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Trial By Desire (2010)

by Courtney Milan(Favorite Author)

3.72 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

0373774850 (ISBN13: 9780373774852)

languge

English

genre

Romance

publisher

HQN Books

series

Carhart

review 1: One of the parts I love about Victorian romance is how it is filtered through the lens of the rapidly industrializing West, and reads a lot like a view of the contemporary world, post-digital boom: people scrambling to make sense of life, to understand their values and place in the world, while digesting a rapid change in an accessibility to "more."Yes, there are recognizable, sometimes eye-rolling, tropes in romance books that are used again and again; this happens with all genre books. What makes the work stand out is the author's treatment of character, their choice of constructs around the trope.Ms. Milan is amazing. She takes a seemingly straight-forward story, and gives it the most touching, introspective view, flying past just romance and straight into a deep explor... moreation of character.I was unsure about my interest in a book centering on Ned and Kate, since they were both sketched-in, secondary characters in the first Carhart book, but Trial by Desire surprised me. *MILD SPOILER (if you haven't read the first book)* One of the things I love about Ms. Milan's work is the language she uses to describe something like Ned's depression during a time when the medical and psychological terminology had yet to be popularized or formulated. Today's shorthand (manic-depression) feels trite compared to the way Ms. Milan writes Ned's thoughts on his condition.It will be a bittersweet moment when I complete the reading her back-catalog. Then I'll have to WAIT for books. Oh, the tribulations of the devoted reader.
review 2: I am a bit of a Courtney Milan fangirl - I love her books. So how has this one sat on my shelves, unread, for more than a year? It's a mystery.So I found it and started reading it and just guzzled it. I love Milan's writing, her dealing with the big issues, her feminism and the deft emotional touch she has. Every book has at least one bit which is almost unbearably moving and this is no exception. The 'big issues' here are domestic violence and mental illness, and both are treated with Milan's usual deft touch. I recognised Ned's battles with his 'dragons' and they were brilliantly done. less

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