The Elusive Flame [Hardcover]

Kathleen E Woodiwiss (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Avon Books (1961)
• ASIN: B0022WESRA
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.7 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (111 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,601,197 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

With more than thirty-six million copies of her bestselling novels already in print, Kathleen E. Woodiwiess remains one of America's most successful and beloved storytellers. She is the author of twelve enormously successful masterworks of romantic fiction, including The Flame and the Flower, Shanna, Ashes in the Wind, Petals on the River, and The Elusive Flame.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars My favorite author!, December 9, 2001

By 

Brenda Condit "satinskper" (Albuquerque, NM USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Elusive Flame (Mass Market Paperback)

I really love Kathleen's books. I first read "The Flame and the Flower" twenty years ago and I have reread it so many times that I've had to buy four books! I've read all of her books and loved everyone of them. This book was great. I was so happy to find out what had happened to Brandon and Heather. The only thing I didn't like was that this book came out before "A Season Beyond a Kiss" which is Jeff's(Brandon's brother) story. The love scenes in this book are as hot and sensual as all of her other books. Beau is a wonderful hero just like his father. And Cerynise is just strong enough to handle him yet appear shy and fragile at the same time. Buy this book and reread it again and again.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Wished story-line was different, July 9, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Elusive Flame (Hardcover)

The Flame & the Flower is my favorite romance novel of all time, having read it at least 15 times, and I always hoped the author would write a sequel about this fascinating family. Twenty-five years later I got my wish with The Elusive Flame. I didn't care that it focused on Beau as an adult. I knew that Woodiwiss, with her great writing style, would do something with this character and create a great storyline. But, disappointingly, something fell short. After reading it through, all I could think of was that I wished she had done things differently. The beginning of the book starts out good, with the usual evil relative leaving Cerynise destitute. You have to feel sympathy for the heroine, and you do with her, but I just couldn't believe that she always loved Beau, and I couldn't believe that Beau would be so quick to marry her just to help her in a bind and then fall just as quickly in love with her. Perhaps if the author had written a prologue of when Cerynise and Beau were younger, writing in more detail about the times when she teased him in class, when he rescued her from bullies and others that picked on her, and the moments when she would ride with him on his horse, then we could believe that these two people were meant for each other. Once they admit their true feelings to each other, the story goes flat. How many times can you read about their tremendous devotion and their acts of lovemaking that reach incredible heights without getting bored? The best thing about a romance novel is the tension, the separation and the range of feelings leading up to the realization of love, and Woodiwiss gets them together too fast, leaving the reader nowhere to go. I wish that Beau had another woman in his life. If he's so kind and charming as the writer says, surely there must have been a woman with whom he was intimate other than harlots. Why is it that these good-looking men are only intimate with harlots? If there was another woman waiting for him in Charleston, it would've created that tension and confusion for Beau and Cerynise and the other woman. I have to admit that when I finished it, I read it again, only because I enjoyed reading about Heather and Brandon, and somehow I kept hoping that I would read things differently the second time around. Woodiwiss missed the mark on this one, but I still love her work.... And I look forward to the next Birmingham book called "A Season Beyond A Kiss." Does anyone have any info on what this book's about? P.S. I'm glad to see that others were just as confused as me about his EYE color, because she mentions in the book that his eyes are emerald in one sentence and sapphire in another. And we all know that Beau had Brandon's eyes!

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Kathleen has lost what lured me to historical romances..., February 14, 1999

By 

Kellie - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Elusive Flame (Mass Market Paperback)

Kathleen Woodiwiss wrote the first historical romance I ever read. I read "Shanna" when I was 15, and it was the standard by which I judged further novels I read. 18 years later I can still remember the names of all of the 'bit players' in that book, because Ms. Woodiwiss used to spend time developing her minor characters. I have found her work since "Come Love A Stranger" to be shallow and unworthy of the steep price commanded by a new Woodiwiss novel.

I have heard that six or eight years ago Ms. Woodiwiss became a born-again Christian and turned away from sensuality in her novels. All deference to her religious conviction aside, it seems that she has also turned from character development, ingenuity, and plausibility.

I still have my dog-eared copies of "The Flame and the Flower", "The Wolf and the Dove", "Shanna", "A Rose in Winter", and "Ashes in the Wind", but I'll not be reading any more new Woodiwiss novels.