Cheryl is seaching for a category she read in the mid-to-late 70’s:
-Setting was in England, I believe.
– Heroine was a store owner dealing with textiles, I think, or some kind of boutique shop..
– Don’t remember the hero’s profession, but he either kidnapped the heroine or lured her under false pretenses to another country where the textiles that she imported were being handmade. And forced her into slave-labor weaving until her fingers bled. Don’t remember what, if anything he was trying to teach her, but I definitely remember the bleeding fingers.
– There was another woman competing for the hero’s affections who was a real bitch. I recall one scene occurring on the plane ride back home- I think she made the heroine trip or something, and the heroine wanted to retaliate, but the hero told her to be the more classy one and ignore her.
-One love scene involved the hero telling the heroine to ride him like a horse. That raised my eyebrows because it was at a time when pre-marital sex was just emerging in categories, and even so, were defined in very euphemistic terms.It al seems so quaint now, tho.
Ride him like a horse while her fingers were bleeding? Now that is some romance, right there.
Those bleeding fingers are ringing a bell, but not enough of one to be any help. I get the feeling it was a Harlequin Presents? Was she weaving Persian rugs?
And he’s the hero? WTF?
I’m with Kalen, how can the guy who forces you into slve labor be the hero…and the other woman is evil because she trips the heroine? How is being tripped worse than slave labor? Call me perverse but I really want to know what this book is now.
If it’s the book I’m vaguely recalling, our 70’s alpha hero was opening the heroine’s eyes to the horrors of child labour. I recall rugs, and little kids forced to do the work, and hero manfully shows heroine the error of her ways by forcing her into the position that the kids are in because of her company, or her designs, or something to that effect. Won’t somebody think of the children? And she feels bad, and sees the light.
And, of course, the other woman is always mean and has no redeeming human qualities whatsoever. Just beautiful, selfish, and mean.
Yes, I do believe it was Persian rugs and teaching her about child labor laws. It’s not that I want to read this dreck again, but more curious who wrote it, besides the fact that it’s one of those things that bug you trying to remember.
Looks like I finally stumped the bitchery. Do I get an I stumped the Bitchery label for my blog?
My first instinct when I read the description of your HABO plea was an Iris Johansen book I read a decade or so ago. Some of her early books (Wind Dancer series, etc.) had that rough edged sex in it, long before she started writing her thrillers. It sounds similar to either Lion’s Bride or Tiger Prince. BUT, those were both written in the early 90’s. Good stuff though.
I think you absolutely should get an I stumped the Bitchery label.
Cheryl, I stumped the bithery readers a while back – about a month or two ago with a historical. So if you get something for stumping them, I do too!
And FYI – I still don’t know the title or author of the book I was searching for. And it is still driving me crazy!
I spelled bitchery wrong. Sorry.
Sorry, but I didn’t read it as something so simple; I thought “evil” woman had given the heroine acid. I guess that would have been a bit much for the genre and the time.
No clue about the book, though.
Roberta Leigh did a novel that Fawcett published in which the hero kidnaps the heroine in Peru or someplace like that and makes her weave and carry water and so on. I think it was Savage Aristocrat.
But I don’t think the sex was as explicit as you recall. Too early days for that. Of course there was an annoying other woman, but she wasn’t terribly important because it was more a punishment scene between the hero and the heroine.
Leigh wrote mostly for Harlequin but she had a run of a half dozen or so that Fawcett did that were basically Harlequins taken to the next level. Very mild sex by today’s standards, but plenty of male aggression and arrogance.
I tried finding a description or blurb for Savage Aristocrat, but no such luck. I do believe you may be right, though. I’ll have to see if I can find it at an UBS and check the blurb. It’s possible I may have been conflating some scenes from several books. Thanks in any case.