His Last Duchess Gabrielle Kimm #inbetweeny

Minor confusion at the start of this book as I inadvertently mistook Lucrezia Borgia for Lucrezia de Medici and I couldn't understand when I began reading as to why Lucrezia's father was not the Pope. A quick reference to my book shelf later corrected my error and away I went with de Medici who was most definitely not a Popes daughter and was about to get married to the Duke of Ferrara.

Now I'm no prude, I have read 50 Shades of Gray as one of the groups books of the month and believe sex does have a place in books (Sarah Waters being an excellent example) however take out anything to do with sex in His Last Duchess and you have nothing left, even 50 Shades had a crazed man out for revenge sub story to keep us going inbetween.

It wasn't even a 50 Shades esque book whereby its the sex that sells it. Kimm goes in to detail at the end of the book as to how it was inspired by a Robert Browning poem and was based on a real life story. However in this 'real life' story all anyone did, all anyone thought about and all anyone was driven by was sex, it was boring.

We were told time and time again how Lucrezia wasn't typically pretty, yet her cousin, her husband, the painter and seemingly anyone who came into contact with her wanted to sleep with her.

Poor Chiara's character was shoe horned in to the story and often forgotten about until convenient moments yet even she had a sex scene. Oh and by the way when does rigor mortis fit in?

Lucrezia's 'demise' was ridiculous with the ending too sugary sweet. I wish Kimm had explored the fascinating character of Ferrara however we were left with his 'busy mind' and his 'unopened door' instead. Francesca was surprisingly quite likeable yet as a prostitute nearly every one of her scenes referenced Ferrara's exotic tastes in the bedroom. Kimm's next book does centre around Francesca and her life as a courtesan and reading inbetween the lines does seem to heavily feature sex yet again.
A real life character with a Browning poem to boot had buckets of potential but unfortunately it never got off the ground (or should that be out of the bedroom?)

Comments

Lock down book club - books from a different country

So we continued with the Zoom version of book club this month and it was lovely to see so many of us tackle it. The theme was books set in a different country (if you can't travel, let a book take you). I read The Accident on the A35 by Graeme Macrae Burnet, a detective story with an element of tricksy fiction set in France. I really enjoyed it and you can read my full review here. We travelled to America a couple of times most interestingly to see whether Hilary Clinton (or Bill for that fact) would have made President if they had not got married. Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld is out in hardback now. Norway was a popular spot - Norwegian Nights by Derek B Miller about a retired american marine who moves to Norway and intervenes to save a young boys life sounded interesting. So much so that at least one member of the group has gone on to buy the first in the series, American By Day. We even made it as far as Japan and Botswana (and discovered a Scottish connection for Alexander McCa

When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanthi

I expected to be emotionally drained after reading this one and to be honest (in a weird kind of way) I didn’t mind the thought that I would be. This was backed up by the introduction describing a brilliant young man whose writing was breath taking and whose story was devastating. Emotional rollercoaster of epic proportions was surely in store. I didn’t mind the beginning of the book although I was slightly surprised when we delved so deeply into Kalanthi's past in what was only a slim book. I was willing to gloss over the large number of references to his search as a youth to finding the meaning of life and what makes us, us as after all this was written by someone forced to ponder that very question. I also found the medical training he did vaguely interesting, I appreciated the reverence he placed in relation to the cadaver he was required to cut open as part of his medical training. However when it became apparent the actual portion of the book to do with him receiving hi

Mount by Jilly Cooper #inbetweeny

I'll start this blog with a warning, this post does contain spoilers. So if you haven't read the book then please don't read this blog, yet. Of course you should read this post just wait a little while until you've read the latest installment of Rupert Campbell Black (RCB). Warnings out of the way I'll begin. I was massively looking forward to reading this book having hugely enjoyed the previous ones. RCB is my (not so) secret trashy pleasure and has been for many years. This book had all the ingredients of a classic, pages of wonderfully named characters, a few tortured souls and of course RCB with all his horses, dogs and now grandchildren. The book got off to a good start full of characters from old but also plenty of new ones to mix it up a bit. The horse's really played a starring role in this book but I also really loved Gav and at first Gala. Yep only at first as she went strongly down hill and I bet you can guess why. RCB. Here is where I fell o

Cramlington Book Club

Search This Blog