As you can guess, the latter category is my least favorite. I have enjoyed many books--there are authors like Loretta Chase who are Category 3, but channeling Heyer. They're light hearted and funny. But the focus on sex throws me out of the story, because it's hard to imagine this many unmarried Regency ladies running around bonking, with no consequences. Downton Abbey does a good job of showing how serious that would be.
What Heyer did was invent a Regency England so complete and detailed, she was the Tolkien of romance novels. Most historical Regencies originate with her. So reading an historical that's all about the ton and Almack's and planting a facer, but where the heroine's getting screwed every night... it's like reading Tolkien fan fiction.
* The sexual politics: The hero cross-dresses and is bisexual; there's a gay side couple; there's a role reversal in terms of the masculinity and femininity of the hero and heroine. There are some good critiques of this, and she may have not got it quite right, but since I'd like to see the conventions of the genre widened, I'm all for anyone doing the stretching. Regencies are so much about white rich straight unambiguously gendered people, I just want to see more variety. Maybe ebooks will help this along.
* She used the sex scenes to build tension, rather than letting it deflate 1/3rd into the book.
* I am so sick of Alpha heroes with Dark Pasts, because they all come out the same. The hero in Untamed is also gorgeous and broken, but in vulnerable and interesting ways. He's a bit sick. He felt like a real person. Like taking an Evanescence song and injecting it with Adele.
* This is a très intense romance, with everything deeply and violently felt. Which isn't what I always want to read, but again, it was just done well. Cowan writes poetically, without going purple. One reviewer called it a "literary romance." True, all the characters seem to turn their emotions up to 11 (as another reviewer said) but Cowan made me willing to buy in.
It didn't feel like a sham of Heyer's world, it felt like Cowan's. One where people are a bit more sexually open-minded, and where everyone Feels Things Deeply. Like an Alan Moore graphic novel. Violent and passionate. I enjoyed spending time in it.
* And as always, I loved the characters. That trumps everything else, always, for me.
I'll leave it at that. But if you like your romances serious and intense, this one fits the bill big time.
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I will confess one problem I had. If you ask me to picture a modern day man dressed as a woman, who's sexy and attractive,I can do so easily--we have lots of examples. But whenever I tried to picture the hero going around pretending to be a woman, the ladies of Little Britain leapt unbidden into my mind:
3 comments:
Funny - that last bit.
I was intrigued when you mentioned this book in goodreads. Then I read the sample and put it on my buy list. This just confirms that it belongs there. Anxious to read it.
Good review. Unfortunately, I don't like historicals at all, so I'm passing the review onto a friend who does.
Hey, a pass-on is great too. :-) I recommended it to a friend who loved it.
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