Review: Nowhere Near Respectable

Nowhere Near Respectable by Mary Jo Putney

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



"Nowhere Near Respectable" (5* Lost Lords 3) by Mary Jo Putney. Rakish club-owner Damien helps half-Hindoo (sic) Lady Kiri escape smugglers, then they foil a French plot to kidnap Princess Charlotte and assassinate all the Regency royals. Historical detail about the overprotected British-beloved teen is seamlessly woven into the tale of escalating explicit passion and danger. Plucky independent females ahead of their time who banter with male equals in courage is trademark Putney.



View all my reviews

Review: Thank You, Jeeves

Thank You, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



"Thank you, Jeeves" by PG Wodehouse, is flash aristo Wooster's reply when his fish-fed-brained valet returns to the fold after they happily engage his land-rich pal to American heiress. The un-neighborly reception for his banjolele enthusiasm instigates another 30s silly country rustication escapade with crisp spot-on repartee.
Scamp Seabury imitates gangster movies, and extorts shillings for protection. Brinkley, drunk agency replacement valet, burns down cottages. Dogged country policemen roust Bertie out of his makeshift dosses when lovesick ex Pauline swims for her new crush Chuffy from her pop's big yacht.
Blackening faces in imitation of jazz minstrels was not then so politically incorrect. Mastery of flapper-era slang, proper high English, literary quotations, all so correct. Moral is the original French usage now spelled morale p241. (Library Binding ISBN 3 2441 15948028 2, Hardcover 312p, Pub McLelland & Stewart, Toronto 1934)



View all my reviews

Review: Dealing with Dragons

Dealing with Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



"Dealing with Dragons" (Enchanted Forest Chronicles 1) by Patricia Wrede begins a sweet 5* series; I already smiled my way through the rest. This gem may be my favorite, a cherry among bittersweetest chocolates, because the silliness never falls overboard, just tickles my funnybone. Along the lines of Mercedes Lackey's Five Hundred Kingdoms, Princess Cimorene rebels against Tradition. Her parents stopped her beloved lessons: fencing, cooking, Classics, any intellectual or physically improving learning. So she ran away.
(Spoilers:
TO the dragons. Luckily, she knew just enough for Kazul; to sort and catalog her Latin scrolls, library and treasures; to supplement a guest banquet from the borrowed Horn of Plenty with Cherries Jubilee.
Fatalities are simple, quick - wizard eaten, dragon King poisoned - without superfluous violence or gore. Dragons are human-ish (good may succumb to temptation), wizards bad, and royals can be more than decoration. Alternative use for lemony washwater: Banzai! She makes friends: another princess and witch Morwen with many cats. She cleverly outwits a jinn, and conspiring enemies. Her happy ending is better than marriage, for her.)



View all my reviews

Review: Searching for Dragons

Searching for Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



"Searching for Dragons" (5* Enchanted Forest 2) by Patricia Wrede begins when the 20-year old King wants to heal scorched ruins drained of magic energy by wicked wizards to provoke suspicion and war against dragons. My only difficulty to criticize is long names, never abbreviated even in affection, so I attempt none.
A lovely princess, smart and brave, not the usual other simpering woe-is-me sillies seeking marriage, helps to find and free her friend, the female King of Dragons. They give and get aid along the way via a manner-proper squirrel, a pretty witch with cats, a sneezing giant with a faulty riding carpet, a renamed Rumpelstiltskin baby-sitter, a pontificating curious brilliant young wizard, and more funny imaginative flights. They temporarily melt nasty wizards, using lemony soapy water, handy to clean resulting goo or dirty dishes.
Unlike many current series, I am wholly satisfied by the self-contained volume, that neither depends on a prequel, which is not in my library, nor requires a sequel.
Appropriate to a juvenile audience, morality is straightforward. Pretty may be silly, help may be unreliable, but scraggly beards are always bad, especially accompanied by rich robes and polished wood staffs. So what if the raiment was dusty and tattered, or short and childish, or the rod was missing, hidden, changed or disguised? I'd like to read a similar adult-oriented style.
(Spoiler:
Happy ending wedding).



View all my reviews

Review: Calling on Dragons

Calling on Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



*** (docked for the exasperating donkey) "Calling on Dragons" (5* Enchanted Forest 3) by Patricia Wrede follows the search for the source of the Forest's power, the King's magic sword, stolen by evil wizards. As usual, the names are too long and strange for me. Young (20ish) friends from the series team up: the newly pregnant Queen, the lecturing magician, the pretty witch, her talking cats, the female King of Dragons, plus new members, irritable fire-witch brother to Rachel (aka Rapunzel), and a too-annoying whiny giant winged blue donkey (formerly white rabbit), whom I dislike. Hints of familiar fairy tales reincarnate amusingly, but the true ending is in the next book I luckily already read.



View all my reviews

Review: Talking to Dragons

Talking to Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



"Talking to Dragons" (EF 4) by Patricia Wrede is the first-person tale of 16-year old fatherless Daystar's quest. Mother melts a threatening wizard, hands her puzzled son a magic sword, and sends him off through the forest. A pretty fire-witch learning manners and a sneezing baby dragon join him in funny escapades with a whiny princess, awkward knight, lizard, elfs, dwarfs, caves, and more, until a final major battle to save the king in the castle.



View all my reviews

Review: Mairelon the Magician

Mairelon the Magician by Patricia C. Wrede

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



"Mairelon the Magician" (1), by Patricia Wrede (already 5* for Dragon series), is a warm witty clever wizard masquerading as a caravan amateur, who plays sculptor Pygmalion to train 17ish boyish pauper Kim. To clear the toff's name, they seek a set of enspelled silver dishes and original London thieves from five years ago. I got a tad annoyed, tangled in names and relationships, shifty and silly shenanigans, lost track who said who did what where. How could interfering Lady Granleigh decide "quickly", without talent, that her platter was fake p265 ? A train of wannabe light-fingers troop through dark library "better than a Drury Lane" comic farce, as is the hostage shoot-out finale where all converge, disguises fall, mystery solved.
Elegant deceptive French Renee recognizes Kim is a girl immediately. I look forward to her chaperone role to come, her oolala influence on Kim's cant. (Typo p153 "more that a little bit on the go" should be "than".)
Accents and phrasing amuse. I like the conclusion "After this, anything might happen. Anything at all."




View all my reviews