Looking for your next cheesy, beachside binge? Eager to enter a world of scandalous soldiers and daring demoiselles? Yearning for a good book to curl up with on those long winter nights and rainy spring afternoons? Well, look no further: Karen Moning's Highlander series has got you covered. Set in Renaissance Scotland, the first book in the series, Beyond The Highland Mist, covers the tale of one Adrienne de Simone and her (forced) journey through time to an era averse to her fiery, feminist sensibilities. Equal parts cunning, college-educated and charmingly clever, Adrienne, nevertheless, finds herself used as a pawn in a supernatural chess match between the fairy king and the man who was foolish enough to (unknowingly) anger said king: Scottish nobleman and (de facto) political hostage to the king of Scotland (as one can see, he has a gift for raising the ire of kings), Sid-hawk James Lyon Douglas.
Hawk, as he is referred to by pretty much everyone who can't be bothered with the aristocratic pretension of his first name, is the quintessential Highland warrior: daring, brash, brave, charming, clever, seductive...blah, blah, blah. To make what could be a very long critique pleasantly short: Hawk is pretty much perfect--except for his unfailing arrogance when it comes to charming people, that is. And that's probably why he and Adrienne work so well together: beyond just a game of cat-and-mouse, their love is a (HISTORICALLY INACCURATE) journey of self-discovery, set against a lush, lurid interplay between a magic that neither can even begin to comprehend and the kind of violence that threatens to consume them whole. For all the myth-savvy readers out there, Hawk and Adrienne are basically a Scottish Helen and Paris. Or, if you prefer an even more tragic comparison between misbegotten lovers, a Scottish version of Abelard and Heloise. They are the kind of couple worth going over a cliff for. The kind of couple you hope will make it, but just know that they're doomed. The kind you cry over, even knowing from the very start that a love so sweet, so pure can never last in a world so cruel. Or, at least from a cynic's point of view, that's how they're marketed--and judging by the book's sales, it's safe to say that such image manipulation really did pay off.
Overall, it's a decent book. It's not stunning. It's not revolutionary. It's not going to broaden your intellectual horizons (maybe it could have, had there not been so many glaring historical inaccuracies) or inspire you to paint an immortal masterpiece. It'd be easy to compare it to Twilight, but that seems unfair to Karen Moning, since she actually put effort into the book she wrote, unlike the author of Twilight. (Shade, no shade.) It's a fun, cheesy mess and knows it's a fun, cheesy mess. And, for that, the book deserves all the props in the world.
No comments:
Post a Comment