Lara Parker's Third DS novel?

[Philippe Cordier]

I assumed that this word "nun" popping up and replacing other words was some sort of joke that I was unaware of, but if so, I guess I'm not the only one who's clueless.

I don't think I'd go so far as to rank marriage among distant relatives up there with child labor, slavery, and the like. How distant is OK? Apparently, most European royalty is related to each other and marriage partners come from other royal families who are related. (And I discovered that my nephew and his girl friend, who met at college in a large city, are fourth cousins ... you never know what you'll find when you have a genealogist in the family!)

We've been told that marriage between first cousins became outlawed, presumably in the 20th century, because of advances in understanding genetics -- in other words, because of science, not moral or ethical reasons. However, I recently saw an article that said there actually is no reason, genetically speaking, that first cousins can't marry, because the genetic distance is great enough that fears that their offspring would have two heads, etc., is unfounded. I suspect that marriage between cousins simply seems uncomfortable to us because that is a 20th century view.

But to return to this as subject matter for Lara Parker's new novel, I would have to say it's not what I would be interested in reading.

[emeraldeyesonly]

I've read a lot of historical fiction so the idea of romantic relationships between cousins doesn't really strike me as skeevy, but I think I would draw the line at uncle and niece...even a couple of generations apart as Liz and Quentin would be.

But, to be perfectly frank, I'm not a big fan of Lara Parker's take on the DS world in general, so I probably won't be reading her new tome anyway.

[Philippe Cordier]

. . . in Frankenstein Elizabeth was raised with Victor as siblings but I don't remember them being blood related.

Mary Shelley made substantial changes between the first and second editions of Frankenstein. In the first edition, Elizabeth is a cousin of Victor's but I don't recall if she's a first cousin or a distant cousin. The familial connection was changed in the second edition.

In Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff and Cathy were also raised togather, and in the second generation, her daughter Cathy was in love with her first cousin.

Catherine Linton marries two of her cousins, one the son of her paternal aunt Isabella (Linton) - admittedly under duress by Heathcliff; and secondly, the son of her maternal uncle Hindley (Hareton). It is this second marriage which can be interpreted as redemptive. No concerns of incest here.

I'm more worried about the timeline with Liz being a flapper in the 20s, when she should be far too young.

That doesn't seem to work too well.