Recent reading

[luzula]

For the White Rose by Katharine T. Hinkson (1905)
I had high hopes for this book, since it is a Jacobite adventure with f/f potential! Alas, it was not very good. The main character is Lady Nithsdale’s loyal lady’s maid, and the climax of the story is the actual historical event when Lady Nithsdale helped her husband escape from the Tower after the ’15. Lengthwise, it is more of a novella than a novel, and it feels very... simplified? It has more the feel of a fairy tale than a story set in an actual historical time and place. To exemplify, at one point a riderless horse comes back to the house, and I would not have been surprised if the horse had started talking of what happened to its master. It seems like the book thinks that Scotland consists only of the Highlands? The Earls of Nithsdale and of Kenmure are both turned into Highland chiefs. And I suspect that this book may actually confuse James III with BPC?? For one thing, he turns up before the rising begins, and for another, they consistently call him the Prince… *facepalm* The main relationship doesn't get much space to develop: the main character is instantly devoted to Lady Nithsdale, and we don't really get to see their relationship change and evolve.

Mr Justice Raffles by E W Hornung (1909)
This is the last of the Raffles books, and while there were elements I enjoyed, this was not my favorite (my favorite is A Thief in the Night!). The villain is an unfortunate antisemitic stereotype, and I guess I feel that the short story format worked much better than the novel-length one. But now I have read them all, and I can check out more of the fic…

Comments

[solo]

t seems like the book thinks that Scotland consists only of the Highlands? The Earls of Nithsdale and of Kenmure are both turned into Highland chiefs. And I suspect that this book may actually confuse James III with BPC?? For one thing, he turns up before the rising begins, and for another, they consistently call him the Prince…

Oh dear god. Being an Irish Nationalist, you'd think she'd have taken her research more seriously. Mind you, if she really wrote more than 100 novels (wikipedia) I guess there wasn't much time for that.

[regshoe]

The combination of historical specificity (I didn't find out about Lady Nithsdale and the daring escape until I was deep into Jacobite minutiae) with blatant historical inaccuracy is really weird! And I see what you mean about it being fairytale-ish—it just doesn't have the sort of psychological depth that you need to get really into a relationship.

I agree that A Thief in the Night is the best Raffles book! Hmm, I think this is the only one of my fics that requires knowledge of MJR... ooh, and this one of Wolfie's has some nice future!Camilla and Teddy.

[garonne]

It's a shame about For the White Rose. I so want to read an F/F Jacobite story!

(And on that topic, you once mentioned an idea you had set in '15, I think... Is it something you still have on the back burner, by any chance?)