October 14, 2019Wait a minute, what century is it?
When the holiday's approach, I always read a bunch of novellas. Call me silly, I don’t care. You see I have numerous reasons for doing so. First of all, they are fast reads. As can be expected, some of them are good and some of them not so good. There are some authors who can handle the short word count and some who can't. If one is lucky, sometimes one even finds a short story by an author one as never read before. When that happens one can glom that author’s work. Then sometimes one reads a short story from a veteran author. An author who has been around for quite a while, and one’s mind asks the question, "What were they thinking?" That is what happened to me in the anthology Seduction on a Snowy Night. Looooong after I put the book down, I struggled with myself. Should I say something, or should I remain silent? Eventually, I decided to say something.
Let's look at the first story in the book. A Christmas Abduction by Madeline Hunter. By the way, all of these stories are connected with a kidnapping theme.
Coincidence. While waiting for my new and exciting books to come out, I passed the time reading my old ones. One of those was Deborah Simmons’ Tempting Kate (1997). Ms. Simmons’ story was about a woman who kidnaps a man she thinks has impregnated her sister. I read the whole thing, enjoyed every minute of it. By the time I was finished, my new books had arrived. I decided to read the anthology, Seduction on a Snowy Night first. Yikes! Deja Vu. Imagine the state my poor beleaguered mind was in when the very first story in the book was about a woman who kidnaps a man because she thinks he impregnated her sister. OMG! I was very confused. You know that feeling that comes over you when you think you have read a book before? At first I thought, “Hey, I didn’t know Deborah Simmons had written anything in this book!” Wait a minute, she didn’t! What is going on? This story is written by Madeline Hunter! How can that be? Thank goodness, the similarities between the two stories eventually diverged. But, I was a becoming a little alarmed.
The lead characters in this story were Adam Prescott and Caroline Dunham, and they made a nice couple. I was pleased that the mistaken identity thing didn’t last very long, and that there was enough space allotted in the story for a romance to blossom. Adam was a great hero, and made a compatible partner for Caroline. Caroline was a loyal person who doesn't always make the right decisions…you know, like kidnapping. This story was a pleasant read, although it isn’t one that I’m going to remember for very long. The ending seemed a little rushed, and I didn't necessarily care for the solution to the sisters problem. But hey, this was a short story, and not all villains get the justice they so richly deserve.
Of the three stories in this book, A Christmas Abduction was my favorite.
Grade: C+
A Perfect Match by Sabrina Jeffries. It's been a long time since I've read a Sabrina Jeffries book. I gave up on her after she started adding gratuitous sex scenes which had no purpose other than word count. Sad to say, I had a number of issues with A Perfect Match. First, corresponding under a false identity theme has never been one of my favorite plot devices. I’m not a big fan of Cyrano de Bergerac. In this book it is Colonel Lord Heywood who is on the receiving end of the letters. He has fallen in love with the letter writer, Kitty. Actually, the letters were addressed to her brother, but her brother would read those letters aloud around the campfire. He fell in love with the woman who wrote those sparkling letters. Surprise, surprise, surprise! She didn't write them, her cousin Cass did. Anyway, Kitty's brother Douglas sends Heywood to England to protect his sister from the villain. There is a big convoluted plot that weaves throughout this story. Heywood kidnaps Kitty to protect her from the bad guy, and Cass goes along for the ride. Heywood takes them to the country where a convenient snowstorm happens, and they can take sleigh rides. It was not very believable.
The other issue I had with this story was Kitty. She was portrayed as slow, and unable to comprehend the behavior of others. Kitty’s handwriting was atrocious, which explains why Cass was doing the writing. So, Cass is protecting her cousin by lying to everyone, including Kitty’s brother Douglas. I'm not sure the Kitty character belonged in a short story, there needed to be more narrative for me to understand what Kitty was all about.
This story frustrated me. The writing was choppy, and what started out promising, meandered along to the mundane.
Grade: C-
One Wicked Winter Night by Mary Jo Putney
Now we come to my "what were they thinking" moment. This is the story that struck a chord with me, and not a good one. I found this story disturbing. After I finished One Wicked Winter Night, I found myself consternated that one of my favorite authors had written this story. After all, she gave us one of my all-time favorite books: The Rake. How could someone who has been in the business for such a long time, not recognize when they might be insulting a cultured, ancient civilization.
Lady Diana Lawrence has returned to England after residing in India for seven years. Whom should she run into on her return? The man she once loved, Anthony Raines, Duke of Castleton. From the beginning, this was a hard story to like, even before "that" scene. At times, I thought I was reading a young adult story. Not that I’m insulting young adult books, but let me be frank, I’m not a young adult. Then "that" scene came into being.
Warning: I am about to meander. In 2004 there was a movie called Vanity Fair. Supposedly, that movie was based on William Makepeace Thackeray's novel of the same name. Thackeray's novel, Vanity Fair, was contemporary of his time. Much as Jane Austen's writing is a reflection of her time, Thackeray's novel was a satirical look at English society. Vanity Fair is the story of Becky Sharp, and I wouldn’t really call Becky a heroine. Anyway, for some reason the movie has Becky Sharp doing some kind of belly dance. When I saw that scene for the first time, I cringed. And, I still cringe when I think about it. Instead of sticking with the narrative of the book, I think the movie was going for some kind of Bollywood thing. Regardless of how we feel about Becky Sharp, she would never have danced anything resembling a belly-dance, or whatever that was in the movie. Of course, I am not a big fan of movies changing history so they can draw in a modern crowd. I think a singing Marie Antoinette and a skinny Henry VIII are ludicrous. I guess real history isn’t exciting enough for a screenwriter to tackle, or “modern crowd” to understand.
Back to the book. In this short story, we have such a scene. I think the author may have been going for a Bollywood affect, but a book probably isn’t the best place to try energetic singing and dancing. Lady Diana thinks she has enough dance expertise to perform a "Hindu" dance. Not only that, but wouldn’t it be neat to entertain a room full of English aristocrats with this dance. I could feel my cringe alarm going off. Anyway, she and her cousins used to do it in India, so she talks one of her cousins into performing with her. And, they do. I cringed. There were just so many levels of wrong with this scene I couldn’t believe it. First of all, what "Hindu" dance are we talking about? Is this the Bharatanatyam, Manipuri, Kathakali, Odissi, Kathak, Sattriya, Kuchipudi, or Maohiniyattam? Almost all of those dances are religious in form, very traditional, very intricate, and mostly danced in temples by highly trained dancers. There is a long, dark history of those dances in association with the colonizing of India. When the English missionary's made their appearance in India, they tried to eradicate not only those dances, but the culture that produced them. Thankfully, for us, they didn’t succeed. So, there was the whole cutesy, nonchalant feel of the dance scene in the book which disturbed me. These culturally rich dances were never intended to be nonchalant.
Let’s continue with my meandering. Let's talk historical accuracy, and let's pretend that the dance Lady Diana was doing was a cross between Bollywood dancing and Greta Garbo's Mata Hari dance. Doesn't that sound goofy? This is another example of trying to put 21st century stuff into the 19th century. It doesn’t work. In this century, we can take dance lessons, we can learn intricate steps, and we can understand the traditions of why we are doing the movements we are doing. In this century, if our intention is to arouse our hero, then we can learn a strip-tease, or how to wrap ourselves around a pole. We can’t do that in the 19th century, and we need to be careful what we borrow from other places. Some of those things we borrow have a deeper meaning. We need to respect those meanings.
Bottom-line. I was disappointed with this story. For me that scene had so much wrong with it, on so many levels, I was flummoxed. I was speechless. I can only ask, what happened? I cannot recommend this story, or the book it is in.
Grade: F
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