The Flame and the Flower Kathleen E. Woodiwiss
I imagine this book is 491 pages of vomitous run-on writing. I wouldn’t know, as I only managed to finish the first 54 page chapter.
The back of the book reads:
Fearing for her innocence, doomed to a life of unending toil, Heather Simmons commits a shocking and desperate act. Now she must flee–and seek refuge in the arms of virile and dangerous stranger.
Captain Brandon Birmingham is a lusty adventurer married to the sea. Though courting scorn and serious peril through his actions, he abducts the beautiful, sapphire-eyed fugitive from the tumultuous London dockside. For it is destiny that brings Heather to Brandon’s side, and no power on Earth will force him to relinquish his exquisite prize. Only she can unlock the tenderness in his heart; and Brandon vows she will be his–to love, to cherish, to desire, and to carry off to far, uncharted realms of sensuous passion.
The book begins with a quick recap of Heather’s life thus far: her parents are dead, and her father’s sister took her in, but is so jealous of her looks and former life of ease that she makes Heather wear her old oversized gowns and do all the housework. But, lo! her brother is coming, and she wants Heather to look nice for him, so she lets her wear the only gown she brought with her to dinner.
The aunt’s brother offers to find a work place in London for Heather, and her aunt is only too happy to please her brother. Of course, this is a trick, and he is so overcome with lust that they are only in London for about five hours when he tries to rape her. In doing so, he says that when he tires of her, he says he will send her to “Lady Cabot’s”, which he implies is a brothel of sorts, and then in the next breath says that she may find a rich husband there. One of my biggest pet peeves in romance novels is absurd historical inaccuracy. This book supposedly takes place in 1799–no wealthy member of the ton would marry a prostitute. Make her a mistress perhaps, but not marry her.
Anyway, the “desperate act” turns out to be Heather stabbing the uncle in some vital organ with a fruit knife, and he bleeds to death.
Heather flees the scene, and finds herself by the seedy docks. She thinks someone has been following her, so when two rough men tell her to come with them, she complies, thinking that she is being taken to a police station. Instead she is taken aboard a ship, and inspected by Captain Brandon. It is painfully obvious to the reader that he thinks she is a prostitute, but poor Heather is dumb enough to think that he is a policeman.
Once he has taken her clothes off some dim bulb goes off in her head, and while she tries to evade him, by the time they are naked and on the bed she gives up. Captain Brandon is quickly alerted to the fact that she is still a virgin, but he is as dumb as Heather, and literally just keeps plowing along.
Brandon turns out to be not only dumb, but a total asshole. The next morning she again tries to fight off his advances, and he is even more forceful about having his way. Even after she tells him the truth about why she came aboard the ship, his first thought is that her family will have him arrested. When she tells him she has no family, he relaxes; rape is ok if you don’t go to jail for it. He tells her she will be his mistress, and after he rapes her again he offers to take her out to buy some new clothes: “If you’re like most other women, that should perk you up.”
There’s another almost rape scene, where Heather decides his kiss isn’t entirely unpleasant, and you can see the Stockholm syndrome setting in before he heads out the door to buy her presents. End first chapter.
This book to encompass my biggest pet peeve/aggravation with romance novels: when rape is ok because eventually you fall in love with your rapist and then it’s not rape anymore. Also when the hero thinks he is raping someone because she is pretty; that is not why you are doing it: you are doing it because you are an asshole and you like having power over people.
Here are the reasons Heather sucks as a main character:
She is Bella Swan. The only thing she does in this first chapter is bedazzle two different men with her “unique” beauty, and stab one of them. Readers can’t relate to this, and I find myself annoyed at main characters who are nothing but a pretty face.
She is dumb as eff. When Brandon threatens to take her out with him, her immediate reaction is: how embarassing! and not: a chance to escape!
All this would be fine, if Brandon weren’t a total a-hole.
Here are the reasons Captain Brandon is an asshole:
He is a philanderer. He thinks he deserves to be unfaithful to his fiance because he works hard and because he thinks she cheats on him too. Also I guess he thinks he can get away with having a mistress in London, since his fiancee is a Southen belle over in the States.
He is an unrepentant rapist. Not only does he rape Heather repeatedly, but when she resists he warns her that he is not above force. Sexy.
He thinks all women are materialistic . See his “perk you up” comment above.
He thinks women are uneducated. Even though he initially believes Heather comes from money, he is surprised that she can read.
He thinks he is hot shit. Hey dude, you are an American, and a businessman. Maybe that “work ethic” gets you engaged to a rich heiress in America, but that makes you pretty unattractive to the British elite. Being your mistress is a terrible business proposition for a poor British girl: yeah you can buy her clothes and a house, but what the hell is she supposed to do when you are off with your wife? She is not going to be invited anywhere, nor is she going to get you invited anywhere. I don’t know what you think you are going to get out of this, other than a bored, unhappy, and unwilling booty call. And speaking of unwilling, that whole “Someday you’ll be begging for it” comment: no, just no. It is not cool to tell someone that one day she will enjoy being raped as you are raping her. While the back cover leads me to believe that yes, she will probably one day want your disease-riddled dick inside her, and you will fall in love and have a baby, you are a pompous ass, and this book is full of suck.
The worst part of this book is the note on the back cover:
Includes an excerpt from The Elusive Flame, the author’s long awaited sequel to The Flame and the Flower.
Barf.