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Legend of Morgan #1
Sweet Savage Love
Ginny Brandon is swept from the ballrooms of Paris to the desert sands of Mexico and into the arms of charismatic mercenary Steve Morgan. But this fearless heroine and "hero of all heroes" must first endure countless unforeseen dangers before they can enjoy sensual, exhilarating passion that burns between them.
636 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1974
260 people are currently reading
3298 people want to read
About the author
Rosemary Rogers
113 books420 followersThere is more than one author with this name
Rosemary Jansz Navaratnam Rogers Kadison
Rosemary Jansz was born on 7 December 1932 in Panadura, British Ceylon (now known as Sri Lanka), she was the oldest child of Dutch-Portuguese settlers, Barbara "Allan" and Cyril Jansz. Her father was a wealthy educator who owned three posh private schools. She was raised in colonial splendor: dozens of servants, no work, summers at European spas, a chaperone everywhere she went. A dreamy child, she wrote her first novel at eight, and all through her teens scribbled madly romantic epics in imitation of her favorite writers: Sir Walter Scott, Alexandre Dumas and Rafael Sabatini.
At 17, Rosemary rebelled against a feudal upbringing and went to the University of Ceylon, where she studied three years. She horrified her family by taking a job as a reporter, and two years later marrying with Summa Navaratnam, a Ceylonese track star known as "the fastest man in Asia." The marriage had two daughters. Unhappily, he often sprinted after other women. Disappointed with her husband, in 1960, she moved with her two daughters and took off for London.
In Europe she met her future second husband, Leroy Rogers, an african-american. "He was the first man," she recalls, "who made me feel like a real woman." After getting a divorce from her first husband, she married Rogers in his home town, St. Louis, Missouri. They moved with her family to California, where she had two sons. Six years later, when that marriage broke up, Rosemary was left with four children to support on her $4,200 salary as a typist for the Solano County Parks Department. In 1969, in the face of a socialist takeover of Ceylon, her parents fled the island with only ?100, giving Rosemary two more dependents. At 37, the rich girl from Ceylon was on her uppers in Fairfield.
Every night for a year, Rogers worked to perfect a manuscript that she had written as a child, rewriting it 24 times. When she was satisfied with her work, she sent the manuscript to Avon, which quickly purchased the novel. That novel, ''Sweet Savage Love'', skyrocketed to the top of bestseller lists, and became one of the most popular historical romances of all time. Her second novel, ''Dark Fires'', sold two million copies in its first three months of release. Her first three novels sold a combined 10 million copies. The fourth, ''Wicked Loving Lies'' sold 3 million copies in its first month of publication. Rosemary Rogers became one of the legendaries "Avon Queens of Historical Romance". The difference between she and most of others romance writers is not the violence of her stories, it is the intensity. She says: "My heroines are me", and certainly her life could be one of her novels.
In September of 1984, Rosemary married a third time with Christopher Kadison, but it was a very brief marriage and they soon began to live apart. "I'd like to live with a man," she admits, "but I find men in real life don't come up to my fantasies. I want culture, spirit and sex all rolled up together."
Today single, Rosemary lives quietly in a small dramatic villa perched on a crag above the Pacific near Carmel. Her four children are now away from home and she continues to write.
Rosemary passed away at the age of 87 on November 12, 2019 in Carmel, California where she called home since the early 1970s.
Rosemary Jansz Navaratnam Rogers Kadison
Rosemary Jansz was born on 7 December 1932 in Panadura, British Ceylon (now known as Sri Lanka), she was the oldest child of Dutch-Portuguese settlers, Barbara "Allan" and Cyril Jansz. Her father was a wealthy educator who owned three posh private schools. She was raised in colonial splendor: dozens of servants, no work, summers at European spas, a chaperone everywhere she went. A dreamy child, she wrote her first novel at eight, and all through her teens scribbled madly romantic epics in imitation of her favorite writers: Sir Walter Scott, Alexandre Dumas and Rafael Sabatini.
At 17, Rosemary rebelled against a feudal upbringing and went to the University of Ceylon, where she studied three years. She horrified her family by taking a job as a reporter, and two years later marrying with Summa Navaratnam, a Ceylonese track star known as "the fastest man in Asia." The marriage had two daughters. Unhappily, he often sprinted after other women. Disappointed with her husband, in 1960, she moved with her two daughters and took off for London.
In Europe she met her future second husband, Leroy Rogers, an african-american. "He was the first man," she recalls, "who made me feel like a real woman." After getting a divorce from her first husband, she married Rogers in his home town, St. Louis, Missouri. They moved with her family to California, where she had two sons. Six years later, when that marriage broke up, Rosemary was left with four children to support on her $4,200 salary as a typist for the Solano County Parks Department. In 1969, in the face of a socialist takeover of Ceylon, her parents fled the island with only ?100, giving Rosemary two more dependents. At 37, the rich girl from Ceylon was on her uppers in Fairfield.
Every night for a year, Rogers worked to perfect a manuscript that she had written as a child, rewriting it 24 times. When she was satisfied with her work, she sent the manuscript to Avon, which quickly purchased the novel. That novel, ''Sweet Savage Love'', skyrocketed to the top of bestseller lists, and became one of the most popular historical romances of all time. Her second novel, ''Dark Fires'', sold two million copies in its first three months of release. Her first three novels sold a combined 10 million copies. The fourth, ''Wicked Loving Lies'' sold 3 million copies in its first month of publication. Rosemary Rogers became one of the legendaries "Avon Queens of Historical Romance". The difference between she and most of others romance writers is not the violence of her stories, it is the intensity. She says: "My heroines are me", and certainly her life could be one of her novels.
In September of 1984, Rosemary married a third time with Christopher Kadison, but it was a very brief marriage and they soon began to live apart. "I'd like to live with a man," she admits, "but I find men in real life don't come up to my fantasies. I want culture, spirit and sex all rolled up together."
Today single, Rosemary lives quietly in a small dramatic villa perched on a crag above the Pacific near Carmel. Her four children are now away from home and she continues to write.
Rosemary passed away at the age of 87 on November 12, 2019 in Carmel, California where she called home since the early 1970s.
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January 13, 2019
from the Earth Journal of Scientific Analyst SLJLK92349UO,
Earth Invasion Exploratory Unit
My studies of the human kind as they eke out their muddy existence on this muddy ball of earth, third from its star, has of course included a comparative survey of these creatures' various art forms, including their literature. My predilection has naturally been towards their so-called "Science Fiction" genre; as I am a member of Robot Planet's advance team stationed on this planet to prepare for our eminent invasion, it seemed an obvious fit and an ideal place to study the vagaries of the human race. Later, I began studying other genres - and realized I have been incorrect in my choices and assumptions. Foolish Scientific Analyst am I! After reading this novel Sweet Savage Love, it is now clear that the best path to understanding this species is through the so-called "Bodice Ripper" genre. All that time wasted on Science Fiction! The realization hit this Scientific Analyst as suddenly and as tempestuously as a bodice being ripped from the ripe, peach-colored body of a highly-strung but plucky young lady by a notorious alpha male/lover/rapist whose manliness is illustrated by the hairiness of his torso, his willingness to ravish all women and kill all men, and his inability to pronounce the three words "I love you."
Sweet Savage Love is not only a novel of romance, it is also a *cough* Historical Novel. This is where my initial attraction to this genre and this book began. It is a novel of the American Old West and the revolution against Emperor Maximilian in Mexico. And so it is a Western and a War Novel. It is also an Exciting Novel! Little did this Scientific Analyst realize how immersive an experience this would be, and how pleasurable. The "Western" genre has held very little interest for this Scientific Analyst, as I have scarce interest in reading about a small sliver of a time frame within the American plutocracy's past - in particular as this time frame appears to encapsulate all of the naivete and machismo and reactionary tendencies of this people. I sneered at this genre... foolish Scientific Analyst am I! Sweet Savage Love's historical sweep and exciting scenes of violence and lavish lifestyles and incredible journeys and amusing set pieces describing dining, decadence, and erotic dancing held me captive like a virginal and emotional but surprisingly sharp-tongued young lady captured by a brutal but attractive alpha male/lover/rapist and then secreted away in a luxurious bordello as he figures out his next move and how to best evade his own capture, while plundering her on a nightly, sometimes daily basis.
As I read on, I realized that immersion within past time frames of historical significance was only a part of my pleasure. I realized that this book was teaching me many things! This Scientific Analyst learned much about aberrant human nature, its highs and its lows, the over the top emotions and the physically and emotionally violent romances and the at times strangely stylized and at other times crudely direct way that humans express their desires to each other. As the characters chased each other, beat each other, experienced horrifying gang rape, were whipped and then tortured in dark cells and under burning suns, stuck knives into the necks of their enemies, donned disguises, inherited riches, uttered incredibly cruel and petty things to each other while panting, flirted and ravished and thrust tongues into each other's oral cavities and copulated more times than this reader could keep track of... this Scientific Analyst felt his own emotions begin to race! This Scientific Analyst gripped this book quite tightly because the book was quite gripping! This Scientific Analyst is eager to share this novel and others of its ilk with his brethren back on Robot Planet! This Scientific Analyst knows that his brothers and sisters will love it, if they can get past their natural embarrassment at reading such scandalous material.
This Scientific Analyst is certainly not ashamed to say that he quite enjoyed Sweet Savage Love... it was as enjoyable as a final, book-closing embrace between a fiery, violent, no longer virginal young lady who has really suffered and her beau, an angry, violent, sexually well-traveled young man who also has really suffered. This Scientific Analyst's mechanical components trembled with dark delight at the thought that there are many more books of the bodice-ripping persuasion to be read! This Scientific Analyst politely requests that his Robot Masters possibly consider delaying our glorious invasion for just a short while, so that further study of this genre can continue.
Earth Invasion Exploratory Unit
My studies of the human kind as they eke out their muddy existence on this muddy ball of earth, third from its star, has of course included a comparative survey of these creatures' various art forms, including their literature. My predilection has naturally been towards their so-called "Science Fiction" genre; as I am a member of Robot Planet's advance team stationed on this planet to prepare for our eminent invasion, it seemed an obvious fit and an ideal place to study the vagaries of the human race. Later, I began studying other genres - and realized I have been incorrect in my choices and assumptions. Foolish Scientific Analyst am I! After reading this novel Sweet Savage Love, it is now clear that the best path to understanding this species is through the so-called "Bodice Ripper" genre. All that time wasted on Science Fiction! The realization hit this Scientific Analyst as suddenly and as tempestuously as a bodice being ripped from the ripe, peach-colored body of a highly-strung but plucky young lady by a notorious alpha male/lover/rapist whose manliness is illustrated by the hairiness of his torso, his willingness to ravish all women and kill all men, and his inability to pronounce the three words "I love you."
Sweet Savage Love is not only a novel of romance, it is also a *cough* Historical Novel. This is where my initial attraction to this genre and this book began. It is a novel of the American Old West and the revolution against Emperor Maximilian in Mexico. And so it is a Western and a War Novel. It is also an Exciting Novel! Little did this Scientific Analyst realize how immersive an experience this would be, and how pleasurable. The "Western" genre has held very little interest for this Scientific Analyst, as I have scarce interest in reading about a small sliver of a time frame within the American plutocracy's past - in particular as this time frame appears to encapsulate all of the naivete and machismo and reactionary tendencies of this people. I sneered at this genre... foolish Scientific Analyst am I! Sweet Savage Love's historical sweep and exciting scenes of violence and lavish lifestyles and incredible journeys and amusing set pieces describing dining, decadence, and erotic dancing held me captive like a virginal and emotional but surprisingly sharp-tongued young lady captured by a brutal but attractive alpha male/lover/rapist and then secreted away in a luxurious bordello as he figures out his next move and how to best evade his own capture, while plundering her on a nightly, sometimes daily basis.
As I read on, I realized that immersion within past time frames of historical significance was only a part of my pleasure. I realized that this book was teaching me many things! This Scientific Analyst learned much about aberrant human nature, its highs and its lows, the over the top emotions and the physically and emotionally violent romances and the at times strangely stylized and at other times crudely direct way that humans express their desires to each other. As the characters chased each other, beat each other, experienced horrifying gang rape, were whipped and then tortured in dark cells and under burning suns, stuck knives into the necks of their enemies, donned disguises, inherited riches, uttered incredibly cruel and petty things to each other while panting, flirted and ravished and thrust tongues into each other's oral cavities and copulated more times than this reader could keep track of... this Scientific Analyst felt his own emotions begin to race! This Scientific Analyst gripped this book quite tightly because the book was quite gripping! This Scientific Analyst is eager to share this novel and others of its ilk with his brethren back on Robot Planet! This Scientific Analyst knows that his brothers and sisters will love it, if they can get past their natural embarrassment at reading such scandalous material.
This Scientific Analyst is certainly not ashamed to say that he quite enjoyed Sweet Savage Love... it was as enjoyable as a final, book-closing embrace between a fiery, violent, no longer virginal young lady who has really suffered and her beau, an angry, violent, sexually well-traveled young man who also has really suffered. This Scientific Analyst's mechanical components trembled with dark delight at the thought that there are many more books of the bodice-ripping persuasion to be read! This Scientific Analyst politely requests that his Robot Masters possibly consider delaying our glorious invasion for just a short while, so that further study of this genre can continue.
April 22, 2021
1.2 stars
For this month's #TBRChallenge, the prompt was Old School, which to me, means bodice rippers. This is not an area for some to enter but my first entry to romance was rippers and I maintain a complicated relationship with them today, and still they remain on my tbr. I can't say when this exactly was put on there but I'd say I've been meaning to read it for over 20yrs.
As I've called this a bodice ripper, I'm not sure it needs to be said but trigger warnings abound (racism, rape), especially sexual assault trauma. I also rushed to read this in two days, so if I sound a wee bit punchy in the review, please excuse.
This starts us off in 1862, first in France with 16yr old Virginia Brandon where her coming into womanhood has her cousin getting afflicted with guilty confused dick syndrome. We get ground work on Ginny learning to flirt and control men with her looks, which are so beautiful that lust abounds around her. We also learn that her father is a US senator of California and when the US Civil War is over, he promises to send for her. Her mother was French and brought them back to France after feeling abandoned by her husband but then dies, leaving Ginny in the care of her uncle.
The next introduction then moves to 24yr old Union Captain Steve Morgan guarding the senator's new wife in New Orleans. Sonya is tantalizingly scared of Steve and a southern belle resentful of the Union soldiers but when they get stuck in a cabin in a storm, “animalistic” urges take over. That's right our hero is now banging our heroine's stepmother. Which, yeah, I know, but after reading the whole book, sounds a little more bodice ripper whackadoodle than it turned out be; Ginny didn't grow-up with Sonya in mother-daughter relationship and then only knows her for a couple weeks and then Sonya is out of the story for the vast majority. Sonya really seems to just be an introduction to Steve's nonconsenual and consensual bangboi persona. And what a bangboi persona it was. If you're a woman who appears on page, you getting Steve. Not even godmother's are safe, but more on that later. Steve ends up killing a superior officer in a duel over his mistress and gets recruited by a man named Bishop to be a spy in a ring he has set-up. It's orchestrated to look like he escaped and off to spy and bang he goes.
Part two moves us forward four years and has Ginny in America. She first sees Steve from her hotel window as he shoots a man in the street, more of that tantalizingly scared attraction. We've moved on from the US Civil War and now are dealing with the second intervention Franco-Mexican War. Ginny's senator father supports France and has a plan to supply them with gold and guns, which he brilliantly decides to have Ginny and step-mother Sonya deliver under guise of traveling to California. Him being safe in D.C. I'm sure doesn't factor. Ginny is excited for the adventure until she sees one of their scouts is the guy she saw kill a man in the street. Steve Morgan and his spy ring, still working for the US, side with Mexico and they know all about the senator's gold. His mission is to ride with the wagon train and then steal the gold for their side. Now, you'd think this would be a great a time for some ripper wildness but Sonya just mainly wants Steve to keep his mouth shut about their affair in the past and they don't really talk with each other. I actually enjoyed how Ginny and Sonya had a good relationship. Steve first meets Ginny when he mistakes her for a prostitute. They cat fight and the groundwork for their enemies-to-lovers relationship is set.
“I should hope not, for men in love get far too sloppy,” Ginny retorted. “And then, they become too, too boring.”
In their wagon train, there is a man named Carl that Ginny practices more of her “womanly wiles” on and she gets some taste of adversity as trail life is rough. There's some of that doing tstl moments from her that have her coming off as a brat and allow for Steve to show his manly alphaness that is common in this era and ripper type and then Ginny's body betraying her mind as she asks Steve to take her virginity. Their first sex scene (and the vast majority of sex scenes to follow) starts off with non consensual vibes as we all know women have to be pressured into sex because wanting it would make her a slut, or so the messaging goes from this era. Again, with the sex scenes in this book, after the first initiating, it's fade to black and after the clothes come off, they're laying satisfied.
“Sometimes I feel that being a woman is worse than being a child—we have the intelligence and the feelings of adults, but we aren’t permitted to show them.”
There's a fight with Apaches and then Steve and his merry men are stealing the gold, Ginny manages to rip his face covering off, exposing him and Steve is taking her captive. This is where the story got really slow for me and kind of boring as they seemed to move around but we don't really get any setting and god help me, I'm going to be forced to say it, Ginny is nothing but shrill personality and Steve is a wooden alpha bangboi. Steve rapes her, he takes her to brothel to hide out for awhile, he sleeps with another woman then after climbs into bed with Ginny, Ginny knifes him and then they have sex with his blood getting on them both, some Stockholm Syndrome, and then he takes her to his home in Mexico. We're about 45% in.
Steve Morgan, the man she had so contemptuously called a half-breed—the man she’d believed to be nothing more than a professional gunfighter and a thief—he was the grandson of a Spanish grandee, the heir to millions?
Part three and four gives us more on Steve's background, he's half America from his father's side and half Mexican from his mother's. He's an heir and while both his parents are dead, his grandfather still tries to control him. This part was, again, slower for me as Steve's mainly out of the picture and it's all Ginny learning Steve has a sixteen year old fiance, growing close with Steve's cousin, and then being introduced to his grandfather. Learning a little bit about Ginny, the grandfather decides that Steve must marry her. Wedding preparations and waiting on Steve but also, never fear, we get a scene of Steve sleeping with a servant. Steve eventually comes back and is totes angry that Ginny has orchestrated him being engaged to her. There's some “gypsy dancing” that Ginny is just a siren at, a childhood friend appearance (you guessed it, Steve bangs her!, but also one of the few consensual sex to happen), and a marriage. Yep, Steve decides that he'll marry Ginny but it must be immediately and happen Right Now. Steve wanting this wedding completely comes out of left field and I'm not sure I fully understand why he decided this because he then leaves without saying goodbye to Ginny that night.
My God, he thought suddenly, I was in danger of falling in love with the woman, and I didn’t even know it. What a trap!
Enter a wily French soldier who has Steve and all his spy personas figured out and decides to take Ginny prisoner to flush Steve out. Banging his childhood friend has given Steve the clarity he needed to decide he loves Ginny and even though he knows it's a trap he decides to give himself up to save Ginny. But not so fast, when he is lead to the French soldier's room, he see's Ginny in only her robe and smiling at the French guy, Ginny set him up! Steve, doesn't know the French guy is wily. Steve then drowns in his feels. Meanwhile, Ginny will do anything to save Steve (she loves him too now. How? Why? Don't ask me). Ginny says she will sleep with the French guy and become his mistress if he spares Steve. They make the bargain but the next day as the soldiers are moving out a guy named Tom, a baddie you sort of meet earlier in the story, comes to take Ginny and makes her watch as the prisoners are shot and she thinks Steve is dead.
The ending of part four and then as we move onto Part five is where most of you are going to want to bow out, trigger warnings for rape and sexual trauma are grossly abundant. As I said, Ginny made a deal with the French guy, but it's a rape scene and then the next day Tom comes to take her as the French guy thinks he'll transport her to him but Tom decides to keep her and Ginny is then gang raped and made a camp follower where she daily is assaulted and sometimes sold by Tom to other men. Look, can rape and the trauma from it be done well in romance stories? Yes. Is it done well here? No. Ginny just isn't a well enough developed character for the gravity of this to work. It doesn't come off salacious, which, thank goodness, but the way her character has been a pretty empty vessel up to this point, makes this very cringing to read in a romance genre story that I'm mostly reading for emotional love (and some historical adventure). In a mental breakdown, Ginny ends up killing Tom and winds up in the arms of Michel, a previous French soldier admiring of hers. Anyway, if you wanted to skip part five all together, I wouldn't blame you.
Part six has Ginny being labeled a French courtesan and Michel's mistress. We get some real historical names and told Ginny parades around with them and brief mentions of the war. Another solider enters the picture, Miguel, and while Ginny is now Michel's mistress, he's off fighting the war, and Miguel thinks he must have Ginny. Miguel was actually a character I would have liked to know more about, about the only character that intrigued me. Ginny doesn't really care because she loved Steve and now that he's dead, she doesn't care what happens to her (I'd say it's all the trauma but what do I know?). Miguel is the one to finally reveal a secret to Ginny.
Steve Morgan was alive only because his body insisted upon survival. It was as simple as that.
What a reveal! The pov then shifts to Steve and we get to learn all about his trauma now. What fun! This is also where my Kindle decided to stop saving my notes, so it's going to be fast and probably vague from here on out. Instead of being killed, Steve was taken to the mines (the French guy might be wily but he's no liar!) to work where he endured horrific physical and mental torture and almost endured his own rape. His identity gets revealed and they decide to move him from the mines to building railroads. He goes from horrific conditions to awful. He also serendipitously sees Ginny riding by and smiling with Michel, he's all in with his theory that she set him up and his hatred is white hot. Miguel somehow learns where he is and while he's telling Ginny Steve is alive, he's having Steve and a couple other prisoners moved to a home to help rebuild a wall. Stay with me. There Steve has his own mental breakdown and kills a guard while the other prisoners kill the other guards. The woman who owns the home turns out to be his godmother and she recognizes his blue eyes and spares his life. He ends up banging his godmother (thought I forgot abut that, didn't you?) because bangboi. We then go back to Ginny and how she's Miguel's mistress now so she can get info on Steve. She ends up meeting Bishop, the one who recruited Steve for the spy ring and blackmailing him to send her to Steve. Part seven has her showing up at the house Steve has been staying at and while he's not there, his childhood friend is and Ginny loses her mind over the other woman.
Here is finally where Ginny's character got interesting and she took action and instead of being an empty vessel for things to happen to, she shows emotion and autonomy. She knife fights for her man, as one does, and kicks the other woman out. Steve shows up and still thinking she betrayed him, strangles her, but stops before he kills her and you guessed it, they have sex. There's a, umm, interesting scene, I guess you'd call it, where Ginny holds a knife to Steve's throat and makes him undress because she thinks to break through his anger and show him she loves and didn't betray him by having sex with him. Steve then precedes to blame her for all the men that raped her, leaves, has a trauma inducing return to the mines he was a prisoner at that also gives him a clarity breakthrough and he decides that while he's still angry that so many men had Ginny, he also can kind of see how it wasn't her fault and he loves her. Stand-up guy, I tell ya.
Most of this book only takes place over a year, which is wild to think about because so much happens to Ginny and Steve but so much is just meandering on the pages. There's historical names and the occasional events listed but the vast majority is to the side and for all the traveling these two do, I thought the setting and places were underused, never really felt their destinations. Same with the “epic adventure” that this and bodice rippers are supposed to have, we get a lot of mentions of Steve on his back but for being an adrenaline junkie, we sure miss out on all his spy missions and guerrillas activities. The ending, last 20-10%% gave me more of what I was looking for and Ginny's character came alive and we got some action but it didn't make up for the wandering and meandering that was the middle. Ginny is 21 and Steve 29 when this book ends and I know their story continues on, so maybe some of the growing they did here would be paid off in the next but I probably won't be continuing on. At no point did I believe in their love, Steve wants her in the beginning because of her beauty and he's a bangboi, Ginny is young and anger intrigued by him and ready to lose her virginity, sort of. He kidnaps her, she has to depend on him for survival, then trauma for everyone, then it's decided that they both love each other. Not enough history or love for me in this one.
For this month's #TBRChallenge, the prompt was Old School, which to me, means bodice rippers. This is not an area for some to enter but my first entry to romance was rippers and I maintain a complicated relationship with them today, and still they remain on my tbr. I can't say when this exactly was put on there but I'd say I've been meaning to read it for over 20yrs.
As I've called this a bodice ripper, I'm not sure it needs to be said but trigger warnings abound (racism, rape), especially sexual assault trauma. I also rushed to read this in two days, so if I sound a wee bit punchy in the review, please excuse.
This starts us off in 1862, first in France with 16yr old Virginia Brandon where her coming into womanhood has her cousin getting afflicted with guilty confused dick syndrome. We get ground work on Ginny learning to flirt and control men with her looks, which are so beautiful that lust abounds around her. We also learn that her father is a US senator of California and when the US Civil War is over, he promises to send for her. Her mother was French and brought them back to France after feeling abandoned by her husband but then dies, leaving Ginny in the care of her uncle.
The next introduction then moves to 24yr old Union Captain Steve Morgan guarding the senator's new wife in New Orleans. Sonya is tantalizingly scared of Steve and a southern belle resentful of the Union soldiers but when they get stuck in a cabin in a storm, “animalistic” urges take over. That's right our hero is now banging our heroine's stepmother. Which, yeah, I know, but after reading the whole book, sounds a little more bodice ripper whackadoodle than it turned out be; Ginny didn't grow-up with Sonya in mother-daughter relationship and then only knows her for a couple weeks and then Sonya is out of the story for the vast majority. Sonya really seems to just be an introduction to Steve's nonconsenual and consensual bangboi persona. And what a bangboi persona it was. If you're a woman who appears on page, you getting Steve. Not even godmother's are safe, but more on that later. Steve ends up killing a superior officer in a duel over his mistress and gets recruited by a man named Bishop to be a spy in a ring he has set-up. It's orchestrated to look like he escaped and off to spy and bang he goes.
Part two moves us forward four years and has Ginny in America. She first sees Steve from her hotel window as he shoots a man in the street, more of that tantalizingly scared attraction. We've moved on from the US Civil War and now are dealing with the second intervention Franco-Mexican War. Ginny's senator father supports France and has a plan to supply them with gold and guns, which he brilliantly decides to have Ginny and step-mother Sonya deliver under guise of traveling to California. Him being safe in D.C. I'm sure doesn't factor. Ginny is excited for the adventure until she sees one of their scouts is the guy she saw kill a man in the street. Steve Morgan and his spy ring, still working for the US, side with Mexico and they know all about the senator's gold. His mission is to ride with the wagon train and then steal the gold for their side. Now, you'd think this would be a great a time for some ripper wildness but Sonya just mainly wants Steve to keep his mouth shut about their affair in the past and they don't really talk with each other. I actually enjoyed how Ginny and Sonya had a good relationship. Steve first meets Ginny when he mistakes her for a prostitute. They cat fight and the groundwork for their enemies-to-lovers relationship is set.
“I should hope not, for men in love get far too sloppy,” Ginny retorted. “And then, they become too, too boring.”
In their wagon train, there is a man named Carl that Ginny practices more of her “womanly wiles” on and she gets some taste of adversity as trail life is rough. There's some of that doing tstl moments from her that have her coming off as a brat and allow for Steve to show his manly alphaness that is common in this era and ripper type and then Ginny's body betraying her mind as she asks Steve to take her virginity. Their first sex scene (and the vast majority of sex scenes to follow) starts off with non consensual vibes as we all know women have to be pressured into sex because wanting it would make her a slut, or so the messaging goes from this era. Again, with the sex scenes in this book, after the first initiating, it's fade to black and after the clothes come off, they're laying satisfied.
“Sometimes I feel that being a woman is worse than being a child—we have the intelligence and the feelings of adults, but we aren’t permitted to show them.”
There's a fight with Apaches and then Steve and his merry men are stealing the gold, Ginny manages to rip his face covering off, exposing him and Steve is taking her captive. This is where the story got really slow for me and kind of boring as they seemed to move around but we don't really get any setting and god help me, I'm going to be forced to say it, Ginny is nothing but shrill personality and Steve is a wooden alpha bangboi. Steve rapes her, he takes her to brothel to hide out for awhile, he sleeps with another woman then after climbs into bed with Ginny, Ginny knifes him and then they have sex with his blood getting on them both, some Stockholm Syndrome, and then he takes her to his home in Mexico. We're about 45% in.
Steve Morgan, the man she had so contemptuously called a half-breed—the man she’d believed to be nothing more than a professional gunfighter and a thief—he was the grandson of a Spanish grandee, the heir to millions?
Part three and four gives us more on Steve's background, he's half America from his father's side and half Mexican from his mother's. He's an heir and while both his parents are dead, his grandfather still tries to control him. This part was, again, slower for me as Steve's mainly out of the picture and it's all Ginny learning Steve has a sixteen year old fiance, growing close with Steve's cousin, and then being introduced to his grandfather. Learning a little bit about Ginny, the grandfather decides that Steve must marry her. Wedding preparations and waiting on Steve but also, never fear, we get a scene of Steve sleeping with a servant. Steve eventually comes back and is totes angry that Ginny has orchestrated him being engaged to her. There's some “gypsy dancing” that Ginny is just a siren at, a childhood friend appearance (you guessed it, Steve bangs her!, but also one of the few consensual sex to happen), and a marriage. Yep, Steve decides that he'll marry Ginny but it must be immediately and happen Right Now. Steve wanting this wedding completely comes out of left field and I'm not sure I fully understand why he decided this because he then leaves without saying goodbye to Ginny that night.
My God, he thought suddenly, I was in danger of falling in love with the woman, and I didn’t even know it. What a trap!
Enter a wily French soldier who has Steve and all his spy personas figured out and decides to take Ginny prisoner to flush Steve out. Banging his childhood friend has given Steve the clarity he needed to decide he loves Ginny and even though he knows it's a trap he decides to give himself up to save Ginny. But not so fast, when he is lead to the French soldier's room, he see's Ginny in only her robe and smiling at the French guy, Ginny set him up! Steve, doesn't know the French guy is wily. Steve then drowns in his feels. Meanwhile, Ginny will do anything to save Steve (she loves him too now. How? Why? Don't ask me). Ginny says she will sleep with the French guy and become his mistress if he spares Steve. They make the bargain but the next day as the soldiers are moving out a guy named Tom, a baddie you sort of meet earlier in the story, comes to take Ginny and makes her watch as the prisoners are shot and she thinks Steve is dead.
The ending of part four and then as we move onto Part five is where most of you are going to want to bow out, trigger warnings for rape and sexual trauma are grossly abundant. As I said, Ginny made a deal with the French guy, but it's a rape scene and then the next day Tom comes to take her as the French guy thinks he'll transport her to him but Tom decides to keep her and Ginny is then gang raped and made a camp follower where she daily is assaulted and sometimes sold by Tom to other men. Look, can rape and the trauma from it be done well in romance stories? Yes. Is it done well here? No. Ginny just isn't a well enough developed character for the gravity of this to work. It doesn't come off salacious, which, thank goodness, but the way her character has been a pretty empty vessel up to this point, makes this very cringing to read in a romance genre story that I'm mostly reading for emotional love (and some historical adventure). In a mental breakdown, Ginny ends up killing Tom and winds up in the arms of Michel, a previous French soldier admiring of hers. Anyway, if you wanted to skip part five all together, I wouldn't blame you.
Part six has Ginny being labeled a French courtesan and Michel's mistress. We get some real historical names and told Ginny parades around with them and brief mentions of the war. Another solider enters the picture, Miguel, and while Ginny is now Michel's mistress, he's off fighting the war, and Miguel thinks he must have Ginny. Miguel was actually a character I would have liked to know more about, about the only character that intrigued me. Ginny doesn't really care because she loved Steve and now that he's dead, she doesn't care what happens to her (I'd say it's all the trauma but what do I know?). Miguel is the one to finally reveal a secret to Ginny.
Steve Morgan was alive only because his body insisted upon survival. It was as simple as that.
What a reveal! The pov then shifts to Steve and we get to learn all about his trauma now. What fun! This is also where my Kindle decided to stop saving my notes, so it's going to be fast and probably vague from here on out. Instead of being killed, Steve was taken to the mines (the French guy might be wily but he's no liar!) to work where he endured horrific physical and mental torture and almost endured his own rape. His identity gets revealed and they decide to move him from the mines to building railroads. He goes from horrific conditions to awful. He also serendipitously sees Ginny riding by and smiling with Michel, he's all in with his theory that she set him up and his hatred is white hot. Miguel somehow learns where he is and while he's telling Ginny Steve is alive, he's having Steve and a couple other prisoners moved to a home to help rebuild a wall. Stay with me. There Steve has his own mental breakdown and kills a guard while the other prisoners kill the other guards. The woman who owns the home turns out to be his godmother and she recognizes his blue eyes and spares his life. He ends up banging his godmother (thought I forgot abut that, didn't you?) because bangboi. We then go back to Ginny and how she's Miguel's mistress now so she can get info on Steve. She ends up meeting Bishop, the one who recruited Steve for the spy ring and blackmailing him to send her to Steve. Part seven has her showing up at the house Steve has been staying at and while he's not there, his childhood friend is and Ginny loses her mind over the other woman.
Here is finally where Ginny's character got interesting and she took action and instead of being an empty vessel for things to happen to, she shows emotion and autonomy. She knife fights for her man, as one does, and kicks the other woman out. Steve shows up and still thinking she betrayed him, strangles her, but stops before he kills her and you guessed it, they have sex. There's a, umm, interesting scene, I guess you'd call it, where Ginny holds a knife to Steve's throat and makes him undress because she thinks to break through his anger and show him she loves and didn't betray him by having sex with him. Steve then precedes to blame her for all the men that raped her, leaves, has a trauma inducing return to the mines he was a prisoner at that also gives him a clarity breakthrough and he decides that while he's still angry that so many men had Ginny, he also can kind of see how it wasn't her fault and he loves her. Stand-up guy, I tell ya.
Most of this book only takes place over a year, which is wild to think about because so much happens to Ginny and Steve but so much is just meandering on the pages. There's historical names and the occasional events listed but the vast majority is to the side and for all the traveling these two do, I thought the setting and places were underused, never really felt their destinations. Same with the “epic adventure” that this and bodice rippers are supposed to have, we get a lot of mentions of Steve on his back but for being an adrenaline junkie, we sure miss out on all his spy missions and guerrillas activities. The ending, last 20-10%% gave me more of what I was looking for and Ginny's character came alive and we got some action but it didn't make up for the wandering and meandering that was the middle. Ginny is 21 and Steve 29 when this book ends and I know their story continues on, so maybe some of the growing they did here would be paid off in the next but I probably won't be continuing on. At no point did I believe in their love, Steve wants her in the beginning because of her beauty and he's a bangboi, Ginny is young and anger intrigued by him and ready to lose her virginity, sort of. He kidnaps her, she has to depend on him for survival, then trauma for everyone, then it's decided that they both love each other. Not enough history or love for me in this one.
July 27, 2009
The book that started it all.
Everyone's first modern romance novel they read in the 70s at age 14-20 or thereabouts. Who can forget Ginny and Steve.
Love to see everyone giving it either 1-star or 5! The granddaddy of all romance novels deserves nothing less than an extreme, high-drama reaction. Yes, it said the "F-word" and the hero rapes the heroine and she loves it (what the hell is he supposed to do after he's ripped her bodice? Apologize?).
Hell, yes, rape and sex are about power and exactly who does hold it? And give it? Will never forget in the so-called big rape scene, how Steve whispers in French (Ginny doesn't know he can speak her language to this point) about the "little death", which is the French word for an orgasm. As he is shattering atop her, whispering that she is killing him, she stabs him with her hidden knife. Who's got the metaphorical penis here?
THE classic. Where is my old dog-eared copy?
Everyone's first modern romance novel they read in the 70s at age 14-20 or thereabouts. Who can forget Ginny and Steve.
Love to see everyone giving it either 1-star or 5! The granddaddy of all romance novels deserves nothing less than an extreme, high-drama reaction. Yes, it said the "F-word" and the hero rapes the heroine and she loves it (what the hell is he supposed to do after he's ripped her bodice? Apologize?).
Hell, yes, rape and sex are about power and exactly who does hold it? And give it? Will never forget in the so-called big rape scene, how Steve whispers in French (Ginny doesn't know he can speak her language to this point) about the "little death", which is the French word for an orgasm. As he is shattering atop her, whispering that she is killing him, she stabs him with her hidden knife. Who's got the metaphorical penis here?
THE classic. Where is my old dog-eared copy?
September 25, 2010
I tried, I really did. I wanted to see what the fuss was about. WTF is romantic about this story? The part where he rapes her? Or the part where he slaps her? How about the part where he washes her mouth out with soap? Oh I KNOW! It's where he keeps calling her a whore.
OMFG no thank you. I love bodice rippers but I kind of like the hero to not be a masochistic ass-wipe.
OMFG no thank you. I love bodice rippers but I kind of like the hero to not be a masochistic ass-wipe.
September 20, 2025
The dysfunctional relationship between two batshit protagonists was initially a hoot to read but the story was overlong. I had to drag myself through the horrors of the last quarter and I was glad to leave both of the main characters on the last page.
December 11, 2018
Wow! I feel as if I've been run over by a steamroller! I found this book to be very emotionally intense. There was even a point in the book when I asked myself " Can I continue to read this? " The book revolves around Virginia "Ginny" and Steve Morgan.
Their relationship can only be described as a love/ hate relationship on steroids, laced with crack, while funneling tequila! Mix in a little smuggling, war, espionage, adultery, torture and a lot of rape. All of this takes place in Paris, the US, and Mexico. There are a lot of overwhelming secondary characters too such as mercenaries, prostitutes, french officers, gypsy dancers and a very unfortunate love slave.
This story isn't for the faint of heart. It was shocking and downright cruel. Through it all, I loved the characters. Steve was a sadistic cheating jerk that I wanted to slap upside the head yet he would show brief moments of humanity. Ginny became one of my all time favorite favorite female characters. She evolved so much through out this book and I admired the strength she showed after all the horrific events she had to endure. I would not recommend this book to all readers because it seamed more horrific than tender, but it was an amazing roller coaster ride!!
Their relationship can only be described as a love/ hate relationship on steroids, laced with crack, while funneling tequila! Mix in a little smuggling, war, espionage, adultery, torture and a lot of rape. All of this takes place in Paris, the US, and Mexico. There are a lot of overwhelming secondary characters too such as mercenaries, prostitutes, french officers, gypsy dancers and a very unfortunate love slave.
This story isn't for the faint of heart. It was shocking and downright cruel. Through it all, I loved the characters. Steve was a sadistic cheating jerk that I wanted to slap upside the head yet he would show brief moments of humanity. Ginny became one of my all time favorite favorite female characters. She evolved so much through out this book and I admired the strength she showed after all the horrific events she had to endure. I would not recommend this book to all readers because it seamed more horrific than tender, but it was an amazing roller coaster ride!!
October 1, 2023
One of the Mothers of ALL bodice rippers, this 1974 historical romance classic will take you on a rip roaring rollercoaster ride full of passion, cruelty, anguish, heartache, violence, adventure and EVERYTHING in between. It's an unforgettable journey: disturbing, captivating, infuriating and exciting. Enjoy the wild ride...and buckle up!
March 9, 2022
SPOILER ALERT ⚠
Sweet Savage Love, The (Other) Mother of Romance
Ooh boy, where to begin with this review? Sweet Savage Love by the great Rosemary Rogers is–along with Kathleen E. Woodiwiss' The Flame and the Flower–the blockbuster historical that launched a new genre, the modern romance novel. Published by Avon in 1974, this 700+ page doorstopper epic was a monumental game-changer in an era of social transformation.
Sweet Savage Love showed that women could have passionate sex with the hero outside of marriage and have passionate sex with men besides the hero. Of course, the hero was laying pipe across the United States and Mexico, the main settings for Sweet Savage Love. This is a true bodice ripper, featuring rape, forced seduction, abduction, cheating, adultery, multiple sex partners, a dominant, magnetic hero, and a heroine who stomps her feet in anger while her eyes flash in defiance.
The Hero & The Heroine
Our heroine Virginia “Ginny” Brandon is the half-French, half-American convent-raised daughter of a US Senator. She has fiery copper hair and flashing, slanted green eyes. She loves to dance like a gypsy, kicking her legs up in the air, her skirts swirling around her. You will hear this repeated constantly throughout the book.
Steve Morgan is this romance’s–ahem–hero. He is a darkly-tanned former Union soldier with dark blue eyes and black hair. Rogers modeled him after Clint Eastwood, among others. I also got a Gregory Peck from “Duel In the Sun” vibe about Steve.
Imagine the most macho, virile man you possibly can. Picture ovulating women throwing themselves at his feet and low-T males shrinking in self-awareness as that male confidently swaggers by. That imaginary ideal isn’t fit to be a pimple sprouting hair on Steve Morgan’s muscular chest.
Steve is not only a soldier, a spy, a cowboy, a former Comanche ally, but he’s a wealthy ranchero of mixed American and Spanish-Mexican descent. He is muy hombre, as you shall see.
Steve the Stud
The lovely Virginia Brandon returns to the United States from France, where she had been raised in a convent. Her widowed father has remarried a much young younger and lovely woman.
Ginny’s stepmother Sonya is very familiar with Steve Morgan, as they shared a passionate night together. In fact, there are few women who haven’t fallen prey to Steve’s animal magnetism. A scandal ensues from Sonya and Steve’s dalliance, and Steve finds himself potentially facing the death penalty. He agrees to be a spy in exchange for his life, as it’s suspected that Senator Brandon is up to traitorous acts.
Senator Brandon has interests in Mexico, particularly with the controlling government of Emperor Maximillian. Steve, who is against the French, is charged to accompany the Brandons. He plans to draw them into a trap with the help of some bandidos. The plot takes off from here.
Steve kidnaps Ginny and though she fights him like a hellion, she–like all women with a pulse–falls for his ultra studliness. Circumstances find Ginny and Steve caught in a compromising situation, and they are forced to marry.
But do you think marriage will stop Esteban Alvarado (Steve’s Spanish name) from being el tigere that he is? No way. He’s kissing broads in front of his new wife and banging other women on the side.
Two Strong-Willed, Beautiful Idiots
The best part of the story is when Ginny and Steve are together trekking through the Western wilderness. But Rogers doesn’t like her characters being happy. She throws everything imaginable at them.
Then the action takes us to Mexico, where Ginny and Steve are separated multiple times. There are lies, deceptions, and double-crosses. Mexican soldiers violate Ginny. A deranged doctor tortures Steve…and then some!
Ginny believes Steve is dead, so she becomes the willing mistress of a young señor.
When she finds out Steve is alive, she goes in search of him. Steve believes Ginny has betrayed him and despises her, even as he lusts after her beautiful body. Lack of communication and big misunderstandings rule the day.
Oh, will these two crazy kids just get over themselves and stay together permanently?
My Opinion
The book is divided into sections, with a prologue. It’s a huge epic novel with tiny font. Thankfully, Rogers’ prose isn’t as purple and verbose as Woodiwiss,’ and it’s fast-paced. Still, Rogers has a penchant for over describing her characters. Mentions of Ginny’s coppery hair and slanted green eyes and Steve’s lean, muscular figure seemed to be on every page. It got tedious after a while.
One thing I recall about Sweet Savage Love is that much of the Spanish written looked like gibberish to me. This was a common occurrence in a lot of 1970s and 1980s romances, be they Harlequin Presents or bodice rippers. Rosemary Rogers’ good friend Shirlee Busbee had that same issue in her books, as in While Passion Sleeps. Spanish is like the third most common language on Earth. It shouldn’t have been hard to get an English to Spanish dictionary and copy words down correctly. Ah, well, that’s a minor gripe.
Once the book got rolling, Sweet Savage Love was a quick-moving, gripping read. Rogers threw so much trauma at her characters; sometimes, you didn’t want to look! This novel is not for the squeamish, sensitive reader. I read this at 13, which I think was too young to truly appreciate the epicness of this bodice ripper. It scared me for a long time. I didn’t know that heroes and heroines could act the way Ginny and Steve did.
It wasn’t until well into my twenties that I could handle that kind of behavior because by then, my perspectives on romance novels had changed to be more open to new experiences.
Final Analysis of Sweet Savage Love
This is a saga all lovers of old-school romance should read. Sweet Savage Love is a seminal piece of fiction, even if I wouldn’t consider it the most incredible bodice ripper ever. Christine Monson’s Stormfire, Teresa Denys’ The Flesh and the Devil and The Silver Devil, and Anita Mills’Lady Of Fire are all better written. In my opinion, Rogers’ Wicked Loving Lies is her best work, with more sensitive characterization and deeper themes. Plus, it was more fun than Sweet Savage Love.
Sweet Savage Love is not a book I loved. The characters were wishy-washy at times despite being adults. (Well, Steve was an adult, anyway; I think Ginny started the book as a 16- or 17-year-old.) Steve was a slut. Ginny was too beautiful and too perfect. They couldn’t decide if they wanted to be together or not. The only thing these two could agree on was that they liked banging.
Even so, I did greatly enjoy this. The protagonists were larger than life in a story that was larger than life. Sweet Savage Love is an experience you won’t want to miss. It’s a worthy progenitor of the modern romance genre.
I’d rate this 4.24 stars. Although it’s not without its flaws, that’s high marks, in my estimation.
Sweet Savage Love, The (Other) Mother of Romance
Ooh boy, where to begin with this review? Sweet Savage Love by the great Rosemary Rogers is–along with Kathleen E. Woodiwiss' The Flame and the Flower–the blockbuster historical that launched a new genre, the modern romance novel. Published by Avon in 1974, this 700+ page doorstopper epic was a monumental game-changer in an era of social transformation.
Sweet Savage Love showed that women could have passionate sex with the hero outside of marriage and have passionate sex with men besides the hero. Of course, the hero was laying pipe across the United States and Mexico, the main settings for Sweet Savage Love. This is a true bodice ripper, featuring rape, forced seduction, abduction, cheating, adultery, multiple sex partners, a dominant, magnetic hero, and a heroine who stomps her feet in anger while her eyes flash in defiance.
The Hero & The Heroine
Our heroine Virginia “Ginny” Brandon is the half-French, half-American convent-raised daughter of a US Senator. She has fiery copper hair and flashing, slanted green eyes. She loves to dance like a gypsy, kicking her legs up in the air, her skirts swirling around her. You will hear this repeated constantly throughout the book.
Steve Morgan is this romance’s–ahem–hero. He is a darkly-tanned former Union soldier with dark blue eyes and black hair. Rogers modeled him after Clint Eastwood, among others. I also got a Gregory Peck from “Duel In the Sun” vibe about Steve.
Imagine the most macho, virile man you possibly can. Picture ovulating women throwing themselves at his feet and low-T males shrinking in self-awareness as that male confidently swaggers by. That imaginary ideal isn’t fit to be a pimple sprouting hair on Steve Morgan’s muscular chest.
Steve is not only a soldier, a spy, a cowboy, a former Comanche ally, but he’s a wealthy ranchero of mixed American and Spanish-Mexican descent. He is muy hombre, as you shall see.
Steve the Stud
The lovely Virginia Brandon returns to the United States from France, where she had been raised in a convent. Her widowed father has remarried a much young younger and lovely woman.
Ginny’s stepmother Sonya is very familiar with Steve Morgan, as they shared a passionate night together. In fact, there are few women who haven’t fallen prey to Steve’s animal magnetism. A scandal ensues from Sonya and Steve’s dalliance, and Steve finds himself potentially facing the death penalty. He agrees to be a spy in exchange for his life, as it’s suspected that Senator Brandon is up to traitorous acts.
Senator Brandon has interests in Mexico, particularly with the controlling government of Emperor Maximillian. Steve, who is against the French, is charged to accompany the Brandons. He plans to draw them into a trap with the help of some bandidos. The plot takes off from here.
Steve kidnaps Ginny and though she fights him like a hellion, she–like all women with a pulse–falls for his ultra studliness. Circumstances find Ginny and Steve caught in a compromising situation, and they are forced to marry.
But do you think marriage will stop Esteban Alvarado (Steve’s Spanish name) from being el tigere that he is? No way. He’s kissing broads in front of his new wife and banging other women on the side.
Two Strong-Willed, Beautiful Idiots
The best part of the story is when Ginny and Steve are together trekking through the Western wilderness. But Rogers doesn’t like her characters being happy. She throws everything imaginable at them.
Then the action takes us to Mexico, where Ginny and Steve are separated multiple times. There are lies, deceptions, and double-crosses. Mexican soldiers violate Ginny. A deranged doctor tortures Steve…and then some!
Ginny believes Steve is dead, so she becomes the willing mistress of a young señor.
When she finds out Steve is alive, she goes in search of him. Steve believes Ginny has betrayed him and despises her, even as he lusts after her beautiful body. Lack of communication and big misunderstandings rule the day.
Oh, will these two crazy kids just get over themselves and stay together permanently?
My Opinion
The book is divided into sections, with a prologue. It’s a huge epic novel with tiny font. Thankfully, Rogers’ prose isn’t as purple and verbose as Woodiwiss,’ and it’s fast-paced. Still, Rogers has a penchant for over describing her characters. Mentions of Ginny’s coppery hair and slanted green eyes and Steve’s lean, muscular figure seemed to be on every page. It got tedious after a while.
One thing I recall about Sweet Savage Love is that much of the Spanish written looked like gibberish to me. This was a common occurrence in a lot of 1970s and 1980s romances, be they Harlequin Presents or bodice rippers. Rosemary Rogers’ good friend Shirlee Busbee had that same issue in her books, as in While Passion Sleeps. Spanish is like the third most common language on Earth. It shouldn’t have been hard to get an English to Spanish dictionary and copy words down correctly. Ah, well, that’s a minor gripe.
Once the book got rolling, Sweet Savage Love was a quick-moving, gripping read. Rogers threw so much trauma at her characters; sometimes, you didn’t want to look! This novel is not for the squeamish, sensitive reader. I read this at 13, which I think was too young to truly appreciate the epicness of this bodice ripper. It scared me for a long time. I didn’t know that heroes and heroines could act the way Ginny and Steve did.
It wasn’t until well into my twenties that I could handle that kind of behavior because by then, my perspectives on romance novels had changed to be more open to new experiences.
Final Analysis of Sweet Savage Love
This is a saga all lovers of old-school romance should read. Sweet Savage Love is a seminal piece of fiction, even if I wouldn’t consider it the most incredible bodice ripper ever. Christine Monson’s Stormfire, Teresa Denys’ The Flesh and the Devil and The Silver Devil, and Anita Mills’Lady Of Fire are all better written. In my opinion, Rogers’ Wicked Loving Lies is her best work, with more sensitive characterization and deeper themes. Plus, it was more fun than Sweet Savage Love.
Sweet Savage Love is not a book I loved. The characters were wishy-washy at times despite being adults. (Well, Steve was an adult, anyway; I think Ginny started the book as a 16- or 17-year-old.) Steve was a slut. Ginny was too beautiful and too perfect. They couldn’t decide if they wanted to be together or not. The only thing these two could agree on was that they liked banging.
Even so, I did greatly enjoy this. The protagonists were larger than life in a story that was larger than life. Sweet Savage Love is an experience you won’t want to miss. It’s a worthy progenitor of the modern romance genre.
I’d rate this 4.24 stars. Although it’s not without its flaws, that’s high marks, in my estimation.
August 12, 2016
****SPOILERS****
READ AT YOUR OWN RISK
This book took me on some wild ride! I've had it on my to read shelf for a while now but was always intimidated to read it since I've heard far and wide about the abuse the heroine had to endure. I admit I was a wuss before, but I am a wuss no longer! The verbal sparring and fighting between Ginny and Steve was off the charts! They were a bunch of nut jobs and I loved it! Steve Morgan is a rake, and I don't mean the type of rake that everyone says is a rake because he has a mistress, but deep down inside he's a pussycat because he doesn't sleep with virgins. I mean Steve Morgan is the kind of rake that has no compunction about sleeping with virgins or cheating, no compunction about tonguing another woman moments after getting married, no compunction about installing his mistress in his wifey's house, where she has to cut the other woman to get her the hell out. You heard me right - CUT. Don't feel sorry for Ginny though because my girl is no pushover. Steve has his hands full with trying to tame her. She gives as good as she gets! She is now safely installed as one of my favorite heroines.
So like I said before, this book was a little scary to read because even though I love me some bodice rippers, my poor little heart can't take it when the heroine gets ganged raped by every single dude she come across and suffers constantly, but I was expecting it, so I was ready for it. WRONG! What happened to me was a turn of events that maybe only Rosemary Rogers can explain. At around 70 percent, I encountered the first rape scene. Poor Ginny was only trying to save the ungrateful Steve's life by offering herself to one of the bad guys (ok, so maybe it wasn't really rape since she offered herself, but still) so I shed a tear and told myself that it would be over soon.
When it was over I felt okay and thought I was doing really good because I still wanted to read the book, but what I didn't realize was that it was not over at all. What I didn't realize was that she was going to be gang raped by three other men who would eventually turn her into a whore for months and months traveling along with them as their soldader. Oh how it hurt me to see her go through such degradation! I cried, I went into work complaining, I swore I would stop reading the book and give it one big fat star because it was the worst book in all of creation!! But then I found myself constantly thinking about what would happen next and I couldn't resist picking it back up (Just to read a few more pages mind you) But then the bastard that bought Ginny so low got what he deserved, and she fell on her feet again and became the country's most famous courtesan and I couldn't turn away! In the end I was sighing when Steve and I got over our issues with what had happened to her, and he finally told her he loved her.
About Rosemary Rogers
Rosemary Jansz was born on 1932 in Ceylon (now known as Sri Lanka), she was the oldest child of Dutch-Portuguese settlers, Cyril Jansz and her wife Barbara. Her father was a wealthy educator who owned three posh private schools. She was raised in colonial splendor: dozens of servants never did a lick of work. Summers at European spas. Impossible to go anywhere without a chaperone, a dreamy child, she wrote her first novel at eight, and all through her teens scribbled madly romantic epics in imitation of her favorite writers: Sir Walter Scott, Alexandre Dumas and Rafael Sabatini.
At 17, Rosemary rebelled against a feudal upbringing and went to the University of Ceylon, where she studied three years. She horrified her family by taking a job as a reporter, and two years later marrying with Summa Navaratnam, a Ceylonese track star known as "the fastest man in Asia." The marriage had two daughters. Unhappily, he often sprinted after other women. Disappointed with her husband, in 1960, she moved with her two daughters and took off for London.
In Europe she met her future second husband, Leroy Rogers, an african-american. "He was the first man," she recalls, "who made me feel like a real woman." After getting a divorce from her first husband, she married Rogers in his home town, St. Louis, Missouri. They moved with her family to California, where she had two sons. Six years later, when that marriage broke up, Rosemary was left with four children to support on her $4,200 salary as a typist for the Solano County Parks Department. In 1969, in the face of a socialist takeover of Ceylon, her parents fled the island with only £100, giving Rosemary two more dependents. At 37, the rich girl from Ceylon was on her uppers in Fairfield.
Every night for a year, Rogers worked to perfect a manuscript that she had written as a child, rewriting it 24 times. When she was satisfied with her work, she sent the manuscript to Avon, which quickly purchased the novel. That novel, ''Sweet Savage Love'', skyrocketed to the top of bestseller lists, and became one of the most popular historical romances of all time. Her second novel, ''Dark Fires'', sold two million copies in its first three months of release. Her first three novels sold a combined 10 million copies. The fourth, ''Wicked Loving Lies'' sold 3 million copies in its first month of publication. Rosemary Rogers became one of the legendaries "Avon Queens of Historical Romance". The difference between she and most of others romance writers is not the violence of her stories, it is the intensity. She says: "My heroines are me", and certainly her life could be one of her novels.
In September of 1984, Rosemary married a third time with Christopher Kadison, but it was a very brief marriage and they soon began to live apart. "I'd like to live with a man," she admits, "but I find men in real life don't come up to my fantasies. I want culture, spirit and sex all rolled up together."
Today single, Rosemary lives quietly in a small dramatic villa perched on a crag above the Pacific near Carmel. Her four children are now away from home and she continues to write.
READ AT YOUR OWN RISK
This book took me on some wild ride! I've had it on my to read shelf for a while now but was always intimidated to read it since I've heard far and wide about the abuse the heroine had to endure. I admit I was a wuss before, but I am a wuss no longer! The verbal sparring and fighting between Ginny and Steve was off the charts! They were a bunch of nut jobs and I loved it! Steve Morgan is a rake, and I don't mean the type of rake that everyone says is a rake because he has a mistress, but deep down inside he's a pussycat because he doesn't sleep with virgins. I mean Steve Morgan is the kind of rake that has no compunction about sleeping with virgins or cheating, no compunction about tonguing another woman moments after getting married, no compunction about installing his mistress in his wifey's house, where she has to cut the other woman to get her the hell out. You heard me right - CUT. Don't feel sorry for Ginny though because my girl is no pushover. Steve has his hands full with trying to tame her. She gives as good as she gets! She is now safely installed as one of my favorite heroines.
So like I said before, this book was a little scary to read because even though I love me some bodice rippers, my poor little heart can't take it when the heroine gets ganged raped by every single dude she come across and suffers constantly, but I was expecting it, so I was ready for it. WRONG! What happened to me was a turn of events that maybe only Rosemary Rogers can explain. At around 70 percent, I encountered the first rape scene. Poor Ginny was only trying to save the ungrateful Steve's life by offering herself to one of the bad guys (ok, so maybe it wasn't really rape since she offered herself, but still) so I shed a tear and told myself that it would be over soon.
When it was over I felt okay and thought I was doing really good because I still wanted to read the book, but what I didn't realize was that it was not over at all. What I didn't realize was that she was going to be gang raped by three other men who would eventually turn her into a whore for months and months traveling along with them as their soldader. Oh how it hurt me to see her go through such degradation! I cried, I went into work complaining, I swore I would stop reading the book and give it one big fat star because it was the worst book in all of creation!! But then I found myself constantly thinking about what would happen next and I couldn't resist picking it back up (Just to read a few more pages mind you) But then the bastard that bought Ginny so low got what he deserved, and she fell on her feet again and became the country's most famous courtesan and I couldn't turn away! In the end I was sighing when Steve and I got over our issues with what had happened to her, and he finally told her he loved her.
About Rosemary Rogers
Rosemary Jansz was born on 1932 in Ceylon (now known as Sri Lanka), she was the oldest child of Dutch-Portuguese settlers, Cyril Jansz and her wife Barbara. Her father was a wealthy educator who owned three posh private schools. She was raised in colonial splendor: dozens of servants never did a lick of work. Summers at European spas. Impossible to go anywhere without a chaperone, a dreamy child, she wrote her first novel at eight, and all through her teens scribbled madly romantic epics in imitation of her favorite writers: Sir Walter Scott, Alexandre Dumas and Rafael Sabatini.
At 17, Rosemary rebelled against a feudal upbringing and went to the University of Ceylon, where she studied three years. She horrified her family by taking a job as a reporter, and two years later marrying with Summa Navaratnam, a Ceylonese track star known as "the fastest man in Asia." The marriage had two daughters. Unhappily, he often sprinted after other women. Disappointed with her husband, in 1960, she moved with her two daughters and took off for London.
In Europe she met her future second husband, Leroy Rogers, an african-american. "He was the first man," she recalls, "who made me feel like a real woman." After getting a divorce from her first husband, she married Rogers in his home town, St. Louis, Missouri. They moved with her family to California, where she had two sons. Six years later, when that marriage broke up, Rosemary was left with four children to support on her $4,200 salary as a typist for the Solano County Parks Department. In 1969, in the face of a socialist takeover of Ceylon, her parents fled the island with only £100, giving Rosemary two more dependents. At 37, the rich girl from Ceylon was on her uppers in Fairfield.
Every night for a year, Rogers worked to perfect a manuscript that she had written as a child, rewriting it 24 times. When she was satisfied with her work, she sent the manuscript to Avon, which quickly purchased the novel. That novel, ''Sweet Savage Love'', skyrocketed to the top of bestseller lists, and became one of the most popular historical romances of all time. Her second novel, ''Dark Fires'', sold two million copies in its first three months of release. Her first three novels sold a combined 10 million copies. The fourth, ''Wicked Loving Lies'' sold 3 million copies in its first month of publication. Rosemary Rogers became one of the legendaries "Avon Queens of Historical Romance". The difference between she and most of others romance writers is not the violence of her stories, it is the intensity. She says: "My heroines are me", and certainly her life could be one of her novels.
In September of 1984, Rosemary married a third time with Christopher Kadison, but it was a very brief marriage and they soon began to live apart. "I'd like to live with a man," she admits, "but I find men in real life don't come up to my fantasies. I want culture, spirit and sex all rolled up together."
Today single, Rosemary lives quietly in a small dramatic villa perched on a crag above the Pacific near Carmel. Her four children are now away from home and she continues to write.
January 13, 2018
I'm starting the New Year off right with some fabulous buddy-reads. BR in January with Korey and Queen Snowflake Nenia!
REVIEW
I heard about this book when I was a teenager, before I even really knew what a bodice ripper was. A friend of my parents had this book, and when we saw it at their house my mom knowingly said "Steve and Ginny." I sneaked a glance at the title, and thought "sweet savage love" was something I REALLY wanted to read about.
A few years later I tracked the book down and devoured it. It was like none of the other romance novels I'd ever read. So much passion and hatred! Yes! Reeling from the impact, I described the entire book to a friend of mine while eating lunch at Panda Express, which I'm sure she really enjoyed. I never read another Rosemary Rogers book, afraid it wouldn't be as good.
Anyway, I still enjoyed this a lot on my second read, but now that I'm older and more cynical, I wasn't as breathlessly rapt as when I read it in my early twenties. While the first three parts of the book were really good, the story started to drag in the fourth. THEN Rogers puts you through the wringer while torturing her characters. But I actually love that she isn't afraid to torture them. Too often, the hero or heroine of a romance novel is spared any real, lasting damage. Or they escape just before something really bad happens. Here's the thing: I LOVE WHEN CHARACTERS SUFFER. ALLLLLL THE SUFFERING PLEASE!
And holy crap, do Steve and Ginny suffer. They put each other through it, others put them through it, and they do it to themselves. I'm not even convinced they stop suffering after the story is over, and I've seen reviews of the second book that confirm they suffer there too.
Rogers writes in a way that's easy to read, although riddled with grammatical errors that don't necessarily look like errors (she loves semi-colons). This is one romance that defies the term, and is definitely not for the faint of heart.
REVIEW
I heard about this book when I was a teenager, before I even really knew what a bodice ripper was. A friend of my parents had this book, and when we saw it at their house my mom knowingly said "Steve and Ginny." I sneaked a glance at the title, and thought "sweet savage love" was something I REALLY wanted to read about.
A few years later I tracked the book down and devoured it. It was like none of the other romance novels I'd ever read. So much passion and hatred! Yes! Reeling from the impact, I described the entire book to a friend of mine while eating lunch at Panda Express, which I'm sure she really enjoyed. I never read another Rosemary Rogers book, afraid it wouldn't be as good.
Anyway, I still enjoyed this a lot on my second read, but now that I'm older and more cynical, I wasn't as breathlessly rapt as when I read it in my early twenties. While the first three parts of the book were really good, the story started to drag in the fourth. THEN Rogers puts you through the wringer while torturing her characters. But I actually love that she isn't afraid to torture them. Too often, the hero or heroine of a romance novel is spared any real, lasting damage. Or they escape just before something really bad happens. Here's the thing: I LOVE WHEN CHARACTERS SUFFER. ALLLLLL THE SUFFERING PLEASE!
And holy crap, do Steve and Ginny suffer. They put each other through it, others put them through it, and they do it to themselves. I'm not even convinced they stop suffering after the story is over, and I've seen reviews of the second book that confirm they suffer there too.
Rogers writes in a way that's easy to read, although riddled with grammatical errors that don't necessarily look like errors (she loves semi-colons). This is one romance that defies the term, and is definitely not for the faint of heart.
May 3, 2012
This book is a very hard read. There are harsh scenes that you rarely see. It's difficult to shock me, but I found my jaw dropped numerous times. The author was fantastic. It was very well written and put together. I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 because there was so little positive to offset all the horrible things that happened and because it's LONG. Definitely worth the read, though, if you have the stomach.
December 21, 2022
Ginny Brandon, a senator's daughter, is sent to nominally ride a wagon train to California, but is actually smuggling gold to Mexico to support the Emperor's cause. She is relentlessly drawn to the wagon train guide, Steve Morgan. But unbeknownst to her, Steve is actually a spy intent on thwarting her father's plans.
What can I say about this book? It's a wild ride, but one I never wanted to get off of. Ginny and Steve are a quintessential, swashbuckling romance hero and heroine, but Rogers is not afraid to put them utterly through the wringer. Despite the length of the story, it never drags, and the historical aspects are incorporated smoothly into the plot. I'm definitely reading more Rogers.
What can I say about this book? It's a wild ride, but one I never wanted to get off of. Ginny and Steve are a quintessential, swashbuckling romance hero and heroine, but Rogers is not afraid to put them utterly through the wringer. Despite the length of the story, it never drags, and the historical aspects are incorporated smoothly into the plot. I'm definitely reading more Rogers.
February 20, 2021
SPOILERY
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
forgotten how brutal these bodice ripping heroes can be.
he's a reprobate of the worst ilk.
I think he's slept with almost every female mentioned in this book.
and he does it without a care in the world
the Hxh are married in name only.
so "technically" it's cheating when he has his mistress live with him, is intimate with all and sundry and generally sleeps around but while I hated this shit of his, I didn't feel he was betraying her.
the heroine evens the score, and then some.
she's no slacker in that department although not always by choice.
no romance here
lots of beauty and ugliness, anger, and ecstasy
captivating and repulsive
oh, the choices they make...
then the times they aren’t given any choices...
this h gets through it all - by hook or by crook - she does us proud.
we need modern heroines like her.
a fighter: for her life, for her dignity, for her man
strong and beautiful and brave
flawed, so flawed and young and broken until she isn’t.
he literally resists their connection until late in the book.
even then its more him giving up the good fight than a romantic choice.
I'm okay with this because she messes his mind up good and solid.
LOL
ETA:
the next books in this instalment read don't exist for me
I'll leave the Hxh right here with their HFN
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
forgotten how brutal these bodice ripping heroes can be.
he's a reprobate of the worst ilk.
I think he's slept with almost every female mentioned in this book.
and he does it without a care in the world
the Hxh are married in name only.
so "technically" it's cheating when he has his mistress live with him, is intimate with all and sundry and generally sleeps around but while I hated this shit of his, I didn't feel he was betraying her.
the heroine evens the score, and then some.
she's no slacker in that department although not always by choice.
no romance here
lots of beauty and ugliness, anger, and ecstasy
captivating and repulsive
oh, the choices they make...
then the times they aren’t given any choices...
this h gets through it all - by hook or by crook - she does us proud.
we need modern heroines like her.
a fighter: for her life, for her dignity, for her man
strong and beautiful and brave
flawed, so flawed and young and broken until she isn’t.
he literally resists their connection until late in the book.
even then its more him giving up the good fight than a romantic choice.
I'm okay with this because she messes his mind up good and solid.
LOL
ETA:
the next books in this instalment read don't exist for me
I'll leave the Hxh right here with their HFN
March 17, 2016
Pre-Reading (5/9/15): I wasn't sure until I read the prologue but this was the first bodice ripper I ever read (I was 15, at that point) and I was not expecting the crazy in it. I'm excited to re-read this and see how I read it now.
ETA (3/16/16): I will sum up this book with one sentence. You can see where a lot of western romances get their inspiration, and they pale in significance to this book. It's very hard to top this book.
Also Roger's wrote parts of this book one-handed, I swear. ;)
Beware those of weak constitutions, this book is a bodice ripper written in the 70's, so reader beware. :P
ETA (3/16/16): I will sum up this book with one sentence. You can see where a lot of western romances get their inspiration, and they pale in significance to this book. It's very hard to top this book.
Also Roger's wrote parts of this book one-handed, I swear. ;)
Beware those of weak constitutions, this book is a bodice ripper written in the 70's, so reader beware. :P
February 28, 2022
I could not believe that no one had made a movie out of this book when I read it years ago. This was my first historical romance novel and I could not put it down. The writing was so colorful and Rosemary Rogers made Mexico sound so romantic. I eventually tired of "bodice rippers" like these and the impossibly gorgeous heroes and heroines who hated each other through most of the story as they lusted after each other in spite of themselves. The title says it all. But I remember "Sweet Savage Love" fondly - I guess you never forget your first...
September 16, 2012
Rape rape rape. Name-calling, violence, rape. He rapes her repeatedly, kidnaps her, abandons her, and he's her true love? Ick. Maybe I'm too spoiled by respect and humor in contemporary romances to appreciate this, but it's a nice marker for how far the genre has advanced.
Read
August 28, 2019Buddy read with Caro and MG.
July 13, 2012
I read this book when I was 11 or 12. Oh, sure, with the internets today, by the time a kid is that age, they've seen donkey shows and worse, but back in nineteen-eighty-something, this was quite the eye-opener. Porn without pictures. It was freaking awesome. I read it, I think my friends read it, who knows how many fifth-grade girls learned about pretty much everything (except donkey shows) from that very copy before I got it back? Thank you, library sale!
After I had read and re-read and re-read the thing, my mother found it in my room. "You can't read this! Where did you get this trash?" she yelled. The answer, of course, was in her room, on her bookshelf. The old I learned it by watching you routine. For that reason, this book gets five lovely sparkling (but not clean) stars.
After I had read and re-read and re-read the thing, my mother found it in my room. "You can't read this! Where did you get this trash?" she yelled. The answer, of course, was in her room, on her bookshelf. The old I learned it by watching you routine. For that reason, this book gets five lovely sparkling (but not clean) stars.
January 21, 2015
There are 2 Goodreads listings for SSL as well there should be. Fabulous beyond words, the standard by which all Steves will forever be measured to their detriment. The five stars are mostly sentimental, you understand. This was the first explicit bodice ripper I ever read, read again, and read the good parts a third time. It was new and shocking and I rehashed it with my student coworkers to get us through full days at a summer job working an assembly line. Oh, how we adored the de-virginization scene beneath the covered wagon! We laughed and pretended not to take it all too seriously, but no you could not borrow our copy of the book, don't even ask.
Deserves a place of honor in the Bodice Ripper Museum. Heaven knows, poor Ginny never wore a bodice that didn't get ruined by her rakish love Steve or one of her numerous kidnappers.
Splendid.
Deserves a place of honor in the Bodice Ripper Museum. Heaven knows, poor Ginny never wore a bodice that didn't get ruined by her rakish love Steve or one of her numerous kidnappers.
Splendid.
to-avoid
September 28, 2011From DoraLady @ Ami:
'It is a tough read. The heroine gets raped and abused not only by the hero but by others.'
'It is a tough read. The heroine gets raped and abused not only by the hero but by others.'
June 23, 2012
The book that kicked Harlequin romances in the crotch and changed how romance novels were viewed by women and some men. Great action, great mystery, white shot sexuality. The total package.
August 23, 2018
To the romance reader looking for a bodice-ripper set against a backdrop of war intrigue, endless action from Parisian ballrooms to dusty Western saloons and war-torn Mexico, read Rosemary Rogers' Sweet Savage Love. To the romance reader interested in brushing up on her history, read Sweet Savage Love. As one of the seminal texts responsible for kickstarting into high gear a genre that continues to be a popular and lucrative cash cow for publishers, Sweet Savage Love is an enjoyable read for those that want to see where the historical romance genre began.
Sweet Savage Love was hard for me to get into at first because I’m not into the western aesthetic and that's basically half the book.
That's not to say nothing happens because boy oh boy a lot happens. Daughter of a US senator, Ginny Brandon is journeying by wagon with her stepmother, Sonya to Mexico with recruited scouts, Steve Morgan and Paco Davis. Unbeknownst to the Brandons, Steve Morgan is not a gun for hire but an undercover US agent. Steve's real mission is to ensure the gold bullions the Senator has secretly hidden in the wagons do not change hands with the French army in support of their fight against Benito Juárez and the Mexican nationalists. Unfortunately for Steve, the covert operation does not go according to plan and he's compelled to take Ginny as a hostage.
The romance between Ginny and Steve is a straightforward Stockholm Syndrome love affair with each hating each other pretty much right until the very end. Yet you end up cheering for Ginny and even falling for Steve, even though he's going to do it with every female character.
"It's so frustrating to be a woman, to have to wait until someone accompanies you."
Ginny is, simply put, amazing. She is forced into one horrific experience after another in a sequence of events more nightmarish than the next but she does not break. She truly comes into her own.
Ginny's resurrection makes her that much more of a formidable woman so that when she faces down Concepcion and finally reunites with Steve, it is the most rewarding part of the story.
"She lived in a man's world, a world that put women on pedestals and worshipped them only as long as they conformed to accepted standards of behavior for women."
Meanwhile, Steve is a typical BD male, nothing to write home about except his soul-searching is surprisingly thoughtful. It's a small relief for the reader to hear Steve feels genuine remorse for the consequences of his actions and how he had "made [Ginny] sufffer...and had delivered her, without his realizing it, into even worse suffering and degradation. Yet she had been strong enough to live through it all - stronger, in her way, than he had been."
Steve understands he shouldn't have reacted in anger to the news that Ginny was and wonders why he himself was not "able to countenance the fact that his idol had suddenly developed dirty feet and a tarnished halo! After all, what did it really matter?... Would he really have preferred to hear that she had killed herself instead?" He even admits he's the slut so all in all, it was an impressive scene of introspection for Steve that allowed his character to develop, and a win for BD heroes in general.
Steve's Big Romantic Gesture to Ginny provides the story with an ending that leaves the reader on a high emotional note. A to-read if you're in the mood for toxic love-to-hate couples out in the wild, wild west.
Sweet Savage Love was hard for me to get into at first because I’m not into the western aesthetic and that's basically half the book.
That's not to say nothing happens because boy oh boy a lot happens. Daughter of a US senator, Ginny Brandon is journeying by wagon with her stepmother, Sonya to Mexico with recruited scouts, Steve Morgan and Paco Davis. Unbeknownst to the Brandons, Steve Morgan is not a gun for hire but an undercover US agent. Steve's real mission is to ensure the gold bullions the Senator has secretly hidden in the wagons do not change hands with the French army in support of their fight against Benito Juárez and the Mexican nationalists. Unfortunately for Steve, the covert operation does not go according to plan and he's compelled to take Ginny as a hostage.
The romance between Ginny and Steve is a straightforward Stockholm Syndrome love affair with each hating each other pretty much right until the very end. Yet you end up cheering for Ginny and even falling for Steve, even though he's going to do it with every female character.
"It's so frustrating to be a woman, to have to wait until someone accompanies you."
Ginny is, simply put, amazing. She is forced into one horrific experience after another in a sequence of events more nightmarish than the next but she does not break. She truly comes into her own.
Ginny's resurrection makes her that much more of a formidable woman so that when she faces down Concepcion and finally reunites with Steve, it is the most rewarding part of the story.
"She lived in a man's world, a world that put women on pedestals and worshipped them only as long as they conformed to accepted standards of behavior for women."
Meanwhile, Steve is a typical BD male, nothing to write home about except his soul-searching is surprisingly thoughtful. It's a small relief for the reader to hear Steve feels genuine remorse for the consequences of his actions and how he had "made [Ginny] sufffer...and had delivered her, without his realizing it, into even worse suffering and degradation. Yet she had been strong enough to live through it all - stronger, in her way, than he had been."
Steve understands he shouldn't have reacted in anger to the news that Ginny was and wonders why he himself was not "able to countenance the fact that his idol had suddenly developed dirty feet and a tarnished halo! After all, what did it really matter?... Would he really have preferred to hear that she had killed herself instead?" He even admits he's the slut so all in all, it was an impressive scene of introspection for Steve that allowed his character to develop, and a win for BD heroes in general.
Steve's Big Romantic Gesture to Ginny provides the story with an ending that leaves the reader on a high emotional note. A to-read if you're in the mood for toxic love-to-hate couples out in the wild, wild west.
March 26, 2012
A Worthy Classic That Influenced the Genre of Historical Romance, But More Savage than Love.
This was Rogers’ first novel and it became a best seller and an all time classic in modern historical romance. Her writing is superb and her storytelling truly excellent. Published in 1974, it was also one of the first to throw open the bedroom door and include subjects like rape and violence against the heroine, all woven into an intricate plot. Set in the late 1800s in the American West and Mexico (during the reign of the Austrian who became Emperor Maximilian), it’s a fast-paced, moving story that will keep you up late at night reading. However, and this is the reason for 4 not 5 stars, there are some parts in this story where the hero and heroine go through such horrifying trials, I just had to skip over them. I’m not overly sensitive but we are talking gruesome!
Ginny Brandon was the French convent-raised daughter of an ambitious US Senator from California who didn’t mind putting his wife and daughter at risk to smuggle gold into Mexico to support the French military working for Maximilian. On a wagon train from San Antonio to California, Ginny and her stepmother will face more than the hardships and Indians of the Western plains; they will face the schemes of men who want to make sure Maximilian’s French troops never see that gold. One of those men is Steve Morgan, a half-Mexican former Union Army officer who is working undercover for the US government. Morgan has few scruples and almost no morals, taking the women he wants when he wants them. Though he speaks French and lived in Paris for a time, he also lived among the Comanches and has become a fast gun, so he can take care of himself. Though Ginny, an innocent red-haired beauty, has many suitors, she is drawn to the handsome Morgan who becomes the scout for her father’s wagon train. And Morgan is all too willing to take advantage of the girl’s innocence.
With superb storytelling, Rogers gives us a feel for the politics of the time and the life of the Mexicans and those Americans who chose to live in the West while she weaves a complex tale of a difficult, often combative, relationship between two strong-willed people. Much of the novel is told through Ginny’s point of view as she and Steve ride over the land, fleeing as escaped fugitives (she as his prisoner and plaything) and then live in Mexico. Ginny is a courageous heroine though at times seemingly weak in moral fiber. Steve is a man deeply affected by his past, his heritage and his many compromising decisions. Though he has some virtues (he is courageous and loyal to his friends) he is very selfish and hedonistic and treats Ginny most badly.
I was 2/3rds of the way through the story before there was an indication Steve felt more than lust for Ginny. Even then he behaved the cad. It’s hard to consider him a “hero” under those circumstances. (The real hero seemed to be his grandfather!) And unlike most romances that have a happily ever after at the end, while the end is happy, it is not really the end of the story of Ginny and Steve. Their story continues in DARK FIRES. The whole series is listed below:
Morgan-Challenger Series:
Sweet Savage Love (1974) (Steve and Ginny)
Dark Fires (1975) (Steve and Ginny)
Wicked Loving Lies (1976) (Dominic Challenger and Marisa)
Lost Love, Last Love (1980) (Steve and Ginny)
Bound by Desire (1988) (Steve and Ginny’s daughter)
Savage Desire (2000) (Steve and Ginny)
This was Rogers’ first novel and it became a best seller and an all time classic in modern historical romance. Her writing is superb and her storytelling truly excellent. Published in 1974, it was also one of the first to throw open the bedroom door and include subjects like rape and violence against the heroine, all woven into an intricate plot. Set in the late 1800s in the American West and Mexico (during the reign of the Austrian who became Emperor Maximilian), it’s a fast-paced, moving story that will keep you up late at night reading. However, and this is the reason for 4 not 5 stars, there are some parts in this story where the hero and heroine go through such horrifying trials, I just had to skip over them. I’m not overly sensitive but we are talking gruesome!
Ginny Brandon was the French convent-raised daughter of an ambitious US Senator from California who didn’t mind putting his wife and daughter at risk to smuggle gold into Mexico to support the French military working for Maximilian. On a wagon train from San Antonio to California, Ginny and her stepmother will face more than the hardships and Indians of the Western plains; they will face the schemes of men who want to make sure Maximilian’s French troops never see that gold. One of those men is Steve Morgan, a half-Mexican former Union Army officer who is working undercover for the US government. Morgan has few scruples and almost no morals, taking the women he wants when he wants them. Though he speaks French and lived in Paris for a time, he also lived among the Comanches and has become a fast gun, so he can take care of himself. Though Ginny, an innocent red-haired beauty, has many suitors, she is drawn to the handsome Morgan who becomes the scout for her father’s wagon train. And Morgan is all too willing to take advantage of the girl’s innocence.
With superb storytelling, Rogers gives us a feel for the politics of the time and the life of the Mexicans and those Americans who chose to live in the West while she weaves a complex tale of a difficult, often combative, relationship between two strong-willed people. Much of the novel is told through Ginny’s point of view as she and Steve ride over the land, fleeing as escaped fugitives (she as his prisoner and plaything) and then live in Mexico. Ginny is a courageous heroine though at times seemingly weak in moral fiber. Steve is a man deeply affected by his past, his heritage and his many compromising decisions. Though he has some virtues (he is courageous and loyal to his friends) he is very selfish and hedonistic and treats Ginny most badly.
I was 2/3rds of the way through the story before there was an indication Steve felt more than lust for Ginny. Even then he behaved the cad. It’s hard to consider him a “hero” under those circumstances. (The real hero seemed to be his grandfather!) And unlike most romances that have a happily ever after at the end, while the end is happy, it is not really the end of the story of Ginny and Steve. Their story continues in DARK FIRES. The whole series is listed below:
Morgan-Challenger Series:
Sweet Savage Love (1974) (Steve and Ginny)
Dark Fires (1975) (Steve and Ginny)
Wicked Loving Lies (1976) (Dominic Challenger and Marisa)
Lost Love, Last Love (1980) (Steve and Ginny)
Bound by Desire (1988) (Steve and Ginny’s daughter)
Savage Desire (2000) (Steve and Ginny)
August 28, 2019
Hmmmm...
I don't think this is a very realistic book, because honestly I think anyone who is supposed to be as strong as Ginny is purported to be would kill Steve the way she killed Bain. Her actions are incongruous with her personality.
Steve is a complete jerk all the way to the end, so he's consistent if nothing else. Unfortunately, he has nothing to reccomend him besides being a jerk. Women do like having sex with jerks, but eventually wise up and realize the man is a loser. So, for this story to work, tons of women are absolute morons who will have sex with just about anyone. It's not inconceivable, but ALL of them? It reminds me of my ex who tried to convince me that all the other women he was sleeping with were just his crazy stalkers. Uh...no, they aren't stalkers, they are actually your other girlfriends. You see what I mean? Maybe one woman is dumb enough to fall for his crap, perhaps two, but he's got legions of them.
Also, Steve being in love with Ginny the whole time is doubtful. He barely considers her. She's at best an afterthought for him. He literally screwed another woman on his wedding night. (Chalk up another stupid woman who likes being treated like a soiled napkin.) His behavior isn't that of a man in love. In fact, he doesn't even extend her the same courtesy one might to a stranger. He doesn't miss a chance to metaphorically urinate all over her face.
Still, I liked the novel for the simple fact that my wtf button was constantly being pushed. I also had this small hope that Ginny would finally give Steve the finger and divorce his worthless ass. It doesn't happen. She suddenly loses all her courage, brain and spine so she can throw herself at the feet of a man who was fucking other women the entire time.
Like I said, Ginny is supposed to be this incredible woman, but she's not. She's so very basic that I am surprised even Steve lowered himself to fuck her after she crawled back to him. She had to put a knife to his throat to force him and I am not entirely sure he made the right choice.
I don't think this is a very realistic book, because honestly I think anyone who is supposed to be as strong as Ginny is purported to be would kill Steve the way she killed Bain. Her actions are incongruous with her personality.
Steve is a complete jerk all the way to the end, so he's consistent if nothing else. Unfortunately, he has nothing to reccomend him besides being a jerk. Women do like having sex with jerks, but eventually wise up and realize the man is a loser. So, for this story to work, tons of women are absolute morons who will have sex with just about anyone. It's not inconceivable, but ALL of them? It reminds me of my ex who tried to convince me that all the other women he was sleeping with were just his crazy stalkers. Uh...no, they aren't stalkers, they are actually your other girlfriends. You see what I mean? Maybe one woman is dumb enough to fall for his crap, perhaps two, but he's got legions of them.
Also, Steve being in love with Ginny the whole time is doubtful. He barely considers her. She's at best an afterthought for him. He literally screwed another woman on his wedding night. (Chalk up another stupid woman who likes being treated like a soiled napkin.) His behavior isn't that of a man in love. In fact, he doesn't even extend her the same courtesy one might to a stranger. He doesn't miss a chance to metaphorically urinate all over her face.
Still, I liked the novel for the simple fact that my wtf button was constantly being pushed. I also had this small hope that Ginny would finally give Steve the finger and divorce his worthless ass. It doesn't happen. She suddenly loses all her courage, brain and spine so she can throw herself at the feet of a man who was fucking other women the entire time.
Like I said, Ginny is supposed to be this incredible woman, but she's not. She's so very basic that I am surprised even Steve lowered himself to fuck her after she crawled back to him. She had to put a knife to his throat to force him and I am not entirely sure he made the right choice.
December 5, 2016
Abandoned at page 125. I could not get interested in the plot. It just seemed to drag on, and I didn't care for any of the characters. It's just not for me.
January 4, 2014
*** 5++ Original Brilliant Sizzling Stars ***
Heat/ Romance (5 HOT Stars)/Plot(5 Stars)/Setting(5 Stars)/Characters (5 Stars)
My first and most beloved and reread Historical Romance - other than the Wolf and the Dove. I loved this story! I probably read it at least a half a dozen times (especially the romantic scenes) after I first read it - over 30 years ago. I recently went back and read it again - just for the nostalgia.
Readers and reviewers should keep in mind the book publication time frame, mid 70's, and the originality of this novel at that time. This was a ground breaking novel. Rosemary Rogers was one of the first to write much more explicit sex scenes. She also departed from the stereotypical heroes and heroines by making them much more flawed and all too human. It was a shocking and very welcomed departure from the Harlequin Regency romances of the time!
Though the misunderstandings and anger from unrequited love were very typical of the traditional romances of the time, the sex scenes and the plot play were atypical from any romance novels written at the time! Even today some readers may be shocked or offended by the play out.
I do understand! I too do not typically like stories where the "hero" hurtfully rapes the heroine. In this book, this is done repeatedly no less!
Inexplicably, in this case however, I find myself making excuses and rationalizing it all...
It didn't seem so savage due to the historic Old West frontier and Civil War / Mexican War setting. I personally like and tolerate bodice rippers in a historical context. And Steve is one hot alpha male in the context of the Old West.
I also had a higher tolerance for the hero Steve's bad behavior because initially the sex is very concessional. He actually tries to warn her off for sometime. It is only later in his jealousy and passion, which Ginny very deliberately inflames, does Steve behave truly badly.
I somehow saw through all Steve's bad behavior as his acting out from hurt and male pride, and found it very romantic that the normally cold and detached hero couldn't resist the heroine and felt driven to kidnap her and couldn't resist or give her up - even for his own good.
Even enraged, Steve almost always made an effort at foreplay and almost always succeeded in getting Ginny’s cooperation and satisfaction in the end.
And in the context of the story, both were behaving so badly that his behavior was pro quo. On the flip side, Ginny even "rapes" Steve later at knife point 8-0)But she also manages to get Steve's willing cooperation before things go too far.
Maybe it is just the power of a great story and writer when they are able to override ones normal inhibitions.
Don't get me wrong, as much as I loved the book, I didn't exactly enjoy it all. Some parts of the story were just down right painful. Both the hero Steve Morgan and the heroine Ginny Brandon go through horrific experiences including sexual abuse and degradation in the course of the story. This abuse is still shocking even by today’s standards.
But there is a clear delineation between Steve's former forceful approach with sex while he is jealous and while traveling in close proximity to Ginny VS what some other brutes do to Ginny in the story. Having both the hero and heroine degraded was pretty unique for the time - when all the books of that time had the heroine as a virgin who is only touched and romanced by the hero.
In the course of the story, both hero and heroine have to forgive each other for what they have done to each other and for what has been done to them.
Despite the forceful sex and angst, I would still recommend the 1st book without hesitation today.
Unlike so many "series" today, the 1st book is complete and the follow on books do not have to be read for resolution. I believe there ended up being 2 to 3 follow up novels. As much as I loved Ginny and Steve, and I and the fans couldn't get enough of them, I had wished at the time, that the author, Rosemary Rogers, had left well enough alone and had not done more follow up novels featuring this pair.
Considering the turmoil the characters had already gone through in the 1st book, the stories became drawn out cases of abuse, misunderstandings, and just plain abysmal behavior. I did attempt to read them at the time, but ended up skimming as most were too painful to fully read. The final one wasn't too bad as the fans had complained so much that Rosemary Rogers FINALLY gave them another happy ending. But by then,I felt sorely abused and sadly I and some fans no longer cared.
Even evaluating the follow on books should be done within some context of the time. Rosemary Roger probably needed to sell more books in the series. She had made a hit and she probably had a real need to follow up and get as much return as possible.
Rosemary Rogers, like Ginny, was a strong woman herself. Ms. Rogers was divorced and barely making a living working as a secretary and supporting her children when she published Sweet Savage Love.
Rosemary Rogers
Sweet Savage Love was her opus. She started the book as a child and spent every night for year re-writing it while working during the day until her daughter encouraged her send to a publisher and Avon printed the controversial book. The rest is romance history.
I did wonder later, during my own marriage, where the inspiration for the ongoing fictional Steve and Ginny issues came from and if it did not in part reflect the authors own mixed feelings and unfulfilled romantic dreams - especially when I found out that author had been married 4 times over the years...The irony is not lost on me that it seems to have taken Ginny and Steve 4 retries to find their final happiness!
Every day, I continue to re-discover my "Steve", who also happens to be my first and only one true love. After more than 25 years of ups and downs, separating, and having kids, we too will hopefully continue to find our happy ending.
I hope and pray that you, Rosemary Rogers, have found your "Steve" and that you are living your happy ending as well. You deserve it Rosemary!
Thank you Rosemary Rogers for giving us Steve Morgan and Ginny Brandon and for being the muse for many generations of romance writers to come.
Epilogue: Was surprised to find via Good Reads yet another book on Ginny and Steve that was published in 2000. Based upon favorable reviews, I sought it and bought it used in 2013.
Having read it now, I am happy to say it depicts a more mature, understanding/insightful, and gentle Steve. Once again we have the tired trope of Ginny getting raped by a villain, but this time Steve gets to stick around and see and deal with the aftermath. An aftermath, which in this case is much worse as it resurrects her prior rapes brings and on associated post traumatic stress syndrome. She even remembers Steve's attacks and to his horror becomes fearful of him. Steve FINALLY has his epiphany and promises to respect her by NEVER forcing her to take any action or do anything ever again.
Finally a much healthier Steve and Ginny relationship with a believable HEA!
Heat/ Romance (5 HOT Stars)/Plot(5 Stars)/Setting(5 Stars)/Characters (5 Stars)
My first and most beloved and reread Historical Romance - other than the Wolf and the Dove. I loved this story! I probably read it at least a half a dozen times (especially the romantic scenes) after I first read it - over 30 years ago. I recently went back and read it again - just for the nostalgia.
Readers and reviewers should keep in mind the book publication time frame, mid 70's, and the originality of this novel at that time. This was a ground breaking novel. Rosemary Rogers was one of the first to write much more explicit sex scenes. She also departed from the stereotypical heroes and heroines by making them much more flawed and all too human. It was a shocking and very welcomed departure from the Harlequin Regency romances of the time!
Though the misunderstandings and anger from unrequited love were very typical of the traditional romances of the time, the sex scenes and the plot play were atypical from any romance novels written at the time! Even today some readers may be shocked or offended by the play out.
I do understand! I too do not typically like stories where the "hero" hurtfully rapes the heroine. In this book, this is done repeatedly no less!
Inexplicably, in this case however, I find myself making excuses and rationalizing it all...
It didn't seem so savage due to the historic Old West frontier and Civil War / Mexican War setting. I personally like and tolerate bodice rippers in a historical context. And Steve is one hot alpha male in the context of the Old West.
I also had a higher tolerance for the hero Steve's bad behavior because initially the sex is very concessional. He actually tries to warn her off for sometime. It is only later in his jealousy and passion, which Ginny very deliberately inflames, does Steve behave truly badly.
I somehow saw through all Steve's bad behavior as his acting out from hurt and male pride, and found it very romantic that the normally cold and detached hero couldn't resist the heroine and felt driven to kidnap her and couldn't resist or give her up - even for his own good.
Even enraged, Steve almost always made an effort at foreplay and almost always succeeded in getting Ginny’s cooperation and satisfaction in the end.
And in the context of the story, both were behaving so badly that his behavior was pro quo. On the flip side, Ginny even "rapes" Steve later at knife point 8-0)But she also manages to get Steve's willing cooperation before things go too far.
Maybe it is just the power of a great story and writer when they are able to override ones normal inhibitions.
Don't get me wrong, as much as I loved the book, I didn't exactly enjoy it all. Some parts of the story were just down right painful. Both the hero Steve Morgan and the heroine Ginny Brandon go through horrific experiences including sexual abuse and degradation in the course of the story. This abuse is still shocking even by today’s standards.
But there is a clear delineation between Steve's former forceful approach with sex while he is jealous and while traveling in close proximity to Ginny VS what some other brutes do to Ginny in the story. Having both the hero and heroine degraded was pretty unique for the time - when all the books of that time had the heroine as a virgin who is only touched and romanced by the hero.
In the course of the story, both hero and heroine have to forgive each other for what they have done to each other and for what has been done to them.
Despite the forceful sex and angst, I would still recommend the 1st book without hesitation today.
Unlike so many "series" today, the 1st book is complete and the follow on books do not have to be read for resolution. I believe there ended up being 2 to 3 follow up novels. As much as I loved Ginny and Steve, and I and the fans couldn't get enough of them, I had wished at the time, that the author, Rosemary Rogers, had left well enough alone and had not done more follow up novels featuring this pair.
Considering the turmoil the characters had already gone through in the 1st book, the stories became drawn out cases of abuse, misunderstandings, and just plain abysmal behavior. I did attempt to read them at the time, but ended up skimming as most were too painful to fully read. The final one wasn't too bad as the fans had complained so much that Rosemary Rogers FINALLY gave them another happy ending. But by then,I felt sorely abused and sadly I and some fans no longer cared.
Even evaluating the follow on books should be done within some context of the time. Rosemary Roger probably needed to sell more books in the series. She had made a hit and she probably had a real need to follow up and get as much return as possible.
Rosemary Rogers, like Ginny, was a strong woman herself. Ms. Rogers was divorced and barely making a living working as a secretary and supporting her children when she published Sweet Savage Love.
Rosemary Rogers
Sweet Savage Love was her opus. She started the book as a child and spent every night for year re-writing it while working during the day until her daughter encouraged her send to a publisher and Avon printed the controversial book. The rest is romance history.
I did wonder later, during my own marriage, where the inspiration for the ongoing fictional Steve and Ginny issues came from and if it did not in part reflect the authors own mixed feelings and unfulfilled romantic dreams - especially when I found out that author had been married 4 times over the years...The irony is not lost on me that it seems to have taken Ginny and Steve 4 retries to find their final happiness!
Every day, I continue to re-discover my "Steve", who also happens to be my first and only one true love. After more than 25 years of ups and downs, separating, and having kids, we too will hopefully continue to find our happy ending.
I hope and pray that you, Rosemary Rogers, have found your "Steve" and that you are living your happy ending as well. You deserve it Rosemary!
Thank you Rosemary Rogers for giving us Steve Morgan and Ginny Brandon and for being the muse for many generations of romance writers to come.
Epilogue: Was surprised to find via Good Reads yet another book on Ginny and Steve that was published in 2000. Based upon favorable reviews, I sought it and bought it used in 2013.
Having read it now, I am happy to say it depicts a more mature, understanding/insightful, and gentle Steve. Once again we have the tired trope of Ginny getting raped by a villain, but this time Steve gets to stick around and see and deal with the aftermath. An aftermath, which in this case is much worse as it resurrects her prior rapes brings and on associated post traumatic stress syndrome. She even remembers Steve's attacks and to his horror becomes fearful of him. Steve FINALLY has his epiphany and promises to respect her by NEVER forcing her to take any action or do anything ever again.
Finally a much healthier Steve and Ginny relationship with a believable HEA!
October 23, 2011
Loved it! LOVED IT!!! Pure unadulterated entertainment from THE Rosemary Rogers. This is what I call a fulfilling read baby! This book has it all - great writing, brilliant plot, adventure+romance with the perfect amount of wtf factor, but let's get straight to the point. My favourite thing about this book is the current owner of my heart - Steve Morgan. Aaaah what do I say about my dearest Esteban...? What I really liked about his character is how he remained a jerk till the end of the book lol, he didn't turn into a saint just for the last couple of chapters like most other HR heroes. His flogging and prison parts were difficult to read but I felt it was all karma. I liked Ginny too. It boggles my mind how her life changed from the beginning to the end of the book. I hope I can find the sequel soon because I've grown quite attached to the characters after reading 700+ pages and I miss them already lol.
March 27, 2009
This was literaly the first romance I ever read was when I was young. Of course, now I'm 45 and the love scenes have been surpassed by a few other writers but they're still good. I was first married and my mother-in-law gave it to me when she saw how bored I was since I was allowed to work. I remember being shocked by the romance scenes. I was fascinated by the incredibly strong-willed leading lady. Not to mention the very forceful hero. I have read this book many times and it never fails me. I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys a fast paced I hate him-I want him-I love him kind of romance. These two are explosive together.
January 21, 2015
The Mother of All Bodice Rippers. None are worthy. Note that there are TWO listings for this classic title on Goodreads. Two Steves, yay.
February 19, 2018
I dislike this book for so many reasons, won't even bother naming them.
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