The Secret Swan by Shana Abe
May. 19th, 2008 08:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
meganbmooreWhen she was fifteen, Amiranth was wed to Tristan, a knight she’d adored from afar for years, but never actually spoken to. On their wedding night, he spoke another woman’s name, and a week later, he left her waiting for him at a small country estate while he ran off to the crusades. She didn’t exactly remain smitten for long.
Eight years later, the plague has struck, and everyone on the estate but Amiranth has either fled or died. In the eight years since her marriage, Amiranth grew from a plain adolescent into a beautiful woman, and the mirror image of her beautiful cousin, Lily, one of the plague victims. Since Tristan had gone missing shortly after leaving for the crusades, and had long since been declared dead, the king has recently decided that Amiranth should marry again. Having been cut off from the world for eight years, and since Lily had been with her for most of that time, Amiranth realizes that she can pretend to be Lily and enter a convent in order to escape another loveless marriage. May not sound fun to us, but I completely get why she’d consider herself to be trading up. Except that her plans are thwarted when Tristan suddenly returns from the crusades, having escaped the prison he’d been in (but no one knew, and he remains very secretive of the fact for about half the book) and looking for his wife. However, he doesn’t recognize her, and believes the lie that Amiranth is Lily.
Despite having one of my least favorite romance novel tropes (one party keeping massive and important secret from the other for most of the book, thus justifying-to the text-bad behavior later on) the book is pretty good. I completely get why Amiranth held a grudge against Tristan (and so does he, once her perspective is explained) and why she decided to lie, and then maintain the lie, and Tristan handled it as well as it can be handled without being completely and unbelievably forgiving. I don’t though, quite get the pedestal he held the fifteen-year-old Amiranth on in his head. He barely spoke five words to her before dumping her in the country and running off to war, and the fictional Amiranth in his head was some pure and virtuous innocent that no Amiranth he came home to could have lived up to her. Still, he does come to love the real Amiranth throughout the book, and that’s what counts.
Despite having one of my least favorite romance novel tropes (one party keeping massive and important secret from the other for most of the book, thus justifying-to the text-bad behavior later on) the book is pretty good. I completely get why Amiranth held a grudge against Tristan (and so does he, once her perspective is explained) and why she decided to lie, and then maintain the lie, and Tristan handled it as well as it can be handled without being completely and unbelievably forgiving. I don’t though, quite get the pedestal he held the fifteen-year-old Amiranth on in his head. He barely spoke five words to her before dumping her in the country and running off to war, and the fictional Amiranth in his head was some pure and virtuous innocent that no Amiranth he came home to could have lived up to her. Still, he does come to love the real Amiranth throughout the book, and that’s what counts.