Comments on: Lady Audley’s Super Secret Readalong, Final Installment: In which everyone needs to shut up

By: Katy

Katy — Sat, 07 Jun 2014 19:49:04 +0000

In reply to Heather. I am just about to read this! So glad it is recommended. My favorite M.E. Braddon so far is The Trail of the Serpent.

By: NWK (@MumsyNancy)

NWK (@MumsyNancy) — Fri, 06 Jun 2014 23:11:02 +0000

I reeally want another Victorian sensation novel readalong now. You have hooked me and I need a fix.

By: Ellie Potten (@BlondeBookGirl)

Ellie Potten (@BlondeBookGirl) — Fri, 06 Jun 2014 21:36:02 +0000

In reply to Jenny. This comments wins all the points. Robert was basically Franklin from The Moonstone only lazier, and I liked him. I think he was just a nice person who wanted to do the right thing so everyone would be okay in the end. Even Lady Audley, contextually speaking, who didn't have to go to court or jail or to a horrible institution, but at least got to shack up in a relatively comfortable one in Europe. Y'know, considering she tried to kill two people and actually managed to indirectly kill a third, even if he was a colossal knob. Yay Robert and his gloriously cheesy happy ending!

By: misswells

misswells — Fri, 06 Jun 2014 13:03:15 +0000

I want in on the next readalong!

By: @MegsGranger

@MegsGranger — Thu, 05 Jun 2014 22:13:46 +0000

Lady Audley is totes not *actually* insane and got off relatively easy in the end. I second that comment above.

I don’t hate Robert. But I liked him a lot better when he was pretending to go hunting and ice-skating badly and being oblivious to Alicia’s advances. Now he’s, what, being a REAL lawyer? No.

By: Raych Krueger

Raych Krueger — Thu, 05 Jun 2014 22:07:18 +0000

I love everything about this post so, so much. The title. The desire for SOMEBODY to have died. The loathing of Later Robert. The What The Actual Fuck Though That’s Really The Secret?

I feel ALL these feels with you.

By: Bookwyrme

Bookwyrme — Thu, 05 Jun 2014 18:13:50 +0000

I’ve read arguments that Lady Audley’s secret is that she’s not insane. She gets away with attempted murder and is shut up in a fairly comfortable house rather than hung or put in a nastier jail.

Yes, murder probably would’ve been more entertaining, but what can you do?

By: Heather

Heather — Thu, 05 Jun 2014 17:06:56 +0000

I am now totally desperate for you to read The Doctor’s Wife. Now THAT is sensational. I couldn’t have loved this readalong more than if I had reread it with you. Your posts crack me up!

By: Jenny

Jenny — Thu, 05 Jun 2014 15:39:42 +0000

Wow! You really *didn’t* like this book! I liked Robert all the way through it — Robert, the Closeted Apathetic Detective Who Can’t Be Bothered — and I wanted to see a lot more of Clara, preferably in clothes she picked out herself. I don’t get the “just…no” reactions. Just no what? No Australia? Australia is dangerous and exotic! Dingoes and criminals and so forth!

The ending is a cop-out, mostly because it says that female self-assertion and scheming is actually a form of insanity, when MEB was arguing all along that it wasn’t. But otherwise it had a satisfactory amount of feloniousness for me. It ain’t Collins, but you can’t have psychic phenomena and twins and mesmerism and curses and Orientalism in EVERY sensation novel.

By: Alley

Alley — Thu, 05 Jun 2014 14:14:33 +0000

Man, I really thought Rob would turn out to be awesome in this book. Why’d she have to go ruin that?

I could not stop laughing when it turned out that nope, George isn’t dead. He’s fine. Still being all moody, as is his way. Maybe we liked Rob so much in the beginning because we had George to compare him to and George is the worst. So Rob looked better.