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You've been holding on a long time and all this longing
I am seriously considering the possibility that I may have a mild flu. Every day this week I have done something, I have spent the next day literally in bed or at least lying down. Case in point: Thursday I had a doctor's appointment, ran an errand, and helped my parents purchase a tree. Yesterday I lay on the couch, ran a fever, and read three more novels by Courtney Milan even though I passionately hate reading off a screen. Today I am awake and that is the best thing I can say for my body. My bones hurt. My brain seems to have rolled up the sidewalks. It's been days since I felt like I could think. Fortunately I have nothing to do this afternoon except watch Coco (2017) with my cousins at Assembly Row, but this is still not my ideal holiday season. I need to be writing and I'm not. I got my flu shot this year, but I feel astonishingly rotten.
The novels I read yesterday were Unveiled (2011), The Heiress Effect (2013), and The Countess Conspiracy (2013); I enjoyed all three and am slightly afraid I am already running into the limits of my ability to engage with romance as a genre. The Heiress Effect was an unqualified hit: a mid-Victorian screwball comedy with political substance and four romantic protagonists all of whom I like; I still found Milan's dialogue too modern for its decade, whichever decade it is, but her general prose had taken a level to the point where her descriptions of Jane Fairfield's exquisitely, calculatedly eye-searing gowns ("Is it actually glowing?") were some of the funniest and most pointed writing in the book. Unveiled was most interesting to me as backstory for Unraveled (2011): I liked the legal entanglements of the premise, the relations of the parallel clans of Dalrymples and Turners, and quite a lot of Margaret as a heroine, but aside from his dyslexia I found Ash the most conventional of the Turner brothers and the evolution of the romance significantly less compelling than Margaret's realization that she herself is the Gordian solution to the whole messy knot of loyalty and legitimacy her father's decades-old selfishness dropped his children into. (Plus I realized afterward that I short-circuited Richard's arc by reading Unraveled first, because while it is possible to detect in Unveiled that his spectacular blinkered self-interest is fueled by equally spectacular panic, I suspect it's much more effective to encounter him first as an antagonist than a sympathetic trash fire.) And I can tell I was not the target audience for The Countess Conspiracy because I loved the Remington Steele-like setup, I loved Violet and Sebastian as co-leads (even if the names inclined me to expect Twelfth Night where none was forthcoming) and the complexity of the costs and the reasons for their imposture, I would have done significantly better with the science if Violet had not discovered chromosomes in 1867 [edit: I have been informed the author is building a deliberate alternate history, just one that wasn't signposted as such], and I had a great deal of investment in Violet and Sebastian learning to trust one another and get their self-images straight and none whatsoever in the two of them winding up together in bed. Which I recognize is what most people read romances for. But I like stories with strong bindings between people that are not necessarily romantic or sexual and this genre by its nature foregrounds the romantic-sexual aspect of relationships and there is nothing for me to do about that, except read other things.
All of that said, I have had a fifty percent success rate with Milan so far, which is more than I was expecting and more than any other romance novelist I have ever tried. The experiment is worth it.
The novels I read yesterday were Unveiled (2011), The Heiress Effect (2013), and The Countess Conspiracy (2013); I enjoyed all three and am slightly afraid I am already running into the limits of my ability to engage with romance as a genre. The Heiress Effect was an unqualified hit: a mid-Victorian screwball comedy with political substance and four romantic protagonists all of whom I like; I still found Milan's dialogue too modern for its decade, whichever decade it is, but her general prose had taken a level to the point where her descriptions of Jane Fairfield's exquisitely, calculatedly eye-searing gowns ("Is it actually glowing?") were some of the funniest and most pointed writing in the book. Unveiled was most interesting to me as backstory for Unraveled (2011): I liked the legal entanglements of the premise, the relations of the parallel clans of Dalrymples and Turners, and quite a lot of Margaret as a heroine, but aside from his dyslexia I found Ash the most conventional of the Turner brothers and the evolution of the romance significantly less compelling than Margaret's realization that she herself is the Gordian solution to the whole messy knot of loyalty and legitimacy her father's decades-old selfishness dropped his children into. (Plus I realized afterward that I short-circuited Richard's arc by reading Unraveled first, because while it is possible to detect in Unveiled that his spectacular blinkered self-interest is fueled by equally spectacular panic, I suspect it's much more effective to encounter him first as an antagonist than a sympathetic trash fire.) And I can tell I was not the target audience for The Countess Conspiracy because I loved the Remington Steele-like setup, I loved Violet and Sebastian as co-leads (even if the names inclined me to expect Twelfth Night where none was forthcoming) and the complexity of the costs and the reasons for their imposture, I would have done significantly better with the science if Violet had not discovered chromosomes in 1867 [edit: I have been informed the author is building a deliberate alternate history, just one that wasn't signposted as such], and I had a great deal of investment in Violet and Sebastian learning to trust one another and get their self-images straight and none whatsoever in the two of them winding up together in bed. Which I recognize is what most people read romances for. But I like stories with strong bindings between people that are not necessarily romantic or sexual and this genre by its nature foregrounds the romantic-sexual aspect of relationships and there is nothing for me to do about that, except read other things.
All of that said, I have had a fifty percent success rate with Milan so far, which is more than I was expecting and more than any other romance novelist I have ever tried. The experiment is worth it.
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Having just been told that her contemporaries are science fiction in disguise, I've become predictably more interested in them. I will let you know what I think.
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Well, if it took the edge off whatever I've got, I appreciate it, but otherwise: blergh.
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My favourite part of Heiress, after the gowns, was Aunt Freddy's story. Her letter to Free actually made me cry, which is extremely rare in novels and has never before or since happened in a romance novel.
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I'll try The Suffragette Scandal next, then. I recall
My favourite part of Heiress, after the gowns, was Aunt Freddy's story.
Yes. That was beautifully done and I didn't see it coming.
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I downloaded Milan's Talk Sweetly to Me (her mathematician novella), which I may end up reading this weekend.
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Thank you. I am drinking orange juice at a depopulating rate.
I downloaded Milan's Talk Sweetly to Me (her mathematician novella), which I may end up reading this weekend.
Let me know how it is if you do! I am in favor of mathematicians being loved.
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Hope you're feeling much better soon.
Nine
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Thank you. I'm so glad we finally got a couch.
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Unveiled is also my least favorite of its particular series, so far as I'm concerned you can pretty much only go up with Milan from here. (Though Unraveled and Countess Conspiracy are both top-tier for me.)
(Though I would also very much recommend, if you're Exploring Romance Fiction, that you also give Rose Lerner's works a try.)
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Interesting! I really assumed it was just me. I appreciate the data.
It was composed of so many elements that should have worked for me! And yet it is probably my least favorite of that particular series, a fact which I rather regret.
It's very regrettable! "Social butterfly impersonates brilliant scientist while they have complicated feelings about themselves and one another" should have been unbreakable. I even like a lot of the details of the play-out: Sebastian finally realizing that he's actually intelligent, not just pretty and clever; everything about Violet's backstory suggesting that if Milan really is writing an alternate history, someone had better hurry up and invent the pill; Violet's mother turning out to be just as terrifying as her daughter always thought, but also awesome. I just really think it would have worked better as not a romance. I feel this way about a lot of romances, but that doesn't necessarly mean I'm wrong.
Unveiled is also my least favorite of its particular series, so far as I'm concerned you can pretty much only go up with Milan from here. (Though Unraveled and Countess Conspiracy are both top-tier for me.)
I am going to read Unclaimed, even if I don't expect to like it anywhere near as much as Unraveled, see previous post. That one is holding strongly at the top of my admittedly minimal list, even counting The Heiress Effect.
(Did you mean something other than Countess Conspiracy?)
Have you read any of her traditionally published, pre-Turner novels? If so, what are they even like?
(Though I would also very much recommend, if you're Exploring Romance Fiction, that you also give Rose Lerner's works a try.)
If Rose Lerner authored the Jewish con artist marriage of convenience romance novel that you reviewed a number of years ago, and I can get it in print because I really do hate reading off screens, I shall definitely do so.
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...and whoops, yes, good catch, I meant Heiress Effect! Heiress Effect, Suffragette Scandal, and Governess Affair are I think the best books in that series overall; Duchess War, on the other hand, is my favorite of all of them for 3/4 of its length but has (imo) one or two fatal flaws.
I have not read any pre-Turner novels yet, but traditionally I read Milans when I'm stressed-out and traveling, and currently I am all out of Milans, so eventually I may be driven to it.
Rose Lerner did indeed author the Jewish con artist marriage of convenience romance novel! It is called True Pretenses and I believe it is physically book-able from the Minuteman library system. She also wrote the Jewish cross-dressing revolutionary war hero novella in the Hamilton anthology, and a historical novella I have never yet gotten around to reviewing titled All or Nothing in which a bisexual Jewish architect invites a woman to be his fake fiancee at his ex's house party in the mistaken belief that he is rescuing her from what in fact is a totally consensual open relationship.
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Now I really want to see Courtney Milan write a non-romance, just to see what it looks like.
Heiress Effect, Suffragette Scandal, and Governess Affair are I think the best books in that series overall; Duchess War, on the other hand, is my favorite of all of them for 3/4 of its length but has (imo) one or two fatal flaws.
I have not read any pre-Turner novels yet, but traditionally I read Milans when I'm stressed-out and traveling, and currently I am all out of Milans, so eventually I may be driven to it.
Well, I look forward to your report if it happens.
I've seen enough other recommendations for The Suffragette Scandal that I'm going to try it, besides which it stars Free. What goes wrong at the three-quarter mark of The Duchess War?
It is called True Pretenses and I believe it is physically book-able from the Minuteman library system.
Sweet!
She also wrote the Jewish cross-dressing revolutionary war hero novella in the Hamilton anthology, and a historical novella I have never yet gotten around to reviewing titled All or Nothing in which a bisexual Jewish architect invites a woman to be his fake fiancee at his ex's house party in the mistaken belief that he is rescuing her from what in fact is a totally consensual open relationship.
Unless her prose is really flat, chances seem very good that I will like Rose Lerner.
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I wouldn't recommend Milan's pre-Turner books. I read them and was very disappointed.
I gather the second one, in particular, got shoved in a direction Milan really didn't like (can't have a hero with clinical depression! Must have him magically get better - which means suddenly he just looks like he was an asshole all along), which might explain how she managed to write a hero I really wanted to hit with a big stick, something she hasn't really done since.
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Cool. This thing where I might actively seek out romance authors is bewildering, but not unwelcome.
I wouldn't recommend Milan's pre-Turner books. I read them and was very disappointed.
I am not entirely surprised to hear this, but still sorry.
I gather the second one, in particular, got shoved in a direction Milan really didn't like (can't have a hero with clinical depression! Must have him magically get better - which means suddenly he just looks like he was an asshole all along), which might explain how she managed to write a hero I really wanted to hit with a big stick, something she hasn't really done since.
Yikes. Did she ever get around to writing a hero with clinical depression once she was on her own?
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I've read it! I loved everything about it except its Malvolio.
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By the way, this is totally off-topic but you might be interested, Milan formerly worked as a lawyer, and she's just been featured in a major Washington Post story regarding sexual harassment from a judge she clerked under.
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Agreed. I noticed the language sharply between Unraveled and Unveiled—it's much clunkier in the first book. I don't feel that way about the characterization: I'm just essentially less interested in Ash as a hero. Plotwise, however, Unraveled has way more going on.
(The Turner series was traditionally published, although I believe she's reclaimed the rights now; Brothers Sinister was the first series that started out in self-publishing.)
Unveiled and Unclaimed were originally published with Harlequin; as far as I can tell, Unraveled was self-published from the start. All editions on her website now match, which means I agree with you about her having the rights back.
By the way, this is totally off-topic but you might be interested, Milan formerly worked as a lawyer, and she's just been featured in a major Washington Post story regarding sexual harassment from a judge she clerked under.
That's actually where this whole experiment started! I liked The Heiress Effect well enough that I should buy a print copy to continue to be supportive, and maybe the same for Unveiled.
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I understand the impulse and I am glad you shared.