You did it! We figured this one out! It is a truth universally acknowledged (by me for certain) that the Bitchery pretty much knows everything, and really, it's true. Scroll down to see the solution for this HaBO - and many thanks!
I am looking for a book I stole and read in junior high, by stole I mean
borrowed from my mom’s romance collection. Don’t remember the author or
title but perhaps the plot will ring a bell??So the book starts off with a girl running away from her family in London
before an arranged marriage. That same night she is mistaken for a
prostitute by a captains first mate and brought to his ship to pleasure him.Etc etc.. I don’t remember if it was really a rape scene on the boat or if
it was consensual…but in the end he takes her innocence. The family then
discovers this and the sea captain is forced to wed the girl.This sea captain turns out to be a well off American of some sort? Possibly
military…I don’t exactly remember. But the girl must then sail with him
to the “new world.”On the way I believe he falls sick as well as she nurses him back to health?
Anyways…most of the book is about them learning to love each other or
admit they love each other.Any of this sound familiar??
This could be a number of historicals, but I’m coming up with several books for each plot point described. Does anyone recall a book that fits her description?
Could it be Kathleen E. Woodiwiss’ The Flame and the Flower? That’s one from waaaaay back. 🙂
This sounds like a Jane Feather book, one of her trilogies…
The Least Likely Bride
Second the Kathleen Woodiwiss The Flame and the Flower. I don’t know how old the feather book is but KW’s is from the mid- to late 1970s so probably more likely to have been hiding in mom’s collection back in the day.
To clarify: she lists exact plot of The Flame and the Flower. Should be easy to find in a library/used store (or maybe even a new books store).
Best of luck to the searcher! If it was KW, I’d be curious to know if she enjoys it as much this time. Woodiwiss was a major portal into romance for me but someone I’ve struggled with, going back to as an adult. …
Sounds like The Flame and the Flower except the heroine is the one who falls ill and the hero nurses her.
It definitely sounds like The Flame & the Flower by Kathleen Woodiwiss…
For the record, this also sounds *quite* similar to Jude Deveraux’s Lost Lady.
http://judedeveraux.com/excerpt-lost-lady/
Ditto on the Flame and the Flower by Kathleen Woodiwiss. I’m wondering if you are also getting it confused with the sequel, The Elusive Flame? Both have slightly similar plots and the hero is the one who gets ill in that one. But the first part (about running away) is definitely more The Flame and the Flower.
This has to be The Flame and the Flower from Kathleen E. Woodiwiss.
Its the first in a series and the following books are as great as the first one. Check out Amazon for those books.
Definitely Katherine Woodiwiss – The Flame and the Flower. 🙂
Easy peasy—that one’s The Flame and the Flower by Katherine Woodiwiss.
Remember when every romance had the near death illness plot device? It always required the hero or heroine – whichever assumed the caretaker role – to exclude everyone else from the sick room until the delirium phase passed and usually took place on a ship. Don’t see enough fever induced delirium in the modern/real world. Good times. Good times.
I know I always feel my sexiest when I have a splitting headache and feel nauseous and shocky. After all, how could you not seduce someone when you’re most likely to be sweating, puking, having diarrhea, and so congested you’re almost guaranteed to snore? All bodily fluids are sexy, right? 😉
Aye, Flame and the Flower. First romance I ever read.
I vaguely remember a crazy 1980s contemporary (by Jackie Collins maybe?) that had the um heroine seducing the hero when he had the flu – she spiked his orange juice with vodka and then jumped him. Good times indeed.
Yes, yes. It seems no matter how sick and delirious and out of his head the hero may be, the Mighty Wang functioned perfectly. This also applied to the intoxicated hero, who was never too drunk to deflower the heroine.
Too Drunk To Deflower – #1 on the “What not to name your romance novel” list.
Even if it’s not The Flame and the Flower you should still pick it up and read it.
Awesome book. It’s a classic.
But pretty high up on the “What to name your punk rock band / song” list.
cleo
that 80s books was “I’ll Take Mahattan” by Judith Krantz, I believe. It was the main character getting into bed with her first husband (if my memory serves correctly) years and years after they divorced, but he was her one true love…and she needed him to work on the front page design layout of the magazine she owned…which her father had started oh so many years ago.
Oy, the cracktastic-ness of the 80s.
Jo Goodman’s Crystal Passion? Sounds more like The Flame and the Flower…
@sasha – I think you’re right. I just looked it up and the names Maxi and Rocco ring a bell, as does the wtf plot. And here I thought I’d never read a Judith Krantz. Now I know. Thanks!
Could it be Windflower by Laura London? I read it so long ago, and I also read The Flame and the Flower so maybe I’m getting them mixed up. It’s been a long time ago.
AMH
Another vote for Woodiwiss… I forgot the title but if others say The Flame and The Flower I believe it because that sounds really familiar.
I used to really like this one as a teenager, but the last time I read it (some years ago) I felt more of a rapey vibe than when I was younger, so this one is not for me anymore. (The guy takes her virginity, but doesn’t believe it isn’t her fault until it’s rubbed in his face… felt like victim-blaming to me.)
@cleo
I actually believe (unless I am thinking of another “sickness” plot) that Rocco had a huge arrangement of flowers he was allergic to in his apartment and what he thought was the flu was actually hay fever. Maxie bullies him into taking some medication and then plies him with alcohol (orange juice/vodka) because she knows he will never agree that the flowers are the culprit.
Once he is drowsy with the med/booze combo – she strips, fucks him six ways to Sunday and then removes the flowers from the apartment. He wakes up alone, and feeling 100% better. And he know she is his twue luv!
Again, Oy!
Another vote for Kathleen Woodiwiss The Flame and The Flower. It was the FIRST historical romance in the modern sense and shopped to many publishers before it was picked up. Rapey it might be, but romance today wouldn’t be what it was without it or Kathleen Woodiwiss, may she rest in peace and happily ever after. I spent a couple days after reading it rewriting the second half of the book in my head to make the hero pay more for his transgressions :>).
A theory for you younger women who were raised to have a healthier attitude about sex (and hallelujah to that, but do try not to be so relentlessly judgmental of others, will you please?)… Some of us were raised to think that good girls didn’t want to have sex. I believe that the old school romances catered to that. You see, it was OKAY if you were forced. You should feel guilty of course if you enjoyed it, though, and were a much nicer girl if you didn’t. Honestly, I think some of the lure of bondage comes from that too. A woman is freed from societal restrictions and the guilt if she’s completely helpless. Just a theory, but it rings true for me anyway.
@ sasha and @cleo
I read that one too, but thought it was a Danielle Steele. I remember wishing my allergies would go away that easily.
I’m also voting for Flame and the Flower. In it Heather is fleeing from a loathsome man when she’s found by the captain’s mate and brought to the ship. She actually thinks she killed the loathsome guy when he attacked her.
My vote is for “Lost Lady” by Jude Deveraux.
Was the heroine really kinda clueless and naive? When she got to America, none of the hero’s servants liked her and she ran away. The hero’s ex girlfriend hides the note and pays people to lay a flase trail. The heroine ends up becoming a mercantile genius and ends up owning a whole town while being a single mother. The hero eventually finds her and for some reason i’m thinking he ends up walking across a tightrope to win her back.
Agree: Woodiwiss’s “The Flame and the Flower: Early seventies (1973?), and wasn’t this one of the very first in the modern day “bodice ripper” genre?
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