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A scoop of vanilla with a dollop of truthiness
I have a coupon for a free pint of Ben & Jerry's ice cream (courtesy of World Assets -- check them out: reasonable phone rates, plus book recs and other stuff), so maybe I'll use it to buy some of Stephen Colbert's Americone Dream.
I'm going a little stir crazy here. Cleared off the car -- which took forever since it was ice, not snow. Made soup. Read Beau Crusoe -- two thumbs up! Finished Blood Bound. I even studied and worked on my homework. I don't care what the weather is like, I have got to get to work tomorrow.
Okay, Beau Crusoe.
The book opens with Trevenen's trip from Cornwall to London. He's being awarded the Copley Medal from the Royal Academy of Sciences for a paper he wrote about a small sand crab indigenous to the island upon which he was shipwrecked. The crab, in addition to being a source of fame to him, was his salvation on the island -- when he felt alone and desperate, he watched the crab colony interact, he named them, he made them his community. He has a drawing of them, made ingeniously using squid ink, which is his good luck charm; he is uncomfortable without it close at hand. Trevenen is a damaged hero: he is back among people, but is utterly alone since his family is dead. He cannot bear to be far from people now that he is no longer stranded, but he cannot bear to let anyone too close, either.
Susannah is a widow whose elopement ruined her family's reputation. Her father, Lord Watchmere, a naturalist, is distracted and rather useless; her sister a bitter spinster; her mother a flake. Her son, David, is her joy and consolation. But her godfather, Sir Joseph, a former explorer companion of Captain Cook, keeps his eye on her. Trevenen is intended to stay with Sir Joseph, but is relocated to the Watchmere household due to illness. Sir Joseph is open, though, with Trevenen -- he has three problems for Trevenen to solve for the Watchmere family.
I'm having a hard time deciding what to say about Beau Crusoe for a couple of reasons. First, I'm a Carla Kelly fangirl. I don't think I can be called that for any other author, but will readily admit it for Ms. Kelly. I think even her less stellar efforts are far and away better than a lot of the books on the market: the research, the economy of language, the characters. Second, the book really hasn't had time to percolate in my head, since I read it this morning. So I'm suppressing the urge to squee like a 14 year old catching a glimpse of Justin Timberlake while also thinking about the choices CK made with respect to plotting and language.
A couple of things stand out to me. First, the use of sexuality in this book. CK has never shied away from it, although she generally does not write explicit love scenes. Her heroines and heroes tend to have healthy sexual appetites for one another. She has addressed assault in the aftermath of battle (One Good Turn), the separation of (sexual) love and marriage (Libby's London Marriage and "Kathleen Flaherty's Long Winter" in Here's to the Ladies), etc. This is the first time that I can recall the sexual behavior of the hero with someone other than the heroine being part of the plot or appearing on the page, even in retrospect. It is an important point, I think, used to demonstrate his desperation for human touch after five years of isolation and his need for something or someone to hold onto, along with the gradual clearing of his senses as he readjusts to life among people. What makes me a little uncomfortable is that The Other Woman must be Evil. Her evilness does initiate an epiphany for him, but I'm, I don't know, disappointed, I guess, that this cliche appears in a CK book. And on a totally trivial note, the repeated references to the Evil Woman's spread thighs was a little heavy handed.
The second "thing" that sticks in my mind is how unknown Susannah is to the reader. This is in part a result of the narration: Trevenen is the narrator for much of this book. The reader does get Susannah's perspective, but she seems much less accessible than Trevenen. Kelly has used both hero and heroine as POV character before, but the disparity between how well the reader knows each character never seemed as noticeable before. I'll have to re-read to be sure, but I don't recall the hero having as much POV time in her earlier books as he does here. While I like Susannah, I don't feel that I became very well acquainted with her while reading. She's a much more ambiguous, amorphous character than Trevenen, whose mental state and life and hurts and joys are the focus of the book.
Okay, now that I've written about those, what did I appreciate without question in the book? The characters CK draws. Each character plays a distinct, important role in the plot. No one is extraneous. Rather like the language, which is not at all flowery but still manages to convey intense images. I particularly like how Kelly uses the fall activity of the gardens at Kew to initiate memories in both Susannah and Trevenen, once at the beginning of the book and once at the end; each set of memories is parallel and important with respect to the losses they have suffered in their lives.
I also love how a single little action has rippling effects across the lives of the people surrounding Trevenen. One little exaggeration snowballs. One little action in the Watchmere household influences another and then another. And lives change.
All in all, I'm very pleased with Beau Crusoe: I had very high expectations of it, and it satisfied them. It is not going to replace With This Ring as my favorite Kelly book, but it is certainly going on the keeper shelf. B+ from me.
Afterthought: Trevenen's captain was Cpt. Sir Hugo Marsh. Kelly tends to use easter eggs in her books, so I'm going to have to check to see if he was mentioned in any of her other books or if he was a real captain in the British Royal Navy.
I'm going a little stir crazy here. Cleared off the car -- which took forever since it was ice, not snow. Made soup. Read Beau Crusoe -- two thumbs up! Finished Blood Bound. I even studied and worked on my homework. I don't care what the weather is like, I have got to get to work tomorrow.
Okay, Beau Crusoe.
Shipwrecked!
Stranded alone on a desert island, he had lived to tell the tale. A triumphant return to the ton saw James Trevenen hailed as Beau Crusoe -- a gentleman of spirit, verve and action. But only he knew the true cost of his survival!
Scandalous!
Susannah Park had been shunned by Society. She lived content with her calm existence...until Beau Crusoe determinedly cut up her peace! The beautiful widow wanted to help him heal the wounds of the past -- but what secrets was this glorious man hiding?
The book opens with Trevenen's trip from Cornwall to London. He's being awarded the Copley Medal from the Royal Academy of Sciences for a paper he wrote about a small sand crab indigenous to the island upon which he was shipwrecked. The crab, in addition to being a source of fame to him, was his salvation on the island -- when he felt alone and desperate, he watched the crab colony interact, he named them, he made them his community. He has a drawing of them, made ingeniously using squid ink, which is his good luck charm; he is uncomfortable without it close at hand. Trevenen is a damaged hero: he is back among people, but is utterly alone since his family is dead. He cannot bear to be far from people now that he is no longer stranded, but he cannot bear to let anyone too close, either.
Susannah is a widow whose elopement ruined her family's reputation. Her father, Lord Watchmere, a naturalist, is distracted and rather useless; her sister a bitter spinster; her mother a flake. Her son, David, is her joy and consolation. But her godfather, Sir Joseph, a former explorer companion of Captain Cook, keeps his eye on her. Trevenen is intended to stay with Sir Joseph, but is relocated to the Watchmere household due to illness. Sir Joseph is open, though, with Trevenen -- he has three problems for Trevenen to solve for the Watchmere family.
I'm having a hard time deciding what to say about Beau Crusoe for a couple of reasons. First, I'm a Carla Kelly fangirl. I don't think I can be called that for any other author, but will readily admit it for Ms. Kelly. I think even her less stellar efforts are far and away better than a lot of the books on the market: the research, the economy of language, the characters. Second, the book really hasn't had time to percolate in my head, since I read it this morning. So I'm suppressing the urge to squee like a 14 year old catching a glimpse of Justin Timberlake while also thinking about the choices CK made with respect to plotting and language.
A couple of things stand out to me. First, the use of sexuality in this book. CK has never shied away from it, although she generally does not write explicit love scenes. Her heroines and heroes tend to have healthy sexual appetites for one another. She has addressed assault in the aftermath of battle (One Good Turn), the separation of (sexual) love and marriage (Libby's London Marriage and "Kathleen Flaherty's Long Winter" in Here's to the Ladies), etc. This is the first time that I can recall the sexual behavior of the hero with someone other than the heroine being part of the plot or appearing on the page, even in retrospect. It is an important point, I think, used to demonstrate his desperation for human touch after five years of isolation and his need for something or someone to hold onto, along with the gradual clearing of his senses as he readjusts to life among people. What makes me a little uncomfortable is that The Other Woman must be Evil. Her evilness does initiate an epiphany for him, but I'm, I don't know, disappointed, I guess, that this cliche appears in a CK book. And on a totally trivial note, the repeated references to the Evil Woman's spread thighs was a little heavy handed.
The second "thing" that sticks in my mind is how unknown Susannah is to the reader. This is in part a result of the narration: Trevenen is the narrator for much of this book. The reader does get Susannah's perspective, but she seems much less accessible than Trevenen. Kelly has used both hero and heroine as POV character before, but the disparity between how well the reader knows each character never seemed as noticeable before. I'll have to re-read to be sure, but I don't recall the hero having as much POV time in her earlier books as he does here. While I like Susannah, I don't feel that I became very well acquainted with her while reading. She's a much more ambiguous, amorphous character than Trevenen, whose mental state and life and hurts and joys are the focus of the book.
Okay, now that I've written about those, what did I appreciate without question in the book? The characters CK draws. Each character plays a distinct, important role in the plot. No one is extraneous. Rather like the language, which is not at all flowery but still manages to convey intense images. I particularly like how Kelly uses the fall activity of the gardens at Kew to initiate memories in both Susannah and Trevenen, once at the beginning of the book and once at the end; each set of memories is parallel and important with respect to the losses they have suffered in their lives.
I also love how a single little action has rippling effects across the lives of the people surrounding Trevenen. One little exaggeration snowballs. One little action in the Watchmere household influences another and then another. And lives change.
All in all, I'm very pleased with Beau Crusoe: I had very high expectations of it, and it satisfied them. It is not going to replace With This Ring as my favorite Kelly book, but it is certainly going on the keeper shelf. B+ from me.
Afterthought: Trevenen's captain was Cpt. Sir Hugo Marsh. Kelly tends to use easter eggs in her books, so I'm going to have to check to see if he was mentioned in any of her other books or if he was a real captain in the British Royal Navy.
AH!
(Anonymous) 2007-02-16 10:27 pm (UTC)(link)Or did you only get the ebook? I'm on my way to Borders, so I'll look there.
AND I have to get With This Ring. I don't have it yet.
-Jennie
Re: AH!
I ordered it directly from eHarlequin and it shipped early :)
My Borders tends to put Harlequin historicals out early -- I wonder if all of them do? So you may find it :)
Happy reading!
~jmc
Beau Crusoe
(Anonymous) 2007-03-01 10:54 am (UTC)(link)I don't know if this is out in stores yet, I got my copies from Amazon and BAM. The Amazon copy came two days ago, the BAM yesterday.
Aoife
Re: Beau Crusoe
I saw hard copies in the B.Dalton in my local trainstation on Tuesday, so I'm guessing it is being widely distributed now.
I agree with you about the epilogue -- it is one that should have been included. When I finished, I wondered how healthy James was mentally, and what effect their sea voyage would have on him and their marriage. It's nice to know that it all ended well. (I often wonder how happy the HEA after the initial rosy glow wears off.)
~jmc
Where is the epilogue?
(Anonymous) 2007-03-04 05:05 am (UTC)(link)Re: Where is the epilogue?
If that message scrolls off before you get a chance to see it, contact me offline (address is in the profile) and I'll send you her e-address. (I know, she listed it on her post, but I feel weird about sharing another person's email address.)
Re: Where is the epilogue?