The falling-in-love-with-your-rapist theme had a long run in romance, and you can thank (or blame) Hull for its wild popularity. But you can’t get away from the fact that this theme was present for a long time and it was extremely popular. The alpha male is still in high demand in contemporary romance, although he no longer shows his love quite so violently. (At least, he’s not violent toward the heroine; he may murder any number of people to protect her, however.)
The plot of The Sheik has Lady Diana Mayo planning to go into the desert of Algiers with only Arab guides accompanying her. She’s headstrong and confident; having lost both parents at a young age, she wasn’t reared like a lady. (Her mother died in childbirth and her father killed himself in grief.)
She no sooner sets foot in the desert when she’s kidnapped by Ahmed Ben Hassan, the titular sheik. He brutalizes her repeatedly (this is not explicit in the book but you can tell); he hates all things English (toward the end it is revealed that Ahmed’s Spanish mother was brutalized by his English father and so Ahmed wants revenge). Diana makes an escape and is recaptured by him, then comes to realize she loves him (we know, we know).
She’s kidnapped by a different sheik, and Ahmed realizes he loves her and goes off to rescue her (we know, we know). He’s wounded, and Diane cares for him. Later, he says he is sending her away because he loves her. Distraught, she plans to kill herself as her father did, but Ahmed stops her and the two declare their love, etc., etc.
This is not a novel you read to appreciate its artistry; it’s a novel you read for context—to understand the origin of modern romance.
76
Shield’s Lady
JAYNE ANN KRENTZ
PARANORMAL / ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN 1989
UNDER THE PEN NAME AMANDA GLASS
“The unconscious man stirred slightly and groaned.”
Far-off worlds, dangerous mercenary hero, kick-ass heroine—you know we stayed up all night with this one.
Krentz won the Susan Koppelman Award for Feminist Studies for Dangerous Men and Adventurous Women, a book she edited about the appeal of the romance genre.
The western Avylyn clan has hired easterner Sarianna Dayne to solve a problem. All-business Sarianna can usually handle anything life throws at her, but this is one situation she can’t manage herself, so she hires a member of the Shield clan, a mercenary named Gryph Chassyn.
Gryph’s the opposite of all business. He’s got plans for her that go way, way beyond solving a crime. He wants her as his shield mate. But Sarianna wasn’t raised in his culture, and she has no idea what that means. Although she’s about to find out….
Fast paced, sexy, with an engaging plot and fascinating world.
77
Skye O’Malley
BERTRICE SMALL
HISTORICAL / 1984
“It was a perfect early summer day in the year 1555.”
Small is A Name in romance writing, and this is arguably her best work.
Small’s O’Malley series has six books and the Skye Legacy series also has six. Skye O’Malley is the start.
Skye O’Malley is one of those romance sagas that many of us grew up reading. She’s the epitome of the bold romance heroine we love: In the end, she dares to stand up to Elizabeth I, the queen of England.
Skye swashbuckles (there’s no other way to put it) her way through sixteenth-century England and Algiers, becoming a woman of great wealth and power, taking on the occasional lover and spurning countless advances. Through it all, she never forgets Niall Burke, her first love (and her first lover). Time and again they are forced to turn away from each other—will they ever have their chance to be together?
78
Slightly Scandalous
MARY BALOGH
HISTORICAL / 2003
“By the time she went to bed, Lady Freyja Bedwyn was in about as bad a mood as it was possible to be in.”
Slightly hard to put down, Slightly Scandalous is a delightful they’re-made-for-each-other-and-when-will-they-figure-it-out? romp. If you’re a fan of smart historicals, this goes on your nightstand.
Not surprisingly, Balogh’s two main influences as a writer were Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer.
This is the third novel in Balogh’s Bedwyn series about the six Bedwyn siblings. They make their first appearance in A Summer to Remember.
Freyja Bedwyn is no shrinking violet: Having four brothers has taught her how to hold her own. So when Joshua Moore, the Marquess of Hallmere, steals a kiss, she punches him. And that is the start of their beautiful relationship.
This is no opposites attract story. Both Freyja and Joshua are reckless, restless, and unwilling to settle down. That’s why Joshua’s plan seems so perfect: He wants to stop his aunt’s matchmaking scheme. What if Freyja pretends to be his fiancée? He’ll thwart his aunt’s ambitions.
Freyja agrees to the plan, because what could possibly go wrong?
Neither one of them expects to fall in love….
79
Smoke and Mirrors
BARBARA MICHAELS
ROMANTIC SUSPENSE / 1989
“They came to him every night. They never moved; they never spoke. They just stood there, by the side of his bed, their grave dark eyes fixed on his face.”
Even though the book is over twenty years old and the technology is outdated, Erin’s thrill at becoming privy to the inner workings of a political campaign still ignites the imagination and makes you want to sign up as a volunteer. This is one of the few romances where the heroine’s work plays such a prominent role in the storyline.
Michaels (under her real name, of course!) studied Egyptology at the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago, earning her doctorate at age twenty-three!
Be sure not to confuse Barbara Michaels’s Smoke and Mirrors with Jayne Ann Krentz’s (also great) Smoke in Mirrors!
Erin Hartsock moves to Washington, D.C., and takes a job with a friend of the family, Rosemary White Marshall, who is running for Senate. Erin gets a bracing look at how politics works and how campaigns are run, and instead of leaving her squeamish, she realizes she has finally found her life’s calling—politics, for her, is a great adventure.
Nick, a member of the campaign staff, helps Erin learn the ropes, and the two of them begin a friendship that deepens into something more.
But a secret from Rosemary’s past threatens them all—including Erin, who thinks she may be the murderer’s next victim, and who, as the outsider, must convince the others that she’s not the criminal.
80
Something Wicked
JO BEVERLEY
HISTORICAL / 2005
“‘I’m going to miss you.’ Lady Elfled Malloren went into her twin brother’s arms, determined not to cry.”
A young lady raised among a bevy of brothers gives us a strong heroine we can identify with and cheer—no one takes advantage of this savvy miss.
The Malloren series eventually climbed to total twelve books, as the author brought the family friends’ romances into the circle as well.
The third in the series of five books about the Malloren family, Something Wicked focuses on the sister of the brood, Lady Elfled. Elf visits a friend in London and ends up alone in the big city—the perfect opportunity for a boxed-in twenty-four-year-old to rebel a little and kick up her heels. A disguise, of course, will protect her reputation. Her night out on the town, however, puts her in the right spot in Vauxhall Gardens to overhear the family’s enemy, Fortitude Ware, Earl of Walgrave, embroiled in a Jacobean plot.
And as nature would have it, the bad blood between the Wares and the Mallorens has only helped heighten Fort’s sex appeal for Elf. He, of course, is not a Jacobite out to betray the king, but a spy determined to save His Majesty. And when it comes crashing down on his head, who else but the Mallorens would charge in to save his hide?
The action in Something Wicked takes a back seat to the character development, as Elf has to build her self-confidence and decision-making skills awa
y from her brothers’ overprotective ways. The result is a mature woman who understands she can’t choke the life out of a love if it’s truly love. Fort wrestles with a history that tortures him, and has to learn that a woman—previously a gender he considered playthings—can hold the key to redemption.
81
Son of the Morning
LINDA HOWARD
ROMANTIC SUSPENSE/TIME TRAVEL / 1997
“The stone walls of the secret underground chamber were cold and dank, the chill penetrating wool and linen and leather, going straight to the bone.”
While the suspense level is commendable, readers respect and remember Grace for honoring her dead husband’s love throughout the book without shortchanging her emotional ties to Niall. The balance is truly heartwarming.
As wildly popular as Son of the Morning turned out to be, this remains Howard’s only time-travel story.
Howard’s husband is a bass tournament fisherman and she often travels with him to remote locations—but she always makes sure to bring her laptop with her. Yet another perk of being an author—you can do it from anywhere!
Grace St. John merely stepped next door for some computer help from her geeky neighbor, and returns to witness her boss killing her husband and brother. Now on the run herself from both the murderer’s long reach and law enforcement who have pinned the deaths on Grace, she finally pieces together that the bad guys are after a document regarding the Knights Templar that she unearthed.
Determined to find the key to why her life turned upside down, Grace races to finish translating the writings of Black Niall, written 700 years earlier to explain why this half-brother of Robert the Bruce became a Templar—and then rejected the brotherhood.
Niall and Grace eventually connect by mind meld in a parallel dimension (yes, this includes a physical relationship with the hunky Scot) until he is able to shoot through time to arrive in this century and help Grace find her justice and freedom. In between, the story is filled with rich details of a hunted woman (she breaks into houses by day to shower and steal clothes, and is almost caught while merely stocking up on necessities at a discount store) and the complicated intrigues of the fourteenth-century church. It’s a rich read that deftly leaves no unanswered questions.
82
Sweet Savage Love
ROSEMARY ROGERS
HISTORICAL / 1974
“Virginia Brandon was sixteen, that spring of 1862, and the thought of her first ball, now only two weeks away, was much more exciting than the letter that had arrived that morning from her father in America. She had not seen her father, after all, since she was still a baby—perhaps three or four years old; and although he sent money for her care every month through his bankers in San Francisco, his letters were infrequent.”
Before Christian Grey and his Fifty Shades, there was Union soldier, gunslinger, crusader cowboy Steve Morgan dominating women with his bad boy ways. Masochistic, horny heroes everywhere owe Morgan a tip of the hat.
The book’s dedication to C. E. refers to Clint Eastwood, one of the masculine models Rogers built her hero Steve on.
Rosemary Rogers is a romance pioneer—she was only the second author to have her books published in the now mainstream trade paperback format!
Rogers lived in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) until the age of twenty-seven. Since then, she has lived in London, Missouri, California, and Connecticut.
Virginia “Ginny” Brandon is the daughter of a U.S. Senator raised in Paris who finds herself trekking across the west with her stepmother as part of her father’s business, which is a front for running a wagon-load of gold into Mexico to help the French military. Like most bored, pretty young women, she has an eye for their guide, Steve Morgan.
Steve is in this spot because he fought a duel with a high-ranking Union army officer over a prostitute during the Civil War, and won. His punishment was execution, until he took a sweet deal as an 1860s version of a U.S. undercover agent. Now sent to stop this financial windfall from reaching his enemies, he fakes an Indian raid. But when his lady love Ginny recognizes him, he kidnaps her as his human shield.
The pair fight and love through the wilderness, giving us the yardstick for the term “bodice-ripper” as they hide in whorehouses, pretend to be married when they drop in on friends, and eventually find a relationship strong enough for Ginny to trade sex with the enemy to save Steve’s life.
They admit their love and marry in the end, but do not manage to live happily ever after until enduring more international intrigue and wild children in Dark Fires and Sweet Love, Last Love.
83
Thief of Dreams
MARY BALOGH
HISTORICAL / 1998
“The day was going to be an extraordinarily busy one. A birthday was to be celebrated—the one and twentieth of Lady Cassandra Havelock, Countess of Worthing.”
Balogh is upfront in telling the reader that Nigel’s motivations aren’t pure, so everyone keeps reading to find out how a bad guy is actually a victim.
For years, Mary Balogh was published in every country but her homeland, the United Kingdom, which is reluctant to publish books from America, despite the fact the author is Welsh/Canadian.
Cassandra Havelock reaches her majority at age twenty-one blissfully happy. She is free of her guardians, free from the year of mourning for her father, and free to assume the title Countess of Worthington. Although the family wants to see her wed, she intends to hang on to her independence and enjoy this sweet setup alone.
Then Nigel Wetherby, Viscount Wroxley, arrives on the Kedelston doorstep to pay his respects to the daughter of a man he claims was a good friend. Cassandra welcomes this man and his stories of her father, and the attraction builds so fast, Nigel proposes within days and they are married within a fortnight.
They can’t begin their happily ever after, however, until Cassandra unearths a myriad of distressing secrets, including the ones that involve her father, her position, and her new husband’s nightmares and scarred back. Along the journey, she discovers a man who has learned to reject all emotional feeling as a survival mechanism and thus, can’t admit he loves the countess he married. Then she must swallow her own betrayal to see if their relationship has a chance at healing. Overall, it’s a meaty historical with a dark and unpredictable side that belies its Georgian time frame stereotypes.
84
This Is All I Ask
LYNN KURLAND
HISTORICAL / 1997
“The twigs snapped and popped in the hearth, sending a spray of sparks across the stone. One of the three girls huddled there stamped out the live embers, then leaned into the circle again, her eyes wide with unease.
‘Is it true he’s the Devil’s own?’
‘’Tis the rumor,’ the second whispered with a furtive nod.”
An early Kurland, we dare you to try to finish this one without a hanky in hand.
Kurland is a trained classical musician. She plays the cello and the piano, and she sings.
This Is All I Ask is the seventh title in Kurland’s De Piaget series.
Almost all of the main characters in Lynn Kurland’s books belong to one of three families: the Macleods, the McKinnons, and the de Piagets.
Gillian of Warewick has been terribly abused by her father, so when he arranges her marriage to Christopher of Blackmour, she expects the worst. She has heard the rumors that Christopher practices black magic, but once they’re married, she finds he is a much different man than she expected. He was, in fact, a friend of her brother’s (the brother died young) and has made a promise to care for her, knowing how brutal her father was.
Christopher has suffered as much in his own way as she has in hers; his first wife betrayed him, resulting in his blindness; he is wary of love and of the way it can cloud one’s thinking. Both of them must grow to trust themselves and each other before love can blossom.
It’s no wonder this is a fan favorite.
Top Five Love Songs
Put these on your pla
ylist, and you’ll be in the mood for love!
“Wonderful Tonight” by Eric Clapton
“I Will Always Love You” by Whitney Houston
“Love Me Tender” by Elvis Presley
“I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” by Aerosmith
“Be Without You” by Mary J. Blige
85
This Rough Magic
MARY STEWART
ROMANTIC SUSPENSE / 1964
“‘And if it’s a boy,’ said Phyllida cheerfully, ‘we’ll call him Prospero.’”
Exotic scene-setting and lyrical prose make for a captivating read.
The title comes from the Shakespeare play The Tempest, in which the wizard Prospero gives up his magic with the announcement, “This rough magic I here abjure.”
In 1964, the same year This Rough Magic was published, Mary Stewart’s novel The Moon-Spinners was adapted into a Hollywood film starring Hayley Mills, Eli Wallach, and Peter McEnery.
When London actress Lucy Waring has a show fold under her and nothing on the table to follow it, she heads to her pregnant sister’s summer home in Corfu, where she finds herself almost immediately ensnared in an intrigue.
Talented musician Max Gale is doing his best to protect his father, the famous actor Julian Gale, who has taken to drinking too much since the death of his wife and daughter. Julian has sought solace at Corfu, a place with some history for him—his godchildren, Spiro and Miranda live here and work for Lucy’s sister. The island has the added attraction of being, he argues to anyone who will listen, the setting for Shakespeare’s The Tempest.
The 100 Best Romance Novels Page 9