This HaBO comes from Tina, who is searching for an older romance:
I don’t remember much. It is an old skool romance probably 80s or 90s, the height of my mother’s bodice ripper phase. I’m pretty sure the cover is light blue. Here is what I do remember:
The hero is a Viking/barbarian who steals the heroine while on a raid of coastal France. The heroine is a noble/royal, we know this because she is blonde. The serfs are brunettes, I remember this because as a brunette it sort of pissed me off.
The heroine somehow gets the idea that if she can kill a particular bear, the hero will set her free. He may have told her this. She sets herself up over the mouth of the cave and waits…
That is where I stopped reading.
I’m hoping this romance takes a twist and the bear is actually a shifter the heroine falls in love with.
“Over” the mouth of the cave? Like, with a net? I…think I need to know more about what this idiot thought she was up to.
And as a fellow brunette, I sympathize. I seem to remember a lot of that in Old Skool romances. Blondes and redheads were always the heroines, and “raven” hair was okay, but ordinary brunettes never seemed to make the cut. Even today, I have a soft spot for the occasional “mousy-haired” heroine.
I’m 90% certain it’s by Phoebe Conn. I think it might be Captive Heart. I know I read one of her books with a heroine who got it into her head she had to kill a bear.
This description is hilarious, and disturbing in that the catching a bear aspect sounds suspiciously familiar. It can’t have been that common of a plot element, so I may have read the book in question…. no idea what it was, though.
https://www.goodreads.com/search?utf8=✓&q=Vikings+romances&search_type=books
Might be among these?
How could you have stopped reading at the best part?!
Johanna Lindsey wrote several Viking captive books (I know, I know … how??) so it could be one of those, because if anyone could write a bear-killing-will-set-me-free plot twist, it would be Ms. Lindsey.
Exit, pursued by a bear!
I’m pretty sure Francesca’s right about it being Phoebe Conn’s “Captive Heart.”