Customer Reviews

Captain's Woman

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1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is one crazy story. The heroine, Mary, is nineteen and living at her deceased grandmother's home, which is now being run by the grandmother's male relative. Mary is using the name George Read because she's been living the last five years of her life as a boy. Her mother died and she went to live with the grandmother....who really believes she's male. When she was little, her mother dressed her as a boy and took her to visit her grandmother. The grandmother didn't like boys so that's the reason for the disguise.

It's totally implausible that a feminine woman could live several years dressed as a man and have no one know it. How stupid do authors think we, the readers, are? And this whole time, there was no mention of Mary ever getting pregnant. The stuff with the dungeon could have been interesting if the author hadn't thrown that in out of the blue during the last few pages.

This is one over-the-top story. It's only 296 pages and too much action is packed into it. I got this book in September 2009 and have finally read it. I was impressed with the craziness of it but my excitement died shortly after I started reading it.

Saliee O'Brien's real name is Frankie-Lee Janus.

A reader on the Amazon Romance Community wrote a rave about this older romance, published 1979. She called it "a wonderful, angst filled story" that she'd read when very young and never forgotten. She also said, "this book was filled with tragedy, adventure and story telling like you just don't see anymore".

Like the naive dummy I am I obtained a copy of this book based on that reader's recommendation. Well, in my defense, it did all sound good.

Having read CAPTAIN'S WOMAN myself, all I can say is... ugh, (spit sounds) thank goodness you don't see books like this anymore. The heroine is the old-fashioned-romance-novel victim/martyr, who is raped several times in the book's opening chapters... and actually responds sexually to her rapists. Just so that no reader thinks I'm exaggerating, let me give you a little sample from the book (the heroine's first rape):

"I was screaming inside now, silently, and still I struggled, and then it seemed that my whole self flew into hot fragments. I held to him as those blazing shreds whirled. On and on they spun, and the world itself hung motionless in the sky and sang a new, shattering music." And: "He had used me violently, time after time. He had compelled me to return passion for passion and I hated him for that most of all..."

The hero, the love of her life, the "captain" of the title, rapes her too. ("He held me tightly, shuddering, and I knew that, though he had raped me, it was actually I who had conquered him.") The hero is the unjustly disinherited claimant to an estate in England, and because he needs money, fast, to go back and fight for his lands & title, he won't allow himself to be "in love" with the heroine (although he'll take whatever else is on offer) and continues to make her miserable, out of bed anyway. However, living with the Captain's rough treatment and emotional immaturity never cures the heroine of her "love" for him.

Bleech. I know times/tastes have changed and romance novels are written differently now, and all I can say is, again, THANK GOODNESS, dreadful so-called romance novels like CAPTAIN'S WOMAN disappeared somewhere, in dumpsters and landfills I hope, but since there are still copies of this book around, I guess not all copies escaped. Mine, you can be sure, is sitting in the garbage bin.

Also, whoever the author, 'Saliee O'Brien' is or rather, was, (a male writer in disguise, I strongly suspect), elements of this book bear a strong resemblance to another old 1970's romance novel called LOVE'S TENDER FURY (another dumpster-worthy reading experience).

I believe I am the poster SusieQ referenced in her review. I read the book when it first issued and remember it fondly, even all these years later. While the heroine was abused(especially in the beginning of the book), that was not what I recalled most vividly about it. What stayed with me was the story and character development AFTER the initial abuse and the heorine's often harrowing journey into her future and the life she always wanted(to live openly as a woman).

The heroine's journey started quite traumatically-as would be expected for a woman alone without friends or resources in the day and age(and sometimes in this one). I have to say that I often skim sex scenes so I may have missed the part about her enjoying her rape. Even if that is the case, it does not detract from the fact that this was a well done book, unusual in scope, storyline and perscpective. Also, I am no psychologist, but I would imagine that a person forced to live without physical contact(to hide her gender) may welcome a touch that people in normal circumstance would find repulsive.

The heroine in this book went on a epic journey that took her to places she nor the reader expected. She suffered, learned, loved, was betrayed,picked herself up and survived despite the obstacles that came her way without let up.

To reduce this book to the rapes that took place within the first 50 pages and were almost immaterial to the story line kind of misses the point of it all, IMHO.

As to "they don't write them like this anymore": I think the emphasis on the heroine's response to a sexual act illustrates my point to a "T". Sadly, too many romance novels focus on genitalia. This book is rich in its sense of time and place. It has historical parallels(I saw a VERY similar story regarding female pirates on the history channel) and was, most of all, is a story of survival. The heroine's life reminded me of the barracade scene in the theatrical prodcution of Les Misearables when the combatants were told no one was coming to help them to fight, they were on their own and that they could give up or die. This heroine was very much on her own, the staked were high and she never gave up. I found her will to live impressive. With the exception of the very fine Spymaster's Lady, I have not read a "historical" romance in many years that was as rich in history or character development and featured such a driven heroine.

Could this book have been written by a man? Maybe. I still like it because of the story elements. I also did not think the writer did a bad job in conveying the heroine's inner struggles. They say that a good writer is able to take on the persona of a character despite differences in gender, politics, etc that may exist between the writer and the character. And I think O'Brien, whomever he or she may be, did a swell job of it in Captain's Woman