Customer Reviews

Forbidden Embrace

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Serena Calvert is the daughter of a Union doctor during the Civil War. During the war, he transformed two floors of the house into a hospital and has recently accepted Confederate wounded who are shackled to their beds. Serena blames her father for her mother's death and harbors secret Southern sympathies. Then, she meets Wesley Wyndham, one of the Confederate wounded, and her secret sympathies flame into rebellion. When he is transferred from the hospital to prison, Serena acts on her feelings and frees him. Together they flee from Illinois to Folly Island, outside of Charleston, South Carolina. This novel has a panoramic scope and some interesting Civil War facts. It also shows its age (originally published in 1982). The use of rape as a plot device made this reviewer especially uncomfortable, and most of the characters are often shown in a less than positive light.

I am a huge fan of Cassie Edwards, but I must say this book was just awful! Serena is raped by a family friend, a man her father wants to marry her off to, and blames herself. The morning after her rape she sees Wesley, a wounded Confederate soldier, in her fathers makeshift hospital, and falls for him. Two nights later she is making love with him. I can't swallow being raped one night then falling into the arms of a stranger 2 days later. The book starts off bad and shows no improvement for the end. It's a shame Cassie Edwards felt the need to downplay the seriousness of this issue, the amount of trauma this woman suffers at the hand of Wesley would make any Woman's Crisis center scream. Serena is a victim in every sense and that she forgives Wesley every time is unbelievable, even for being set in an era of the Civil War. I'm so glad Ms. Edwards has improved her writing with time. If this had been my first experience of reading one of her novels, it would have been my last. Save your money fans!