Posted by Astronommy 4 years ago Report

And so HMS Darling proudly sails into the bay!

Phenomenal car drive scene, both for the conversation and for the character-refracted descriptions of the environments! I could go for an endlessly continued version of this: just a trio of interesting people driving around the country and commenting on what they see and occasionally bringing up parts of their backgrounds.

St. Louis is the city I'm most familiar in the US, and it's recently been coming up in a lot of different contexts; I guess no matter how fly-over you are, being located in the physical, as well as metaphorical center of the country means you still get mentioned a lot. It's almost sad to know the proceedings seem to be moving to the sunny Cauliflower after the dinner and the possible con wrap up, but the rural IL will have done its job as a quaint European town setting substitute by then, so it's alright.

The dashing fencing bout of wits and charms between Ms. Carver and Mr. Black is gorgeously written, with every little involuntary grin that a character gets during that exchange reflecting on the reader's mouth. I will admit to a general distaste for the em dash-interrupted lines, more so because of how bad I am at keeping locked on the flow of dialogue while reading, but it didn't bother me at all here. All the little actions and character quirks serving the high voltage communication do their job very inconspicuously, and do their job well.

So good to see the heroine meet someone capable of matching her cunning and ego with dignity, while still tempting her darkly motherly side!

Posted by 4ofSwords 4 years ago Report

My familiar with St. Louis is actually passing at best! I've spent a lot of time there in Google Maps, but beyond that less than a full day in reality. I didn't even much care for it! But for some reason it has become a convenient stand-in for stories. Possibly because the name is somewhat familiar, without being someplace obvious like Chicago or LA?

Posted by Astronommy 4 years ago Report

Sorry, didn't mean to focus so much on an insignificant detail! Come to think of it, the last memorable time someone mentioned St. Louis, it was as a shorthand for a middle-of-nowhere town. To be fair, the place does have a bit of a depressive reputation: at least one of my friends migrated to nearby Chicago recently for better job opportunities, and the Ferguson protests didn't happen because there had been too much social equality and ethical policing going on. It does have some nice parks for the summertime, some decent community events, and some interesting bits of architecture -- namely the Gateway Arch -- but then it's the bare minimum for a place to be considered an urban area and not just woods.