This HaBO request is from Tilly. Content warning for the description below:
This is a two part, about a book and then I’m also curious if anyone knows what happened to the imprint.
This is a book from the mid-90s, a Regency romance where a young woman is getting married to a man she loves. On her wedding day, this random older man who has a huge grudge against her whole family shows up, says he has the right to rape her before her husband does, and then takes her away to destroy her life and through her, her whole family. By the first quarter of the book he has basically succeeded, her family is disgusted by her, her husband won’t talk to her, and no one will receive her.
I don’t know if it somehow redeemed itself from that beginning because I borrowed it from my grandma when I was 10 and never finished it. I just want some closure! If anyone can tell me what it is or how it ends, I have wondered about this for years.
And then I am also curious about the publisher that put it out–they were really popular and had a cover template of title and author on a solid background, then a ribbon that met in the middle below the title with a bouquet, and then really sedate illustrations that were always fully dressed people/couples/families in Regency dress. I remember one of their popular authors was “Isobel Linton”. Do any of you remember this imprint? What happened to it? It was so cute and their romances were–except for this book–mostly sweet and thoughtful.
The heroine just needs to throw all the men away. Jeez.
This sounds horrifically familiar. Something about family feuds where the men of one family keep taking all the crap out on these women…and ot course I was so irked I now can’t remember
I don’t know the book itself but I think the imprint might be Zebra Regency Romance? I believe they were under Kensington Publishers, who are still around but have dropped the “traditional” Regency romance line. They do still publish historical romances though.
Sounds like the imprint is Zebra Regency, which I believe has been out of business for a while. Sorry I can’t help with the title!
The ribbon and the bouquet is definitely Zebra Regency Romance. You can google image search their cover art and your details are spot-on.
You might take a look at So Worthy My Love by Kathleen Woodiwiss. This description sounds like something she might cook up. Also, I think the Zebra Regency Romance novels were generally on the tame side.
Could it be “A Marriage of Inconvenience” by Daisy Vivian? https://www.fictiondb.com/author/daisy-vivian~a-marriage-of-inconvenience~35834~b.htm
FictionDB has a list of the Zebra Regency Romances, and this one seemed nearest the HaBO. https://www.fictiondb.com/series/zebra-regency-romance~15506.htm
Was it “Once a Mistress” by Rebecca Hagan Lee? I think she’s attacked in a carriage on the way to her wedding and goes into hiding after the rape.
Or maybe “The Rake’s Quarry” by Elizabeth Inman? “Regency Retro Reads” has a review:
I should have clarified–he shows up at church and does it publicly and takes her away and everyone lets him! I think I got like two chapters past that, when even her family is like “You shame us!” and I gave up.
Also thank you all for the reminder about Zebra! My grandma just died and she had so many of these books, I’ve been thinking about them a lot.
I can’t help with the HaBO, but it really irritates me when I get a scenario where the heroine (or the hero for that matter) is in a situation they can’t help, but they get rejected by the whole world like it’s their fault. Especially when the whole world knows that it’s not their fault.
Makes me want to put on my stomping boots.
That sounds like a latter day “droit de seigneur” scenario. Ugh.
I know this book!! I’ve definitely read it in the past year. Must have been on sale. I’m gonna rifle through my kindle library tonight. This is bugging me too now.
Oh my gosh, I found the one I think it is… Lily by Patricia Gaffney??
I don’t think it’s Lily. Some spoilers to explain why not:
Devon Darkwell (really!) doesn’t have a grudge against Lily’s family, and while he does show up to ruin her wedding (to a horrible cousin), it’s later in the book and he does it by telling everyone present that he’s already had sex with her. Then he walks away and leaves her on her own.
Lily was published in the early 1990s and it’s *very* old school. Devon is a jerk for something like 95% of it.
Sorry, it looks like my link didn’t go through, here’s another try: (scroll down to Elizabeth Inman). “Burton Horne, a wealthy enterpreneur and scandalous rake, seeks revenge upon the family that ruined his grandfather. He’s been looking for the way to do it for a long time and believes he’s finally found what he needs in a bit of medieval research. Heroine Elaine Bayworth, Countess of Wicksteed is attracted to Burton, but believes she loves another man with whom she could have a good marriage, so she makes plans to marry Alex, Lord Nice Guy. The first third of the book develops these characters and relationships. Burton carries out his plan to ruin Elaine by showing up at the wedding with an ancient agreement between the two families which allows him droit de seigneur over her.” He doesn’t follow through, but she ist ruined anyway, shunned by the neighbors and so on, until he offers marriage…
So, I’m too stupid to link correctly – just google “Regency Retro Reads”, Elizabeth Inman, The Rake’s Quarry (Zebra February 1995, there’s a rather detailes description.
@CeliaL Don’t call yourself stupid. Women need to stop doing that.
CeliaL Don’t call yourself stupid. Women need to stop doing that.
Here’s a link to the goodreads page for the Rake’s Quarry, it does have a picture of the cover if that helps!
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5857668-the-rake-s-quarry
Just have to say, the only reason I’d want to find that book is so I could set fire to it.
Thanks Leah, and I’m sure, you’re right, Denise, although I hope my ego will survive some self-deprecating observations now and then…
@Celia and others who’ve suggested Rake’s Quarry–at first I didn’t think it could be RQ bc I didn’t remember her knowing the guy who ruined her wedding before he did that, but Alex lord nice guy sounds right for the fiance. I remember that the book had a nod to Dangerous Liaisons where the romantic interest (can’t call him hero) is using his mistress as a desktop to write a letter–the mistress got a POV segment after the wedding where she assumes that the heroine is having fun because she would be having fun with him, if that sounds familiar? There’s a snow storm that keeps heroine from leaving his house but the detail about him not actually assaulting her is right!
Do any of you remember if it ended… well? i just can’t picture it ending in a satisfying way. The whole reason I got into regency romances was the relative lack of shitty manipulative violence which my mom’s romances were full of.
Could it be “Heartless” by Mary Balogh? It was a really painfully angsty read, I could barely get through it. The heroine is being stalked and persecuted by someone who has a fixation with her. Possibly blackmail involved, so she can’t tell anybody, or nobody will believe her? She is afraid to tell her husband how she lost her virginity, so he thinks she had a voluntary affair with someone else, and 200 pages of misunderstanding and lack of communication ensue. Even after they are married the older guy continues to stalk her. And being a Balogh, it originally had one of those classy sedate covers, solid color, with her name and the title in big embossed letters.
@Tilly, sorry for the late answer – yes, there is a snowstorm, but, of course, the heroine tries to escape anyway. Burton returns her home “unharmed” (after the snowstorm), but her intended turns out to be not so nice at all and insists on an anullment (lots of legal history involved). When Burton hears of the scandal, he tries to make amends, offers marriage, and eventually everything ends well (we’re in Romancelandia after all)…
@Celia thank you so much!
It’s not the same book but Skye O’Malley (good old Bertrice Small) starts out that way, except of course it’s the prospective husband (and his creepy sister) who turn out to be super-awful. So, so much rape in this book. Not even just by humans! I read this at a far too impressionable age (like, 11).
I immediately thought this must be Catherine Coulter as she wrote a fair bit of this kind of plot. I think maybe this might be Devil’s Embrace? Heroine kidnapped by older family friend before wedding and taken to Italy and then there is what I recall as some nonconsensual sex scenes, just FYI. It was first published in 1982 and republished in 2000, so the dates might not be right, but maybe the older edition. If it is not this one, the plot sounds very similar! One of those hot mess, train wrecks of a novel that you kind of have to finish whilst cringing.
I immediately thought this must be Catherine Coulter as she wrote a fair bit of this kind of plot. I think maybe this might be Devil’s Embrace? Or very closely related! Heroine kidnapped by older family friend before wedding and taken to Italy and then there is what I recall as some nonconsensual sex scenes, just FYI. It was first published in 1982 and republished in 2000, so the dates might not be right, but maybe the older edition. If it is not this one, the plot sounds very similar! One of those hot mess, train wrecks of a novel that you kind of have to finish whilst cringing.
Apologies for the double post!