Amazon discontinued the ability to create images using their SiteStripe feature and in their infinite wisdom broke all previously created images on 12/31/23. Many blogs used this feature, including this one. Expect my archives to be a hot mess of broken book cover images until I can slowly comb through 20 years of archives to make corrections.

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Procrastination Station

For those of you out there who think I might be exaggerating my TBR, let me share with you Exhibit A. Here is concrete proof that I really am a sick little monkey.

Back in 2000 I reviewed the first book in Susan Wiggs' Chicago Fire trilogy, The Hostage, for The Romance Reader. I loved it. Then in 2001 I reviewed the third book in the trilogy, The Firebrand, for The Romance Reader and loved it. In fact, The Firebrand is one of my Top 5 all-time favorite romances. So where did that leave book two in the trilogy, The Mistress? Sitting in my TBR since 2000. No joke. Now honestly, how warped is that?

Plot Description:

As the historic fire ignites across town, Kathleen O'Leary finds herself dressed in borrowed diamonds and silk, enjoying a lavish masquerade. The penniless maid has caught the eye of Dylan Francis Kennedy, the rich, handsome gentleman all of high society has been speculating about. The night feels alive with magic. . . and ripe with promise.

Then fire sweeps through the city, cornering the young lovers with no hope of rescue. Desperate to share their last moments together, Kathleen and Dylan impulsively marry. Incredibly, they survive. Now, as the fire burns down to cold ash, Kathleen must tell Chicago's most eligible bachelor that he has married a fraud. But the joke's on her. For this gentleman is no gentleman. While Kathleen had hoped to win Dylan's love, he had planned only to capture her heart and steal her fortune. Dylan Kennedy -- con artist, gambler and ne'er-do-well—has been unwittingly caught in his own game. Now the real sparks are about to fly.

Since I adored The Hostage and The Firebrand it will probably strike some as odd that The Mistress was a major slog for me. The only way I can explain it is by stealing KristieJ's It's Not You, It's Me Theory. I have too much history with this book. Having read and loved the other two titles in the trilogy, I already had a good idea what this book was about. Harlequin's back cover copy doesn't help matters either. Basically it's the Reader's Digest Condensed Book version of the first 234 pages! It took me forever to get through them, and I skimmed chunks all the while muttering under my breath, "Yeah, yeah, this is all on the back cover copy. Let's get on with it!"

To be fair to Harlequin, they may not have had much of a choice. I remember when The Mistress first came out eight years ago. There were many readers on my various e-mail loops (my pre-blog addiction days) who were horrified by Dylan Kennedy. A hero who is scoundrel?! The shock! The horror! Fake rakes and bad boys who wouldn't know "bad" if it bit them in the ass are just fine - but give them a hero who really is despicable and a case of the vapors ensues. And make no mistake, Wiggs wrote an honest-to-goodness scoundrel. Dylan is a world class liar, a con artist, a charmer who waltzes his way through life when he's not running away from it. It's not until the con man gets conned himself, and finds himself falling in love, that he even begins to contemplate little things like honesty and trust.

Kathleen is a good, hardworking Irish girl who covets a better life. Having been employed as a ladie's maid, she envies the rich and has big dreams. When a couple of the well-heeled girls at the finishing school where she works suggest she masquerade as a proper lady for one evening, she agrees. She's desperate for a taste of the good life and it's not until she finds herself hitched to Dylan that she realizes how wrong she's been.

This is a hard book for me to assign a grade to, only because I don't feel I'm being entirely fair to it. The first couple hundred pages were a real drag for me, but I suspect that's largely because of my own personal baggage. That will learn me to leave trilogies unfinished and read out of order for 8 years. Geez. But on the whole, this is a good entry in what is probably my favorite historical romance series. I love the setting, I love Wiggs' historical voice, and I love the way the author seamlessly blends the fire sequences over the course of three separate stories. Oh, and the characters are pretty good too.

Final Grade = B-

5 comments:

Rosie said...

I'm commenting on several things at once since I'm behind blog hopping again, so bear with me...

On Susan Wiggs: I've read a couple of her trilogies now. It's a mystery to me how one book in the group seems to really stand out and the other two, well not so much.

On Being Silent: Two thoughts here. If I look at the comments are there are a gazillion of them and someone has already hit on my thoughts or opinions then I give it a pass. Second, if I think a post is only piling on, I skip it. No matter how passionate I may be about it.

Cadbury Creme Eggs: Too sweet! :)


Authors who should zip it up: I think I know who you are speaking of and I have to say my eyes goggled out of my head. There was more than one who shouldn't have said anything, but when it's a favorite...Lordy it's painful.

Evanne Lorraine said...

Likewise, way behind on blog reading. But have to say Mistress was my first Susan Wiggs and for a long time it was slated to be my last. Then I found a one of her Lakeshore contemporaries buried behind a layer of TBR titles and meant to give it a cursory glance before tossing and got hooked. So, my verdict was similar to yours--perhaps it was simply that one story or her historical choices don't match my preferences--just rambling here I've yet to read another of her historicals.

Alice said...

I'm so surprised that someone else has read this book as well!

I think I gave this book a C-.

I really liked the premise of the story and the characters (I liked Dylan, not really Kathleen) but the book in reality was a drag and very disappointing. I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks this.

I'll try out The Firebrander, though. :)

Wendy said...

Rosie: I was chatty there for a few days! Re: Wiggs - I just loved the other two books in this series, so it was disappointing that this one was more "meh" for me.

Ack woman! There's no such thing as too sweet!

Next time we get together we'll have to gab on all that's gone on in Blog Land in recent weeks. Of course, the waitresses will expect us to leave the restaurant sometime before closing :)

Evanne: For some reason Wiggs' contemporary voice doesn't work as well for me, but that's probably my personal prejudice showing. I've had mostly a positive reaction to her historicals, and I'm still not "over" her defecting to contemporaries. But the jump seems to be agreeing with her. I know plenty of people (my library patrons included!) who have really enjoyed her Lakeshore books....

Wendy said...

Alice: I loved the other two books in this trilogy! I think both The Hostage and The Firebrand are worth looking up. So it was disappointing that The Mistress didn't work better for me. Like you, I liked the basic idea and characters, it just dragged....