The Forest Lord

I grabbed this book because I have been having an insane week, and wanted something stupid, therefore I acknowledge I have no one but myself to blame. This review contains spoilers, and also I expect I shall make use of vulgar language.

Right, so Lord Bradwell is hunting in his lands when he's caught by the mystical being he recently (unwisely) decided was probably legendary and therefore no barrier to hunting in his own lands. WHOOPS. The fairy demands Bradwell's daughter, so he can knock her up and take the resulting child, and Bradwell sort of agrees: "Yes! I mean, um, if you can convince her to marry you!" Later, when the fairy does, Bradwell decides he meant "no," and reveals to his daughter the nature of her suitor.

Luckily, Eden and the man she supposed was her cousin from India are not actually married at this point. Unluckily, Eden is knocked up. Eden is rather upset to discover her cousin wears an eighteen point rack (of horns, I mean,) and flees, gives birth to a stillborn (OR SO SHE THINKS (spoiler)) child, and is hastily married off to a man her father hopes will salvage her reputation.

Six years later, her wastrel husband finally dies, and Eden discovers her child wasn't stillborn after all. Eden has been living in London, under the patronage of her society aunt, and has gained a reputation for taking lover after lover (in the acceptable and polite society manner of married ladies) but her husband has spent all her money, so she, stunned by the knowledge she has a child, is forced to return to her father's country estate. By the way, her father may or may not be dead, no one's sure!

When she gets there, she is shocked to discover the state of disrepair and poverty: it turns out that the blessing the land lay under may have been mildly, um, broken, what with trying to kill the being who provided it. Also, her son, supposedly somewhere in Ireland and irretrievably lost shows up in the driveway. How? Why? Quick, look over there!

Eden dedicates her energies to the wellbeing of her son, and to a secondary extent, her tenants, which is when the eponymous Forest Lord discovers she may have tricked him about the whole "the kid died" thing, and shows up, in disguise, bent on revenge.

The Forest Lord is described as 'fane' (which is pretty obviously 'fae' with an n added,) Hern, Hartley (get it?), and Cornelius Fleming. At this point, he shows up as Hartley Shaw, common laborer, and is hired on at the stable.

As you do, Eden feels herself strangely drawn to this man, but recognizes that a fling with the hostler will probably not improve her reputation, which she now cares about as it will bear on her son. Speaking of her son, Donal, he thinks the aforementioned hostler is the bees knees, and Eden is continually retrieving him from the stable.

Eventually, Eden succumbs to Hartley's not-terribly-well-demonstrated charms, leading, first, to this sentence: "This was not the fumbling, crude caress of a laborer or farmer," and second, to the revelation that Eden hasn't actually been taking lovers, and has merely been fooling everyone (including, somehow, all the men who thought they were getting laid?). Her only sexual experience was with her pseudo-cousin, and an unpleasantly rapey (quick, look over there!) episode with her wastrel husband. She's been "saving herself... for what, she did not know" So, clearly she's well qualified to evaluate someone's kissing performance as a reflection of their class.

So, Eden and Hartley begin sneaking off together on a regular basis, aided by the actions of the housekeeper, Mrs. Byrne, who tells Eden she's just happy to see her happy. I had to smack myself ion the head with my paperback pretty much every time Mrs. Byrne showed up. One of the villagers actually tells Eden not to worry since the they totally will not let anyone know.

A major point is that Hartley, as one of the fane, is incapable of love, although he has become pretty fond of Eden and is indisputably quite fond of Donal. Eden has convinced herself that Hartley is probably the result of a union such as that which produced Donal, explaining his magical facility with animals, and I actually liked the way that at least part of his attraction to her was that he was in a position to understand her son.

At this point, aunt Claudia's resistance to Hartley becomes the driving force behind the story: so opposed is she to her niece's romantic mesalliance that she hires some early Winchester ancestor from America to deal with the unnatural being who has mesmerized her niece.

No, seriously: "a near savage from the former colonies of America, who had [questions about] 'demons' and 'wendigos.' He insisted upon the existence of such supernatural creatures and said he had forged paths across the trackless wastes of forest and plain in pursuit of them. He had not been shy of boasting about his God-given calling to destroy them wherever they nested." If this book hadn't been published in 2002, I'd be pretty sure where that came from.

Anywho, Claudia reveals to Eden that Hartley is in fact Cornelius, come to take back his son. Eden flees back to London, half out of her mind, and aided in getting there by the opium her aunt has been dosing her with. Hartley shows up, once again in disguise as Cornelius, severely weakened by his distance from his forest, but also by being shot by Claudia. We learn that Eden's father is in fact alive (What? Why? Quick, look over there!), Eden realizes that Claudia is in fact mad, (Why? How? Quick, look over there!) and that Cornelius/Hartley has the advantage of being sane-ish and having her son's best interests at heart, so she heals him with sex. I have to say, I think I find the magical healing cunt a pleasant change from the magical healing cock.

There's a big confrontation involving cold iron and guns, and Hartley finally discovers himself to be capable of sacrifice, but more interestingly, we discover that Claudia is actually Eden's mother, (What? Why!?) and that Eden's actual father was turned into a fox by Hartly, years ago, providing Claudia with motivation for her raging hate on. Hartley, in remorse, restores the foxy-dad (who, the book manages to almost certainly unintentionally imply, has been populating the forest with vulpine half-uncles and aunts to Donal), Claudia is consumed with remorse for nearly separating her daughter from her one and only, and everyone lives happily ever after.

Oh, and also the housekeeper is a fairy, who takes her leave with "Blessed be." I smacked myself in the head with the paperback.