You Grow More Flowers With Manure Than With Good Writing, Apparently

The Secret History of the Pink Carnation and The Masque of the Black Tulip by Lauren Willig

The trouble here is that I find the premise of Ms. Willig's series absolutely perfect. I wish I'd thought of it first. Barring that, I wish someone else had thought of it first and written it better.

We needed a Scarlet Pimpernel spin-off, really we did. And to combine that with a parallel romance in modern times with a klutzy American historian and an outdoorsy British aristocrat who likes her in spite of himself -- well, it should at the very least be entertaining. And yet -- and yet ...

It's crap.

I repeat: crap. Pure, unadulterated, unmitigated crap. Everything the modern heroine does makes me want to stomp on her precious little designer shoes, which are undoubtedly of the pointy variety. (She's that type.) She's everything I hate about the chick-lit genre in a single package. And I would willingly and cheerfully ignore all my irritation if the historical bits were any good at all.

Unfortunately, they aren't.

Is the most carefully hidden and fearfully whispered-about torture chamber of the French police the proper setting for a slapstick battle scene? Or should the villainess, once revealed to be so, be instantly subdued so that the hero and heroine can get to the tedious business of declaring their undying love and affection? No! There should be weight in there! There should be consequences! Even if they're melodramatic ones! It should feel as if it matters that things might not end well. It shouldn't be a case of, "La la la, went to a ball last night, maybe tonight I'll foil international espionage, then tomorrow I'll shop for gloves or horses, la la la ..." I'm the first person to admit to being a fan of a light read, but it has to be carefully done. That old saw about comedy being harder than drama is unfortunately true. And nothing is worse than a comic novel that never provokes a laugh.

In our author's defense, she is not entirely without talent. She has an eye for the well-turned phrase, and a gem shows up every couple of pages and slightly mollifies my rage. But those plot holes, and the lack of character, and the sheer unadulterated mindlessness (not in the good Wodehouse way, but in the horrible Rosemary Rogers way) ... it's all too much.

And why, why, why did I feel compelled to read the second one?

Hope springs eternal, I guess, no matter how misguided.