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A review by pm6
Tremontaine: The Complete Season Two by Mary Anne Mohanraj, Racheline Maltese, Joel Derfner, Ellen Kushner, Tessa Gratton, Paul Witcover, Alaya Dawn Johnson
3.0
Another fun and refreshingly gay genre read, though not as compellingly dramatic or romantic as the first Tremontaine book. Foreign trader and budding swordswoman Kaab struggles to reconcile her diplomatic and filial duties with her passion for Riverside forger, Tess, who wants more of Kaab than she can give, and whose boobs are described just a little too often in just a few too many tonally incongruous scenes for this reader. After thoroughly incapacitating her husband with regular dosings of fantasy ayahuasca, razor sharp Diane Tremontaine has him shipped off to the countryside and sets about insinuating her way into the hearts and minds of all the noblemen she can manage, angling to become Duchess Tremontaine in her own right. Lovelorn Rafe Fenton abandons his scholarly pursuits to join his family’s business, hoping through money and status to rescue his beloved Duke Tremontaine from his wife’s machinations. And relieved of Rafe’s grand academic ambitions, guileless autistic Micah makes a name for herself at the university.
It’s the sweet, selfless friendship between Rafe and Micah that forms for me the compelling heart of this sprawling, twisting story, which broadens the tight ensemble of the first Tremontaine season and seems chiefly interested in its portrait of the lawless Riverside ghetto. Unfortunately, I found most of that portrait pretty juvenile and trite. Maybe the comparably shallow, aestheticised treatment of the upper-class Hill in the first book didn’t irritate me as much because I’ve never been rich and don’t care for rich people, I don’t know. Either way, the mix of romantic period poverty and vague, unresolved collectivist sentimentality didn’t do much for me, and by the end had me wincing with embarrassment. I also found it difficult to be very interested in most of the newly introduced or newly centred characters, particularly master swordsman Vincent Applethorpe, whose romantic subplot seemed poorly integrated with the rest of the narrative and whose philosophical devotion to the sword was maybe the most egregiously, exhaustingly trite part of this often very trite book. The cartoonishly horny and evil Florian and Shade, also, were so poorly drawn and on the nose as villains that it was sometimes difficult to listen to their segments of the story.
HOWEVER. I know I’m not exactly the target demographic for this series, since I generally have little patience with either urban fantasy or Victorian swashbucklers. And having taken this into account, I still really enjoyed it. Diane’s ruthless politicking is always delightful, and seeing her interact, finally, with other women who understand and respect her, is extremely satisfying; Rafe’s helpless devotion to her sacrificed husband is sweet and romantic, though I do wish he’d had a little more to do through the first half of this book. And whatever complaints I have about it, the fact remains that I listened to this entire 20-hour-long book in a day. So, you know. On we go!
It’s the sweet, selfless friendship between Rafe and Micah that forms for me the compelling heart of this sprawling, twisting story, which broadens the tight ensemble of the first Tremontaine season and seems chiefly interested in its portrait of the lawless Riverside ghetto. Unfortunately, I found most of that portrait pretty juvenile and trite. Maybe the comparably shallow, aestheticised treatment of the upper-class Hill in the first book didn’t irritate me as much because I’ve never been rich and don’t care for rich people, I don’t know. Either way, the mix of romantic period poverty and vague, unresolved collectivist sentimentality didn’t do much for me, and by the end had me wincing with embarrassment. I also found it difficult to be very interested in most of the newly introduced or newly centred characters, particularly master swordsman Vincent Applethorpe, whose romantic subplot seemed poorly integrated with the rest of the narrative and whose philosophical devotion to the sword was maybe the most egregiously, exhaustingly trite part of this often very trite book. The cartoonishly horny and evil Florian and Shade, also, were so poorly drawn and on the nose as villains that it was sometimes difficult to listen to their segments of the story.
HOWEVER. I know I’m not exactly the target demographic for this series, since I generally have little patience with either urban fantasy or Victorian swashbucklers. And having taken this into account, I still really enjoyed it. Diane’s ruthless politicking is always delightful, and seeing her interact, finally, with other women who understand and respect her, is extremely satisfying; Rafe’s helpless devotion to her sacrificed husband is sweet and romantic, though I do wish he’d had a little more to do through the first half of this book. And whatever complaints I have about it, the fact remains that I listened to this entire 20-hour-long book in a day. So, you know. On we go!