This HaBO comes from Sabrina, who is trying to help a fellow book club member track down a book. Trigger warning for rape:
My name’s Sabrina and I’m a member of an awesome book club on Facebook called the Old School Romance Book Club, started by Sarah MacLean. On Christmas Day, a member called Jean posted about a book she would like to reread but cannot remember what it is called. I think this post got the most comments EVER! It went over 400 comments and we still couldn’t find the right book. We are now desperate.
This is what Jean told us:
The hero and heroine are very much in love and are engaged to be married. The hero is a very wealthy and powerful duke. The heroine gets raped by a man who hates the duke and gets pregnant from the rape. She doesn’t want the hero to find out, as she is so ashamed and breaks off the engagement. Her family knows about the rape and blames her for it. She is thrown out of her family home and is disowned. She is financially ruined and lives in poverty. An elderly couple take her in and she works in a shop. She lives above the shop with her little daughter. Years later, the hero sees her on the streets of London looking very thin and poor and follows her to the shop. He never stopped loving her.
Jean read it many years ago but doesn’t think it’s from the 80’s or 90’s.
Many of the club members think it sounds super familiar and we threw in some suggestions but none were the right ones. Please help us!
What do you say, Bitchery? Can we help?
Does it take place in Paris? This is ringing some bells, except I think the heroine had a son. (I’ll get the title eventually, but I want to say it’s something with banners. I read it in 1988 in an abridged Readers Digest type collection.)
Following for curiosity! I hope someone gets it!
I hope you are able to find the book!
DAMMIT I SHOULDN’T WANT TO READ THIS BOOK AS BAD AS I DO.
Okay universe, gods, Yoda, the power of chocolate; one of yall better come through and give us this title. WE HAVE A MIGHTY NEED DAMMIT!
Wait, so is Jean saying they read it earlier than the 80s or after the 90s?
I think she meant she read it after 1990’s. I also don’t think it happened in Paris, I think it’s in the U.K.
We’re all desparate to know what the book is! Please someone know it! Thanks!!
Based on the synopsis, and the Old SKool theme of their club, I’d say this is a product of the 70’s. It definitely has the flavor of what I was reading back then. Sadly, while I read A LOT back in the day (like that’s changed), this rings zero bells.
Victoria Dahl’s “It’s always been you”, springs to mind, but it is all about the mystery of what happened ten years ago, and I can’t remember what the mystery was.
It’s from after the 1990’s, not from before. We’re the Old school romance book club but read contemporaries, young adult and loads of other books too.
I just looked up the Victoria Dahl book and unfortunately it’s not that one. The hero is a very rich and powerful Duke. The hero in the Victoria Dahl book was penniless at the beginning. But thank you for the suggestion!
Do please keep them coming!
I don’t know but sounds like something I’d eat with a spoon. I hope someone ends the mystery.
I had no idea raped heroines was a thing, even if it’s sort of a non-standard trope. I googled something like “historical romance novel heroine raped” and lots of Goodreads lists came up as well as Amazon threads.
Having said all that, I’m certainly no closer to figuring out the HABO and I totally want to read the book.
Really, I’m no help at all.
I’ve no idea but I am interested in finding out
Did anyone try Mary Balogh, Secrets of the Heart?
Found this in goodreads might help
http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/473053-rape-but-not-by-the-hero
Sounds exactly like something Catherine Cookson would have written and fits the time period too.
Is it a closed group? Just wondering if you could link to the post or if there were more details in the comments where she rules out suggestions. LIke, does she remember what type of shop it was? Did the narrative stay with the heroine, or did we find out what the hero was doing all those years? Who was the guy who raped her? Was he also a nobleman? Or was he a friend, or servant, or stepbrother, etc etc etc. Anything about the cover? Or any narrowing down of when she read it? Like, before 2010, but after 2000? Could it have been a short story or novella?
You might try posting in the goodreads group “What’s the Name of that Book???”
Good luck! I love trying to track these down, but my googling is failing me here.
Probably not but.. Once Upon a Scandal by Barbara Dawson Smith?