February is often a dismal month but this year I’ve decided to celebrate Valentine’s Day by recommending something romantic.This has brought me back to the work of Australian author W.R. Gingell (see my Fantasy Reads post on Spindle, July 2016) because her Lady of Dreams is probably the most unusual love story I have ever read. First published in 2021, this novel is available in paperback or as an ebook and is the first in a projected four-book series. Lady of Dreams is a Romantic Comedy which follows a whole group of star-crossed lovers As a bonus, if you enter this Fantasy world you will learn some Korean.

The narrator of Lady of Dreams is a young woman called Clovis Sohn who suffers from a form of paralysis which makes it difficult for her to walk. Clovis is of mixed heritage – part Scandian and part Eppan. Her mother abandoned the family long ago; her father is a wealthy Eppan publisher who seems ashamed to have a disabled daughter. The only person Clovis allows herself to love is her younger half-brother, Jessamy. Clovis mainly lives in Scandia looked after by her devoted footman, Carlin. She spends most of her time in a Dream state in which she is able to watch the lives of others unfolding. Due to the frequent absences of her soul from her body, most people don’t see Clovis or remember that she exists.

Shortly before her annual visit to Eppa, Clovis starts to Dream about a girl called Ae-Jung who has been employed by her father to act as a personal assistant to his most-prized author, the temperamental Hyun-jun. Clovis learns that Ae-Jung is an impoverished aristocrat forced to earn a living to support her family but anxious to conceal her identity. Hyun-jun seems to dislike her but Ae-Jung soon attracts two admirers – Clovis’ brother Jessamy and the renowned composor and musician, Yong-Hwa.When Clovis arrives in Eppa to stay with vivacious widow Eun-Hee, she is able to observe Ae-Jung and her suitors in person and intervenes to help the harrassed girl to keep her secrets. It becomes clear to Clovis that Hyun-jun is also attracted to Ae-Jung but he is trapped in a loveless engagement to an heiress called Se-Ri.

Ae-Jung and her suitors join Clovis as guests at Eun-Hee’s country estate, along with the widow’s much younger lover and the furious Se-Ri who is willing to use blackmail to split up the developing relationship between Ae-Jung and Hyun-jun. Clovis observes the ensuing complications and tries to give each of the suitors a chance of winning Ae-Jung. When a neighbour who is not what they seem and the growing jealousy of her footman are added to the mix, Clovis has a lot to cope with – especially when she realizes that Yong-Hwa is a magical practioner who is more sensitive to her invisible presence than others. Clovis has always considered herself a detached observer of other people’s love affairs but this time she is emotionally involved. Can Clovis make sure that everyone ends up with the right partner and find her own happy ending?

This is a novel with a Silkpunk feel since it is mainly set in Eppa, an invented country loosely based on South Korea. Gingell is a serious student of Korean culture and has spent time there learning the language. Indeed she was stuck in Seoul for many months during the Pandemic, unable to return to her home in Tasmania. She has put this traumatic Lockdown experience to good use in Lady of Dreams by creating a heroine from a western-style culture forced into being an almost passive observer of an eastern-style culture. Lively, colourful Eppa is a Fantasy realm I’d be happy to visit. Clovis’ acidic narrative voice is highly distinctive right from the start and, as in last month’s recommendation (The Ten Thousand Doors of January), there turns out to be a good reason for her to tell her own story. In parts of the book, Clovis seems to be talking directly to another person who is asking the kind of questions that the reader also wants answered. It only gradually becomes apparent who that person is.

Clovis is a fascinating creation. Her body spends most of the novel lying on a couch or being pushed about in a wheelchair while her mind is observing the exciting lives of others. The way that most people either don’t notice Clovis, or define her purely by what she can’t do, will surely resonate with many disabled people. Clovis herself mainly avoids self-pity and is interested in the mystery of exactly how her condition is linked to her unusual mental powers. She conceals these powers from nearly everyone for fear that her potential as a spy might be exploited by the Scandian government. Clovis thinks of herself as a cold person who plays games with the people she observes as she uses her knowledge of them to promote or prevent key encounters. Gingell cleverly allows the reader to see how benevolent Clovis’ interventions usually are, which gives us a different view of her heroine’s character. On one level Lady of Dreams might be seen as a study of the way that a gift for creative writing can leave authors feeling detached from real life as they turn other people’s lives into stories.

Paranormal Romance has never been my favourite Fantasy sub-genre. I’m not keen on gloomy and melodramatic love stories. I like my Romance sprinkled with plenty of humour and you certainly get that in Lady of Dreams. The novel has the atmosphere of a sunlit Shakespearian comedy, complete with an outspoken servant, a girl disguised as a boy, misleading encounters in gardens and things overheard from behind hedges. In the early stages of the story it is genuinely difficult to predict which couples will end up together and there are surprises in the development of some of the characters. We learn, for example, that Eun-Hee who initially appears to be just a frivolous socialite, is an emotionally generous person who endures constant pain without complaint. Kind and unselfish Ae-Jung is easy to like but Gingell also spares some sympathy for jealous Se-Ri who is striving to establish herself as a competent business-woman in a man’s world.

So, Lady of Dreams is packed with warm-hearted love stories to cheer up a chilly month. If, like me, you find yourself becoming fond of the characters Gingell has created, you can meet some of them again in the second novel in the series Lady of Weeds (2022) which features another complex and interesting heroine. Until next month…

Geraldine