Captive Rose

Title: Captive Rose (1991)
Author: Miriam Minger (Avon)
Period: Medieval (1272 Syria/England)
Grade: D+

Reading Captive Rose I immediately noticed how much of the plot it shares with one of my all-time favorite romances, Tamara Leigh's Pagan Bride. Minger wrote her book four years earlier, but it is by far the weaker of the two. Her lyrical description of Damascus is beautiful and offers great insight into the Islamic history of female physicians. However, her witless and uninteresting characters sink this romance.

Leila, English by birth, has been raised in the harems and cultures of Damascus. Her step-father purchased (and later married) her mother at a slave auction after her father death during a Holy Land pilgrimage. Leila is engaged to her step-brother and has trained to be physician by her step-father. When assisting at the prison she encounters injured Crusader, Guy. Eve, Leila's mother, dupes him into abducting her daughter and returning her to England and the care of her older brother. The same brother who was Guy's former childhood friend and now is his mortal enemy.

Leila is furious over being forced to leave the only world she's ever known. And in bad romance heroine fashion she attempts to escape and endangers herself repeatedly on the journey. Guy falls in love with her anyway and becomes a doormat for her poor behavior and temper tantrums. She drugs him. He rapes her. But he also buys her pretty clothes and likes poetry so he can't be all bad. Right ladies? They marry to thwart her brother’s evil schemes, but she still continues an ill-conceived plan to return to Syria despite having no funds and no escort. It is hard to believe someone as naive and dopey as Leila could be a physician in any era. On the historical romance heroine intelligence scale she falls somewhere between cocker spaniel and potted plant.

Captive Rose is bad, but it is still the better of the two Minger's I've ever read. If this is her best effort I'll be avoiding her like the plague in the future.

Song of the Willow

Title: Song of the Willow (1993)
Author: Charlotte McPherren (BMI)
Period: American-Western (1881 Arizona Territory)
Grade: B-


I've been in the romance doldrums for quite awhile now. I haven't read a great romance in so long that even an average romance looks good to me now. So I'm acknowledging that I'm grading on a curve here.

Song of the Willow is pretty standard Old West fare that involves cattle rustling, a government agent hero from back east, and a tomboy heroine. Rider Sinclair masquerades as disrespectable Army officer/ranch foreman in an effort to uncover a robbery and smuggling ring. He's been ordered to infiltrate the Vaughn family's cattle rustling operation and its connection to the mysterious boss man. Rider's orders involve seducing Vaughn's beautiful, but unconventional daughter. Rider falls in love and marries Willow in short order never telling her about his role with the government or his original seduction scheme.

Willow herself is the book's saving grace. She is a smart and thoughtful young woman who has been raised more as a boy than a girl. She doesn't reject the norms and conventions of womanhood like so many central casting romance heroines; she just simply doesn't understand them. Miriam, a widowed boarding house owner and town busybody, takes Willow under her wing and offers her instruction in dress and deportment. The strength of Song of the Willow is that she chooses to undergo the transformation for herself to increase her standing in the community, not to impress the hero. She is a smart heroine who doesn't take foolish or needless risks until the book unravels a bit at its conclusion.

The book struggles when Willow character metamorphoses from a smart and tough heroine to a typical space cadet who needs to be saved from disasters of her own making. The book also telegraphs that big reveal about the identity of the mysterious boss man. On the bright side, that the boss man shares his names with that spastic nut from American Idol gave me a chuckle. Song of the Willow is one of only two McPherren books in print, so sadly there will never be any resolution to the shotgun romance of Willow's brother and his Mexican lover. Song of the Willow was an enjoyable read with a generally above average heroine. I’m on the look out for her other book, Love and Fortune.

Dangerous

Title: Dangerous (1993)
Author: Amanda Quick (Bantam)
Period: European Historical-Regencyish
Grade: D

I'm that last romance reader alive who still enjoys Amanda Quick's formulaic not-quite Regencies. So why was Dangerous so bad?

Sebastian, Earl of Anglestone has decided to entertain himself this season by courting "Original" Prudence. "Original" appears to mean a heroine with bad fashion sense. He wants to humiliate her foppish younger brother for reason's that are never made clear other than a deadly case of ennui. She attempts to dissuade him from the false courtship and a potential duel with her brother, however the two become entangaled in an investigation that is either criminal (Sebastian's theory) or spectral (Prudece's theory). They wind up betrothed and married amid the investigation which is a third rate who-cares who-done-it.

He is Quick's standard alpha hero. Brodding. Mysterious. Dangerous. Prue sport the antique name and curious hobby (spectral phenomena) that is the mark of all Quick off-beat heroines, but something is off. She doesn't have Harriet's intelligence, Pheobe's vulnerability, or Emily's determination. She is the kind of heroine who complains the hero won't allow her to rush into dangerous situation because "he doesn't want her to have any fun." Usually when a hero berates the heroine as "a little fool" it feels dated and weird. In Dangerous it feels apt.

Quick's writing lacks the zest and humor that signifies her early work here. In one telling example, Sebastian, an amateur criminal investigator, compares picking a lock to making love to his wife. When her character points out this oddity he offers a bizarre monologue comparing his wife (or perhaps her vajajay) to a lock. Quick offers the kind of lines that would have gotten any guy an elbow to the chops in high school as if they are clever, sexy, and romantic. They aren't. And neither is Dangerous.

Highland Velvet

Title: Highland Velvet (1982)

Author: Jude Deveraux (Pocket)

Period: Medieval (1501 Scotland)

Grade: C

The second book in Deveraux’s Velvet Series is, by her standards, average. It isn’t awful or campy or ridiculous. It’s just there. I’ve heard it is the weakest in the series and hope the third book returns to form. I’ve always been a fan of classic medieval romances. They offer more depth of character and place than your typical romance, which is to say, your typical Regency. Difficult settings and experiences make for richer romances than the standard ballroom fare.

There is nothing new about Highland Velvet. And that’s okay. I don’t need a romance author to reinvent the wheel. If the characters are smart and funny and the setting feels authentic I’m okay with rehashing a well worn plot. Instead Deveraux confuses physical attractiveness with character development when she crafts two pretty, but petty and boring leads.

The forced marriage by King’s decree is to medievals what goofy will inspired marriages are to European historicals. The English king has commanded a marriage between Stephen Montgomery and Scottish laird Bronwyn McArran to solidify English control in the Highlands. Stephen is late to his own wedding inspiring no degree of ill feelings in his prospective bride. The cultural conflicts between the newlyweds over ethnicity and gender aren’t given any depth. One almost feels they only fight to have something do in between sex. Bronwyn particularly hold onto her bitterness toward the English, and by extension Stephen, for far too long to make her likeable. The novel is chock full of medieval Scottish adventure from kidnappings to cattle raids for those who love that stuff.

Highland Velvet also suffers narrative from a Bronwyn-heavy point of view. This is particularly troublesome in the final chapters where Stephen’s prolonged absence is only viewed from her perspective. It makes the HEA ending ring false when the reader isn’t given more than a terse explanation for his departure and return.

The Gentleman Caller

Title: The Gentleman Caller (1998)
Author: Megan Chance (HarperTorch)
Period: American-Antebellum (1856 New Orleans)
Grade: D-

This isn’t a romance novel. When the hero and heroine have zero chemistry and only a handful of scenes together what is even the point of marketing it as romance?

I wanted to like this book. New Orleans is my favorite city and my favorite American setting. I’m a big fan of Chance’s heavy, but romantic The Portrait. In The Gentleman Caller, she failed to craft a plot or characters worthy of her effort or talent. When the most interesting character in a romance is the heroine’s bitchy, manipulative sister the author has missed the mark. The younger sister should be grateful she at least got some human emotions.

Rosalie and Jack are the WonderBread of romance characters. They are devoid of personality or human emotion. She is supposed to be pious and selfless, but she just comes of as a spineless dolt. He is supposed to be brooding, but instead comes of as fickle moron. Jack is in lust first with his fiancé’s beautiful sister and then suddenly discovers he’s fallen in love with Rosalie. How? They are never together. Why? On the rare occasion she is with him she is a raging bitch. Rosalie is obviously tentative toward men and has a dramatic reaction to her sister’s plight. The signs about her BIG SECRET are so obvious Helen Keller saw it coming. Jack? Not so much.

You could drive a truck through the book’s plot holes. Why would the patriarch of an long-standing Creole family want to marry his favorite daughter of to a lowly ex-con American who doesn’t even share his family’s faith? A faith that is the hallmark of said daughter’s life? Traditional Creole families usually despised the uncouth bourgeois Americas who migrated to New Orleans. They didn’t offer up their daughters and their fortunes on a whim! Why the father despises and belittles the youngest daughter is never illuminated. Worst, The Gentleman Caller is chocked full of stereotypes about women who have ambitions beyond marriage and motherhood, women who have abortions, slavery, and voodoo. It is creepy and red state-y and would have made even a good romance suck. And this wasn’t a good romance.

Love Only Once

Title: Love Only Once (1985)
Author: Johanna Lindsey (Avon)
Period: European Historical-Regency (1817 England)
Grade: B-

Vintage Johanna Lindsey is my romance novel kryptonite. She has a routine formula of alpha hero + minimal character development + abduction plot + secret pregnancy = true love. I don’t know why, but it works for me. Maybe I just expect less in terms of plot and storytelling from 1980s romance. Maybe it is because I love old-school bodice ripper covers. Whatever the case, provided the she avoids the rape and forced sex of her earliest book, I can almost always enjoy a Johanna Lindsey. Love Only Once is happily no exception to that formula.

Nicholas Eden, a handsome rogue of a Viscount with some mommy issues, accidentally abduct orphaned beauty Regina Ashton one evening. He drunkenly mistakes her for a former mistress whose coach Regina has borrowed. They are, of course, immediately in lust. The word of her brief abduction quickly makes the round of Ton gossips and Regina’s powerful Mallory family fears she is near ruin. Regina’s uncle would like to arrange a dawn appointment, however Regina believes her near ruin perfectly fit with her current scheme to have her over protective uncles pick her husband. She insists that Nicholas is a perfect candidate and her uncles reluctantly force his hand. The Viscount, like many a romance novel hero, plans never to marry. In Nicholas’s case it is because he believes any society wife will shun him when she discovers his Big Family Secret. Nicholas treats Regina shabbily during their engagement period in the hopes she will cry off, excluding one night of gazebo nookie. He flees the country after their wedding in desperation.

Lindsey adds a half-cocked shipping/pirate plot that isn’t fully fleshed out to establish a back-story (however fleeting) between Nicholas and Regina’s uncle, James. When Nicholas does return to England he is forced to confront his unresolved family issues while attempting to win back the love and good graces of his wife and unknown son. Regina doesn’t give a fig about Nicholas’s Big Family Secret and is happy to reconcile all the parties involved. Nicholas has been an ass to Regina and thus offers her a heartfelt, if confused, apology for his behavior. Too many romance authors believe that a confession of love is enough to excuse poor behavior. The affective use of an apology along with Lindsey’s charming cast of characters makes the predictability of Love Only Once an asset rather than a detriment.

The Seduction of an English Scoundrel

Title:The Seduction of an English Scoundrel (2005)
Author: Jillian Hunter (Ivy)
Period: European Historical-Regency
Grade: D

The Seduction of an English Scoundrel reads like a historical romance Mad Lib. The plot, characters, and setting are all familiar but appears to have been constructed together with no rhyme or reason. Hunter offers a standard cookie-cutter Regency without even enough historical elements to call itself a wallpaper historical. The hero is a handsome rogue with a heart of gold. The heroine is a beautiful bluestocking. Why a woman with no scholarly pursuits and the intellect of a cocker spaniel is considered a bluestocking offers some insight into Hunter's character development. Jane is smarter than the other women in the book, so perhaps her half-cocked schemes make her something of a Jeopardy finalist compared to the Grayson's "spunky" (read: annoying) sister. The plot revolves around a collection of ludicrous schemes and misunderstandings that throw our hero and heroine into constant contact for no discernable reason. They naturally fall in love, but rather than have an adult conversation about their feelings they engage in competing asinine plots to dupe the other into marriage.

The author stresses repeatedly that Jane and Grayson have never meet before despite

1. her lifelong engagement to his cousin;
2. his hosting her aborted wedding;
3. she, her "spunky" best friend, and his "spunky" sister are all friends;
4. they travel in the same Ton social circles, including Jane's family's annual attendance at Grayson's family ball.

The real failure of plot comes when book reaches a climax of discovery. Grayson has fallen in love with Jane. He believes she is love with him. He learns about her role in the conspiracy to stop her own wedding, confirming that she was never in love with his cousin. Does he confront her with the truth? No. Does he ask his love to marry him? Nope. He concocts a bullshit plan (with the support of Jane's dopey parents) to pretend he wants her only as his mistress. Hunter attempts to incorporate a sexual manipulation plot appears out of the blue in a novel that offers PG-rated sexuality throughout. At her raunchiest, she includes a double entendre about rhubarb. Yes. Really.

The Seduction of an English Scoundrel is a routine novel of misunderstanding that any romance reader has read before, only worse.