Three cool things Raybourn is doing that I am loving.

I finished Silent in the Sanctuary, and continue to be awed at what a gorgeous writer Raybourn is!

At its heart, the book is mystery. In terms of the romance, it's put together more like an urban fantasy, with a slow-building relationship stretching over several books (instead of HEAs in specific books). The romance, of course, is between Brisbane and Lady Julia, and it develops as they solve mysteries together. This is their second. There has been a murder at the Abbey!

One cool thing.

I'm enjoying getting to know the various guests and distant relations who are staying at the Abbey. First we had snapshots of them, those thumbnail assessments you make when you first meet a person, but being that there was a murder, Lady Julia really gets these people's stories.

It's really quite fun from a human interest point of view to see what these different Victorian era characters are about, and how they wound up the way they did. There is one instance of Brisbane finding out what another man there is made of that is particularly brilliant and juicy.

Which brings me to Brisbane.

At the SAME TIME we get to know all these potential suspects, handsome, smoulderingly attractive Brisbane is becoming more and more mysterious. Raybourn, you taunt me!! We met Brisbane in Silent in the Grave, and I just absolutely love these two together. I won't say how things end, but throughout the book, Brisbane and Julia are both clearly attracted to each other, but stay aloof for various character reasons, unless they sort of want to get the upper hand on the other. It's not quite cat and mouse. I would say it's more cat and cat, which is delicious!

Like there is this one thing Brisbane does to distract Julia from something he doesn't want her to see, but I won't spoil it by telling you about it. And then Julia does it back. You don't get a balls-to-the-wall romance here, but there are many small wonderful moments with these two, and the air between them is so honeyed, in way, you can live on the small moments.

Lady Julia: Actually changing!

It is seldom I see so pronounced and meaningful a character change. Her evolution as a woman is central to the larger tale. For this reason, I would suggest starting the series at Silent in the Grave. Okay, a passage to go with some of what I'm talking about:

He [Nicholas Brisbane] stared at me a long moment, those astonishing black eyes searching mine. Finally, he shook his head. "You are up to something, but I cannot make out what and I do not have the time at present to compel you to speak."

I snorted. "Compel me indeed! I think you know me better than that. I should like to see the man who could compel me to do anything I did not wish." That little speech surprised even me. I had come far from the quiet little dormouse I had been before my husband's death. Widowhood had been the making of me, I decided.

But before I could admire myself too thoroughly, Brisbane leaned forward in his chair, pinning me once again with his gaze, but softening it somehow, and in the process drawing me in until I could see myself reflected in the inky depths. There was something otherworldly about that gaze, something oblique and unspoken, and yet it held all the sensual promise of a courtesan's smile.

"Do you not think I have other methods to compel you?" he murmured.

My corset felt suddenly too tight.

[she goes on for a para speculating on this and that...and then:]

...my defenses always fell to Brisbane, usually when he needed to breach them the most. How convenient for him, I thought bitterly.

My throat felt thick, and when I spoke, my voice was like honeyed whiskey.

"Brisbane," I sad softly. Holding his gaze, I slid to my knees, coming to rest between his booted feet. I heard his breath catch, and a noise in the back of his throat that might have been a stifled groan.

I held up my own hand teasingly. "A question first, my lord."

I dropped my hand to his boot top. It rested there a moment, my fingers just below the curve of his knee, before I slid it with deliberate, teasing slowness down the supple leather to his foot, he exhaled slowly through flared nostrils, his eyes never leaving mine.

Suddenly and without warning, I grabbed the boot hard and swung it up. He pulled back, swearing fluently in Gaelic, but I had caught him by surprise. I clamped onto the boot with both hands and held it...

Busted! She goes on to tell how she could tell from the state of his boots that he'd been roaming outside the Abbey. Oh, oh, all so fun and great.

Corsets from wikimedia commons.

Take me AWAY!

Well, I have had one of those weeks! Overscheduling, duelling deadlines, clients expecting magic and getting lumps of lame-o, one pathetic bout of me crying at a downtown busstop, and one narrowly averted double-scheduling. Where's my evil twin when I need her?

Anyway, I can barely even express how wonderful it has been to be reading Silent in the Sanctuary by Deanna Raybourn this week. Settling into the world of this book every night has saved my sanity.

Much of it takes place in the family ancestral home, a great Abbey in Sussex. The characters dress for dinner, which I always enjoy reading about. Lady Julia Grey's maid sometimes suggests outfits, frequently velvet gowns, as well as accessories. As far as I'm concerned, the book cover is totally Lady Julia in her gray pearls which she wore one night. Even though the pearls are black in the picture.

I love that the family and their houseguests play games after dinner. In the part I read last night, they considered charades, but settled on sardines, a kind of adult hide and seek. And stormy handsome mysterious Brisbane, stormily mulling in the background.

I so want to live there! I have so enjoyed luxuriating in this world. Yes the writing is beautiful, the story amazing, the series one of the best in known existence, but the world! Raybourn, take me away!

Review part 2 - Three things Raybourn is doing that I am loving - here!

Contest: Anybody else want to be transported to this most delicious world? I will personally buy and send you a copy of book #1, Silent in the Grave or book #2, this one plus another goody. Just let me know you are entering in the comments and I'll pick one person on Tuesday. Open to all countries.

Image: Portrait of Madame Paul Poirson by John Singer Sargent, wikimedia

Heavy into SILENT IN THE GRAVE

Oh boy, I am so crazy into Silent in the Grave by Deanna Raybourn. It is so wonderfully gothic! And I love the voice of the main character, Lady Julia Grey. So well done and smart and lovely. The story is delightful. The whole thing is delightful. I have already ordered the next.

Okay, quick synopsis:
At the opening, Sir Edward collapses and dies at his London home, in the presence of his wife, Julia, and a roomful of dinner guests. Julia assumes it was a heart condition, and is outraged when private inquiry agent (like a Victorian P.I.) Nicholas Brisbane suggests that Sir Edward has been murdered. Later she comes to believe the enigmatic Brisbane, and together they follow a trail of clues that lead Julia to even more unpleasant truths, and a killer who waits expectantly for her arrival.

One of my fave gambits--not a spoiler
About a third of the way in our heroine, widow Lady Julia Grey bursts in on the brooding Brisbane (who is still kind of a stranger to her) and finds him ill, delerious, and not fully dressed. She feels bad about it, and afterwards here is what she thinks to herself:

And worse by far, I had taken advantage of Brisbane's indisposition and state of undress to assess his physique. It was shamefull, really. Poor Brisbane, racked by pain and half mad with absinthe, and I had actually taken the opportunity to look at his bared chest.

My only consolation was that I had not enjoyed the experience. Brisbane was not at all the sort of man I admired. He was too dark, too tall, too thickly muscled, altogether too much. I preferred a slender, epicene form, with delicately sketched muscles and golden hair. Graceful, artistocratic, like a Renaissance statue. Like Edward.

She goes on a bit, and though she notes that Brisbane had his own sort of grace that "puts one in mind of wolves and lithe jungle cats" (!!) she concludes that:

It required an entirely different aesthetic altogether to appreciate Brisbane, one that I lacked. Entirely. Even so, it was wrong of me even to look at him, especially at so fraught a time.

When I was reading this I thought, what??? The heroine isn't thunderstruck by the unexpected glimpse of the hero?!? I mean, there are shades of "thou doth protest too much" but so subtle I couldn't tell...and I really wanted to tell! I'm so spoiled by instant gratification in these sorts of circumstances, I was a bit disappointed. Not for long.

I was immensely pleased when this passage comes a few pages later. Lady Julia is searching through her old books for a specific one, and finds Persuasion, Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice.

The rest were much the same, romantic stories with dark, brooding men with mysterious pasts and scornful glances. Some of them were good novels, by proper authors. Much of it was complete rubbish. I groaned as I shoved them back onto the shelf. How many summer days had I whiled away tucked in the apple tree at Bellmont Abbey with one of these books, dreaming of the day when a darkly handsome man would sweep me away to his castle on the moor? How many winter evenings had I huddled in bed, reading by candlelight until my eyes ached just to see if it all turned out happily for the beleaguered lovers?

Why on earth had my father permitted me to read such muck? It had left me with an overactive, overromantic imagination, I thought furiously. As a girl, when I had imagined my future husband, I had always thought of someone dark and masterful, lord of some crumbling estate...

In the uppermost part of her mind, she is attracted to pretty blonde men like her late husband Edward, but then when she's looking at her old books, she sort of reveals what is deeper in her psyche--dark, brooding heroes like Heathcliff...or Brisbane.

Oh, I so admired this smart and entertaining use of first person! Can an author even pull this off in third person? I suppose, but it just wouldn't be so much fun. For this reader, anyway.

Another small thing I loved about this book is the kindness of characters to one another. It made me happy to be in this world. I especially enjoyed Lady Julia's kindness to others, and her extreme conscientiousness. What reminded me of it was this bit I found when I was searching for the above. This was a few lines below:

(Julia, thinking about her late husband Edward): "Once I married him, I ceased to think of my girlhood heroes, carefully shelving the books I had once adored. I somehow felt disloyal to Edward to read them..." and later, "And I remained faithful to him, even in literature."

Faithful even in literature! I would heartily recommend this to anybody. (Unless you're looking for smutty heat.) I can't wait to read the next.