Of Swords and Parasols

(I remember a time when about 70% of my content was posts on individual books.)

The Black Hawk by Joanna Bourne: Romance novel about a French spy and a British spy who have been freinds, lovers, enemies and rivals in various combinations over the course of a quarter of a century, beginning in the French Revolution. I don't recall Bourne's first 2 books incredibly well, but I remember both having interesting and rather different premises but the books not quite living up to them, and the heroines being rather out of the norm but being defanged somewhat to make the romances work. I rather loathed the hero here at times but I suspect my subconsciousness recalls him better in the previous books than my consciousness does, and my reaction is more related to that than this book, a few scenes aside. Not as good as it could be, but quite different from most of the genre.

Ghost Story by Jim Butcher: The short and unspoilery version is that the 13th installment in the Dresden files is a fun and entertaining book in which the most interesting things, sadly, are the things going on offpage with the supporting characters, and which Harry (and so we) only see a bit of or hear about. Molly has been slowly becomin the character that interests me the most over the last few books, and that held true here as well. I like to think that my hopes that Molly will eventually be Maggie's mentor are supported by this book, but am sure that my not-so-secret desire that the series eventually switches from Harry to Maggie as the central protagonist will never happen. The resolution to the mystery from the end of the last book was fairly predictable, but that's OK.

Magic Under Stone by Jaclyn Dolamore: Sequel to Magic Under Glass, featuring a good story and a woefully whitewashed cover. Everything in the book springs pretty much directly from the first, including the new characters and their plots. This one focuses a lot more on the fae and the fae court, but it's not to the detriment of the book as a whole. (Though, if you're like me and watch Once Upon A Time, one particularly dramatic and serious scene might accidentally become funny because you picture Josh Dallas popping us and asking if you've tried "True Love's Kiss.") The world remains a very engaging blend of history, steampunk and fantasy, though I wish more of it would be explored beyond the pseudo-Europe beyond Nimira's memories of her homeland.

Tuesdays at the Castle by Jessica Day George: Light and largely adorable medieval-lite MG book about about a 12-year-old princess in a castle that's always changing (rooms and corridors move and change size, conditions and dimensions, new rooms spontaneously appear) who, along with her teenaged brother and sister, has to protect the castle (and kingdom) from advisors and a foreign prince when her parents disappear and are declared dead. A bit heavy heanded with the "place as character" at times, but probably not as much so from the perspective of the target age group, and less reminiscent of the "Castle Perilous" books than I had expected, with lots of spy!princess shenanigans and some political maneuverings that are amusingly naive at this point in life, but which I probably ould have thought brilliant when I was 12.

The Squire's Quest by Gerald Morris: This is I think the 9th or 10th book in the "Squire's Tales" series. Good but not one of the best in thr series, this adapts "Cliges," a source text which Morris seems to look at about the way he views "Tristan and Isolde," only moreso. It's most notable, probably, for being one of the few books to focus primarily on the series's titular character, Terrence, and his running around investigating things and being suspicious of Mordred was considerably more fun than the "Cliges" parts. I think there are only one or two books after this, given the presence of Mordred and his obvious plotting.

Cloaked in Red by Vivian Vande Velde: A collection of 8 adaptations of "Little Red Riding Hood," the best part is probably the author's foreword, in which she spends several pages boggling at the tale and it's popularity. The stories themselves are a bit hit-and-miss, and largely have little to do with the fairy tale beyond the surface. My favorites were "Little Red Riding Hood's Family" (a bit of a nod to urban fantasy) and "Granny and the Wolf" (in which the wolf is female and Granny's pet, and Granny has an unwanted suitor), but while a couple made me go "Err...what...?" (possibly deliberate) it's a pretty entertaining, light read.

This is a fairly straightforward retelling of “The Twelve Dancing Princesses.” Eighteen years ago, Queen Maude made a deal with The King Under Stone. For one favor she would dance for him for twelve years. For another she would dance for another twelve years. When she dies before the twenty-four year contract is up, her twelve daughters, who Under Stone hopes to wed to his twelve sons, are forced to finish out the contract.

Galen is the son of a soldier and lost both parents in a war that’s lasted most of his life, and which he finished out living with the camp followers. (Normally people only think or prostitutes when they think of camp followers, but this was actually an entourage with women who provided all sorts of services to the army, such as food and washing, and did also include prostitutes.) Now a twelve year veteran of the war who’s fought in many battles, he returns to his mother’s home town in search of her family, and gets a job as the assistant of his uncle, who is the castle gardener. He soon falls in love with the oldest princess, Rose* and learns that the princesses have been wearing out their dancing slippers every few nights, and continue to do so even after Rose catches pneumonia, which eventually causes all the princesses to get sick. Having acquired the normal tools for the tale before reaching the castle, he volunteers to try to solve the mystery after all the princes who tried and failed died on their ways home, and the princesses themselves became more ill and miserable.

Galen is nice and resourceful and heroic without being annoyingly so, and does a good job o straddling the line between being motivated because it’s the right thing to do, and being motivated because he likes the girl. His scenes with the youngest princess, Pansy, are also almost too adorable. Because there are twelve of them, the princesses don’t really get a chance to be as developed, but what we do get is pretty good. Only a few (primarily Rose and Pansy get a chance to stand out as characters, but all get enough room to get to be distinct in one way or another.

I’ve always liked the tale, though, because it’s a tired old soldier and a spinster princess, so reading about them as teenagers does cause the story to lose a bit of its charm for me. It’s still pretty enjoyable, though. One other thing is that Galen knits (knitting used to be a “men only” thing) and this becomes an important aspect of the story in interesting ways.

*This resulted in a romance that initially largely consisted of him staring longingly up at her window and her pretending not to stare longingly down. At 15, I would have thought it the most romantic thing ever. At 28, I was really hoping they’d also do some actual talking. Thankfully, they did.