Borrower of the Night (1973)

So many things about this book bugged me. In fact, I'm struggling to think of what I DID like about this book. I guess the ambiance was nice. Set in an old castle in Germany, all the crawling about in the ruins and discussion of history. I liked that. But...

The characters were not engaging. Our heroine and narrator, Vicky, was a smart, independent woman of un-delicate proportions (her self-description as being a "bouncing Brunhilda" was pretty funny) and competitive spirit. She has declared that she will never marry, but seems to be in some kind of baffling relationship with a fellow professor named Tony. Tony is a total asshat who treats Vicky with disrespect and has an out-of-control ego. Vicky's attitude and actions never make a lot of sense to me. One minute she's cursing Tony and trying to one-up him, the next she is simpering and trying to soothe his ego. The other characters are kind of like white noise - there, but not contributing much.

The mystery was also odd. They were searching for a lost work of art which they happened to read about in a book. Apparently everyone else in the world incidentally read the same book the exact same week because everyone was looking for this thing independently. The art had been lost for 500 years, but this week everyone remembered to look for it.

And the archaeologist in me sobbed at all of their techniques. Trained historians should know better. They're just snatching and grabbing and smashing antiquities right and left. Europeans obviously find the medieval period of little value (the Americans and volunteers were always assigned to the medieval levels on my digs in the Netherlands) but... gah!

And when the heck was this story set, anyway? Telegraphs and kerosene lamps suggest early in the century, but Vicky's wearing pants and working as a professor, so that seems less likely. Germany has zero apparent concern about war, either, which leaves me absolutely lost.

I guess I'll go back to Amelia Peabody. ( )

The story was slow to start, but it got better. Still, I'm glad I started the series with book number two. Would have been nice to have read this before no. 4, since Tony shows up there, but it's not importent for the plot. ( )

This is the first of the Vicky Bliss series - great narration by Barbara Rosenblat - witty, suspenseful, and a good mix of history. Definitly a good series to recommend. ( )

Now that I am retired I decided to give Peter's another chance. I remember not liking one of her books a really long time ago. Unfortunately, I couldn't keep going with this first book in the series. I would like to comment, however, one one reviewer's review that called it "dated feminism". Duh, it was published in 1973. For the time this was pretty progressive stuff. However, the reason I can't keep going with this book is because of the protagonist's constant derision of her body size. I have a body much like that of the character and find her perceptions of self very demeaning. I was 22 at the time this book was written. Which gets me back to the feminism comments. This negative take on body size is really in strong contradiction to the social feminist aspects of the book.

No rating since I didn't finish the book.

Leila at Bookshelves of Doom was reading this one. Looked fun, so I picked it up. It was fun. It’s one of those that if I’m ever in the mood I’ll read another in the series but I don’t feel any particular compulsion to keep going. [Oct. 2008]]

Hah! Little did she know...

I actually ended up quite addicted to this series. And now rereading the reviews is making me want to reread the books. Scmiiiiidddddt. ( )