A brief and unintentionally amusing weekend interlude

While en route to the laundry room this afternoon (exciting weekend here) I got distracted by my Robert Hale bookshelf. Has anyone else read Janet Kilbourne's Where Nobles Tread? I hadn't made note of the subject before, but it's an obscurish historical novel about one of Queen Isabella's ladies-in-waiting who becomes torn between two men, the devilishly irresistible Piers Gaveston, favorite of Edward II, and Gaveston's enemy, William Darcy.

I debated reading and reviewing it as part of my "obscure books" series but don't think I can get through it in its entirety. The opening scene is... memorable. I can't decide if Gaveston's being portrayed more like a reject from Saturday Night Fever (he and his "tanned, muscular body" make their entrance wearing tight-fitting hose, a rich purple tunic, and a white, sequined shirt, the latter two of which are open to the waist - exposing a silver medallion dangling against his manly chest) or some refugee from Woodstock (because of his long, flowing black hair). Isabella is a sharp-tongued harridan who moans in detail about her unhappy marriage to her new lady-in-waiting two minutes after meeting her. And Edward is tall, handsome, and generally royal in appearance, but the bigger problem is that he knows he's "just plain damn lazy and always would be" (p.25).

I'd say it degenerates from here, but there is no high point to the novel, really. Example dialogue consists of "Die, you filthy traitor!" and "You dirty bastard... all you can think about is his body, isn't it?" I understand the author was a mere seventeen when it was published, and it shows... but despite her young age, she writes quite imaginative sex scenes.

Several copies are available on ABE. Start shopping now. For now, I think I'll be heading back to Princes of Ireland.