Warren Rochelle's Blog, page 16

A Short Review of The Dispossessed after rereading the novel.

The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I love The Dispossessed; it is one of my all-time favorites. I reread the novel this time because I will be teaching it next week in my English 378 (Science Fiction Lit) class next week. The novel is as amazing and as beautiful as it was the first time I read it--and how many years ago that was, I can't remember. Shevek is one of my heroes.

It is one of the novels I reread regularly, usually at least once a year. I teach it as a utopian novel, and as a thought-experiment. What might a society without laws, without a government, and one meant to teach and instill equality and community, be like? How might it function? How does one preserve and protect the rights and freedoms and initiative of the individual and that of the community? How does such a society survive against the all-too-human drive for order and control?

Can Shevek, the Einstein of his people, of his age, achieve his quest, both public and private? He seeks two Grails. The first, the persona, his right to pursue his life's work as a physicist, and to find a community of equals, fellow scientists like himself? This community is essential for him to proceed, to achieve his life work of a theory that can change everything. The second, the public, to preserve his society as it was intended, and to end its isolation. Can Shevek, a man from Anarres, where this anarchist society was founded 170 years ago, achieve his double quest on Urras, the mother world, rich and bountiful, a utopia to many, yet a world of competing nation states, of archists?

Today, the novel seems just as timely, if not more so, than when it was published in 1974, 43 years ago.



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Announcing Fae Wings and Hidden Things

My short story, "Luck," will appear in this new anthology, Fae Wings and Hidden Things (Wolf Pack Publishing), release date: July 1, 2017.

https://www.amazon.com/Fae-Wings-Hidd...

A Short Review of Out of This World, by Catherine Lundoff

Out of This World: Queer Speculative Fiction Stories by Catherine Lundoff

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Tales of the queer fantastic. Queer speculative fiction stories. What can the discerning reader expect? Distant planets? Ghosts, witches, old gods? The Queen of the Fay. A magical bookstore (are not they all, to some degree?). Body-theft. Steampunk? Vampires? Yes, the discerning reader will not be disappointed. The fantastic is here indeed.

In this first collection published by Queen of Swords Press, the reader will find a steampunk ghost story, Beauty and the Beast retold with vampires, and a detective on a distant planet, faced with imminent invasion and murders to be solved, and a city without happiness. The mystery of just who really wrote Shakespeare’s plays is finally answered here, in a tale of “intrigue, ‘identical fraternal twins and swordplay’ (Glaeske, Out in Print i). And other rich and engaging tales are to be found as well, all of which kept me reading until the last page.

However, the speculative is only part of the title, the fantastic only part of the adjectives given for these tales. These are stories of the queer fantastic. The protagonists found are lesbians, bisexual, gay, or “somehow queer-identified,” as Lundoff explains in her introduction. These are important to her, as a “bi/queer-identified writer,” and to such readers like me. That detective on another planet is transgender. “Beauty”, the vampire retelling of Beauty and the Beast is also a gay love story, a “bit of yaoi with vampires” (v). This vampire gay love story was among my favorites. Shakespeare’s sister has to pass as a man, thus she is a crossdresser. The tale of the witches is a lesbian love story, one marked by jealousy, and slightly less than expert spellcasting. “A Day at the Inn, A Night at the Palace,” another of my favorites, is about political intrigue, dynastic quarrels, body switching at the palace, among other things. As Lundoff asserts in the introduction, “We need to be able to see ourselves as heroes and villains, gods and monsters, knights and wizards, and fair ladies and dragons and all the points between” (v). I read this and cheered! However, I did want to note that a good story, and this is a collection of excellent stories, is a good story, and that the reader does not have to be “somehow queer-identified” to enjoy them. These are human stories, about the human condition and human experience, seen through the lens of fantastic fiction. Here are some answers to the question of what it means to be human, answers that are thoughtful, often funny, sometimes dark, and always, well told, by an award-winning writer with a gifted imagination and keen sense of language and story.

This is a fine debut for Queen of Swords Press.

Highly recommended.




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A Short Review of Silver Moon, by Catherinen Lundoff

Silver Moon by Catherine Lundoff

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Becca Thornton is turning fifty and the face that stares back at her from her mirror looks “perfectly ordinary. It was a face like that of any other woman of a certain age in a one-horse town like Wolf’s Point” (1). The hot flashes have started; she is beginning menopause and she’s divorced. Her husband has traded her in for a “twenty-something blonde bimbo and a sports car.” And she works in a hardware store. Perfectly ordinary. Or is she? Along with the first hot flash, “suddenly and unexpectedly, superheating Becca Thornton’s body from head to toe,” there was “something new in her reflection, a flickering of golden eyes and fur, visible for the blink of an eye. Something feral and wild . . .” (1). Something feral and wild indeed.

Becca Thornton is becoming a werewolf—something of a surprise, to say the least. The old, old magic that persists in this town has found her, as it has other women of “a certain age” in Wolf’s Point. To say her life will be completely changed probably qualifies as one of the understatements of the year.

So begins the debut novel of award-winning author, Catherine Lundoff. This tale is one of the supernatural, and the magical, and the human—how does a fifty-year-old woman negotiate such a transformation, literally, when she becomes a wolf amongst the other women of the Club, and metaphorically, as she crosses a certain boundary that all women must cross, into maturity, into a somewhat different imagining of self. But this well-told, and often funny, tale is about more than werewolves. It is a coming out story and a love story, as Becca finds herself attracted to her neighbor, Erin, she of the “slow, lazy smile.”

Ultimately, Silver Moon is a story about identity. Becca has been asking herself who is she? Not Ed’s wife, anymore? No longer young? Attracted to women—not to men, the way things are supposed to be? Add to all that being a werewolf and all that means, including a newly powerful sense of smell, which clues her in on such things as people just smelling wrong.

It’s a lot to handle for a gal.

Oh, yes, Becca has to learn about being a hero, too. It turns out things in Wolf’s Point aren’t so placid and small-town-y as one might think. Annie, a former Club menber, is the leader of the Slayer’s Nest, a paramilitary group that want to do away with werewolves by curing them of this disease that is “disgusting and wrong.” Annie, it seems, is motivated by revenge, blaming the Club for the death of her parents, and she is motivated by a mistaken desire to rid the world of evil. When Annie and her Nesters come into direct conflict with the Club, things get interesting—and dangerous—for Becca, Erin, and the other women. Things become a matter of survival—and life and death.

In Lundoff’s skilled hands both the familiar coming out story and the story of falling in love, becomes a sometimes dark, sometimes light, fantasy of good vs. evil, of werewolves who know themselves fighting those who can’t accept themselves. That the werewolves are middle-aged menopausal women, and not the proverbial beautiful young heroines, is one of the novel’s strengths. The beauty and grace of maturity are recognized for what it is. As a young woman deputy tells Becca, “To be one of the guardian grandmothers, to protect the land and the people. It’s a great honor, you know. Not many are called” (33).

The element of mystery also adds to the novel’s strength as well. Annie, the leader of the Nesters, says she is motivated by revenge, but is that it? How did she convince this strange Dr. Anderson to come up with a cure? Where is the money to build a secret lab in the woods coming from? Does Annie’s fear and hatred of werewolves have something else behind it? The language she uses, disgusting, wrong, a disease, is clearly parallel to the language used in anti-gay rhetoric. Some might argue that Lundoff is inserting a little social commentary here. Maybe so. Silver Moon is a novel about self-acceptance, with Becca the focus of this interior conflict. It is also about acceptance of others—and here is a place, Wolf’s Point, where maturity as well as youth is celebrated, men and women are both strong, and who you love is your business. But this is not utopia. Not everybody agrees. Things do get messy and dangerous. The course of true love doesn’t run smooth.

After all, Silver Moon is a novel about human beings, with all their ambiguities and frailties and weaknesses and strengths, loves and hates, some of whom happen to be werewolves.

Clearly there is more story to be told.

Recommended.



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Note the new cover!

A Short Review of Preacher, Prophet, Beast, by Harper Fox

Preacher, Prophet, Beast by Harper Fox

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I am a big fan of this series--of its love story between Gideon Frayne and Lee Tyack, played out on the moors of Cornwall, its beaches, its villages, and the interplay between the magical and mundane, the mythic and story, of family and love and loss and mystery. #7 seemed to start slow, but gathered speed, and steam, as it reached its climax, rather the first climax, and the second. Fox fans, Tyack-Frayne fans won't be disappointed.



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A Short Review of Convergence, by C.J. Cherryh

Convergence by C.J. Cherryh

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I am a big C.J. Cherryh fan and a very big fan of this ongoing series, 18 books so far and counting. Given how this ends, I am confident there will be another trio of books, 19-21. This story, of First Contact, of humans surviving far, far from home after being stranded on an alien planet already inhabited, is not done

The story continues Bren Cameron, the paidhi, the interepreter between the humans on the island of Mospheira and the court of the most ajii, or atevi lord, Tabini, is being sent home to negotiate what will happen with the 5000 Reunioner humans trapped on Alpha Station. Cajeiri, the heir, is sent to his uncle in the country, for a vacation, but others have very different ideas. Complications ensue.

A very readable tale and a pleasure But what I want to note this time is that while Cherryh is continuing the adventures of Bren and his atevi companions and human friends, she is also writing a fictional history of two peoples, the atevi and these stranded years. 200 years have passes since the humans were stranded and survived the War of the Landing and begun the slow process of introducing atevi to human technology and science. Now, the world is a state of change, of rebirth, as some struggle to hold on to a past that can never be returned to, as others struggle to go forward into a strange future, yet one that they are shaping.

Here is that history.



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My Story, "Feathers," can be heard on Second Hand Stories.

My short story, "Feathers," is available for listening at:

http://www.secondhandpodcast.com/

Interview with Warren Rochelle, by Mark Allan Gunnells

Interview with Warren Rochelle
In 1998 I started my senior year of college, and was excited to take Creative Writing with Warren Rochelle. He was a great instructor and really helped me develop my writing. He's a talented author in his own right and has published several stories and novels. His latest, The Werewolf and His Boy, is a wonderful blend of horror and fantasy with a strong love story. I talked with him about the book.



Can you tell us anything about from where the initial inspiration for THE WEREWOLF AND HIS BOY sprang?

The initial inspiration sprang from a dream my partner, Gary, had some years ago about a monster lurking in the rafters at Lowe’s, a store he was frequenting for home repairs. He described the monster as a werewolf. From that came a short story, “Lowe’s Wolf,” which was published in Icarus. And from the story, the novel. At the suggestion of my Samhain editor, Lowe’s became Larkin’s.

Did you read up on werewolf lore before starting or work at creating your own version of the mythology?

Yes, I read up on werewolf lore and mythology before starting, and I also read up on wolves as well. I did tweak the werewolf lore a little. I made Henry a nonlunar voluntary werewolf, and gave him enhanced powers of camouflage. The latter I extrapolated from the ability of wolves to be sometimes hard to see in the wild.

One of the things I loved most was how you took a traditional horror trope and wove it into what is essentially a fantasy novel. Do you enjoy that kind of blending of genres?

Yes, I do enjoy blending genres, if a story calls for it. However, this particular blending was sort of unplanned. While people were scared of Henry in his wolf-form, he really wasn’t so horrifying, except perhaps when he had to defend Jamey. I think that the lines between genres are blurred anyway, and that horror, or the horrific, in particular, seems to bleed into other genres.

How long did the novel take you to write?

I should keep better track of such things! There were three drafts, done at different times. The first one, maybe a year or so. The second draft, 6 months or so, and the same for the third.

The love story aspect of the tale is very strong and ultimately imperative to the novel’s resolution. Were you making a statement on the power of love or did that just happen organically?

I have always believed that love can be one of the most powerful forces in the universe. That said, I knew from the beginning, when I wrote the short story, that the tale was a love story. The statement about the power of love, however, did happen organically in the writing of the novel. I do believe love has the power to change, and to transform society, if not the world or the universe.

Another prevailing theme is how religion can undermine a gay person’s sense of morality and worth. Was that something you plotted out from the beginning, or did that develop as the story was written?

The novel is set in an alternate universe, one in which the Watchers have been suppressing and making knowledge as inaccessible as possible (hence the fear of computers and cell phones and how expensive such things are and so on). The Watchers have also seen fit to keep people separate and to be sure scapegoats are always available. They cultivated and promoted fear of the Other. In other words, I exaggerated what exists in this universe: the misuse of religion to reinforce such fears. So, I had this notion in the beginning but it did develop as the novel progressed into what Jamey faced in his own family and what led Henry to lead much of his childhood and adolescence in the shadows.

Is there a particular sequence or aspect of the novel that is your favorite, perhaps one that was the most fun to write?

Interesting question. I really enjoyed writing the scenes set in London and Cornwall. I also enjoyed writing the dream journeys, when the boys were learning what their powers and abilities were and the scenes when they are with Loki.

The title is a play on the Narnia book The Horse and His Boy. Are you a big C.S. Lewis fan, and can you tell me what about his writing inspires you?

The title is a deliberate homage to C.S. Lewis. I’ve been a big C.S. Lewis fan since I was in the third grade and read the Narnia series for the first time. Since then, I have studied and taught C.S. Lewis and have a more nuanced view of his work, but I still love Narnia. It made a deep and lasting impression on me; Narnia is, in many ways, still Faerie to me.

What is it about C.S. Lewis’ writing that inspires me? His use of the mythical, the religious, and how it easy was to feel at home in Narnia. That he wasn’t afraid to talk about love.

Once the first draft was complete, how did you go about finding a home for the novel? What led you to Samhain?

I wasn’t so much led to Samhain as I was sent there. I first sent the novel to Blind Eye Books. The editor returned it to me with some very specific suggestions for revisions, which I did. A free-lance editor friend also reviewed it and I worked with her to make the Blind Eye changes. When I sent it back to Blind Eye, the editor decided the novel wasn’t a good fit for Blind Eye Books and suggested Samhain, in particular, her editor there. I contacted the Samhain editor and that editor reviewed the novel and offered me a contract. She also had some very specific suggestions for revisions.

How was the editorial process? Did you have to make many changes to the story?

Fun, in a weird and intense sort of way. For me, when I am working on a story, whether the first draft or in revisions, I find myself living in the story’s world, as if I were inside a continuing dream. I think this is true for many writers. The editorial process makes this story inhabiting an intense experience. One of the biggest changes was a Blind Eye one: only 3 POVs, which meant a fair bit of rewriting. There were also a fair number of small changes, fine tuning, as it were, eliminating inconsistencies, and thus being sure I was telling the truth.

Can you tell us anything about your writing process? Do you have a dedicated writing space, certain times of the day you prefer to write, that sort of thing?

I usually write in my study at home. The room is a tad messy, but it’s comfortable. Sometimes my cat, Fred, hangs out with me. Depending on the project, I will often outline first. Before I can get any story going, I have to know where it ends. I don’t mean anything specific, other than, say, a beach. Where the beach is and how the characters get there, comes later. Henry and Jamey had to be getting ready for more adventures. I had no idea where they would be when that happened or how they might get there.

I also need a beginning that feels right and true. Once I’ve figured out the beginning and the end, I can begin. As for certain times of the day, I gave that up a while ago, as my teaching schedule changes every semester. I try to write something every day, even if that means reviewing what was previously written. Revision I do just about anywhere. A big chunk of the revisions for Werewolf I did at my partner’s house. He earned the novel’s dedication!

As an aside, Gary shared that dedication with Doris Betts, my freshman English teacher at UNC-Chapel Hill. She, among other teachers I could list here, changed my life. I wish she had lived to see it.

Lastly, what future projects are brewing in that mind of yours? What can we look forward to from Warren Rochelle?

I just sent in a revised short story, “Feathers,” which will be out very soon on Second Hand Stories, a podcast. The story will be read out loud. That is a first for me. “Feathers” is part of an ongoing project a collection of gay-themed retellings of traditional fairy tales.

Another project is a long story or a novel that will be the sequel to my first novel, The Wild Boy. A hundred years have passed since the Lindauzi Suicide and slowly civilization is returning, spreading out from various centers that survived the century and a half of Lindauzi control of the Earth. One such center is in what was once central North Carolina. One day, strangers from the west, arrive, with stories that can’t be true. Surely all the alien Lindauzi are dead…

And I hope a sequel to The Werewolf and Hs Boy. I already know where both of these sequels will end.


Check out Warren here: http://warrenrochelle.umwblogs.org/20...

Posted on Mar. 14th, 2017 at 05:45 pm Link Leave a comment Share

Mark Allan Gunnells Talks about His New Novel, The Cult of Ocasta

Mark Allan Gunnells, a former student from my Limestone College days back in the late 90s, has become a successful horror writer. He stopped by my website the other day to discuss one of his latest novels, The Cult of Ocasta, just out from Evil Jester Press.

The Cult of Ocasta is a sequel to The Quarry, both centered on the Limestone College campus and the monster lurking in the quarry. What initially inspired this tale? And did the sequel grow out of the original story or was there further inspiration?

The initial inspiration for The Quarry came from growing up in Gaffney and hearing a lot of mysterious stories about the quarry and I started researching it, finding that many of these stories were not true, merely local urban legends. From there the novel was born. When I finished The Quarry, I had no plans to pen a sequel. That book felt complete. When it was published by Evil Jester Press, my editor Pete Giglio is the one that suggested a sequel, planting the idea in my mind. He asked some questions about the ramifications of a connection formed between two characters at the end of the first book, and those questions got my creative juices flowing and they blossomed into the plot for The Cult of Ocasta.

How long did the novel take you to write?

It wasn’t all written at once. I initially started it shortly after the publication of The Quarry back in 2012. I got several chapters in, but then I was offered an unexpected deal to write a novel for JournalStone. That one had a deadline so I put The Cult of Ocasta aside to work on what would become my novel Outcast. Once that one was complete, I did not immediately return to Ocasta because I had the opportunity to collaborate on a project with my friend James Newman, and when we were done, I turned my attention to a novella. I then started a different novel, but partway through that one, I took a break and reread what I’d written on The Cult of Ocasta and I felt myself sucked back into that world. So it was not until the end of 2014 that I returned to the novel. From there I wrote steadily for maybe 6 months to finish it.

Is there a particular sequence or aspect of the novel that is your favorite, perhaps one that was the most fun to write?

I don’t know if I have a favorite sequence, but I really enjoyed popping real people into the book for cameos. There is a scene where the main character, Emilio, is watching an interview on a local news broadcast, and I used the real anchors for the morning news on WYFF 4 here in my area. Since the book takes place mostly on the Limestone College campus, I used some real people I know that work there in the book. I get a kick out of that sort of thing. I also had a lot of fun writing the scene that takes place at an art showing on campus, just because there was a lot going on, and I was able to juggle many different characters and POVs in one sequence, and in a book that could get heavy there was a nice dash of humor in that scene.

Once the first draft was complete, how did you go about finding a home for the novel? What led you to Evil Jester?

For this one, Evil Jester was always my first choice. With most other books, I don’t really know where they’ll end up when I’m writing them, and once they are complete I start looking around for publishers I respect and submitting. However, since this one was a direct sequel to The Quarry which was still in print, I thought it made the most sense to go with the publisher who produced that book. My previous editor Pete was no longer with Evil Jester, having left to pursue his own writing, but I contacted the owner of the press, Charles Day, and let him know I was writing it. As soon as the manuscript was done, I turned it in and waited to see what Charles thought of it. Luckily, he liked the book and we moved forward from there.

The Final Limestone Story, eh? I write that with some regret. What is it about this small not-so-well-known college in a small South Carolina town that has proven such fertile ground for your imagination? You grew up in and around Gaffney, as I recall, and you earned your BA at Limestone, but is there more than this connection? After all, you graduated in the late 90s and you have moved on. What has made this your "postage stamp of Earth"?

For some reason, I’ve always had an affinity for horror stories set on college campuses. There’s something about the atmosphere on a college campus that I think lends itself to horror. All these kids away from home for the first time, getting their first taste of freedom and independence, which can be just as frightening as it is exciting. Also, a college is a community unto itself, part of the larger community but separate from it as well, like its own microcosm. So I felt drawn to tell some stories set on college campuses, and because Limestone is my alma mater (class of 99 baby!) and I am so familiar with the school, it seemed natural to utilize it for my fiction. My very first Limestone story was written for your class my senior year and is even referenced in the new novel. I think the fact that Limestone is so small really was an asset because it contains the action in a way. The one time I used a larger college, Furman University, for a novel, I found I didn’t utilize very much of the campus in the story because it felt a bit unwieldy. I am a bit sad to be saying goodbye to my old stomping grounds in my fiction, but this particular novel just felt like a culmination of a lot of the stories I’ve set there, and so it seemed a fitting place to end this particular saga.

Define horror fiction. What draws you to this genre and has kept you there?

I guess for me horror is fiction that shines light into the darkest places. Not just the evil that lurks out there, but the evil that lurks within. It’s a safe way to explore themes that make us uncomfortable because when we place them within the context of a fictional framework, it makes them more manageable. I feel drawn to the genre because there is a limitlessness to it that is exhilarating. No boundaries, no rules, no taboos. That’s a fun playground to work in.

Ocasta is a Cherokee god, the God of Knowledge, and according to what I read, was good one day, and bad the next. But your Ocasta doesn't seem to have any good days. Why this god and why this interpretation? What drew you to Cherokee mythology?

In the first book, the creature I’d created had no name, but I had established a history with the Cherokee people, so I knew I wanted to get more in depth with that connection in the follow-up. I started researching Cherokee myths and legends, not intending to use a real one but just to get a feel for them. However, when I encountered the legend of Ocasta, I saw how some of the bits and pieces of his story fit in with what I’d already established. My intent was never to suggest the creature is the Ocasta of Native American mythology, as the creature pre-dates the tribe, but that the Cherokee people encountered this creature and then invented the legend to try to make sense of it all. In the legend, it was suggested he could also do good, but I decided to make it so that certain people thought he was bestowing special power on them when he manipulated them, which made it easier to develop my idea of the “cult” of worshippers in this book.

Let's talk about evil. Do you believe that evil in inherent or do we choose it? And why? In Ocasta the cultists (and who their chief was blew me away) seem to have voluntarily chosen this dark, dark god. Could you talk some about this and their choice? The cultists seem like ordinary people, after all.

There certainly seem to be some people who are born without a moral compass, who simply have no sense of guilt or compassion or empathy. However, I believe inside all of us there is the potential for good and bad, and that is a daily choice we have to make. Sometimes the “bad” way is the easiest way, or the one that offers the highest reward when it comes to instant gratification, but choosing a life of compassion and gratitude and kindness is ultimately more rewarding in the long run. As for the cultists in this story…their choice is interesting. A point is made in the book that Christians acknowledge that their God allows suffering, creates natural disasters that kill millions, but they don’t think of Him as an evil Deity. Quite the opposite. So my cultists acknowledge that Ocasta causes suffering, but no more than the Christian God.

I see this is both a love story and a horror story, with the lines between the two more than a little blurred. Emilio loves and loses Norman in the prequel to Ocasta, The Quarry, and now he is faced with possibly losing another whom he loves, Marty. Are there connections between love and horror and if so, what are they? How does one shape and influence the other? Did you plan on the love story or did it just come organically?

Love and horror do sort of go hand in hand in a weird way. For a couple of reasons. One, love is the strongest force out there to combat horror. Conversely, when you are in love there is no greater horror than the idea that you may lose it. Both these threads can be worked effectively into the horror tale. As for the love story in The Cult of Ocasta, I knew going in that I was going to introduce the possibility of a love interest for Emilio but initially it was just to throw an added complication into his already complicated life. I didn’t know when I started how that relationship would develop or where it would eventually wind up. That happened as the story developed, and it was very thrilling to discover the direction it took.

What else do you want to say about The Cult of Ocasta? What is one thing you want your readers to take from this novel?

Ultimately I just want readers to be entertained. I mean, yes, I also want the book to make them think and feel, but as a writer I consider it my primary task to provide a piece of fiction that entertains and engrosses. If that happens, then I feel I’ve done my job well.

What next?

This fall I have a Halloween novella entitled #MakeHalloweenScaryAgain coming out as part of an ebook anthology from Random House’s digital imprint (later to be collected as a Cemetery Dance hardcover). Next year Crystal Lake Publishing will put out my next collection, Book Haven and Other Curiosities. I’m currently working on a vampire novella, to be followed up by a ghost story. I have several other projects in mind, including sequels to a few of my other books, and four non-horror novellas, so I should be busy for a while.

Some Thoughts on We Two: Victoria and Albert: Rulers, Partners, Rivals, by Gillian Gill

We Two: Victoria and Albert: Rulers, Partners, Rivals by Gillian Gill

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I watched and enjoyed the recent PBS serial, Queen Victoria, and based on a friend's recommendation, picked up We Two to find out more about Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. The Victoria and Albert in We Two are far more nuanced and complex characters than might be possible in a television program. Certainly the rich back stories of both and their historical and cultural contexts, English and German, would be hard to portray. Victoria and Albert are fascinating people, as was their marriage. Gill provides a well of information and detail that might put some off, but for me, this was a page turner. That it was so even when I knew how their history would turn out attests to Gill's fine writing and research.

Recommended for Victoria fans, Anglophiles, biography buffs, and those who love a good story, here on an epic scale.



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