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!
This HaBO request comes to us from Rose, who is looking for an older historical romance:
I am hoping that the wonderful Bitchery will be able to help me find a book.
I have been searching for this book for years, but no matter how hard I look, I have not been able to find any reference to it online. I read it some years ago as research for my thesis on romance novels, and it was (in my opinion) so deliciously over-the-top ridiculous that I have been dying to find it once again.
From what I remember, it is an older book, published probably in the 80s. The heroine is a Southern belle whose half-brother is a slave. After (I think) the death of her father, she is determined to bring her brother to the North where he can be free. She does so in secret, using the help of a family acquaintance who is a ship captain, but he thinks she’s just going north with her slave and doesn’t know that the slave is, in fact, her brother. The captain is a typical alpha-male guy and I think he might have even tried to accost her several times on the voyage, but she manages to fend him off.
Then there is a shipwreck, and she ends up on a desert island with this captain. The captain is all angry with her and goes off exploring and discovers a paradise on the other side of the island and chills there during the day, only returning in the evenings. Meanwhile the heroine is suffering trying to build shelter, breaking her tooth trying to eat a crab, and getting miserably sunburned. The hero lets her suffer as punishment for her refusal of him. Over time, they fall in love, he eventually shows her the good side of the island and for some reason she doesn’t murder him, but continues to love him.
Then they are miraculously saved by her brother, who she embraces joyously. The captain sees this, and not knowing the man is her brother, becomes absolutely jealous and abandons her once they reach safety. The heroine then lives with some relatives for a while (she may even be pregnant? I can’t remember) and suffers silently. Then somehow the truth is revealed and they come back together and have their HEA.
Please help me find this book! I’ve been searching for it for so long, I am beginning to lose hope!
I would have definitely murdered the hero.
I feel like I read this in the 80s, but there is so much 80s here the things I think I remember might just be coincidental.
“The Captain’s Bride” by Kat Martin. The half-brother’s name was Nathan.
Good memory, Becky! I was thinking Kat Martin, but I could not remember the title. I remember reading this book back in the early 90s. That island was covered in crazy sauce!
Oh my goodness, Becky! Thank you so much! The Captain’s Bride is exactly the book I was looking for. It is so great to find it again after years of searching!
The whole book was insane and the hero definitely should have been murdered. You can get a used copy complete with the original boobs n’ ruffles cover on Amazon right now for $1.99.
It is always amazing to me how fast the SBTB community solve these. I would love if we could have a section where it might not necessarily be romance books we have questions about, but other genres. The people who comment are so well read, I wouldn’t be surprised if they could help with many other titles people are struggling to find!