| Aug. 28th, 2008 @ 11:05 am The Phantom Project: Masque of the Swan by Rebecca Ashe |
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Current Mood:  optimistic
Current Music: 3 Days Grace - Riot
Everyone who is interested in a mild surprise and a change of pace, take note: this is a romance novel and I did not hate it. I was batting 0 for 4 before I got here.
Masque of the Swan by Rebecca Ashe, 1996
Grade: B-
What insane shenanigans are these? I am surprised, too. Though there are very competent authors and extremely enjoyable books out there in the romance field, the ones that I've come into contact with for this project have invariably been utter dreck so far. Frustrating body image issues, spineless heroines with limp pasta brains, ridiculously unrealistic settings and plot twists and the glorification of bastardly rapists abounded, so much so that I seriously despaired for the state of romance everywhere. Thank goodness for a decent book with an engaging storyline and characters I didn't despise, doing its part to drag me up from the muck of my shockingly low expectations.
This book was confusing to me at the start, because it does a lot of things that would normally have me looking for lighter fluid and hissing "Unclean, unclean," in slightly deranged tones. Luckily, a charming writing style and a firm grounding in alternate reality not only stopped me from lighting it up but actually gave me the wherewithal to enjoy it. It has an extremely charming fairy-tale quality to it, and the things I normally despise in a Phantom adaptation were handled accordingly so that I really couldn't get overly upset by them.
( It's hard for me not to make a lot of jokes about shapeshifter sex here, but for you, I try. )
This is the only romance novel ever published by Rebecca Ashe (not, probably, her real name); the internet, in its infinite wisdom, seems to think she's one and the same as science fiction writer R. M. Meluch. I don't know if that's true, but if it is, good on her. I wish I had that kind of versatility. No matter how much I generally groan when I see that I have to read an old romance novel for this project, I have now been pleasantly surprised. I'd read this book again for fun, and probably will.
All you need to enjoy this book is an hour or so to make it through the first couple of chapters and realize that all your judgmental assumptions were incorrect. Or, you could just not be a judgmental bitch like me, which probably works for a lot of people.
It's really easy to make a typo and spell "Count" very embarrassingly. That's what I'm taking away from this.
(Cross-posted from The Phantom Project.) |
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