Book Review: Stranger In My Arms

Posted on | November 23, 2009 | No Comments

Stranger in My Arms
by Lisa Kleypas
http://www.lisakleypas.com

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Note: Surprise Monday Romance Review Extravaganza Review #2.
These are all short reviews previously posted on GoodReads.com, re-written and expanded a little for our first random Review Extravaganza.

The first thing you should know about this historical romance novel is that the hero is utterly repulsive. Oh no, wait. The first thing you should know is to not pick this book up if you have rape/abuse triggers. The second is… you know what, it kind of follows from the first.

Or does it? I gather from Smart Bitches, Trashy Books that many romance readers (not the illustrious, funny and very recommended Bitches themselves) like their heroes committing the occasional sexual assault.

I KNOW. WHAT.

Don’t get me wrong, this fellow merely blackmails the heroine first into wearing a shaming see-through negligee, and later into sex, though he takes it back after nothing more than a lot of touching and inserting his finger into her vagina forcefully which, oh, come to think of it, IS RAPE.

Apparently “romances” used to be a lot worse than this. I came to the genre a perfect innocent and never knew. I thought people were ashamed of these novels because they were mushy, light and not very well written, not because they’re actually chock-full of heteronormative, rape culture sustaining bullshit like this.

Anyway. If this is the sort of thing you enjoy, let me tell you more. The setting is an unspecified era in England when women wore corsets and British troops were stomping about India. The plot involves heroine whatsherface receiving into her home a man who looks a great deal like an emaciated version of her dead, abusive husband, claiming to be said husband come back from the dead. Turns out he’s not, but she likes him better because he rapes her more gently. She rescues some grubby-faced orphan angels and he reveals he has always loved her, always, and didn’t actually concoct this hoax for her money at all. She believes him. The way we know they are both good people is that their taste in interior décor is better than the next people in line to inherit the manor.

The novel was not badly written, as such, not like Midshipwizard Halcyon Blythe or The Snow-Kissed Bride, which it still amazes me ever saw publication. If you like your heroines dull and your heroes repulsive, you might enjoy Stranger In My Arms. There was also a pretty sexy almost-cunnilingus scene that was almost not rapey, and many descriptions of hard rippling muscles.

Rating 3.00 out of 5
Category: 1 Star, Reviews, Reviews - Books

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