Review of loathsome Regency romance To Love and to Loathe by Martha Waters

 

 

 

I often mention that Regency romances have a mix and match quality.  Take a hero from one category -- Duke plucked from an impoverished upbringing, or hiding his epilepsy, or desperate for funds to save his estates and protect his tenants -- with a heroine from another category -- unexpected virgin, or madam with a heart of gold, or wallflower who just wants to be pursue a profession.  If you have the right mix, a delightful romance ensues.  

 In To Love and To Loathe, by Martha Waters, hero Jeremy is a second son who unexpectedly inherited some kind of lordship when his brother died.  Heroine Diana is -- all of the above.  When we meet her in the prologue she is an impoverished debutante determined to marry for money.  By Chapter 1 she is a young widow who, while not an unexpected virgin, is sexually inexperienced.  But:  She is also somehow a very talented painter -- I believe at one point it is pointed out that she is the MOST talented painter -- and she paints with oils instead of water colors.  But she doesn't seem to devote a great deal of time to the craft, just the occasional leisure hour here and there.  

Diana is also a horrible person.  There were glimmerings of this throughout the book, but it did not become entirely clear until towards the end, when she is entrusted with a secret that, should it get out, would completely ruin the lives of two people.  She promises she will not tell anyone.  Then, not even an hour later, she tells her two best friends.  She doesn't have any particular reason for this other than that it's really juicy gossip, and she is sure her friends won't tell anyone else.  She demands that one of them keep the secret from her husband, with whom she apparently has a newly loving relationship (developed in the first book of this series) -- not caring that such a demand may be either unrealistic or just mean.  

I did not love To Love and to Loathe.  I merely loathed it. 

Beginning of my new story, Girlfriend

 If you've read my other works you'll recognize the world this is set in, but this is a standalone piece.  This chapter is tame, but it will get smutty later!

Girlfriend

 

            “Will you have sex with me?”

            Samara shouted those words into the relative quiet of the break between the band’s songs.  She was obviously speaking to Chuck, since she was standing directly in front of him and making clear eye contact.  And yet, he just looked at her blankly.

            “Uh, dude?” Chuck’s friend Quinn said to him. 

            Chuck seemed to gather his wits, and he did not seem pleased.  “How much have you had to drink?”

            This was not going the way that Samara had planned.  The whole point of getting drunk was to find enough courage to approach Chuck.  She had tried doing it sober several times, but had always found some excuse to turn away before he noticed her.  Using liquid courage was a strategy, not a blunder. 

Or was it?  Samara was – was --  was going to throw up.  She turned and ran out of the great hall onto the porch and managed to lean over the railing before she puked. 

            She straightened up as the band began to play again, hoping no one had seen her.  She held onto the railing, waiting almost curiously to see if her stomach was done.  She concluded that she could throw up more, but that she didn’t need to. 

            She turned around, trying to decide if she should go inside or head home.  Alone.  Where she would be alone.  Being drunk was so strange.  It was not entirely unpleasant to not be able to think quite straight, to not feel the full weight to the humiliation the events of the last three minutes. 

            She took a step and the movement made her dizzy.  She stumbled.  Someone grabbed her.  “You’re okay,” he said.  Chuck. 

            “I talked to Chuck and then I upchucked.  Like a woodchuck.”  Samara giggled, proud of her enunciation. 

            “Uh huh,” Chuck said.  He led her to a bench.  When she sat down he handed her a glass.  “Sip it slowly,” he advised.  She tasted it.  Plain water.

            “You’re not supposed to be nice,” Samara said accusingly. 

            Chuck’s face clouded over for just a moment, but then he grinned his sexy, self-assured grin.  “You’re not supposed throw up on the rose bushes that Nathaniel works so hard on.”

            “They’re peonies, not roses,” Samara said automatically.

            “And you’re Samara, not some drunk girl so desperate to get laid that she propositions someone like me.”

            “I didn’t proposition someone like you, I propositioned you.” 

            “To use me to get back at Gabriel?” 

            “What does Gabriel have to do with it?  He’s gone.  He wouldn’t even know, so how would anything I do here affect him in any way?”

            Chuck leaned back on the bench and crossed his arms.  “You always were the logical one, even when we were kids.”   

            “So you’ll have sex with me?”

            “Not when you ask me when you’re drunk.”

            “So if I asked you when I’m sober you’d say yes?”

            “Ask me when you’re sober and find out.” 

 

Did it suck? Review of vampire romance When Life Gives You Vampires by Gloria Duke

 

I tend not to read vampire fiction.  My feeling is that after Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and especially Season 2 of the show, and even more especially the mic drop of the two episodes in the middle of season 2, Surprise and Innocence, which was the best of the best of tragic romance -- after all that, there was nothing left worthwhile to say about vampires.  (I know, I know, Joss Whedon is cancelled, Buffy was a sexist show in a lot of ways, Xander was a creep.  Nevertheless.) 

I read Twilight when it came out and could feel my brain cells dying as I read it.  People complain about the gender politics of the story, and how creepy and stalkery Edward was, but I recall wondering when the plot would start.  There was no conflict for the first, oh, 9/10 of the book, just a lot of descriptions of West Coast rain by someone who seemed to have never been to the West Coast.

(I also read several of Anne Rice's Vampire books (when I wasn't reading her naked sex slave books) -- but that was before Buffy, which wiped the slate clean.)  

I picked up When Life Gives You Vampires, by Gloria Duke, because it seemed to have an interesting hook -- what would it mean for someone who has been dieting her entire life and believes she is overweight to be stuck for all eternity in that body, with no chance of ever losing weight?  But then, because this was the hook, I became sort of obsessed with the concept.  Why can't vampires gain or lose weight?  Where is it written that their bodies never change?  They can eat and drink (and they must drink blood), and by the laws of physics their body weight goes up every time they do that.  As with any other animal or humanoid that acquires mass, they can burn it off or poop it out, right?   If they expend more energy (calories) than they take in, they will lose weight.  (I realize this is an oversimplistic look at the human, and vampire, bodies, and that diets are stupid scams that don't work.)  And, why can't vampires get liposuction or other plastic surgery?  Why can't they shave?  

Obviously,  I spent a lot more time thinking about these issues then I did about the love story between new vampire Lily and old vampire Tristan.  There's not much to say about it.  They work through some issues. I think they end up together, but it was already yesterday that I finished the book so I don't really remember.  There was a more interesting subplot between Lily and a work enemy turned vampire slayer, who I would love to see as the main character in a sequel.  There was a much less interesting subplot between Lily and the big bureaucratic politician vampire, in which Lily gives a short speech and all the vampires in the world realize they need to change their ways.

This book was cute enough, but not cute enough for me to seek out more vampire love stories.