GENRE: Fiction/Historical Romance
SETTING: Caribbean & Barbados, 1811/12
BODICE RIPPER? Yes, very mild
RAPE? Yes
PURCHASE: link
AUTHOR SITE: link
MY GRADE: D
SYNOPSIS: Rescued from the stormy waters of the Caribbean, Summer Cambridge, daughter of the British governor of Barbados faced a new threat aboard the American ship Chimera. Captain Morgan Wade, the notorious buccaneer, brazenly ordered the young beauty to his cabin to be held for his own pleasure! Summer fought him with the ferocity of a wildcat, but held by his insistent passion, she was swept by waves of desire she had never known, and was powerless to resist him. Even as she returned to Barbados and the marriage that had been arranged for her, she still trembled with memories of those days and nights of forbidden passions, and of the man whose love would forever hold her heart captive.
I'm reviewing the out of print paperback from 1984, not the rewritten e-book, which has the rape scene removed.
MY THOUGHTS: Summer is blond with gray-green eyes. Her age was never given so I'll assume she's in her early twenties. She's a typical, slightly boring heroine. Not very feisty like I prefer, especially in these older books.
The American hero, Morgan, is thirty-four years old and has long black hair and blue eyes. He buys cargo and guns legally then sells them to the French, then transports them to America. In typical bodice ripper fashion, he rapes Summer aboard his ship once or twice (page 35 of print book) and makes no apologies for it. That's pretty much where his abuse of her ends.
I liked her terrible husband Bennett Winfield. He lost interest in her right after they married. He suspected her of harboring feelings for Morgan and a secret, and forbade her ever seeing him again and threatened to ruin her and her family if she did. He's shown violence towards her too. I like him much more than I do Morgan.
The story spans about a little over a year, beginning in June 1811. This just wasn't a good story at all. It fits my criteria of a mild bodice ripper; it had the typical arrogant hero, rape, a decent amount of time apart from each other (over a year), and evil secondary characters and lots of action involving ships.
Morgan's slightly younger half brother, Stuart Roarke was just pointless in this story.
I liked the first 119 pages when Summer and her ten year old brother Michael were on Morgan's ship then island, Bounty Key, but once she returned home about a third of the way into the story, boring throughout the rest of the novel. The last fifty pages or so was nothing but one ship fighting against another and I truly forced myself to finish the book. It majority was so uninteresting to me. I really feel like this historical romance turned into purely historical fiction. The only good thing I can say about this is that I love the cover.
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