jankp's Full Review: Saint Francine Marie - Keeping Mr. Right
NOTE - Dr. Freudine is a fictitious psychiatrist and my alter-ego who sometimes helps me to review books, movies and music. Last time she was wowed by the Patrick Swayze movie One Last Dance. ***************
As I watch McCullough and Wynona dance merrily away from me towards their college dorm or sorority house most likely, I begin to wonder if it could all be an act put on for me. They seem like the perfect couple who has it all together and their life in control, but that's when I suspect they really don't. Okay, so I'll keep reading that "secret" trilogy by Francine Saint Marie to prepare for my first real session with the two. The first book, The Secret Keeping, may have garnered some awards, but not being a fan of common romantic fiction, be it lesbian fiction or otherwise, I wasn't impressed with it. Yeesh, it promises to be a long night. What with Irish off giving another performance of my play and this trilogy, a so-called epic love story, I may just fall asleep early.
I find myself a few minutes later settled down with some hot chocolate and an apple (hopefully to keep me awake) and the second book on my lap. Fortune is a Woman it's now called rather than Keeping Mr. Right, taken from Machiavelli's The Prince that I long ago read for my undergraduate degree. Might have to dig it out for a reread, especially for my new (yes! new at last!) clients. Saint Marie includes a preface where the lines from that book use her novel's title. This must be the reason for the continuation of this lame, scandalous soap opera. Machiavelli writes:
I conclude then that fortune varying and men remaining fixed in their ways, they are successful so long as these ways conform to circumstances, but when they are opposed then they are unsuccessful. I certainly think it is better to be impetuous than cautious, for fortune is a woman and it is necessary, if you wish to master her, to take her by force. And it can be seen that she lets herself be overcome by the bold rather than those who proceed coldly.
Well, just an observation, Ms. Saint Marie, but none of your always gorgeous, rich goddesses have so far inclined to be at all bold and if you suddenly make them bold, won't that be rather out of character for them and especially since they're presumably becoming older and wiser? It turns out that Machiavelli's book is a favorite of the woman president of the financial corporation where one of our goddesses is second in command. This novel begins some years after the first and two of the women are still happily married, the vice president Lydia and the popular psychotherapist Helaine after paying off the latter's nasty ex-lover, a supermodel, out of court. Real bold, huh? So what happens in this book? Lydia realizes that her top assistant, a very beautiful African-American named Venus (who's also great at tennis), is deeply, silently, in love with her and she fights being swept up by her charms because Lydia loves her wife. Venus, for her part, dumps her husband and another hot guy while pining for her chilly boss, but becomes chummy with Helaine who gives her an executive position with the doctor's foundation. This leads to a romance with a French trollop who supposedly looks like Lydia and Helaine's ex, the vindictive supermodel, smells fresh meat when Venus appears in the papers and TV. I guess that ex, now a mother unbelievably and under restraint by the court, is a bold one. Finally it looks like the end of Lydia's and Helaine's marriage when the latter must go on a five-month world tour for her ancient self-help book, Keeping Mr. Right, that curiously has made her a superstar.
So...will Lydia become a stupid drunk all the time instead of occasionally now? Will Venus make a bold move on Lydia and tantalize her with the promise of sex again as well as make her jealous of the French lovely who adores chocolate and never gains weight? Hmm. There are other 'pressing' issues like Lydia's mother who falls for her manly gardener and must force a divorce out of her husband who she abandoned over a decade ago, as well as Venus' mother moaning for a grandchild and Lydia's ex-boyfriend getting out of prison and biding his time for revenge.
I can't believe I'm reading this drivel and sadly drink the last of my lukewarm chocolate. Could my new clients enjoy this kind of novel? While the characters are all a bit or a lot older in age than them, these cardboard cut-outs still act like they're in high school with hormones raging out of control and self-absorbed attitudes. Once Lydia is jokingly told by her long-suffering best friend that she's sex-obsessed and she repeats it to her wife, a psychotherapist, in concern. They end up in bed once again, but at least Saint Marie usually spares us the details. Fortune is a Woman's still a R-rated book, but not quite X-rated unless a cross dresser who believes she's a he with a cock and implied sex between three women counts. Besides the overrated story there's the confusing way it's written. I can't describe the point of view here except to say that it's from everybody's perspective and not as if there's one per chapter. Frequently it was a mystery until you've read some ways into the paragraph or, more often, the fast-paced conversations that fill up most of the pages. The author either assumes I'm a mind reader or she thinks it's clever like the cliched comments thrown in by an omniscient narrator.
Oh my! I kept reading only because I wonder how Saint Marie will entice readers into another novel with these characters. Can you believe there's even a chapter (36) called "Not Necessarily True" with only these lines: The suit makes the man. The dress makes the woman. Oh, how profound, Saint-Marie! I never would've inferred this from just reading your story. Your chapter titles are simply breathtaking in their originality and charm as well. My favorites have to be "War and Peace," "Exhortation to Liberate," and "To Win or to Vanquish." Maybe it's a feminist guide book, huh?
Then, about to nod off again, I arouse to read that a terrible accident happens at the very end of the book and Lydia is frantic, demanding to know who it is, and that's how the second book of the Secret Trilogy ends. Darn! Now I'll have to read the last book, won't I? But sleep overtakes me before I can move a muscle.
Dr. Freudine Likens Book 3 Of Lesbian Trilogy To A Heaping Pile Of Dog Poop~
In the morning I'm curled up in my easy chair with that endlessly annoying novel having slid to the floor. I groan at the thought of more torture with the last of The Secret Trilogy by Francine Saint Marie, which is called so temptingly The Stolen Kiss. Luckily I don't have my regular clients until tomorrow and can take my time getting ready for my first real session with the stylish sorority women who also are a seemingly happy (gay?) couple. Whether they read, or would read, this kind of soap opera silliness is debatable, but I thought I should be prepared for the possibility. The trilogy was nominated this year for a prestigious award probably in the LGBT community and could very well be of interest to them, but, good grief, I fail to see why.
While using the bathroom and making some scrambled eggs with mushrooms and onions, I amuse myself by trying to guess what the bad accident was at the end of the second book (Fortune is a Woman) and who was killed. Sounds like it wasn't Venus, Lydia's assistant at the financial giant, so it must've been Lydia's wife Helaine who has been flying all over the world for a five-month tour because people everywhere are so in love with the scandalous, still stunningly beautiful psychotherapist and her inane self-help book, Keeping Mr. Right, that came out over five years ago. Yeah, makes sense. She must've been injured, though, because Saint Marie claims her trilogy is "three novels, one epic love story!" Yeah, she'd think it hilarious if the doctor had a head injury and had to relearn how to keep mister (or missus) right. I don't rush through my breakfast to find out if I'm right. Too bad it couldn't be that wicked supermodel ex of Helaine's that met with a disfiguring accident, but Saint Marie wouldn't do that.
It isn't a mystery for long as soon as I pick up the final novel. After a couple of minutes I know that I guessed correctly and Helaine's private plane has disappeared and it cannot be found. She's been rescued by islanders speaking French, but the details are revealed slowly as we follow the other characters from the second book. Years again pass as Helaine wakes up from a year-long coma, Lydia becomes a depressed drunk who becomes joint-president at her corporation (stockholders love her) and Venus, Lydia's former assistant who's in love with her still, secretly has a baby (at least it's a secret to Lydia and the press).
Venus is a real superwoman with two executive positions and no nanny yet while she breastfeeds her daughter (a girl of course) and juggles her crossdressing and Paris trips with attempts to seduce Helaine's still-in-denial widow. Hmm, Lydia never learned much from the psychotherapist, did she?
We still hear about Lydia's now-divorced parents and her mother's new hunky hubby, as well as her womanizer brother now in town to hopefully avoid being discovered by the irate family of a woman he got pregnant, but he takes the opportunity to fulfill Venus' hopes for a baby with Lydia's looks. I mean, why not if she can't have Lydia after about a decade of waiting, right? Then there's the ultra-boring mother, the ex-supermodel, who wants revenge after Venus returns her pricey gift. Yet again she foists her investigator on Venus' many-branched trail to dig up dirt on her and anyone else she can, or else Lydia's ex-boyfriend now out of prison will.
The Stolen Kiss is completely predictable from the beginning in every way. None of it amuses me as I skim through more of the same from the other books and check the clock every few minutes. Saint Marie doesn't quote Machiavelli this time, but returns to romantic poetry by Robert Burns as in the first book, The Secret Keeping. She doesn't bother with cute chapter titles this time, but simply names them after characters that are more or less the focus of that chapter. We're supposed to, I guess, find it suspenseful when Helaine finally is rescued from the sultry island, is flown to a Paris hospital and there learns from a paper that her wife has been unfaithful after over five years. How dare she! What a bigamist! I never want to see her again! Poor Lydia. She's suddenly the bad guy without a home, but she can at least see Helaine when she sleepwalks at the hospital. A photographer soon takes care of that...
Well, I'll have to stop there, I'm afraid, to make my session with the women. What a pity. I make it there, out of breath, a few minutes before they show up and knock gently. I finally decide to leave Saint Marie's books casually on a corner of my desk in case we need something to talk about, heaven help us if we do, and I briskly invite them in.
"Greetings again, Dr. Freudine!" the blonde McCullough sings as she and her exotic-looking partner Wynona slip inside my office. They both smile in genuine pleasure, it seems, and I smile back. Maybe this would be fun.
"Why, doctor!" Wynona has spotted the books and shows them to McCullough with wide, dark eyes. "Please tell me you have not been slumming with your reading material? This...fiction is mere sextease for readers who...who...help me out, Mac...," she begs a stricken McCullough who steps away from the desk carefully, as if the books were vipers baring their fangs. "Oh, doctor, this is for readers who have never read the classics, real literature. You mustn't imagine we would read such as this."
I nod in relief, completely prepared to blast The Secret Trilogy, and especially The Stolen Kiss, as a heaping pile of dog poop and then pause as McCullough drops down on my couch, face in her hands, her curvy body heaving quite noticeably. Wynona rushes over to comfort her, mumbling in her ear. The blonde then lifts her head and glares at me.
"How did you know, Dr. Freudine? Can you read minds 'cause Wy and Dr. Defiance never even figured out my secret!" She sniffs and searches for a tissue in her little, glossy purse, but Wynona hands her one from my desk.
"Mac?" the black hisses to her as if I can't hear her. I hold my breath as it starts to make sense. "What secret? Is this a new technique for getting through therapy?"
I gasp, sitting up straight, but nobody pays attention to me now.
"Oh, just shut up!" McCullough snaps. "So I've read those dirty books that try to be classy, okay? Maybe they're like me, Wy, trying to be classy like you. I'm a sucker for happy endings...for everybody like in romances. Novels like that trilogy make me feel like I have a chance since those crazy, beautiful characters do."
I'm listening in great wonder while I'm leaping for joy inside that I'm even better than Defiance. Wow! Reading the devilish Saint Marie has been well worth the payoff.
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