In Which Monday Menu Mayhem Messes With a Classic

Honestly, I don't know why I made this recipe.  I mean, there's nothing wrong with Nigella's Chocolate Chip Cookies, and you've got to give her credit for trying to get us to change our minds and our palates.  But let's be perfectly clear: nothing ever can/will/should surpass the Tollhouse Chocolate Chip Cookie in terms of excellence and infinite makeability.

That said, there is nothing wrong with the Nigella recipe.  It varies from the traditional in that we melt the butter, use superfine sugar (I wouldn't have bothered if I didn't have some in the kitchen anyway), and use an egg and an egg yolk instead of two whole eggs.  Also, the recipe called for milk chocolate chips, but I was NOT going to give up my semi-sweets.  The result was good, but not memorable.  Something akin to what you would buy at a cafe for $2 apiece.  I have nothing against them and would totally make them again... if only I didn't have a better recipe at my disposal.

Speaking of things that never need to happen again, I just do need to take a moment to discuss the oh-holy-hell-in-a-handbasket disaster that was last night's Oscars.  I love Anne Hathaway, but no amount of uber-sunny energy was going to save that snoozefest trainwreck.  There was nothing fun about the ceremony (save for a handful of memorable acceptance speeches), there was nothing funny about the hosts (can we spell A-W-K-W-A-R-D?), and, more importantly, there was nothing even remotely interesting in the winners.  Everyone who was supposed to win, did.  Not that that's a bad thing (I'm looking at you, Colin Firth... could you please stop looking at your gorgeous Italian wife and look over here?  No?), but a lack of Shakespeare in Love/Crash-style upset made it all an exercise in "Did I really even need to bother watching this?" dullitude.  Hell, even if The Social Network had won, I'm not sure that would have made things more interesting.

I have been an Oscar watcher since, well... A really long time.  Like, too-young-for-my-parents-to-let-me-stay-up-and-watch-the-whole-thing long time.  And this year was enough to make me want to give up altogether.  Dear Hollywood, The next thing you should reboot?  THE ACADEMY AWARDS.

OK.  Rant over.

In Which Thoroughly Obsessed Thursday Learns to Hepburn

My all-time favorite movie is The Philadelphia Story.  

Katharine Hepburn's Tracy Lord and Cary Grant's CK Dexter Haven have a romance that's about fifty years ahead of its time, made for the era of Aaron Sorkin, but lived out in the era of George Cukor, which is really just as good.  There's something in the word play, the intelligence of the characters, the quickness of the wit ("No mean Machiavelli is smiling, cynical Sidney Kidd") that speaks to me on a deeper level.  They are imperfect people living imperfect lives, but they're doing the best they can, and in the end they get something akin to happiness.

And then there's Bringing Up Baby.

I had the pleasure of watching it on screen at the Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center this evening, a feat that might be considered redundant, since I totally own the DVD.

But man oh man, was it well worth the effort.

While The Philadelphia Story is the polished, civilized, urbane, adult romance, Bringing Up Baby is nothing less than a roiling madcap frenzy of ridiculousness.  In the absolute best way possible.

Poor Cary Grant's David Huxley is a zoologist looking for funding for his museum.  Nutty Kate's Susan Vance is an eccentric heiress looking for... well, somewhere to keep the pet leopard her brother sent up from Brazil.  She may or may not also be looking for love.

Let's just say this:  There's a zoologist in possession of a very important bone for his collection.  There's a dog named George who steals and buries bones.  There's a "good" leopard on the loose.  There's also a "bad" leopard on the loose.  There's an alcoholic gardener who's seen everything, a big-game hunter who can't recognize the leopard mating call ("it's a loon," indeed), a psychiatrist who continually falls victim to theft, and a sheriff so desperate to be re-elected that he locks up exactly the wrong people.

In the middle of it all are David and Susan, running around like lunatics (no wonder she's so skinny!) trying to find the bone, trying to capture the leopard, and trying to keep everyone else at bay.  And also trying (well, at least she is) to fall in love.  Is it realistic?  Absolutely not.  In fact, in the end, I'm not even sure why they like each other.

Kate is phenomenal.  She bounces from scene to scene, lit with an energy that cannot be tamed.  And that insane giggle, that perfectly screeched "Oh, David," gives Cary Grant the exact right balance for his deadpan slide into the gaslight.  

It's funny, it's sweet, and it's the original screwball comedy.  What more do you need than that?

In Which I Review Rebel by Zoe Archer

I write this in the final throes of my Buffy marathon.  Hear that?  That's Boy Scout throwing a parade because he won't have to deal with Sarah Michelle Gellar for at least another year... Little does he know that the college angst will go up to 11 when I start my Felicity marathon next week.  HA!

But in the meantime, I did finally manage to finish the book that I tragically left at Scout Camp last week.  Nothing like a little Kindle for iPhone and a long weekend to ensure that the job gets done one way or another.

Rebel (while most excellently awesome) was not my favorite of the Blades books so far.  I got to this book around the same time Wendy Pan was getting to it in her marathon, and in retrospect I'm glad she read it before I did; if I had read it first, I would have spent a lot of time worrying about whether or not she would like it.  See Wendy Pan really doesn't go in for "traditional" paranormals, up to and including vamps and werewolves.

Nathan Lesperance, it turns out, is not just one of the first (and only, I assume) Native attorneys in Victoria.  When he comes out to the Northwest Territory to collect the belongings of a deceased client, he meets the former Blade Astrid Bramfield and very shortly thereafter determines that he's shapeshifter who can turn into a wolf.   Long story short, his transformation is enough to get the attention of some Heirs, and Astrid isn't enough of a "former" to be able to turn down a magical being in need of assistance.

Astrid has been living in self-imposed isolation since the murder of her husband, Michael, on a Blades mission several years ago.  She's icy cold, and knows the minute she meets Lesperance that he's trouble with a capital T.  Of course sparks fly, and Archer does a most excellent job of thawing Astrid gradually and realistically.  There isn't a whole lot of time for Astrid and Nathan to get to know each other and to discover their hot and sweaty feelings, but the intensity of the attraction is so immediate and so well paced that it is in no way unrealistic.

As with the other Blades novels, it's fun to read about a new culture, and to see the icons of that culture woven into the mythology of the book itself.  To give more details is to give away major spoilers, so I will not say anything further about the plot.

Except for this.

Nathan and Astrid piss me off just a bit.  They're really gross together.  Like, they're that couple you're friends with who you're embarrassed to go out in public with because all they do is make out and grope each other under the table.  They make out in front of tribesmen.  A poor Blade (who shall *spoiler alert* remain nameless) has to sit alone by the campfire and listen to them have sex.  And now I'm about a third of the way through Stranger (Catallus Graves... how do I love thee?  Let me count the ways...) and they are still annoying, all having-of-a-connection, having-loud-sex-across-the-hall, can't-even-spend-one-night-apart (and not in an "awwww, cute" way).

I can't fault the writing.  It's vivid and matches the characters, even.  But I don't like it, and I'm not sure I like them as a result.

In Which Monday Menu Mayhem is Late. And Other Kinds of Fail.

Well.  It was one of those weekends.  You know, the kind where you wake up Tuesday (!) morning and don't even feel like you had a weekend.  Despite the extra day (thank you, Mr. Presidents), I have no idea what happened to my time off, except that Boy Scout has new suits (!), I have a new knitting project (!!), and we did an awful lot of Nigella redux cooking.

There was firstly the epic fail version of Grasshopper Pie, which failed probably because I substituted (by necessity, not choice) one cup of marshmallows with one cup of Fluff.  We think (because we don't actually know) that this caused a distinct lack of setting.  In other words, we ate Grasshopper Soup for dessert on Sunday night, and I continue to weep at odd moments throughout the day.

Last night was much more successful, when the Scout and I re-made the Carbonnade a la Flammande (Beer Braised Beef Deliciousness) for my grandparents.  This time we did away with the initial oil and let the bacon (yummy, healthy/happy pig bacon from Vermont) provide all of the grease we needed... The result was much lighter, and much less rich.  This might also be due to the fact that we actually used a dark ale this time (hello, Newcastle) instead of Guinness.  Also making a HUGE difference: The from-scratch allspice made by Granny Jones (Did you know it's just equal parts cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves?  Us neither!), which was far more fragrant and flavorful than its jarred counterpart.  Don't buy allspice, kids.  Make it.

Let the magic begin!

So, one day, Kate Jones gives me this Zoe Archer book and says, "Momma, you HAVE to read this!" I put the book on my bedside table and promised to get to it as soon as I finished whatever I happened to be reading at that moment. The problem was that I was reading something on my beloved Kindle. When you read from a Kindle, you are never really ever finished! It's the book that just keeps on writing! Then Lady Liberty comes to visit. She sees the book on my bedside table and asks me how far I have gotten because she's slated to read it next. Um, I am on page 14! I distract with a discussion on the awesomeness of the Kindle and I whet Lady Liberty's suppressed appetite for e-books! Within hours - I am the grateful recipient of the whole Zoe Archer Blades of the Roses bundle... on Kindle! My 50th birthday gift from Lady Liberty.(She really wants to read the books and is tired of waiting for me to put the Kindle down.)So now I have been asked to write a skeptic's review of the Blade of the Roses series. Kate wanted me to review the first book - but Kate knows I am hopeless at remembering one book once I have started another - so I offer a compendium of the four.

I have to say, if the books were not on my Kindle, I would still be on page 14 and still putting off the reading of them. Kate warned me (and she knew I needed warning) that the books were historical romances - I'm in so far - and involved some, "magic." This is me back-peddling. Um - yeah, NO! "Just read the first one, Momma, I promise you will love it." SIGH (of major magnitude!)Okay, and now they are on the Kindle - so no more excuses!

The characters in these books are fantastic. I cannot emphasize, enough, how much I enjoyed meeting them, getting to know them and caring about them. Their relationships with their romantic partners are so well developed and their relationships with each other are strong and believable. The historical aspects are well plotted and fascinating. I was in Mongolia, Greece, Canada, and England, learning things I didn't know and remembering things I did. I cheered the heroes, cursed the villains, and held my breath as battles of enormous magnitude threatened my main characters!

So, you ask, what's with the skepticism? It was the whole "magic" thing. I am not a fantasy reader and I am not in the least bit interested in Vampire stories. My reluctance in getting past page 14 was the magical appearance of some metal beetles attacking someone and drilling holes in a concrete wall. In the end, Zoe Archer had me completely committing myself to faeries, pixies, the Colossus of Rhodes, people who can change into wolves, bears and hawks, transporting ones self through fire, King Arthur (and Merlin.) There were the magic fish which enabled some of our heroes to breath under water, there were ancient compasses with the technology of modern day GPS systems, and there were spells and potions. The author had so perfectly developed the characters and the conflicts that the hows and the whos didn't matter to me at all. The only thing I cared about was how it was all going to resolve itself. The magical individuals who came out of the woods (and there were a lot of woods) became as believable and important as the "real people." Nothing was off the table. Inventions and science played their parts, but it was the magic that saved the day. And love. Let's not forget that! Because everyone gets a happy ever after to make the deepest cynic sigh. And you believe!

So, thanks Kate - for helping me to expand my horizons into a comfortable realm of fantasy. Thank you Lady Liberty - for feeding my Kindle hunger and for taking away the last hurdle of my excuses. Go out and buy, beg for or borrow Zoe Archer's Blades of the Roses quartet and prepare to sit back, be mystified, horrified, mesmerized and taken up in the magic that she has created for you! I know I was!

In Which Thoroughly Obsessed Thursday Loves to Travel.

Hi Friends!

It's been a busy week.  I detoured to Orlando for Tuesday/Wednesday (Yes, it was warm, but the sun wasn't really out, and before you get jealous, I was there for about twenty-four hours, going to a convention that took place in my hotel.  Visiting Mickey we were not).

One of the strangest parts of my life (now) is that I do relatively little travelling.  Which is ironic, given the pace of my autumn, but it's true-- in previous lives there was a time I got on a plane for a round-trip about once a month.  Yikes.

So travelling for business now feels natural, like returning to an old friend.  One of the best parts of travelling for me is the opportunity to read my Vanity Fair, cover-to-cover, without feeling like I have something else I should be doing.  I often have this problem (the "shouldn't I be doing something else?" problem) because for the most part I should be reading something to review for this blog (...) or marathoning something (...) or catching up on all of the back eps of Supernatural I have hiding on my hard drive.

Not so, this week.  No book (*sob*), no laptop (*whimper*)... no problem?!  Vanity Fair (or any magazine, I'm sure) is key for plane travel, because no matter what happens they can't take it away from you.  It doesn't have to come out of your bag to go through the x-ray machine, it doesn't have to be turned off and stowed for takeoff/landing, and it will not run out of battery.

What I like about Vanity Fair specifically is that the articles are long, but not too long, and can be parceled out at any stage of the journey; standing in the security line, waiting at the gate, and indeed, after the captain tells the flight attendants to prepare the cabin for landing.

This month, I am particularly enchanted by this article by Michael Lewis, entitled When Irish Eyes Are Crying.  It's not a nice article, it's about the economic fall of Ireland and the idiocy (yes, I am perfectly comfortable with the judgy-mcjudgyness in that statement) of the Irish government following the collapse.  Let's just say to those who are upset by the bailouts: at least our government didn't guarantee every penny lost.  What I really like about this piece is that it is totally comprehensible; for the same reasons I had slight issues with the Vanderbilt biography, I often can't read articles about the economy because I simply cannot follow what-in-the-holy-hell is going on.  The Vanity Fair piece is uncompromising in its analysis, and extremely clear on all points.

It also set me on a warpath to buy property in Dublin.  You know, like a vacation home.  Who's with me?

There's also this most badass piece on Lauren Bacall, a most badass chick.  Perhaps my next in-car book needs to be a Bogie bio.  Hmmm...

Happy Thursday, all.  Be sure and come back soon (Maybe tomorrow, Wendy Pan?  Maybe?) for A Skeptic's Review of The Blades of the Rose.  It's gonna be a good one.

In Which Monday Menu Mayhem Enjoys Cooking with Beer.

Unspeakable tragedy this week: Both the laptop and the book (THE BOOK. THE ZOE ARCHER BOOK I JUST STARTED READING) have been left at Scout Camp.  While I try to wrap my mind around that (I have to travel to Florida tomorrow. Without a book.  WTF, and also FML) and resign myself to the fact that I will have to try the new Kindle borrowing system (Yes, kids.  Wendy Pan is reading paranormal romance novels.  Sign of impending doom?  Perhaps...) to finish the book on my iPhone (sigh), I can at least reflect on a weekend of successful cooking.

Like that's really going to help.

Have you ever heard of golden syrup before?  No?  Neither had I, until I saw it listed in several Nigella recipes.  And if you're like me, you go to the store and buy what you buy without exploring further, and when things like golden syrup are listed in recipes, you think "Pshaw.  I shall never be able to make this recipe because that ingredient is clearly only available in one specialty food shop in San Francisco, and clearly costs $22 per half-ounce."

When Boy Scout and I were in Stop and Shop a couple of weeks ago, I saw golden syrup.  Like, for reals.  And then I got really excited and bought some and hid it in the cupboard for a rainy day.  Or a sunny one, like this past Saturday, when I used it to make Guinness Gingerbread.

The thing that really excites me about golden syrup is that it pretty much is corn syrup, only it tastes like liquid toffee.  Because that's essentially what it is: cane sugar syrup.

And with it, I produced some of the best gingerbread I have ever tasted.  I mean, seriously.  I like gingerbread, but usually find it fairly bland.  It's one of those things that has a time and a place, but promotes nothing by way of craving or necessity.  This stuff is dynamite.  The Guinness and the syrup add a depth of flavor that is pretty rockin', and over all the recipe is low-maintenance and easy to make.

I also made (confession: for the second time) Irish Oaten Rolls, which contain Guinness as well.  They're pretty bland, but in a roll-like, comforting way.  You know when you're eating it that if it's going to hold you over pretty well if need be, and you can take comfort from it's relative healthiness- whole wheat flour, oats, and honey.

And with that, I leave you to enjoy your Valentine's Day.  In honor of the holiday, I give you some horrifying 80's dating videos.  Ohmyholyhell.




Side note: Is it bad that I'm seriously considering that Amazon six-pack? Hmm...

In Which Thoroughly Obsessed Thursday Plugs Along on the Non-Fiction Front.

Quick recap for those who don't know: I get all of my non-fiction reading-by-listening done during the four hour round-trip I make about once a week to Scout Camp.  It's served me well; I've gotten a considerable chunk of non-fiction reading done since this whole crazy idea took shape, far more than if I had tried to find the time to actually... well, read.

My focus for the past few weeks (because that's how long these things take) has been The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt by T. J. Stiles.  I first saw the book in San Francisco (I think), and was extremely excited to give it a try as soon as I finished A. Lincoln.

And when I finally finished it today, I felt... underwhelmed.

This was upsetting, because I had super high hopes.  This book won the National Book Award, after all, and I really wanted something epic (as the title suggests), along the John Adams lines.  In the end, I don't feel like I know Cornelius Vanderbilt any better; I know he was an obscenely wealthy man (adjusted to today's dollars, he's worth over $100 billion), and I know that he made his money in shipping and railroads.

I suppose, ultimately, that I also know that he helped to pave the way west, and that he had an incredibly fractured (yet interesting!) family life.

But I really don't know that much about him.  The book is filled with interesting historical economic facts (perhaps too many, it can be difficult to follow) and cannot emphasize enough the role Vanderbilt had in shaping our modern economy (and it really cannot be overstated... the country would not be the same without him), but the man himself remains elusive.

We know what he did, but not much of why he did it.  And call me a lame-o, but my favorite parts of biographies tend to be the nitty-gritty relationship details, the interpersonal relationships between the subject of the book and the people surrounding him/her.  In this book, I really wish there had been as much about the difficulties Vanderbilt had with his various sons and sons-in-law (and his daughters!), and the intriguing relationship he had with his first wife, Sophia as there was about dividends and railroad monopolies.  Cornelius and Sophia Vanderbilt were married for over fifty years, and yet Sophia only shows up in the text sporadically, mostly as a set-piece in the difficult relationship Vanderbilt had with his son, another Cornelius.

The First Tycoon reads almost like a laundry list of stock shortages, railroad routes, and how to corner the stock market, nineteenth century-style, and I'm way too far removed from an economics classroom to follow the finer points.

I certainly admire the work put in to the book; Stiles did his research and gives plenty of details about the financial and political goings-on at the time.  I only wish he had been able to tell me more about the man he's supposedly writing about.

In Which The Lady Liberty Drops Out of Law School to Become a Joanna Bourne Expert.

Well, maybe not.  But probably.

The Lady Liberty graces us with her review of My Lord and Spymaster:

I was anxiously anticipating the arrival of my second and third Joanna Bournes (my second and third romance purchases) and as though Amazon was congratulating me for my new hobby, they threw in ten Janet Evanoviches as well. I can only imagine there is some poor human in America who is simply lost without Two for the Dough... and nine of the other books from the Stephanie Plum series. Sorry!         

On to the less-than-aptly named My Lord and Spymaster. Not that it’s too far wrong, but I believe Bourne failed a little with the whole idea that Jess Whitby believes that Captain Sebastian Kennett (who incidentally has her naked in his bed by page 25, though not in the way you think) is actually Cinq, a French spy who has supplied English secrets to Napoleon. Jessamyn Whitby is the lovely heiress and mastermind behind one of England’s most successful shipping companies. While expensive governesses have tried to turn her into a lady, she occasionally slips into her criminal cockney roots which is perfectly charming and believable. The crux of that matter is that her father has been arrested because the British Service believes he is Cinq, and against his orders, she sets about clearing his name by finding the real Cinq. Which is how she ends up in a dark alleyway with her hands in Bastian’s pockets.        

 We spend about an equal amount of time in Kennett’s point of view as we do in Jess Whitby’s which is why I’m not spoiling anything when I say it’s very hard for us to believe that the Captain is Cinq the way Jess does. And there is conflict enough between them even without it (he’s the owner of a rival shipping company, among other things...), but I would have liked it to be a little more ambiguous, or to drop the whole ruse altogether.        While this one was as juicy and delectable a read, it was weaker than her first. Adrian Hawkhurst and William Doyle have returned and are as wonderful as ever, and she reveals of a few good nuggets about the how the characters all fit in together, but I was left wanting just a little bit more. I even found the great reveal in the end a wee bit predictable. And Chapter 21 made me mad. Note that and tell me if you can guess why.        

 In all, I thoroughly enjoyed it, her facility with sexual tension is ever apparent and her characters lovely as ever and villains as detestable, I just don’t find this novel as tightly crafted as her first and as I’m finding her third to be. It’s almost as though there was some page-filling stalling happening that just wasn’t quite entertaining enough to not feel like stalling. That said, I’d stall with Sebastian Kennett any day, thank you please. Joanna Bourne, I love you, keep writing, please.

In Which Monday Menu Mayhem Cheats! CHEATS, I Tell You!

First of all, I write this post to the most epic Buffy ep "Once More, With Feeling," possibly one of the best episodes of television ever.  It's at least in the top 20.  "Every single day/ The same arrangement/ I go out and fight the fight..."

Second of all, I have to confess that I was not at Scout Camp this weekend, and therefore was nowhere near the Nigella cookbook that is requisite for this column.

HOWEVER.  Due to the birthday of one Wendy Pan (Happy Birthday, Momma!), I did some serious cooking tonight, but from a different cookbook.  So I'm cheating, but not really.

Ladies and gentleman, I give you Coq au Vin via the Barefoot Contessa:

(insert your own coq joke here... don't be afraid, we've all been doing it for about two weeks now...)

I'm supposed to offer the following analogy at this point in time: Nigella : Kate Jones :: Barefoot Contessa : Boy Scout.  I'm really sorry if that's wrong.  I was a French major, and I haven't thought about math on purpose in at least seven years.  The point is that Boy Scout seems to be working through the Contessa tome (Back to Basics) the way I'm working through Nigella, and boy does he rock my world.

But let's not get in to that now.  I just ate, after all.

However, this is the one recipe that I have made from the book, and I'm a fan in a qualified sense.  There's absolutely nothing wrong with starting with bacon (my favorite starter ingredient!) and then adding a bottle of wine to braise a whole chicken you've carved up yourself (Aside from being in constant danger of dismembering myself, I am a hugely huge fan of this step.  Sorry vegetarian readers) (Oh!  And have I mentioned you get to try and light the kitchen on fire as a step in the recipe?  Awesomesauce, crispy-fried on a stick).

It doesn't look like it, but this is a labor intensive recipe, and I don't necessarily recommend it for formal dinners.  However for my two purposes (casual friend dinner and casual family celebration), it worked like a charm.  And both times the chicken came out fork-tender and full of flavor.

As time goes on, I would love to play with this recipe and make it more "mine."  It's delicious, but I do feel that it could use some "making it my own."

Here's a vid to finish off the mayhem... For the record, I did cook barefoot this evening.  (That noise?  My esthetician weeping...)

In Which Thoroughly Obsessed Thursday is Filled with Procrastination Tools.

It's been one of those days/weeks/months.  Call it the winter doldrums, call it the need for hibernation, call it not wanting to talk to anyone anymore because you're so tired of hearing complaints about the weather.  Call it awesome supernatural mind melt due to intensive amounts of Buffy and Blades of the Rose.

Whatever it is, my concentration is down, my mood is pensive, and my need for staring in to the distance is up up up.

THUS!  I present to you all of the things I have used to distract myself in the past few days.

First of all, have you seen www.theoatmeal.com?  No?  You need to go there.  Now.  If you don't have time for browsing, please at least check out this: The State of the Web, What It's Like to Own an Apple Product (truer words...) and How Many Baboons Could You Take in a Fight....  Wendy Pan took the quiz.  She got 37.

Also, have you seen this video?  It's the single greatest thing I have yet seen this year.  I think I watched it six times today, because it kept making me smile. 

There's also this video, which also made me smile, but more in the stand-up-and-cheer kinda way.  If this man represents the future leaders of our country, then sign me up:


If that's not enough coolness for you, then I'm... not cool enough.  But I thought we already knew that...?

GO PACKERS!!

In Which I Review Scoundrel by Zoe Archer, and Become Determined to Buy Every One of Her Books. Ever.

It took me way, way longer to read this book than it really should have (when I finally sat down and put my mind to it, it took only about 24 hours.  With work.), but it's all Buffy's fault.  For reals, that chick is as addictive as she is ass-kicking, and most of my free hours have been taken up with sanity-restoring marathon time.  (You think this is bad?  Wait until Felicity and Alias.  You ain't seen nothin' yet)  But between seasons 4 and 5 I made a conscious effort not to start anything new until I read this book.

And boy was I not disappointed.

We first met Bennett Day in Warrior, that charming lothario who loves all women, all the time.  He's not a rake who just loves sex; Bennett loves women, and openly admits to being in love with just about every woman he's slept with to one degree or another.  This is not something I would love in my hero (I like my heroes like I like my men: one-woman dudes), but Bennett is so sincere and so not smarmy that it's impossible not to get him.  He's the rake who hasn't found the girl.  Well, that's what this book is for.

London Harcourt (for purists who won't believe that a nineteenth century woman could be named London, her real name is Victoria Regina Gloriana London Edgeworth Harcourt... yeah, you'd want to be called London, too) is the daughter of one of the head Heirs (and is the widow of another...), but has no idea what they're all about.  The Heirs appear to be obnoxiously, rage-inducingly chauvinistic, spouting nonsense about how women think with their wombs (?!), cannot make rational decisions, etc., etc., etc.

In other words, I wanted to kill all of them all of the time during the course of this book.

Bennett and London encounter each other accidentally in a marketplace in Greece and are instantly smitten (natch).  Once he finds out who she is, kidnaps her, and tells her who he is (the man who widowed her), the fun really starts.  As in the last book, a mystical magical scavenger hunt commences, and the two (along with a sexy Greek witch and a rather awesome sea captain) hunt down yet another Source of magic.

While their relationship was, I thought, a little out of sync with the times, I really really really loved Bennett and London together.  From the beginning he is entranced by the streak of adventure he sees in her, and the more she grows into her own being, the more he loves her.  As for London, while she has been sheltered by the men in her life for her entire life, she has managed to cultivate herself and her education on the sly.  When confronted about the truth of her father's evil actions, she questions the veracity of the allegations (as she should... it's her dad after all) and then allows that most mysterious of beings, Common Sense, to shine through.

Together they form an adult, mature relationship.  Bennett is up-front from the beginning about the type of relationship he usually has and his expectations for this one (none), while London, sexually experienced widow whose dead husband was neither a eunuch nor a masochist, prepares herself for the fact that perhaps the love of her life might be encountered in a fleeting, momentary relationship.

Of course he changes his mind, she changes hers, and after some minor bloodshed, they find their HEA.

Banter abounds, action abounds, and there's sexual tension up the wazoo.  In other words, I'm going to dive right in to the next book, Rebel... as soon as season 5 is finished.