Sweet Savage Flame welcomes our newest addition to our staff: Blue Falcon, who will contribute great reviews to this site. In his first review, he discusses Captive Melody by Nadine Crenshaw.
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Captive Melody by Nadine CrenshawRating:
Published: 1989
Illustrator: Aleta Jenks-Rafton
Imprint or Line: Zebra Heartfire
Genres: Historical Romance, Bodice Ripper, Western Romance
Pages: 412
Format: Paperback
Buy on: Amazon
Reviewed by: Blue Falcon
The Book
This review is of Captive Melody, a standalone Zebra from January 1989 by Nadine Crenshaw.
The Plot
The Prologue
Captive Melody begins in July 1876 in Northern California. Ling Kee (I’m writing her name in the traditional Chinese way, last name first), a young housewife, is brutally attacked by three “men.” Among them is Richard Laird, a rancher.
After being beaten and raped, Ling Kee commits suicide.
Abduction, Ravishment, and Romance
Fast forward five years.
Laird has just married Laura Upton, the heroine of the book. Their marriage won’t last, however. On their wedding night, Laura is kidnapped by Andre Sheridan—Ling Kee’s husband.
Andre plans to hold Laura as bait to draw Richard to Andre’s home and kill him.
As Andre takes Laura further away from Laird, they become attracted to each other, later acting on that attraction. Andre later takes Laura to one of his homes—he is quite wealthy—and their relationship deepens.
One person who is not happy about this is Ling Soo, Andre’s housekeeper. Moreover, he is Ling Kee’s father. Unhappy with Andre’s relationship with Laura, he does his best to break up the pair.
After some time together, Andre sends Laura back to Laird. Big mistake. He tries to rape Laura and beats her brutally.
Laura leaves Laird—say that three times quickly—and gets a job in a pharmacy. She also discovers she’s pregnant with Andre’s baby. Subsequently, she obtains another suitor, Yale Talbot.
Andre finds Laura after a long search and breaks up her relationship with Talbot. Andre then compels Laura to marry him. They are happy for a while—Laura is pregnant—but then Laird reappears.
A violent confrontation takes place between Andre and Laird, and Laird is killed. However, not by Andre but by Laura.
In the end, Laura becomes a famous concert pianist, fulfilling her stepmother’s dream. Laura, Andre, and their daughter have their Happily Ever After.
The Upside
The fact that I finished this book! This feat was accomplished only by speed reading and skimming. The reasons are explained below.
The Downside
Captive Melody contains two tropes I hate in books: 1) Revenge by proxy and 2) Stockholm Syndrome. Both tropes are present here, and they’re both terrible.
Question: Why do “heroes” in these books go after defenseless, innocent women?
The answer: They’re really cowards.
Going after a man requires emotional, financial, mental, and physical strength. There is also the possibility that the “hero” could get killed. Going after a woman: most of those things are much less likely to happen, especially when the woman is an oatmeal, milquetoast heroine like Laura Upton.
Andre is, to put it simply, an abusive, arrogant, brutal, egotistical, possessive, predatory, self-centered, uncaring, unfeeling bastard. There are no redeeming qualities about him whatsoever.
Now, for an equal opportunity, unload on Laura, who is the dumbest romance novel heroine I’ve read since Eugenia Scott in Cassie Edwards’ putrid Eugenia’s Embrace.
To be fair to Laura, though, she has been abused her entire life. First by her stepmother, then by Laird, then by Andre, then Yale, and finally back to Andre.
Also be fair, Andre doesn’t physically strike Laura—big whoop—but every other action toward Laura is abusive) She has all the personality of white bread and similar intelligence.
Sex
There is one really good love scene. There are other scenes that fail to impress. The fact that Andre manipulated Laura into having sex with him in the first place ruins any appreciation for the scenes. As the book unfolds, Andre manipulates Laura, using her lust for him to coerce more sexual favors.
Violence
When Laura goes back to Laird, he brutally beats her. Later, Andre and Laird have their confrontation, which is violent, before Laura shoots and kills Laird. The first scene is somewhat graphic; the latter is not.
Bottom Line on Captive Melody
If it were possible to give less than one star to a book, Captive Melody would be the one. I’m not going to say, “I’ll never read another book by” this author, Ms. Crenshaw, but Captive Melody certainly doesn’t inspire any enthusiasm for any books I’ll read by her in the future.
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| Overall: | 1.2 |
Synopsis
When a handsome stranger overpowered her in her boudoir right after her marriage ceremony, inexperienced Laura Upton was too frightened to do more than faint. Later when she awoke, the scarcely clad beauty found herself on a galloping horse, in the powerful embrace of her virile kidnapper. How dare this riff-raff deprive her of the most romantic night of her life! Stroking her creamy flesh as she struggled, the bold cowboy whispered how wicked a man her husband was — and the ebony haired beauty didn’t know whether she should rejoice she was rescued… or be terrified she’d be ravaged.
CAPTIVE MELODY BY NADINE CRENSHAW