Attacked by the bumble bee of lurve
“The Viscount Who Loved Me” by Julia Quinn
It was sheer panic here at ripmybodice.com headquarters when we had returned from our morning meeting at the ripmybodice.com boardroom to find mutant fire-ants covering our beloved shrine of Ms. McNaught. Over the howls and screams of “NoOoOOoo!!! Jooooo- deeeeettttthh!!!” and Mimi’s wails of “mmmmmaaaaaaiiii baaaaayyy - beeeeeeeeess!!!”, Lola and I bundled a weeping Mimi into the ripmybodice.com summer getaway car, threw in our bikinis, sunhats, suntan lotion and accessories (in that order) and whatever else we could lay our hands on, and put our Christian Louboutins to the pedal, and raced towards the beach. Thankfully, Lola had the good sense to grab books for us - “Real Vampires Have Curves” for herself, and “The Viscount Who Loved Me” for yours truly. Mimi…well, let’s just say we bought her a lot of strawberry margs to keep her calm from her loss.
Never having read a book by Julia Quinn before (but instinctively trusting whatever Lola tells me to read), I settled in on the deck chairs, happily feeling the cool breeze, smelling the salty air, and Lola, who had dumped half the bottle of suntan lotion on herself because she likes the way it makes her smell. Anyhoo, “The Viscount Who Loved Me” stars Anthony Bridgerton as the hero; the eldest brother to platoon Bridgerton, the rake of the season, who decides to take a wife. Sounds familiar? Like another historical romance plot where the aristocratic rake decides “I’m going to take a wife but there will be no love involved because I only want the mere convenience of a wife. And an heir. Yes. A man cannot have too many heirs to carry on his empire”? You would be half right. See, Anthony’s rationale for taking a wife is that, and bees. Yes bees.
With the exception of Mimi, most people do not like bees. I can understand that. Truly I can for I have never really gotten over the trauma of watching Macaulay Culkin (aka Thomas J. Sennett) die tragically from a bee sting and therefore leaving behind his first love whatsherface (and also, where is she now?) in “My Girl”. *Sniffle* They were so young!! So young to be torn apart!! *wails* Sigh. Where were we? Ah yes, bees. Or rather, 1 bee brought down Anthony’s beloved father at the young ripe age of 38 and so, Anthony firmly believes that he too will die young since he never could live up to the standards his daddy set in everything that he did. A rather weak and implausible plot device you say? Well you obviously were not drinking a jug of mojitos while reading the book because damnit, I believe Anthony! His pain is real y’all!
So Anthony, now almost 30 years of age, decides, it is time to take a wife and chooses Edwina Sheffield, the prettiest girl of the Season. Except you know in a Romance novel, it’s never that simple. Edwina has sworn not to choose a husband without the prior approval of her dear older sister Kate and so, Anthony has to first win over Kate who is predisposed to dislike him. Now I have to say, that I really do like Kate because she is caustic, snarky and witty. If she was real, I might have even invited her over to hang with us by the pool during happy hour, or add her to my myspace account, or we’d IM each other caustic, snarky and witty things. Sigh. If only. I wouldn’t however, invite her over during a thunderstorm because that’s what Kate is afraid of. Thunderstorms. You know, I used to be afraid of thunderstorms too… until Mimi and Lola sang “My Favourite Things” to me complete with drapery action and now the fear of a repeat performance keeps my fear of thunderstorms at bay. Anyhoo, I loved the scene where Anthony finds Kate curled into a ball under his desk one stormy night, and his heart breaks at her terror and he crawls under the desk with her to soothe her fears away by just whispering to her that she is safe over and over again. Awww. *sniffle*. Then of course the next day, he resumes his courtship of her sister, despite the fact that he had had a naughty dream about her and their tangible chemistry. Not so awww.
In the end, it is thanks to a nefarious bee that Anthony is ”forced” to abandon his marriage plans to Edwina, having instead to marry Kate. You see, Kate and Anthony were walking in the gardens. A bee comes along and Anthony goes berserk. Kate gets stung by a bee on her chest and Anthony goes berserk, claiming he needs to draw the poison out of the wound with his mouth. And so he does, only to be discovered by his mama, Kate’s mama, and the biggest gossip of the Season so…ooopsie. Anthony of course capitalizes on the fact that he has to marry her because his wazoo prefers Kate to Edwina and so they marry, with him promising himself that he would not fall in love with her. Yeah buddy, you keep telling yourself that. The two spend many a nights playing poke the honeypot and Kate eventually finds out the reason why she’s afraid of thunderstorms after she confronts her stepmother. Anthony however, gets all jealous that she manages to “exorcise” her demons while he is still deathly afraid of death, and basically acts like the biggest ass, disappearing from their marital home. That’s okay though, because he does grovel a fair bit when he realizes that he does love her (basically his brother said “just go home and tell her that you love her” and he realizes, “I love her!” (yes. It happened like that. No, I’m not going to mock it)(Okay except maybe to say. Wow dude. Way to go.)) and then he races to her only to be in time to see her carriage overturn in the park. Tragic.
Does Kate live? Does Anthony get to confess his love for her before it is too late? Will the bees get to him before he turns 38? Hey! It rhymes! *ahem* side tracked sorry. So, if you find your office attacked by mutant fire-ants/ mutant bees, take Julia Quinn’s “The Viscount Who Loved Me” with you on your beach escape. Just make sure you load up on some alcohol because there are some “how much further can I roll my eyes before it starts to bleed” moments and alcohol always prevents bleeding.
PHR said,
October 29, 2009 @ 3:33 am
Hehehehehe, right!!! The ‘bee mania’ almost got me!! Thx for the fun …