Review: A Taming of the Shrew Turned Inside Out on a Prehistoric Stage Set
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 07 25, 2013
The book opens with Luthor (Thor) Devlin, a ranch owner, trying to steady the nerves of his friends, who--along with us readers--are whipped into a frenzy at finding the tracks of some strange wildbeasts. Incredibly, a wooly mammoth with curved ivory tusks and a saber toothed tiger come rising out of knee-deep fog, right there in a formidable landscape in the middle of Montana. And to top things off, he spots what seems to him as a naked, bronzed bodied female savage, whom he intuitively sees as a perfect match to the hero in him: a damsel in distress.Cam is anything but. Wearing the scent of a skillfully blended perfume that drifts on the breeze, she makes the haze of prehistoric world evaporate from Thor's imagination. No, this is real. Camilla Stirling--Cam for short--is a stuntwoman on a movie set.The author, Elaine Raco Chase, gave a lot of thought to the choice of names. Thor (with echoes right out of Norse Mythology) and Devlin (which means fierce courage, and sounds like a devil.) He is a strong counterpart to this woman, who is a daredevil herself. But while his name, as well as his lines of dialogue, suggest a link to a primal world, and to the aura of the old west, her name suggests quite the opposite. Her full name Camilla suggests warrior maiden (in Virgil's Aeneid)--but in its modified form, Cam, it is sleek and modern, as she lives in the world of cameras, snapshots, and illusions. So the story brings together more than simply two characters: it brings two worlds to a clash, which heightens the attraction between them, and enriches the romance.This is the Taming of the Shrew turned inside out on a prehistoric stage set.Five stars.