The Perilous Guard by Elizabeth Marie Pope

[lightreads]

Kate is exiled from the confined court of Lady Elizabeth Tudor to a strange, ancient castle, where she finds herself entangled with faeries on the way to unknotting a recent tragedy.

Huh, really? I could swear someone recommended this to me when I asked for romances, though now I'm not so sure as the only immediate association I have is that whole Cassandra Claire plagiarism thing. In any case there is a nice enough romance, I suppose, though I was otherwise unmoved. Distant viewpoint, brevity, lots of tell, meh. Probably more interesting for those, unlike myself, who can still manage to give a damn about faeries.

Comments

[charlie-ego.livejournal.com]

Er. That was probably me... oops. In my defense, I believe this was before we had the whole conversation about recs and how our tastes differ in some fairly profound ways (I can't recall, but I believe romance figured prominently); today I'd be more careful :)

(Hmm, I think I was also the one to tell you that Claire's book is really quite bad. I still stand by that. But at least one person I know and respect thinks very differently, so maybe you should read a chapter or two to make sure.)

The things that make me love it:
-The heroine is ugly! And brainy! And the hero is handsome! Good gosh, was this inversion awesome to my teenage self, after having to suffer WAY too many ugly guy/beautiful women romances (LMB, I'm also looking at you!).
-Kate and Christopher actually change to make their romance work. I find this kind of rare in fantasy fic (though it's also a large reason of why I love P&P)
-I am totally and utterly a sucker for Elizabeth I, even if she only actually shows up for two pages.
-The faeries use science! Well, mostly. I'm a sucker for the rational explanation as well.

...The main things may be a) that I read this as a teenager, where all this was actually somewhat novel to me and b) I think I have a fairly idiosyncratic view of romances...

[lightreads.livejournal.com]

Oh, it wasn't just you -- I've been hearing about this book for years.

-The heroine is ugly! And brainy! And the hero is handsome!
Now, see, I was actually right there with you for a while (though modern urban fantasy will often ruin this for you) until we got toward the end and started skittering close to transformation. Everyone's all, "you look so different!" and she has a beautiful new dress and I started muttering uh-oh. But then it didn't quite go there, it was just them being them at each other how they do best.

-I am totally and utterly a sucker for Elizabeth I, even if she only actually shows up for two pages.

This one I'll give you. I was very excited for the first few pages, thinking we were going to get Elizabeth and fantasy on the same page. Alas.

Displeasure magnified by mild disappointment rather than actual dislike, I think.

Oh hai! I know how to answer comments, really I do!