Review: Midsummer Magic, by Catherine Coulter

Midsummer Magic is my first Coulter, but a lot of folks got their romance genre start reading her historical romances of the 1980s. She’s published over seventy titles, beginning in 1980 and continuing to this day. Her last 15 or so books have been FBI paranormal romance thrillers. I happened to spy Midsummer Magic at my local library book sale last weekend, recognized the author’s name, and, well, who can resist this cover?

Published at the end of 1987, Midsummer Magic is the first in the Magic Trilogy. I found this to be an entertaining read, but I was never really invested in the characters or their romance. I found a lot of the action quite silly (the heroine dislocates her shoulder, but manages to have a conversation and bandage a horse’s leg before noticing), and the writing not to my taste (head hopping, for example, with sometimes as many as three points of view in one paragraph. Lots of repetition of dialogue. Etc.).

Phillip Hawsbury, Earl of Rothermere, age 26, promises his dying father, the Marquess, that he’ll go to Scotland and pick a wife from among the three daughters of Alexander Kilbracken, Earl of Ruthven, who saved the Marquess’ life 17 years prior. Hawk (Please. Did you really think he’d go by “Phillip“?) has recently retired from the Army, and would much rather continue enjoying the delights of London, especially those of his mistress, the Frenchwoman Amalie (who calls him “mon faucon“, naturellement). But since his elder brother Nevil’s untimely death, Hawk is the heir, and must do his father’s bidding.

Hawk is good looking and not very bright. His favorite word is “damn” in all its permutations, but especially adjectival. He’s a “damned son”, who made his father a “damnable oath.” “Damn Nevil” for dying! He doesn’t want a “damned wife”, but honor is a “damnable thing”. He doesn’t like “damned weak women” or his “damn miserable situation”, which he “doesn’t damn believe.” Well, that’s three pages. You get my drift.

Something odd happens when information enters Hawk’s brain. It’s like a backwards engineered sausage factory. Here’s an example. When Frances’s pretty sister flirts with him — merely by suggesting she might want to waltz one day — he thinks, “She was so eager. Lord, he would feel like a rapist taking her to wive.”

Among the Kilbracken sisters is Frances, described by her father as “Willful, too independent, a mouth that won’t be silenced, and a damned excellent animal healer.” (Yeah, that last one threw me, too. But the animal thing comes in handy later.) In case her status as spunky heroine is not yet clear, there’s this bit of descriptive prose which telegraphs her personality: “her thick untamed hair … tumbled down in a profusion of wild curls… the color of autumn in the highlands, an uncivilized blending of blond, red, and brown.”

Frances loves frolicking among the lochs and the heather. She does not want to leave home. We know things are tense for this Scottish lass when “The haggis suddenly seemed the most unappetizing concoction in the world.” In order to deter Hawk, she puts on drab clothes, an ugly cap, spectacles, and colonizes her hair into a tight bun. She walks around with a book and stays quiet. Little does she know that Hawk just wants a deferential wife so he can run back to London and Amalie. He chooses Frances, and they wed, the day after he indulges in a little engagement nookie with some random Glasgow widow. Niiiiiiiice.

The journey to Chandos Chase, Hawk’s digs, is long and tiresome for both Hawk and Frances. Haggis provides a window into their complex, evolving relationship:

Hawk said at last, “I’m rapidly tiring of haggis.”
Frances forked down an extra large bite.
Hawk studied her bent head for a moment, then said, “You’re feeling better now?”
… “Yes,” she said, eyeing her haggis with grave concentration, “I am feeling much better.”

Frances is clearly wary, but eventually Hawk must do his duty and bed her. The reverse sausage factory chugs into production again as Hawk thinks:

How did one make one’s wife ready? He certainly couldn’t caress her like he did his mistresses: it would embarrass her horribly and make matters but worse. He shook his head, wishing now that he’d thought to cover his member with cream to ease his way into her.

Hawk goes and gets the cream, and they have the first of a long series of nonconsensual sexual encounters which make this book a wallbanger for many readers. Midsummer Magic is the first romance novel I have ever read in which the development of the hero and heroine’s relationship can be charted entirely via sex lube:

ACT I: MY KINGDOM FOR A JAR OF CREAM

The hero’s point of view: (p. 136-7)

“This gives me little pleasure Frances. It must be done. Now just lie still!” … She felt the bed give under his weight. Felt his hands clasp her about the waist and pull her under him. “Oh, damn.” Hawk said. He’d forgotten the wretched cream. … He’d just have to make do.

The father’s point of view (Yes. The father.) (p. 140):

The marquess closed his eyes. Why the devil would a husband have to use cream with his own wife?

The heroine’s point of view (p. 148):

He didn’t hurt her, for the cream eased his way.

A few chapters on, treading cream, I mean water … (p. 235):

He hadn’t hurt her, after all. He’d gotten the cream.

Wait. What’s this? (p. 249)

“There won’t be any further need of the cream, either” he continued, his voice deep and certain. … “Would you like to know why we won’t need the cream anymore, Frances?” [Utterly sick of talking about the cream, she tries to leave.] “As I was saying, Frances, we won’t need the blasted cream. Why? I’m sure you want to ask me. [Uh, no, she was just leaving actually, until you slammed and held the door shut.] “Well, my dear, we won’t, because when I finally come into you, you will be quite ready for me — wet warm, and quite wild for me.”

A snag in the plans, literally! (p. 251)

Hawked looked at the fingernail of his left hand. He blinked, suddenly afraid that the nail had been jagged the night before. That was the finger he’d covered with cream and eased into his wife. … “BRING ME THE FILE,” he said. [italics and caps are mine. They so should have been in the original.]

INTERMISSION: TELL ME ABOUT IT, STUD.

Alas, all the cream in the world couldn’t make Frances enjoy getting raped. Who knew? I’m not sure why they didn’t think of this immediately, but it turns out she had to be dressed as a stable boy and forced to watch horse sex! *facepalm*

The mare screamed, and Frances knew*, deep down, that it was a cry of pleasure. She felt her palms grow sweaty, her breath grow jerky. … She felt a deep stirring, but she didn’t understand it. She felt a tension building in her belly … no, below her belly, between her legs.

(*Remember her affinity to animals?) Hawk immediately leads her into the tack room, but there is a “damned interruption.”

ACT II: ORGASM

Memories of homoerotic schoolboy days come in handy for our hero! (p. 283)

He suddenly remembered a saying that one of the dons at Eton adored repeating: Great men move slowly. Had the fellow meant in bed?

Two steps forward… (p. 296):

“I wonder if I will have to resort to the cream again?”, he said in a thoughtful voice.

Finally able to joke about the cream. True healing (p. 388):

“I believe we can safely toss that damned jar of cream out the window.”

I haven’t said much about their relationship, because if you are familiar with this sort of book, you already know that she’s a “damned little minx”, whose neck he’d “like to wring”. He’s an absolute jerk. She says a lot of “I hate yous” and “you’re disgustings,” and she’s pretty unformed.

Frances is no brain trust herself, deciding to jettison her disguise and glam it up when Hawk leaves for a tryst with Amalie, to punish him. On Hawk’s return, one sight of his newly lovely bride (although it’s a wonder he never before noticed her “high cheekbones, the beautifully shaped brows, the high smooth forehead”. Bones are kind of hard to hide.) has jars of cream dancing in his head, and she is forced to ask herself:

“Why hadn’t she realized that he would be far more interested in sex with her new appearance.”

Oh, snap! But just ponder that locution for a minute.

Still, I liked Frances a lot more than Hawk. She’s not as considerate of his obvious cognitive disabilities as she might be (she tricks him into mistaking a bolster pillow for his wife. TWICE!), but at least she does something: she decides to get the neglected stud farm in order, and in the meantime discovers a subplot involving horse stealing and fraud which I won’t go into here.

My favorite character is probably Amalie, Hawk’s mistress. She’s not only the one person who calls it like it is:

Listen, mon faucon, how can you be so stupid?

… but she actually solves the subplot mystery, and then shows up at the climax and tackles the gun totin’ bad guy, saving the day!

Amalie and Frances bond over Hawk’s idiocy. Their bonding involves having Amalie hold his arm behind his back while Frances punches him in the stomach. If only the next scene had them making eyes at each other and strolling out of the drawing room, hand in hand, but it was not to be. Instead, there is a dreaded baby epilogue. Are you surprised?