Reviews for The Digby Plays

The average rating for The Digby Plays based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2015-01-13 00:00:00 Mark Carter In order to give you some idea of just how deliciously dreadful this novel is, would it suffice to inform you that one of the two male leads falls in love with a woman whose face he has never seen, while the other falls in love with a woman who has just died of the plague! Fear not, the second lady recovered from her seemingly incurable illness in time for some romance, and the first lady did eventually deign to show her lover her face, though it did nothing for their relationship. By and large, plague-ridden London of 1665 was not a good place for lovers. Other lurid delights in a frankly barmy plot included a decapitation as spectator sport, the shrieking laughter of a malignant dwarf called Prince Caliban, and a beautiful queen gratuitously squishing a rat under her heal, repeatedly. It took me a few chapters to work out if all this was entirely tongue-in-cheek or merelyy inept. It was certainly the latter, but who cares with entertainment this unconcerned with such storyteller's trifles as logic or sense. I rarely do this, but I felt compelled to give the rest of this review over to quotes from the book, so richly do they deserve to be shared and enjoyed. They all relate to our resurrected heroine Leonine, who suffered such am emotional roller coaster ride that: 'she walked up and down, worrying her pretty little head with all sorts of anxieties, until it was a perfect miracle that softening of the brain did not ensue.' A miracle indeed! Mind you, perhaps some softening did ensue, how else explain this reasoning towards an unwonted suitor?: "You haunted me continually; you gave me no peace at all; and I would just have married you to get rid of you." OK, so she's not the brightest lass. Luckily she's a stunner (despite a touch of the plague), with an unusually clever face as well as a beautiful one: 'in Leoline's face there was a kind of childlike simplicity; a look half shy, half fearless, half solemn in her wonderful eyes' A woman of three halves!? Picasso could have captured that look perfectly. And this quot was my personal favorite: 'Everything was perfect, from the wreath and veil to the tiny sandaled feet and lying there in her mute repose she looked more like some exquisite piece of sculpture than anything that had ever lived and moved in this groveling world of ours.' This 'groveling' world! Priceless! Yes, The Midnight Queen is so bad it's good. But it's also so bad it's just plain bad. Glad I read it, though.

Review # 2 was written on 2014-05-07 00:00:00 chad mason I totally found this by accident but I'm so glad I did, what a weird little gem of a story :)