Me: Let’s do Outlander.
Anonymous fellow reviewer: I’d rather be staked out on ant hill and covered in honey.

Repeat ad infinitum with the occasional substitution of torture method and you get the idea. While it’s been frustrating to want to talk about a book and to not find that desire reciprocated, the polarization that Outlander has caused here is endemic of the schism it has created in the larger romance community. There are those who passionately love Jamie and Claire’s story, and those who hate the very idea of the books. I have to admit that I am addicted to the Outlander series…while I’m reading it. When I’m not reading, I ardently wish I’d never picked the books up. The never-ending-series that it has become weighs me down and dampens my excitement for the story.
(lf: Let me horn in here to say that as a fervent fan of Ms. Gabaldon’s, I too look askance at each new entry in the series. I’ve had Breath of Snow and Ashes on my shelf since it was published last year, working up the gumption to take a running leap at it. The Outlander books demand a huge investment in time and emotional energy and are not for the weak.)
Nonetheless, when Lorna joined us I knew the discussion that I was so impatient for would soon be underway. Years ago, the first conversation Lorna and I had – beyond, hello nice to meet you – was about the Outlander series. We were united in our general passion for all things Gabaldon while being divided by our thoughts on specific points. That seemed a lovely place to begin a discussion, and it was with great enthusiasm that Lorna and I launched into Outlander. We quickly found that our conversation about Jamie and Claire and all that happens to them, to be completely overwhelming. It’s nearly impossible to discuss Outlander while leaving all those other books and continuing storylines untouched; but we managed to, mostly. What follows is our very long chat about Outlander.

wd: I’ve read and re-read Outlander (my favorite, selected scenes, usually out of order, as the mood strikes me); this might be the first time I’ve read Outlander from start to finish since the first reading. I’m rather struck by how different my feelings are this time around. With the first read I expected Outlander to be a standard issue romance novel and I alternately chaffed and thrilled to the deviations it took from, what I believed to be, form. I found this time, without that expectation, it’s a much better read. Where before I thought the story should have been edited down quite a bit (boiled down to the Jamie and Claire parts), now I’m less inclined to believe that and instead appreciate the richness and texture of the story as a whole. What I have finally come to understand about Outlander is that it isn’t a romance (just what Gabaldon has been proclaiming for years). Romances deal with people falling in love, but not being in love or staying in love. Romances lead their couples to the precipice of the hard part – life together – and then leave the reader as though that is the end of the love story. It isn’t and through Jamie and Claire, Gabaldon tells the story (that begins in Outlander and continues through the series) of a couple who fight to stay in love.
lf: You’re right. I don’t know remember how we got there, but the first thing we established was our mutual admiration for Ms. Gabaldon. The second, I think, was our disagreement on the best of the series—you contending for Dragonfly in Amber and me firm in my belief that Voyager is the best.
Like you, this is the first time I’ve read Outlander in its entirety in years, and though it is fifteen years old, it’s as fresh as the first time I read it. I had come into the series when Voyager had been published, and being the obsessively linear person that I am, I had to read books one and two before I touched book three. For me, Outlander was the beginning of the story that would end on the last page of Voyager, and I started it with that in mind. Even so, I had preconceived notions; I too believed it was a standard love story between Jamie and Claire with some sci-fi/fantasy woo-woo thrown in. I read the first chapters, and wondered who the heck Frank was and what was he doing being married to Claire. Then Claire fell through the rabbit hole and I don’t think I surfaced until I turned the last page. As you (and Ms. Gabaldon) pointed out, Outlander is not a run of the mill romance. The romantic elements are there, but they are just a bit skewed and somewhat off-kilter, which keeps the story out of well-traveled ruts. For instance, instead of Jamie being the typically world-wise, older and more experienced man, it is Claire who is older, more worldly (at least as far as her language is concerned) and sexually experienced. And there is Claire’s husband Frank. He’s not the typical “dumpee”—you know, the shallow, vain, adulterous, wife-beating psychopath. Frank is a good man, and Claire acknowledges that he is. She just loves Jamie more and makes her choice accordingly. The result is bittersweet, unlike many romances, both contemporary and historical, where bad things happen only to characters who richly deserve them.
Which is not the case in the Outlander books. They are not comfortable, hot cocoa and jammies reads. They’re more cabernet and dark chocolate, complex with sharp corners and edges that Ms. Gabaldon refuses to smooth over and round out. Once again, there is Frank, who this time around I realized got short-shrift. The story itself is set just before the doomed Jacobite uprising, depicting a way of life that shortly would be no more. Claire’s stint as physician at Castle Leoch and the interlude with Jamie at Lallybroch is made all the more poignant by us knowing that they are the calm before all hell breaks loose, sort of like the Titanic just before it hit the iceberg. Or more apropos, the Lusitania before the torpedo struck.
wd: Outlander is full of sharp corners, isn’t it? And Gabaldon doesn’t mind running her characters – or her readers – into those cutting edges. The plot of Outlander (let’s ignore for a moment all that comes after this first book) is massive. The action takes place over nine or ten months, but good god, what doesn’t happen in that time? Claire stumbles into a circle of standing stones and is thrust back through time, leaving 1946 Scotland for 1743 Scotland. The time-travel element alone could provide book length conflict rife with fish-out-of-water and need-to-get-back-to-one’s-own-time scenarios. But, Gabaldon doesn’t allow this story to simply be about a woman out of her time. As you point out, once in 1743, the Jacobite uprising creates the ticking count-down to disaster and provides believable conflict amongst the Scots and between the Scots and the English (Claire is English which makes her situation with the Scots further sticky). All of which propels the story swirling around Claire and man she eventually marries, Jamie Fraser.
There is, as well, a massive cast of characters to flesh out this massive storyline. The people that populate Gabaldon’s pages are round and full of life and as such have motivations and actions that keep them all at odds with one another. So that, not only does Claire land in a point in time on the verge of war, she lands in the middle of the tangled and contentious interpersonal conflicts of the MacKenzies, the Frasers, the general populous of the Scottish countryside, and one notorious ancestor of her husband Frank: Jonathan “Black Jack” Randall.
Gabaldon’s canvas for Outlander is enormous, and yet she paints with a very fine brush. I think her finest strokes are dedicated to Claire’s character. How do you find Claire?
lf: First let me say that I agree with you that the book is massive, but not like concrete blocks massive. If I can get fanciful here, it’s as if we’re riding a huge stallion that has the bit between his teeth and all we can is sit down, shut up, and hold on. I know that we’re avoiding the yawning maw of the rest of the series right now, but while Voyager is my favorite, I think this is the best written of the bunch. It is taut, it is tight, actions flow into counteractions, and there is little if any wasted page space. (It’s also, I believe, the shortest at a mere 627 pages.)
Okay, back to Claire. Claire is a masterpiece of writing, both technically and story-wise. I read an interview some years back where Ms. Gabaldon stated that Claire sprung off the page (all right, computer screen) fully formed, a modern woman in a 18th century world. Now, I disagree about “modern;” Claire is not—and was not even when Outlander was first published in 1991. She is my grandmother’s generation, “born” in the same year 1917. Claire came of age in pre-WWII Europe, and she reflects that. But she also had a baptism of fire in the field hospitals of WWII, and she reflects that too. Add to it her strength and intelligence, and Ms. Gabaldon created a character who, when she walks into a room, you know she’s there. However, though her voice is clear, direct and powerful, she doesn’t overwhelm the story. One of the drawbacks of writing in first person is that the narrator can sometimes drown out the other characters as the reader is always in the narrator’s head. Claire is such a keen observer that the world and people around her are also clear, vibrant and three-dimensional with their own voices, mannerisms, foibles and scruples. Jamie sounds different from Dougal and Colum, different from Rupert and Murtagh, different from Old Alec the stablemaster, even though they all speak Scots and Gaelic, and go “mmmphm” from time to time.
Story-wise, Claire is also a marvel of writing and character development. As I said, she is strong. But the minute she steps through the standing stones, she has to dig deeper to find—and, boy, does she find—reservoirs of hidden strength to deal with first being stranded out of place and time, and later with her marriage to Jamie, his outlawry, and Jack Randall’s very unhealthy interest in her Scots husband. I think one of the most viscerally chilling moments is when Claire’s forced to leave Jamie in Black Jack’s hands in prison, and she retaliates by telling Jack the day and year of his death. And what is even more chilling is the way she did it. Without fanfare, without fuss, softly, her rage striking out like rapier, slicing Jack in half almost before he knew he’d been cut. And that’s how she manages all the difficulties and insults that are flung at her, with a ruthless practicality that’s sometimes driven by anger so hot that it’s cold. The only time that I felt her strength lacking was when she was betrayed by Laoghaire and she didn’t tell anyone about it. I wanted blood and retribution, or at least some hair pulling.
wd: That point of not blabbing about Laoghaire bothers me as well. But, I always come back to: when exactly did that have to come up? Jamie rescues Claire from the witch trail, in short order Claire tells Jamie the whole truth about where – or when – she came from, and the setting shifts to Lallybroch. It’s easy to see where Laoghaire’s guilt gets lost in the ongoing action.
I completely agree with you, Claire telling Jonathan Randall the day of his death (while Gabaldon keeps it from the reader, at least at that point) is a brilliant thing. Her knowledge is the only weapon she has and Claire uses it to do more harm and damage than a physical weapon could have. Here, and even in less charged moments, Claire is a commanding presence, but as you point out, not an overpowering one.
That Claire enthralls while not overshadowing is a point most salient, I believe, with Jamie. Outlander hints – with the ghost yearning for Claire through her 1946 bedroom window – that Claire doesn’t simply blunder through time. Her trip has a specific purpose: to deliver her to the love that defies time, Jamie.
Jamie has to match Claire on the page, and also be bold enough, larger-than-life even, to be the love so special and magnificent that it pulls Claire through the standing stones. Claire shows up on page one with no burden other than to be Claire (I do agree with you that Claire is a triumph and that it’s her appeal that propels Outlander and by extension the series), but from the onset, Jamie’s presence has to command, he has to be rather glorious.
But Gabaldon doesn’t take an easy path with Jamie. As you point out, he’s very young, twenty-three, until his wedding night with Claire, he’s a virgin, he has red hair (not a character flaw, just not what we’re conditioned to expect of our leading men), and he’s very much a man of the 18th century. I’ve always found those to be rather bold choices on Gabaldon’s part, and she goes on to make even bolder choices for Jamie, in large part, to draw contrasts between his time and reality and Claire’s much different time and place. As when, for example, Jamie beats Claire. Not repeatedly. But, the once is enough. He physically restrains her and takes a belt to her. (I hate that. How can I not?) Even still, I do respect that Gabaldon was brave enough to go where the story took her. Throughout Outlander great emphasis is placed on punishment, mostly public punishment, so much so that the reader has to know Claire will encounter it personally. And too, I respect that Gabaldon didn’t take the easy way out and make Jamie an overly enlightened man for his time, who would regard beating his wife as barbaric. You see that sort of thing in fiction set in the Civil War era, where characters who grow up surrounded by slavery have a suspiciously modern view of the system. It doesn’t ring true there, and I don’t believe endowing Jamie with a progressive mindset would have either.
Through all that, perhaps despite all that, Jamie emerges as the hero. He loves Claire fiercely, enough to make good on the vow he gives her on their wedding night: “the protection of my body.” That vow is put to an almost unfathomable test one night in Wentworth Prison. Jamie makes a trade with Jonathan Randall, Claire’s life in exchange for the use of Jamie’s flesh.
What follows is skin-crawlingly horrible and creates a mess that isn’t truly mopped up for several books to come. But through all that, I have my doubts about the organicness of Black Jack’s character. It seems a sexual masochist – with a specific predilection for Jamie – is too opportune a boogeyman to be roaming the Scottish countryside. Does Black Jack ring of convenience or truth to you?
lf: Hmm. Jamie’s ghost appearing as a sign of his and Claire’s “destiny.” The fact that they are destined to be together. I hadn’t thought of that, but it makes sense, especially as it’s their union that—to skirt that yawning maw again—produces Claire’s only child, Brianna, who, in Voyager, is alluded to having some sort of Scottish destiny of her own.
But, returning to Jamie, while I agree that he has some incredibly admiral qualities (both character-wise and, uhm, physically), I don’t think he’s glorious. Not yet. The potential is there, but he is somewhat overshadowed by Claire. In Outlander Jamie still has some of the loose-limb gawkiness of adolescence. He hasn’t reached the emotional, mental and physical maturity that he’ll have in Voyager, and the times that Claire yields to him in Outlander I get the sense that she does only out of expediency and not because she lost a match of wills. When Jamie wallops her (may I say here that I too flinched and cringed at that scene much more the second time around), her subsequent, after the fact acknowledgement that he was sort of justified is more along the lines of “there’s nothing I can do about it,” than “I was wrong and he was right.”
However, Jamie’s love for Claire is fierce, and there they are evenly matched. When Claire accuses Jamie of trysting with Laoghaire after their marriage, Jamie slams right back, asserting himself and his love. It is the one time where Claire truly loses a clash of wills between them—in the fight itself, in the makeup sex afterwards, and in the makeup makeup sex after that. And of course there’s the heart-wrenching scene where Jamie brings her back to the stones and walks away, thinking that he’ll never see her again. He acts out of his strength of character, leaving Claire space to make her own choice.
Okay, from the deeply sublime to the in-your-face. I suppose given today’s crop of genre villains, Jack Randall’s sexual pathology is rather stereotypical, but this was written when bookstore shelves weren’t cluttered with serial killers, sexual predators and other deviants. I remember being shocked the first time I read this at Jack’s lust not only for Jamie body, but for Jamie’s pain—and at how everyone in Outlander aware of that lust wasn’t surprised and shocked. Wearily disgusted, yes. But stunned in outraged amazement, no. However, this time through it was Claire’s shock that I felt—that someone who looked so much like her husband Frank could be so twisted, and that’s how I took Jack, the flipside of Frank. It was another blow (in one instance literally) that she had to ride in order to find her balance in a new world. I also read it as a wedge between her and Frank. Claire declares in the opening chapters her faithfulness to her marriage vows, no matter that she and Frank been separated for most of their marriage by the war. But then she later states that Frank and Jack’s features have become intertwined for her, creating an emotional distance between she and Frank—which then gives room for Claire’s attraction to Jamie to flourish. And, to once more sail dangerously close to the yawning maw of the continuing saga, there’s a reason for Jack’s openly displayed preferences.
But, back to the sex scenes between Jamie and Claire, leaving aside the fact that here too Ms. Gabaldon is a gifted writer, I was impressed with how she handled—or should I say Claire handled the initial physical intimacy between she and Jamie. When they first married, Claire had every intention of leaving Jamie and returning to Frank, yet during her and Jamie’s wedding night—and subsequent nights and days—Claire responds with an honesty untainted by coyness, guilt or shame. Now, admittedly Claire is at this point very much attracted to Jamie, but I don’t get the sense that she is indulging herself in something that is only technically not adultery. Instead, I feel that Claire’s practical ruthlessness has once more come to the fore, and the only way she sees to her goal of returning to Frank is through Jamie’s bed, so through it she will go. And if she does respond openly and honestly, well that’s because she is open and honest. Of course, her goals change when she chooses to stay with Jamie, but her response to him remains the same. What do you think?
wd: Sex is very important in Outlander, not simply the act, but the emotions that accompany the physical. Once Jamie and Claire marry, they have a lot of sex. Which is what one would expect of any newly married couple – circumstances aside. Though, I don’t know if I agree that initially sex with Jamie was a means to an end for Claire; I have to work through that one. Honestly, I can’t separate my emotions – what I want to be there on the page – from what is actually there. I want to believe Claire is as she is with Jamie because of their combustible chemistry, that larger destiny stepping in again. Though I must admit, that line of thinking sets aside Claire’s feelings for Frank, and Claire doesn’t do that – ever.
Circling back to something you said earlier, I too have more sympathy for Frank, now, than with any other past reading. There was a time when I was appalled at his very existence. Then I was further appalled that Claire didn’t immediately forget Frank upon laying eyes on Jaime. At some point, I came to understand that Gabaldon’s choice to side step what you point out as the typical “dumpee” attributes was an intelligent decision on her part. It would have been so easy for Claire to walk away from Mr. Why-did-She-Marry-Him-In-The-First-Place. Jamie wouldn’t have needed to be a choice for Claire to make under those circumstances, but rather an obvious conclusion. Frank’s only crime – at least in Outlander – is that he isn’t the hero. He’s an ordinary man. A good man. And fate repays his ordinariness and goodness by shafting him.
So maybe then you do have a point about the honeymoon sex, because even after choosing to stay with Jamie, Claire is rather steadfast in wanting her decampment to be her only betrayal of Frank. And too, it’s never really just sex in Gabaldon’s sex scenes. There is always an advancement of the story happening right along with the “mmmphming” and a rather fantastic amount of subtext as well. The scene you mentioned earlier, where Jamie finds Claire in a jealous pique over Laoghaire, that scene is one of my favorites of the entire series (yes all those other books too). The events leading to it aren’t all that unique, Jamie and Claire have been forced to marry and suddenly here is an opportunity to go their own ways, as it were. We’ve all seen that in hundreds of romance novels and the predictable outcome is that one of the principles will do something childish like storm out and then we’ll have to spend the length of the remaining story watching them warm up to one another again. But, that’s not what Gabaldon does there, when Claire says she has no claim on Jamie, he responds with:

“And what d’ye think a wedding vow is, lassie? Just words in a church?”

My breath caught the first time I read that. And it’s caught with every subsequent reading because Jamie doesn’t throw up his hands and say: the hell with you; but instead, through word and deed lets Claire know that he’s an honorable man of substance (an argument for his gloriousness, despite his youth).
The sex that follows is stunning not so much for what gets touched or how, but because this is really the first time they choose one another without respect to the marriage Dougal forced on them. The coming together here is physically rough and emotionally brutal as Jamie realizes that he can’t posses Claire without her possessing him as well and Claire realizes she will be forever stretched between the two men in her life. It’s also the first time Claire compares Jamie and Frank and finds Frank lacking.
Perhaps then, there is a greater motivation to those first sex scenes than just unflagging lust.
OK, are you ready for it? The elephant in the room? The rest of the series. We’ve both read through Fiery Cross (like you A Breath of Snow and Ashes has yet to compel me to read it). With this read of Outlander, I found my knowledge of the next 6000 pages of storyline to be a weight I couldn’t escape from. Were you able to read this first installment without the influence of what is to come intruding?
lf: Elephant in the room is an excellent description. It’s huge, it’s powerful, it has a distinct odor, and it doesn’t leave much space for anything else. I too was unable to shake off the “forward story,” though my haunting was more about people than events. As I read Outlander, I kept looking around for Fergus, and then would have to remind myself that he doesn’t appear until Dragonfly in Amber. I also missed the mature Jamie who could hold his own with Claire—and whose code of ethics had become flexible enough to accommodate a little sedition, some truth-bending, and general sneakiness. And I kept eyeing Jamie’s sister Jenny sourly, holding myself aloof from her character even though her betrayal of Claire doesn’t happen until Voyager.
But, the biggest struggle was reading Outlander for itself without comparing it to the rest of the series. Ms. Gabaldon has stated that her writing method is to produce segments which she then joins together with connective narrative—which is fine; whatever works to get the story on paper. In Outlander the “joins” are seamless; even looking for them, I couldn’t find them. However, in the later books, the joins are not only very prominent, but Fiery Cross reads as a series of vignettes only loosely connected. As I read Outlander, I kept becoming irritated that the leanness (okay, relative leanness) and forward-driving tension in the first book is by and large discarded by the time we reach Fiery Cross. It isn’t that it’s not well-written; Ms. Gabaldon’s craft remains at the top of its form in that regard. It’s that so much of it is unnecessary to the story. And that’s the elephant in my room. The bloated books that are to come, where the storyline is buried under so much lard.
Of course, none of that stopped me from reading Fiery Cross twice, then going back several times more and cherry-picking my favorite scenes.
wd: My reaction is very similar to yours. There were many, many story elements I couldn’t put from my mind as I read Outlander. As you point out, it was difficult to warm up to Jenny, knowing what was to come. I was shocked to see Dougal that first time in the crofter’s cottage as he’s long dead for the majority of the series. It was a bit hard to conceive that Laoghaire was once a girl only on the precipice of her viciousness. And countless other things, too.
I also found myself looking for foreshadowing, or perhaps reading in foreshadowing, in places I’m not sure were intended to foreshadow. As when, early on, Frank and Claire discuss having children, or the inability to have them, and Frank says he couldn’t love another man’s child. He thinks it isn’t in him. Or, simply the fact that Claire chooses to stay in 1743 with Jamie without ever seeing Frank again. On the first read, that seemed as though Gabaldon hadn’t allowed the story to go where it needed to go – at least I always thought Frank should get an in person goodbye – now, I wonder if, by Claire not voluntarily returning to her own time, we should have known the time would come when she’d be forced to go.
Like you, I also spent time with this read wondering where the leanness of storytelling went to. That seems odd to say about such a long book, but it is the shortest of the series and as you point out, the smoothest and most compact.
While reading Oultander, I felt a bit like Claire in the opening scene of Fiery Cross when she’s bedeviled by Frank’s ghost and tells him to go away. I felt bedeviled by the story and the telling that follows the first of the series and simply wanted that “yawning maw” to go away.
We’ve left many unturned stones in this discussion, but that seems rather fitting to me. There’s really only one more question I’d like to ask you: Would you do it? Would you give up hot baths?
lf: Hot baths vs. Jamie Frazier. Hmm. That’s a hard one. One thing I do know, though. No sex while traveling and without access to even cold water and hard cake soap. Each time that happened in Outlander, I found myself wrinkling my nose. Eww.
wd: I don’t think I could give up the hot baths, or my husband either.
You can visit Diana here and purchase this book here and here.

So, what with one thing and the other, a year passed, but the dream remained alive (also, I forgot to insert language about what would happen if said review failed to materialize). And…here it is. A review of Welcome to Temptation by Jennifer Crusie. It should probably go without saying, but there is not a single unbiased word in the lengthy discussion Wendy and I had. We didn’t even attempt to fake impartiality. Had someone (name withheld, but initials are HK) kept her promise to read with us, maybe things would be different. We’ll never know, will we?

Welcome to Temptation is the story of a girl, her family, and her dog. Or maybe it’s the story of a boy, his town’s water tower, and his pool table. Sophie Dempsey comes to Temptation with her sister Amy to film a screen test for D-list movie star, Clea Whipple. Phineas Tucker, mayor of Temptation (three generations and counting), learns that there might be loose women (and possibly a porn flick being produced) out at the Whipple farm. Phin isn’t opposed to loose women on principle — too bad because Sophie’s wound so tight with nerves, she might snap.

Which means, yes, porn is happening, but only the vanilla kind, and Sophie is sure she’s going to be thrown out town pronto. What happens next? Political maneuvering, phallic, flesh-colored water towers, family strife, thwarted ambition, con games, blackmail, apparent murder, softball games, and pool. Not necessarily in that order. Suffice to say that a lot of paint was sacrificed in the making of this story.

What? You want a detailed, linear synopsis? Better that you read the book. But read our review first. We gush.

“Nothing but good times ahead.”
k2: You know, this is harder than you’d think, talking about Welcome to Temptation. It’s a book I pick up whenever I need to be reminded that all is still right in the world. How a book that opens with a car crash, veers into censorship, discusses down-and-dirty politics, and turns on a murder makes me feel good is hard to explain. I just love this book, so much so that I have a copy just for loaning to people who need to know the magic that is this book. Sure, I keep rebuying my loaner copy, because you know how people accidentally forget to give good books back…
Let’s begin at the beginning. As Sophie and Amy Dempsey cruise into Temptation, they are greeted with two memorable sights. The first is a motley collection of signs, including the rusted, aged message of welcome from Mayor Phineas T. Tucker — whom they immediately assume isn’t having sex, not if the sign is any indicator of age — and the second is the town’s flesh-colored water tower — rising above the landscape like a giant penis. As Sophie notes, you don’t accidentally paint a water tower that color. Does this tell us everything and more about the bucolic town of Temptation?
wd: I’m giddy to finally have this discussion underway. Like you, Welcome to Temptation makes me cheerful even in the midst of not so cheerful plot points. The characters often treat one another as badly as humans do and even still, I smile through the whole thing, for every page. I just love it. I do wish our partner in crime, HelenKay, had been able to join us for this (she was asked, but she is busy). So many times she and I have chatted about one book or another and I’ve wanted to refer to Welcome To Temptation as an example of perfection for subtext in dialogue, or pacing, or whatever, but HK hasn’t yet read, so the analogy is lost. We really need to make forcing this title on her our top priority.
A flesh colored water tower rising through the trees of Temptation is a good thing. Actually, I think the verb Crusie always uses in combination with the water tower is “thrusting.” That gets right to the point, doesn’t it? I’ve always found that phallic tower to be rather emblematic of the town’s (and the characters’) futility and repression and sexuality. Or, perhaps that’s repression of their sexuality. It’s just a water tower, no matter what color it’s painted, but it’s sexualized by everyone from Sophie to Stephen Garvey — or as Sophie thinks of him as the “pillar of the community” (which sounds phallic to me as well) — to Phin, who, after the tower is painted bright red, refers to it as “the Whore of Babylon.” The tower comes up again and again throughout the story, in its various incarnations, always reinforcing how important sex is to the fabric of this story.
Let’s get that out immediately: sex is very important to Welcome to Temptation. As you point out, in the book’s opening pages Amy and Sophie decide that Phineas T. Tucker is not having sex, only to meet him and conclude that he is and he could have more with either of them. From there, it’s only a matter of time before everyone falls, in one way or another. Clea Whipple’s screen test fairly quickly becomes porn (ok, it quickly comes to have graphic sexual content, define porn as you will). The secondary characters are having sex (or wanting to have sex) with all the wrong people: Clea with her old, but now married, boyfriend Frank Lutz; then Clea with Frank’s son Rob; Frank’s wife Georgia gets a bit too cozy with Clea’s estranged husband Zane Black; Wes has a serious, but noble, case of the hots for Amy; and, honestly, I’m very glad the extent of Hildy and Ed’s porn watching isn’t delved into. Of course, most excitingly and deliciously, Sophie and Phin enter into a relationship that is purely based on no-strings-attached sex. At the moment, romance is rife with couples who begin as sex-without-commitment, but seldom do other characters and other stories enter into this sort of non-relationship with the grace that Phin and Sophie do. Phin says: “Come here and let me give you an orgasm you don’t have to work for,” and every time I read it, I think: oh, that was absolutely the right thing to say. Crusie’s dialog is always good, but I think in Welcome To Temptation she is particularly razor sharp and sparkling. Does the dialog make this book?
k2: Oh, thank you very much for putting the thought of Hildy and Ed watching porn into my head. Now I’m going to have nightmares. I suppose I should be thankful that HK isn’t taking part — she’d actually want to explore that notion…
This book is totally, completely, and unabashedly about sex: the good, the bad, the weird, and the fact that Americans have serious problems with something so, well, natural. Two lines from the book come to mind immediately, both about Virginia Garvey, wife of the Pillar. The first is Sophie’s first coherent though about Stephen; the second is at a Council meeting:

“If I was married to you, I’d keep my knees together, too.”
“Phin spared a brief thought as to what it must be like to be married to Virginia if she thought nudity was punishable by death…”

In many ways having sex — or not having it (one thinks of a certain seduction scene in a bar gone horribly awry) — propels this story. It is sex, in several forms, that drives Clea Whipple into the world of the Dempseys. It is sex that forms Sophie’s first impression of our beloved Phin…she’s already had a bad experience with another town’s Phin. It is even sex that drives Rachel, the daughter of Stephen and Virginia Garvey, to pick up her gumption and find her own destiny. In so many ways, the primary characters (Must. Ignore. Images. Of. Ed. And. Hildy.) are tied together by their sexual acts — even Wes and Amy, though theirs is non-consummated. No fault of Wes’s.
But you asked a real question. Dialogue. When I grow up, I want to write dialogue like Jennifer Crusie. I am enamored of movies from the thirties and forties where characters played by actors like Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant and Spencer Tracy and Mae West toss off bon mots like artillery fire. I love listening to clever people spar with words (makes me jealous as I’m always thinking of what I should have said long after it should have been said). One way that Crusie brings this immediacy to the page is stylistic — I’ve heard some readers (probably really writers who were taught differently) say her style irritates them, but I think it perfectly connotes the rapid-fire pacing of the dialogue:

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, I’ll give you the damn paint” Stephen said, and Phin said, “Thank you, Stephen, we accept. Now if there’s nothing else–”

Ordinarily, the dialogue would be broken into two separate paragraphs, but Crusie’s habit of shoving two speakers into the same, well, heck, sentence, makes it all snap. But even the conventional (in a manner of speaking) dialogue zings (am I going to end up retyping this whole book?):

Sophie came out on the porch [after Phin tells her she's too dumb to live]. “You still here? I thought you’d have gone back to the smart people by now. Davy, Wes wants us.”
Phin looked at the bruise on her forehead and the misery in her eyes and felt like hell. “You are not allowed to leave the house again until you get your driver’s license.”
“I already have a driver’s license.”
“That’s what you think,” Phin said, turning to stare back across the yard. “I’m making Wes take it.”
Davy stood up. “Don’t scare the mayor again,” he told his sister and went inside.

That’s one of my favorite little bits from the story. The driver’s license schtick has been threaded through the whole book and then there’s the punch line. And Davy has been butting heads with Phin because Davy, for all his flaws (or should I say lovable flaws?), will do anything to protect Sophie, yet here he is, acknowledging that Phin is the man. And Phin is realizing this is a battle he lost a long time ago.
Speaking of Phin (and I want to, I want to), as you know, I recently read Bet Me, and, mid-way through, had an epiphany. We (okay, me) often focus on Crusie’s treatment of women and their friendships and relationships. But I realized that she’s also great at guy friendships. Her heroes have friends — real, genuine guy friends who talk about sex and play pool and worry about looking cool in front of women. When we reviewed Don’t Look Down, one topic we discussed was the “guyness” that Bob Mayer brought to Crusie’s writing, but, looking back, I think elements of it have always been there. You?
wd: I must admit that the first time I read Crusie, I was severely put off by her dialog format. Her habit of squishing two characters’ dialog together was, exactly as you point out, not what I had been taught and I was irked at her for having independent thought. What I’ve since come to understand is that, a writer can do anything, even those you should never admonishments, if they do it well. There is, of course, a huge gap between the use of something and the success of it, but Crusie succeeds with this. And, I believe her choice in formatting is as important to the pacing of her dialog as the zinging of the words.
I love that scene on the porch about the driver’s license. Well, it’s not really about the license, but it is the moment we know Phin loves Sophie (even if those exact words haven’t quite coalesced for him).
It’s interesting to me that you should bring up Phin’s “guyness” because I spent a lot of time during this reread pondering that very topic. Crusie’s men strike me as very male, in a down-to-earth way. There is a realness to them (and yes, that element existed prior to Mayer) that is striking for its subtlety. I think a lot of romance authors imbue their men with over-the-top masculinity: they are ruthless rulers; they carry guns; they kill people; they have sex with everything that moves; they are toweringly large. Phin isn’t, or doesn’t do, any of those things and yet he is top to bottom a guy: he likes good liquor; is drawn to women who are “the devil’s candy”; he’s particular about his cotton shirts; he loves his kid — though manages not to mention her in the pursuit of getting laid; he loves his pool table too much to ruin the felt by having sex on it; he says things to Sophie like: “Come on, Sophie. I’ve had a lousy day. Fuck me.”; he hates being mayor but he refuses to lose the job to Stephen Garvey. I think all of that speaks to his guyness more eloquently than had Crusie chosen to make Phin the standard issue hard-nosed, womanizer hero. He is, as you so eloquently said of Crusie’s heroes in our discussion of Anyone but You, a “disaffected patrician.” So what is Sophie?
k2: Here’s how pathetic I am: I didn’t even notice that Crusie was doing dialogue “wrong” until someone pointed it out to me. Somehow it fit so perfectly with the rhythm in my head that it made perfect sense. Once I became aware of it, I think it was a bit of epiphany — rules can be broken without the world falling off its axis. Though it’s probably not the best analogy, one should recall that Pablo Picasso knew the “rules” of classical drawing and painting…he simply chose to paint what he saw.
If Phin is a disaffected patrician, then Sophie is a…rebel! She’s the straight arrow Dempsey who wants the straight arrow life. She’s continually fighting her natural instinct to be a little bit bent because she doesn’t want to be like the rest of her family, who thrive on crookery and connery and flouting the law whenever and however possible. The Dempseys love the rush that comes from living outside the law.
But Sophie doesn’t. It’s a lovely twist (one you also see a bit in Jayne Anne Krentz’s Absolutely, Positively…which I’m sure you’re going to read some day). But even as Sophie rebels against the family tradition, she’s learning to accept that her Dempsey blood has its advantages — tell me that her decision at the end of the book isn’t the perfect blend of Sophie’s do-good instinct and her Dempsey genes.
Let’s talk secondary characters for a moment. I think my favorite is Rachel Garvey, the 20-year old daughter of Stephen and Virginia. Her parents want her to marry Phin, Phin’s mother wants him to marry her…and Phin thinks she’s far too young and lousy at pool, while Rachel just wants to get out of the hell out of Temptation. I think her laser-sharp focus on the goal was incredibly well-done, and, given the way her parents think, the fact that she ended up living in California (with gardeners!) with Leo the porn king just made me laugh. Am I over-romanticizing Rachel? And what of other secondary characters in this book?
wd: Yes, Sophie daughter-of-a-thousand-felons has the perfect end book epiphany. It’s lovely for the rightness of it and the fact that it isn’t obviously coming. I dig Sophie in a I’d-like-to-be-friends-with-her kind of way and, I realize now, I don’t feel that way about any other heroines. There is a realness to Sophie that appeals to me. And, a lack of pretence, like the first time she and Phin are on the dock and she doesn’t remember her significant other until afterward. I think what I expect from heroines in that situation is for them to haughtily bring up the boyfriend they don’t care about as a barrier to put between themselves and the hero. Sophie’s way leads her into the heart of conflict. Gotta love that.
Rachel Garvey. My feelings for Rachel vacillate with every read of the book. Sometimes I feel that she’s just great and other times that she’s too self aware (and too spot on with that awareness) to convincingly be twenty. Rachel is people smart and I don’t know where it comes from because she didn’t inherit that skill. All the characters in Welcome to Temptation, the main and the secondary, can rather neatly be broken down between those that are self aware and people smart: Sophie, Phin, Wes, Amy, Rachel, Leo, Davy, Hildy, Ed, Liz; and those that aren’t: Clea, Frank, Georgia, Stephen, Virginia, Zane, Rob. (Did I forget anyone?) Anyway, growing up with Stephen and Virginia Garvey, it’s a wonder to me that Rachel can put one foot in front of the other much less plan, what turns out to be, a successful escape. My shifting feelings and lack of understanding aside, I like Rachel. I feel for her that she’s stuck with the parents she is, weeding the same patch of earth every summer, being drug along to a future she wants no part of. And likewise, I love that she gets the future she wants, the one she worked to achieve.
A character that I didn’t initially like, but have grown to love is Dillie Tucker, Phin’s daughter. At first I saw her as a bit too on the ball for a kid. Then, I began to understand that Dillie is a parrot. At her most kid-like she parrots Jamie Barclay. At her most pretentious she parrots her grandmother Liz. She even quickly comes to parrot Sophie like when she tells Amy: “Don’t try that on me,” Dillie said. “I’m a pro.” And you, are you anti-kid-in-a-romance? And what, specifically, do you think of Dillie?
k2: I think that Rachel gets her focus from, well, Stephen. He’s very much into achieving his goals, and she sees how he keeps trying. And she sees how he screws up. She doesn’t want to repeat the mistakes of her parents, so pays very close attention. Plus she’s a bit of a wild thing, no? [wd: Great point about Stephen’s influence.]
I am, generally, anti-kid-in-romance. Mostly because romance novel kids are far too cute, too precious, and too clean for my taste. I like kids who climb trees, do bad things for no good reason, and talk back. And, you know, I don’t like using kids to push the sentimentality button. So often romance kids are used to emotionally manipulate the reader, and I hate being manipulated. Dillie is very much a kid who is trying to be a grown-up — I think you hit the nail on the head with the “parrot” idea. She’s at an age where she’s testing and discarding personalities while trying to figure out boundaries. And, yes, she’s decided she wants a mother. Jamie Barclay, after all, has one, so Dillie, the parrot, wants one, too (one senses that Jamie Barclay already has a father in residence because Dillie doesn’t suggest Mrs. Barclay as a potential mother — at least as far as I recall).
One worries that future Dillie will decide to parrot her uncle Davy. That could be interesting.
There is one little tidbit that flows through the story that I wanted to mention: Julie Ann and the Bear. It starts out as a cute little story, but then takes on increasing importance. Tell me, the first time you read this book, were you doing a little bit of “Huh?” when it came to Julie Ann?
wd: Wow, your “Huh?” completely captures my first reaction. I don’t really like to admit to being anything less than an astute reader, but the first time around when Phin and Sophie were alone in the moonlight and Phin related the story of the heartbroken Julie Ann disappearing into the forest and, to hear Phin tell it, is eaten by the Bear, I didn’t pay that much attention because, well, good stuff was on the horizon. The book is sex soaked, and I do have my priorities. That’s what later led to the “Huh?”
It’s sweet and endearing that Phin and Sophie have this Appalachia folklore to liken to themselves. Pet names in romances are very appealing to me (it’s a weakness, don’t mock me), and I especially like the use here because Julie Ann and Bear have significance beyond the more ordinary “sweetness” or the like. As you point out, Julie Ann and the Bear is a tidbit that surfaces throughout a plot full of major happenings. What fascinates me most about this bit of folklore is that Crusie rewrites the ending of Julie Ann’s story, so that, what had been a cautionary tale, is recast to be a tale of female empowerment (Julie Ann gets the Bear). It’s such a tiny thing, but it carries such a big message. And it reinforces the very subtle, well, “girl power” theme that runs throughout.
Now, there is a huge happening, a major plot point that we have manage to ignore: Zane Black’s death. On top of everything else, Welcome to Temptation is a murder mystery. And, I think, a very credible one at that. Every person in town has reason to want Zane dead. Zane stole money from Clea, he’s wants the movie the girls are making shut down and he manages to dig up dirt on everyone in the hopes of blackmailing the populace into bending to his will. I’ve always thought Georgia Lutz had the most motivation to kill Zane because of his is very public and very caustic remark about her bedroom skills: “Hell, Georgia, even Jell-O moves when you eat it.” Yikes. What’s truly great about the mystery of Zane’s death is a reader couldn’t possibly guess what happened to him. There is no: Professor Plum, in the dining room, with the candle stick, moment. You’ve read and reread Welcome to Temptation, can you untangle the who-killed-Zane-Black web?
k2: Oh yes. I know exactly how it happened. It’s sort of like when you’re a kid and figuring out a puzzle — once you know the sequence, you test yourself every now and then. Let me set up the scene first:

“Look for a gun, a club, and a can of Mace and a car with some Zane in its tires,” Wes said.

You know when you have that many possibilities (can you die from Mace? Do I want to know?), you have to assume that the dude has made some enemies. Wait, here’s another clue:

…”There’s water in the lungs and it’s river water…”

So, the put-down of Georgia might be one of the all-time classics. I mean, who goes there? And how do you get there? Zane propels a lot of action (and keeps propelling right on into Faking It) and, I think, ultimately leads to Sophie and Phin (and even Wes and Amy) coming to terms with their relationships. He sort of seals the deal for Leo and Rachel — Leo gets to be the man for a change. But let’s finish this sordid tale:

“…but Zane didn’t drown.”
Phin dropped into the chair across from him. “So what killed him?”
Wes tossed the report onto his desk. “Heart attack”
Phin leaned back. “That a joke?”

And the beauty is, no, it’s not a joke. In a single night, Zane Black’s body is put through much, much more than any live or dead human should endure, but he’s already gone. Maybe Clea watched him die, maybe she didn’t. Bottom line is that a lot of people are scared that they’ve killed a guy — and worse, didn’t report it at the time — but he was already dead. Makes it all seem silly…which, I think, was the point. The cover-up is worse than the crime.
We’re at the end of this (unless, you know, you want to keep quoting favorite pieces back and forth…which I’m thinking we should do at a lovely spa because that’s what real reviewers do). But…pool. What’s up with the pool?
wd: Before we really end this discussion I need to say thank you to Kassia for basically implying my life was nothing but wasted time if I hadn’t read Welcome to Temptation. At the time of her declaration, I was barely familiar with Kassia*, but felt that if she were willing to make such a strong statement about a book, that I really needed to investigate. I’m glad I did because Welcome to Temptation immediately shot to the top of my favorite reads list. Actually, I think when I reached the last page, I immediately flipped back to the first and read it again. So, thank you, Kassia.
Now we have reached the end of the line here, despite the fact that we never talked about the censorship issue, or that Phin owns a bookstore, or that the first time Sophie and Phin have sex it starts out pretty lousy, or that Welcome To Temptation has another messed up sister relationship, or Dusty Springfield, or any of the movie quotes, or, well, there’s a lot to this book. There’s a lot to all Crusie books, and if tradition holds, Kassia, you and I will be back here in about six months to discuss an old Crusie favorite, or a re-release, or perhaps Agnes and the Hitman. I leave the next discussion up to you. You pick the title and date, and I’ll show up ready to chat.
I’m leaving Phin’s pool table and all the other things that didn’t make it into our discussion to our readers. Chat amongst yourselves and one commenter will be randomly chosen to win a box of books.
[k2: * Meaning we'd just met thirty seconds before. Give or take. But your thank you is taken to heart. Give Lois and Miles another chance will you...I hardly ever steer you wrong.]
You can visit Jenny here and purchase this book here and here.

I discovered Exit to Eden during a time I wasn’t reading romance. The contrivances, the clichés, the utter predictability of the genre had grown thin. I was ready for a change and all too happy to dive into the world of New Orleans vampires a friend told me about. At the time, the Vampire Chronicles could claim only four titles. Those were read quickly, the supply soon exhausted and I went on to devour Rice’s books on witches, mummies, castrati, and finally racial politics in 1840s New Orleans. Still fiending for Rice’s storytelling, curious about what was labeled as her Erotic Fiction, but unwilling to dive into the deep end of the pool, I tested the waters with Rice’s Anne Rampling work. And there I found, what remain to be, my two favorite Rice books, Belinda and Exit to Eden. Exit to Eden showed me that romance can exist outside of genre constructs.  Here are two characters I imagine never gaining acceptance by mainstream romance fans.  Lisa runs The Club, a fantasy sex resort catering to the sadomasochistic desires of its patrons.  Elliott goes to The Club to serve as a sexual slave, wanting to be immersed in S&M culture.  She is the anti-genre heroine: in touch with and in control of her own sexuality, smart, on her own, aware of her beauty, at a point of beautiful crisis.  He could almost be a genre hero:  he’s successful, a risk taker, daring, adventurous, his own man, the Alpha Male, searching for that elusive something to complete him.  But, unlike any romance hero at the time, Elliott’s sexual history included more men than women and he had an overwhelming desire to be dominated.  They meet; they fall in love; they live happily ever after.  To me, their story has always been a romance.

W:  Is this your first brush with Anne Rice?  Or, Anne Rampling as the case maybe?

HK: Both, actually.  Other than seeing the movie Interview With The Vampire and reading all about Anne Rice and her venture into a very different genre with her newest book, Christ The Lord, this is it.  Rice appears to be one of those authors with whom everyone is familiar because her name recognition is so strong, regardless of whether or not you read her books or in her genre.

W:  Confession time, I predicted, fairly well, your reactions to my previous backlist favorites.  I knew you’d love Slow Heat in Heaven.  I had a very strong suspicion that Hummingbird would not be to your tastes.  But, how you’ve found Exit to Eden is beyond me.  While rereading, my guesses about your reaction vacillated wildly:  She’ll love the erotic nature of the story; she’ll say there’s no conflict; she’ll hate the overly internal/character driven plot.  Put an end to this for me.  What did you think?

HK:  My reaction vacillated as wildly as your guesses.  As I read, my feelings for, and interest in, Lisa and Elliott’s story changed.  At first, I found the storytelling vivid but the story slow and plodding.  The conflict lagged and the romance bloomed too early.  Lisa’s abrupt redirection of her life as a result of seeing Elliott’s photograph, while romantic, bothered me for the majority of the first half of the book.  Balanced against those negatives was Rice’s ability to present a convincing and sensual story – one that pulsed with sexuality thanks to the backdrop of The Club – without lengthy sexual descriptions.  She depended on strong writing to set the mood and establish the characters.  By the end, I was invested in both the growth of the characters and in seeing how Rice would bring these flawed people together.  The fact she did so without apologizing for the people they were before, or the belief systems they held, is a credit to her.

Now, would I read Exit To Eden again?  Probably not.  But, as an example of erotic literature that connects on an intellectual, rather than purely sexual level, this is a must read.    

W:  Now time for you to confess.  Admit it:  you didn’t want to read this book because of the movie that was based on it.

HK:  At first I didn’t put together this book and that horrendous movie.  Really, there is very little resemblance between the two – which is lucky for you.  The good news is that this is one of those cases where one can honestly say the book is better.  Of course, if we’re going to start confessing… I saw that awful movie.  Twice. And, no, I’m not willing to say anything else about that.

W:  Rice is well known for her gothic horror novels about vampires and witches.  She’s considered a commercial writer, and at this point in her career, not always critically well received.  But, to me, her early work (the beginning of the Vampire Chronicles, Belinda, and Exit to Eden) is magic.  Her prose is perfectly lean but never spare, her tone pitch perfect, and her characters a composition of raw emotions.  Do you think the erotic nature of Lisa and Elliott’s story overshadows the skill of Rice’s writing?

HK:  I would say the opposite is true.  Rice’s fluid writing transforms this from a story about S&M clubs and sex to something greater.  Really, she is writing about wounded people becoming whole.  Her refusal to take the easy road – to have Lisa and Elliott have some sort of epiphany about the lives they led before – is one of the book’s strengths.  Neither character changed his or her core and beliefs, though they were tested.  They move forward having found what they needed, not at The Club or in the forbidden nature of the sex there, but in each other.  Rice conveys all of that within the boundaries of this world, not in spite of it.

W:  The emergence of erotic romance has brought Exit to Eden to my mind over and over again.  While I love the more spicy romances, I’ve often found them to be simply romances with more sex tacked on vs. stories that are about sex, where sex is integral to the plot.  Both Lisa and Elliott are sexual creatures with left of center appetites; take this aspect away from either and their characters would become unrecognizable.  The story is set around a fetish sex club; it’s the club and what goes on there that brings Lisa and Elliott together and conversely it’s the club and what goes on there that pulls them apart.  How did you see the strong sexual element of this story?  Integral to the plot?  Or, gratuitous? 

HK:  Exit To Eden sexual but most of the spicy romances written today are much more explicit.  This book isn’t about two people having sex then deciding they may want to live together forever.  While the sexual appetites form the center of the book, Rice never resorts to using the characters’ desires as the easy and only way to propel the story forward.  The book really is about these people and their needs, separate from sex.  The Club, what it represents and what it provides to both Lisa and Elliott in terms of security and wish fulfillment, is absolutely integral to the plot.  These two people can’t move forward, can’t come together, until they deal with who they are both inside and outside The Club.

W:  The Club, set on a Caribbean island, seems to be a law unto itself.  It’s designed as a clean well-lighted place to act out unmentionable fantasies.  With each read of Exit to Eden, I buy into the mythology Rice creates.  I love the idea of a jewel of an island, winking in the tropical sun where every body is perfect and beautiful and willing and no one gets hurts.  Did Rice force you to suspend your disbelief?  Could The Club exist?

HK:  I believe it can and probably does.  That’s all I’m saying on that…

W:  Rice takes great—and not always subtle—pains to bring Lisa and Elliott together.  She slowly builds each character, drawing out who they are and showing the reader where and how one will complete the other.  Did you see the set up as overly long or necessary for the emotional gravity that followed?

HK:  This aspect of the story dragged for me.  The entire conflict centered on overcoming these internal struggles, which would have been fine so long as there was consistent forward movement.  Many times, the push and pull between them ran in circles.  Part of the problem for me was the near spontaneous love connection between them.  With that as the basis, the drawn-out coming together didn’t quite make sense.  The two aspects of the story seemed in conflict.

W:  Lisa’s a heroine brave enough to set out on her own path, even if she must carve it out along the way too.  She believes something might be broken inside of her because she’s never found anything consenting people do together as wrong.  It’s all very innocent to her.  Did you like her?

HK:  While I found her mixture of vulnerability and strength compelling and believable, I had trouble connecting with her for most of the book.  It was almost as if Rice created Lisa with this hard and decisive outside, then clued the reader in too early to the contrasting feelings inside of her.  Her doubts, boredom, confusion and dissatisfaction, while all workable, kick in from the beginning, almost before the reader gets a chance to understand who she is at that moment before she starts changing.  That metamorphosis then takes the entire balance of the book to occur.  This goes back to my issue with Lisa’s immediate attraction to Elliott.  Despite who she was and all she accomplished, she, almost without explanation, questioned everything she believed in after only a brief meeting with Elliott – actually, after only seeing his picture in a file. Again, the idea of seeing a photograph and changing your entire life to be with the subject of that photograph is a romantic notion, but the abrupt change followed by a long inner struggle throughout the remainder of the book kept Lisa somewhat vague, and somewhat weak, in my mind.

W:  Elliott is one of my favorite heroes.  Ever.  Definitely top five.  He wants to be sexually mastered and subjugated by men, but the idea of his sexual master being a woman terrifies him.  That makes his surrender to Lisa all the more sweet and beautiful.  Did you like him?

HK:  Elliott had many of the characteristics I find appealing in a hero.  He’s strong, smart, beautiful and internally conflicted.  He is searching for something to complete him, to fill the void, but is oblivious to what he needs.  He faces his fears straight on but doesn’t really understand the basis of those fears.  Rice’s ability to draw out his internal pain and confusion made him full and real.  When Elliott the self-assured man reappears, he is as believable as he is lovable.  Knowing he could be weak – could allow himself to be weak – and then be so commanding, well, he’s on my list of favorites too.

W:  Lisa and Elliott fall in love within days of meeting (something you and I are forever condemning romance novels for).  I’ve always found this completely believable for this couple because of the depth of emotion they posses as characters, and the way in which Rice writes their time together in New Orleans as being out of control, manic and frenzied.  Did the too-soon factor bother you here?

HK:  Actually, I would say Lisa fell in love (but didn’t recognize it, of course) before ever meeting Elliott.  This aspect of the book didn’t work for me.  This instant devotion to the point of breaking all her rules for him, seemed out of character.  Had the change occurred later, both the beginning of the story and Lisa’s character likely would have flowed better for me.  I understand her questioning starts before Elliott, but the intersection of the two ideas was jumbled for me. 

For some reason Elliott’s attraction to Lisa struck me as more believable than Lisa’s transformation for Elliott.  We know from the beginning that Elliott is looking for something.  That he is on a quest.    His attraction to Lisa starts as physical.  The leap to love verbally happens much earlier for him than for her, but his start to finish flowed better for me.

W:  In all her works, Rice plays with and pushes the boundaries of sexual and gender politics.  In part, Elliott loves Lisa because to him, she transcends being a woman.  He often likens her to a man, in the way she kisses, holds conversations and approaches sex.  I’ve always interpreted this as Rice saying:  men are the ideal, what we should aspire to.  That subtext, here and elsewhere in the Rice canon, has always offended me.  Did you see this as well?  Or, something similar?

HK:  Not having read Rice before, I don’t know if this is a thread in her work or not.  In the context of this book, I thought it was more of a homoerotic issue – that Elliott loved men and women.  He didn’t distinguish between them, except to feel more comfortable and in charge around men.  What he saw in Lisa and loved in her were her strengths (interpret as male traits) and softness (interpret as female traits).  Elliott not only praises the male-like way Lisa kisses, but also the soft flow of her hair and gentle curves of her body.  That suggested to me that he only found love when he found a woman who embodied what he viewed as the best of both sexes.

W:  Girl meets boy.  Girl and boy fall in love.  Girl loses boy.  Girl wins boy back.  But, is Exit to Eden a romance?

HK:  Absolutely.  Boy meets girl.  Boy and girl banter, make love, challenge each other, move past each other, then find their way back.  That’s pure romance.  What colors the romance aspects of this book is the background of The Club and the way in which these two people meet.  But, at heart, I still believe this book is about two desperate people finding their way to each other against seemingly insurmountable odds.  Hard to imagine anything more romantic than that.

You can visit Anne here and purchse this book here and here.

Both were wounded in the same train robbery in frontier Colorado and left on Abigail McKenzie’s doorstep to nurse back to life.

Gentle, loving David, promising her a happiness she’d lost hope of finding, was all a lady could wish for.

Jesse stood for everything she hated: he was rude, violent, roughly handsome and disturbingly sensual.

But it was Jesse’s mocking mouth that troubled her dreams, Jesse who made her feel a hundred things a lady should never know, Jesse who challenged her every waking hour.  She fought him with all the stiff propriety her stubborn will commanded…but in her burned the aching embers of love too long denied–love that would force her to a choice no woman should ever have to make…

W:  Hummingbird was my introduction to LaVyrle Spencer and the first single title romance I read.  Abbie and Jesse’s antagonistic banter hooked me immediately; I fell in love during their verbally aggressive courtship, my heart broke when Jesse left and stayed broken for the length of his absence, only mending upon Abbie and Jesse’s reunion.  During the countless single title romances I’ve read since this one, Spencer’s crisp characters and “day in the life” storytelling stood out in my memory and called me back to them.

***

W:  Hummingbird is a character and dialog driven historical.  It’s heavy on internal conflict, light on external conflict, with no action or great intricacy of plot.  Even though this book is the opposite of what you gravitate to, did it work for you?  Were you, at all, charmed by it?

HK:  Western historicals are not my usual preference. The plots tend to revolve around a misunderstood outlaw and the teacher/widow/spinster who falls for Mr. Seems So Wrong But Is So Right.  Stepping back from what I like and focusing, instead, on what works, Hummingbird hits many of its marks.  It doesn’t depend on suspense or murder to move the plot.  The book’s strength comes from taking the basic premise and twisting it just enough to make it her own.  My main complaint with the book comes from the amount of time Jesse spends off stage in the middle of the book.  The absence of such an overwhelming alpha hero drags the story and left me waiting not-so-patiently for his return.   

W:  At the front note of the book, Spencer pays a special thanks to Janis Ian and her poignant song “Jesse”.  I’ve always found this work—as with many others of Spencer’s—to be bitingly poignant, tender, and bittersweet.  Is there anyone publishing currently who’s writing to similar effect?

HK:  It’s interesting you used the word "tender" to describe this book.  For me, the heat between Abbie and Jesse is intense and potent.  The word sensual, not tender, leapt to my mind.  As to who is writing tender yet sexy romances, it is hard for me to think of anyone tackling this mix.  Many of the bolder aspects of this story remind me of early works by Linda Lael Miller. For a time Miller focused on western romances – I think she calls them Americana – that tended to have a larger-than-life feeling and intense heroes.  Miller’s works are much more sexual than Spencer’s but the tough yet tender feeling Jesse evokes as he leaves Abbie then fights to get her back is reminiscent of Miller’s fractured heroes in her Corbin series.   

W:  For the first half of the book Abbie believes Jesse to be a train robber.  He isn’t and tells her so, but her refusal to accept what he says as truth creates conflict between them.  Was this believable and sustainable?

HK:  Spencer actually pushed the conflict to the backdrop as she developed the growing and undeniable attraction between Abbie and Jesse.  Where the conflict turns and no longer serves to propel the story forward is when Jesse’s identity is unearthed and he leaves town.  From that point, until his return, the plotting and pacing drags.  For somewhere in the range of 75 pages, my only thought was:  when is Jesse coming back.  Spencer kept Jesse alive through Abbie’s thoughts but the book needed more to sustain itself at that point.  Once Jesse returned, the love triangle aspect kept everything moving, but that middle section felt forced and plodding.

W:  Abbie and Jesse’s relationship—their mating ritual—is combative, both verbally and physically.  For a time, Jesse gains the upper hand with an unloaded gun.  Are Jesse’s actions teasing and playful, or unjust and cruel?

HK:  The nature of the relationship is part of what sets this book apart from others.  The loaded gun might bother some but it’s offered in context and the book never falls into the rape-as-sex model of many early historical romances.  Jesse’s actions are less teasing than they are domineering but his personality adds to the push and pull in his relationship with Abbie.  The sexual tension sizzles, in part, due to Jesse’s strength.

W:  And what of Abbie’s actions?  Are they equally matched to Jesse’s?

HK:  Abbie did not back down, hide in a corner or weep over the unfairness of life.  She plays the game Jesse set up for them.  The fault with Abbie centers more on the why-are-you-with-David feeling that sets in somewhere in the middle of the book.  Her motivations are not fleshed out enough to be clear or understandable.  At times, the practical nature of her relationship with David significantly conflicts with the emotional nature of her relationship with Jesse.  This could work but Abbie isn’t developed enough, other than being angry with Jesse and his abandonment, to sustain her.

W:  Jesse is a bit Rhett Bulteresque, challenging Abbie to abandon rules of propriety, encouraging her to instead do what’s best for her.  As a hero, how did you find him?

HK:  The strong alpha hero always works for me.  Jesse is flawed, makes some dumb choices, lets his emotions take over – in other words, he’s real.  His character arc from beginning to end is consistent.  When he comes back into the picture he does so on the same terms in which he left.  He knows what he wants and is willing to bend the rules to get it.  He’s sexy and his actions are sexy. 

W:  From the beginning Jesse The Bad is pitted against David The Good in the Abbie-Jesse-David triangle.  Neither man is altogether good or bad, but rather each holds their own priorities and beliefs.  In the battle for Abbie’s love, David’s only crime is that he isn’t the hero.  Spencer doesn’t give Abbie the easy way out by making David unlikable bur rather his fault is that he is not Jesse.  Did you respect that decision?

HK:  Maybe any other male on the page would pale by comparison to Jesse but David really faltered for me.  His character limped along, more in the role of whimp than as a believable alternative to Jesse.  His courtship of Abbie, starting with his decision to take money from Jesse and blackmail him out of town, rang hollow.  When Abbie then turns to David as a potential future husband, the continuity of her character faltered as well. 

W:  Spencer writes about people more humble than grand:  Abbie is a spinster, David a milquetoast shoe salesman, and Jess a photographer (ok, who happens to own a railroad).  Her scenes and the action in them are the stuff of everyday life: bathing, eating, shaving, and dressing.  How effectively does she use situations to tell her story, relate sexual tension and explore her characters?

HK:  In some ways it is easier to carry a story using intricate plot devices and exciting locations.  The window dressing aspects become part of the story.  Here, Spencer focuses on the mundane, using something as simple as the taking of a wedding photograph as a means to unleash a sensual spell.  That is a gift and it makes the unfolding of the events more realistic and, in some ways, timeless.

W:  This story is set in 1879 but the year isn’t as important as the remoteness of the setting, the smallness of the town, or the mindset of the heroine.  Could this story work in a contemporary setting?

HK:  Certainly the love triangle idea is a popular one in the romance genre, whether the book be contemporary, historical or paranormal.   That construction will always work so long as the hero is clear and the other man is believable. 

W:  Hummingbird was published in 1983 and, rereading it today, I was struck by the frank sexuality of it.  The language is, perhaps, not as graphic as today’s releases, but a considerable amount of heat is generated by Abbie and Jesse and a good portion of their story is about sex.  Is this yet another example of sex always being part of romance?

HK:  Many of today’s romances are more graphic, more explicit, than this one.  This story’s sexual frankness and the unapologetic manner in which the love scenes unfold is refreshing.  The basic attraction between Jesse and Abbie may evolve from, and be based on, sex.  However, the book isn’t about sex.  It’s about attraction and finding a soul mate. 

W:  This is the first time I’ve read Hummingbird in many, many years.  Quite honestly, I didn’t expect it to live up to my memory of it, but it did.  Despite the flowery narrative and omniscient POV, I was once again pulled into the story, charmed by Abbie and Jesse, afraid that they might not work things out, tempted to skip ahead to assure myself they would, and in general loved every second of the read.  It has also inspired me to reread my other Spencer favorites like Forgiving, The Fulfillment, and Morning Glory.  Would you be willing to read Spencer again?

HK:  Jesse carried this book for me.  His presence at the beginning and end of the book (for all but the very middle, really) grabbed my interest.  Having started the romance with such a punch, I wanted to know how Abbie and Jesse would find their way back to each other, so I did want to read from beginning to end.  The flowery writing and character issues aside, I would recommend this book to historical romance readers.  As for other Spencer works, the plan is to read some to see if I connect with other heroines since I had some trouble with Abbie.  Also, I’m interested to see how Spencer handles her heroes in other settings since I enjoyed Jesse so much.

You can buy this book here and here.

Wendy & HelenKay: We love discovering a new release or new author but we have some old favorites too.  About once a month we’ll each take a turn introducing a book from our keeper shelf.  You’ve probably heard of these titles and know the authors.  Well, see, there’s a reason these books are considered oldies but goodies. They stand the test of time.  Now, what may be a favorite for one of us might not work for the other, but half the fun is in finding that out.  It also may turn out that a book that meant so much at one time no longer thrills us the same way.  We’ll have to wait and see.  The first favorite is Wendy’s choice.

W:  Sandra Brown’s Slow Heat in Heaven is a tightly woven and surprisingly complex tale of love, betrayal and redemption; with it, Ms. Brown kept one foot firmly planted in her romance background and with the other she sought purchase in—what would become her future—suspense.  It is simultaneously my all time favorite romance and a bittersweet break with a once favorite author.  In terms of Ms. Brown’s body of work, I often think of Cash and Schyler’s story as a good-bye love letter to romance because after Heat, each successive work of Ms. Brown’s has moved further and further from the genre.

Heat’s family drama and archetype characters are clearly products of eighties romance, however they are not so firmly tied to the time period as to be dated.  At the core it’s a timeless love story of opposites attracting, long unrequited fascination, rich v. poor, and feuding family entanglements.  Schyler is bitchy and arrogant; Cash is hard and mean.  Despite the disparities of their births, their backgrounds, their current standings, each manages to look down their nose at the other, all while being consumed with lust for one another and caught up in events larger than either of them.

* * *

W:  This work was a departure for Sandra Brown.  At its core Slow Heat in Heaven is a romance but there’s a lot more to the story.  For you, is enough of the central focus on Cash and Schlyer for it to be considered a romance? 

HK:  This book fits squarely into the single title romantic suspense mold.  The thriller wraps around the romance until the two storylines cannot be separated.  Admittedly, Cash spends a good part of the first half of the book sleeping with someone else.  That is not usual in a romance and not something I generally like to see.  But, Brown makes it work because Cash’s time with the other woman is both integral to the suspense portion of the book and so mechanical that when Cash is later with Schyler their attraction feels more alive and real.

W:  When Heat was released in 1988 it was more strongly and graphically sexual than its contemporaries.  For me those elements have not faded over time, it’s less explicit than today’s steamier offerings, but no less erotic.  Whenever discussions about romance’s ever more detailed sexual nature come up, Sandra Brown and Heat spring to my mind.  Do you believe Ms. Brown deserves some credit—or blame—for the heat in today’s releases?

HK:  The story is very sensual.  Sure, the sex scenes are traditional compared to some of the scenes in current romance reads, but Brown is one of the authors who made steamy acceptable.  The world she created vibrates with sexual tension without feeling overdone.  One of her strengths, and probably the basic reason her stories do not feel dated, is her willingness to insist that it’s healthy and normal for people to be attracted on a sexual level before, or even without, being madly in love.  She took a much more realistic approach to sex and opened the door for other authors to follow her lead.  To me, Brown deserves some of the credit for pushing the boundaries and opening the romance genre to a broader range of acceptable sexuality levels.

W:  Cash Boudreaux, Cash Boudreaux, Cash Boudreaux; oh, how I’d like to conjure him up.  He is more anti-hero than hero; he’s gritty, base, and a bastard in the truest colloquial sense of the word.  In the pantheon of romance heroes, where does Cash rank for you?

HK:  He is a true alpha – domineering, tough, imperfect, sexy and untamed.  He does not waver.  He does not apologize for who or what he is.  He fills every page on which he appears, almost to the exclusion of every other character.  By today’s standards, he may seem too heavy-handed.  Too, well, everything.  Not to me.  He works on just about every level.  Some might find him harsh or even use words like abusive.  I think he’s pure earthy male.  In fact, he and a few heroes who came after in other works set the tone for the kind of hero I enjoy to this day.  One who is fully in command.  The ultimate bad boy who needs the right woman to show him what a truly good man he is.

W:  I’ve always loved Cash’s capitulation to Schlyer because there’s no actual capitulation involved.  He’s rarely kind to her, never apologizes for anything, and dares her to love him while presenting his worst to her.  Would you rather see him bend, be humbled and surrender to Schlyer?

HK:  No.  One of the Brown’s strengths in writing Cash is that she never takes the easy road to redemption.   His character doesn’t grow into a perfect male hero.  He deepens but doesn’t break.  Brown shovels flaw after flaw into Cash until he becomes this larger than life guy.  Making his actions prettier or less extreme would have done a disservice to the man and, eventually, to the romance which depends, at least in part, on an opposite side of the tracks attraction.

W:  So clearly, I’m in love with Cash Boudreaux, but he wouldn’t have been Cash without Schlyer.  Even though I’ve often read Schlyer as a way to get to Cash, I believe as a heroine she deserves some acknowledgment.  She’s a compellingly flawed character, intelligent, yet misplaces her trust; open minded, yet judgmental; strong, yet vulnerable.  How did you find her? 

HK:  This is one of those books where the heroine could easily fade into the shadow of the hero.  Schyler doesn’t.  One of the reasons she works for me is that she grows.  She goes from a spoiled belle who let a dumb misunderstanding (or lie) shape her existence to a woman who refuses to back down or apologize for being who and what she is.  Or, for loving a guy who appears to be Mr. Wrong.  She matches Cash’s strength but doesn’t necessarily know it.  She acts outside her comfort zone, like with the scene with the pitbulls, but still keeping inside her societal role when she looks back on what she’s done.  If she were any more perfect or any less imperfect, she wouldn’t have made sense with Cash.  As written, she fits.   

W:  Unrequited love stories, wherein the hero has long loved or lusted after the heroine have always been a favorite of mine.  I just love that idea of the hero pining away for the heroine.  In Cash’s case he’s been obsessed with the idea of Schlyer since the first time he heard her name.  He even tells Schlyer that he lusted after her while she sipped sodas at the local drugstore with her girlfriends.  But, the fact that Cash is eight—or so—years older than Schlyer brings a serious ick factor into that drugstore story, as he’s 18 or 19 at the time.  Did it bother you?

HK:  Usually it would but I have to admit it didn’t here.  The answer may be that Cash is one of those heroes from whom I will forgive most anything.  The more likely answer is that romance novels often use the device of older guy being attracted to younger girl but knowing it’s forbidden, so he waits until she’s older before he admits his lust.  Also, from the beginning Brown presents Cash’s obsession for Schyler as part of a greater obsession for the life she has that he feels was stolen from him.  In that context, the scene felt less sexual to me and more an aspect of Cash’s dominant I-want-what-she-has persona.

W:  Cash and Schyler are one of the few couples I wonder about after the last page of the book.  I’d almost like an epilogue (you throw this in my face and my next oldie-but-goodie will be a time travel, Scottish romance).  Even in the last scene of the book, Cash is without manners, vulgar, and still wears that great, big chip of insecurity on his shoulder; Schlyer is haughty, defensive, and effects her “reigning princess of Belle Terre” mask.  Do you believe their exchanged “I love yous” are enough to make their relationship work?  Does this pair really live happily ever after?

HK:  I absolutely will make sure that admission comes back to haunt you.  I just need to wait for the right moment.  As for Cash and Schyler, their ending is as believable as the romance that preceded it.  It’s not so much happy as it is satisfying and real.  They didn’t morph into perfect people or even into different people.  They stayed true to who they were for all 400 plus pages of the book so that when the last chapter closes the sense is that they will continue to fight and argue and love, to push each other without losing that spark between them.  At least, that’s how I’ll always think about them.   

W:  Have you read any romances, released after Heat, that you felt were influenced by it?  Perhaps borrowed from it?

HK:  Whenever I think about Heat I think about two other books that are also keepers for me - Tami Hoag’s Lucky’s Lady and Linda Howard’s After The Night.   Both books are set in Louisiana, have a sprawling family drama feel, have strong and domineering alpha males, have imperfect characters who feel real and leap off the page thanks to their flaws, have heroes who refuse to apologize and are very sensual love stories.  I can’t say if Hoag or Howard were influenced directly by Brown and her work, but the vibe for the reader is the same, or it was for me.   Where Brown’s influence is obvious is in the rise of steamy romantic suspense.  Try to find a romance author who hasn’t read Brown’s early works.  That is not an easy task.  Most of us can point to at least one, and in my case about ten, Brown romances that still sit on the home keeper shelf.  Brown’s willingness to challenge the boundaries of conventional romance writing continues to challenge all of us, even though Brown has moved on.

W:  Is Slow Heat in Heaven a genre classic?  Has it earned a place in the canon of romance?

HK:  Seems to me the test should be whether the book still is compelling more than fifteen years later or whether you read it and think:  yeah, it was great for a book in the late 80s.  This one stands up as a classic regardless of the decade.  Cash hasn’t lost any of his appeal.  Schyler still is a real woman, with all the warts that go along with that title.  The romance is hot, the story interesting and readable, the characters strong and believable.  On the fifth reading I liked it as much as I did all those years ago on the first.  Even though Brown may have changed her writing emphasis from romance to suspense, something I regret, Heat reminds me where she started and why I like reading romance so much. 

W:  Slow Heat in Heaven became my favorite romance the first time I read it and remains so with each rereading—and I’ve read it, perhaps, more obsessively than HelenKay.  It is one of the few books—from any genre—that calls to me from the bookshelf, tempts me back into its pages, and compels me along as though I don’t know what comes next. 

We’ve decided to forgo assigning grades to this oldie-but-goodie.  We both love it and really there just isn’t enough space for all the pluses we’d put after the A anyway.

You can visit Sandra Brown and buy this book here or here.