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32 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
A bit disgusted..., February 21, 2002
What kind of rapist gets to be a hero in another book? When I first started reading this book I wasn't very impressed to begin with. I have read some of Catherine Coulter's other books and found them very enjoyable. Imagine my surprise and disgust when after I read that horrible rape scene I turn to the back of the book and-viola!- the VILIAN has his own romance staring HIM as the hero??? Just knowing this made me unable to finish the book. I realize that the plot is set hundreds of years ago and although this might have happened then I certainly don't want it happening in my reading. What ever happened to the hero having integrity? Honor? Courage? Did the author hope to make this look like a "nice" rape? It ruined the entire book for me and I doubt I will be reading the other books in this series.
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26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
A Bad Plot is Still a Bad Plot, July 16, 2001
I like Catherine Coulter novels. True, they're not always historically accurate, but romance readers are used to some lack of fact in most works of this genre. However, the plot line itself is so inane that most readers will have difficulty in suspending belief. This book is a rewrite of a much earlier work. I think Ms. Coulter should have abandoned ship on this project. Our heroine is raised as a squire--a nice touch if you like the feminist, athletic bit. However, she has difficulty in grasping the most basic concepts, so protraying her as remotely intelligent or faintly likable is an exercise in futility. I liked the character of Mary, since she is the only person in the novel that displays a lick of common sense. The lead female is so obsessively male about everything she does that this plot line is stale long before the reader has reached the halfway point in the novel. You simply want to scream "Enough already." And so the reader moves from what was at least a coherent plot to the Crusades in the blink of an eye. The husband, who started the novel as a likable character, becomes increasingly authoritarian as the plot (which should thicken and doesn't), proceeds. A rapist, introduced earlier in the novel, is portrayed sypathetically, an error in judgement on the author's part, as well as a display of a complete lack of taste and sense. I found it offensive. The rape scene itself, which is not necessary, is too wooden and phony. I do hope Ms. Coulter gives up on the idea of revitalizing these weak earlier novels and writes fresh material with stronger plot lines, adding more depth and some intelligence to both the characters and the plot.
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16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Worse rewrite of the original..., December 19, 2001
By A Customer
When I was about 10 years younger, I used to love the "strong, silent hero" type - and so fell into reading Catherine Coulter. At that time, the rape scene did not disturb me so much (I thought she was being realistic), although I realized later that the rapist becomes a hero in another book, and shows no contrition for what he did to the victim. What is horrendous about this book is the rewrite of the mother's character. In the original CHANDRA, Lady Dorothy (?) is helpless, weak, silly, but not deliberately malicious. In this book, she is close to absolute evil, conniving at her daughter's forced marriage to a rapist-invader and also threatening her husband with a sudden death if Chandra is not married off. And yes, this time, I did get the incestuous overtones in the relationship between Chandra and her father - almost made me feel sorry for Lady Dorothy, if *that* was going on. [Note - there is no actual incest, but the relationship is - ahem - rather strange]. Chandra and Jerval did not feel particularly romantic to me on this re-read. I must have had different tastes back then. Right now, Catherine Coulter - thanks to the trend of her writing - is going on my "do not buy" list. Rating = 1 star (the lowest possible for a distasteful unromantic book)
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