Lizzie’s Best Moment
What was your favorite part of Lizzie’s story?
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p 268-273 Really, any bedroom scene will do but here:
“They both froze, staring into each other’s eyes . Lavender into violet, wizard into wizard, and it was so right he would cried, if he was a man who cried.
She reached up and smoothed the moisture away from his eyes….”
Oh yeah.
The realization. When Elric called her on it:
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t know why you stayed once you found us, I don’t know why you decided to teach me things, why you sent Charles away, I don’t know why you have such a crazy effect on me.”
“Sure you do,” he said, sliding his hands behind her neck, pulling her face up to his. “You know too damned well.”
‘Cause we always know, we just protest too much.
I liked when she changed the shoes. Golden shoes. She has a thing about gold.
I also liked when he figured out his eye color had changed.
Actually, her whole arc was amazing. From timid pacifying mouse to powerful witch was very cool.
In general, I like all the times when she’d get flustered and shoes or rabbits would pop up. But I especially like the dueling silk nightgown, when she kept trying to turn something sexy-dangerous into something cute and safe, with Elric not letting her wimp out and putting it back again.
Lizzie had lots of very cool moments, what with the shoes and Elric and all, but the one that stuck in my mind the most was her Jedi Mind Trick on Charles, the ex-fiance. She’s just so matter-of-fact about it, and it makes you realize that she’s no pushover, in fact she’s the one in control of the relationship, although Charles appears to be at first. It gives you a clue to the real extent of her powers, and makes her all the more endearing because you know then that she’s not powerless and Elric’s not going to be able to push her around.
When she spots the violet in his eyes. He’s for her.
In general, I ADORED this book, and was head over heels for Elric, just like Lizzie. However, if I may, I’d like to take this opportunity to voice a question about Elric and Lizzie’s story. Why, as mature women, would you write into the storyline that women come into their powers at puberty, and their powers wane with menopause? I fell out of love with Elric when I learned that he is SO much older than Lizzie and in no fear of waning powers, while Xan’s main motivation IS her “change of life?” So Xan’s pathetic, yet Elric’s a hero?
Only three masterful writers at the *height* of their magical powers could get a paranormal romantic comedy published today. Trust me, you ladies are not on the wane. So why that storyline?
Puts hand up. That was me.
I was interested in the perception of sexuality and aging. The way we talked about Xan was that she was reaching another turning point–menopause–and she could accept not that her powers were waning but that they were changing, or she could try to hold onto what she had. Xan has knowledge, power, that the girls cannot touch, won’t be able to touch until they too have her experience and understanding. And she ignores ALL of that because she wants what she had when she was in her twenties. Well, she can’t have it. We’re part of a cycle. And it’s important that we embrace that cycle, not fight it.
Or as I put it when I pitched it to Krissie and Eileen, Xan can be Judi Dench or Faye Dunaway. She can not only accept her age but revel in it, using her accumulated power and intelligence to do anything she damn well pleases–Shakespeare on stage, Bond movies, intellectual thrillers with Cate Blanchett–or she can try hopelessly to hang onto to her youth through artificial means like plastic surgery and god knows what treatments until she becomes a mummy like Dunaway. That’s why Mother’s in there; to me Mother is Judi Dench with that gorgeous butterfly of talent spread across her back like a mantle. Mother is what Xan could have been.
If you’ll notice, Xan is never weak. She always has all the power she needs. She just doesn’t have twenty-something power. The only time Xan ever fails in the book is when she tries to beat the twenty-somethings at their own game. If she’d stuck to spells, they’d have been toast.
I think I may be a little twisted, however my favorite part was when she was calling Elric an a-hole when she was changing the bunnies back to utensals. His reaction (it’s not an incantation), was funny. That seemed to be the start of the way their relationship was going to be.
**We’re part of a cycle. And it’s important that we embrace that cycle, not fight it.**
Agreed, Wholeheartedly! I’m Wiccan, I GET that part. I will re-read (happily), if those clues were there, I didn’t pick up on them. I loved Mother, but wasn’t sure she operated in the same magical system.
Men are a part of the cycle too, and magical Viagra was not mentioned. That would, however, be a hoot in a follow-up, which I hope you ladies will write, because the world needs (I need) more books like The Unfortunate Miss Fortunes!
Go Judi, go Judi…
For me, Lizzie had a couple of moments. When they were voting and she told her sisters that she was staying. Even her sisters were impressed with that. And I liked it when she was going out and realized that she was wearing the wrong shoes. Usually her shoes popped up by accident, but that time she was able to do it deliberately. It showed that she was coming into her own.
Xan had the same problem so many women do: whatever it is they have, it’s never enough as long as one other person has something she doesn’t. That her experience would more than make up for any change in her power would not be enough. She has to have it all. I know people like that. Even if she’d gotten their power, Xan wouldn’t be happy. There would always be something else.
Oh, I’m very female-centric, so I have no interest in the Viagra story. Yes, I am a sexist. I had a wonderful time writing Mare, but Xan was the one I connected to which may have led to her becoming an icon of what I don’t want to be even though everything in my society (except the Dove commercials) is pushing me that way.
I don’t think I planted clues at all although god knows what my subconscious was up to. I just wrote two women past the change, one who was comfortable and powerful in her own skin and one who was miserable. That “in her own skin” bit was important to me, that’s why Mother’s tattoo was such a big deal in that scene. But I doubt very much that there’s anything in there that actually says the Dench/Dunaway thing I was going for. I’m trying to remember. Mare twits Xan on not having expressions, but reads expressions from Mother’s face I think. Xan plots like crazy, Mother just uses her power and gets things done. She defeats Xan in the diner using magic to push Crash in the right direction where Xan would just have killed him if he hadn’t done what she wanted. Mother gives the girls what they need instead of taking from them. I think it’s implicit on the page that she’s powerful but that she lets them go free, that she watches Mare every morning but doesn’t interfere. Whereas Xan watches them only when she needs them, expressly to interfere.
After that, it becomes a matter of logistics. This books is already rigid with plot–three of them–so giving Mother more page time would have put us over the edge I think. She gets her three beat, but Xan’s the antagonist. Mother’s a foil, not a major player. I think she’s crucial, she’s the Dench, but giving her more ink would have brought us close to theme-mongering in a book that was already bulging at the seams with Stuff.
And nope, no sequel. We love the book, but we’re on to other things now.
BTW, I called the shop Mother’s Tattoos because that’s where I got my tattoo, only there Mother was a guy, which I think is what you expect–ha, ha, Mother’s a guy–so I turned it around again and make Mother an earth mother. Sometimes I try too hard.
I missed Mother’s tattoo, where was that? And the butterfly outside the diner on p. 368, that’s mother too? I’m afraid that was too subtle for me.
I agree with Jane George on the subject of Elric. He’s 93 and looks as if he’s in his late twenties. If that were possible, I’d want it too, never mind growing old gracefully. Apparently Lizzie will live another 200 or 250 years. So, will she hit menopause in thirty years’ time, or will she stay young too? Will Elric predecease her by fifty or seventy years? And what about her less gifted sisters, will they have normal lifespans? That should ruin sisterhood, never mind make life very lonely for Lizzie quite soon.
I have no problem with the opposition Xan-Vincent. So he can still attract a stupid young witch. He is grey, and besides, he gets squashed as a cockroach. But Elric seems to operate under totally different rules.
Oh, hell, we didn’t cut Mother’s tattoo did we? We cut about half of that scene because it went too long. Toward the end we were scrambling.
But everything that happens in the diner, happens because of magic. Mother sends a three-beat of magic–the guy who’s sitting next to her loses his wallet, Mare’s tattoo butterfly taps on the window, the picture falls out of his wallet–and that’s what saves Crash.
If we cut that bit with the tattoo, no wonder Jane was confused. Off to check.
Just hell. We cut the tattoo. It was part of a really long speech Mother gave and we were over on the book by thousands of words and I cut the hell out of the tattoo scene and her tattoo went with it. DAMN.
Apologies to Jane and everybody else. I can’t believe I did that. If I can find the scene, I’ll post it here.
Damn, damn, damn.
It still worked well though Jenny. And personally, I got a kick out of guessing if it WAS Mother, whenever she popped up.
But still, I look forward to seeing you post the cut part. Very cool.
I saw the three instances of magic, I just didn’t see where they came from. Mother seems to be a non-speaking part.
On re-reading the tattoo-parlour scene, I realised that Mother was the woman with razor-cut grey hair someone saw in the street (was it Xan? I can’t remember when it was now). I wondered at the time who that grey-haired woman was, but I hadn’t a clue where to check.
Another question: what age are Maxine and Pauline? I had imagined them as middle-aged, but when Maxine fell for Jude I had to adjust her age down. However, Pauline, the sole support of twelve children (or was it eleven?) and a dog, is still a woman in her forties in my mind.
I suppose Elric and Lizzie are not yours to comment on, Jenny. Still curious though.
All these things are minor hiccups, of course. I enjoyed the book very much.
I think plenty of middle-aged women fall for Jude Law. I don’t see it, but then the nanny thing pretty much did it for me, too. Mare and I have a lot in common.
The whole bit about Pauline being the sole support of eleven children and a dog was a riff she and Mare were doing to her her a good tip from Xan. That was always a joke.
I think I saw Maxine in her late thirties and Pauline in her forties, but I’m open.
Ooooh, more Miss Fortunes? Please post the cut bit. I’d LOVE to read it.
I think this book would make a very fun *film.* The mother/butterfly effect would work great, visually. As would the bunnies, etc. Bewitched was a huge disappointment, so…
I’m 45, Jude Law leaves me cold, but I admit he’s pretty. I’m an Aiden Gillen/Alan Rickman kinda gal.
Drat on no more paranormal romantic comedies!
I’d love to read the cut speech also.
My favorite Lizzie moment, I think, is when she transforms her Elric-created lingerie into a suit of armor to keep him away (self-denial anyone?). “something was pinching her butt a lot harder than the strip of lace.”
Yeah, but you couldn’t pull off that eleven children and a dog riff if you were twenty. Not with a straight face.
I’m fifty and I didn’t even fancy Jude Law before the nanny. But what I meant was that Maxine makes such a sad figure, sacrificing all for a man who began and ends life as a frog, and made a stupid man besides. You’d think a couple of decades of adult life would cure a woman of such stupid tendencies, but maybe I’m being optimistic.
i loved it when lizzie chose the amethyst neckpiece for her own. she had felt a pull to it even before, she had said not to sell that one when the sisters were discusing selling a piece of jewelry for college funds for Mare.
when she put it on it glowed and became her. too cool.
Yes, I thought Mother should have a little larger role–she just seemed to kind of slip in and out and I know that the scene at the tatoo parlor was important but not why it happened THERE. It was implied that Mother understood the girls, but not really why or how.
As for Lizzie–I still say the first time she kissed Elric and saw all the colors flowing around him and here. It was like she had been living in black and white and suddenly someone introduced her to Technicolor–sort of like when Dorothy finds herself in Oz. And of course the armor–that was hysterical! I could just see her all trussed up in that suit, the visor hanging down over her eyes and just as she gets her balance whoops! Over she goes!! That was hysterical–great visual!