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Title: Scoundrel's Captive
Author: JoAnn DeLazzari
Publication Info: Avon Books July 1991
ISBN: 978-0380764204
Genre: Historical: American
You guys do understand that I read these primarily because I enjoy it, right? I mean, some of them were “unpleasant” (Purity’s Passion, I am looking at you), some are off the hook (Forbidden Desires? That’s you) and some are so wonderfully trashy I can’t help but adore them (Henley is my kryptonite).
For the most part, I enjoy it. I think I have a very selective form of masochism. And, in general, if I truly hate it, or it’s just not interesting enough to review, I won’t review it. This book is a bit different, though. Because I did hate it, but there’s a facet here that I haven’t seen discussed a lot.
I blame Zoe Archer for this. She put the cover of this book on her tumblr, with the caption “My books don’t look like this.” That, of course, is like waving a red flag at a bull and throwing him a china shop. I HAD to read it. (Because I’m the bull, see?) (…that sounds rather bad.) (Yes, I know Mythbusters thinks they busted the bull in china shop myth, but they had problems with their methodology in that one, so it’s still open, as far as I am concerned.)
This book is FUCKED. UP. Not deliciously fucked up like Seduced, and not fucked up in a “what the shit is this history you are butchering” like another early Henley a friend of mine loaned me. There is nothing delicious about this. This is FUCKED UP LIKE WHOA.
Our heroine is Jessica, alternatively known as Jess or Jessie, who grew up in St. Louis (which counts as “back East” which I can tell you amuses the hell out of people on the East coast. When they think about these things, which is not a lot). She grew up without her father, because her mother couldn’t hack it in the Wyoming territory. After her mother died, she decides to go to Wyoming to find her father.
One the way there, she is taking a bath in a hotel in some town in Wyoming, where the door is busted down by Steve Kincaid (our….uh, hero, I guess) in the throes of a fight. Jessica pulls on her robe and tell him to leave, while he…. Kisses her, gropes her, and would have taken her to bed right then and there had someone else not come into her room. He leaves and she’s like “what the fuck was that. Thank god I’ll never see him again.”
So she gets to Wyoming, makes friends with the local madam, and finds her father, Jeff, and they have a freakishly perfect relationship right off the bat. Which from my experience in and observation of estranged parent-child relationships, this is not how that ever works.
But that’s not the truly fucked up thing.
Steve is the part owner of a neighboring ranch to Jeff’s place, and realizes that Jess is Jeff’s daughter. He’s been taken with her and hunts her down and turns out that she lived next door- it’s another one of those mostly closed-universes where there’s a limited number of people who show up and they JUST KEEP SHOWING UP. Makes it easier to keep track of everyone, but as far as feeling realistic, well, not so much.
But that’s not the truly fucked up thing.
At some point, when Steve finds Jess, he accosts her and fondles her and is all like “hey baby let’s get it on” and she gets angry and determines that he is at Kincaid’s ranch, and therefore must work for Kincaid, and informs him that she’s going to complain to his boss about his behavior. He tells her to stop struggling, unless she was prepared for him to make love to her there and then, and who would blame him when, “I tell them how prettily you undressed for me?” He allows her to think that she’ll get some satisfaction from complaining to the owner for the Kincaid ranch, and she finds out that her stalker and the next-door neighbor are the same person at a party. Where she wears a smoking hot pimped out dress that makes her boobs look great, so therefore she’s fair game.
You begin to see the truly fucked up thing. What I’m going to try to do (and we will see if it works) is just straight recap- because seriously, none of you need to read this, please don’t let this bullet I’m taking be in vain- and then editorialize and dissect it. Because I will go off on pages and pages of tangents and that’s no way to follow a story line.
Now, Jeff and Jess need money to make improvements to Jeff’s ranch, so Jeff borrows some from Steve. At the party, when Jess discovers that Steve is the douchebag who accosted her in the hotel that one time, she flips her shit, but he, tells her first that she left her skirt behind in their “argument” and he’ll tell everyone, unless she agrees to marry him. And if she doesn’t agree to marry him, he’ll call in the money that he loaned her father, and they just don’t have $500 lying around to pay him back with. She agrees, grudgingly.
The next day, Jess decides that clearly her was bluffing- there’s no other way about it, obviously this guy wouldn’t blackmail her into marriage and/or sex, right? She gets a message from him to come to the ranch, and she sends back a reply that tells him to go to hell (verbatim). His response? “Jessica Morgan, you are one spirited filly, but there’s been not one yet I haven’t broken and ridden.” So he goes after her, and there’s a bit of a horse chase, and he finally catches her, and there’s a whole thing where she tells him to go away, to not touch her, to leave her alone, bargain or no. And he tells her to stop professing to be a lady while she kicks and moans like a common whore. And then he calls her a cold-blooded bitch.
At which point she gives up and gives in, and they have some allegedly great sex, (even though he thinks that he needed her consent, even if given begrudgingly) and he is shocked -shocked!- to discover she was a virgin. Because only an experienced woman would…stand in her own hotel room after a bath with her nipples getting hard and respond to sexual pleasure.
Afterwards, she sleeps and he’s thinking this is great. He needs an heir, and he likes her and wants her, but god knows he doesn’t love her. She naturally, is utterly in love with him, because that’s what the Mighty Wang does. And is convinced that he loves her, because… that’s what the Mighty Wang does. But he asks her to marry him, for real, not because of the money, and she accepts.
Steve goes to a Cattlemen’s Association meeting or something that take him out of town for about a week, and Jess decides that hanging out at his ranch for wedding planning is a good idea. Also living at the ranch are Chad and Sarah- Chad is Steve’s partner, and Sarah is Chad’s wife. They and Jess of course hit it off enormously, and things are going well. There’s also a cook/housekeeper, named Connie, but all her friends call her Red. Because of the red hair. (Which shouldn’t annoy me, since lots of people call me Red, because of the red hair, but STIILL.) (I’m gonna cut to the chase here and tell you that Connie and Jeff hook up and get married.)
Steve runs into an ex of his, Margo, another woman in town that’s a spoiled rich brat who he’s fucked, and kind of thought about marrying until Jess came along. She doesn’t like the idea of not marrying Steve, so first she tries to seduce him, and when that fails, she marches off to Steve’s ranch to get rid of Jess. Which she does by pushing Jess down the stairs and trying to kill her.
(We’re not even a third of way through.)
Jess isn’t sure what made her fall, and isn’t willing to accuse Margo without proof, and then Margo drops the bomb that she is aware of the welts Jess left on Steve’s back while fucking him. Which makes Jess think that Steve and Margo have been making the beast with two backs. Steve comes home to find Jess angry and Margo telling him that she saw Chad and Jess possibily doing the nasty, so Steve flips his shit out and blames Chad for everything, and Jess leaves.
No, seriously, based on one sentence from Margo, Steve beats the shit out of Chad. And it gets sorted by about five minutes of conversation. I mean, really.
Jess goes back into town and seeks refuge from the local Madam (Who’s named Roxy, because of course she is). Jess still thinks that Steve was fucking Margo, and Roxy is all on Team Jess on this point. Steve comes to Roxy, looking for Jess, and Roxy doesn’t tell him that Jess in her house, but thinks that he isn’t acting like a guy who’s dumped Jess for Margo, so obviously he is in love. Then a random gunfight breaks out and Jess gets hit by a stray bullet and leaves town.
Where she gets picked up by the local Native American tribe- Absaroke, or Crow, depending on who is talking. Jess is wounded and all, so she hangs with the Absaroke while she recovers. She’s given the name Valley Woman because… she has hidden depths or something? I don’t even know. But as she’s working on being a productive member of society, she gets the feeling she’s being watched, and the Absaroke woman she’s been living with, Little Sparrow, tells her that there’s a guy who shows up some times, his name is Hawk and he is a member of the tribe, has been watching her for DAYS.
Jess thinks that she might like this guys that she’s never seen, not once, and decides that fucking him will make her forget Steve. So she tells Little Sparrow to tell her husband that if Hawk should visit, she would serve him. In all the ways that means. So he does, and sure enough, Hawk is in fact Steve.
“Why, woman, sigh?” A deep throaty whisper asked against her hair.
Jess nestled her head back against his shoulder. “I…I thought…”
“Answer, “ he breathed huskily when she paused.
Baring her soul, Jess answered honestly, “I thought only one man could make me feel this way.”
“Only one man can, Jess, “ a clear voice growled.
“No!” she shrieked, her body stiffening. It was another bad dream! This was Hawk, not…
So she begs him not to do this, but her body surrenders even as she says no. (Gag.)
In the morning, Jess finds Little Sparrow and is told that Little Sparrow was helping both Jess and Steve- Jess loves Steve and Steve wants Jess, so what’s the problem? Steve does apologize to Jess about the whole Margo thing, and tells her that Little Sparrow’s husband said that what Jess really needs is a beating. But instead he will pick her up and carry her back to the tent, because that’s a much better way of shutting her up. And as he does so, Jess screams for help, and Little Sparrow turn away from Jess and Steve with smiles.
Steve brings Jess back to her father’s house, who is utterly unconcerned with the fact that she’s been gone for weeks, and is hopeful that “maybe Steve had managed to tame his daughter at last.” Of course, he hasn’t, and she’s fuming about how she won’t marry him. Steve eventually says to her that he’ll respect her decisions.
Jess was more wary than ever. Could this be the same self-assured man who had manipulated her life?
“…I’m still going to marry you but I’ve decided to give you time to come to grips with the idea.”
Because clearly what she wants is courting. So courting he shall do. He also decides to forgive the money he’d loaned Jeff as a bride price (because some of the Indian tribes do that). Jess thinks this is bullshit and that she’s being bought and sold, and not because Steve loves her. So she yells enough that Steve storms out (seriously, it’s like Moonlighting, but just tiresome) and everyone tells Jess that she and Steve just need to “stop bickering” and “settle things.”
Jess thinks fine, lets do that then, and tries to settle the money issue so she and Jeff can be free and clear of Steve for real, and Steve again tries to get her to agree to the sex for money exchange, but really, she wouldn’t be a whore. Instead he forces her to bed. Again.
“I’m….I’m sorry, Jessie. I swear I didn’t mean for this to happen.” Steve saw the tears and felt like a bastard.
Because they need money, Jess starts working for Roxy. Not as a whore, god no, that would not do. Instead she works as a hostess, and of course everyone respects the limits she sets, because there’s only one man in the world who won’t take her no for an answer. Steve finds out, of course, and goes to bother her at work, where Roxy is perfectly happy to let them fight it out in public. Of course nothing is solved, because we’re only halfway through, and Steve finally decides, with Jeff’s blessing, to kidnap Jess.
Let me repeat that. Steve decides the only way to get Jess to agree with his view of the world is to KIDNAP her. And her father gives his blessing. “I’m on your side, my boy. I was just picturing my lovely daughter’s reaction when she finds out what you have in store for her.”
(Pardon me, I have to vomit.)
So Steve kidnaps her by WHACKING HER ON THE HEAD, which naturally gives her amnesia (OF COURSE IT DOES), and he tells her, when she wakes up, that they just got married. So they have an enjoyable interlude in a cabin in the mountains. Just about when the snow is going to start falling, a mountain man comes by, who knew Jess’ mother, and tells her she came from St. Louis, which is not the same thing Steve had been telling her. They start fighting, and he is not longer gentle with her and then she remembers everything.
She convinces the mountain man to help her get home, leaving Steve trapped in the cabin for the winter (more contrived timing could not be had). The mountain man convinces Steve to give her until spring, and Steve’s response to that? “…come spring, I’m going, and if I have to bind and gag her to have her back, I will, and not you or anyone else will stand in my way.”
She’s very sad, and misses him a lot, but is determined to go on home and leave him behind for good.
You can guess how well that works out.
Jess also discovers that she is pregnant, because of course she is. She gives birth before Steve can come down off the mountain. But not before she’s told that she has commitment issues. And that’s why she and Steve can’t work their shit out. It’s a boy, and she gets a job working at an orphanage Roxy started (but no one is town knows that she’s backing, because of the whole “hooker” thing).
Steve comes into town and finds Jess there, and finds out that the baby is his son, and not just some random orphan and brings Jess (kicking and screaming, literally) back to the ranch, where he attempts again to court her with no sex. For six weeks. He tells Jess that she has to come with him, or he’ll ruin her father and tell the boarding school that houses Roxy’s daughter what her mother does. So Jess HAS to go with him.
Everyone in town is pleased as punch at this, because Jess and Steve are just perfect for each other, they just need to accept it.
Jess leaves, again, and hides with Absaroke, while Steve runs to St. Louis and back looking for her, and finally finds her with the tribe. Jess is told that she can become a full member of the tribe, if she wants. She’s told that to do that, she must go to a tent hidden in the woods or whatever and stay there for three days. Naturally, Steve is there, and she’s like “…but I’m becoming a member of the tribe!” and he says “Well, actually we’re in a marriage tent right now, and I am a member of the tribe, so yes, by marriage you are!”
THE END.
What the fuck.
WHAT IN THE ACTUAL FUCK.
WHAT IS THIS FUCKERY.
We could talk about the rape, because, face it, there’s a lot of “no, no!” and punishing kisses and overbearing her will, but we’ve talked about that. At length. And I think you guys get it. There’s only a handful of time where Jess is consenting from beginning to end, and a lot of those are when she has amnesia.
When I told Zoe that this was her fault, I also told her that if this book were presented as a spotter’s guide to abusive relationships, that would be one thing. But this relationship, in all of its abusive text that is not subtext, is represented as a happy, fluffy romance, and if they would just admit that they love each other, IT WOULD BE OKAY
Well. As a survivor of an abusive relationship, let me tell you. “Lack of love” is not the problem. The problem is control. The problem is violence. The problem is agency. The problem is that it’s SO HARD to get out. And even though it’s been over ten years, there are still ripples from the entire mess in my life. And I was lucky- I was able to end it comparatively early. So.
We talk a lot about Alpha males, but of all the old school romances I’ve read, and there have been quite a few, this is the most disgustingly abusive asshole I’ve ever seen called a hero. I’ve seen less abusive villains. And I don’t we’ve talked about abusive behavior a great deal- it doesn’t come up much, and usually if there is abusive behavior, the hero (it’s always the hero, never the heroine) makes an effort to change as part of his character arc.
There are so many ways that Steve displays extreme controlling behavior. He won’t let her make choices, he gets angry when he thinks she’s been talking with another man, when he wants sex and she doesn’t, he grabs her hair and yanks her head around until she acquiesces. He threatens her and the people she loves unless she stays with him.
Now, in early Roman law, there was a provision in contract law that consent under duress is still consent. But Roman jurists figured out that that was a douchey thing, and recognized that consent under duress is not consent at all. And Jess consistently says no until it’s clear that “no” isn’t going to make a difference. Now, this could be a case of showing “good girls don’t willingly enjoy sex,” because as written she does enjoy it once she accepts the inevitable. Pairing it with the emotional abuse and ultra-controlling behavior makes it even worse.
The thing that gets me SO MUCH and makes me so angry is that Steve’s behavior is presented as normal and admirable, so there’s no reason for him to grow or change. As long as he admits that he loves Jess, everything will be fine.
And that’s bullshit. No one calls him out, no one says “Dude, SHE SAID NO. Maybe you should leave her alone.” Anywhere Jess tries to go for help ends up throwing her under the bus- he goes so far as to chase her to St. Louis when he thinks she went there. Really, the only realistic end I see for these two characters is one of them will kill the other.
The thing I found most terrifying was the number of people who saw what Steve was doing, and didn’t see a problem with it. Even as Jess is screaming for him to stop, to put her down, to go away, they all either turned away or told her to stop struggling and smiling knowingly. Her own father is down with the idea of Steve kidnapping her and stealing her away for months. At the very end, the Absaroke are willing to let her think she’s performing one ritual, when really she’s getting married without her consent.
Now, I do think that it’s important to explore the mindset of the abuser- if we can understand it, maybe we can prevent it, right? It’s one reason why I like the Eminem-Rhianna song “Love the Way You Lie,” because I think it does explore the mentality of both abuser and abused and how it’s not all bad and certainly not all good and how it all can spiral out of control and why people stay in these relationships. Some of it is awful, but they call the period between outbursts the “Honeymoon period” for a reason.
I’m just saying.
Anyway, this isn’t an exploration of an abusive relationship. It doesn’t try to be anything other than a fluffy romance, but it’s horrible. It’s the Twilight syndrome, only decades early. Stalker = love. Controlling behavior = love. Abuse = love.
ARGH.
The writing itself isn’t good- it’s very first-novel-y and awkward. I mean, I’m told in the early 90s, the publishing houses were pretty much buying anything which is how a bunch of this schlock got published in the first place. But in light of everything else, I don’t care all that much about bad writing. The character of the entire story is off-putting.
The only thing that kept me from throwing this book is the fact that I was on a cross-country flight and the air marshall would have tackled me (and rightfully so). As it was, I suspect my seatmate got pretty tired of me going “WHAT” and “OH GOD” every three pages.
Oh, and if this novel bugged you DO NOT read Linda Howard’s An Independent Wife. Under Any Circumstances. Over the course of the novel, the asshat “hero” destroys his estranged wife’s career, gets her pregnant, and behaves like a seriously scary stalker. At one point, he even cleans out her apartment and tells the landlady to find a new tenant, to force the heroine to “turn to him for help.” ‘Cause any guy who intentionally forces a woman into a situation where she is homeless, pregnant, and unemployed is CLEARLY hero material. Shudder.
Books like this were the reason I didn’t get into historical romance when I first got hot and heavy into romance (1992-1993). I gravitated toward contemporary (discovered my author-goddess Nora Roberts) though I did read Amanda Quick (loved the early books) and Mary Jo Putney’s Silk Series. But speaking of Mary Jo Putney, does anyone remember ‘Dearly Beloved’? The first sex scene is so clearly a rape but there were people who tried to- I don’t know- minimize it or something. I kept it on my shelf for awhile then tossed it after I thought about it. Speaking of Linda Howard, anyone remember ‘Duncan’s Bride’ and ‘Loving Evangeline’? Duncan’s wasn’t a total asshat-fest but I can’t read ‘Evangeline’ now. And how about ‘Sarah’s Child’? I finally had to get rid of that one because why would any woman stay with a man who was so emotionally unavailable to her?
Thank doG we’ve come a long way from this and that heroines are so much more demanding. And that heroes don’t have their heads stuck up their backsides as much as they used to.
You know I haven;t read the comments so someone may already have mentioned that not too long ago in TX, I believe, consent under duress = consent was still being argued in a criminal case. A woman asked a man to wear a condom as he raped her and that was construed as consent. Can’t recall the outcome since it dragged on for ages.
Books such as this may have been what the defense lawyer was reading.
Again, I stand by my 35 yr old position: Laurie McBain. All the WTF, none of the rape.
Wow. I’ll add my voice to the throng in saying Great Review! Really makes me want to pull out my quill and crimson ink and review some of the crazier stuff I have lying around….
Come to think if it, “Friday” may be the reason I never read another Heinlein even though I read a lot of scifi books.
Donna: I just found McBain’s Moonstruck Madness on PBSwap – the original cover, which I adore. Can’t wait to read it again.
I remember reading The Wind Flower when it first came out and thinking – whoa – he’s not gonna force her? I was in college by this time and hadn’t read romance in a long time – I was completely over the whole historical rapes ‘n creams style, and I thought that’s what all romance was. Windflower was a HUGE shock – no forcible seduction, no threatening to kill the heroine or her family or her kitten to make her acquiesce, and quite a bit of lighthearted humor, which was seriously lacking in romance at that time.
Yes. There’s a reason why the phrase OH JOHN RINGO NO is popular on the internet.
I have a theory that part of the audience of books like these is women who’ve been in abusive relationships like this (perhaps still are) and want to “rewrite the ending.”
I’ve come across quite a few concussions (mostly accidental, fortunately) but what drives me nuts is how the hero (usually the hero) manages to have great sex because hey’ the blood rushing to the other end makes the head ache better. Maybe this is so in some cases, I don’t know, but I do know one thing. I had a nasty concussion a couple years ago and there was NO WAY IN HELL I was in the mood for any kind of sex, never mind mind blowing sex. I was more in the mood to throw up. But hey, maybe you have to be in a REAL romance for sex to cure concussions.
Oh Melody. Oh Melody, oh….holy shit. I just spent 45 minutes reading that whole thing, plus the comments, and….shudder. I only knew of Ringo through the alien invasion books – I read the first two, thought they were okay, but this…I had no idea. I’ve read Mack Bolan-type crap from the 50s and 60s that wasn’t NEARLY this kind of fucked up.
I mean, I have a very high tolerance for weird shit, and I sometimes read comments around here by people who threw books against the wall for stuff I frankly found not the least bit squiffy or offensive, but if I ever picked up a book that contained the kind of crap this Paladin of Shadows shit has, I think I’d put a few bullets in the book and mail it to Ringo.
I mean, of course I wouldn’t really, because then I’d be investigated by the FBI but sweet Jesus in the lap of Mary. That is some kind of FUBAR.
I couldn’t imagine this was set in modern times…but it is. Wow.
Linda Howard’s An Independent Wife should be banned for misleading advertising or something, as the wife is anything but. It’s the first book of hers I read and I almost swore off her entirely, but then others recommended Son of the Morning, which I loved. Hard to believe the same woman wrote both books.
Not having read either book I can’t really compare, but from what I’ve heard Christine Monson’s Stormfire could give Scoundrel’s Captive a run for its money. I think the hero, Sean, rapes the heroine, Catherine, when she’s a teenager and sends her undergarments to her father to show what he’s done (it’s an historical revenge kind of thing). Later he locks her up and gives her to his men to have their way with her. And there’s more. I think it’s one of those books where it’s supposed to show how hard he is and that she’s the only one who can soften him (somehow that didn’t come out right in the context of a romance novel)—the old bad boy tamed by the love of a good woman trope. Perhaps RHG could do a compare and contrast, Steve versus Sean, just like all those school exams.
Not that I’d expect much historical accuracy from a book of this level of WTFery, but I have to respond about part of it. Although some American Indian tribes were free and easy with the loving, others had strict moral codes regarding sleeping around. The Crow were among the latter. It’s extremely unlikely that a Crow woman would help pimp out a woman who was a guest in her camp unless a marriage had taken place.
@Melody – !!! I had to stop reading the post you linked to, because OH JOHN RINGO NO wasn’t helping. I cheered at the introduction of the character who actually hates the “hero,” because, even just from what I was reading in the post, I hated the hero, too. But I had to stop reading, because my brain was starting to shut down from the horror.
This is the thing about Linda Howard, Susan/DC; when she is good, she is very, very good, and when she is bad, she is horrid. Split personality, or something. An Independent Wife is probably the very worst of her early novels with abusive ‘heroes’ and Patient Griselda, masochistic heroines, but there are several others of the same type. Sarah’s Child and The Cutting Edge (both published in 1985) run it very close, and you should also give a wide berth to Tears of the Renegade (same year) and Almost Forever (1986). Personally I find the ‘heroes’ who try to control and intimidate heroines psychologically even sicker and scarier than the rapists, because it is obvious that they totally despise the women. Physical violence can be a brief, even uncharacteristic, loss of control: sustained emotional abuse is innate, part of the perpetrator’s character. The loathsome ‘hero’ of Howard’s The Cutting Edge could act the way he does only if he thought the heroine to be both dishonest and stupid, definitely not a recipe for a happy relationship. But by 1990, in Duncan’s Bride, Howard had the heroine fighting back, asserting herself and totally turning the tables on the hero, and of course other books of hers of this period, like Mackenzie’s Mountain (1989) have become romance classics.
I am not sure how much influence was wielded by the publishers of category romance at the period, though I do know that some younger editors coming in to the Harlequin set-up in the 1990s were opposed to the abusive heroes and doormat heroines, and were therefore instrumental in bringing about change.
Remember that many readers actively enjoyed books like this at the time: they would not have bought and read them otherwise. Some of you admitted to enjoying them when younger yourselves. We should be very careful about making judgements based on our own current socio-cultural norms and assumptions in the early 21st century. Women who have lived through the considerable changes of the six decades since the end of the Second World War all know how they have changed within themselves, and how society around them has changed. These novels need to be seen in chronological and cultural context.
I think the theory mentioned by Alpha Lyra, above, has much to be said for it: that some women who had experienced abusive relationships may have liked such stories because they outline a different, and happier, outcome, in which the male is converted or ‘domesticated’ (that is, ultimately changed and even controlled) by the patient love and tolerance of the woman. There is also the ever-present element of fantasy to take into account. Rather than use the highly emotive example of violent, forced sex, consider the very common sexual fantasy of ‘sex in a public place’. Many women actively enjoy that fantasy, with its implicit element of lust so irresistible that it cannot be fought, and find it arousing to read about such scenes. But most of those same women would never tolerate public copulation in reality. The turn-on applies only in a fantasy context, not real life.
One thing stands out for me: romance novels, far more than ‘literary fiction’, and more than other ‘genre’ fiction, too, are a mine of information about the mores of their own time, about the experiences, fears and desires of their readers in a given culture and at a specific point in time. There is still a huge amount of study to be done on them. What we should not do is simply dismiss certain tropes out of hand from our own contemporary viewpoint, without trying to understand what they may tell us about the society which gave rise to them. For example, what are we (and future generations) to make of the popularity of vampire fantasy with young readers at the present time? To me, from the vantage point of old age, it seems every bit as weird as the acceptance of cruel, arrogant, controlling males as ‘heroes’ a mere 25 years ago.
What I see in the rise of paranormal romance is that we’ve taken these unacceptable behaviors—possessiveness, aggressiveness, violence (even sexual violence)—and made up a new excuse for them…He’s a WEREWOLF…/vampire/half-demon/dragon/whatever.
So it’s okay. “He can’t help it; it was the night before the full-moon, so he HAD to have sex with me (against my will).” Or, “It’s not like a TEENAGE BOY is stalking me, watching me sleep, bossing me around like he’s my owner, etc., etc. He’s a vampire, so it’s…sweet.”
@bookstorecat – Actually, that’s why I can stand this kind of thing a little better in paranormal romance – there is an extra layer of fantasy. And, even then, I require that the paranormal aspects actually be an important part of the book – I’m not as big of a fan if the vampire is essentially a regular guy with sharp teeth and a special power tacked on, or the werewolf is just a regular guy who just happens to be able to turn into a wolf. These kinds of things shouldn’t be just surface level – I find them most believable when they actually have an effect on how the characters think. For me, a good example is Kelley Armstrong’s Bitten (I thought Clay was a bastard and didn’t actually start to warm up to him until later in the series. It helps a lot that Elena was also pissed at him for what he did).
Melody: I just finished reading the link and OH MY GOD STOP IT JOHN RINGO. The reviewer is definitely giving too much credit to a couple of paragraphs for *changing* the dynamic of the story. *shudders until she takes a bleach shower* Hell that’s sick. I really wished Katya used her strength to kill the hero cause he’s got a level of squick that is just…ugh, I need more brain bleach.
bookstorecat: I definitely agree with you there.
That is my interpretation too, Bookstorecat, but I have sometimes been shouted down quite angrily when I have suggested (too simply, perhaps) that the vampire is often just the vicious 1980s ‘hero’ in a different guise. The paranormal trappings do provide a context that separates the characterisation and events from contemporary real life, and so did many of the historicals of the 1970s/80s. Eighteenth-century pirates were probably a pretty rough lot, and 18thC women lacked the legal and social status we take for granted, so there was indeed an excuse for the depiction of male aggression against women. Particularly in poorly-researched historical novels, there is no doubt that the setting is being used as an invented fantasy world, only loosely based on the real past (which is not to say that the real past was not often quite grim, of course).
There is no such explanation for the Linda Howard and Elizabeth Lowell contemporaries of the 1980s with abusive heroes. Women read these stories and enjoyed them. We have to get over it.
What AgTigress said, times a million.
Life imitates art, and fiction can propagate and reinforce all kinds of terrible cultural mores, which is certainly scary. But intentionally didactic art leaves me cold; art should be for its own sake, not an attempt to reform or edify. If you find something offensive, by all means, say you don’t like it and why, as redheadedgirl does so phenomenally. But why try to censor or control other people’s access to or enjoyment of if?
I’m perturbed by the underlying notion that I can’t separate fantasy and reality, and the idea that I don’t have the right to enjoy whatever fantasies I please without being judged. I think that saying ‘this sort of trash shouldn’t be published’, or ‘only sick individuals could enjoy this’ (not actual quotes, I’m paraphrasing because I don’t want to call anyone out specifically) is a very slippery slope.
I enjoy all sorts of scenarios in a book that are utterly unacceptable to me in reality, and I have never been raped, abused sexually or otherwise, stalked, or even really treated disrespectfully by a boyfriend (other than 1 guy I dated briefly when I was a teenager who cheated on me but it wasn’t part of a pattern or formative so I can’t see any relevance). I’ve never struggled with sexual agency or guilt/shame around sex.
I like variety in the sexual situations I read in fiction precisely the same way I don’t need to identify with a heroine to enjoy seeing things from her perspective, or the way I love reading about heroes who aren’t my type. I don’t read romance novels because something is lacking in my own life, or because of my sadly damaged kinkiness, I just enjoy a good escape.
Although I freely admit I may be on a very different soapbox after I read this book.
@redheadedgirl
I really liked your review and the way you responded to my comments.
That being said this book sounds awful.
@AgTigress
This seems particularly apt when the supernatural hero is also a very wealthy guy, especially of the “self-made millionaire” type. That’s a trope—not, I know, exclusive to then—that I will always associate with the kind of contemporaries I read growing up in the 80s.
@LG
I have been curious about Bitten recently because I enjoyed Armstrong’s teen books (an excellent escape from reality, especially while home sick). I read the sample on my nook just last week, in fact.
@bookstorecat – It’s been a while since I read it, but I remember it being very good and very different from anything I’d read before at that time. Not technically paranormal romance (more urban fantasy, one of the earliest examples, I think), so it maybe wasn’t the best example to use, but Clay is definitely not just a human with werewolf characteristics tacked on. He does things prior to the start of the book, and throughout the series, that I think I would have had more problems forgiving/moving past if he weren’t so “other.”
If I recall correctly, Heaving Bossoms also talks about the migration of the abusive hero to the paranormal genre. And having read widely in old skool historicals, newer historicals, and paranormals, I find this idea convincing. Supernatural heroes routines abduct the heroine, isolate her from friends and family, and engage in forced seduction/rape. The layer of fantasy cited by LG is just a different flavor of fantasy. The world of say, Regency London, in a great many historicals, is just as much a fantasy as the wold of the Carpathians. In historicals, much hero behavior was justified by aristocratic status of the hero and the mores of the place and time, and the heroine’s will was violated “for her own good.” In paranormals the hero’s behavior is justified by the rules of the supernatural world created by the author, and the heroine’s will is violated “for her own good.”
If you consider the similarities, and the fact that paranormals now occupy the top selling spot that historicals once did, it’s difficult to avoid the conclusion that we are still avid consumers of rapist heros.
See, I had no problem with Clay – yes, he was an asshole and he needed to understand how badly he behaved. But the guy is permanently f’ed up, broken in a very real sense. A feral child attacked by a werewolf and living in a swamp, surviving on road kill and other children, will never develop an innate understanding of human social mores. It’s like asking a human being to grow a new leg. We don’t work that way.
Yeah, but that was something I didn’t really get until later, at which time I softened towards him. At first, though, he was just a guy who happened to be a werewolf who’d taken the heroine’s choices away. Actually, I don’t think I really understood him until Men of the Otherworld – part of the reason why I loved that book. I still haven’t reread Bitten since reading that book, but I want to, just to see how I feel about him now.
@ Kinsey, LG, and orangehands—I completely agree. When I read that review, I simply could not believe that those books had actually been published. The fact that there is apparently an audience for such deeply fucked-up works makes me weep for humanity.
Me too, but then again so does Jersey Shore, Eat, Pray Love, Scientology and any movie Michael Bay makes.
I agree with kkw – we can’t judge what others enjoy reading, and most of us will enjoy fictional scenarios that we’d find horrific or appalling in real life. As much as I hesitate to disagree with AgT about something, because the depth and breadth of her knowledge is so intimidating and her arguments so erudite, I’m not sure that people who enjoy the Linda Howard books – or even, much as I don’t understand it, the Ringo books—need to get over it.
And remember, there are women who choose to live this way. (One word: Gorean. That’s all I’m gonna say. And if you choose to google it just be prepared – you may need Ringo-levels of brain bleach.)
kkw: I definitely believe everyone has their own kink and there’s no shame in that (provided that those acting on the kink in real life are consenting adults), but I do think its worth looking into what it is about the rape fantasy that appealed then and appeals now. How is it separate or complimented by rape culture in real life? What does it mean that authors who write these rape fantasies have such large followings? How do people use the lack of consent in fantasy to deal with lack of consent in reality?
Which ties into the Bitten series by Armstrong. There’s a scene in Frostbitten (the one that takes place partly in Alaska, I believe that was Frostbitten) where Elena *um background spoiler alert* is having rough sex with Clay, and she talks about the difference between what her and Clay are doing and what happened to her as a child (she was sexually abused by her foster dads/brothers). And that by Clay having control, with the knowledge that at the slightest twinge he would stop, helped her process and deal with her foster dads/brothers taking control of her when she was a child.
All of which to say I do know women who read rape fantasy romances (or in real life set up the rape fantasy scenario with a trusted loved one) as a way of processing what happened to them in real life. So I wonder how much that plays into some of the interest in the rape hero. I also know plenty of people who used the rape fantasy because they didn’t have access yet to BSDM in more “mainstream” romances. (And then there’s others, like me, who can find the rape fantasy very triggering.)
Which is not to say all kinks have a root like that, or need to be dissected like that. We do seem to give more attention and thought to the rape fantasy than probably other kinks. But I think the rape fantasy is very worth studying because I think rape culture is very worth studying, and I wonder how much the fantasy can and does reinforce and help propagate rape culture.
Also, while the paranormal subgenre seems to have taken over for the historical subgenre for rape heroes, the aphole hero is still alive and well in contemporary romance. Example: Susan Elizabeth Phillips. She’s had several sex scenes that cross the line, or at least skates on it, while at the same time having heroes who delight in humiliating and controlling the heroine. And she’s a best seller with a huge following. And I definitely think that’s worth looking into.
School is eating my brain this week, but I adore ALL OF YOU.
@MicheleKS
Dearly Beloved is an interesting book. In my mind, it represents a marked turning away from the old skool paradigm, because it does not normalize rape. It doesn’t present it as an acceptable form of sexual expression. It presents it as a crime that is the central obstacle to the union of hero and heroine. The author certainly doesn’t try to minimize it. She sets her characters the task of deciding whether it is or isn’t a forgivable crime.
In story terms, the rape in Dearly Beloved is the inciting incident. It is the event that sets both protagonists on their story quest. This is also markedly different from how rape is used in old skool romances, where it is often a stand in for a conventional sex scene, and has no repercussions or influence on the plot.
That said, the book has structure issues and drags in the middle, so I don’t recommend running out and reading it.
@orangehands
It occurs to me that Margaret Atwood had a short story called “Rape Fantasies,” and maybe I should go back and reread it now that I’m no longer in jr. high school and might actually be able to understand what it’s about.
orangehands – quite a while back I posted a some thoughts (not really a review) on Bitten, and in it I said that I didn’t think the scene where Clay ties Elena to a tree was crossing the line because implicit to the scene – and, vitally, to Elena’s understanding – was the fact that she could have said “stop” at any time, and she KNEW he would. That’s not attempted rape. I had several readers take issue with me, and it was an interesting conversation.
When she was going through her divorce, Sandra Tsing Loh wrote a piece in the Atlantic about the dissatisfaction so many 40-something women are experiencing in what look like, from the outside, the marriages of equals that 21st women are supposed to crave – not to threadjack, but it’s here. The end is most interesting:
That part about “real men” and “kitchen bitches” (which she discusses earlier in the post) could launch a thousand threads in itself. As AgTigress says, romance novels are a remarkably clear prism through which to view the cultural zeitgeist at a given point in time.
Lastly, I just had a post up at Heroes and Heartbreakers about Woodiwiss and the Old Skool. I swear to God that I’m not link whoring – or maybe I am, but my intentions are pure, the link doesn’t go to my site or anything—it’s just that it’s germaine to the conversation and it discusses Woodiwiss, the Old Skool, and the context of those books in the 70s.
You people are amazing!! I’m writing an undergrad honors thesis on romance novels, and I really wish I could just copy and paste this whole damn thing into my thesis because its so freakin hilarious and captures perfectly the fact that romance readers are able to critique the genre that they love so much, and that they seek to improve it.
RHG- I’d love to know more about you or contact you.. just so you know, I’m a huge fan and I’m quoting you a LOT in my thesis..
Kinsey, obviously I did not express myself clearly. I meant that we need to get over the fact that people’s tastes vary, and to accept that diversity, even when some people enjoy things that we think is just wrong.
@Alissa – Discussions on SBTB are fun, but you know what else I like? Even when people disagree with each other, the disagreements tend to be more civil and more intelligent than disagreements on my professional discussion lists.
&dm;: I hadn’t read a historical romance up until that point where there was an out-and-out rape to introduce the hero and heroine and I kept reading only because I’d heard so much about this book. But looking back I realized that it was a huge turn-off for me and the book went bye-bye.
&orangehands;: I’m not a big Susan Elizabeth Phillips fan either because of some of her heroes behavior. That kind of thing just really ruins it for me.
For a hero, there’s being overly stubborn and stupid at times then there’s just being an asshat and totally tuning the heroine out and turning on her. It’s what I remember about a lot of the old skool 80’s romances I read back in the day and why I got rid of them.
@Alissa: Wow! I’m incredibly flattered. You can email me at redheadedgirl.boston AT gmail, and I’ll be happy to talk about myself. I love doing that. 😀