Panama Flame

by Mirna Pierce

PRISONERS OF VENGEANCE
Helena Canales arrived in Panama with only her dazzling beauty and dauntless spirit to protect her in an exotic world where danger flashed from the golden eyes of a stranger...

Charles de Thierny burned with raw hungers and unrelenting hatred. Embarked on a secret mission, entangled in a deadly web of intrigue, he would not hesitate to use Helena as a pawn in his reckless scheme of vengeance.

PRISONERS OF DESIRE
Ravished, ruthlessly taken by force, Helena would be his captive on a desperate journey through the torrid tropical jungles...a journey trough unknown realms of passion...a journey that would lead them both into the blazing heart of...PANAMA FLAME.

Genres: Historical Romance

480 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1982

Reviews

[Courtney · Rating 2 out of 5]

1.5 stars

This is a vintage bodice-ripper romance, with all that that entails. Specifically, this is a bodice-ripper where the MMC rapes the FMC as part of a revenge plot. I say that now because I know for many readers that would make a book a non-starter for them, which is fair. Also, normally I would hide that plot point behind the spoiler tag, but the book's own blurb basically tells you that much.

This book takes place in 1878. Upon receiving the news of her mother's death, our heroine 17-year-old Helena Canales is returning to her home country of Panama after spending her adolescence in a French convent. On board that same ship is our "hero" (I use that term loosely), the 30-something-year-old architect/International Man of Mystery™ Charles de Thierny. Charles is ostensibly traveling to Panama in order to scout locations and resources for France's plans to build the Panama Canal. In reality, Charles traveling to Panama on a secret quest to avenge his mother for her ill treatment at the hands of her own kin, the rich and powerful Gonzalez family. When Charles learns that Helena is loosely affiliated with the Gonzalez family, he decides she will be the perfect pawn in his game of revenge.

I had no idea what to expect from this book considering it had no reviews on Goodreads and it is apparently the only book the author ever wrote. Ultimately, I found it to be a disappointment. My physical copy of the book literally started falling apart as I was reading it, as if it sensed my feelings about it and was willing itself out of existence.

Plot synopsis with spoilers beyond this point:

While on the ship together, Charles is crushing on Helena from afar. They finally meet when Charles tries to assist Helena during a storm, but for the sake of romance novel drama the two of them are instantly hostile to each other for no reason. Charles then overhears Helena being referred to as Miss Gonzalez, and suddenly swears his eternal hatred for her - never once considering the possibility that there are, in fact, other people in the world with the last name Gonzalez who are not related to the family that he has sworn vengeance against. (Helena's last name is actually Canales, she is just traveling under the name Gonzalez at the behest of her wealthy family friends, Benito and Alejandra Gonzalez, who believe she will receive better chaperonage that way. Benito Gonzalez is actually one of the Gonzalezes Charles has sworn to destroy, though.)

We learn Charles's villain origin story, which is that his mother Lucinda was a member of the Gonzalez family - one of the most wealthy families in Columbia (Panama is a part of Columbia at this point in history). When Lucinda's father discovered she was pregnant and in a relationship with Charles's father they whisked her away to their isolated coffee plantation. When baby Charles was born, her family sent the newborn back to his father in Panama City with threats to both of their lives if they didn't leave the country immediately. Charles's father was never able to contact Lucinda again, and last he heard she was still alive but had lost her mind over the grief of the separation from her baby. Helena's family friend Benito is Lucinda's brother. When Charles sees Benito picking Helena up from the docks, he believes Helena is Benito's daughter.

Finally arriving in Panama City, Helena struggles to put her mother's affairs in order. She dreams of inheriting her mother's seamstress business and living independently and eventually founding her own school for girls, but discovers her mother drove herself to bankruptcy in order to fund Helena's convent education in France. One night, Helena is attacked and kidnapped from her mother's home in Panama City and taken out to the Panama Viejo ruins, where she discovers Charles is the one behind her kidnapping.

A drunk Charles brutally rapes Helena. I'm not talking about the "the mind says no but the body says yes"/"betrayed by her own sensuous body" kind of dubious consent sex scenes that are common in vintage bodice-rippers; this was a truly graphic and frightening rape scene. Charles reveals that he has kidnapped and raped her to exact revenge on Benito. Helena tells him she is not related to the Gonzalezes, and Charles is relieved that at least the woman he has just raped is not his first cousin - although the possibility of incest wasn't enough to deter him from his plan in the first placeヽ(ಠ_ಠ)ノ - but still he refuses to believe Helena isn't in some way related to the Gonzalez family. The next morning, Charles and his crew of Indian guides take Helena with them as they head away from the city and toward the jungle.

The group travels west, although Charles will not tell Helena where they are going. Throughout their journey, Charles continues to rape Helena with decreasing levels of violence. Eventually, Helena starts to feel a sexual attraction towards Charles which distresses her. Charles "benevolently" allows Helena to bathe along the way, which I think is supposed to be viewed as a turning point in their relationship and an example that Charles is a "good guy at heart". Charles is intrigued and attracted to Helena. He has never met a woman who wasn't throwing herself at him, and the fact that Helena doesn't seem to like him makes her irresistible. Helena, for her part, fluctuates between genuine hatred for Charles and horniness for him.

Eventually, they reach their destination which is the village of Sante Fe in Veraguas. In the village is a house where Charles's mother was sent after her disgrace with Charles's father. Charles learns that she died a few years prior, and that according to the villagers her brother Benito visited her there frequently and paid for an elaborate and touching headstone for her grave. This makes Charles reconsider his quest for revenge and realize that he was wrong in thinking that Benito was an evil man. Helena comforts him at his mother's grave site. I was really hoping that there would be some mystery as to whether or not his mother would still be alive, and I felt like the conclusion to that whole story arc was so anticlimactic.

Helena and Charles are staying in the village of Charles's Indian guides which is close to Sante Fe. They get into an argument over what to do when they learn that one of Charles's guides, Pedro, has discovered his wife's infidelity and killed both her and her lover in response. Helena is understandably horrified and thinks that Charles, as the Indians' "leader", needs to punish Pedro. Charles, in probably the only time I agreed with his point of view in this entire book, says that while he may be Pedro's boss when they are on an expedition together, he is not in charge of what Pedro does at home in his personal life - and if Pedro's village thinks that his actions where justified, it's not Charles's place to come in and tried to tell them that their entire community's moral code is wrong. Helena storms into their tent in anguish, where she comically finds Charles's notes that detail his plot to kidnap and rape her (the kidnap and rape is not comical, but the fact that Charles noted it in basically an "evil to-do-list" is, because it's just so ridiculous). Finding this note cements Helena's hatred for Charles.

Charles, being a big idiot, is at this very moment realizing his love for Helena and decides he wants to marry her. He returns to their tent and proposes in the most awkward and unromantic way possible and Helena responds with a - paraphrasing - "not just no, but fuck no". Charles then gives *the most* whiny and butthurt monologue I have ever heard from a MMC, where he guilts Helena for not giving him a chance, threatens and coerces her against possibly going to the police and trying to press charges against him, and finally throws a pity party for himself because Helena is just being so mean to him by not loving him back. Charles, Helena, and Co. then travel back to Panama City where they part ways.

The story then jumps forward several weeks. In an unsurprising plot twist, Helena is pregnant after her month or so of frequent unprotected jungle sex. In an actually surprising plot twist, we learn that Benito and Alejandra - the closest thing to family Helena has left at this point - have drowned in a shipwreck. You see, there was a Part 2 to Charles's revenge plot which was to send Benito a ransom note for Helena instructing him to meet Charles and Helena at the Gonzalez coffee plantation. Once Charles realized that Benito wasn't actually a bad guy after all, he just decided to abandon that part of his plan. Unfortunately Benito and Alejandra didn't get that memo, so their ship wrecks and they drown while attempting to travel to the plantation to save Helena. Strangely, Helena never blames Charles's for their deaths. Charles, being the "good guy at heart" that he is, decides that it's actually a good thing that Helena's only friends died because now she has inherited their mansion and all of their money and is rich.

Helena considers having an abortion, or using her newfound enormous wealth to find a new husband and convince him to claim her baby as his own. In the end, she decides the only "right" thing to do is to take Charles up on his marriage proposal so that their baby can have both parents. She manages to hunt down Charles, who is still doing whatever it is the French government wants him to do in the jungle, and plans a meeting for them to secretly marry. Helena still hates Charles guts at this point and wants a marriage in name only, which dismays Charles. He tells her he will give her one year to forgive him before he plans to take his "marriage rights". In the meantime he will return to his jungle shenanigans. However, it's so unfair to expect Charles to be celibate all that time. Therefore, when he learns that one of his former mistresses from France is passing through Panama City on her way to South America, he seeks her out and resumes their affair. Hopefully, you can see at this point why I feel like Charles is actually the villain of this story.

Helena becomes understandably depressed over the fact Charles has literally ruined her life. She decides to take a small bit of power back by attempting to preemptively ruin Charles's reputation. Since their marriage is a secret and she conveniently (and ridiculously) doesn't show any physical signs of pregnancy until her 7th or 8th month, Helena allows the men of Panama City society to attempt to court her - knowing that it will make Charles look foolish once he finally reveals himself as her husband. One of her callers is a young, handsome fortune seeker named Raúl. Charles discovers this and is jealous, so he finds a way to trick Raúl into becoming involved in a convoluted political plot that he knows will eventually get Raúl arrested.

Charles starts to have a glimmer of a guilty conscious at this point. He confesses to the priest that performed his marriage that he feels bad about cheating on Helena with his former mistress. The priest assures him that, yes, cheating is bad, but HELENA is the one that's really guilty here, because she is too proud to accept Charles as her husband, and isn't pride a worse sin than infidelity? Ugh. Charles's plan to incriminate Raúl is ready to come to fruition. However, the day that Charles plans to catch Raúl red-handed, he is gunned down in the streets by Raúl's mother.

Charles is close to death. His Indian guides bring him to Helena's door, and she works desperately to nurse him back to health. She realizes that the searing hatred she has had for him all this time is actually love. -_- The stress of Charles's injury causes her to go into labor. Unfortunately, Charles lives. Helena delivers a baby girl which they name Lucinda Benita.

The two are ready to live happily ever after. Charles finishes his jungle espionage, and the book ends with him and Helena waiting on the docks on the happy day that Panama City welcomes the French architect Ferdinand de Lesseps, who will attempt to build the Panama Canal. Almost as an afterthought, the book ends with the author basically being like "Oh and by the way, the French fail miserably at building this canal and nobody in this scene was ever happy ever again. The End :)"



There were a few things that I liked about this book. I really enjoyed the Panama setting. I love a historical romance that places me in a unique period of history - I would pick an HR with a niche historical setting and topic (such as France's attempts to build the Panama Canal) over a more generic English Regency or American Western any day. That said, while I liked the setting, I didn't feel like the author's attempts to incorporate historical facts or Panamanian politics were done well and just dragged the story down. In general the book could have benefited from better writing, but it was definitely the most apparent in these portions.

The other positive for me was the heroine, Helena. Helena is the most developed character because the book is told almost entirely from her perspective and features of ton of her internal dialogue. I found her to be really interesting character because we see her progression from a shy, naïve, yet optimistic character to a character who becomes very cynical, disillusioned with the world, and unbothered about the opinions of others. I was expecting the stereotypical sentiment of "Helena's hardships made her stronger, so Charles treatment of her actually wasn't that bad!", which is certainly there, but I wasn't expecting the book to highlight the harsher changes to her personality due to her trauma. She does become a stronger person, but at a great personal cost, which I thought was interesting.

In terms of cons, obviously Charles was the worst aspect of this book. I feel like I dunk on the heroes in the HRs I read a lot, but Charles definitely takes the cake for the worst MMC I have encountered in a romance novel so far. Furthermore, there just wasn't any romance in this book. Charles legit ruins Helena's life and her hatred of him is completely justified. Her about-face at the end of the story to be like "Actually, I love him!" does not feel genuine or earned at all.

This one was a dud, which is a bummer because I was excited about it and felt like it had a lot of potential. My Panama Flame has been extinguished. On to the next.

[Tapa in lovezone · Rating 2 out of 5]

By 70% the H who has deeply fallen in love with the h (his wife, his love, his unborn child’s mother for gods sake) sleeps with his previous mistress. To relieve his frustration of course because he is not getting it from the h. And he enjoys sex with the ow. He has big boner just by seeing her after so many months, who he has dismissed from his mistress post.
Yuck.
Disgusting.
Vile.

I actually was quite into this book but this cheating thing ruined it.