Romance Novels

[Auroranorth]

tinyshoes said:

sugarhigh said:

I'm always trying to find this one novel I read when I was about 12 o3 13. It was set in the colonial U.S. Young girl gets kidnapped by the Native Americans. She gets taken as a wife by the Chief's son and wackiness ensues as she tries to be a proper wife but her American rebelliousness always gets her in trouble. I think she gets whipped at one point too. Sound familiar to anyone?

I think it might be Cassie. I remember reading part of it when I was 10 or 11.

Cassie was taken as a child, not an adult, as I recall.

[Deleted]

nitenurse said:

One word -- Mandingo.

Was it actually a book or just a bad movie. Never actuallly saw it but it was pretty well discussed back in the day....

Mandingo was actually a book. My friend and I got into a book war one year when she found this book titled "Beautybeast". It was a plantation forbidden romance btw the white mistress and her black buck. The most interesting thing about the book was that there was little to no punctuation. She sent it to me and in revenge I sent her some other book just like it. I won when I sent her a copy of Mandingo. I wish I still had it.

[dangwhathaveu8]

I about died when I went to Wallmart.com and read some of the romance novel summaries. Be sure to check out the "Time Traveling" section and read the synopsis of some of the books, like this little gem entitled Beyond the Highland Mist:

Sidheach Douglas, known as Hawk, is famous among women throughout Europe and the fairy realms for his sexual prowess. When one of his friends decides he's had enough of the legendary Hawk's exploits, he makes a fateful wish on a falling star that Hawk would meet an ideal woman, perfect of face and form, with a perfect "no" on her lips for the notorious laird. Upon hearing the wish, a sinfully attractive fairy man who covets the Hawk's reputation searches time and space for the perfect woman to put Hawk in his place.
In 1990's Seattle the fairy finds beautiful, intelligent Adrienne de Simone living in seclusion as she tries to escape her checkered past. The quintessential 90's woman, Adrienne is educated and independent. She thinks she's happy in her solitary existence until the fairy sweeps her back in time to medieval Scotland where by the king's decree she is wed by proxy to laird Sideach James Lyon Douglas -- a man who has never truly loved a woman and doesn't want a wife until he meets the incomparable Adrienne and vows to use all of his wiles to make her love him.

Adrienne, who distrusts men, appears to be just the right woman to teach Hawk a lesson in humility; she's determined to push aside Hawk and the stunning fairy man, both of whom vie for her attentions. But when Adrienne is dragged back to her own time, it is Hawk's boundless love that reaches across lime and space to bring her back to the home she finds in his arms.

Brilliant. God sometimes I think that these romance novel writers drop acid for ideas. The guys name sounded out sounds like "Side Ache"..
www.walmart.com/catalog/product_listing.gsp?cat=21251

[lallybroch]

Step away from the Outlander, people....

[tiggertoo]

I'm trying to remember the title and author of one of my favourite cheesy books. The heroine is propositioned by some guy in England and she turns him down. Then her brother gets called to Africa (?) - he's a soldier - she goes with him and is promptly kidnapped by some Arab sheik who turns out to the guy she turned down in England. He arranged the whole thing of getting her brother to Africa just so he could have his way with her. He is (of course) 1/2 sheik and 1/2 English lord. They have all this sex even though she hates him, she is taken by a rival gang, almost raped, etc. Then misunderstanding ensues (of course), she thinks he doesn't love her, returns to England, pregnant, gives birth in his ancestral castle (I forget how she ends up there) and then they are reunited. Man, it was bad/good. Ring any bells with any one?

BTW, for Judith Mcnaught fans, I have to warn you off her latest book - Every Breath You Take. It is not good. I have always really enjoyed her books in the past and this one starts off well but it just falls apart in the second half. Her intro makes it clear that she was very rushed to get it published by the deadline and it totally shows. The paperback isn't published yet and it promises "bonus chapters" so maybe she has tried to fix the problem.

Some of my favourite authors: Mary Balogh, Madeline Hunter, Suzanne Brockman, Sandra Brown. Love Phillippa Gregory's latest series of books - The Queen's Fool, The Virgin's Lover, etc. More historical than romance but very good.

[Auroranorth]

Tiggertoo, was it a Joanna Lindsay novel called Captive Bride?

[twodollars]

Speaking of Joanna Lindsey, I got her new book as it was a Mallory novel. It's so bad that I gave up after 4 chapters. It's about Drew Anderson and some chick who lived in the Islands with a father who used to be a pirate. So, so bad.

[kafka]

auroranorth said:

Tiggertoo, was it a Joanna Lindsay novel called Captive Bride?

Aurora, I thought that was the one where the chap was a pirate? Or am I mixing up my Regency romances?

Tiggertoo, thanks for the heads-up on Judith McKnaught. I used to love her early stuff.

I was rushing through Walgreens today and I saw that there was a new Julia Quinn book out! She used to be one of my absolute favorites and, while her stuff has sharply declined in recent years, I still enjoy her books. But given the speed with which I go through books and the huge costs of paperbacks ($7.99???!?!?! I remember when I bought Regencies for $2.99. God, I feel old!), I feel grumpy about spending that amount on a book which I'll finish in 2 to 3 hrs, probably to never remember again. I'd get it from my library but there are maybe 5 Julia Quinn books in my entire library system, and they may take up to 18 months until they get this new book. I live in the 4th largest city in the US, so there is really no excuse for their slowness, especially as Quinn is a big author, but that's a pet peeve for another thread.

So, if any one has read her latest ("On the way to the wedding")(the last in the Bridgerton series), can you tell me what you thought and if it's any good?

[aiders]

I read it and you're right, her stuff has really gone down in the last few books. However, I was pleased enough with this, but found myself enjoying Lisa Kleypas' Wallflower series MUCH more.

[kafka]

aiders said:

I read it and you're right, her stuff has really gone down in the last few books. However, I was pleased enough with this, but found myself enjoying Lisa Kleypas' Wallflower series MUCH more.

Ooooh, please share, Aiders. I have one or two of her earlier books from .... God, almost 10 years ago, and I really liked it. Is this a new series, what made it so enjoyable for you, what's the name of the first book, and how many books in the series?

On a totally different note, has anyone read Stephanie Laurens' Bastion Club series? I liked the earlier books in her Cynster set (yes, I realise that almost ALLLLLLLL my comments, across the genres, about serial authors involve that same phrase, but I'm sorry, 99.9% of them jump the shark after a while. It's as though they write by rote, following a recipe, and the formula gets painfully old and boring after a while.). Annnnnnnnnnnyway, I liked the Cynster series in the beginning but I can't seem to get into the Bastion Club ones. After a while, I end up being sucked in, but only because I'm the sort of person who needs to know how something ends. But, damn, I'm really struggling with "A Fine Passion."

I think it's because her books are singularly lacking in humour. At least these ones. There is no dry, witty, caustically amusing interplay between the characters. It's like a really leaden brick. She takes things too seriously, in an increasingly constipated, uptight way, unlike my beloved Georgette Heyer who understood that humour or wit was necessary to create sympathy, empathy or just a comedic break. Even Balogh, Quinn, old Amanda Quick and some other authors understand that.

But Stephanie Laurens is quickly using up any old goodwill I had, especially with her increasing tendency to write more about sex than plot. Sex is good but the plot is what makes that sex meaningful or hot. So, when you have 14 pages of the repetitively same sex, for every 6 pages of plot, (with the number of plot pages going down from book to book to book), then you're just going to bore me after a while.