Most Helpful Customer Reviews
18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Book didn't age well!, May 2, 2000
This review is from: Sea Fire (Mass Market Paperback)
Don't read this book expecting a typical Karen Robards book. This was one of her earliest books -- and it was written in a time when rapist heroes were accepted. The hero (and I use that term loosely) is so insanely jealous that he could have been a guest on the Sally Jesse Raphael Show. He rapes the heroine, yells at her, abuses her... The heroine is little better, for she is stubborn and childish in the most foot-stomping of ways. The saddest part of this book is that Cathy and Jon went through all this in their first book, Island Flame. You'd think he would've figured out by now that he could trust her -- after all, he married her at the end of the first book! Oh, before I forget, this book also has violence, a vomit scene, misunderstandings, and even a cat fight. There is plenty of adventure, but it's lost amid the name calling, rapes, humiliation, and foot-stomping. I gave this book an F at All About Romance.
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15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Not her best effort, July 14, 2004
This review is from: Sea Fire (Mass Market Paperback)
Karen Robards has written some of my favorite historical romances, but this is *not* one of them. The characters of Cathy and Jon are too one-dimensional and their emotional growth in the story is just about nil (particularly amazing since this book is the sequel to "Island Flame"--300 plus pages of more of the same.) The two books were written in the early 1980's, so I believe that they are some of Karen Robards's earliest efforts. Near the beginning of "Island Flame", beautiful Lady Catherine is captured by a pirate ship captained by the very handsome Jonathan Hale. Despite the fact that she is half his age and a virgin, Jon rapes her repeatedly (he later denies that it was rape because he has managed to wring a little response out of ther on occasion.) Looked at objectively, his behavior is what you might expect from a pirate captain in the mid-1800's, and I might even have been able to get past it and forgive him for it if he had ever really taken responsibility for his bad behavior and *changed*! But he never changes. He is still the same violent, insanely possessive, thoughtless, serial mis-understander and rapist almost all the way through "Sea Fire". All this *after* he has declared his love to Cathy at the end of "Island Flame" and has lived as her husband for two previous years. Needless to say, Jon is a very troubling "hero". To my mind, he is unsatisfying even as an anti-hero as he lacks any underlying vulnerability and redemption. His misogynistic tendencies are explained away as a result of the trauma of discovering that his stepmother was a whore--but that seems inadequate given the depth of his pathology. The problem with the hero is compounded by the lack of a compelling heroine. Cathy is constantly described as beautiful and desirable (even immediately post-partum! How is that for romantic fiction!) but she is also a vain, thoughtless, tantrum-throwing twit. She is also plenty verbally and physically abusive in her own right. Although she never does anything to deserve Jon's horrible treatment, she does frequently throw kerosene on the fire of his rage by her reactions and insults. Not smart, in my opinion and she *never* learns. The "I hate you/I love you" thing gets very tiresome before the book is half done. They are also *terrible* parents (abandoning a 2 year old for a year with the nanny and leaving a one month old baby alone on a beach while they frolic all night at a distant site on the island--shudder!) Given what has gone on in this and the previous book, the ending of "Sea Fire" is not satisfying. I was waiting for Jon to come crawling back *on his knees* and to prove that he really had changed his ways--and I am still waiting. The comments from Cathy's nanny and her father about what a great guy Jon was and how well he had treated her were *appalling*. In summary, this book was ultimately unsatisfying and not one of Karen Robards's best efforts. I would recommend instead one of her other, much better, historical romances, such as "Dark of the Moon", "Tiger's Eye", "Loving Julia", "Desire in the Sun" or "Dark Torment". For a much more entertaining take on the "innocent kidnapped by pirates" theme read "Windflower" by Laura London--well worth it if you can get ahold of a copy.
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
I don't know whether I liked this book or not...., December 2, 1998
By A Customer
If you are looking for some explicit sex scenes, you've come to the right place. I don't know whether I liked this book or not. For the most part I look forward to reading Karen Robards book's and this one was no exception. The writing of the story was wonderfully done, with interesting characters and different way of chronologically telling the story. Cathy and Jon's story starts AFTER they have met, been married and had a child. It is only when she is called away to her sick father's bed - an ocean away - that things go wrong. I suppose what bother's me so much about this story is the way Ms. Robards has the hero continually using the heroine - and uses is the right word. [Don't read further in this paragraph if you do not want to know some of the plot.] Being so mad at Cathy (for a misunderstanding he won't even listen to her explain)he rapes her in one scene, and takes her repeatedly without her consent for weeks. Cathy gets angry, and goes into a type of comatose state that rape victoms often do, but then, when they are in danger, forgives him everything - even sleeping with another women in front of her. How can someone love anyone like that - even if he later regrets his actions or realizes he did it because he was SO jealous? No matter what his background is or his distrust of women, how (or why) would anyone put up with that? I hate to sound so wishy-washy but I can't righty suggest or spurn this book. It really depends upon the reader's interest and tolerance level.
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