Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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42 of 42 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Intense, unconventional and extremely erotic, September 29, 2001
If you are offended by frank eroticism and unconventional sex in your romance novels, this book is not for you. For the rest of you, hang onto your hats - you're in for a wild ride! Robin Schone's unique talent blends emotionally intense love stories with imaginative and graphic erotic scenes, and she pushes those boundaries even further in "Gabriel's Woman." Gabriel is familiar to readers of Schone's "The Lover" as the aloof proprietor of an establishment that specializes in all kinds of sensual pleasures. Gabriel himself, however, is not a participant. As a youth he was trained to be a prostitute that pleasured men and women, but due to some unknown trauma in his past, he can no longer tolerate another's touch. "Gabriel's Woman" begins with the grand reopening of the House of Gabriel. An upper class woman appears and boldly offers to auction off her virginity. Gabriel immediately realizes that the woman, Victoria, is a pawn sent to him by the mysterious man who brutalized him in the past. For her safety and in order to discover the mysterious man's plot, Gabriel buys Victoria. Even though his phobia of intimacy remains, he is inevitably attracted to her and his long dormant sexuality is awakened. Victoria has been unjustly forced from her position as a governess and was driven to the House of Gabriel by desperation. Nevertheless, she too is immediately aware of the intense attraction between herself and Gabriel. As she begins to know him better, she becomes determined to help him fight his personal demons and allow him to experience all the pleasure he has missed in life.Both Gabriel and Victoria are immensely appealing characters, and the reader can't help but become invested in their quest to make each other happy. As usual, Schone gives us several erotic scenes, some so extreme that even the most jaded reader will be startled. At times the book reads like a sex manual, including step-by-step instructions for new uses for breath mints. The surrounding plot is necessary to explain Gabriel's reticence, but it was my least favorite part of the book. The overall gloomy atmosphere got tiresome, and when the climatic confronation with the bad guy finally came around, I was so sick and tired of ominous references to "the second man" that I wanted to scream. Still, you don't read Schone for the plot, so this is a minor nitpick at best.
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58 of 61 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great sequel to The Lover; brooding, dark and erotic, February 10, 2002
If, like me, you were intrigued by Gabriel in The Lover, and his relationship with Michael, you'll want to read this book. Gabriel, remember, is the other angel; the boy who grew up with Michael, whom Michael taught to read, and who in the end killed 'the first man' to save Michael's life.Now, Gabriel is back, running the House of Gabriel - a whorehouse, to be blunt, where both male and female prostitutes operate - and waiting, knowing that the second man will come for him, to finish what was started earlier. He's protecting Michael and Anne in the best way he knows, with guards posted to be aware of any danger, and he's doing his best to draw the second man to himself - after which one of them will die. Until one evening a woman, covered from head to toe in a shapeless cloak, comes into the House and offers her virginity for sale - for the same price that Gabriel himself was once sold for. He knows that the second man is involved here, and that this woman must be in on it; so he buys her and tries to get her to tell him the truth. However, after a while he realises that she's also an innocent pawn - which means that her life is in danger. He must hold her prisoner to save her life. Gabriel, because of his past experiences, hates to be touched. Victoria, because of her background, her age (she's a 34-year-old spinster) and the fact that she's been living on the streets for the past six months, needs to feel wanted - he bid for her virginity, but makes it clear that he has no intention of taking it. She has also, over the last few months, been receiving anonymous letters which awakened her sexuality, making her want to experience passion between a man and a woman. So, feeling rejected and not understanding Gabriel's rejection of her, she sets out to seduce him. The love scenes in this book are erotic; they're also rough, raw and blunt. They're not for the timid; if you prefer your sex dressed up in pretty phrases in Harlequin books, you won't enjoy this. There's also some violence here and there, which is understandable given that a dangerous psychopath is out to kill Gabriel and will gladly kill anyone else who gets in the way. But very quickly Gabriel and Victoria come to depend on each other, and we see that Gabriel would protect her with his life. She's come to mean as much to him as Michael. My one problem with Schone is that she leaves a lot to the reader's imagination. I'm not incapable of drawing my own conclusions about things, but I'm a big fan of introspection - especially in books about brooding, tortured heroes such as Gabriel. So I'd have liked more insight into the characters' psyches, motives, intentions, fears and so on. As far as Gabriel's relationship with Michael is concerned, there is clearly a homosexual past of some kind - the reader who thought it was implied but not intended didn't read the two books closely enough! Gabriel clearly has conflicted feelings about Michael, however; he associates homosexual love with the shame he felt when he had to admit that he enjoyed what the second man did to him, and so he's not at ease with his feelings for Michael. That was the one big disappointment for me: the two clearly do love each other - though not to the exclusion of Anne and Victoria - but the fact that Gabriel found it so hard to kiss Michael, at a point when it could have saved their lives, seemed wrong to me. (Okay, I wanted them to kiss, anyway!)
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23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Absolutely Fabulous, October 27, 2002
Most of the other reviewers have summarized the plot quite well, with the ex-governess Victoria putting her virginity on the auction block at an exclusive men's club, known as the "House of Gabriel", and her subsequent unexpected sexual awakening. Gabriel, a man completely walled off by choice from his own sexuality, has become a sort of "voyeur" in his house of prostitution until Victoria comes into his life under suspicous circumstances. If you are looking for a sweet love story, this is not the book for you. The sex is hot, explicit, touches on the homoerotic and may be too much for some readers to handle . Mostly, the storyline is a mesh of the erotic/romance genre and is a sequel to Schone's previous work, "The Lover". I actually enjoyed "Gabriel's Woman" more than "The Lover", for I felt there was a bit more of a plot and I enjoyed the mystery/suspence aspects. The veiled references to the "second man" may be confusing to readers who haven't read "The Lover", and this is my biggest complaint about the novel.The relationship that develops between Gabriel and Victoria is something quite refreshing and unusual. Victoria is a virgin who once is awakened, becomes a tigress. This is the one aspect of Schone's novels' I have found a bit repetitive, as does her constant mention of the length of the man's penis size. The relationship shifts then into different sexual realms. However, it is the breaking down of all of Gabriel's sexual walls that make this novel so interesting and different from my usual romance fare. Gabriel's variety of inner demons made me literally cry. The "friendship" between Michael, the protaganist in "The Lover" and Gabriel seems to be hotly debated. For me, this was not homesexual, but there were shades of homoerotocism. The very existence of this is the essence of Gabriel's torment, so if anything, it really gave me something to ponder after I read this novel. By the end of the book, in my opinion, it is my conclusion they are friends who love each other, but there is a fine line btween homo and heterosexuality both men have resolved. I am shocked at readers who did not see the love between Gabriel and Victoria. Considering all the changes in Gabriel's life after he became involved with Victoria, and how he became able to recieve love and touch from another human being, their love was clear to me. I'd love to see more of them in Schone's future works. I've read all her novels/novellas and her growth as a novelist is wonderful.
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