Have read the Scarlet Pimpernel rif His at Night and am about 80% through Revenge, Inc. (one thing about cold weekends when 90% of TV is on hiatus, you have time to kill with books).
I enjoyed both. Neither is overwhelmingly angsty. You do want to kick the hero of "His" in the head at least once for being willfully self-destructive, and, yeah, he has created his own predicament with his secret identity, but generally he's enjoyable. I liked his leading lady as well. So while the 'mystery/investigation' is somewhat weak, don't care. I enjoyed it.
"Revenge, Inc." Isn't all that romance novel-y. Doesn't follow the tropes. It's more of an action adventure/caper. It's a bit "Leverage" meets "Ripper Street".
It's rather implausbile that in the Dickens era a Whitechapel street thug/convict, such as the hero, would turn out to as intelligent and...well... as nice as Jack is (Probably not as literate either. They don't play him as educated or anything, but a guttersnipe from Whitechapel during the age of Ripper would most likely be unable to read at all. His 'roughness' seems primarily to be his boxing and his vulgar language. Everything else about him is surprisingly civilized.)
At any rate, the hero is quite likable (though they go overboard mentioning how HUGE he is. It's like he's The Hulk or something.) The primary weakness so far (to me at any rate) has been a failure to explain (at least to the point I've read) what turned Eva, the daughter of missionaries, into such a sexually liberated Victorian. I got the explanation for how she went from frustrated missionary into the Robin Hood-esque aspects of Nemesis, but she is anachronistically liberated where sex is concerned (which, there are worse flaws for a story to have, so it's not much of a complaint. She's likable, smart, and tough... just anachronistically modern. And, because of that missing bit of her psychology (at least to the point where I've read) I don't quite grasp her romantic obstacle with Jack. They seem perfect working together (with benefits): serendipidously in-sync spy-partners. And he seems perfectly made for Nemisis work. Plus, it's pretty clear that they both fell ass over teakettle for one another... so why can't they just stay together once the mission is done? (It's a romance novel, so I assume that in the end they will. But Eva in particular behaves as though there's no possibility for it, and I'm still unclear as to WHY she thinks so.)
At any rate, it's action-filled and caperesque with Jack and Eva gravitating into a partnership pretty quickly. Fun, not too angsty, and explicit.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2014-01-27 03:45 pm (UTC)I enjoyed both. Neither is overwhelmingly angsty. You do want to kick the hero of "His" in the head at least once for being willfully self-destructive, and, yeah, he has created his own predicament with his secret identity, but generally he's enjoyable. I liked his leading lady as well. So while the 'mystery/investigation' is somewhat weak, don't care. I enjoyed it.
"Revenge, Inc." Isn't all that romance novel-y. Doesn't follow the tropes. It's more of an action adventure/caper. It's a bit "Leverage" meets "Ripper Street".
It's rather implausbile that in the Dickens era a Whitechapel street thug/convict, such as the hero, would turn out to as intelligent and...well... as nice as Jack is (Probably not as literate either. They don't play him as educated or anything, but a guttersnipe from Whitechapel during the age of Ripper would most likely be unable to read at all. His 'roughness' seems primarily to be his boxing and his vulgar language. Everything else about him is surprisingly civilized.)
At any rate, the hero is quite likable (though they go overboard mentioning how HUGE he is. It's like he's The Hulk or something.) The primary weakness so far (to me at any rate) has been a failure to explain (at least to the point I've read) what turned Eva, the daughter of missionaries, into such a sexually liberated Victorian. I got the explanation for how she went from frustrated missionary into the Robin Hood-esque aspects of Nemesis, but she is anachronistically liberated where sex is concerned (which, there are worse flaws for a story to have, so it's not much of a complaint. She's likable, smart, and tough... just anachronistically modern. And, because of that missing bit of her psychology (at least to the point where I've read) I don't quite grasp her romantic obstacle with Jack. They seem perfect working together (with benefits): serendipidously in-sync spy-partners. And he seems perfectly made for Nemisis work. Plus, it's pretty clear that they both fell ass over teakettle for one another... so why can't they just stay together once the mission is done? (It's a romance novel, so I assume that in the end they will. But Eva in particular behaves as though there's no possibility for it, and I'm still unclear as to WHY she thinks so.)
At any rate, it's action-filled and caperesque with Jack and Eva gravitating into a partnership pretty quickly. Fun, not too angsty, and explicit.