Why I Am Not Nuts About Ursula BlaNchard Mysteries

I currently find only a half dozen or so little green boxes on my bookshelf. Those boxes contain audio cassettes from the Washington Talking Book and Braille Library. Though not my only means of reading novels, it is my main one. A dozen or so books may not seem few, but looking at them this morning, having finished a Brother Cadfael just yesterday -- see That's All She Read -- I found myself generously supplied with more Brother Cadfaels and a couple Ursula Blanchards and nothing else. I don't have any text files of books ready to read as mp3s so the choice is these. The choice between an old Welsh ex-Crusader monk and an Elizabethan lady of the presence chamber who has just learned to pick locks.

The trouble is, I just don't grok with Ursula. No offense, Fiona Buckley, you are a lovely writer. but I just can't get into a heroine who spends her time describing her and other women's clothing. It's not that I want wanton masculinity .. well, I do, but not in this context -- as the fact that I prefer Cadfael should prove. I just don't enjoy girliness. I really don't care what color silk embroidery the amber velvet sports or what style of lace ruff the woman is wearing. I don't even care if the man who just caught Ursula's eye is in a splendid doublet of brocade.

I am sure there are plenty of women and men who enjoy this sort of thing, but I am not one of them. Maybe that is one reason I like the early Saxon era.. they seem more practical. There was silk then, and other fancy fabrics, but good old homespun linen and wool was good enough for Aethelflaed, Lady of the Mercians. Maybe this is also one of the reasons I prefer -- despite appearances -- to write about and read about less-than-royal characters.

Unfortunately WTBBL keeps sending me Cadfaels and Blanchards. I may have to take both Fiona Buckley and Ellis Peters off my preferred authors list. I love them, but then I also love licorice, and even with licorice, there is such a thing as a surfeit. King John died of a surfeit of cold water and peaches, while my fate may involve a surfeit of peach silk with fawn embroidery -- and girliness.