Jude Deveraux

Oh, Jude. I've been reading your romance novels since I was sneaking them into my house sandwiched between classics so my parents were none the wiser that their middle schooler was reading books with naughty bits. You know you're an old favorite--a comfort read. I wanted to give it 4 stars, except reading this as an adult exposed some uncomfortable truths about you, old favorite, spinner of yarns.

"He had seen, as Claire had said of him, savagery beyond compare. Once in a village in Africa, show more to celebrate his arrival they had crucified a man. He had seen hundreds of slave caravans. The 'civilized' world was so horrified at the indignity of slavery, but Trevelyan could tell them that what went on in the villages of primitive people on a daily basis made slavery look like a seaside holiday." (113-114)

That's...there's a lot going on there. I mean, gross colonialism re: 'darkest Africa,' with a nice side of slavery apologism thrown in for good measure. It's not like this is isolated. Later on, our hero recounts to the heroine a time when he was asked to impregnate a whole village of African women (in...you know...Africa. The country/village of Africa).

And these are asides. Let's not even get into exotic "Pesha" and their backwards barbaric customs and unimaginable poverty.

This all served to sour the book for me quite a lot. show less

Jude Devereaux is a long-time (like smuggling The Heiress in my luggage to sleep away camp) guilty pleasure of mine. I recently decided to revisit the Montgomery Taggert saga in order since it's been decades since I read my favorites and well, I had to start with the first one, which I don't think I'd ever read before.

Oh my god. it has all the hallmarks of problematic 80s romance--a passive underaged heroine, rape, the hero BACKHANDS the heroine at some point and no, you can't redeem show more yourself from raping and hitting the heroine in my eyes. And then there's his wonderful behavior when he's being "nice"! Let's see: his eyes smolder with jealousy if the heroine is looked at by another man, he grabs her wrists to the point of pain when she jokes she might find someone else attractive. If one of his friends flirts with her she has to loudly insult the man before her husband erupts in a jealous rage. No thank you. I don't remember rape and abuse in the others in the series. Let's see if I remember wrong. show less

This miserable book started out with 32 pages of exposition, setting up a ludicrous situation with two dimensional characters, served with steaming piles of cliché. It only got worse in the second chapter. I gave this my minimum 50 pages and DNF'd on page 56 upon reading this from the main love interest's POV: "The women he liked were very understanding and tolerant of what he did for a living, but none of them were cooks. It seemed to be a law of life that women who took their clothes off show more for a living didn't cook, while women who went to church did." This while ogling her ass and grumbling about being ordered to seduce information out of her. show less

When I was around 10 or so, I discovered romance novels, and luckily, quickly discovered Jude Deveraux. It was the nineties, and my main source of romance novels was battered copies purchased at garage sales and from my library resaler, so most of what I was able to get my hands on was at least 5-10 years old. So if you can imagine, in a landscape of enslaved heroines learning to love their rapists (boy did they love those tropes in the 80s!), I found a woman writing stories about women show more lusting after super hot men with lots of muscles and long eyelashes that they eventually had hot consensual sex with until finally getting their HEA. Boy was it disappointing when I started dating, but I thank Jude because eventually I was able to get my head out of my ass and start asking for what I wanted from a relationship because some part of me thought that there must be a world in which I got to be happy. Not to mention her books were always entertaining, and there was something special about getting to know the Montgomerys and the Taggerts better than I even knew my own family. Although I must say, it is very lonely to be 13 and want nothing better than to talk over a fictional family tree except the only people who might know what you're talking about are 30 years older than you. ;)

But this particular book! I just reread it because I needed a comfort read and I'm glad, because it's just as lovely as it always was. Yeah, it's cheesy, and sometimes a bit hokey, but if you're afraid of a little cheese you probably shouldn't be reading romance. And listen, I'm sorry for you if you end up hating this because it doesn't end the way you wanted it to. Never watch Roman Holiday, I guess! show less