Onward
http://www.margueritekaye.com/
Marguerite Kaye's series Made in Scandal takes us on a journey to St. Petersburg, Russia in
From Governess to Countess. And, that's all right by me. A change of scenery is sometimes beneficial, especially if you are given the words that take you there. While I applaud Ms. Kaye's attempt to entice by moving the scenery to a different climate, I didn't think it necessarily worked. For me, it might as well have been located in a cold England. While all the historical "stuff" which I identify with Russia in the 1800s was there, the ambience of the place didn't come alive for me. Maybe my problem is I've read an awfully lot of non-fiction books about historical Russia. I'm very much aware of just how horrible Russian nobility was. The elite of Russian society would have been a hard path to maneuver through. Especially if you were a governess. Which is what our heroine Allison Galbraith is. You know, a mind, which is distracted while reading can be a terrible thing. I was immediately disturbed with the scene in the beginning of the book. In that scene our hero, Count Aleksei Derevenko, takes his governess, Allison, to an aristocratic party and introduces her around, as a guest. I found it hard to believe that a lowly governess would even be allowed to cross through the doors of any palace in Russia, especially as a guest. When it comes to Romanceland, there are a lot of things I will gloss over, or even come to accept if the writing interest me. For me, this scene became a big blinking red light flashing before my eyes. But I continued, even though I don't think a governess would have been allowed on the dance floor - I persevered. Even though I knew in about 100 years the society these people belonged to would disappear under a barrage of bullets - I persevered. You see, I had to finish some kind of book in 2018.Here’s the plot. Allison Galbraith is an herbalist who has been disgraced in England. She is given another chance by a mysterious woman calling herself “The Procurer”. Allison is packed off to Russia to help Count Aleksei with his orphaned nieces and nephew. She will pretend to be a governess while all the time helping Aleksei solve the murder of his brother and sister-in-law. Aleksei must have a foreign herbalist because he cannot trust any Russian. So, this story has a romance, two murders, three resentful children, the decadent court of Alexander I, and a boatload of suspects for us to shift through. Even though it had all the ingredients to make a good story, for me there just wasn’t any spark.
First the romance between Allison and Aleksei lacked chemistry. Oh sure, they fell instantly in-lust, but I wouldn’t have realized that if I hadn’t been told that they were hot for each other. There wasn’t any fire. The three children were introduced later in the book than I expected. They were pretty flat; there wasn’t any chemistry between Allison and the children – good or bad. They start out resenting her, we are told - then they don’t. This is a case where the children in the book do not steal the show. Then there are the murders to be solved. What can I say about the murder/mystery? No thrill, no suspense, then it is solved solved.
Tours. I guess because this book takes place in Imperial Russia, we are given guided tours of the place. We get to look at room, after room of over-indulgence. Even though everything is described in detail, there was a lack of life brought to these settings. Sometimes when I read a book I can actually feel the place, smell it, and hear all the sounds floating around. I couldn’t find any ambience of a place in this story.
While I finished this story, sad to say it was hard to do so. I didn’t find any of the characters in the tale exciting and what should have been a colorful setting turned out to be just gray. Big disappointment, I was hoping for something to pull be out of my slump.
Time/Place: Russia during Alexander I early reign
Sensuality: Flat
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