2011 Book Review #82: The Mischief of the Mistletoe

[jethrien]

Title: The Mischief of the Mistletoe
Author: Lauren Willig
Genre: Pre-Regency Spy Romance
Thingummies: 4

Synopsis: A young gentlewoman takes a position at a school for young ladies. When she stumbles into a Christmas pudding with a secret message and sweet but dim gentleman, she ends up in a round of espionage that's rather more exciting than she bargained for.

Thingummies: I've complained about the awkward device in Willig's novels in which she alternates between dashing spy romances and tepid modern day drama. In this book, delightfully, Eloise-the-irritating-historian makes no appearance whatsoever! Instead, the entire book is focused on the adventures of the English spy set, which is a vast improvement.

Willig continues in well-differentiating between the characters of the different books. Previous heroes and heroines show up now and then, but I very much like the fact that the current hero and heroine do not always like the previous characters. Everyone's a hero in their own story, but they all have flaws and the other characters are quite aware of them. This one thinks that one's priggish, that one thinks the third's a snob, she believes he is untrustworthy, he thinks she's altogether too boring for words.

In this particular story, the male lead has been the buffoon in the previous books. (Willig implies she wrote this one due to popular demand for poor Turnip to get a love story of his own.) He continues to be a complete dolt in this one--he's just kind of dim. But Willig gets well into his head and makes him completely sympathetic while doing doltish things and does a surprisingly good job of not being condescending. He knows he's not very clever and he's doing the best he can. She also does a fantastic job of explaining why a bright enough girl might fall for him--he's genuinely sweet and gallant. He treats her far better than the smarter men do, because he's a genuinely good person who's worthy of being loved. I never would have thought I'd be charmed by someone not very smart--intelligence is absolutely at the top of my personal attraction list. But I genuinely believed in their happy ending--the particular woman values him for the right reasons, and while she'll probably be periodically exasperated with him, I truly believed they would be happy together in the long run. This is probably the sweetest, silliest, and most fun of all the books in the series.

Amusingly enough, this is the most chaste of this series. Both characters are scarcely the type to sleep with someone they cared about before marriage (although it's implied Turnip has come to some mutually beneficial arrangements with some women outside his class in the past). Since the book ends (oh no, spoilers for a romance!) on a proposal, there's simply no time for more than a couple stolen kisses. Apparently fans were very disappointed that Turnip didn't get any action. So Willig obligingly wrote a short story about their wedding night and handed it over to the crew at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books for distribution. (Have to hand it to the woman, she knows how to keep her fans happy.) It's positively adorable.

Comments

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

On a recent Smart Bitches thread, people were commenting that they loved this book and then went and read Willig's others and were disappointed. Apparently you're not the only one who hated the modern-day interludes. When I read Pink Carnation, I skipped them.

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

The modern stuff's gotten weaker and weaker--she doesn't actually have a compelling plot for those characters. The main character is trying to be Bridget Jones, but lacks the ditzy charm. She's just whiny and insecure. When you then juxtapose the historical characters, who have genuine tension (not only will their lives genuinely be ruined if they don't actually get married, there are real spies trying to kill them and conquer their country), it's just pathetic.