Flight of the Heron read-along: Part III chapters 1-2

[regshoe]

Charlie chose the place himsel', the graveyard of Culloden...

Well, it looks like Keith's prophecies about the fate of the Jacobites, at least, weren't too inaccurate...

Next week we'll read chapters 3 and 4 of part III.

Comments

[luzula]

IDK what I'm trying to say here except that I guess Broster had widely distinct tastes in Official Couple and Platonic Smarm relationships.

Broster does have an Official Het Couple in Sir Isumbras at the Ford which gets the built-in conflict that Ewen/Keith has here. Very satisfying, though the conflict is resolved quicker than for Ewen and Keith. OTOH, there's also the slashy couple Laurent and Aymar in The Wounded Name which is entirely composed of loyalty kink and hurt/comfort and doesn't have any external conflict, or at least, the conflict that exists is that Aymar doesn't want to tell Laurent his secret, and Laurent trusts against all odds that despite appearances, his secret is nothing dishonourable. So it's not quite as clearcut as that!

Re: Alison's disappearance, I have a fic planned where Ewen and Alison get married in Edinburgh instead and Alison then follows the army as several Jacobite wives did. And then she's involved in the events that follow, and there is eventual Alison/Ewen/Keith.

On a completely different note, I like a good battle scene and have always felt a bit cheated not getting them!

Heh. I never expected to get so much into the military history, but it is fascinating!

[sanguinity]

Oh, that's a lovely fic idea! I hope someday it becomes a thing we get to read!

[luzula]

Well, it will take some time! But I already explored Ewen/Keith + Ewen/Alison at some length (140K, ha ha), so it will be interesting to explore the triad possibility as well.

[hedgebird]

Then I suppose we can only say she liked both internal and external relationship conflicts, regardless of the precise nature of the relationships! And evidently didn't feel she needed to match the length of the two story arcs, slightly odd though it feels to me.

That should be an interesting fic!

[regshoe]

Your point about not matching the length has me thinking about "Mr Rowl", which I've just finished a re-read of. There the smarm-y m/m relationship isn't even introduced until halfway through the book, but when it is there's an awesome conflict of duty and loyalties over it. Meanwhile the romance has some conflict caused by things always going wrong with Juliana's attempts to save Raoul, which continues all the way through the book, though it isn't always the focus.

Yeah, I don't think there are any general points here! Other than that I think Broster likes Honour and Loyalty etc. more than any particular types of conflict or anything else. :D