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Beyond Paradise
Although Sylvie's parents have betrothed her to a wealthy womanizer, she yearns for the dashing pirate hunter who promises adventure—and takes her to the local jail to see what a real pirate looks like. But when Sylvie meets Jacques, she's stunned to discover that this bandit stirs her senses like no other man has.
Jacques is shocked to receive another—unchaperoned—visit from the young beauty originally escorted by his captor. He is intrigued that a country squire's daughter would take such risks. Realizing Sylvie's curiosity could be his only means of escape, Jacques tricks her into releasing him and then kidnaps her, taking her hostage aboard his ship. After much gentle prodding, he manages to melt Sylvie's icy reserve. But when the other two men in her life catch up with Jacques's ship, a battle ensues. Now Sylvie must decide where her heart truly belongs.
Jacques is shocked to receive another—unchaperoned—visit from the young beauty originally escorted by his captor. He is intrigued that a country squire's daughter would take such risks. Realizing Sylvie's curiosity could be his only means of escape, Jacques tricks her into releasing him and then kidnaps her, taking her hostage aboard his ship. After much gentle prodding, he manages to melt Sylvie's icy reserve. But when the other two men in her life catch up with Jacques's ship, a battle ensues. Now Sylvie must decide where her heart truly belongs.
384 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published December 1, 2003
About the author
Elizabeth Doyle
20 books5 followersI grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts and went to prep school at Winsor. But aside from being a good student, I was a horrible teenager. And I know my parents are glad it's over.
I went to the New College of the University of Southern Florida, a really neat school that no one has ever heard of. It's a terrific little college, modeled after the New College at Oxford, which was called "New College" because it was built as recently as 1379 AD! I met my future husband there, but things didn't go smoothly between us in the beginning. To start with, he wasn't interested in me! Just a little problem. But I was pretty confident with men, and kept pursuing him until he finally gave in. We dated for most of college, except for a little while when I was studying in Europe. He nearly got thrown out of the audience at my baccalaureate exam when he tried to defend me against what he thought was an unfair question. I thought that was pretty romantic, even though I was completely able to defend myself!
When he decided to propose marriage, he learned something very unexpected about me - that I may not seem it, but I'm secretly old-fashioned. The ring didn't have to be so expensive, but there had to be one. And bended knee would be a nice touch. So he actually went to Alaska and got a job on a fishing boat up there, so he could earn money for the ring. They put him under the boat in a factory where he had to flip fish on a conveyor belt for twelve hours at a time! When he came back, he looked and smelled terrible, but he cleaned himself up, and proposed just right.
But our trials weren't over. One month before our wedding, I was in a small town, watching the sunset from the top of an abandoned building, when I was arrested and put in jail! The police said that the building was unsafe or something, and that nobody was supposed to be up there. They were very obnoxious about it, and subsequently, one of the arresting officers starred as a villain in one of novels. But their pumped-up charges couldn't hold up, and I made it to my wedding! My husband became a criminal defense attorney.
We now live in rural Texas, way out in the country. We lead a pretty private life with our pets. I volunteer nearly full time on behalf of animals who are killed at Austin's animal shelter. I write pleas for each individual animal before it dies, describing how cute it is, and how to adopt it. These pleas are published in the No-Kill Handbill, of which I became the editor in 2000. My husband is a criminal defense attorney, and he loves to brag about his romance-writing wife! The question his colleagues ask him the most frequently? "Is it hard to live up to those romantic heroes in the books?" His answer? A wry smile and "No, it comes naturally."
I went to the New College of the University of Southern Florida, a really neat school that no one has ever heard of. It's a terrific little college, modeled after the New College at Oxford, which was called "New College" because it was built as recently as 1379 AD! I met my future husband there, but things didn't go smoothly between us in the beginning. To start with, he wasn't interested in me! Just a little problem. But I was pretty confident with men, and kept pursuing him until he finally gave in. We dated for most of college, except for a little while when I was studying in Europe. He nearly got thrown out of the audience at my baccalaureate exam when he tried to defend me against what he thought was an unfair question. I thought that was pretty romantic, even though I was completely able to defend myself!
When he decided to propose marriage, he learned something very unexpected about me - that I may not seem it, but I'm secretly old-fashioned. The ring didn't have to be so expensive, but there had to be one. And bended knee would be a nice touch. So he actually went to Alaska and got a job on a fishing boat up there, so he could earn money for the ring. They put him under the boat in a factory where he had to flip fish on a conveyor belt for twelve hours at a time! When he came back, he looked and smelled terrible, but he cleaned himself up, and proposed just right.
But our trials weren't over. One month before our wedding, I was in a small town, watching the sunset from the top of an abandoned building, when I was arrested and put in jail! The police said that the building was unsafe or something, and that nobody was supposed to be up there. They were very obnoxious about it, and subsequently, one of the arresting officers starred as a villain in one of novels. But their pumped-up charges couldn't hold up, and I made it to my wedding! My husband became a criminal defense attorney.
We now live in rural Texas, way out in the country. We lead a pretty private life with our pets. I volunteer nearly full time on behalf of animals who are killed at Austin's animal shelter. I write pleas for each individual animal before it dies, describing how cute it is, and how to adopt it. These pleas are published in the No-Kill Handbill, of which I became the editor in 2000. My husband is a criminal defense attorney, and he loves to brag about his romance-writing wife! The question his colleagues ask him the most frequently? "Is it hard to live up to those romantic heroes in the books?" His answer? A wry smile and "No, it comes naturally."
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Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review
June 30, 2021
Deaf reader reviewing books with deaf characters. This book is listed on my ranked list of books with deaf characters.
This book had the potential to be amazing. I love the writing style and self-awareness, the debates and personalities. The humor is also spot on for me. If the author had just left Jacques hard of hearing rather than trying to shock the reader with "complete" deafness, everything would have been perfect. Honestly, this would have been one star if I hadn't spent the majority of the novel pretending the reveal had never happened, and went on to continue reading him as HoH.
As a hard of hearing character, Jacques is an excellent representation: he can lipread well if there is enough light and the speaker is facing him; Sylvie notices his "distinctive style of pronunciation" which isn't necessarily an accent; he rejects pity from others and doesn't accept he has limits; and his crew, captain, and captive are all accommodating (facing him, waving from afar, signing, etc.). Jacques is multilingual: French, Spanish, English, and signed language. All this is excellent, and made me so happy. Until...
Until the author made the absolute hare-brained decision to make a "big, shocking reveal" during an argument: Jacques is completely deaf since birth. Well, now all that lipreading and near-perfect speech doesn't make sense, especially when we discover his backstory:
His parents abandoned him (at an unclear age) at an asylum, where he was abused. He was believed to be "mentally deficient." Unclear if his deafness was congenital, progressive, or sudden. He just says he was "born this way," but that's not a reliable statement considering in the past, parents have often tried to deny or affirm causes of deafness such as genetics, illness, or accident. Anyway, Jacques learned signs to communicate with other inmates (unclear if others were deaf, but likely). When he is twelve, he's hired to work on a merchant's ship, though in the first few years he couldn't read lips at all. (Later, Jacques clarifies he was bought from the asylum and kept as a pet, treated like a wild animal.) As a child, when he learned signs at the asylum, he assumes the speaking hearing wardens are without language (which is accurate to the deaf of deaf experience). This whole backstory is definitely disjointed, and we only get bits and pieces throughout the novel.
But you know what we never see at all? Jacques learning to speak. There's no mention of speech therapy or oral education. So, with no hearing at all, and practically no exposure to spoken language until age 12, Jacques somehow can read 100% of three languages (regardless of the speaker's facial hair, accents, or stranger status). He can also lipread perfectly from a distance, though this is an inconsistent ability. And for a man who cannot hear anything since birth and seemingly has had no oral education or speech therapy, he has a literally unbelievable control of his voice, able to clearly enunciate at several different volumes, including whispers. So he's either lying about never hearing a sound in his life or he's a prodigy (almost a carbon copy of Marvel's Maya Lopez/Echo's abilities).
(Note: I'm not saying profoundly/totally deaf people cannot speak well, especially because I am one of them. But I have had more than 18 years of speech therapy. If there is anyone who is or knows of someone born totally deaf and is able to speak and lipread three languages near-perfectly without oral education/speech therapy, please correct me.)
I'm going to speedrun through a few things that stick out:
- In moments of fighting, Jacques gets an adrenaline rush (as one does) that makes him "almost hear" his crew's yelling, and then he feels "really, truly alive." Not sure if the author intended it, but she's associated hearing with living.
- Jacques refuses to teach Sylvie his signed language. Then they have sex and he decides to teach her a few signs. She then agrees to marry him (again) but this time willingly.
- At the end of the novel, when Jacques and Sylvia live richly in Paris, they mention they go to the theater every night. Does Jacques really enjoy that? Seems he's just going with friends and hiding his disability.
We have to discuss the ending.
I've never cringed harder than when Blanchet, the man who bought and abused Jacques, shows up and attacks Sylvie at their home in Paris. And there's this whole dialog where Jacques, who magically appears to rescue his wife, demands why Blanchet hates him so much. Blanchet claims that Jacques is an animal and he "refuses to let him forget it," and Jacques realizes that Blanchet is so desperate to feel superior that he just dehumanizes others. The thing is supposed to be some kind of climactic, cathartic "moral," where we definitively "prove" that deafness doesn't mean lesser than, or animal/parrot. Oh, and that women and disabled people are both human beings. Wow, amazing, she cried sarcastically. Anyway, they dump Blanchet's body in the Seine, and now Jacques is "finally free."
Please, spare us the cringey, metaphorical, ableist tripe with Blanchet. (Alexandre-Louis-Paul Blanchet was an educator of the deaf in mid-nineteenth century France who advocated for the oral method, but I'm not sure if the author knows this or if it's a coincidence. We never get character Blanchet's given name(s).)
The author should have stopped with Sylvie's letter home and Chantal making eyes at Jervais, then did the Epilog from there. There was no need whatsoever for that whole deal with Blanchet.
I can find little info about the author, and there's nothing included in my book about her or any acknowledgements, which indicates to me that she had no sensitivity readers to help her with Jacques.
This book had the potential to be amazing. I love the writing style and self-awareness, the debates and personalities. The humor is also spot on for me. If the author had just left Jacques hard of hearing rather than trying to shock the reader with "complete" deafness, everything would have been perfect. Honestly, this would have been one star if I hadn't spent the majority of the novel pretending the reveal had never happened, and went on to continue reading him as HoH.
As a hard of hearing character, Jacques is an excellent representation: he can lipread well if there is enough light and the speaker is facing him; Sylvie notices his "distinctive style of pronunciation" which isn't necessarily an accent; he rejects pity from others and doesn't accept he has limits; and his crew, captain, and captive are all accommodating (facing him, waving from afar, signing, etc.). Jacques is multilingual: French, Spanish, English, and signed language. All this is excellent, and made me so happy. Until...
Until the author made the absolute hare-brained decision to make a "big, shocking reveal" during an argument: Jacques is completely deaf since birth. Well, now all that lipreading and near-perfect speech doesn't make sense, especially when we discover his backstory:
His parents abandoned him (at an unclear age) at an asylum, where he was abused. He was believed to be "mentally deficient." Unclear if his deafness was congenital, progressive, or sudden. He just says he was "born this way," but that's not a reliable statement considering in the past, parents have often tried to deny or affirm causes of deafness such as genetics, illness, or accident. Anyway, Jacques learned signs to communicate with other inmates (unclear if others were deaf, but likely). When he is twelve, he's hired to work on a merchant's ship, though in the first few years he couldn't read lips at all. (Later, Jacques clarifies he was bought from the asylum and kept as a pet, treated like a wild animal.) As a child, when he learned signs at the asylum, he assumes the speaking hearing wardens are without language (which is accurate to the deaf of deaf experience). This whole backstory is definitely disjointed, and we only get bits and pieces throughout the novel.
But you know what we never see at all? Jacques learning to speak. There's no mention of speech therapy or oral education. So, with no hearing at all, and practically no exposure to spoken language until age 12, Jacques somehow can read 100% of three languages (regardless of the speaker's facial hair, accents, or stranger status). He can also lipread perfectly from a distance, though this is an inconsistent ability. And for a man who cannot hear anything since birth and seemingly has had no oral education or speech therapy, he has a literally unbelievable control of his voice, able to clearly enunciate at several different volumes, including whispers. So he's either lying about never hearing a sound in his life or he's a prodigy (almost a carbon copy of Marvel's Maya Lopez/Echo's abilities).
(Note: I'm not saying profoundly/totally deaf people cannot speak well, especially because I am one of them. But I have had more than 18 years of speech therapy. If there is anyone who is or knows of someone born totally deaf and is able to speak and lipread three languages near-perfectly without oral education/speech therapy, please correct me.)
I'm going to speedrun through a few things that stick out:
- In moments of fighting, Jacques gets an adrenaline rush (as one does) that makes him "almost hear" his crew's yelling, and then he feels "really, truly alive." Not sure if the author intended it, but she's associated hearing with living.
- Jacques refuses to teach Sylvie his signed language. Then they have sex and he decides to teach her a few signs. She then agrees to marry him (again) but this time willingly.
- At the end of the novel, when Jacques and Sylvia live richly in Paris, they mention they go to the theater every night. Does Jacques really enjoy that? Seems he's just going with friends and hiding his disability.
We have to discuss the ending.
I've never cringed harder than when Blanchet, the man who bought and abused Jacques, shows up and attacks Sylvie at their home in Paris. And there's this whole dialog where Jacques, who magically appears to rescue his wife, demands why Blanchet hates him so much. Blanchet claims that Jacques is an animal and he "refuses to let him forget it," and Jacques realizes that Blanchet is so desperate to feel superior that he just dehumanizes others. The thing is supposed to be some kind of climactic, cathartic "moral," where we definitively "prove" that deafness doesn't mean lesser than, or animal/parrot. Oh, and that women and disabled people are both human beings. Wow, amazing, she cried sarcastically. Anyway, they dump Blanchet's body in the Seine, and now Jacques is "finally free."
Please, spare us the cringey, metaphorical, ableist tripe with Blanchet. (Alexandre-Louis-Paul Blanchet was an educator of the deaf in mid-nineteenth century France who advocated for the oral method, but I'm not sure if the author knows this or if it's a coincidence. We never get character Blanchet's given name(s).)
The author should have stopped with Sylvie's letter home and Chantal making eyes at Jervais, then did the Epilog from there. There was no need whatsoever for that whole deal with Blanchet.
I can find little info about the author, and there's nothing included in my book about her or any acknowledgements, which indicates to me that she had no sensitivity readers to help her with Jacques.
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