Radcliff Barrington: Is excited about the dominating, worried about the family estate, and ultimately willing to school Miss Sherwood in the art of submission.

The Accessories:

  • Priscilla Sherwood: is the wronged sister.
  • Everyone else: they matter so little, the authoress doesn’t even bother to name them consistently.’“A sure symptom of being in love,” Henry remarked softly. “I would sooner have fallen in love with you, Harry, for all the good it does me.” ‘
    Come on Em, you have to pick one. This happens several times.

Violations: Spoiler alert! Having the two male characters, who decide there is enough of Darcy “to go around” and engage with her in a threesome, be named so similarly was an unwelcome distraction, and made it harder to visualize/keep track of who had what going where.

Analysis: Purely as a vehicle for reading sex scenes this is a fine little novella. It may feel at times that the author is narrating a deck of naughty cards, you cannot help but look at all of them, but some are more pleasing to the eye than others. Everything else is just a lead in for a new, slightly stranger than the last, sex scene.

Recommended Action: Since this erotica is the reviewer’s first, it is the best she has ever read! It was highly entertaining even while being highly predictable, and really isn’t that what romance is all about? B+

Posted in Case File, Grade B, Historical | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Wicked West

By Agent von Drake | June 3, 2009

thewickedwestCase File #: 00024

The Perp: Summer, Holly

The Crime: The Wicked West

Classification: Historical Erotica (novella)

The Weapons: Widows, sheriffs, erotic flagellation, submission and some moderately rough sex.

The Victims:

  • Mrs. Lily Anders: the demure English widow who moves to Wyoming because her recently deceased brother left her his home there. She really likes to be punished and she really wants the Sheriff to have a hand in it.
  • Sheriff Tom Hale: has one look at the passive Mrs. Anders and he knows that she’s trouble because he keeps his true desires under tight lock and key. Little does he know that Mrs. Anders can and will pick that lock of his.

The Accessories:

  • Mr. Anders (deceased): the really old man that Lily married who showed her the pleasures of obedience and a proper punishment.
  • Mrs. Hale (run off): the flighty wife of Sheriff Hale who said he was too rough with her in bed. She skipped off to SF with some wealthy prospector and Hale has yet to divorce her.
  • A no-good rustler, because you can’t have a western setting without one!

Violations: I couldn’t  not laugh when I read that the line ‘…her fine, pale hand wrapped around his dusky sex.’ Unfortunately, I’m sure that’s not the desired audience reaction at that point (I keep thinking of Hale sitting naked in a tanning bed to get himself nice and dusky, ahem, down there). Oh, and I can’t say that I’m fond of the whole ‘I’m/You’re a whore’ thing…for some reason it feels anachronistic even though I know there were definitely whores at the time…whatever.

Analysis: While I read Dahl’s Talk me Down, I was really curious about the book her heroine, Molly Jennings a.k.a. Holly Summer, had written during the course of the novel. I actually think it was a brilliant marketing idea to actually release the book from within a book and give Dahl’s ‘hardcore’ fans a taste of her versatility.

As for the story itself, I think that it’s pacing really fit the novella format and it had more depth than some of the other erotica stories I have read (this isn’t a fair marker because most of the erotica I’ve been exposed to is from Ravenous Romance…and they are a bit plot light). Dahl really allows for the characters to drive the plot with their insecurities, securities and proclivities. I also really enjoy that her heroine is the one that is comfortable and forward in their arrangement while the hero is rather hesitant until he starts to get the hang of things. Hale’s turmoil makes him more acceptable and Lily’s decisiveness makes her less weak, something I think an audience who does not read this type of story often can appreciate.

Recommended Action: I really enjoyed this story and give it a B+. So go read it (ebook only though…)!

Note: All grading is assigned via a normal ‘bell curve’ distribution comparing each novel to others previously read. The weighted grade for this story in comparison to other works solely by Dahl is an A- (primarily due to the lack of specific plot devices that she tends to favor).

Posted in Case File, Grade B, Historical | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

By Agent Thibodeaux | April 25, 2009

pride-and-prejudice-and-zombiesCase File #: 0023

The Crime: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

The Perp: Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith

Classification: (defies classification)

The Weapons: manky dreadfuls, katana swords, Brown Bess muskets, daggers, outdated social exigencies

The Victims: Jane Austen

The Accessories: hoards of British undead, aka “manky dreadfuls,” aka “unmentionables,” aka “the stricken”

Violations:

  • Mr. Darcy is rendered not unlovable but awkward by his constant stream of innuendo referencing male genitalia
  • Mr. Grahame-Smith allows America’s fetish for Japanese culture to permeate what used to be a wonderful romance. Unforgivable!
  • A prosthesis made of lead and hickory

Commendations:

  • The added dimension to Mr. Darcy’s bad-boy image from his constant stream of  completely gratuitous remarks on male genitalia
  • A stained glass window depicting “a resurrected Christ returning to slay the last of the unmentionables, Excalibur in hand”
  • The thought of chewing on Mr. Darcy’s ” salty, cauliflower-like brain”
  • zombie-speak: “Mah dear Ewiza, he muss be love you…”
  • musket fishing

Analysis:

It is astonishing how well the role of zombie-killer suits Elizabeth Bennett, and how natural it seems to find her with warm ninja blood dripping from her chin.  I almost regret that the zombie device was not used to make more drastic changes to the plot and certain characters’ destinies; it seemed there were points where just deserts were within reach but then shied away from to cling more closely to the original story.

I had a difficult time understanding why Mr. Darcy had suddenly become so vulgar, until I discovered that Mr. Grahame-Smith is also the author of The Big Book of Porn: A Penetrating Look at the World of Dirty Movies.  Now it all makes sense.

Recommended Action:

I give this book an A for intent but only a B for execution, averaging out to an A-.  Reading it is strongly advised, not only for the text itself but for the truly awesome illustrations of zombie warfar interspersed throughout the book.  Just don’t expect to enjoy it the same way you may have enjoyed Pride and Prejudice; there is very little romance left in this romance.

Posted in Case File, Classic, Grade A, Historical, Paranormal, Regency | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Dark Lover

By Agent von Drake | March 10, 2009

dark-loverCase File #: 00022

The Perp: Ward, J. R.

The Crime: Dark Lover (Black Dagger Brotherhood Book 1)

Classification: Paranormal Romance (Vampire)

The Weapons: Lust, bloodlust, dense vampire lore, the evil dudes, bad-asses  and mass quantities of black leather.

The Victims:

  • Elizabeth ‘Beth’ Randall: The plucky, well she’s disenchanted enough to not really be plucky, journalist who lives a rather ho-hum life until Mr. Tall-Dark-and-Kinda-Scary walks into her apartment. Turns out she’s half-vamp and gonna be transitioning soon, he just didn’t expect to end up in bed with her.
  • Wrath, a.k.a The Blind King, a.k.a. One bad-ass mother fucker: Leader of the Black Dagger Brotherhood (BDB), who is visually impaired and spends his nights fighting the Lessening Society to defend their race rather than lead them as a king. He’s helping Beth through her transition as a favor to her recently murdered father who was in the BDB.

The Accessories:

  • Brian ‘Butch’ O’Neal, a.k.a. Hard-ass: The homicide detective with a thing for Beth, he’s also a tad too-heavy handed with his perps. Eventually he ends up off the force and helping the BDB, plus he’s inexplicably drawn to Marissa.
  • Marissa: Wrath’s shellan, a kind of wife or mate. He’s never been interested in her and she’s pined after him for centuries. Eventually she releases him when he finds Beth and isn’t too bummed because she has a thing for Butch.
  • Havers: Marissa’s bro who’s a doctor and a dimwit.
  • Mr. X: The regional head of this chapter of The Lessening Society, essentially, a vampire hunter. He spends most of his time plotting and causing a ruckus.
  • The Brothers: Basically, they are tall-dark-and-frightening. They’re the vampire’s warrior class and they go around with daggers and throwing starts hunting Lessers. On more than one occasion, Ward says that they look like a bunch of sex-offenders (I’m sorry, but that does not make me feel warm and fuzzy about that reading the rest of the series, which is essentially about each of them finding women they love).
  • The Omega/The Scribe Virgin: Your macro-conflict. The Scribe Virgin runs the vamps and the Omega runs the Lessers or vamp hunters.

Violations: Overly liberal usage of colloquialisms like ’shitkickers’. Also this line in particular, “His abdomen was ribbed as if he were smuggling paint rollers under his skin.” That line is damn near unforgivable.

Analysis: For me, the concept of a vampire romance has been quite intriguing for quite sometime, and when I first started looking into finding a good series, everyone and their mother online recommended that I read this one. I just happened to fall into Sand’s Argeneau Series by accident.

Initial reaction: this book was crap. Like the first several chapters were hard for me to stomach. The dialog was grating (lots of weird slang peppered with ‘brother’, I thought I was watching a 70’s blaxploitation buddy-cop film), the characters were kinda difficult to relate to and the constant use of terms that Ward coined like shellan was more than a little annoying. But I forged on, and once I got into the middle, I was surprised to notice that I was enjoying myself. Strangely enough, I liked the Beth/Wrath relationship more in the beginning when I was being annoyed by all the other things. Towards the end, they started to get really affectionately mushy, which I felt was  out of character for Wrath.

What I liked the most was that this was a novel you could figuratively sink your teeth into. Not like the Argeneau Series which is like eating sugar, this was grittier, there was more back story and there was more plot. The narrative didn’t solely follow Beth/Wrath, there was a secondary Butch/Marissa relationship and it also followed Havers and Mr. X considerably.

Recommended Action: If you are looking for a romance novel akin to an Avon Historical, this is not the series for you. If you like sci-fi/thriller/paranormal settings with lots of sex and conflict, then pick up this novel. That being said, if you don’t like reading stupid lines like what I’ve highlighted in the Violations section, don’t come near this series with a twenty foot pole. I was deadset on giving this novel a really low grade when I started it,  but I ended up liking it more than I originally thought: C+

Posted in Case File, Grade C, Paranormal, Vampire | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Dangers of Deceiving a Viscount

By Agent Beauregard | February 13, 2009

Case File: #00021

The Perp: London, Julia

The Crime: The Dangers of Deceiving a Discount

Classification: Historical Romance (Regency)

The Weapons: False identity, wild horses, blonde hair

The Victims:

  • Phoebe Fairchild / Madame Dupree: the artistic, dreamy Fairchild girl, (and allegedly the prettiest) who is forced to take a job (gasp!) in order to avoid scandal.  She is a talented dressmaker, and had been selling her dresses under another name to raise money when her mother died, leaving the girl’s money in their evil stepfather’s hands. Her sister and cousin marry extremely rich dudes, and she no longer has to sell dresses. However, the shop owner she was selling to, Mrs. Ramsey, threatens to out her if she doesn’t take a commission at Wentworth Hall, which will bring in lots of dough for the old bag.  At Wentworth Hall, she draws inspiration from the elaborate shrubbery (crazy!!).
  • William Darby, Viscount Summerfield, Baron Ivers: An adventurous dude who is summoned home after six years of raising hell on an international level. He comes home to find his father is paralyzed, and his young siblings dirty and wild, not having had access to the family’s money which was in Will’s name. He is forced to accept the responsibility of bringing Wentworth Hall back to its former glory, and seeing that his sisters and brothers are settled. He is tall and blonde, and has a scorpion tattooed on his forearm. He wears a scarab amulet around his neck to curb his horniness. He also tames wild horses.

The Accessories:

  • Caroline Fitzherbert: Extremely suitable match for Will, who also has feelings for his younger brother Joshua. She is a bitch. the fact that Will has no feelings for such a beautiful, charming, and rich girl makes him realize that no one will ever match Phoebe.
  • Alice Darby: Will’s younger sister who is in love with a smithy’s apprentice. Alice’s love for someone not in her station, and this highlights the hopelessness of Phoebe and Will’s situation.
  • Apollo: a wild horse Will is trying to tame throughout the book. Apollo throws Phoebe from his back, causing her to give up her virginity to WIll right there in the field. Apparently Phoebe’s twisted ankle is too much for Will to take! He has to have her right there!

Violations: London’s refusal to use the word nipple, or even make up a word for nipple. Instead, Will must take ‘the peak’ of Phoebe’s breast into his mouth, whatever that means. Also, Phoebe’s constant gratefulness for the efforts of her brother-in-laws to pass reforms in Parliament for the well-being of working women. Because she really understands what working women must endure, what with her having to make gowns and stroll amongst magnificent shrubbery every day.

Analysis: I was very bored with Phoebe and Will until the last eigth of the book, when her deception is revealed. Suddenly there was a sufficient amount of gut wrenching, heartbreaking pain to please this agent. Their affair was all very lame : he can’t resist her, he yearns for her, and vice versa. Alice Darby’s plight was much more interesting and deserving of sympathy.

Grade: C-

Posted in Case File, Grade C, Historical, Regency | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

TWILIGHT!: the whole story

By Agent Thibodeaux | January 20, 2009

Series Profile#:00002

The Perp: Meyer, Stephenie

The Crimes: Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, Breaking Dawn

Classification: Young Adult Romance

The Weapons:

  • Painfully slow plot progression (at times)
  • Alternating lethal doses of sickeningly sweet love and devastating, incurable heartbreak
  • The beauty of Edward’s cold, hard Being, with which we are endlessly bludgeoned
  • All-around ridiculousness

The Victims:

  • Bella, the reluctant human: we identify with her because she is impossibly clumsy, unexceptionally ordinary and boring, uninterested in her education, manipulative, and fills the role of self-appointed valet, cook and maid to her father. Wait, why the fuck would I identify with any of those qualities? Does Stephenie Meyer think I have self-esteem issues?
  • Edward, the cold, hard vampire: we love him because he is beautiful, with beautiful golden eyes, and beautiful chestnut hair, and awesome cold hard pecs, and a velvety voice, and smooth smooth skin. Plus he smells great. Damn. Wait! Why would all that make me love him? Does Stephenie Meyer think I’m shallow?

Violations:

  • Over-referencing of well-known love stories. Just because you name-drop Romeo and Juliet, Cathy and Heathcliff, even Anne Shirley and Gilbert, it doesn’t make your own story any more profound.
  • Book two. How could she? No author should be allowed to keep her readership so unhappy for so long.
  • Ridiculosity in abundance.

Analysis:

I think it is important to inform you that I feel every ounce of the appropriate shame and self-loathing I am due for having let myself get sucked into this story the way I did. I feel that shame acutely. And now I have to explain just how “sucked in” I was: I read all four books (tallying a little over 2500 pages in length) in a span of a week and a half. These books amounted to a temporary disability for me. I did NOTHING but read them for all that time. If there were a book 5 and book 6 in the series, I would probably have died of lazy-assedness and malnutrion, because while I was reading I couldn’t be bothered to take a break and go for a walk to stretch my atrophying legs or go to the grocery store to feed myself.

That said, I can’t really pin down what it is that I found so compelling. The story line is basic and predictable, the dialogue and descriptions are not especially clever nor poetic (At least not in Spanish, which is not my first language. I read the Spanish translations in an effort to justify to myself the act of reading them as an opportunity to practice the language), none of the characters she created were especially dear to me, and it is all so RIDICULOUS! And yet… it is really just a sweet, bare-bones love story with some unusual dressing. I don’t want to give away any of the plot, because there’s really not that much of it to begin with. Meyer writes happiness and satisfaction very well, and she makes them last. Instead of the usual, abrupt happy ending after long strife that often leaves me wanting more, she writes happiness into the beginnings and middles too (with the exception of that sadistic second tome, New Moon). It is my hope that this is because Ms. Meyer is writing what she knows. Although I will probably never forgive myself for succumbing to her teen craze, I can’t hold that against the author and I hope she lives as happily as she writes.

Recommended action:

If you have more self control than I (which is very likely), it is probably safe to read these novels. Unless you are not female. No male should ever, ever, EVER be subjected to these books! Yeah, I’m talking to you out there, you females who feel compelled to “educate” your males by forcibly exposing them to your favorite chick flicks and sappy love stories. Don’t do it! But if you’re in the mood for a sweet love story of the Hostess cupcake kind, as opposed to tiramisu, give book one a try.

Twilight: A-, keeping in mind that it is a literary Hostess cupcake and would not fare so well in a league of more sophisticated confections

New Moon: D, for the persistent misery it inflicted

Eclipse: B-, for ending the misery but stepping up the ridiculousness factor

Breaking Dawn: C, because ridiculousness experiences an exponential growth pattern

Posted in Grade A, Grade B, Grade C, Grade D, Series Profile, Vampire | Tagged , , , , | 6 Comments

The Perils of Pursuing a Prince

By Agent Beauregard | January 20, 2009

Case File: 00020

The Perp: London, Julia

The Crime: The Perils of Pursuing a Prince

Classification: Historical Romance

The Weapons: Viking ruins, a mysterious white house , Welsh amulet, rumors, fish stews, and excessive cunnilingus.

The Victims:

  • Greer Fairchild: a young society woman, who, suddenly finding herself dependent on her evil stepfather, decides to find her long lost Welsh relatives in hope of an inheritance she is not sure exists. Greer is cousin to Ava Fairchild, the heroine of The Hazards of Hunting a Duke. She possesses the gift of gab, and is extremely naive and innocent, though she turns out to be a freak in the bedroom.
  • Rhodrick Glendower, Earl of Radnor: Welsh Prince, who has had his share of heartache, and has resigned himself to a life of solitude in his castle. He is color blind and the only color he can see, truly see, is the magical blue of Greer’s Welsh eyes, which are allegedly blue like pools, like ink, and so on.

The Accessories:

  • Owen Percy: Rhodrick’s evil second cousin who drove a poor girl to go mad and jump in ravine eight years ago. He is a scumbag charlatan who makes a living banging old rich ladies and then stealing their money. He attaches himself to Greer on her journey to Wales, and tells her that Rhodrick drove the poor dead ravine girl to madness, making Greer scared of the Prince for the first half of her visit, until she sees his gentle, sexy side (Beauty and the Beast much?)
  • The ghost of Alis Bronwyn Vaughn, a.k.a. Greer’s dead mother: Alis barges into Greer and Rhodrick’s dreams, beckoning them to enter the mysterious white house where the poor girl went mad, allegedly to get them to marry eachother?

Violations: The questionable appropriation of the virtuous essence of The Beauty and the Beast for tawdry purposes

Analysis: I thoroughly enjoyed this book, despite  the cheesiness. Rhodrick is the sexiest romance hero I have ever read about. His facial scar, limp and long hair are the recipe for this agents ideal man! He was very enthusiastic about Greer’s vagina, performing scandalous oral rituals on her lady business at every opportunity.

However I did not like the constant references to how small Greer is and the way Rhodrick picks her up all the time like she was a child.  To me, this implies that the strong powerful Broderick wants a girl, not a woman, which is kind of gross considering he is technically old enough to be her, young, father.  And is it physically possible for one standing on the ground to pick up another full grown human being and set them on a large horse? Because this happens like every other chapter.

Recommended Action: Read it. It is sweet and romantic, Rhodrick is sex on legs, and Greer is likeable. Grade: B

Posted in Case File, Grade B, Historical, Regency | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Pirates

By Agent von Drake | January 18, 2009

Case File #: 00020

The Perp: Miller, Linda Lael

The Crime: Pirates

Classification: Time-travel Romance? Contemporary/Historical Crossover? Pirate Romance? Take your pick.

The Weapons: Magic (names and elevators), cannons, islands, the Revolutionary War and books about the Revolutionary War.

The Victims:

  • Phoebe Turlow: the recent divorcee who follows the magic elevator to the man of her dreams. (Doesn’t ‘magic elevator’ sound like a really bad drug-induced Beatles song?)
  • Duncan Rourke: Pirate or patriot? Need I say more?

The Accessories:

  • Old Woman: she’s old, knows magic and refers to herself in third person as ‘Old Woman’.
  • Slave chick: had an affair with Duncan, and keeps rubbing it in Phoebe’s face.
  • Pirates: because, hell, that’s the title! They do a bit of fighting and besieging.
  • the Rourkes: Duncan’s family in the ‘colonies’.

Violations: Overuse of a magic elevator.

Analysis: This was the second romance novel I had ever read and I completely forgot about it until I was cleaning up my bookshelf. I read it purely because the first romance I read was by the same author–let’s just say, each book played into my own personal prejudices against romance novels at the time.

Ok, so Phoebe is the bitter, recently divorced woman (bitter because her dog abandoned her for her husband and his new woman) who decides to do the whole ‘free vacation for a condo sales pitch’ scheme on Paradise Island (it’s in the Caribbean somewhere). She just so happens to be some sort of history researcher for some professor, so she reads some book called Duncan Rourke: Pirate or Patriot?, because he used to live on Paradise Island, raising hell during the Revolutionary War.

She gets dumped in some dumpy hotel, totally regretting this whole decision, but decides to make the best of it. Then one night, they have a pirate costume party and she dresses as a wench, tumbles down the magic elevator and finds herself in 1780 facing Duncan Rourke himself in some dark, dank cellar. She essentially freaks, he locks her up thinking she’s mad and Old Woman appears and tells her that she’s been waiting for her. The rest of the story just falls in place after that, with the general acceptance that Pheobe is from the future (yet only Duncan and the Old Woman seem to know).

Overall, this novel is alright. The whole ‘magic elevator’ kinda irked me, especially when the pair end up going back to the future (where Pheobe takes Duncan to Disney World of all places)–they do end up going back to the past, since alpha males can’t exist outside of their time frames.

Recommended Action: I could live my life without ever reading this, but I don’t think that reading it truly detracted from my life. This is a ‘meh’ review. D+

Posted in Case File, Grade D, Time-Travel | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Desperate Duchesses

By Agent von Drake | January 15, 2009

Case File #: 00019

The Perp: James, Eloisa

The Crime: Desperate Duchesses (Book 1 of 6 in the Desperate Duchesses sextet)

Classification: Historical Romance (Georgian)

The Weapons: A Love triangle (or a engagement of convenience plus a man who knows what he wants), and a girl looking to get rid of something her fiance just happens to not care about–her virginity!

The Victims:

  • Lady Roberta St. Giles: the sheltered daughter whose embarrassed of her father’s overly-emotional personality, so she decides that she needs to marry the coldest man in England, the Duke of Villers.
  • Damon Reeve, the Earl of Gryffyn: Roberta’s far removed cousin with a bastard child he takes care of. Oh, and he’s damn determined to convince Roberta that the only man for her is him (cuz, you know, guys know best).

The Accessories:

  • The Duke of Villiers: the chess man who’s got a hart of ice. Roberta’s a fine piece, but he really couldn’t care less about her other than her ability to make Jemma jealous. Oh, and he doesn’t want to be bothered by trivialities like, ahem, virginity.
  • Jemma, the Duchess of Beaumont: Damon’s sister who’s just returned from Paris (where she ran off too after finding her husband between the thighs of a willing mistress…in his office…not long after they had been married!). She likes chess and she likes men. Hence, she enters a chess match with the top player in London: Villars. Best out of 3 wins, and if they are tied after two…the last game will be played in bed…blindfolded!
  • The Duke of Beaumont: Jemma’s politician husband who believes his time is limited (fainting/blackout spells), so he summons Jemma to return and give him an heir. Only thing is, he’s got to wrench her attention away from Villers. So he challenges her to a similar chess match.
  • The Mad Marquess: Roberta’s father who experiences life’s emotions with such fervor that he must write poetry about it, it’s just too bad that the poetry is bad.
  • 1 rhyming mermaid

Violations: So, this is first book in James’ ‘Desperate Duchesses Series’, and there is a whole lot of side-story about Jemma…but why is this book Desperate Duchesses? The heroine isn’t a duchess, the hero isn’t a duke. Only the heroine’s fiance is a duke…perhaps I’m over thinking this.

Analysis: Ok, I have a confession. I read Your Wicked Ways once because I had heard all this Internet hype about James–only I didn’t like the book. So I decided to forgo her novels. Well, I started reading tons of good things this series, so I decided to give James another chance (and then I read it out of order! I swear, I am cursed).  My opinion changed.

The cool think about James (other than the fact that the lady has a freakin’ Ph.D.!) is that her books are really well written: detailed, multi-faceted, historically detailed and layered. The downside is that her books are detailed, multi-faceted, historically detailed and layered. Sometimes it is just too much, sometimes it is just right. I dunno, in this series it works if you like to think hard during reading.

With this novel in particular, I don’t think I really like how she handled the whole Teddy (i.e. the bastard son of Damon) thing. Frankly, Roberta was a selfish, self-centered bitch who didn’t like Teddy at all in the beginning. At the end, when she was betrothed to Damon, James tries to remedy this with a scene with Teddy and Roberta. She showed some compassion towards the child, but to me it felt forced…and possibly cold. I could be wrong or perhaps that was the historicalness of becoming the mother of a bastard.

Also, half of this book is the Beaumont/Jemma/Villers love triangle, which was really fun and interesting. So much so, I was kinda no caring about the Roberta/Damon main story.

Recommended Action: So far, I have read books 1-4 (the only ones published as of now) of this series. This is the weakest of the series thus far, but crucial to read if you plan on reading the others (might I recommend Duchess by Night?!?!). So just pick up a copy so you aren’t lost. C

Posted in Case File, Georgian, Grade C, Historical | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Gone With The Wind

By Agent Beauregard | January 10, 2009

Case File #: 00018

The Perp: Mitchell, Margaret

The Crime: Gone With the Wind

Classification: American Literature

The Weapons: Antebellum nostalgia, plucky women.

The Victims:

  • Scarlett O’Hara - Hampton -Booth - Butler - painfully selfish, driven woman who vows to see her childhood estate restored to its old glory after Union soldiers destroy it. She will not let her husbands, children, or common decency stand in her way.
  • Ashley Wilkes - an honest, decent, Southern gentleman, who joins the Confederate Army even though he morally opposes it, because it is the right thing to do.
  • Rhett Butler - an unrepentant “pirate” who sells supplies to the Union Army and becomes VERY rich. He is the most evil man in the South and doesn’t give a shit (or a damn).

The Accessories:

  • Melanie Wilkes - Ashley’s wife (and cousin). Melanie is the picture of womanhood - not only is she gentle and kind and proper - she is tough and loyal. Everyone loves Melanie, and she is the only person Rhett Butler admires and respects. Melanie’s fierce love for Scarlett is the only reason that crazy bitch is not run out of town.
  • Mammy - Tara’s “head” house slave, whom everyone is afraid of, and the only person Scarlett is afraid of. Mammy stays with the family after she is freed, and hates “uppity” black people.
  • Prissy - the possibly retarded daughter of the beloved Dilcey, who is probably the only reason Prissy was an indoor slave, because shes really stupid.
  • Aunt Pittypat - another possibly retarded character. Pittypat is Melanie’s spinster aunt who desperately clings to gentile, antebellum customs and formalities despite the fact that she’s the only one. She faints at the least bit of stress or surprise, and she annoys the shit out of Scarlett and Melanie, though Melanie is too nice to show it.

Violations: None.

Analysis: So, after her world crumbles around her, Scarlett makes a game plan. She will make enough money to save Tara from being bought by carpetbaggers, and her goal of one day stealing Ashley from Melanie keeps her going.  Throughout her struggles, her marriages, pregnancies, etc, Rhett Butler manages to insinuate himself in her life, and he even helps her out financially. Scarlett clings to her love for Ashley until Melanie dies, which eventually drives Rhett, her third husband, to leave her trifling ass. Even after she realizes that she didn’t love Ashley, she loved the idea of him, she really loved Rhett.

Recommended Action: This is the romance novel of all romance novels. Any one interested in the romance genre should read this NOW. Grade A+.

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