REISSUED: Dell, 1989
GENRE: Historical Romance
SETTING: England & America, 1835
BODICE RIPPER? Yes
RAPE? Twice
MY GRADE: C
SYNOPSIS: All London knew her as "Her Highness,” the fiery temptress who robbed men of their gold.
MY THOUGHTS: This wasn't good at all. It took me a long 8 days to finish it. It's expensive and hard to find but wasn't worth saving it to read for over two years. Timespan is over three years. Noelle is almost eighteen when it starts and Quinn is almost twenty-eight. All but the last 85 pages take place in England. Noelle is English and Quinn is American.
RAPE? Twice
MY GRADE: C
SYNOPSIS: All London knew her as "Her Highness,” the fiery temptress who robbed men of their gold.
But it was proud, untouched Noelle Dorian who was cruelly abducted by Quinn Copeland, the rugged American shipping heir, and, in one brutal act of passion, forced to take his family name.
Transformed by Copeland wealth, abandoned by Quinn, Noelle's rare beauty blossomed in London society. But beneath her soft grace burned a vow of vengeance and a passion for the man whose jet-black eyes and powerful touch she would never forget...
For Quinn would return-to carry her off to the bold shores of the New World. Together they were destined to carve a new life in the harsh wilderness, bound by a love as glorious, as savage, as their pride.
From Soho pickpocket to society belle, from London to the shores of the New World, hers was a game of passion and chance.
MY THOUGHTS: This wasn't good at all. It took me a long 8 days to finish it. It's expensive and hard to find but wasn't worth saving it to read for over two years. Timespan is over three years. Noelle is almost eighteen when it starts and Quinn is almost twenty-eight. All but the last 85 pages take place in England. Noelle is English and Quinn is American.
Noelle is incredibly strong and way too feisty. She's tall, golden-haired and topaz-eyed. She's immature in some ways and very defiant, and violent. She punched Quinn twice in different instances. She's very hateful toward Quinn but with good reason. Her mother Daisy was a prostitute and Noelle's been on her own since she was ten years old, after Daisy died. She's earned a reputation as the best pickpocket in town (she pretends to be a prostitute then robs men blind without them knowing) but had to abandon that life after meeting Quinn, though she secretly helps out he poor kids sometimes, until she's found out.
Quinn's an angry and sometimes violent man. He once turned her over across his knees and spanked her hard because she threw two fishes at him. Another time he hit her with a whip and it ripped open the side of her dress. She took the same whip and hit him in the face with it. A time or two he grabbed her roughly. He's in the ship building business. He's got black hair, brown eyes and is half or part American Indian. He mistakes Noelle for a prostitute and rapes her ("It's not my habit to rape virgins"), then forces her to marry him to get back at his father, Simon, whom he doesn't get along with. He abandons her to his father and father's business partner, Constance. She and Quinn live separate lives for two years, until Quinn shows back up in England. During that entire time Constance educates her and teaches her to be a lady. Noelle looks much different now because she was in disguise back when they first met ( her speech was horrible naturally and her hair was very short and dyed bright orange) and Quinn doesn't even recognize her though he's staring her in the face. He's very angry at her and his father for keeping her identity secret from him and was passing her off as his cousin named Dorian Pope. Now that he likes what he sees, he wants to stay married to her but she wants a divorce. They don't get along at all, argue constantly and the story really goes nowhere. Near the end of the story, page 371, Quinn "raped her violently."
The story was good until Quinn abandoned her, then it got boring. In the last part when they travelled to America (Georgia), it got even worse. The only interesting part was a German man named Wolf(gang) Brandt. He could have made a good love triangle with Noelle and Quinn and Wolf's sister Anna would have made a good villain but they weren't introduced until the end so there was no time for it.
At no point in this story did I feel their love for each other, which they declared in the last twenty pages or so. You can feel the dislike between them. So if not for traveling to America and the long separation, this would have gotten a B-rating from me. I like their attitudes. I don't agree with a reviewer on Goodreads saying Noelle has Stockholm Syndrome nor do I agree with a different reviewer there comparing Quinn to Sean Culhane from Stormfire.
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