Devil's Cub >>>> These Old Shades

I've just read Devil's Cub, a sequel of sorts to These Old Shades, and preferred it so much more than its predecessor. My god, it makes such a difference when the main characters are more lovable! Though this book also grated on me with its excessive snobbery and classism, I could let pass the problems for the charm of the story and the characters. One of the things that drove me nuts in These Old Shades that I'd forgotten to mention in my previous post was how much the essentialist idea that birth will out regardless of upbringing pissed me off. I know you have to overlook this kind of attitude when reading books like this, but when it's shoved in your face so strongly it's infuriating. In any case, the sequel is so much better. The bad boy son is bad, but the lady (after the initial mishandling of the situation) deals with him so well he becomes rather endearing. The Marquis of Vidal pointlessly shoots a guy and is forced by his father to leave England. He decides to take the pretty but stupid bourgeois girl he had been seducing to France with him. She and her mother think she can trap him into marriage. Her much smarter older sister Mary knows better, so when she intercepts Vidal's note she decides to take her sister's place at the rendezvous and get Vidal to forget her sister. Unfortunately, when Vidal gets mad he gets mad, and he forces Mary to go with him instead of her sister. It's only when it's rather too late for her reputation that he realizes she's a lady you shouldn't ruin…

The two of them are great together once Vidal stops treating Mary like a trollop. I like how the spoiled rich boy who's always gotten everything has do some chasing. The older characters who appeared in These Old Shades run around as well and are great fun. Mary's meeting with Vidal's father in particular was a good read.

( more blabbing )