The Devil Earl
Deborah Simmons
copyright 1996 Deborah Siegenthal. Harlequin Historical 317. $4.99, 298pp. ISBN 0-373-28917-0.The cover used what I thought was a rather clever technique: instead of photographing the models, making sketches of them and then painting, s/he simply painted over the photographic print, thereby giving the art the romantic quality (photographs for some reason tend to look flat on fiction) but saving lots of time. I wonder how many people caught on. (The hands are the tip off---you don't see that much veining [on the man's right], or that many wrinkles [on the edge of the woman's] in paintings. The camera, however, can hardly help recording such features.) Such time saving techniques, while clever for covers, which merely serve as a marketing device, though of course good ones are never amiss, have less salubrious effects on writing.
This review is a continuation of my comments about Tempting Kate. Bespectacled Charlotte, unlike everyone else in her village, is enchanted by dark, brooding Wolfinger Abbey, which she regards as the perfect muse for a Gothic authoress. When her pretty sister befriends the younger brother of its owner she hopes at last to realize her ambition to see the inside of this wonderful edifice, but he's no more pleased by than the village folk by it; and when his brother, driving before a ferocious thunderstorm in a black carriage drawn by four black horses, limned by lightning, equally denies Charlotte entree, she decides to let the owner become her literary inspiration instead.
Having already been accused of murdering his uncle for the title, everyone but Charlotte assumes he's done the same to his shiftless brother, who disappears that very night. Five months later having realized a substantial royalty on her latest book, Charlotte, denied her dearest wish (to see the inside of the Abbey) settles for taking her sister to London for a season instead, where she is stunned to discover that the ton thinks her book is actually modelled on Ravenscar, who actually is descended from the ``Devil Earl'' an ancestor of his accused of murdering his wife 200 years ago, of the title.
Charlotte, whose fearless attraction in the face of a dreadful reputation everyone else takes for granted (and her habit of spattering herself with ink) give her character the flavor, as tea made in the coffee urn picks up the other (which actually has never bothered me as much as it should, judging from the reactions of real tea [connoissouers] to this practice), of a typical Amanda Quick heroine. Those wishing to continue the Heyer association over from the last review may recognize the slanted brows in Sylvester, Or the Wicked Uncle as well as the heroine's propensity for modelling her villains upon the male protagonist.
Though stronger and more consistantly characterized than Kate the story and sexual tension would profit from more careful pacing. (And a final denouement upon a rock, no matter how flat or warm, does not strike me as very practical.) Two stars.
Husband rating: Two and a half stars. He liked the touches of humor.
Sylvus Tarn Last modified: Wed Sep 16 12:55:37 EDT 1998
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