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Title: Houses of Stone by Barbara Michaels ISBN: 0-425-14306-6 Publisher: Berkley Publishing Group Pub. Date: 01 April, 1996 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $7.50 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.94 (16 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Very clever, cosy, and great fun
Comment: What a delight! This is a Gothic romance on at least three levels. It's like being invited to an intimate tea party with Ms Mertz (Ms Michaels' real name) together with a select group of literary types who love Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters and enjoy Ms Michaels' work, at which tea party she shares her trade secrets, explains her love for the genre and plays a clever parlour game with her guests.
At the most basic level, in the book the heroine is an English literature academic who discovers an unpublished manuscript of a Gothic romance written round about the beginning of the 18th century. Chunks of painfully but authentically purple prose are conjured up by Ms Michaels for our delectation, in the approved Gothic romance style, complete with a decrepit ancestral mansion, heroine in psychological distress and physical danger, a Deadly Family Secret, and two male protagonists either of whom could be the hero or the villain. More than a story, there is a real mystery as to who the writer is and how her novel related to real events.
Meanwhile, the heroine, while demonstrating the art of researching a gothic novel and expounding on the genre (e.g. as representing women's oppression and powerlessness in a male dominated world), is herself trapped in one. She is in physical danger, she has just escaped a suffocating marriage and is still ensure of precisely how she wishes to operate in a male dominated world, and she has to work out which of two men is the hero and which is the villain. There's even a Family Secret lurking. This is the level which usually constitutes a Barbara M, and this is handled with above average dexterity - snappy scenes, real characters and good pace. Cleverly, the characters are put through a classic Gothic plot even as they analyse Gothic and other plots; and Ms Michaels milks this shamelessly and delightfully. For instance: "Whatever his motives, he was trying hard, and humility wasn't easy for a man of his arrogance. Or was pride a more accurate word? Karen smothered a smile. Bill's pride and her prejudice against him - another classic plot!" The reader can't help but smile.
Finally, this book is a game with the reader, in which Ms Michaels cames clean with her agenda and issues a challenge. I quote: "She had almost finished two-thirds of it now, and her familiarity with the conventions of the Gothic novel had inspired several hunches - educated guesses rather - as to how the book would end. In one sense she hoped she was right, for that would prove how clever she was; in another sense she hoped [the author] would prove cleverer than she, scorning the old Gothic traditions in favour of a more original solution." She has brilliantly articulated the reader's dilemma of wanting to best the author, and yet hoping the author is cleverer. A protagonist says : "[The author] has set up the plot, and unless she cheats by introducing a new character or a vital clue at the last minute, an intelligent reader ought to be able to predict what will happen." Too true. Ms Michaels' plot resolutions usually seem obvious on hindsight, but they are seldom obvious when you are in the middle of them. For the record, I lost this game. I guessed the wrong hero because I was prejudiced by one man's resemblance to a prominent hero of Elizabeth Peters' (another Ms Mertz pseudonym) and assumed she would not go against her own grain. I should know better than to underestimate Ms Mertz and think that she would be bound by her own conventions. Congratulations, Ms Mertz, and thanks for the fun, and the peep into your world.
Rating: 5
Summary: Appeals to the heart and the head!
Comment: I love this book. I enjoyed every minute with the lead character and thought her friends were the perfect foils to bring out her character quirks. The plot is fantastic--gothic horror, modern romance, feminist ideas, dueling lovers, best girlfriends--it's all here! I was in suspense to the very end, and I liked the ending. I've read this book twice so far and have recommended it to friends. Also, each chapter is headed by a pithy saying that you'll want to quote to certain men in your life. I wish Barbara Michaels would write a sequel (hint hint).
Rating: 2
Summary: A disappointment
Comment: Enjoying her Amelia Peabody books written as Elizabeth Peters, I was really disappointed by this book. Slow plot, transparent characters and a very whiny unpleasant main character. I gave up half way through the audiobook. Just didn't care and was tired of hearing the character get on an out-of-place feminist soapbox (unless this was placed in 1977 and I missed that). Even in the South, we've advanced farther than anyone in this book.
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Title: Prince of Darkness by Barbara Michaels ISBN: 0425108538 Publisher: Berkley Publishing Group Pub. Date: 01 April, 1996 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: Witch by Barbara Michaels ISBN: 0425118312 Publisher: Berkley Publishing Group Pub. Date: 01 March, 1996 List Price(USD): $7.50 |
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Title: Vanish With the Rose by Barbara Michaels ISBN: 0425138984 Publisher: Berkley Publishing Group Pub. Date: 01 April, 1996 List Price(USD): $7.50 |
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Title: The Sea King's Daughter by Barbara Michaels ISBN: 042511306X Publisher: Berkley Publishing Group Pub. Date: 01 December, 1988 List Price(USD): $7.50 |
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Title: The Walker in Shadows by Barbara Michaels ISBN: 0425133990 Publisher: Berkley Publishing Group Pub. Date: 01 July, 1996 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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