Nenia ✨ I yeet my books back and forth ✨
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Books:
batshit-in-a-blender
(24)
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my rating |
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| 0821738054
| 9780821738054
| 0821738054
| 3.57
| 46
| 1980
| Jul 01, 1992
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liked it
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[image]
Instagram || Twitter || Facebook || Amazon || Pinterest Duuuuuude, this is one of the craziest gothic romance novels I've ever read. What ma [image] Instagram || Twitter || Facebook || Amazon || Pinterest Duuuuuude, this is one of the craziest gothic romance novels I've ever read. What makes it extra notable is that it's published by Zebra, and their gothic imprint was usually pretty tame (think Victoria Holt), but this was more like something Rachel Cosgrove Payes would write under the Playboy Press imprint. It was that bonkers. Charlotte Brodie is half-Scottish, half-English. She works as a teacher, where she is having an affair with one of the other teachers, but she also helps out her seamstress mother. One day the two of them find out that her grandfather is calling all of his relatives to him like he's collecting Pokemon cards as he nears his final moments, to his castle known as Blackmaddie. Charlotte hems and haws but decides to agree to it because her mother wants to go, but they won't let the mother go unless Charlotte is there to accompany her. Unfortunately, Charlotte's mum dies when she's run over by a carriage, and then she is sexually assaulted by the landlord WHILE her dead mum's corpse is in the room. From there, the book only gets weirder. Her relatives all despise her, citing the Scottish hatred of the English because of the Battle of Culloden (admittedly, a valid reason). But all of her step-cousins seem to be lusting after her, she has a cousin-cousin who despises her for being The Prettier Woman That All The Boys Like More. And the grandfather seems to be mistaking her for one of her cousins(?) who died, Katrina, who was the spitting image herself of the castle's name sake, Black Maddie, of whom there is a salacious portrait hanging in one of the upstairs rooms. It doesn't take long for the accidents to start happening, whether it's a shove down the stairs or a near-escape from a vicious attack hawk. There's multiple sex scenes, some graphic, and two pretty graphically depicted sexual assaults (which, as other readers have pointed out, don't do much to further the narrative apart from making Charlotte question her traitorous passions). There's also a pretty disgusting scene where, when her cousins find out about her first assault, begin interrogating her about it extremely inappropriately, asking her what it felt like and whether she enjoyed it. WOW. BLACKMADDIE truly is a bodice-ripper of the days of olde, which makes the 90s publication date even more amusing. The book takes a VERY long time to get moving considering this book is only 300 pages. I think by page sixty, Charlotte still hasn't gotten to the castle. I thought the cast of creepy family members was probably the best part, and the occult twists, while classic components of most of these sensationalist gothics, were really done well here. Questions over inheritance and family secrets are also always entertaining to me, and I thought Innes had some particularly memorable scenes in here. Did I love this book? No. But was it fun and ridiculous as all get out? Yes. 3 to 3.5 stars ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jun 17, 2022
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Jun 17, 2022
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Jun 08, 2022
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Paperback
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| B0842ZYGVV
| 3.94
| 14,224
| Apr 28, 2020
| Apr 28, 2020
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really liked it
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[image]
Instagram || Threads || Facebook || Amazon || TikTok SEA OF RUIN has been on my radar since it came out because I kind of have a soft spot f [image] Instagram || Threads || Facebook || Amazon || TikTok SEA OF RUIN has been on my radar since it came out because I kind of have a soft spot for old school pirate romances and the cover design had a decidedly retro bent to it, like the author (and the artist, obvi) was trying to pay homage to the bodice-rippers of yore. As someone who loves the bodice-rippers of yore, I was super into that. And the only thing better than reading a modern day throwback is conning several of your friends to read it with you, so thanks to Rebecca, Aaliyah, and Koistyfishy for joining me on this "sea of ruin." The book is written in first person and has a very melodramatic, breathless style to the narration that reminded me a lot of Natasha Peters's works, a bodice-ripper author from the '70s and '80s who wrote books in the first person that followed a heroine over the years as she grew up and was shaped by the chaotic elements in her life. Specifically, this reminded me of SAVAGE SURRENDER, which also had a bratty heroine who was kind of kick-butt and a toxic romance with a dangerous, obsessive hero who was not to be crossed. Was this a perfect book? No, but there was a lot to like about it. It seemed really well-researched and I loved the scenery, the fight scenes, the descriptions of the taverns and the ships. All of it was quite nicely done and added a lot to the story. I also liked Bennett, even though she was a bit of a Mary Sue. She suffered as most authors don't let their precious Sues suffer, and I think this kept her from feeling too two-dimensional. There were several scenes in this book that were very hard to read, involving death, torture, tragedy, and rape, which definitely gave this book more of an old skool flavor. I'm not usually into M/F/M books but I liked that element in this book, too. The idea of a love triangle between a female pirate captain and her pirate husband and a pirate hunter was intriguing to me. They also all had chemistry, which is, I imagine, hard to do. I also liked that the men had distinctly different personalities, even though they were both incredibly dangerous. Priest is fire and impulsivity and filled with animal passions, whereas Ashley is more of a cold and icy type with a frozen maelstrom underneath. They also cracked me up. Priest's orange allergy leads to not one but TWO rather convenient exercises to further the plot, and can we not forget Ashley's midnight self-pleasuring sessions on the balcony of his ship? SO. DRAMATIC. How did the author come up with this stuff? If you're not into dark romances or the politically incorrect bodice-rippers of olde, I would not recommend SEA OF RUIN. Actually, I would not recommend SEA OF RUIN for a lot of reasons, because I feel like it embodies a lot of the tropes that romance novels of the present day are trying frantically to distance themselves from. But that's kind of messy, because for a lot of people, Kathleen Woodiwiss and Christine Monson and Johanna Lindsey were the authors people cut their teeth on for the first time, so I like the idea of a bodice-ripper Renaissance written for a modern audience, but with all of the chaotic, crazy tropes that created a booming industry with some of the best cover artists around. You be the judge, though. P.S. Docking a half star because, like the bodice-ripper predecessors, the sex scenes in this book were too purple and went on for waaaaaay too long. Sex scenes are like red pepper flakes: I love a liberal sprinkling but please, for the love of God, don't serve me an entire PLATE of them. 3.5 stars ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Dec 24, 2022
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Dec 31, 2022
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Dec 29, 2021
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Kindle Edition
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| 000617101X
| 9780006171010
| 000617101X
| 3.76
| 90
| May 01, 1980
| Jan 1985
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really liked it
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Instagram || Twitter || Facebook || Amazon || Pinterest Hooray, I actually remember who inspired me to read this vintage bodice-ripper. Than [image] Instagram || Twitter || Facebook || Amazon || Pinterest Hooray, I actually remember who inspired me to read this vintage bodice-ripper. Thanks to Naksed for her glorious review of WOMAN OF IRON because without it, I'm not sure this book would have come to my attention, even though Sheila Holland is apparently one of the pennames of THE Charlotte Lamb, of Harlequin fame. IKR. Her Harlequins are often pretty spicy for Harlequins, but the bodice-rippers she wrote for other publishers apparently like to get down and dirty. WOMAN OF IRON is such an intense read. Any book that starts out with the hero whipping the heroine is automatically suspect (I see you, THIS OTHER EDEN). It's kind of a cross between THIS OTHER EDEN, WUTHERING HEIGHTS, and LEMONADE, although it's not really as "romantic" as any of those books, as most of this love-hate relationship is spent with the dial resting firmly on "hate" and the hero and heroine don't even sleep together until twenty pages from the end (although the hero sleeps with plenty of other women, and the heroine has, like, two other dudes who want to get with her). The plot is a little to complex to summarize, but basically the heroine is the illegitimate child of an ironworks owner and is raised by her uncle when he dies. The uncle's wife HATES her and everything she represents because when the dad died, uncle stepped in to be the mistress of wifey, and real wifey resents that on a deeply personal level, so she just spends a ton of time whipping the heroine. (Don't worry, she later dies of small pox lmao.) Then the hero whips the heroine because she won't call him sir and apparently defiance is his love language because the fact that she won't give in just makes him smile like a fool, even as he plans to break her. What a psycho. I would love to get into the litany of misdeeds that happen in this book but I want to at least try to cross-post this book to Amazon. I will say that it has a lot of triggers, and there is violent assault and rape, and also small pox, and unpleasant deaths, and also murders. Midsomer would never. Part of me is in awe at what Charlotte Lamb was capable of under this imprint, and part of me is like, "Okay, but maybe also at least try to make some romance?" I wish there had been just a little more obsession of the passionate kind and some more scenes between the H and h beyond the one dub-con scene they had. The ending was SO abrupt also and didn't really provide any closure. Brilliant characterization and a true bodice-ripper but not really a romance. 3.5 stars ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Apr 24, 2023
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May 10, 2023
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Feb 15, 2021
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Paperback
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| 0843922052
| 9780843922059
| 0843922052
| 1.74
| 31
| Dec 12, 1984
| Dec 12, 1984
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it was ok
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Instagram || Twitter || Facebook || Amazon || Pinterest DNF @ 62% Normally, I don't make it this far in books I decide not to finish, but LEG [image] Instagram || Twitter || Facebook || Amazon || Pinterest DNF @ 62% Normally, I don't make it this far in books I decide not to finish, but LEGACY OF HONOR tricked me! It had an amazing begin and then preceded to undulate in terms of quality; every time I thought about putting the book down, it got exciting. But I realized once I got to the 50% mark that I was doing more skimming than I probably should, and I've decided that I'm not going to read this book to the end. My first book by this author was FIREFLY, and it is one of the best romances I've ever read: a Western romance with a heroine trapped under her cruel and manipulative family's thumb and a drunken doctor haunted by the past who wants to be redeemed. It is a romance in every sense of the word and, more than that, it's a tale of redemption, and of two wounded people taking solace in each other. I was moved to tears at points, heart in my throat. I was fully invested in the characters, and their pains and their victories felt like my own. I'd gladly recommend that book to anyone. LEGACY OF HONOR, on the other hand, is a true bodice-ripper, replete with OTT wtfery and a cruel, morally grey hero who could easily double as the villain. Alexandra is an ingenue in Post-Revolutionary France. Her father was murdered by the guillotine. Now living with her aunt and step-uncle, she aspires to the trappings of the noble class, which is where she meets Mikhail. Mikhail is a Russian count and a spy who wants to bring about the end of Napoleon's tyranny. He's taken with Alexandra and once he realizes how useful she is, he wants to use her as a spy. In some ways, LEGACY OF HONOR is like RED SPARROW, if RED SPARROW took place in the past and was written from the female gaze. Mikhail whores her out to people for information, resulting in a very strange and disturbing naked sex scene. He doesn't realize that she's a virgin until he has sex with her not-so-nicely, although that doesn't stop him from raping her later, in anger. The scenes in this book are brutal but expected in a book about war. The hero is nearly whipped to death by the French. The heroine is held captive in a barn and subjected to sexual abuse. War is depicted as the zero-sum game that it is, and we see exactly what people do when they have either too much power or not enough of it. I know the disturbing content in this book will likely be too much for some. The whipping scene was definitely hard for me to read (and so was the rape). But what really put a nail in this book's coffin was that it felt WAY too long. It looks like the paperback is almost 600 pages, but it just felt like-- to me-- that there were too many scenes that were focused on wandering around or on side characters whose stories weren't all that focal to the plot. I will say that I respect this author keeping her book intact. She has a foreword about how she considered making her book more palatable to modern audiences but decided to keep it in its original form. I like how vintage romance novels act as a snapshot of societal attitudes back in the day, and show the "tone" of how such knowledge of history was delivered. I've read books where the authors edited and rewrote their bodice-rippers and some of them, like Fern Michaels' end up being awful. Even though this book wasn't for me, I think it will be a four or five star read for others. It has some very memorable scenes and I thought both leads were interesting. It was just too, well, boring. 1.5 to 2 stars ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Aug 23, 2020
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Aug 29, 2020
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Aug 21, 2020
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Mass Market Paperback
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| 1934349992
| 9781934349991
| 1934349992
| 3.59
| 1,887
| Dec 17, 2008
| Dec 17, 2008
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liked it
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Instagram || Twitter || Facebook || Amazon || Pinterest AS SHE'S TOLD is a book that has been recommended to me multiple times over the year [image] Instagram || Twitter || Facebook || Amazon || Pinterest AS SHE'S TOLD is a book that has been recommended to me multiple times over the years because somehow I became everyone's pervert friend who reads the really weird shit that you wouldn't be caught dead reading on a bus. It's probably because of that one summer four years ago when I read all the lactation erotica for science, because if it wasn't going to be me, who was it going to be? I rest my case. Be careful what you read and write in front of your friends, guys. That kind of shit follows you for life, and you'll have people periodically hitting you up on Twitter saying, "Hey, Nenia, remember that one time you compared the veins in someone's dick to garlands wrapped around a Christmas tree?" and asking if you've read any books about sounding. This is the-- I hesitate to call it a "love story" because I personally don't feel it is-- story of a relationship between Anders and Maia. Anders and Maia are dominant and submissive, respectfully, but neither of them are getting what they want out of their relationships. One day they connect on an IRC room and Anders is intrigued by Maia's speculations on the limitations of being a submissive within a scene. When they meet in person at a munch, it's not just a mesh of kinks, but also a mesh of minds as they talk well into the evening about everything from economics to politics, and can hardly wait until they get home before tearing off each others' clothes, despite promising to take it slow. For the first 50% of the book or so, I was pretty into it. I like BDSM erotica-- the actual stuff, mind, not the stupid stuff like FSoG-- and even if it's not something I personally find attractive, I still think it's interesting. I don't think I've read a book that wasn't captive/mafia erotica that's about a master/slave relationship, so I was pretty confused and interested to see what would drive someone to want that and how it would work. I'll admit I wasn't entirely sold on Maia's giving Anders carte blanche to do anything he liked with her upfront, regardless of whether or not she liked it. Especially when this begins to edge into body modifications (pretty invasive piercings, including some to lock her up down there), pet play (and not sexy cat or unicorn girl pet play, but, like, "eat out of this dog bowl, she-bitch" or "pull me around in this cart while wallowing in the mud and getting drool all over your naked boobs, you sexy dappled gray"- type stuff, which is waaaaay out of the realm of human interest for me, even hucows have more dignity than that). When he invites his friends over for a "wine and humiliate and violate my human slave" party, that was kind of the last straw for me. I think part of the reason I had such a hard time with this book is because the characters are so obnoxious and so pretentious. It has the same disdain for scenes and safe words that Maya Banks's characters did in her erotica books, in that they want to make everything a "lifestyle" and disdain the people who only want to do it in the bedroom. 1) no kink-shaming, please, and 2) I feel like that's a fundamental misunderstanding of why people do BDSM in the first place. Sure, some of it is probably a game, but I think a healthy sex life also plays an important role in physical and psychological well-being, so if that is what people want and need to do, and it isn't hurting anyone, and it's between two consenting adults (emphasis on both those words), then who cares how serious it is? Honestly, this is like the sexual equivalent of nerds showing each other up at Comic Con and being all, "I'm a better nerd than you because I'm so much more hardcore!" Being the most out there doesn't make you better than anyone else, and I wasn't really 100% sold on the premise that Maia was into this, considering how much anxiety and uncertainty she experienced over the novel. I also really wasn't all that keen on the way women are viewed in this book. We're told constantly how small and petite and perky Maia is. She's 5'0" with a perfect rack. Anders on the other hand is 6'7", which felt... I don't know. Slightly scary considering some of the things he does to her in this book. I'm 5'10" and I've dated a 6'8" guy before and he fucking dwarfed me. He could pick me up and was almost a full foot taller than I was, and I am not a small lady. In fact, I'm often one of the tallest people in the room. A guy that tall could pick up a girl who's 5'0" and carry her around under one arm like a human basket, which, of course, he does. When she's not in her crate (yes), or wallowing around in the litter box he's built for her in their bathroom (yes), or sleeping in the little pony stall he has for her on his bucolic farm (yes). Maia is held up as an ideal-- which, okay, she is, she's his kink match made in heaven-- but all the other female characters in this book are awful. The jealous wives size up her perfect rack and waist-trained waist with jealousy. The female Dom in this book was a bitch, and not in the fun way but, like, an actual bitch and kind of rapey. Everyone in this book was mean and disrespectful and smarmy, and I never really got that vibe you get in good BDSM books where there's objectification and humiliation, but the recipient is cherished, in their own way. Maia even goes on a rant about how men are better and how women are bossy and how she doesn't like their bodies and how they feel wrong, which okay, Ms. Zero on the Kinsey Scale, don't hold back, tell us how you really feel. It's weird too because in the beginning of the book she talks about how she's a feminist and how it's hard to reconcile her desires with what she was brought up to believe, but it isn't even that she doesn't apply those tenets to herself but still believes other women should have and uphold them-- she does nothing in this book but hate on other women and bring them down. Lastly, I didn't like how claustrophobic and isolated Maia's homelife was. She has a job but considers throwing it all away to be with Anders in the beginning, when she barely knows him. She's happy to give up control of all her money and isolate herself from all her friends. She consents to this in the beginning, once, because she doesn't want choice, but she doesn't really have any hobbies either. Unless Master lets her read books in between chores and beatings, she just lies in the kennel or by the door, waiting for him to return. I saw another review where someone was questioning what is going to happen to Maia when her tits are sagging and she's got nothing on her resume but Human Scrabble Table, and I thought, "Good point fellow individual brimming with good sense, what then?" I mean, I get that this is truly some people's kink and I get that, but it's hardly sustainable. You've got to be brimming with privilege to be able to give up so much and spend so much time at home with a Master to take care of you full time. This is not a fetish that caters to people who are lower income and struggling. Anders blows thousands (probably tens of thousands) of dollars customizing his home and ordering handmade locksmithy type stuff for Maia (even when they've just started dating). It's brimming with privilege, and it feels weird, because they spend so much time talking about the lower income people of Canada while literally blowing cash on artisinal chastity belts, and meanwhile Maia is fretting about how to eat out of her dish without getting her hair in her food. What a hobby. He times her internet sessions, has cameras in the home to monitor her, and doesn't let her deviate from her acceptable work route unless she calls him in advance. I just... why. I think this is an interesting book because it definitely goes to the extremes of erotica and there's a lot of character development and detailed sex scenes that go into the day-to-day minutiae of people who have made kink their lifestyle. When I was working on a kinky book of my own, I actually read a blog post by a woman in a TPE relationship writing about her experiences (although she was apparently allowed to use the internet and not expected to pull a plow). What she had sounded loving and at least a little tender. This wasn't. I was kind of horrifically fascinated by what Maia would let Anders do to her, although nothing about that kink really interests me at all. In the beginning, I thought Maia was interesting but annoying (v. needy and kind of hypocritical) but Anders was hot. By the ending, I kind of loathed both of them. I think WILLING VICTIM, SOFT LIMITS, and ONE CUT DEEPER are more my cup of tea with regard to what I want out of kink fiction. Now excuse me while I pour myself a drink. 3 stars ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Nov 30, 2019
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Dec 02, 2019
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Aug 26, 2019
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Trade paperback
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| 0671836838
| 9780671836832
| 0671836838
| 2.83
| 12
| 1980
| Oct 1980
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it was ok
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Instagram || Twitter || Facebook || Amazon || Pinterest I am a woman of refined and exquisite taste - except when it comes to my taste in bo [image] Instagram || Twitter || Facebook || Amazon || Pinterest I am a woman of refined and exquisite taste - except when it comes to my taste in books, where I read whatever trash I can get my hands on. THIS GOLDEN RAPTURE is the perfect example of smutty pulp that has been all but forgotten with the passage of time. I happened upon this author randomly while checking out books shelved under the "bodice ripper" tag on Amazon, and was delighted to find that, unlike the vast majority of pulpy bodice rippers, Fancy DeWitt's books were still available in ebook format, presumably in the original edition and without the PC-rewrites authors like Catherine Coulter like to do to make their books more palatable to modern audiences. This is my second Fancy DeWitt book. The first book, WILD HEARTS, was a rapey Western reminiscent of SWEET SAVAGE LOVE. I enjoyed it, despite some slow portions and OTT scenes. THIS GOLDEN RAPTURE could not be more different. Instead of being set in the 19th century "old west," THIS GOLDEN RAPTURE is set in Tudor England, right around the time that the Catholics and the Protestants were really going to town on one another. Diane is a busty noblewoman whose father is about to betroth her to a dude whose pockets are probably inversely proportional to the size of his peen, this being the Renaissance when women were chattel and forced to marry old men who could have been their fathers or even their grandfathers in terms of age discrepancy. She is kidnapped by a pirate named Guy Ramsey, previously a nobleman whose house has fallen into disgrace after his father was charged for consorting with the Spanish and loving Catholics and trying to help both get their fingers into some forbidden English pies. Now his father is executed - falsely, Guy claims - and with no recourse, he decides to kidnap an English lady. Diane is kept on the ship for a while, watching in horror as Guy is made to walk the plank and an evil Spanish grandee terrorizes her with threats of rape while the Basque captain turns his eye the other way and the jealous Basque OW Aimee dreams of petty revenge to make Diane's life miserable. Also on the ship is a South American indiginous woman named Amute, who is there with her father to lead the Spanish sailors aboard the ship to El Dor-fucking-ado. I thought there was no way this would pan out to anything - until I read the summary of the book on Goodreads. They make it to El Dorado, the Spanish people betray Amute and her father when their greed gets the better of them, and decide to go after their people with guns and cannons. Meanwhile, Diane becomes a goddess who is about to get married to the Native prince, only Guy is there to beat the prince to the wedding night, which involves pre-gaming it with an underage girl, for some reason. The book ends with an exploding ship and Guy and Diane sailing off to their happy ending, and of course his honor is restored when it's revealed that the man Diane's father would have married her off to was actually the traitor who was helping the Spanish this whole time. This book was even crazier than WILD HEARTS, with Guy being psychic (he learned from Indian - that's Indian as in actually from India - wise men); ridiculous scenes that make this feel like an X-rated version of The Road to El Dorado, and woman-on-woman erotic oil massages because, as my Goodreads friends put it when I posted this as a status update, what else are you going to do aboard a pirate ship? Point taken. I would recommend reading this book for the lolz alone, but it doesn't really hold up plot-wise the way WILD HEARTS did. WILD HEARTS had an OK plot and told a story I was interested in, whereas I found myself increasingly bored with THIS GOLDEN RAPTURE, reading only for the WTF scenes to see just what crazy shit the author would deliver to give me my money's worth. Honestly, I'd rather just watch The Road to El Dorado and then write my own erotic fanfic for it. 2 to 2.5 stars ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Feb 23, 2019
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Feb 25, 2019
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Feb 23, 2019
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Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 0380468131
| B000CRMJDM
| 3.97
| 1,224
| 1975
| Aug 1975
|
liked it
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[image]
Instagram || Twitter || Facebook || Amazon || Pinterest 💙 I read this for the Unapologetic Romance Readers' New Years 2018 Reading Challenge [image] Instagram || Twitter || Facebook || Amazon || Pinterest 💙 I read this for the Unapologetic Romance Readers' New Years 2018 Reading Challenge, for the category of: Bodice Ripper. For more info on this challenge, click here. 💙 After doing the first book, SWEET SAVAGE LOVE, as a buddy read extravaganza, with Heather and Korey, Korey joined me for a read of the sequel, DARK FIRES. And can I just say that Rosemary Rogers is swiftly becoming one of my favorite bodice ripper authors? Every subgenre has its own reigning queen, and RR is Queen of the Bodice Rippers the way V.C. Andrews was queen of smutty teen fiction. That said, this is my least favorite book of hers so far. SWEET SAVAGE LOVE was almost a five star read for me. I loved the nonstop action, the love-hate relationship between the hero and heroine, the lush descriptions of the American West, and of course, Steve Morgan, who could so, so easily be the cover model for one of those pulpy men's adventure magazines that were popular in the mid 20th century. With his cheating, murderous, rapey ways, he is basically the absolute opposite of what I like in romance heroes, but he just oozes raw masculinity. He may be Satan incarnate but I was picturing him as Scott Eastwood. (Dear Hollywood: if you ever make this series into a TV show/movie, please cast Scott Eastwood.) The sequel starts out with nauseating marital bliss, but since this is Steve and Ginny we're talking about, it goes from Good Housekeeping to Apocalypse Now pretty quickly, and it starts to feel like Rosemary Rogers is trying to out-WTF herself in the prequel with a plot that involves the following incidents: rape, duels to the death, opium addiction, blackmail, whipping, torture, carpetbagging, typhus-induced amnesia, cheating, more cheating, still more cheating, wtf still more cheating, public affairs, sadists, secret pregnancies, and scalping. Because Rosemary Rogers has a big vocabulary, but "overkill" doesn't appear to be one of them. My favorite scene was probably the sword fight duel, because I am trash, and occasionally raw displays of masculine douchery work for me. (Especially in puffy shirts whilst aboard pirate ships.) However, I felt pretty frustrated for most of the book because the hero and heroine are separated for huge portions of it and Steve spends it with like 5+ women who aren't Ginny (and I really, really don't like infidelity in romances, especially not wanton infidelity where the hero has no "off" button). Ginny also lost a lot of her spitfire nature that made her so easy to root for in the first book. I guess maybe it was PTSD after all the horrors she endured in the last act, but still: it made me really sad. I'm kind of curious where the book is going to go from here. These two are pretty much the last people in the world who should be parents, so obviously, that means the sequels should be interesting. 3 stars ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Feb 04, 2018
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Feb 18, 2018
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Feb 01, 2018
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Mass Market Paperback
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| 0440242940
| 9780440242949
| 4.26
| 1,073,068
| Jun 01, 1991
| Jul 26, 2005
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it was amazing
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Instagram || Twitter || Facebook || Amazon || Pinterest I read this book for the Unapologetic Romance Readers' New Years 2017 Reading Challe [image] Instagram || Twitter || Facebook || Amazon || Pinterest I read this book for the Unapologetic Romance Readers' New Years 2017 Reading Challenge. For more info about what this is, click here. I'm proud to say that I read this book before it became a TV series. I was in college, and checked out the weighty hardcover edition from the stacks on the third floor, along with several Anne Rice books and Sheri S. Teper's BEAUTY. That was about seven years ago, and I found myself thinking about the series again recently because my library recently purchased the entire series in honor of the television show. I wanted to read the others, but couldn't remember anything apart from the fact that Claire was a doctor, something about a witch trial, and the hideous rape/torture scene towards the end that still haunts me all these years later. I'm half-tempted to start a Change.org petition to call for Diana Gabaldon to rewrite OUTLANDER so that a certain someone dies a horrible death. It's even worse in the TV show. I saw a clip, and I don't think I'll be watching that. It's like torture porn. No, thanks. For the past week I've been reading OUTLANDER, this book has been an emotional blackhole, slowly draining away all my feelings and leaving only despair. It's a very slow start, with Claire and her husband in the Scottish countryside, taking a bit of a break in the terrible aftermath of WWII, which they have both been affected by (especially Claire who, as a nurse, has seen some terrible things). Then, one day, Claire touches a set of standing stones and gets sucked back into 18th century Scotland, just before the battle of Culloden, and ends up encountering a highlander named Jamie Fraser. ***WARNING: SPOILERS TO FOLLOW*** Gabaldon tortures her characters with an enthusiasm that you don't really see anymore in romance novels. This is very much like those 1970s bodice rippers, where everything goes to sh*t, and the story is less about love and affection and whimsy than it is about sacrifice and struggles and giving up everything - and I mean everything - to fight tooth and claw for a person who might do terrible things but is your soulmate, for better or for worse. Two similar authors I could name are Rosemary Rogers and George R. R. Martin. Rosemary Rogers has these alpha heroes who might not fit into the modern idea of "perfect man" but are appealing because of their incredible charisma, bravery, and sacrifices that they make of the heroine. The relationships are often fraught with love and hate, and there's almost always some gruesome act of torture in the third act (in two of the books of hers that I've read, these, like OUTLANDER, also involved brutal whippings). And I think the comparison to George R R. Martin should be obvious - even though this is a romance, it's set in a time filled with battles and unrest, so scheming abounds, and ignorance has caused people to rely on superstitions and folklore, as well as a suspicion of foreigners, and especially strange foreign women. Some of the darker moments are the rape/torture scene towards the end, the story of Jamie's flogging, the scene when Jamie beats Claire with a belt, and of course, the witch trial scene. Interspersed with these moments (they are spaced out, thank God) are lighter scenes. I think my favorite was the wedding scene, when Jamie's all dressed up to the nines and says, all sly, "Your servant, Ma'am." I just about died. Also, when he tells Claire that he's a virgin. That was also super cute. The cute scenes were like salve on the emotional savaging that the other stuff caused. I can definitely understand why some of those darker scenes I mentioned put people off reading this, and I'm surprised that people seem more upset about the belt than the rape. For me, I found that devastating, and felt so, so sorry for Jamie. The beating was not cool, and it was weird that they joked about it later, but it's a sad fact that that was a common way that men interacted with women at the time. That does not make it right, but Jamie was not trying to break Claire when he did it, whereas the rape scene was a deliberate attempt to demean, humiliate, and destroy, which made it so much worse to read about, for me. I found this article by Vulture called Diana Gabaldon on Why Outlander Isn’t Really a Romance and Writing Her First Episode, and apparently she resisted the romance category because it "will never be reviewed by the New York Times or any other respectable literary venue" and "will cut off the entire male half of my readership," and I am side-eying the hell out of that because (1) So? and (2) SO? Honestly, I'm just about done with all the opinion pieces about What Men Think About X Female Thing. We've been hearing about what men think since thinking first became a public matter, and if *some* men are so terrified of catching cooties from a book jacket that they're willing to forgo an otherwise perfectly good book, well, then, that's their problem, and they can read all the Heinlein and Martin they want. The only thing separating Game of Thrones from a bodice ripper is literally just the packaging and the title. Call it DRAGON'S RAPTURE* and slap on a shirtless Jon Snow cradling a svelte Daenerys Targaryen in a too-tight bodice and ergo, you have a fantasy bodice ripper. YOU'RE WELCOME. Regardless of what the author says about her book (she's free to say whatever she wants about it - it is her book), I consider this a romance, through and through, because the focus is on the love story of Jamie and Claire, as they fight to be together against all odds. The setting is beautiful, practically a character on its own, and was extra special to me, because I've been to so many places mentioned here: Culloden battlefield, Inverness, Urquhart Castle. I've also gone horseback riding on the Black Isle and been to Fort George in Ardersier. Scotland is incredibly beautiful and feels wild in a way that the U.S. does not. I had the same impression when I went to Japan, and saw Hakone and Meiji forest. They haven't curbed and domesticated their wilderness and paved over history in the same way that us Americans have; it still feels wild and magical and dangerous there, which adds to the appeal. This was a really great epic romance done in the old style and I recommend it to anyone who likes that sort of thing, particularly if you're a fan of the older romance authors like Rosemary Rogers. *P.S. Somebody with more talent than I have needs to make a mock-up of that DRAGON'S RAPTURE cover. I could use a laugh after having all my feelings demolished. 5 stars ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Sep 02, 2017
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Sep 09, 2017
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Sep 02, 2017
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Mass Market Paperback
| |||||||||||||||
| 038087668X
| 9780380876686
| 038087668X
| 3.58
| 1,826
| Jun 01, 1984
| Jun 01, 1984
|
really liked it
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Instagram || Twitter || Facebook || Amazon || Pinterest STORMFIRE is a very difficult book to get in physical form. In terms of price, it's [image] Instagram || Twitter || Facebook || Amazon || Pinterest STORMFIRE is a very difficult book to get in physical form. In terms of price, it's right up there with THE SILVER DEVIL. I despaired of ever getting a copy of either, and then my mom found a cheap copy of STORMFIRE at a thrift shop. Obviously, I started reading that shit immediately, because wouldn't you? ***WARNING: SPOILERS AND TWs*** It's easy to see why it's become such a cult classic. Not only does it have a beautiful cover, it's also got a unique story and setting. STORMFIRE is set during the Napoleonic Wars/Georgian England, but set in Ireland, during the British's violent colonization of the people. The hero, Sean Culhane, is out to get English viscount, John Enderly, for leading the genecide that wiped out most of his town and resulted in the violent death of his mother, as well as other people he knows. He does this by kidnapping Catherine on her way to school and raping her, before sending her blood- and semen-stained underwear to her father by courier. After that, the story becomes a chaotic maelstrom of ups and downs. Catherine is brutalized and treated as a servant and a whore. She's beaten and starved. At one point, the hero makes her nose bleed by hitting her in the face. Even when he starts to fall for her, he's still impossibly cruel. One minute they might be having sex in a lightning storm or he's buying her sexy lingerie; the next, he's slathering makeup on her face and ordering his men to gang-rape her, or letting one of his mistresses starve her to the point that her baby dies in the womb and gives her sepsis(!). Both the hero and the heroine sleep around gratuitously, and sometimes it feels like they spent more time with other people than they did with each other. What ultimately sort of ended up making this book a win for me was the passionate, beautiful writing, and the emotion clotting the pages. Sean also has some pretty terrible things happen to him, as a sort of poetic justice for his mistreatment of the heroine: he's partially castrated, whipped with iron spikes, and shot and stabbed several times, at least one of those times with poison. Other people have said that the book was about one hundred pages too long and I agree. The gratuitous smutty intrigues with Napoleon and Josephine, I could have passed on. I was ready to wrap up after Sean's torture, when Catherine helped rescue him. It really felt like both characters suffered way more than they had to. The ending also kind of felt abrupt. When I finish a romance story, I like to imagine that the couple will last. I didn't really get that feeling with these two. It felt like they'd be off-again and on-again for the rest of their lives, which wasn't all that satisfying. Still an incredibly memorable story, though. 3.5 to 4 stars ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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May 21, 2022
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May 29, 2022
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Aug 28, 2017
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Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 0821719807
| 9780821719800
| 0821719807
| 3.74
| 499
| Jan 01, 1987
| Feb 01, 1987
|
did not like it
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Instagram || Twitter || Facebook || Amazon || Pinterest I read this book for the Unapologetic Romance Readers' New Years 2017 Reading Chall [image] Instagram || Twitter || Facebook || Amazon || Pinterest I read this book for the Unapologetic Romance Readers' New Years 2017 Reading Challenge. For more info about what this is, click here. Native American romances were super popular in the 80s for some reason, and up until *peers at shelves* last year, I had never read one before... which is partially the reason behind why I "tricked" my entire romance reading group into reading the Native American bodice ripper, SAVAGE ECSTASY. The title ought to clue you into how this little gem rates on the PC scale. I got CHEYENNE CAPTIVE when it was free for Kindle. The reviews on Goodreads were mostly positive. "Why not?" I figured. As one of my friends pointed out on my status updates, at least the word "savage" was nowhere to be found in the title. That, at least, should have been a good sign. Right? ...right?! Let me show you the literal first line of the book: Summer Priscilla Van Schuyler had never given a thought to the possibility of being raped and murdered by a band of renegade-Indians (1%). I see your ha and raise you a ha-ha-ha-ha-ha. Ha. CHEYENNE CAPTIVE is one of the worst romances I have had the pleasure of reading in a while. It is the type of book people who don't read romance novels use to make fun of the romance novel genre as a whole because this book (or one like it) is the one they flipped through out of curiosity that one time as a child when they found the book sitting on their mother's coffee table. It is so terrible that it is almost good because it takes irony to the very heights of soaring ecstasy. ***WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS TO FOLLOW*** The plot is simple. Summer "Do you know who I am?" Schuyler is the daughter of a rich man who ends up being taken captive by Native Americans. The one who catches her, Angry Wolf, taunts her with rape, followed by gang-bangs and then fire torture, when one of his tribesmen shows up and quickly puts a stop to that. Her savior is Iron Knife, one of those cringe-worthy "half-breeds," who is portrayed as being superior to the other NAs simply because he's half-white. Iron Knife does not rape Summer, but he does end up taking her as a slave, and she lives in his cabin and looks pretty and sad and sickly, because she has an infected wound on her arm that he must heal. She ends up going into a fever from it, and when she awakes, suddenly Iron Knife is the greatest and the two of them go from being captor and captive to I love you pookykins, no, I love you, pookykins rather sickeningly quickly as the reader is treated to a medley of sex scenes like these: "Little One, I am built very big! You are a virgin-" "I'm YOUR virgin!" she breathed against his lips. "But I have promised you will never be hurt again!" he protested. "Hurt me!" she begged as she kissed him deeply. "Hurt me as I want to be hurt!" (15%) And then her need was so great she could think of nothing else but plunging her tongue deep in his sucking mouth, grinding her body down on the pulsating dagger that impaled her womanhood (23%). She felt him forcing her thighs even further apart and she forgot about everything but the sensation of the blade of his warm tongue sliding home in her scabbard (33%). She felt as though she were impaled on a hot, fiery sword (59%). She surrendered to her ecstasy and began a dream ride at dizzying speed across Ekutsihimmiyo, the Milky Way. Nothing could be better than this peak of passion they were approaching together (96%). It is tedious and repetitive. Most of the 80s romances I've read don't have explicit sex scenes. Georgina Gentry says tah-tah to that, and the hero and heroine engage in all sorts of "risque" behavior like oral sex (he reciprocates, she's a blow-job goddess); role-play (that is literally where the title comes in; he is the "master" and she is his "Cheyenne captive"); and cowgirl ("Ride your stallion!" the hero cries at one point; plot-twist, he's not talking about his horse). The saving grace of this book is the scheming bad guys. Angry Wolf was pretty stock, as far as bad guys go, and was dispensed with quickly without a whole lot of development (although he does threaten to rape the heroine and then cover her with honey so she'll be eaten by fire ants). The real stars of the show were Jake Dallinger and Gray Dove. I just read this great bodice ripper by Amanda York/Joan Dial called BELOVED ENEMY and it also featured a real lame-o heroine, who was made even more lame in comparison when compared with the amazingly beautiful and cunning other woman, Indigo. (I think it's also interesting that both OWs are women of color and very much in tune with their sexuality, as opposed to their virginal blonde opposites.) That's how I felt about Gray Dove. Gray Dove is from a neighboring tribe called the Arapho and she is brutal. She sacrificed her baby brother and tortured her mom at the behest of their murderers, because she was desperate to survive, and then lets them rape her to stall for time before killing them. When she gets pregnant, she gives herself an abortion with a "rusty wire" (*cries*) & sleeps with the husband of the woman who took her in, only to leave them both by destroying all their belongings as she leaves on a rolling carpet of give-no-f*cks. She then betrays her own people and starts a war that results in many of them getting disfigured or killed - all to get back at Summer and keep Iron Wolf to herself. She sells Summer out to Angry Wolf, prostitutes herself - literally and figuratively - without a thought, and ends the book as the madam of a profitable whore-house by rebranding herself as fallen Spanish nobility. Jake is even more messed up. He's actually tied with Iron Knife, because he had a thing for Iron Knife's white mother, Texanna. When she came back to her village a fallen woman with two mixed-race children, he tried to first proposition her and then rape her. He's the reason that Iron Knife had whip scars, because Jake's prostitute of choice slept with Iron Knife when he was like fourteen, then accused him of rape, and Jake killed her in his anger and then pinned the murder on Iron Knife. He has some of the best lines in this book: Yes, he would have her at least once and then she'd change her mind once he'd put a baby in her belly and take him as her protector. That was how his pa had gotten his mama. Next year, that could be Jake's baby in that cradle, his son sharing those full, swollen breasts with his daddy (62%). "Missy," he whispered. "You just barely missed gettin' ole Jake's big rod rammed right down your little musket barrel" (62%). "Hell, if you had as many pricks stickin' out of you as have been stuck in you, you'd look like a west Texas cactus" (82%). There's so much more wtfery I could share, like the cat-fight, the whip fight, the gelding scene, the sociopathic younger sister line that goes nowhere, the tragic story of Texanna and War Bonnet, and the typos that get more and more abundant as the book goes on (as if the person reformatting it was getting so bored that they were just like, F it), including one where the "fierce braves raced to count coupon" (48%) instead of coup - because dammit, times are tough and groceries are expensive! Oh - and let's not forget the rapey Spanish guy who kept repeating "Comprende?" and "Si" and "hombre" like that guy in your Spanish 1 class who missed every day but exam day and thought he could bluff his way out of it. Dude was just a phrase away from saying "bad hombres." "You got too much spirit, puta whore! El Lobo likes his women docile as sheep. You need the fight taken out of you and I'm just the hombre to do it!" (36%) I know what you're asking yourself. Is this a bodice ripper? (Well, okay, that's probably question #2 or #3. Right now, you're probably asking yourself: WTF???) I would say that this isn't a bodice ripper because the hero is actually very kind, and all the insane stuff comes at the expensive of the many villains who surface repeatedly to threaten the heroine with rape and the hero with bodily injury. The last third of the book is much better than the first 2/3 because that's when the author randomly decides to go into Gray Dove's and Jake Dallinger's backstories, so we can see them for the incredibly awful (but surprisingly complex) people that they really are, as well as getting more insight into the tragic and doomed love story of the hero's own parents, which I thought was really well done. I originally thought that there was no way I could give this book anything more than one star... but now that I think about it, I feel like the last act of the book turned this book from boring-bad to wtf-bad. Both are bad, but one is vastly more entertaining than the other and offers up many interesting possibilities for self-amusement and satire. Would I recommend reading this as a straight romance? No (and I am side-eying the people who gave this book high marks who seemed genuine - what book did you read? Are there alternate editions circulating in Jekyll/Hyde format?). To quote the aforementioned "El Lobo": "This is gonna be mucho fun" (36%). 1 to 1.5 stars (for ironic purposes, only; actual rating: -1,000,000) ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Aug 27, 2017
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Aug 28, 2017
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Aug 27, 2017
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Mass Market Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 1551667169
| 9781551667164
| 1551667169
| 3.69
| 557
| 1982
| Jul 01, 2003
|
it was amazing
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Instagram || Twitter || Facebook || Amazon || Pinterest It's difficult to explain my love of bodice rippers to people who don't already enjo [image] Instagram || Twitter || Facebook || Amazon || Pinterest It's difficult to explain my love of bodice rippers to people who don't already enjoy them. The distortion of reality that they reflect is not one that I find desirable at all: They are often brutal, politically incorrect (to the point of being offensive), with spoiled immature heroines and heroes who could just as easily double as villains. Oh, and the writing - the over-the-top, adjective-laden writing, with flowery euphemisms for primary sex characteristics and prose so purple that it makes violets look red. This is bodice-ripper land. Go big, or go home. At 700 pages (in my edition), SURRENDER TO LOVE is definitely a big book. It was originally published in 1982 and my reprint by Mira was released in 2003. Often when bodice ripper authors rerelease their older works, they will "clean them up" and remove some of the more un-PC references and rewrite blatant acts of rape into more "acceptable" forced seduction scenes. I was curious to see if Rosemary Rogers, who is fairly well known for her unapologetically OTT plots, would do the same. I haven't read the original version, but if this version is anything to go by, I would guess no. (If you do know for sure, please tell me. I'm very curious.) I was reading her author bio on Goodreads and part of what makes SURRENDER TO LOVE so fun is that the beginning part of it seems semi-autobiographical. Rogers, like our heroine Alexa, was raised in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) in a rich family, and under constant supervision. The descriptions of Ceylon are amazing, not just of the land but of the climate and the people as well. Rogers's exotic setting is part of what makes this book so fun and is reminiscent of titles like Christine Monson's RANGOON (which is set in Burma/Myanmar) and Lane Harris's THE DEVIL'S LOVE (set in the Caribbean). I enjoyed both of these books, but the setting in SURRENDER feels so much more pervasive, and I'm sure that's because Rogers was actually there, and she knew its beauties as well as its disadvantages, and she had seen a lot of the local politics and tensions firsthand. Alexa is a fairly likable heroine, as far as bodice ripper heroines go. She's feisty and headstrong and sometimes this can make her annoying, but for the most part she is a decent character and I was always (at least halfheartedly) championing her. Nicholas, the hero, is where the fun is really at, though. He's one of those villainish heroes. One who thinks nothing about dub-con (or non-con), who treats women like garbage and goes around whoring and slut-shaming in equal measures. He cheats, multiple times, on multiple people, supposedly murdered his last wife, and appears to think nothing of threatening the lives of the people around him even if they are people he allegedly cares for. SURRENDER TO LOVE is more of a psychodrama than a romance in the traditional sense, since the characters spend most of the novel - about 680 pages out of 700, in fact - tormenting one another with physical violence, rape, whoring, manipulation, lies, and revenge. For reasons I won't reveal (come on, guys, you have to read it), Alexa wants revenge on Nicholas's family, and her attraction to him becomes just another weapon in her arsenal as she embarks on her vicious quest. What had she ever done to injure him? Except - the dark demon side of him answered too promptly - except by marrying a very rich man who was too old to please her and finding her pleasure in playing the whore, bitch that she was. Not for the money - that at least would have been halfway excusable - but to satisfy her degraded appetites (380). "If you had any realization of all the different kinds of pain and degradation and abuse that can be and are inflicted on some human beings by others in the name of 'pleasure,' I do not think you'd have dared indulge your whining, hypocritical little complaints to me of cruelty and the infliction of pain - unless you meant it as a challenge?" (443) "You can keep your eyes closed or open - it's all the same to me. And you can take off that ugly purple dress you're wearing, and all your damned petticoats and your corset as well - or if you prefer it, I'll rip the clothes off your body myself! But either way, my mermaid, I'll have you naked the way I first saw you; and I meant to use you, my virgin slut, as I should have done then and later. In every way and every fashion I see fit" (474). Nicholas - such a charmer. The best way of describing SURRENDER is saying that it's two parts V.C. Andrews and two parts Bertrice Small. It's like V.C. Andrews in the sense of Alexa's father figures have incestuous feelings for her (one of whom has an almost sexual fixation with his own mother), and there's a wicked matriarch type character who runs the scenes and will stop at nothing to have her way no matter how much manipulation it takes. There's also a narrative style that I can only describe as "breathless" - peppered with numerous italics, so you know how important every word is, and how it's emphasized when the characters talk, and many exclamation points so you know it is a dramatic exclamation! It's like Bertrice Small in the sense that Rogers is very cruel to her characters, and has them be very cruel to each other. Someone is raped in a Turkish prison, and decides to inflict that torment on others. The hero is flogged towards the end of the book, and tortured in front of the heroine (something that Rogers apparently does in another one of her books, SWEET SAVAGE LOVE). There's lots of cheating and sexual abuse. The heroine is ambitious and incredibly good at sex, despite her inexperience. Parts of the book take place in a brothel, with some kinky scenes ensuing. This is all classic Small, but Rogers is a much better writer than Small, which makes it even more amusing. Are these books for everyone? No. But unlike certain romance novels cycling around the popularsphere, SURRENDER TO LOVE doesn't pretend to literary accomplishment. It strives to entertain, instead - and entertain it did. I think this is actually my favorite bodice ripper that I have ever read to date because of the broadness in scope, and the epic journey the characters take across those neverending pages, from hatred to hate-sex to sex-sex to something that's sort of love but probably isn't because relationships like that aren't healthy at all. If you think you're up to tackling the mess, I definitely recommend this book. It will shock, it will disgust, but dammit, it will entertain! [image] 4.5 stars! ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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May 2017
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May 02, 2017
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May 02, 2017
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Mass Market Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 0445044977
| 9780445044975
| B000OUG7LW
| 3.46
| 99
| Jun 01, 1979
| Jan 01, 1979
|
really liked it
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[image]
Instagram || Twitter || Facebook || Amazon || Pinterest This is one of those older bodice-rippers that came out in the 1970s and man, it sho [image] Instagram || Twitter || Facebook || Amazon || Pinterest This is one of those older bodice-rippers that came out in the 1970s and man, it shows. It has all the fire and verve of goodies like SWEET SAVAGE LOVE, replete with non-con, offensive racial stereotypes, and hirsute machismo love interests who act like rape is a viable means of courtship. Truly, something like this would never get published today, but as I was explaining to someone the other day, these books provide valuable insight into changing standards within the romance industry, as well as timestamped views on women's sexuality and agency, and perceptions of people of color. I think if you read books like these with the understanding that they are a product of their times and something to learn from and not emulate (obviously), as well as a guilty pleasure that might not be representative of your own mindset and ideology, it's possible to read books like these with a liberal twenty-first century mindset and still indulge in them. I totally understand why people aren't down with bodice-rippers, though, and the FLASH OF the FIREFLY is certainly not a book to read if you are sensitive to triggers. **WARNING: SPOILERS ABOUND** The heroine, Anne, grew up in Barbados where she was raised more liberally than she was in Scotland. Her parents, despairing of the influence of the natives, are greatly relieved when a German minister marries her and then travels to Texas, promising to send for her later. Now that time is come and Anne is on her way, but the hubster doesn't bother to meet her at the dock, and she must have an escort in the name of Brant, a brutal, alpha caveman of a mercenary, who resents her presence fiercely. He's attracted to her, too, obviously, and she to him, even if she won't admit it. Once she meets up with the group of Germans who have settled the Texas town, it seems like that should be the end. It isn't. She isn't attracted to her husband, Otto, at all and that doesn't stop him from taking his marital rights. Then her husband, adoptive daughter, and maid, as well as several townsfolk, are all slaughtered and Anne is taken captive by Native Americans, and becomes the second wife of the chief's son. Brant comes to rescue her, claiming that they're married, and marries her in a blood ceremony before fighting the chief's son to the death. Then she's taken to a bawdhouse with Brant, where there are more jealous OWs. Brant rapes her a couple times, she decides she might be in love with him. But oh no, Otto returns to take her back and she's pregnant with Brant's baby. One day, filled with rage, and the paranoia of a cholera epidemic, Otto beats her until she runs away to miscarry in a field, before pulling herself up by her bootstraps and basically crawling back to Brant. Also, this whole time she's in love with a man named Colin who she met as a child and has put up on a pedestal all this time, but it isn't until she insults Brant yet again and gets delivered back to Colin that she realizes he isn't exactly the man of her dreams... This book is CRAZY. The heroine tomcats around with every male character in this book, sometimes willingly and sometimes not. She also gets a whole heap of rape and abuse, which can be hard to stomach. On the other hand, the heroes all remain chaste to the heroine, caught in the thrall of her magical vagina to the point of obsession lol. It was kind of refreshing to see a heroine be the one with all the partners instead of a man for a change, although unfortunately most of them weren't consensual. That said, I really enjoyed the action and the scenery descriptions are so vivid. I haven't liked some of Parris Afton Bonds's books, but this one is almost as good as LAVENDER BLUE. I was going to read more of this author's books but it looks like many of the ones I've planned to read were pulled off Kindle Unlimited today. If anyone wants to do another BR of her work when they go back up, hit me up and let me know. I love bodice-rippers! 4 stars ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Nov 26, 2019
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Nov 28, 2019
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Jan 08, 2017
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Mass Market Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 3.94
| 34,426
| 1986
| Nov 28, 1987
|
really liked it
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Instagram || Twitter || Facebook || Amazon || Pinterest If you've read the Dollanganger series, you probably remember that the grandmother c [image] Instagram || Twitter || Facebook || Amazon || Pinterest If you've read the Dollanganger series, you probably remember that the grandmother character in FLOWERS IN THE ATTIC had serious issues. But how did she get that way? Aren't you curious? GARDEN OF SHADOWS is about a girl named Olivia. Tall and plain, she's been raised her whole life as the son her father wanted but never got. Beneath that homely brow of hers is a sharpened mind, and an almost heartbreaking desire to be loved and adored. She's absolutely thrilled when she finds out she's to marry a protege of her father's: the dashing and debonair Malcolm. He seems to like the fact that she's not like other woman, and proposes to her early on. But things are not what they seem, and happiness is elusive. ***WARNING: SPOILERS*** This is one of those books that, like the first two in the series, actually had me setting the volume aside, taking a deep breath, and thinking to myself, "WOW, THAT WAS SO MESSED UP." Over the course of the novel, we see Olivia, maddened with jealousy, betrayal, and impotent rage, slowly lose her desire to please and be loved; instead, she becomes cruel and controlling, using fear to influence where she failed at charm. And oh, her husband, let's not forget about Malcolm. He never got over his mother leaving him when he was a child, and it's given him a severe complex about women. When his wife still loved him, he flirted with other, prettier women in front of her eyes and let them mock her without saying a word. When his father remarries Alicia, and Malcolm lays eyes on the stepmother who is the spitting image of his own beloved mother in her prime, he sneaks into her room at night and rapes her for months. When she becomes pregnant, Olivia locks her away in the attic and Alicia eventually goes mad. Then there's Corinne and Christopher, the two who started the Dollanganger legacy... I'm honestly shocked that this is marked as young adult on Goodreads. Maybe it's because so many people managed to get their hands on these volumes as children and teens, and the parents were none the wiser because of the innocent (but creepy) looking covers and titles. They're tawdry, and full of abuse, incest, sex, and corruption, and people being murdered or tormented. That said, as a Gothic novel for adults, it's quite compelling. Andrews has a unique and adaptable style, which she manages to tailor for each of her narrating characters while also keeping true to her own style. She's excellent at foreshadowing and providing just enough drama to keep readers turning the pages without every overwhelming them. They're atmospheric and trashy, but not dumb in the slightest. I've thoroughly enjoyed every book in this series I've read, even if they're a bit much. Now I kind of want to reread the first two books in the series to see if Olivia's narrative reveals any further clues with the power of hindsight... 4 to 4.5 stars ...more |
Notes are private!
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Dec 31, 2016
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Jan 2017
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Dec 31, 2016
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Mass Market Paperback
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| 0380179881
| 0380179881
| 3.93
| 4,184
| Jan 01, 1974
| 1974
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really liked it
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Instagram || Twitter || Facebook || Amazon || Pinterest 💙 I read this for the Unapologetic Romance Readers' New Years 2018 Reading Challenge [image] Instagram || Twitter || Facebook || Amazon || Pinterest 💙 I read this for the Unapologetic Romance Readers' New Years 2018 Reading Challenge, for the category of: Antebellum/Civil War/Reconstruction Romance. For more info on this challenge, click here. 💙 Every time someone says romances are too light, and that they don't have enough action, I want to throw a bodice ripper at them. SWEET SAVAGE LOVE is one of the early bodice rippers, when the authors were still working out the formula, and was published just two years after THE FLAME AND THE FLOWER. SWEET SAVAGE LOVE is a Western romance set amid the backdrop of the Franco-Mexican War and the American Civil War. Ginny Brandon is the daughter of a Southern senator who has a vested interest in the Confederates beating the Union. After spending her childhood in France, growing up in the lap of luxury, she is now joining her father on his trip to petition the sympathetic French. Steve Morgan is a Yankee spy, as well as a Juarista (the people who supported Benito Juarez and were very much against Emperor Maximillian's presence in Mexico). He has signed up with Brandon's men under false pretenses, intending to lure them to bandits who will make off with the gold they're planning on using to bribe the French. If you think these two romantic leads are at odds, oh boy, you have no idea. SWEET SAVAGE LOVE was a 600+ page psychodrama that was less about love than it was about Stockholm syndrome, hate sex, and physical and psychological torture. I thought reading one of her later books, SURRENDER TO LOVE (published in 1982), had adequately prepared me for SWEET SAVAGE LOVE, but I was woefully mistaken. As dark as SURRENDER was, it couldn't hold a candle to SAVAGE. SWEET SAVAGE LOVE has a bitingly realistic portrayal of war, in the sense that it doesn't shy away from the squalor of living life on the run, in the field, or in prison; the desperation of men in tough situations, and the cruelty they'll inflict when they're either cornered or on a power trip; and the violence (physical and sexual) that occurs in all of the former situations. Steve is party to all of these, and his sexual encounters with the heroine are often unconsensual (in fact, when they first meet, he mistakes her for the prostitute he thought he ordered). He kills without mercy and sleeps with every female character who appears in this book, including the heroine's stepmother(!), his grandfather's servants, and his own godmother. The heroine also has a number of partners who aren't Steve, but, again, a lot of these are unconsensual, and she doesn't really enjoy herself even when they are. The western setting is truly glorious. I love the detail. The sensory descriptions. This was what won me over in SURRENDER TO LOVE, when Rogers lovingly details what it was like to be in Victorian-era Ceylon. She brought the setting to life, as she does her (albeit to a slightly less vivid and sympathetic extent). SWEET SAVAGE LOVE is very un-PC and if the sex scenes aren't enough to get you, the racist stereotypes and incredibly poor Spanish translations will. Seriously, the Spanish in this book was awful. It's only my second language and I don't speak it too well, but I know enough to know that "mi casa esta su casa" is not correct, that La Caseta does not mean "The Little House" (she meant "La Casita"; La Caseta means "The Booth"), and that it's "abuelo" and not "abielo." How hard would it have been to get someone who speaks Spanish to look this over? Still, despite everything, until about 75% in, this was going to be a 5-star book. Ginny was a spitfire. Steve was fascinating - in addition to being involved in two wars, he was also affiliated with the Comanche people (and married one at 15), half-Mexican and fluent in Spanish, fluent in French, and the grandson of an incredibly rich and influential plantation owner. The problem comes when Ginny is captured by the French and Steve bursts in to save her and both characters (but especially Steve) are subjected to some of the worst horrors imaginable, and due to a series of incredibly long misunderstandings, each blame the other for their predicaments. For the next 15% of the book or so, the hero and heroine remain apart, wallowing in misery and being tortured emotionally, sexually, and psychologically. It was agonizing, and I could hardly stand it. The last time a romance book brought me to my knees (figuratively) was probably in Patricia Hagan's Coltrane saga, particularly in LOVE AND WAR, where she seemed to delight in torturing her heroine. Rosemary Rogers does the same with Steve and Ginny, in a gigantic misery-fest that finally blows out around the 90% mark. This book is not for everyone, and it's hardly a traditional love story, but if you're into bodice rippers and edgy reads, SWEET SAVAGE LOVE is a fantastic book. There really is nothing like it and the story is so epic, and Rosemary Rogers makes you suffer and sweat for that HEA. I'm really glad that my friends Korey and Heather joined me in this buddy read; it forced me to endure and keep going! (Speaking of "keeping going," I happen to have book 2 if anyone wants to join...) 3.5 to 4 stars ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jan 02, 2018
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Jan 08, 2018
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Oct 04, 2016
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Mass Market Paperback
| |||||||||||||||
| 0380796651
| 9780380796656
| 0380796651
| 3.81
| 53
| Mar 1982
| Mar 28, 1982
|
liked it
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Instagram || Twitter || Facebook || Amazon || Pinterest LOVE AND WAR was a dense, horrific "romance" novel set during the Civil War. THE RAG [image] Instagram || Twitter || Facebook || Amazon || Pinterest LOVE AND WAR was a dense, horrific "romance" novel set during the Civil War. THE RAGING HEARTS was the gleefully sadistic sequel, where both characters are again separated and the heroine is manipulated and emotionally abused by pretty much everyone she comes into contact with. In LOVE AND GLORY, the conclusion to the trilogy about Travis & Kitty, the characters are again separated, except this time, there was so much craziness that I literally could not even. To convey the sheer insanity this plot had to offer, I'm going to have to resort to spoilers. P.S. Speaking of spoilers, do NOT - I repeat, do NOT - read the Goodreads summary for this book. It has a huge spoiler in it. I read the spoiler by mistake (thinking in my innocence that a summary would be spoiler-free); do not make my mistake, for I was once like you, living in ignorant bliss. **WARNING: Huge, Huge Spoilers!** Kitty and Travis are living on a farm with their young son, but Travis doesn't like farming and doesn't hide it well. When Kitty finds out that Travis was offered a position to be a U.S. Marshal for Haiti and the Dominican Republic, she pulls the "I'm going to push you away for your own good" stunt with the help of his BFF, Sam. She does this by forcing him to go to a party he doesn't want to go to. There, she receives honors for her medical work (which annoys Travis, because how dare she have a part of her life that doesn't involve him or his child). She nags him the whole time about being more "gentlemanly" and this infuriates him even more, because he doesn't like being told what to do. The plan works: Travis gets angry that Kitty has changed into a nag, and leaves in a huff. Sulking Kitty sulks, and everyone who hates her (or wants to bone her) takes pleasure that Travis dumped her so publicly. When she's marooned in a sudden and convenient storm, Jerome Danton (the KKK dude from the previous book) decides it's the perfect opportunity to try and rape her, but his wife (and Kitty's arch-nemesis), Nancy Warren, bursts in with a shotgun right as he's getting to it. Jerome panics and tries to claim that Kitty forced herself on him (uh-huh), but Nancy has none of it and kicks him out of the cabin. She then reveals that she's paid Luke Tate (the man who held Kitty hostage and raped her constantly in book one) to take her far, far away. To Nevada, in fact, where Tate plans to become rich by staking out silver mines. After much rape and abuse, Kitty has a mental breakdown and vows that she is going to die... Meanwhile, in Haiti, Travis is sleeping with one of the local women - an underage girl named Molina and fuming about Kitty. When Molina finds out that Travis is not only married, but has no intent of entering into a common-law marriage with her, she goes to the island voodoo priest to invoke the gods to get revenge on Travis. One of his fellow U.S. expatriates freaks and explains to Travis that he's in huge trouble, but Travis laughs it off as "BS" and it isn't until he's drugged and wakes up in the middle of a voodoo ceremony where everyone starts fornicating and said friend is nearly killed that he even starts to take it seriously. Then he does the "I'm leaving because I want to not because you told me to" schtick as he stomps back to the U.S. in disgrace for infuriating all the locals. When he comes back, he finds out that Kitty is missing. Does this stop him from sleeping with Nancy, though? Nope. Jerome catches them in the act, and reveals to Travis exactly what Nancy did. Travis dumps his son off with Mattie Glass (the woman from book two that Kitty saved), and storms off to Nevada to find Luke Tate, who shows Travis Kitty's grave. Travis kills Luke the same way he killed Nathan in book one - by stomping on his throat. Also, he gets a silver mine by saving a guy from being tortured. Then he goes on another U.S. Marshal mission - to investigate a KKK uprising in another state. Here we meet Alaina and Marilee Barbeau, daughters of the local bigwig. Travis immediately sleeps with Alaina, infuriating her informal fiance, Stewart. The two of them get into a pissing contest that alternately amused and annoyed me. Marilee, on the other hand, is pretty cool. I liked Marilee. She spies on the local KKK chapter with the intent on finding out which black men they intend on harming or killing, and then warning them ahead of time in order to escape. She suspects that her father is involved, but doesn't want to report this to the authorities for fear of implicating them, so she settles for treating the symptoms and not the cause. One day, after coming back from one of these spying missions, she sees Alaina and Travis going at it in a field. She comes back to that field one day and starts touching herself, and Travis sees her, and then they start having sex, too. Keep in mind that the hero sleeps with five women over the course of this book. If you liked Travis at all in books one and two, you will hate him by the end of this one, because LOVE AND GLORY is where he really lets his d-bag flag fly. He cannot keep it in his pants. At all. Also, he turns into an even bigger jerk. But more on that in a moment. The KKK plot spins itself out, and Marilee is almost raped in an Indiana Jones-style snake pit by one of the clan members and is saved just in time by our hero. Then they have a series of close calls that ends with the appropriate people being punished. The villains in this book have very inconsequential deaths - one of them is a "blink and you'll miss it" death that occurs because of a misfire. How lame. Travis is so impressed by Marilee's bravery that he decides that she is worthy enough to marry, because she's almost (but not quite) as good as Kitty. Marilee and Travis end up living together, but Travis is nasty to Marilee. He makes it clear that he doesn't love her and that she doesn't hold a candle to his first wife, who he refuses to talk about and snaps at her the one and only time she dares to ask any question. He drinks a lot, and snaps at her when he drinks, much to Sam's disapproval. Then he decides that he wants to move to California and gets angry at Marilee because she doesn't want to leave the Mormon school she works at, because she's grown so close to the Native American children she teaches. Travis gets into a huge huff, and talks about how he's the man, and blah, blah, blah. Marilee feels bad and says, of course I'll do what you want, sorry for being selfish and by the way I'm pregnant. Because poor Marilee can't catch a break, it's a rough pregnancy that requires her to be hospitalized. And imagine Travis's surprise when the doctor treating Marilee looks just like Kitty...only she doesn't recognize him at all, and calls herself Stella Musgrave. Well, it turns out that Kitty developed dissociative amnesia from all the rape and abuse she suffered at Luke Tate's hands, and since he's a coward he decided to lie about her death rather than implicate himself. Travis's wife is in the hospital (and since he's already married to Kitty, technically that makes this bigamy. In fact, there is no technically. He is a bigamist - although this is never mentioned in the book, oddly) but could he give a fiddle about that when "the most beautiful woman that God ever created" is in the room? No. There's hemming and hawing about whether it's good for Kitty to remember who she is, and even though it's clear that she's better off now, Travis can't leave her alone. Kitty remembers Travis, and Marilee dies conveniently, telling Travis with her last breath that it's okay if he and Kitty are together before releasing a gush of blood from her womanly parts. Kitty was going to get a full scholarship to a medical school in Europe at the recommendation of the doctor she works for, but Travis is a man, and his happiness must come first, so to heck with that! This book was absolutely over the top madness. It was like the author was cackling gleefully to herself and saying, "How many tropes can I possibly incorporate into this book?" While talking about LOVE AND GLORY to some of my friends, I joked that I was waiting for some amnesia to pop up. Little did I know that was waiting to spring itself on me in act three... I debated about what to give this book, and I think I'm going to give it three stars. It's somewhere between three and three-point-five stars, but I'm rounding down because Travis's behavior really upset me in this book. Don't get me wrong - he's a terrible man, and not what I look for in a love interest at all. No, I had come to terms with the fact that he was a prat, but he never learns from his mistakes or his behavior, and while that's probably more realistic it isn't exactly fun to read. How can you root for a man who says that "he doesn't have to rape women" and claims that he can't be without the sex, and who forgets about his own son whenever it isn't convenient, and ignores his own wife when she's in the freaking hospital because sex trumps obligations every single time? Plus, Hagan writes these amazingly strong female characters who fall to pieces and forget their interests as soon as they meet Travis. Kitty was the best dang doctor in the whole Civil War, and Marilee ran a mini-version of the underground railroad right under the noses of the KKK, but when Travis walks into the picture they become sniveling messes who always put his needs above their own. LOVE AND GLORY concludes the first part of the trilogy. The next set is about Travis's son, Colt, and I read the spoilers for it and it looks like it might be even crazier than this book. I'm not sure I'm ready for that. Even though I gobbled up books 1-3 like candy, I think I need a break from the series, because LOVE AND GLORY left a really bad taste in my mouth. P.S. There are a lot of typos in these books, too! I'm not sure if they are left over from the originals or errors from the conversion process, but the last book had all kinds of mistakes and this book even got one of the characters' names wrong - Nathan Wright instead of Nathan Collins. Which I have to admit, made me laugh, because Nathan did sleep with Kitty, so accidental typocest for the win. P.P.S. This book also uses three variations of the N-word. I actually didn't know what one of them meant and had to look it up. Apparently it's a more "polite" version of the really offensive N-word. Because it's always important to remember your manners, I guess... If seeing any variation of the N-word is a trigger for you, I'd suggest avoiding this book because it's very free with it. 3 stars!! ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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May 18, 2016
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May 20, 2016
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May 18, 2016
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Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 0446356859
| 9780446356855
| 0446356859
| 3.97
| 5,767
| 1985
| Jun 01, 1990
|
did not like it
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Instagram || Twitter || Facebook || Amazon || Pinterest I actually bought this book because of all the negative reviews for it. They were sa [image] Instagram || Twitter || Facebook || Amazon || Pinterest I actually bought this book because of all the negative reviews for it. They were saying that the hero was cruel, that the plot was OTT, and that there was dubious consent. None of those things particularly bother me, and given that this was published in 1985 when that was basically the de facto standard for books of this type, I wasn't particularly surprised. But SUNSET EMBRACE doesn't pull back any punches when it comes to its problematic content. The story literally opens with the grievously ill heroine giving birth to a stillborn baby in a field that was the product of abuse. **WARNING: SPOILERS TO FOLLOW** From there, it gets worse. The heroine-- Lydia-- is taken in by a kind-hearted family who are part of a wagon train. She stays with them for a while, until we learn that one of the other wagon owners, a man named Coleman, has just had his wife die in labor. The family that took Lydia in decides that she'd be a great wet nurse for the hero, Ross's, baby, never mind the fact that he has nothing but bad names to call her, all variations of whore, slut, and tramp, and says he'd rather let his new son die than take sustenance at the bosom of a woman of ill repute. Because THAT'S parenting! But the matriarch of Lydia's savior family, known to us as Ma, is determined to play matchmaker, and Lydia ends up staying in Coleman's wagon... and from there, it gets worse. This book is like 300+ pages of diet lactation erotica. The hero goggles at her every time she feeds his son. At one point, he expresses jealousy that his son "knows what she tastes like." Eventually, he goes in for a taste of his own, because of course. We are constantly informed about the heroine's endowments, and how she doesn't fit into any of her dresses on account of her chest being too big. For some reason, her blouses keep getting wet, so their are lots of descriptions of her soaking wet "impudent nipples" and the like. During one sex scene, the hero implores for her to "nourish him" and the heroine wistfully bemoans the fact that she has no more breast milk to feed him with. There's several side stories that are equally cringe. A couple of the teenagers in the camp have this really graphic and lurid affair with each other, and one of them is a girl named Priscilla who ends up becoming a prostitute at the end of the story (and her chest gets tons of description time, as well). Coleman's father in law is also running up a bounty on him because it turns out he used to be a bank robber and he believes Coleman only wanted his daughter for her fabulous fortune. And then, there's Lydia's step-brother-- the one who got her pregnant through rape-- who is now choking prostitutes to death when he's not planning on taking Coleman's bounty money for himself. I don't even know what this book is. I've read a lot of WTFistically written bodice-rippers, but this was honestly one of the most squeamishly bizarre. In addition to all of the other stuff, the one Black character is threatened with a lynching for a murder he didn't commit (don't worry-- I believe he actually ends up all right at the end of the book), one of the villain characters throws the N-word around to show us all he's a bad guy, and the hero rapes the heroine after trying-- and failing-- to get it up in a whorehouse. Why? Because she was tending to a male friend with tuberculosis and he decided they looked too friendly, so he "punishes" her, a rape victim, with sexual assault. I thought about giving this 2* at first because it was just so over the top and gratuitously awful that I was like, "Welp, I can't help but admire the ballsiness of this author." But I didn't really enjoy it all that much, and $3.99 was a lot to pay for a book I really had to force myself to finish. I did find this story morbidly fascinating but it wasn't pleasant to read, and in terms of WTFery that this author has written during her bodice-ripper years, I think I prefer SLOW HEAT IN HEAVEN. 1 to 1.5 stars ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Aug 08, 2020
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Aug 09, 2020
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May 15, 2016
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Mass Market Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 038046201X
| 9780380462018
| 038046201X
| 3.90
| 87
| 1979
| Apr 28, 1979
|
really liked it
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[image]
Instagram || Twitter || Facebook || Amazon || Pinterest When I started reading LOVE AND WAR, I wasn't sure what I was going to get. Sometime [image] Instagram || Twitter || Facebook || Amazon || Pinterest When I started reading LOVE AND WAR, I wasn't sure what I was going to get. Sometimes bodice rippers are epic tales of melodrama doused in history...and sometimes they're just awful. LOVE AND WAR was great - it had history, it had a compelling female protagonist, and it had heroes who were virtually indistinguishable from the villains. My only qualm was that the pacing was uneven, but that's a common issue with 550+ page tomes of that nature. Despite said qualm, I immediately raced out to buy the sequel, THE RAGING HEARTS, to see what happened to my new favorite romance heroine, Kitty Wright, next. Kitty managed to survive the Civil War and so did her lover, Travis Coltrane. But now Travis wants to finish up all his loose ends and retire to the Bayou, and Kitty doesn't want to do that - she wants to stay on her father's land. The two have a falling out, and Kitty tries to make her living in the town that not only hates her father but also hates her lover. Things get pretty ugly, fast. The jealous OW is determined to see Kitty humiliated, if not hung. The KKK is gaining momentum - headed by one of the other "love" interests, no less! - and Yankee carpetbaggers are buying up all the Southern land at cheap, cheap prices...and God help those who get in their way. If you really liked Travis, you might be a little miffed at RAGING HEARTS, because except for the beginning and the end of the book, Travis isn't really in here. And once he does finally drag his ass through the door, he behaves like a total jerk. I wanted to slap him for being such a horrible person. I mean, he was always a horrible person...but this was particularly bad. In his place, we're left with two replacement love interests. There's Jerome Danton, who is a member of the local KKK chapter, and then there's Corey McRae, the Yankee carpetbagger, who is Creepy with a capital C. He uses unorthodox methods to get people to sell their land, manipulates Kitty over and over again with all sorts of schemes in an effort to get her into his bed, and upstairs on the third floor of his house, he's got a box of BDSM gear locked in a closet that he likes to use with the ladies. THE RAGING HEARTS doesn't have the history or the depth of the first book, but it compensates with drama. I actually thought the middle section - the one with all the scheming and the manipulation - was incredibly well done and for a while, I thought this would be a five star book. TRH gets dinged because Kitty becomes a doormat in Act II (as she always seems to whenever Travis walks in), and she gets especially annoying once she has her baby. Plus, there's Travis and his annoyingness, and I had a lot of trouble buying that HEA at the end. She had to do that to gain your trust again? I said it before, but I'll say it again "what a jerk!" (Also, this book is waaaay repetitive.) Overall, I enjoyed THE RAGING HEARTS. It was good and it kept me engaged, and didn't suffer from middle book syndrome the way so many books these days do. In some ways, it was even a better book than the first. I think I can safely call myself a fan of Patricia Hagan now. As soon as I finish some of the other books moldering in my to-read pile, I'm going to go out and get book #3. :) 4 stars. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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May 14, 2016
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May 16, 2016
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May 14, 2016
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Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 8440663927
| 9788440663924
| 8440663927
| 4.06
| 1,939
| 1980
| Oct 1997
|
really liked it
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[image]
Instagram || Twitter || Facebook || Amazon || Pinterest Bertrice Small is the Regina George of historical romance; even if you hate her, you [image] Instagram || Twitter || Facebook || Amazon || Pinterest Bertrice Small is the Regina George of historical romance; even if you hate her, you have to admit that she's inexplicably popular & her unapologetic in-your-face personality makes her hard to ignore. I find it amazing that I managed to avoid her books after all these years, despite reading so many historical romance books. I'd been told by many people that I should avoid her work because she was bad, but "bad" is highly subjective. Does Small write in lurid purple prose? Yes. Does she write about unpleasant and illicit activities? Yes. Including child abuse? Yes. Including bestiality? Yes (although not in this one). Including rape? Yes. Will you find the phrase "manroot" in here? I think you know the answer to that. **Warning: Spoilers!** ADORA takes place in the late 14th century, during the late Ottoman Empire. Theadora is a Byzantine princess (part Greek) who ends up being forced to marry a man forty years her senior, the sultan, Orkhan. A child bride (only about 13), she waits out her days in the convent, where she ends up meeting the sultan's son, Murad, who thinks she is absolutely beautiful and wastes no time "grooming" her to be his sexual partner and future bride at the time of his aging father's death. His father's harem is so large, and Theadora so young, that Murad assumes that he will die before consummating the marriage. NOT SO, BOYS AND GIRLS. NOT SO. With some intervention on Theadora's father's part, Orkhan ends up being nagged into having sex with his newest bride. And the sultan just so happens to be a pervert, so Theadora ends up getting raped on her marital night, along with some F/F action, sexy feathers, a long wooden phallus, and some bondage. She finds this humiliating, but knows that sex is power, so she decides to use the situation to her advantage and requests remedial sex lessons(!) in order to win Orkhan's heart so as to become his favorite. Murad does not take kindly to this, and begins to hate Theadora, because he has fetishized the act of taking her virginity to such a great extent that he never (seriously, never) really gets over it. Because how dare she not fall into a weeping mess. Theadora dukes it out with Orkhan's other two wives, who of course are much less pretty, but eventually she has a son and the other two wives can suck it. Later, she ends up getting kidnapped by pirates, along with her son, and we find out that this is an assassination attempt executed by her jealous sister, Helena. But the pirate, who is named Alexander, thinks Theadora is sooo sexy he can't be bothered to kill her. He propositions Theadora, who is attracted to him but refuses out of loyalty to Orkhan, and after courting her for days, Alexander decides enough is enough, drugs her, and then after some F/F action and one wild, aphrodisiac-gobbling orgy later, Theadora thinks she's had the weirdest dream... Alexander and Theadora end up together after the death of Orkhan, because Murad, in a wild fit of "we loves the precious! no, we hateses her!" invites her to be a part of his harem instead of his wife, and then actually calls her a whore. Because chicks - especially princess chicks - totally dig being called whores. Alexander and Theadora are very happy together, but jealous Helena and Murad are jealous (especially since Helenda propositioned Alexander, who lol'd and said she was too ugly and whorish). So Helena teams up with the sultan, arranges for Alexander to be assassinated, and then after that, for Theadora to be kidnapped and sold into slavery to the sultan. Murad is basically a murderer. He's also a rapist. He rapes Theadora their first two times together. Then Theadora realizes that it's all her fault(!!!!!1!!) and comes to her senses and says, "Yes, I'm so happy you bought me as a sex slave," and begins to play harem politics in earnest while also currying favor with her husband and making the best of this situation. Harem politics get intense when Murad takes on another bride who, of course, hates Theadora. When sons get into the mix, things get really crazy, as everyone tries to force the emperor to play favorites, and nobody (except Theadora) wins. ADORA has a lot of things in it that will either disgust, outrage, or squick people out. First off, the writing is very cheesy. Penises are called "manroots" and the heroine's breasts are referred to as "coral-tipped cones" many, many times. I did give this book bonus points for using the word "fuck" (and, more naughty still, "ass-fuck"), as that is a word that tends to be danced around in historical fiction romances published before the 1990s. There is also a lot of pedophilia. All the bad guys - and some of the good guys - have sex with underrage men and women. Which I guess happened somewhat more often back then, but that still doesn't mean that I'm cool with reading about it now, even if it was...*shudders*...canon. I'm sure this will upset some people, so be forewarned that it's in here, and yeah, it can be graphic. There's also some pretty brutal torture scenes. Especially towards the end, when one of the characters commits an act of treason and gets a pretty unpleasant and grotesque punishment that is, again, very detailed. And then there's the fact that every single love interest rapes Adora at least once. If ADORA were written even slightly differently, I think I would have hated this book. It has so many subjects in it that I hate. But the plot is action-packed, and Bertrice clearly knows a thing or two about history. Even though I rolled my eyes or winced in disgust, I still couldn't put the book down. Imagine if V.C. Andrews co-opted GAME OF THRONES...I think that would be a pretty close approximation of what you could expect from this book. Icky sex, court intrigue, families dueling it out over power struggles, and rape. Books like these just aren't written anymore - to be honest, I don't think they could be...at least not traditionally - and whether that's a good thing or a bad thing is a matter of speculation. I, personally, liked it, but I can see why others wouldn't. P.S. Anyone else ever notice that in a Bertrice Small book, the villain always seems to have a thing for doing it up the butt? BECAUSE I NOTICED. 4 stars! ...more |
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May 03, 2016
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May 06, 2016
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Paperback
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| 0872167267
| 9780872167261
| 0872167267
| 2.90
| 52
| Feb 1981
| Feb 1981
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liked it
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Instagram || Threads || Facebook || Amazon || TikTok This took me over a month to read. By contrast, if I really like a book that's under 30 [image] Instagram || Threads || Facebook || Amazon || TikTok This took me over a month to read. By contrast, if I really like a book that's under 300 pages, I can finish it in just a few hours, and I managed to finish my friends' much-anticipated 450-page tome in under a day. Normally, if a book takes me this long to finish, I call it quits, but with SATAN'S MISTRESS, I felt compelled to finish because I had already clocked in so much time and the beginning is so crazy that I needed to find out how the book would end. ***WARNING: SPOILERS AND DISCUSSION OF TRIGGERS AND SAFETY*** SATAN'S MISTRESS is a bodice-ripper and features a medley of triggers. The ones that come immediately to mind are: gang-rape, rape, orgies, substance abuse, black masses, gaslighting, and child sexual abuse. I may be forgetting some more but those are the ones I distinctly recall. The heroine, Fiona, works as a milliner and suffers from a common historical problem: Being Hot While Poor. Since she has basically no rights, she's foisted like chattel from family to abuser to family to abuser like vicious cycle clockwork. She thinks life is pretty sweet when a duchess takes her on as a maid, only to have her husband attempt to rape her and then be drugged and recruited for a gang rape for a black mass at the Hellfire Club (which was a real thing, by the way). It's implied that this happened because the duchess was jealous that Viscount Huxley, #1 babe, had an eye for Fiona. After that, she gets taken on as the mistress of this total asshole named Werington, who, I KID YOU NOT, gets his hands on some erotic literature with pictures and is like "here's what you're going to do to with me" which results in (what is implied to be) anal rape. And then lots more forced sex in exchange for being his kept mistress. Fiona develops a taste for the good life and a hatred and disdain for all men, especially those in the Hellfire Club. Even though she's abused throughout the novel, she gets some good licks in. Two of my favorite "GO FIONA" moments were when she sends the same erotic book Werington gave her as a wedding gift to his new bride with her compliments via courier and then when she saves Huxley from raping his own sister when she is drugged (without his knowledge) and trussed up as the Hellfire Club's new ceremonial gang rape victim. Despite all this craziness, the book was incredibly boring. There were some dude, WTF moments and then there were just long endless passages of waiting for more WTF things to happen. The book is heavy on the purple prose but not badly written and it seemed relatively well-researched. This is one of those romance novels that doesn't feel like a romance novel, though, because there is just so little connection between Fiona and Huxley (or any of the men), and she just reads as kind of emotionally disconnected and damaged (which makes sense). I just didn't see things working out between Fiona and Huxley because he treats her like a total whore after her rape, assuming she must have wanted it, and when he finds out she was drugged (after she saves his sister-- and first, she has to convince him that she isn't lying because he assumes she's made the whole thing up to fuck with him) he's just like "oh whoops, I thought you were just some greedy slut" almost in those exact terms (except, you know, more Georgian-y in tone). Meanwhile, I'm just sitting here, like, ARE YOU KIDDING ME, MY DUDE. If ever there were a man who should have, could have groveled, this is him. I'm giving this 2.5 stars because it was balls-deep in bat-shit insanity but I would not reread or recommend. 2.5 stars ...more |
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Jan 19, 2021
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Mar 05, 2021
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May 01, 2016
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Mass Market Paperback
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| 3.74
| 1,966
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| 1989
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really liked it
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Instagram || Twitter || Facebook || Amazon || Pinterest **Warning: mild spoilers** Jeez, that is some small font! I kind of want to channel [image] Instagram || Twitter || Facebook || Amazon || Pinterest **Warning: mild spoilers** Jeez, that is some small font! I kind of want to channel my inner Derek Zoolander, and be all, "What is this? A font for ants?" The story was good, though. Even though Victoria Holt is mostly famous for her old-timey gothic novels, once in a while she'll attempt to write a bodice-ripper. While her last experiment was a bust for me, this one, despite the eclectic story line, was quite good. Rosetta Cranleigh is the daughter of two Egyptologists, who named her after the Rosetta Stone. They're kind people, but wrapped up in their work, so Rosetta was brought up by the help and her governess, Felicity. Her parents don't really take an interest in her until she's a teenager, when they realize that she's a lot cleverer than they gave her credit for, and then they start bringing her to dinner parties and the like, where she meets love interest #1, Lucas Lorrimer. The Cranleighs eventually end up going to Cape Town by boat, on business, and they invite Rosetta and Lucas to go with them - but they never reach their destination. The ship sinks in the middle of a storm, and Rosetta, separated from her parents, ends up on a lifeboat with Lucas and love interest #2, John Player, who reveals to Rosetta that he is actually the accused murderer that has England in an uproar: Simon Perrivale. A fact which, he tells her, she must under no circumstances reveal to anyone. They touch upon a small island, and do their best to survive. It turns out Lucas has a broken leg & food is really low. It's a small island with no people on it, and water is running out. But then pirates come, and take them all hostage to sell them as slaves in Turkey. Rosetta is put in a seraglio for a pasha, and Simon and Lucas both become slaves. Rosetta is horrified to become part of a harem, and even more horrified to learn that Simon is most likely facing a fate as a eunuch. Honestly, this is probably my favorite part of the book because of how Holt wrote the harem politics. Sex, power, and attempted murder...it was all brilliantly done, and I would have been more than happy to read an entire book on this subject. I should point out that the back of the book is incredibly misleading, though, because it says "Rosetta is still bound by a consuming passion that will forever make her love's captive" and right before that it says, "Locked away in [the pasha's] harem, she will risk her life to save her virtue..." It made me think that the pasha would be one of the love interests, but he isn't. She never even sleeps with him, or even interacts with him at all. It was very disappointing. The last 100 pages of this book are completely different, and take on the feel of a Nancy Drew mystery as Rosetta, back in England now, tries to find clues that will exonerate her friend, Simon, and allow him to return to England a free man. She achieves this by posing as a governess to Simon's step-niece, Kate. I was pouting a bit internally, because of how good the harem part of the book was, but I ended up getting quite engrossed in the mystery. This is where the gothic element comes in, and the book, as a wink to this, even casually throws in a reference to Jane Eyre (that fangirl shriek you heard off in the distance, that was me). I've read a number of Holt's books, and I think that in terms of actual suspense, this was one of the better plots. I didn't guess who did it until the end and I loved Rosetta's interactions with Kate, who was endearing and infuriating by turns. THE CAPTIVE is a bizarre mishmash of 70s and 80s tropes, and features many controversial themes that must have been quite taboo in the day (abortion, castration, bigamy, harems, etc.). That is why, even though there is no sex, I think this could be classified as a bodice ripper, because it incorporates many of the themes that are so prevalent in that genre. It certainly was a much better experiment than THE DEMON LOVER. 3.5 stars! ...more |
Notes are private!
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Apr 11, 2016
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Apr 12, 2016
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Apr 11, 2016
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Mass Market Paperback
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