Helpful Score: 5
I had some problems with this book. The hero rapes the heroine. It's not sugarcoated in any way, shape or form -- he pulls her off a horse & just does it. The heroine then has to overcome her feelings of shame & guilt. Plus she has to conceal the crime, because her Cossack clan values virginity and she doesn't want to be cast out. The hero then has to redeem himself in her eyes (and mine, the reader's!)
While I thought the author was successful in relaying the heroine, Katrina's pain & her grief about the rape (and there is a great scene where she confesses what was done to her to her dying grandfather), I didn't think the author was successful in making Banyan, the hero, redeem himself fully for the rape, at least in my eyes. It was a difficult read for me, because, besides the rape of the heroine by the hero, there is also "TMI" about Ivan the Terrible's sexual depravities.
It's a book that will mean different things to different readers, but for THIS reader, I wish I hadn't read it. Granted, it was written in 1978 so there was a different style for romance novels back then. I wouldn't say Fern Michaels is a bad writer, but, I'm glad this type of romance novel went out the window in the '90's.
While I thought the author was successful in relaying the heroine, Katrina's pain & her grief about the rape (and there is a great scene where she confesses what was done to her to her dying grandfather), I didn't think the author was successful in making Banyan, the hero, redeem himself fully for the rape, at least in my eyes. It was a difficult read for me, because, besides the rape of the heroine by the hero, there is also "TMI" about Ivan the Terrible's sexual depravities.
It's a book that will mean different things to different readers, but for THIS reader, I wish I hadn't read it. Granted, it was written in 1978 so there was a different style for romance novels back then. I wouldn't say Fern Michaels is a bad writer, but, I'm glad this type of romance novel went out the window in the '90's.
