You, me, and Madam Dupree
“The Dangers of Deceiving a Viscount” by Julia London
So this one never really had a chance. One might chalk it down to bad timing; read right after the sizzling Oh My God I Need To Go Sit Under An IceBerg of a book which featured one of the most macho alpha men Sheridan had read in a while and some truly steamy sex scenes featuring bed ties, chains, limo spankings and showers. So one might say, it would be hard to have anything top that, and Sheridan should have spent her weekend wisely eating a bucket full of chicken, drinking bourbon, and watching old reruns of “I Love Lucy”. Tragically, Sheridan did neither and reached instead for that just-in-case-the-four-other-books-she-brought-with-her-were-insufficient-reading-material-for-her-six-hour-flight that she never got to read. And so kids what have we learnt today? 1) Impulse buys are never a good thing (Sheridan stares mournfully at her purple metallic vinyl zebra print coat); 2) Always go for the chicken; 3) Not all romance heroes are Alpha heroes; and 4) Sheridan is about to raniew .
To say the hero, Viscount Will Summerfield was boring is an understatement. Next to that raw slab of six pack hunka meat that is Ian Richards, Will Summerfield is a sliver of bland broiled chicken. Not quite the tortured male specimen that we have come to know and love, not quite the possessive caveman that we have also come to know and love, and not quite the Throw Me Down Lover and Spank Me Hard kind of man that we have come to know, love and hunt for. And in truth, Will’s “tortured past”/ “dark side” is kinda lame. I mean, you have heroes who have been physically tortured (Lachlain!) and abused as children (Jason!), heroes who have dragons coming out of them (Rhage!) and then, you have Will, whose inner darkness stems from the fact that he was struck one too many times on the head with the adventure stick and whose soul is filled with wanderlust. This story begins with Will on his great adventure, ignoring his father’s missives to come home and spread his viscounty seeds so that his papa may hold his first grandchild. Finally Will receives word that his father is ill and that he should return to the mansion at once. Upon arrival, he sees that the once grand mansion he had lived in has fallen into disrepair, and his daddy has suffered a massive stroke. He then kneels at the feet of his daddy and weeps. Too little too late my friend. His daddy should have smothered his ass at birth. And so the book continues this exploration of Will’s incredible self absorbedness and his guilt, inciting the reader to new unbeknownst depths of boredom. Like dude, seriously. If you spent months and months travelling around the world, searching for an adventure and shimmying your white ass under the stars with native Egyptian girls (that’s what they call it down there) and all the while ignoring your father’s letters to come home, we shouldn’t have to read about it. Neither should we have to read about the fact that you have never quite gotten that wanderlust out of your system, because every morning you get up early and go feed wild horses. Pffft. Bringing an apple to a wild horse does not an Indiana Jones you make.
Despite Will’s very bland and boring steamed tofu-like roots, Lady Phoebe Fairchild can’t get enough of him. Masquerding as seamstress modiste extraordinaire Madam Dupree, she travels to Will’s country estate as she was commissioned to dress Will’s two banshee like sisters. No one really knows what Phoebe sees in Will (and by no one, Sheridan means herself). He is neither charming, nor witty, nor particularly sensual. He does not display any possessive alpha-esque qualities such as growling, nor the clenching one’s fists/jaw in possessive anger or supressed sexual frustration (to name a few). When Phoebe fell off her mount, Will failed to rush to her side in a blaze of angry concern. Whereforth art thou Alpha balls Will? Sheridan suspects a 400 page ode to Apollo the wild horse would have been a far more entertaining read. I mean, where did Apollo come from? Where is he going to? How does he keep his locks so shiny? What does he think of WIll? Does he suspect that Will knows he thinks Will is an idiot? Does Will know that Apollo is waiting for the right opportunity to stick that offensive carrot up Will’s ass and then stomp all over him? Fascinating! Someone needs to right that book.
Until then however, we’re back (unfortunately) to one of the boringest story to date, Phoebe thinks Will is hot. And Will, who hasn’t bedded a woman in months and who wears some mystical scarab around his neck to help him curb his physical urges (Sheridan suspects also that the thief who gave that to Will probably laughed his ass off at the stupid tourist) thinks Phoebe is hot. Thinking immediately that Phoebe must, for she is a widower, miss having a man in her bed, starts putting the moves on Phoebe to seduce her. *rolls eyes to back of head* At this point people, Sheridan would like to interject to say that the mating dance of dung beetles seem pretty hot in comparison to Phoebe and Will. Cos seriously, when Will took Phoebe to his secret island where he showed her his drawings of his travels, fed her an array of cold cuts and fruit, and then pleasured her with his very boring hands, Sheridan had to resist the urge to skip ahead just so she could finish the book and get on to more important things in life. Like deciding whether she should wear her hair up or down at dinner. And also trying to figure out whether that zebra coat makes her look like a cheap streetwalker if paired with her Gucci booties. Instead, Sheridan is compelled to finish this book because she has OCD and because she hoped, against all hope, that something good was around the corner. Some fervernt love words. A manly show of nipple. That Phoebe would grow a backbone and stop her assimilation of another extraordinarily beautiful historical heroine who is fighting for her independence and who is happy to roll around in the woods with the hero. Tragically, Phoebe is just as boring as Will (guess that makes them perfect for each other). Though we, the readers, are led to believe that Phoebe is somewhat of a dreamer; whose head is in the clouds all the time (evidenced by her fantastical musings of what it would be like to be the lady of the manor) and who is whimsical and artistic (i.e. she stalks Will around the estate and sketches his behind), it never really leads anywhere other than to a nice afternoon nap.
In truth, Sheridan is amazed she finished the book. Because seriously, Will’s family is one of the sorriest and most annoying bunch of characters ever assembled and put under one roof. It is clear from the reading of the book, that Will’s sisters were most definately raised by cave people and should be sent to mine Sheridan’s backyard for hidden diamonds. Loud, irritating, pointless and displaying all the characteristics of a screaming baboon, Sheridan had desperately wished Phoebe would have just slapped them. Just one time. Do it for all the readers Phoebe! Unsurprisingly, Sheridan’s cries for vengeance were unheard, presumably because Phoebe is too much of a lady. Pfft. Joshua, Will’s younger brother, isn’t that much better. Constantly getting into fights and acting like a sullen brat, Sheridan hoped fervently that Will would have let his brother hang in a debtor’s prison, or to be shot at dawn. Sheridan would have gladly volunteered to get up at dawn and challenged Joshua to said duel. Mimi would act as Sheridan’s second of course, for her work with a scalpel can not be underestimated. And so, another one for the “What Were We Thinking? Die [insert appropriate character/person/thing here], die!!” closet. *Looks questioningly at the zebra coat*
Lady L said,
September 2, 2008 @ 4:13 am
There aren’t enough slapping heroines in my opinion, that is one of things that made me like “The Greek’s Christmas Baby”, in that one the heroine slaped the bithcy girl of the story. I hate the kind of heroine you’ve described.
Lachlain is more that tortured, like he took off his own leg… literally. I love that werewolf, and Emma is a cool heroine she totally kicked the female were’s butt.
Lauren said,
September 2, 2008 @ 7:40 am
I agree, there;s some unwriten rule that heroines need to be peaceful marters, but really, I would totaly respcet more heroines if more heroines used the bitch slap.
Sheridan Sakura Carlotta said,
September 2, 2008 @ 8:39 am
Lauren, I completely agree. I end up hating on the heroines because of my absolute disgust at how they are letting themselves be treated. In this one, Phoebe herself got slapped by one of his sisters (I believe it was Alice but I could be wrong) and all she gave was a stern dressing down and a glare the length of a carriage ride. And then of course the hero came to her room with some stupid mystical rock from one of his travels that apparently “cures bruising magically”. How could I have taken any of these characters seriously??
Lady L, Lachlain is in a class of his own and yes, most all of Kresley Cole’s females are way cool. You kinda almost want to be them in a way that is unrelated to the Lore males they hook up with. Almost.
Lady L said,
September 8, 2008 @ 5:04 am
“You kinda almost want to be them in a way that is unrelated to the Lore males they hook up with. Almost.”
No almost about it when it comes to me, I would loooooooooove to be a valkyrie and get a Lore male in the process.