★★ The Demon of Darkling Reach by P.J. Fox

Well, now, this book really sent feminism back to the Dark Ages...perhaps not in how you'd assume, either. Spoilers are so engrossed into this review; you may want to skip it. I likely won't be reading the sequel, in fact, the idea of a novel cutting off in the middle of nowhere, even without a cliffhanger, just irks the fuck out of me.

I'm at liberty to say that at first, found this book to be semi-delightful, but no - it's definitely not written with a Dark Ages heroine mentality. The Demon of Darkling Reach, in essence, is the longest, modern feminist rager I've heard tale of. Authors nowadays have this tendency of writing from their own perspective, than the era in which they choose to write-in. All of the fine tuning, Medieval, era appropriate touches were in place; the writing technically accurate, but the heroine, Isla, was in a modern crux. She was more modern than any other Historical Fiction or Historical Romance heroine I've encountered; in all of my life. All of the pretty extensive collection of some odd 700-800 books. Most of my reads have been Historical Fiction. Even compared to Medieval timelines, Victorian, WWII women working and single parenting; the 1960 gothic heroines running from houses, women fleeing the French Reign of Terror; even Viking women in their swords blazing and masculine mindset, were not as pretentiously feministic as this heroine. I agree that their dialogue and thought process, could have likely been relative to modern times, however, it felt seemingly as if the heroine had been a modern day woman transported into the Dark Ages. EVERY woman pretty much the very definition of Medieval chattel, except for the heroine. At best, the heroine was bipolar, one moment enraptured by someone to take care of her, to be rescued, then the next seeking independence. She never quite had a real, solid opinion about anyone; all of her relationships were shaken and fragmented, and the one person she should have truly defied--she loved. She excused the hero’s savagery against women, who did little but threaten Isla's security; which had a tendency of yo-yoing from scene to scene, when it was convenient. I wouldn’t have pointed out that tidbit, but I felt the tenor was so modern, it irked me. A modern mindset + abusing women = no, in my book. The only true crime for the hero's victim was that she was loose with her favors. That's all. For a feminist injected into the Dark Ages; that was pretty much slut-shaming, IMHO. Furthermore, Isla's complaints pertaining to women being little more than walking vaginas for men's interests sort of backfires because she condemned a female victim's life for expressing herself in the manner that Isla would perceive as independent. Isla absently chalked it off as the hero being at the top of the food chain.  She held no remorse for the woman who died, eaten alive, in-front of her, staring into her eyes as she died. Also, the anti-religious crusade in this novel is apparent and I felt it WAS justified because the clergy were rat-bastages who deserved whatever befell them. They were a terrible lot. But the promiscuous maid who mainly sought a roll and tumble with Isla's beau; her life was to be done away with, like the clergy, out of sheer jealousy? It's hard to preach Dark Age feminism when you watch milkmaids die & laugh because your boyfriend ate them, relieving you of that worry that he’d bed her. It sort of validates that Isla, too, considered women to be worth no more than sexual activities, if the woman’s biggest crime was having random sex. Isla believed a woman’s virginity was viewed as the price-tag value of a woman. Apparently the maid’s sexual exploits somehow degraded that worth, then? It’s difficult to create an already ‘independent’ minded heroine, who is gradually just devolving, instead of learning and growing as the story progresses. Essentially, a man is the heroine’s only means of leaving that terrible terrible, backwater life. A <i>man</i>. Feminism isn’t working out too well for her, is it?

Isla's hate for nearly everything; literally everything, filled her inner monologue moreso than anything else. Have a voice--have the wit to comprehend wrongs of the church and Dark Age mindsets, but it eventually grated my nerves. Choose and pick your battles, honey. You cannot crusade EVERYTHING.

I’ve made a quick list of modern implementation, inconsistencies and contradictions that were carried on far too long, when it could have been a slow budding thought in the heroine’s mind:

- Hatred of the church (understandable, but a long crusade)
- HATE - too numerous to count. It was a grocery list of heroine's dislikes.
- Heroine preaching about the importance of contraceptives
- Everything was backwards thinking to the heroine
- Constant boredom with everything/everyone; even so far as describing and addressing said boredom. Really?   She was reckoned for a workhorse on the manor. When do you have time to be bored?

- The inability to accept the hero had duties and business elsewhere, the heroine doubted, I mean, PAGES upon PAGES of doubt, every time the hero was out of her eyesight. Where is this strong woman mouthpiece? She couldn’t function without the man who had called her beautiful.  The one person who had ever. This is apologism of toxic relationships. Let’s see how long this little fantasy world would last, if the heroine actually stood up to the hero. My best is that he’d make her into his next meal.

- Fuck this, and fuck that inner monologue.
- Lots of cock sucking & ripping off references.
- Secondary heroine considers heroine a whore for dallying with the hero, but it's glossed over as "OK" because they're betrothed. Isn't that ironic that her marriageable status clears her of sexual activity, but the maid was slut-shamed for wanting to fuck the hero? It's totes church idealism, methinks?

-The endless underlinings, undercores and mocking tone that carried over: Hey, I'll bet you didn't know women did thissssss...and were recognized as thissssss waaaaay back thennn. SO UNRECOGNIZED. SO UNDER-APPRECIATED. They were, but write me a story about the circumstance; this wasn't supposed to be cue cards or fun-facts or sneering statistics on women's influence & role in the Dark Ages.

This book wasn’t a Dark Ages book, to me; no matter how many dyeing tannery lessons and superstitions that were commonplace.  It truly felt as though it was a modern mind looking back INTO the Dark Ages, dispelling and pointing out the wrongs, faults and injustices, instead of the women who had to endure and experience them firsthand. Were women’s hardships through the course of history ungodly and a fucking crisis? YES. YES. YES. But frankly, I prefer a heroine who makes the best of bad situations. Roll with the punches and learned her lessons as the book progressed. A woman who eventually stood up for herself in a mad world of religious crazies, bestial men and treated like vessels for pleasure & breeding. This book badly needed a heroine from its own time to champion their causes. Not someone rewriting history. Sadly, I felt it was a history lesson & Powerpoint Project at a Code Pink pow-wow.

It was a slow forming opinion, but as I said in a status update:
I think the narrator demonized everyone; the heroine’s family and friends, to normalize and humanize the hero and his dark affinity.  Sure, her family treated her like an unwanted burden and allowed the church to harm her at their own leisure, but other evil is to be tolerated and laughed off, because that evil is protecting you—under the guise of care? When it was all admitted that love/care is purely obsession and jealousy and that “you’re mine,”  in the hero’s own words. It seems the heroine and hero are definitely made for one another, if that’s the case.

One star for the tolerable descriptions in the beginning and the witch in the woods who told the heroine to fucking lie in the bed she made. Matter-of-factly and without a bit of sympathy, which, of course--gave the heroine the idea that she was no longer her friend. I got this feeling that the heroine could dish out all of this negativity, but if someone dare(even a friend) point out her own faults or responsibility, she couldn't tolerate it. That's not a strong character, in my book. :)

★★ Tender Torment by Alicia Meadowes

This is a story about a hero..one who was so bad and vicious, that such badness smashed flat any hopeful chances of the reader to sympathize, because his own self-pity surpassed what ray of hope you could muster. And NO, not a Thomas Eden sort of self-pity, but a full-fledged Little Engine That Couldn't. Even from the grave, his mommy beat him down in everyday life, to the point where all women manifested into her. Sometimes, oftentimes, that can be harnessed into a great sculpting of hero lick-worthy stature, but in this instant, it wasn't. He was stuck in the same prepubescent runt rut, instead of the childhood trauma embittering him. HE was the bigger victim in all angles of the story.



I'm going to make this brief and to the point because the historical lollygagging had wrapped around the hero due to his ranking in the British military. It held up to his reputation. Now, I realize the hero's guts are prolly splattered under some feminist campaign bus-tires, and his acts were likely ones that set the Regency sterilized readers' into full weenie roast mode, but what disappointed me MORE than his cloak & mustache dramatic flares was that he was so freakin' whiny & Mommy Didn't Love Me, to the extent where I wanted to fire hose him down from a milk truck, was the fact that his BADNESS did not transcend beyond the stomping piss-fits and into a BADNESS I could love in my secret thoughts, if ya feel me.



He had all of the backhistory and military status that could have proved quite delicious, albeit--his I HAS NO FEELZ SNIFFLE SNIFFLE...granny you know I am inhuman and incapable of emotions! STOMP STOMP SLAM drivel had me wishin' he had been stampeded down in Run of the Bulls. The peppered assortment of sneers, scolds, glares and other evul incarnated gestures overpowered the sincerity that would have been possible to view him as a realistic hero; where they're capable of goodness as well as terrible acts.

An agenda of adjectives cannot convince me of his tortured past and mixed emotions; the hero lacked a vitality to prove himself worthy, or unworthy of anything, except an easy HEA. Did he change? Yes, because the transitions were instant and written over yer forehead as the words are tallied in your mind. I guess I much rather the apologism be left unsaid and actions themselves speak when the characters have said far too much themselves already.

This hero would give old Contemporary Harley heroes a run for their money, for definite. If you like those types of heroes, he'll be a suitable Historical wetdream for your fancy.

★★★1/2 Beloved Enemy by Amanda York

Lanna Malford was languishing in her Princess Tower far too long before her family friends decide to give her a much needed season in London. Damon St.Clair, with an axe to grind, accompanies a Prince in Waiting, Rafe Danvers, to London where he uses him for a heroic figure to woo Lanna into pacification whilst he pulls devious antics such as staging a highway robber rescue missions to further lull Lanna into the scheme. Rafe played romantic sort whose courtship gave Damon the cushion and front, because his seething rage and loathing of her father (and her by association) prevented him any measure of kindness towards her. Damon even goes as far as to play peeping-tom to Lanna & Rafe’s botched deflowering, but make no mistake—Damon fully intends on claiming the REST of Lanna’s virginity later. Yes, she must have a freakin’ iron hymen; both hero and secondary hero were known to have broken somethin’ during their hanky panky sessions. Was York afraid Lanna couldn’t possibly love anyone but the first timer? Really? Where are those sorority girls rolling their eyes in the background here?

Beloved Enemy was a rare lit’l treat I originally felt compelled to succor my tasteless reads with and I spread around the joy & WTF tendencies with the girls at work, or on the forums—like it’s a newborn baby while we're all standing around staring down into its cradle in awe; cooing and admiring its loveliness….until the Big Misunderstanding jumped out of the shadows and kept me hamstringed from 50% of the story till it finished.

So many wonderfully, nitty-gritty smut smudges in this one; even –I- felt aghast a few times, however, that was 1/3 of the redeeming factor. Another being the extreme historical tilt. The War of 1812 has NEVER been reeled out so vividly as York’s pictorial. What suffered so greatly and reason for the bitchery I’m building up? Like I require a real reason, but the character development of the H/h; it was starving and bare thread. It wasn’t so much that the hero/heroine didn’t quite connect, because oftentimes true romance is a no-show in these old relics, but it was how it was delivered. It hurt me to realize this, too. I wanted to five star and giggle nervously, side-eyeing, in case anyone ever reads or notices it, but I’m gonna let these puppies fly free today; I can’t hide from the terrible character formula. More than once I reckoned the 1812 smoke laden landscape, these Georgia backwoods romps unfolding—in all marks of seriousness—-then these black suit, top-hat clad characters cane walk themselves onto and off the stage as all manner of randomness takes place. It wasn’t their plotline or actual design—it was the execution, well, that lobbed off all functioning, vital parts of the character into a shiftless sack of lifelessness. The beginning was like an Apocalyptic fallout of sheer mad-dashery. It was makin' all of my BR dreams come true. o.o The awe factor delivered beautifully through BRery, I was fascinated—she went there—she’s gone and done it now! I gluttonized myself on the first half of this book, and the remainder went down painstakingly slow. I believe the author's inspiration floundered and added MISUNDERSTANDING Cannons & Seeing Is Not Believing curtain-calls during very vital scenes the reader should have been exposed to were scribbled out and instead, the most redundant were showboated around aimlessly. Past tense fill-ins are so tired and dry. It was like receiving second-hand information on an important event you were supposed to attend and expected to be joyous and elated by it. Yeah.... no matter how carefully worded and recounted, you still missed the show baby. And that's how York's narration depicted those scenes; someone bragging to you on a show you missed in a passive-aggressive voice. Sadly, this only applied to the H/h, everyone else were spotlighted and you're able to make the transition with them, but the H/h kept the same grit in their craw throughout the novel and we're INFORMED on how those two took off without training wheels one day...

The hero Damon didn't quite evolve or transform through the guns-blazing, down-with-his-ship uproar, either. I wasn't personally asking for an epiphany. His plotting and gallivanting around one scene to the next - reminded me greatly of a Hardy Boys episode. The majority of strife that befell him was simply of his own design, and seriously, usually had no real weight to the story itself. We're supposed to emotionally invest ourselves to a Big Discovery of Serious Shit unfolding, and I was scolding the book hatefully, "WHY WOULD THAT EVEN MATTER?" He flung arrows and FUCK-YOU smatterings all over this book but in the end we're TOLD he had changed. One of the secondary heroes 'noticed' this calm and passive pace to Damon's personal dealings, and I'm supposed to believe it occurred in the background somewhere?

Lanna, despite many hardships, wasn’t genuinely a chronic crier, but at that 50% something mark, it’s like a blackout drunk trying to answer the doorbell, flopping and felled like a tranquilized horse. A lot of times when heroines are put through the wringer, they’ll at least maintain a sharp wit, tongue or knife—-Lanna LITERALLY gazed up with doe-like eyes, “BUT why?” She’s my main gripe. Her love for the secondary hero in the fledgling stages of the story wasn’t at all unacceptable. I want the heroine to find true love; on her terms. She decides in the end, whom she wishes to be with, but York deliberately channeled all possibility for happiness JUST around the heroine and hero, till the AMAZING secondary characters suffered so greatly, they didn’t even receive their HEA…. And that pisses me the fuck off. *cries* How come they(H/h) got HEAs?

Rafe was literally written off of the pages; his staunch devotion to the ‘sea’ in one sentence, then “I guess I can settle here on this island” schizophrenic turn of phrase rankled my nerves. His entire development, which had amassed to a WONDERFUL degree, was to be used as a crutch for the main characters who’re either standing on one leg, as they saw the other out from underneath them?

Even Beth, lifelong fiancee of Rafe’s-—her sole purpose of existence was so that she could be offed and Lanna would grieve and we’d sympathize with her. Cry harder, sweet-tits.




Indigo—ooOoo, the lovely Mulatto Indigo. This character had a few more feathers in her plumage than to simply be Damon’s lifelong mistress. I ADORED her. She was a survivor—THIS –THIS—is the sort of kickback I wanted from Lanna! Indigo had been Damon’s housekeeper/live-in mistress and when Lanna arrived, naturally she wanted her GONE. Hey, I understand, you’re his wife; you want to run the household-—but she sent her to the dogs without her FREE PAPERS, to Rafe’s plantation. And guess where she lands? A slave. Actually, worse than that-—Rafe’s father assaults on her with his cane and mistreatment sickened me to the core, but above all – all so that Lanna had her happiness. Damon wasn’t even present to be the center of conflict. He didn’t sit still very long at all. Indigo continued to fight back—-she wasn’t a woman of pleasure, she simply loved Damon, but after being subjected to unimaginable cruelty, she used what attributes she had to survive. And she did. Stealing a bisexual artist from his gay artist lover, she thought resembled Damon, she gave herself freely. Seducing a side-villain inorder to escape slavery and plot from the sidelines..she strived harder than most to achieve. In the end, she reckoned she should venture back to Alain, whom she had shared the house with Damon, who also loved her very much, as Alain was the cuddle-bear of the novel whom everyone used for a temporary boost to their esteem and left emotionally vampirized. But they never get their reunion. THAT leaves me so unfulfilled! WHYYY!?! The heroine even confesses to Alain she was a little in love with him, too. The Alain + Indigo + Damon + Lanna partner swapfest was an amusing tidbit, I just hate that even Alain had no conclusion. His character, who rescued Lanna—cared for, and comforted her—simply a dead-weight for Lanna & Damon’s selfish finale. Damon's unnursed, unloved mommy issues seem to transpire and rear up where Lanna’s concerned; my guess is that he saw her as the mother who did not love him, as Lanna, indeed, loved Rafe a great deal of the book. Rafe suffered from unrequited love; glad at least the ‘write-off’ he was given was chasing some tail. >;D Git ‘em Rafe!



Lanna showed a spark of development towards the end when she set to find her child; girl in breeches who was found out in a matter of two minutes on deck—I was LOLOL. She was utterly so clumsy—too stupid to lose; I never liked her. Not once. Everyone I love dies. Well, boo-fucking-who, Mary Sue. It's sad when someone else's death is allll about you. Maybe if you weren’t such a self-centered twit, uncaring for the feelings of others, they’d all be alive—kicking your ass. Even her attempts at courage are wrought through a lot of stupidity that she just HAPPENED to land on her feet during. Her marks as anything more than a stick figure in the corner you hang your coat and hat on – was simply for convenience sake. All disapproval I found within this novel can be rooted in Lanna, though. Lanna, you won’t take the pretty star ratings from me, no matter how I loathed you. 3 ½ stars.

All GR Status Updates as I read are found here: CLICKY

★ Shadow of the Raven by Catherine Rieger

I won't waste your time with the description of this book that makes toiletpaper packaging instructions seem interesting whilst you're occupato. Do NOT be fooled by the lovely wordplay and the author's literate tenor; this book is full of weeds and baggage and overgrown hedges of NOTHING; none of the healthily groomed variation, or even unkempt gloomy sorts that are suspicious for evil plant life and threatening to take over some beloved landmark. Most of the conversations towards the end of the book are out of place, perhaps fillers - barely connecting to the story itself. Not to mention the last few chapters are bizarre, no clarification and incoherent. It truly felt as if I were reading the end of another book entirely. There was a cast of strange characters, whom I originally ADORED, but they're just props or corner decor to stand watch as the heroine aimlessly treks from one end of the castle to the other in pursuit of SPOOKY ANTICS, YO. OK, even if you take out the fact that it wasn't going to be a bodice ripper, or even a true neo gothic, the story itself does not piece together. Not even boringly brittle; it lacked any vitality to make a HEA, or Happily Never After. By the end, the author just didn't feel up to the task of FINISHING it, but instead, she began ticking off the word count and the events are conveyed in the aftermath within the dialogue itself. EVEN THE FINAL SCENES... -.- I'm sorry, 1-star, because of this tidbit here: "No one can have anything better than I. Not a husband. Not a room. Not a dress." That bitch was armed to the teeth to make sure she had the best of everything...too bad the hero wasn't even worth dying for, or killing for, either. ;D

★ Heather Graham : Sweet, Savage Eden

Heather Graham's Sweet Savage Eden is well written, but I couldn't finish it. I tried. Down to the last 150 pages...still, plot M.I.A. There were gaps in the entire book where Graham merely filled in the lack of substance with extra quarrels-- having absolutely no plot-line. None of the characters were holding card, things just happen, stuff is stuff.. History shouldn't be a crutch for a book. The healing cock & traitorous body trope made me wanna throw daggers at them.


Warning: Persons prone to self inflicted bodily harm, consisting of cutters, facial barbell piercers/ear taggers, knife lickers, Mumbletypeg extremists..this is the book for you. You'll need the constant release of endorphins to suffer this bit of Sweet Savage torture.

This book may have survived, if the heroine had actually went with her first self-confessed plan and avoided taking the ship to America...but Heather Graham swooped in, with her siphoning hose, sucking the life clean out of that promising plotline, and instead--faded completely to black, where the heroine arrived in one piece on the docks in America. We didn't even get to experience the trials of sea during the cross-over, for god's sake!!

I can see where she was heading with the colonial migration and Indian uprising... but it was too late for me. Anger/bitterness between the hero/heroine didn't hold me over, waiting for the big magic moment...because the heroine was undeserving, unappreciative and had an extremely spoiled disposition despite the fact she was poor as a church mouse. I honestly felt sorry for the hero, and every filthy name he called her was SO dead-on and deserved! I actually liked the hero, and wish he knew my number. If you're out there--I'll give you a story, darlin'! ;D As for the heroine(can't even feckin' remember that chit's name), if you're going to be a no girl, at least make it worth our while. I believe her lines can be summed up as, "NO", and "LET ME GO"...and for really intense and groundbreaking scenes, "LET GO -OF- ME!"

Half a star went to the fantastic writing and the other half of star went to the sound thrashing (with a riding crop, no less) the heroine's brother gave her. Well played sir, well played.

I'm sorry... heroine(don't know her name), go somewhere and die.


 Tidbits of commentary I made throughout the journey:

			"At this point, I don't give a crap if the entire colonial bunch are ambushed by Indian braves and scalped; it couldn't lift this piece from its ruin. History itself, and a bratty, pregnant wife's insufferable and undeserving tantrums shouldn't be a basis for a plot-line. You shame the first settlers! SHAME ON YOU!!"  and,  "Gawd..the well-timed and overly dramatic exits are weighing on my patience; one good landmine would fix that girl's new-found pretentiousness. lol"

★★★★★ Monson's Stormfire review:

 A real review, considering most of my exchange about this book has been solely in its defense. I recently reread this masterpiece and decided it damn well deserves a review that substantiates my position on its contents and justifying my blatant admiration, instead of simply thwarting anti-Stormfire brigades settin' up FEMA camps to soothe softcore Regency readers' fit of snivels.

Stormfire is again, one of the It books, in my library. It's not the overly cloying and sweet-tongued verse I'm more fond of, but the prose itself is uncanny, and unlike most romances depicted of ANY era that I've been fortunate enough to read. Stormfire is better termed as the real War of the Roses, of love stories. Years of battle, struggle..and unyielding hardship, and you consider that no matter what it took to get to that point, it was so well-earned, the sacrifice and crisis involved; that's what adds character and integrity to the characters, because they had to fight their own war to attest to its greatness. We're nearly given a clean slate and we watch them grow, develop, crumble into edifices of pettiness, till something FINALLY, and EVENTUALLY justifies all of this turmoil. Only such a fierce hatred, and burning rage could be bled of its animosity to a fiercer affection.

Monson once made references to the War of the Roses on a wiki site I happened across, and I can't help but believe she challenged that poorly constructed story with the mocking brunt of a hurricane, as if to say.."You wanna see a War of the Roses? Bring brass bras & big girl panties!" If any alterations had been revised/sissy-spooked up, I can only say I would have tossed it onto a stack of magazines in my attic, and been done all together, but instead I'm left with such a wicked cauldron of emotions where it's concerned. It's a book where you're safer, and better off with 'feeling' it, instead of attempting to overly rationalize it with ultra-sensitivity.

Be warned; gallantry, chivalry and honor are not rewarded virtues in this bit of literature. In fact, anytime it arises to civilize the storyline and gloss over the terra-bad situations the heroine underwent, it's stamped flat of its maggoty existence. Don't try to take a breather between mad sprees, expecting the hormonally driven tenacity not to return. Because it does..beyond all human capacity. I tried on numerous occasions, and it broke my heart all over again. It slayed me whole.

This hero and heroine are not safe reserves; they break every moral
foundation and rule construed for the last three hundred years...and
glimpsing both of their pasts, you actually understand the semblance of wreckage that which ideally makes them compatible.

Some highlights and pondering on my part:

Despite the comeuppance Sean obviously bestowed upon Kit's pretend-poppa, I still felt shorted by the fact he didn't physically pick off the bastard. You know, financial ruin is indeed a knife-twisting sort of revenge, and likely the most impressionable, but if that were the case alone-- the violence towards Kit was basically unnecessary? Or perhaps once the financial drain was at its fruition, her pretend-father's only means of income were her and Sean held her.

When Sean was captured by Kit's father, and held for torture by ruffians, etc-- Sean screeched out, "Leave her out of this! She has nothing to do with it!" I could have slapped the other ball he had, clean off. What embarrassing terminology after his entire mission in life was crafted against her, the innocent victim...oh lawd, that annoyed me to a strangle-a-bitch level, haha. Sean..you wretch!

The entire France deal could have been overlooked or skipped entirely...but I wasn't so dissuaded that would alter my view of the book on a whole. The France stage of the book did not overshadow the eloquently penned prose and enormity of the story itself. The incident almost registered as Monson's way of settling the bed-mate score between the hero and the heroine.

Monson crafted Liam from a Lancelot imagery, and when the occasion arose where we didn't have enough bad-boys, or Sean needed refined as the ultimate hero--Liam rose to fulfill the villain role, SOMEHOW moreso than the hero himself; as if we were supposed to be glad Kit's got Sean to fall back on, instead of that dreadful Liam! (Or that was suggested) Liam's downfalls didn't even remotely compare to Sean's, but I will defend them both equally. I can truly say, Liam is the only male character in the book, who attempted to treat Kit with some human decency and civility! I believe I could have even accepted the incest relationship, if it weren't for the fact that comparing the two, I believe Liam was the real victim of the novel.

Devil's Embrace? Bah, have some humility. ★

Oh wow, Jesus Christ on a crutch. This literary piece emphasizes and stands as a catalyst against for every arbitrary guideline by an author, that we've embraced even in the most shoddy of stories(Stormfire?).

He practically had her floor-planned since she was FIVE! And this is why, in my abject misery, I strive to discern its meaning; I knew from the very instant when she shot the hero, and didn't reload, that her usefulness and entertainment factor was at its end for me.

Generally in most bodice-ripper pieces, we're accustomed to the hero's unruly antics--torture tactics and control management, but I've found it's mostly a product of revenge. This novel accumulates every dastardly premise and attempted to gloss it over as an act of affection. The cocktail of nefarious scheming, life-long plans against a motherless child, eventually leading to training rapes, clown-car rapes by hired thugs, keep-me-pretty confinement, and all I've left out--were implied to be conditions of love itself. It really adds insult to injury, because the hero started off in this mindset, and never really purged himself of its vulgar ideology..or perhaps the author assumes the reader isn't capable of discerning the revenge-driven plot actions to that of actions manifested on the hero's own accord for the heroine's own good and well-being.....

Book #2... Anthony buries Cassie alive but promises her a shopping spree, once she's thinned down enough to wear his mother's exhumed ballgowns. >.<

So appalled, I barely even blinked through the flies rollerskatin' across my eyeballs. Sorry, Coulter..I need a purpose driven evil, not a figure who has the rudimentary senses of a reptile.