#review rant

I just gotta talk about it okay. Spoilers for the episode structure, but no spoilers for this week’s winner and loser.

I have not looked too closely at the critical reception on Reddit because Dragula Reddit burned me too hard with its braindead takes and occasional misogynistic pile ons. The two criticisms I’m vaguely aware of are that the production value is low and than the elimination challenge was weird and bad.

Let me say that, compared to season 1 of both RuPaul and Dragula, the cast of King of Drag blows them out of the water. These are polished, extraordinary artists the lot of them and I am SO FUCKING HAPPY to see them on tv. Crazy that Kings did not get their own show (or were ever cast on Drag Race) until 2025 but I think this cast is very reflective of the fact that-

Drag Kings have always had to work harder to get the same recognition, attention, and pay that drag queens get. This is true across the board from the highest level down to your local Friday night audience. I come from a smaller scene and while the actual drag artists make great efforts to be inclusive and recognize diverse expression, audiences on the whole tend not to get it unless you’re very dolled up and/or do burlesque or some other kind of sexy performance. The drag king starting out doing silly shit in a cheap suit largely does not get the same praise and attention as the new queen doing dips in a thrifted corset.

King of Drag S1’s production value is: very good and cute! I like the stop motion paper style, the kind of highly colorful highly art focused opening is very charming (RPDR could never), the set is nice, the stage is perfectly serviceable. I don’t understand what complaints about production value come from especially compared to season 1 of the other shows. Huh????

The pacing and flow of the show was: decent to serviceable. I’ll talk about the elimination challenge in a moment, which is definitely the part where this episode falls off for literally one minute. I really appreciated the focus on the contestants drag philosophy and experiences, and I think it’s the right choice to have a focus on taking up space and celebrating the fact that drag kings finally have their own show. I do not know if that takes away from the average viewer’s entertainment or not but I truly do not care.

I do think there was a kind of strange underlying dissonance between the masculinity of the challenges vs what a lot of drag kings (as represented by this fantastic cast) actually do? I too would have trouble doing a sports anything. I hope the challenges broaden in scope at least some, but we’ll see. The set is also kind of hypermasculine and doesn’t quite capture the spectrum of king drag like the cast does. I wonder and worry if a drag watching audience has much connection to things like sports or if hypermasculine aesthetics appeal to them. This is purely worry for their numbers and ability to retain an audience- RPDR and Dragula both have a specific aesthetic scope that is better rounded out by the artistic interpretation of their talented casts.

Some people say the king’s court (judges panel) is too big. I have no opinion either way. I think them voting for elimination down the line is good classic reality tv tension.

And now for the elephant in the room: the breakdance elimination challenge-

It does feel awkward and weird. No one really attempts a breakdance, they just vibe to the music for a bit, like it was a lip sync except there’s no words. Maybe they did the attempt but it didn’t make the edit, who knows! I watched this episode at a local gay bar and the room was very confused about why the elimination challenge was breakdance based, and the perplexed reaction lasted all the way through the performance.

In art competition shows, the elimination matters. Audiences want to feel like the contestants are being judged based on the merits of whatever art the show is about.

In RPDR, it’s a lip sync battle- a staple of drag performance and a head to head comparison of charisma uniqueness nerve and talent. It’s a very natural way to do it, and very engaging to watch.

In Dragula, which has fear factor style elimination challenges, they rarely do anything directly related to drag but they plainly lay out their philosophy- conquer your fears to find success. For me at least, this is deeply tied to being a drag artist (especially an alternative drag artist) and it’s also just flat out the queer experience for a lot of people. It’s scary. It hurts. It comes with a real threat of bodily harm at times. But you do it because the other side is more than worth it. It’s also high stakes and engaging to watch.

Drag is a crazy fucking art form. It takes a ton of different skills to do and you can fold an infinite amount of skills into it. I’ve used things from every art I’ve ever done- drawing, writing, music (composing, singing)- and I’ve had to learn a ton more like makeup and sewing and performing on a stage to even start. I feel like I’m learning three new skills per look, and there’s still a metric fuck ton I want to learn (I’ve been putting off wigs for a while now lol). All that to say, there is a LOT you can pull from for an elimination challenge, and drag is so broad of an art form that if you go in a more philosophical direction there’s tons and tons options for you.

Breakdancing, which has not been mentioned in the entire episode up to the elimination challenge, does not fill the audience’s need to witness the merits of the contestants. On top of that, no one actually Did Breakdancing (in the edit) and this was never acknowledged in the show that I saw. I wonder if they were embarrassed about it in the editing room?

I think a very simple fix to this would be to present the elimination challenge as: This is a new show and we’re going to ask you to do new things. As drag artists and especially as kings, we have to adapt while preserving our artistic vision. Therefore, give us your best drag breakdance.

I think it also would’ve helped to see them go at it one at a time, in this case, and the confessional can talk about their feelings on breakdancing and how they intend to approach the challenge with their character. What we actually got seemed rushed and swept under the rug.

Overall it was a great episode and I loved it!!!

Miscellaneous thoughts:

Big D is extremely similar to my drag dad and it makes me miss them like craazzyyyy.

I don’t have any favorites, I love them all and I want all of them to win.

Writing, recording, and choreographing a boy band number with 4 strangers after being in drag all day sounds like an absolute nightmare.

Sending the eliminated contestant off with the cast throwing flower petals over them is very sweet, I like it a lot, and I think it nicely reflects how kind and supportive drag kings are (#NotAllKings, but I stg on the whole kings are the sweetest people you’ll ever meet).

As someone who actively consumes a lot of film content I find myself curious as to how different prominent and professional film critics and reviewers are to my own experiences as an audience consuming content. After all, art is in the eyes of the beholder and film is just that, another form of art that can be interpreted in many ways. How people interpret content is largeley based on and tailored to the individual's personal experiences and identity, which ultimately affects the reading of film in either positive or negative ways.

Now as a queer woman and a cinephile, I have some beef. Above is a review of the TV adaptation of the The Wheel of Time, written by one James Delingpole for The Spectator UK. I am in no way a misandrist or man hater, or anything along those lines, but this review has pushed my buttons to the enth. Too many times have I seem film reviewers (largely old white men) absolutely slam perfectly acceptable and creative content just for the fact that women may have depth of character, people of colour exist as does the lgbtqia+ community.

Never have i seen a review so biased and hateful, not even towards the TV adaptation but for the source materal too and it perplexes me how these reviews are allowed to continue being published and pass the editing room. Im not talking about being PC, but fuck if your going to review something base it on merit and not the fact that ripping source material to shreds, reducing the author to a failure in the fantasy literary world and then criticising the thespian abilities of the young actors, makes a review credible. Talk about hate shot after hate shot.

I don't normally get this fired up but today I'm on this hell app letting you all know, how lovers of the books, the show, the characters and the actors, have been so denegrated to "trite" and "tripe" is absolutely disgusting. You know how we learnt "If you don' t have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all?" this, I feel, should have been the lesson here, as the only purpose of this review was to let us all know that this guy just doesn't like the Wheel of Time, full stop. Here are a few beautiful examples I would love to share with yall:

Firstly I would like to point out the arrogant preconception that reading a 14 book epic fantasy series will be feasible on a 2 week holiday. Yet despite personal recs and global sucess, the persuasion to pick up the book actually stemmed from the fact that Robert Jordan was a decorated war hero, engineer and an absolute mans man which inspired Delingpole to follow through with the book recommendation, then using Jordan's military and mathematical macho backround to justify his disappoinment in the failings of the book, as if that instantly gives agency for good authorship. The failings in Delingpole's eyes being:

The reviewer didnt even finish the books, and i feel we can all agree that the best thing about the Wheel of Time is how well the characters develop and change throughout the story to make a well fleshed out and rich fantasy world. By reducing it to a Lord of the Rings rip off, we see how, instead of reading the way Jordan developed those ideas that yes, have existed in other stories too, have rather opted in just disregarding TWoT as a failed copy cat that has "basic dialogue, leaden prose and uninspiring characters." Ahh, there is the literary language I so look for in justification for poor reviews, and yet we haven't even got to the show yet. As a reviewer who seems to hate the source material, Dalingpole sure had hopes that the TV adaptation would be different in his eyes, but nope, its EVEN WORSE.

Now lets get to the meaty part cos boy its a doozy:

Fuck me where to start. For someone so reverent of Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings this guy sure does have some hang ups about unique fantasy names, especially outright naming the 3 examples who are played by poc actors as "annoying and unpronouncable". Sure "James", Mr Western White Man who, unsurprisingly, has a problem with foreign names, (the racist subtext is starting to smell a bit here). I wonder as such an avid reader and professional reviewer how illiterate he became when reading Dune, or any other series that has predmonitely white protagonist and unpronouncable names.

Now to Moraine and the Aes Sedai. Unfunny, pompous and crotchety witches/seers/spell-weavers who only exist as a dominating and powerful political and protector class to pander to new age feminism and paganistic hippies. WOW. God forbid women have any sort of agency and respect in an epic medieval fantasy except to be the lovers, mothers, sisters or whores of great male heros. And how dare such a "macho man" like Robert Jordan pander to these ideologies. The only thing that makes sense is if he wrote an entire, intricate world surrounding womens' power as an elaborate Barney Stinson ploy to make Jordan desirable to female audiences so he could essentially, fuck them. Yes, thats right. Delingpole believes that if a male author writes about powerful women, it must only be with predatory intentions. I dont care about defending Jordan, but I do care about how narrow this lense is, and that for this male reviewer, is the only logical explanation for a female-centred narrative written by a man. As if men can't write women with any authenticity. As if women can't exist unless to be of service to a man. As if we aren't over the tireless harmful gender roles and stereotypes that 100 years of Hollywood has reinforced. As if nothing can break out of that mold and formula unless its pandandering to minorities or feminism. I can't for the life of me see how this perspective could fly these days when it is based on so much misogyny and ignorance that I've got whiplash. And this isn't even confined to the books but bleeds into the TV series as well.

Cold but sexy-ish Gandalf? Delingpole has futher reinforced his Tolkien hard-on by essentially saying that Moraine is unlikable because she is mysterious and withdrawn (which if he stuck around, he might have learnt why there are 14 goddamn books) and that her only likability is by reducing her character to looks only. That the only redeeming quality for a MAIN CHARACTER is her fuckability. For someone who didn't finish the story or is even sticking around to finish this TV series, he sure has seemed to make up his mind. I think we can all agree that Rosamund Pike is doing an exceptional job as Moraine, and the nuances she is bringing in the show is dominating the screen by bringing the source material to life in a new, refreshing way. I goddamn screamed and cried when they canonically made Moraine a gay woman in a loving relationship with the goddamn Amyrlin Seat. What a power move. What a moment to witness, this small change that made me feel more seen and connected and personal than any other adaptation I've ever consumed, and made me hope for the future of representation on the screen. Not saying that the books and the TV adaptation are perfect, and that the debate on creative liberty is one I'm not going to get into here, but this level of criticism based on the Reviewer's personal bias makes me wonder if they were the best choice in critiquing this narrative.

Moraine isnt the only protagonist under fire. The four possible Dragons are reduced to "petulant teenages" with no "discernable personality", and now I start to wonder whether we have seen the same show and read the same book. Sure, they are doe eyed villiage folk embarking on a great adventure with life/death ramifications. Since when was innocence regarded as petulance, when was the mistakes of simple mountain folk thrust into larger destiny held to such a high regard, as if teenagers aren't fucking stupid and mess up sometimes. I doubt this reviewer has the same views of Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin if you get my meaning. Hypocritical doesnt even begin to describe the level of arrogance Dalingpole has to have his word be God and the only opinion that matters in this context. And he doesnt stop there.

I know there has been some controversy in this community about the way Barney Harris is interpreting the role of Mat as a serious, brooding and whiny figure instead of the kind, trickster like, humouros conman and scoundrel as he was portrayed in the books. Either way, my personal opinion had me (ironically) disliking Harris's portrayal the most out of everyone due to the fact he felt unfamiliar to me. Whether we see a different take with Harris being recast is a different matter, because Delingpole reveres the character who has adopted the most toxic traits, whilst belittleing the rest.

Reducing young emerging actors to the thespian abilities of school play mediocrity has me reeling. How dare Delingpole attack the greener actors and diminish the hard work and talent that goes into making this kind of series, as well as insinuating that hotness and racial/queer representation is the only reason these people were cast in the first place. Im sure he didnt have any problems with the young, predominately 'white' actors of Game of Thrones, as if they are the pinnacle of acting abilities. And yes I'm gonna look at this through a racial and queer lense because goddamn James seems to feel the need to attack every minority represention left right and centre within this review. For someone hell bent on not finishing either the books or the tv series to find out if these young actors can "grow into their roles", he really is not giving any space to change his mind. Which brings me full circle and is further supported by his conclusionary statements:

In conclusion James Dalingpole wishes Game of Thrones never ended and that any form of diversity is a hindrance to the sucess of television fantasy. The Wheel of Time is thus, a cheap knockoff of every medieval fantasy that has been popularised in culture, and any decision to include minority representation in the source material, or the adaptation has ultimately lead to failure in his eyes. And yet here, Delingpole reinforces that it is the most successful fantasy series since Lord of the Rings. So how did it go so wrong? Answer: it didn't, Delingpole just has a lifelong perscription of bigoted glasses and his script ain't changing any time soon.

I am not saying that my rant on this review is the only truth out there, we all have our own opinions and interpretations, but having a reviewer so biased against diversity, whether it be gender, race or sexuality, leads me to wonder why these kinds of reviews are allowed any agency at all. Everyone's a critic, sure, but never have I seen such a blatant disregard and disrespect of the books, the fans, the actors and even the studio execs. It irks me that this drivel is still being reinforced because these opinions don't actually give any form of depth or nuance, just hatred for the divulge in formula. The classic "Bring me back to the good ol days" mentality where anyone who wasn't a man was opressed. The Wheel of Time is not Lord of the Rings, nor is it Game of Thrones, it is beloved by many, myself included, and can stand on its own if we stop the comparisons to what 'was' normal and Hollywood formula and embrace that diversity is becoming the norm. Women exist, people of colour exist and so do lgbtqia+ people who are allowed to have agency in how we create a new norm and formula for medieval epic fantasies. I, for one, am someone who can seperate book from adaptation and am so far loving both, but to write this review as an attack on the narrative as a whole feels outdated and honestly pathetic. Here I am, reading the words of another angry old white man who is pissed off that representation is being normalised, when we should be embracing the fact that outdated source material being brought to modern audiences need to reflect a sense of modernity, which thus means, adapting women-lead narratives, casting lgbtqia+ and poc actors to adapt the roles and just outright not give people like this Reviewer any more agency to reinforce these harmful opinions. I'm also not saying the Wheel of Time is perfect, because like everything, it has flaws, but outright calling it a failure due to its type of content, makes me wonder if James Dalingpole has actually enjoyed anything since we emerged into the 21st century.

So...I got this review on ff-net for "Longing" this morning. Usually I love reviews because they give me encouragement...this ain't one of them, though.

If you don't want to read through it, in summary...

"Great story, but it seems like you hate men and the direction of society. Why isn't Dean just the bland fella presented in the show? Why is he violent and a cheating asshole who's rich; that's Logan y'know? Love the story as I said and Madeline and Louise are great, but I'm done with it."

Yeah, a lot to unpack here if you're not in the GG fandom like I've been since near the beginning, along with the basic concept of fanfiction.

"It's a well-written story with good characterisation of Rory and Paris but...there's a lot of anger in it."

When I started the story in 2003, the sky was the limit, and Paris and Rory were on their way to great lives bereft of any issues with men and so much potential for women in the world. Fast-forward to 2019...where we have a lying cheat of an asshole in the White House, merely disagreeing with a man is enough to bury your Twitter mentions in hate, and LGBTQ+ rights are being attacked at every turn.

Then we have the aftermath of AYITL, which dynamited Rory's future into being completely dependent on men (aka Logan), took away her entire drive and reason for being, and left her as a homewrecker having a kid she probably never wanted. And Paris is in a loveless marriage with a completely underwritten Doyle whose character traits went from 'being a loving and supporting boyfriend to a neurotic Jewish girl with the entire world upon her shoulders' to 'wink-wink Danny Strong writes Empire and Oscar-winners; Doyle can't raise kids let's just write that Doyle's that now since we threw out the Doyle notebook in our post-S6 burning of all our character notes'.

Yeah, over sixteen years, you tend to write for your reality, and the reality right now? Totally sucks.

"Some of it seems to be directed at society, some of it at the show, with a disproportionate amount of it being taken out on mostly male characters who bear only a passing resemblance to their on screen portrayal..."

Once again...AYITL hasn't aged well. Society hates journalists. It hates driven women (see my last post taking down that asshole who hates Brie Larson). Males are pretty damned well responsible for most of it. And I haven't had the best male figures of my life and have been mostly around women. I'm probably not going to write a positive view of some men; it's bias, and I own up to it here.

And yeah, my men don't match up to how they are on screen. Because, fanfiction is...

'Fiction written by a fan of, and featuring characters from, a particular TV series, movie, etc.'

Speaking of which...

"...Which seems to have got worse as I suspect you liked the show less and less."

You're reading my story. A Gilmore Girls fanfiction. My Twitter bio declares that I've loved it a decade and a half before the Gilmore Guys started their podcast. A show where I literally follow nearly main actor on the series into every future project they've had and watched loyally, for the most part. I buy every movie the girls have been in. Fanfiction isn't defined as 'a random person writing hate screeds against a particular TV series, movie, etc.'. You're not going to ever see me write even a drabble about how much Kevin Can Wait should be called Kevin Can Burn In Hell Because He's a Ghoulish Sexist Fuckface Who Celebrated His Wife's Death To Move On With His Former Hot Wife From Another Show.

Still love Gilmore Girls in full. But being a fan doesn't mean I have to like every single decision the writers and ASP ever made.

That is the fun of fanfiction. If I disagree with canon...I can disregard it, in part, or in full. I have never been able to find a fellow fan that agreed with every plot point the show has ever made. I hope I never will, because that's definitely not why anyone should ever be a fan of the show.

And excuse my language here...but I've written over a MILLION WORDS for this story. 27 chapters have been posted. I have an eventual endgame planned for the story that has been in my mind since the day I posted chapter one. Why the fuck would I write a million words about something I hate?!

"Dean has gone from a good first boyfriend who just wasn't right for Rory long-term to a violent thief who cheated on Rory throughout their relationship and never loved her anyway. And now, incredibly, seems to be just another entitled rich kid? It feels like you really want to bash on Logan but can't find a way to have him in the story, so you've turned Dean into him."

Oh reviewer...dear reviewer...oh, you don't know what you've gotten yourself into.

I have ALWAYS hated Dean. Always. Since January 2001 when I caught up on the backlog of episodes I missed because I only started watching during the two back-to-back night Christmas episodes, the only positive thought I've been able to spare for him was that Jared Padalecki (no attacks on him here, just the character) got a good living playing a completely underwritten bore who has nothing redeeming going on and a backstory that I would call 'existent'.

The show claims he's from the south side of Chicago in a neighborhood near the Dan Ryan that has 5% white people going by the zip code of his mail from there (the show's basic research department blew it there). Most white people from Chicago are in the Gold Coast, the northwest suburbs, or the North Shore. I have been adjacent to the Chicago market my whole life. He's from the North Shore, no question, judging from how his parents seem to have good enough wealth and how every white guy Chicago teenager story is drawn from a kid from the North Shore.

He literally punched Jess out three times!

He made Rory fear violence for merely losing a bracelet he gave her and for being near Tristan for a school function (LOL, Dristan...that burn still causes me to laugh at inappropriate times about how dumb it was, and I'm sure Tristan has it as one of his constant bon mots).

He called her home phone nearly a hundred times a day and drove her to the edge of madness with a 'must watch every day' love of Lord of the Rings that compares unfavorably to my four year-old nephew only loving Frozen, PJ Masks and Daniel Tiger. That isn't anyone any person has to tolerate in a relationship.

Dean’s only reaction to Rory trying to prove a point with her Donna Reed night was just she looked hot and he learned nothing about how women hate being confined to being solely homemakers and sexual receptacles.

He dumped her because she didn’t say “I Love You” like it was the goddamned bonus round in Wheel of Fortune and she didn’t get the solution out before the buzzer.

Dean’s shambles of a gift, that piece of shit car? It almost killed Rory and Jess. It looked like it didn’t have seatbelts. I’m surprised we didn’t get an episode where Dean ended up homeless because Richard sued his cheap ass into the fucking ground.

He decided to make her go back to him in front of the entrance of Chilton, where Rory would have looked like the biggest b***h in history if she didn’t return an ‘I love you’, and goddamned well knew it. Any good person would have done this in fucking private, like a considerate person.

He never respected the Chilton side of her life. At all. If it was up to him, he would’ve made up a bomb threat and had his friend imitate Rory’s voice to get her kicked out of the school she spent her young life trying to get into. If it was up to him, Harvard would have never even been a possibility, and if not for Jess coming in, he would have intimidated her into pushing off her dream entirely to stay in the kitchen.

His origin story was never mentioned outside 'he moved from Chicago and had a girlfriend in the past, Beth'. Fanfiction allows you to examine the holes in stories and go from there, and I just worked with them because the thing with moves to new locales? You can have a brand new image with people, and they will never know what you did in your old place. Judging by his violent/stalkerish tendencies, he has a pretty good case for having Imposter Syndrome that eventually reset itself in the Hollow.

Over time he went from a guy who seemed to like good literature to hyperfocusing on the 'it' media property of the time. Likely he started out liking fine literature, but once he fell in with the imbeciles of his friend group in the Hollow, that proved to be a lie.

He had a thing about being close to Lorelai. So much that around that time, there were so many more people shipping Lorelai/Dean than Rory/Dean as a romantic couple. If not for his later flanderization, that fangroup would still be strong.

HE CHEATED ON HIS WIFE!

**HE. CHEATED. ON. HIS. WIFE!

***HE! CHEATED! ON! HIS! WIFE!

****And outside losing his home and some stuff being damaged (rightfully fucking so) by Lindsay, both her and Rory took all the brunt of the damage his wandering dick did between all of them. Lindsay was guilted by her parents for checking out on her marriage and was never heard from again (I assume she's in a convent now because ASP's writing outside of Lorelai and Rory [or Paris, Sookie and Lane on a day she wasn't angry at the world for not pressing her hat right] for women was 'they are the enemy'). Rory had to find her way back to her old self (and she never did going by ending up with Logan). Dean? Welp, good thing "Supernatural" started at that time to save ASP the bother of having to explain what a dumbass Dean was.

*****Justice for Lindsay Lister! I hope she didn't go to a convent, but flipped off her parents, squealed out of town and is killing it in a career where she's respected, with a partner who loves her deeply.

The scene where he cornered Rory into sex in her house and said he didn’t love Lindsay was sexual assault and gaslighting. ASP intended it to be romantic, but instead created a nightmare scene that would be completely passe in a Lifetime movie. Rory’s first time was her being forced to give up her sexual agency for the pleasure of only Dean. And it’s exactly why the Paris/Rory scene I wrote on the yoga mats was intended to be the exact reverse of that trash.

He hoped to get ahead in life on a hockey scholarship. That's...not a life plan. And he paid for it by being stuck doing construction.

He hated Paris. He hated that Rory had her as a friend. He wanted a life with Rory that never involved Paris.

Paris is a strong-ass lady for daring to step to him and lie through her teeth about wanting Jess to stop the Great Stars Hollow Homicide of 2002 By The Coward Dean Forrester from ever being a thing.

LOL Logan is Tristan Lite and always will be.

About ten chapters back I mentioned how the girls consider Logan terrible already from a distance based on the New York media scene. Trust me, he's in this story (he may be a little more in this story later).

"There is a lot to recommend in this, like the slow burn set-up (although you've made up for it since!)..."

#backhandedcompliment (Also, what's to recommend? Love to know what you did like, but you spent all that time saying 'I'm mean to men', so I guess you ran out of time on that)

"...and turning Madeleine and Louise into three-dimensional characters..."

You sent me a flame, but didn't expand on what you loved about this? Thanks for the lack of feedback (and for misspelling Madeline’s name).

"But there are several reasons why it's not been an easy read so I won't be hanging out for an update, I'm afraid."

You basically said that you consider me a man-hater and that because I choose to have the ladies present their views in the story, you don't like that I'm drawing real life into their motives, mores and decisions. And you said I hated the show when most of my friend circle was formed through bonding through it, and we still love it, even if we think Rory needed to do better in life and ASP's writing weakened as each season went on.

I don't need readers like you, seriously. There are many other Rory/Paris stories you can read out there. As I have said in many other flame responses;

I’m going to come right out and say it; if you’ve been reading other reviews and thinking this is a ‘marriage of convenience turns to love’ kind of book? That’s not what this is.

This is, in fact, a ‘complete scum bag ruins heroine’s family so she is forced to marry him’ kind of book. And really… is there a way back from a hole that deep?

It gets worse when you realize that since Charlotte was in her first season, she was EIGHTEEN when Lord Dearing pulled off this nasty plot. Apparently, he first saw her performing on the piano at some society event and decided he had to have her. Realising his minor title (he’s a viscount) puts him well back in the race for the hand of a lovely, titled, talented lady like Charlotte, he resorts to foul means to get her.

I can’t get past this. I’m sorry, I just can’t. Not only did he marry her this way, he forced her father to hand over a valuable railroad share, and then ABANDONED HER for six weeks for… some reason that’s never defined in the slightest. Ten months later they’re barely talking to each other. The only point in Dearing’s favour is that he hasn’t actually forced Charlotte to consummate the marriage, because he does have a conscience and is wracked by guilt over what he’s done. Not enough to give that railroad share back to her father, though. Or even say yes to Charlotte when she rather pathetically says she’d like a kitten to keep her company.

There are too many sub-plots going on in this story, from a distasteful bet made between a rather pathetic villain and the hero’s best friend, to a bizarre plot involving the heroine’s sister getting embroiled in a scandal which seemed to peter out with no resolution whatsoever. There was far too much of the plot driving the characters going on here, and I set the book down at the end feeling thoroughly irritated, and not a little icky at Dearing having got exactly what he wanted with no real consequences at all for his immoral and frankly villainous actions. I really can’t find any redeeming qualities in the story at all. One star.

London's Best Kept Secret is available now.

SPOILERS AHEAD

What can I say about this series? The acting and budget are there, so there's nothing to complain about. As for the characters, Joe and Ming, what a tumultuous, passionate and chaotic relationship! Honestly, you die, heaven and God give you another chance, and you make the same mistakes again? I'm flabbergasted. Joe is so naive, I can't think of another word, especially when the other characters warn him. It drives me crazy!

Joe tends to get attached to toxic people because he doesn't know how to say no and lacks self-confidence. Ming, on the other hand, is manipulative, mean-spirited and has a huge ego. He's the worst love interest I've ever seen in a BL. Their relationship is a disaster: Ming is interested in Joe because, from behind, he looks like Tong. It's demonic and disgusting. It's really sad when Joe realizes this, and soon after, he dies. As for Tong, he's just a real bastard.

But wait, I haven't even mentioned the most shocking scene in the series: the one where Joe is sequestered. Even in a toxic series, that's surprising. Well, I'll take that over a rape scene any day.

All this to say that I hope Joe will evolve in the sequel, but I don't have much faith in it given that he's under contract to Ming. One scene particularly surprised me: Joe gets Ming drunk so he can go home, but he can't, because Ming's assistant refuses to walk him home alone. They end up

Have you ever heard of D.B. Cooper? Because if you have, the plot of this book might seem startlingly familiar.

If you haven’t heard of D.B. Cooper, you might want to look at the Wikipedia entry, but I’ll sum up by saying he was the perpetrator of the only unsolved skyjacking in aviation history, parachuting out of an airliner somewhere over the Pacific Northwest with $200,000 strapped to his body on Thanksgiving Eve, 1971. Neither he nor his stolen money have been identified to this day despite the FBI’s best efforts.

So when a man named Bill Porter perpetrates a near-identical heist for $8 million in 1978 at the beginning of this book, I was immediately put in mind of Cooper, and mystified that the author at no point in this book mentions the Cooper case or credits it for inspiring him.

Even if this was a really great book, this failure to acknowledge taking real-life inspiration from one of the greatest unsolved crimes in history would annoy me intensely. As it is, the plot is a thorough muddle and the book can’t seem to decide whether it wants to be a thriller or a romantic suspense, falling messily in the middle with not enough thrills OR romance.

There are inconsistencies all over the place, like the villain knowing what cave to intercept the protagonists at despite his never being told. Or two beds appearing in a hotel room where there was only one the night before. Or a supposedly well-travelled career criminal having no idea where he could find a gun in the capital city of a South American country even with plenty of money at hand.

Then there’s one of my least favorite tropes making an appearance; an otherwise competent and self-sufficient heroine who’s been thriving in said South American country for several years apparently having not the faintest idea how to fight back or defend herself when a villain tries to rape her, instead just helplessly screaming and going limp. Oh, also she has ‘large breasts’ despite appearing ‘small and frail’. Definitely written by a man. Sigh.

The author is Honduran, and despite my utmost respect for anyone who is able to write in a language not their first, I actually think it’s even more important to retain a competent editor who IS a native speaker of that language. It’s very obvious that hasn’t happened here, because the language is too stilted and there’s too much telling rather than showing.

If this was an original plot, I’d probably still have given it two stars for the issues mentioned above. Ripping off a fascinating real-life case and not crediting it? This author gets one star and a black mark from me, I’m afraid.

Treasure Hunt is available now.