Book Review: Your Scandalous Ways by Loretta Chase

When it comes to historical romance, Loretta Chase’s Your Scandalous Ways has got to be one of my favorites because, quite frankly, the heroine is a big ol’ ho. No bookish schoolmarm or passive princess or, egads, even worse, “feisty fireball” here. The star of Your Scandalous Ways is a ballsy, unapologetic, fallen-from-grace whore. And I, for one, loved her.

After being disappointed by Chase’s last book, Not Quite a Lady, I had my reservations about picking up another Chase novel about a “fallen woman”, but I heard such good buzz about Ways that I (thankfully) set aside those qualms and read the book. I’ve long been a fan of Ms. Chase’s gifts for sparkling writing and fresh characters, and this latest offering does not disappoint.

Your Scandalous Ways is the love story of Francesca Bonnard, our illustrious slutpuppy, and James Cordier, a spy and jewel thief who is, in many ways, something of a slutpuppy himself. James is on his last spy mission: to nab some important and big-time-secretive papers from Mrs. Bonnard. Francesca is divorced from a real asshat who treated her like shit and had her shunned from English society, which is how she ended up in Venice, where the plot of the novel unfolds. As expected, Francesca and James become smitten with one another, both against their better judgment: James is tired of spying, this is last job, he should just grab the goddamn papers and go; for Francesca, falling in love is dangerous and not particularly good for business because she is — say it with me now — a whore.

What isn’t expected is the fantastic character development Chase employs here. Throw out any notion you have of how these characters might behave; i.e. James must be unsure of Francesca as a mate because of her profession, or Francesca must be so unhappy and unfulfilled because she’s a courtesan. Wrong, and wrong. James knows from the beginning that she likes to play games and toy with men, but he loves every second of it and willingly takes part; his reservations have more to do with the mission at hand and how a relationship with the victim might jeopardize that and less to do with her whorin’. And Francesca, for her part, is a pretty happy hooker. Even at the end, with the Happily Ever After looming on the horizon over the Grand Canal, when she’s clearly in love with James and has told him so, she still refuses to be “owned” by any man. She actually likes her job…and how many of us can actually say that?

For me, James — even with all his charm and humor and yummy-nummy-nummy physicality — took a back seat in the gondola to Francesca. I just bloody loved how this heroine managed to nab the hero and fall in love with him, never for a second compromising her ideals (however misguided) or having some ridiculous and unrealistic “transformation” into a changed woman.

Though Chase’s characters are terrific and her writing is damn-near crackling, there are a few plot elements that left me a little cold. First of all, Your Scandalous Ways has a lot of back story; both Francesca and James come with a fair share of baggage that the reader really needs to be let in on to understand the scope of the situation they find themselves in. And I didn’t feel as if we were given proper access to that baggage. Both of their histories are given a few sentences here and there, and a few conversational mentions, but nothing much beyond that. We are asked to just trust that the bad guys are bad and the good guys are good. I needed more proof of that.

Secondly, there is a whole subplot involving Francesca’s father that just did not work in the scheme of the novel. What we really need to know about him — because he plays a big role in how Francesca got into the situation she’s in — we don’t really learn; only the barest skeleton of details are sketched out as far as he is concerned. When he pops up later in the story, it’s a pretty anticlimactic moment. Daddy who?

Third, the villains. Another thing I love about Chase’s stories is that her villains are always complex and utterly human; in fact, even though I didn’t enjoy Not Quite A Lady, the villain of the book is one of my favorites for the simple fact that he isn’t really a villain at all: he’s a person. But the villains are much more one-dimensional in Ways. We don’t really get under their skins like I’m used to in a Chase book, and the result is a set of pretty cardboard bad guys.

With that said, Your Scandalous Ways is still a damn good read. With the author’s knack for creating memorable heroines and heroes, coupled with her extraordinary voice as a writer, this one stands out in the romance genre. It’s also refreshing to see an unapologetic, rabble-rousing, scandalous heroine just not give a fuck that she’s all of these things. Because she knows she is more.

And so do we.  Grade: B

 

Title  Your Scandalous Ways

Author  Loretta Chase

Publisher  Avon

Year Published  2008

ISBN  006123124X

Snarkbytes  From her author bio: before getting published, Loretta Chase once worked a “Dickensian six-month experience as a meter maid”.

January 22, 2009 | Filed Under Romance | 4 Comments 

Former Administration to Write Books

Who knew they could even read?

I kid, I kid.

It seems the whole gaggle of Bush’s recently-departed team have decided to write memoirs.

Laura Bush just signed with Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, to pen her life story. It’s slated for publication in spring 2010. “I am very pleased to be associated with Scribner, the distinguished publishing house of many of my favorite books,” the former First Lady said. “I look forward to working with Scribner and the Simon & Schuster team as I tell the stories of the extraordinary events and people I’ve met in my life, particularly during my years in the White House.” Mrs. Bush, a former librarian, has long been a literacy advocate and book nut.

Republican Karl Rove, Dubya’s former adviser, is also on tap to write his story. He has signed a $1.5 million contract with Threshold Editions, another Simon & Schuster imprint. ”All of us at Threshold are thrilled to publish the book from the man who had the president’s ear for two terms,” said Threshold publisher and executive vice president Louise Burke said.

Both Mrs. Bush and Rove are being represented by superstar Washington lawyer Robert Barnett, who negotiated their contracts (<snark comment> and I’m sure got them just what they so desperately need: even more money! </snark comment>). Barnett also represented President Obama and former President Clinton when they penned their books.

Condoleeza Rice has confirmed that she will start slinging the ink, too. The former Secretary of State — herself represented by the illustrious William Morris Agency – will be meeting with publishers to discuss multiple book projects, including a memoir of her service in the Bush administration. Details are sketchy, and all talks are in the early stages.

How much truth will actually be included in these books is, of course, debatable. I just hope Mrs. Bush throws in a recipe for opossum.

 

Story Sources  Politico, breitbart.com, Yahoo  |  Image Source  lies.com

January 21, 2009 | Filed Under Biography & Memoir, Newsies, Politics | 6 Comments 

Poets Celebrate Obama

In honor of Barack Obama’s inauguration as the 44th president of the United States, I thought it would be appropriate to share a few poems written for the occasion by some of our foremost poets.

First up, a piece by Alice Walker, the brilliant mind behind such books as The Third Life of Grange Copeland and The Color Purple, for which she won the Pulitzer Prize.

The World Has Changed

The World Has Changed:
Wake up & smell
The possibility.
The world
Has changed:
It did not
Change
Without
Your prayers
Without
Your faith
Without
Your determination
To
Believe
In liberation
&
Kindness;
Without
Your
Dancing
Through the years
That
Had
No
Beat.
The world has changed:
It did not
Change
Without
Your
Numbers
Your
Fierce
Love
Of self
&
Cosmos
It did not
Change
Without
Your
Strength.
The world has
Changed:
Wake up!
Give yourself
The gift
Of a new
Day.
The world has changed:
This does not mean
You were never
Hurt.
The world
Has changed:
Rise!
Yes
&
Shine!
Resist the siren
Call
Of
Disbelief.
The world has changed:
Don’t let
Yourself
Remain
Asleep
To
It.

 

Here’s a poem by Billy Collins, Poet Lauretate of the United States from 2001-2003.

Launch

A boat is sliding into the water today
to test the water and the boat
which glides down a grassy bank
the prow touching the wavelets
then another push
and the length of it up and buoyant
the tapered length of it floating
toward the middle on its own
as we watch from the shore
pointing to the heavy clouds coming in
from every side
but now above us only the sun’s golden rafters
and the boat afloat
out there on the bright surface of the water.

 

Finally, Julia Alvarez, the author of How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents and In the Time of the Butterflies, has written a powerful, untitled poem for this historic event:

The land was never ours, nor we the land’s:
no, not in Selma, with the hose turned on,
nor in the valley picking the alien vines.
Nor was it ours in Watts, Montgomery–
no matter what the frosty poet said.
We heard the crack of whips, the mothers’ moans
in anthems like an undertow of grief.
The land was never ours but we believed
a King’s dream might some day become a deed
to what we did not own, though it owed us.
(Who had the luxury to withhold himself?)
No gift outright for us, we earned this land
with sorrows currency: our hands, our backs,
our Rosas, Martins, Jesses our Baracks.
Today we give our land what we withheld:
the right at last to call itself one nation

 

For more inaugural poetry fabulousness, visit the AP.

 

Story Source  The Associated Press  |  Image Source  CBC

January 20, 2009 | Filed Under Newsies, Poetry, Politics | 4 Comments 

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