You did it! We figured this one out! It is a truth universally acknowledged (by me for certain) that the Bitchery pretty much knows everything, and really, it's true. Scroll down to see the solution for this HaBO - and many thanks!
Camellia writes:
I’m hoping that someone could help me identify a historical romance book that I read in the late 80’s. I’ve search for years and can’t find it.
The heroine of the book is named Kathleen or Catherine who gets sold as an indentured servant to the master of a plantation on a Caribbean Island and becomes his housekeeper. The hero is a plantation owner who is masquerading as his own twin brother as a masked pirate in order to get revenge on something or someone. His hands became scarred when he was a child, so he wears black leather gloves all of the time.
One of the most memorable scenes occurs when our masked hero manages very clumsily to deflower our heroine in a moving carriage. They’d been making out and she ultimately refuses to go all the way. He’s getting off her (with his pants around his knees) when the carriage stops suddenly. He literally falls on top of her and the deed is done. Literally. Insert tab A into slot B.
The plantation owner marries her and then becomes jealous of himself as he pursues her as both himself and the pirate guy.
I know that it’s not The Raider by Jude Deveroux because this was set on a tropical island. I’d love to read this one again if anybody recognizes it.
Only in a romance novel does one get deflowered by a bad brakes. Anyone recognize this tribute to antilock brakes and smooth roads?
I have no idea what this book is, but it sounds hilarious. Please tell me it’s meant to be a comedy.
This sounds like a combination of two Kathleen Woodriss books. Neither of the heroines are named Kathleen but since the author is Kathleen maybe that’s where the name comes from.
The carriage scene sounds like it comes from Shanna. I KNOW the hero takes the herione’s virginity in a moving carriage, and it’s literally seconds before he gets dragged out of the carriage. I can’t remember if he falls into her or not.
http://www.amazon.ca/Shanna-Mm-K-Woodiwiss/dp/0380385880/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1277389984&sr=1-1
The plot line sounds like it comes from A Rose in Winter. Here is the description from Amazon:
Debt-ridden Avery Fleming is determined to find a wealthy husband for his beautiful daughter, Erienne, so he can pay off his mountain of debts. Erienne, however, has refused every one of the old men her father has picked for her consideration. When she meets dashing American merchant Christopher Seton, she cannot deny her attraction to him, despite the fact that he wounded her brother, Farrell, in a duel, crippling him for life. However, when Seton asks for Erienne’s hand in marriage, both she and her father refuse him. Instead, Erienne’s father auctions her off to the highest bidder—the mysterious Lord Saxton, a man whose horrifying scars are hidden by a mask and cloak. Erienne comes to know her husband as a kind and gentle man, but when Christopher Seton returns to town, she cannot fight her attraction to him. She finds herself torn between her duty to the man she has wed and the call of her heart.
Christopher Seton and Lord Saxton are the same person. And yes, Christopher is masquarding as Lord Saxton to find out who murdered his brother.
http://www.amazon.ca/Rose-Winter-K-Woodiwiss/dp/0380844001/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1277390019&sr=1-1
Hope this helps!!
Oh and Shanna is set on a tropical island. I’m not sure about A Rose in Winter. Maybe.
LOL Okay if this isn’t Kathleen Woodiwiss, then the description oddly enough describes many of her novels. I read it again and this part? “The heroine of the book is named Kathleen or Catherine who gets sold as an indentured servant to the master of a plantation on a Caribbean Island and becomes his housekeeper.” Sounds like Petals on the River.
Snippet from Amazon:
Falsely convicted of being a thief, lovely high-born Shemaine O’Hearn arrives in colonial Virginia from London on a convict ship and is sold as an indentured servant to Gage Thornton, a local shipbuilder in need of a nanny for his young son.
http://www.amazon.ca/Petals-River-Kathleen-E-Woodiwiss/dp/1568655878/ref=pd_sim_b_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1277389689&sr=1-15
I read too many Kathleen Woodiwiss books when I was younger. And I just realized I’ve been misspelling her name. Whoops!!
I don’t think I’ve read this book, but the deflowering description made me laugh out loud, and then combined with the title of the post, made me giggle again.
Thanks. 😀
I too would love to read this one even if it’s to read the deflowering scene.
Nothing to add but me too, me too in wanting to read that. Ooops, i just fell down and now…. how hysterical. That’s the kind of deflowering I would get with my luck. The accidental plucking.
I can tell you with absolute certainty that it is none of the Kathleen Woodiwiss books written. In Shanna, the hero deflowesr the virgin completely on purpose in a moving carriage. Petals on the River, yes, she becomes a guys housekeeper after getting brought to America but the similarity ends there. A Rose in Winter, yes, the hero is pretending to be himself and a masked avenger of the night, but there also, the similarity ends.
Sadly, I have no idea what this book is. But I do know what it isn’t.
Er…I meant it is none of the Kathleen Woodiwiss books mentioned in these comments. I haven’t read all of her books, so maybe it’s a different one.
This screams Kathleen Woodiwiss all over it.
The tropical island, plantation and the pirates are from Shanna, the burned hands and posing as the brother + jealousy (though I think it was mostly Erienne who was confused by her feelings for her husband and her suitor – the same man) are definitely a Rose in Winter. I also think the carriage scene is actually from this book and not Shanna (I seem to recall she felt very guilty about loosing her virginity to her suitor instead of her husband), but it could have been a kiss incident instead of a humping incident.
The housekeeping and being sold stuff is indeed from Petals on the River.
If we’re wrong and this is indeed another book that has all these different plots combined, it must have been one hell of a Woodiwiss tribute.
@Amanda
You’re right. It doesn’t sound like one Woodiwiss novel, but it does sound like bits and pieces of the ones I mentioned. I just wanted to put it out there in case she got two or three books mixed up in her head. I know I’ve done that before!!
@Jan Oda
“If we’re wrong and this is indeed another book that has all these different plots combined, it must have been one hell of a Woodiwiss tribute.”
Espcially if the herione’s name is Kathleen!!
“A Rose In Winter” is without a doubt my favorite romace novel.
See, now I just want to do a mash up of all the crazy possibilities. Maybe the Hero and the heroine could each have multiple personality disorder. Does the heroine also have a secret separate identity, and one of them falls for the plantation owner identity, and one falls for the pirate, and vice versa, but at first they each love the personality that loves the other personality, but then they switch for a HEA – “The Delusional Clumsy Pirate and his Accidental Brides”. It’s romance gold! Also, can the maimed pirate please have an exotic or unusual pet, such a wolf or a pig? Cause that would be awesome.
Yes, this sounds like a total KW mash up, but also a Valerie Sherwoodish. I seem to recall tropical locations and nefarious characters in her books.
I also vote for a Woodiwiss mash up, and would like to add that A Rose in Winter is the very first romance I read, and I read it as an excerpted thingie in Good Housekeeping. I believe I was 8 or 9 at the time. Then I got the actual book and BOOM my mind was blown.
Okay. Shemaine and Erienne? Good grief. Where do they find these names?
But I’m glad to be reminded of The Raider. Loved that book. Heroine falls for hero even though she thinks he’s a sickly invalid, and gets tired of his dashing alter-ego. Very sweet.
@Carrie – please, please, please write “The Delusional Clumsy Pirate and his Accidental Brides”!!!! It would be the best historical romance ever written.
This sounds like it’s a mishmash of several books. The bit about the hero masquerading as his twin, where one of his personas is a pirate sounds like it comes straight out of Virginia Henley. Here’s a bit of a summary from Amazon:
IIRC there’s no deflowering in the carriage in this one, though. I hope someone finds out which book the deflowering scene is from. I’ve seen it referred to before and I’d love to read it.
I meant to add that the VH book in question is called The Pirate and the Pagan. Who can forget the opening line: “What an enormous cock.”
I totally love ‘the hero gets jealous of himself’. That’s one mixed up guy, right there.
@Carrie, you know if we added Woodiwiss’ Ashes in the Wind to the mashup we can have the heroïne dressed up as a boy, and the hero feeling strangely attracted to someone from the same sex.
Really, Ashes in the Wind is a mash-up book in itself, but that’s probably why it’s my favorite Woodiwiss.
I have no idea what book that would be but OMG talk about having some great aim! Immediately my mind starts with the questions…if she changed her mind why would her legs still be spread eagle? And so on and so forth. I agree with you, Sarah – only in a romance novel. *sigh* That’s why we love ‘em so.
When I was (much) younger I was a huge Kathleen Woodwiss fan as well. Shanna was a favorite.
I’m 100% sure it’s Shanna. I remember it because it was the very first time I’d ever read a sex scene in a romance novel. I was ten when I read it and it scarred me for life. The hero is like, forcing himself on the heroine, and she’s begging him not to, and he has a change of heart and BAM they hit a rut and that’s it.
@Cat Marsters, yeah, what is it with some of these historical romance writers and names? Particularly with the ones set in Britain, Regency and suchlike, where the women have names straight from a Bristol council sink estate and the men all sound like American wrestlers?
What’s wrong with Jane as an historical name? Or Mary? Or John?
I read this. That doesn’t mean I know what book it is – but I read this.
I want to say Brenda Joyce, but I don’t think it is. It’s not Woodiwiss. I will now be driven crazy trying to recall this one.
This isn’t Shanna. Just looked it up. No indentured servitude and no oops in the carriage. I just looked it up on google books. (page 69) he definitely does the deed with her in the carriage on the way back to prison but there’s nothing accidental about it!
@Jane lovering—
If you wanna see some really wild ones try Anne Perry and her Thomas Pitt or William Monk mysteries set in Victorian England. Books are even more awesome than the names she comes up with.
I’m positive Lindlee is right – it’s a combo of Shanna and A Rose in Winter. I vividly remember the carriage scene as it was the first romance novel I’d ever read and I remember thinking WTF? Seriously? or whatever the 80s version of that was. The carriage scene is definitely in A Rose in Winter by K.W.
I’ve got it around here somewhere – I’ll go dig it out and look for the page numbers.
Dang, there are at least 80 books sitting in my to be read next stack (stacks?) and now I have to reread Shanna and the Raider. This sight is going to be the death of me. The very much happy death of me, but still.
I read this. That doesn’t mean I know what book it is – but I read this.
Me too. I have no idea what it is, but I remember it.
And as a slightly related aside, I have another HaBO. This whole man masquerading as someone else and still romancing his woman put me in mind of another book that I read ages and ages ago (probably early/mid 90s, but probably published before that). I think it might be a Johanna Lindsey, because I was reading a lot of her stuff around then, but I wouldn’t swear to it. Anyway, the woman somehow ends up married to a man she thinks is stuffy, but hot. But secretly he’s a pirate. Anyhow, because she’s so bored, she dyes her hair red (all her hair) as a disguise and goes into pirating herself. Somehow she gets mixed up with her pirate husband, but he doesn’t recognize her (the red hair works) and I don’t think she recognizes him at first, although I do think I remember that she figures it out before he does and decides to mess with him, but I could be wrong about that. I do remember a lot of angst and drama and hilarity, though.
was it either:
Karen Robards:
ISLAND FLAME & SEA FLAME
Lady Catherine Adley andJonathan Hale
or
Catharine Hart:
FIRE AND ICE & ASHES AND ECSTACY
both feature: Kathleen Haley and Captain Reed Taylor
I need to go find these and re-read them ASAP!!! LOL
@KS – Geez, almost sounds like a reverse I Love Lucy – remember that episode where she wore a black wig and Ricky was fooled for a little bit? Or how about all those times she tricked him by pretending to be a man? Though he always did eventually figure it out.
I remember one – which I think was called Phantom – where the guy is a pirate known as The Phantom and he deflowers the step-daughter of a female innkeeper in the first chapter. Then he disguises himself as a very fat and very rich man, says he’s there to pick a bride. The innkeeper tries to force her biological daughter on him but he forces the step-daughter he had sex with as the phantom into marrying him instead. Always makes love to her either in the dark or with his clothing on so she doesn’t figure out he’s not as fat as she thinks. Though you’d think she could tell the difference between a big fat gut and a bunch of cotton wrapped around a guy’s waist.
As for the original HABO – sorry, never heard of it. Yet it somehow seems familiar. Maybe because there’s so many carriage sex scenes out there.
I can see it happening if she’s about to be on top. Just poised to do it, his hands on her hips, she starts to pull away when he’s about to give into her pleas to stop, then they hit a huge bump and she lands in his lap – but not the other way around.
Woo! My request got printed!
It’s definitely not a mash-up of several different novels and it’s definitely not Shanna. I actually have more details, but didn’t want to overwhelm anyone. Her name is Kathleen or Catherine. This I distinctly remember b/c the hero calls her Miss Cat at one point. It might even be Caterin
She’s English/Irish and has a twin brother who is also angelic looking and blond who is a doctor. He seems to be missing. A member of the local gentry sets her up to be convicted of some crime b/c she won’t give up the goodies. She’s deported to the islands and her contract is ultimately bought by a local plantation owner, though he doesn’t know it yet. He comes home and finds her in his tub and she faints. He takes this chance to feel her up, of course.
Time moves on, she starts housekeeping, while trying to avoid his former mistress/house servant. He becomes infatuated with her and eventually marries her for whatever reason all the while going off on secret trips to become his own pirate twin. His salty sidekick is often along for comic relief. And I think there’s a parrot in there somewhere.
Right before they do marry, he tries to seduce her a couple of times as his alter ego, the last of which is in the carriage. I remember rolling my eyes as a teen b/c it was so cheesy. There’s a subplot with the heroine’s brother and a biracial neighbor of the clumsy lover.
And don’t forget the scarred hands and black gloves. He fell forward into a fire as a child and became injured. And after they marry, he tries to seduce her on purpose this time as his alter ego and succeeds. She eventually figures out who he is (only took her 150 pages) and sleeps with him to get revenge on..him for trying to commit adultery with…..him.
I could go on for pages. There’s even a nut-grabbing scene between the hero and the heroine’s twin brother. Now you know why I want to reread it.
So the heroine is part of a set of twins and the hero is faking being a twin? No idea what this book is, but you might find it in this list of romances featuring twins: http://www.likesbooks.com/twins.html
Whoa.
I don’t mind being wrong about it being a Woodiwiss mash up, because now I soooo want to read this when the book gets figured out.
word was figure38, maybe the 38th comment will figure it out?
I just checked and it’s not listed in the twins special listings page on likesbooks.com. I’m pretty good with research on the net and this one’s stumped me for years. It only fuels my interest in finding it. And now I’ve dragged dozens of others into my obsession. Excellent!
Another tidbit. After she’s oops’ed, the hero flees. Another male character appears at the door of the carriage and gets a good luck at the blood on her still-open legs. He asks her if she’s alright and she responds, “No, I’m damnably angry” in her sexual frustration and disbelief. That has to be one of the most awkwardly written lines of dialogue I’ve ever read, hence why I remember it and the book so well.
Someone needs to figure out this book because I want to read it. I also want to read The Raider now.
This puts me in mind of Jennifer Blake, but it’s been so long since I’ve read anything by her I can’t be more specific.
I give up – there’s no way “The Delusional Clumsy Pirate and his Accidental Brides” could possibly top all the twins, scars, hair dyeing, kidnappings, fainting spells combines with feels, fat suits, gender confusion, complicated names, sidekicks and pets that have already been mentioned. I bow before the queens of plothood!
Ok, I HAVEN’T read it – what’s more horrifying – that there may be TWO books with the initial details out there or that now we all want to read either one?