*THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS*
KATHLEEN
E. WOODIWISS
Synopsis
from back cover: Fearing
for her innocence, doomed to a life of unending toil, Heather Simmons
commits a shocking and desperate act. Now she must flee – and seek
refuge in the arms of a virile and dangerous stranger.
Captain
Brandon Birmingham is a lusty adventurer married to the sea. Though
courting scorn and peril through his actions, he abducts the
beautiful fugitive from the tumultuous London dockside. For it is
destiny that has brought Heather to Brandon's side, and no power on
Earth will force him to relinquish his exquisite prize. Only she can
unlock the tenderness in his heart; and Brandon vows she will be his
– to love, to cherish, to desire, and to carry off to uncharted
realms of sensuous passion.
Stats
for my copy: Mass market paperback, Avon Books, 2003
How
acquired: Bought.
First
line: Somewhere in the world, time no doubt whistled by on taut
and widespread wings, but here in the English countryside it plodded
slowly, painfully, as if it trod the rutted road that stretched
across the moors on blistered feet.
My
thoughts: This book got off to
a slow start, as we meet the orphaned Heather, living in servitude to
her horrible aunt and meek, brow beaten uncle. She is literally a
slave, wearing her aunt's cast off dresses that are like twenty-three
sizes too large, working from sunup to sundown, with no hope of any
kind of future.
Then
her aunt's brother comes along, and whisks her off to London, where
he's claimed he can get her a job at a nice school. Of course his
real intentions are completely unhonorable, and when Heather stabs
him with a fruit knife in a desperate attempt to get him off her, she
sets herself on a new path, fleeing his home and terrified of being
caught and hung for murder.
Then
she finds herself aboard Brandon Birmingham's ship, and I won't go
into how she ends up there. But this part of the book was discussed a
bit in a Facebook group I'm part of, due to our hero devirginizing
our heroine by brute force. It's not romanticized - it's rape and
it's never called anything else. In fact, much later, after they've
professed their love for each other and are having a wonderful life
together, Heather reminds Brandon that he once raped her. Laughingly,
because she's gotten over it. But at least neither of them pretend it
didn't happen.
And
regarding the rape...the whole situation of how she came to be in his
cabin on the ship was a little ridiculous. I know she was in shock
and she's young and innocent of the ways of the world, but still.
Rape, in and of itself, does not always bother me in a book. In the
world of romance novels, rape can even be a little subjective at
times. Brandon didn't intentionally rape her out of malice. The first
time, anyway. It was due to a Big Misunderstanding. Bit having
realized he'd just deflowered the girl, taking her again, and again
against her will, was a bit much. At this point in the book I was
disgusted with him, and thought he was going to have to really work
hard and grovel to redeem himself. It would've all been a little more
palatable if, say, he'd had too much to drink and wasn't in total
control of his faculties. Still wrong, still disgusting, but easier
for him to come back from and convince Heather that he's not a
monster.
So
now their lives are intertwined, and I'm not completely taken by the
story, or the characters, just yet. Fortunately Brandon vows to
himself that he will never take her by force again, and he keeps that
vow. And Heather vows that she will never submit to him, and then in
the same breath tells herself that since he's now her husband she
will have no choice but to submit to him if he so demands. And from
this point on for many months (the length of a pregnancy and then
some) they both run hot and cold, lusting after each other, yet both
believing the other has no desire to share a bed, having little
tender moments amid exasperated all out yelling at each other
moments. All very will they or won't they.
And
at some point during all this, I became very engrossed. Knowing that
deep down inside Brandon was head over heels about his “young wife”
as she was often referred to, I could realize that a lot of his cruel
jibes and frosty behavior was a defense mechanism. He wanted her, he
would not rape her again, and he'd be damned if he begged her, or for
that matter even asked her politely, to make love with him, so all
that frustration was poured out on her in mean words and slammed
doors. Heather, being only seventeen and having lived a sheltered
life, is too young and naive to realize the power she holds over him.
An
interesting aspect to the story that I really liked was Louisa, who
was engaged to Brandon before he sailed off to London and debauched
Heather. Her first meeting with Heather set the tone for that
relationship – Louisa was rude, condescending and cruel to Heather,
and shamelessly tried to win Brandon's favors back to herself. I was
looking forward to more meetings between the two women, expecting
some outrageous scenes to occur, and while they did have a few run
ins, Louisa was not around nearly as much as I had hoped.
In
the end of course love conquers all. I teetered between giving this
book three or four stars on Goodreads. It took awhile for me to get past the slow,
undignified beginning, yet towards the end I was eager to crawl into
bed at night and lose myself in the pages, not wanting to set the
book down and go to sleep. Brandon managed to charm Heather and make
her fall in love with him, and I fell right along with her.
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