Four Smart Authors Part I: Leslie LaFoy

The following guest post was submitted by Magdalen. This is the first in a series of four posts. The second one is scheduled for Thursday 19 November 2009.

I volunteered to write a couple guest posts for Monkey Bear Reviews to help Sarah with her NaNoWriMo obligations.  So of course I’m procrastinating my own NaNoWriMo obligations by reading the dozen or so books I picked out, and now by writing the posts themselves.  That’s the beauty of procrastination — it’s willing to spread the love around.

I wanted to pick authors that I don’t see mentioned, ever, on the various discussions and exchanges in Romlandia.  And, because I seem to have been asleep from 1992 to 2005 or so, most of my choices were published 15 to 20 years ago.  At first blush the four authors I chose (Leslie LaFoy, Glenda Sanders, Beverly Sommers, and Mira Stables) have nothing in common.  But having re-read a portion of their backlist, I was finally able to identify the common thread:  They are all smart authors.

I don’t mean for the intelligence of an author to be an automatic sell, as there’s certain to be something in these books that someone won’t like.  That’s the beauty of romance fiction: a wide range of styles for everyone.  But I would say the following books all share some key characteristics:  They are well-plotted from beginning to end; they have depth (and by extension, don’t rely on shorthand, cliches, tropes, etc.); they employ unusual settings, setups and characters; and the writing is generally tight and readable.  And while not everything these four authors has ever written is equal in quality, I can recommend each of the books listed below.  (I’m not a reviewer, so no grades, and your mileage might vary.  What I did was take the book I liked best by each author and then a few others for comparison.  In most cases I was re-reading the target book for the third or fourth time, but the other books I might not have touched in 20 years!  It’s been interesting to see what’s held up over time, and why.)

First up:  Leslie LaFoy She’s written some contemporaries, and some long-format historicals more recently, but the books I re-read were all published around 2000.  Ms. LaFoy is one of the authors I would automatically look for in the Romance section of a big box store but she doesn’t seem to have a huge following, and I have to wonder why not.  Each of the three books I re-read is tightly plotted and interesting.  Not, I’ll agree, the most heart-squeezing, or breathtaking of romances, but all of her protagonists are people I wanted to spend 400 pages with, and boy are these books well-written!

Come What May (Bantam, 2002)

Unusual Setting:  Pre-Revolutionary War (1774) Williamsburg, Virginia

Unusual Setup:  Claire Curran arrives in Virginia to conduct some business for her uncle, who’s in trade in England.  Instead, his agent in Virginia is instructed to marry Claire off to Devon Rivard, a local landowner, in satisfaction of a debt.

So, how’s the book? In a word, satisfying.  As with her other books, this one’s has some elements of a romantic suspense mixed in with the standard historical fare.  Devon does marry Claire, albeit in ill-humor, and they ride off in a mutual huff to Rosewind, his estate, which is suffering from his father’s profligacy.  There are some passages dealing with the seeds of the Revolutionary War (and of course, this being Virginia, some gentlemen named Lee show up!), slavery, agriculture and the like, but these elements are well done and truly serve the plot.  There’s a bit of that Martha Stewart flair to Claire’s approach to the needs of a wildly dysfunctional household.  When the house is cleaner and the food finally edible, Devon starts to relax enough to appreciate his wife.

Just when Devon and Claire are coming closer to a real marriage, the problems start.  Someone is trying to hurt them, for reasons that are unclear.  I didn’t remember the ending, and it came as a bit of a surprise upon re-reading, which is a nice feeling.  Similarly, the barriers between Devon and Claire are more from the people around them than they are from any internal conflict.  This was not a situation where if the couple would just have a straightforward conversation they could resolve everything a good 40 pages before the end.  Nope, these two really needed to get everything squared away before they could get on with the challenges that faced them:  the Revolutionary War.  (But we know who wins, so that’s okay.)

Maddie’s Justice (Bantam, 2000)

Unusual Setting:  Eastern Kansas and Southern Ohio, 1871-73

Unusual Setup:  Maddie Rutledge is a federal prisoner who has to be transported to Fort Leavenworth to testify.  Rivlin Kirkpatrick is the federal marshal whose job it is to make sure she gets there.

So, how’s the book? In a word:  Wonderful.  Maddie’s serving 20 years for killing a man who was about to rape one of the Indian girls that Maddie teaches.  When Rivlin shows up, Maddie is very cynical and suspicious of men in authority, but his straightforward approach to his job eases her worry that he’s going to be as corrupt as everyone else she’s encountered.  We’re not too far into the book before someone shoots at both Rivlin and Maddie; the rest of the book is basically a thriller with them trying to elude their would-be assassins, find out who’s paying to get them killed, foil the plot, and get Rivlin’s family to accept Maddie, a convicted felon.  Again, the ending surprised me — oh, you know who the bad guy(s) are pretty early on, but the way LaFoy resolves the problem of Maddie still having 18 years of her sentence to serve (just a bit of an obstacle to an HEA!) — that one I didn’t predict.  You might, but I think you’ll admit she’s good at getting the details right without tipping her hand too much.

This book has all kinds of neat stuff in it:  some Western elements (e.g., the kindly madam — is that too much of a shorthand trope?), some historical elements in the development of Kansas City and the railroads, plus Rivlin’s memories of the Civil War, some social commentary (the rape — metaphorical and literal — of the Indians forced to live in Oklahoma; the abuses of command; and the good and bad of the religious societies back then), and some family dynamics.  But Maddie and Rivlin are just great characters, both thinking all the time about how to work together to solve their problems.  They earn their HEA.

Jackson’s Way (Bantam 2001)

Unusual Setting:  New York City, 1838

Unusual Setup:  Jackson Stennett, a Texas rancher, has just inherited the business and property that Lindsay MacPhaull manages for her ungrateful and piggish older siblings.  He travels to Manhattan to claim his inheritance, having no idea what a mess he’s walking into.

So, how’s the book? In a word:  Surprising.  And oddly timely, as the MacPhaull holdings have suffered in the aftermath of the Panic of 1837.  (I didn’t know about this bit of financial history, but it has all the hallmarks: runs on the banks and bank closings, precipitous drops in property values, tight credit, etc.,  Sound familiar?)  And also similar to What May Come and Maddie’s Way, in that the protagonists initially don’t like each other but have to work together, gradually come to respect and then desire each other, have people trying to make things hard for them, and eventually solve all their problems.  This couple have more conflict in their respective backstories, and Jackson’s actions in their romance are believable — even caring — but shockingly unhelpful for an HEA.  Both Lindsay and Jackson are smart people, but she gets the nod in the end for seeing what’s truly important.  As for the other characters, you too may be able to spot the “bad guy” the first time he shows up in the story, but I guarantee you will be surprised by the ending.  LaFoy really worked hard to get her plot just right and she neither shows too much at the beginning, nor frustrates the reader by changing someone’s character in mid-stream.

In the end, the most impressive thing about LaFoy’s historicals is that they make plotting look easy.  Only once in 1200 pages did I think, Hmm, this bit is going a bit slow, isn’t it? For the rest of it, I was having a rollicking time reading about smart people figuring a way out of their difficulties and a way into each other’s lives.

Tagged as: Four Smart Authors, Guest Post, Leslie LaFoy