Review: Luck Be a Lady by Audra North

3 stars
Release Date: 23/01/16
I received a free ARC of this book from the author in exchange for an honest review. My opinion is my own.

It took me a while to get into Luck be a Lady, and I didn't enjoy it as much as Audra North's other books, particularly my gold standard, Giving It Up. 

Set in Ireland, Luck Be A Lady is the story of Aoife Gallagher and Michael Faraday (like the scientist). They were childhood friends, until Aoife overheard something that sent her running. Fifteen years later, after Aoife has built up an internationally successful cosmetics company based in the US, the two are in Dublin. Michael makes contact when he thinks Aoife might be able to help him professionallly, but he soon realises that he's interested in more than her connections.

My main problem with with Luck be a Lady was that the relationship between between Aoife and Michael was on the weak side. First, a miscommunication kept them apart for 15 years. To North's credit, the two of them got this sorted out quickly and in a pretty straight-forward manner. However, after that, we keep being told that they really enjoy being together, but their purported connection is told and not shown. To me, it doesn't feel like there's much extended dialogue or many extended interactions between Aoife and Michael shown entirely on the page. We're not shown that they have a good time together, instead Aoife informs us that when she is "with Michael, [they] hav[e]...fun simply talking" (loc. 1242) and "it was amazing to her, how easy it was to be with him....She loved talking to him, laughing with him..." (loc. 1651).  And big moments, like the one where they essentially formalise their relationship and decide that they're together, even if it's long-distance, take place off-page: 

They were going to try to make it work, though.  They'd agreed it was worth a shot, even if it meant a long-distance relationship and they'd only been together for a few weeks....They'd barely slept last night, talking and trying to store up enough moments to last them through the next few weeks apart. This morning, they'd said goodbye....

If I'd actually seen this conversation and some tender goodbyes play out, I think I would have been much more emotionally invested in the black moment and resolution of their relationship. 

As it was, much of the interesting, potentially hashing-out-a-relationship stuff got skipped over in favour of drama from external sources, which I didn't like, but which prompted both Michael and Aoife to think about themselves, their emotions and their relationships, which I did like, although I still felt this was somewhat inhibited by the weakness of their romance.

Although their relationship wasn't everything it could have been, both Michael and Aoife were characters with interesting facets. Michael's passion for Ireland and her history was sweet, while Aoife's experience as a teenager has led her to value and prioritise phyiscal beauty. The exploration of this theme was well done, as Aoife slowly challenged this mentality with Michael's help. Similarly, I enjoyed the way Aoife, having built her business up, slowly comes to terms with the fact that she is no longer enjoying her work and explores other options.

Overall, quick and easy summer (or, I suppose, winter if you are in the Northern hemisphere) read but not all that I'd hoped, given the strength of North's previous work. 

Review: Frozen by L. A. Casey

2 stars

I don't read many seasonal romances, partly because I'm a bit of an Ebenezer Scrooge, and partly because they're almost exclusively about the Northern Hemisphere 'white' Christmas, but since I don't associate that with Christmas, they aren't familiar or comforting in the way that I gather they are meant to be. But Frozen by L. A. Casey was on sale and has a 4.01 rating on Goodreads, so I gave it a go, with mixed results. 

Neala Clarke and Darcy Hart hate each other, but they're forced into each others' company by their families, who are thick as thieves. When their eyes meet over the last doll of a popular children's franchise available anywhere before Christmas, their long-running sniping erupts into a full-out war. Neala needs the doll for her niece, to prove that she can be reliable auntie, while Darcy wants it for his nephew. After a scuffle, Neala leaves the shop with the doll, but Darcy is determined to get it back. And as things heat up, they realise that there might have been something else beneath their hatred for each other all along.

Frozen was set in Ireland, and had very Irish speech patterns; 'eejit' for 'idiot' and 'me' instead of 'my'. It takes some getting used to, but it contributed to a very strong sense of place. The characters live in a small town, and it was nice to have a romance where both the hero and heroine had modest occupations and incomes: Darcy is a building contractor and Neala works in a hotel. 

The bad blood between Neala and Darcy stems from a falling out in the playground when they were ten years old. Although the flashback scene that recounted this was clunky, the way that each reacted and was affected by it was in line with their age and gender. However, I felt that the way this had snowballed over the years was awful. 

Throughout the course of the book, the hero and heroine - and their families, which was somehow worse - exhibited juvenile, irrational, dangerous and just plain odd behaviour. Both Neala and Darcy have a tendency towards extreme immaturity, and they have been going full an-eye-for-an-eye since they were children, often dragging their family into it as well. Darcy expresses regret for some of the pranks he pulled on Neala, or was complicit to, in their youth, but they were still horrible, and in fact 'prank' is not an appropriate word for one or two of the incidents. I'm no scholar, but the incident where teenaged Neala has to walk home naked because her clothes have been stolen is surely some form of sexual harassment, or at least very serious bullying. He also spills fake blood on her pants and tells everyone that she has got her first period. I think the reader is meant to excuse these because - unbeknownst to Neala - Darcy saved her from almost getting raped one time, but these things don't cancel each other out. In fact, somehow it's worse that he was still 'pranking' when she was dealing with the aftermath of that. Overall, it's a classic rendering of 'he's mean to you because he likes you' and you know what? Stuff that, women don't have to put up with that shit, and that's why it makes no difference to me that Neala gives as good as she gets, because it doesn't rectify the seriously skewy gender dynamic at work here. And the way that their families react to the whole thing is also quite stuffed up, in my opinion. 

Despite all that, I thought that the book got a lot stronger towards the end and began to really enjoy it. As Darcy and Neala drilled down into the hurt each had caused the other, and their feelings, I started to connect to them a lot better, where I had previously found everything to be very overblown. The second half was so affecting that I seriously considered upping the rating, but in the end I couldn't justify it. As well as the the characters' behaviour, which I've already spoken about, there was continual sexist - and occasional homophobic - language from the hero and other male characters. Some example:

Darcy, referring to another male character: I could have hugged him for that, but since I didn't want to deal with any gay jokes from him...I refrained from showing any sign of grateful emotion. (16%)

I scowled at him and straightened myself up to my full height of six feet three inches. Stop being a bitch. I repeated the thought over and over... (16%)

Be a man. (34%)

I didn't care if it made me a coward, a bitch, or anything else. (39%)

I lied to keep from looking like a pussy-whipped bitch in front of the pair of you (92%) 

As you can see, there's no character growth to be had here; Darcy's still using 'bitch' - and thus femaleness - as a synonym for 'weak' right at the end of the book. These language choices made me hyper-aware of the gendered aspect of their so-called 'pranks' that I discussed earlier, and I not only disconnected from Darcy each time he equated weakness with being female, I actually became increasingly angry and upset. It might seem like an out-of-proportion reaction, but I read Frozen against the background of the US election results. The sexism, racism, homophobia, ableism, fear and hopelessness that accompanies it, together with my everyday experiences as a woman, got mixed up with what was on the page, and each time I came across another incident, I'd shut off my Kindle feeling sicker, tireder and more fragile than when I'd started reading.  I read romance to make me happy and to leave the ugliness of the real world behind, and the covert sexism of Frozen meant that it had the complete opposite effect. I accept that there were extenuating circumstances and the language used may well be reflective of how Irish men actually speak, but neither excuses the sexist language and behaviour of the hero and other male characters. 

Review: Time of Grace by Gabriella West

3.5 stars

Time of Grace was a richly detailed romance, set against the backdrop of World War I and unrest in Ireland. 

After her brother's death on the Front, Englishwoman Caroline takes up a position as a governess in Ireland with a family of the Anglo-Irish ruling elite. Stuck midway between the family and the servants, her only friend is an outgoing maid named Grace, and, over time, Caroline comes to realise that she is attracted to her. As the boundaries of their friendship blur into something more, Caroline and Grace must contend with their different stations, backgrounds and ideologies, Grace's involvement in the Irish nationalist movement and the prejudices of their time. 

For me, the stand-out aspect was way that West conveyed the zeitgeist by weaving in so many different social developments of the time: Irish nationalism, female suffrage, World War I and the attendant changes to post-Victorian society, including social liberalisation and destratification. Caroline is a character who is often in her own head, and so we get to see her think through all these things, alongside her reflections on her sexuality. 

Having said that, my enjoyment dropped off somewhat as the book pregressed. The writing is very straight-forward, and while this didn't bother me initially, it became a bit info-dump-y as the plot reached its denouement in the Easter Rising of 1916. So, while I loved the historical detail, I also think it went a bit overboard towards the end, when the retelling of the Rising seemed to eclipse Caroline and Grace's romance. 

Maybe it was just a disconnect between me and Time of Grace. I'm primarily a historical romance reader, and perhaps this book leans more towards 'historical fiction with romance' rather than pure 'historical romance'. It does not adhere to some modern romance genre conventions, and is in some ways is more stylistically similar to the old school saga romances. Caroline and Grace's relationship is very on-again, off-again, which - while very understandable given their circumstances - meant that the book was essentially split in to three acts: first, Caroline and Grace together at their post, Caroline alone back in England, then the two of them reunited in Ireland. The whole book was also written in Caroline’s POV and I sometimes wished that I had more insight into Grace's thought processes, or that I could see her without Caroline’s lens of fear and middle class English morality (although she does come to challenge this). These things did my head in a little bit, particularly towards the end, but I do wonder if someone who does read more widely would have a different reaction. 

Readers who are pedantic about editing should also be aware that there are some issues with the Kindle text, particularly the placement of text that isn't speech inside quotation marks. As my engagement with the book waned, it became more frustrating to have to re-read a passage to ascertain where speech ended and prose began. 

Overall, though, the touching romance between two very different women, the impeccable sense of place and the chance to learn about the Irish revolutionary period made Time of Grace well worth the read.