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What Are You Reading Wednesday
Jan. 7th, 2015 11:34 amIs it Wednesday? How in the hell is it already Wednesday?!
Anyway, it having been a holiday, I was reading complete and total mindless fluff. It was the medieval romance that I lightly mocked yesterday.
I'm of two minds about it. On one level it was incredibly dumb. On the other it was generally sweet and joyful.
The title is 'Never Seduce a Scot'. A title that makes no sense whatsoever as every character in the novel is Scottish, there is no seduction in it, and if it were it would have to be argued that it went pretty darn well for all parties involved so why the admonition never to do so?
The hook that made me read it: the heroine is deaf and faking madness.
As a young teen, she tried to run away when her father arranged a marriage to an ally clan. She had tried to tell her father that the guy was a sicko perv, but Dad wouldn't listen, Her 'escape' was catastrophic when she was thrown by her horse resulting in a terrible head injury and suffering exposure such that she nearly died. She survived, barely, but had lost her hearing. Her parents thought she had been brain damaged. Fearful of the forced marriage to the perv, she allowed her family to think she was either 'simple' or 'mad' due to the accident rather than to confess to deafness. Her gambit worked, with the betrothal called off and her mostly being left to her own devices for many years (albeit with her having to pretend to be 'daft'. She knows it's extreme and she's sorry about how sad it's made her family, but she feels she got herself into something she couldn't easily get out of and it keeps her from being married off to an abusive perv.)
Many years later, the king decided to broker peace between her clan and a rival clan, sealing it with a marriage... And her being the 'of age' if...er...'daft' only daughter of the Laird, she is the sacrificial lamb with neither her family nor the warring family given any option of refusing the political match.
Her new husband --sworn to lifelong fidelity-- is extremely weirded out by being saddled with a 'mad' and/ or 'simple' bride, and keeps his distance. He thinks he'd be a gross monster to try to have sex with someone incapable of consent...which is why this is a sweet romance that has nothing to do with time period or anything Game of Thrones-ish.
Still all the ridiculous stuff aside, the pairing was sweet (and he kept his hands off her until after she confessed to being perfectly sane and completely competent, merely deaf. Permanently deaf however (apparently the author's husband is deaf,)
Dumb stuff included: the stuff mentioned yesterday as well as the author's tendency to render characters unconscious for extended periods of time due to injury (many concussions were had and, honestly to be so unconscious for such extended periods of times a few people should have had traumatic brain injuries).
So basically: plot was dumb, characters were noble, good and likable, the deafness was somewhat interesting, and the romance was mostly happy and sweet.
I did mention the plot was dumb and injury-laced though, right?
Anyway, it having been a holiday, I was reading complete and total mindless fluff. It was the medieval romance that I lightly mocked yesterday.
I'm of two minds about it. On one level it was incredibly dumb. On the other it was generally sweet and joyful.
The title is 'Never Seduce a Scot'. A title that makes no sense whatsoever as every character in the novel is Scottish, there is no seduction in it, and if it were it would have to be argued that it went pretty darn well for all parties involved so why the admonition never to do so?
The hook that made me read it: the heroine is deaf and faking madness.
As a young teen, she tried to run away when her father arranged a marriage to an ally clan. She had tried to tell her father that the guy was a sicko perv, but Dad wouldn't listen, Her 'escape' was catastrophic when she was thrown by her horse resulting in a terrible head injury and suffering exposure such that she nearly died. She survived, barely, but had lost her hearing. Her parents thought she had been brain damaged. Fearful of the forced marriage to the perv, she allowed her family to think she was either 'simple' or 'mad' due to the accident rather than to confess to deafness. Her gambit worked, with the betrothal called off and her mostly being left to her own devices for many years (albeit with her having to pretend to be 'daft'. She knows it's extreme and she's sorry about how sad it's made her family, but she feels she got herself into something she couldn't easily get out of and it keeps her from being married off to an abusive perv.)
Many years later, the king decided to broker peace between her clan and a rival clan, sealing it with a marriage... And her being the 'of age' if...er...'daft' only daughter of the Laird, she is the sacrificial lamb with neither her family nor the warring family given any option of refusing the political match.
Her new husband --sworn to lifelong fidelity-- is extremely weirded out by being saddled with a 'mad' and/ or 'simple' bride, and keeps his distance. He thinks he'd be a gross monster to try to have sex with someone incapable of consent...which is why this is a sweet romance that has nothing to do with time period or anything Game of Thrones-ish.
Still all the ridiculous stuff aside, the pairing was sweet (and he kept his hands off her until after she confessed to being perfectly sane and completely competent, merely deaf. Permanently deaf however (apparently the author's husband is deaf,)
Dumb stuff included: the stuff mentioned yesterday as well as the author's tendency to render characters unconscious for extended periods of time due to injury (many concussions were had and, honestly to be so unconscious for such extended periods of times a few people should have had traumatic brain injuries).
So basically: plot was dumb, characters were noble, good and likable, the deafness was somewhat interesting, and the romance was mostly happy and sweet.
I did mention the plot was dumb and injury-laced though, right?
