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Title: Scoundrel's Captive
Author: JoAnn DeLazzari
Publication Info: Avon Books July 1991
ISBN: 978-0380764204
Genre: Historical: American
You guys do understand that I read these primarily because I enjoy it, right? I mean, some of them were “unpleasant” (Purity’s Passion, I am looking at you), some are off the hook (Forbidden Desires? That’s you) and some are so wonderfully trashy I can’t help but adore them (Henley is my kryptonite).
For the most part, I enjoy it. I think I have a very selective form of masochism. And, in general, if I truly hate it, or it’s just not interesting enough to review, I won’t review it. This book is a bit different, though. Because I did hate it, but there’s a facet here that I haven’t seen discussed a lot.
I blame Zoe Archer for this. She put the cover of this book on her tumblr, with the caption “My books don’t look like this.” That, of course, is like waving a red flag at a bull and throwing him a china shop. I HAD to read it. (Because I’m the bull, see?) (…that sounds rather bad.) (Yes, I know Mythbusters thinks they busted the bull in china shop myth, but they had problems with their methodology in that one, so it’s still open, as far as I am concerned.)
This book is FUCKED. UP. Not deliciously fucked up like Seduced, and not fucked up in a “what the shit is this history you are butchering” like another early Henley a friend of mine loaned me. There is nothing delicious about this. This is FUCKED UP LIKE WHOA.
Our heroine is Jessica, alternatively known as Jess or Jessie, who grew up in St. Louis (which counts as “back East” which I can tell you amuses the hell out of people on the East coast. When they think about these things, which is not a lot). She grew up without her father, because her mother couldn’t hack it in the Wyoming territory. After her mother died, she decides to go to Wyoming to find her father.
One the way there, she is taking a bath in a hotel in some town in Wyoming, where the door is busted down by Steve Kincaid (our….uh, hero, I guess) in the throes of a fight. Jessica pulls on her robe and tell him to leave, while he…. Kisses her, gropes her, and would have taken her to bed right then and there had someone else not come into her room. He leaves and she’s like “what the fuck was that. Thank god I’ll never see him again.”
So she gets to Wyoming, makes friends with the local madam, and finds her father, Jeff, and they have a freakishly perfect relationship right off the bat. Which from my experience in and observation of estranged parent-child relationships, this is not how that ever works.
But that’s not the truly fucked up thing.
Steve is the part owner of a neighboring ranch to Jeff’s place, and realizes that Jess is Jeff’s daughter. He’s been taken with her and hunts her down and turns out that she lived next door- it’s another one of those mostly closed-universes where there’s a limited number of people who show up and they JUST KEEP SHOWING UP. Makes it easier to keep track of everyone, but as far as feeling realistic, well, not so much.
But that’s not the truly fucked up thing.
At some point, when Steve finds Jess, he accosts her and fondles her and is all like “hey baby let’s get it on” and she gets angry and determines that he is at Kincaid’s ranch, and therefore must work for Kincaid, and informs him that she’s going to complain to his boss about his behavior. He tells her to stop struggling, unless she was prepared for him to make love to her there and then, and who would blame him when, “I tell them how prettily you undressed for me?” He allows her to think that she’ll get some satisfaction from complaining to the owner for the Kincaid ranch, and she finds out that her stalker and the next-door neighbor are the same person at a party. Where she wears a smoking hot pimped out dress that makes her boobs look great, so therefore she’s fair game.
You begin to see the truly fucked up thing. What I’m going to try to do (and we will see if it works) is just straight recap- because seriously, none of you need to read this, please don’t let this bullet I’m taking be in vain- and then editorialize and dissect it. Because I will go off on pages and pages of tangents and that’s no way to follow a story line.
Now, Jeff and Jess need money to make improvements to Jeff’s ranch, so Jeff borrows some from Steve. At the party, when Jess discovers that Steve is the douchebag who accosted her in the hotel that one time, she flips her shit, but he, tells her first that she left her skirt behind in their “argument” and he’ll tell everyone, unless she agrees to marry him. And if she doesn’t agree to marry him, he’ll call in the money that he loaned her father, and they just don’t have $500 lying around to pay him back with. She agrees, grudgingly.
The next day, Jess decides that clearly her was bluffing- there’s no other way about it, obviously this guy wouldn’t blackmail her into marriage and/or sex, right? She gets a message from him to come to the ranch, and she sends back a reply that tells him to go to hell (verbatim). His response? “Jessica Morgan, you are one spirited filly, but there’s been not one yet I haven’t broken and ridden.” So he goes after her, and there’s a bit of a horse chase, and he finally catches her, and there’s a whole thing where she tells him to go away, to not touch her, to leave her alone, bargain or no. And he tells her to stop professing to be a lady while she kicks and moans like a common whore. And then he calls her a cold-blooded bitch.
At which point she gives up and gives in, and they have some allegedly great sex, (even though he thinks that he needed her consent, even if given begrudgingly) and he is shocked -shocked!- to discover she was a virgin. Because only an experienced woman would…stand in her own hotel room after a bath with her nipples getting hard and respond to sexual pleasure.
Afterwards, she sleeps and he’s thinking this is great. He needs an heir, and he likes her and wants her, but god knows he doesn’t love her. She naturally, is utterly in love with him, because that’s what the Mighty Wang does. And is convinced that he loves her, because… that’s what the Mighty Wang does. But he asks her to marry him, for real, not because of the money, and she accepts.
Steve goes to a Cattlemen’s Association meeting or something that take him out of town for about a week, and Jess decides that hanging out at his ranch for wedding planning is a good idea. Also living at the ranch are Chad and Sarah- Chad is Steve’s partner, and Sarah is Chad’s wife. They and Jess of course hit it off enormously, and things are going well. There’s also a cook/housekeeper, named Connie, but all her friends call her Red. Because of the red hair. (Which shouldn’t annoy me, since lots of people call me Red, because of the red hair, but STIILL.) (I’m gonna cut to the chase here and tell you that Connie and Jeff hook up and get married.)
Steve runs into an ex of his, Margo, another woman in town that’s a spoiled rich brat who he’s fucked, and kind of thought about marrying until Jess came along. She doesn’t like the idea of not marrying Steve, so first she tries to seduce him, and when that fails, she marches off to Steve’s ranch to get rid of Jess. Which she does by pushing Jess down the stairs and trying to kill her.
(We’re not even a third of way through.)
Jess isn’t sure what made her fall, and isn’t willing to accuse Margo without proof, and then Margo drops the bomb that she is aware of the welts Jess left on Steve’s back while fucking him. Which makes Jess think that Steve and Margo have been making the beast with two backs. Steve comes home to find Jess angry and Margo telling him that she saw Chad and Jess possibily doing the nasty, so Steve flips his shit out and blames Chad for everything, and Jess leaves.
No, seriously, based on one sentence from Margo, Steve beats the shit out of Chad. And it gets sorted by about five minutes of conversation. I mean, really.
Jess goes back into town and seeks refuge from the local Madam (Who’s named Roxy, because of course she is). Jess still thinks that Steve was fucking Margo, and Roxy is all on Team Jess on this point. Steve comes to Roxy, looking for Jess, and Roxy doesn’t tell him that Jess in her house, but thinks that he isn’t acting like a guy who’s dumped Jess for Margo, so obviously he is in love. Then a random gunfight breaks out and Jess gets hit by a stray bullet and leaves town.
Where she gets picked up by the local Native American tribe- Absaroke, or Crow, depending on who is talking. Jess is wounded and all, so she hangs with the Absaroke while she recovers. She’s given the name Valley Woman because… she has hidden depths or something? I don’t even know. But as she’s working on being a productive member of society, she gets the feeling she’s being watched, and the Absaroke woman she’s been living with, Little Sparrow, tells her that there’s a guy who shows up some times, his name is Hawk and he is a member of the tribe, has been watching her for DAYS.
Jess thinks that she might like this guys that she’s never seen, not once, and decides that fucking him will make her forget Steve. So she tells Little Sparrow to tell her husband that if Hawk should visit, she would serve him. In all the ways that means. So he does, and sure enough, Hawk is in fact Steve.
“Why, woman, sigh?” A deep throaty whisper asked against her hair.
Jess nestled her head back against his shoulder. “I…I thought…”
“Answer, “ he breathed huskily when she paused.
Baring her soul, Jess answered honestly, “I thought only one man could make me feel this way.”
“Only one man can, Jess, “ a clear voice growled.
“No!” she shrieked, her body stiffening. It was another bad dream! This was Hawk, not…
So she begs him not to do this, but her body surrenders even as she says no. (Gag.)
In the morning, Jess finds Little Sparrow and is told that Little Sparrow was helping both Jess and Steve- Jess loves Steve and Steve wants Jess, so what’s the problem? Steve does apologize to Jess about the whole Margo thing, and tells her that Little Sparrow’s husband said that what Jess really needs is a beating. But instead he will pick her up and carry her back to the tent, because that’s a much better way of shutting her up. And as he does so, Jess screams for help, and Little Sparrow turn away from Jess and Steve with smiles.
Steve brings Jess back to her father’s house, who is utterly unconcerned with the fact that she’s been gone for weeks, and is hopeful that “maybe Steve had managed to tame his daughter at last.” Of course, he hasn’t, and she’s fuming about how she won’t marry him. Steve eventually says to her that he’ll respect her decisions.
Jess was more wary than ever. Could this be the same self-assured man who had manipulated her life?
“…I’m still going to marry you but I’ve decided to give you time to come to grips with the idea.”
Because clearly what she wants is courting. So courting he shall do. He also decides to forgive the money he’d loaned Jeff as a bride price (because some of the Indian tribes do that). Jess thinks this is bullshit and that she’s being bought and sold, and not because Steve loves her. So she yells enough that Steve storms out (seriously, it’s like Moonlighting, but just tiresome) and everyone tells Jess that she and Steve just need to “stop bickering” and “settle things.”
Jess thinks fine, lets do that then, and tries to settle the money issue so she and Jeff can be free and clear of Steve for real, and Steve again tries to get her to agree to the sex for money exchange, but really, she wouldn’t be a whore. Instead he forces her to bed. Again.
“I’m….I’m sorry, Jessie. I swear I didn’t mean for this to happen.” Steve saw the tears and felt like a bastard.
Because they need money, Jess starts working for Roxy. Not as a whore, god no, that would not do. Instead she works as a hostess, and of course everyone respects the limits she sets, because there’s only one man in the world who won’t take her no for an answer. Steve finds out, of course, and goes to bother her at work, where Roxy is perfectly happy to let them fight it out in public. Of course nothing is solved, because we’re only halfway through, and Steve finally decides, with Jeff’s blessing, to kidnap Jess.
Let me repeat that. Steve decides the only way to get Jess to agree with his view of the world is to KIDNAP her. And her father gives his blessing. “I’m on your side, my boy. I was just picturing my lovely daughter’s reaction when she finds out what you have in store for her.”
(Pardon me, I have to vomit.)
So Steve kidnaps her by WHACKING HER ON THE HEAD, which naturally gives her amnesia (OF COURSE IT DOES), and he tells her, when she wakes up, that they just got married. So they have an enjoyable interlude in a cabin in the mountains. Just about when the snow is going to start falling, a mountain man comes by, who knew Jess’ mother, and tells her she came from St. Louis, which is not the same thing Steve had been telling her. They start fighting, and he is not longer gentle with her and then she remembers everything.
She convinces the mountain man to help her get home, leaving Steve trapped in the cabin for the winter (more contrived timing could not be had). The mountain man convinces Steve to give her until spring, and Steve’s response to that? “…come spring, I’m going, and if I have to bind and gag her to have her back, I will, and not you or anyone else will stand in my way.”
She’s very sad, and misses him a lot, but is determined to go on home and leave him behind for good.
You can guess how well that works out.
Jess also discovers that she is pregnant, because of course she is. She gives birth before Steve can come down off the mountain. But not before she’s told that she has commitment issues. And that’s why she and Steve can’t work their shit out. It’s a boy, and she gets a job working at an orphanage Roxy started (but no one is town knows that she’s backing, because of the whole “hooker” thing).
Steve comes into town and finds Jess there, and finds out that the baby is his son, and not just some random orphan and brings Jess (kicking and screaming, literally) back to the ranch, where he attempts again to court her with no sex. For six weeks. He tells Jess that she has to come with him, or he’ll ruin her father and tell the boarding school that houses Roxy’s daughter what her mother does. So Jess HAS to go with him.
Everyone in town is pleased as punch at this, because Jess and Steve are just perfect for each other, they just need to accept it.
Jess leaves, again, and hides with Absaroke, while Steve runs to St. Louis and back looking for her, and finally finds her with the tribe. Jess is told that she can become a full member of the tribe, if she wants. She’s told that to do that, she must go to a tent hidden in the woods or whatever and stay there for three days. Naturally, Steve is there, and she’s like “…but I’m becoming a member of the tribe!” and he says “Well, actually we’re in a marriage tent right now, and I am a member of the tribe, so yes, by marriage you are!”
THE END.
What the fuck.
WHAT IN THE ACTUAL FUCK.
WHAT IS THIS FUCKERY.
We could talk about the rape, because, face it, there’s a lot of “no, no!” and punishing kisses and overbearing her will, but we’ve talked about that. At length. And I think you guys get it. There’s only a handful of time where Jess is consenting from beginning to end, and a lot of those are when she has amnesia.
When I told Zoe that this was her fault, I also told her that if this book were presented as a spotter’s guide to abusive relationships, that would be one thing. But this relationship, in all of its abusive text that is not subtext, is represented as a happy, fluffy romance, and if they would just admit that they love each other, IT WOULD BE OKAY
Well. As a survivor of an abusive relationship, let me tell you. “Lack of love” is not the problem. The problem is control. The problem is violence. The problem is agency. The problem is that it’s SO HARD to get out. And even though it’s been over ten years, there are still ripples from the entire mess in my life. And I was lucky- I was able to end it comparatively early. So.
We talk a lot about Alpha males, but of all the old school romances I’ve read, and there have been quite a few, this is the most disgustingly abusive asshole I’ve ever seen called a hero. I’ve seen less abusive villains. And I don’t we’ve talked about abusive behavior a great deal- it doesn’t come up much, and usually if there is abusive behavior, the hero (it’s always the hero, never the heroine) makes an effort to change as part of his character arc.
There are so many ways that Steve displays extreme controlling behavior. He won’t let her make choices, he gets angry when he thinks she’s been talking with another man, when he wants sex and she doesn’t, he grabs her hair and yanks her head around until she acquiesces. He threatens her and the people she loves unless she stays with him.
Now, in early Roman law, there was a provision in contract law that consent under duress is still consent. But Roman jurists figured out that that was a douchey thing, and recognized that consent under duress is not consent at all. And Jess consistently says no until it’s clear that “no” isn’t going to make a difference. Now, this could be a case of showing “good girls don’t willingly enjoy sex,” because as written she does enjoy it once she accepts the inevitable. Pairing it with the emotional abuse and ultra-controlling behavior makes it even worse.
The thing that gets me SO MUCH and makes me so angry is that Steve’s behavior is presented as normal and admirable, so there’s no reason for him to grow or change. As long as he admits that he loves Jess, everything will be fine.
And that’s bullshit. No one calls him out, no one says “Dude, SHE SAID NO. Maybe you should leave her alone.” Anywhere Jess tries to go for help ends up throwing her under the bus- he goes so far as to chase her to St. Louis when he thinks she went there. Really, the only realistic end I see for these two characters is one of them will kill the other.
The thing I found most terrifying was the number of people who saw what Steve was doing, and didn’t see a problem with it. Even as Jess is screaming for him to stop, to put her down, to go away, they all either turned away or told her to stop struggling and smiling knowingly. Her own father is down with the idea of Steve kidnapping her and stealing her away for months. At the very end, the Absaroke are willing to let her think she’s performing one ritual, when really she’s getting married without her consent.
Now, I do think that it’s important to explore the mindset of the abuser- if we can understand it, maybe we can prevent it, right? It’s one reason why I like the Eminem-Rhianna song “Love the Way You Lie,” because I think it does explore the mentality of both abuser and abused and how it’s not all bad and certainly not all good and how it all can spiral out of control and why people stay in these relationships. Some of it is awful, but they call the period between outbursts the “Honeymoon period” for a reason.
I’m just saying.
Anyway, this isn’t an exploration of an abusive relationship. It doesn’t try to be anything other than a fluffy romance, but it’s horrible. It’s the Twilight syndrome, only decades early. Stalker = love. Controlling behavior = love. Abuse = love.
ARGH.
The writing itself isn’t good- it’s very first-novel-y and awkward. I mean, I’m told in the early 90s, the publishing houses were pretty much buying anything which is how a bunch of this schlock got published in the first place. But in light of everything else, I don’t care all that much about bad writing. The character of the entire story is off-putting.
The only thing that kept me from throwing this book is the fact that I was on a cross-country flight and the air marshall would have tackled me (and rightfully so). As it was, I suspect my seatmate got pretty tired of me going “WHAT” and “OH GOD” every three pages.
Try looking up “The Sheik” on Project Gutenberg sometime.
@Zoe: That’s not fair! I haven’t played Uno for AGES. (I do adore you, you know that, right?)
@brandi: Got halfway through it. It’s on my kindle (free!) and, well. Yeah.
Wow. Just wow.
The names remind me of “Full House” for some reason…also, “Saved By the Bell”. Except both of those shows are much better than this book sounds.
Wow… just… wow. Good thing I was not drinking anything while reading that…
(contemporary romance plot idea: meet-cute when she chucks a horrible romance novel at handsome air marshall hero’s head….)
kkw: I’d be glad to forward it on once I get my hands on one, email me at khpinson @ gmail.com. When you are done just burn it and we will pretend like it never happened.
@SuperWendy – I agree with RHG that the early 90s were transitional. We had Amanda Quick (aka Jayne Ann Krentz) writing mostly great, non-rapey historicals – which in my opinion, are way better than her current historicals. And then we had crap like this. A lot of crap like this. Ugh.
I got into romances in the early 90’s and garbage like this lovely specimen must be why a) I kept my romance habit a guilty, guilty secret, and b) discovering Quick seemed like such a revelation at the time – smart heroines and non-abusive heroes!?!! Who like each other? What a concept! When I wax nostalgic for the wonderful historicals of yore, I’m thinking of books like Quick’s Ravished or Desire and blocking all the horrible books I picked up and never finished during the same time period.
@Zoe and redheaded girl…uno, eh? Well, if that’s what you young kids are calling it these days…
@Mighty Jesse – check out Think Geek. I bet your goth toddler would love a t shirt that says “Self-rescuing princess”.
Romance novels were started before the 70’s and 80’s, so I am confused. Why was it such a trend for rape books? I read about ten Barbara Cartland books as a young teen? Her heroines were virgins of course, but eventually they got married and sometimes even included brief if vague descriptions of the wedding nights after everyone was in love where the rake-groom made love to his virgin bride and She enjoyed it. (and she had already decided to hook up with him, even if she didn’t understand what was involved.)
what happened? sorry I am young, and new to this site.
People always say that women needed rape to experience sexuality, but why?
Also if there were people like this; it seems to me there are a lot of people still out there like this.
All hail RHG! You are the QUEEN! I love your reviews.
This one in particular was very illuminating in that, often times, I am tempted to dismiss such degrading and dangerous plot points as “dated” when in fact, as you say, they equate control with love.
This also sounds like a freakishly long book. I kept thinking the summary would end…and it continued seemingly for eternity. I doubt I would have finished the novel myself.
Wow. Just…wow. Thanks for taking another one for the team, RHG.
The review is hilarious as are many of the comments. I’m so glad I didn’t start reading romances until the last few years (except for some Harlequins in college); I don’t know what my poor mind would have been warped into (the most overtly sexual book – with a sexually frank heroine – I read as a teen was Heinlein’s “Friday”).
As for Edward’s being abuse, I definitely saw him as very controlling throughout the entire series. On one hand, he was a lot older and had more life experience, especially dealing with the dangers of vampires, than Bella. Bella, who was a rather together and responsible teen girl until she met Edward, fell apart after being with him. This is why I didn’t like the series (yes, I read all 4 books). I want to see characters grow in the course of a book, especially for YA, not regress. Bella had plans of college and was taking care of herself and her father. Then the whole Edward thing happened and she can’t even take care of herself, let alone her dreams – no wonder Edward wanted to tell her what to do; I wanted to do so as well. Yes, Jacob at times was manipulative but at least he was an actual teenager so he was bound to make mistakes in a relationship; Edward didn’t have that excuse.
@ Diva: It was maybe 400 page, mass market with annoyingly small typeface. I also got annoyingly detailed in the summary because I wanted to make sure I hit most of the low points (but there were SO many more examples of Steve the Asshole I didn’t put it).
@ Emily: The answer to your question is pretty complicated. I will also say that I think the earliest I’ve read is The Flame and the Flower, from… 74? and that’s a pretty classic example of a rape-y OG Old Skool romance.
First, the perception of female sexuality in that era was in major flux, and the rape narrative gave the heroine “permission” to enjoy extra-marital sex without seeming like a slut. Society has been very very VERY screwed up about women and sex for a VERY long time and it gets reflected in the art of society. I do not believe it’s a coincidence that romances got less rapey as women’s sexuality got more….um, mainstream is the word I want, I think? Heroes, as a trend, got less Alpha-Male and controlling as women and society because to put up with that type of shit less. It’s still not perfect, not by any means, but it’s better. And the art, again, reflects that.
Second: a fair number (and I did not know this until I review Purity’s Passion a couple months ago) were written by men. Knowing that, a lot of things that bothered me about Purity’s Passion make sense.
Third: A number of books from the 70s and 80s were more “epic historicals” rather than romances, and were about women (how was it put in the Adora comments?) “fucking through history.” One way people at the time were writing about women and major historical events was putting them at the fringes, and making the majority of those sexual encounters non-consensual made the heroine (again) not a promiscuous slut.
That’s only a couple of reasons, by no means all of them. Sarah and Candy’s book Beyond Heaving Bosoms has a pretty good analysis of Rape in Romance, as well
Brandi – Just read about The Sheik on Wikipedia and you can rest assured I am not touching that book with a ten foot pole.
Oh, RHG, you and your review are SO AWESOME. This book sounds terrible, and I will not be picking it up, ever, because yeah, I don’t need more rage in my life.
Brandi – I just looked up THe Sheik and no, just no. A huge WTF on that one.
Isn’t Friday the one where she actually “lies back and enjoys” rape?
I loved Heinlein as a teen and I think he gave me many, many more effed up ideas about what love and sex should be like than the romances I read.
Wow. What to say first?
RHG, you rock. Love your reviews. You mention just up there *points* about ‘epic historicals’. I remember a Diana Palmer book where the heroine is a writer, romance of course, and the hero sneers at her because she has to wear racy clothing to her book signings and thinks she’s a ho because she has racy, steamy scenes in her books. She defends those scenes by saying something along the lines of “Well, they won’t publish the books without it.” (Very loose paraphrasing on my part) She defends the books by saying they’re really historical accounts of things, blah blah. I wondered at the time if this was the author’s way of saying she only includes sex in her books because it’s a requirement to be published. Kind of like having to try out the casting couch in Hollywood…
Okay, another thing – I’m glad I didn’t have access to a ton of books in the early 1990s. I lived in a geographically isolated region, and Wal-Mart/K-Mart were pretty much the only choices for book sources.
Carolyn J., there are unfortunately still regions of the country where this sort of behavior goes unpunished or unacknowledged. Getting less and less common, but it still happens. 🙁
I just riffed off your review back at my own blog and gave you some link love. It pisses me off that this shit even gets published. Really? I mean, really? Romances are for women? What makes the publisher think that this is what women want?
I know dozens of talented writers whose writing languishes on the B list while this stuff gets shipped in droves. Gah!
http://amnottheonlyone.blogspot.com/2011/03/some-books-need-warning-labels.html
You know, I have to cut Steve a little slack. If I had 2 heads and one of them was a little white horse, I wouldn’t be a very nice person either.
So, show some compassion, y’all 🙂
I was wrong. The author really is a female. Found at http://historicalromancewriters.com/authorinfo.cfm?authorid=707 compl,ete with picture:
From the time JoAnn could read, the written word became a passion. She could be anyone and go anywhere. Married for over thirty years to husband Tom, she has been blessed with a man who supports her passion for writing. Stimulated by several authors, she found the literary world as fascinating as the real one and set out to write a novel. And re-write as she learned the craft. Her first book, Scoundrel’s Captive, introduced her to the wonderful world of networking and travel. Scoundrel’s Desire opened the doors to feminine bonding from all over the world. When not writing, she works full time, fishes whenever possible with her husband, and still keeps reading, researching and learning. As an Administative Assistant for Healing the Children, JoAnn feels she has the best of all worlds.
@Allyson, I vaguely remember some scifi book in which the heroine endured being gang-raped by provoking her captors with how none of them are man enough to satisfy her or something. That might have been from Heinlein’s “Friday”. I just didn’t like the idea that in the future, when space travel and engineered people are common place, they still had to kill a rabbit for a pregnancy test.
@ infinitieh and Allyson – I remember reading Friday many years ago. Talk about WTF. Not only is she gang-raped, but her nipple is sawn off by bad-guys and then later re-grown (so that makes it ok). And at some point she’s part of a group marriage (that made an impression on me – pretty sure that was my first introduction to poly-amorous-ness, if that’s the right term). I had to look this up on Amazon to make sure I remembered this right, and wow, it’s way worse than I remembered. I’d forgotten that she marries one of her rapists. Ick.
I have have actually read THE SHIEK. I bet if you typed it up as a manuscript, and offered it to Harlequin under the title THE DESERT SHIEK’S CAPTIVE BLONDE VIRGIN, it would get published.
Heinlen had some pretty WTF stuff back in the day. In high school I made a bet with a buddy as to who could finish his The Number of the Beast first. Neither of us could finish it, as it turned out, so the bet was forfeit. There was consensual incest in that one – but it was to save humanity, so apparently that made it okay (blergh).
@ Superwendy
I’m pretty sure Mary Jo Putney’s Silk trilogy came out in 1991 or 1992. I think when readers reminisce about historicals from that time, they aren’t yearning for the rapey stuff; they miss the variety in time periods and depth of research that has become tough to find today. Regencies used to be category books. Now they dominate the single title market. If you want something a little different (and Putney’s silk books are Victorian and take you places like Afghanistan during the Great Game) you have to search harder these days. Not that you can’t find them (and most of the breakout authors recently aren’t writing Regencies ie Bourne, Milan, Duran) but I suspect that books like Scoundrel’s Captive are the reason why readers, publishers, and authors shy away from other periods. With a Regency, the conventional settings preclude rape in a teepee.
Jay-sus, RHG. You are the Richard Harris of romance masochism. Reading this book seems like the equivalent of being strung up by your nipples al la A Man Called Horse.
Holy f’ing shit.
While I was writing a very long post about La Woodiwiss for the MacMillan blog, I had to go back and read some of her stuff, because it’s been literally 35 years since I last read them (in junior high in the 70s). And I was agog, anew, at all the rapetastic elements in The Flame and the Flower and, even more so, in The Wolf and The Dove (I hate Wolfgar. Fucking hate him.) Reading these books as a grown woman was very strange. I was appalled, and disappointed, in the way you’re disappointed when you remember loving something as a youngster and finding it not at all the same thing when you’re grown.
All of which is to say that compared to THIS fuckery, Woodiwiss was enlightened.
RHG – I would never ask you to read this, but a while back my MIL gave me a Violet Winspear book – apparently she was hugely popular in the 60s and 70s – IOW, before and after Woodiwiss. A Brit, she was originally a Mills and Boon author. Her books didn’t have explicit sex, but boy howdy did they have rapetastic, abusive heroes. The hero of The Honey Is Bitter, the book I read, blackmails the heroine into marriage. He’s cold and taunting and controlling but of course, when the lights go out she can’t help herself. The Magic Wang, it’s just that good.
The prose is stilted and the narrative has this oddly detached air. It felt like I was reading a story about a story, if you know what I mean. No emotional depth to the characters whatsoever. It was so bad I looked up Violet (long dead) at Wikipedia and found that she wrote a hell of a lot of books and was wildly popular. I also ran across this quote from her:
What the fuck indeed.
It also occurs to me that I may have commented about Violet here before and, if I did, I apologize. I’m getting old.
I need an Excedrin!
OMG, Kinsey. I’ve got The Wolf and the Dove on my kindle and HOLY CRAP.
Yep. Something I didn’t recall from my junior high days – the part where they lose the baby? And at first she’s all distraught but then it’s like – oh well, the baby’s gone. Might as well go home. Now, I know losing a child in the Dark Ages was far more common than today but holy crap – he wasn’t dead, he was kidnapped! Why wasn’t she beating Wulfgar with his own sword and yelling “Get your men and find my baby RIGHT THIS GODDAMN MINUTE YOU ASSHOLE!”
Yeah, rape activists are still working on getting people to recognize that today.
AnaB: As much as I love Crusie, I always had issues with that book too. I thought Bill was done excellently and (except for the jail term ending) realistically, but I had issues with Nick. Esp there was a seduction scene that was borderline for me, because it was from the heroine’s pov and you read her wanting it, but if you look at it from the hero’s it was just her saying no several times.
First book of Mom’s that I ever swiped and read under cover of blankets with a flashlight was “A Pirate’s Lady” by Johanna Lindsey. At age 13, I can’t believe that I wasn’t completely put off romances for the rest of my life with that bit of rap-e tomfuckery. I would get the physical shits if I even had a CLUE that my 15 year old had read a book like that!
It just reinforces Dark Helmet’s stupid little domination game with the dolls in Spaceballs, right?
holy crappers. I had a panic attack just reading the review. Why would nobody help her?!
On the subject of younger selves reading the rapey hero books and enjoying them: I was talking with a friend the other day, and she mentioned that she was a bit horrified, now, thinking about the romance novels she read and enjoyed when she was younger and thought her younger self should have read books where the heroes weren’t quite so…rapey. I know my mom was horrified when, after I’d grown up, she found out about some of the books I read when I was younger. I’ve reread some of those books, and they bother me now, too.
The thing is, though, I really do think quite a bit of it must have either gone over my younger self’s head, or gotten twisted to suit my needs. Somehow I gradually got to the point where I started disliking some of the things the uber Alpha heroes did, and disliking that the heroines only ever offered token protests. And somehow this happened without me ever having to sit down with someone and talk about just what was so very wrong about the way the the characters in these books were acting.
So, I’m not saying I’d ever say, “Yay, here, read these!” if my niece started taking in interest in romance novels with uber Alpha rapey heroes (my niece isn’t even a year old yet, so there’s time before this would ever be an issue), but I’d like to think I wouldn’t freak out if I found out she was reading stuff like this (well, hopefully not exactly stuff like this). I’d just have to make sure I left some palate cleaners lying around.
Also thinking of my younger self (or my daughter…quelle horreur!) reading these rape-ventures passing as romance novels and shivering. (I would have been reading as a late teen, twenty-something in the late 70’s/early 80’s). As LG said, much of the story must have gone over our heads or we re-imagined it to fit our somewhat limited construct at the time. I do know that in my dealings with the men in my life I utilized what I picked up in my readings…when I said “No”, I made sure that the man of the moment respected that I, indeed, meant an absolute, resolute, uncompromising “No”. And the minute I got the hint of “I am a manly man and you must recognize and respect that”, he was outta there. So perhaps, for some of us, these hideous stories learned us a little somethin’. That being said, I’m glad their day has waned to the point that so many of you younger women are horrified and fascinated, as if by an animal that is extinct. Yay!
ball49…even if you have that many brass ones, I still mean “No”
Good lord, how did you read the whole book? I couldn’t even read the whole review—I had to cut to the chase (your analysis at the end) about half way through.
Of course, in my younger days, I’d have likely read the whole damn thing. Heaven knows, I read my share of Winspear and Woodiwiss, et al. They all belong, with varying degrees, to the subgenre of “romance” in which the hero spends the vast majority of the book verbally (if not physically) abusing the heroine, believing despite all evidence to the contrary the absolute worst about her whenever possible and in the final HEA scene asks, “Couldn’t you tell how much I loved you all this time?” To which any sensible woman would have responded, “????? You mean, all those times you called me a bitch and a whore and thief and socially deficient? You mean all THOSE little clues? Yeah, no, “I love you, woman” wasn’t exactly the message I took from that.” But of course the heroine usually responded with something a bit less insightful, like “Oh, darling, I was a fool!”
Hit54—over the years, I’ve wanted to hit more heroines than that (for the above….)
Living it will make you a whole lot more sensitive to this sort of thing. I know I absolutely hate/cannot stand/scream icky-icky in situations of a character being helpless no-chance-to-stand-up-for-oneself trapped. Glad you made it out.
I feel your pain. I just finished a John Ringo novella (SF) where the main character is abducted, repeatedly raped, then “falls in love with” her rapist (an asshat who could give Hitler stiff competition for the title of Most Self-Righteous Narcissistic Sociopath of All Time). It was marketed as erotica, although the novella isn’t exceptionally explicit. (Or particularly erotic—it totally lacked the heat that a good author can generate when they pay attention to more than slot A—> tab B.) Trust me, it wasn’t the orgy I found disturbing.
It was the complete and utter WTF-ery of the author’s attempt to convince the reader that the heroine was a kick-ass genius who a) had Stockholm Syndrome and b) enjoyed being raped while c) also plotting the villain’s demise. Yeah.
The rape/dominance/submission theme was really heavy handed, and after reading it, I kinda wish I could take a whiteboard eraser to my brain and scrub the last hour from my memory. I like some of his other work, but reading this made me feel—unclean.
RHG, I loved your review! You remind me of myself with the exception that I have the sound effect. For example: “eh uhhhh,” and tilting my head in confusion. A lot of reality shows use the sound effect and I insert my own. Crazy yes, but I amuse myself. You did better than I and finished the book whereas I would have left it in the pouch on the airplane seat in front of me. And think of the joy it would bring to someone on the next flight! NOT!
I am a Twi-Mom and I didn’t discover the Twilight series until I took my daughter to see Eclipse. (She saw the first two movies.) I came out thinking ‘what is so great about Bella and why does everyone want her?” Then I got sucked into the series. I gloss over the controlling/stalking factor and stare at Edward because 1) he’s tall and 2) has a strong jawline. Stupid, I know.
I read Flame and the Flower and it was passed around to my girlfriends while I was in high school. Definitely two rape scenes that I recall but romance has evolved (one would hope). At least I don’t get that far in the book because I give it the heave-ho before my gag reflex cranks up.
Great review—as always!