Review of Netflix's The Cook of Castamar/La Cocinera de Castamar

 

I started watching The Cook of Castamar/La Cocinera de Castamar on Netflix because I wanted to improve my Spanish.   It sucked me in pretty quickly with its Upstairs/Downstairs romance, murderous plotting, and literally orgasmic food.  As a costume drama romance the comparisons to Bridgerton are fairly obvious, if Bridgerton had been set a century earlier and in Spain.

This ten-episode show is really engaging, in part because of all the different characters and the threads that tie them together whether they know it or not.  But its sprawling story is also its weakness.  For the first several episodes I did not realize that a certain main character was actually two separate people who happen to look alike, kinda sorta.  (The truth is, all brunette white men look alike to me -- one reason why I often prefer books to movies.)  And when the hero started wearing a wig for no reason important to the story for a few scenes and then took it off for the next several episodes, I was completely lost.  

That said, if you love romance I highly recommend this show. 

Regency romance review: Once a Scoundrel by Candice Hern

 

Once a  Scoundrel by Candice Hern is the only Regency romance book I can remember that made my eyes well with tears.  Unfortunately, it was the tragic romance in the flashback that broke Edwina's heart and made her swear never to love again that did so, not her romance with the book's hero, Anthony.

Once a Scoundrel flirts with being an ambitious book.  It has a meta story.  Edwina is the editor of a magazine that attempts to subtly nudge the the women who read it in the direction of a proto-feminism where they exercise agency over their own lives, do useful work, and do not believe that pre-marital sex must lead to tragic ends.  At the same time, the book attempts to separate itself from some romance novels where the heroine's entire story revolves around the hero.  (This book, another thrift shop find, was published in 2003.  Since then, Regency romance novel heroines have had increasing independence -- they are much less prone to being kidnapped and much more likely to engage in, if not a career, then at least significant volunteer work.)  Edwina is a competent and engaged editor of a magazine and could probably continue that work quite happily even if Anthony never crossed her doorstep. 

The book also flirts with telling a really great story about the French Revolution and its devolution into chaos.  Unfortunately, that is the story that is told in flashbacks and snippets.  Edwina went to France to participate in the revolution, was jailed there during the Reign of Terror, and barely escaped with her life.  It's a fascinating story, and makes her romance with Anthony seem banal by comparison.  

The author seems constrained by the Regency romance genre.  I would like to see her outside of it, telling the bigger and better stories that she is clearly capable of.