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Phyllida and the Brotherhood of Philander : a Bisexual Regency Romance
by Ann Herendeen

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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1539060.Phyllida_and_the_Brotherhood_of_Philander_a_Bisexual_Regency_Romance?utm_medium=api&amp;utm_source=blog_review" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="Phyllida and the Brotherhood of Philander : a Bisexual Regency Romance" border="0" src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/photo.goodreads.com/books/1184908817m/1539060.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1539060.Phyllida_and_the_Brotherhood_of_Philander_a_Bisexual_Regency_Romance?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">Phyllida and the Brotherhood of Philander : a Bisexual Regency Romance</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/717177.Ann_Herendeen">Ann Herendeen</a> 
 <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/21733178?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review"><h3>My review</h3></a>
 rating: 1 of 5 stars Andrew, proud member of the Brotherhood of Philander, a private London society for men who enjoy the company of other men (*wink wink, nudge nudge*) decides it’s time to do his duty and provide an heir, so he enters into a marriage of convenience with Phyllida, a poor country virgin (and anonymous writer of gothic romances). They both agree to conduct the marriage on terms of absolute honesty—so Phyllida knows that Andrew likes the manmeat, and Andrew knows that Phyllida’s joy in life has so far been the pen rather than the penis. However, attraction blooms, scandal looms, and really lame-ass spies abound.
 
 I’ve spent quite a while trying to figure out how to explain why this book didn’t work for me. I think I’m gonna just go with a list:
 
 1. I didn’t believe it. The Regency England Herendeen creates never felt real to me. It was like a copy of a copy of a copy—like she’d read a lot of other Regency romances and tried to recreate them, rather than the actual period. The characters’ reactions and decision-making seemed bizarre to me, too—like she was trying to make them (especially Andrew) seem incredibly clever and devious, <a href="/search/search?q= Dangerous Liaisons&t=title"> Dangerous Liaisons</a>-style. Instead they just seemed kind of thick. And weird.
 
 Which brings me to:
 
 2. I didn’t like any of the characters. They’re all kind of whiny. Or dickish. Or whiny dicks. I never really cared what happened to them; instead, I kept reading out of a vague desire to discover which way their private parts would ultimately end up aligned.
 
 3. It’s incredibly insular. Herendeen tries to stretch the plot beyond the bedroom by including all these spy shenanigans that are also, apparently, supposed to tie in in some way with the Napoleonic wars; however, it’s more complicated and confusing than suspenseful. The same can be said of the supposed danger Andrew faces of being exposed, or disgraced among the ton; since almost all the characters we meet are in some way associated with the Brotherhood, it never feels like what Andrew and Phyllida are up to is all that unusual. In Herendeen’s Regency England, everyone, it would seem, is either a) gay, b) related to a gay person and cool with it, c) married to a gay person and cool with it. I don’t buy that much grooviness in the 19th Century; I almost doubt that you’d find it today. Andrew and Phyllida are even introduced to another long-term triumvirate: husband, wife, and husband (and wife’s!) live-in lover. What’s so special or exciting about what the protagonists are doing, then? Herendeen takes all the excitement out of her premise by making it seem ordinary.
 
 4. It’s just not that funny. For example, there’s a long sequence in which Andrew becomes convinced that his wife is actually the author of <a href="/search/search?q= Sense and Sensibility&t=title"> Sense and Sensibility</a> instead of the gothic bodice-ripper she’s actually responsible for. Along with not helping to cure me of the notion that Andrew is a MORON, this subplot wasn’t amusing so much as embarrassing and cringe-worthy.
 
 5. It ain’t all that sexy, either. There were weeping cocks. And also a lot of Andrew calling Phyllida a slut, which I guess could be construed as hot dirty talk in certain contexts, but not when he actually seems to mean it—when he’s previously insinuated that he thinks her mother is a dirty whore. And to top it all off, the husband/wife/husband’s lover threesome I was hoping for never materialized. The final arrangement seems like a sweet deal for Andrew, but not so much for his partners. Pooh.
 
 I think I’m learning that the things I get from fanfic—notably, quality boysex—are not things I can expect to find in published, acceptable-to-read-on-the-bus books. Why? I have no idea. However, the publication of Phyllida—regardless of how little I liked it—does seem like a good sign in terms of publishers realizing that there is a market for this sort of thing. Now, if only some of my favorite fic authors could write it!
 <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/113980?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">View all my reviews.</a>

Trin's review
rating:
bookshelves: historicalfiction, queerlit, romance

Andrew, proud member of the Brotherhood of Philander, a private London society for men who enjoy the company of other men (*wink wink, nudge nudge*) decides it’s time to do his duty and provide an heir, so he enters into a marriage of convenience with Phyllida, a poor country virgin (and anonymous writer of gothic romances). They both agree to conduct the marriage on terms of absolute honesty—so Phyllida knows that Andrew likes the manmeat, and Andrew knows that Phyllida’s joy in life has so far been the pen rather than the penis. However, attraction blooms, scandal looms, and really lame-ass spies abound.

I’ve spent quite a while trying to figure out how to explain why this book didn’t work for me. I think I’m gonna just go with a list:

1. I didn’t believe it. The Regency England Herendeen creates never felt real to me. It was like a copy of a copy of a copy—like she’d read a lot of other Regency romances and tried to recreate them, rather than th...more

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message 1: by KBM

05/07/2008 06:19AM

I'll buy it from you.