Review: Novelette worth reading.
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 10 1, 2012
Having read Amanda Von Steuben and really enjoyed it, I was really looking forward to this novelette by Anne Randolph, however, although I enjoyed it in one way, I also felt it was half of a story. Towards the end it offers an introductory chapter to the next instalment or continuation of this stories start, UncleCharles' Wives. If I know I'm buying and reading a serial I don't mind, usually it says so or if it's a series, states, book 1.  I do object somewhat, find it annoying, to thinking I have a complete story and then find it isn't. Right now I am in two minds whether I will buy the next instalment or not.The story is set in late Victorian time, and is about two well bred young women who find themselves in the 'care' of Louise's older half brother Charles following family deaths. Charles who has previously developed a fetish for observing corporal punishment administered to young female derrieres while staying with his friend's family. He finds himself responsible for Louise and friend Clara and contrives within the confines of Victorian propriety to become responsible for the girls' care, support but particularly their discipline, despite their ages being over eighteen. This is the premise of the story.There is a lot of accuracy regards the historicity of Victorian upperclass society and etiquette, but also the occasional faux pas, for example, these young ladies who have spent time at finishing school would never have used the term 'bums', which was a common, working class and vulgar term, and one they would never have wanted to be associated with, not even jokingly. They may have used the term 'bottom' or more likely lapsed into French and derriere.An occasional typo found, though nothing to distract most readers.