1. A Nice Surprise
Sometimes those free Kindle books are really a great deal…
I recently read Compromising Positions, by Jenna Bayley-Burke (Samhain, 2009) and really enjoyed it. A fun, sexy, inventive contemporary romance with an absurd premise that somehow works: Sophie, a forensic accountant, is pinch hitting at her sister’s gym while big sis finishes out her pregnancy on bed rest. Sophie needs a partner for a very popular couples yoga class, “Sensational Sex”, which demonstrates Kama Sutra moves, and ends up with David, a lawyer who happens to work for Sophie’s brother-in-law’s international fitness empire. The scenes in which they are demonstrating the moves are actually pretty interesting. Sophie has had a crush on David forever, but she’s the type that forgoes dating in favor of taking care of her elderly parents, and he’s the type that prefers leggy blondes and no strings (Sophie is short and curvy, with dark curls).
In many ways, this is a very typical contemporary, with some really bizarre plots thrown in (add embezzling, business competition, a burgeoning fitness food empire, sibling rivalry, a sexual harassment lawsuit, and a possibly evil stepmother, and you’re half way there). And there were definitely some problems, like David’s tendency to use pejorative feminine terms to refer to things that threatened his masculinity (i.e. “girly”), Sophie’s not requiring him to wear a condom (it’s ok, she’s on the pill. *eye roll*), and her pathetic/stalkerish move of purchasing a huge king bed that will fit his body before they go on a single date. But somehow this book kept me hooked, and at times I was really impressed with the subtle ways the author showed the development of the relationship and the characters. David moves in a believable way from a commitment-phobic ladies man, to someone who truly doubts his ability to be the man Sophie deserves, to true love. In turn, Sophie gets over both her physical crush, and her opinion of David as purely superficial, and starts to appreciate him for who he really is. Despite starting out pretty uneven, their relationship becomes an even match quickly. This book kept surprising me, with realistic insight from the characters like the moment Sophie realizes “she could not handle a casual relationship with David” , and when David realizes “How wonderful life would be if he could just trust himself to be who she thought he was.” I enjoyed it, and I’m not the only one, as the 4.5 star rating at Amazon and a recent positive review from Laurie Gold, attest. It’s no longer free, but I think if you like sexy contemporaries and want something a bit different, this is a good bet.
2. A DNF
I rarely fail to finish a book I start. I envy my fellow readers who can abandon a book without looking back, but I’m just not there yet. So it killed me to put this one down, and it was especially hard given that I really enjoy Julie Ann Long’s books. She writes regencies that are, if not the most historically rich, very full of life, with really fun, likable characters. For me, they are rollicking good times. The Runaway Duke is the story of the son of a duke whose father has abused him so badly that he fakes his own Waterloo death and goes to work in the stables of the Tremaine family. He falls in love with their mischievous daughter, Rebecca, when he assists her in escaping a bad marriage.
What did it for me was Connor’s dialect. In fairness, Connor is a few years older than Rebecca, and he is also posing as Irish, but his constant references to her as “wee Becca”, not just occasionally, but EVERY TIME he addresses her, were impossible for me to move beyond. Add to that a hide bag full of “aye”s and “ye”s and “’tis”s and I’m done for. Connor first meets “wee Becca” when he has to get her down from a tree, and I appreciate the fact that this is a relationship that will probably grow from one in which Connor feels like an older brother into a more equal one, but it’s just too annoying to get from here to there. Just read this, and see if you can blame me:
Rebecca has stolen a rifle from her father. She says:
“Papa is away in St. Eccles today. And he didn’t lock it up or hide it.”
And Connor says:
“Well, he doesna lock ye into your room at night either, does he, and just look at the trouble that wee bit of oversight has caused.” Connor shook his head ruefully. “Your poor, trusting da. Wee Becca, a man is entitled to believe his muskets are safe from his daughters.”
As the Scottish say, “better to be a coward than a corpse”. So I quit.
3. An Iron Duke
I really, really enjoyed it. It’s just so unique and fun. For me, the great strengths were the detailed, imaginative, and compelling world building and the exciting, swashbuckling plot, both of which made the book impossible to put down. It seemed like around every corner (or passage) there was a new wonder to behold. Just a magical reading experience, really. There are so many glowing reviews out there — an overwhelming number of “A+” and “five star” reviews, from romance and nonromance readers alike – that I don’t feel the need to write my own at this point, but in case you have been living under a rock, I suggest you click over to one of my favorites, by Nicola O. of Alpha Heroes.
One interesting aspect of the reception of this book is that a small minority of reviewers, (for example, Ron Hogan at Beatrice, reviewers like this one on Goodreads, and if I am interpreting the “painful lapses” comment correctly, Rike at All About Romance) who, despite absolutely loving The Iron Duke, consider it to contain one or two scenes of rape. I personally think that if The Iron Duke had been a regency romance or a contemporary, there would be a lot more debate about the nonconsensual sex in the book, but given the completely unique and unusual — and I mean truly mindblowing — setting, it’s low on the list of things to note. When I saw Ron Hogan’s comments about rape, I thought perhaps this was a “new to the romance genre” attitude, but the AAR and Goodreads reviewers, and apparent agreement on Twitter from the likes of Avon editor Esi Sogah, crush that theory. It will be interesting to see what consensus emerges around Rhys and Mina’s first and last sexual encounters. My own experience reading the book is that the first sexual encounter is nonconsensual in a way that shocks both of them, i.e. unintentionally nonconsensual, and the last one is consensual. I had no problem with either one.
Have you had a good experience reading a freebie lately? Can you overlook dialect that bugs you? How about The Iron Duke? Is it on your list? And did you know that when I have no idea how to end a blog post, I ask questions?
Related posts:
I can overlook some dialect but not much. Fake Scottish irritates me, as do some American English dialects. Could not get past the first chapter of Zero at the Bone because of the narrator’s dialect/grammar; struggled with James Buchanan’s Hard Fall, too, but the characters and plot kept me with it. I’ve posted about this a couple of times, because the linguistics student in me (almost forgotten since college) pops up to point out the value of all dialects, separate from my subjective reader/listener filter.
Read and enjoyed The Iron Duke. The first sex scene did make me stop and think about rape and forced seduction in romance, especially in light of the Frenzy. But the last one? Didn’t even occur to me.
Regarding The Iron Duke:
I’ll be honest. If that first scene had appeared in a book written by…damn near anyone else? I would have tossed it. I have very little trust, and a hot button 15 feet across when it comes to dubious consent in romance. Part of this is because I’ve read so many, many books where the hero is forcing himself on the heroine because he understands her needs better than she does, an assumption I’m asked to accept because of the eventual orgasm which apparently renders consent retroactively.
I am not a fan of this trope. At all.
To me, the first scene in The Iron Duke is a dangerous one that walks a line, but I honestly think it completely subverts that retroactive-consent-by-orgasm plot that I hate so very much. In that scene, the orgasm was the offense, not the validation, and no one asked me to believe it was acceptable. (Least of all the heroine, thank God. Nothing makes me madder than, ‘Oh, thank you for showing little ol’ me what I REALLY wanted.’)
And that’s really it. That particular scene troubled me, but the aftermath and the way it played out in the narrative certainly did not make me believe I wasn’t supposed to be troubled. The characters were troubled. It provided conflict.
Whether it was properly atoned for is certainly open to individual interpretation, but I was satisfied both by the intention and the reparation, and I am not someone who is very forgiving of dubious consent in romance. (I specify in romance because that is the only genre where I expect the author to sell me a functional relationship and make me believe it.)
As for the end scene…I had to think hard about what the problem could be, honestly. Consent could not have been clearer to me there, and when consent is present, I don’t have many boundaries.
Just finished MelJean’s HERE THERE BE MONSTERS, which is a novella with the same world building as THE IRON DUKE. I guess it might be a prequel? I don’t know until I read the novel. I’m very interested in it and have it next on my list. I’m a lover of steampunk and have just completed my own book with it and her world truly intrigued me. She is a master storyteller, in my mind, with a huge imagination and sexy Alpha heroes!
As for your DNF, I can see why. I can EASILY abandon books these days. I don’t have enough time to put into something that isn’t truly pleasing me. I probably would have given up on that book after the first few chapters!
I agree with you & Bree, the first sexual encounter was raw and offensive to Mina. It was written that way intentionally, it served as conflict and catalyst. Rhys did not know, after that he knew what boundaries Mina has to overcome. Does it make it right? For some I guess not but for me it did not bother me. This is fiction (and yes, to me that is a big distinction), I like to let the story play out a bit before calling the hero a rapist.
The last encounter was not rape by definition alone. Rhys is Alpha and that’s what Alpha types do. They are aggressive and they take first, ask last but Rhys DID ask and Mina did not say “no.” I actually liked the ending quite a bit.
I’ve picked up quite a few decent books for free, many of which, I never would have read otherwise. That’s one of the funnest things about my Kindle. I read Compromising Positions and like you, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. That one came from Samhain. They have a great program where they offer two titles a month for free. A couple of months ago, I picked up Venus in Blue Jeans by Meg Benjamin. I’d heard some buzz about it on Dear Author and it turned out to be great. One of the best contemps I’ve read recently. There are three more books in the series and I’m definitely going to read all of them.
Another really good read that I recently picked up for free was Enchanting the Lady by Kathryne Kennedy. It’s kind of a fantasy romance set in an alternative Victorian England where a person’s rank in the nobility is determined by how strong their magic is. It was really good and I’ve already read (bought at normal price) two other books by this author. Free books really do work as a marketing tool.
I read The Runaway Duke shortly after it came out and found it very silly – to the point that I had no interest in trying any of Julie Anne Long’s later books. But if it’s not representative of her work, maybe I should give it another shot?
Haven’t read The Iron Duke yet.
Re the free books. I think they are the e-equivaloent of picking something randomly from a bookshop shelf. It is much easier these days with the book review blogs and advance notice of a favourite author’s new books to have a year’s reading planned out and almost pre-purchased, so in a way you never have to deviate from your comfort zone.
Speaking of comfort zones. The Iron Duke. I loved it but in that first sex scene I had a bit of the ‘oh no don’t go there feeling’ because it read as pretty close to date-rape. But then the author handled it by acknowledging this and having Trahearn recognise he was wrong and respecting Mina’s feelings and issues. Mina gets to choose how she responds to that and we wouldn’t have a book if she had been more traumatised. I think the last scene worked because that reparitive work had been done. It was a close call though, because in a less skillful writer’s hands it could have become old-skool.
A different issue that the book raises for me is the seeming prevalence lately of using rape as a way of challenging the heroine’s personal growth and the relationship, so I would ask the question could the same growth in the h/h and their relationship have happened without this event?
Tonight as I walked home through the city, there was a Reclaim The Night march happening – saying no to sexual violence. This reminded me that rape is not commonly talked about in general society. Is the presence of dubious consent and rape in romance novels actually a conversation women are having with each other? It seems to me whenever the topic arises and I follow the comments threads that I come away with a clearer picture in my mind about how to talk about sexual violance with the young women and men in my life and the capacity to take part in a more informed way in discussion about about things like rape culture.
I agree the first sexual encounter was a little – whoa – but with the way Mina was conceived and what happened to her in the past with a frenzy, Rhys had to know what he was up against, and I think this scene served that purpose. It was well done in my opinion.
ps – love your comment Bree!!!!
I want that Samhain book.
I didn’t see the first sex scene as forced. Mina wanted Rhys, but as the memories of the Frenzy overtake her, she reacted the way she did, which makes sense. And because Rhys was so involved in the moment, he had no idea until the very last moment, which he feels deep remorse for.
As for the final sex scene, that was quiet sudden and a bit, huh? But it’s up to the reader to decide if it was too harsh.
I loved Iron Duke. Flat out. I’ll have to skim those two scenes again, because I’m not really remembering anything that set off my alarm and generally I at least remember, but nonconsensual isn’t a stop for me-it always depends on how the author does and Meljean must have done it damn right, for me.
Oh, Iron Duke. Why did you work for everone else and not me? *sob* I didn’t notice the dubious consent issue in the first sex scene, maybe because I wasn’t sure what was happening. I thought Mina’s no meant yes, and it wasn’t clear to me, even from her POV. I was as baffled as Rhys at the end. And then that thing Mina did after–why not do that before he gave her an orgasm? That said, I found the sex scenes hot so I guess consent wasn’t a problem for me. I don’t remember the last one though. Maybe I missed it.
While I managed to finish it, I had the same issues with The Runaway Duke that you did. I didn’t read much about it beforehand or I would never have bought it, since a couple falling in love when they’ve known each other since one of them was a child is a trope I hate with a passion. I might have been ok with it if weren’t for the constant “Wee, Becca,”s reminding me of the creepiness. If TRD had been the first Long book I’d read it could have easily turned me off the author.
I just can’t bring myself to read The Iron Duke yet, even though a lot of my go-t0 reviewers love it. There’s no logical reason, I was just turned off by the constant promotions of this book long before it came out, not to mention the over the top gushing about steampunk being the GREATEST NEW GENRE EVER!!!1! I didn’t read the novella in Burning Up for that reason. I’ll give it a try when all the hype finally dies down.
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It’s a good thing I’d already read several JAL books before reading The Runaway Duke. Her second book, To Love a Thief, is a delight, and most of the more recent books have been hits with me (although Since the Surrender had characters I didn’t care for and the puppets creeped me out).
The Iron Duke is sitting on my iPad, calling to me.
@Jill Sorenson:
The romance for me was the weaker part of the book. For a few reasons, but here’s one: after weeks of tender loving, Rhys thinks Mina will believe him if he suddenly says to her, with no warning, explanation, or build up, “I’m done with you.”. And she does! That is the the kind of psychologically implausible soap opera moment that can work in , say, an HQN Presents, but this wasn’t that kind of book, so it didn’t work for me.
I’ve said in the past that I read the Compass Club books more for the setting than the romance, and that was true for me with The Iron Duke. It’s not that the romance isn’t satisfying in these books, but it’s not what stands out to me when I think about why I liked them.
The DNF book
What kills me is if Becca is English, why didn’t she notice there was something quite not right with the “stable boy”? His accent and use of a dialect, for instance? Either she’s the most sheltered woman in the country or that thick-headed. Or deaf.
To be honest, I want to know why and how a 19th-century Scotsman had these names: “Roarke Connor Riordan Blackburn”. The first three names are Anglicised Irish (and quite modern) and the surname is English. Actually, I don’t know why I bother asking because so many authors don’t seem to be able to recognise the differences of Irish, Irish Gaelic, Scottish and Gaelic names. Heh! *cough*
Anyroad. Dialects in fiction and I are long-time enemies. Are we even surprised by this?
The Iron Duke
It has a couple of flaws and one dubious aspect (hence my B- grade, which is – believe me – a very decent grade), but I think what made it successful for me is its cinematic feel. It’s easy to imagine it as a film. Accessible, outlandish and driven. When in cinema mode, romance (and sex, I suppose) isn’t that important. It’s certainly the core of this story, but there are other elements to get us by, including the setting/world-building which you’d already mentioned. Like The Mummy, Romancing the Nile, Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, Young Sherlock Holmes, etc – all these are essentially about romance between two protagonists whilst on a mission. That’s what The Iron Duke is to me.
Having said that, I struggled to remember the first sex scene when I read your comments. I finally remembered when I read Katiebabs’s response above. My eyebrow did arch a bit when he actually went through with it, but the unromantic, slightly dissatisfying or awkward first sex scene (and the plausible consequences after) is pretty much a Meljean Brook trademark, I thought, so I trusted her enough to go along with it. I still don’t remember the last scene, though.
Yes, I agree with this assessment. Plus, we are inside Rhys’ head enough to understand that he is misinterpreting her response, and is not trying to push his way past resistance, which is the case in most forced seduction scenes — not “her lips say NO but her body says YES” but “oh crap, I thought that WAS a yes!”
Thanks for the link, Jessica. There are a bunch of different angles I’d love to talk more about for this book but I thought my post was getting too long as it was.
I ‘m also all over Scarsdale and Lady C’s relationship. Also the reveal about Scarsdale was very well done.
I adore Scarsdale.
*applauds* I, too, am an avid Julie Anne Long fan who DESPISES “The Runaway Duke.” It wasn’t just that Rebecca was called “wee Becca,” but that she ACTED like a “wee Becca.” Not to mention the fact that she believes she has a snowball’s chance of becoming a female doctor in 1820s England.
HOWEVER, despite the creepiness, this book DID have one of the most vividly-drawn villainesses I’ve ever encountered in a romance. She was easily the book’s best character.
I had decided that Iron Duke was going to be the first book I bought for my e-reader, but then found it wasn’t available to me! Darned international rights!
So I bought the book, and now I just have to find time to read it!
I’ll have to look into the Samhain free books!
@AnimeJune: “HOWEVER, despite the creepiness, this book DID have one of the most vividly-drawn villainesses I’ve ever encountered in a romance. She was easily the book’s best character. ”
She really was. I’ve noticed that Long is really good at writing villains…so good that I unrealistically hope for spinoff books featuring them. Since reading TRD I’ve been searching for a romance with a heroine like Cordelia.
In The Iron Duke, MB really pulls off a delicate trick of narrative ethics, it seems to me, by staging a violation of the heroine without implicating the hero in that violation (lastingly, at least, since as soon as he has awareness of the violation, he is extremely quick to identify the misunderstanding, apologize, and attempt to correct it). This is made possible by the fact that it is a violation based on past trauma, and thus (as a function of her memory and her experience) at least partially inaccessible to our hero. But he really should have been more aware of 1) what the current acculturated experience of sexuality is for buggers who lived through the Frenzies and 2) the details of her reaction. The fact that he isn’t doesn’t really implicates the romance trope of the hero swept up in a passionate frenzy, incapable of ethical control of his actions – the exact same trope that the Frenzies themselves seem to be critiquing. So I think Bree really hits the nail on the head: “In that scene, the orgasm was the offense, not the validation, and no one asked me to believe it was acceptable. ”
And I am also 100% with you, Jessica, in thinking that the romance here was of secondary importance (and was less successful) than the world-building (with the whole slew of interesting ethical and social issues it sketched out). I was also enraged by the arbitrariness of the 3/4-point “complication” – 1) why is it even necessary for him to pretend to be done with her rather than just explaining that he has to create a world that makes their relationship possible, 2) Why does she believe him, 3) why is he so perplexed when he finds out she believed him, and 4) is “fixing the entire world and eliminating racism” really a task that can be narratively accomplished in the final quarter of a book? Admittedly, MB does nod to this last problem when Mina acknowledges that “things being a lot better” means that now people only RARELY spit on her or refuse her service rather than doing it constantly, and I appreciate that it is her efforts and accomplishments, rather than his (instrumental as he was in publicizing her awesomeness) that effects this change, but it seems like an implausible social shift to make the (necessary) foundation for a HEA.
I enjoyed the novel a lot, and eagerly await the next one, but I read it with *much* less urgency than I usually do with my favorite romances, despite the fact that I admired the writing, construction (apart from that one major flaw in plotting), and challenging ideas of it. I am still trying to put my finger on what exactly struck the odd hollow note for me, from time to time, in the reading of it.
P.S. with a bit of a SPOILER: What did everyone think of the revelation of what happened to Mina in the last Frenzy? I wish the novel had examined the implications of it more closely, but I was fascinated by the exchange (which I hope I am remembering rightly) in which Rhys assumes that he can conclude from the tale that she is a virgin, and she is quick to correct him.
Ariel: I had to re-read Mina’s thoughts and think on it for a while to finally understand about who she was with and what really did occur during the Frenzy, and if she was indeed a virgin. Well played on Meljean’s part.
Iron Duke was one of my favorite books this year. I loved both characters and didn’t have a problem with the first sexual encounter because a) they were both drunk off their asses and b) he was genuinely horrified that he had misunderstood her complicity. I didn’t think his “calling it off” ruse at the end was out of character for him since he was such an autocrat by nature. I liked that his entire world worked at his command and things happened as he expected them to until Mina showed up. I love the blustering alpha brought low by the unpredictable mate scenario I guess (it usually works for me.)
For some reason I’ve been running up against a bunch of DNF reads lately. Maybe its a lack of patience or maybe I’ve just been reading WAY too many books lately. After dozens of historical romances and paranormals I think I might switch to urban fantasy or even outright fiction for a short time just to refresh my expectations a little.
When I first read Julie Anne Long, I was advised to “go forward, not back” in reading her books. I did, so I’ve never read The Runaway Duke. Her later stuff works well for me.
The Iron Duke was a wonderful read for me, because I’ve been a fantasy reader for a long time, and most fantasy romances fail on one end or the other for me. Meljean got the balance right for me as a reader, and developed both the world and the relationship in a way that I loved. As for the sex scenes, I’m a “never say never” reader — a good writer can make things work for me that I normally don’t like, and the first sex scene is a great example of that. Given who the characters were and how they communicated (and didn’t!), it was completely believable to me. Rhys’ reaction was all that I could wish for, but I can see that other readers might not agree. Also, I liked that the characters were in a seemingly impossible position, so much so that I could believe him pretending to dump her and her accepting it. And then it worked out that they could be together, and that’s romance at its best as far as I’m concerned.
@jmc: I have both Zero at the bone and Hard Fall, the latter I scored for the author who gave a fascinating talk on the leather community and writing m/m at a conference. Dialect is usually not so bothersome to me. The more I think about it, i;s the combination in The Iron Duke of the paternal relationship and the dialect.
@Bree:
I’m one of those readers for whom it depends on how it’s written. I’ll reiterate that I did not have a problem with this book on that score. I think they both knew there was a chance that sex wasn’t going to work. She was willing to try it, but given the fraught situation, he needed to be more attentive to signs that the worm had turned, and she was no longer on board. He wasn’t, and she was sexually assaulted (if we mean: no means no, at any point in the encounter, regardless of how drunk anyone is). The only “dubiousness” is Rhys’s. But we don’t (or shouldn’t) decide whether someone has been sexually assaulted by deciding if the assaulter meant to do it or not.
I love your point about the orgasm subverting one popular version of the forced seduction trope. but I am not sure it was as subversive in other ways. For example, after she recovers enough to function again, Mina thinks:
“The room spun. She couldn’t think clearly. He hadn’t been thinking clearly either. His shock as he’s looked up at her had been genuine. Both drunk. And by the bright stars, she’d been so stupid.”
The reader only got Rhys’s point of view of the assault — this is very common in the trope, and serves to make the reader sympathetic to the man — and now that we are in Mina’s head we are still looking at it from Rhys’s point of view. When Mina turns to self-reflection, she thinks “I was stupid.”
I’ll reiterate that I have no objections to the book, which I really enjoyed, or to this scene, and I agree that reparation was done well. I’m working on a paper right now on Crusie and emotional justice, and it;s given me the thought that one of the reasons many of us don;t mind reading scenes of nonconsent or ambiguous consent, besides their function as safe erotic fantasy is the assurance of not just an HEA, which even really vile people, or people in a nonegalitarian — even abusive — relationship could achieve (our happiness does not necessarily track mental health), but of what Crusie referred to as emotional justice. I don’t think the fantasy would appeal with that ethical safety net.
Several people have mentioned Brook and their knowledge of her as an author. I agree that this is salient as well. Having read almost all of her Guardian series, I feel I have a sense of her authorial persona. It’s one I trust to reflect back at me my own view of gender justice.
@Leslie Dicken: I wish I could abandon more books. But then you guys wouldn’t get those snarky reviews that make my stat counter go haywire.
@Scorpio M.: I liked the ending a lot too. This is a guy who just has no other way to express his emotions. I thought it was a bit over the top, but very true to his character.
@JenM:
I did not know this. Thanks for this suggestion!
@Meri: I have a read a few JAL’s and really liked them. to Love a thief was probably my favorite. They are all kind of light and goofy in their way, but the Runaway Duke was ridiculous. I guess I just wasn’t in the mood for that.
@Las: the steampunk thing is more talked about than enacted. I have read a couple of steampunk books, and seen the clothing, etc. But I think The Iron Duke is the one cultural artifact that made me really understand its narrative possibilities. But it is hard for me to read a book that has been reviewed glowingly everywhere. I think this is why I have not read the Jeannie Lin book. I just need to wait.
@Merrian:
What a great question. I am torn about how to answer it, personally. See @Jill Sorenson: ‘s comment for one suggestion as to how it might have worked.
On the one hand, I think, yes, of course. In fact, this gave them a bigger hurdle to get past. On the other hand., Mina’s “issues” — the way she had been conceived, and then “othered”, in her society (not just “her” issues, of course) — are bound up with sexuality, so maybe sex is where the walls had to be broken down to make love possible.
Tonight as I walked home through the city, there was a Reclaim The Night march happening – saying no to sexual violence. This reminded me that rape is not commonly talked about in general society. Is the presence of dubious consent and rape in romance novels actually a conversation women are having with each other? It seems to me whenever the topic arises and I follow the comments threads that I come away with a clearer picture in my mind about how to talk about sexual violence with the young women and men in my life and the capacity to take part in a more informed way in discussion about about things like rape culture.
I love this point. Thank you for making it.
@Mandi:
Yup.
Yup.
Yup.
@katiebabs: @Shiloh Walker: Your not being sure about consent is pretty interesting to me, because nothing could be clearer to me than a woman having to subdue someone with an opium dart to get him to stop and to communicate her fury.
@Maili:
Agreed.
But is the unsatisfying or awkward first sex scene a MB trademark? Huh. I will have to think about that one.
@AnimeJune:
Yes, exactly.
@Marg:
They are vile.
ok, that’s all I can respond to right now. More later, and thank you everyone for your comments.
@Las: Yeah, why don’t we ever get the villain spinoff? (I guess Kleypad did it once).
@Ariel/Sycorax Pine: Thanks for these thoughts. I am glad you agree with me about the 3/4 complication. I loved your points about the forced sex.
The connection between this individual sexual encounter and the group/oppression dynamic reported from the frenzies is very hard for me to settle on. Thanks for this.
As to this:
Let me think… she says she relieved the frenzied sexual urge with her best friend. I may not be recalling this correctly, but what I found a bit odd about it was that in other places in the text my impression was that homosexuality is not condoned i the society, so why was she so comfortable admitting this? Perhaps because she isn’t gay or bi and everyone knows this given the context in which the same sex encounter took place. Either that or she was joking? Ugh. Brain fog.
@pamelia:
I can see this.
@SonomaLass:
I wish I had heard this sooner!
This is such an interesting point. Do you plan to blog about TID from this point of view? I would be really interested in that.
@Jessica:
You know, I think this is something I experience a variation on. I am historically a fantasy/speculative fiction reader who always wanted more romance in her books. It wasn’t all that many years ago that my writing partner directed me to the paranormal romance subgenre, where I think I could happily live forever.
I’m far more likely to feel let down by the world building than the romance, though, barring outright offense. (I do bring my born-in-the-80s, raised-by-a-hippie-feminist perspective to books, and get my feathers ruffled by gender dynamics often enough.) I think it’s likely I bring a different set of expectations regarding the romance arc, and can probably be dazzled easily enough by shiny world building, even to the point of overlooking parts of the romance arc that might otherwise puzzle me.
I can’t believe I’d never noticed the point of view thing. I’ve actually railed against that several times, wondering why an author wouldn’t put me in the heroine’s point of view if I’m supposed to believe this is an acceptable act. The hero’s perspective has never served to make me sympathetic, unless it’s completely impossible to discern anything but enthusiasm from the heroine. If I can tell that the heroine is resisting, being in the hero’s point of view completely alienates and infuriates me as a reader. And it did in this instance, too, enough that it took serious effort to redeem him for me.
However, I don’t know if I agree that “I was stupid” is not very much Mina’s point of view. I can see your point, but my understanding of Mina as a character made it very easy to see that as a very in character reaction.
This is one of those hairline distinctions with an unreliable narrator–I have no trouble with Mina believing she was stupid. A woman with her experiences and desire to be in control could easily shoulder the blame for drinking and letting it get as far as it did. Her belief that it was her fault and her responsibility rang true for me. What would have offended me was narrative reinforcement of that belief, or Rhys agreeing with her, which he certainly did not seem to do.
(I might have misunderstood your point, though.)
That sums it up rather neatly. I will follow Brook into territory I otherwise might choose to avoid, because the gender dynamics in her books never cross any of my personal lines. Her characters are beautifully flawed, and while sometimes they may have thoughts and feelings that run counter to my personal ideals of justice, I’m never left feeling that her universe wants me to accept those moments as just. Hard truths, maybe, but not happy ones.
@Jessica:
Oh, thank you for mentioning this. I was oddly thrilled when Mina shared her experiences of having men coming up to her with sexual proposals, just because she’s a half or “exotic”. This is a common experience for many, especially those with the so-called “racially ambiguous” appearance.
I don’t think I’d come across this in a romance where heroines are concerned. (Usually, it’s heroes – such as “half-breeds” – who have had white women throwing themselves at them.) Female-wise, the nearest thing would be Marguerite Duras’s The Lover, but gah.
There have been mixed race heroines and still are, but the issues that come with being mixed are frequently ignored or left unacknowledged (except to describe “an exotic tilt to her eyes” and other toe-cringing descriptors to convey Heroine’s “exoticness” – you can tell how much I loathe the word ‘exotic’! I’m sorry, but I’m just so sick of having this word as a descriptor). “A young blonde woman as a trophy wife” is widely acknowledged in fiction and the media, which is why I find it surprising that “an exotic-looking woman as a sexual conquest” is largely ignored. Seeing Mina’s experiences in print was so gratifying, probably because it’s an acknowledgement it exists. Petty, I know, but there you go.
Having said that, I did wonder why Mina didn’t suspect Rhys’s motivation like she did with the others. Her primary concern seemed, IIRC, to be about the affair having a possibility of ruining his reputation as well as her family’s. She had guessed that the society would think Rhys was doing it to piss the Horde off, but she didn’t suspect Rhys this herself, though, which I find rather odd or inconsistent. My recollection may be incorrect as it’s been a while since I read TID.
Also, the handling of portraying the society’s treatment of her is both good and crap. It’s good because, to cut it short, it shows what kind of issues people like her has to deal with. It’s crap because it was a little too vague. Quite a few readers said in their reviews they didn’t understand why they treated her so badly, which shows the fact Mina was half-Asian didn’t come across clearly enough. I think I do understand the author’s dilemma. It’s better to have a vague nod than completely ignored, I suppose?
FWIW, I didn’t have any problems with Mina accepting Rhys’s claims, and I think it’s got to do with what Maili mentioned — her previous experiences of men wanting her only for her “exotic” value. They’ve spent a long time having mind-blowingly good sex, true, but love was never mentioned, and that’s why it worked for me. She was sure that he wanted her body, but it was easy for her to assume that was all, and, therefore, it was easy to assume that he would rather break things off than get mired down in complications. The way I read Rhys, that was exactly the kind of thing he would have done if he’d only wanted sex; he would see it as a sort of kindness to them both, breaking it off cleanly.
I also didn’t have any problems with the sex scenes: the first one was pretty clearly a case of, as Jessica put it, “I thought that was a yes”, and he was truly horrified when he realised it wasn’t, whereas the last one read, to me, as if he didn’t even suspect she might want him, but knew she wanted — and liked — sex with him, so he was going for what he thought was their only firm connection. And he did ask her for a no, so consent doesn’t seem to be an issue there.
@Maili
What book were they reading? It was one of the points that I loved about the book — that it not only mentioned the issue, but also made it quite clear that even the “better” situation means only that she doesn’t get spat on as often as before.
I think that, although homosexuality seems to be something to hide in the society, Mina had no problems mentioning her experience with Felicity to Rhys because he was perfectly comfortable with unusual forms of sexuality, and she’d witnessed that before she told him about her own experience.
Also, coming to this as another cross-genre reader, I must say I really loved the speculative aspects of the book. However — and also maybe because the speculative aspects were so good — the romance aspect occasionally seemed… out of place? I’m not sure I can explain this properly, but the two sets of genre-expectations clashed a little, I think: things that I would accept as a matter of course in a “pure” romance, such as Rhys deciding he would make sure they had a family and it worked, made me stop in this context. It’s not that the romance didn’t work — but it didn’t quite fit, somehow. I’m probably not explaining this well, but this is way too long as it is, so I’ll just stop…
I liked the Mina/Felicity revelation, and Mina’s assertion that she wasn’t a virgin because she’d had sex before, intact hymen aside. I also thought the racism Mina faced was heartbreaking–no confusion from my end on this point. Those elements felt very modern and forward-thinking to me.
Perhaps because Here There Be Monsters had such a strong, satisfying romance (especially for a novella), I expected the same from The Iron Duke. And, for many readers, it delivered. I also became less engaged in the investigation as more complications arose and characters popped up. At times I felt like Rhys was explaining the steampunk universe, and all of its players, to the reader through Mina.
[...] could be seen as rape scenes. There is a great discussion on Jessica’s post about the book at Read React Review and I agree wholeheartedly with her when she says: “My own experience reading the book is that [...]
[...] to me, I read Compromising Positions because of a review at Read React Review by Jessica. The rest of my fave books listed had some kind of buzz too, or the [...]