Tag: hero ship captain

Historical Romance Review: Raven by Shana Carrol

By IntrovertReader on January 25, 2022 • ( Leave a comment )

raven — *Raven*, Shana Carrol, Jove, 1979, **Ray Kursar** cover art

SPOILER ALERT ⚠

3 1/2 Stars

The Book

Raven by Shana Carrol (aka Christina Savage, aka Mr. Kerry Newcomb & Mr. Frank Schaeffer) is a riveting bodice-ripper. It’s a pirate adventure that features a kickass, resilient heroine whom I adore. It also stars a hero who isn’t worthy to lick the underside of her shoes. This is one of those books I both hate and love and wavered for a long time what rating to give it.

Raven is the 2nd entry in the Paxton family series, although I’m not exactly sure where it fits in, as it’s the only one from the series I’ve read thus far.

The Plot

Part One

The book begins in the Caribbean, in the early 1700s, where a young Marie Celeste Ravenne lives on an island called Mystere with her father. He is a reformed pirate, and she lives to hear his tales of past adventures. One day the island is raided by Spaniards, and they kill her father. Before dying, he urges his daughter to survive however she can.

Marie and the women are taken as prisoners.... Read more “Historical Romance Review: Raven by Shana Carrol”

Historical Romance Review: Passion’s Bride (aka The Captain’s Lady) by Jo Goodman

By Blue Falcon on November 8, 2021 • ( Leave a comment )

*Passion’s Bride*, Jo Goodman, Zebra, 1984, **Ray Kursar** cover art

SPOILER ALERT ⚠

4 Stars

Reviewed by Blue Falcon

This review is of Passion’s Bride, aka The Captain’s Lady by Jo Goodman.

The Plot

The book begins in 1809, where the fledgling American navy hopes to enlist the services of the pirate Alex Danty to help sink British ships. One person, Captain Tanner Cloud, this book’s hero, knows Danty won’t help. Cloud knows this because he knows Alex Danty and knows that SHE–the heroine of the book–was already attacking British ships for her own personal reasons. Primarily to kill a certain Captain Conrad Travers for revenge.

Alex and Cloud become lovers, both knowing that Alex will escape him if she gets the chance. She does, and for two years, they are apart. Cloud later arrests Alex, who is charged with inciting war with Britain. However, she would be let go if she agreed to help the Americans fight the British and help enlist Jean Lafitte to help, which Alex won’t do.

Alex is broken out of prison by Cloud, who is then arrested himself for springing her. Alex, her crew, and his crew work together to get Cloud out of jail.... Read more “Historical Romance Review: Passion’s Bride (aka The Captain’s Lady) by Jo Goodman”

Historical Romance Review: Sea Fires by Christine Dorsey

By IntrovertReader on May 3, 2021 • ( Leave a comment )

*Sea Fires*, Christine Dorsey, **Zebra**, 1992, **Franco Accornero** cover art

SPOILER FREE REVIEW 😊

4 Stars

Reviewed by IntrovertReader

The Book & the Plot

Sea Fires, a Zebra Lovegram written by Christine Dorsey, features bookish yet feisty Miranda Chadwick as the heroine. She’s embarking on an ocean voyage home to the colonies. Her only interests are her microscope (which had specially ground lenses designed by the Leuwenhoek himself) and examining the animalcules of various flora and fauna. (If I ever have to hear that irritating word “animalcule again,” I swear I will go screaming around like a raging madwoman.)

Our dashing hero is Captain Gentleman Jack Blackstone, who has to avenge the death of his family at the hands of the evil Spanish. (Sigh, I’ve seen that plot before, many TIMES over. Why can’t other folks be the bad guys in these pirate stories? Oh, well. Que sera sera.)

Miranda’s father has some shady dealings with Jack, as he is a smuggler himself. He’s under investigation and convinces Jack to kidnap Miranda for several weeks until the magistrate leaves town. Miranda is such a do-gooder that she won’t think twice about ratting out Jack to anyone and everyone, thus exposing his—and her father’s—pirate enterprise.... Read more “Historical Romance Review: Sea Fires by Christine Dorsey”

Historical Romance Review Silver Storm by Cynthia Wright

By IntrovertReader on April 15, 2021 • ( Leave a comment )

*Silver Storm*, Cynthia Wright, Ballantine, 1979, cover artist unknown

It had been so long. He pulled her gown open and her breasts spilled out like ripe, round melons…
SILVER STORM

MILD SPOILERS 😉

3 1/2 Stars

The Book

I started reading Cynthia Wright’s Silver Storm, then put it down. It was sweet, but sometimes too sweet and I have enough cavities. Then halfway through it changes in tone. Our previously gentlemanly hero does a 180 and turns into a lecherous jerk. It was great and I wanted more!

The Plot

The first half involves a sensuous French privateer Andre Raveneau escorting orphaned Devon Lindsay to her fiancé in Virginia at the end of the American Revolution. The girl is obviously not in love with her missing man but devoted to him out of a weird sense of commitment. All the while, this tall, gorgeous, gray-eyed Frenchman plays nice, and Devon stomps her foot and plays hard to get. Andre was such a gentleman; I wondered where this was going.

But oh, he has a plan–a cunning plan–to trap his strawberry-haired prey, and when he finally gets what he wants, he plans just as cruelly to be rid of her, eagerly awaiting his next new lay.... Read more “Historical Romance Review Silver Storm by Cynthia Wright”

Historical Romance Review: These Golden Pleasures by Valerie Sherwood

By IntrovertReader on April 13, 2021 • ( Leave a comment )

*These Golden Pleasures*, Warner Books, 1977, cover artist TBD

SPOILER ALERT

3 stars

The Book

What can I say about Valerie Sherwood’s These Golden Pleasures? Well, this 512 page epic starts out wonderfully but then falters then lags in the middle, and is rushed at the end.

The Plot: Part One

Roxanne is in San Francisco on the eve of the great earthquake of 1906. She has to choose between the two men who will decide her fate, one of them her true love.

The story goes back to when Roxanne was a 15-year-old girl in Kansas, and the drama of her life unfolds. As is usual in a Valerie Sherwood, the heroine’s first sexual experience is not with the hero. She has a fling with Buck, her best friend’s fiancé.

Circumstances force her out of Kansas and Roxanne goes to Maryland, where she finds work as a maid for the wealthy Coulter family. She is romanced by two brothers: cynical, business-minded Gavin and handsome, carefree Rhodes who sails ships. This is where the book gets cooking! The tension is hot… And then a stupid misunderstanding leads to a long separation.... Read more “Historical Romance Review: These Golden Pleasures by Valerie Sherwood”

Historical Romance Review: A Pirate’s Love by Johanna Lindsey

By IntrovertReader on April 13, 2021 • ( 1 Comment )

*A Pirate’s Love*, Johanna Lindsey, Avon, 1978, Robert McGinnis cover art

WARNING: RANT & SPOILERS AHEAD (POSSIBLY OFFENSIVE)

1 star

I Didn’t Love This Lindsey

I hated Johanna Lindsey‘s A Pirate’s Love for many reasons, some based on logic, most others based on pettiness. If you’re looking for a great review that does a better job explaining why this book blows, search elsewhere. I’m just going to go on a diatribe based on my ever-waning recollections of this “romance”:

The multiple rapes that the hero commits upon the heroine didn’t really faze me, although they did get redundant. After all, it’s a bodice ripper, and that’s what comes with the territory. If a hero raping the heroine offends you, best not read this genre. It was everything else, in Lindsey’s second-published book, that I despised.

Embrace the Hate

I hated Bettina and her knee-length hair that’s easily hidden under a hat! (Apologies to the beautiful Johanna who actually had knee-length hair. She could have easily passed for one of her heroines.)

I hated how she cried over her dresses and how ill-tempered she was and hearing about her flashing eyes that were blue one minute, then green another.... Read more “Historical Romance Review: A Pirate’s Love by Johanna Lindsey”

Historical Romance: Passion’s Proud Captive by Melissa Hepburne

By IntrovertReader on April 8, 2021 • ( Leave a comment )

*Passion’s Proud Captive,* Melissa Hepburne, **Pinnacle**, 1999, cover TBD

4 Stars

Warning: Not for the Easily Offended

Passion’s Proud Captive by Melissa Hepburne is not a book for modern readers, but it’s tailor-made to suit my tastes.

As far as “romance novels” go, I am stuck in a time warp. This 50-year old genre has more variety now than ever… I find modern romances lacking. I’ll read a keeper on a rare occasion, but they just don’t do it for me for the most part. I know they’re well-written, insightful, witty, with mature sexuality. It’s simply that most of them bore me. I’m a troglodyte, ok! I like cheese! Spare me your Ivy-league educated authors with professional doctorates who create such works of literature like Seven Scandalous Secrets to Seduce a Man-Slut–oops–Scoundrel. Give me those 21-year-old-housewives, those retired grandmothers, those crazy cat ladies! Now they knew how to write the crap I like… Crap like Passion’s Proud Captive.

If ever you’ve wondered if a book was so trashy, so poorly written yet so awfully enjoyable that it could be considered to romance novels what Manos the Hands of Fate or The Room is to movies, look no further than Passion’s Proud Captive or Miss Jennifer van der Lin’s Ribald Tales of Rapetastic Adventures in White Slavery featuring ugly, greasy men and a few good-looking ones, too.... Read more “Historical Romance: Passion’s Proud Captive by Melissa Hepburne”