Sovay -- Celia Rees

Sovay takes its title (and the events chronicled in its first chapter) from an old folk song*:

Sovay, Sovay all on a day
She dressed herself in man's array
With a brace of pistols all by her side
To meet her true love, to meet her true love, away she'd ride.

As she was riding over the plain
She met her true love and bid him stand
'Stand and deliver, young sir,' she said
'And if you do not, and if you do not, I'll shoot you dead'

The big difference between the song and the story is this:  In the song, Sovay is putting her lover through a simple test, and he passes -- in Celia Rees' book, Sovay is pretty positively sure that her lover is untrue, she sets out to find out for sure, and in so doing, humiliate him.  Sovay, as you may have guessed, is not your average seventeen-year-old girl, in 1794 or any other year:

She stopped and looked directly at him.  A frank gaze, challenging and insolent, as direct and unwavering as if she was a young man.

'The real answer is no.  I do not like to look at myself.'

The painter laughed.  'All women like to look at themselves, young or old.'

When she is informed that there is a Bow Street runner on the way with a warrant to charge her father with, at the very least, sedition, she once again dons her brother's clothing and begins robbing coaches.  Her aim isn't to get rich -- it's to get hold of the evidence against her father, in an effort to save her family and her home.

First, the positive:  It's simply written, but with lots of detail, which makes the characters, settings and events very easy to picture in your mind's eye.  It's chock full of action, with some very effective exciting bits (Explosions!  Poison gas!  A hot air balloon!).  It made me want to read more about the French Revolution and its effect on neighboring countries, about Bow Street runners (who also pop up in the Darkside books), and I'm always up for reading more about secret societies!  In short, it's extremely readable.

I haven't had very good luck with my reading lately.  I was very much looking forward to this book, and I was, for the most part, disappointed.  On to the less positive:  I never developed any sort of rapport with or affection for the characters.  Sovay was brave, headstrong, bright, etc., etc., etc., and I found her adventures entertaining and exciting, but never really cared about her.  Or about the others, excepting maybe Captain Jack Greenwood.  (I'm a sucker for the highwayman type.)

I felt like the book was populated with stock characters -- the brave, adventurous, headstrong girl who has grown up without a mother and has therefore never developed an interest in the domestic arts, the steadfastly loyal servant(s) who have grown up with their mistress, the dashing highwayman, the whore-with-a-heart-of-gold (though there's a twist there -- the WWAHOG is Toby, who works for Mother Pierce, a madam who runs a brothel that provides male prostitutes to male clients) and, of course, the totally over-the-top sadist villain.  When I say over-the-top, I mean Over-The-Top.  Suddenly, halfway through the book, there is a section that wouldn't be at all out of place in a parody of a Gothic novel.  The Big Bad even has a torture chamber in his basement and an evil genius-type laboratory in a tower.  And an evil laugh!  That actually made me wonder if maybe it was supposed to be a parody, but the rest of the book didn't really read like that, so if it was, it totally went over my head.

There were also a lot of moments that felt like they wouldn't have been out of place in a stereotypical romance novel, and almost every handsome young man Sovay meets (and wow, are there a lot of them) seems to immediately under her spell.  When reading the book, I found it difficult not to imagine Keira Knightly's Elizabeth Swan.  It would make a rip-roarer of a summer blockbuster, for sure, but I was hoping for something more than that.  Maybe I'd have been less disappointed if I'd gone into the book with no hopes for anything in particular...

For older teens and adult readers, I'd highly recommend Ellen Kushner's The Privilege of the Sword instead -- more depth, stronger characterization, a believable love story and characters that you will root for, just plain lovely and just as much of a rip-roaring adventure.  (For those who object to the brothels and whatnot in Sovay, though, you'll probably want to give PotS a miss, though...)

*There's a full version here, though it should be mentioned that the lyrics I'm linking to are a bit different than the ones in the book.  There's another version here.  Google 'female highwayman lyrics' if you want more.

Comments

[Angie]

Hm, sad. I was hoping this one would be really good.

[Casey]

Regarding your comment about wanting to read more on the French Revolution--have you picked up Sally Gardner's The Red Necklace yet? It is a historical fantasy with emphasis on the historical that is set during the French Revolution mostly in Paris but also in London. While it wasn't a story about the revolution as much as about the characters, the revolution was integral to how the story played out.

[Melissa]

I, too, had high hopes for this one, but when I asked my 12 yo what she thought of it when she finished, and she just rolled her eyes, my expectations lowered significantly.

Privilege of the Sword was the one Kushner that I took a pass on. Perhaps I'll go back and give it another try....

[Electric Landlady]

If you want Bow Street Runners, you want Georgette Heyer. Especially The Talisman Ring.

I'm sorry to hear Sovay isn't very good -- it sounded like so much fun! I got Pirates! by the same author out of the library, so will hope it's better.

[Brooke]

I second the motion on The Red Necklace. The thing is loaded with what Lizzie Skurznick calls "detail porn": watered silk dresses, a chateau riddled with secret passages, a "Commedia Dell'Arte"-themed party, haunted automata, letters written with white ink on black paper and sealed with red beeswax. . . Yum yum yum.

Like I, Coriander, the bad guy is creepy-evil (the man carries a pocket watch emblazoned with a Grim Reaper on the face, among other things) but I found myself loving the characters and biting my nails over the escape from Paris.

Just a warning: the book is just Part One of a series, and while there is a natural ending, it still hangs on a bit of a cliff at the end. Very good for Scarlet Pimpernel fans and such.

[hope]

AAAAAGH! the red necklace is PART ONE? Curses!

[Leila]

Oh, I've been wanting to read the Sally Gardner as I liked I, Coriander so much -- I'll have to pick up a copy! And I'll have to rustle up a copy of The Talisman Ring, too. Thanks, guys!

[LiteratureVixen]

I was also sorta hoping for this book.Oh well... Guess Ill have to re-read The summoning by Kelley Armstrong instead...It oughta last me a while.

[Sovay (no really)]

I had very high hopes for this novel, as it carried my fairly unusual name, and I find myself very dissapointed. Not only do I feel like my name has been tarnished by an extremely unrealistic character, but now I am sure some people will see the name and it will become nowhere near as rare. I really wish this book was just never written

[Abby]

I actually couldn't finish it. I got too bored with Sovay being all high and mighty and tomboyish (but still attractive to the rakish lads!). It felt like Celia Rees wanted to do a third-person version of Nancy from Pirates! and failed miserably.

[Maddie]

Hi, i've never commented on here before, but I came across this website when I was just randomly searching, and i really like it because you seem to read a lot of the same books i do and we sort of think the same way abou them.

Anyway, i was just wondering if you ever read Witch Child by Celia Rees. It was pretty good, as in the story line was interesting, but like you said for Sovay (which I'm going to give a try) I couldn't really grow to love the characters.

[Kc]

I thought the book was good. I'm more into vamps but it was good non the less. I'm sick and tired of reading books about helpless girls at school and how it was only the guys that contributed to the main events. So this was a bit different.

[Baileymalaylee]

Well, I thought that, first of all, there were way too many charactors for me to keep up with. Which i guess is why i (also) never really cared for any of them except the captain.
Is it just me? Or is anyone else upset that sovay didn’t end up with him? She barely even knew leon.

Good review. i like how you explained it.

-BQ <3