The Season

The Season, by Sarah MacLean

Seventeen year old Lady Alexandra is strong-willed and sharp-tongued -- in a house full of older brothers and their friends, she had to learn to hold her own. Not the best makings for an aristocratic lady in Regency London. Yet her mother still dreams of marrying Alex off to someone safe, respectable, and wealthy. But between ball gown fittings, dances, and dinner parties, Alex, along with her two best friends, Ella and Vivi, manages to get herself into what may be her biggest scrape yet.

When the Earl of Blackmoor is mysteriously killed, Alex decides to help his son, the brooding and devilishly handsome Gavin, uncover the truth. But will Alex's heart be stolen in the process? In an adventure brimming with espionage, murder, and other clandestine affairs, who could possibly have time to worry about finding a husband? Romance abounds as this year's season begins!

This is a relatively harmless little book. It's told from the point of view of one who is poised on the cusp (at the start of the book) of entering society. There were, of course, anachronisms in the book, it's hard to find a regency novel without them, these days. It's a delicate balance between admirable heroine and realism of the times. Certainly I doubt that any young lady went about "breaking into" houses, or even expressed half of the sentiments that Alex does, without much disapprobation. The trend of giving heroines nicknames which are boys names has always irritated me, as well. To me it seems to say, "she's feminine, because look, she's got a girl's name, but girls aren't as cool as boys, so we'll pretend that she's one of the guys with her nickname." I have the feeling this is a long suppressed feeling, which has only now had the opportunity to air itself. Perhaps if the plot or characters better satisfied me, I wouldn't take so much offense at the matter of her nickname.

The plot, such as it is (and my general malcontent may be attributed to a possible desire for a mystery/romance rather than a romance/mystery, as was the case) is not ill-done, giving us suspects who are so obviously guilty they have to be guilty, as well as those so obviously guilty, they must be working on the side of good. One of my peeves was that Alex was never really wrong in any of her assumptions, and didn't cause more confusion and misdirection than she solved, as I would generally expect of a seventeen year old girl in regency England. Not that I assume that all seventeen year old girls are stupid - although given my own behavior at seventeen that opinion wouldn't be baseless - but her circumstances don't inspire confidence that she will have magically attained clarity of insight into murder.

Well, it certainly doesn't sound as if I liked the book at all - and that's only partially true. It wasn't offensive to me, as some books have been. I wouldn't mind re-reading it, but only for those sweet sections which describe first, true love (and in these types of societies, the only one you get). The author seems to be setting the three girls (more on that later) up for a series of books, and I will probably read the others in the series as well, but I would wait to check them out first before purchasing, next time. The three girl friends are one of the most refreshing parts of the book. Too often the heroine is cut off from good, female friendship and advice, and the friends in this book more than adequately perform their duties in that regard. They are close without being confining, supportive without being foils. They are neither perfect nor merely a backdrop for Alex's own exploits. I wouldn't mind reading ten books with faults worse than this one, as long as they contained good friendships. So, could be better, could be worse, good if you're in the mood for a short, sweet chaste romance, with some adventure and balls thrown in.

And I mean "balls" in the "gala" sense, not the "frank 'n' beans" sense. Get your minds out of the gutter.