Merry Christmas, dear readers! Have some more bad, it's your gift from me!
Today's recap is a special one: I originally intended to put off reading the next chapter of Moonlit Obsession until after the holidays, but I took a look at it and nope, this can't wait. The recapper's credo is "If I have to suffer, so do you", and I intend to live up to it because holy moly is this not good.
Join me in Chapter 2 of my most, er, interesting romance read, where things take a turn from bad and creepy to bad and lowkey terrifying.
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| This chapter's image is from the movie Deadfall; a.k.a. the face I was making the entire time while reading. |
Chapter 2: Dear God, Get the Mace
In the first chapter of Moonlit Obsession we met the improbably-named young lady Anemone Carstairs, and I proceeded to call her other weird things starting with A for the rest of the recap to show how awkward that name sounds. We learned that she's a spy; not a very good one, but that's fine because her superiors are all dumber than her. We also met the love interest in a meet cute where he knocked the heroine over into a puddle, insulted her and freaked us all out with his creepy pushiness. Anemone then found out that her father, a top spy everyone thought was dead, is not so dead after all because he sent her a letter, and I couldn't even be bothered to do a DUN DUN DUUUN joke because the book had worn me down that fast. Oh boy.
Chapter two opens with Antioxidant waking up in her shabby servant's room and reading the coded letter again, which she couldn't fully take in last night because she was so elated to find that her dad is still on this mortal coil. We find out that he calls her by the nickname Emmy, which is perfectly logical to take from her actual name, of course; he tells her that she's in danger and to come to New Orleans to meet him, with as much discretion and as fast as she can. Apparently Thomas Carstairs had faked his death, as the man they ID'd as him was burned beyond recognition, and Apollo's Lute begins puzzling out what to do with this new development with "the common sense that characterized her". Dear authors who by some freak accident are reading this recap: if you constantly tell me how smart your main character is, it still doesn't make up for not actually showing them doing smart things in the text. Sincerely, Oculus.
To show exactly what I mean, Antigone has made the plan to keep on gathering intel for four more days, then tell Oliver she needs to be excused from the rest of the assignment... because she has to go nurse a sick cousin she has never mentioned to him before. That's the best cover story she could come up with?! God give me strength – I swear, if she wasn't working for Boris and Natasha, she'd be sussed out in a second. Even I know that's a suck excuse, and the closest I've ever come to covert operations was trying to sneak out a bag of crackers from the kitchen without waking up my mother.
Apology puzzles over the fact that her father's letter asks her not to tell anyone he's alive, not even Oliver, and suspects that there's a mole in the intelligence service. She comforts herself with the knowledge that she always has at hand a small vial of laudanum she carries to knock enemies out – I didn't know that an old-timey cough suppressant-slash-painkiller worked like chloroform does in murder mysteries, but go off, I guess. Either way, I'm fairly sure a "small vial" of plain laudanum wouldn't do jack if she needed someone out in a pinch unless the god Morpheus himself has cried into the bottle.
Anachronism then looks in the mirror and describes her appearance in great detail, in case you forgot we were reading a romance novel; all you need to know is that she's pale blonde with gray eyes, and keeps trying to trick the reader into thinking she's modest, but the narration uses words like "slim grace", "delicately peach-tinted complexion" and "luxuriant, ash blond locks", so no dice. She also lets us know that Lord Pelham's son, Viscount Anthony Wickham (har har, very clever, I suppose) keeps trying to come on to her and every single other woman he encounters, including the servants. Yikes. Yicycles.
Antarctica goes to Cecilia's room to burn her father's letter, and while she gets a cookie point for thinking to destroy it, I have to take it back right away for picking her employer's bedroom to do the destroying – lucky for her Cecilia is asleep, because it wouldn't look weird at all that her maid is burning a letter in her fireplace. Does Ambergris's bedroom not have something as complicated as a candle? She gets annoyed with Cecilia for waking up and giving her work to do and giggles at the thought of strangling Cecilia in her sleep – what a charming girl. Then Cecilia goes on a shopping spree with Amelia Earhart in tow, because she has no idea her father's in debt and thinks they can afford five new dresses. Does he... have no say at all in what his daughter does with their money if it's running so low? When they come back home, we also meet the butler and are treated to the phrase "inquired with disinterested solicitation" and someone please hide the thesaurus from this narrator.
Cecilia bursts into her father's parlor to tell him about her new hat, with Arrowhead following, and the two lasses find him with his son and also a guest – who else but our old friend the creep who bowled our zeroine over in our last chapter. What a marvelous contrivance! We find out that he has "midnight blue" eyes, which is a very interesting description fail, with a "rugged, arrogant face", and that he looks "handsome and dangerous", all of which somehow doesn't make me instantly fall in love. The fault is obviously in my wiring.
Luckily for Anglerfish's, uh, deep cover, he doesn't notice her and just straight up begins ogling Cecilia with a "lazy smile" and I'm torn between barfing and outrage because her father and brother are right there in the room. This guy is getting creepier by the second! Despite the guest's obvious leering, Lord Pelham makes the introductions to his daughter instead of immediately locking her in the closet and standing guard with a shotgun, and Ambiguity notices that he looks tired and very nervous. He says that the guest, one Stephen Burke, is his father's brother's nephew's cousin's former roommate* from America, but his voice is shaking; of course, Andalusia is the only one who notices that.
*copyright: Dark Helmet from Spaceballs
Armadillo's instincts tell her he's not actually a relative of the Pelhams – eat your heart out, Sherlock Holmes – and Burke very obviously lies that Cecilia's dad has invited him to stay with them. He's deliberately cold and intimidating through the whole scene and Lord Pelham is clearly scared shitless of him, and you know what, I'm gonna keep calling him Burke – like Burke and Hare. If you think that's overkill for a slightly creepy love interest like him... dear Lord, gentle readers, just you wait.
To show y'all I'm not kidding, he says he has a bad temper and Cecilia makes a crack about hoping she never provokes him into turning it against her, and this shit happens.
GOOD GOD, CECILIA, GET THE MACE.
Instead of leaving the room and possibly the country after that, Cecilia orders her maid to take her brand-new stuff upstairs, and Amityville leaves the parlor without Burke realizing that he... saw her out late once. Oh, my heart is aflutter at her lucky escape. She frowns at herself for being disappointed that he didn't recognize her, and I agree with her for once – Aphrodisiac, that is a dumb thing to get mad at because you're a freaking spy. She then makes me laugh because she calls him visibly turning all his Freddy Krueger charm on Lord Pelham "veiled warnings". Not a thing was veiled about any of that, sister. Since he's suspicious as hell even to a lady like her who's, uh, not the sharpest spoon in the drawer, she decides to hide in the library to eavesdrop on him and Lord Pelham. Clearly, a master spy has absolutely no other methods to listen in on a conversation than to be right freaking there and pray very hard to Lady Luck. For some reason she decides they will immediately kill her if they discover her, because that's totally how capturing enemy spies works – no interrogation, no searching her, no nothin' – but heroically decides to do it for the greater good.
The chapter ends with Audiophile hoping that Burke never crosses her because he would make a "brutal enemy", and that's it, I'm OUT – I'm going to watch something that freaks me out less than this damn book, like The Exorcist.
Ciao, dear readers. This Burke fellow might be a fictional character, but I'm still bolting my door tonight.
Antarctica goes to Cecilia's room to burn her father's letter, and while she gets a cookie point for thinking to destroy it, I have to take it back right away for picking her employer's bedroom to do the destroying – lucky for her Cecilia is asleep, because it wouldn't look weird at all that her maid is burning a letter in her fireplace. Does Ambergris's bedroom not have something as complicated as a candle? She gets annoyed with Cecilia for waking up and giving her work to do and giggles at the thought of strangling Cecilia in her sleep – what a charming girl. Then Cecilia goes on a shopping spree with Amelia Earhart in tow, because she has no idea her father's in debt and thinks they can afford five new dresses. Does he... have no say at all in what his daughter does with their money if it's running so low? When they come back home, we also meet the butler and are treated to the phrase "inquired with disinterested solicitation" and someone please hide the thesaurus from this narrator.
Cecilia bursts into her father's parlor to tell him about her new hat, with Arrowhead following, and the two lasses find him with his son and also a guest – who else but our old friend the creep who bowled our zeroine over in our last chapter. What a marvelous contrivance! We find out that he has "midnight blue" eyes, which is a very interesting description fail, with a "rugged, arrogant face", and that he looks "handsome and dangerous", all of which somehow doesn't make me instantly fall in love. The fault is obviously in my wiring.
Luckily for Anglerfish's, uh, deep cover, he doesn't notice her and just straight up begins ogling Cecilia with a "lazy smile" and I'm torn between barfing and outrage because her father and brother are right there in the room. This guy is getting creepier by the second! Despite the guest's obvious leering, Lord Pelham makes the introductions to his daughter instead of immediately locking her in the closet and standing guard with a shotgun, and Ambiguity notices that he looks tired and very nervous. He says that the guest, one Stephen Burke, is his father's brother's nephew's cousin's former roommate* from America, but his voice is shaking; of course, Andalusia is the only one who notices that.
*copyright: Dark Helmet from Spaceballs
Armadillo's instincts tell her he's not actually a relative of the Pelhams – eat your heart out, Sherlock Holmes – and Burke very obviously lies that Cecilia's dad has invited him to stay with them. He's deliberately cold and intimidating through the whole scene and Lord Pelham is clearly scared shitless of him, and you know what, I'm gonna keep calling him Burke – like Burke and Hare. If you think that's overkill for a slightly creepy love interest like him... dear Lord, gentle readers, just you wait.
To show y'all I'm not kidding, he says he has a bad temper and Cecilia makes a crack about hoping she never provokes him into turning it against her, and this shit happens.
Anemone watched the American's eyes narrow as he regarded her. "Then, for your sake, cousin, I hope that I need never do so," he murmured.
GOOD GOD, CECILIA, GET THE MACE.
Instead of leaving the room and possibly the country after that, Cecilia orders her maid to take her brand-new stuff upstairs, and Amityville leaves the parlor without Burke realizing that he... saw her out late once. Oh, my heart is aflutter at her lucky escape. She frowns at herself for being disappointed that he didn't recognize her, and I agree with her for once – Aphrodisiac, that is a dumb thing to get mad at because you're a freaking spy. She then makes me laugh because she calls him visibly turning all his Freddy Krueger charm on Lord Pelham "veiled warnings". Not a thing was veiled about any of that, sister. Since he's suspicious as hell even to a lady like her who's, uh, not the sharpest spoon in the drawer, she decides to hide in the library to eavesdrop on him and Lord Pelham. Clearly, a master spy has absolutely no other methods to listen in on a conversation than to be right freaking there and pray very hard to Lady Luck. For some reason she decides they will immediately kill her if they discover her, because that's totally how capturing enemy spies works – no interrogation, no searching her, no nothin' – but heroically decides to do it for the greater good.
The chapter ends with Audiophile hoping that Burke never crosses her because he would make a "brutal enemy", and that's it, I'm OUT – I'm going to watch something that freaks me out less than this damn book, like The Exorcist.
Ciao, dear readers. This Burke fellow might be a fictional character, but I'm still bolting my door tonight.
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