Brain Candy: Naked In Death
Jan. 26th, 2020 07:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
raven_cromwellI read het romance the way a lot of straight ladies read male slash. Or to put it another way: when I read a straight romance, I'm looking for pure, id-fulfilling tropy goodness. * And oh fuck, this one hit the exact right sweet spot for me.
Naked In Death is the first of Nora Roberts--as J. D. Robb--Eve Dallas series, a romance series wrapped around some light SF to make the truffle especially sweet. Cop becomes attracted to suspect because of a case; suspect is cleared, and lovely sparks ignite. Robb takes this fairly standard-issue plot, and gives it so, so much spark by injecting profoundly vivid characters. Eve is competent as fuck, a barrier-buster in the boys' club cop central of 2058, well before the breaking-glass ceiling tropes we take for granted today were in the glorious profusion in which we see them.
She's brilliantly good! at her job, without being unrealistic about it. Breakthroughs come because Eve Dallas will put in the teeth-grittingly hard work to get 'em, and fuck anyone and anything that gets in her way. And I find that confidence and panache especially A. excellently rendered and B. deeply attractive. For me, as a queer woman, being attracted to the protag along with the bloke is always a major bonus. Made particularly appealing here because as much as there're some steamy scenes, this's competence porn for us ladies--watching a brilliant man appreciate! and adore an equally brilliant woman. So we get a lot! of soaking in that brilliance of hers--a lot of the gritty reality of policework that makes it real clear it's not just a device to get the characters together. Being a cop is Eve Dallas's core, the thing that will forever drive her out of bed, regardless of Roarke. **
And Roarke, damn, Roarke. Mysterious, rich as sin and gorgeous to match, with some Irish charm thrown into the mix. Look y'all: when I'm reading a straight romance, I've got a kink, and that kink's name is alpha male, the more the better, so long as it doesn't slip over the line into creepy. And that line is hard to judge, different for everyone, and made more slippery because it shifts and changes within every series because! of the push and pull between the characters.
For me, Roarke stayed on the right side of the line. For a 90's romance, especially, I thought this handled the dude will be super aggressive trope excellently well. Yes, there's a moment wherein he enters her apartment without her being there. For me, this was offset by the fact that Eve'd just shown up at his office running on 32 hours of no sleep, and the case involved some very good friends of his, for a man who didn't have a hell of a lot of those, and who was rather used to having whatever he wanted. So there was a healthy dose of fear and ego warring with the romantic stuff.
But mostly it worked for me because Eve is just as tough and fucked-up as he is, takes absolutely no shit, and shows over and over throughout the book that she can handle herself--and could've handled him, if she had really wanted to.
There's also a deep, profound vein of sweetness that opens up between them, as they start to bear their traumas to one another. *** And a rich cast of secondary characters I'm eager to explore.
Two draws of this series: A. I can get a ton of 'em free from the Library for the Blind with an excellent narrator. B.: it's very much tracing the evolution of a relationship and marriage, rather than happily ever after in one book.
And so long as they continue to be this excellent, I intend to gobble 'em up like a kid at a candy-store.
* This's a very, very different proposition for me than reading romance as a secondary plot in a series, or even reading queer romance. In both those instances, I need! to feel deeply invested in the couple, which for me requires the tropes and the inequality that can sometimes come with them to be toned down. I can't explain it any better than to say that what we expect from a smutfic and what we expect from a long, plotty fic with smut--or at least what we're willing to make allowance for--is just different. And like I say, this particular series hit hard on the kink-button, which's for me a thing of pure id. But I'll always be very. very clear where a rec falls on the spectrum for me.
** I've got some authors on my radar like Courtney Milan, who I've heard does wonderfully explicitly feminist romances. So I'll see if this view shifts, as I get into romances with modern sensibilities. But honestly, just cause of where! my kink lies, I'm always gonna go first to alpha-male spicy with a little problematic elements. I will say I adored! Milan's Mrs. Martin's Incomparable Adventures, which was about two queer older ladies embarking on a series of hijinks to get vengance against one of their terrible nephews. Magnificently, side-splittingly dry and witty, and so very sharp and incisive about the eighteenth century feminist plight, too. But I read it for the artistry of writing, the sweetly satisfying ending, not as unadulterated brain-candy.
*** Look y'all: 'twas the 90's. Sex trauma as back-story was in vogue, and Eve's got it. Again, it worked! for me because it's as much an exploration of the woman Eve crafted herself to be, rather than a dwelling on her delicacy or the horror of events, even as the case forces her to open up to Roarke. There's an astonishingly poignant moment wherein she connects with a fellow victim to crack a case. I did not come here to weep amid my kink, but damn I did anyway.
Naked In Death is the first of Nora Roberts--as J. D. Robb--Eve Dallas series, a romance series wrapped around some light SF to make the truffle especially sweet. Cop becomes attracted to suspect because of a case; suspect is cleared, and lovely sparks ignite. Robb takes this fairly standard-issue plot, and gives it so, so much spark by injecting profoundly vivid characters. Eve is competent as fuck, a barrier-buster in the boys' club cop central of 2058, well before the breaking-glass ceiling tropes we take for granted today were in the glorious profusion in which we see them.
She's brilliantly good! at her job, without being unrealistic about it. Breakthroughs come because Eve Dallas will put in the teeth-grittingly hard work to get 'em, and fuck anyone and anything that gets in her way. And I find that confidence and panache especially A. excellently rendered and B. deeply attractive. For me, as a queer woman, being attracted to the protag along with the bloke is always a major bonus. Made particularly appealing here because as much as there're some steamy scenes, this's competence porn for us ladies--watching a brilliant man appreciate! and adore an equally brilliant woman. So we get a lot! of soaking in that brilliance of hers--a lot of the gritty reality of policework that makes it real clear it's not just a device to get the characters together. Being a cop is Eve Dallas's core, the thing that will forever drive her out of bed, regardless of Roarke. **
And Roarke, damn, Roarke. Mysterious, rich as sin and gorgeous to match, with some Irish charm thrown into the mix. Look y'all: when I'm reading a straight romance, I've got a kink, and that kink's name is alpha male, the more the better, so long as it doesn't slip over the line into creepy. And that line is hard to judge, different for everyone, and made more slippery because it shifts and changes within every series because! of the push and pull between the characters.
For me, Roarke stayed on the right side of the line. For a 90's romance, especially, I thought this handled the dude will be super aggressive trope excellently well. Yes, there's a moment wherein he enters her apartment without her being there. For me, this was offset by the fact that Eve'd just shown up at his office running on 32 hours of no sleep, and the case involved some very good friends of his, for a man who didn't have a hell of a lot of those, and who was rather used to having whatever he wanted. So there was a healthy dose of fear and ego warring with the romantic stuff.
But mostly it worked for me because Eve is just as tough and fucked-up as he is, takes absolutely no shit, and shows over and over throughout the book that she can handle herself--and could've handled him, if she had really wanted to.
There's also a deep, profound vein of sweetness that opens up between them, as they start to bear their traumas to one another. *** And a rich cast of secondary characters I'm eager to explore.
Two draws of this series: A. I can get a ton of 'em free from the Library for the Blind with an excellent narrator. B.: it's very much tracing the evolution of a relationship and marriage, rather than happily ever after in one book.
And so long as they continue to be this excellent, I intend to gobble 'em up like a kid at a candy-store.
* This's a very, very different proposition for me than reading romance as a secondary plot in a series, or even reading queer romance. In both those instances, I need! to feel deeply invested in the couple, which for me requires the tropes and the inequality that can sometimes come with them to be toned down. I can't explain it any better than to say that what we expect from a smutfic and what we expect from a long, plotty fic with smut--or at least what we're willing to make allowance for--is just different. And like I say, this particular series hit hard on the kink-button, which's for me a thing of pure id. But I'll always be very. very clear where a rec falls on the spectrum for me.
** I've got some authors on my radar like Courtney Milan, who I've heard does wonderfully explicitly feminist romances. So I'll see if this view shifts, as I get into romances with modern sensibilities. But honestly, just cause of where! my kink lies, I'm always gonna go first to alpha-male spicy with a little problematic elements. I will say I adored! Milan's Mrs. Martin's Incomparable Adventures, which was about two queer older ladies embarking on a series of hijinks to get vengance against one of their terrible nephews. Magnificently, side-splittingly dry and witty, and so very sharp and incisive about the eighteenth century feminist plight, too. But I read it for the artistry of writing, the sweetly satisfying ending, not as unadulterated brain-candy.
*** Look y'all: 'twas the 90's. Sex trauma as back-story was in vogue, and Eve's got it. Again, it worked! for me because it's as much an exploration of the woman Eve crafted herself to be, rather than a dwelling on her delicacy or the horror of events, even as the case forces her to open up to Roarke. There's an astonishingly poignant moment wherein she connects with a fellow victim to crack a case. I did not come here to weep amid my kink, but damn I did anyway.
no subject
Date: 2020-01-28 05:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-01-28 10:17 pm (UTC)Roberts is one of those authors where I love! some of her stuff, and bounce off a lot of others. I think her Robb stuff is my favorite, though GOD there's a certain 90's sensibility around racial stereotypes that's especially wince-worthy cause so much! of the rest of the series is open-minded. (There's a black bouncer, in the year of our lord 2058 with the nickname Crack b/c he can crack heads so well. It's a certain kind of American racism being perpetrated by god help us all our Dem administration re the "welfare queens" and super-predators of low-income neighborhoods.) So like, I understand why it filtered into the writing, since it was on the news everywhere! but this was a woman who was eerily prescient about gun violence, but couldn't dodge the subtler forms of racism. This was also a woman who was at least acknowledging, if not writing about, the existence of queer folk, which was not a thing done in mainstream romance in the 90's. So yeah, bit of a mixed bag for book 2, fair warning. Just a couple scenes so far where I've had to make the eating a lemon amidst my truffle face. But damn, it's just so compulsively readable!
For historical--which I'm thinking of for you b/c of how much I loved! your origfic stuff, I really have heard insanely good things re Courtney Milan. (Her Brothers Sinister series has a phenom Audible narrator; might be worth spending a credit on the prequel novella The Governess Affair, and seeing what you think. I know I loved the living hell out of Mrs. Martin's, with its older ladies falling in love and gems of side-splitting writing like: Mrs. Martin looked up. "It’s such a shame. I have vowed that my Terrible Nephew will never get a single penny of mine, not in any way. You cannot imagine the depths of hatred that I harbor for him. He is a wandering fleshbag of fetid morals, and I would rather encase every penny I have in pig manure and toss it into London Harbor than allow him to have the benefit of a single coin."
I'm starting to very gingerly dip my toes into more romance, so it'll be an intriguing dual adventure for the year, and hopefully we can keep tossing recs back and forth!
no subject
Date: 2020-01-28 11:39 pm (UTC)Where I've struggled to get into pro romance in the past is the characters, I think. While I do love a good tropefest, I really want to be rooting for the couple and enjoying their dynamic on an iddy level. The problem is that my taste in romantic dynamics is a little off-center and I rarely fall in love with the kind of characters who end up main characters in general. That's fine in most other genres where there are other plot and theme elements taking the main stage and I can get invested in a secondary character or no characters at all, but in romance, that connection to the protagonists is pretty key for me and I've found almost nothing that works for me.
But - just like there are rare ships that scratch that iddy itch for me in fanfic, I know there must be pro romance out there that's relevant to my interests. I just need to do a little digging.
no subject
Date: 2020-01-29 12:02 am (UTC)And yesssssss, to everything you're saying re romances. I go fiercest and hardest for the sharp-edged people: morally ambiguous, or morally ferocious; whether they're determined to get anything no matter the cost, or determined to stick to their principles though hell should barr the way. It's the strength either way that grabs me. The people with bared teeth and competence. Be they misanthrope or politician; I want a different. unique look at the world. And yeah, that's hard! to get in romance. The women in far too much of it tend towards too sweet. too passive and meant to be rewarded for their trials--like the worst of the early animated Disney of the 50's. Just being perpetuated over and over! again. In the same nondiverse casts. God I hear you so much on that entire struggle to find interesting things.
no subject
Date: 2020-01-29 09:04 pm (UTC)And absolutely, what you said - I want complicated, unique, interesting protagonists! Off-beat couples! People whose barriers to being in a relationship goes beyond plot contrivance or being burned in the past!
It's funny, I used to think that generic protagonists were a bug in romance, but my sister - a prodigious romance reader and someone with whom I have a 0% success rate when it comes to giving and receiving books recommendations - gave me the helpful insight that for a lot of readers, it's actually a feature. For my sister, the romance is something she wants to insert herself into as a participant rather than enjoying from the outside as a third party. She prefers direct and thorough exposition because she doesn't want to be removed enough from the character to have to construct any of the narrative herself, and a passive, non-specific protagonist is easier to project herself onto than one who has strong opinions or takes actions that she wouldn't take.
That is not at all how I read, but for such an iddy genre as romance, it makes sense that some folks would be writing for that kind of reader: making iterations of a non-specific "ideal woman" that their target audience can easily imagine themselves as.