No Proper Lady, by Isabel Cooper (review)

Anybody who’s been following my blog a little knows that I don’t read new books. As in, books that are being published now for the first time. The main and initial reason for that was my budget: new issues cost the price of a new book, whereas I could so easily find novels a few years old for half that price to completely free. Even authors who’ve started publishing as recently as the 2000′s often have a backlist that’s twenty-something books long, so why should I pay for their new novels while there are still so many old ones out there to catch up on?

Yet this habit of mine is beginning to change. Her Son’s Hero was released in July this year. But as an ebook it cost $4, which is as much as many paperbacks in a secondhand store. The book I’m discussing today, No Proper Lady, was out this very September! But then, its author is Isabel Cooper, whose blog I’ve been following and enjoying for a while now… So far, I can see two new reasons that will make me want to invest more money into books in the future: 1) individual titles are less expensive as ebooks, and I’ve got an ebook reader; 2) people around me (in online terms) are finally getting published and I’m willing to support them.

Except if I must pay for postage… sorry, guys. Since there were three copies of No Proper Lady at my local bookstore, though, how could I not grab one? You don’t say “no” to a historical time travel dystopian romance, do you? So, on with the review proper. No Proper Lady is a good novel. Go buy it. No, really, I mean it. I wouldn’t stop myself from criticizing a book just because someone I really liked wrote it; still, I always feel glad and relieved when I can honestly and openly praise the work of an author I want to support.

The story: Joan, a young yet seasoned warrior from a dystopian future, is sent back in the past, more specifically to Victorian England, to get rid of the evil magician who will be the cause of humanity’s ruin. She lands in the vast estate of Simon Grenville, an aristocrat who has recently retired to the country to protect his young sister, Eleanor, from his old buddy-turned-bad (who is, of course, none but the evil magician himself). Grenville, who deals with magic too, agrees to help Joan out, while Eleanor is in charge of teaching her how to be a “proper lady”, or at least how to fake being one.

This is an original and well played-out story. You’d think with elements from so many different genres, at least one would suffer from the mix. I didn’t think so. Everything was there, and believable: Joan’s dystopian world, Simon’s Victorian one, their love story, their strategy to achieve her mission. It was all there, perhaps even too explicitly. Though I liked the random and natural quality of Joan and Simon’s conversations, they often seemed to serve the only purpose of “dealing with this inevitable issue between people from different times”. AKA women’s place in society. As a feminist, I agree wholeheartedly with Joan. Yet I found it thickly layered, and almost off topic from the general plot. It was like a neon flashing sign going, “THERE IS A FEMINIST MESSAGE IN THIS NOVEL”… Yes. Thank you.

“We protect ladies. Which means they can take shocking advantage of us if they’re so inclined and we’re unwary.”
Joan’s mouth quirked again. “When you chain a dog, you shouldn’t be surprised if it barks.”
“You do have a flattering opinion of your own sex.”
“Women are people,” she said calmly and cheerfully. “People are bastards. And someone who’s caged―no matter how pretty the bars are―is going to get bored and restless and go for the only entertainment she can. Even if that’s catching men.”

- No Proper Lady, Isabel Cooper (Sourcebooks Casablanca, 2011)

Another weakness which struck me in hindsight, is the lack of external conflict between the protagonists. As Simon gets the role of mere assistant in Joan’s mission, he also becomes quite forgettable. A good guy, to be sure, but when all is said and done, where are the sparks, where is the passion? In comparison with the mind-boggling adventure they find themselves swept into, their romantic story seems almost too realistic: ordinary, sensible, bland. What worked for me, on the other hand, was the metaphysical reflection on duty, freedom, good and evil. I regretted the book wasn’t longer, with more development on this topic, which in the end only comes up sporadically, rather than directs or underlies the whole story.

“Our Lord gave us free will, the ability to choose good or evil. He could have compelled us from the start. He did not. Not even at the greatest of costs. Who are we to contradict him? [...] Where there is life, there is hope―the hope of redemption, the hope that each man has a role to play in the greater part of things and that any role might yet be for good. [...]
“But redemption means choice. You may offer, yes. You may hold him to his word, once given, as only a fool would not, but you cannot force his hand. Only evil will come from that.”

- No Proper Lady, Isabel Cooper (Sourcebooks Casablanca, 2011)

On the whole, though, No Proper Lady really has many things going for it, and is very promising for the rest Ms. Cooper’s career. She had to have guts to blend romance with such an original mix of other genres, to marry what is often thought of as fiction for women to what is considered fiction for men. And the best part is that she held up to my expectations! If I had one advice, it would be to make such emotions/issues/action-filled novels longer. Less than 350 pages is not enough, and methinks it’s what made some elements stick out as “random”, “off-topic” or too obvious, rather than smoothly, subtly and slowly introduced.

What’s the most original mix of genres you’ve ever found in a romance? Do you like cross-genres novels, or do you need the genre to be well-defined and strictly codified? Do you buy a lot of new novels, or are you a backlist-used sort of reader? Know of other newly-published authors I should try?

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