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cahnOkay, so I spent the whole of Beekeeper's Apprentice wondering why the romance between the two main characters (okay, there's not so much of one in this particular book, but unless you are blind and deaf you KNOW what's going to happen) doesn't bother me very much at all, and definitely not nearly as much as Dag and Fawn's romance.
Because honestly, if someone had described this book to me before I read it I would have run away screaming: MUCH older, wiser mentor starts having feelings for Mary-Sue-like-young girl whom he is teaching and whose personality he is molding, and vice versa! I mean, squicky ick!
Here are the things that save it:
-It goes really slowly. I mean, this book takes place over a number of years, enough for them to get pretty solidly attached *before* any monkey business starts happening. (Though I've been informed that the horrible! horrible! line "I've wanted to do that since the first moment I saw you" is used after their first kiss. I think she was, what, 15 at the time? Eww yuck! I will simply chalk that down to temporary insanity due to kiss-induced hormones and assume that it does not actually mean anything corresponding to their actual relationship.) I can't deal with these love-in-two-weeks things. I really can't, not combined with a huge difference in age.
-Really, Mary's character is supposed to be molded by her mentor/eventual-lover, but I can't really imagine that anyone's going to mold her without her molding the molder right back.
-It's beat home to us during the entire book (although having Mary say it explicitly in the first ten pages is a bit too much!) that there is no one else for either of them. Can be no one else. They won't settle for anything less than an entire, complete partnership, and their minds are sufficiently, well, different, that there aren't too many people who will do.
-This is related to the previous point: they are partners. The last confrontation where they work so tightly together like two parts of a machine? Yes! I will forgive a lot for partners like that. John/Aeryn in Farscape also have that sort of vibe, and I love it.
Because honestly, if someone had described this book to me before I read it I would have run away screaming: MUCH older, wiser mentor starts having feelings for Mary-Sue-like-young girl whom he is teaching and whose personality he is molding, and vice versa! I mean, squicky ick!
Here are the things that save it:
-It goes really slowly. I mean, this book takes place over a number of years, enough for them to get pretty solidly attached *before* any monkey business starts happening. (Though I've been informed that the horrible! horrible! line "I've wanted to do that since the first moment I saw you" is used after their first kiss. I think she was, what, 15 at the time? Eww yuck! I will simply chalk that down to temporary insanity due to kiss-induced hormones and assume that it does not actually mean anything corresponding to their actual relationship.) I can't deal with these love-in-two-weeks things. I really can't, not combined with a huge difference in age.
-Really, Mary's character is supposed to be molded by her mentor/eventual-lover, but I can't really imagine that anyone's going to mold her without her molding the molder right back.
-It's beat home to us during the entire book (although having Mary say it explicitly in the first ten pages is a bit too much!) that there is no one else for either of them. Can be no one else. They won't settle for anything less than an entire, complete partnership, and their minds are sufficiently, well, different, that there aren't too many people who will do.
-This is related to the previous point: they are partners. The last confrontation where they work so tightly together like two parts of a machine? Yes! I will forgive a lot for partners like that. John/Aeryn in Farscape also have that sort of vibe, and I love it.
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Date: 2007-06-04 10:47 pm (UTC)Oooo, do not know anything about Martinelli. Will try post-haste.
Thanks muchly for telling me about the Russell books! :) I haven't gotten so excited about a book in a while :) Russell, for no reason I can clearly articulate, basically captured my heart, in a way that Harriet Vane (though I think the Sayers novels are really really really good) never quite did (though I feel like an utter cad for saying so, and Gaudy Night is still my favorite mystery of all time) (actually... you were asking about this, and there is NO murder in Gaudy Night, although I dunno, it is steeped in human evil and misery for all of that, so it may not meet your criteria really). And I myself have a huge crush on Holmes dating back to, oh, junior high or so, so...