My Girl is BACK!

A life long fan of Amanda Quick, I will always be.  She is a brilliant writer with her own distinctive brand of wit and style that has truly set her apart from her contemporaries.  That being said, for a while now I've felt that her books, while retaining compelling story lines and equally compelling characters, have come up short in the passion department.  "Mistress" was the last time I felt the full power of her talent as a historical romance writer. Until now.  

To those first discovering Miss Quick, "The Perfect Poison" is a revelation.  For a long time fan such as myself, it is a welcome return to all of the elements a writer of her talent brings to her books.  It took me a day to read "The Perfect Poison" and I loved every line, page and chapter of it.  

Lucinda Bromley is a gifted psychical botanist with a strong talent for detecting poisons.  A fact, through a series of tragic events involving the death of her father and fiance by poison, that has garnered her the notorious moniker, Lucrezia Bromley by the London sensation press.  Caleb Jones is an impossibly complicated man whose own very powerful psychical abilities allow him to see the connective tissue in seemingly disconnected events.  He is, of course, considered highly eccentric and rumors of madness haunt him. 

Independent and fiercely private, they come together when Lucinda hires Caleb to investigate the disappearance of a rare fern she'd had in her conservatory.  Most recently traces of the fern were found on the body of a victim in the form of a deadly almost undetectable poison.

It just so happens the missing fern and Caleb's own private inquiries into the disappearance of a certain brilliant psychical scientist coincide.  Together Caleb and Lucinda burn in this electrifying journey and uncover the truth of their pasts in the search for...the perfect poison.

Delightful is a word I think best describes this book.  So delightful in fact that I've finally ventured into reading books under Quick's other pen name, Jayne Ann Krentz.  With dazzling foresight, Quick has bridged the gap between her historical romances and her contemporary romance fictions under the Arcane Society banner.  Events that take place in books under Quick ripple through time and generations of Jones's in to the future.  It took me long enough but, I'm hooked.

In her next installment, "The Burning Lamp", I look forward to immersing myself in Quick's unique and delicate balance of intrigue, wit and above all, passion.  Happy reading!      

  

LOST...still.

Normally, I wouldn't do this but since I've sunk a good portion of my life into this show I feel I must at least give it full contemplation in this,  my forum.  Lest I also mention I find the entire series to be steeped in romantic idealism be it religion, ethics, or in the relational struggles of its characters...it's only fitting.

I picked up the series toward the end of the second season and started to seriously watch it by the third.  As if the current economic climate weren't enough, investing in a show that leaves you in a constant state of anxiety can be akin to self-flagellation for the truly devote viewer.  Never-the-less I continued to watch.  Some episodes gave me relief in storyline closures, but more often than not my intrigued was only heightened and yes, it angered me by posing even more questions than when I started.  That was the brilliance of the show and perhaps, after last nights series finale, also its Achilles heel.

A close friend of mine said after the finale that he didn't think the producer's knew the difference between ambiguous and vague.  The first being open to very solid and plausible interpretations, and the other a hodgepodge of dubious conclusions that will never fully satisfy, if at all.  In light of the way I felt when Jack closed his eye for the final time and we faded to white, I'd have to agree. Questions were posed in the beginning with the promise to have at least most of them answered, certainly the big ones should have been (vagueness not withstanding).  

Theories have run rampant about what the final hours of these intriguing characters really meant.  Were they dead the entire time?  Did all of the things we'd seen actually happen or was it just a part of some purgatory they were all sharing?  Were there others?  Was Jacob real?  The smoke monster?  1974?  In one prospective not answering definitively those questions has made the finale a resounding success.  As much if not more people are talking about the show than when it first aired six years ago.  Whichever theory one chooses to believe, hopefully one or a combination of a them will grant them closure the finale surely failed to give.

To those who believe a completely satisfying ending to a highly successful show is near impossible I'd have to site the following shows:

"The Cosby Show"

"Buffy The Vampire Slayer"

"Dawson's Creek" (Not a fan but the last episode was pretty good)

"The Office" - British Version

"Sex and The City"

"Good Times"

"The Wonder Years"

"Road to Avonlea" (My 1980's Disney channel watchers know about this show)

"Twin Peaks" (widely accepted as one of the top finale's ever)

To be fair with the exception of "Twin Peaks" and perhaps "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", the audience wasn't expected to suspend their disbelief quite as much.  

Not surprisingly I got into LOST because I was intrigued by the characters.  The obstacles they each faced were absolutely secondary to how they responded to them.  I relished in Sayid's almost Rambo like detachment of murder and survival.  The high stakes love triangle between Jack, Kate and Sawyer spoke to the romantic in me.  Of all the romantic story lines in the show, and there were many, it was Desmond and Penny's indomitable will to be together that was the least tangible; which is probably why I loved it so.  The lengths to which Desmond went to in order to be with Penny, his unpredictability in that endeavor and his judicious use of the word "Brother" made him a front runner for best character of all man times. 

But it was Jack whom I wanted nothing more than for him to find what he was looking for.  If he could find it, "it" being the reason he was brought to the island, than for me the show would've been a success.  Jack's character represented human flaws we all have.  Our frailty, our inner strength, the desire to love and be loved, the need to please and the daily struggle we face when the choices to lead on or follow in faith are presented.  

Back in Grad school, when the show first started, my TV Writing professor said the writer's of Lost had no idea where the show was going, they'd just been writing week by week without any future agenda.  Up until last night I wasn't sure if that particular rumor had any legs.  Now I find that either the inability of most viewers to explain what the finale meant is a confirmation of this rumor, or the writer's are genius's for generating such massive confusion.  DVD sales will undoubtedly be through the roof come August 2010.  Fans will need re-watch the show in the slim hopes of coming to a definitive answer.  

So at least to this I say, bravo creators of LOST.  You gave us all a fantastic ride on the bridge to no where.