Books
I’ve been on a Mary Jo Putney kick this month. Okay, Mary Jo Putney and
Shakespeare, but I’m not going to talk about speed reading Shakespeare
plays while mining for quotes.
Anyway, Putney is one of my favorite romance authors. She writes deft
believable, slightly broken characters, who are nevertheless redeemed by
love. Yeah, yeah, that’s the concept behind all romances right. Whatever.
Putney pulls it off in a Eros leads to Pysche leads to Caritas/Agape
kind of romances. The idea that love is about the inner life within. That
we are all in our way imperfect, broken, yearning for the light and that
light is love. The love that moves the sun, the moon and the stars as Dante
would be want to characterize. God.
Now, this is kind of a squishy sort of comment to make, because I must
admit I really don’t actually religious romances where people are so very,
very perfect. And pious. And they quote verses, but I never feel the light
behind the love.
Anyway, Putney, she strides a fine middle ground of lost people who
half way through the journey of their loves find themselves in a dark wood,
the true way lost.
Really, I should be quoting Shakespeare, who makes a bit more of an
appearance, “Because she is a woman, she is to be wooed, because she is
a woman, she is to be won.” but Dante’s a bit more coherent in terms of
extended metaphor.
Angel Rogue
Decription: Regency Romance. Maxi, half English, half
Mohican, decides to steal away to London to find out the mystery behind
her father’s death. Robin Andreville, a retired spy, decided all unasked
to go with her.
Sounds pretty flacky doesn’t it. All the tropes, but this is how they
should be done. Part of her Fallen Angel series, sortof.
Robin is well named. He is Robin Goodfellow, that sly fellow that tricks
and plays and slippery frips. And beneath it all are the things he’s done.
This inherent sense that he must conceal because he believes himself empty.
Maxi (or Maxima) is a dark stranger in a blond land. American when she
should be English. Red when she should be whiter than white bread. Aching
and empty.
It’s a nice story with no real bad guys, just people doing what they
do to get by.
Dancing on the Wind
Description:
Regency Romance. Lucien , once more with the spies (well he is Robin’s
cousin/boss), is investigating a wannabe Hellfire Club for treason. Kit
Travers is looking for something lost. They meet in disguise. Each time
she’s a different woman. The same.
Part of the Fallen Angel series, Lucien is one of my favorites. Come
on, he’s basically Lord Peter Whimsey. Well, not quite, but close. He natters.
He pursues. He gets the girl.
There are a number of leap of faith moments in the book, but I liked
the concept of spiritual connections and several kinds of love. Lucien
having lost his other at an early age, hiding it with piffle. Kit at a
point, where she is all unexpected surprised by love.
Dearly Beloved
DeSRCiption:
Regency Romance. Really, really messed up people mess each other up even
more with love. Then they forgive, give, love.
Really one of my favorites. It probably shouldn’t be. It opens with
one of those sequences that should have me hating the main male character,
Gervase St. Aubyn. But I don’t, and there it is.
Diana Lindsey, the main female character, is a much stronger woman that
I could ever be, because she bends. She gives. She experiences pain and
she lets go. I love the repeated idea that we are all sinners, none of
us saints, that we all need forgiveness.
Oh, there is a villain. And he’s pretty darn evil, as counterpoint I
suppose to all that love. Also, points to a little boy character, who comes
off a little boy as opposed to a waxed dummy to be moved about the book.
Great characterizations, tragic decisions, bittersweet longing for acceptance.
One Perfect Rose
Description:
Regency Romance – One day Stephen has everything. Power, title, wealth.
But he’s dying. Having all his life faced duty, he decides to wander and
meets up with a theater troop and a Lady Caliban. A perfect rose.
Sometimes, I wonder at my own enjoyment of painting by the numbers of
meanderings. Of course, and of course, and yet. The point of a romance
is never the plot. It is the reveal. The moments when love blossoms.
That point when Stephen tells Rosalind that for everything there is
a season and now it is high summer and it is time to dance. All the while
the specter waits. That in the end, flowers die and kings and paupers are
equally dust.
Stephen, as someone who has never thought beyond the physical, faced
with death, must now hothouse inward turn.
Each day in the book, headed by the number of days that Stephen estimates
he may, might have left. Counting down to three months.
Hmmm…that all sounds kind of morbid. Really it’s not. It’s very nice.
I especially like that after a brief attempt to send Rosalind away, she
stays and that’s that. No tragic misunderstandings, well except the central
one.
And damn with the Shakespeare. Caliban and Ariel and forgiving brothers
and brave new worlds that have such people in them.
Thunder and Roses
Description:
Regency Romance – A tiny mining town in Wales, a dangerous mine, a heartful
heroine (Clare) who approaches a lost hero (Nicholas) as the only one with
the power/money to do anything about it. Look a romance.
There’s this wonderful moment, where Clare, the daughter of Methodist
minister, realizes that after spending her life praying and praying for
a personal connection with God, finally finds it by admitting that she
loves Nicholas.
Now, I’ll admit there was one moment in the book where I wanted Clare
into Michael, a side character, rather than leaving it to Nicholas, cause,
ummm…her father died in Michael’s mine. She should have way more issues
with Michael than she does. But her father was a saint, and that’s hard
to live up to, so, okay I can deal.
Other than that, some very nice misunderstandings, meanderings, final
resolutions.
Uncommon Vows
Desciption:
Medieval Romance – He finds her literally wandering in a dark wood, at
which point his way is lost. He knows it’s wrong, but arrests her on a
trumped up poaching charge and takes her back to yonder castle. Then things
go completely wrong. Then completely right.
No really, this is my favorite of Putney’s books. And really, really,
I should be ashamed. Yup, we’ve got kidnapping and the whole whatnot. Except,
she doesn’t fall in love with the kidnapper. She rejects any curtailment
of freedom in the most medieval Christian way possible.
And for every moment he pushes, there is this sure knowledge that what
he is doing is wrong. That moment when he goes to pray, and he can’t. When
he imagines his soul as a chalice and it is tarnished. Empty. And all he
has to do is let her go. And he can’t. And then he has to.
It’s all very, if you love something let it go, except, you know, good
and well written and tragic and transformative.
Well, I think that’s enough Putney for now. I mean, I read more, but
ummm...I've got some Willy Shakes to read.
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