The Shadow and the Star

First of all, I’m laid up for a while with a cracked ankle and bruised ribs (see the previous entry for the saga of my latest visit to St Alphonsus’s  Emergency Room).  Secondly, I want to talk about Internet friends.    I met Beth years and years ago on a writer’s site.  There we met Laura Kinsale.  Laura and Beth’s friendship blossomed into a good long lasting friendship that lasted long after I quit going to the website or when I was basically off the internet for several years (no I wasn’t in prison).  Anyway, as most of us know Beth’s vacation this year was to visit Laura.  Thursday, I received a package in the mail, it was from Beth, a 1991 copy of “The Shadow and the Star” personally autographed by Ms. Kinsale.  As I told Beth, I want to put it on the floor and roll on it like Bijou the dog does with her favorite toy.

So with that intro, I shall talk about The Shadow and the Star and what is currently wrong with romances today.   I don’t read a lot of romances anymore.  I don’t think there is a lot of depth in most of them (I do like Sherry Thomas).  But for the most part, they seem slapped together, badly plotted and because they are so darn short, the ending is wrapped up in the last three paragraphs—basically saying everything that the heroine holds dear and was her goal in life is out the window because she has met the perfect Duke or Earl or Royal whatever.

So let’s go back to the glory days of 1991 and The Shadow and the Star.  Samuel Gerard was raised in Hawaii by the Marquis and Marchioness of Ashland, but he is not titled.  In fact he was rescued by his foster parents from a brothel where he had been sexually abused as a small child.  Forget these whiny heroes that now exist who had such a bad life, their nannies didn’t give them pudding for dinner, Samuel has major problems, and there is a reason he does. He is physically strong, emotionally he has been trained in the ways of a ninja (yes a ninja, but it works).  But because of his past he is sexually repressed. The heroine, Leda, is a shopgirl in a London dress shop.  She is prim and proper and probably my favorite heroine ever.  Leda never becomes the long lost daughter of a nobleman.  No she’s always the illegitimate daughter of a Frenchwoman.  (yes, illegitimate and half French to boot!)

This isn’t a fast, wham bam thank you ma’am romance, it is a saga.  It starts in London and then travels to Hawaii.  It’s rich and lush and lyrical.  There are so many memorable parts, but the ten thousand and one red paper cranes at the end of the book has to be one of my favorites.

Finally, I must discuss Kinsale’s descriptions.  This is, without a doubt, the most perfect description of a hero. ‘  “The room full of women went uncharacteristically silent as Mr. Gerard appeared in the door. . .a collective intake of feminine breath at the sight of him—a golden, slightly wind-blown Gabriel come down to earth, minus nothing but the wings.”