SEVEN NIGHTS IN A ROGUE'S BED by Anna Campbell
PUBLISHER: Grand Central Pub. 9/25/12GENRE: Fiction/Historical Romance
SETTING: England, 1826
PURCHASE: link
MY GRADE: C-
FROM PUBLISHER: Desperate to save her sister's life, Sidonie Forsythe has agreed to submit herself to a terrible fate: Beyond the foreboding walls of Castle Craven, a notorious, hideously scarred scoundrel will take her virtue over the course of seven sinful nights. Yet instead of a monster, she encounters a man like no other. And during this week, she comes to care for Jonas Merrick in ways that defy all logic—even as a dark secret she carries threatens them both.
Ruthless loner Jonas knows exactly who he is. Should he forget, even for a moment, the curse he bears, a mere glance in the mirror serves as an agonizing reminder. So when the lovely Sidonie turns up on his doorstep, her seduction is an even more delicious prospect than he originally planned. But the hardened outcast is soon moved by her innocent beauty, sharp wit, and surprising courage. Now as dangerous enemies gather at the gate to destroy them, can their new, fragile love survive?
It took a week for her to finally spend 'seven night's in a rogue's bed' but by then I was already tired of the book. There was over ten pages of a bondage sex scene with the heroine in charge that made me roll my eyes and think, 'you've got to be kidding me!'. After knowing each other for about two weeks the hero was already offering to marry her if she got pregnant. That's just absurd and so typical of romance books. And the heroine said she loves him 'so much' after two weeks.
The author had a terrible habit of repeating words three times in a row throughout the entire story. Example: thud, thud, thud and Let Jonas win, let Jonas win, let Jonas win, just to name a few times.
The stuff that went on with Sidonie's sister and her husband was just uninteresting to me. There wasn't one character in the whole book that I cared about.
I received this from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
MY SWEET AUDRINA by V.C. Andrews
ORIGINAL PUB: 1982
GENRE: Contemporary Suspense
SETTING: Virginia, USA
SERIES: Audrina, #1
NARRATION: First person
PURCHASE: link
AUTHOR BIO: link
MY GRADE: C
FROM PUBLISHER: Audrina fiercely desired to be as good as her sister. She knew her father could not love her as he loved that other girl, for her sister was so special, so perfect—and dead.
Upstairs in a locked room awaited her sister’s clothes and dolls, her animals and games—and her sacred rocking chair. Now Audrina will rock and rock and rock to reclaim all of her gone sister’s special gifts.
And then finally she’ll learn the secrets everyone else knows but her.
MY THOUGHTS: This was beyond bizarre. The timespan is about fifteen years and the narration is in first person, told from Audrina Adare's point of view. It was warped, and I prefer that sort of thing, but this didn't do anything for me. Child gang-rape, miscarriages, a retarded child, a seriously disturbed relative, ect. Not one bit of it was plausible. The story should have been under four-hundred pages, not over five-hundred. I thought it would never end, seriously. It was mostly monotonous.
Vera- A slightly older 'relative' of Audrina's. She should have been the star because she was so screwed up psychologically. She was, by far, the worst character in the novel and the only one I liked. She was rotten to the core. The rest were bland, especially Audrina. I've never figured out who paid for her schooling once she left Whitefern, the mansion she grew up in, along with Audrina.
I didn't like or feel the need for the characters Sylvia or Billie. I didn't like that several deaths took place in the same exact way nor did I like the ending.
There was a ghost-written sequel to this 1982 book, published in 2016 called Whitefern but I'm not interested in reading it.
There was also a 2016 Lifetime film based on this novel and the characters of Sylvia and Billie aren't in it. The film was horrible.
There are some really great reviews for this at GoodReads.
I received this from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
LOVE BETWEEN THE LINES: AN ADULT COLORING BOOK FOR BOOK LOVERS by Christina Collie
PURCHASE: link
AUTHOR SITE: link
MY GRADE: C
FROM PUBLISHER: Fall in love all over again with this adult coloring book featuring 45 hand-drawn illustrations inspired by romance novels from bestselling writers Colleen Hoover, Anna Todd, S.C. Stephens, Abbi Glines, K. Bromberg, Jodi Ellen Malpas and more. Sit back, grab your pens and markers, and get ready to explore LOVE BETWEEN THE LINES.
In the pages of this book you will find:
· Designs to help you relax and reduce stress
· Hidden images and book quotes
· Each design printed on a separate page
· Elaborate drawings as well as quickie pages for when you just have a few minutes to color
Illustrations inspired by the works of:
Anna Todd, Jodi Ellen Malpas, Colleen Hoover, S.C. Stephens, Abbi Glines, K. Bromberg, Claire Contreras, Jillian Dodd, Amy Harmon, Tiffany King, R.K. Lilley, Molly McAdams, Tara Sivec, Alessandra Torre, Mia Sheridan, J. Sterling, Katy Evans, Emma Chase, S.L. Jennings, K.A. Linde, Beth Ehemann, Tarryn Fisher, Karina Halle, Helena Hunting, Leisa Rayven, Madeline Sheehan, and K. A. Tucker.
Images of three pages that I colored, with close-ups.
Below, three other pages that I like.
Below are three pages that I don't like at all. They're a good example of what the majority of the pages look like- big lettering.
MY THOUGHTS: The book is 9 3/4" square. The paper is good quality, nice and thick, but the pages aren't perforated and it's a bit difficult to rip the pages out cleanly. The pages are too wide to fit fully on a scanner bed, 1" of the left side gets cut off, which is disappointing if you want to post photos of your finished work online, but the pages are a nice size to work with. I tear out the page I want to use and place it on a clipboard.
The artwork is really good, some of which is really intricate, like the 'Reel It In' page above. Unfortunately there are only about ten or eleven pages that are what I'd call feminine, with flowers and such. The rest of the book isn't attractive at all to me. Almost all of the pages have large lettering, which ruins the look of the finished piece.
This isn't a coloring book I'd recommend.
I received this from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
ONLY FOR LOVE by Elaine Barbieri
GENRE: Fiction/Historical Romance
SETTING: Jamaica, 1772
BODICE RIPPER? Yes, mild
PURCHASE: link
MY GRADE: B-
FROM PUBLISHER: When Gillian Haige's father dies, his only legacy is a mountain of debts. But never does the eighteen-year-old English beauty dream she'll end up in the dank hold of a ship bound for the Colonies...as an indentured servant! And now her gentle twin lies desperately ill, and will surely perish unless Gillian takes one daring, irrevocable step.
It is a wild scheme, yet from the moment she meets Captain Derek Andrews and feels desire ignite between them, Gillian sees the bargain she can strike: her innocence in exchange for her sister's life. But on a journey that carries Gillian from the shores of America to a new life on a storm-swept island, she will be forced to choose once again...to fight for her freedom or to surrender to the man who has possessed her-body and soul-with his liberating passion...
MY THOUGHTS: Gillian, the heroine, is twenty, as stated on page 48, not eighteen, as the synopsis states. This story begins in England, then in Jamaica. Saying that they're headed for the Colonies made me assume they were talking about the British Colonies in the United States but that's not what they meant.
We got zero background on Derek and weren't even told his age or where he's from. He must have been in his late twenties, at least, since he'd spent some time in prison and is captain of his own ship, Colonial Dawn. He's rude and possessive of Gillian but not verbally, physically, or sexually abusive towards her. He doesn't seem too friendly either.
Gillian is feisty and stands up for herself, which I really like in a heroine. I didn't see the need for her to have a sister since the sister was a pretty weak character and served no purpose to the storyline, as far as I could tell.
I really liked the two main villains: Derek's ex-lover, red-haired and green-eyed Emmaline Dorcett. She was obsessed with having him though she was married to an older man. She was peppered throughout the story but I wanted more of her. I found her to be very interesting and wanted to see what damage she could have done. I really wanted some background on her but we got none, including her age. Her husband Robert said she was very young to his 50+ so I'm guessing she's in her twenties.
John Barrett, who's an agent for the London Transport Company, was in charge of all the indentured servants aboard Derek's ship. He became obsessed with Gillian and hatched a plan to have her. Gillian hated him with a passion and that ate at him and intensified his obsession with having her. John once called Gillian Madame Uppity Bitch!
Another villain early on was an older prostitute named Maggie, who was always called a 'vicious whore' by Jon Barrett. The verbal sparring between them was great! She too became obsessed with Gillian on the ship but I don't understand why she hated her so much. I thought she was going to do harm to her but that didn't happen.
This was published in 1994 but it felt like one older. The heroine had a backbone, the hero was rude, there were terrible villains. Though there's no abuse towards the heroine, I consider this a mild bodice ripper.
The negatives- I wish over half this story didn't take place on a ship. I wish Maggie's character had lasted longer and I wish Emmaline and John had teamed up to do some harm. You wouldn't know by the cover that this is historical and the hero/heroine's hair color isn't quite right.
THE MASQUE OF A MURDERER by Susanna Calkins
GENRE: Fiction/Historical Mystery
SETTING: England, 1667
SERIES: A Lucy Campion Mystery, #3
PURCHASE: link
MY GRADE: C
FROM PUBLISHER: In Susanna Calkins's next richly drawn mystery set in 17th century England, Lucy Campion, formerly a ladies' maid in the local magistrate's household, has now found gainful employment as a printer's apprentice. On a freezing winter afternoon in 1667, she accompanies the magistrate's daughter, Sarah, to the home of a severely injured Quaker man to record his dying words, a common practice of the time. The man, having been trampled by a horse and cart the night before, only has a few hours left to live. Lucy scribbles down the Quaker man's last utterances, but she's unprepared for what he reveals to her--that someone deliberately pushed him into the path of the horse, because of a secret he had recently uncovered.
Fearful that Sarah might be traveling in the company of a murderer, Lucy feels compelled to seek the truth, with the help of the magistrate's son, Adam, and the local constable. But delving into the dead man's background might prove more dangerous than any of them had imagined.
MY THOUGHTS: This was pretty boring, a little slow, and could have been written in about sixty pages less. There weren't any interesting characters in this at all, not one. There were way too many characters to keep up with, at least thirteen, and I got a bit confused a few times. There should have been some backstory on Lucy but there wasn't.
The murderer is too over the top in what they've done. And they gave a full confession at the end which is very annoying and unbelievable and I wish writers would stop having their villains do that.
There were quite a few times in the story when Lucy made comments, not asked questions, and the author ended the sentences with question marks. A few examples: Surely there is something you can do?, I could talk to them again? See if I could learn anything more?, I could take some tracts to share? While I make some general inquiries?
See my reviews for books one and two in this series.
I received this from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
HELL-O-WEEN by David Robbins
GENRE: Fiction/Contemporary Horror
SETTING: Colorado, USA
PURCHASE: link
MY GRADE: D
FROM PUBLISHER: Halloween night, two buddies decided to play a cruel trick on the class brain...but the joke was on them.
They only wanted to scare their enemy to death...but their prank went awry and one of their friends ended up dead, her body ripped to pieces.
Soon seven teenagers were frantically fighting to save themselves from unthinkably gruesome ends...but something born in the pits of hell was after them-and they had no hope of escape.
CHARACTERS: Cory Fleming, Wesley Eagen, Leslie Vanderhorst, Jay Thorpe, Stacy Curvin, Scott Miklin, Ann Weatherby, Terri Sheehan, all are seventeen. Wesley and Leslie are dating, Jay and Stacy are dating, and Ann and Terri are best friends. Ann's very protective of Terri.
DEMONS: The two demons are 7' tall, muscular, nude, have three toes, red snake-like skin, red eyes, a forked tongue and tail, horrible breath, tapered teeth, 'fetid' breath like garlic, and walk upright like humans. They drink from a boiling pool of sulfur-smelling liquid.
MY THOUGHTS: On Halloween night, a group of seventeen-year-old friends go off to explore a cavern called Caverna del Diablo (Cavern of the Devil). They pair up and go off in separate directions and six of the eight get murdered by male and female demons. The synopsis would have you believe that a teen girl was accidentally killed by a classmate but that's not true nor does Wesley and Scott's prank have anything to do with anything.
This story was very boring. It was 366 pages of them wandering around in a dark cavern with just flashlights trying to hide from and outsmart two demons. I think the dialogue was both good and horrible at the same time. When they weren't saying terribly outdated things like going steady, def, bodacious, dork, dweeb, rad, out of sight, make it/do me (as in have sex), to the max, and plenty of other things that were outdated by the time this book was published in 1992, the dialogue was actually pretty good and descriptive. I think the story would have been better with some kind of four-legged creature instead of one not much bigger than a human.
My least favorite character was Stacy, who was very annoying and kept calling her boyfriend Jay 'honeybuns'. Second least favorite was Wesley, who thought he was above women and even punched his girlfriend Leslie in the jaw.
Favorite/goriest death scene was when a male demon ripped the breasts off one of the girls and ripped her throat open with his sharp teeth. Second favorite is when a girl got both arms ripped off. Third favorite is when the female demon bit off a male's genitals.
The ending is the worst. It needed a multipage epilogue but it only got not quite a whole page.
LOOSE GIRL: A NOVEL OF PROMISCUITY by Kerry Cohen
GENRE: Nonfiction/Memoir
AUTHOR SITE: link
PURCHASE: link
MY GRADE: A-
FROM PUBLISHER: Loose Girl is Kerry Cohen's captivating memoir about her descent into promiscuity and how she gradually found her way toward real intimacy. The story of addiction--not just to sex, but to male attention--Loose Girl is also the story of a young girl who came to believe that boys and men could give her life meaning. Never less than riveting, Loose Girl re-creates what it feels like to be in that desperate moment when a girl tries to control a boy by handing over her body, when the touch of that boy seems to offer proof of something but ultimately delivers little more than emptiness. The unforgettable story of one young woman who desperately wanted to matter, Loose Girl will speak to countless others with its compassion, understanding, and love.
MY THOUGHTS: This was very sad and very honest. Kerry (born 1970), from a very early age, 11/12, has been looking for love and attention from males and would have sex with just about any of them in hopes of becoming their girlfriend. She felt she was unlovable because she didn't often have a boyfriend but had plenty of males willing to have sex with her. She didn't use condoms much either and has gotten STD's.
She comes from a well-off dysfunctional family in New Jersey, felt like she didn't get attention from either parent, and was jealous of her sister's relationship with their mother. I'd have liked for her to have interviewed both parents to get their opinions of her feeling neglected. Oddly enough she never mentioned whether or not she was ever depressed, but I would imagine she was, at least back then.
Here's her speaking at The Mystery Box in 2013.
MIDNIGHT FIRES by Andrea Layton
PUBLISHER: Playboy Paperbacks, 1/1979GENRE: Fiction/Historical Romance
SETTING: New York & Massachusetts, USA 1770's
BODICE RIPPER: Yes
RAPE: Multiple
PURCHASE: link
MY GRADE: D
FROM PUBLISHER: Ravished by a cruel, merciless stranger...loved by the passionate man she might never see again...Carolyn Salford flees the brutal wilderness for aristocratic Boston and the arms of her fiancé.
Stalked by danger, vulnerable to the turbulent desires tormenting her, she is haunted by the memory of a man she dare not love but cannot forget.
SPOILER SUMMARY: Carolyn is eighteen years old. She and her family are traveling from New York to Boston, but they're travelling separately. Along the way she runs into George Nelson, a man two years older than her, who's in love with her. He rapes her once then it turns consentual. She goes on her merry way and is kidnapped and raped several times by some random Frenchman named Jean Lemelle. He gets what he's had coming to him and she's once again on her way. Not much else happens until the last fifty pages, when she meets up with her fiancé, William. William only wants to marry her because of the fortune she's to inherit soon from her British mothers family. He rapes her several times, including once anally, and holds her prisoner in his home and verbally abuses her constantly. He's keeping her drugged with laudanum and they set sail on a ship bound for London. She thinks he plans to killer her once they're married. She escapes, meets back up with George, who she's now in love with, and they get married.
MY THOUGHTS: This is truly one of the most boring books I've ever read. Luckily it was barely over 300 pages. The first 150 pages or so was Carolyn traveling, mostly by herself via horseback, to Boston. The plot was mostly talk of war and I got so sick of it. The only interesting part was the last fifty-some pages or so, when William came on the scene. William's a character I'd have liked to have known more about. Not even his age was given.
ALLHALLOW'S EVE by Richard Laymon
Originally published in 1985
GENRE: Fiction/Contemporary Horror
SETTING: Wisconsin, USA, 1980's
PURCHASE: link
MY GRADE: D
FROM PUBLISHER: This sleepy town may never recover from this nightmare. Every town has as a past but the grizzly murder of the Sherwood family is one the small town of Ashburg barely recovered from. The Sherwood house has remained vacant for years so who is sending out invitations for a party there? The townspeople are intrigued and who can resist a party at the murder house on Allhallow's Eve?
MY THOUGHTS: This was so bad that I'm embarrassed for the author, who died in 2001, and I'm sad for myself for being so excited to read this. Very juvenile dialogue. Not one bit of this story was plausible. The mysterious invitations being sent out was the only interesting part of the entire story, which only spanned two days, and I lost interest in that as soon as it was revealed who was behind it. I'd have rather found that out at the end.
We weren't told how one of the teenage main characters, Eric, got in touch with his father, whom he couldn't have really known in the first place. We don't know how this invitation thing came about either. There were a few too many unnecessary characters to keep up with and not a one was interesting. The first Halloween party was completely pointless and so much time was spent on it, just like too much time was spent in the high school. Time spent writing the first party scene should have been spent on the final scene instead, which took place at the abandoned Sherwood family home. None of that was interesting since we already knew who was behind it. The gorilla costumes were very odd too. The ending was abrupt. This story seems like it was just thrown together and written hastily by someone who just wasn't into it.
THE COUNTERFEIT MARRIAGE by Joan Wolf
GENRE: Fiction/Historical Romance
SETTING: England, 1800's
SERIES: Signet Regency Romance #16
AUTHOR SITE: link
PURCHASE: link
MY GRADE: C
FROM PUBLISHER: Enchantingly beautiful Catherine Renwick had good cause to despise darkly handsome, insufferably arrogant James Pembroke, Earl of Allandale.
It was this deplorable man who on a night of wild debauchery caused Catherine to be abducted and brought to him at a country inn. It was he who took her virtue by force, and left her threatened with disgrace.
True, he now was willing to make amends by giving her his name in marriage. And equally true, she had no choice but to accept. But Catherine was sure that nothing in the world could erase her hatred for him or her horror of his embrace.
Catherine was an innocent no longer--yet she had so much to learn about love and the maddening deceptions of the heart....
MY THOUGHTS: I had high hopes for this but the majority of the story was boring. The beginning and end were good but that's all. Once the incident at the beginning was over with, James and Catherine got along great for the duration of the story. No conflict, no disagreements, no nothing.
James is twenty-six and Catherine is seventeen. The story spans just over a year but I don't know what year it begins or ends. When James was sober we were told he was remorseful for what he'd done the night before but I didn't feel it. He's a rather bland character.
Catherine was put in a bad situation and dealt with it very well and seemed quite mature for just barely seventeen. We're told they're both in love with each other but I'm not feeling that either. I don't think they were around each other much.
Her cousin Ian, I did like, especially towards the end when his craziness came out to play. He seems to be around her age. He became really angry when he found out why James and Catherine married and couldn't understand why he wasn't asked to marry her instead when that was their plan in the first place. He hatched a plan that didn't work out in the end. That situation wasn't handled in a believable way by James.
AGNETHA FÄLTSKOG- The Girl With the Golden Hair by Daniel Ward
PUBLISHER: Fonthill Media, 7/2016GENRE: Nonfiction/Biography
PURCHASE: link
BIO: link
MY GRADE: A
FROM PUBLISHER: Her iconic blonde looks, stunning voice and songs of loneliness and melancholy have endeared her to millions, yet Agnetha Fältskog remains an enigmatic and distant figure. From her success as a teenage singer and songwriter in Sweden in the late 1960's to her years of global superstardom with pop giants ABBA and beyond, Agnetha has fascinated generations of fans. Her beaming smile graced record sleeves, television screens and magazine covers around the world yet never quite managed to conceal her natural shyness and vulnerability.
Agnetha Fältskog- The Girl With The Golden Hair is the first full-length biography dedicated to the life and career of the one of the most beloved and successful performers in music history. Charting Agnetha's journey from her early days fronting a local dance band in the small industrial city of Jönköping, through her decade as one of the most famous and popular singers in the world, and the years of self-imposed exile that followed until her surprising and successful comeback in 2013, Agnetha Fältskog- The Girl With The Golden Hair will delight her many legions of fans and any readers with an interest in the history of popular music.
See my ABBA page here. Hear her pronounce her name here.
A special thank you to Jason for giving this to me.
EDWARD, EDWARD BY LOLAH BURFORD
FULL TITLE: Edward, Edward: A Part of His Story And Of History 1795-1816 Set Out In Three Parts In This Form Of A New-Old Picaresque Romance That Is Also A Stud
GENRE: Historical Fiction
PURCHASE: link
MY GRADE: A
FROM PUBLISHER: It is a hunting tale of a strange romance between a worldly and dissolute man, James Noel Holland, Earl of Tyne, and the golden-haired young Edward, his ward–or perhaps his son. Homosexuality, sadomasochism, and incest are elements in their relationship–and so are affection, love, and the saving quality of grace.
The time of the story is the beginning of the nineteenth century–the pre-Regency years of domestic unrest, of the Napoleonic Wars, and of lawlessness, cruelty, and the vast chasm between the rulers and the ruled. The place is alternately the cold Northumberland wild country where the Earl has his seat, the grim and beautiful city of London during the Season with all its pomp, the retreats of Devon and Brighton, and eventually Vienna at the acme of its musical splendour. The background figures include Mrs. Siddons, the famous courtesan Harriett Wilson, various noted rogues, Beethoven and Schubert, Castlereagh, Godwin, George III, and particularly, in retrospect, John Wesley, whose religious teachings, precipitates and early crisis in Edward’s life but is to prove an enduring force.
In the course of the narrative a great many warring elements shape Edward’s character. He is sent to Oxford, where he proves a brilliant student. Holland takes him to London to spend some months living in his resplendent townhouse while he is grooming him–assisted by Beau Brummell, among other famous figures–to take his rightful place in the world of society when he comes of age and receives his inheritance–for the Earl has by now privately acknowledged that he is Edwards father. He obtains the skilled services of two of his former mistresses to introduce Edward to the techniques and arts of heterosexual intercourse–an experience which repulses Edward at first, and then proves pleaseant indeed. Soon Edward finds himself growing fond of a young girl–but both families violently oppose a match, in true Montague-Capulet fashion.
Many times the two men, father and son, abjure their passionate lovemaking, only to resume it more violently than before. Finally Edward’s apparent duality, augmented by a serious psychological and physical breakdown, have all but destroyed him utterly. Deeply concerned, the Earl takes him to Vienna and dramatically demonstrates that now Edward must make one of two choices: life or death. And in the end of the story is the beginning…
SPOILER SUMMARY: INCEST ALERT! Noel, 38, Anne, mother, 33. Edward, their son. They first met when she was 17. They meet again years later, have sex under a tree and she becomes pregnant. I can’t remember but I think he raped her. She thinks Noel will marry her. He won’t marry her and tells her he’s going abroad the next day and invites her to come. She says she can’t and asks him to strangle her, which he does. She only passes out. He goes away to the Continent for two months and she marries within the first week of him leaving. When their son Edward is almost seven years old, Anne goes to see Noel. Her husband has died recently and she’s dying and needs Noel to take care of their son. Edward comes to meet his father. They decide to get married for Edward’s sake. After the wedding, Anne feels like she’s dying so asks Noel to have sex with her. Anne doesn’t know if Noel is Edwards father because one week after having sex with Noel for the first time, she married someone else and began a sexual relationship with her husband and got pregnant right away.
Edward was sent to live at one of his father’s homes and didn’t actually see Noel for 6-12 months. Noel went to see Edward because he’d hurt his foot then didn’t see him again for over a year. He didn’t see him at all the year he was eight. In the spring of Edward’s 9th year, his footman George took Edward to see Gypsies at the fair. One of the men asked him questions about how his father Noel was treating him. Later that night Edward was in bed when he heard his dog whine. He went to look for the dog outside and was abducted by the same man at the fair who’d asked about his father. Noel found him 1 1/2 days later. Starting on Edward’s 12th birthday, he began to run away a lot. Later that same year, one night Edward got into bed with a sleeping Edward, kissed him, took his nightgown off and caressed his back. Edward kissed him back then asked him the next day if what they did was a sin. The day after, they traveled by ship to France. “They spent a week in his mannor, the weather holding, their days and nights divide in a way they did not speak of or refer to again.” During their last swim at the beach, just before they were to leave for England, Edward tried to drown himself. Noel saw him, went in after him and dragged him to shore. By the time Edward was 16, it had been almost four years since he’d last seen his father. Noel showed up one day to tell him he was sending him to Oxford University. Edward told him he didn’t want to go, he wanted to travel with a preacher who knew his other father, and that he wanted to become a preacher himself. Noel told him he wasn’t going. That angered Edward so he pulled out a gun and threatened to shoot Noel. Noel shot the gun out of his hand and locked Edward in a room by himself for a week. At some point during that week, Noel kissed Edward.
During the second part of the book, after Edward goes to Oxford, he starts thinking about the sexual feelings he’s having for his father. Up until this part of the book, were weren’t given any reason to believe Edward had those type of feelings for Noel except a few times years before when he kissed him. When Edward went home for the Christmas holiday, Noel locked him in the same dark, small room because he was scared Edward might try to kill him like before. At this point in the story, Noel is still a very distant, unfriendly person. He tells Edward that he wishes he had never taken guardianship of him. Every time Edward comes home to visit, Noel locks him in the same dark room. Once Edward’s friend Marion came to visit him at Noel’s and saw him locked in the room. Noel was caressing Marion’s shoulder in front of Edward. They spent the night in bed together. Edward heard them in bed. He was hurt and jealous and became physically sick.
During a visit home when Edward was 19, he told Noel that he knows he may be his father. Once while at college, Edward started wondering why Noel was so distant toward him, why he didn’t ever want to be around him. Edward knew that Noel must have meant something to his mother for her to have left him with him when she died. While Edward was growing up, Noel would look for signs of himself in Edward but could never see any. As Edward got older, he developed a violent streak like Noel. Edward and Noel were discussing the possibility of being related. Noel said, “Why do you think you are my son?” Edward said, “I don’t think, I know.” They were looking at family portraits of Noel’s family. Edward was saying there was no resemblance between him and his other father. Sometime after that, their relationship turned sexual. When Edward was 20, he told Noel that he knows he raped his mother and that he forgives him. He picked up Noel’s hand and kisses it.
Once while at the home of his mistress, Edward cuts himself with a knife. Noel and a doctor come and strap him to the bed. Fast forward to when Edward is 21, he and Noel are in bed together. They argue about something, Noel hits him in the mouth, causing it to bleed. He told Edward to ‘turn over’ but he said no. They fought some more. Noel took his pillow and held it over Edwards face until he stopped struggling, then turned him over and raped him. Later, Edward took Noel’s hand and kissed it, then kissed him and they went to sleep beside each other. Noel ‘bought’ a prostitute named Amanda. He paid her well so that he could cut her hair short like a boys and use her (anally) like a boy. He “hurt” her and she got some type of infection and died.
Edward left home for good when he was 21. Three years later he ran into Noel. Noel asked him to come home but Edward said he couldn’t yet. In July of 1815, Noel got sick and had Edward move back in. Noel recovered. In the last part of the book, Edward gets sick. One night, he drinks all of Noel’s laudanum. He almost dies but recovers. One night while still recovering, Edward woke from a bad dream. Noel pulled his nightgown up but Edward told him he didn’t want to have sex because he felt faint. Noel said he couldn’t control himself, to try to resist him because he was going to use him ‘terribly.’ He grabbed Edward, struggled with him, kissed him, all the while Edward is crying. Edward passes out and Noel rapes him.
The ending: Noel told Edward he needed to get married. Edward told him he wanted to die, so Noel filled up a marble basin with water and tried to drown him. He started to struggle. They talked and Noel punched him in the chest to wind him so that he could try to drown him again. He didn’t drown him. Edward went to see a girl he knew and they decided to get married.
Edit 5/2020- Actual review will be added after I reread it.
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