Having gotten it in my head that I’d like romances from the 1980s, I came across The Copeland Bride by Justine Cole. It seemed like the right amount of gut-twisting, darkly tragic stuff I’m back into these days. Talk of Moliere, a Dickensian back drop, and two people damaged by it all. There were even a few wittier moments in the beginning. It could have been great. And it wasn’t. If only the writer actually wrote the parts that matter though.
This story was a prime example of why “telling” is not better than “showing.” I felt like my enjoyment of the story was thwarted at the door of what could have been an exciting exchange ten times too many. She showed the boring parts and told the interesting parts. When a character pours their heart out to another, the reader needs to hear the character’s exact words, not the author’s Reader’s Digest version of it.
Entire swaths of what should have been the most poignant parts of the novel were boiled down to a few narrative paragraphs that offered little emotion or sincerity. It reads more like a historical encounter than a literary one because the characters don’t have strong voices. They don’t tell their story, the narrator has high-jacked the story and told it for them. There’s a certain distance that needs to be maintained, and if not it can ruin the story. A good third person narrator is like a good scientist in the field, observing astutely but not interfering.
I disliked Quinn’s treatment of Noelle a lot the more I kept reading. In the first half, he was just angry. In the second half, masochistically cruel would be the appropriate term. There isn’t a redeeming feature other than his face, which considering that this is romanceland, he’s a dime a dozen. Noelle isn’t a strong heroine, in spite of the insipid narrative that she’s street smart and carries a knife. A heroine carrying a weapon doesn’t magically make her self-reliant and able to take care of herself. The word “rape” gets tossed around too easily.
It just goes to show that the devil is in the details. It also reflects the need for good editors who should be able to spot and correct these kinds of things. But alas, there’s more antagonism toward proper editing and revision these days, so I can hardly be hopeful about future pulp writers.
Erica Glass 