Scan barcode
A review by bittersweet_symphony
The Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels by India Holton
3.0
They say your first time will either be terribly awkward or something you'll never forget. For me, The Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels was somewhere more pleasantly in the middle.
For my first "romance novel" I imagine few books would have been a better fit than Holton's historical fantasy full of swashbuckling profligates ("Egads, lady pirates!) in flying houses while reciting the Bronte sisters, Wordsworth, and Lord Byron.
The jaunty rides in the air (and bedrooms?) around Victorian England evoked images from Neil Gaiman's Stardust. Similarly charming but with a heaping dash of playful suggestiveness. While the writing certainly was not, well, subtle with its innuendo, I was surprised by how restrained Holton ultimately was, at least until the tension between Ned and Cecilia erupted into a narrative climax of sorts around the 80% mark.
She used words such as "penetrate," "erect," and "tremble" fairly judiciously.
Admittedly, the book was much more action-driven than I tend to prefer, my fiction tastes leaning more toward the stodgy, dialogue-heavy, and character-driven writing styles of John Irving and Robertson Davies.
Still, it was perfectly "rollicking," as the New York Times Book Review describes it.
The Wisteria Society offers a curious blend of Victorian sensibilities and social norms with a heavy dose of inverted gender dynamics: "Men can be so hysterical sometimes," one of the pirates remarks.
The rakish scoundrel and the strong-willed aristocrat romantic trope hasn't ever been my vibe. (Here's looking at you Han and Leia, and Captain Jack Sparrow and Elizabeth Bennett, for that matter.) However, there's a reason the book is so popular. And the back and forth did make me smirk from time to time, dare I say, even awakened the more roguish parts of me.
Since I'm new to the genre, I'll probably sample some of the other subgenres, and read around a bit more, before I consider going any further with the Dangerous Damsels series.
For my first "romance novel" I imagine few books would have been a better fit than Holton's historical fantasy full of swashbuckling profligates ("Egads, lady pirates!) in flying houses while reciting the Bronte sisters, Wordsworth, and Lord Byron.
The jaunty rides in the air (and bedrooms?) around Victorian England evoked images from Neil Gaiman's Stardust. Similarly charming but with a heaping dash of playful suggestiveness. While the writing certainly was not, well, subtle with its innuendo, I was surprised by how restrained Holton ultimately was, at least until the tension between Ned and Cecilia erupted into a narrative climax of sorts around the 80% mark.
She used words such as "penetrate," "erect," and "tremble" fairly judiciously.
Admittedly, the book was much more action-driven than I tend to prefer, my fiction tastes leaning more toward the stodgy, dialogue-heavy, and character-driven writing styles of John Irving and Robertson Davies.
Still, it was perfectly "rollicking," as the New York Times Book Review describes it.
The Wisteria Society offers a curious blend of Victorian sensibilities and social norms with a heavy dose of inverted gender dynamics: "Men can be so hysterical sometimes," one of the pirates remarks.
The rakish scoundrel and the strong-willed aristocrat romantic trope hasn't ever been my vibe. (Here's looking at you Han and Leia, and Captain Jack Sparrow and Elizabeth Bennett, for that matter.) However, there's a reason the book is so popular. And the back and forth did make me smirk from time to time, dare I say, even awakened the more roguish parts of me.
Since I'm new to the genre, I'll probably sample some of the other subgenres, and read around a bit more, before I consider going any further with the Dangerous Damsels series.