This is one of the weirdest books I have ever read and I do not mean that in a good way ( )

Awaken, My Love just came out in electronic format. I sold my copy years ago in advance of a move & it's a novel that I've thought of many times since, so I was quick to buy the e-version and settle down for a re-read.

Alas, Awaken, My Love does not hold up to the passage of time. The things I liked about the book are still present -- the heroine, Elaine, is transported to the past, into the body of a miserable young woman trapped in an unhealthy, unhappy marriage. Elaine has to hit the ground running, figure out why her husband hates her so much at the same time as she figures out how to use a chamber pot and ride a horse.

She doesn't automatically speak with an English accent; she's terrified that if her personality is drastically different from the person she's switched with, she'll be branded a lunatic; and she also struggles ethically, because she's a married woman in the 20th century and sleeping with another man -- even if he's married to the body she's inhabiting -- feels like adultery to her.

It's actually a really intense, awesome story, and parts of it are presented powerfully. But I'd completely forgotten - or just not perceived - how utterly maddening Awaken, My Love can be. This book is sloooooooow. Halfway through the book, Elaine is mentally in the same place she was at the beginning - trying to lay low, hoping to magically reappear in the 20th century before she does anything irrevocable, but not making any effort to figure out how to return. She's getting by, coping; but she ought to be thinking, planning, and reflecting.

Meanwhile, the hero of the story, Charles, is so much more infuriating than I remembered. He alternates between affectionate, 'kind' but actually infuriating condescension towards Elaine and hurt, sulky cruelty. The fetishization of the exotic orient implicit in Charles' insistent Tantric lessons offended me more than it did on my first reading; I found it disturbing.

The book definitely plays to non-con fantasies. Charles insists on his marital rights and Elaine protests. But these scenes, which must have left a positive impression on me once, don't anymore. Between Charles' condescending attitude, the orientalist hangups, and the fact that Elaine is terrified of being thrown into an asylum but doesn't hesitate to infuriate and deny the person most likely to consign her to one, I couldn't immerse myself in any of these scenes.

And then there's the main plot, which is just wackadoo. This abusive, controlling servant - why did Charles let her stick around for so long? The invading family who plot to have Elaine separated from her husband and returned to them, against her will? The mere fact that Charles, a well-to-do baron, decided to marry a crippled stranger of limited means, with religious views utterly contrary to his own, on a whim, and rushed into a wedding without getting to know her at all?

Look. Awaken, My Love was published in 1995. It was ahead of its time in a lot of ways. But I can't recommend reading it for the first time now, and suspect even readers who once loved the book might be happier leaving their pleasant memories unspoiled.

*****

Review from May 2006, accompanied by 4-star rating:

I just love Robin Schone, and Awaken My Love was as poignant and smart as any of her other books. It was also, however, less steamy - for Schone, who finds new and fascinating ways to dwell endlessly on sex in each of her books, it's practically prudish.

One thing that I really appreciated was how Elaine behaved once she appears in the past - there's no "Oh, well, here I am in the 1880's, let's get cracking!" or forgetting a little too quickly what her life used to be about. Nor does she meet the hero, Charles, and feel immediately overwhelmed by his virile manhood, or feel an instant soul-deep connection which allows her to trust him utterly even though he's a stranger.

No, Elaine takes a long time to figure out where she is, how to get by. She is terrified, and she tries desperately to blend in. She knows that if she tells anyone she's Elaine from the 20th century she'll be stuck in a looney bin and she's smart enough to want to avoid 19th century asylums. And, brilliantly - she doesn't magically speak with a British accent. Logically this makes a lot of sense; she may be borrowing someone else's vocal cords, but she's still using her own mind to manipulate them.

Elaine's wary behavior blends well with the behavior of the woman whose body she inhabits - Morgan, a woman who suffered an abusive childhood and didn't turn out too well.

Charles and Morgan have been married a year as the book opens - long enough for their marraige to deteriorate into a living hell for both parties. Charles married Morgan because he thought that he could save her - that she had enough spirit to salvage from the wreckage of her miserable youth. It takes him a long time to finally give up and realize that if Morgan is going to be saved, it's not by him.

He's hurt, and bitter, and angry, and sad - these emotions drive him through the book, as he thinks he is still dealing with the Morgan he married. Hope and happiness are slow to come, and treated with much suspicion. He's a fairly domineering man, not intensely self-reflective but observant and extroverted.

Elaine, for her part, has also been beaten down by a marriage that becomes ever more nighmarish as we learn more about it. We never meet the guy, but Matthew is definitely the real villain of the novel. She has a strong sexual drive that she's been forced to repress, and she's got a lifetime of guilt and shame attached to all her feelings of desire. For all the same reasons she actually has no idea what passion and sexuality are really about - she's had fantasies, but no reality, and she is very shocked to discover that the two are different.

I really enjoyed watching Charles and Elaine slowly, slowly approach one another and let down their defenses. As always, Schone's writing is vivid, gritty, tense and erotic. ( )

At age 39, Elaine wakes up one morning to find that she has switched bodies and lives with a twenty-one-year old Victorian bride. As she adjusts to live without the modern conveniences, she also adjusts to a very different marriage. A far cry from her passionless modern union, she finds herself the object of determined wooing by an aristocratic husband who thinks his frigid bride is finally thawing out. Just as she is settling in to her new life, thought, the happiness she finds in the past will be threatened by the same sinister forces that brought her there.

I couldn’t put it down for wanting to find out how Elaine would solve her problem, but the conclusion is marred by Schone's over-reliance on cardboard villains. ( )

This was Robin Schone's debut novel. I read it in one sitting, and enjoyed it but it makes absolutely no sense. I liked Charles, the hero, but Elaine was just awful to him, and there was no reason that he would love her. Its a timetravel/ body exchange plot. Elaine from the present, wakes up one day in Morrigan's body in Victorian times. First she's worried that she's gone mad, and then that she is with a man who is not her husband, and then they have amazing sex and the now evil Morrigan returns into another body, back from the 20th century. So it's magic didn't make sense, but it was definitely sensual. I read this book when it first came out and reread it today. I don't think I'll reread it again, but it's worth spending a few hours with... ( )

Ein der überzeugendsten Romance-Zeitreisen, die mir je über den Weg gelaufen ist. Das Thema Sex dominiert die Handlung, und die Autorin geht bedeutend weiter, als die meisten ihrer Kolleginnen. Also kein Buch für jeden Geschmack - ich fand es aufregend, sehr bildlich und spannend geschrieben.