The Wicked Ways of a True Hero Book

This series is so sweet, so dear, so utterly guilelessly charming - I can't describe it. The premise (family of people who can distinguish truth from lies, through various physical signals) is deliberately lighthearted, and it matches the rest perfectly.

Daniel, here. He gets rashes when someone lies. (At one point, he pre-emptively powders his genitals to help prevent the itch.) Going out to a social event is hell, just pure hell - all those polite social falsities make him scratchy for days.

Daniel meets Corie, hijinks ensue, blah blah blah romance novel, yes.

& subtly entwined in all that is a lot of seriousness - so quietly it doesn't unhinge the light tone of the story, but deepens it - is a long conversation about a woman's powerlessness. Ostensibly the story of this woman against her abusive family and unlucky fate, but - a little deeper - about all women whose powerlessness is reinforced by society and written into law and trained into everything they do.

Except, you know, not in my heavy-handed feminism. In the funny kind.

(9-10 to 9-11)