Book Review

Tender is the Storm by Johanna Lindsey

So I started reading this because someone who shall remain nameless but who’s name rhymes with D-Ellie posted the original cover art, which involves titty-fucking basically and I had to read it. What better way to get back into the Old School Groove than to read me some crazysauce Lindsey?

Spoiler: there’s no actual titty-fucking in this book.

So we start with the introduction of Slade Holt, who’s been living with the Apache since his father was killed over a gold strike in Arizona. He is ready to embark on his roaring rampage of revenge, but needs to go to the East to learn how to be civilized or something, then we cut to an unspecified time later, where he runs into the guy who actually pulled the trigger on his father. He’s got a reputation as a stone cold killer, because quiet dudes always are really deadly and you can tell because they’re quiet. This seems recursive to me, but whatever. Anyway, he gets the guy to spill on who his employers are – a landowner that’s no good with a gun but has a provision in his will that if he were to die by malice, the man who kills him would get a crapton of money. Basically there are Reasons not to kill the man who ordered his father’s murder, so instead Slade embarks on a Ridiculously Over-Complicated Revenge Plot of Revenge. But before he gets that started, Slade kills the quiet gunman, and we switch to-

New York, where Sherisse Hammond is preparing for her arranged marriage to her father’s business partner or something. Her younger sister Stephanie is MADLY in love with Sherisse’s fiancé, and decides that she’ll become a mail order bride in Arizona. Somehow, Stephanie convinces Sherisse to go to Arizona instead and then daddy will just let Stephanie marry Sherisse’s fiancé (I swear this is a plan out of Full House) and then Sherisse can come back to NYC and no harm no foul. So Sherisse gets the tickets to Arizona and has her jewels to sell so she can bail on Arizona until SURPISE it turns out Stephanie swiped her jewels so all she has to her name are tickets to Arizona, a trunk full of city clothes, and a Persian cat. Because one mustn’t travel without a Persian cat in a basket.

Persian in a pink basket
“Ah will cut you. Hold still.”

Sherisse ends up in Arizona where she finds her mail order fiancé Lucas Holt, who has spent several paragraphs thinking to himself about his unspecified plan to ruin Sam Newcombe (the Big Bad who ordered the murder of Slade and Lucas’s father) and how getting a mail order fiancee for himself was part of this plan. He has no intention of marrying the poor girl who shows up, but when Sherisse gets off the stagecoach, he immediately starts thinking with his boner-parts. She claims to be a widow, which he thinks is awesome- if she’s a widow, she’s not a virgin, so they can bang!

She find herself totally disgusted at the idea of his ranch, which has a cabin with two bedrooms and no servants. As the lady of the house, she’s expected to like, WORK, and cook and do dishes and it’s just so hot and gross and omg her dainty hands. Lucas tells her that the preacher isn’t in town at the moment, and they can wait a bit to get to know each other before tying the knot, and she sends a letter to Stephanie saying “OMG GET ME HOME RIGHT NOW.”

A few days after Sherisse arrives in Arizona, Lucas takes her to a party (where she is woefully overdressed) and she is given the lowdown on Lucas’s half-savage, gunslinging twin brother by the town gossips. Sherisse promptly gets drunk and she and Lucas make out a bunch and he cops a feel and she basically passes out drunk. He goes through a series of thoughts about how he could totally have her right now, but he doesn’t want to just fuck her, he wants to seduce her when she has all her faculties. He’s a prince.

Lucas goes off with his Indian BFF (Billy) to round up some horses, and is gone for a week. Sherisse is woken up one night by a “savage version” of Lucas, and hey! It’s his twin brother, coldly saying he can totally have her whenever, and Lucas will TOTES be okay with this because they’re twins, and they share everything. Sherisse is not convinced by this theory (yet is attracted to him), and manages to convince him that rape is not the answer, and a day or so later she decides fuck this, I’m going to ride out to where Lucas is. Problem is, she can’t ride a horse, but thinks it can’t possibly be THAT hard.

Slade insists he go with her, and since she can’t ride, if she MUST go see Lucas, she’ll just have to ride with him- in groping distance, of course. Once they arrive, Billy is surprised to see them, says Lucas is around somewhere, and Slade goes off to find him. Lucas shows up, dressed like Slade, but that TOTALLY makes sense, because he’s off rounding up horses! Of course, she thinks, he’s gonna dress like a savage! Since it’s late, they all have to camp together, but Lucas takes Sherisse off a little ways to be private, and they knock boots. Sherisse is relieved that Lucas doesn’t seem to have noticed that she’s a virgin.

Sherisse tells Lucas that she kind of hates his brother, because he’s a dick, and he accuses her of being attracted to Slade, and maybe things weren’t all as innocent with Slade as she says? It’s kinda gross. This pattern repeats itself a lot.

The annoyingly complicated revenge plot continues, blah blah blah, a lawyer shows up in town from St. Louis who’s been hired to find a runaway young woman from New York (it’s Sherisse, of course, but she is giving Hammond as her married name, and she couldn’t possibly be the runaway girl. Then there’s a weird subplot about her cat transferring his affections to Sherisse because he’s never mated with a female cat? I don’t know.

So Slade shows up a couple more times, and SHOCKINGLY no one seems to have noticed that you never see Slade and Lucas in the same place. Maybe Slade is Batman. Lucas is also a controlling dickwad, and basically forces Sherisse to ride into town one day wearing pants. While he’s right that it’ll be more comfortable for her in terms of chaffing, the embarrassment of it will not be. But he’s a dick and we knew that. Oh, and the farm get’s “attacked” by Indians, and Slade “saves” the day and they suck face a little bit before he shoves her away and these two are just exhausting.

Finally, Sherisse’s useless younger sister gets a letter to her, and apparently their father is just livid and telling everyone Sherisse is ill and if Sherisse isn’t home within a week, she’ll be disinherited. And then Sam Newcombe shows up with a preacher, and she and Lucas are married. Sherisse begs for Lucas to send her home to New York, but surprise, he tells her that he’s broke and can’t afford to. He also admits that he never intended to get married, but she can’t be mad at HIM since SHE didn’t intend to get married, but she points out that just because SHE didn’t intend to get married doesn’t mean that whatever poor girl he picked for this scheme would also not want to get married and basically these are two awful people who deserve each other. Sherisse peaces out and heads off to New York anyway. Slade stops her and she tells him that she wants Lucas, but he doesn’t want a wife so fuck everything and everyone. (Also the marriage wasn’t legal, but she doesn’t know that.)

Lucas succeeds in his revenge plan and ruins Sam Newcombe financially, so he also peaces out of Arizona (not broke but with a fuckton of money), and goes to Paris, where he finds a man that Sherisse had thought she was in love with. He just made a game out of seducing virgins and then having his wife come in and find them. So Lucas rearranges his face. He then makes his way to New York, to find Sherisse.

Sherisse is back at home, where her sister has married Sherisse’s former fiancé in secret, and lied all over that other letter (Sherisse won’t be disinherited, and basically Stephanie is the worst sister ever). There’s a whole big fight about who this poor fiancé (who no one seems to think should have any say in this whole mishigas) should marry, and annulments get thrown around and it’s ridiculous and I hate everyone. Eventually Lucas shows up and they reconcile and he tells her that SURPRISE there is no Slade, or rather, there is no Lucas, he got killed in the same ambush that killed Slade/Lucus/Slacus’s father, and really Lucas and Slade are parts of the same dude’s personality, and yeah, I lied to you baby, but the sex is good, right?

THE END.

Ugh.

Well, I’ll say this. It’s a ridiculous plot of one dude pretending to be twins (AND NO ONE NOTICES) (THESE PEOPLE ARE ALL STUPID) and ridiculous is good! Ridiculous is fun! And for Lindsey, this is SOOOOOO not rapey (everything else of hers I’ve read is pretty rapey. Everything). (I said “for Lindsey”- Slade does let Sherisse think he’s considering rape, and that it’s only his generosity? that prevents him from doing so. Sherisse doesn’t know that, and we don’t know that except that he’s not the hero listed on the cover copy). So it’s got that going for it.

But as these things go, this is just badly written. Things are told, not shown, and everyone is terrible. Slacus is an ASSHOLE. Sherisse (what is with that name) is an idiot. Stephanie is the worst little sister since Stephanie Tanner. She stole her sister’s jewelry so Sherisse wouldn’t chicken out! She got herself into this mess because she just couldn’t manage to cope with her sister marrying the guy she thought she was in love with (but possibly never talked to? Ever? It’s unclear) and why learn coping skills when you can just make yourself a mail order bride?

I mean seriously.

I’m not sure if Lindsey was trying to hide the ball about Lucas and Slade being Slacus. The prologue is about Slade, and the story of how he killed the gunslinger that killed his father, and then all we get is Lucas Lucas Lucas. I went and double-checked the cover copy, because I wasn’t sure why we get this crap about deadly gunslinger Slade if Lucas was the hero. Then we get a bunch of times where Lucas is barely able to keep a straight face when people tell him how terrifying Slade is and HOW CAN YOU KEEP SEEING A BROTHER LIKE THAT OMG. So it’s blatantly obvious, but there’s precious little subtlety involved in this book at all.

Sherisse learning cooking skills is kind of hilarious, and the call to reality when she thinks she’ll be able to insist on “At least a half-dozen servants” makes my 99%er heart happy, but still. She’s going to ARIZONA for fuck’s sake. She barely knows where that is. But she’s too stupid to figure out this dude is pretending to be two people! And that this whole running off to fake being a mail order bride plan is the worst plan since Odysseus said “I’ll be home for supper.” I need my heroines to be smart. I really do.

And Slacus! And his ridiculous convoluted revenge plot which, whatever, no one cares about this. He explains his twin-ception thing as being because everyone knew who Slade was, and knowing that he was a dangerous, murdering gunslinger, and no one would buy him as a respectable ranch owner, so he became his dead brother. Sure. Okay. That’s…. sure. That’s a lot of work, and you have to hope that no one says, “Wait a second…” but sure.

I read this purely because of the cover and it did not live up to it.

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Tender is the Storm by Johanna Lindsey

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  1. LF says:

    What? No titty-fucking? BOO!

  2. So…

    Is there even a metaphorical storm in the book? A tenderstorm?

  3. Jessica says:

    Always great to read a redheadedgirl review. I thought I had read this book, but in the one I read the hero got kidnapped and the heroine had to let the guard feel her up to help the hero escape. I’m not even a little surprised that there’s more than one old skool cowboy fake twin revenge book.

  4. A tiny thing: The author spells her name Lindsey with an e, not an a. Otherwise, your review totally matches my memory of that book. And I remember the other cover from back in the day when I was reading (sneaking) my mother’s copy — it is one of JL’s more racy/ridiculous covers!

  5. Amanda says:

    I remember this one and as you have stated the cover was really the best thing about this one. There are several Lindsey novels I loved and others that gave me a WTF feeling. This one clearly went in the WTF pile.

  6. D. Kirk says:

    The…best.

  7. Anda Rae says:

    “…it’s ridiculous and I hate everyone.” This. Just. This.

  8. Karin says:

    OK, so you’re reviewing “Tender is the Storm” today and the next post features “Flowers From the Storm”. I feel like I’m getting blizzard-trolled.

  9. Wendy says:

    OMG. This book. I was beginning to think I had created this book out of disparate pieces of things furtively consumed as a teenager, but no.
    I remember the cover. I remember the badly concealed twin plot and the random cat.
    Wow. Thanks for this.

  10. Bea says:

    Thank you, thank you! Your reviews are priceless!

  11. Danie says:

    Most review websites (AAR, DearAuthor) I read in the hopes that there will be an A review and I can go buy a book. Here? I am filled with glee when I see a D, an F, or a DNF. Basically, I want you to read bad books so I can read great reviews. Thank you.

  12. Ellie says:

    This makes me simultaneously very happy (Squee! RHG reviewed the book with the terrible cover I found! – and yes, I should get a life) and kind of sad. How can that cover even EXIST when there is no relevant sexing?!? I really wanted some Old Skool purple prose describing titty fucking without using that term. I hoped this book would contain the novel equivalent of my grandmother’s pineapple & cheese casserole. Very WTF at the first encounter, but so delicious you just want more. Oh, well. Thanks for the review!

  13. Francesca says:

    I read this when it first came out. I almost never read Lindsey and I never read Westerns, but I was so gobsmacked by that cover I couldn’t resist. What really got to me, however, was the tagline on the cover, “When a man’s passion explodes into violence, only a woman’s desire can turn it into love.”

    At that point, I was pretty tolerant of rapey books, and, as has been pointed out, this was fairly non-rapey for a Lindsey, but I remember being appalled by that line.

  14. DonnaMarie says:

    Wait. Back up. Pineapple & cheese casserole?

    Read Joanna Lindsey’s first book wherein the abducted for revenge heroine was sleeping spread eagle & he was working at a desk set at the end of the bed, presumably so he could contemplate her privates between letters. I never went back for more. You’re a braver man than I RHG.

  15. azteclady says:

    And to think that back in the day, when Lindsey’s were the only full length single titles I could find in Spanish, I read them over and over again.

    Don’t judge, it was well over three decades ago!

  16. Jill-Marie says:

    OMDog! I so, so remember this one! And here all this time I thought I couldn’t be remembering it right, because yes, I couldn’t figure out why the book started with Slade but then switched to Lucas and man, was he a douche…. Yeah, no, this wasn’t a Lindsey I revisited.

  17. Sarita says:

    What the hell is Slacus’ explanation for all the rape threats and then turning around and pretending to be jealous of himself? Could he not see a way of maintaining his facade without using it as an excuse to be a douche to his theoretical fiance at every turn?

  18. Ellie says:

    @Donna Marie. Yep. It’s like crack. Cheddar, canned pineapple, sugar, flour, topped with ritz crackers literally soaked in butter. Sweet, savory, and buttery all at once.

  19. texasbitch says:

    I have read this book and thought it was completely insane. Ms. Lindsay put out a few with ridiculous plots.

  20. Sarah Winter says:

    This is the ultimate romance crazysauce stewpot. Every single thing that you can cram into a romance novel is in there. Stupid, senseless decisions, stupid heroine, twin switcheroo, accidental pregnancy, insanity. Cracktastic but when I was done reading it (and I was all of 14 when I did), I went “WTH did I just read?!”

  21. FateSo says:

    I loved this book! It was so crazy, it was fantabulocious!

  22. […] auch die (englische) Review bei den Smart Bitches […]

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