Review: Star Dust by Emma Barry and Genevieve Turner

4 stars

I kid you not, when I first read the blurb for Star Dust by Emma Barry and Genevieve Turner, I actually choked on my own tongue, and that's not a metaphor. From this, we can deduce two things:

1. I owe a lot to modern society because I'd probably be dead if natural selection was still a thing.
2. This book is LIKE NO ROMANCE NOVEL YOU'VE SEEN BEFORE.

Set in 1962, Star Dust the story of two neighbours: Anne-Marie Smith, a divorcee with two young children, and Kit Campbell, famous astronaut and ladies' man. Anne-Marie's just left her philandering husband despite widespread censure, and the last thing she wants - or needs - is to get involved with another man cut from the same cloth. Kit would like to see more of the woman next door, but he's not really one for kids or commitment, and he needs to be focusing on one thing: reaching the stars.

The 1960s conjure up images of Woodstock and Vietnam War protests, but Star Dust reinforces that mainstream society was still extremely conservative, and, for women, repressive. When Anne-Marie discovered that her husband had never been faithful to her, people told her 'these things happen'. When she decided to leave, people implied she'd never make it on her own. And now that she has, men proposition her and women gossip behind her back. To complete the realistic 1960s vibe, there's widespread smoking, conversations about Doris Day and the ominous shadow of the Cold War and 'the Reds' underlying everything.

Although I wasn't particularly a fan of their early interactions, as the book continued I became more invested in Kit and Anne-Marie's relationship. I would have liked this to be more drawn out towards the end of the novel, as things got serious; everything got tied up quite quickly and it left me with the impression that their proclamations of commitment to each other were a tad premature.

I really appreciated Anne-Marie's children were integral to her and Kit's relationship. Often, I find storylines where the hero or heroine has children to be problematic. Sometimes, it seems like the author has never actually met a child of the age that they are writing about, and then there's the 'why, yes, I'm a single parent, but you'd never know it the way my children rarely make an appearance and totally disappear for sexytimes'. Seeing Kit go from warily maintaining he knows nothing about children to taking the kids fishing and helping them with their homework was one of by absolute favourite parts of the book.

Unfortunately, thanks to a misspent youth of middle-of-the-day television re-runs, I couldn't help but picture Kit as Major Nelson from I Dream of Jeannie, which I really could have done without. But since I have had to suffer through that, I've included a picture of Major Nelson in his NASA suit so that you will be forced to do the same.

But joking aside, Star Dust made a fantastic change of pace from more historical historicals, and I hope that it blazes a trail for more 1960s and 70s romances, because I think that there's a lot of untapped potential there.

Review: Special Interests by Emma Barry

4.5 stars

Normally, the taglines on romance novels are one of my least favourite parts of Romancelandia - they're either overblown, twee, misleading or play into stereotypes about the genre (on some memorable occasions, they manage to be all at once). But the one for Emma Barry's Special Interests is an example of what happens when taglines go right:

In fact, Special Interests as a whole is an example of what happens when things go right. We open in Washington D.C. some time after union organiser Millie Frank was involved in a hostage situation.  In retrospect, it's farcical, given the hostage-taker was wearing a chicken costume and only had a fake gun, but that doesn't mean she's not having a hard time getting over it. Especially since she's now a household name in DC. When she bumps into Parker Beckett - literally - she's so sick of all the attention that she uncharacteristically asks him home with her. She's mortified when he declines, but the two of them just keep crossing paths; budget negotiations are in full swing and Millie's trying to get Parker's Democrat Senator boss not to throw the working class under a bus by giving into the Republicans' proposed budget compromises. As for Parker, he's finding it hard to maintain a moral compass, and harder still to ignore an idealistic union representative who still uses the term 'working people' unironically and suffers from night terrors.

If Special Interests has a theme, it's balancing idealism and cynicism. Both Millie and Parker have long since realised that working in D.C. is not all it's cracked up to be, but they've dealt with this realisation in different ways; Millie's clung to her faith in organised labour as a cure to the ills of the political system, while Parker's become jaded and fatalistic. As characters, they are almost unparalleled. At the outset, Millie comes across as whiny and slightly irrational, but that's fair enough given the whole hostage thing. It also led to some good tension with Parker, who, in Millie's words, was "conceited, presumptuous and paternal". Barry skillfully peels back layer after layer from two seemingly self-absorbed characters, revealing them to be extremely complex and allowing them to evolve as each challenges the others' worldview. 

And the plot, as I mentioned, is about US politics budget negotiations, which perennially pop up in the news but that I've never really understood before now. So, if you have an interest in American politics, but don't want to follow the primaries too closely lest Donald Trump makes you lose faith in humanity, try Special Interests!