Status Updates From Splendor

Oh what a heartbreaking romantic scene!Love Niki and Carolyn so much!

Noooooooo!

Dare I hope that the wife dies when Moscow burns?

Why do I have the feeling this is not an accident?

You knew I was a woman before we went to the brothel?

My close friends call me Niki.

*fans self*

A bookseller's daughter?

This should be fun watching Carolyn match up against that b**** of a wife of his.

Watch him make love to a prostitute? Had her charade gone too far?

“Coming?”

thank you Caroline for giving up on THAT hair-brained, reactionary impulse. I was about to get irritated.

Caroline, I do feel for your plight and I know you are 18, but if an innocent child is going to rely on you to be there for her, you really do need to learn how to suck it up and deal with the consequences of YOUR choices. Poor kid.

"This is complicated."

*nods* You've gotta love the English knack for understatement.

Ahhh... I remember being that girl at 18. More naive than I imagined myself to be, more transparent and not quite as clever as I thought I was, and a very black/white outlook that often resulted in mass confusion when heroes revealed their flaws and villains their humanity. I'm kinda digging this heroine.

Enjoying this, although the resurrection of one rather annoying character - again - seems rather OTT.

Enjoying this so far, although the narrator's insistence on pronouncing the 'th' in "Anthony" is really annoying.

Another older book which takes time setting things up, but it's not dragging because the writing and characterisation are both pretty good so far.

This contains SPOILERS!

Am I relieved to have finished this! Everything and the kitchen sink thrown in in the last 50 pages.
Apparently, it was very easy to travel between this septic island (Britain) and Russia during the Napoleon's invasion. The Weltanschauung of HR preserved: uber-trashy bitch gets it in the nastiest possible way, heroine gets everything the cosmos has to offer.

'He held up his hand."Whoa. Of course Niki is fine" '. Russian princeling's utterance, circa 1812. Whoa!
Moreover, why should Carolyn (who's on a grand tour of Russia during the Napoleonic invasion) be worried about 'Niki'? He's only heading an army against Napi at Smolensk, no big deal. He'll be back for a frantic quickie (and 5 pages of hilarious justification of said f*ck, since 'Niki' is married)in no time.

Pontificating does not an intelligent, well read heroine make. This 18 year old preaches social reform, politics, historical analysis, children's education and so on. I really expect her to teach Beethoven how to write a score next. Also, is she on the brink of penury, or does she wear mother's sapphires and sip wine with papa? And somebody do something about the modes of address, they are all over the place.

The anarchronisms are starting to get on my nerves. Carolyn would love to go to the opera with Lord Anthony Davidson. Of course she would, is not like she lives in a world where women (especially unmaried 18 year olds) could never go out with a man unchaperoned, and without the unspoken promise of a betrothal hanging in the air. What? You mean one could not 'date'? Yes, that is exactly what I mean.

Marie-Elena, you veritable escapee from Susan Johnson's gallery of feral bitches!!! Nikolai is sending her royal uber-trash to Tver (place near Moscow, where the anchestral dacha is). Has he forgot Napoleon is heading that way? Or was this the only way to render a wife into ex-wife, divorce being nearly impossible? In any case, we can still amuse ourselves by playing 'whose child is it anyway'.

Oh, it's getting scrumptiously trashy! Carolyn, dressed as 'Charles', and the Prince (who immediately saw through her disguise) are visiting a brothel. The Prince is having tremendous fun baiting her, and so have I. 'Charles' is about to watch the Prince hump the night away. Please, let it be...

Some anachronisms I could overlook (e.g., the facility with which the heroine moves in disguise among the ton), given the interesting story (so far)and the nicely drawn main male character,but the linguistic anachronisms have taken me completely out of the book: BURGLARIZED ??!!?? (eyes popping out of their sockets). The full marks given above are hereby fully deducted.