I'm sure I'm not the only one who sees their favourite books hit several of the "hard no" criterias from
"Buying books: words or phrases that can turn a 'yes' into a 'no'?". Please share them! I wonder who can hit the highest number of other's red flags?
One of my favourite books:
- is romance
- has a horrible cover with a mostly naked man
(It's also a gay love story, but that isn't a prominent part of the description from the author or the publisher, so it doesn't fit that red flag from the other thread.)
The book is "A Seditious Affair" by KJ Charles, and the
publisher's description doesn't do it justice.
But
this review (warning: Spoils much of the story) captures why I love the book, and why one of the protagonists is among my favourite fictional characters and romance heroes:
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Review
So Silas Mason. He’s a foul-mouthed guttersnipe bookseller of radical political philosophy on the high road to fifty. Happily, there is no way he could ever be described as sculpted. In his spare time he writes radical or “seditious” pamphlets pseudonymously. Sedition seems such a quaint word, little used in these parlous times. I suppose today Silas would be labeled dismissively as a social justice warrior or, worse still, put on a watch list and booted off airplanes.
Silas Mason has done time. His back is heavily scarred from floggings by the authorities. His knees hurt. He’s feeling his age. But for all that he’s not only a street fighting bravo (he owns a cudgel!) but also an autodidact with a lively, inquiring mind and deep interest in politics, philosophy and literature, most particularly William Blake whose poetry Charles weaves beautifully into the narrative. Silas has been dedicated non-stop to the fight for the radical cause since he was sixteen using both his fists and pen. And despite imprisonment, torture and defeats Silas still can growl, “We haven’t won yet, but the cause ain’t lost. Never will be.”
Be still my heart.
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And here's some pillow talk between Silas and Dominic (who, unknowing to Silas, works for the Home Office (Regency equivalent to the FBI)):
Quote:
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Originally Posted by A Seditious Affair, by KJ Charles
Silas shoved him, not hard, and the Tory sat up a little, making space. Silas moved to lie alongside him, feeling the heat of his bare skin.
“I finished the book,” the Tory said.
“Oh, aye? What’d you think?”
“Good. Terrifying. Strange. I can’t understand why you like it.”
“Why would I not?”
“I wouldn’t have thought you’d agree with it.” The Tory gave him a wry smile. “After all, its burden is the need for man to keep in his place—”
“What?” said Silas incredulously.
“The overreaching man dares to play God and pays a terrible price. Abuses the natural order and creates a monstrous thing.”
“Bollocks,” Silas said. “That ain’t what it’s about.”
“It’s what happens.”
“No. What happens is he creates, he’s responsible for, something that should be”—Silas waved his hand—“great and strong, something that he owes a duty to. And he says to it, The hell with you. Go die in a ditch. I’ll have my big house and pretty wife. And it says, You don’t get to live in a grand house and ignore me. Do your duty or I’ll tear you down. Treat me like I’m as good as you, or I’ll show you—”
“That I’m not,” the Tory interrupted. “The creature murders—”
“Because he ain’t given a chance to live decent,” Silas interrupted right back. “You treat men like brutes; you make ’em brutes. That’s what it says.”
“No, you create brutes when you distort the rules of nature and the order of things,” the Tory retorted. “That’s what the book’s about. It’s obvious.”
“It’s not.” Silas snorted. “You think its author meant that?”
“Oh, do you know the author?” The Tory looked intrigued. “Who is he?”
“She.”
“A woman? A woman wrote Frankenstein?”
“A girl,” Silas said with some satisfaction. “Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin’s girl.”
The Tory’s mouth dropped open. “That—female who married that appalling poet?”
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