More Austen, & etc.

As I was sitting down to write this post, I was thinking it had been a very themed weekend - specifically, Georgian/Regency, with Intrigue! And Ratafia!(whatever the hell that is - I keep meaning to look it up - I feel like it's some kind of gross Orangina-type drink, for ladies?) And Muslin! And Rakes!

And then I saw that that was kind of my last post, too...

So - some time this past week I started the latest Stephanie Barron (or, at least, the latest in the series I like), Jane and the Canterbury Tale; Being a Jane Austen Mystery. I assume that the subtitle is not really part of the title, but I like to make it nice and period-appropriate. And, totally unplanned, I moved on this weekend to another early nineteenth century caper, this one with spying rather than murder, but still lots of muslin, Lauren Willig's latest Pink Carnation episode, The Garden Intrigue.

As to the first; I think I started it Monday or Tuesday (I remember climbing into bed a little tipsy and very tired, and since I seem to be living my life backwards these days, that would place us at the beginning of the week) but didn't finish it until this morning (Sunday), since I never read for that long. Mostly because I was tired, but also because it just wasn't the kind of book where I couldn't put it down, and was making the time to read it.

I fell in love with this series years and years ago; probably before the first one had been out in paperback for long, and I'm not even sure if the first one came out in hardcover, since back then they (the paperbacks) were mass market and much less slickly turned out. There was a character I was very fond of who died, sometime when I was in grad school, and after that I just haven't felt as much for the remaining characters or the books themselves. So that might be some of it.

But the bigger problem is that they're starting to just feel dull, like we're going through all the same events, with the same people, and the same "reveals," just altered in minor ways. Barron also seems to be struggling a bit, or at least her editors are. There were some small, but noticeable mistakes and I had some issues with the tone.

The thing that I used to really appreciate about the books was Barron's ability to mimic Austen's language - vocabulary, pacing, little, loving nods to lines from the latter's novels - without it feeling forced or gratuitous. Now it kind of does. Like, some period spellings - fine.  But make them count. Every time she used the word "romantickal" (to be fair, I think it was only twice), I felt like I was being hit over the head with "hey! It's ye olden days!" We get it. But, for what it's worth, I think Barron still does a better job than the plethora of other authors trying to ape Jane's style (AHEM, P.D. James, I'm not letting you off the hook for that travesty so easily). When has a character say "It will not fadge, and you know it" (44), I knew basically what he was saying (it won't work, more or less), but the contemporary language grounded the character. And I could tell from context that a "succession-house" (48) must be a greenhouse, but it sounded old and English.  I had no idea what the etymology of the phrase "grass widow" was, but I spent some pleasant minutes trying to figure it out.



Finished up Jane this afternoon, and then immediately started Garden Intrigue. Not because of the chronological similarities, but because it had just come last week in the mail (I ordered it from B&N the day it came out, using a coupon & a Valentine's Day gift card, so it was free, sweet!) and I had made myself wait to read it until the week was over and I had turned in some reports I really had to focus on. So I started it this afternoon - and finished it tonight. So, am I about to say that it's not as good as the earlier books in the series, and that I am getting disenchanted? Yes. Was I also enchanted enough to read the whole thing in the course of the afternoon? Also yes.

Honestly, I think the marathon reading was more about the fact I had kind of an awful week, and a lot of stuff going on in my life that I wanted to avoid, so escaping into a book - light enough I didn't have to really focus, not so fluffy I could still brood while I read - was a good option for a Sunday. Doing the work I brought home probably would have been a better idea, but it's not like it's anything with a "due date," and in any case, that's neither here nor there.

It's not that I didn't enjoy Garden Intrigue, because I did. It was funny in places, romantic (kind of) in others, and it suggested that the cranberry muffins at Broadway Market are good, so I will have to check those out (although I am annoyed with the place at the moment). But again, it's getting oooooold.  Couple whose early verbal sparring is an obvious prelude to them falling in love, after some misunderstandings, and then a scene where they haltingly admit their love? Check. Interspersed romantic and personal entanglements of a modern-day history Ph.D.? Check. Some issues with a threat to British national security and/or an attempt against the French (the former bad, the latter good)? Check. But suspense, or excitement? Not so much.

I want to be fair. Willig is, I think, great with pacing. She knows just how to build and hold a chapter, and when to cut it off; she spaces out the modern sections well, tying the action in twenty-first century England to what was going on in Napoleonic France (in this book) and also cutting off the reader when something big(ish) is about to happen in the main narrative, heightening what suspense there is. But in this book, there just wasn't that much suspense.

Obviously, in any book like this, you know basically what is going to happen because a) Napoleon never does take over the world, so you know the right side - that's the British, by the by, as much as my brother might not like it - win, and b) it's a romance novel, whatever other pretensions it might have, so there will be a happy ending. Now Willig might not concur with my thoughts on romance novels, and I am probably being overly judge-y, but this book, even more than the others in the series, just seemed to be so consumed with the romantic aspects of the plot that the spy part got lost. Or maybe it's just that there wasn't much spy part to begin with?

While the protagonist, Emma, was an appealing character, I prefer the books in the series where the female main characters actually know, at least to an extent, what they're involved with, and not just in the concluding chapters of the book. It gives them more to do. I don't know...I can't put my finger on it, this one just seemed extra formulaic, and when nothing is a surprise, or even a little unexpected, it takes away from the journey.

Like Jane and the Canterbury Tale, this one had some editing issues, too - at least, I think so. It was stupid stuff, like using the same name (of a poet) in adjacent paragraphs (and they were dialogue-paragraphs, so they were practically adjacent lines), and forgetting the accent over the e in the name the second time around (310). Or missing a word here and there, or using the wrong word (off by a couple letters). "If he loved and lovely hopelessly" (283) had me puzzled for a bit, until I decided that it should have been "if he loved and loved hopelessly" - unless it's a quote I don't know? There's nothing in Google about it, other than a GoogleBooks citation of Garden Intrigue.

The worst is when a character is described as wearing a waistcoat when throughout the whole d*** book they've made a big deal out of the fact that he never does (350). I mean, even just a few pages earlier. I actually kept re-reading the page, trying to figure out if I had missed something...like him putting on a waistcoat. I'd rather think that I missed something, because if it IS a mistake, than it's so egregious, it makes me feel differently about the book. Because if the author, and editors, people who should really care about the book, didn't even read the final draft closely enough to catch something like that, when why should they expect the readers to care?

 Is that mean? I mean, I'm waiting for the first draft of my boss' book to come back from the publishers for us to edit soon, and I know how hard it was just getting the ms off to them. I know that we've been going back and forth on the cover illustration (forget the overall design), because of everything from if the colors are appealing enough to if the image gave the wrong impression (that was my objection - the publishers for some reason decided to use an old engraving showing brutal, brutish Indians slaughtering poor, innocent whites. Because obviously that is both totally historically accurate and representative AND is the point of the book. Sure. I felt bad being like "HELL no" to my boss, genius that he is, and a big-wig at a big-deal press, but someone had to) but still. READ YOUR OWN BOOK. I'm not saying it's Willig's fault, but someone on her team should have caught something like that. Again, IF it's a mistake, and I do truly hope that it's not, and it's just me missing something.

Hmph. I dunno. I seem to just be b*tching about these, but when I was reading them, while I was disappointed, I also passed some pleasant time, if that makes any sense. And I'll definitely keep going with the two series (how do you pluralize "series" anyways?). If the authors return to their original form, fantastic, because there was a time when I really loved them. And even if they stay where they are, I will keep reading, because I've grown fond of the characters.

But I think I need a palate-cleanser of some contemporary fiction and some non-fiction right now!