(3 of 5 stars) And now for a review of the hard to find, controversial novel The Silver Devil by Teresa Denys - I managed to track this one down through Ebay and bought it from the UK. You will find it with two different covers - the dark one the US cover and the red one the UK cover.
The Girl - Felicia, she is the bastard daughter of an inn-keeper, after her mother died she is treated cruelly by the rest of her family - almost raped by her step-father and after his death treated no better than a servant (think Cinderella here). She is a gray-eyed, raven haired virgin - beautiful, delicate, innocent and alone.
The Guy- Domenico, Duke of Cabria (in 1600's Italy), he is tall, powerful, arrogant, cruel, stubborn and very sure of his power. Fair with white-blond hair, his subjects call him the Silver Devil behind his back. Very jealous, anti-social and even psychotic.
The Setup - During a parade for the Duke and his nobility, Felicia is locked upstairs in the Inn and forgotten. She decides to make the best of it and finds that if she opens the window and hangs out she has a good view of the road below and the procession. She amuses herself by watching the parade and little does she know that she has caught the eye of the Silver Devil himself. Later that night her brother helps drug her and sells her to the Duke so she can be his new mistress.
The Good Stuff - Entertaining read for all the WTF, OMG, OTT moments in the book. Domenico is certainly not a man you want to F**k with - we see him repeatedly kill, torture, and send to a slow death people who have either betrayed him, annoyed him or even just been getting to close to Felicia. He truly possess a serial killer like psyche and once his mind is set to something he doesn't stop.My Gripe - The damn book is set in first person perspective from Felicia's point of view - uggghhh! This makes it very one dimensional and makes Domenico look like even more of a psycho because we don't see into his head and we don't know what he is thinking most of the time. Because of the 1st person, Felicia also does some incredibly TSTL things just so she is in the midst of the action and can later tell us about it. I think this would have been a much better book if it had been written differently. The romance is good and believably, Felicia sees all these evil things that Domenico does yet she still loves him. He also is completely taken by her and wants only her at his side. The mysteries of the novel weren't that mysterious and even I could tell what was going to happen. I was often angry with Felicia for acting dumb and also for not telling Domenico what she thought and felt. Most of the bad things wouldn't have happened to these two if only they had talked to each other!!! That gets old really quick and you want to smack the shit out of both of them. The battle scenes are good and make up for some of the other faults of the book. All together an interesting read, but very flawed.
Bodice Ripper Check List
- Virgin heroine/experienced hero - check
- Heroine near death - check
- Heroine dresses up as a boy to hide - check
- H/H refuse to talk to each other creating stupid, pointless misunderstandings - check, far too many of them!
- Rape - check
- Selling your step-sister for 30 gold pieces - check
- Torture - check
- Murder - check
- Poisonings - check
- Royal intrigues - check
- Madness - check
- Hinted at incest - check
- Homosexual and bi-sexual encounters - check
- Brother vs. brother - check
- Suicide - check
Casting Call - If I were to make a movie of this one who would I pick for the actors:
Domenico - Paul Bettany
Felicia - Zooey Deschanel
Piero (a little slug character who plots against our couple)- Steve Buscemi
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