Season's greasons again, dear readers! I hope you are ready to dive into the fail once more, because I'm having a little spare time to really dig into the badness of this book, and I'm set on making that everybody else's problem. We haven't reached the truly horrifying parts yet, but I can already feel my outrage building like steam in a pressure cooker. And I'm also making that your problem. Chapter 4 is fairly short, so I decided to do a bad-stravaganza and recap that one as well. You're welcome.
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| Today's reading mood. |
Chapter 3: Quelle Surprise
Previously on Moonlit Obsession: the awkwardly-named heroine Anemone was properly introduced to the love interest, Stephen Burke, who was so charming he put me in mind of Burke and Hare instead of Mr. Darcy. So that's what we're dealing with. Anemone had also received a coded letter from her dad, who had faked his death, asking her to meet him ASAP in Louisiana; so she came up with the most laughably flimsy cover story I've ever seen to avert suspicion from her planned sudden departure. She then decided to hide in the library to eavesdrop on Lord Pelham – the guy she's gathering intel on – and Burke having a talk. Also, if you think I'm running out of ridiculous things I can call Anemone to make fun of that name... I'm barely getting started.
This chapter opens with Alpaca noting that the Pelham house is way too quiet now that the family is having dinner with Burke, pondering that as she's sneaking into the library. The butler, Moffett, surprises her as she's walking down the stairs and asks what she's doing, so Alfalfa does some quick thinking and tells him she's looking for her smelling salts. 'Kay. Her... brilliant deception doesn't help and Moffett simply sends her on her way, but as soon as he leaves she takes off straight for the library. She spends roughly half a page describing the room, and I'll spare y'all because I love y'all, then she thinks over the fact that Lord Pelham is struggling to keep his reputation up with all the gambling debts he's been collecting, so he's started selling intel to the French to stave off debtor's prison somehow. That's a fairly interesting character backstory, so no complaints here.
What I do have complaints about is Artichoke noting that Lord Pelham has been receiving known French intelligence agents in his own damn home in broad daylight, and leaving a bunch of compromising papers in his unlocked desk for her to find at her leisure. Clearly every single spy in this story had a severe brain worm population spike to make the heroine look halfway intelligent in comparison. Nonetheless, Alien vs. Predator is very proud of herself for finding out all this, and notes that knowing where America's government is standing in the ongoing England vs. France slapfight could be valuable intel.
Armed with that conviction, Axl Rose goes to hide... behind the curtains. Even though there's a closet in the room that nobody uses. You see, she's had severe claustrophobia since her childhood and refuses to spend who knows how long in a tiny space, and... Okay, I'm not here to knock anyone's experiences with trauma, but isn't not being able to use a hiding place a fairly severe hindrance for a spy? What the fuck is she going to do if one of the men decides he wants some fresh air? One would think her dad or any of the people who have trained her/worked with her would have taken steps to help Accelerator with that little setback. Then again, applying the word "think" to a lot of things the characters do would collapse the entire plot of this book like a Jenga tower. If you think I'm being too harsh, wait and see.
Eventually, Armenia hears Burke and his Lordship enter the library; Burke whips out some football hooligan social skills and begins violently shaking Lord Pelham... because he dared to offer Burke a drink before talking business. Stay classy, man. Also, stay away from me. Turns out Burke is impatient because he's looking very hard for a ship named the Belvidere, and makes Lord Pelham promise he'll have its route tracked down for Burke in two days. Lord Pelham, by the way, is terrified. So is AC/DC.
Anemone herself felt cold with fear at the barely leashed violence of Stephen Burke.
As I promised in my intro to this recap series: I'm letting that gem speak for itself.
Lord Pelham then finally gets himself a drink, and I really feel for him because he makes it clear to Burke that he doesn't enjoy selling intel on his country, and is only doing it because he has no other options left to save his kids and his family name from ruin. Burke makes a disgusting crack about Lord Pelham being willing to sell his daughter too if it comes to that, and I want to dropkick him into a volcano. Lord Pelham is furious at him, as he should be, but it's obvious he can't do a damn thing to teach Burke some respect. How I wish I could introduce Lord Pelham to someone like Sarah Connor and let her take care of Burke for him. Preferably with a mop handle. Lord Pelham does, however, let Burke know that he has some extra intel on something fishy happening in New Orleans – which is where Appendix is headed herself, quelle surprise!
Burke and his poor, poor Lordship come to an agreement to finish their trading two days from now, Burke leaves, and it's like someone just towed out a porta-potty to not have him in the scene any longer. Alas, I know my respite will be brief.
Behind the magical curtain of invisibility, Accordion is thinking hard and realizes that it would be too much of a coincidence for Lord Pelham to have spy intel on New Orleans from the Brits' side if it doesn't have to do with her dad's dealings. Er, congratulations on arriving where the rest of us already are, ma'am. She slowly goes nuts with impatience in her hiding place until his Lordship finally leaves, then she quickly slips out herself and goes back to her room. However, she's too keyed up by all the questions her eavesdropping has raised, so she decides to go for a stroll in the gardens.
But oh, noez, Antimatter is not alone on her late-night walk! When she steps outside, the parlor doors open and Lord Pelham's son, Viscount Anthony Who-Cares happens to stand behind them. Ars Poetica freezes and mutters some "words she had learned from the battlefield" – like what, "cannonball"? Just say she swore, I promise it's less lame – and Viscount Who-Cares goes all "Well, well, well..." on her. Then he ends the chapter by reaching out to grab her.
Like Queen Victoria in that Doctor Who episode, I am not amused, gentle readers.
Warning: the next chapter includes a guy trying to put the moves on the heroine against her will. It's brief and I'll do my best to tone it down, but take care.
Chapter 4: Thanks, I Hate It
We open the chapter where we left off, and we're treated in nauseating detail to Who-Cares trying and succeeding to plant a kiss on Arctic Tern. She thinks of kneeing him in the balls but decides that it would be "unbecoming" of her cover as a meek maid, so instead she tries feebly to squirm away and it has the same effect as throwing a pebble at a charging elephant. I'm really, really not one to victim-blame, and as much as I dislike Axiom already, it's hard not to feel outraged on her behalf, but... she should have just gone for that gonad kick rather than the author treating us to this scene of lovingly-described assault. Especially because the whole purpose of this gross display is to have Burke heroically ride to Aerosmith's rescue instead of her being able to free herself.
I'm far from swooning. Extremely fucking far.
So after more unwanted kissing, Burke poofs into the scene and yanks the dipshit away from Avengers Initiative; said dipshit then decides not to fight him because he's clearly dangerous. Also, Burke's impossible midnight blue eyes have morphed into "ice blue" ones now, like a mood ring, I presume. He's having a grand old time staring the Viscount down right now and waiting for him to issue some kind of challenge. He's also showing no concern for Ampersand whatsoever because he's busy measuring dicks, and no, I'm not even surprised.
As the testosterone-fest is going on, Amazonas is recovering and getting very pissed off, but decides she needs her cover more than she needs to slap Who-Cares's teeth out, so she just meekly thanks Burke for his help. So not only could she not stop her own assault, the narrative won't even let her retaliate and I'm moving on before I do a Scanners-style headsplosion. She leaves, but on her way back to her room she overhears Burke advising Who-Cares to find himself a willing partner next time, then... then...
"Besides, the chit is hardly a raving beauty. Surely you can do better..."I–
He–
No.
If I can't commit some anger management on this guy because he's a fictional character, I'm ignoring this entire scene and moving on from that too. Draw your own conclusions, gentle readers.
Anakin Skywalker runs to her room to avoid committing some anger management herself, and tries to cool off from how incensed she is. Amazingly (read: headache-inducingly, off-pissingly), out of Burke saying that she's not pretty enough to assault, she's stuck on the 'not pretty' part. She assures herself that he's the last man she'd ever want to admire her, I see what you did there and thanks, I hate it.
Absurdity then tries to force herself to think about her assignment and her dad's secret business, but ends up standing in front of a mirror and wondering if Burke would find her prettier in a nightgown than in her frumpy maid clothes. That's it, folks: I fear that now I really have to introduce a new element into this recap, lifted from the discussions I had with my writing group when I first read this book with them. So from now on, every single time Alphabet Soup shows off her mad spying skillz like that, I'm going to raise my face to the sky and bellow three words to let out my frustration. If you wish, you can count these instances. I won't because we'd be here all day.
Taking a deep breath and...
SUPER MEGA SPY!
Whew, I feel better now.
The book has apparently heard me and wishes to remedy that for me, so once Atonement is done assuring herself that she doesn't care about Burke's opinion, she looks down at the garden again and sees him making out with Cecilia. Given that he's here to threaten some intel out of her father, this has shot past gross and straight into despicable.
Aesop's Fables assures herself that she's perfectly indifferent to what she just saw, then goes to bed and tries not to cry because she totally doesn't care, no sir. Meanwhile I'm left to ponder whether I want to watch Scott Adkins or Dolph Lundgren in some direct-to-video schlock that still treats its women better than whatever the hell this is.
See you next time, gentle readers; take care. If anyone needs me, I'll be over here, watching something I can swoon at better than this book. Like a prison fighting movie.
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