How far behind am I on the booklog? So far behind that I was reading Nora Roberts’ Chesapeake Blue to decompress from packing the apartment to move into the new house: end of January, in other words.
[ If you’re curious as to what’s been taking up all my time, see my LiveJournal and the Miscellany page. ]
This is Roberts’ latest mainstream hardcover. I wasn’t planning on reading it; I didn’t know what it was about, but lately her mainstream hardcovers have been rather heavy on the random serial killers for my taste. Then, while looking for something else, I discovered that Chesapeake Blue was a sequel to the trilogy that ended with Inner Harbor, and focuses on Seth, who was a pre-teen at the time of those books. When I found this out, I said, “Well, heck, now I have to read this, which means waiting for the library to have it.”
A few weeks later, I was browsing the vendors at a book sale at work. One charity was selling funny small-sized hardcovers (book club editions?) for paperback prices, including Chesapeake Blue. Clearly, this was A Sign, so I purchased it and read it shortly thereafter.
It’s not true that if you’ve read one Nora Roberts book, you’ve read them all. However, once you’ve read lots of Nora Roberts books, as I have, you pretty much know what you’re getting. Her strengths, as always, are her people and their families and other relationships. Her weaknesses tend to be in the details. For instance, there’s this conversation in Chapter One that positively screams as-you-know-Bob infodumping. An excerpt:
“ . . . The boat business is thriving. . . . Aubrey’s working there.”
“No kidding? . . . How’s she doing?”
“Terrific. She’s beautiful, smart, stubborn and, according to Cam, a genius with wood. I think Grace was a little disappointed when Aubrey didn’t want to pursue dancing, but it’s hard to argue when you see your child so happy. And Grace and Ethan’s Emily followed in her mother’s toe shoes.”
“She still heading to New York end of August?”
“A chance to dance with the American Ballet Company doesn’t come along every day. She’s grabbing it, and she swears she’ll be principal before twenty.”
I read that and said, “Good grief, even I can do better than that.” For my own amusement, a first pass at more subtle incluing follows:
“Did you hear that Aubrey has started working at the business?”
“No kidding? How’s she doing?”
“Cam says she’s a genius with wood.”
“How’s Grace taking it? Are they still butting heads over Aubrey pursuing dancing?”
“I think she was a little disappointed at first, but it’s hard to argue when you see your child so happy. And Emily’s big news took the pressure off Aubrey.”
“She leaves for New York pretty soon, right? Is she nervous?”
“August, and Emily, nervous? Are you kidding—this is the woman who insists she’s going to make principal by twenty. And you know, even though it’s the American Ballet Company, I wouldn’t want to bet against her.”
Enough self-indulgence. Once the plot gets started, the craft level smoothes out considerably, and the comfort read unfolds: all the family and friends from the prior trilogy are thriving, Seth deals with issues from his past and falls in love, and everyone ends up happy except for the villain—exactly what I needed during packing and moving.
There’s one other thing that struck my eye: the book is dedicated “To every reader who ever asked : When are you going to tell Seth’s story?” Now, call me crazy, but I rather think “rescued from evil biological mother by kindly people and given a home, family, and opportunity to develop your artistic talent, all before you hit puberty” is enough story for most people’s lives. The dedication’s phrasing, though, suggests that a person’s story is automatically their failling in love, which I found disconcerting. I don’t know what my story is, but I don’t think it’s only that—or that it has to be only that. (Yes, this is partly a function of the genre, and it’s possible that no deep thought was put into that phrasing, but as I said, I found it striking.)
(Hmm, I guess I wasn’t done with the self-indulgence after all.)