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!
Bitchery reader Elizabeth asks for help – and when I wrote back I had to say, she might have described at least 16 different old-school romance novels with this one. But let’s see if we can come up with a short list for her to go hunting for this vintage romance:
I have been wondering about a book I ran across in my friend’s summer cabin when I was about 14. I glanced through it long enough to go “Are the fucking kidding me?” and giggle over the sex scenes under the covers, but didn’t really read it. Now I’m having a fit of nostalgia over how awful it was and want to look it up again.
The heroine was a lady of some respectability, but met the hero in circumstances that made him think she wasn’t, I THINK but am not sure. He had an amazingly loyal servant of some sort who helped him kidnap the heroine and put her in a box on a train (maybe a train) they were riding on. I remember this because there was a brief panic when it was realized that she was in a trunk with no air holes, and she was rather worse for wear because of it. The hero also had some sort of drug that made the heroine mad with lust, and he used it on her a few times before realizing he kind of liked her and decided not to use it again, but then the butler gave it to her and that Broke Her Trust. The only remedy was to have lots and lots of sex, I think.
Isn’t the proper remedy in a romance novel ALWAYS to have lots and lots of sex? I mean, really. It’s the best remedy for everything.
“The Russian Prince story: Forget the title. Characters were Stefan and Anastasia. Boats were involved. Ana started out the book working as a belly dancer (or similar). I didn’t like the Russian Prince angle so I didn’t finish reading it.”
“Captive Bride, the pirate story, had a blonde heroine. Her name was Bettina.”
Nope, you got these two books wrong. The first one is “Once A Princess” and one of my favorites of Johanna Lindsey. I reread it at least every other year. Very feisty resourceful heroine. No rape scenes, just some near misses.
The second book, “Captive Bride” is where the hero is half-Arab and kidnaps Christina. I do believe this is a “rape romance” from the 70’s. Overall, not bad for its time but very very dated. I think it’s one of the first one of Johanna Lindsey’s that I ever read and not one I’ve reread in a couple decades (how old am I?!!).
Seemed like Rosemary Rogers was one of the big forerunners of the rape romances with her “Wicked Loving Lies” and “Sweet Savage Love”. Very popular at the time but entirely dated now. Kathleen Woodiwiss was much better with her “The Flame and the Flower” which I still reread from time to time.
DL
Raiders from the Rings by Alan Nourse. My junior high library only had the one book, so I wasn’t aware it was a series.
Oh my god, Jennifer Blake’s Royal Seduction was the very first “adult” romance novel I ever read at age 11 or so. I swiped it from an older cousin and read it in secret in my room. (I would borrow never-ending supplies of romance novels from my cousins, but had to do it on the sly as my mother disapproved.) I was ENTHRALLED at the time, and revisited it several years later and was APPALLED. It was the type of book that involved a fair amount of torture with feathers and excused the hero’s initial forced seduction b/c he had mistaken her for her evil cousin. As I recall, the heroine was identical to her evil cousin except her colouring was more vibrant (redder hair, greener eyes) and so her family had always told her she looked cheap. I’ve been trying to remember the name and title of that book for years.
It wasn’t enlightened of me, but I loved some books with hardcore forced seduction when I was in 5th – 9th grade. Although even then I had my limits. My trick was to look at the publish date on the flyleaf. If it was before 1980 I’d usually skip it b/c I knew the hero would be too mean, even for my standards.
Zoe,
Google Linda Lael Miller-her heroes loved going down and she had a family series set in the west.
I’ve read Linda Lael Miller’s western series… I don’t think it is what Zoe is looking for.
They were good then, but now… not so much.
I remember “Secret Fire” now. The heroine was an English noblewoman dressed like a servant for some stupid reason, and the Russian was a prince who kidnapped her. I think it was his servant who fed her Spanish fly to be helpful. After raping her and realizing she was a virgin, the prince suddenly got all noble and decided he wouldn’t “indulge” himself any further. He thought about calling his men to satisfy her (I think that line was the reason the book made such an impression on me). Then she begged him for relief and…being so noble and all…he only used his hands and mouth to help give her relief.
It only got worse. He left her in his aunt’s (maybe) custody and the old bitch beat her within an inch of her life.
Somehow the heroine returned to England where she had a baby. The prince shows up while she’s with the child in the park, I think, and he’s all full of arrogant sorrow.
That book almost permanently turned me off romance novels.
Jesus on a freakin’ pogo stick—###p like that got published????
Just the concept of such a bloody awful premise makes my guts want to leap up my throat and run away in terror. That someone actually SOLD it—yikes!
The SEALs should have that book as required reading. Anyone who doesn’t hurl can be the toughest SOB in the whole unit.
I’m going back to reading hard-boiled mysteries. You Smart Bitches play way too rough!
I’m a little confused about all this “Rape plots are icky and yucky” business.
Yes, most old-school romance with rape plot is generally whimpering female crap, but the RAPE part is… not so weird.
Plenty of a women have a rape fantasy. That’s a heckuva lot different than wanting to be raped, and most women are able to draw a big black line between “fantasy” and “reality,” mind you, but there it is. There’s a reason the Luke and Laura story line on GENERAL HOSPITAL survived as long as it did…
There’s a reason the Luke and Laura story line on GENERAL HOSPITAL survived as long as it did…
Yes, but that was icky!
ah, the old rape as the prelude to true love plot. Yup, I remember those. shudder.
I still remember one I read – one of the really thick ones, 400+ pages – where the heroine kept getting raped by various men and, finally, on page 435 or something, says “I’m tired of being raped.” My reaction was, what took her so long.
And this was back in the heyday of the “bodice ripper” – remember those? There seemed to be a requirement that there be a scene where someone “hooks his fingers” into the heroine’s bodice. If it’s the hero, the dress shreds, her “alabaster orbs” fall out, and they go to it. If it’s the villain, usually the hero arrives in the nick of time and much boinking ensues.
Compcat…OMG that’s it, I think I love you! Muchas, muchas gracias! It was part of a series?
I’ve hesitated to reread early favorites from the bodice ripping/rape era. For the most part they haven’t aged well, and I find them tedious in my maturity.
Katie…I assure you, I don’t entertain
ANY rape fantasies, nor am I turned on by pediophelia, incest, or bondage. Beyond those boundries, it’s all fun & erotic.
Just finished Eve Kenin’s Shomi…alot more fun than General Hospital.
Good old Johanna Lindsey. Gentle Rogue was my first bodice ripper (Pirates! Heroine in drag! Fabio on the cover!) and I loved it.
I was very – too! – young when I started reading those books (about 14) and all that wilfull rape and plunder never really struck me as ‘wrong,’ or ‘bad’ until I was much older. Looking back on it, I can’t believe how utterly RAMPANT it was. Nowadays I find most domineering alpha males utterly repellent (I loath Shannon McKenna’s particular breed).
How times have changed. You couldn’t get away with that now (…could you??!)
snicker
she said “rampant”
I am 12
“her “alabaster orbs†fall out, and they go to it.”
No doubt it takes the couple a bit of time to put them back if the damned things are rolling around the floor like bowling balls with nipples.
:snerk:
Definately Secret Fire by Johanna Lindsay (sp?). It was my first romance novel, too…I think I was in fourth grade?
Wasn’t the hero in the Johanna Lindsay book with Bettina named Tristan? I remember reading that and thinking that no one would *really* name their son that. And then Tristan Rogers began playing Robert Scorpio on General Hospital…
Ahh, the odd bits and pieces the brain hangs on to.
I think the series involving different authors was the Delaneys. There were modern Loveswept titles and historical titles as well.
Iris Johansen, Fayrene Preston, and Kay Hooper.
DS,
YES! You are my Bitch Hero! Now it’s a matter of sifting through the books to find the specific ones I’m thinking of.
Rokk on!
From these plot details I now realize I don’t have to feel guilty for never having read any Lindsey. Yuck!
Yet when these books originally were published, the mere fact that they had any sex in them—even bad, violent, nonconsensual sex—was darn exciting.
We’ve moved on, and thank goodness.
“believe 76” How appropriate!
Now that I think about it…what is this thing with (usually evil) Russian princes? Huh.
What’s with pairing pedophilia and incest with rape fantasies and bondage? That hardly seems fair—in fact, it seems like the pairing of gay marriage and bestiality from the conservative’s slippery slope argument. You’re comparing apples and decomposed roadkill. Two are rightly illegal and intensely immoral (assuming the incest in question is pre-age-of-consent). Rape *fantasies* (as opposed to the reality), on the other hand, ARE wide-spread (heh heh) among women, and mild bondage is the most tried-and-true “spice up your sex-life” practice, even among vanilla couples.
“wide spread”
(giggle)
Yah. Rape fantasies have nothing to do with reality (or, not a lot to do with it) and, as it’s just a fantasy, I find it perfectly OK. The “slippery slope” arguement (from rape to pedophilia to… sheep!) is just silly.
However, I do have a problem with bodice ripping. What’s with men ruining a perfectly good lingerie? That stuff is expensive! None of my rape fantasies involve the destruction of property, thankyouverymuch.
🙂
I have a soft spot for Johanna Lindsey books, and yes, not only have I read Secret Fire, I actually liked it. But then again, I like those books where the heroine is dressed as a boy half the book and the hero begans to doubt his sexuality. LOL. Guess we all have our guilty pleasures.