My Lord and Spymaster by Joanna Bourne
Jun. 19th, 2009 11:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
meganbmooreFirst of all, this is a very misleading title! The hero, Sebastian, is not a spymaster! Or even a spy! He’s…someone who knows and sometimes works with spies. But then, who doesn’t in Regency Romancelandia?
Jess Whitby’s merchant father has been arrested for treason. Jess, however, believes that her father is innocent, and that Sebastian Kennett, the man responsible for his arrest, is the actual traitor. Sebastian, meanwhile, has an interest-beyond patriotic duty, of course-in seeing Whitby convicted because a ship that was sunk because of the treason was one of his own. Sebastian is determined to prove Whitby guilty, and Jess to prove him innocent. Thankfully, all the cards are out on the table almost from the start, sparing us a “Woes! How could you deceive me?” fallout later on.
Having now read two books by Bourne, I have to say that I like her voice, I like her heroines, and I like her ideas, but I don’t think I much like what she does with her ideas, or how the heroines end up being treated as pawns by the text. And, like Shana Abe, it seems that with interesting heroines that are a bit outside of the norm come almost unbearable heroes, though Sebastian isn’t as bad as some others.
When her father disappeared at sea, Jess took to thieving on the streets and ended up the right hand of Lazarus, the man who runs London’s underworld (or something) and is a master manipulator, resulting in Jess having to literally be kidnapped away from him when her father finally returned. The psychological imprint this left on Jess could have been fascinating-and Bourne does explore it a bit-but ends up mostly bringing to light an unfortunate theme of the book: that is, the way the men in the book seem to regard Jess as a personal possession. Early on, I tried to tell myself that it wasn’t more than a stronger case of the typical “possessive pronoun used to indicate fondness and/or attachment,” but with some added alpha male, but once Sebastian and Lazarus are in the same room, things like “possession” and “price” start getting thrown around. Bourne says this is very very bad and Jess is not a possession, but the text never really stops supporting the idea that she’s being passed around as the responsibility of one man or the other, not matter what she thinks or has to say. (And she does have plenty to say.)
So again: interesting ideas, but the execution isn’t for me. That said, I’ll probably still read Bourne’s next book, in hopes that the execution will be more my thing.
Jess Whitby’s merchant father has been arrested for treason. Jess, however, believes that her father is innocent, and that Sebastian Kennett, the man responsible for his arrest, is the actual traitor. Sebastian, meanwhile, has an interest-beyond patriotic duty, of course-in seeing Whitby convicted because a ship that was sunk because of the treason was one of his own. Sebastian is determined to prove Whitby guilty, and Jess to prove him innocent. Thankfully, all the cards are out on the table almost from the start, sparing us a “Woes! How could you deceive me?” fallout later on.
Having now read two books by Bourne, I have to say that I like her voice, I like her heroines, and I like her ideas, but I don’t think I much like what she does with her ideas, or how the heroines end up being treated as pawns by the text. And, like Shana Abe, it seems that with interesting heroines that are a bit outside of the norm come almost unbearable heroes, though Sebastian isn’t as bad as some others.
When her father disappeared at sea, Jess took to thieving on the streets and ended up the right hand of Lazarus, the man who runs London’s underworld (or something) and is a master manipulator, resulting in Jess having to literally be kidnapped away from him when her father finally returned. The psychological imprint this left on Jess could have been fascinating-and Bourne does explore it a bit-but ends up mostly bringing to light an unfortunate theme of the book: that is, the way the men in the book seem to regard Jess as a personal possession. Early on, I tried to tell myself that it wasn’t more than a stronger case of the typical “possessive pronoun used to indicate fondness and/or attachment,” but with some added alpha male, but once Sebastian and Lazarus are in the same room, things like “possession” and “price” start getting thrown around. Bourne says this is very very bad and Jess is not a possession, but the text never really stops supporting the idea that she’s being passed around as the responsibility of one man or the other, not matter what she thinks or has to say. (And she does have plenty to say.)
So again: interesting ideas, but the execution isn’t for me. That said, I’ll probably still read Bourne’s next book, in hopes that the execution will be more my thing.