Customer Reviews

A Love For All Time

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This book can be incredibly difficult to find, but if it is available, do not hesitate to buy it! It was the first romance novel I ever read, and it is still my favorite, years later. It is well researched, and very historically accurate. While the novel does not focus on Skye, it is about her youngest brother Conn and the woman he marries. It's a wonderful, fast moving tale, and incredibly enjoyable. Even if you've had bad luck with some of her books (there are some out there) I encourage you to read any of the books in the O'Malley or Leslie sagas.

This book is great - it is like the Kadin and of course the skye o'malley books (it is of that series) It is very rich in history, costume description, the usual stuff that I love about Bertrice Small. It is among the best of her books concerning characters - I really love all of them - conn & aidan as well as the british court and the easterners. Also, it is about 600+ pages! and no fluff!

I got a hold of this Hard-to-find book on eBay (auction) after failing to get it on amazon auction - check often at these places though, because there is always a copy up for auction, and it is definitely worth it!

I read somewhere that even though it was hard to find, it wasn't really that important a book in the series, I think that person was just trying to make everyone feel better in case they couldn't find a copy - you must try to get a copy of this book!

I will agree that this is the hardest of any of her books to find. I haven't located it yet but I am looking. I will say that Beatrice Smalls books are wonderful!

I suppose I'm like every other faithful reader of the O' Malley Saga in that I somehow felt painfully incomplete without reading this previously elusive installment. Heck, I already knew what this book would be about from the constant references back to it in Lost Love Found. But it's been like that itch I just couldn't scratch--I had to read it for myself.

Can I just mention what a pain in the derriere trade size paperbacks are? The rest of the series cradles nicely in the hand, but this one demands a two-hand hold. Okay, I digress.

Bertrice Small is an excellent writer, let there be no doubt. But as a regular reader, I get real tired of the whole harem-scarem, sell 'em into slavery thing over and over again. And, oh, believe me, this is another one of THOSE novels. Now I like the character of Aidan St. Michael a whole lot--she's smart, sharp, strong, and not beautiful in the conventional sense. So why put her through the time and again rigors of captive concubine? Skye O' Malley is character enough for five women, and she'd already been through that funhouse. Was it necessary for Aidan to repeat history?

Well, yes, I suppose it was, otherwise the series would be lacking a keystone. But the book began with such promise of something different--Aidan, orphaned and in the care of Queen Elizabeth, a "country mouse" with the huzpah to suggest herself as the perfect bride for "The Handsomest Man At Court", Conn O' Malley. The intrigue between the Spanish representatives and Aidan's unscrupulous distant relatives to get the O'Malley family discredited, beginning with implicating Conn in a plot to kill the queen--this is good stuff. But then Small had to fall back on the old harem trick and that suspense was dispersed.

Would Conn come to the rescue of his beloved Aidan? Well duh, of course he will. And will he enlist the help of the ever-useful Esther Kira to do it? You know he will. So how is it we were enjoying a good coil in the English venue only to be tossed back into the same old same old of the Ottoman East?

I'm sorry, I suppose all the diaphanous clothing and nudity and sexuality of the East is supposed to be titilating. And it was at least interesting the first time I read about it. But in this instance it made me wince. If the novel had continued along the lines of a European intrigue as it seemed to promise, I'd probably have given it five stars. But the harem monster surfaced its ugly, rosewatered head yet again, and that kind of spoiled the experience. Read it to complete the series, but don't expect much that you have not read before.

This is the book that brings passion and romance to every woman. How many of us have read a historical romance novel and thought "The woman is beautiful of course she is going to get the man". Well, Aidan is not a ravishing beauty. She is quite ordinary in her looks, and Conn (the youngest brother of Skye O'Malley) is devishly handsome. He is not swept away with her looks, yet grows to love and admire her. Isnt that what true love is all about? Don't we all hope and pray that the handsome man will look past what's on the outside and see what is in our soul? Well, this one takes us down that road!!! We get to see Conn go from a rogue to one who has found his true soulmate. This is truly a romance novel that can live up to the title of "romance". After you read this one, you will smile and be happy that romance and passion exists for everyone. Not just the beautiful heroine. Now that is a Love for All Time.

It all started when I read Wild Jasmine. Before that, I'd never read one of those romance novels. Afterward I read Skye O'Malley and its sequel. Then came this book. Oh man, I love this book. I love Conn and Aidan. In my eyes, Aidan is a better heroine than Skye and Conn is just wonderful. I read this book over and over and dont get enough

This is absolutely one of Bertrice Small's best. I loaned it to a friend and never saw it again. I love her costume description and her characterizations. It's so nice to read about strong women who can control their own lives. Not all women were suppressed even in Elizabethan England. I have all the O'Malley books and almost all of her other stories. It's like an addiction. I can't wait for the next one. Aidan is a wonderful character with common sense, and her adventures keep you reading and reading.

Aidan St. michael is a strong, likable character but she's not as fun, sexy or colorful as Skye, the heroine of the preceding booksin this series. Small takes readers on a trip through familiar territory (again, another heroine enslaved and sent to Algeria, to be the plaything of an oversexed mideastern man...again the hero and heroine fall in love way too fast for belief...again just when i am rooting for these two to be happy, they are separated by an evil plot...again I have to read through pages of sex the hero has with other women (instead of the heroine--not my cup of tea!) etc. Conn gets it on with an ambassador's wife, a mother and her twin daughters, and has threesomes with two sets of sisters, including a very graphic scene describing his initiation into what the author refers to as "greek sex"....same purple prose. All the hallmarks of a Small novel. However, it lacks the colorful sensory details, the faster pace, the eroticism, of the previous novels. Or maybe its just that Aidan is too ordinary 9dare I say dull?) to be a true Small heroine. Skye is a 15th century Scarlett O'Hara. Aidan is a drab, plain-jane, Mrs. Ashley Wilkes wannabe. Readble but not the author's best. Best to skip this one (Word to the wise: Skip the sequels, This Heart of Mine and Lost Love Found as well--both of which feature the exact same plot as A Love for All Time!! How many O'Malley women end up in harems? What are the odds? Skye...Velvet, Aidan..Valentina...Jasmine...and India...enough already!! 2/3 of Small's books involve the women being sex slaves, captured by pirates, sold to white slave traders, or sent to harems--it is a plot device she has applied ad nauseum and if its not your thing, you might want to skip her books altogether...)

Aidan is one of my favorite characters. I get tired of reading about these ravishingly beautiful heroines. How nice to find a lead character who is rather plain and unsure of herself. Aidan is innocent, proper, shy, and mannerly. She doesn't burst on the scene in a flurry, but rather quietly walks in. We soon find her beauty within and rejoice as she falls in love with Conn. Though she doesn't consider herself a formidable person, she does have a quiet strength which she discovers when she must rescue her daughter. I think you will find more women like Aidan than like Skye O'Malley. Perhaps that is why we like the book so well. More of us can relate to Aidan. I would love to read about more women like her.

I absolutely loved this book, especially as I had read the two previous books in the Skye O'Malley series. Even though this story can stand alone it has so much more meaning if you have read the Skye O'Malley Saga from the first book. I love the way Bertrice Small interweaves her fictional characters with the real historical people of the time. Just when you think everything in the adventure is over and you are now at "Happily Ever After" time, the plot thickens and your are on to more wonderful adventure. It is hard to lay the book down. I am now reading the fourth book in the saga.