AUTHOR: Patricia Hagan
STARTED: June 9, 2013
FINISHED: June 17, 2013
PAGES: 532
GENRE: Romance
FIRST SENTENCE: The sky was gray and overcast.
SUMMARY: [From BN.com] Beautiful and spirited Southerner
Kitty Wright is torn between Rebel Nathan Collins and Yankee Travis
Coltrane, the dashing Cavalry officer who can melt her heart with desire
while sending fury coursing through her veins. As war erupts, Kitty is abducted
and ravished by a war-crazed Rebel. Rescued by Yankees, she is held
captive and thrust into the battlefields to help tend the wounded. But
from the first moment Travis Coltrane ignites—and satiates—the wild, raw
desire in her that she never knew existed, she realizes her heart is
imprisoned as well as her body. Hating Travis for his Yankee
loyalty, while loving him despite their different worlds, Kitty
struggles with her guilt over Nathan, the Rebel to whom she is
promised…all while struggling to survive as the world explodes around
them all.
THOUGHTS: I picked up this book because I was in the mood to read something so utterly awful that it was fun. This book was PERFECT! At least in the respect that it was a complete piece of trash.
This book fits every trope of the romance novels that came out of the 1970s.
- Bodice ripping? Check! This heroine's clothes are littered all over the east coast.
- Heroine who wants nothing but true love but is TSTL? Check! She is so inside her own head I'm surprised she remembered how to walk.
- Heroine who is so headstrong it causes problems? Check! Woman could not get out of her own damn way. I'm all for strong female leads, but only if their strength is used wisely.
- Absurdly dramatic situation? Check! Civil war. Nuff said.
- Dogbone thrown to the "modern" audience? Check! Don't worry, our heroine may be from the south, but we know by page 3 that she despises slavery. Continue reading without feeling like you must hate her.
- Rape? Check. Check. CHECK! Seriously, I lost count of how many times the heroine was raped and by how many men. The author must have hated her female lead because she seems to be raped at least once a chapter. It was outright disgusting. Thank goodness I was in the mood to laugh at the utter horribleness of this book.
I spent the vast majority of this book laughing and scoffing. The situations our heroine finds herself are absurd and repetitive. This woman couldn't stay out of trouble to save her life. She is also a horrible judge of character. In fact, most of the characters in this novel are horrendous human beings. Save for a secondary character here and there, I did not like anyone in this book. In some ways, that was a good thing - it made laughing at them easier.
The one valid good point of this book is the graphic descriptions of battlefield wounds and surgery. They were uncomfortable to read because they were so vividly written. I do have to give the author some credit where it is due.
This book was just plain wrong in every way. I loved it.
RATING: For the book - 2/10 [Awful], For the entertainment value - 9/10 [Excellent]
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