whimsyful

An Accomplished Woman, by Jude Morgan

A Regency romance that rather consciously models itself after Austen and Heyer, with mixed success, An Accomplished Woman follows Lydia Templeton, who at age twenty rejected Lewis Durrant, the most eligible bachelor in her county and is still happily single ten years later. When her godmother asks her to accompany her young, beautiful and naive ward Phoebe Rae to Bath and help resolve the love triangle Phoebe has gotten herself into, Lydia reluctantly agrees. Suitors, cads, hijinks, and maybe even some revelations about Lydia’s much-guarded heart ensues.

In some sense every contemporary Regency/Georgian era historical romance is following in the footsteps of either Austen and/or Heyer, but the style, tone and characterization in this book really does read like a mashup of their works, in both the good and bad ways. The good is that Morgan’s prose is noticeably a tier above most such pastiches—he evokes the style of the period very well, and more impressively even manages some good examples of Austenian wit from time to time, though not with quite the same ease.

The bad is that his characters are rather too obviously based on Austenian archetypes, and in multiple instances he mashes together two different archetypes instead of having an organic character arc. For example, Lydia starts off as a Elizabeth Bennet until partway through when she suddenly swerves and becomes like Emma Woodhouse in how badly she’s misread others. One of the older female characters is basically a carbon copy of Emma’s Mrs. Elliot, and so forth. The most egregious one for me, though, was how Phoebe’s two suitors were depicted. One is portrayed as all courtesy and consideration, the other Byronic melodrama and obnoxiousness, until a certain point where the scales flip with a crash, and Mr. Courtesy becomes Mr. Elliot Redux and Mr. Byronic Melodrama become Mr. Really A Good Kid, Just Overly Excitable.

This lack of proper character development means that, despite greatly enjoying the writing style and wit, I was more passively carried along by the plot than emotionally engaged, and viewed the book more as a mosaic built from tiles taken from Austen’s oeuvre than a work of it’s own. Still, as far as Austen pastiches go, in terms of prose quality this is one of the better ones I’ve read.

A Little Folly, by Jude Morgan

This book, in contrast, was much better. A Little Folly follows the (mis)adventures of siblings Louisa and Valentine Carnell after the death of their controlling and abusive father as they experience the headiness of having freedom and independence for the first time in their lives. Valentine opens the house to their estranged (due to their father) cousins Tom and Sophie, and Louisa is finally able to reject their neighbor Lynley whom she’s been expected to marry. But when Valentine falls for another visitor, the beautiful and very much married Lady Eversholt, the two siblings run the danger of ruin as the line between independence and recklessness grows thinner.

I found this book much more effective at intertwining plot, character, and theme so that each influenced the other in an organic and believable manner. Louisa and Valentine, after nearly two decades of tyrannical control, very understandably leap the other way once freedom is finally theirs, but due to lack of experience they have trouble differentiating between which societal rules are cruel and unfair and should be pushed back against, which are unfair but must be borne, and which are simple good sense. The thematic similarities to Pride and Prejudice and Emma are also better done—ex. when Louisa misjudges the character of the man she refused, it’s a reaction to her having been pressured to marry him by her father that makes her unable to see Lynley as his own person rather than as an extension of her father’s control.

I only have two mild criticisms: one that the main love story was competently written but not really intense or memorable (which is likely a side effect of the endgame pairing being unclear until close to the very end, so it doesn’t get enough meat to be a really great romance), and the other how the plotline with Lady Eversholt was resolved. Up until the end it was a complex, thorny problem with few outright bad guys and instead several flawed people causing harm to each other, and I think the reveal which neatly partitioned the participants into Basically Good and Basically Bad brackets was less interesting than the prickly, complicated tangle it was before. Still, this is one of the strongest Austen pastiches I’ve read, and I’m definitely going to track down Morgan’s other works.

The Wintringham Mystery, by Anthony Berkeley

A Golden Age classic country house mystery with a slightly unusual setup. Our hero Stephen is a former army officer who first came into an unexpected inheritance, and as a result of his “life is short so enjoy it as much as you can while you can” philosophy quickly blew through the entire stash and ends up having to take a job as a footman for a living. His new job is at Wintringham Hall, a stately country manor owned by the elderly but spirited Lady Susan Carey, and his budding new career as one of the servants quickly turns awkward as he encounters his former friends from a now higher social class, including 1) Freddie, Lady Susan’s nephew and 2) Pauline Mainwaring, a young lady Stephen has feelings for. Freddie, oblivious to the class and social tensions, ropes Stephen into holding a seance with all the guests after dinner for fun, but when the lights are turned back on a young woman has disappeared in the middle of a crowded room!

My favorite part of the book was this upstairs/downstairs tension as Stephen flip-flopped between being considered one of the help and one of the guests, and I found Stephen’s character very likeable in how relatively undisturbed he was at his fall from grace. His partnership/love story with Pauline is also quite charming, as the two team up to investigate the mystery.

Unfortunately, these positives are marred by the depiction of the love rival, who is basically a walking anti-Semitic stereotype—the unscrupulous financier who manipulates the heroine into an engagement and is disliked by every good character. This combined with the lack of tightness in the mystery plotting (the clues fit but given the personality of the culprit, they had much easier ways to accomplish their goals than the rather convoluted method they chose) means that I can’t really recommend this unless you’re a Golden Age mystery completionist.

Chomp, by Carl Hiaasen

A YA/children’s adventure following Florida teen Wahoo Cray (yes, that is his real name) and his animal wrangler father Mickey, who needs help with his work after a frozen iguana fell on Mickey’s head and gave him a concussion (apparently a real thing that actually happens in Florida!). In desperate need of of money, the two accept a job to help film scenes involving “wildlife” for the hit reality show Expedition Survival!, providing tame animals for the lead actor Derek Badger (not his real name) to pretend to fight against/hunt/escape from instead of their much more dangerous wild counterparts. Unfortunately, Derek is as stupid as he is egotistical, with the actual survival instincts of a lemming on speed, and he soon gets the bright idea to “put the ‘real’ back in reality tv” and film in the Everglades instead of the Crays’ nice and controlled farm. Soon the Crays have their hands full trying to save Derek from the wildlife, the wildlife from Derek, and Wahoo’s runaway classmate Tuna (yes, also her real name) from her abusive alcoholic father.

This was a blast to read! Hiaasen has a very distinctive style—his prose is simple but vivid, and his characters are very much larger than life (with ridiculous names) but fun to read about. The author’s clear love for Florida’s wildlife and the Everglades shines through. I loved all the animal scenes, particularly the ones with Alice the alligator, and you really feel Mickey and Wahoo’s anger at how callously Derek (and by extension the entire show biz machine) is treating them.

I did boggle a lot at Derek’s stupidity, because I genuinely don’t remember the last time I read a main character so carelessly gunning for a top spot shot at the Darwin Awards. I guess Hiaasen thought he needed a proper villain instead of just a buffoon for the climax, hence the plotline with Tuna’s abusive father, but I liked Derek’s antics more and thought the pacing suffered towards the end as it got more serious.

Some minor fat-phobia aside, I really enjoyed this book, and would recommend it to anyone in the mood for a light and humorous adventure filled with cool animals and peak Florida Man vibes.