I have a lot of feelings, thoughts, etc! When this was good, it was fantastic (what it means to survive! how life can haunt you! the little things JamI have a lot of feelings, thoughts, etc! When this was good, it was fantastic (what it means to survive! how life can haunt you! the little things James and Susannah did to endure!) and when it clanked it was distracting and disappointing (Lady Audley, the quick ending.)
Something I was picking up but maybe don't have realized thoughts about, spoilers and messy thoughts abound, I may have to come back with clearer thoughts: (view spoiler)[ hunger, opulence, appetite, gluttony . . . James is haunted by Timothy, an assistant from the ship who, among other men, made it into a boat as their ship was sinking. The men brought almost nothing with them - so very little food was available. The men, all becoming more ill by the hour with no food or water, agree that the surviving men should eat any who die. During the next few weeks, a man dies and the survivors eat him with one man, Tim, becoming ravenous. Tim begins eating a man who has not yet died. James is the only officer aboard the boat so he carries the log with him and is duty-bound to protect the log and accurately record these events. The boat James and Tim are in crashed into a coral reef and Tim is devoured by crabs. In the present, Tim, holding one of his own legs or arms, appears to James usually offering him a bite of flesh. At night, James attempts to ward off this ghost by leaving plates of food on dressers. I can't believe Kelly went there - I loved how bold these choices were! It was very upsetting reading about James's experience, which was slowly unraveled.
So, I mention thoughts about hunger, opulence, appetite, gluttony . . . I feel there is to be a connection between Lady Audley (who James meets once he has been rescued by missionaries; she helps pay for his ticket home. They have a lot of sex during his journey home; however James begins to sour on their relationship once he notices that Lady Audley will fuck anyone and appears to have fucked EVERYONE.) and the man haunting James, Timothy. (aside gripe: The way Lady Audley is written, one would assume she spent all her days and nights fucking men and then devising evil plans to ruin them once they have moved on from her. I hated this! I think women can do nasty, mean things and I think that can be on page! But this was just such singularly poor characterization that I can't get over it.) SO I think Lady Audley and Tim share bottomless appetites for the taboo but Tim is a ghost and while he was alive, he wasn't himself on that rescue boat! James even recalls that Tim was good at his job and was otherwise a normal man while they were aboard the ship. It was the sea and hunger that drove him mad. Lady Audley, meanwhile, is just a slut who has had too much sex, now scorned and dead set on ruining James's life. Tim haunts James - metaphysically - for what he did to survive and Lady Audley haunts James - corporally - for indulging carnally in flesh (there was something early on in the book; James sees meat being cut and thinks of a vulva . . .)
Okay things that I really loved: Kelly's books may not have descriptive sex scenes but here they were unconventional - the first sex scene ends and Susannah is still very turned on, James says he is spent - signaling p-in-v will not be happening again just yet. He manually stimulates Susannah until she is satiated. A little while later, as the couple are talking and still touching one another, James goes down on Susannah. But it wasn't like the typical "the man did the oral on the woman so a feminism happened" it was just a moment between lovers, partners enjoying one another without any sort of score keeping. I am often bemused that scenes like this don't happen more often in romance - which often touts "centering female pleasure" as a benefit of reading the genre (when more often, it's just reinforcing "penetration is king.") These scenes were brief but I was quite moved by how lovely they were. (hide spoiler)]...more
This was alright, by about 70% I started skimming a lot. I think there was some underdeveloped concepts wrt celibacy which is a disappointment. Also, This was alright, by about 70% I started skimming a lot. I think there was some underdeveloped concepts wrt celibacy which is a disappointment. Also, I think the "I've never had an orgasm, not even from myself!" plot line falls so flat when there isn't any, I guess awkwardness?, to cut the tension and deepen the scenes. I'll def. try more by this author (aka Cara McKenna) though....more
2024 review: This book! Stressed! Me! Out! It has been a while since characters frustrated me so much I wanted to s2025 reread: brb collecting myself.
2024 review: This book! Stressed! Me! Out! It has been a while since characters frustrated me so much I wanted to scream and toss my book at a wall and then chase after my book to find my place so I can read what happens next. After the prologue, the switch to single person POV for the rest of the book took me a while to get into. Also, it was a bit slow-moving for a good chunk and then it picks up. And frustration never ceases! Not until the very end.
The Painted Lady is about a recently widowed Englishwoman living in France who becomes acquaintances with an English Lord (and from-afar admirer). Fleur finds herself in desperate times due to some circumstances of her deceased husband (who was an artist) and some private paintings he made of her. Fleur accepts a proposal from Anthony - he is deeply in love with her, she tolerates him - and everything goes downhill after the wedding.
I became interested in this book due to a negative review that said, "If you're a fan of endless angst in a similar vein to Sherry Thomas, Cecilia Grant, or Judith Ivory's Bliss, knock yourself out." I love all of those authors so it made sense to me to order a physical copy of this book from a reseller since there is no ebook available to borrow. To be clear: this book does not reach the literary heights of those authors mentioned in the negative review, and yet! I am glad I was able to read it - it's unlike any other romance I've read recently.
The single person POV (minus a brief passage from Anthony's pov in the prologue) did enhance the terrible feeling of suspense, however I do think a few POV shifts would have moved the story along without sacrificing angst. Anthony was so inconsistent (at once extremely kind and then utterly cruel; cautious and then thoughtless at the drop of a hat) - it was difficult to tell if that was because he was intentionally written that way or because the author didn't develop him. I don't even think we needed a 50/50 split, even a 90/10 would have worked!
4 stars for shaking me up a little even if this is more like a 3 star read. Again, this book stressed me out! But I'm glad I read it. I'd love to read more books like this one, sadly I think this is the only book by the author!...more
4.5 stars! or maybe 5 stars? fuck! I only know I loved this.
Coming back to note a possible reference to Judith Ivory’s The Proposition in the is book:4.5 stars! or maybe 5 stars? fuck! I only know I loved this.
Coming back to note a possible reference to Judith Ivory’s The Proposition in the is book:
“In the morning everyone drove over to Woodley Manor for a look at the disgusting mountain of dead rats. The rat catcher, with his exhausted rat dogs, a triumphant ferret, and an incomprehensible accent, proudly twirled his dark, luxuriant mustache as he posed for Lord Frederick’s camera, commemorating the occasion.�...more
This had some beautiful writing and I was brought to tears a few times (I am always crying when I read Gaffney). But there is a Jewish & Romani villaiThis had some beautiful writing and I was brought to tears a few times (I am always crying when I read Gaffney). But there is a Jewish & Romani villain that is really NOT GOOD, Gaffney! Outside of that glaring issue, I really enjoyed this book....more
I read this book bc a (positive) review of The Painted Lady by Lucia Grahame mentioned it. And now I'd like to read more romances by Mega3.5 - 4 stars
I read this book bc a (positive) review of The Painted Lady by Lucia Grahame mentioned it. And now I'd like to read more romances by Megan Chance....more
December 2024 audiobook reread: I am in a semi-slump - I can only get into rereads, everything else is difficult for me to concentrate on right now. IDecember 2024 audiobook reread: I am in a semi-slump - I can only get into rereads, everything else is difficult for me to concentrate on right now. I love this book, and of course I love Nardi showing up. I'm going to reread Bliss and Dance next.
December 2023 audiobook read: I struggle with audiobooks, however this one was quite good for me. I really like the narrator's voices. Caveat: the narrator did take some large breaths at times that were distracting.
April 2023 read: Nardi de Saint Vallier makes an appearance! I’ve been obsessed with tracking character and place connections between Ivory/Cuevas’s novels. Motmarche, Graham or Submit (from Black Silk) appear most often. Anyway I screamed!...more
November 2023 read: I feel the same way about this book as I did the first time I read it. sidenote: I didn't pick this up the first time I read the boNovember 2023 read: I feel the same way about this book as I did the first time I read it. sidenote: I didn't pick this up the first time I read the book bc I hadn't yet read Patricia Gaffney's Wyckerly trilogy . . . a vicar of Wyckerly and his wife make an appearance and I am CURIOUS! Did Judy write that as a wink to her friend Patty?? Ìý April 2023 read: This story made me very emotional. I just love Judith Ivory's characters, especially her heroines. They make me swoon with love and adoration. I swear, every book I read by Ivory has my new favorite heroine and Coco is no exception. She is smart, kind, a secret-keeper and beautiful. She has a kind of beauty that shines as it stuns. She has lived a life and much of it - but not all - is slowly revealed within the story.
Although I did love this book, there is some indefensible racist depictions of a fictional African tribe. James Stoker, the MMC, is a geologist back from Africa after an expedition gone awry. He and several other people were meant to survey the land for Queen and country and bring back samples (namely gold LOTS and LOTS of gold). Things turn badly and James is the only person left alive from the original crew. He spends time living with an African tribe (one made up by the author) and eventually returns home to England. Now that he is home, he is tasked with going thru all the documentation and samples collected so crown and country may return to the area James found all the gold. But James is reluctant to provide exact details of his location so he may protect the tribe he spent time with. This is all well done but the racist descriptions of the African people James spends time with is so cringe and jarring. I still love this book (and Coco!), though....more
April 2024 group read: reading Judy with friends is the best. Also, I’m always crying. . . . December 2023: I am weak in the knees about this book and JudApril 2024 group read: reading Judy with friends is the best. Also, I’m always crying. . . . December 2023: I am weak in the knees about this book and Judy Cuevas. . . . April 2023: “Art is going where others say you cannot go, where others can’t even imagine existing. Art is following your pinpoint of vision until it lights up in a burst to reveal a place others have never seen, not even in their imaginations, yet a place that, once revealed, is so universal and so luminously associated with Truth that this place can never be darkened from the mind of man again.�
� Sebastian de Saint Vallier in a letter to his brother Bernard “Nardi� de Saint Vallier...more
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