The Offer (Richard Sharpe Adventures) [Unabridged] [Audio CD]

Catherine Coulter (Author), Denica Fairman (Narrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 2003 | Series: Richard Sharpe Adventures

A beautiful young woman is thrown together with a rakish Viscount by a twist of fate-and is caught off guard by her own yearning for love and passion.

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Editorial Reviews

From AudioFile

OK, so he saw her naked. But they were snowed in, she was barely conscious, and he saved her life. No matter. Sabrina Eversleigh's virtue has been compromised, and the only solution is for Philip Mercerault to marry her. Denica Fairman slips in and out of British dialect with the same ease that she creates the many characters in this classic romance. She reads the narrative passages in her native U.S. tongue, with exactly the right inflections of spicy humor, abject terror, moral outrage, irony and tenderness required by the entertaining text. Fairman's light touch and obvious comfort with the romance genre suit the story perfectly. R.P.L. (c) AudioFile, Portland, Maine --This text refers to the Audio Cassette edition.

Product Details

• Audio CD
• Publisher: Chivers Sound Library; Unabridged edition (August 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0792729684
• ISBN-13: 978-0792729686
• Product Dimensions: 7.1 x 6.3 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,049,689 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Catherine Coulter is the author of the New York Times-bestselling FBI thrillers The Cove, The Maze, The Target, The Edge, Riptide, Hemlock Bay, Eleventh House, Blindside, Blowout, Point Blank, Double Take and TailSpin. She lives in northern California.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A disappointment, April 3, 2001

By 

Ashley (California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Offer (Baron Novels) (Paperback)

When I first picked up this book, the plot summary on the back definitely intrigued me. I bought it hoping that it would be every bit as exciting and interesting as you would think it would be. An evil brother-in-law bent on defiling poor innocent Sabrina...an evil sister...a kind, but feeble grandfather who tries to keep the wolves at bay...Silly romantic that I am, I had visions of a fabulous hero racing to the rescue of a lovely maiden. If that's what I expected...Wow...was I ever disappointed!!

The main character, Sabrina, was lacking on all counts. The constant descriptions of her as a skinny, unattractive girl outweighted by the length of her hair made me a little wary. I don't need a Kate Moss look-alike as a role model or heroine. Of course, looks aren't everything. A personality would've made up for everything else--but the "heroine" didn't have one!! I did not like the fact that Sabrina showed little spirit to evil Teresa Elliott's nasty, viper-like comments to her (Teresa was Sabrina's competition, in Theresa's own mind at least, for Viscount Mondevale). I kept thinking, "Come on, girl--show some spirit! Slap the hussy!"

Also, it bothered me that she was so stupid that she felt she could conceivably spend five days alone with Phillip without her reputation being compromised. The book was completely untrue to the times, and lacked any historical authenticity. If a young, unmarried girl had been compromised, there would be no course of action except for her to marry the man responsible, and she would not have been such a fool as to protest under the premise of "not wanting him to be forced to marry her for something that wasn't his fault". The entire plot of the novel--Sabrina making Phillip an offer to marry HER--was very manipulative and poorly-conceived. It also bothered me the way so many of the characters called Sabrina a whore, harlot, etc. etc. repeatedly. That got quite tiresome! But, I felt no sympathy for the girl because it was not just stupid, it was absolutely moronic for her to think she could get away with spending time alone with a bachelor with a rogueish reputaiton and not be harmed by a hint of scandal! What was Catherine Coulter thinking when she wrote this book??

I felt the dialogue was very stilted. The characters' interaction with one another was extremely bland, without a touch of the passion I had come to expect from Catherine Coulter. Every word one character said to another had the feel of a badly-written script. I got no feel for who the characters really were, neither through dialogue nor their actions.

I didn't even like the hero, Philip, of the novel. I thought it was in poor taste for Catherine Coulter to write him as frequenting his mistress's on his own wedding night. Whaaaaat??! He needed to show some personality, too.

I have read other books by Catherine Coulter, and never did I imagine she would write such a book devoid of passion or characterization, but this is one such book. I guess there's always bad with the good, but if you are looking for a good read by her, I advise you not to pick up this book, because I think you will be disappointed as I was. She has so many other good books--read one of those instead!! I'm not ready to give up on her novels, but I know she can do better than this. What happened??

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars SAVE YOUR MONEY!, October 28, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Offer (Baron Novels) (Paperback)

I have read quite a bit of Catherine Coulter's book, which I've mostly enjoyed. This book is the worst book I've read all year. The Hero is a total big time womanizing, male chauvinist pig! He continues to sleep (and vastly enjoy it) with his mistress even on his wedding night to the heroine. He feels absolutely no guilt at all over it. This even happens close to the end of the book when his wife the heroine follows him and finds him on the point of having sex with his mistress. She kicks him in the groin and runs away. He then decides that he loves her and is going to be faithful to her.

He doesn't grovel, he doesn't apologize, nothing and the stupid heroine just falls into his arms professing her undying love! Stupid! We, the readers are suppose to believe that 5 pages after he almost sleeps with his mistress he is now a changed and faithful husband. Yeah right!

If you want to read about an unfaithful, unrepentent pig this is the book for you, otherwise save your hard earned money for a real romance...where the hero is redeemed and you can actually believe it and care.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not Coulter's Best Work, December 4, 1997

By 

Working Mom of Two (Middletown, DE USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Offer (Baron Novels) (Paperback)

While I normailly find Catherine Coulter's work stunning, "The Offer" was a grave disappointment. This book is a re-write of "An Honorable Offer," published by Regency in 1981. I did not read the original and am now glad. I may have been angry with Coulter for changing the story. Phillip Mercerault (Viscount Derencourt) and Sabrina Eversleigh (second granddaughter of the Earl of Monmouth) are fairly good characters in and of themselves. As a couple, they just don't click. Other than the Viscount's kindness to Sabrina when they first meet, he has no endearing qualities to make the reader actually LIKE him and want the couple to get together. Thus, when he begins to act as a chauvanist, the reader wonders why Sabrina doesn't just pack up her broken heart and leave. When she professes to love him, he claims that she is simply hero-worshipping him. Other than her angry reactions to his infidelity and unsensitive nature, Coulter gives the reader no evidence that this is not true. When he suddenly "realizes" his love for her less than thirty pages from the end of the novel, it seems a farce. The heroine, Sabrina, is described fabulously at first--from her grandfather's adoration of her violet eyes, so like his late wife's, to her wild auburn hair. But when she becomes ill and disheartened, she is remarked simply as "skinny." Did Coulter's discriptive tastes end before the book did? While this read has spunk, I feel it has lost something vital to all historical romances in this re-written version. Believability.