Some Romance

The Dueling Duchess by Minerva Spencer is the middle novel in a trilogy involving women at a female circus in Regency England (most of this book took place in 1815-6, during the decade when King George IV stood in for his ailing father). It is the "Wicked Women of Whitechapel." She has multiple series.

The fact the book is part of a series involving three women (fighter, markswoman, knife show/some sort of spy) explains why some of the details of when the two main protagonists met were not spelled out. A trio of nobles (including an upright sort, a playboy, and a taciturn spy) go undercover in the circus as part of a plan to save one of their brothers, trapped in France. 

All three turn out to fall in love with members of the circus. This book concerns the Frenchwoman who now runs the circus and is the daughter of a great gunsmith. She gets involved with the playboy but there are various other plots. The whole thing gets to be a bit silly, but guess that's expected.  

Overall, I enjoyed it as a generally light reading, though various serious things happened. For instance, they take in a girl, whose parents died, and she has been living on the streets. She struck the jackpot finding these two. Still, so many others did not.

There are so many romance novels out there. I have not read that many. From time to time, I find one that I by chance find enjoyable. Some of these books are pretty long. This one was over three hundred and fifty pages. No wonder there was so much going on.  

A charm of these books is that they are not that deep. They are quick reading affairs. They have a few steamy sex scenes. There are a range of locales, both historical and otherwise. General fun. 

Hopefully, the characters are not totally cardboard. OTOH, some may like that sort of thing. Some have religious themes. For instance, the Amish or other comparable sects seem to be popular. These books tend to have less steamy sex scenes. 

I have three Hallmark Channels (one often has mysteries), Up TV, and Great American Family Network. So, even without others, there are a lot of light romances and cozy mysteries. 

People who watch these channels even semi-regularly realize there are regular actors, often familiar faces from the past. Oh ... it's the actress from Wonder Years ... it's that guy again ... it's Autumn Reeser.

The third actress stars in Junebug (not the Amy Adams movie), which premiered last night. I saw a preview a couple weeks ago and it looked promising. 

An adult woman (turning 40) starts to see her eight-year-old self, who is not too pleased about her boring life. Appropriately, Juniper (Junebug as a child) now edits children's books. She falls for a painter, who she selects to be an illustrator. 

Reeser has been in many Hallmark films (and a few other things). I have liked some of them. She's good here though the guy is a bit of a boring hunk type. 

Juniper has a nicely normal bestie and even-keeled parents. The story takes place at a leisurely pace and the usual difficulty that pops up is handled quickly. 

There is also a charming reference to Say Anything, including a good moment when she is excited when her new love interest (she breaks up with her boring boyfriend midway) knows about that John Cusack film. She would have been rather young to truly enjoy that 1989 film when it first came out.  

One thing about many of these films is that the characters are generally privileged. Some people could not simply quit their jobs as she does to fulfill her dream to become a writer. Another film involved someone living in the basement apartment of her sister and it was a nice basement apartment.

The different channels have a somewhat different feel. GAMF films come off as more forced. Up TV went all in with diversity (well non-white characters-wise) before Hallmark. It also is likely to have more religiously themed films.  And, if you flip through the channels, you can find others with romances too.

I'm not sure if any channel goes with having more average people having romances. One thing a lot of these films do not have is things happen in urban areas. A lot of small towns. This film had some visuals that suggest a larger location but hard to tell. 

I have a dream that I will someday of a woman mayor and president. New York currently does have a woman governor. She wouldn't be my first choice but she's okay. And, we were this close to a no drama woman mayor instead of Eric Adams. Sigh. 

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer would be a good choice for president. Now, however, we have a different choice. Well, that will do it. One out of 47 is enough, right? 

I saw Whitmer on Stephen Colbert not that long ago. She supported Biden staying in the race and promoted her book. It's a small book (around 150 pages) entitled True Gretch: What I've Learned About Life, Leadership, and Everything In Between. 

Yes, she does have that midwestern accent. I say that as a guy from the Bronx, who people say has an accent (sometimes people hear some Boston). Whitmer to me looks something like Geena Davis. 

The book is a handy quick way to get a feel about Gov. Gretchen Whitmer as she gives some advice and talks about her life and career. 

She puts herself out as a plainspoken person who doesn't take herself that seriously. She has a sense of humor, enjoying an SNL bit about her while making sure to correct the actress about using a Canadian beer. 

Whitmer also got stuff done, including her party regaining control of a state Trump won, if by a fraction of a percent. (47.50 v. 47.27). BTW, when I see talk of polls against Harris in Georgia, I say "calm down a bit." We are talking about 1-2 percent with the undecideds more than the margin. 

Geena Davis and Michael Keaton were in a political-themed romantic comedy called Speechless. Yes, I can connect a lot of things together. It was a pleasant enough film back in 1994 and they were speechwriters for competing candidates.  

Gretchen Whitmer has two daughters from her first marriage. True love forever is often not reality. Heck, even Hallmark has some characters who are divorced. 

There even was a sequel to a film (The Nine Lives of Christmas) where the match actually didn't stay together. I could not get into the film (the guy was rather stiff even in the first film) so do not know what happened in the end.  The first film was cute.