Review: Distinctively Shalaby
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 11 11, 2013
Audra is a happy hybrid. The bildungsroman style of Rhianna is softened. With full back stories given in a previous book, the reader lands smack dab in a romance that’s been kindling for a while. And it’s warm indeed. In places it smolders as the young couple is surprised by their own growing passion. In yet other places their faith and love for each other is a tender burning. The love and sexual tension between these characters give the modern-day reader enough to satisfy while still pleasing the reader who wants a more true-to-the-era experience.The narration this time around is more what the modern romance reader is used to, spending much of the time in the head of its young and sprightly heroine, one placed refreshingly between girlhood and becoming a woman. Lucky for us, Audra is immensely likable, especially surrounded by such nefarious characters as those she meets in London. There is a solid mix of the standard romance point of view and the Shalaby touch in lines like this one: “Audra insisted she be present for the birth of the child, against Miss Mauvreen’s advice. Se was glad to find, despite their reservations, that both Miss Mauvreen and Rhianna were honoring her request. Even if the experience threatened to leave her forever scarred and wishing no part in having any children of her own.”The plot is distinctively Shalaby this time, too. The lovers seem all but settled in the novel’s opening scenes. How then is there to be a novel at all? I was fascinated again by the way this writer does the surprising thing, adapting and changing the formulas and cliches of the genre to create the new. And all this while still keeping me invested in a romance. There are villains and plots, but there is a greater realism than is typical. I found Audra’s boredom with London a refreshing change. I also enjoyed that Shalaby used historical realities such as physical distance from London, social class, and fortune as plot devices in a way that was much more more true to the period.