Customer Reviews

Fallen Angel (Zebra Historical Romance)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Although, I have enjoyed some of Ms. Thornton's other works (i.e. Perfect Princess), I wish I had never read this one. It is true that it is well written, but as another reviewer pointed out, the hero of the story is ridiculously chauvinistic and nearly rapes the heroine. As a matter of fact, Deveryn thinks the word "rape" to himself regarding the encounter. Forgetting that disturbing passage, I never could figure out why these two people would ever be drawn to each other. They spend the entire book arguing with each other and saying unforgivable things. Love at first sight would not explain any endurance of their attraction. Maddy, who is supposed to be a smart "bluestocking", employs all the logic of a gnat throughout the story. Deveryn never until the last few pages of the book considers Maddy's feelings or looks at things from her perspective. Instead, he keeps forcing sexual encounters on her, which she always gives into. Then following such an encounter, they have a stupid argument. The plot repetitively continues thus until everything is resolved in an unbelievably neat fashion (which literally only happens in the last 3 pages, and without much discussion between the two lovers). Ms. Thornton's good writing technique cannot save this terrible story.

Sorry, but I just did not like this book. The plot was good and technically it was well written, but I could not stand the characters. The book was first published in 1989 and I guess "acceptable behavior" for a romance novel character has changed greatly over the last 15+ years.

For example, the hero Deveryn practically rapes Maddie, the heroine, early in the book and then blames the poor girl for his loss of control. She made him "angry." Ha.

I found Deveryn's character to be cruel and gratingly chauvinistic. He treats Maddy like a child: he ignores everything she says, repeatedly sends her to bed without any supper (even though they are staying in her house where she is supposedly in change), and he makes her eat porridge even though he has been told it makes her sick. To me Deveryn should have been cast as the villain of the story and not the hero.

In the beginning of the book I sympathized greatly with Maddy. She wanted Deveryn to pay for what he had done to the father. (Early in the book you find that Deveryn slept with Maddy's stepmother and when Maddy's father found out he got drunk, gambled away everything he owned (to Deveryn no less), and retuned home a penniless disgrace.) I wanted Maddy to avenge her father. I wanted her to find a big stick and take Deveryn down a peg or two or twenty. But Maddy turned out to be a wimp. She talked a lot about revenge but at every turn she meekly accepted Deveryn's dictates. I wanted to slap the girl silly. Finally I just threw the book in the garbage.

this book isn't BAD, and the writing is well done, and it won't bore you, but it just isn't worth the time it takes to read it. Maddie is a likable character, if a little unsensible at times. However, it's Deveryn that ruined the book for me. It seemed to me that all he had going for him was his looks and the fact that he fell in love with Maddie at first sight. But he's unlikable as a romantic hero in many ways...he threatens to beat Maddie several times during the book, is not forthcoming with her, and seems to take perverse pleasure in forcing himself on her even when she says "No". Their first sexual encounter is pretty disturbing...while not being actual rape, it makes you uncomfortable and is far from being a pleasant scene. Even in later love scenes he exerts his will upon her. There wasn't really any redeeming qualities given to him to have the reader really feel like Maddie and Jason are a good match and love each other. It seems that the only thing holding them together is sexual attraction.

also a few other points..what on earth happened to Malcolm? he figured predominantly in the beginning part of the book, then he is forgotten about by the author. He could have played an interesting part in this story.

Also sometimes the writing style can be confusing. Thornton deliberately does not write about scenes that we may have liked to read about (Maddie's aunt's engagement to the Duke, Jason's visiting the whorehouse with Oxford pals). We hear about these things 2nd hand from other characters in their dialogue.

Also, i found that the whole device about Madea wasn't really used to to its full extent, and Maddie's pregnancy was reduntant to the plot.

This book was not an unpleasant read but it wasn't really that good, either.

Deveryn - it was a name that Madeleina (Maddy) Sinclair would hate forever. It was the name of the man who had cuckolded her father's young wife and disgraced him to the point that he took his own life. Through blinding tears she raced through the moors to find her childhood friend Malcolm and spotting the back of his golden head blindly rushed into his arms. Jason Verney, Viscount Deveryn did not know who this strange tiny force was that clung to him so forcefully but he did know that she felt wonderful and the sweet little lips were too much of a temptation not to kiss. To this unorthodox beginning would herald their tempestuous relationship. Deveryn, who was a known reprobate, whose fickleness with ladies and light skirts was renowned in the fashionable ton circles, had never been in love, nor did he ever expect to find it in Inverness, Scotland of all places. But he was so taken with the spirited minx that rushed into his arms and begged to be kissed that he knew at once that she was to be his forevermore.

Maddy felt the same for this golden man. Jason Verney was his name and even in those first moments, a stranger and knowing she shouldn't be with him, she felt it was right - until a stableboy came in to call for Lord Deveryn. The name struck terror in her heart that this might be the man she had sworn revenge upon for her father's disgrace. The battle in her heart was monumental as she tried to deny her love for the man they referred to as the `fallen angel'.

Oftentimes, it is hard to be objective, particularly when the hero in a novel is such a possessive, arrogant `brat'! It is coup for the author though that can elicit such a response from the reader on the strength of her writing. If it were not for the fact that Jason truly was in love with Maddy you would really despise his arrogant possessiveness that bordered on cruelty. Maddy on the other hand, waffled from sensual passion to guilt over the betrayal she thought she was doing to her father's memory. Suffice it to say, the relationship was complex and the reader will be thoroughly immersed in this stormy battle of the sexes as love will overcome all obstacles. There is a tremendous amount of historical references sprinkled throughout this novel which I found to be a thoroughly engrossing read and it is quite a sensual read as well though not for the timid who may be shocked by scenes that could be construed as rape.

If there was one man Madeleina never wanted to lay eyes on, it was the scoundrel who'd seduced her fashionable young stepmother and disgraced her beloved father. The spirited Scottish lass knew his name: Deveryn. Then she met dashing Jason Verney, and as he waltzed her into his strong embrace and piled her with practiced charms, Madeleina forgot about scandals and betrayals. She was too besotted to ask the young man his full name and too much in love to guess that Jason was really Viscount Deveryn, known to London as The Fallen Angel.

Jason Verney, Viscount Deveryn, changed mistresses more often than he changed his snowy cravat, but the profligate peer had never been smitten with love - until he met Madeleina Sinclair. The worldly reprobate couldn't believe his reeling senses when he first kissed the mischievous young chatelaine of Drumoak Castle. If he could trick her into a clandestine marriage, he could possess her virgin beauty and her castle as well. He expected the spirited minx's pulse to race in response to his burning kisses, but he never guessed that innocent Madeleina could foil his devious scheme......by fair means or foul. He never dreamed that she could capture the heart and clip the wing of her infamous, sensuous Fallen Angel.

I am not fond of writing online reviews as it takes too much time and thought to come up with anything worth "penning". Elizabeth is my favorite romance author, she appeals to a niche group, she is also not for the faint-hearted. Read Cherished, To Love an Earl aka The Passionate Prude, Highland Fire, etc. You will quickly see a pattern; the men are libertines, the women are prudes although passionate by nature, and confusion and conflict runs wild in her stories (as do all but her writing is superior to your average romance writer). If forced seduction is not your cup of tea, don't even touch her books, as I've said, this is not for the faint-hearted. And if you want to read books that are pc, then you need to go somewhere else. This is fantasy and fantasy is not about reality, it is about taking the good parts of reality without the bad parts, therefore, you can be "forced" to say yes to seduction without really being "forced", get my drift? In modern day, most men will not "forcefully seduce" a woman, the line is very clearly and finely drawn. A no is a no, but that is because nowadays women are not "sexually oppressed". Imagine being told all your life sex is wrong, it will probably be hard for you to say "Take me" when you are morally bound to be prudish. So now you understand why "forced seduction" is not only "NOT RAPE" but its existence is imperative to drive the two historical h/h to the present day age of sexual liberation. So enjoy Deveryn and Maddy! They are really fun to read.

As always, Thornton pens her novels with a masterful hand, seamlessly weaving eloquent description, intense drama, and a peerless knack for regency dialogue-- no one writes spirited witty rejoiners like Ms. Thornton.

Jason and Maddie are two halves of the same soul, draw together by an irresistible magnetism that nothing can pull apart. A novel convention for Thornton's story-- she typically writes of characters who only discover the depths of their tendre for each other at the narrative's conclusion. The word "love" is something that rarely appears on the page until the final chapter. Jason and Maddie's story is refreshingly different. They come to terms very early on with the irrefutable fact that they are devastatingly in love with one another-- Jason-- from the moment he clamps eyes on Maddie. Like a homing pigeon he sets his mind and body on drawing her to himself for the rest of the book. Theirs is not a story of discovering love, it is a story of navigating through the obstacles that would conspire to keep them apart-- not the least of which is Maddie's heavily laden conscience. Despite poor decisions on the parts of both our heros, it is impossible not to be drawn to their irrepressible chemistry which unerringly pulls them together despite Maddies best attempts to force them apart.

I do not deny that Jason behaves badly in many moments in the book, but for the most part I think he keeps his emotions in check as Maddie challenges his patience at every opportunity. She is thoroughly infuriating and oftentimes just down right mean. If I have one complaint about the story it is the lengths that Maddie is willing to go to in order to conspire against her own happiness. She is AWARE that she is in love with Jason but she fights it, time and time again, after submitting to his passion, after his earnest declaration of his soul-deep love, after marrying her, after protecting her, after his patience with her, after conceiving his child, after admitting to him her true feelings and confessing her rightful place as his wife------ After ALL of these things, Maddie STILL frustrates his solely honorable intentions and strives to root him out of her life. As a reader this is insufferable. Guilt is one thing but stupidity is another. Jason is clearly written to be hotheaded and somewhat impetuous but he is also completely constant in his affections. No matter the provocation or the obstacles, or the vitriolic spate of slurs that issue from Maddie's mouth, Jason never waivers for a moment in his devotion nor insistence that they are and always will be husband and wife. A lesser man would surely have considered divorce, or made more than a half-hearted appearance at the local brothel. This is why Jason is irresistible. He may go about winning Maddie over in the wrong way--- but his intentions are always as pure as the driven snow- he loves her and more than that, he belongs to her in the deepest most sacred way. His temerity will not allow anything to stand between what divine providence itself has brought together.

It is Maddie's foolhardy- and FRUSTRATING resistance that creates ALL of the "objectionable" scenes in the story. As many others have said, Jason's "forced seduction" is not equitable to the same modern day situation because Maddie is repressed by her own society to resist him for all the wrong reasons. He KNOWS that they are more than in love and must do whatever necessary to break down her childish resistance to his person. He knows that the joining of their bodies is one sure fire way to seal their troth and open the floodgates of her own feelings which are currently dammed behind a wall of denial. Jason does not WANT to be hash-- in fact he is the picture of gentility until Maddie invariably forces his hand. Take the moment of their consummation- he is all sweetness- soft caresses, comforting words patient explanations, and vows of love. Then what does Maddie do? She bates him on an impulse by scathingly saying he is not her first lover. Crestfallen, angry, and feeling the fool for his careful ministrations, Jason, none too gently, completes the act. Is THIS contretemps JASON's fault? -- I think not. Prior to that provoking remark, he had a warm and willing woman in his bed-- granted he had to seduce her a little to get her there-- but he was never going to rape her. Maddie is the instigator of their problems and has only herself to blame for any ire that issues from the man.

Overall-- this is a good read. Thornton has a knack for writing irresistibly charming men, and this hero with the countenance of an angel and a boyish mischievous smirk is sure to melt any heart-- you'll just find yourself wishing that it was you in that church with him and not the dense and difficult Maddie.

Well, I found this book to be terribly sexy. It had a lot of the elements that erotic romance novel authors are using so well in their novels. Emma Holly's historicals are similar with more explicit sex scenes. This book was a total fantasy and the alpha male hero was a womanizing, unapologetic jerk, but I still found this to be exciting. The fantasy of having a man want you so powerfully that he can't help himself is very thrilling to some women. Winning a man over stiff competition like the heroine's stepmama is also an exciting fantasy to some women.
I like Ms Thornton's other novels as well, she has the ability to write in many styles, but I find this book, and To Love An Earl to be the most erotic novels she has written so far. I know that this is not everyones cup of tea and I respect that.

I've only read a couple of romantic novels and had almost given up on the entire genre until I read this book. The author writes the book with great style so you feel as though the book hasn't been written for a fifth grader (as many of the romance novels are written at the fifth grade reading level...I'm a teacher so I know).

Ms. Thornton develops a passion between the two main characters with a dilemma that makes you want to throw the novel at Maddy, the main character, for being so ridiculous, as often 19 yr. olds are, but at the same time, you fall in love with both Maddy and Deveryn that you have to read to find out if Maddy will give in to her heart. The romantic scenes are protrayed in a matter that is relevant to the book. The author adds the scenes to express their love, not to just through in some porn.

Great book and I can't wait to read more by the author!