It really doesn't give me pleasure to leave negative reviews but I firmly believe in HONEST reviews and this book was not at all to my liking soOh my!
It really doesn't give me pleasure to leave negative reviews but I firmly believe in HONEST reviews and this book was not at all to my liking so, if you're the author who's just happened on my review, I urge you to look away now. This is NOT going to be pretty!
This really was THE most overblown, melodramatic, sentimental piece of romantic claptrap that has been my displeasure to read these past couple of years. It is seriously cheesy and I mean MASSIVELY CHEESY and it has the feel of something Mills & Boon might have churned out thirty years ago without any consideration for the expectations or sensibilities of the modern reader. There are some really good Highlander romances out there and this ain't one of them!
I will give credit to the author that the idea of the story was good but the way it panned out was fairly preposterous. The characters were so one dimensional and wholly without depth that I hardly knew them by the time the story limped towards it's ridiculous conclusion and, for the most part, I just wanted to bitch slap the heroine. There's not great attention to historical detail either which I could just about live with until the author referred to 'garbage'. That's such an Americanism, it's not true, and it's not even a word commonly used in the modern day British vernacular let alone that of medieval Scotland.
The story begins with our heroine Madeline MacDonald living with her step-brother, Kenneth, the Laird after her parents have died. Kenneth wants her to marry a neighbouring Laird, Niles Comming, and she refuses and he regularly beats her to within an inch of her life for her refusal. In fact he's almost killed her twice we find out as the story continues. Niles has subjected her to a tortuous rape and Madeline just takes all this stoically without a whimper, accepting this as her lot. I think this is meant to show strength of character but she just comes across as a doormat. She's painted so good, so kind and so gentle that she just irritated the hell out of me - she's so amazingly wonderful and without fault that she should be sainted. She even rescues a couple of fallen children through the agony of a broken arm. *rolls eyes* I did mention the melodrama, right? I wanted to rip her halo right off and batter her with it.
Her hero, another neighbouring Laird, Alexander Grant rescues her from her step-brother and intends to claim her as his bride. He, of course, falls in love with her sainted beauty the minute he sets eyes on her but I really couldn't see what he saw in her. He's portrayed as the big, alpha, protective hero and she is such a wimp - she would hardly be suitable for him. Of course, he's shown as wanting to claim and protect this delicate little flower. I never really felt that I got to know Alex at all - he's yet another one-dimensional character in this sorry saga.
And, as for the villains -purrlease! Both Kenneth and Niles are bad to the bone, bad for sake of being bad and the nearest thing to a pantomime villain that I think you'll find in romantic fiction. They're pretty much like a stereotypical ACME villain from a looney tunes cartoon. They appear to have very little motivation for the extreme evilness, they just want to torture our poor feckless heroine and, when that motivation is finally revealed, my eyes just rolled out of my head! GAH!
Books usually play out vividly in my imagination as I read like a movie but this one completely failed to do that for me - they were just shadowy figures that never really took shape. There's absolutely no character development and the entire story revolves around Madeline and her plight and absolutely nothing else. Everyone either wants to batter her or adore her and no one else has any background to their story other than her. It all feels horribly contrived and it's totally a cookie-cutter historical romance - alpha hero, delicate heroine who must be protected from the evil henchmen on her trail.
As you can probably tell, it really didn't work for me.
This review will be littered with spoilers. Read on at your peril.
I really do love well written, soul searching dark erotica, but wOh, dear. Oh, dear.
This review will be littered with spoilers. Read on at your peril.
I really do love well written, soul searching dark erotica, but well written, soul searching dark erotica this surely ain’t!
This had the potential to be such a great story. A wealthy and married lady (Brook) gets carjacked, abducted and held by a gang and brutally and repeatedly raped over the course of a few days. She manages to escape but she’s in the middle of a mountain range amid heavy snowfall but, luckily, wanders right into the arms of a reclusive man (Lance) hiding away from the world in an isolated and remote cabin after the death of his wife. They’re snowed in for several months and, while she recovers, they fall in love. Sadly, it doesn’t even begin to live up to its potential.
I had so many issues with this story.
Firstly, right from the first few pages, the person responsible for the abduction is glaringly obvious.
Secondly, the gang that abducted Brook were such caricatures of villains, I expected them to start running around with black eye masks and sacks slung over their shoulders emblazoned with the word SWAG.
Thirdly, the rape is shown in brutal and graphic detail. (view spoiler)[ Even to the point of describing semen seeping out of her bleeding anus (hide spoiler)] I kid you not. So, why, when Lance and Brook finally make love is the sex just shown as a fade to grey scene? It’s OK to describe at length and in great detail an act of sexual violence but not the act of sexual love? Bizarre.
Fourthly, the dialogue is so incredibly hokey and cheesy, I wanted to escape. My OCD would not allow me not to actually finish the book but it was saccharine sweet and I wanted out!! I felt like I was skipping through a world of unicorns and fairy dust.
When she finally gets back to civilisation, her husband is about as deep as a 5ml spoon of medicine. Bearing in mind she’s been brutally raped, he actually says this to her…..
“I never pegged you for a gold-digger; but I never figured you’d spread your legs for some stranger either. Hell, I guess it was more than just one, wasn't it? How many were there, Brook? Remind me again, exactly how many men did you do?"
Um, hello????
So she divorces the super rich slime bag and returns to mountain man Lance. Cue more sentimental, breathy exclamations of love.
I am giving this 2 stars for the first third of the book. Each chapter tells either Brook’s horrific ordeal or the quiet, sleepy world that Lance lives in. I did actually consider the transition from a chapter of extreme violence to a chapter of calm and tranquillity quite a clever idea.
So, anyway, if any of my Goodreads friends or anyone else who happens on my review likes the sound of the synopsis and wants to give it a go, please don’t let my review put you off. These are, after all, only my opinions. I am no writer – what the heck do I know?? ...more
I read this because it tops so many lists here on Goodreads and I wanted to see what the hype is about but it sadly didn't even begin to live up to myI read this because it tops so many lists here on Goodreads and I wanted to see what the hype is about but it sadly didn't even begin to live up to my expectations. I actually believe this may be the worst book I have ever read.
The characters are poorly developed, the writing style just appalling, I never really understood their motivations and the narrative never gave them time to react to situations. This felt like it had been written by a twelve year old to me.
This takes place over 2 semesters at college. Travis is a manwhore student who earns his money by bare knuckle fighting. He treats women terribly - very much wham bam thank you ma'am and kick her out the door 2 seconds later.
Inexplicably, the moment he sees Abby, he falls in love and calls her pigeon - a rather scabby rodent like bird. Abby has a past she wants to escape - her Father was a successful poker player whose luck ran out when Abby turned 13 and so he hates her now! I soooo didn't get that either. The characters make decisions that just had me all WTF?? It just doesn't make any sense. It's possibly the worst character development I have ever seen in a novel.
Anyway, the story stumbles from situation to situation - Travis is goofily in love and will savagely beat any guy that looks at Abby sideways. We have descriptions of him holding someone on the floor and repeatedly smashing his fist in their face more than once. That's not protective - that's downright violent and could actually result in a serious brain injury. And this is aimed at a YA readership with Travis cast as a 'hero'?? WTF?
The sex scene where Travis takes Abby's virginity is absolutely forgettable. I know she begs for it but he just ruts away on top of her with no thoughts of her pleasure or even preparing her to make it easier for her. He's pretty shit in bed to be fair and I was quite shocked he didn't have more pride in his performance given that he's had so much experience.
Travis appears to be harbouring some serious schizophrenic tendencies - perhaps he has actually sustained a serious brain injury in one of those fights? That might well explain his truly ridiculous character and decisions and reactions to situations - or could that possibly be just do to the poor character development on behalf of this writer.
Travis is not one of the good guys. He is not a hero. There is nothing endearing about his character at all. He is one of those nasty, jealous, possessive, violent guys that will beat the supposed love of his life senseless just because she glances at another man or he glances at her. Abby's future is likely to be fraught with peril, on edge constantly with what Travis will think about what she is wearing, who she is talking to and what she is doing. She will be so scared of upsetting him, it will totally rule her life. Someone needs to tell Abby to get out and to get out quick before he beats her to a pulp because he surely will.
I fully accept f*cked up characters in books but this guy is written as a 'hero' and he is aimed at the YA audience. Horrific!! To think that a girl of Abby's age could think that Travis is some kind of romantic hero is pretty scary and a pretty appalling message to be sending out to this book's target demographic.
I'm real sorry that I didn't get this - I can see that this story is so well loved by so many here but it really wasn't for me. To this day I just cannot even begin to understand why so many people here that I respect have given it 5 stars. What in the world do you all see here that I just can't? It completely baffles me. It's not even halfway good.
I'd like to add that it's really not often that I leave reviews like this but I felt so strongly that this book is sending THE most appalling message of accepting violent tossers as heroes to it's young readers that I felt compelled to speak out against it. ...more
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