Stormfire

Show Notes

Stormfire by Christine Monson is a bodice ripper with a reputation for violence. Set during the Irish rebellion of 1798, Sean Culhane kidnaps his political enemy’s daughter, Catherine Enderly, out of revenge. Here at Reformed Rakes, we don’t believe romance books are instructional manuals or need to portray relationships to aspire to. With that disclaimer, today we’ll talk about Monson’s powerful story about cyclical violence, grounded in political strife between two enemies.

Books From This Episode

Stormfire by Christine Monson

Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded by Samuel Richardson

Clarissa, Or, The History of a Young Lady by Samuel Richardson

The Silver Devil by Teresa Denys

Flowers from the Storm by Laura Kinsale

A Lady Awakened by Cecilia Grant

References

Romantic Parvenu

Transcript

Chels: Welcome to Reformed Rakes, a historical romance podcast that would rather reign in hell than serve in heaven.

My name is Chels and I'm the writer of the romance subtack, The Loose Cravat, a romance book, collector and booktoker under the username chels_ebooks.

Emma: I'm Emma, a law librarian writing about justice and romance at the substack, Restorative Romance.

Beth: I’m Beth and I’m on booktok under the name bethhaymondreads.

Chels: Today we will be discussing Stormfire by Christine Monson. If you haven’t heard of Stormfire, let me enlighten you: this is a historical romance and bodice ripper set during the Napoleonic wars, a fraught enemies to lovers romance between Catherine Enderly, a vivid young countess, and Sean Culhane, the violent, arrogant Irishman who kidnaps her for revenge.

Christine Monson wrote six romance novels, and Stormfire was her debut. It was published in 1984 and, even though it’s out of print, its reputation looms large over romance. This is a book that people call problematic, disgusting, shocking beyond belief. When I first started talking about bodice rippers on TikTok, I would get the same comment over and over again: “Have you read Stormfire yet?”

I have! And something that continuously frustrates me about the perception of Stormfire is that I feel as though people are deliberately missing the point of it. Stormfire is a romance novel, but genre requirements of romance do not include the necessity of moral or aspirational relationships. If you view Stormfire through the lens of “is this something that I want to happen to me” you are overlooking the major themes of the book, which are cyclical violence and the futility of revenge. Neither I nor the other rakes will argue that this is a perfect or faultless book, but we do believe it’s noteworthy, it’s moving, and its popularity can’t be attributed to an unenlightened and more bloodthirsty past.

Before we begin, I want to explain that a tenant of bodice rippers is sexual violence: for many of them, the heroine is assaulted by the hero of the book. Stormfire is a very graphic book, both in it’s depictions of rape and other types of violence, so please feel welcome to skip this episode if you need to.

So you both just read Stormfire for the first time. Were you surprised by what you read, given the book's reputation?

Beth: I purposely looked into spoilers for this book, so I could retain what I was reading better, because this book is very long. It's 568 pages.

And a lot of the reviews I would look up sometimes would just pull the most graphic scenes out of context from the book, and they just kind of list them out and be like: look how bananas this book is. So when you actually read the book it is a lot. The violence is a lot, but it starts right away. And so, you know, this is purposeful, like this is what Monson is trying to show us. So I really enjoyed the writing, and we've already talked before we started this that we’d like to read other books by her.

Emma: Yeah, the writing was the Big Surprise for me as well. This is definitely the oldest romance novel that I've read that’s not written by Kathleen Woodiwiss, who I've read two books by, and I don't love Woodiwiss’ writing. She's known for being really flowery and purple prose.

And so I've mostly read her for sort of the novelty of reading these early publications, and Monson doesn’t really write like that, or she has some sort of flowery and purple prose. But it seems to have a purpose, like I loved some sentences that I read. She just has the like on a sentence level, I really enjoyed being able to sort of engage with that. But also on like a more macro level, she is a real knack for creating perils, and between characters which I think is going to be one of the things that we talk about, not even just the romantic leads like you would learn something about a character. And you think like, oh, that puts them in alignment with another character in a way that didn't feel sort of contrived. It felt very organic and meaningful.

I also had spoiled myself for most of the plot, and I was still surprised by some of those sort of connections that were happening. So even if I knew two things were happening to a character, I knew the plot of what was going to happen to them, the way that Monson was able to link them and make me think about that plot point in a different way made the reading really engaging, and enjoy the book despite a lot of the violence that made it harder to read.

Chels: Before we get into more discussion of the book, I’m going to give a summary of the first third of the plot. Stormfire wastes no time and pulls no punches: we’re immediately introduced to a young Catherine Enderly. She has what the book calls a “coltish grace” and is on the cusp of adulthood. She’s what some people would call too clever for her own good, a minx, a burgeoning manipulator. Her father, John Enderly, is a viscount, and she inherited the title of “Countess” from her deceased mother, who was French. Catherine looks up to her father – idolizes him. He used to cultivate her mind, but after the death of his wife he lost interest in his spitfire of a daughter.

While out riding in a coach, Catherine notices an amplified sound. She can hear too many horses - her coach is being hijacked. Thinking that she’s being accosted by one of her suitors, she jumps out of the coach as it stops at an inn. Running inside she yells that she’s being kidnapped. As she pleads for help, she’s grabbed from behind by a tall, blonde stranger, who announces to the inn that Catherine is a nervous new bride, and that they should ignore her. He drags her out of the inn, and Catherine attempts to pay the man off. He ignores her, and instead leads her to a boat and begins to tie her up.

We then learn that the blonde man who kidnapped Catherine is Liam Culhane. He’s dismayed that he’s been reduced to kidnapping young women, and he wonders to himself what his brother wants with her. His brother, Sean, has what he calls “a heart blackened by hate,” permanently altered by being the sole survivor of a massacre at his village called Kenlo, where he witnessed his mother die.

Before she died, Sean’s mother Meagan had absconded with him, leaving her eldest son, Liam, and her husband Brendan behind. Years later, a newly motherless Sean returned to his father’s household and was embraced as Brendan’s favored son. Brendan saw Liam as artistic and soft, but was pulled to Sean’s ferocity. This dynamic continued into adulthood: Liam is titled and ostensibly in charge, but he, and everyone else, answers to Sean.

Liam somewhat reluctantly delivers Catherine to Sean, and in their first meeting they’re shocked by each other. Catherine thinks of Sean as Lucifer from Milton’s Paradise Lost, while Sean compares her to an Ondine, a mythical mermaid. They immediately face off, with Catherine taunting Sean for having other men do the work to abduct her, while Sean tells her that, in Ireland, she’s lower than an Irish pig. She survives slaughter by his word alone.

For the insult, Catherine spits on Sean, and he backhands her in return. They continue to physically struggle, with Catherine attempting to defensively hit him with a candlestick, but she notes that Sean seems almost weary in his response. He subdues her, then rapes her, comparing her in his mind to the discarded women of Kenlo. Catherine is shell-shocked until she notices that Sean has picked up her soiled undergarments and is beginning to package them. Realizing that he’s going to send them to her father, Catherine springs to intercept, protesting that he will not shame her father. “Shame him?” Sean scoffs, telling her that her father is a war criminal, and that “he has enough blood on his hands to taint the North Sea. Not an Irishman born won’t raise a cheer as your unworthy father kicks into hell.”

Sean summons Peg, the housekeeper and cook, to put Catherine to work. Peg warns Catherine away from trying to escape, and then leads her to a dismal room. Her cell. The next morning, Peg brings Catherine oversized clothes and takes her to the kitchen to work.

Later, Catherine is tasked with serving the men of Shelan, including Sean. When he ignores her, she decides to ruin his food. Sean’s reaction is without theatrics – he just tells her that since she’s so careless with his food, she will go without. This begins a trend: Catherine disobeying Sean, knowing what it will cost her as Sean does not make idle threats, and Sean swiftly punishing her.

Catherine observes Sean leading men in his drills, and watches as a subordinate begins to argue with Sean, then moves to attack him. Sean first breaks his hand under his boot, and then breaks his ribs with a few brutal kicks. Horrified, Catherine realizes that she has to get away from him, and quickly.

Catherine sneaks into the library to steal some maps for her escape, and discovers a map of Holden Woods on her father’s estate of Windmere. She realizes that Sean plans to destroy the timber there as part of his revenge. As she moves to put the maps into place, Moora finds her in the library. Catherine knocks her out with an inkwell, then steals Sean’s horse, Mephisto, for her escape.

That night, she realizes that they’ve caught up with her, and decides to dismount from the horse and run to the cliffs, hoping to hide. Sean, Liam, and the rest of their men catch up to a knife-wielding Catherine. Sean says, “Now, if you don't throw that thing, I'll take it away from you. If you throw it and miss, you're going to think the culmination of our last argument was idyllic. If you don't miss, my men are going to throw you off that cliff after giving vent to their irritation at losing the source of their income. So don't be nervous, and take your best shot, Miss Enderly; you sure as hell won't get another.” Catherine tries to attack Sean anyway, he subdues her.

After he brings her back from the cliffs, Sean punishes Catherine by putting her in irons, one around her foot, and the other around her neck. He then gives her a choice that is no choice at all: sleep with him, or sleep with the rest of his men. Catherine chooses the devil she knows, and Sean sets the terms for when she’ll come to his bed. He uses derogatory language to goad her, getting perverse pleasure when she fights back in anger. Catherine is clear throughout that she hates Sean, that she would never willingly be near him. At some point, this begins to bother him – but he’s so absorbed in his own cruel revenge he doesn’t understand why Catherine’s feelings should start to matter.

Sean gathers men to leave for Holden Wood, and Catherine asks if he is planning on destroying it. He says he will, but makes no promise that he won’t kill her father’s men along with the timber. Before he leaves, Peg confronts him and asks if he wants Catherine to live. She says if he does, something has to change. She’s noticed Catherine standing on the balcony, staring down at the stone flagging, implying that Catherine is suicidal. Peg tells him to give Catherine to Liam, who will love her, but Sean angrily refuses.

With Sean away, Liam and Catherine spend more time together. Liam is enchanted by Catherine, and regrets aiding his brother in her capture. There’s a proprietary tone to Liam’s interactions with Catherine that imply that he only has good intentions so long as his good intentions align with what he wants.

Later, another servant, Maude, attacks Catherine with a carving knife. Catherine defends herself with a broomstick and is able to knock Maude unconscious. When Catherine asks why Maude attacked her, she’s told that Maude’s entire family were killed by colonial Protestants, and that to Maude, Americans and the English are one and the same.

Sean grows increasingly troubled by what he calls Liam’s “outbursts.” He previously wanted Liam to assert himself more, but Liam is increasingly challenging him over Catherine and maligning him in front of his men. He decides to send Liam away for a month to America on a merchant ship.

Two weeks into Liam’s exile, Catherine is attacked by Maude and Moora at the docks. They attempt to brutalize her, but Catherine dodges some blows while pulling them into the icy water. Catherine is the only one that can swim, so she pulls Moora to safety. When she goes to help Maude, Maude grabs her by the throat and drags her underwater. A lookout who observed the altercation finds Sean, and Sean rushes to pull an unconscious Catherine out from the water.

Sean cares for a traumatized, but still alive Catherine. They eat dinner together, and, drunk off champagne, Catherine propositions her “dear jailer.” She passes out soon after. Later she finds out that Maude was put to death for attempting to kill her. Catherine finds her grave and plants while flowers called stars of Bethlehem, which will eventually bloom and overtake the hill.

Catherine and Sean have reached what seems like an uneasy truce, when Liam returns home. Noticing her subdued reaction, Sean asks what’s wrong. “You are not rising to my barbs” he says “I feel like I’m winning. Call me a foul name and you’ll feel better. “Let me go back to England.” she responds. “Kill me. Do whatever you like. Only let it end now.”

“No.” he answers.

This point is at about one third of the book, and it’s a crucial point of the story because it’s where Sean realizes that he wants Catherine’s consent. This is the only thing he couldn’t take from her, and she answers, “My experience of brutality has come from you. Never beauty, tenderness, or affection…How can I give you affection when you seek to wrench it from me and crush it as heedlessly as that boy might a butterfly, tearing off its bright wings to keep in its pocket, startled to find it soon colorless and dead?”

People often say that bodice rippers romanticize abuse, but while the abuse scenes are difficult to read, that’s not what Monson is doing here. What do you make of this moment in Catherine and Sean’s relationship?

Emma: Yeah. So I take issue with sort of using the word romanticized to describe this book. There are these moments of tenderness that if you take them out of context between Sean and Catherine, they're very sweet, and it sort of reads like a romance novel. All a lot of the moments where they share meals together reminded me of a couple of Laura Kinsale books like Flower from the Storm, or My Sweet Folly were the two that I thought of.

Both books where the hero can be a little scary and capable of violence, even if they don't act on it in the same way that Sean does, but much like the violence in this book you don't read the romantic scenes out of context. The effect for me reading the scenes where they come together and have meals together is one where I’m worried about Catherine. I'm worried about the violence that that's gonna follow, because that's the context that you're reading in, there's one scene where Sean teases Catherine about her fichu, which is the sort of covering over her neckline of her dress, and he's aroused by her prudery. This scene is very similar to a scene that happens in A Lady Awakened between Martha and Theo.

That is incredibly charming in that book! But the same thing happening in this book, I worry what's gonna happen next? That's the scene that precedes this conversation about consent, the speech that Catherine gives Sean it leads to Catherine barbing Sean about his sense of absolution in his eye for an eye system of justice, and he retorts to Catherine about her myopia for her father's destruction in his community.

So what's interesting about this sort of the violence and the question of whether it's romanticizing it is, I think it's interesting that the crime of rape is one that's focused on mental states, because it takes the same form as an act that can be consented to. So it's unique in a crime that you're concerned with both the mental state of the person committing the crime which is true of all crimes, mens rea is the the phrase for the element of what mental state do you have when you commit a crime. But we're also concerned with the mental state of the victim, because the victim, if they're consenting, it's not a crime. If they are not consenting, it's rape.

And this is interesting in the development of the novel. So the history of the novel often is wrapped up with the history of rape law because of the the exploration of the interiority of the mind and private articulations of feelings, and it's linked to this demand for mental state.

So the subject of rape and consent comes up early in the formation of the novel, like in Samuel Richardson's Pamela and Clarissa, which are early English examples of psychological novels, because they prioritize this interior responses to external actions that make up the plot of the novel.

Catherine externalizes what the reader has known for a while, and what Sean struggles to grasp: her mind is not necessarily going to follow the wrenching that he does of her body, and that his mental state, the change from intent to rape to the intent to elicit consent in the moment has no bearing on her mind. His change in the intent is going to be completely separate from her change of intent, like whether she's thinking about her own consent.

Chels: Yeah, it's like there isn't really a romance between them like nothing can actually build and grow when it's a subjugation. So at this point it's violence and harm and that's something that they both need to acknowledge and speak about to each other.

I love Catherine's butterfly speech for this very reason. He wants something from her. But up until this point he's taken everything by force and consent is not something that you can take . This is also kind of a moment, too like when he decides like. I want a relationship with Catherine. That's when he stops assaulting her, he completely cuts everything off.

So it's kind of like this clear, bizarre dividing line that he's agreed to. He is decided like, okay? Well, I'm going to do this, and she's like this is not that easy, after everything? How can this happen this way?

Beth: I think you need a moment like this in this kind of novel, because if you have one character who's an abuser and another character is being abused. But your ultimate endgame is a happily ever after like there has to be the big consent speech. There has to be a change that's about to happen. But like you guys have been saying, it's just on Sean’s side, just his point of view. She can't just change everything that's happened.

Emma: And this is also the moment where I think it's Sean has disaggregated Catherine, as revenge object, and Catherine as his object from his mind. And this is the speech for her, is her saying like I’m the same person on both of these, whether you're raping me to get revenge on my father, or raping me because you're trying to objectify me and hurt me as a person which comes up later in the book when he continues to assault her for different reasons. It's not Catherine Enderley, daughter of John Enderly, is not a separate person from Kit, who is living in Shalen with Sean.

They're the same person and experiencing the same abuse. And I think he understands that later in the novel, even as he continues to assault her. He sees her as like this unified object, but up until this point I don't think he's thought of her as something other than her father's daughter.

Beth: I like that. It does actually take him a while to make that separation like we have this speech, and there's still cycles of violence that happens afterwards like it's not just one character arc going steadily upwards, I think, in other novels you can kind of have that decision point. And then from there things just kind of certainly get better. I think in like To Have and To Hold Sebastian has that moment where he sees himself. He sees himself through how his friends see him, and how terrible he is and I feel like from there there is still conflict happening, but I feel like the relationship steadily gets better and better. I don't know if you guys feel the same way or read it the same, but. It’s like my other reference point for bodice rippers.

Chels: And I’m glad that you brought up To Have and To Hold because, like Emma you have your newsletters on bodice rippers, and then one of them was focused on To Have and To Hold. And then I remember what you said about To Have and to Hold, when you were going into reading a bodice ripper you were expecting to find eroticized abuse. But instead, it was more explicitly on page communicating what was happening. I think that a lot of times the way that people perceive bodice rippers is they think that a rape happens, and that they're told, it’s romantic. And there are books where that happens, but a lot of times, it’s like this is a violent thing that is happening on the page, and it's like, what do we do now that this is? We've witnessed this very violent thing happen between two characters that we are going to stay with through the end like it's not like one of them is going to--we’re with both of them. So does how this work?

Emma: Yeah, this is what my newsletter that's gonna accompany this episode is going to be about. But this this element of like talking about the consent of this relationship. I'm surprised that this is the only bodice ripper Beauty and the Beast story that I am aware of. Other Beauty and the Beast stories that I’ve read, they really romanticize the incarceration of the Beauty character in way that not problematized and not considered non consensual relationship.

And those seem to be like actually dealing with like less of the less of this directly that they it's like. If you're incarcerated in a home that is not your own. You've been kidnapped. You're going to have consent issues with your captor, and that's Catherine's position that is like as long as she's captive, she is not consenting and sort of this like inability to consent. She struggles with that, even when she's sort of falling in love with Sean. She sort of knows she's like, but he's my captor like I can't fall in love with him, because I’m not free to leave. She acknowledges that's not even a decision that she's really making.

Chels: So we've introduced Liam. So we've introduced Liam Colhane and he's essentially Sean's Foil in the story. He's the heir, the Golden Child, and someone that Catherine initially feels safer around. Yet lean is not what he appears. He's the “nice guy” in a story with no nice guys. What do you think about the way that Sean and Liam were raised, and how they fight for Catherine's affections?

Emma: So Liam’s coercion and manipulation of Catherine, particularly his insistence that he loves her, and he has this desire to keep her extends to his role as Sean's foil, because he's also violating Catherine. So it's not like one of them is not violating her, and one is perpetually doing it. They're both doing it.

But his violation of her is strictly about having power over her, and to some extent Sean. It seems like part of this revenge against Sean, just like Sean's abuse of her is revenge against John Enderley. For Sean, Catherine is a symbol of Ireland's systemic oppression by the English. But for Liam she's a symbol of his potential victory over his familial subjugation.

Chels: Yeah, and we've mentioned second son syndrome on this podcast a few times, and I think Liam is kind of a first born son with second son syndrome. So he's perceived as weak by his father for his artistic pursuits and disinclination for the sort of fear based leadership that Sean revels in. Even though he's titled, he’s older, and he doesn't have the rumor of illegitimacy that Sean does. Sean still comes out on top almost every time.

So we kind of begin with some sympathy for him, because early on he protests Sean's treatment of Catherine Sean repeatedly calls Liam “Galahad,” and is dismissive of Liam's infatuation with Catherine, despite the fact that Sean, well, not necessarily infatuated by this point, is obsessed with her too.

But Liam feels just as proprietary over Catherine as Sean does. He thinks he'll automatically come out on top because he hasn’t subjected Catherine to brutality. But there's a scene where he accosts her, and she's able to escape him because he's, as the novel says, unaccustomed to rape.

So as Emma mentioned, there's kind of this question of how much of Liam’s like desire for Catherine is really about Catherine at all, and how much of it is about getting one over on Sean, like getting revenge on Sean.

Beth: My first point, I just I have “Liam is the worst.” and that's what I have in this section for a long time. I did want to reference back to something, Chels said where Sean calls Liam Galahad

Beth: a reference to sir, Go ahead, and he's the son of Lancelot, but he’s known as the perfect knight. And through this nickname we see kind of how Sean perceives him, and then how months and plants have for his role in this story. He initially kind of reads with someone who will play the white knight and maybe rescue Catherine. But I don't know. Maybe Emma and I were primed not to like. But the whole time I was like this guy seems suspicious.

Emma: One of the things I was tracking as I was reading was like people being suspicious of Liam. And a lot of the servants are like, because Catherine is asking, Why? Why do people follow Sean and not Liam? And the servants do not like Liam. They do not trust him. They he does not, is not a good leader. Because Catherine is really confused. She's like Liam's, the older brother. He's the one with the title. Why, why is Sean the one giving orders? And there seems to be this understanding that if Liam were in charge, things would be so much worse. So we need Sean to be in charge. So when she talks to the servants, especially Peg and Moora, it becomes clear that anyone with a history of Liam knows not to trust him.

Chels: Yeah, I'm trying to remember. I feel reading at the second time I was like, okay, I'm keeping an eagle out for Liam being suspect. But I do think the first time I think the first time when I was reading it.I I kind of expected Liam to actually be a good person, and I wasn't.

And while I did notice the servants were being like. Oh, he can't be like Sean. He can't be like Sean. I kind of attributed that to Sean's propensity for violence, because, like the way that Sean rules the way that Sean is in charge, he does his drills, and he runs his household is all fear based. And so that's not necessarily a good thing. Maybe they just like see him as being ineffective. but I thought that was kind of a really clever subversion. Well, it didn't work for Emma and Beth, but it worked on me. I was actually surprised.

Beth: But, like I said, I think we are primed to be suspicious of Liam. I wonder if I just read this book? I would be like. When is Liam going to come in and save the day? Cause that really is what his character set up to do you want to feel like this is Catherine's way out like this is who's going to save her. So i'm so glad that Christine Monson did not go that way.

Yeah, I made the story infinitely more interesting. Sorry. Go ahead, Emma

Emma: Yeah. So he's referenced as Galahad. And then later I noticed Sean calls him Judas, and it's like he is like supposed to be this like chosen person, the closest person to Sean, who betrays him, and that's just betrays Sean, but betrays Ireland and the castle, and and everyone and Catherine to some extent that he, he just ultimately is self-serving. And I think Sean is also self-serving, but Sean has this like mission in mind of like Ireland, and he has a goal. Well, Leo really is just focused on Liam, and he'll pretty much sacrifice anyone to achieve his ends.

Beth: Yeah.

Chels: So it's kind of difficult to overstate how terrifying parts of this book are! Sean is probably the scariest, most violent main character in a romance novel. I've read a lot of discussion about Stormfire is about Sean's brutality in a way that feels dismissive, as though the salacious elements of the story decontextualize kind of as we were talking about earlier, are all there is to it.

So how do you feel about the way that violence is used in this book?

Emma: So I read a lot of the reviews that sort of pulled out Sean's violence just so that I could follow the plot. But I think when you focus only on Sean's violence, it makes it seem like there's some version of this book that Catherine can win, like the Catherine can overcome this personal violence if only Monson thought to write it that way.

But it seems like there's sort of two tracks that Monson doesn't take, and I think characters even point this out that these are the other options of what could be happening. So it's Catherine dying, Sean killing her because the violence becomes so intense, either/or her killing herself, dying in her own hand or her killing Sean. One of these would be an even more upsetting book if we went through all this, and Catherine died.

And the other one avoids sort of the reality of what is revealed to be Catherine's life. She can't really go home again. She does go back home, later in the book, and after she realizes that her father is a war criminal and a profiteer, who's planning on selling her to the highest bidder as a mistress. So she's going from one violent situation to another. She also deeply feels the violence and bloodshed that happened in Ireland that she became aware of when she was with Sean that led to her privileged existence as her father's daughter.

The violence that her father enacts is what allows her to have this life of comfort. And then even Liam, who's seen as the Savior, is really just embodying a different type of violence. This is not to diminish Sean's violence, but given the world that Monson creates, there's not a version of this story Sean's violence is isolated and is overcome by Catherine because she's always going to be expelled to a different type of violence. Once she escaped Sean

And Sean’s violence out of context is cast exclusively as personal violence. Like when you read a list of things that he does to Catherine it seems like this Litany of what's the worst thing a man can do to a woman. But the surrounding context is that Catherine is Sean's political enemy, first as a simulacrum of her father. But then in her own right, because of her betrayal when she marries Liam and absconds with him, indirectly leading to the suppression of the Irish rebellion, the the level of intent as of as the result of this is ambiguous for both Sean and Catherine at different points.

That context doesn't excuse or diminish his acts. But it does sort of take away that element of this, like a litany of what are the worst things that one person can do to another. As if, as if that book, the book is an exercise in that there are other things that are going on that create context that make it more of a narrative arc rather than an exercise in salaciousness.

Beth: Yeah, I think Monson establishes pretty quickly the the futility of violent revenge. And it's the point. We've referenced other reviewers because it's mostly the writing that we have like. There's not any academic writing that I could really find about Stormfire despite it's a reputation.

Beth: But I did want to reference one review which really misunderstands Monson's intentions. But I want to use it as a way for us to talk about how Monson describes violence. So this is from the Romantic Parvenu blog.

“For me, the really surprising thing about Stormfire is how nonchalant Monson was in her treatment of the hero’s behavior. The worst scenes were delivered in a very bland and casual manner, without the emphasis one would expect when reading about gang rapes or castrations or what have you. Perhaps this is just how books like this work—the grotesque violence is taken for granted to such an extent that it’s not worth emphasizing. Oh look, he’s spanking her bloody; oh look, he’s raping her for the umpteenth time; oh look, he’s locking her in the cellar and starving her. What’s the big deal, right? Stormfire is litany of misfortune delivered in the blasé tone of a grocery list.”

Monson’s descriptions of violence don’t need overly wrought words. She allows the violence to stand on its own without her added emphasis. I’m not sure what the reviewer wanted out of these descriptions when if Monson had been flowery, it would’ve sensationalized the violence which runs counter to the cyclical nature of violence that Monson is portraying. Monson trusts her readers to understand the brutality of the violence by simple description.

Not really sure what this reviewer wanted out of these descriptions, when, if Monson had been flowery, she had sensationalized the violence in which runs counter to the cyclical nature of violence that Monson is trying to portray. She trusts her readers to understand the brutality of the violence by simple description. And it's heavy enough. There's several messages in our group chat where we'd read a particular scene, and someone would be like I just stared out a window for a little while.

Chels: Nonchalant is not how I would describe anything in this book like I have never. I've never met someone who or I've never talked to someone who has read Stormfire, and been unmoved like people are either enraged to the point of, or they’re like I can't stop thinking about it. It's stuck with me.

So yeah, if if nonchalant is just….

Beth: I yeah, I think she writes those things really well. Actually, I think some of the strongest scenes are the most violent ones, because she is willing to go there like she's like, this is the character I wrote. This is how they would act in this situation. So she kind of just lets happen? Emma: And I think the difference in like emotional reaction that you have. Well, reading the book versus reading the reviews on good reads that are literally just the grocery list of bad things that happen like…there's a big emotional gap between those experiences and that that says something about Monson’s writing. I also think if it was like super flowery, or even more descriptive. It would be very hard to read.

I think she really pushes the reader to the limit of what they can take. And because it's like this cyclical nature, like you sort of you get a break. There will be a scene of violence, and then there'll be a scene Catherine learning about like the mechanics of the estate, and so you get this sort of break where you're able to process things. But if it was even more descriptive, and it was like you're just numb all the time. It would be a very hard book to read, but we were all able to finish the book, which may not be true for everyone. Maybe there other people have, like, a different threshold of what they can take when they're reading. But I think there is a level of distance that she keeps, so that you can read it, and you know what's going on. I did. I never felt like I was It didn't feel gory. It wasn't like watching a movie of like intense, like body horror something. It just is more like this is a bad thing that is happening that I I know the name of.

Beth: I've been thinking about this since Baylet at bayleyreadsbooks on TikTok and everywhere whatever. So one of our smart friends who we always quote.

I have not stopped thinking about Bayley made a video talking about the relationship between romance and horror, and how there's a much stronger relationship there than you would kind of first think there was.

Beth: I'm thinking about Monson’s intention since tension with the violence, Anne Radcliffe, the Gothic writer from like the late 1700s, she has this, like very famous quote where she talks about the difference between terror and horror, and she kind of chalks up, her being a little bit more cheap than terror, like her intent when she wrote her book was to terrify, and I kind of feel like that's what Monson is pulling from like this Gothic tradition, and she is intending to terrify us a bit, and being terrified is not bad. I like when you're reading this book, I think we should be terrified by the things that Sean does, and that some of the other characters do.

Chels: Catherine is such a strong character in the story, and so kind of like a lot of how people kind of like talk about is like all of these things are happening to Catherine, and I think kind of like what makes it bearable to me is kind of the way that, like Catherine, is always kind of plotting like, how do I get out of this situation like? What am I gonna do next? Catherine is very much kind of like trying to solve her situation, and I don't necessarily think that it would be a bad thing if she wasn't doing that, and then, if she didn't react that way, like because people react under stress and pressure in very different ways. But I do think that makes, at least in the early part of the book the violence seems kind of a lot more bearable, like knowing that Catherine is still has that state of mind, and is still able to kind of like try to regroup.

So I think this book has a lot to say about the unique ways that women suffer under wartime violence. and I do think, like well, being graphic and extremely uncomfortable and hard to read at some point. It's also the point in the beginning. Sean makes it clear that Catherine is a sort of stand in for not just your father's crimes, but all of Britain and his eyes Nothing that has or will happen to Catherine can make up for what the Irish have had to on.

Chels: I think this book has a lot to say about the unique ways that women suffer under wartime violence, and I think being graphic, while being extremely uncomfortable and hard to read, is also the point. In the beginning, Sean makes it clear that Catherine is a sort of stand-in for, not just her father’s crimes, but all of Britain. In his eyes, nothing that has or will happen to Catherine can make up for what the Irish have had to endure under British rule. He tells her, "Miss Enderly, you've only had a taste of the Irish condition. For seven hundred years British ambitions have brought war to this land, and with it disease, famine, and death. What you've endured has been nothing. If you think a slap in the face, a lean mattress, a limited wardrobe, a few floors to scrub, and a single man between your legs is a miserable life, you've not begun to learn misery. The Irish will never tolerate the English heel on their necks. Shall we see how well you stand an Irish heel on yours?"

We will get to this later on in the episode, but Sean is gearing up for a rebellion that there’s historical basis for, the Irish Rebellion of 1798. The Society of United Irishmen was founded by Theobald Wolfe Tone in 1791, and they were initially considered a peaceful organization for reform, but when the French Revolution broke out the United Irishman, who were sympathetic to their cause, were perceived as a greater threat by British government. In 1794 Wolfe Tone was exiled to America, and there was a crackdown on membership by the British that helped radicalize the group, who now wanted to break all ties with Britain. Tone attempted to return to Ireland in 1796 with a French fleet but was unsuccessful due to harsh winter storms. The response of the British was swift attempts at suppression: including torture and mass arrests. The rebellion itself kicked off in Dublin and went on for three months, was unsuccessful, and resulted in tens of thousands of deaths.

Stormfire was written in the early 1980s and published in 1984, in the thick of the Troubles of Northern Ireland, which is very much a continuation of the conflict Monson was writing about.

Emma: Yeah. So this is something that I was surprised at when I was reading it. I had not connected this to the Troubles at all, until there was one point where there's a reference to Ireland getting weapons from France. I was like that sounds familiar, and I thought of the Middle Eastern countries, particularly Libya and Palestine giving weapons to Ireland, and I was like gonna look up…I looked up the timeline for the troubles of what's going on. What would Monson have been hearing about in Ireland leading up to the publication of this book? And it's very much right in the middle of the Troubles, so 1981 is probably the most famous hunger strike showdown with Thatcher, where ten prisoners starved themselves to death.

And it was heralded as a win for Thatcher, her sort of staying the course and not compromising with the prisoners was a political win for her, but made her even more reviled in Ireland.

And then that's when sort of the extreme bombings by the IRA really start in the early Eighties. So there's a bombing in Ballykenny in 1982 there's a bombing at Harrods in London in 1983. And then there was a bombing in Brighton in 1984 which happened after the publication of Stormfire.

And so this is, I think Monson was probably aware of what was going on, just as someone who's living in the early eighties and writing about Ireland. She's so historically accurate when she talks about the rebellion going on in the 1790s. It makes sense to me that she would be thinking about what's going on in the troubles in Northern Ireland and Ireland at the time.

So it is not immediately obvious in 1984. But this is the period that Sinn Féin is able to gain an electoral basis in participating elections, both in Ireland and Northern Ireland. So it's this big period of transition and sort of legal political power. And that's a theme of the way that Catherine and Sean talk about Ireland.

Catherine even acknowledges…this a quote from Catherine in the book she says: To remain free, Ireland must remain united. So it feels like these themes of the politics of the Troubles are sort of woven throughout the book in in ways that are sort of unexpected, but also mostly unexpected, because I hadn't seen other people talk about it in the Goodreads reviews that I had read that were really focused on the personal violence from Sean to Catherine rather than connecting this sort of political violence that's going on in the rebellion to the political violence that was going on when Monson was writing this book.

Chels: Yeah, I think whenever I think of Stormfire and people kind of talk about the violence, I want to zoom out a little bit, because there's so much violence in this book. But you kind of get that first hand between Catherine and Sean, but it’s part of a whole, and what it has to say about wartime violence, and all of the other sufferings that are kind of weaved into Catherine's. It kind of paints a different picture than I think if you were just to solely focus on that.

Beth: I kind of like this is a like an addendum or a side point. But I do like these older historicals that will go political. I feel like a lot of books nowadays, Just you're just kind of somewhere in time and you don’t always know. But like I also read another book recently The Magnificant Rogue by Iris Johansson. And Queen Elizabeth is a character in this book like, and also in this book, we'll talk about it later, like Napoleon, is a character who has an effect on Catherine's life like I I don't know. I just, I like that. They did that. They don't really do that anymore.

Emma: Yeah, I can’t believe I've only read one book with Napoleon in it! Like Waterloo is such a big deal. If someone is disabled, it's because they were at Waterloo. But no one is go like no one's in Napoleon's Court. This is the first book I've read where Napoleon actually shows up.

Chels: We do get a lot of Duke of Wellington. I want to start Wellington goodreads shelf, just like Duke of Wellington, shout out.

Emma: Beau Brummels does show up in this book, and it's like Beau Brummels is a little weenie.

Chels: He’s always a weenie!

Emma: the butt of every joke?

Chels: Oh, so moving on, Maude as you'll remember that servant character attempts to kill Catherine multiple times, and we can see that these are acts of a deeply traumatized person lashing out the only way within her power. What do you see is Maude’s significance to the story?

Emma: So Maude is a character who comes up really early in the book. But I didn't realize the significance until sort of the final attempt on Catherine's life, and I think she's mentioned that they also, when they were really the books the second time, noticed Maude more.

But I saw Maude's death as really opening the door for Catherine, both for Sean and the reader/ Catherine has all these reasons to misunderstand Maude, and she's probably safer after Maude's death. Maude has attempted to hurt her so many times that Catherine's position in the castle seems less precarious once Maude is dead.

But Catherine really earnestly mourns Maude like planting the flowers on her shallow grave, hoping they take over the hill as they grow. Both Catherine’s physical ailments at the time, and the circumstances of Maude's funeral, where the priest refuses to do the formal burial rites prevent Catherine from actually mourning in a community at the funeral. It isn't clear at the time of that revelation to Sean or the reader, but it's later revealed that this parallels what happened to Catherine when her mother died.

Her mother's death was incredibly gory. She did a blind jump on a horse and landed on something behind the the wall, which later is revealed to have been planted there by Catherine's father.

And is basically impaled and dies while Catherine watches her. And this is the source of Catherine's nightmares in the castle, even as she's experiencing all this violence in the castle. Her nightmares are about her mother's death, and she also has this fear of blind jumps on her horse, which is important to the plot later.

But in response to Catherine's trauma, her father puts her in a sparse room and keeps her away from the mourners, even having Catherine bound when she lashes out physically. This feels like the sort of the removal of her ability to mourn, and feels like a parallel to Maude. But Sean's reaction to Catherine's inability to mourn and Maude is actually an act of kindness, sort of expresses empathy to her for the first time, and this leads to an early understanding between Catherine and Sean, and it feels like the first in a series of these, like doors opening between the couple.

Chels: I like that you connected Maude and Catherine because I connected Maude and Sean. I I keep thinking about how much Maude and Sean have in common. They both are survivors that watch their families be brutalized in front of them. Maude’s quest for violence is not really that much more misdirected than Sean's? Sean is ostensibly hurting Catherine out of revenge. But does he really do anything to John Enderley? Maude is possibly what would have happened to Sean if he wasn't a man if he wasn't rewarded for violence. He's surrounded by people, but isolated by his hatred, and unable to form a connection

After Catherine's butterfly speech, he tells her I gape it love, and rend it with clumsy fingers, yet still hold its tatters close in idiot hope it may live again. Solitary death is no more welcome than solitary life, so yet I stand and refuse to fall on my sword.

It's you, fair Diana, who must lower me in all my bleeding dreams to dust.

It also seems kind of poignant to me that Sean calls for Maude's death after her second attack on Catherine.

That death that could be so that could so easily be Sean's fate. There's another version of the story somewhere that in Sean's death, as you mentioned earlier, Emma.

Beth: Okay. So you both touch on excellent points how Catherine empathizes with Maude, and recognizes she's driven by such brutal trauma. And then how Maude and Sean are similar.

So would we say Catherine's interactions with Maude paved the way for her greater understanding of Sean?

Beth: I don't want to minimize Sean’s abuse and violence, but perhaps through Maude she can kind of contextualize his behavior better.

Chels: The image is like burned into my brain is like Catherine planting stars of Bethlehem on Maude’s grave like Catherine is mourning Maude. Catherine has feels connected to Maude and doesn't really have that reaction that you expect. Like as Emma said, she's safer that Maude is dead, and that her the way that she attacked her. It seems kind of inexplicable. But I think that Catherine recognizes that connection between Maude and Sean. They both don't really know how to react to their trauma, and they do so in really inappropriate ways, and it kind of spirals out that other that affects other people and hurts other people.

But it is still sad that Maude dies.

Emma: Yeah, it really emphasizes like, there's no winning. There's no solution. It's. If Maude or Sean stops hurting Catherine that doesn't stop the trauma that they experienced. And even if we think about trauma, and like how we would even deal with it now, such political and, like widespread trauma. It's like the trauma is between these countries that are hurting these families and villages.

And so it's not even that sort of interpersonal trauma that we think about like the rake with a chip on his shoulder because his dad didn't love him enough. That is sometimes the plot and historical romance that could be sort of solved through processing out loud with a partner.

There's no winning. There's no solution to this, and I think that's the point of the book that we see over and over again that these people can try to make their way and build connections and build empathy for each other. But there's no undoing this, and also knowing what happens with the Irish rebellion. And then what continues to happen with Ireland for the next two centuries after this book is set.

If Catherine and Sean reconciled with each other, Ireland is still going to be the subject of subjugation that's not going to solve that.

Chels: So John Enderley, Catherine's father is the main villain of the story, at least for the first three quarters, but unbeknownst to Catherine at the beginning, he's a smuggler who is pitting England and France against each other during the Napoleonic wars. The reason Sean hates him so much is that he is responsible for the massacre at Kenlo. He thought that engineering a massacre would incite an Irish rebellion, and then he could turn around and profiteer in the name of the crown.

We see so much of Sean's rage directed at Catherine. But when he meets John Enderley for the first time when he's in disguise in England he feels hollow. What do you make of this?

Emma: Yeah. So the part that Sean has the big reaction to John Endarly is not when he first sees him, and is aware of the sort of political elements of it. There's something else that happens that creates a personal reaction to him. So when Sean goes to England he meets an old friend who helped him attend Eaton under an assumed identity, the one that he's taking up again during the horse race. His friend Fitzhugh, and then later, other acquaintances repeat to Sean on notions like Don't seek Ireland's freedom in England's blood. Our destiny lies in the law.

Sean responds. Thank you, sir, but I'm no barrister. The acquaintances repeat the sentiment, believing that Sean is his Anglo-Irish disguise, and he responds even more specifically and politically, “the governing law of England or the governing law of Ireland is English, by English law? A Catholic Irishman is an enemy of the crown unprotected by any law save the rubble of the Gaelic codes.”

Sean recognizes, unlike the Englishmen around him, even those sympathetic to the Irish cause, that legal mechanisms cannot and will not serve the Irish people, but when met with the option to kill Enderly, it seems up until this point that Sean would be willing to do it on site. That's sort of the confrontation that we're expecting when he sees Enderly at the horse race, Sean is numb. What actually elicits a reaction is when Sean realizes and realizes plan with Catherine is to arrange for her to be the mistress of a French duke. He develops personal anger in response to the personal harm to Kathryn.

I think Sean feels hollow when he sees John Enderly because revenge is hollow. So Sean has to thought when he meets him, and Emma just references it so that he feels known. But this is the whole quote.

“Since meeting his sworn enemy face to face, he had dispassionately observed him as if the man were a viper in a glass cage in a glass case. There had been no rush of gall. The urge to do murder, though he fully intended to kill Enderly, this prospect now seemed inevitable and monotonous.

The title of this chapter is the Mongoose and the Cobra and Monson names Enderly as the snake.

But I looked up this up because of course I did, and mongooses is disproportionately win fights against king cobras like there's this dynamic. So I say that because it I feel like their dynamic is inevitable. Where, like Sean, could definitely kill Enderly. But he would not regain anything of what he's lost because of Enderly.

Chels: Yeah, and then so. And this is also kind of like right when he's he's having the shift on like, how he feels about, and how he perceives Catherine, and so I think that he's been spending all of that time like getting his revenge. And then here he is like, it feels like nothing, and it feels like nothing. He just realizes kind of at this point like how little and really actually cares about Catherine. But I also don't think that's the point. I think that, like, even if Enderly, did care about Catherine so much. Enderley probably cared a lot about his timber that Sean burned, but, like he still has that same reaction, and I do really appreciate that it's not necessarily that, just that Enderly doesn't care about Catherine.

It's that Sean is starting to at least kind of grasp that this isn't going to feel the way you want it to.

Beth: Yeah, that when that part came up I kept expecting a bigger action out of Sean. Him just passively and clearly observing Enderly , I was like waiting for this moment of like something to happen, at that point, I think he still plans on financially ruining him even more so it's like not quite at that point in his plan. But I kind of love that Monsons give Sean, this hollow feeling like this.

Beth: It's just like so anticlimatic, I guess, is what i'm trying to say

Chels: It really is. And then, like, I mean, we'll get into this later, too, but spoiler for our own episode like there isn't really a resolution with Enderley like he kind of, he does take a really big, financial, and reputational hit. But there's no big like other romance novels would have this big climactic moment, or this big comeupance that, and all of the characters have to reckon with.. But Enderly essentially disappears from the narrative, after a certain point, aside from being like referenced once, and it makes sense because they have different problems at that point.

Beth: Yeah, I think I kind of like that's how he ended so often. You'll read a book and the bad character it gets to comeuppance which I like, and if you're reading a book, say, like a mystery, that you want, like some justice to happen. But how often in life, like the worst person you know that's like the longest, happiest life ever,, and that, I think, works in this book like with how with what Monson it is trying to say, I feel like it's very fitting actually that, Enderly doesn’t die.

Emma: Enderly responsible for the massacre at Kenlo. But it was just like Sean's like political harm, and the one that he holds closest to him. But the subjugation of Ireland is at the hands of an entire country. It's like the thing that would cause the solution would be a united Ireland that is, free from English subjugation which is not going to happen when it's like. If he kills Enderly another war profiteer is going to come in and be manipulating the political situation to harm people, and there's going to be this country that is ruling over another colonized area like the problem is colonization, which is not going to be solved with one comeupance.

Chels: When he meets Enderley, so that point, like he was a little bit more of a turning point in this relationship for him with Catherine. But when Catherine learns that Sean didn't needlessly kill the men at Holdenwood, which he pretended that he had, but he really just burned the timber, and then didn't kill them.

So when she finds out that that didn't actually happen, and they didn't die, that's kind of a turning point for her. So they’re still caught in this captive/captor relationship, and it's not like things are suddenly okay now, or they're suddenly in a romance.

But Catherine does start looking at Sean with sympathy or with increased sympathy, and with a bunning fondness. Because we keep talking about abuse like this is kind of like a honeymoon phase, I would say, of their relationship. And then, as Sean gets deeper into plotting the rebellion, he decides to send Catherine away to keep her safe, notably he's not sending her back to John Enderley, as you've noted like, that’s not like her life there is over.

But meanwhile a jealous Liam coerces Catherine into marrying and running away with him and betraying Sean. So when Sean finds out what they've done, he thinks to himself that he experienced the first hate like it's just like this, it’s like brutal tense moment where you know, like really bad things are gonna happen.

So he recaptures Catherine, and then all hell breaks loose. So there's kind of a lot of plot in this discussion. And in this portion that we're going to discuss. But basically what you need to know is that Catherine does betray Sean, like she's can coerced by Liam, who has bad intentions, and is framing things to her, and a poor light like she's coerced into into betraying Sean, and kind of fucking up the rebellion, because like if if she hadn't run off with Liam, Liam actually ends up passing on information to the British, and like giving them giving them a heads up with the the Irish we're planning on doing.

So this is kind of like a huge, huge loss, not just for Sean personally, with Catherine running away from him, but a huge loss politically like everything that they had worked for for years comes crashing down around him, and the woman that he thinks that he loves ran off with his brother.

So that's kind of what you need to know when we're talking about this section what has kind of occurred.

Emma: Yeah, I think it's important that Catherine's betrayal of Sean is not just a personal one that she's not just doing it. She's not just tricked into it by Liam. Liam explains to her like what's going on with the rebellion. It makes it very clear that Sean is intending to align himself with France and that Napoleon is sort of taking advantage of the Irish rebellion, because it's going to be this conduit into England. And this is how Napoleon is sort of planning to take over England, and this is historically accurate that the sort of alliance between France and Ireland is happening at the time during the rebellion.

And so Catherine makes this conscious decision. She hears about Napoleon, and she's like If Napoleon comes like if Napoleon has access to Ireland, that will be terrible for England, and she identifies as English, and she's like also, she's able to see if Napoleon has the power over Ireland that Napoleon is not going to let Ireland have independent rule

She thinks that this is a bad alliance to be making, while Sean thinks that he will be able to like, overpower and be able to sort of rule Ireland independent from Napoleon. So that Catherine is actually making her own political machinations, and is also actually betraying Sean for sort of her own reasons, opposed to just the manipulation makes everything more complicated, but also makes Catherine, it makes it clear that she's very smart that she has her own motivations.

and that she's not just being manipulated by Liam because she does, I think its important that the betrayal of Sean is not just a misunderstanding.

Beth: On a micro level. I like that. Catherine develops a lot of empathy for the Irish, so she's living there. She sees her father in a whole new light, where she learns that he's this war criminal, but I do like that she is still loyal to the English, despite this, like growing awareness of, like the Irish play, and like what has happened, and how much damage has been done. Does that make sense? I I don't think those loyalties are easily discarded.

Chels: This is the part. This is the part of the book that I like. It just wrecks me every time. It's like it's definitely the toughest to read, because you kind of know what's coming, and Catherine, and it is a decision that Catherine makes Liam does like it's. It's kind of hard to explain the way it happens in the book, but like Liam does kind of like coerce and kind of like take advantage of the situation. But ultimately Catherine does make the decision for her own reasons, as you mentioned.

And so this kind of leads into---Sean captures Catherine, and then he kind of begins round 2 of like the of abuse like he's so angry with her, and i'm not gonna describe in detail what he does, it's very devastating. It's very difficult to read, and part of part of what happens is that she ends up almost getting starved to death, and then she gets gravely injured and miscarries.

I kind of see this like like the two big acts like there is the first, the beginning where he captures her, and then she's kind of like working, she's working at Shelan, and she's like kind of like trying to escape. And then there's this portion like after she had made that decision, and then he reacts even more viciously than he did the first time, and I think, probably because he the betrayal was tiered.

What we just discussed is difficult to stomach, and Sean's brutal and careless punishment of Catherine ends in her near death and miscarriage, and this is kind of like another turning point for Sean. I wouldn't call this portion of the story a time jump per say, but time moves pretty quickly in the story to show just how long it takes for Catherine to gain some semblance of self in her physical and emotional recovery. What do you think of this recovery period, and of Catherine eventually rekindling her relationship with Sean.

Emma: I think one of the reasons that we're struggling to talk about this is because the thing that Sean sort of works on forgiving Catherine for is the betrayal of him as a partner. He thinks that she's run off with Liam, because she's in love with Liam, and that's the part that becomes like very clear that she did not love Liam, and didn't want to be with him.

And so it's like the even though she and she takes the responsibility for the like, the political betrayal, and she's like I I that part she owns. But the part that she also sort of obfuscates about is that she protects Liam by saying, like letting Sean think that she was in love with Liam, and that's why she ran off with him.

The fact that it's hard to pull out these like personal versus political betrayals like that work sort of in Monson’s narrative favor, that those things are complicated for these characters and for everyone. But in the rekindling of the relationship with Sean. Again, we're sort of entering this like honeymoon period where he's very attentive of already. He's very upset when people try to harm her like the starvation comes from not Sean is from another character who is responsible for feeding? Catherine has not been feeding her, and that's when he realizes that other people are trying to harm her as well, and he becomes angry and becomes more protective of her.

Beth: I don't know if I have another point about that. But other than the but the when that character who was starving Catherine, it wasn't like Sean, was explicitly. Hey, don't feed her, treat her badly. That was like tha character also has motivation because she likes Sean. She doesn't…she knows Catherine is like an ex, an ex of his, which sounds super underwhelming way to say it.

And I think that's kind of another dramatic shift in their relationship. So Chels kind of mentioned this isn't like a time jump, because before in this part like before, this part of the book, several months is like the first 200 pages or so where he's at using her, and then this next portion, what he is helping to recover--that's like a two year period, but it's much more condensed, but I think Monson’s speeds at that time, because Catherine needed that time to recover. But as like a reader, you don't need to read every single time that Sean like helps out of bed and like, feed her and all that. So I think it was necessary to do that.

But yeah, I'd see, this is like their second milestone, and they really like… think there's a couple turning points, and this is one of the main ones after this like recovery period.

Chels: Yeah. And this portion also has this scene that sticks with me. When Catherine recovers enough, Sean takes her to the hill where their baby, who she is named Michael, is buried. The hill is covered in stars of Bethlehem, which are the same white flowers that Catherine planted on Maude's grave earlier in the story. So they expanded and spread as promised.

Both Maude and Michael's death feel kind of avoidable and pointless, and I like that Monson tied them together here with Sean on that hill, saying, Humility is a bitter draft to swallow.

As I said earlier to me, this is the saddest part of the book. I'm not bolstered by Sean's regret, and there's kind of this question of, you know, there's kind of like a desolation to everything that's happened. It it feels very much like you read like a war epic? And and when everybody is trying to like, pick up the pieces of the town afterwards. It's kind of like what this section of the book feels like to me.

And you kind of are wondering like, are they ever going to get out of this cycle like? Is this gonna be all that there is? So it's very. It's a very heartbreaking moment

Beth: like you said that Maude and Michael's death feels pointless, almost like they have like, but like in an actual, like real world like the world that is trying to capture and live in like. Yeah, they could have easily avoided these desk. But I think that's the byproduct of violence. A lot of times is like these very needless casualties that it's just so devastating to read. So I am actually glad that Monson kept that, or has that in there.

Emma: Something important about the miscarriage and the circumstances of the miscarriage is the the so. The miscarriage happens like before, like a Catherine is carrying the fetus in her, and the fetus has died and is not growing anymore. Before she starts becoming ill, Sean makes her ride a horse, and the horse accident is what causes her injuries. But she's already miscarried.

And that's revealed. The doctors able to like, identify, like how long? The how old the fetus was, and it despite her, her pregnancy, her like. She think she's 6 months pregnant, but the fetus is 4 months old.

So the the horse writing is not what causes the miscarriage it's. And I think this is like important for Sean, because he realizes like the lack of like attention and lack of relationship with Catherine is, is what would have led to her death that she would have just died in herself. But carrying this unviable fetus, and, like that, was going to poison her,

Beth: Yeah, she would have died of sepsis.

Emma: Yeah, it's so. It's like the the lack of that sort of I mean, like anonymous death would have is that he's aware that that's a possibility. That seems to be the thing. That sort of shakes him out of his is inattention of her, and, like the inattention to her, is that the thing is like harming her the most where she sort of becomes like catatonic and doesn't know how to react to him anymore. And that's all that seems like almost a separate thing from the injuries that she suffers on the horse, that a separate harm and a separate reaction from Sean.

Beth: Yeah, it's like the physical injuries. And then he recognizes the lack of trust that she didn't tell him that she was pregnant, and it went on long enough that she had the miscarriage.

Anyway, it's all devastating.

Chels: I guess before I get into the next point, just to kind of like make it make sense is like as we mentioned it's like it's a big kind of a lot of time has passed in the recovery, and there's like the realization for Sean. And then there's another consent negotiation. It's not like there's this realization. He takes care of their back together like it's kind of a long process, and then they do get back together, and they do profess love to each other. So that's kind of what happens before this next point, which is that Liam returns to Shelan.

So Liam tells Sean that Brendan, their father, slept with Catherine's mother, and that Catherine is actually their half. Sister. Liam shows Sean a pretty convincing document that is supposedly proves this. And while we were texting about this book before everyone had finished, I said that the incest storyline is is basically the third act break up to me. It was pretty obvious that Liam wasn't telling the whole truth, and like this isn't actually gonna this isn't actually incest. How did you feel about this reveal?

Emma: This is the plot that I'm the most sort of unsure of like how to talk about it like Why, it's there, and the function of it in the narrative. The violence I feel like you can reconcile really easily or like the function of it. The incest feels like kind of shoehorned.

So there's this third act break up, at least for me.

Beth: Yeah, and we were pro third act breakups on this podcast. We're just saying it's not a satisfying, and I agree with Emma. I think she lays the groundwork for it, and then also cause it throughout the book. It's often just kind of public, very common knowledge that Sean is probably a bastard. And so you're like, okay, I guess maybe incestt.

Emma: But it seems pretty obvious that Brendan is Brendan calling. It is not Sean's father. So when the whole they blow up their whole world because of this like document that proves it, and then they never. No one is ever like well like. Maybe, maybe Sean is not Branden's son. It seems like all the characters sort of forgot that was like the breadcrumbs the whole time.

And that that ends up being. The solution also is that he's not Brandoe's son.

Beth: To me the function of the third act break up is like that final cementing of a couple like Yes, we definitely want to be together, and like before they figure out that they're not actually brother and sister. They're like cemented together like they've gone through so much stuff like this like added incest storyline just feels like we're adding pages.

Chels: We have to go to France, Beth!

Emma: I do the point in seeing what Catherine and Sean's relationship look like when they're not having sex, because they stop having sex Once they think of the brother and sister.

It's like, maybe that's an element that's nice. That's like they're there's like loyalty, and this devotion to each other, despite this relationship that they they think. And so I I kind of get that point. And I also, I do think : the function of Liam being so cruel to Sean and Catherine. I like that Liam comes back and has to confront them, and they have to deal with Liam again, because that leads to one of my favorite themes in the book.

Beth: I don't think we feel negative, but like. Maybe it would have been stronger if it wasn't dragged out for so long, because, like third act break up is typically fewer pages. So I feel like that final hurdle would have hit harder like, okay, They're still super loyal to each other, even though they feel like they can never be together, because they. I think

Emma: it's third act break up, but it's out of like 6 acts.

Chels: I think it was pretty bold of her to do it for so long, and I think that it's kind of like a delicate needle to thread, because if readers read this, and they're just like oh, I'm actually reading about incestuous lovers. A lot of people would get grossed out and put the book down.

But Liam is obviously not a trustworthy character. So, as a reader, you're like this can't be right, even though she doesn't really like hit you over the head with it. I don't think like I thought for me. I wasn't I wasn't quite sure how it was gonna get resolved like it Wasn't quite as obvious to me, because it seemed like there was conflicting information about Sean's parentage. So kind of depended on like who you believed as an authority for that.

The Silver Devil actually has a plot line that's really similar to this. So, like Felicia and that book, the heroine was raised in poverty, and she didn't know her father, and then, when she was living as the Duke of Cabria's mistress, his former lover tells her that they are brother and sister. But I think for that book that misunderstanding is only for like, maybe a chapter or 2 but once, and it's like, here's 150 pages.

And so I thought that was kind of. I thought that was kind of bold. But in that you do have to be kind of careful with it. Because, yeah, if people thought that that was true, and I thought and they didn't like, if they didn't really want to get it because it. It's maybe not fully successful, just because, like at this point we're all kind of exhausted by everything. There are some plot problems that you have to solve right like, I think for me like you have to get out of Shelan like that is like they can't stay there. So there has to be something else that happens.

And I think like involving Liam, and that like making Liam be kind of a boogie man at the end. which we'll talk a little bit more about him later.

But yeah, let's kind of move on so to. So once Catherine recovers, they think that their brother and sister, so they can't be together, and Sean attempts to return her to England, only to get captured by John Enderley. So once Sean is captured, he is tortured pretty brutally by John Enderly. So we're back to, an eye for an eye again. What do you think Monson’s trying to say here?

Yeah, it's if these were some of the hardest scenes for me to read, I think, because I didn't know what was going to happen. I like I or like when it was gonna happen, or the extent or like the the pacing of it. I can kind of, in the interpersonal relationship between Sean and Catherine. I could kind of predict like okay, like she's done something. I now know how he's going to respond, and I sort of got into a rhythm with them. When you would meet a character in his torture chamber? You weren't sure like, who like, or is this gonna be someone who's helping him? Or is this gonna be someone who is even worse than the last character we met. Because you meet all of these people pretty quickly in in sequence.

It becomes clear, just the like the level of ire that John Enderley has that he he really is as bad as Sean seems to think that he was that it wasn't just this like something getting stuck in his craw, and it's like vengeance. It's like it really is capable of this like incredibly violent reaction, and on like a personal level like he's not just burning a village like he's asking for a man to be castrated because it sort of confirms the the violence of Enderly and it's just this like a completely unsatisfactory.

So the justice, like Enderly has Catherine back, and it it's he, he, the personal harm is is corrected supposedly. He's torturing Sean, I think, for information, but I can't remember what information he's trying to get out of him, which is a confession? or is it plans? I don't remember now.

Beth: Yeah, that it's Don't. Ask me about the plot. We only each remember the plot about 50%.

Chels: If I didn't write it in this document,

Beth: it's not there. Yeah, I do like what you said about it being more revealing about John Enderley's character. I think that's kind of what we're

Beth: what we're kind of supposed to get out of it like Catherine at this point is like desperate to save Sean like she doesn't want to see him tortured, even though she suffered such extreme. Have you? And even as the reader. It's like. I have complicated feelings about Sean, but it's not like i'm cheering that he's getting tortured here like it's awful like it's like those scenes are terrible. So yeah, I think it's just saying a lot more about who John Enderley is, and like you, said Emma, he's got his daughter back. Supposedly the personal harm is repaired, but he's vindictive.

Chels: and yeah. And if you were to root for Sean to get hurt like like, if you were like someone who is like, okay, I want Sean deserves this. I want this to happen to them like you would ostensibly be saying because of Catherine. I want this to happen to him because of Catherine. But Catherine doesn't want that like Catherine at this point calls him her heart's husband, and she is the one who ends up saving him. She has to go to pretty extreme lengths like, put her put herself in some pretty like tricky political situations, in order to rescue him from the prison and then take him back to Ireland. So it's kind of again, like if we're like, if we're gonna do.

Chels: And eye for and eye, which we don't. That's not like how we kind of see things here. You're kind of just like zooming in on Sean has done, and let's kind of like

Chels: if we do that like. Are we rooting for Enderly?

Beth: It’s a way you can self-examine a bit

Emma: right. And even if you're like okay, like Catherine has Stockholm Syndrome. she doesn't actually want to be a Sean like if you're having this like very like sort of intellectual reaction to the part of the book. If and you want Sean to experience her like harm, focus on the harm that he's caused as this like retribution, Catherine should be the one who, enacts it, like narratively like it, makes sense. If this is, if this ends up being a story of revenge against Sean. Catherine is the one who should get to dictate what revenge is taking place against him. And even if you're reading for her to realize that Enderley is not the one who should get to dictate it, because he's like stealing the chance of like deciding what happens to Sean from Catherine.

Beth: right? But I feel like. maybe another reason why this happens is just like, harm and violence through other people. So it's like Sean and John, John, Sean and Enderley trying to harm each other through people adjacent to them like, okay, I'm going to get back at underly through his daughter.

Beth: yeah, I think that's just what I

Chels: So Catherine rescues John, as I mentioned, and then returns into Shalon, and then Liam and his henchman Rouge, arrive and accost them. So the henchman attacks Catherine and is trying to rape her actually, and then Liam's comes in and then kills Rouge.

Catherine begs him not to kill Sean, but Liam doesn’t listen. When Liam is distracted, Catherine grabs Rouge's gun and then she shoots and kills Liam. What do you think of Liam's death and the explosion that Burns sh on shortly after

Emma: this is probably my favorite scene in the whole book I texted the group chat. I was like this was I just was like so super moved by it. I thought it was the best written scene. It was like very gripping, and a part in the book that was kind of having trouble like getting through, because it's towards the end where it's like, how am I going to finish this book?

But the scene just was very arresting, and this is kind of like what I was talking about. Where, like Catherine, gets to determine this like revenge, like she. The fact that she does this violence to protect Sean, and it's sort of like is the period on the end of Liam's life. It feels important that she did. Sean doesn't kill Liam, Liam doesn't die accidentally, doesn’t take his own life. Catherine gets to decide. This is these are the stakes for her, and that she's protecting herself and Sean. It makes sense that Catherine, it now is like this, like firsthand participant n revenge and ending things. Which she sort of has not been able to do like Sean doesn’t let her kill him doesn't let her kill herself. She doesn't get to end anything. And this feels like a really satisfactory moment, even if it's not,

It doesn't feel redemptive in any way. It doesn't feel like those sort of come up and says, we're like, oh, like this release of like oh, like evil is beaten. It just feels like oh, now, Catherine at least gets to be a participant fully in a way that even if she, I think she's very sad that Liam dies, but it's something that needed to happen for the sake of her and Sean.

Beth: I'm not to be flippant, but I was like so happy when Liam died. I wast surprised that Catherine's going to kill him. But I think that works out. Maybe puer her on Sean's level a little bit.

Chels:. I was surprised by that, like the intimacy that Catherine and Liam had after she shoots him. So she, she, somebody doesn't immediately die, and then she moves towards his body, and Sean is like get away from Liam! He saw as a gun, and then she says, Liam won't hurt me. It would be like killing himself.

And I've been thinking about this line all night, because I can't quite pinpoint what it means like. He won't hurt me because I'm too important to him, or he won't hurt me because we are one and the same.

Beth: I think it's because she's too important to him, even though it's kind of muddy like we were talking about earlier. It's like does Liam even love Catherine or he's just trying to get what up on Sean. I think it can be both like it's. Most relationships are complex, and they're not neat.

Beth: So yeah, I think the very least you could say that

Beth: Catherine was very important to Liam, even though he saw her in such a weird way.

Chels: And I guess this don't really have to be like opposing things right he could be using. He could have kind of like started to form this obsession with Catherine. It that kind of like int. He already had it, but it kind of like intensified like being like oh, like it's either me or or sha, and like, and that kind of like, maybe like, made her solidify her importance, and made her more important to him. But it maybe it doesn't necessarily negate that importance, like even though those some of it aren't coming from pure good reasonings or emotions like that doesn't take away the feeling.

Beth: Yeah.

Emma: And I think this also parallels it's sort of something that Sean brings up because people in in Shalen, like in the the first and second cycle of abuse with Catherine mentioned to him. Like, If if you keep behaving like this she will die, and his reaction usually is like, Well, I'm not gonna kill her like. That's like not the thing that he's thinking of.

It's like not in his concept of his reactions to Catherine, that, like his actions, would reach that level. For some reason he has this block for Catherine for most of the book where he doesn't want to kill her because it's like so quickly. He becomes attached to her in this way that, like candy, they conceptualize that, so, I think, is another parallel also between Liam and Sean, where they just have this, like very strong attachment to her, that it's like they can't even conceptualize ending her despite the abuses against her. For some, that seems important. They both have this like stop gap.

Chels: Yeah. I kind of want to talk about this scene is the it's the book cover. So the burning of Shalen, where they're like embracing out in front and I just like that kind of like what I was kind of like when we were talking about like the the third act break up and kind of like what we're gonna do, and what's happening with Liam like I just like i'm just like a firm believer that Shalen had to burn like it just had to, because it was Liam’s legacy, and, like Liam, is like you can leave John Enderley as a loose thread. But you can't leave Liam as a loose thread, and like, I think I think that's kind of like, maybe for me like you.

Just you have that imagery from the beautiful Pino cover. But then it's also like this is just like-- it's such a fraught moment that it it was hard. It was hard for me to predict what was going to happen, and it was really emotional and still sad like I I felt sad. I I don't like Liam, but I was kind of like, I I know that he had. I know that he kind of had to die,

Beth: you know he didn't feel victorious like I have you. Yeah, like I. LIAM IS THE WORST. is the worst. All Cap. Of course.

Emma: I think it does make sense that this is the point where I think all 3 of us felt like an untethered by the plot, because the what happens after Shalen burn is just kind of wild and like you, don't know what's going to happen, because Shalen has been this like touchstone for the whole plot like that. They're always going to come back to it. People get send them away from it, and then they they're like. Then they're not in the action like we don't see Liam. Really, when he's away from Shelan, and we don't see Catherine when she's away like it. They're always returning to this this like lighthouse of sorts

for them. And so, when Shalen is gone, like, what have they been working for, like? What are they? What are they doing anything for?

And it becomes very untethered. So I think the experience of the reader afterwards is like you. You have no idea what's going to happen, because obviously they're still like on the run. They still take their brother and sister, so they're still plot to resolve. But we now have lost the main setting of the book.

Beth: Yeah, I I like that you pointed that out that they feel untethered, and I think it's because they lose that place that they keep going back to. because now they have to find a new home. But I also agree with Chels what they said that, it kind of had to burn because and you have this in your point shell which I'm completely stealing, that they have so much shared history there that Catherine and Sean has bunch history there, so it feels symbolic like, Burn that down, burn our history down. we go find a new home.

Beth: How? Yeah, how successfully months and pulled off the next 100 pages. But I I think that feeling untethered is okay, because that's how they feel like. What are they gonna do now like Sean is burned. Where do they go?

Chels: Yeah, and it's like, even after all of that, like everything that's happened in the book. And like how I it's just like they don't neither of them.

The next portion of the book happens in France, and neither of them move through the world easily there like They neither of them seem like they both are very much foreigners. They're both like they both kind of like, have even less control than they do at this point. So it does kind of like. I was kind of stressed through a lot of it, and was kind of I was kind of like wanting to get back to something, and I but I wasn't sure what. So I guess kind of role we'll kind of cover the last portion of the book.

Chels: After Liam’s death, Sean and Catherine escape to France in a boat, and they’re picked up by Amauri, a Frenchman who they had previously hosted in Shelan. Catherine is pregnant with Sean’s child, but they try to keep separated from each other because they still believe they’re related. Catherine captures the eye of Napoleon, and Amuari offers Catherine marriage to protect her from being forced to become Napoleon's mistress. When Catherine realizes that she and Sean are also suspected of being Royalists, she agrees

This is the part of the story that we kind of been talking about over and over again, and we're just like well, I don't know it's a very fraught because Amarui is lying to Catherine, so he has political machinations with Napoleon that he's using Catherine for so she doesn't know that she does have something to lose from this marriage.

And then Sean is kind of simultaneously, also in danger, because he's working against Napoleon and putting his life at risk. So they kill him to France to escape, but they're kind of like thrown right back into the fire again, but only this time, like neither of them are on their home turf.

Beth: Yeah, I barely remembered this part Chels has to explain it to me before this episode starters.

Emma: There's so many new characters who are only there for like 6 chapters,

Chels: A lot of duels! Four duels

Emma: Lady servants who have like different levels of loyalty to Catherine, and multiple people like his name, start with M. Like there's Moora comes back as a ballet dancer. And there's Madeleine who does not like Catherine, and then Mei-Lin.

Beth: both of them are like exes or like mistresses of Sean, right? Yes, it's it's a lot to keep track of.

Chels: This is just this just occurred to me. So this could be quite a stupid thought. But i'm like, I wonder if Monson put in this last part, because she was like, I gotta show that Sean was not cool with Napoleon,

Beth: that he wasn't actually cool, even though he was originally going to ally with France.

Chels: she's like I can't leave it with Sean with Napoleon.

Beth:, that's okay clear before, though, that, like Sean is just using the point as like a means to an end. I was like reading that part, being like, oh, yeah, he's like a hardcore French ally..

Chels: But he like actively starts working against him like he like. And then and what I really I actually kind of like. It's one of those things that I don't enjoy while reading it, but I really enjoy talking about it like before this episode. I was like recapping the France part to Beth and Emma, and I was just like, okay. And then these are when this. So basically, there's a series of increasing duels because they're trying to kill Sean. And so they're just having other people like upset Sean. Yeah, which isn't hard to do.

Chels: And then Sean would like duel them, and then Sean him. So, of course, very good at dueling, and then Sean kills them. And then the final duel is actually so at this point, like Everyone's like Sean. You gotta get out of here. You've got the right reputation for being a duelist and and so and so they're actually gonna like send assassins . And so so this is kind of like where Sean needs to exit. But then, like Catherine, is still married to Amauri, which we know he knows we know he's a bad guy, and Amauri actually ends up kind of going to confront Sean, and so then the final duel is between Amauri and Sean, and Sean kills him. And so then Catherine is free.

Which then gets into the ending which wow it's it. It does feel like it kind of feels like, I feel like this episode feels kind of like what reading Stormfire is like it was so lengthy and so tense. But I think maybe tomorrow we're gonna feel like we accomplished something.

So then this gets into the end. So they still believe their brother and sister. So Sean leaves. But before he leaves Catherine it's like, okay. I'm sending

Chels: Catherine's baby is just been born. So Catherine’s like I'm gonna live in a convent. And then when he's old enough. I'm gonna send him to you because I can't raise him in a convent, and Sean's like cool, and then he eventually returns because someone who works at the convent like, decided to do a deep dive into Sean's parental history.

Beth: He was avery concerned about them potentially big brother and sister. So he like, lays out the lineage and find out that they're actually not brother and sister.

Chels: And so, at the very, very end of the book confirmation they are not brother and sister. And then Sean, Catherine, and their child, whose name is Brendan, sail off into the sunset, and then there is no epilogue which I think epiloques were a lot less common back. Then they're like almost required now. But

Yeah, that and then it's just kind of like it's like the the 10 pages of happiness, and then, and then it's done.

Beth: Yeah.

Chels: So how do you? How do we feel? How do we feel now?

Beth: Like overall? I've glad I read storm fire, and like, I said at the very beginning of the episode, we're gonna come back around. We'll read other books by Christine Monson because she's a good writer. I think this book sounds interesting to you. You should definitely check it out. And so you see why it's so seminal in romance.

Emma: Yeah, I think the ending is interesting with no epilogue. I don't know, and this I wish there were more like interviews with Monson, or that there was more of a documentation of her process. There's no I don't. Usually, if I have an idea i'm like oh, I can. I can picture people like what their lives are going to be like in the future together.

I have no picture for Sean and Catherine. I have no idea like where they could live. She is inherited her mother's estates. This is part of the plot in France, right that she thinks that she can't inherit the Countess’ estates because of the Royalist connections, but then she's allowed to, so they have some sort of money property that's been sort of like laid the groundwork of like how they can finance themselves. But I don't. I don't know if they're gonna live in France, live in Ireland.

And we know what's coming in Ireland to the nineteenth century any better than the eighteenth century or Irish people. So we don't we don't know what's going to happen with them, so it's like that. Happily ever after. It feels very like, this is when the book has to end, because we don't like the happily ever after. The ever after part is a little question mark for this couple which I have on other older books that are like that. The one that it reminds me of is A Bed of Spices by Barbara Samuel, which is another very like historical book that's like a place in this very specific moment in the Jewish pogroms in Strasbourg, in medieval Germany.

That's it's an interfaith relationship between a Christian woman and a Jewish man, and they also have to leave their home. They leave Strasbourg to go to Northern Africa to live in a Jewish community there. And again, it's sort of that feeling where you're like, they're together, but, like I don't, they they've experienced quite a bit of loss of their community when they leave Strasbourg, and the pogroms are just one of the worst things this has ever happened in history.

And so it's. It's set in this very tragic moment, and that this I have a similar feeling towards where it's like they're together. That's the happily ever after that we get but what their lives are going to be like. They're not going to be at some country estate you can't imagine like a sequel where they're they. They come back, and they're like, oh, like at a dinner party like so many couples do, and other universes.

Chels: It is kind of hard to think them like living like a life of domesticity. After all of this I don't think they would. I think that they would probably like, get themselves into trouble somehow. And maybe that's maybe that's okay. But yeah, no, i'm so glad the all red storm fire now. And yeah, I think kind of like for me like even kind.

I think kind of like it's one of those books where I remember I remember so much of like how I feel all the time like it just kind of sticks with me. And then also, like there are such beautiful lines in here that I've like pulled out, and I think about all the time I think about the butterfly speech so often

I think about some of the things that Sean says to Catherine: that's not really romantic and kind of threatening, but also is written in a way that just makes it sad. It's kind of something that I I remember to like the very beginning of the book when Catherine first see Sean. So she's, quotes Paradise Lost, and then she calls him Lucifer, and then the first thing she's like he's Lucifer. He looks sad. It's like it's like such an understatement, but it's also kind of like beautifully simplistic.

Yeah, I don't know. I know if this book, if this was just like a barrage of violence like that reviewer implied. People wouldn't still be rating Stormfire like there. It's not unique in the sense of the violence despite what people might seem like you can quite easily find, like some pretty violence books from this era that are romance novels.

Emma: Also, I wonder how many readers who and really fairly like fairly DNF it after like. The first rape scene is very hard to read. It's been incredibly violent, and I can imagine, if it's like, if you think that that's going to be the whole book, and like, there's going to be no other plot.

I can imagine people stopping reading it, which is fair, protect yourself if you don't want to read that you don't have to. But there are…the book does have like ebbs and flows of violence that make it made it easier for me to read where it was like I could take a break or like I would know that i'm not going to get just like chapter after chapter of like violence, that there's going to be plot, and there's also going to be a reason for it that there's It's gonna happen in a context.

Chels: And then like to. I do think this book, because it's out of print, and because of its reputation I do think that a lot of people who read storm fire have at least some awareness of what it is. You know what I mean. Like right? I don't. I think you.

Beth: I think you said this in a tweet about this. You don't accidentally read Stormfire. It's it's it's kind of. I think I think some people have.

Chels: and you can kind of tell when you're re reviews of it like who went into the book like looking to be upset by it. And I mean, I think that's fine to have your own boundaries, and I think your reactions are valid, I think it's a little disingenuous to pretend that you weren't aware of at least the reputation. And then also kind of like I do kind of. I really hate decontextualization. That's kind of something that I I I think about a lot like when people read. When people talk about books, you know, you'll just pull something and then say, this is all there is, and I think. I think they're having. That boundary is fine like quit when you want to quit, when something doesn't work for you. I definitely do.

Beth: But yeah, I think that's a good note to end on. Please intentionally read. Start by it because you want to, because it sounds interesting

Chels: either way. Thanks for listening to this talk about it, I think I I want people to know about storm fire. I don't think you need to. I don't think you need to read it if you don't want to read it.

We're all about contextualizing here. But yeah, thank you so much for listening to reformed rates. If you enjoy the podcast, you can find bonus content on our patreon@patreon.com/reformedrakes.

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