How have we all been reading romance all these years without the imagination and wit of the inimitable Lenora Bell?
I was charmed by How the Duke Was Won, with its Charlie and the Chocolate Factory-meets-The Bachelor setup, and its social justice soul.
I grinned non-stop while reading If I Only Had a Duke, the Wizard of Oz-inspired road trip romance between an opera singing, Renaissance art loving runaway debutante and the gruffly determined duke whose carriage she hijacks.
And I loved -- just LOVED -- If I Only Had a Duke. Again, a creative retelling of a classic tale, in this case Alice in Wonderland, meets romance and social justice in the most imaginative, funny, bright, and soul-touching way.
The Marquess of Hatherly, rakish son of a mad duke, finds himself gambled away to Alice Tombs, a bluestocking of the first order with relentless curiosity. So begins our plunge into Wonderland -- sorry, Sunderland, the ducal estate. It's a sprawling, architecturally indiscriminate ancestral home, full of mysteries, staffed by odd servants-but-not-servants who speak in riddles and talking flowers in the greenhouse. Wide-eyed Alice, armed only with her beloved cat, is left to solve not only the riddles of the house, but of (the mad?) Hatherly.
Lewis Carroll fans will delight in the many details that evoke his Alice, from ravens and writing desks to six impossible things before breakfast to -- during a love scene, of course -- "eat me."
But while Carroll may have inspired the tale, and while the bluestocking-reforms-a-rake trope might be as old as romance, Bell writes with a entertaining, droll style all her own. I love a romance novel that can make me laugh and make my palms prickle, and Bell can do both -- on the same page. In the same sentence.
Most of all, though, I just like these characters. I like spending time with them. I want to go to India with Alice, walk the duke's orchid garden, go out drinking and mount amateur theatricals with Hatherly. I want to know what happens with Jane, with Lear, with Patrick and Van, with Dr. Forster.
I can't wait to find out.Â
