#which unfortunately also contributed to lucy feeling that perhaps she did have to leave

[sanoiro]

Hi

Did it bother u as well that God gave no answers to any of the questions at all..I mean I thought God will not give answers directly but the other characters will figure out the answers in his mysterious ways..like Chloe's role as a miracle, Why was Lucifer banished if God wasn't angry & infact found it adorable when Luci rebelled, Why God silently watched as people tainted him as Evil as he was blamed for things he never did, I was thinking the favourite son topic will be addressed as well with Lucifer being proven favourite all along, We still have no clue why Luci is called Lightbringer , even Michael was able to ignite the flaming sword which was earlier proven that only Luci can do it..

Most of the answers were given indirectly and they were not pretty. There was a Plan and despite Dad's absence, it's still in motion because of Lucifer's choices. but here is the thing we have misunderstood what the Plan is and how it is moving forward. There is no pre-destination here.

Imagine a being that is omniscient of what he has created like making a deck of cards. They know all the possible throws and you can say they were built to be played a certain way but when you have a player coming in and using their free will then the stable pre-destination of the cards falls apart. What we know is that for example that the player is passionate and that they will gamble more, they will bluff more, they will pull different moves to win their hand. That leads to the cards being offered an element of choice as well as the not conceived notion that the game can be stopped, keep up indefinitely or even paused.

So Dad's answers are not certain as all his creations have a degree of free will which adds to the 'wild card' element in their game. Dad is like a good judge of character he knows that Michael will bluff even cheat, he knows that Lucifer will be willing to leave the game but do it in an honourable yet not yet before done way, Amenadiel is a casual player. If we take that as our base we will realise that God could not provide any answers.

Dad saw different variations of a future according to the choices each character did. We were brought in S5 because all characters made certain choices which Dad could not do for them. Lucifer opened up to love, he chose to follow Chloe around. Chloe chose to eventually let him in her work and personal life. Amenadiel chose to connect with Maze and then Linda. To accept his child and raise it on Earth. Ella chose to take the virtuous path despite how conflicting were her thoughts and background. So every character was a wild card but what Dad knew was, the card of Lucifer becoming God was there if the previous cards he played matched. He knew that if He made his own self vulnerable He would understand better so he also made a choice to facilitate the card throw that would reunite him with his wife.

So Dad was the unfortunate example of a parent that knew his children would suffer so he was a weird mix of a helicopter parent and an enabler. The attributes that made him a bad parent was his conviction that Lucifer should have his right amount of free will but also Dad's desire to push him to the right direction, like when you decide your kid needs to get a job in their teens. It's not pleasant or when you need to get them to rehab and you know who they can become - like you really do - but it's their choice to go through the pain and the anguish to get there. But then again Dad has contributed to that pain and anguish... Let's say it was a bad call however imagine an omniscient being trying to make the best choices for their children to reach their potential and be happy even if that meant experiencing the worst your universe had to offer.

At this point we need to think.. Does the journey validate the destination? Was it worth it? How Dad knew that Lucifer would be happy with what He saw coming if his child made the right patterned choices? I believe the answer will come in S6 for various of reasons because the element of choice will be raised again more urgently than ever. We will see I believe that a God is not all powerful, there are limitations and there is a healthy ambiguity in their actions, feelings and aspirations.

As for the rest. Lucifer is called a Lightbringer for two reasons. One because he activated the flaming sword but that was the literal part and second because both of his parents knew what he would one day become if he chooses to play his hand right and for the right reasons. And the answer in my belief is again that we will need to take into consideration S6. Things do change, some for the better, some not so much, but Lucifer will be a Lightbringer in the end however not in the whole powerful way perhaps... or not limited to that. That was never Lucifer's thing. It was essentially what Dad said to Ella. The Darkest the Darkness, the Brightest the Light. And Lucifer knows how to light up the room...

Finally. The Flaming Sword could be ignited by anyone with all three pieces. We knew that because Mum could do it in S2 hence why she wanted all pieces to do it on her own and because Amenadiel says clearly that the blade was activated on Earth meaning it was activated by Lucifer when he flamed it without the medallion or the key. Imagine a car that anyone can drive but Lucifer acted as a one-time charger, an activator if you like. After that Michael could lit it. There were no issues about that and Lucifer knew it could happen as he notes when Remiel lies dead that if the wound is not charred then Michael was bluffing about the last piece. If Michael had the same powers as Lucifer the would would have perhaps been a bit burned but Michael cannot lit the sword even fleetingly without all the pieces. Only Lucifer could.

#lucifer season 5 spoilers #lucifer season 6 #lucifer morningstar #lucifer netflix

[mediaevalmusereads]

The Leopard Prince. By Elizabeth Hoyt. New York: Forever, 2007.

Rating: 2/5 stars

Genre: historical romance

Part of a Series? Yes, Princes Trilogy #3

Summary: When the devil meets an angel... Country bred Lucy Craddock-Hayes is content with her quiet life. Until the day she trips over an unconscious man—a naked unconscious an—and loses her innocence forever. he can take her to heaven... Viscount Simon Iddesleigh was nearly beaten to death by his enemies. Now he’s hell-bent on vengeance. But as Lucy nurses him back to health, her honesty startles his jaded sensibilities—even as it ignites a desire that threatens to consume them both. or to hell. Charmed by Simon’s sly wit, urbane manners, and even his red-heeled shoes, Lucy falls hard and fast for him. Yet as his honor keeps him from ravishing her, his revenge sends his attackers to her door. As Simon wages war on his foes, Lucy wages her own war for his soul using the only weapon she has—her love…

***Full review under the cut.***

Content Warnings: blood, violence, sexual content, rape threat

Overview: I think I’m going to have to put down Elizabeth Hoyt for a while. This is the fourth book of hers I’ve read, and unfortunately, I’ve only enjoyed one of them (The Raven Prince). At first, I thought this book was going well - the premise was fairly intriguing, and I thought Hoyt did a good job crafting our hero, Simon, to be an 18th century rake. As the story progressed, however, I found the relationship dynamic to be fairly uncomfortable, and Lucy, our heroine, is about as interesting as a dishrag. I’m giving this book 2 stars because I truly did see some interesting things in here - I just really wasn’t a fan of the overall romance.

Writing: Hoyt’s prose flows really well and communicates ideas in a straight-forward way. I’d say that it’s about what you would expect out of a romance novel without intending any malice - Hoyt knows her audience, and I think her writing fits in well with the genre.

However, I think Hoyt’s shoe-horning of the fairy tale themes worked just as poorly in The Serpent Prince as in both The Raven Prince and The Leopard Prince. The themes of the tale did not parallel the events of the book as a whole, which made the whole thing feel like a gimmick rather than an integral part of the story. As with the other two novels, I wish Hoyt had done more to make the two narratives parallel one another.

Plot: Most of the plot of this novel revolves around Simon, our hero, tracking down and killing (via duel) the conspirators who were responsible for is brother’s death. To be honest, I thought this aspect of the book was a good one, as it provided a more serious, grave balance to Simon’s otherwise witty, light-hearted attitude. I would have liked to see it more purposefully crafted, though; personally, I didn’t find it particularly suspenseful, mostly because we don’t see Simon planning out his plots or Hoyt focusing on how his inner emotions and turmoil differ from the façade he shows the world. Though I really liked the conflict between Simon’s vengeance and his friendship with Christian Fletcher (whose father was part of the conspiracy), I wanted to see each duel build on the previous one, with Simon becoming more and more intense and obsessive, and to some degree, he does do that, but I think Hoyt could have made the progression seem more deliberate.

I also think that perhaps too much focus on this plot made the pace slow to a crawl after the first 150 pages or so. At this point, Lucy agrees to marry Simon, so the romantic tension for the rest of the book comes in the form of dull moral arguments. Lucy also doesn’t really have her own character arc or plot to compliment Simon’s, so she spends most of her time waiting for him to come home so the two can bang. Her POV isn’t all that interesting, and though she has some sweet moments with Simon’s sister-in-law and niece, they don’t really serve much purpose other than to reveal to Lucy what Simon’s feelings might be.

Characters: Lucy, our heroine, is a country-born lady whose only intriguing personality trait is that she can see through Simon’s facade. At first, I thought I would like her; her dynamic with Simon seemed like it would be good, as she had the ability to see through his blather and wit and render him speechless with her perceptiveness. But the more I read, the more passive she seemed to become. Hoyt tells us that Lucy wants “more” to her life than being a vicar’s wife in a sleepy rural town, but she never really goes out on her own to look for this “more” and doesn’t really specify what this “more” is outside of Simon. Once she and Simon are married, she doesn’t do much; whenever Simon is out dueling, Lucy is either totally accepting (”I understand your reasons”) or moralizing that killing is wrong “because the Bible says so” and “he’ll destroy his soul.” To be honest, I couldn’t see why Simon was in love with her, as she seemed to have no ambitions or motivations, and only serves as a “redeeming” figure for all of Simon’s wrongs.

Simon, for his part, was a tad more interesting. He, at least, had goals and flaws, and was written in a way that really made me believe he was an 18th century rake. For the first 150 pages, his wit and refusal to let people in felt like a great setup, and I was really looking forward to an arc where he learns to share his real emotions with others. Even when the dueling got going in earnest, I thought the conflict between honor and revenge was a good one, and grappling with serious matters while trying to present as a non-serious figure was intriguing. That being said, there were some personality traits of his that I did not like with regards to his relationship with Lucy, but more on that below.

Supporting characters were generally pretty good in this book. I liked the conflict in loyalties that Christian Fletcher had with regards to his family, and I think Lucy’s father and his household staff were written in ways that made them seem like characters out of an 18th century comedy. Female characters were kind and sweet, and even when they weren’t serving much of a purpose, I liked their general air. I even felt sorry for Eustace, the vicar whose marriage proposal Lucy turns down.

Romance: For the life of me, I couldn’t see why Lucy and Simon loved each other. I really couldn’t. It started out promising: Lucy nurses Simon back to health after finding him unconscious in a ditch, and he’s taken with her in part because she can see through his witticisms. I thought this was a fantastic basis on which to start, but unfortunately, it didn’t seem to progress from there. It felt like insta-love: Simon loved Lucy because she was good and moral, and he was self-loathing enough to need someone to idolize and stay with him. But Lucy herself is an uninteresting character with only vague ambitions, and she only seems to love Simon because he’s a larger-that-life character that shakes her out of the country ho-humery. They never really grew as a couple, and even when Simon was emotionally vulnerable with her, she never seemed to be vulnerable back (at least, not in a way that felt mattered because Lucy has no real flaws or tragic past and she’s not hugely hung up on their class differences).

Within the romance itself, Lucy never has an arc of her own. She never really undergoes a transformation; her only flaw, it seems, it that she needs to learn to forgive her husband and see him as imperfect, but nothing in her story shows that she idealizes Simon or sees him as merely a ticket out of the country (which could also have been interesting - a culture shock plot, yeah?). I would have liked her to have a flaw or goal that Simon helps her with so that both characters contribute to the emotional satisfaction and growth in the relationship.

Lucy also never seems to challenge Simon in an interesting way, and most of Simon’s character development within the relationship happens in the last 50 pages or so. Even though Lucy can see through Simon’s wit, she never does anything meaningful to show her husband that he is worth something apart from avenging his brother. Oh sure, she says that she loves Simon for who he is, and they have a lot of life-altering sex (apparently), but most of Lucy’s role in the relationship seems to be that she’s “moral” and “good” and “sexually available,” which Simon interprets as Lucy being a kind of salvific figure. If Lucy had been a witty match for Simon, seeing through him and calling him out in the vein of “you’re not doing this for your brother, you’re doing it for you,” I think it would have been better. But she seems rather passive until near then end, when she does the only thing she can do: storm off in a huff and leave Simon (for all of a day, it seems).

I also think that Simon was way too insistent in bed. To be fair, he is a reformed rake and is utterly obsessed with sex, but that in itself wasn’t the problem (mostly because it felt consistent with portrayals on 18th century rakes in literary fiction). The problem was that it always felt like Simon was putting his sexual needs above Lucy’s emotional ones. He begs to have sex with her even when she doesn’t seem 100% into it (such as when she admits to being sore or hesitant on account of the first time being painful) or at inappropriate moments (such as the scene after Lucy is attacked and stabbed in public and all Simon can think of is “having her”). He begs her to show her body to him and promises not to hurt her, which made me think he was trying to pressure her into having sex more than the two of them deciding to do it together. If Simon’s arc had been more about letting go of his selfishness and putting Lucy’s emotional and sexual satisfaction above his own, I think it could have worked. It would have been consistent with the reformed rake archetype, but as it stands, every sex scene felt like Simon was in control, calling the shots and pressuring Lucy to do things, even when she eventually consents and enjoys the experience.

TL;DR: Despite the intriguing premise of Simon’s story, The Serpent Prince suffers from a passive, uninteresting heroine and uninspired romance, making the novel a rather disappointing conclusion to Hoyt’s Princes series.

[mediaevalmusereads]

The Lady’s Guide to Celestial Mechanics. By Olivia Waite. New York: Avon Impulse, 2019.

Rating: 2.5/5 stars

Genre: historical romance, wlw romance

Part of a Series? Yes, Feminine Pursuits #1

Summary: As Lucy Muchelney watches her ex-lover’s sham of a wedding, she wishes herself anywhere else. It isn’t until she finds a letter from the Countess of Moth, looking for someone to translate a groundbreaking French astronomy text, that she knows where to go. Showing up at the Countess’ London home, she hoped to find a challenge, not a woman who takes her breath away.

Catherine St Day looks forward to a quiet widowhood once her late husband’s scientific legacy is fulfilled. She expected to hand off the translation and wash her hands of the project—instead, she is intrigued by the young woman who turns up at her door, begging to be allowed to do the work, and she agrees to let Lucy stay. But as Catherine finds herself longing for Lucy, everything she believes about herself and her life is tested.

While Lucy spends her days interpreting the complicated French text, she spends her nights falling in love with the alluring Catherine. But sabotage and old wounds threaten to sever the threads that bind them. Can Lucy and Catherine find the strength to stay together or are they doomed to be star-crossed lovers?

***Full review under the cut.***

Content Warnings: sexism, allusions to homophobia

Overview: I feel like I’m in the minority of not loving this book as much as I wanted to. Based on content alone, it should have been a perfect storm for me: a historical sapphic romance, a lady scientist, debates about the value of art and women’s contributions... but while the romance genre doesn’t have nearly enough wlw stories, representation alone wasn’t enough to sustain my interest in this novel. It had the threads of a good story - something along the lines of The Countess Conspiracy or The Suffragette Scandal - but in my opinion, too much of the focus was on needless interpersonal drama, which left the plot dragging for the bulk of the story. So though the representation is great, and there are a number of feminist themes that I think are valuable, I didn’t enjoy this book enough to give it more than 2 or 3 stars.

Writing: Waite’s prose is about what you’d expect from the romance genre. It’s simple and straightforward, getting to the point without leaving the reader wondering what’s going on. My main criticism would perhaps be that Waite sometimes does a little head-hopping in the middle of a chapter without a section break. One minute, we’ll be seeing things from Lucy’s POV, and the next, we’ll get something from Catherine, then back to Lucy. It was a little jarring, but not too distracting - I could still immerse myself in the story ok.

Plot: The Lady’s Guide follows Lucy Muchelney as she translates, expands, and publishes M. Oleron’s Mechanique celeste (an astronomy text) under the patronage of Lady Catherine St. Day, Countess of Moth. After being rebuffed by the male members of the Polite Science Society, Lucy endeavors to render her own translation in hopes of educating readers who are interested in astronomy, but may not have had access to the range of texts needed to understand Oleron’s work. Catherine, for her part, funds the printing of Lucy’s work, while also discovering her own value as an embroiderer.

On the surface, this plot had all the things I love: women in science, valuing women’s art, a social commentary on patriarchy. But despite the interesting threads, I didn’t feel as if Waite used them to the greatest advantage. Aside from a few scenes, there wasn’t a lot of external pressure from the Polite Society; any drama that arose from their sexism was easily dismissed or avoided with a trip to the country, and I felt as if sexism in this book was more of a nuisance than a threat. This isn’t to say I wanted the characters to be constantly suffering or be miserable from an onslaught of male meddling, but I would like to have seen more of a sustained plotline where the Polite Society attempts to thwart Lucy’s efforts, thereby creating more suspense and giving Lucy and Catherine some external challenges to face together.

I also think the subplots could have been strengthened so that they enhanced the main conflict. The plot involving Eliza, the maid with a talent for sketching, was a good parallel to Catherine’s arc, which involved finding and rewarding women’s talents in art, but Eliza wasn’t a compelling character on her own, nor did I think Catherine reflect enough on the paradox of how she encouraged Eliza but not herself. I also think more could have been done with Lucy’s brother, Stephen, so that his meddling in Lucy’s career paralleled the Polite Society’s - just in a more subtle way, thereby showing different forms of sexism. Granted, there is a little of that, but like the Polite Society, Stephen pops up at convenient times before disappearing a page or two later.

Characters: I hate to say it, but I didn’t feel as if I could connect to the characters. Lucy, one of our heroines, is a mathematician and astronomer who inspires Catherine to see herself as an artist... and that’s mostly it. I guess she’s also bold and headstrong, but honestly, she felt more like an archetype than a fully-fledged character.

Catherine, for her part, is meek on account of being mistreated by her husband, but has brilliant skills as an embroiderer and is generous with her financial support. I did like the depth that Catherine had with regards to her insecurity over whether or not she could call herself an artist, and I liked that she respected Lucy’s feelings and didn’t allow her desires to be too selfish. But I also felt like she had no ambition or desires of her own until maybe 75% of the way through the book, and she mainly existed to support Lucy.

Side characters were hit or miss. I liked the idea of Eliza, the maid who gets to put her drawing skills to use as an engraver, but she wasn’t a fully-fleshed out character and didn’t hold my interest on her own. Stephen, Lucy’s brother, had the potential to be interesting, as he is an artist and acts as a foil to Lucy in many ways, but he flits in and out of the story as needed. Even Lucy’s ex, Pricilla, seems only to exist to make petty drama; there was no pining, no angst, and I didn’t see why Lucy had once loved her. There wasn’t even any commentary on how both Pris and Catherine were blond women who were skilled at embroidery.

Polite Society members had the potential to be good antagonists, but because their appearances were so contained, I don’t think they were used to their full potential. They provided some nice commentary, but I would have liked to see them meddle more often in Lucy’s translation process.

Romance: This is personal preference: I don’t like it when the love interests get together too early in the story. It usually means the rest of the romance is going to revolve around petty drama, and I think that’s what I got here. Lucy and Catherine become a couple some 25% of the way through the book, and for the life of me, I couldn’t see why they wanted to be together other than they were interested in women and happened to be sharing a house. Over time, their reasons for loving one another became a little more clear: Lucy loves that Catherine believes in her and lets her forge her own path, whereas Catherine loves that Lucy values her skills and lifts her up, rather than dismissing her (as Catherine’s deceased husband did). While these are certainly nice, I wanted there to be a little more to their romance. Because they got together so quickly, there was very little pining, very little growth in their affections.

I also think all the angst and relationship drama that happened after they got together was a little tedious. Lucy spends some time pining for her ex, which causes Catherine to be jealous. Catherine also sees the relationship as being incompatible at one point because Lucy likes science and she likes art, so of course that means they’re on different paths that can’t be reconciled. Most of the barriers to the relationship could have been overcome by either talking it out or getting to know one another a little better, so rather than good tension (in the form of suspense), I felt like there was pointless tension. I would have much rather seen Waite dive into the very real concerns, such as the economic inequality between them or the lack of permanence that comes with not being able to marry - I think those are real, life-altering concerns that could have tied in well with the non-romance plot, but unfortunately, those concerns seemed to be resolved a little too neatly.

TL;DR: Despite having some much-needed wlw representation and a number of feminist themes, The Lady’s Guide to Celestial Mechanics does little to cultivate a compelling plot and relies on misunderstandings to drive the romantic tension.