Memories: Objects in the Rear View Mirror Resemble a Fun House

So, Mrs. B, on the topic of romance novels, I decided to go to a book I remembered reading and loving as a young girl and realized just how different it seems to me now. For one thing, I'm a very different girl. I've grown up a lot, learned a lot about what healthy relationships are (as well as what they aren't), and have developed decided tastes for things like, well, romantic relationships and what is "good writing" versus bad.

The Haunting of Brier Rose is a product of the era of romance novels that produced it. It was written in the mid-90s and reads like what was popularly published at the time, even for the budding genre of supernatural romance. The heroine is more Jane Bennett than Lizzy  and is certainly no Buffy, the hero more Heathcliff (and an unmitigated ass), than someone I can get behind (and granted, I've loved some unmitigated literary asses over my time as a reader, although, never really Heathcliff who seems abusive for no reason.) and perhaps that's part of the other problem I'm finding with the story.

I don't feel like the characters really earned it. Certainly, with the magical ability that our Heroine finds herself with, the ending is harder to reconcile, since she ties her life to his in order to save him. And really, anything else she does to save herself and change her situation is about as effective as a three day old kitten batting at the light. I'm okay with the damaged hero as a trope, but there's something as yet unfinished in the connections here, something that leaves the whole thing feeling a little too early in their acquaintance to call it love. Or even lust. I don't feel it.

She has some sexy dreams. He just shows up at the house. She's a virgin who hasn't really seen a man other than her grandfather up until now (actually, she kinda reminds me of Miranda at the moment -- "O wonder!//How many goodly creatures are there here!//How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world
That has such people in't!"). He thinks he looks like a monster and acts accordingly. She gets fondled by a centuries old ancestor and nearly gets publicly raped. He gets blamed for, at minimum, the fondling even if he isn't responsible. Although, I suppose he really does redeem himself with how he deals with the sorcerer. Sort of. But, as I said, there's still something missing. Something as simple as a scene that would make me feel like it means something other than "Oh, well you're hot and so am I, let's get it on." or "We just boinked so I feel kind of obligated to...." They are neither liberated nor bound in the traditional sense... although there is some bondage here in a very strange sort of way.

Maybe I'm over-thinking this. Or maybe this book just wasn't particularly well written, even for a romance novel.

Although, now that I've read it again, that statement is unfair to romance novels. I've read some really well written romance novels. There are some romance writers who do an amazing job. I've fallen in love with their style and seek them out. Not so with this one. The plot is clunky, the pacing is jarring, the dialogue is weak: It's just not something I can overlook as easily as I could once nor enjoy as much -- or at least, not in something I chose to pay for anymore. If I want to read a story from someone who's still learning the craft with a glimmer of talent and a familiar story line (or characters), I read fanfiction, these days. Maybe this was cranked out too quickly? Is it a first book? Did someone just think that it was "okay enough, because what do women really know about good writing"? I don't know.

The overall style is classically from an era when women are still trying to figure out what it means to have a modern romance -- Are we supposed to be weak or strong? Rescued or rescuer? Is it alright to be with someone who is more than a little dark and abrasive? Potentially controlling? When does it become abusive? How do I determine that you're my soulmate when I only just met you? And just how squeamish are we going to be if there's a potential rape? We don't spend long enough with the characters (in my current opinion) to know if this really will be worth it.  But some of these issues are part of books being written and published today that I can't say as I'm all that interested in reading (and I might discuss later. Maybe.), so most of those issues, we're still trying to figure out when as readers and modern women. And maybe that's where the largest part of my problems lay. I want sass and smarts and strength and courage and cunning or some combination there of. I'm just not a limpid reader. I'm not a "lie back and think of the Queen" kind of girl.

At the same time, I loved this book as a younger reader. I remember reading it two or three times after it first came into my possession. When I started re-reading this book all I could remember is loving it and while I remembered something about about the ancestor -- vaguely. Now, I'm thinking the difference between a book I loved and a book I still love may even have been the difference of two more chapters, something to give us more time with the two protagonists. Something to give me enough to fall in love them, reading it again.

In the end, though, this book will occupy a place in my heart because of how much it meant to younger me, but it certainly isn't me now. That, and I really like the idea of the magical scarf, even now, if nothing else.

-Odd