The Grand Tour, by Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer, is the sequel to Sorcery and Cecelia—a welcome and unexpected treat indeed, since that was out of print so long. As I said in the booklog entry for Sorcery and Cecelia, my one-word reaction to that is "charming"; I'm afraid that my one-word reaction to this one is, well, "squee!"
I'm such a fangirl.
In The Grand Tour, our two couples are taking their honeymoon trip together, allowing many opportunities for them to be all cute and smit and stuff. Necessarily, this requires modifications to the epistolary format, since Kate and Cecelia can hardly write each other letters when traveling together. Instead, we read Kate's diary and Cecelia's after-the-fact deposition (a written narrative, not a transcribed question-and-answer session). This removes a small quantity of the fun of the prior book, because there isn't the same interplay between Kate and Cecelia. However, it's interesting to get more insight into Kate; for instance, I was initially surprised by her raptures over opera, since she didn't show that much interest in music in her letters—ah, but then she mentions that Cecy isn't interested in music, so of course she would play that down in her letters to avoid boring Cecy.
I recall finding the plot unsurprising, but I think the jacket copy or perhaps the summary on the copyright page (yes, I always read the copyright page, don't you?) gave a lot of hints. And, you know, plot is nice, but I loved Sorcery and Cecelia for the characters and the wit and the sparkling Fantasy-of-Manners-ness, and The Grand Tour has all of these in abundance.
(And one of the authors says that it looks like there will be a third. Squee!)
Comments:
#2 :: Kate wrote on March 25, 2005 at 10:34 PM:
MKK, good points. I knew I should've re-read before logging this.
#3 :: Elizabeth wrote on July 12, 2005 at 7:50 PM:
I enjoyed both books too, especially the first. On the matter of Kate and music, also consider Kate expresses her disappointment at missing the final performance of an opera when she gets dragged off to Vauxhall (silly Georgy!) Additionally, she enjoyed the opera [Handels Atlanta, if I remember correctly] very much, though I am afraid that the tenor wasnt first-rate, despite his reputation. (rough attempt at the actual quote, as I dont feel like getting up and finding those two references in the book.) I remembered those two scenes when I read the review, so I wanted to include them as further justification (and as proof of the consistancy of character the writers have managed to include, despite the unconventional writing involved in creating the books). I hope the third one comes out soon- that would be simply marvelous!
#4 :: Kate wrote on July 12, 2005 at 8:01 PM:
Elizbeth: the third Kate & Cecy book has just been turned in and will appear, if all goes well, late 2006. The working title is Ten Years After Or the Mislaid Magician, which is . . . provocative.
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Of course I read the copyright page; all right thinking people do. I enjoyed the increasing amount we learned about magic and how it works -- or doesn't. It was also fun and interesting seeing the same sets of events reported by different people. Always an enlightening exercise. MKK