The Stress of Her Regard

I enjoyed Expiration Date and Last Call, both by Tim Powers. The Stress of Her Regard did not appeal to me. The concept was not the problem. I thought it just went on too long. Way too long. I finished it out of sheer hardheadedness, but it did get more tedious as I continued.

from the back of the book:

She is as beautiful as she is evil, an eons-old power that has sparked a hundred myths, and now threatens to ravage the lives of each of her lovers. Lord Byron, Shelley and Keats -the world's greatest poets- will find inspiration in her tender embrace... and life-draining terror in her kiss. For she is immortal, unworldly, unmerciful...

Like a vampire.

The book won the 1990 Mythopoeic Fantasy Award.

Washington Post Book World says,

ultimately it is all too much. Powers throws out great twisting coils of ideas, layer upon layer, until his tale buckles beneath the weight of his invention.

The Los Angeles Times Book Review liked it in general but did say that

Toward the end of the book, however, Powers' richness becomes a little too heavy and it seems to take far too long to get to the conclusion.

I try not to judge a book by its cover, but I really should have listened to my qualms when I saw this one: