Beloved Captive

by Iris Gower

Golden-haired Seranne first learned the joys of love from the roguish nobleman Fenn Cornwallis ...until he abandoned her to his step dark brother Dervil. His touch brought new desires to life in hot-blooded Seranne, yet from jealousy he held her at arm's length.

Flung from her native England into a glamorous but barbaric Russian court, Seranne excited the passions of many men, and learned the secrets of the t'sar's best-hidden chamber. When at last she returned to London she was trapped in the role of a courtesan.. . though her heart still burned for the only man she had ever truly loved.

Genres: Historical Romance

248 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1981

About the author

Iris Gower (b. 1935) was a Swansea-based novelist. Her historical romances are all set within Swansea and Gower in South Wales.

Iris (real name Iris Davies) was born in Mumbles and lived in Derwen Fawr, a part of Sketty, Swansea. She had four adult children, though her husband of 48 years, Tudor Davies, died on 15 April 2002 after suffering a major stroke. She later lived with a partner, Peter.

She was one of the top-selling authors in the country, and was awarded an MA in Creative Writing by Cardiff University, as well as an Honorary Fellowship at the University of Wales, Swansea. She wrote and published around 40 books including 26 novels.

Gower died at Singleton Hospital, Swansea on 20 July, 2010. She was 75 years old.

Reviews

[Mermarie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a lot of rambling and mostly spoilers. :D



Seranne Hussey was a rich orphan tucked away in the sticks in her drab cover-it-all getup when fashionista aunt Mildred came swooping in to pump some life back into the country estate. First she started redecorating in the perfect mode and styles of the ton, then she proceeded to work on her young niece. And man, what a deathtrap meddling with Seranne is. Aunt Mildred was the most meddlesome, but still yet heartfelt, old crockery I've ever witnessed in HF. She setup camp and a Bachelorette like party, where Seranne is introduced to the Cornwallis clan, Fenn & Dervil.



Old Mildred ain't nobody's fucking fool, that's for true. EVERYONE..I mean, even pompous Dervil is incapable of escaping Mildred's machinations. She is usually a step-ahead of everything and can predict outcomes, but unfortunately Seranne's pick was Fenn, with his egg-shell sparkling charm, the wafts of cologne, the immaculate dress, the voice smooth and accommodating; and especially the hungry shark-like eyes. Her immediate dislike of the up in coming heir, Dervil, in his arrogant setdowns, drew her closer to Fenn, despite Mildred's staunch protests. Seranne sneaks into Fenn's room during the night and her former dowdy lil' miss antics are discarded for some great, explosive loveplay. Seranne's overnight swoonage and saccharine devotion put a stilt into Mildred's plans, but Dervil was quite put-off to be setup STILL with his brother's leavings, and Fenn had no plans to offer for Seranne himself even though he'd mirrored her confessions of luzz:

OF COURSE I LOVE YOU, BABY. KISS KISS.. POKE POKE. Who wouldn't?


Seranne's constantly seeking confirmation set Fenn on the run and old Mildred sets the stage to throw Dervil & Seranne together, but Sera ain't havin' it.



Ultimately, Dervil rescues(lol) Sera from an apparent staged rape by the ever helpful auntie, and finishes the job himself. This is a rare treat that we BR junkies have seen only a handful of times in the past and can only imply one thing:



Because somewhere along the way, Dervil rapes the face of Fenn from Sera's mind, and the bastage who he peeled off of her during her bout of terror and screaming, but evidently Dervil comes to the conclusion that Sera's to blame for it ALL. But you shoor as feck don't hear him complaining that she set the mood for his ball & bat time. Dervil is forced to marry Sera due to a pregnancy, and Dervil knows Fenn can't drop any kids off in the pool, so yep, Fairytale wedding.

Now these scatterbrained heroines, with their unicorn dismounting abortion home-kits, rankle my nerves to a festering degree because it's always a staircase, an emotional overload, a horse, a trip over a random bit of vegetation, to set the resentment stage between the h/H. YEAH, children CAN be an inconvenience, but nothing more inconvenient in novels where the cast globe-trots and whose pissing matches are surely to rival that of said children, therein there's no reason or rush for anyone to grow up anytime soon. Children are so unfashionable in HF, not quite Hollywoodized yet.

On a rescue mission to bring Fenn back to England, Dervil & Sera are separated in a storm and both held captive by Gypsies on other ends of the camp. Some of the torture and executions dealt in the name of adultery, would easily rival the Salem Witch Trials' ethical practices. Drawn & Quartered, horse-whipped and when Sera inquired 'bout the fault of the man who had been involved with the woman, who was not his wife, he said:

"Punish? Of course he will not punish. He is a weak man and led astray by the cunning of a woman. Men are governed by their bodies, women by their heads."

LOL. Nothing would have suited me better than to have been the culprit of airborne flu chemical warfare or something equally unpleasant on that entire freakin' tribe. >:|




OF COURSE, Sera was RESCUED(lol) again by Tsar Alexander's soldiers and taken into his care, but in typical Sera fashion, her rescues generally mean MORE INCOMING HARDSHIPS and it doth, indeed. She's pimped out by her brother-in-law Fenn to the Tsar himself, whilst guards stood by front-row seats, drugged repeatedly to instill sexual feelz 'cause apparently her sex-drive dropped to an Ice Maiden degree(maybe it was the fact that she was likely trying to stay alive in those temps?) after her first rapist aka the hero, left his eternal marking. The aphrodisiacs & love-potions must have ran in the fuckin' rivers of the Russian landscape, because everytime something hit a dry patch, someone twiddled their fingers or sighed at the drudgery of scandalous royal court life, it was all: BREAK OUT THE SPANISH FLY KEGS, BABY, WE GOT COMPANY! Dervil's big misunderstanding came in the sight of Sera's Spanish Fly induced attack on the Tsar, and natch Fenn didn't make a peep. God, if a secondary hero deserved to die more, it was Fenn. Blood got in my eyes quite a few times when his secondary hero, second-son swindling and conniving meant something BAD was coming. He was simply allowed to exist for PC reasons, methinks. I feel like there's this great injustice ongoing in the Literary World, and I want his skull under my bootheels.



I seriously was gaping a few times in this lovely covered book, but my inability to believe the heroine ever having truly grown from her country bumpkin roots and childishness, took a downward spiral. Even after Fenn & Sera's return to England, and she had even PROFESSED she had money to venture on into her life ALONE or whatever she desired, Fenn STILL tried to pimp her out to his cronies. Sera's slappy hand motions and "Naaaaaaeeee" were oppressive to me, because it felt like she didn't truly make enough noise, y'know?? She CONTINUED to remain in some rich titled lord's London house with Fenn, and Mildred had to drag her out of that porn palace until eventually she ran half naked in the middle of the night to her husband's house after finally being told that he was still ALIVE. Sera's overall defiance was about as sturdy as her legs were after Dervil's 6 hr rape train. Even in the end, it was Mildred that hand delivered the HEA. Why would Mildred even suggest Sera had grown up, at all? WHERE? WHEN???

3 1/2 stars solid for the OH NO YOU DIDN'T phases. :D

[ANGELINA · Rating 3 out of 5]

Since this was written around 1980, there are several elements familiar to those early bodice rippers, so you've been warned!

This novel, set in the 19thc, starts out with the familiar two-brothers-and-one-woman, as innocent Seranne is encouraged by he sophisticated aunt/guardian to encourage darkly handsome Dervil, while she prefers his younger brother, golden boy charmer Fenn, who soon charms his way into her bed. While Seranne dreams of orange blossoms and rice (didn't know about the birds' tummies back then), Fenn grows bored (after only two times) and is anxious to escape. Seranne soon finds herself with Dervil as temporary guardian, and when an unfortunate incident with an overzealous (a.k.a. horny) suitor gives Dervil the impression she's of easy virtue (he found out about Fenn), Seranne, who already disliked him, now thinks he's an unreasonable, arrogant jerk. His subsequent actions (forcing a "seduction" on her) don't do anything to improve her opinion, but her subsequent pregnancy leads to her becoming his wife.

Despite their both feeling trapped, and Seranne losing the baby, soon they're both having a change of heart and stop seeing their marriage ad a misfortune. One place they're very compatible is in bed, and Seranne comes to regret losing her virginity to Fenn, wishing she had saved it for Dervil.

Later, a seafaring misfortune leaves each believing the other one's dead, and Seranne winds up living with gypsies, one of whom decides he wants her for a bride. Meanwhile, Dervil is nursed back to health by a young peasant woman called Mon, who falls for him and does her best to hinder his search for Seranne (the gypsy camp is not far away, and Mon has figured out who she is), and this includes slipping him one of those "horny drugs", (as I call them) and they share a night of (for him, drug induced) passion, which leads to more of the same, sans the drugs. (He found out what she had done and was angry, but he got over it.)

Without giving away all the detail, I'll say that Seranne goes through many trials and tribulations amongst the gypsies, yet manages to keep from sharing a bed with her ardent suitor (no easy task), wanting no other man to touch her after being with Dervil, (whom she now realizes is her one true love) even though she has no reason to believe he's still alive. Through some dramatic events, she finds herself rescued, only to have a very bad case of "out of the frying pan and into the fire", as she finds herself the (very) unwilling mistress of the Czar (I kid you not), courtesy of her rotten brother-in-law, who's more than willing to sacrificed her to his own plans and ambitions.

Dervil, meanwhile, decides to leave end his relationship with Mon, as he can't stop thinking of his beloved Seranne, and wants to find out once and for all if she's dead or alive. Mon, despite her aching heart, lets him go, and doesn't try to influence his decision by telling him she's pregnant. She determines to raise their child on her own.

In a case of extremely terrible timing (helped along by creepy Fenn), Dervil finds Seranne while she's in bed with the Czar, apparently in the throes of passion. He leaves in disgust, with her not knowing he was there. (What he didn't know was that, due to her lack of response to the czar's lovemaking, Seranne was unknowingly given the same type of horny concoction Mon gave Dervil, with the same results. Unlike Dervil, who enjoyed his later, un-drugged bed romps with Mon, Sefanne never came close to liking anything the Czar subjected her to, particularly when they sometimes had an audience (gross)!

When Seranne gains her freedom and returns to her homeland, she finds out her husband's alive but wants nothing to do with her and won't let her try to explain, her brother-in-law-from-hell has further vile plans for her, and her aunt attempts to help Seranne get her life back together.

From there, the story's a bit of a letdown, as it seems rushed, and Seranne and Dervil should have had more scenes together, especially after Dervil figures out what really happened with the Czar.

It's not a bad story, but it could have done without that whole business with the Czar, and spent more time on Seranne and Dervil's marriage. If you decide to skip this one, it's not a terrible loss.