Well, I tried to like it. A significant portion of the plot was right up my alley (abused heroine). But... I could not forgive the hero for the rape. There just is no excuse. Ever. And he hardly seems sorry, only feeling guilty when he finds out that she was raped as a child (because apparently it is ok to have raped her had she taken a lover). And when he does admit guilt, he still explains away his actions. Ugh. I mean, I try to tone down my internal feminist when reading bodice-rippery romance, but, just.... UGH. I will continue to read Catherine Coulter because she has a penchant for abused heroines and angst, but this one was beyond the pale for me. ( )

This one is a good one but has a few elements that are problematic. The hero rapes the heroine while married to her because she won't sleep with him after they marry and he's tired of waiting. He only intends to make love to her but when he realizes she isn't a virgin, he gets mad and hurts her. After he figures out that she had been raped as a young girl he is sorry but I think he should have been sorry that he physically hurt her. No woman deserves to be raped even if she isn't a virgin when you were expecting one. I don't usually have problems with rape in a book if the author can somehow redeem the hero but she mostly fails here. Still I did enjoy it the first time I read it and I've read it maybe 3 times so there must be something worth while here. Maybe it's the angst level. It's very high and I typically enjoy the angst. ( )

There were some parts of it that that were quite good but there were other parts that made me want to want to rant and get quite sweary, trauma doesn't work like that, not when it's been suppressed for years, there will be times he's going to have to stop telling her to buck up, and actually help her, comfort her, wake her from nightmares, and some of the nightmares will have been his own bloody fault.

Julien St Clair will never forget the first time he meets Kate, Katharine Brandon; while she's playing at dueling, while in breeches, with her brother. He's intrigued with this woman who can't resist sniping at him, she does want away from her abusive father, but she doesn't want marriage, and when eventually he manipulates her into it she doesn't want to sleep with him. He decides that the best way out of this is to kidnap and pretend to be someone else and force her to accept his attentions. When he discovers that she didn't have an intact hymen (note: there would have been women like her who rode horses astride etc without intact hymens, and this was warned about) his assumption and roughness was unjustified.

Yes there are large parts of the story that were quite enjoyable but this entire trauma can be glossed over part made me quite ranty and annoyed. ( )

Good not great. Fairly typical historical romance. ( )

Audiobook - I would rate this a zero because the whole rape by the husband thing is just wrong - wrong and there is nothing romantic about it. ( )