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melissad75 's review for:
The Shadow and the Star
by Laura Kinsale
Laura Kinsale is a goddess. Do I really need to write more of a review than that? ;) She can take the craziest sounding premise -- in this case the love story of a former child prostitute/white Hawaiian ninja and a prim and proper Victorian Englishwoman -- and spin something deep and rich and emotionally truthful out of it. Complex characters, beautiful prose, heart-wrenching emotion, exotic locations, a bit of adventure...classic Kinsale, in other words.
This novel is a follow-up to The Hidden Heart, and the hero and heroine of that story play an important part in The Shadow and the Star. The hero of this second book is Samuel Gerard, the child prostitute "Sammy" who we saw a few times in The Hidden Heart. Tess and Gryf, now Lord and Lady Ashland, find Sammy and take him into their home in Hawaii, raising him as a foster son alongside their own two children. The flashback chapters to Samuel's childhood, especially his worshipful relationship with his beloved mother-figure Tess, are beautiful and heartbreaking. Samuel is a sweet boy and becomes a good, honorable man -- one with some very special skills taught to him by the Ashlands' Japanese butler -- but he still struggles with the memories of his pre-Hawaiian childhood. He demonizes himself as he grows up and starts having sexual feelings. For him it's all tied up with the horrors he experienced as a young boy.
The heroine, Leda Etoile, is probably my favorite of the Kinsale heroines I've encountered so far, at least in terms of sheer likability. There's something sweet and dear about her, with her struggles to maintain her dignity and morals in the midst of encroaching poverty. She was an orphan raised by a genteel spinster, and while she can be a bit of a Victorian Miss Priss as a result (she can't bring herself to use the word "leg" when describing a table, for instance), it was never off-putting to me. The way she meets and gets to know Samuel is very unusual, and I love the way their friendship unfolds. (His first gift to her made me cry!)
Of course eventually friendship becomes something more complicated, when Leda falls hopelessly in love with Samuel, who is determined to marry the Ashlands' daughter Katherine (Kai), and Samuel starts feeling things for Leda that he never has for Kai. He had envisioned a chaste marriage with Kai, whom he idolizes for her purity and innocence, and when he has lustful, mixed-up feelings for Leda, he doesn't know how to handle them. The scene in which Leda and Samuel have sex for the first time is as ringing an endorsement for providing young people with sex ed as I can think of. Those two poor clueless people! Their actions lead to a forced marriage, which actually turns into something beautiful and loving, and then goes awry, and then comes back together again...
In the midst of all this, there's a plot line about a stolen Japanese sword and Samuel's involvement in that, and it's interesting, but the plot is really in service to the character development, not the other way around, and that's just the way I like it.
If I have one complaint about the book, it's that the resolution of Leda and Samuel's marital issues, and in particular of Samuel's deep-seated conflict over his sexual desires, feels a little rushed at the end. Normally I don't care for epilogues, but this is one book where I was really hoping to flip to the page after the last chapter and find one! I just needed a little bit more. Still, overall this is a gorgeous, moving book. Highly recommended.
This novel is a follow-up to The Hidden Heart, and the hero and heroine of that story play an important part in The Shadow and the Star. The hero of this second book is Samuel Gerard, the child prostitute "Sammy" who we saw a few times in The Hidden Heart. Tess and Gryf, now Lord and Lady Ashland, find Sammy and take him into their home in Hawaii, raising him as a foster son alongside their own two children. The flashback chapters to Samuel's childhood, especially his worshipful relationship with his beloved mother-figure Tess, are beautiful and heartbreaking. Samuel is a sweet boy and becomes a good, honorable man -- one with some very special skills taught to him by the Ashlands' Japanese butler -- but he still struggles with the memories of his pre-Hawaiian childhood. He demonizes himself as he grows up and starts having sexual feelings. For him it's all tied up with the horrors he experienced as a young boy.
The heroine, Leda Etoile, is probably my favorite of the Kinsale heroines I've encountered so far, at least in terms of sheer likability. There's something sweet and dear about her, with her struggles to maintain her dignity and morals in the midst of encroaching poverty. She was an orphan raised by a genteel spinster, and while she can be a bit of a Victorian Miss Priss as a result (she can't bring herself to use the word "leg" when describing a table, for instance), it was never off-putting to me. The way she meets and gets to know Samuel is very unusual, and I love the way their friendship unfolds. (His first gift to her made me cry!)
Of course eventually friendship becomes something more complicated, when Leda falls hopelessly in love with Samuel, who is determined to marry the Ashlands' daughter Katherine (Kai), and Samuel starts feeling things for Leda that he never has for Kai. He had envisioned a chaste marriage with Kai, whom he idolizes for her purity and innocence, and when he has lustful, mixed-up feelings for Leda, he doesn't know how to handle them. The scene in which Leda and Samuel have sex for the first time is as ringing an endorsement for providing young people with sex ed as I can think of. Those two poor clueless people! Their actions lead to a forced marriage, which actually turns into something beautiful and loving, and then goes awry, and then comes back together again...
In the midst of all this, there's a plot line about a stolen Japanese sword and Samuel's involvement in that, and it's interesting, but the plot is really in service to the character development, not the other way around, and that's just the way I like it.
If I have one complaint about the book, it's that the resolution of Leda and Samuel's marital issues, and in particular of Samuel's deep-seated conflict over his sexual desires, feels a little rushed at the end. Normally I don't care for epilogues, but this is one book where I was really hoping to flip to the page after the last chapter and find one! I just needed a little bit more. Still, overall this is a gorgeous, moving book. Highly recommended.