Smart Bitches Trashy Books | All of the romance, none of the bullshit.

This book sounds INSANE. I must know what happens next!!!!

Great review!

Oh wow - when I first looked I thought it said A+ rating. 

I kept waiting for Cassie’s Dream Sequence/ nightmare to end and Lord Uncle McRapey to wake up as a pet monkey or something.

yick.

I read this book when it came out way back when - it was the boat issue that rang in my head and then the rape scenes.  You made it further than I did - this book got tossed.

Great review!

LOL what’s sad is, I saw the A+ rating and thought “she’s being cute, maybe?  like it’s the best of the worst??”

I’m too askeered to assume around here.

I will never understand the appeal of these books.  And I read a Coulter recently and loved it… which shocked me, from my memory of her early stuff.

It’s a crap shoot, I spose.

Haha, this was the first romance I ever read! Luckily, it didn’t scar me too badly.

Tina - I hope we see some more reviews from you! I’m glad I’ve stayed far from this work, it sounds plum horrible.

As a very wise review on Amazon said, you never know when you open a Coulter book whether you’re getting a sweet pusscat or a ravenous tiger!

she is seemingly incapable of following up on these questions, even in her own head, before she is--OH LOOK!  SHINY!

Hee hee hee.  *snicker*

If I admit that I really liked this one when I first read it will I have to turn in my Smart Bitch status?  In my defense I was about 15.  What can I say, at that age having an orgasm induced by someone else really did seem magical.  And he bought her purty clothes.

Oh wow, I had the same reaction to Coulter’s historicals. I read her contemporary books first and really liked them. Then I went and read some of her older stuff. There was a great cacophony of wall-book interaction. And then book-UBS interaction. I was horrified (this was when I was an impressionable teen) that anyone would ever believe that women treated that way would fall in love with the men who did it. There was so much skirt-over-head action, you start wondering how any of them see to get around. Now I don’t buy any of her books without seeing reviews first.

A heroine named Cassie, a hero named Edward...doesn’t that sound like a familiar name…

if you want more torture, there’s also a sequal. LOL.  It’s like a novella though with two different stories. It’s a sequal about Anthony and Cassie’s children getting hitched together with Edward’s kids. I think it’s a little better than Devil’s Embrace. It’s called Devil’s Daughter.
If i were you, i’d skip to the end of the book because it’s just THAT hilarious.

Bwahahaha - I’ve read part of this book. I still have it in case of the apocolypse and I run out of other things to read. The moment I put it down was after the 2nd rape. I felt dirty after reading and Cassie was TSTL! I wanted to smack her!

Then, of course, there was the whole cream thing. Ewww, this was the first Coulter novel I’d read and didn’t know this was s.o.p.

Damn, there goes the plot for my next book.

I really was expecting the reviewer’s husband to post there at the end explaining that Tina’s head had just exploded all over their living room.

Funny review, cracked me up.

I’d like to read a review by Tina of a book she did like!  Great fun!

Thanks for the hilarious barf-review. ;)

What I find disturbing is not that it was published in the 1980’s (okay, I’m disturbed, but not dwelling), but that it’s been RE-published. 

Why-oh-why?  Who is reading this and thinking, “Thank God, this was re-released!  I’d must read another Coulter posthaste?” Or even another romance?

I was talking to some other writers on Saturday, and Coulter’s name came up as someone who hires other writers to write additional stories under her name.  (We weren’t being snarky, just talking about consistency in writing.) I’m not sure how to apply this little thought to this re-issue situation.... but I keep trying. ;)

But back to having a point.... My main peeve here is in having an editor, marketing department, and big-ass publisher thinking that this book is the answer to the un-voiced reading public’s quest for a fine reading experience.

Barf.

-Diane

I find myself strangely compelled to begin looking for this book in my local UBS.

I’m one of those people who needs to experience the horror for myself.

And here my first thought was “I wonder what textbooks and essays she plag-- I mean *borrowed* from?”

Wouldn’t it be funny if she used this?

Tina, this review was absolutely hilarious! (AND informative) I hope we get to read more guest reviews from you.

Disregard the last comment-- my nap-addled brain somehow conflated Catherine Coulter and Cassie Edwards (which would explain why I was thinking “Huh, I thought Edwards only did Noble Savage Amerindian stuff.")

Ah! Saved! I was *this close* to buying this when hanging around the grocery store this morning before helping at my kids’ school. I ended up with a Nora re-release instead. Close call!

LOL, D
you have to finish reading this.  I remember reading this book sometime in college b/t 1998-2001.  The rape scenes are not over (if I recall correctly).  I wont spoil any more of it for you since I can tell *snicker* that you are enjoying this book.  Let us know when you get to the end.

But how do you really feel?

I have the strange feeling that I read this or something similar many, many years ago.

OMG Maritza...I read this in college too and I remember feeling sorry for the heroine. Coulter also has another historical where the heroine get put through the wringer to the extent that a happy ending would have required valium and years of thereapy. I wish I could remeber the name of that book… Sorry for the rambling but, Tina, I do recommend finishing the book… not because it gets better but it is abit like a trainwreck.

There’s another Coulter romance that starts a whole family series ... Sherbrooke Bride I think?  Much rapage of the heroine and this on top of sexual abuse as a kid.

Okay, this is an insanely entertaining review. 

I will probably not read this book, but I sure have gotten a great deal of pleasure out of it.

Oh, I can so relate to the “just gotta get this off my chest” syndrome!  I’ve sat down and banged out reviews for horse-apple books, too, just to vent. 

Feels good, no?

Great review, Tina!  I thoroughly enjoyed it although I’ll be avoiding this book like the plague.

I agree that this was a fabulously entertaining review—it ALMOST makes it worth having dreck like this re-issued, to have a Smart Bitch like Tina do such a number on it.

And if you do finish it, Tina, please add a P.S.

Ugh.  Some books really shouldn’t be resurrected.  What horrible characters and stupid plot.  I saw this at my grocery store but passed on it in favor of Kabul Beauty School.  Soooo glad I did.

However, your review rocks!  Hope to see many more from you, Tina.  Very entertaining.

That was great, Tina. The exclamations points underscore the hum and crackle of your outrage. And if I say your review is “shiny,” I mean in the cool, Joss Whedon-Firefly way. Thank you!

I just reread a bunch of Coulter’s viking books that I had enjoyed (in the naughty HEE HEE OMG SEX way teenagers oftne do) and came to the conclusion after four heroines are deflowered in the “I was totally gonna make sure you had a good time BUT I CANNOT RESIST” (and then he falls asleep) while she says, “Ow, wait, what?” that Coulter herself had some issues she needed to work through.

darlynne - yay firefly!! :-)

Hilarious review - almost has me wanting to read the awfulness for myself but sadly my local library doesn’t have a copy. It does have one of the sequels but they couldn’t guarantee me horrible rapist heroes and TSTL heroines so I probably won’t bother.

My first teenage tee-hee-there’s-sex-in-that-thar-book was Angélique, borrowed from my sister’s friend’s mother and covered in brown paper by the mother lest anyone see what she was reading! There was a general theme of love and great sex and then it was ruined by our heroine getting raped by some bastard but getting off on it simply because of the “repetition of the gestures of love for which her body was so marvellously fashioned”. Blecccch. A sentence that has stayed with me for 15 years. And then the next day she goes to Confession because she cheated on her husband with the rapist and she enjoyed it. So wrong. So very very wrong.

This is why I don’t read romances written before 1992.

Loved your review!
Catherine Coulter is one of those authors I used to read and thought I liked - until much later when I went back and tried reading some of them again and recoiled in horror thinking “Eeek - I LIKED that?”
And more than one of her “heroes(?)” has had to use lubricant to enter the heroines hallowed halls.
Mind you some of her books I still remember fondly, but one to avoid at all costs is Fire Song *shudder*

LMAO!

Tina must do more reviews.  I will be more than happy to send her more old school Coulter historical romances. :D

Ugh.  Just finished reading this.  I was off sick from work, and may need an extra day to recover just because of this book! Count me among those that loved Coulter when she was younger.  Now that I’m going back and re-reading them, I wonder what I was thinking!

You know, since Sarah posted my review today, I’ve been compulsively checking the remarks to see what you all would have to say in response.  I wasn’t feeling well most of the day but still went to work because of the whole, “if I don’t go today and get what needs to be done, done, then I’ll have to do it tomorrow and I won’t get what I have to do tomorrow done, etc etc” thing.  Seeing what everyone has said has just made my day a helluva lot better!

I really was expecting the reviewer’s husband to post there at the end explaining that Tina’s head had just exploded all over their living room.

You should have seen what I edited out of the version that Sarah posted.  When I first emailed her, I included some of the remarks he made in response to the plot synopsis.  Unfortunately, when I let him read what I’d sent her, he was embarrassed, so I took it out.

you have to finish reading this.

To be honest, the biggest reason why I haven’t picked it back up again is because I’m 90% certain I know exactly what is going to happen from this point.  To all of you that have managed to finish this book (and I admire your threshold for pain), tell me if I’m right…

I left off with Cassie having just agreed to marry Anthony because she’s pregnant and can now never return to Edward.  The former mistress is using her diabolical villain-sex power to manipulate the half-brother, telling him that it isn’t right that he lose his place as the Earl’s heir, which will happen if Anthony marries Cassie and has a legitimate baby with her.  Now, this is my prediction:
Half-brother charms Cassie and lures her away somehow.  He then sells her to the Arabic pirate/slaver.  She, thinking she will never see Anthony again, realizes just how much she loves him.  Somehow, she avoids rape until Anthony rescues her, they marry, and all is right in their icky little world.  In the meantime, the half-brother is redeemed somehow (probably by helping with the rescue) and the former mistress meets some nasty demise.  How close am I?

And if I say your review is “shiny,” I mean in the cool, Joss Whedon-Firefly way. Thank you!

I agree with Harlequin, darlynne--yay Firefly! 

Again, thanks, everyone, for all of your kind remarks.

then41?  I’m still 41, thank you.

~Tina

I vaguely remember reading that book as a teenager, but it’s been a long while and I don’t remember the end (fortunately). I used to love Coulter—back in the days when the heroines always fell in love with the guy right after a date rape, and that made it all okay. Luke and Laura syndrome, anyone? Yuck. I stopped reading her in college when it finally occurred to me that 1. date rape was NOT a seduction technique, and 2. the villain was always the father figure / older brother who raised her / uncle / whatever. The fact that the “villain” was sometimes also the “hero” (as in this case) just made it that much worse.

Great review, btw.

I read this book! At one point, I had all of Coulter’s historicals neatly (worshipfully, even- this was before I read Julia Quinn and reevaluated my reading standards) arranged on my bookshelf, and I remember haaaating this book like I had never hated a book before. And I’m not even that picky.

Devil’s Daughter was just as bad.

Oh- also, Sherbrooke Bride didn’t have any childhood sexual abuse, nor, I believe, was there rapage (of the herione, anyway. Who had enormous fun bags that are commented on in every. book. in. the. Sherbrooke. series. Even when she’s a grandmother, her lovely lady lumps are both pulling small planets out of their orbits and somehow still perky and luscious. (It’s to make up for the fact that she’s not pretty.)

Night Fire had some really heinous sexual abuse in it, though. And there was another that I can’t remember that was pretty appalling.

Also- reading at CC’s website, do you know she says that Cassie and Lord Rapey Rapist are her very favorite characters EVER? Yikes.

And, Yay! Firefly.

This is the same Catherine Coulter who wrote ROSEHAVEN, about which I remember only about two things:

1. The only likeable character was the hero’s pet marten.

2. At one point they milked a billygoat.

comes64 --- Somebody read ahead, counting.

Oh Tina, you naive darling. There is so much more horror contained in the ending of the book than you’ve even begun to imagine. I’m talking major trauma. Your ending is sunshine and lollipops compared to how the book actually goes.

Seriously, I’ve read this book twice (once when I was about 15 and then again when I was around 20) and I will never fail to be horrified at some of the things that happen towards the end of the story.

Pleeeeeez, SOMEONE tell me how it ends!?!?!  I can’t possibly bring myself to read it, but I’ve heard too much now to stop without the true, horrific finale.

Tina, you are an excellent reviewer!

I love Coulter too, but have never read this one.  Because of you, I must now read it!  (Mind you, just to see if it really is all that bad.) I’m sure it is, but I still gotta read it!

I agree with SonomaLass!

Oh Tina, you naive darling. There is so much more horror contained in the ending of the book than you’ve even begun to imagine. I’m talking major trauma. Your ending is sunshine and lollipops compared to how the book actually goes.

I omitted the part where Anthony has to fight the Dread Pirate Arabi to the death while Cassie whines and shudders in an utterly useless fashion.

Seriously, you wouldn’t want to be responsible for my hysterical blindness, brought on when I attempt to actually plow through to the end of this wallbanger, now would you?  How does it end?

eye19--see, even the spam foiler is trying to warn you of the consequences.

Ok, I’ll say it: In addition to being raped by the psycho stalker hero, the heroine is also gang raped later in the book. I have no idea how it ends though, since I stopped reading after that. If it gets worse, I really don’t think I want to know.

They de-clinched the cover!

Never buy de-clinched it makes the cheese go rancid. If your gonna read 80’s Romance must have clinch cover.

Really entertaining review.

Is there an online Hall-of-Shame for TSTL characters?

I remember reading that book in high school and thinking that it was really dumb. I didn’t pick up a CC book again until I saw her mysteries in the supermarket. Those are all right.

Of her FBI stories, the only ones I find completely satisfying are THE MAZE and THE TARGET.  The others tend to fall apart at the end, plotwise.

What Sara N. said. My fingertips itch just remembering: at the end, I was so stunned, I could only sit too slack-jawed and brain-broken to claw my eyes out. It wasn’t that long ago, either.

As to why I submitted myself to the torture. You know how something is so horribly traumatic, you can’t look away? I remember thinking, “This can’t be happening...” Unfortunately, it did.

Continuing from anon, (close your eyes anon!) ... it does get worse from there.

Excellent review, though, Tina! The laughter has soothed my scars ;)

near85 ... nearly 85 incidents of horror? ;)

Seriously, what was up with romances in the 80s?  I mean so many of them were so messed up and this was over a decade into the women’s movement!  Someone should do a psychological study.

I think this book OBVIOUSLY needs a different ending.  Let’s have a competition.  Here’s mine:

Cassie finds a copy of Mary Wollstonecraft’s VINDICATION OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN and gets her consciousness raised instead of her skirts, for a change.  She tells Nasty Rapist Uncle that she will NEVER marry him no matter how often he rapes her.

In revenge, to deprive her of her favorite element, he takes her to South Dakota and imprisons her in a small cabin.  She is able to attract a family of black-footed ferrets who enter through a hole in the floorboards and make friends with her.  Eventually she acquires a whole army of ferrets, which she trains for battle.  When Nasty Rapist Uncle returns to see if she’s ready to yield, her faithful band of ferrets attack him and his men and gnaw off all their dangly bits.  She steals his Arab stallion and flees, to the sound of men screaming and ferrets munching.

Eventually she reaches Nantucket, disguises herself as a man, and takes a job on a whaling ship under the name of “Ishmael.”

HEA all round--villains foiled, ferrets fed, heroine not only free but finds herself in a much better book!

plant15--what they do with the bodies after the ferrets are done with them

I also loved Coulter’s historicals in the 1980’s, but gave them up when I got tired of the heroes spanking the heroines.

I enjoyed her FBI books for a while, until I got the one where the hero accidentally rescues a child from kidnappers.  He immediately decides that she must have a bad mother - how else would the child get kidnapped.  He doesn’t report the kidnapping and keeps child - because they have bonded.  Even after the mother shows up, the child regards him as her primary protector.

I found the whole thing way too creepy.

Wow, I was happily reading along, waiting for Edward to come save Cassie from Lord Creepy Uncle when Tina wrote, “If he were the villain, I could live with this, but this guy is the hero??” Holy shitmonkeys!!!! Lord Creepy Uncle is the hero? What kind of crap is that?

That’s it. You have discovered the book that still gives me nightmares. I wanted to hack the uncle’s manly parts with a rusty saw and douse what remained with vinegar afterwards.

This book enraged me so much I wanted to take it outside and set it on fire afterwards. Sadly, I couldn’t, as it was a library book.

Luckily, our library got rid of it a few months later (because it had been read so often it was falling apart- now that really makes me afraid!), and I slipped a warning into the book for anyone who thought it might be a good read.

I still want to scrub my brain out with copious quantities of bleach and a wire bristled brush to stop the pain of remembering how shitty the book was.

Early 80s romances apparently are ALL like that, or at least the ones I have read.  Judith McNaught’s WHITNEY, MY LOVE has a 18-year-old TSTL ‘heroine’ and a 35-year-old arrogent, abusive asshole ‘hero’.  He doesn’t bother courting her, just buys her from her father for 50,000 pounds.  After they have been married for a bit, he gets angry at her for some reason ( thinks she’s been flirting maybe) so he drags her out of a ballroom, flings her down on the nearest level surface, and rapes her.  Naturally, she ‘understands’.  This is considered by some to be a classic romance!  Other people think the title should be changed to WITLESS, MY LOVE.  Either way, it, too, has recently been reprinted.  I found it at the public library, in paperback. Oh, and McNaught was so proud of it that she named her own children Whitney and Clayton, after the characters.  I hope they didn’t require years of therapy.

I love your ending, Talpianna!  Much better, from what I have discerned from here and from reading the reviews on amazon.com, than the actual ending of this book.

Speaking of the reviews on amazon, just in case anyone is interested, I can only assume that Coulter aged Cassie a year for the reprint, given the number of people there that refer to her as being 17.  And one reviewer stated that when she finished the book, she was so overcome with it’s “dark beauty”, she had to immediately re-read it.  Then she berated everyone that objected to the book for not taking it in context of the time it was set.  (Apparently, the abduction and rape of young heiresses by half-Italian, pseudo-uncle Earls was commonplace during the Napoleanic era.  Who knew?)

pay77--I’d pay at least $.77 (or even $7.70) to replace this book’s ending with yours. :)

//(Apparently, the abduction and rape of young heiresses by half-Italian, pseudo-uncle Earls was commonplace during the Napoleanic era.  Who knew?)//

Too funny.

Come on, is there anyone who hasn’t wiped the ending from their brains?

I agree, tell the ending! I keep checking in, waiting to find out how this thing ends, somebody tell us!!!!

Great review. The book sounds *horrifying*.

Now I know where all of those idiot fanficcers who write stories where heroine is raped (either by hero or by someone else) and it is a great transformative experience get their inspiration.

(Hah! Botword: men58. B/c women enjoy being raped by 58-year-old men. Or 58 men. Or any horrifying combination of those letters and numbers.)

okay, after some of you mentioned the reviews on amazon, I went and checked them out. OMG, awful!I think I shall go take a bath now because just reading the review made me feel really dirty.

here’s the link:
http://www.amazon.com/review/product/0451223314/ref=cm_cr_pr_link_2?_encoding=UTF8&filterBy=addOneStar&pageNumber=2

Look for the 4th review down by DogEat"God"

Here’s one that caught my eye:

It seems you either love this book or hate it. I guess it depends on what you see as in depth real passionate love and to what lengths one is willing to go to achieve this love. Anthony was willing to do almost anything - yes he did perhaps go beyond the rights of man with her first taking of Cassie’s virginity. However - I guess I can forgive that one lapse for what comes after - and Anthony is just the epitomy of the strong, sensual passionate man that I would have loved to have met in my life. He is just so gentle and loving to Cassie - you can feel instantly the love he feels for her. I think this is because he truly does understand her - he loves her fiesty nature, her love of adventure and she meets his passion with one of her own. Yes, Cassie thinks she loves her soldier Edward - who right from the first just seemed to tame and too staid a man for one like Cassie. She would have been bored to death with him!! Anthony and Cassie’s whirlwind love affair will totally pull at your heart - at times your heart will break -

At times, your eyes will blead and your throat will retch…

“Blead” is not a misspelling.  It’s a typo caused by the bleeding eyes and retching.  At least that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

I can’t remember if I read this particular novel, but in my teens I remember a lot of romance novels where scenes of the young heroine (always a virgin!!) being forced by the older “hero” (who’s always well experienced) were standard fare. The silly female starts off by saying “no, no, no” and ends with “yes, yes, yes” and then she falls in “true love” with the bastard. Isn’t this called Stockholm Syndrome or something?? I usually ploughed through to the grubby end and then felt extremely dirty and angry afterwards.

Thank goodness tastes have changed (at least I hope they have!).

And honestly, she was bought off with a boat??!! Geeze…

Great review, Tina!  I really got a kick out of reading it.

As for the book itself, I’d like to kick it all the way to China.  Then go ahead and shoot both leads:  him for being a sicko rapist and her for being TSTL to the power of 10!  Neither must be allowed to pollute the gene pool and contaminate future generations.

I will stay far, far, far away from any CC books in the future.

I know I read this but the details are obscured by the 1000s of other historicals I read in the ‘80s.  Still, I have, more recently, tried to read Coulter’s historical novels and come away feeling just eh.  I lose interest in the characters.  Maybe I’ll check one of her contemporaries out of the library to see if I enjoy them better.

Ok, I’ll say it: In addition to being raped by the psycho stalker hero, the heroine is also gang raped later in the book.

Dude, I so didn’t remember that part.  I remembered her sailing and the see through shift and. . . er.  Gang raped? 

Perversely, I am tempted to go find a copy and try to re-read this. Only if I can find it for under a buck though.

The Eighties revival ends here!

“Ok, I’ll say it: In addition to being raped by the psycho stalker hero, the heroine is also gang raped later in the book.”

I know, I was disgusted when I read that.  Not only did Cassie “come” (Ha, unintentional pun) to love her rapist, but why not throw in an actual gang rape to show that Edward’s rape was out of love, so I guess not rape...?? Seriously messed up.  & unless I’m confusing my trashy 80’s romances, I’m pretty sure Cassie ends up sleeping with Anthony too & they both realize they’re just not meant to be!  So Edward by default! Woo..

After reading this review, I went to my “stash” of books in boxes and found it.  I’d never read it, but had it and saved it.  So, of course, I had to read it now!

Yes!  He rapes her!  And ties her hands to the bed while doing so!  And she is sobbing (tears running down her face) the whole time! 

And he tells her it “had to be done”.&nbs