Customer Reviews

Ride the Wind Home

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I have liked other books by Christina Kingston, but RIDE THE WIND HOME was the first book in a long time to make me really angry. There has been a lot of media coverage lately about how romance heroines are "evolving" into strong, independent women--anyone who thinks that's true should take a look at this book, which demonstrates just how tightly the "ideal" of female submissiveness is ingrained into the industry.

Diana, the story's heroine, is (the author tells us) a strong, independent woman. So then why does she allow her father to pick husbands for her? I can understand when she was sixteen, but the second time is stretching the bonds of credibility. And, as she has her own fortune, one has to wonder why she doesn't just live by herself. Kingston may tell us she's strong and independent, but Diana's actions indicate that she can't do anything without another person's help and approval. She trains herself in self-defense (as if a woman in the nineteenth century would actually do that), yet spends all of the book depending on Smythington for defense, being nice to her father which he clearly doesn't deserve, reacting passively to everything every man does to her, and then making excuses for them! Aaaargh! Push her forward a hundred and fifty years, and she'd make a great Stepford wife.

Beside my principle objections to the story, this book is, to put is simply, badly written. It starts off wonderfully in the prologue, with Smythington as a likable, original, and interesting hero, and real chemistry between him and Diana. There is also a great, ready-made conflict to move the story along. But Kingston demolishes all of these factors almost immediately: the "conflict" dies, and Diana and Smythington spend most of the first half of the book apart, which is not only completely nonsensical for a romance novel, but BORING!!!!! I knew when I started this book that Kingston doesn't tend to think about plot (hence her writing what is essentially the same book four or more times), but this one apparently was not even edited to smooth out the wrinkles.

The most annoying aspect of RIDE THE WIND HOME, however, were the completely illogical characterizations. I've never encountered so many characters with absolutely irrational personality traits. The father is kind and sweet, yet he marries his daughter off at the first opportunity to a cruel, lecherous swine? An overweight man who hesitates to kill a fly, yet is somehow an expert marksman, swordsman, horseman, and highly decorated army officer? In fact, NONE of these characters behave consistently and that, combined with a story that would try the patience of Tolstoy, is what finally made me put this book down.

RIDE THE WIND HOME is, to put it mildly, not one of Kingston's better books. Try RIDE THE WINTER WIND instead and give this one a pass.

In 1814 her father a vicar married sixteen year old Diana to Huntley. Her new spouse is a nasty brute who abuses his young bride. When his friends trap her in an ugly situation, Michael David Lawrence, the Duke of Smythington and a member of the Lucky Seven, intercedes. Following that incident, Diana refused to accept crap from her ugly husband even when David vanishes.

Four years later, Huntley has been dead for over a year, but her father wants Diana to marry Lord Runsfield. She never told him what an abomination her first marriage was, but refuses to wed anyone though she wishes her savior David was available. David has just returned to England after being held prisoner by a Barbary prince. He seeks internal peace and so he decides to wander until he recovers his equilibrium before taking over his dukedom. David sees Diana traveling by herself and decides he must keep safe the woman he fell in love with four years, not realizing she may be his healer.

RIDE THE WIND HOME is an enjoyable Regency romance that stars two delightful lead protagonists. The story line is exciting although the country seems loaded with too many repulsive aristocratic males. Still the tale catches the audience attention from the moment the two stars meet and never releases the reader until the final climax.

Harriet Klausner

When the Duke of Smythington rescues Diana, a baron's very young bride and her puppy from the unwelcome attentions of ruffians, it begins a fledgling love that will haunt the two for years to come. She keeps track of him until he disappears.

A year later, he returns to England after spending a that time enslaved. At first, he disguises himself as a young seaman, going only by one of his names, David. By this time, Diana is a widow, but is not ready to be a wife again, especially considering how distasteful she has found all the men her father would choose to be.She flees to London, and meets David there. Diana fails to recognize him as the man she never stopped loving, but despite that, there is an attraction to this stranger. David remembers and loves Diana, but wants her to love him for himself, not his title, so does not reveal who he is. The problem is, Diana may be in love with "David", but knows he is beneath her in station, and she loves another man, the Duke of Smythington.

***** With a combination of sweetness and passion, this charming story weaves a place in the reader's heart. Love's power is tenderly portrayed in a modern classic that will leave you feeling warm.

Christina Kingston understands the true history of England and customs of the period her books represent. This story takes a heroine whose tribulations have been immense and shows how a smart woman can handle the worst villains, yet remain true to her own times and morals. It's not an easy accomplishment, for the heroine OR for the author, yet both triumph. This is not a contemporary woman struggling in a bygone era and behaving in a foolish manner that might cost her not only her position but also her very life. This is a brave heroine of the times, caught in the kind of dilemma women of today have sought so hard to do away with. To genuinely see how far we've come, "Ride the Wind Home."

Kingston has handled a thorny problem well in "Ride the Wind Home," and I enjoyed watching her. She took a hero who was by nature gentle and kept that nature even while she put him in circumstances that would have been handled with greater ease by a more agressive personality.
In addition, she took a woman trapped in the confines of her time, and gave her a determination to escape being a victim of those very confines--with sometime comic results, but ending in the saving of her beloved's life. I thought the way Kingston used the opposition of ultimate evil and the greatest good was well done, too.