The Rest Falls Away
Feb. 1st, 2007 06:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jmc_bksI've had Colleen Gleason's The Rest Falls Away on my night stand for 3 weeks. It didn't really grab me, so I set it to the side. This past week, though, work and life have just been kicking my @ss. Very little time to read. I picked TRFA up again, thinking it was an interruptable book -- it wouldn't bother me if I only had time to read 5-10 pages, then had to put it down.
Now that I've finished, I can say with utter confidence that I won't be checking out the rest of this series. Gleason's voice and style are fine -- not the most beautiful prose, but servicable. But the heroine, Victoria? I thought she was a naive, selfish twit who acted without logic or thought of consequences. She marries a marquess, and doesn't realize until after the wedding (and happy honeymoon) that he'll need/want an heir. Except wait, she shouldn't get pregnant because it'll interfere with her Venator duties. So she'll take precautions. WTF? I believe in a woman's right to control her own body, but the basis for marriage at that time and in that social level was for the production of heirs -- how did she miss that point? Even if it was a love match, titled men expected an heir and a spare. And taking precautions while pretending to "try"? Despicable. And there were multiple other examples of totally selfish and thoughtless behavior that diminished Victoria as a character in my eyes. I don't have to like a character, but I need to respect her or her motivations, and I couldn't find even a smidge of respect for Victoria.
I also found it hard to believe that she was a ruthless Venator. I didn't expect any of the Anita Blake dead-eye killer stuff, but nothing Gleason put on the page convinced me that Victoria had what it took to be anything other than vampire-fodder in the end. Go back to the drawing room and drink more tea, dear.
Killing Victoria's new husband off? Less than 100 pages after they get married? Totally pissed me off. Yes, Gleason is setting up a triangle. But why introduce a sympathetic possible-hero and marry him to Victoria, with the courtship and marriage a large part of the book, only to whack him on the last freakin' page? Okay, I get the plot point -- drive home to Victoria that Venators can't have attachments, give her a weakness, etc., while setting up the next book and next potential love interest. [Yeah, that makes me think of Victoria as a spider or a preying mantis.] But killing a spouse? Not romantic. In the movies, you know the nice guy husband is going to die, because that's what happens. Somebody dies. But not in romance novels. I don't care if the story arc ending in the third book has a happy ending, a dead husband (who was presented as charming and utterly in love with his bride) in the first book makes this Not Romance to me.
I wish I had read reviews with spoilers and known about the husband in advance. I wouldn't have wasted the money or the time.
Now that I've finished, I can say with utter confidence that I won't be checking out the rest of this series. Gleason's voice and style are fine -- not the most beautiful prose, but servicable. But the heroine, Victoria? I thought she was a naive, selfish twit who acted without logic or thought of consequences. She marries a marquess, and doesn't realize until after the wedding (and happy honeymoon) that he'll need/want an heir. Except wait, she shouldn't get pregnant because it'll interfere with her Venator duties. So she'll take precautions. WTF? I believe in a woman's right to control her own body, but the basis for marriage at that time and in that social level was for the production of heirs -- how did she miss that point? Even if it was a love match, titled men expected an heir and a spare. And taking precautions while pretending to "try"? Despicable. And there were multiple other examples of totally selfish and thoughtless behavior that diminished Victoria as a character in my eyes. I don't have to like a character, but I need to respect her or her motivations, and I couldn't find even a smidge of respect for Victoria.
I also found it hard to believe that she was a ruthless Venator. I didn't expect any of the Anita Blake dead-eye killer stuff, but nothing Gleason put on the page convinced me that Victoria had what it took to be anything other than vampire-fodder in the end. Go back to the drawing room and drink more tea, dear.
Killing Victoria's new husband off? Less than 100 pages after they get married? Totally pissed me off. Yes, Gleason is setting up a triangle. But why introduce a sympathetic possible-hero and marry him to Victoria, with the courtship and marriage a large part of the book, only to whack him on the last freakin' page? Okay, I get the plot point -- drive home to Victoria that Venators can't have attachments, give her a weakness, etc., while setting up the next book and next potential love interest. [Yeah, that makes me think of Victoria as a spider or a preying mantis.] But killing a spouse? Not romantic. In the movies, you know the nice guy husband is going to die, because that's what happens. Somebody dies. But not in romance novels. I don't care if the story arc ending in the third book has a happy ending, a dead husband (who was presented as charming and utterly in love with his bride) in the first book makes this Not Romance to me.
I wish I had read reviews with spoilers and known about the husband in advance. I wouldn't have wasted the money or the time.
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no subject
Date: 2007-02-02 08:47 am (UTC)So, she married for love and the husband was killed off?
Yetch.
CindyS
no subject
Date: 2007-02-02 01:32 pm (UTC)