**spoiler alert** It must be the change of seasons. Something in the air, because I can’t explain it, I really liked this one—almost loved it, actuall**spoiler alert** It must be the change of seasons. Something in the air, because I can’t explain it, I really liked this one—almost loved it, actually, until the end. Carole Mortimer’s “Love Unspoken� is one of those infamously controversial Harlequin Presents where readers can’t stop talking about it, even though it’s not necessarily well-loved.
The book begins with the heroine, Julie, a jet-setting journalist, having been just released by terrorists who held her and fellow flight-mates hostage. She’s a little bruised when her boyfriend, Steve, shows up with concern. Julie and Steve have been dating for six months—by her own admission, some of the happiest she’s ever spent—but Julie, a mature gal in her mid-twenties just can’t make the jump from heavy petting to sex. She likes keeping Steve on a firm leash, while he pants for more from her, but she’s not giving him any biscuits! Steve knows Julie was involved with the Zack Reedman in the past, in fact, had a year-long affair with him, so could it be old feelings for him that hold her back?
Julie adamantly denies having any attachment to Zack, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. It was no mere affair; Julie had been married to Zack for a year, a turbulent, passionate year, before they separated. She’s still married to Zack despite not having seen him in three years. But time is not on Julie’s side, because her best friend is married to Zack’s brother and invites her to spend some time convalescing at their home in the country.
Just co-incidentally it also happens to be the anniversary of Julie and Zack’s marriage, when who should show up unexpectedly, but Zack! Zack has been keeping himself quite busy with plenty of women and now seems to be on the verge of engagement to another woman. Divorce is now on the agenda, yet Zack can’t keep his hands off his ex. Julie, disgusted pushes him away, restating her hatred of him.
Zack’s brother demands to know just what happened to break up the couple. Zack was incredibly jealous and possessive and never appreciated Julie’s career, which kept her out of the country more often than at home. He always accused her of having affairs with her coworkers. On the night they split up for good, Julie got a call to fly out for a job. This is when Julie drops the bombshell: in a final rage, Zack beat and raped her, putting an end to their once loving relationship.
Zack and Julie act in a ridiculous manner as her pursues her, and she flees from him, while they both string along their significant others. But their crazy lust, er love, for each other won’t be denied, and they have a one-night stand together while said significant others are under the same roof with them—Julie’s guy is even the room adjoining hers!
Of course, this being the land of drama, that one night results in pregnancy. Julie does her best to hide the pregnancy from Zack, but he finds out anyway. Then he finds out that after she left him, she suffered a miscarriage. We’re well near the end of the book, but Zack hasn’t changed one bit and stopped being a jealous lout, because he falsely accuses Julie of hiding that secret because he wasn’t the baby’s father. What an a-hole, right?
Julie and Zack reunite platonically for the baby’s sake, she quits her job, and they settle in the country.
Finally, after having given birth to their child, Zack discovers one more truth: it was due to his violent rape of Julie that she miscarried their first child. Zack leaves his wife at the hospital, locks himself up in his study, drinking his miseries away, wallowing in self-pity. So Julie does the only thing she can, releases herself from the hospital early to run to Zack’s side. She reveals the last truth to him, that her father was a serial adulterer, driving her mother to an early death. That was the reason Julie always kept her self at a distance from Zack, because she never wanted to love as deeply as her mother did. Zack cries, she cries, and the two vow to spend their marriage together as one passionate affair.
Now why the hell did I like a book like this?
I can’t explain. The emotional ups and down were thrilling, with almost every chapter ending in a shocking cliffhanger where more information is revealed. I can understand why many readers would be turned off by the plot, and to be honest, when I had heard what the book was about, I wasn’t crazy about reading it. But something about it just worked for me. Like I said, it must be something perverse in the air that made me enjoy this. There is no real resolution to their problems. There’s no marriage counseling. No private counseling. No helpful aid from friends and family. Zack’s still jealous, still uses alcohol as a crutch, still potentially violent. And Julie is…well, Julie's clearly not all there, either, because she’s willing to overlook all those dangerous flaws because of true love.
What a horrible hero. What a horrible heroine. She’s a codependent user, and he’s a drunk abuser. They deserved each other and will no doubt have a very long, very rocky marriage where they make everyone miserable, including themselves, but will only be more miserable apart from one another. What a crazy mess. And I liked it.
There are many older romances I like out of pure nostalgia. When I re-read them, I know they’re not perfect, but enjoy them nevertheless. Stranger in There are many older romances I like out of pure nostalgia. When I re-read them, I know they’re not perfect, but enjoy them nevertheless. Stranger in My Arms by Louisa Rawlings first caught my attention over twenty years ago, and I love it more today than I did back then.
Although it’s a bit on the short side, this is the best romance novel, historical or otherwise, that I’ve ever read. I have re-read this book easily a dozen times in over twenty years and am always stirred by its intensity.
A Harlequin Historical published in 1991, this book is 300 pages of tiny type-face, and there’s no room for it to lag. Every character, no matter how minor--be he an innkeeper doting on his guests; an avaricious villain intent upon deception; a mute orphaned boy; or a mercury-addicted nobleman mourning over the deaths and losses incurred during the French Revolution; or a jealous camp-follower--every individual in this novel has a vivid sense of realism and depth.
Charmiane de Viollet is a 22-year-old widow returning with her exiled family to Paris. She never witnessed the horrors of the French Terror and even though her late husband was an abusive beast, she is still filled with the optimism of youth. Her loyalty becomes torn between her devotion to her Ancien Regime family and her love for a Parvenu upstart. She is an imperfect heroine, at times too trusting and too impetuous, but also generous, refined, and filled with joy.
Adam-Francois Bouchard, Baron Moncalvo, a Colonel (then later a General) in Napoleon’s Grand Army is the kind of hero I adore: blond, masculinely-handsome, but not pretty, a soldier, gruff, awkward with women, a bad dancer, loyal to his country and a man of unrelenting honor. I don’t usually like soft heroes and can tolerate “jerkiness� to a fairly extreme degree. However, it is the imperfect, all-too-human heroes who captivate me.
Then there is Adam’s twin brother, Noel-Victor, a mere corporal in the cavalry and a charming rake. While his looks match his twin’s, they are two different souls: one is filled with light and laughter, the other with darkness and dread.
The first three chapters deal with Adam’s and Noel’s first meeting with Charmiane. The magical enchantment that follows at a ball attended by Napoleon himself is the stuff of dreams. Charmiane’s eyes shine in devotion to her dashing hero, and they dance the hours away and later bask in the romantic afterglow of that one perfect night� If you don’t fall in love with Charmiane and Adam within these first chapters, then this may not be the book for you. As I am a sentimental sap, I weep every single time I read this book.
This exquisite gem of a novel is filled with sensitive writing, passion, warfare, sadness, and love. It has all the components that I adore in a romance.
The love letters: While Adam is off fighting, he writes to his cherished Charmiane, referring to her as his “Dear Helen.� In these correspondences the yearning he feels for their long-distant love is so palpable, as well as his disillusionment and horror in what seems a meaningless war.
There is the brother vs. brother trope for a woman’s love. I admit to a bit of hypocrisy in my reading; I hate love triangles involving the hero and two women, especially when siblings are involved. But the heroine who is torn between two brothers trope, when done well, then that's one I can appreciate. And if it’s between twin brothers, more so. Here, this plot point is executed in a perfect manner, for what we see is not always what is true.
There are even “bodice ripper elements�:(view spoiler)[ In a horrifying turn of events, Adam rapes Charmiane on their wedding night after having killed her brother in a drunken duel. Adam abuses her cruelly in the early days of their marriage as he deals with the traumatic after-effects of war. The damage is done and the story unfolds in a most fascinating manner as Charmiane's love for Adam is destroyed. (hide spoiler)]
Adam is a leader of men, stoic and brave…yet he is so filled with pain that even he is brought to tears. This is a man who has reason to cry; he has no mommy issues, no woman who hurt him in the past--there is no other woman, period. It is the awfulness of war, the meaningless deaths of his compatriots, the frozen and rotting flesh of his soldiers� corpses in the Russian snow, the depths of depravity, and the loss of his humanity that overwhelms him. He weeps for his loss of his soul� And only Charmiane can bring it back to him.
Unlike many of my nostalgia loves, this book gets better with each reading. Every time I find something new to appreciate. I notice most of my favorite historical romances are not set in the all-too-common Georgian-Regency-Victorian era of England but in Medieval times or set in other eras in Spain or France or Russia, or the Western United States.
I also enjoy Civil War romances located in the American south and Napoleonic Era romances based in France with French protagonists. They are so rare, and rarer yet are the well-written ones.
I suppose my tastes are an anomaly in this genre, and that's why I read mostly older works.
Stranger in My Arms is, for me, the culmination of a romance novel. I have never read one that I enjoyed more, although some epics have come thisclose. Both the hero and heroine change and grow as they suffer and cope with loss. Adam and Charmiane learn to adapt to the new world around them and, in doing so, learn to love each other anew. This isn’t an easy love; it’s a larger-than-life love set in the epic time of the great Napoleon Bonaparte, a man who could lead his men to the ends of the earth, despite his hubris and tragic downfall.
There is a sequel to A Stranger in My Arms, Wicked Stranger. While not as thrilling and emotional, it still features a great hero, the flip side to Adam’s melancholy and reserve.
Louisa Rawlings wrote a few books, and everyone that I have read so far is wonderful. Louisa Rawlings/Ena Halliday/Sylvia Halliday, please write more! Your talents should be more widely known and revered!
Stranger in My Arms is sublime perfection, from the first, almost whimsical, paragraph:
“If Charmiane de Viollet remembered the Reign of Terror at all, it was as a vision of Aunt Sophie running about shrieking, her fleshy bosoms popping from her bodice as she snatched wildly at the canary that had escaped its cage. The rest of the story had been recited to Charmiane so often that it had assumed its own reality: the desperate flight from their townhouse in Paris—the carriage loaded with silver and luggage and oddments of furniture—the mad race for the Swiss border, the mobs and the looted carriage, Papa’s final, fatal stroke. Very dramatic, very graphic, especially as Uncle Eugene told it, but strangely unengaging. For Charmiane, the single emotion connected with that event would always be levity—the remembrance of those pink mounds bouncing absurdly against Sophie’s stays in delicious counterpoint to her squeaks and wails.�
To their last beautiful affirmation of eternal adoration:
“He lifted his head and at last grinned down at her. ‘Now,� he said, ‘who am I? Adam or Noel?�
“She gazed into eyes that held love and joy and laughter. The laughter that had always been in him—only needing her to bring it out. ‘Oh, my dearest,� she answered, her heart swelling with wonder and gratitude for the beautiful man who bent above her. ‘You’re Love.’�
**spoiler alert** So, after a couple of decades of reading romance, I finally got around to "Stormfire." Whew! They do not write them like this anymor**spoiler alert** So, after a couple of decades of reading romance, I finally got around to "Stormfire." Whew! They do not write them like this anymore. The ultimate in bodice-ripping, "Stormfire" is a tale of two mentally unstable people and their violent, intense love. And it's great!
The main attraction of "Stormfire" is its writing. If it was a poorly written book no one would still be talking about it 20-plus years after it was published. The chapters each have their own titles such as "Silken Irons," "Into Eden," or "The Nadir." When the heroine meets the hero her first thoughts are of Milton's poetry: "His form had not yet lost/All his original brightness, nor appeared/Less than Archangel ruined..." The prose is evocative and compelling, but not purple. We agonize with Catherine's enslavement, we feel the angry passion between the lovers, we grieve with Catherine's loss, and suffer from Sean's torture...how much misery can two people take? Then there is that intense love/hate. I wish writers of historical romances today wrote like this, deeply and intensely, if not necessarily the same plot.
But then, maybe I'm a sicko, but I like the plot. Yes, it's epic and melodramatic: everything but the kitchen sink is in the plot including SPOILERS***: kidnapping, rape, starvation, forced slavery, multiple marriages, miscarriage, insanity, beatings, brothers fighting for the same woman, incest, castration, forcible sodomy, murder... To be honest, I wasn't comfortable with a lot of things in the book. Even so, Stormfire is enthralling. Even those who hate this book can't say it's boring.
There are a lot of detractors of Stormfire, so in its defense, I'll say this: this isn't a sweet romance; it's a historical romance novel, a bodice ripper, and I use the term with great affection. It's a fantasy. A dark one, definitely, but then some might say so are the vampire, werewolf, bestiality, BDSM, menage fantasies of today. This is a different kind of fantasy, where the greatest hate in the world can be turned into love. Would this relationship work in real life? Probably not. That's why it's a fantasy. Stormfire is very entertaining, emotional, and unforgettable. It falters a bit towards the end, so it's not perfect. It's not the best romance novel ever written, but for me, it's up there.
Wendy, Lady Evelyn Quince
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