B-
Genre: Historical: Other, Romance
I jumped on this ARC because it was set in Iraq (Mosul, Ninevah). I did have colonialism concerns- she’s a British lady travelling through the Middle East with her family in the 1860s, so there’s a lot of “swiping of artifacts” and “you don’t have a flag so this land is ours” things happening in reality and it’s awkward to write about.
Marek tries really hard.
Emily is a pampered daughter of an earl, but like any good romance heroine, she’s stifled by all the rules and the boring people and everything is the same same same! Her father is sent to Mosul ostensibly to see about the possibilities of building a railroad to help with troop movements in the area, but he’s really more interested in Assyrian artifacts and travelling around and seeing places that aren’t England. His wife is equally adventurous, and they have Julia with them, who is the sister of the man their older daughter married in the first book in the series.
At the British Embassy, they meet Lucien Chambertin and Philip Oliphant. Lucien is French adventurer who’s been travelling around after peacing out on his annoying family and all their ~expectations~ and ~responsibilities~ and things. Philip is half-Arabic, which makes him suspect on the part of the British aristocracy, and Lucien is French (enough said). Emily and her family find them to be useful and helpful (and attractive) guides to get them to Mosul.
Lucien figures that he’s got a bunch of uppity British people on his hands, except the wife and daughters are willing to go on the not-luxurious and kind-of dangerous trip, and when he eyes their crinolines and suggests maybe they want to try like… Turkish or Kurdish clothing? They’re down.
Emily and Julia make it a point to learn enough Arabic to exchange pleasantries with people who host them during the journey (“I am pleased to meet you” “thank you for giving us a place to stay” “Your coffee is delicious”) along with rude words that come along with any language learning (Chekhov’s Swears: they come in handy later).
Emily is a Neo-classical heroine- bored with her life, wants to do more and go adventuring! Go to Shanghai! Explore the Nile! Something more than see the same people and have the same inane conversations. Lucien is a fairly typical “dude running away from his annoying and kind of abusive family WHOOPS HE’S MORE THAN HE SEEMS”.
I think the real weakness in this book is that there’s a lot plot, but it gets dispensed with quickly. They travel! Everyone gets along fine. Emily gets kidnapped (kind of!) They find her in two chapters. They get attacked by Kurds! Nothing happens. A secondary character is a little bit psycho! They just need some love. Lucien’s secret is revealed! Emily is okay with it. It all just gets resolved so quickly before moving on to the next thing.
The thing that made me most concerned about this book (before reading it) is the issue of colonialism. This is an era in which Great Britain was snatching up anything that wasn’t nailed down (and if it could be pried up, it wasn’t nailed down). In the modern reader’s eye, it can hard to identify and root for someone who believes that is the proper way the world works, and it’s not a subject that can be avoided in this setting.
Emily’s father doesn’t care about claiming land, and while he’s officially there to look into finding a railway route, he’s really interested in looking at artifacts, not taking them out of the country. Emily is really interested in learning about the cultures that she’s visiting and doesn’t automatically think, “British is best and we must civilize all these heathens!” That was a relief, even if it didn’t seem quite realistic. I liked these people. I kind of want the story of Emily’s parents and how they met and the adventures they’ve had.
I liked the unconventional setting, and I loved that Marek clearly put a lot of thought in how to address this particular chapter of British and Middle Eastern history. I wish that fewer plot points had been developed further rather than rushed through to get to more plot points. I am looking forward to see what else Marek has in store.
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Honestly, I have a similar problem when reading Western frontier romances. Whee, we’re heading west to snatch up huge ranches of land which were totes empty before we showed up! Or – not. I think it’s always a bit tricky when you’re reading romances from the point of view of a dominant and exploitative class (whether you’re talking Texan ranchers or English aristocrats or heck, modern American billionaires). Honestly, romances written from the point of view of displaced Apaches or colonised irate Iraqis would probably be classed as another genre of fiction altogether. Romancelandia is chiefly inhabited by privileged peoples.
Beverly Bird has a set of four wonderful books (Comes the Rain,Touch the Sun, The Pony Wife and Walk into the Night) with native american leads that usually center around each tribes major conflicts with the US government that I would consider romancy.
Something I should have mentioned in the review proper: the word “exotic” in the title is super cringe inducing, and I don’t know if that was Marek’s call or the publishers, but there it is.
I picked up Marek’s previous book, her debut, because I’m always looking for non-UK settings. Based on that experiene I won’t be picking up “Lady Emily’s Exotic Journey”. While the story did display awareness of the historical milieu, the characters killed any enjoyment for me. Anyone the author seemed to approve of was given 21st-century attitudes whereas if a character seemed more of their time, it was a safe bet they were not One Of Us. Indeed, everyone except the heroine+her family, the (fake-tortured) hero, and his sisters were described as Inferior in some way: “whore”, “ninnies”, ignorant drunkards, dimwitted, etc. – including Queen Victoria and the British Ambadossador to France (Lord Cowley).
So that experience on top of the unsupportably crass title of the book reviewed here nixed this second book for me. That said, I might still have given the author the benefit of the doubt because of my interest in eastern Mediterranean settings if I hadn’t been so badly burned by Deanna Raybourn’s “City Of Jasmine”. After that shock, I’m just not courageous enough. I’m glad there’s a new historical romance author who looks outside the UK, though. Here’s hoping many more will follow.
@RedHeadedGirl after your comment about flags this was all I could think of: http://youtu.be/hYeFcSq7Mxg.
(For those of you who don’t want to follow the link it’s Eddie Izzard’s No Flag No Countrym from Dressed to Kill, acted out in Lego stop animation).
I think I’ll give this book a miss but I really wonder why its genre is listed as “science fiction/fantasy?”
@Gloriamarie: Where? It’s “historical: other” on this site.
In the email I received:
Lady Emily’s Exotic Journey
B-
Lady Emily’s Exotic Journey
by Lillian Marek
August 4, 2015 · Sourcebooks Casablanca
Science Fiction/Fantasy
yeah, I have no idea what that is. Something hiccuped.
Thanks for looking into it. When I saw the title, the cover and that genre I found myself hoping her exotic journey was to the stars.
I love the Elizabeth Peters Amelia Peabody series, a little romance but the characters show great respect for preserving artifacts.
I can’t get behind 19th century characters bring given 21st century attitudes, not without a really good explanation. If your story is in an era when the dominant people are ravaging another country, you owe it to your story to handle that realistically, otherwise you’re gonna lose readers. Why couldn’t Emily have been your average imperialist who learns, through immersion, that Iraq and it’s peoples can teach her? That would’ve been waaaay better.
That’s something the Poldark books do manage fairly well – Ross is fairly liberal by the standards of the day, but still not interested in universal suffrage because clearly, that’s just crazy talk.
Jamie, I am 100% with you about 19th century characters having 21st century vocabulary and attitudes. That really annoys me. I hate anachronisms. I feel an author is being very lazy when the author fails to remember the mores of our culture were not thos of the one being written about.
I just read a book that had some of the same plot lines but I enjoyed it! Connie Brockway’s “As You Desire”. There were dinner discussion about taking artifacts out of the country (Egypt) but the hero is a treasure hunter without apology. It also reminds me of a book I really enjoyed (no treasure hunting though) which takes place in the Ottoman Empire: Carolyn Jewel’s Indiscreet. I think a good historial romance author should know their history and be able to tell a story from various points of view. But if the book is about the British, I would assume that the prevailing viewpoint by those characters would be colonial.