Customer Reviews

Gabriel's Woman

5 star:		(43)
4 star:		(19)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

If you are offended by frank eroticism and unconventional sex in your romance novels, this book is not for you. For the rest of you, hang onto your hats - you're in for a wild ride! Robin Schone's unique talent blends emotionally intense love stories with imaginative and graphic erotic scenes, and she pushes those boundaries even further in "Gabriel's Woman." Gabriel is familiar to readers of Schone's "The Lover" as the aloof proprietor of an establishment that specializes in all kinds of sensual pleasures. Gabriel himself, however, is not a participant. As a youth he was trained to be a prostitute that pleasured men and women, but due to some unknown trauma in his past, he can no longer tolerate another's touch. "Gabriel's Woman" begins with the grand reopening of the House of Gabriel. An upper class woman appears and boldly offers to auction off her virginity. Gabriel immediately realizes that the woman, Victoria, is a pawn sent to him by the mysterious man who brutalized him in the past. For her safety and in order to discover the mysterious man's plot, Gabriel buys Victoria. Even though his phobia of intimacy remains, he is inevitably attracted to her and his long dormant sexuality is awakened. Victoria has been unjustly forced from her position as a governess and was driven to the House of Gabriel by desperation. Nevertheless, she too is immediately aware of the intense attraction between herself and Gabriel. As she begins to know him better, she becomes determined to help him fight his personal demons and allow him to experience all the pleasure he has missed in life.

Both Gabriel and Victoria are immensely appealing characters, and the reader can't help but become invested in their quest to make each other happy. As usual, Schone gives us several erotic scenes, some so extreme that even the most jaded reader will be startled. At times the book reads like a sex manual, including step-by-step instructions for new uses for breath mints. The surrounding plot is necessary to explain Gabriel's reticence, but it was my least favorite part of the book. The overall gloomy atmosphere got tiresome, and when the climatic confronation with the bad guy finally came around, I was so sick and tired of ominous references to "the second man" that I wanted to scream. Still, you don't read Schone for the plot, so this is a minor nitpick at best.

If, like me, you were intrigued by Gabriel in The Lover, and his relationship with Michael, you'll want to read this book. Gabriel, remember, is the other angel; the boy who grew up with Michael, whom Michael taught to read, and who in the end killed 'the first man' to save Michael's life.

Now, Gabriel is back, running the House of Gabriel - a whorehouse, to be blunt, where both male and female prostitutes operate - and waiting, knowing that the second man will come for him, to finish what was started earlier. He's protecting Michael and Anne in the best way he knows, with guards posted to be aware of any danger, and he's doing his best to draw the second man to himself - after which one of them will die.

Until one evening a woman, covered from head to toe in a shapeless cloak, comes into the House and offers her virginity for sale - for the same price that Gabriel himself was once sold for. He knows that the second man is involved here, and that this woman must be in on it; so he buys her and tries to get her to tell him the truth. However, after a while he realises that she's also an innocent pawn - which means that her life is in danger. He must hold her prisoner to save her life.

Gabriel, because of his past experiences, hates to be touched. Victoria, because of her background, her age (she's a 34-year-old spinster) and the fact that she's been living on the streets for the past six months, needs to feel wanted - he bid for her virginity, but makes it clear that he has no intention of taking it. She has also, over the last few months, been receiving anonymous letters which awakened her sexuality, making her want to experience passion between a man and a woman.

So, feeling rejected and not understanding Gabriel's rejection of her, she sets out to seduce him.

The love scenes in this book are erotic; they're also rough, raw and blunt. They're not for the timid; if you prefer your sex dressed up in pretty phrases in Harlequin books, you won't enjoy this. There's also some violence here and there, which is understandable given that a dangerous psychopath is out to kill Gabriel and will gladly kill anyone else who gets in the way. But very quickly Gabriel and Victoria come to depend on each other, and we see that Gabriel would protect her with his life. She's come to mean as much to him as Michael.

My one problem with Schone is that she leaves a lot to the reader's imagination. I'm not incapable of drawing my own conclusions about things, but I'm a big fan of introspection - especially in books about brooding, tortured heroes such as Gabriel. So I'd have liked more insight into the characters' psyches, motives, intentions, fears and so on.

As far as Gabriel's relationship with Michael is concerned, there is clearly a homosexual past of some kind - the reader who thought it was implied but not intended didn't read the two books closely enough! Gabriel clearly has conflicted feelings about Michael, however; he associates homosexual love with the shame he felt when he had to admit that he enjoyed what the second man did to him, and so he's not at ease with his feelings for Michael. That was the one big disappointment for me: the two clearly do love each other - though not to the exclusion of Anne and Victoria - but the fact that Gabriel found it so hard to kiss Michael, at a point when it could have saved their lives, seemed wrong to me. (Okay, I wanted them to kiss, anyway!)

Most of the other reviewers have summarized the plot quite well, with the ex-governess Victoria putting her virginity on the auction block at an exclusive men's club, known as the "House of Gabriel", and her subsequent unexpected sexual awakening. Gabriel, a man completely walled off by choice from his own sexuality, has become a sort of "voyeur" in his house of prostitution until Victoria comes into his life under suspicous circumstances. If you are looking for a sweet love story, this is not the book for you. The sex is hot, explicit, touches on the homoerotic and may be too much for some readers to handle . Mostly, the storyline is a mesh of the erotic/romance genre and is a sequel to Schone's previous work, "The Lover". I actually enjoyed "Gabriel's Woman" more than "The Lover", for I felt there was a bit more of a plot and I enjoyed the mystery/suspence aspects. The veiled references to the "second man" may be confusing to readers who haven't read "The Lover", and this is my biggest complaint about the novel.

The relationship that develops between Gabriel and Victoria is something quite refreshing and unusual. Victoria is a virgin who once is awakened, becomes a tigress. This is the one aspect of Schone's novels' I have found a bit repetitive, as does her constant mention of the length of the man's penis size. The relationship shifts then into different sexual realms. However, it is the breaking down of all of Gabriel's sexual walls that make this novel so interesting and different from my usual romance fare. Gabriel's variety of inner demons made me literally cry.

The "friendship" between Michael, the protaganist in "The Lover" and Gabriel seems to be hotly debated. For me, this was not homesexual, but there were shades of homoerotocism. The very existence of this is the essence of Gabriel's torment, so if anything, it really gave me something to ponder after I read this novel. By the end of the book, in my opinion, it is my conclusion they are friends who love each other, but there is a fine line btween homo and heterosexuality both men have resolved.

I am shocked at readers who did not see the love between Gabriel and Victoria. Considering all the changes in Gabriel's life after he became involved with Victoria, and how he became able to recieve love and touch from another human being, their love was clear to me. I'd love to see more of them in Schone's future works. I've read all her novels/novellas and her growth as a novelist is wonderful.

Robin Schone once again challenges our notions of female sexuality and male power with 'Gabriel's Woman'. Like her previous short works and novels, neither Gabriel or Victoria are the stereotypical romance couple. Gabriel, a former prostitute and now owner of an exclusive brothel that bears his name, is a man tormented by an act so tragic, that it has shaped him into the untouchable being he now is. Wealthy women will pay any price for his services, but he knows they would never pay the price for loving the man he truly is, nor would they wish to see that part of him.

Victoria is a dimissed governess whose only crime was that of not responding to a former employer's advances--a situation that was quite the norm in Victorian England. She boldly offers her virginity up for auction inside The House of Gabriel, and commands a staggering sum in the process.

Ms. Schone's use of the gothic style harkens one back to the great gothic novels of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Nearly everything that occurs in this novel happens at night, or in the dark. Strangers from the past, mysterious motives, and the dark deeds that belie the gentility of Victorian England are woven skillfully.

Gabriel could teach Jane Eyre's Mr. Rochester a thing about brooding heroes; and like Rochester, he too finds deliverance from the steadfast love of a woman who is as strong as himself. Victoria is a wonderful character, and no shrinking violet--she may not know what will come about in the end, but she dares what other women will not--to love a man with too many scars upon his soul.

His best friend Michael des Anges (from Ms. Schone's previous novel, 'The Lover') is scarred on his face; Gabriel is scarred both body and spirit.

An interesting note: There is an undercurrent of deep and fierce love between Gabriel and Michael, one that would suggest an almost homosexual bond. Like the frank eroticism, some readers may be put off by this, but I think Ms. Schone handles this matter wonderfully. In fact, I think their relationship goes beyond our notions of love between men, to see a deep and lasting committment that was forged in the most frightful of circumstances.

The eroticism in 'Gabriel's Woman' is sexuality the way it should be written--passionate and intense. Ms. Schone's scenes drew me in and kept me there. Her atmosphere drips with the sounds, scents and sometimes overwhelming emotions of sex. In the shower scene (which I think was wonderfully written), I actually felt as if I were a voyeur, sharing this frightningly intense moment between two souls, and not merely two bodies.

That, I believe, is what makes Robin Schone far superior to what has come before in the genre of erotic romance. Ms. Schone doesn't write textbook manuals on the act of sex, nor does she pepper her descriptions with silly metaphors ascribed to the various male and female genitalia (you readers who read steamy romances know exactly what I mean). Robin Schone writes about the emotions of two people who are making love; we see inside of them, and in some ways, become them, in their lust and in their longing.

Once again, Robin Schone has delivered a romantic tour-de-force, a novel that will spark lively and much needed debate. I am recommending all of her books to any woman I see with a romance novel in her hands. I am also recommending her books to men who think they've got the exclsuive rights to anything frank and explicit.

Gabriel's Woman is a wrenching story of love and redemption. Gabriel, a male prostitute trained to satisfy both men & women, seeks to forget his past by denying himself physical intimacy rather than suffer more emotional anguish. Victoria is the unwitting woman sent by his nemesis to further torment him with her own needs to be loved and desired. Together, they tear down each other's walls and then rebuild the other using first, carnal desire and then later, the power of bonds made stronger by love and vulnerability. This novel explores areas of human sexuality & behavior not presented in any of the mainstream "romance novels", yet it does so in a non-condemning & non-biased approach. The eroticism is merely "window dressing" for the deeper themes explored and worked through. Themes such as male prostitution, platonic relationships charged with homo-erotic overtones, "deviant" sexual activities, etc... The details are not presented in titellating & awkward prose; rather the dialogue between the characters is as sexually charged as the actual descriptions of intercourse. Put bluntly, you don't feel "dirty" after reading this book. Pornographic it is not. Sensual and erotic, it is. Ms. Schone's work has grown more powerful and disturbing with each new story. I eagerly await her next offering.

When I started this book, I had no idea of the depths that Robin Schone would take me to. I was going to put off reading it until I read The Lover, the book that comes before Gabriel's Woman, but I decided to just read the first chapter. I started to read it and I couldn't stop. The story is unlike any I've ever read. Every so often I come across a romance novel that tugs at the heart strings a little bit, but this one wrenched my heart out. It was so beautifully told, and tears were streaming down my face as I read of Gabriel's pain and love. This is not a book for the faint of heart. It is very dark, and Schone has written it so that the reader is left in the dark regarding many aspects of Gabriel's past. She addresses many serious issues that I have never come across in any books, romance or otherwise. The emotion of this book is very real. I have read other reviews that state that there is no real emotion between Gabriel and Victoria, that the sex scenes are clinical, and that Victoria is nothing but a "receptacle" for Gabriel's pain, but I think that those reviewers couldn't be any more wrong. If they believe that somehow Gabriel and Victoria could have progressed in their relationship without exorcising Gabriel's demons, then they must have just been skimming through the book looking for titillating sex scenes to read. I would have to say, though, that the most beautiful part of this book is the relationship between Gabriel and Michael (from The Lover). In this pair, Schone has created a love that very few people could possibly understand, a love that could easily be misconstrued as homosexuality. For readers who see it as such, I suggest reading the book again, this time with an open mind and a willingness to see something beautiful and rare, and not about sex. If you can handle a romance that has not only a plot, but the most intricate character development of the hero that has ever been written, then I highly recommend this book. If not, then you'd best go back to reading the Harlequin books.

I'm speechless. I know that's not what Robin needs in a review. As I sit here staring at the screen, trying to find the words to express my feelings, I'm speechless. I did, however, come up with the CORRECT title for this story. "Gabriel's Woman" isn't even CLOSE to what this story is really about. Michael might have been "The Lover", but Gabriel is "The Tortured". This is a story of a rising. A woman willing to sell her virginity but not her pride. A man unwilling to be touched in fear of the tide of emotion that touching will release. A story that tells us how all things are possible if the caring and emotions are strong enough to survive the pain of the journey. A story of passion and intensity that comes from the soul. It attempts to tear open your heart and make you bleed with Gabriel. And you will. I am so TOTALLY a non-review person. I HATE knowing about a story before I start it. But Robin has given us a love story that needs to be shared. About a love made possible through deception, temptation, mystery and hunger. Hunger of the soul. A hunger shared equally by a man and a woman. Pain crying out for help that physical love is the only sensation strong enough to conquer. I do want to say - and this is mainly for the readers that might hesitate to buy this story based on their reaction to "The Lover" - there is darkness in this story. And, although it is just as inhuman and torturous as that in "The Lover", for some reason it is more acceptable. Because it's more "of the mind" than "of the body", it's not as squeemish. Gabriel is an angel - someone deserving of all the love and attention we can give him.

This is the story of Gabriel a proprietor of a house of pleasure(the house of Gabriel). Gabriel is a former male prostitute who has become successful in the seedy world of prostitution but is haunted by is childhood poverty, his whoring, and being raped.

He is caught up in the search for the man who raped him and the mystery of the woman (Victoria) who sold her virginity to him. Victoria is a woman of former position and education who has through poor circumstances ended up on the streets with only her virginity as her sole most valuble possession and sells it to Gabriel so she may survive.

This story is intertwind with several other plots that I could write for days so you should read the book and experience them for yourself. You won't get bored I didn't. I read this book in two days and hated for it to end.

You journey with Gabriel and Victoria as the mystery of both Gabriel and Victoria unviels it's self.

this is a wonderful intimate book full of sensual and erotic pleasure but like Robin Schones writing style extremely personal and intimate. It's like being in the room with the characters.....A fly on the wall. You can almost feel the silk of the bed sheets and smell the perfume the characters use.

If you liked 'The Lover' you will enjoy the story of the Angel Gabriel.

Stunning, emotionally charged, breathtaking, draining, extremely well-written, deliciously dark, it touches your soul... what else can I say? Ms. Schone has totally outdone herself this time. I couldn't put it down. It truly was electrifying! She captured the darker side of sex, the uncontrollable factor that robbed Gabriel of his dignity, his identity, but most of all his soul. It was so tastefully done. I think all her previous writings led to this perfect plot and balanced sexual content. Ms. Schone has proven over and over her ability to bring readers into the plot, taking their breath away, with wonderfully written erotic content, while holding their interest with suspenseful and intriguing external conflict. Needless to say I loved this book. It's absolutely her best work to date! As I was reading GW I had to step away at times to take a breather from the dark intense feelings it evoked. It moved me as no book has in a very long time. I too cried for an angel in the end!

I read The Lover first and was immensely intrigued by these two very broken men that were introduced. I didnt want Michael's story to end but I was eager to read about Gabriel, the kid who wanted to be an angel. And so I did and his story simply blew me away. The hero in this novel is very, very, very tortured and very, very, very vulnerable. After 13 years of prostitution (for both men and women), and having suffered a brutal injuctice at the hands of two evil men, Gabriel's only motivation to live was to seek vengeance on those who had defiled him. After that he didnt particularly care what happened to him, but after having met Victoria, the heroine, he regained his will to live and his will to hope.

I've read through some of the reviews here and some people have complained about how cold and clinical the sexual interactions btw the hero and heroine were, and they're right. They were not your usual sweet love scenes, but under the circumstances of the story, they were appropriate and necessary. And to me they're perhaps the most, the only romantic thing in this dark novel. Victoria's relentless quest to mend Gabriel's broken soul through the healing balm of touch. One has to realise that he's a very traumatised man. He was molested at a tender age by two men who not only made him feel things he didn't want to feel but who also made him question all the things he has ever believed about himself. Like his worthiness to be loved and to find happiness. Even though he is the epitome of raw sexuality, he can't bear to be touched, and has avoided physical contact with literally everyone for the past 14 years. Victoria, though haunted by her own callous upbringing, realises upon her entrance into his life that Gabriel's issues are far more critical than her own and seeks to give him the theraphy he needs in the only why she knows how and the only why he understands: through sex.

This is a very complex story that can not be understood through one reading. It haunted me a couple of days after I read it. I've never read about a hero like Gabriel nor have I read a romance novel quite like this one. It deals with unconventional subject matters such as homosexuality and prostitution in a way that's not offensive. It's main players are flawed, yet very human and very memorable. Victoria is perhaps my favorite romance heroine of all time (taking the throne from Maddy in Laura Kinsale's Flowers from the Storm) because she is the ideal partner for a scarred man like our hero. She's brave enough to be strong for the both of them, selfless and patient. Not many women would have had the courage to love a man like Gabriel after the life he's lived. She has slowly but surely resorted his broken spirit and has pulled him out of the darkness in which he has lived for so long. Despite what some readers have said I can definitely see them living happily ever after.

Gabriel's relationship with Michael is also one of debate but to me I didn't detect anything homosexual about their deep affection for each other. Rather what I understood is that after his rape he was made to question alot of things about himself, particularly WHY he really loved Michael. Was it because of the struggles they had gone thru together as two little orphan kids who dreamed of being angels or because he liked what he had experienced with the second man? The guilt he feels is a direct result of his perpetrators systematic and pyschological control of him, but not even Gabriel himself realises this. Rather what the second man has successfully done is defile the pureness of the love the two have for each other after years of having no one but each other to depend on and turned it into something ambiguous and queer.

I really could go on and on about this book, but I won't. Read the book for yourself instead. It's highly recommended for those among you who enjoy your romances with a little depth. It's not for everyone and it might be a little too dark for some. It wasnt for me but after first reading The Lover and then Gabriel's Woman right afterwards, I dont think I can bear to read them again, especially GW. That's how good they were, how much they moved me. Only one other book affected me to the extent that I couldn't read it again even though it secured a place on my keepers shelf for life and that was Sidney Sheldon's Rage of Angels.