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What are you reading Wednesday
Feb. 11th, 2015 01:10 amOkay, I will read formulaic historical romances. I have a very high tolerance for them (clearly) but what I really like is when one manages to throw a few interesting curves into the mix and goes the extra step of developing characters as individuals. I've been reading True Pretenses by Rose Lerner, and she's done both. I like what she's done.
It's the standard fortune hunter plot with a couple of twists. There's a familiar Dickensian-type background for the hero, growing up in slums and workhouses, going the "Artful Dodger", and finally becoming a full-fledged conman. In a rarity for a Regency, he's also Jewish (which is one of his many secrets).
Humanizing him is the fact that since the age of nine he's been the sole (devoted) parent to his baby brother. In a line somewhere, it talks about the way that he made all of his compromises look easy so that his little brother wouldn't know fear, leading to one of the themes of the book: when you make the sacrifices look easy, the person being sacrificed for doesn't notice or appreciate the difficulty you've overcome.
As an adult, the younger brother now wants to 'go straight,' leaving the life of con man (and his brother) behind, insulting his older brother and the older brother's hardships in the process, leading to an emotional crisis for the older brother who has spent his entire life doing everything to protect, take care of, and, heck, live for his kid brother.
The heroine is similar to the hero in this regard. She grew up in a wealthy and politically influential family, but her mother died in child birth, leaving the heroine to raise her baby brother while she was still a child herself. {In another twist for the genre -- but probably psychologically understandable for characters who grew up too fast because they were made into parents to infants when they were only children themselves -- neither the heroine nor the hero wants to have children of their own.} Like the hero, the heroine has devoted her entire life to her baby brother, and now that her brother is a young adult, he's doing the teenagery thing of pulling away and too often belittling her sacrifices and concerns for him. Worse, their father just died and, this being the time period that it is, even though she's 30 to her baby brother's 20, the kid brother she raised is now in charge of her. {Another twist for the genre, her little brother is gay and she knows it}
The brother/brother and brother/sister relationships are strongly developed with the younger sibling loving the older sibling, but wishing to break free, while an older sibling sacrificed their own childhood and their own direction/lives for kid bro. With adult kid bros now trying to break free, the older siblings feel hurt, lost, and flailing. Devoting their lives to someone else leaves them with no life of their own.
So the hero meets the heroine. He finds her kind and lovely, and sets his sights on the 'ultimate' con -- he wants to give his brother a great life... with her (because he finds her and his brother to be wonderful, surely they will find each other to be and will fall in love and his brother will have a rich, beautiful wife and a fine, upstanding life. Perfect! So, yeah, he's a fortune hunter... but not for himself. Of course the heroine isn't interested in the kid brother. She's interested in the hero (and the kid brother that wants to 'go straight' deliberately blows the 'con' right the hell off the bat by confessing to the heroine that they are swindlers. And Jewish to boot.)
Feeling abandoned by the siblings they raised, the hero and heroine gravitate to each other and, of course, really fall in love despite the class differences and the anti-Semitism that would separate them. So, ye olde 'fortune hunter' and 'hero from a bad background' tropes, but the writer has added a couple of unique textures and a psychological complexity with the strained (yet loving) sibling dynamics, the burden of bigotry, the way that people lie to each other and ourselves in an effort to make things 'okay' either to not hurt each other or to hide from hurt ourselves.
I don't mind formula and tropes if you can bring some interesting takes with you. This one does. Plus, both hero and heroine are both endearing and lovely.
It's the standard fortune hunter plot with a couple of twists. There's a familiar Dickensian-type background for the hero, growing up in slums and workhouses, going the "Artful Dodger", and finally becoming a full-fledged conman. In a rarity for a Regency, he's also Jewish (which is one of his many secrets).
Humanizing him is the fact that since the age of nine he's been the sole (devoted) parent to his baby brother. In a line somewhere, it talks about the way that he made all of his compromises look easy so that his little brother wouldn't know fear, leading to one of the themes of the book: when you make the sacrifices look easy, the person being sacrificed for doesn't notice or appreciate the difficulty you've overcome.
As an adult, the younger brother now wants to 'go straight,' leaving the life of con man (and his brother) behind, insulting his older brother and the older brother's hardships in the process, leading to an emotional crisis for the older brother who has spent his entire life doing everything to protect, take care of, and, heck, live for his kid brother.
The heroine is similar to the hero in this regard. She grew up in a wealthy and politically influential family, but her mother died in child birth, leaving the heroine to raise her baby brother while she was still a child herself. {In another twist for the genre -- but probably psychologically understandable for characters who grew up too fast because they were made into parents to infants when they were only children themselves -- neither the heroine nor the hero wants to have children of their own.} Like the hero, the heroine has devoted her entire life to her baby brother, and now that her brother is a young adult, he's doing the teenagery thing of pulling away and too often belittling her sacrifices and concerns for him. Worse, their father just died and, this being the time period that it is, even though she's 30 to her baby brother's 20, the kid brother she raised is now in charge of her. {Another twist for the genre, her little brother is gay and she knows it}
The brother/brother and brother/sister relationships are strongly developed with the younger sibling loving the older sibling, but wishing to break free, while an older sibling sacrificed their own childhood and their own direction/lives for kid bro. With adult kid bros now trying to break free, the older siblings feel hurt, lost, and flailing. Devoting their lives to someone else leaves them with no life of their own.
So the hero meets the heroine. He finds her kind and lovely, and sets his sights on the 'ultimate' con -- he wants to give his brother a great life... with her (because he finds her and his brother to be wonderful, surely they will find each other to be and will fall in love and his brother will have a rich, beautiful wife and a fine, upstanding life. Perfect! So, yeah, he's a fortune hunter... but not for himself. Of course the heroine isn't interested in the kid brother. She's interested in the hero (and the kid brother that wants to 'go straight' deliberately blows the 'con' right the hell off the bat by confessing to the heroine that they are swindlers. And Jewish to boot.)
Feeling abandoned by the siblings they raised, the hero and heroine gravitate to each other and, of course, really fall in love despite the class differences and the anti-Semitism that would separate them. So, ye olde 'fortune hunter' and 'hero from a bad background' tropes, but the writer has added a couple of unique textures and a psychological complexity with the strained (yet loving) sibling dynamics, the burden of bigotry, the way that people lie to each other and ourselves in an effort to make things 'okay' either to not hurt each other or to hide from hurt ourselves.
I don't mind formula and tropes if you can bring some interesting takes with you. This one does. Plus, both hero and heroine are both endearing and lovely.
