Customer Reviews

Forbidden Love

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

The relationship between Megan and Justin, the central characters in this book, reads like a scary, abusive relationship. First, the hero is more than twice the heroine's age. He is also her legal guardian, and hasn't bothered to give her any attention for the last 12 years. Nice.

He seduces her, and she doesn't find out he's married until his wife shows up. He treats her like a posession, and blames all his frustrations on her. He calls her names, abducts her, coerces her into sex, slaps her across the face and is just cruel and selfish in general. Yet she is still "drawn to him". (He needs her, poor guy!)

At times, he frightens her and makes her flesh crawl, but everything is fixed up at the end by his being really, really sorry. Please. This is just a sick relationship. Justin sounds more like a psychopath than an honorable guy who is helpless to resist the power of "love". There is nothing loving about him.

The only redeeming quality to the book is that is has the ring of truth, but that truth lies more in the fact that there actually are relationships like these than that such a relationship could turn out happily ever after.

Justin, the hero of this book, starts out as a relatively likable guy. However, in the second half of the book he suddenly becomes a selfish and jelous jerk. He dosn't even try to understand Megan's situation and behaves like a spoiled child. I think Megan should have dumped Justin and found a real man and one that wasn't twenty years older than her as well.

but for me they're easy to overlook. I love this book and I love the story. I love the interaction between Megan and Justin, especially when his leg is broken in an accident (I can't elaborate, it would ruin it). Justin certainly isn't PC, but no man of that time was. I take this book for what it is; pure entertainment reading. I can disengage my mind from historical inaccuracies if the plot is decent, which this is.

I have enjoyed other works by Ms. Robards (Walking after Midnight, Paradise County, One Summer, Tiger's Eye...) but this one left me really torn. The first half gets 4 stars - I could even stomach the adultery, which usually turns me right off, because Justin so obviously loves Megan (and so obviously despises his wife and vice versa) that it overwhelms his good sense. But the second half gets no stars - not a single one. I only finished it to see how Robards could possibly make a happy ending for these two, because Justin certainly no longer deserves one. He becomes insanely jealous and brutal, and why Robards saw it necessary to compound all of Megan's anguish with yet another tragedy (I don't want to give it away) was too much for me. The story quickly went from romantic to horrifying, but of course it was all wrapped up in a Happily Ever After bow in the last few pages. It just rang so false to me - Robards had given this couple too many obstacles to overcome them all so easily. I love a good ending, and am willing to suspend my disbelief to a great degree to get one, but I just don't think this pair should have made it.

An alluring story of unbridled passion, young love, betrayal, a real page-turner & what a turn on ! The huge gap in age reminded me a bit of Jane Feather's characters. So what if Justin is cruel & heartless on the outside ? He's only embracing his belief that if he can't have Megan, no one can either. Just my kind of hero, a tortured soul, he put his heart up on his sleeves & came roaring back when he couldn't have her anymore. He did what his desperate mind told him to do, the only way to bind Megan to him is by kidnapping her. A rape is too harsh a description (Mrs. giggles' review) for Justin's lovemaking to the reluctant-but-as-much-in-love Megan. I just wish there were more authors as magnificent as Ms. Robards out there. Plenty of heart-pounding battles of will & toes-curling sex with an ending that'll leave U sniffling for a box of kleenex !

This book is an old fashion bodice ripper. I enjoyed it and it took me a day to read. Yes he is a totally Alpha male but she is strong and stands up to him. This is my favourite Karen Robards book. I think you will either love this book or hate it - no middle ground here!

Just finished reading Forbidden Love. Couldn't put it down. Justin has been Megan's guardian since she was 5. But he has he has seldom seen her during his guardianship. Now she is grown, and very beautiful, but wild. After she runs away from school again, Justin follows her to his home in Ireland. From the moment he sees her dancing on the table, he is smitten. After he breaks his leg when his horse throws him, Megan spends a lot of time caring for him, and the sparks fly, igniting a fire in Justin that he can't put out. He is a fantastic lover, and she is an eager pupil.

This book has an uncommon twist in that the hero is married, a fact the 17-year old Megan did not know. Otherwise, Justin, at 36, is perhaps somewhat less of a rake than most found in Regency romances, but he has been one and he knows the kind of men who pursue Megan when she makes her social debut in London. He is in pure agony when she persists in seeing the very men he has warned her against. He knows he can't have her, but is insanely jealous, and will allow no one else to touch her, even though he has already ruined her. He is a dead shot with a dueling pistol, and doesn't hesitate to defend her "honor" when she is threatened by one of the men he had forbidden her to associate with.

One can sympathize with both Megan, who is desperate for love and for a family, and Justin, whose wife doesn't even live with him. He hates himself for what he did to Megan, but he simply can't stay away from his beautiful young girl, and is miserable away from her. Everything works out in the end (as is possible only in a novel). Great book!

For me there was a little too much of an age difference to not be a bit turned off by the romance of Justin and Meghan - 19 years is a world of difference even back then between a 17 year old and a 36 year old! And though I believe these two came into major lust with each other in some ways I feel Justin did somewhat take advantage of Meghan - even though she was willing. Also Meghan not being aware of all facets of Justin's life she was certainly at a disadvantage. Also the life she led Meghan was so innocent and clueless of the ways of the ton! And did she really understand what giving up her virtue would mean? Justin really was selfish. In his defense though he had never been in love, had been deprived of a normal relationship for so long and he is grasping at love for the first time! So I forgive Justin much but it does keep me from 5 stars! Most frustrating is Justin not realizing that Meghan's youth and naivity completely keeps her incapable of being the seductress he thinks she has become. She is just fighting to survive this traumatic heartbreak of loosing Justin and keeping her dignity! I truly felt this story compelling and could not put the book down - guess I am just a sucker for sad but not totally hopeless love stories!

Without a doubt, Karen Robard's understanding of the human heart and its disquieted yearnings for taboo love make her characters disarmingly believable, sympathetic and appealing. However, what clearly distinguishes Ms. Robard's writing of erotic fantasy from those of other romance novelists is her ability to articulate honest naked expressions of passion and love without resorting to crude, prosaic hackneyed phrases which would otherwise trivialize the purity of the love between her protagonists. Ms. Robard possesses a unique ability to elevate sex beyond raw, desperate hunger into something beautiful, heavenly, almost sacred. Even the adulterous affair becomes forgivable, acceptable and desirable. Readers of "Forbidden Love" will come away longing to be a character - any character - in the novel if only to briefly witness the heart retching aches of the star-crossed lovers and secretly wish that their love does prevail.

Too many issues here. I was slightly uncomfortable with the storyline of "guardian and underage minor fall in love". It was one thing when he was fighting his attraction and succumbed to temptation...but, when he became controlling and abusive - I lost all interest in the book. When you no longer like the "hero", it's hard to like the book. I've enjoyed a lot of Robards' work, just not this one.