The Heir

Regency #3

by Catherine Coulter

A love story full of anger, passion and fire Handsome Justin Deverill, the new Earl of Strafford must marry his cousin Arabella, or gain nothing but an empty title. It is her dead father's order that she marry Justin, but when they do, their relationship seems fraught with resentment and strife. Justin believes that Arabella has betrayed him before their wedding, and is determined to find out the identity of his wife's lover. The earl is convinced that he must be the young and charming Comte de Trecassis, a relative visiting from France. Justin wants to kill Trecassis, but restrains himself as he knows the young man came to England for a reason, and he is determined to find out why, sure that he's up to no good.

Genres: Romance, Historical Romance, Historical, Regency, Historical Fiction, Fiction, Regency Romance

384 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 1980

Reviews

[Love love · Rating 4 out of 5]

The only reason I didn't give this one a full 5* is because some of the diolog was hard to follow. I know most of it was supose to be sarcastic but I think that the author didn't quite make it work for, at least for me.

I've listed this on my 'rape by hero' shelf though some might not see it as rape. Justin (H) said him self that it wasn't rape however even though it was thier wedding night, Arabella (h) could tell he was in a rage (over a HUGE missunderstanding) and fought him, asked him not to hurt her, basicly she said "no" but he forced her anyway. He was not gentle, said she didn't deserve any tenderness from him but that he wouldn't call it rape because "he used cream to ease her way". WHATEVER, lol.

[Shasha · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is the first book by this author that I've read. I was sucked into the story even though the changing POV were jarring and confusing. One of my pet peeves, a misunderstanding, caused a lot of heartache while the obvious villain was so icky I skimmed his parts.

While there is a double happy ending, the details of the incest and the rape dragged down any positive feelings. Then suddenly from one page to the next the MCs are adoringly affectionate and I felt like I had missed a chapter. Did my copy have pages ripped out? Nope. The main romance failed; I would have been satisfied with the secondary characters'.

Mature content, rape, incest, biblical profanity

[Krissy · Rating 1 out of 5]

It's official. I am not a Catherine Coulter fan. What a pity because a lot of her books SOUND good. But yet when I start them I quickly find my mind wandering. **what shall I make for dinner?* *did I give my daughter lunch money today?* *got to remember to pay my cell phone bill* and so on and so forth. This is the 3rd book by Ms Coulter that I have tried with the same results. Time to put her away and give up. Moving on....

[Horsegirl275 · Rating 1 out of 5]

While I enjoyed this book, and would otherwise have given it 4/4.5 stars, the rape scene, and the way it was handled turned me off. I felt all was forgiven too quickly–there was absolutely no consequences or discussion of the horrible thing the "hero" did to the heroine.

[Cindy · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is a mess of a story! I was halfway liking it when a misunderstanding occurs & ends up with the heroine being raped ( repeatedly) by the male lead (not a hero!). There's also a side story about incest. Ick!!

[Olga Goa · Rating 5 out of 5]

This story has lots of elements like a detective line (where are jewels of the family and who killed who for betrayal or these jewels?) and also love line as suspense & betrayal.
Actually I always think why such misunderstanding in any novel exists - a main male character Justin saw a female character Arabella how she came after one man (as he thinks she slept with that man because he saw her coming out of barn after some suspicious in any ways relative of her family). Does he think she was so stupid to do it before the wedding? If he loved her why he didn't believe her? And then he just hurt her, forcing her to have sex with him and then continuing insulting her over and over until he finds out the truth. Why men in the novels always come to some silly conclusions even they are not sure did their women cheat them or not. This is kind of a childish thing, I suppose, to be sure in some things you cannot prove. Without proof, to confirm that his beloved woman slept with another one is kind of a foolish behavior.
Anyway I liked this story because it had everything: angst relationships, passionate love and villains.
Cannot wait to check others!

[Roub · Rating 1 out of 5]

this was a huge disappointment ! it began so well wid arabella, lady of the manor, spoiled n arrogant beyond words! she was a lil termagant, no less ! justin was patient n wanted 2 do his best bcoz he had promised a dying man he wud look after his cherished daughter. yet, he killed her spirit due 2 baseless doubts. he raped her brutally. he did not regret it even now he had proof of her virginity, he still wud believe her sluttish. he thought maybe she had been going 4 things like anal sex or oral kind. he had disgusting thoughts, he WAS disgusting! what he did was unforgivable n illogical. it's as if the author lacked inspiration n she dragged on n on wid the same thg.

[Brittney Wallace · Rating 1 out of 5]

If I could give it 0 stars I would. Both the hero and the heroine are unlikable at the offset, then he (Spoiler: rapes the heroine on their wedding night as an act of revenge over a misunderstanding) it all goes down hill from there. He never says the words: "I'm sorry." Just goes on and on about how wonderful she is and great of a wife she is to forgive him and she just readily jumps into bed with him. Nah. The writing was also repetitive and mind numbingly contrived. The ending was awful and the heroine learns that her father (spoiler:only killed one person instead of two) and suddenly she can breathe easy again and all is right with the world??? Nah.

[Heather · Rating 1 out of 5]

Disturbing

Romance tropes. Everything I hate about romance books. Threats of striking his wife, calling her a slut and then claiming he didn't rape his wife on their wedding night because he used a cream to ease his way in, but saying she would have deserved rape if he had. Disgusting! This is just bad all the way around.

[tacitus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Why not 5 Stars? The ending....

I really liked this one and thought it was much better than the first in this series, The Rebel Bride. The story was narrower and more detailed, whereas The Rebel Bride had far too much going on. That being said, the ending is quite disappointing. I will try not to give away SPOILERS!!!!, but the ending is rather...um...ignorant. It's like the author chose to just ignore the realities of Regency culture and act like everything was going to be okay now, la-di-da.

No.

We end up with a ruined, unwed lady, yet the author never even alludes the idea that she could be pregnant from her fallen state, and thus even MORE ruined than she is. And, if that isn't enough, there is actually an implication that another character might have feelings for her and they could get married. As if the fact that she is NO LONGER A VIRGIN won't matter? Does the author know nothing about Regency society? There is even a line where the hero says, "Time will heal her wounds." Eh...yeah. No, it won't. She's ruined, utterly.

Once again, this is a great story with high, realistic drama...right up until the end, where everything just falls to pieces. I was reminded of a student who spends months writing a research paper, and then tosses the conclusion together in that last hour before it's due. Come on.... =P

[Kathryn · Rating 2 out of 5]

This could be really confusing to follow if you don't pay close attention to the dialogue, but that is not why i scored the book so low to me personally the family relations were just to close for me it made me uneasy and creeped me out when the hero and heroine of the novel described each other as (paraphrasing here) mirror images or the male/female version of themselves a couple of times the heroine even believed the hero to be her father as for her half sister urgh no to many inter family relationships for me to be comfortable. aside from all this there is just one element of the novel which really irritated me and that is how easily the heroine managed to get over the hero's treatment of her especially their wedding night which to me was essentially rape. This character flaw did not fit in with the heroines character as she was depicted as strong, fearless and commanding etc - you get the picture.

[Jennifer Marie · Rating 2 out of 5]

OH MY WORD! This book drove me nutty with the headhopping. I couldn't keep track of whose head I was in half the time. The characters were likable enough, the plot not bad (for a romance), but goodness I couldn't take the headhopping. I read it because someone gave me the book for free. It did keep me reading despite also driving me nuts...

[arooba 🌷 · Rating 4 out of 5]

UGH i loved this but this one falls into the same problem all the books in this genre face, no groveling 😭😭 she INSTANTLY forgave him and this man did not give a single fuck like 😭😭😭 UGH ALMOST A PERFECT BOOK 💔💔💔

[Sheila Samuelson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rating: 3 Stars!!
Review:
This was my first time reading a book by this author and i thought i'd enjoy it cause its set in Regency Era 1700s England but i just couldnt get into this one. Not sure if its cause i was having low blood sugar issues yesterday or not but i wasnt feeling this book.

The characters were interesting to read about and the setting was beautifully described but the storyline didnt seem to pick up for me with very little happening.

I'll revisit this author's books sometime but not anytime soon.

[Ahgase · Rating 3 out of 5]

ปวดหัวกับการเปลี่ยนชื่อคนแต่งและตัวละครมาก
ชื่อไทยของเรื่องนี้คือ ทายาทเสน่หา คนแต่งเปลี่ยนชื่อไปอีก
พล็อตเรื่องน้ำเน่าและเก่ามาก
เนื้อหาดราม่าแบบถ้าคนสมัยนี้อ่านแล้วคงจับฉีก
แล้วเผาทิ้งอีกทีอะ เพราะมันมีฉาก rape ที่ค่อนข้างรุนแรง
พระเอกธงดำสนิท โบ้ หลัวชั่วแบบชั่วสัสๆ 5555
โง่งมอะไรไม่รู้นักหนา อีนางเอกก็เห้อ บทจะให้อภัย
ก็ให้อภัยเร็วเกิ๊น แต่ก็นั่นแหละ นิยายสมัยเก่าอะนะ
เป็นงี้แหละ 29 ปีมาแล้ว ต้องทำความเข้าใจว่าสมัยก่อน
คนอ่านเขาชอบแนวนี้ แต่ว่านะจะเป็นการวิจารณ์มากไปรึป่าว
ว่าเขียนค่อนข้างงง ไม่รู้ว่าเป็นเพราะต้นฉบับหรือสำนวนแปล
บางบทไม่ค่อยสละสลวยเท่าไหร่

[Mary Lynne · Rating 1 out of 5]

The hero r*pes the heroine, by both his admission and hers. And he never truly apologizes for it. I was done with him when that looked-for resolution never happened.

And I'm amazed this was published as a traditional Regency romance under the Signet line. I'm not surprised Coulter rapidly moved to single-title historicals with this kind of plot. Published in 1980, this kind of story definitely shows its age; far more akin to the classic bodice-rippers of the 1970s and 1980s than to romance today.

[Melissa Barr]

DNF like 5 chapters in... their cousins...NOPE!

[Olivia Minova · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best. Dark, mysterious, hot and twisted. Reminds me Club Drunken Cherry by Olga Goa author

[Patricia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've read a lot of Coulter, but this one stood out for me. I do like this author for lighter reading of fluff and mostly enjoy her modern "mysteries."

This historical romance disects the reasons that sometimes a "small thing" gets blown out of proportion and causes estrangement between people. I thought that reading this book might help someone in real life come to their senses. There are many who won't give a "second chance" or who won't forgive and become rigid.

The story may be hard to take, but hopefully causes some good thought processes.

Arabella is forced by the death of her father to choose the man her father has picked or lose her inheritance. An awful choice for anyone, but things like than happen in real life. So the choice, following her father's wishes doesn't turn out well whn her husband suspects her of infidelity and punishes her without her ever knowing the reason for the punishment.

You know, after 45 years with the same man, you realize that all of us, pretty much, make mistakes in our judgment of others and ought to communicate more effectively instraightening out messes. AND, forgive.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Liked it quite a bit. However, I did dislike the fact then hero and heroine looked so damned similar to eachother. I don't think that's right. They should look different, or at least different colour eyes! But oh well. I hated her character. Full stop. I did however, like his. When the comte turned up, I was like: "OOOH damn! beef's going down now!" as soon as the whole scenario broke at with Justin assuming Arabella and the comte were lovers because he "saw them" coming out of the barn after making love, I knew immediately it was Elsbeth. Oh well. So anyways, after massive ups and downs and misunderstandings and him being the biggest most cruel hearted, idiot, jack-ass, bastard ever on their wedding night, I kind of hated him too. Then they way he treated through the rest of the book just showed that:
1: he loved (otherwise he wouldn't have given a damn)
& 2: he actually is the biggest idiot ever.
However, when everything is solved towards the end of the book, it's rather nice, and when she throws herself in front of the bullet meant for Justin, the way he looses his mind over her is quite adorable.
Overall, I liked it but didn't love it.

[Tasha · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really like Coulter, this was not her best for me but it's still worth the read. I would have maybe gone 2.5 stars. The story was a little slow for me and there was one particular aspect of this book that I didn't really care for at all. It made it hard for me to like Justin. Basically, you have the daughter who wants her family home (no male heirs) but the father knowing that the land would go to his daughters husband selected the husband for her before his death. If they don't marry neither get the land. Then of course there is always that hiccup along the way that the couple must struggle back from... for me this hiccup wasn't one I would have chosen. Again, it left me not really liking our lead male.

[Twiggy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had forgotten how stereotypical, facile and uncomfortably sexist catherine coulter's books can be.
The heroine was really annoying from the outset. she appeared to be totally self absorbed and was simply oblivious to her mother's plight.

The hero starts off as not that bad, but is very patronising to the heroine, before he turns violent on their wedding night and rapes her
he is not over apologetic thereafter.
The side plot with the French cousin and his affair with the Half sister was tawdry and unrealistic. The fact that no one was particularly worried about the consequences for the sister was simply remarkable.

None of the characters seemed real

Not a keeper

[Maureen Feeney · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book and i am going to read the whole series.
But be warned there is rape of the heroine arabella by justin her husband on their wedding night.
justin is really more villan than hero and arabella is a bit spoiled but the story is pretty good and the secondry characters are interesting.
If you are looking for a sweet romantic story then grab a mills and boon but if you want a bit of bite in your romance give it a read

[Heather · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was extremely irritated almost the entire book. The author repeated herself CONSTANTLY. And the way she wrote made me grind my teeth.
The plot was good, if this had been someone (who wrote better) else's idea...it would have been a pretty good story.

[Kris · Rating 1 out of 5]

Using cream doesn’t negate the fact that he raped her. I’m not sure why I finished his book. Rape is not romantic.

[TMJ · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not sure why 3 of the 4 books I’ve read of Catherine Coulter’s include violent rape by the husband, which then somehow have a ridiculous happy ending. I’m done.

[BRNTerri · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Heir is a reworked and expanded edition of the author's 1980 Signet Regency Romance novel Lord Deverill's Heir . The Heir is 156 pages longer than the original. The Signet Regency Romance series ran from 1979-2006. The novels are shorter in length, under 250 pages. 

MY THOUGHTS: Time span is short, maybe a month. Rape, incest, a villain, oh my!

I really like Arabella. She's eighteen. She's a very strong character. She hates Justin with a passion, is very angry and hostile towards him thinking he's out to get her inheritance. When she realizes he's not, her attitude changes completely, which I didn't like. It's like a switch was flipped and she became someone else. It should have taken some time for the change to happen.

Justin is nine years older than Isabella. He's a very distant cousin and they look very similar. I dislike that. They have the same black hair and gray eyes though she doesn't have a cleft in her chin like he does. He looks like he could be her brother. He thinks she's done him wrong before they wed so he rapes her on their wedding night (p. 72 in original, p. 133 in rewrite) but doesn't see it as rape because he "used cream." It's clearly rape, which he realizes at the end of the story and all is forgiven. 

I'm happy to say there's a villain in this, twenty-four-year-old Gervaise de Trecassis, cousin to Arabella's half sister, Elsbeth, who's twenty. He's out to get a certain something that's revealed near the end. Also revealed is a family secret involving him, which devastates him.

There are a few typos in this and two of these three sentences don't make sense, from page 141, "Arabella rather hoped that he would rot, in addition to hell. He deserved to rot. He deserved every bad thing that could happen to him did happen."

Some things I didn't like, I just didn't see the need for Arabella's mother, Ann, to be so involved, and her doctor beau, Paul Braynon. There was also another pointless character, Suzanne Talgarth. A paternity secret was discovered near the end too and how they figured out what was going on with that isn't really believable, just based on what was written in a note.

I don't like the stepback for this either because Arabella looks at least ten years older than she is and the larger photo of them looks nothing like the smaller background image of them. Justin has a cleft in his chin but not in the photo.
 

About the 1996 rewritten version- Every chapter is longer and some dialogue has been reworded or expanded. The rape and incest is still in it, incest is p. 97 of original version, p.178 in rewrite. One difference in the rape scene in the rewrite is that Justin uses lube ("cream".) In the original version the American author chose to use British spellings for certain words (color/colour, labor/labour, just two examples) but in the rewrite they're spelled the American way. In both versions Justin admits to raping Arabella (from original, page 208, "Yet, when I raped you, I felt loathing for myself.", from rewrite, page 358, "He saw Arabella on their wedding night, her face alight with anticipation until she had recognized his rage, until he had forced her, humiliated her."

[Sami · Rating 3 out of 5]

Admittedly, this was my first foray into reading historical romance, so rating it is somewhat arbitrary. Nonetheless, I enjoyed this book despite the poor writing and strange character development. It was perfect escapist read for a lazy Saturday, especially during a period of prolonged social distancing and a fun exploration of a new genre. Indeed, I very much enjoyed the rom-com elements of this novel that I tend to so appreciate in film, and the historical setting was an added bonus. In other words, though I wouldn't deign to classify this novel as literature, per se, I did quite enjoy reading it, hence the three-star rating.

As for the book itself, I found the slight mystery to be an effective plot device to move the relationship between our hero and heroine along, though the suspected affair and its ramifications frustrated me deeply. It seemed both unnecessary and unnecessarily dramatic. I would much rather have read a slow burn as Justin and Arabella slowly came to appreciate each other and recognize their mutual need for each other than the head-spinning volley between hating each other and loving each other within a span of only a few days. Furthermore, the emphasis on their physical resemblance was quite disturbing. It is strange enough in our modern era to read romance between cousins, and the references to Justin's physical similarities to Arabella and her father were cringe-worthy. All that said, both characters were likable and strong-willed, though I wish Arabella had stuck to her convictions a bit more in the first days of her married life.

As an aside, Lady Ann was perhaps my favorite, though underrated, character in the whole novel. Her devotion to both her daughter and stepdaughter was impressive, and she clearly represented a dignified woman who deserved far more credit in her life (and in the text).

[Tiphaine · Rating 1 out of 5]

Une déception totale et une mauvaise surprise.

Honnêtement, que ce soit pendant la lecture ou après coup, je me demande s'il y a à sauver dans ce roman (non). L'héroïne au tempérament de feu est gâchée, le héros, ce comte fougueux prometteur, devient impitoyable, borné et cruel.

Que dire de ce viol qui advient rapidement et qui ne dit pas son nom, car le héros s'obstine à le nier alors même que sa femme le lui crie ? Rien ne justifie ce genre d'actes, dans la fiction ou dans la réalité. Arrêtons d'utiliser le passé dans la fiction pour justifier des mœurs inqualifiables.

Le pire dans tout ça ? Le malentendu du départ est tellement grotesque que seule la stupidité d'Adrien le maintient jusque dans les derniers chapitres. Moi qui m'attendais à une romance historique pleine de piment mais légère, j'ai été amèrement déçue... Je ne retenterai pas l'expérience avec cette autrice, c'est certain !

[Linsy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've read this a few times before, pre-Goodreads existence, but it had been awhile.

This will definitely not be for many readers as it has the whole, 80s/90s violence against women early in the book thing happening. As in, the main man rapes the main woman on their wedding night because he thinks she cheated on him before their wedding. Then he claims that he didn't actually rape her because he "used cream". This has made me mad since the first time I read this book because he totally rapes her!

I also think she forgives him much to easily and quickly, but that's just me.

Other than that, I like this book because there is much angst between the characters as they deal with the distance and yearning between them.

I am not a fan of the secondary romance between her mom and the doctor, but I've never liked having two romances in one book.