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قريبا يا ملاكي
She soon regretted her careless words.
In anger, Lynn had called the dark Gypsy stranger "one of the dregs of society." Much to her horror, this had provoked him to bodily kidnap her. The final blow had come after their Gypsy wedding.
But she was powerless to escape: the Gypsies watched her by day, and Rad kept her imprisoned—in his arms—by night.
He told her nothing of himself or his life, but Lynn began to understand his enigmatic, almost dual personality—and the gentle, aristocratic half attracted her very much ....
In anger, Lynn had called the dark Gypsy stranger "one of the dregs of society." Much to her horror, this had provoked him to bodily kidnap her. The final blow had come after their Gypsy wedding.
But she was powerless to escape: the Gypsies watched her by day, and Rad kept her imprisoned—in his arms—by night.
He told her nothing of himself or his life, but Lynn began to understand his enigmatic, almost dual personality—and the gentle, aristocratic half attracted her very much ....
Paperback
First published January 1, 1977
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About the author
Anne Hampson
168 books152 followersAnne Hampson was born on 28 November 1928 in England. At age six she had two ambitions: to teach and to write. Poverty after WWI deprived her of an education and at 14 she was making Marks & Spencer's blouses at one shilling (5p) each.
She retired when she married. Later, when her marriage broke up, she was homeless with £40 in her purse. She went back to the rag trade and lived in a tiny caravan. But she never forgot her two ambitions, and when Manchester University decided to trial older women she applied, and three years later had achieved one ambition, so set her thoughts on number two.
In 1969, her first novel, Eternal Summer, was accepted five days from posting and she soon had a contract for 12 more. From the caravan she went to a small stately home, drove a Mercedes and sailed on the QE2. From the first book, came over 125 more written for Mills & Boon, Harlequin and Silhouette. Alan Boon (the Boon of Mills & Boon) and she came up with the title for 'Harlequin Presents' over lunch at the Ritz. She suggested to Alan that they have a historical series. He told her to write one - it was done in a month, entitled Eleanor and the Marquis under the pseudonym Jane Wilby. She has the distinction of being number one in Harlequin Presents, Masquerade and Silhouette. Many of "Presents" have been reprinted many times (some as many as 16) and are now fetching up to $55, being classed as "rare" books.
She has had 3 awards, one at the World Trade Centre where she received a standing ovation from her American fans, who had come from many states just to meet her.
She was retired, but in 2005 she wrote two romance and crime novels, both of which were published by Severn House.
She passed away on 25 September 2014. She has been written her autobiography, entitled Fate Was My Friend.
She retired when she married. Later, when her marriage broke up, she was homeless with £40 in her purse. She went back to the rag trade and lived in a tiny caravan. But she never forgot her two ambitions, and when Manchester University decided to trial older women she applied, and three years later had achieved one ambition, so set her thoughts on number two.
In 1969, her first novel, Eternal Summer, was accepted five days from posting and she soon had a contract for 12 more. From the caravan she went to a small stately home, drove a Mercedes and sailed on the QE2. From the first book, came over 125 more written for Mills & Boon, Harlequin and Silhouette. Alan Boon (the Boon of Mills & Boon) and she came up with the title for 'Harlequin Presents' over lunch at the Ritz. She suggested to Alan that they have a historical series. He told her to write one - it was done in a month, entitled Eleanor and the Marquis under the pseudonym Jane Wilby. She has the distinction of being number one in Harlequin Presents, Masquerade and Silhouette. Many of "Presents" have been reprinted many times (some as many as 16) and are now fetching up to $55, being classed as "rare" books.
She has had 3 awards, one at the World Trade Centre where she received a standing ovation from her American fans, who had come from many states just to meet her.
She was retired, but in 2005 she wrote two romance and crime novels, both of which were published by Severn House.
She passed away on 25 September 2014. She has been written her autobiography, entitled Fate Was My Friend.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 39 reviews
March 11, 2021
Imagine being kidnapped by a pagan gypsy,forced to marry him and getting raped and ordered around like a slave.MY MY..i would have picked every opportunity in trying to murder him and THEN try to escape.Ah,i don`t think this will happen to me anytime soon.
But since this is a fantasy of Anne Hampson from the 70s and who clearly loved brutality in her romance books i am along for the ride,since its simply fantasy.It was very enjoyable watching Lynn Seldon and her savage gypsy captor Radulf travelling throughout different camps in Ireland.I realized who Radulf was early on,and i actually found him a fascinating creature together with Lynn.But unlike Lynn,i would never have understood the essence of him.I love that he was a smitten hero though,and in order to make her love him he was willing to sleep on the couch for the rest of his life if that was what she wanted.Even so,Anne Hampson is a marvelous writer,she writes her stories so well and always put epicness into it,"Beloved Vagabond" was one of a hell vigorous entertainment and i am happy i read it!
But since this is a fantasy of Anne Hampson from the 70s and who clearly loved brutality in her romance books i am along for the ride,since its simply fantasy.It was very enjoyable watching Lynn Seldon and her savage gypsy captor Radulf travelling throughout different camps in Ireland.I realized who Radulf was early on,and i actually found him a fascinating creature together with Lynn.But unlike Lynn,i would never have understood the essence of him.I love that he was a smitten hero though,and in order to make her love him he was willing to sleep on the couch for the rest of his life if that was what she wanted.Even so,Anne Hampson is a marvelous writer,she writes her stories so well and always put epicness into it,"Beloved Vagabond" was one of a hell vigorous entertainment and i am happy i read it!
August 25, 2016
Trigger warning: this book, and this review, deal with attempted rape, spousal rape and violence against women.
This is a long review, since I’m summarising the book, and I have a great deal to say about it. The short version is: hero abducts, marries and rapes the heroine after she mistakes him for the gipsy who tried to rape her a couple of days earlier. The heroine falls in love with his nobler qualities as they travel across Ireland, in search of the hero’s identical twin brother. The book ends with the revelation of the hero’s twin, and that the hero is a rich, noble land owner. The book is offensive and wrong and the worst thing I’ve read in recent memory.
Long version:
Lynn, 24, takes herself off to Ireland for a two week driving holiday. She’s contemplating her life, and her choices for the future. An office colleague has proposed marriage. He’s not great looking, but they are both children from broken homes, and Lynn would quite like to live in a house rather than a bedsit with a shared bathroom down the hall.
I can’t fault this as motivation. Lynn’s working in an office (her role isn’t defined) and this book is set before anyone started the conversation about pay equity, so even if her prospective groom isn’t in a more senior position to her own, he’s potentially earning double her salary. Lynn will never reach an income level where she can afford better than her current standard of living.
And who knows? Romancelandia may have some sort of salary bonus scheme for ordinary men who manage to get a heroine down the aisle. I can imagine it funded by the League of Other Women, and I support their initiative. I can see their annual general meeting, held in some swanky and exotic location, where they read the list of potential heroines they’ve crushed. And then they celebrate by drinking champagne and flirting with hot men.
Back to Lynn, who is feeling sorry for herself, when the car goes bung.
She’s on a quiet country lane, and there’s a gipsy camp nearby. Lynn thinks caravans are pretty, so she’s not immediately horrified of what exposure to this band of alternate lifestyle-dwellers will do to her.
Until, that is, a handsome gipsy man follows her when she walks away from car and camp, and attempts to rape her. She’d got evil vibes from him immediately. He had rough, cruel features and dirty clothes. He is swarthy. This is never a good sign.
Fortunately, Lynn is saved when a gipsy girl turns up. Lynn runs to the main road, gets a bus back to her hotel, and arranges for a garage to collect her car, fix it, and return it to her. This all happens with an interesting amount of speed, lack of fuss, or commentary on expense.
By this stage in my reading I am Very Worried. This book, with its cover of heads sandwiched between a stately home and a gipsy caravan, seems to be headed somewhere I’m fairly certain I won’t like.
I’m not faulting Lynn for not calling the police over her attempted rape, or mentioning it to anyone. I could wish otherwise, but it’s also grimly possible that Lynn has forgotten several near misses in her 24 years. These might just be things that happen to her on a regular basis. Or, not so close to what she would have been led to expect from gipsies, that she doesn’t think it’s worth making a fuss over.
With her car restored to her, Lynn drives on to her next stop. She tours the gardens of a stately home, Ballytara Abbey, and eavesdrops on a conversation about the owner, while staring at a portrait of a young woman through the drawing-room window. Here are the pertinent facts:
1. The owner has restored the portrait of his mother to pride of place in the house. For years, it had languished in some dingy stately outhouse, because of Shame.
2. The owner is rich, and the price of a ticket for a garden tour goes to charity.
3. The owner is single, and plans to fall in love once, and at first sight.
The next day, Lynn hires a horse at the local stables. She leaves her car unlocked and with the keys in the ignition. I don’t know why. Perhaps she had some premonition that she was about to be abducted, and thought she’d best make it as easy as possible for her abductor.
Out riding, Lynn encounters the gipsy man. He’s looking cleaner and his features are more noble, and how did he manage to get here? When he comes close she strikes him across the face with her riding crop. She calls him a dirty gipsy and the dregs of society.
He’s really cross.
He chases her down, drags her off the horse. She then answers all his questions about her car, and how single and alone she is. He then takes her to a nearby gipsy camp. There, Lynn sees dirty, ragged children. Some of them are only half dressed! She’s locked in a grotty caravan that smells of mildew and cooking grease.
Her abductor’s name is Radulf, Rad for short. He conveniently has a conversation in English with an older man, Olave, so that Lynn can learn that Rad is searching for someone, and that he means to teach Lynn a lesson she’ll never forget! Olave reminds Rad of his position, but Rad doesn’t care. No one whips him and calls him the dregs of society and gets away with it.
There’s a lot of emphasis placed on just how alone Lynn is. Sure, she has her job and her friends, but she seems to have completely lost contact with her parents. When she was about 18 they divorced, and each remarried and moved to another country.
When Rad comes into the caravan, Lynn applies a few more racist insults, and is very put out that Rad is taking the role of the injured party, given he tried to rape her a couple of days ago. Before Rad can really get into his plan to rape her out of her bigotry, some gipsy women come knocking on the caravan door.
They’re insisting on marriage before the raping commences. So Lynn gets into a fancy gipsy dress and goes through a probably not legally binding marriage ceremony.
I’ll note that Lynn doesn’t refer to the sex between her and Rad as rape. It doesn’t happen on the page, all sex in this book is implied. Rad points out that it could be worse. He’s threatening to whip her as well as rape her, if she doesn’t learn to mind him. Although, he also tells her he doesn’t want to ruin her beauty, so the threat to whip her as she has him isn’t really on the table.
By this point, I can’t quite believe I’m still reading. And it doesn’t get any better. Lynn, locked in the caravan all day, takes to cleaning it as best she can She contemplates escape. She also contemplates how Rad isn’t as dirty and crude and ignorant as she’d first thought. He looks at her with respect (WHAT?) and shares her distaste for the dirty caravan. And there’s that nobility she keeps detecting in his features. It must mean something, but what?
It’s really awful. Especially when the hints start up that Rad isn’t attempting to rape the bigotry out of Lynn (which is horrific enough) with respect to the gipsy people, but only where it is specifically applied to Rad.
And there’s so much bigotry. Lynn wants to wash her hair. Do gipsies have shampoo? Lynn suspects, from her observation of the women, that they never wash or brush their hair. And none of this is delivered with any empathy for the poverty Lynn can observe from the caravan window. She assumes that poverty is a choice. She’s like the worst kind of interloper, who wants only the tame exoticism of a different culture, because she finds everything else too confronting.
I know I shouldn’t be so down on her because she’s a product of her time. I know that the point isn’t for her to find anything positive in the way the gipsies live. She’s locked in a caravan, there are no opportunities for her to integrate, and it would feel false if her views did change. She’s not in the headspace to be anything other than miserable.
But I’m reading this knowing that Rad is the rich owner of the stately home. So Lynn, who is scared and miserable but instinctively knows that Rad is better than his surroundings and the company he keeps, is eventually going to have her world outlook confirmed.
This is such an uncomfortable book. Rad subjects Lynn to two rapes and two beatings. The beatings are delivered as punishment: Rad spanks Lynn when she lashes out at him verbally. I really hate that word. Spanking has such different connotations in romance, but here it is most certainly beating. Rad is angry, and he’s intentionally inflicting pain.
After the second attack, Lynn is sobbing and distraught and says she wishes she was dead. This book may hold back on presenting violent acts as truly violent, but it does at least present Lynn’s emotional pain.
The rapes and beatings stop. There are hints for the rest of the book that Rad is feeling somewhat helpless as to how to get the relationship he wants after this bad start. There isn’t any sense that Rad feels any remorse. He sees his anger as a regrettable part of his nature, but he sees his actions as just. He’s unhappy. He gets the occasional viewpoint, but only so he can describe how beautiful Lynn is. What I latched on to was that love at first sight hint from the scene in the Abbey grounds. Rad’s story is clearly that he fell in love with Lynn, and that his rage was so out of control because she immediately and harshly rejected him. If I could look at the spankings as an effective method of moderating his beloved’s behaviour, and the rapes as a standard romance shortcut in an era where women could only safely have sexual desires after a long courtship followed by marriage, I might have felt some sympathy for him. But I can’t.
Rad and Lynn are getting along a little better over the next couple of weeks, as they start touring the gipsy camps of Ireland in Lynn’s car. Rad won’t tell her what’s going on and whenever she asks him about money, and where his nice stuff comes from, he maintains that he stole it. They laugh about it a little, but Lynn is never far from thinking that Rad might be into some deep criminal activity. However, that hasn’t prevented her from falling in love with him.
Lynn has convinced herself that Rad has a dark side and a gentle side. She’s seen the worst of him, but she’s in love with the man with the noble features who is now only unkind to her when she touches on forbidden subjects. This isn’t a particularly healthy relationship, but I kept desperately trying to see it within the context of the period when the novel was written. I’d almost succeeded, too, until I was struck down by the appalling ending.
Rad takes Lynn to a remote seaside cottage, and it’s beautiful. Rad’s able to convince Lynn that they aren’t there under false pretences, although he does claim that the place is owned by ‘a friend.’ They play house, and it’s almost a normal relationship, except that Rad is still treating Lynn like a prisoner who will escape if he lets his guard down. When Lynn doesn’t escape when an opportunity arises, he does finally admit that he is looking for someone, and that he will get around to telling her everything. They have consensual sex.
The next day, Rad is off pursuing another lead. His target has recently beaten a gipsy woman so badly that she almost died. Later that night, Lynn hears Rad return, but he goes to bed in a different room. She assumes he’s being considerate of her sleep.
Next morning, she encounters her first would-be rapist, and realises her error. This man isn’t Rad, this man is Rad’s twin brother. And he’s delighted, because now he can rape her, with the bonus enjoyment of raping his brother’s wife.
As the raping commences, Lynn gets in a lucky shot, and the evil twin falls and hits his head. Lynn ties him to a chair (not well) and he’s awake and just about to free himself and recommence the raping (now with bonus kicking!) when Rad arrives. Now we get the full history.
Rad and Alban’s mother (Alban is the rapist evil twin) ‘married’ a gipsy and was cast out by her noble family. Her husband (or something) left her, and then she died in childbirth. The twins were given to different foster mothers.
Alban’s foster parents died in a fire and it was assumed that he died too, so when the noble family came looking, all they found was Rad. From 16, Rad was raised to be a gentleman and heir to a fortune, but his touchpoint was always his gipsy heritage. I would have cared more for how difficult that must have been for him if he’d managed to not be a violent rapist.
Alban’s whole deal is the bitter discovery that he was left out, and his claim that he is the elder twin and the heir. I don’t even have to summon up sympathy for Alban. He’s attempted to rape the heroine twice, and hospitalised another woman. Who, incidentally, was the girl who rescued Lynn from the rape at the beginning. He’d initially assumed that she was dead. He’d come to the beach house to hide out from the police, as he was expecting to be arrested for murder. He felt no remorse over killing her.
The woman has decided not to press charges, so Alban is not facing any criminal prosecution. But Alban does mention that his bad ways, thievery and seduction, have led to him being an outcast from his people. The girl he’s beaten had said ‘not again’ in the beginning scene when she rescued Lynn. It’s a safe bet that he’s raped other women. While he’s good looking, ‘seductions’ that will get you thrown out of a close-knit community are highly like to have been forced.
It all comes out, and Lynn has to calm Rad down, since he’s angry over that first encounter. Obviously, the bad start to their romance, where Lynn whipped him and said mean things, and he raped her and beat her, is all Alban’s fault …
Rad reiterates that Alban has a half-share in his inheritance, which isn’t anything that Alban hasn’t heard before, although now it appears this has finally sunk in. However, when Alban asks if he’ll be welcome at the Abbey, Rad says, umm no, you’ve ‘frightened’ my wife twice. Interesting way of putting it.
The plan they settle on is that Rad will give Alban a big bag of money and Alban will go to Australia to start up a timber business with a friend. On behalf of Australia: thanks a bunch. We definitely appreciate the arrival of deforesting rapists. The big bag of money isn’t the half-share, Alban says he wouldn’t be capable of handling that much at this time.
I don’t care, Anne Hampson. I don’t care how sorry Lynn is for him. She’s sure that his finer features and handsome face, and the genetics from his mother, a sweet girl, will come to the fore. She thinks Alban just needs compassion and forgiveness, and he’ll turn into a loveable human being who will someday find romance and settle down with a nice girl. I think he should be in prison.
Lynn also accepts, without any protest, that her would-be racist will be staying the night while she and Rad settle down to telling each other how in love they are.
This is my biggest disagreement with romance, where love either resolves a characteristic I don’t see as a character flaw, or forgives something that I can’t reconcile as forgivable. I’m all for romance turning characters into their best selves, but that’s not what’s happening here.
While Lynn isn’t completely certain that Alban will be rehabilitated, she’s lost perspective on what is right, and forgives more than she should. The character flaw she’s resolved is that she’s now sweet and kind instead of sharp and judgemental. The sympathy she shows for Alban while she’s cleaning his wound and he’s unconscious is the most terrifying thing. It’s meant to demonstrate the positive lessons her suffering has taught her. She’s now able to put others first and see the good in people, but all it shows me is that she no longer considers her own safety and wellbeing.
And then there’s Rad. His determination to ensure his brother got his fair share is his only noble quality. The rest is a pretty shell around his darker nature. Lynn’s fallen in love with his good side, and is sure she’ll be able to keep him good, since she knows what sends him bad. This is their happy ever after: they’ll go and be rich at the Abbey, and Lynn will only get raped and beaten when Rad uses her as an outlet for the occasional racist slight that his money can’t always shield him from.
This is a long review, since I’m summarising the book, and I have a great deal to say about it. The short version is: hero abducts, marries and rapes the heroine after she mistakes him for the gipsy who tried to rape her a couple of days earlier. The heroine falls in love with his nobler qualities as they travel across Ireland, in search of the hero’s identical twin brother. The book ends with the revelation of the hero’s twin, and that the hero is a rich, noble land owner. The book is offensive and wrong and the worst thing I’ve read in recent memory.
Long version:
Lynn, 24, takes herself off to Ireland for a two week driving holiday. She’s contemplating her life, and her choices for the future. An office colleague has proposed marriage. He’s not great looking, but they are both children from broken homes, and Lynn would quite like to live in a house rather than a bedsit with a shared bathroom down the hall.
I can’t fault this as motivation. Lynn’s working in an office (her role isn’t defined) and this book is set before anyone started the conversation about pay equity, so even if her prospective groom isn’t in a more senior position to her own, he’s potentially earning double her salary. Lynn will never reach an income level where she can afford better than her current standard of living.
And who knows? Romancelandia may have some sort of salary bonus scheme for ordinary men who manage to get a heroine down the aisle. I can imagine it funded by the League of Other Women, and I support their initiative. I can see their annual general meeting, held in some swanky and exotic location, where they read the list of potential heroines they’ve crushed. And then they celebrate by drinking champagne and flirting with hot men.
Back to Lynn, who is feeling sorry for herself, when the car goes bung.
She’s on a quiet country lane, and there’s a gipsy camp nearby. Lynn thinks caravans are pretty, so she’s not immediately horrified of what exposure to this band of alternate lifestyle-dwellers will do to her.
Until, that is, a handsome gipsy man follows her when she walks away from car and camp, and attempts to rape her. She’d got evil vibes from him immediately. He had rough, cruel features and dirty clothes. He is swarthy. This is never a good sign.
Fortunately, Lynn is saved when a gipsy girl turns up. Lynn runs to the main road, gets a bus back to her hotel, and arranges for a garage to collect her car, fix it, and return it to her. This all happens with an interesting amount of speed, lack of fuss, or commentary on expense.
By this stage in my reading I am Very Worried. This book, with its cover of heads sandwiched between a stately home and a gipsy caravan, seems to be headed somewhere I’m fairly certain I won’t like.
I’m not faulting Lynn for not calling the police over her attempted rape, or mentioning it to anyone. I could wish otherwise, but it’s also grimly possible that Lynn has forgotten several near misses in her 24 years. These might just be things that happen to her on a regular basis. Or, not so close to what she would have been led to expect from gipsies, that she doesn’t think it’s worth making a fuss over.
With her car restored to her, Lynn drives on to her next stop. She tours the gardens of a stately home, Ballytara Abbey, and eavesdrops on a conversation about the owner, while staring at a portrait of a young woman through the drawing-room window. Here are the pertinent facts:
1. The owner has restored the portrait of his mother to pride of place in the house. For years, it had languished in some dingy stately outhouse, because of Shame.
2. The owner is rich, and the price of a ticket for a garden tour goes to charity.
3. The owner is single, and plans to fall in love once, and at first sight.
The next day, Lynn hires a horse at the local stables. She leaves her car unlocked and with the keys in the ignition. I don’t know why. Perhaps she had some premonition that she was about to be abducted, and thought she’d best make it as easy as possible for her abductor.
Out riding, Lynn encounters the gipsy man. He’s looking cleaner and his features are more noble, and how did he manage to get here? When he comes close she strikes him across the face with her riding crop. She calls him a dirty gipsy and the dregs of society.
He’s really cross.
He chases her down, drags her off the horse. She then answers all his questions about her car, and how single and alone she is. He then takes her to a nearby gipsy camp. There, Lynn sees dirty, ragged children. Some of them are only half dressed! She’s locked in a grotty caravan that smells of mildew and cooking grease.
Her abductor’s name is Radulf, Rad for short. He conveniently has a conversation in English with an older man, Olave, so that Lynn can learn that Rad is searching for someone, and that he means to teach Lynn a lesson she’ll never forget! Olave reminds Rad of his position, but Rad doesn’t care. No one whips him and calls him the dregs of society and gets away with it.
There’s a lot of emphasis placed on just how alone Lynn is. Sure, she has her job and her friends, but she seems to have completely lost contact with her parents. When she was about 18 they divorced, and each remarried and moved to another country.
When Rad comes into the caravan, Lynn applies a few more racist insults, and is very put out that Rad is taking the role of the injured party, given he tried to rape her a couple of days ago. Before Rad can really get into his plan to rape her out of her bigotry, some gipsy women come knocking on the caravan door.
They’re insisting on marriage before the raping commences. So Lynn gets into a fancy gipsy dress and goes through a probably not legally binding marriage ceremony.
I’ll note that Lynn doesn’t refer to the sex between her and Rad as rape. It doesn’t happen on the page, all sex in this book is implied. Rad points out that it could be worse. He’s threatening to whip her as well as rape her, if she doesn’t learn to mind him. Although, he also tells her he doesn’t want to ruin her beauty, so the threat to whip her as she has him isn’t really on the table.
By this point, I can’t quite believe I’m still reading. And it doesn’t get any better. Lynn, locked in the caravan all day, takes to cleaning it as best she can She contemplates escape. She also contemplates how Rad isn’t as dirty and crude and ignorant as she’d first thought. He looks at her with respect (WHAT?) and shares her distaste for the dirty caravan. And there’s that nobility she keeps detecting in his features. It must mean something, but what?
It’s really awful. Especially when the hints start up that Rad isn’t attempting to rape the bigotry out of Lynn (which is horrific enough) with respect to the gipsy people, but only where it is specifically applied to Rad.
And there’s so much bigotry. Lynn wants to wash her hair. Do gipsies have shampoo? Lynn suspects, from her observation of the women, that they never wash or brush their hair. And none of this is delivered with any empathy for the poverty Lynn can observe from the caravan window. She assumes that poverty is a choice. She’s like the worst kind of interloper, who wants only the tame exoticism of a different culture, because she finds everything else too confronting.
I know I shouldn’t be so down on her because she’s a product of her time. I know that the point isn’t for her to find anything positive in the way the gipsies live. She’s locked in a caravan, there are no opportunities for her to integrate, and it would feel false if her views did change. She’s not in the headspace to be anything other than miserable.
But I’m reading this knowing that Rad is the rich owner of the stately home. So Lynn, who is scared and miserable but instinctively knows that Rad is better than his surroundings and the company he keeps, is eventually going to have her world outlook confirmed.
This is such an uncomfortable book. Rad subjects Lynn to two rapes and two beatings. The beatings are delivered as punishment: Rad spanks Lynn when she lashes out at him verbally. I really hate that word. Spanking has such different connotations in romance, but here it is most certainly beating. Rad is angry, and he’s intentionally inflicting pain.
After the second attack, Lynn is sobbing and distraught and says she wishes she was dead. This book may hold back on presenting violent acts as truly violent, but it does at least present Lynn’s emotional pain.
The rapes and beatings stop. There are hints for the rest of the book that Rad is feeling somewhat helpless as to how to get the relationship he wants after this bad start. There isn’t any sense that Rad feels any remorse. He sees his anger as a regrettable part of his nature, but he sees his actions as just. He’s unhappy. He gets the occasional viewpoint, but only so he can describe how beautiful Lynn is. What I latched on to was that love at first sight hint from the scene in the Abbey grounds. Rad’s story is clearly that he fell in love with Lynn, and that his rage was so out of control because she immediately and harshly rejected him. If I could look at the spankings as an effective method of moderating his beloved’s behaviour, and the rapes as a standard romance shortcut in an era where women could only safely have sexual desires after a long courtship followed by marriage, I might have felt some sympathy for him. But I can’t.
Rad and Lynn are getting along a little better over the next couple of weeks, as they start touring the gipsy camps of Ireland in Lynn’s car. Rad won’t tell her what’s going on and whenever she asks him about money, and where his nice stuff comes from, he maintains that he stole it. They laugh about it a little, but Lynn is never far from thinking that Rad might be into some deep criminal activity. However, that hasn’t prevented her from falling in love with him.
Lynn has convinced herself that Rad has a dark side and a gentle side. She’s seen the worst of him, but she’s in love with the man with the noble features who is now only unkind to her when she touches on forbidden subjects. This isn’t a particularly healthy relationship, but I kept desperately trying to see it within the context of the period when the novel was written. I’d almost succeeded, too, until I was struck down by the appalling ending.
Rad takes Lynn to a remote seaside cottage, and it’s beautiful. Rad’s able to convince Lynn that they aren’t there under false pretences, although he does claim that the place is owned by ‘a friend.’ They play house, and it’s almost a normal relationship, except that Rad is still treating Lynn like a prisoner who will escape if he lets his guard down. When Lynn doesn’t escape when an opportunity arises, he does finally admit that he is looking for someone, and that he will get around to telling her everything. They have consensual sex.
The next day, Rad is off pursuing another lead. His target has recently beaten a gipsy woman so badly that she almost died. Later that night, Lynn hears Rad return, but he goes to bed in a different room. She assumes he’s being considerate of her sleep.
Next morning, she encounters her first would-be rapist, and realises her error. This man isn’t Rad, this man is Rad’s twin brother. And he’s delighted, because now he can rape her, with the bonus enjoyment of raping his brother’s wife.
As the raping commences, Lynn gets in a lucky shot, and the evil twin falls and hits his head. Lynn ties him to a chair (not well) and he’s awake and just about to free himself and recommence the raping (now with bonus kicking!) when Rad arrives. Now we get the full history.
Rad and Alban’s mother (Alban is the rapist evil twin) ‘married’ a gipsy and was cast out by her noble family. Her husband (or something) left her, and then she died in childbirth. The twins were given to different foster mothers.
Alban’s foster parents died in a fire and it was assumed that he died too, so when the noble family came looking, all they found was Rad. From 16, Rad was raised to be a gentleman and heir to a fortune, but his touchpoint was always his gipsy heritage. I would have cared more for how difficult that must have been for him if he’d managed to not be a violent rapist.
Alban’s whole deal is the bitter discovery that he was left out, and his claim that he is the elder twin and the heir. I don’t even have to summon up sympathy for Alban. He’s attempted to rape the heroine twice, and hospitalised another woman. Who, incidentally, was the girl who rescued Lynn from the rape at the beginning. He’d initially assumed that she was dead. He’d come to the beach house to hide out from the police, as he was expecting to be arrested for murder. He felt no remorse over killing her.
The woman has decided not to press charges, so Alban is not facing any criminal prosecution. But Alban does mention that his bad ways, thievery and seduction, have led to him being an outcast from his people. The girl he’s beaten had said ‘not again’ in the beginning scene when she rescued Lynn. It’s a safe bet that he’s raped other women. While he’s good looking, ‘seductions’ that will get you thrown out of a close-knit community are highly like to have been forced.
It all comes out, and Lynn has to calm Rad down, since he’s angry over that first encounter. Obviously, the bad start to their romance, where Lynn whipped him and said mean things, and he raped her and beat her, is all Alban’s fault …
Rad reiterates that Alban has a half-share in his inheritance, which isn’t anything that Alban hasn’t heard before, although now it appears this has finally sunk in. However, when Alban asks if he’ll be welcome at the Abbey, Rad says, umm no, you’ve ‘frightened’ my wife twice. Interesting way of putting it.
The plan they settle on is that Rad will give Alban a big bag of money and Alban will go to Australia to start up a timber business with a friend. On behalf of Australia: thanks a bunch. We definitely appreciate the arrival of deforesting rapists. The big bag of money isn’t the half-share, Alban says he wouldn’t be capable of handling that much at this time.
I don’t care, Anne Hampson. I don’t care how sorry Lynn is for him. She’s sure that his finer features and handsome face, and the genetics from his mother, a sweet girl, will come to the fore. She thinks Alban just needs compassion and forgiveness, and he’ll turn into a loveable human being who will someday find romance and settle down with a nice girl. I think he should be in prison.
Lynn also accepts, without any protest, that her would-be racist will be staying the night while she and Rad settle down to telling each other how in love they are.
This is my biggest disagreement with romance, where love either resolves a characteristic I don’t see as a character flaw, or forgives something that I can’t reconcile as forgivable. I’m all for romance turning characters into their best selves, but that’s not what’s happening here.
While Lynn isn’t completely certain that Alban will be rehabilitated, she’s lost perspective on what is right, and forgives more than she should. The character flaw she’s resolved is that she’s now sweet and kind instead of sharp and judgemental. The sympathy she shows for Alban while she’s cleaning his wound and he’s unconscious is the most terrifying thing. It’s meant to demonstrate the positive lessons her suffering has taught her. She’s now able to put others first and see the good in people, but all it shows me is that she no longer considers her own safety and wellbeing.
And then there’s Rad. His determination to ensure his brother got his fair share is his only noble quality. The rest is a pretty shell around his darker nature. Lynn’s fallen in love with his good side, and is sure she’ll be able to keep him good, since she knows what sends him bad. This is their happy ever after: they’ll go and be rich at the Abbey, and Lynn will only get raped and beaten when Rad uses her as an outlet for the occasional racist slight that his money can’t always shield him from.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 11, 2013
I just want to say that I LUUUUUURRRRRRVVVVV this book cover (the Mills & Boon, not the HQN - yuck!). I just want to curl up with it and snuggle. The hero...I want to lick him. Just ignore all those pilgrims in the background. That being said...
Methinks if I was a gypsy, I wouldn't enjoy this book. Apparently they are a bunch of dirty vagrants that don't even brush their hair. We're told over and over how much this heroine is disturbed by having to associate with them. ~Sigh~. This book could have been done so much better. I thought it would go in a different direction, that the hero would be a Proud Gypsy! (said with bravdo!!), and that the little miss would learn to love her kidnapper and his people. That kind of stuff. It wasn't to be so...or maybe it was, but by the time we got there I failed to notice.
I can't say too much or I'll totally give away the already transparent plot. I should warn that there are a lot of hard limits for some of our more gentle readers. There is a lot of non-con throughout the first half of the book at least, and the hero was an aggressive uber alpha...until he wasn't.
I still love the idea of this story and we did get what was promised. This is one that I'll probably read again, if for no other reason, just so I can look at the cover again. Mmmmmm.
Methinks if I was a gypsy, I wouldn't enjoy this book. Apparently they are a bunch of dirty vagrants that don't even brush their hair. We're told over and over how much this heroine is disturbed by having to associate with them. ~Sigh~. This book could have been done so much better. I thought it would go in a different direction, that the hero would be a Proud Gypsy! (said with bravdo!!), and that the little miss would learn to love her kidnapper and his people. That kind of stuff. It wasn't to be so...or maybe it was, but by the time we got there I failed to notice.
I can't say too much or I'll totally give away the already transparent plot. I should warn that there are a lot of hard limits for some of our more gentle readers. There is a lot of non-con throughout the first half of the book at least, and the hero was an aggressive uber alpha...until he wasn't.
I still love the idea of this story and we did get what was promised. This is one that I'll probably read again, if for no other reason, just so I can look at the cover again. Mmmmmm.
March 20, 2021
If you want to read dark but clean romance, this d/s is for you.
October 12, 2018
"Beloved Vagabond" is the story of Lynn and Rad.
Our heroine is an English orphan is on a vacation when she comes across some gypsies, one of whom kisses her without consent. When she encounters him again, she tries to shame him by calling him a "gipsy vagrant, the dregs of society" and he responds by kidnapping and whisking her away to his tribe.
Thus begins a crazy journey between an angry hero and a stubborn heroine.
The negatives
The heroine: Stubborn, haughty, opinionated and short tempered- she never thought before she spoke. Looked down upon gypsies and shamed their poverty and lifestyle. Struck the hero the first time she met him as he's a "filthy gypsy"
The hero: Angry, vengeful and secretive. My main problem with him was the non-con sex and marital rape which took place (some might say semi consensual, I disagree), there was also spanking and threats of violence.
The positives:
The angst in this one is heavy. The hero is hell bent on teaching the heroine a lesson and keeps slapping her preconceptions back at her, trapping her in his world, smashing down every chance of escape. She is in solitary confinement in the first half, often wishing to die, and even though you know she was wrong in her views about the gypsies, nobody deserves that treatment. She also constantly labels him a thief, which he soon starts accepting in jest.
The conclusion:
Stockholm Syndrome takes over, and she falls in loooveee. The mystery at the end is predictable and they get resolved pretty easily, wrapped in a tidy little bow.
My problem with it:
Overall, is not for everyone. Multiple triggers and bipolar characters. Leaves you feeling..meh.
Safe
2/5
Our heroine is an English orphan is on a vacation when she comes across some gypsies, one of whom kisses her without consent. When she encounters him again, she tries to shame him by calling him a "gipsy vagrant, the dregs of society" and he responds by kidnapping and whisking her away to his tribe.
Thus begins a crazy journey between an angry hero and a stubborn heroine.
The negatives
The heroine: Stubborn, haughty, opinionated and short tempered- she never thought before she spoke. Looked down upon gypsies and shamed their poverty and lifestyle. Struck the hero the first time she met him as he's a "filthy gypsy"
The hero: Angry, vengeful and secretive. My main problem with him was the non-con sex and marital rape which took place (some might say semi consensual, I disagree), there was also spanking and threats of violence.
The positives:
The angst in this one is heavy. The hero is hell bent on teaching the heroine a lesson and keeps slapping her preconceptions back at her, trapping her in his world, smashing down every chance of escape. She is in solitary confinement in the first half, often wishing to die, and even though you know she was wrong in her views about the gypsies, nobody deserves that treatment. She also constantly labels him a thief, which he soon starts accepting in jest.
The conclusion:
Stockholm Syndrome takes over, and she falls in loooveee. The mystery at the end is predictable and they get resolved pretty easily, wrapped in a tidy little bow.
My problem with it:
Overall, is not for everyone. Multiple triggers and bipolar characters. Leaves you feeling..meh.
Safe
2/5
July 18, 2014
Heroine is Kidnapped, raped(multiple times), smacked around, falls in love with rapist and lives happily ever after. A perfect foundation for a good marriage and a wonderful story to tell the grandchildren!
Modern dark romance books where the h falls in love with her rapist/kidnapper/abuser are very popular, so we can't even blame this on the time it was written. Its amazing seeing how themes are repeated over the years in romance books, they mark the shifting or stagnant nature of our relationship with each other.
Modern dark romance books where the h falls in love with her rapist/kidnapper/abuser are very popular, so we can't even blame this on the time it was written. Its amazing seeing how themes are repeated over the years in romance books, they mark the shifting or stagnant nature of our relationship with each other.
March 12, 2018
Do not recommend this book.
I don't know for why I continued reading this book SHOULD have quit from get go. This was terrible terrible book despite everything being implied from rape etc it made it more uncomfortable reading. Utter waste of time I regret reading it.
I don't know for why I continued reading this book SHOULD have quit from get go. This was terrible terrible book despite everything being implied from rape etc it made it more uncomfortable reading. Utter waste of time I regret reading it.
November 5, 2017
This story is a good plot-bunny, but the MCs are too stupid to be tolerated. I understand Lynn's behavior, at least to a certain extent. But her repeated refusal to clarify why she slashed his face was just plain dumb. And Rad...good lord. *facepalm* You hate the gypsy half of yourself & are so resentful of Lynn's reaction that you treat her exactly like her inaccurate prejudices dictate...? WHAT. Either turn the other cheek & be what she doesn't expect from an uncouth gypsy, or admit you dislike that part of your heritage & act like the sane, semi-normal individual that you resent her for not believing you are! I know Logic 101 is a class many Harlequin characters slept through (if they even bothered to attend), but even by HP standards these chuckleheads win some sort of produce-pelting parade.
Anyway. The only person whose actions made any sense was the creepy brother. He was a rapey nutball with anger issues, but at least one could see how he became that way.
That being said, AH's portrayal of gypsies is truly awful. She makes no real effort to redeem Lynn's misconceptions & Rad's brutality is given the pat explanation of 'gosh, I'm sorry; I really do hate when my father's blood rears its ugly head, so thank god we can start over as decent rich folks who wash their hair regularly!' ...Yup. I'm not often offended by vintage paperbacks, but c'mon. That's just cringey. Or lazy. Either way, it's bad.
Overall, I was disappointed. Bland 2 stars.
Anyway. The only person whose actions made any sense was the creepy brother. He was a rapey nutball with anger issues, but at least one could see how he became that way.
That being said, AH's portrayal of gypsies is truly awful. She makes no real effort to redeem Lynn's misconceptions & Rad's brutality is given the pat explanation of 'gosh, I'm sorry; I really do hate when my father's blood rears its ugly head, so thank god we can start over as decent rich folks who wash their hair regularly!' ...Yup. I'm not often offended by vintage paperbacks, but c'mon. That's just cringey. Or lazy. Either way, it's bad.
Overall, I was disappointed. Bland 2 stars.
April 21, 2014
One of two gypsy themed books that I am rereading. I really enjoyed this one better than The Bartered Bride. That one had a lot of dated political stuff in it. This one concentrated firmly on the main couple.
Fair Warning: This one is totally non PC. There is kidnapping, rape, spanking and probably some Stockholm syndrome. The heroine spouts stereotypical racial slurs over and over. She did have some slight justification the first time but should have followed the 'if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all' rule early and often. But we are looking back on things from 30 years on and PCness does change and grow and that's usually a good thing. Still I think this might have been the author's views a bit since the hero never let her out to mingle with the gypsies and seemed to be ashamed of them himself.
So I'm giving this one 4 stars for the OTT old skool crazy of it all. This guy really kidnapped her and raped her although he did marry her first. The rape scenes, and there are more than one, are all pretty much closed door. He was one of those who was all 'why do you say things that you know will force me to lose my temper and assault you?' I think in reality Anne Hampson was writing about a guy who was probably into BDSM in a world where that sort of thing was not accepted in main stream fiction.
So super crazy for all you lovers of vintage WTFery.
Fair Warning: This one is totally non PC. There is kidnapping, rape, spanking and probably some Stockholm syndrome. The heroine spouts stereotypical racial slurs over and over. She did have some slight justification the first time but should have followed the 'if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all' rule early and often. But we are looking back on things from 30 years on and PCness does change and grow and that's usually a good thing. Still I think this might have been the author's views a bit since the hero never let her out to mingle with the gypsies and seemed to be ashamed of them himself.
So I'm giving this one 4 stars for the OTT old skool crazy of it all. This guy really kidnapped her and raped her although he did marry her first. The rape scenes, and there are more than one, are all pretty much closed door. He was one of those who was all 'why do you say things that you know will force me to lose my temper and assault you?' I think in reality Anne Hampson was writing about a guy who was probably into BDSM in a world where that sort of thing was not accepted in main stream fiction.
So super crazy for all you lovers of vintage WTFery.
September 5, 2012
3.5 stars
I just want to say that I LUUUUUURRRRRRVVVVV this book cover (the Mills & Boon, not the HQN - yuck!). I just want to curl up with it and snuggle. The hero...I want to lick him. Just ignore all those pilgrims in the background. That being said...
Methinks if I was a gypsy, I wouldn't enjoy this book. Apparently they are a bunch of dirty vagrants that don't even brush their hair. We're told over and over how much this heroine is disturbed by having to associate with them. ~Sigh~. This book could have been done so much better. I thought it would go in a different direction, that the hero would be a Proud Gypsy! (said with bravdo!!), and that the little miss would learn to love her kidnapper and his people. That kind of stuff. It wasn't to be so...or maybe it was, but by the time we got there I failed to notice.
I can't say too much or I'll totally give away the already transparent plot. I should warn that there are a lot of hard limits for some of our more gentle readers. There is a lot of non-con throughout the first half of the book at least, and the hero was an aggressive ubber alpha...until he wasn't.
I still love the idea of this story and we did get what was promised. This is one that I'll probably read again, if for no other reason, just so I can look at the cover again. Mmmmmm.
I just want to say that I LUUUUUURRRRRRVVVVV this book cover (the Mills & Boon, not the HQN - yuck!). I just want to curl up with it and snuggle. The hero...I want to lick him. Just ignore all those pilgrims in the background. That being said...
Methinks if I was a gypsy, I wouldn't enjoy this book. Apparently they are a bunch of dirty vagrants that don't even brush their hair. We're told over and over how much this heroine is disturbed by having to associate with them. ~Sigh~. This book could have been done so much better. I thought it would go in a different direction, that the hero would be a Proud Gypsy! (said with bravdo!!), and that the little miss would learn to love her kidnapper and his people. That kind of stuff. It wasn't to be so...or maybe it was, but by the time we got there I failed to notice.
I can't say too much or I'll totally give away the already transparent plot. I should warn that there are a lot of hard limits for some of our more gentle readers. There is a lot of non-con throughout the first half of the book at least, and the hero was an aggressive ubber alpha...until he wasn't.
I still love the idea of this story and we did get what was promised. This is one that I'll probably read again, if for no other reason, just so I can look at the cover again. Mmmmmm.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 28, 2023
I swear to God, in a crowded field this was the most insane HP I've ever read. The writing was just about compelling (in a watching a car crash way) enough for me to finish but boy was it an effort. Melodramatic, lurid sentences "I must leave here before he comes ! I've been dodging him too long to be caught now! I shall disgrace him yet! Do you know something, girl?" "You fiend!" It read like a Google translation from something to English. I'm well aware that HP and PC are very distant cousins but ye gods the racism, misogyny and stereotypes in this. He rapes her when he meets her ffs. I could be persuaded in favour of a gipsy romance (I always thought something could be made of the Saintes Maries and the troubadour tradition that would fit nicely with a 70s/80s HP) but in no way, shape or form was this it. Triple eek with extra shudders.
January 13, 2016
Oh I wish I could say this was the only book that I read about a heroine falling for her rapist but it's not and it was worst that they just glossed over the fact that that is what he was!!! He condemns his twin brother at the end for trying to rape her when he did in fact rape her!!! Did the author get amnesia? Can't tell you that this was a good book at all and the fact that the whole gypsy community knew and did nothing is too gross for words!!!! Another case of guy should be in jail but is not! How is he better and who is to say if the other brother had raped her she would not love him instead!? Just food for thought here as they are twins. And obviously she gets off on rape! Please let this be the last of these books I read.
August 26, 2015
This is the worst HP it deserves a negative number but lowest i can give is one. Really is the worst I have ever read and i have read a plethora of HP almost 80 to 100 a year for the last 6 to 8 yrs. First the Hero is an absolute hideous excuse for a human. He abducts or kidnaps the heroine. He mentally abuses her for weeks, he threatens to whip and beat her when she stands up for herself . He then rapes her not once but twice on different occasions because she angered him. I also hate the Stockholm syndrome idea. How could anyone fall for a man who imprisons u for weeks forces a marriage on u and rapes u multiple times. Women are meant to be loved honored and cherished. I am sad i own and read this book. It is not because I detest the subject but I do not even believe it was written well. There are parts just skimmed or jumped over like why she thinks she loves him. I do not know if I will ever another from this author:(
August 10, 2021
I enjoyed reading this vintage novel.
But this book will not be liked by everyone because he is brutal to her in the beginning of the book. Brutal as in forced seduction and in a moment of anger even slapping her on her thighs. After that incident he becomes mellow and sweet.
I like vintage romances, so I don’t mind the brutality as long as it is clear that the man is smitten. After all it’s not real life. This H is smitten, that’s what makes this book worth reading.
I didn’t like the ending of the book. His jerk brother got away without any punishment. And the h is still the same snob she was in the beginning, there was no change in her personality.
But this book will not be liked by everyone because he is brutal to her in the beginning of the book. Brutal as in forced seduction and in a moment of anger even slapping her on her thighs. After that incident he becomes mellow and sweet.
I like vintage romances, so I don’t mind the brutality as long as it is clear that the man is smitten. After all it’s not real life. This H is smitten, that’s what makes this book worth reading.
I didn’t like the ending of the book. His jerk brother got away without any punishment. And the h is still the same snob she was in the beginning, there was no change in her personality.
Read
April 16, 2018I will not be reviewing this as part of my attempt to read Anne Hampson's entire body of work (excluding historicals). Here's why:
April 26, 2014
I hated this book. The H was a monster and I felt so bad for the h. She suffered so much bc of the H. I wish she had escaped just once so she could have had a taste of freedom. She goes from captivity to falling in love with him. I never saw real love or caring btw them. Plus, the H was terrifyingly violent. I love reading non-PC romances but stay away from this book!!!
April 4, 2021
This is all what I'm going to say about this book
🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮
🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮
March 16, 2018
I'm in the mood to put many GIFs in my review about this one so...
heroine, Lynn, went to Ireland for girl time - solo time.
She passed by a gypsy camp
Then her car broke down. There was a gypsy man he met. And that man attacked her on the woods until a gypsy girl saved her and she was able to escape. Days later, she forgot the incident - or still remembered it but not really bothered by it - and decided to visit a house (formerly an Abbey) of a rich man because his gardens were open to public on Tuesdays and Saturdays. So, she went there and relishing the beauty of the trees, flowers and plants. She heard a gossip about the owner of the house but she never listened to it.
The next day she decided to ride rent a horse and explored the area - near the Abbey. Lah lah lah...and then she met the gypsy man again. The one who attacked her:
the author described him as sizzling haawtt, (not like sisig) so let's try another picture okay?
or this
or this
or this
well you just decide okay? but we got the picture right?
So back to the story... the heroine Lynn saw the man whom she thought attacked her days ago. Would she run and cry for help? Would she call the police?
she slapped his face with her riding crop (which really bled an awful lot) and cried slur names at him -
In retaliation, the man kidnapped Lynn and brought her to a gypsy camp.
He was going to ravish her inside the wagon when the gypsy people in the camp knocked on their door and suggested that he married her. And he replied, "why not?"
It was a happy wedding!!!
their relationship was full of:
and
and
and
and
and
and
and
and both of them had this aura of:
After a couple of days of travelling they went to a cottage - and their relationship was somehow changed in that place haha
Then another character came in whoopsieee!! He was the key to all mysteries that shrouded the relationship of the Hero and heroine. And they all lived happily ever after in HP Landia! Yey...
PS I wish the sex scenes were detailed because I wanted to know how the Hero tamed the heroine and how the heroine fought the Hero in bed:
Much as I wanted this to be in books, I wouldn't want this to happen in reality hahahahahahahaha
heroine, Lynn, went to Ireland for girl time - solo time.
She passed by a gypsy camp
Then her car broke down. There was a gypsy man he met. And that man attacked her on the woods until a gypsy girl saved her and she was able to escape. Days later, she forgot the incident - or still remembered it but not really bothered by it - and decided to visit a house (formerly an Abbey) of a rich man because his gardens were open to public on Tuesdays and Saturdays. So, she went there and relishing the beauty of the trees, flowers and plants. She heard a gossip about the owner of the house but she never listened to it.
The next day she decided to ride rent a horse and explored the area - near the Abbey. Lah lah lah...and then she met the gypsy man again. The one who attacked her:
the author described him as sizzling haawtt, (not like sisig) so let's try another picture okay?
or this
or this
or this
well you just decide okay? but we got the picture right?
So back to the story... the heroine Lynn saw the man whom she thought attacked her days ago. Would she run and cry for help? Would she call the police?
she slapped his face with her riding crop (which really bled an awful lot) and cried slur names at him -
In retaliation, the man kidnapped Lynn and brought her to a gypsy camp.
He was going to ravish her inside the wagon when the gypsy people in the camp knocked on their door and suggested that he married her. And he replied, "why not?"
It was a happy wedding!!!
their relationship was full of:
and
and
and
and
and
and
and
and both of them had this aura of:
After a couple of days of travelling they went to a cottage - and their relationship was somehow changed in that place haha
Then another character came in whoopsieee!! He was the key to all mysteries that shrouded the relationship of the Hero and heroine. And they all lived happily ever after in HP Landia! Yey...
PS I wish the sex scenes were detailed because I wanted to know how the Hero tamed the heroine and how the heroine fought the Hero in bed:
Much as I wanted this to be in books, I wouldn't want this to happen in reality hahahahahahahaha
November 20, 2014
This book was offensive and obvious in its plot. No real mystery since there were too many hints of the misunderstanding.
I kept trying to keep in mind how old the book is whenever gypsies were portrayed badly. Apparently, they're not concerned with bathing. Lots of prejudices, but maybe that was just the time.
I'm not sure if the hero was much better than his brother considering how awful he treated the heroine at first.
But at the same time I felt sorry for him. It was love at first sight for him and the heroine attacked him while he was still in that mesmerized state.
Probably more 2.5 Stars
I kept trying to keep in mind how old the book is whenever gypsies were portrayed badly. Apparently, they're not concerned with bathing. Lots of prejudices, but maybe that was just the time.
I'm not sure if the hero was much better than his brother considering how awful he treated the heroine at first.
But at the same time I felt sorry for him. It was love at first sight for him and the heroine attacked him while he was still in that mesmerized state.
Probably more 2.5 Stars
December 28, 2014
I bought this book off a charity bookshelf at a train station as I find Mills and Boon books amusing. This, however, was not a humorous read. It's horribly racist towards Romany gypsies. They are portrayed as 'the dregs of society' (a direct quote); they are all 'primitive' (another direct quote) and our dull, irritating and often hysterical heroine Lynn cannot bear to be around them. I'm not sure what I expected of a Mills and Boon book - especially one published in the 1970s, when Julia Stanley (amongst others) was rallying for equality for women in the English language. What I did not expect was to be so offended by it.
February 20, 2023
Love it, read this book in 1984. still like it and remembered the story to detail.
July 15, 2011
One of my favorite books which I read while I was a teenager and fell in love with the whole concept of Romance novel because of it :)
March 1, 2015
MY BEST BEST BEST BEST(AND)AMAZINGLY FIRST BOOK I'VE EVER LOVED ♥
August 6, 2014
1.5
الاغتصاب والرومانسيه لا يجتمعان!
الاغتصاب والرومانسيه لا يجتمعان!
May 20, 2018
في بداية الرواية قام البطل باغتصاب البطلة و استمر في ذلك !!! و بالرغم من كل المعاناة و الاذلال التي سببها لها وقعت في حبه!!
و في نهاية القصة سامحته البطلة على كل ضربه و تحقيره لها ! طبعا فقد اتضح انه مليونير و ذو نفوذ و صاحب اراضي و املاك!! و لكنها تدعي انها سامحته لمجرد انها تحبه! و مالسبب في حبها لرجل بلا اخلاق ولا معاملة و لا احترام و فوق كل ذلك معتدي و لا يرى خطأ في ضرب النساء و اغتصابهن!!
رواية مقرفة لأبعد الحدود
و في نهاية القصة سامحته البطلة على كل ضربه و تحقيره لها ! طبعا فقد اتضح انه مليونير و ذو نفوذ و صاحب اراضي و املاك!! و لكنها تدعي انها سامحته لمجرد انها تحبه! و مالسبب في حبها لرجل بلا اخلاق ولا معاملة و لا احترام و فوق كل ذلك معتدي و لا يرى خطأ في ضرب النساء و اغتصابهن!!
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August 6, 2021
Heroine is Kidnapped, raped(multiple times), lived in dirty carriage and was treated like a slave by the hero(her Rapist) than falls in love with her rapist and lives HEA. what about the Stockholm syndrome
April 17, 2020
Much higher rating was possible, H was so, so cruel! Good story, H finally was redeemed, so cruel in 60% of story.
October 20, 2025
28.09.2025
entretenido, pero no deja de ser un cliché del siglo pasado
entretenido, pero no deja de ser un cliché del siglo pasado
July 16, 2019
A fabulous old-fashioned romance of the bodice ripper era that kept me glued to the pages.
April 10, 2013
I can't believe how bad this one was.
She's nearly raped by a gypsy. Later, the same guy (or so she thinks - and yes, I DID think that the heroine was applying the racist filter of 'they all look alike') to the situation - saves her. She thinks he's trying to go for a rematch and is very hostile and hits him with a riding crop across the face. Calls his kind the dregs of society.
This quite naturally makes it okay for him to kidnap and rape her. He beats her once too.
After the requisite stockholm syndrome occurs we finally learn his identical twin tried to rape her. Seriously. And in the end? They let the twin go. To reform himself. After he kidnaps and tries to rape her again.
Yeah.
She's nearly raped by a gypsy. Later, the same guy (or so she thinks - and yes, I DID think that the heroine was applying the racist filter of 'they all look alike') to the situation - saves her. She thinks he's trying to go for a rematch and is very hostile and hits him with a riding crop across the face. Calls his kind the dregs of society.
This quite naturally makes it okay for him to kidnap and rape her. He beats her once too.
After the requisite stockholm syndrome occurs we finally learn his identical twin tried to rape her. Seriously. And in the end? They let the twin go. To reform himself. After he kidnaps and tries to rape her again.
Yeah.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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