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Bride of Fury
Who is Kate Kingsley's husband?
A lecherous millionaire wanted her for his mistress. A nobleman wanted her for his wife. But headstrong Kate Kingsley gave herself to the wild and wicked Harry, who wanted her body.
But her happiness shattered when Kate was forced to marry Harry's older brother. The three of them shared the same house--and sometimes the same bed. What they would not share were their terrible secrets.
Who is this man who calls himself husband? Is he the kindly doctor, the tender lover--or a monstrous killer known as Jack the Ripper? As their tormented passions reach a terrifying crescendo, Kate must learn the terrible truth...
A lecherous millionaire wanted her for his mistress. A nobleman wanted her for his wife. But headstrong Kate Kingsley gave herself to the wild and wicked Harry, who wanted her body.
But her happiness shattered when Kate was forced to marry Harry's older brother. The three of them shared the same house--and sometimes the same bed. What they would not share were their terrible secrets.
Who is this man who calls himself husband? Is he the kindly doctor, the tender lover--or a monstrous killer known as Jack the Ripper? As their tormented passions reach a terrifying crescendo, Kate must learn the terrible truth...
351 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 1980
About the author
Rachel Cosgrove Payes
41 books7 followersRachel R. Cosgrove Payes was an American genre novelist. A research biologist by training, she married Norman Morris Payes in 1954. The bulk of Cosgrove's work consisted of historical romance novels, many published by Playboy Press.
Used These Alternate Names: E.L. Arch, Joanne Kaye, Rachel Payes, Rachel R. Cosgrove, Rachel Cosgrove.
Used These Alternate Names: E.L. Arch, Joanne Kaye, Rachel Payes, Rachel R. Cosgrove, Rachel Cosgrove.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
May 12, 2011
Good grief. This book...*sigh*
Talk about wasted potential. The supposed premise of this masterpiece o' suckitude is a good one -- speaking as someone who loved the movie From Hell, the cover blurb filled me with all sorts of fabulous WTF plot bunnies o' doom.
Alas, such is not the case. Not even fabulous WTF plot bunnies had the will to sustain this epic fail. Of course, who can blame the poor things? Their fuzzy bunny souls were sucked through the nose by our trio of central characters -- a mind-numbing trinity of ineptitude such as rarely seen outside MST3K gifs. This is a book where the same. damn. conversations. are held on endless repeat for all but the very beginning & very end of the page count -- and these conversations do absolutely nothing to further the plot, let alone propel the helpless reader toward anything of interest. Verily, I lost track of how many times we looped through this riveting story cycle:
KATE: "I love Harry! Harry makes my loins burn!"
HARRY: "Let's have sex before I leave town & act like a douchebag."
KATE: "Why is Harry a douchebag?!"
HARRY: "Because my older brother is a bore who could never satisfy you. Let's go to bed."
DEREK: "My little brother is a douchebag. Love me instead."
KATE: "But I love Harry! Harry makes my loins burn!"
HARRY: "Wanna go to bed with me?"
KATE: "I'm married to your big brother! But you still make my loins burn!"
DEREK: "My little brother is a douchebag. Love me instead."
KATE: "Derek also makes my loins burn. Oh noes!"
HARRY: "I'm a douchebag. Let's go to bed again."
KATE: "But I'm married to Derek! And he makes my loins burn!"
HARRY: "My big brother is boring. And I make your loins burn better than Derek."
DEREK: "Love me instead. I'm not a douchebag like my little brother."
KATE: "I love Harry & Derek! Woe is me & my horrible life!"
So what does this book have to do with Jack the Ripper? NOT A DAMN THING. There's some lame Scooby Doo crisis (Who is Jack the Ripper?? OMG is he my husband?! Is he my old boyfriend?! OMG WOE IS ME!) & an incredibly eye-rolling closure during which the legacy of the Ripper's unknown identity is explained away & Kate snuggles against the brother that makes her loins burn with True Love...after which I stumbled away from this book, opened a bottle of Excedrin Migraine, & downed a matched pair of little white pills.
Yeah, I hated this book. But is there anything good to say about it?
*checks*
*checks again*
...Nope. Not unless you count "clearing space for better books" as a positive.
Talk about wasted potential. The supposed premise of this masterpiece o' suckitude is a good one -- speaking as someone who loved the movie From Hell, the cover blurb filled me with all sorts of fabulous WTF plot bunnies o' doom.
Alas, such is not the case. Not even fabulous WTF plot bunnies had the will to sustain this epic fail. Of course, who can blame the poor things? Their fuzzy bunny souls were sucked through the nose by our trio of central characters -- a mind-numbing trinity of ineptitude such as rarely seen outside MST3K gifs. This is a book where the same. damn. conversations. are held on endless repeat for all but the very beginning & very end of the page count -- and these conversations do absolutely nothing to further the plot, let alone propel the helpless reader toward anything of interest. Verily, I lost track of how many times we looped through this riveting story cycle:
KATE: "I love Harry! Harry makes my loins burn!"
HARRY: "Let's have sex before I leave town & act like a douchebag."
KATE: "Why is Harry a douchebag?!"
HARRY: "Because my older brother is a bore who could never satisfy you. Let's go to bed."
DEREK: "My little brother is a douchebag. Love me instead."
KATE: "But I love Harry! Harry makes my loins burn!"
HARRY: "Wanna go to bed with me?"
KATE: "I'm married to your big brother! But you still make my loins burn!"
DEREK: "My little brother is a douchebag. Love me instead."
KATE: "Derek also makes my loins burn. Oh noes!"
HARRY: "I'm a douchebag. Let's go to bed again."
KATE: "But I'm married to Derek! And he makes my loins burn!"
HARRY: "My big brother is boring. And I make your loins burn better than Derek."
DEREK: "Love me instead. I'm not a douchebag like my little brother."
KATE: "I love Harry & Derek! Woe is me & my horrible life!"
So what does this book have to do with Jack the Ripper? NOT A DAMN THING. There's some lame Scooby Doo crisis (Who is Jack the Ripper?? OMG is he my husband?! Is he my old boyfriend?! OMG WOE IS ME!) & an incredibly eye-rolling closure during which the legacy of the Ripper's unknown identity is explained away & Kate snuggles against the brother that makes her loins burn with True Love...after which I stumbled away from this book, opened a bottle of Excedrin Migraine, & downed a matched pair of little white pills.
Yeah, I hated this book. But is there anything good to say about it?
*checks*
*checks again*
...Nope. Not unless you count "clearing space for better books" as a positive.
September 13, 2026
3.5 stars. Review to come!
~~~ Long, rambling review...
After bemoaning about how boring/repetitive this book was, I strangely got into it about 200 pages into the novel (it is 350 pages in total length). The thing is, I like Rachel Cosgrove Payes' writing style. This is the third novel I've read by her, and I wonder if this is a Playboy Press thing?
I really enjoyed The Dark Towers of Trelochen that was just a very decent gothic romance (and lots of lovemaking hehe) in the vein of poor governess journeys to a new post in a mysterious secluded English manor.
Bride of Fury is similar to the other Payes' book I didn't cotton on to, Satan's Mistress, in that I just never got into it, despite a lurid and very unique plot with salacious goings-on; Satan's Mistress deals with the Hellfire Club, and Bride of Fury with Jack the Ripper (I actually liked the plot's mystery, and it is not hard to guess if you pay attention to the clues).
My main qualm with this story is that the love story being overly simplistic for far too long.
Kate is a young woman who is in love with Harry. Any particular reason other than he's hot and gives her attention? Not really, except he constantly complains to Kate about how his brother and his aunt are out to get him. I really could not be fussed if a heroine is spoiled or selfish (in fact, they intrigue me more tbh) as long as the character is compelling to read.
Kate felt like the OW in a modern romance, where she would have been Derek's first love that betrayed him (which she does but he still loves her lol) since she was, unfortunately, one-dimensional, and you lack sympathy for her dumb decisions, since she keeps falling for Harry's stories. This is basically the first 200 pages, and then Kate just matures. She never analyzes why she fell for Harry or why Harry does what he does, beyond having sympathy for him yet still having porous boundaries that enable him to continue to do what he does...Although it's not to blame her, since Harry is a sleazebag who manipulates her and her part in it is that she falls for it.
***
I feel like I can see so much of the 1970s in this story set in Victorian England (changing ideas around how we view women who do sex work, and also serial killer anxiety), but published in 1979.
At a certain point, I just started to analyze the morality lessons that Payes was literally spelling out to the reader, such as Kate knowing nagging isn't the way to get through to a man. There are more "womanly' ways! Or when Kate says she could have changed Harry, and Aunt Letitia breezes into the dining room with a lol no you couldn't have.
It's interesting how somewhat progressive truths are mixed in with traditional gender roles:
Modern romances tend to idealize the perfect heroine more than they think they do, in their pursuit of making a heroine relatable. Kate's promiscuity was refreshing in that she was attuned to her sexual life and she loved her body (one point, Kate thinks she is proud of her chest and proud to show it off) UNAPOLOGETICALLY. While this was lovely, Kate is, at the same time, every young woman who believes her looks give them a semblance of power to the men they want to attract, and she is seen scorning/not listening to older women such as the Duchess of Dorminster and Aunt Letitia.
In fact, what's interesting is Kate's problem isn't that she had pre-marital sex, but that she chose to love the wrong man, a faithless man, an unemployed, failure to launch man. And defend him for nearly the run of the novel, which was what made the story hard because it's so clear he's a waste of space, and we all know it except for Kate! This is a terrible "love."
Kate's relationship to other women around her are all catty. However, the old, eccentric ladies were right in the end (it was a choice to make the Duchess a really garishly dressed character and the Aunt a disgusting eater lol). Even her best friend, she thinks that it's good she's hanging out with her while Harry is away, the implication being that she needs something to do while she waits for him.
***
Similarly, Derek is a mix of traditional and more progressive ideas about men and women. He loves Kate but similar to why Kate loves Harry, we have no idea why besides he thinks she is beautiful and spirited. Story would have benefited from giving us a deeper reason, or have that love deepen. It doesn't. They marry and Derek is determined that Kate will fall in love with him.
This didn't feel romantic for me, as it reminded me of older romances like Catherine Coulter's Devil's Embrace when the hero makes the heroine be with him, and it just feels like he chose her so she needs to fall in line. That wearing down doesn't feel attractive, I prefer dark romance's take on this type of hero's approach to love lol.
Derek also never calls a woman a whore. Not his wife or his patients in the East End, which suggests he doesn't dehumanize women. However, he also doesn't want Kate to go visit him at Whitechapel, and while the sex workers are overall seen as victims trying to survive, there's a lot of prejudice among the secondary characters about how they all are filthy and disease-ridden, and "seek men" to fuel their gin addiction. Derek never says these things as he is working to help them as a doctor, but the closest he gets is vehemently oppose Kate visiting and working in his clinic, saying it isn't safe for a woman like her, which felt like there was still a division between good/fallen women.
At the final count, this book is a great time capsule into the ideas around women, sex, dating, love, f**kboys, and real catches. And I would say the most feminist line in the novel is Kate's thought that there is no difference between a woman who does sex work or marries a man in exchange for economic security.
Overall, I'd continue to read works by Payes. I would love a copy of her Tarot book...
~~~ Long, rambling review...
After bemoaning about how boring/repetitive this book was, I strangely got into it about 200 pages into the novel (it is 350 pages in total length). The thing is, I like Rachel Cosgrove Payes' writing style. This is the third novel I've read by her, and I wonder if this is a Playboy Press thing?
I really enjoyed The Dark Towers of Trelochen that was just a very decent gothic romance (and lots of lovemaking hehe) in the vein of poor governess journeys to a new post in a mysterious secluded English manor.
Bride of Fury is similar to the other Payes' book I didn't cotton on to, Satan's Mistress, in that I just never got into it, despite a lurid and very unique plot with salacious goings-on; Satan's Mistress deals with the Hellfire Club, and Bride of Fury with Jack the Ripper (I actually liked the plot's mystery, and it is not hard to guess if you pay attention to the clues).
My main qualm with this story is that the love story being overly simplistic for far too long.
Kate is a young woman who is in love with Harry. Any particular reason other than he's hot and gives her attention? Not really, except he constantly complains to Kate about how his brother and his aunt are out to get him. I really could not be fussed if a heroine is spoiled or selfish (in fact, they intrigue me more tbh) as long as the character is compelling to read.
Kate felt like the OW in a modern romance, where she would have been Derek's first love that betrayed him (which she does but he still loves her lol) since she was, unfortunately, one-dimensional, and you lack sympathy for her dumb decisions, since she keeps falling for Harry's stories. This is basically the first 200 pages, and then Kate just matures. She never analyzes why she fell for Harry or why Harry does what he does, beyond having sympathy for him yet still having porous boundaries that enable him to continue to do what he does...Although it's not to blame her, since Harry is a sleazebag who manipulates her and her part in it is that she falls for it.
***
I feel like I can see so much of the 1970s in this story set in Victorian England (changing ideas around how we view women who do sex work, and also serial killer anxiety), but published in 1979.
At a certain point, I just started to analyze the morality lessons that Payes was literally spelling out to the reader, such as Kate knowing nagging isn't the way to get through to a man. There are more "womanly' ways! Or when Kate says she could have changed Harry, and Aunt Letitia breezes into the dining room with a lol no you couldn't have.
It's interesting how somewhat progressive truths are mixed in with traditional gender roles:
Modern romances tend to idealize the perfect heroine more than they think they do, in their pursuit of making a heroine relatable. Kate's promiscuity was refreshing in that she was attuned to her sexual life and she loved her body (one point, Kate thinks she is proud of her chest and proud to show it off) UNAPOLOGETICALLY. While this was lovely, Kate is, at the same time, every young woman who believes her looks give them a semblance of power to the men they want to attract, and she is seen scorning/not listening to older women such as the Duchess of Dorminster and Aunt Letitia.
In fact, what's interesting is Kate's problem isn't that she had pre-marital sex, but that she chose to love the wrong man, a faithless man, an unemployed, failure to launch man. And defend him for nearly the run of the novel, which was what made the story hard because it's so clear he's a waste of space, and we all know it except for Kate! This is a terrible "love."
Kate's relationship to other women around her are all catty. However, the old, eccentric ladies were right in the end (it was a choice to make the Duchess a really garishly dressed character and the Aunt a disgusting eater lol). Even her best friend, she thinks that it's good she's hanging out with her while Harry is away, the implication being that she needs something to do while she waits for him.
***
Similarly, Derek is a mix of traditional and more progressive ideas about men and women. He loves Kate but similar to why Kate loves Harry, we have no idea why besides he thinks she is beautiful and spirited. Story would have benefited from giving us a deeper reason, or have that love deepen. It doesn't. They marry and Derek is determined that Kate will fall in love with him.
This didn't feel romantic for me, as it reminded me of older romances like Catherine Coulter's Devil's Embrace when the hero makes the heroine be with him, and it just feels like he chose her so she needs to fall in line. That wearing down doesn't feel attractive, I prefer dark romance's take on this type of hero's approach to love lol.
Derek also never calls a woman a whore. Not his wife or his patients in the East End, which suggests he doesn't dehumanize women. However, he also doesn't want Kate to go visit him at Whitechapel, and while the sex workers are overall seen as victims trying to survive, there's a lot of prejudice among the secondary characters about how they all are filthy and disease-ridden, and "seek men" to fuel their gin addiction. Derek never says these things as he is working to help them as a doctor, but the closest he gets is vehemently oppose Kate visiting and working in his clinic, saying it isn't safe for a woman like her, which felt like there was still a division between good/fallen women.
At the final count, this book is a great time capsule into the ideas around women, sex, dating, love, f**kboys, and real catches. And I would say the most feminist line in the novel is Kate's thought that there is no difference between a woman who does sex work or marries a man in exchange for economic security.
Overall, I'd continue to read works by Payes. I would love a copy of her Tarot book...
March 28, 2018
This book was such a disappointment. Stupid, pointless drama the last half of the book. Even the revelation of the identity of the ripper was unsatisfying. So much potential, and it was wasted.
June 16, 2019
Okay, okay - I paid ten cents for this oldie and I had NO IDEA it was a Jack the Ripper novel.
Started off with MUCHO potential.
The beginning - bam!
The ending - I sorta predicted it.
But for a bodice ripper of a bodice ripper Jack the Ripper, it took me away for a two hour trip to a dark period of Victorian England.
Snip snip, slash slash.
Did anyone else get the giggles when "Jack" ends up drowning and recalled the Jackie Chan movie when they "pushed" Jack the Ripper into the Thames?! OMG, I was laughing.
But I liked the book. Eh, it was a cheap read on a rainy day - and it gets an honest three stars.
Started off with MUCHO potential.
The beginning - bam!
The ending - I sorta predicted it.
But for a bodice ripper of a bodice ripper Jack the Ripper, it took me away for a two hour trip to a dark period of Victorian England.
Snip snip, slash slash.
Did anyone else get the giggles when "Jack" ends up drowning and recalled the Jackie Chan movie when they "pushed" Jack the Ripper into the Thames?! OMG, I was laughing.
But I liked the book. Eh, it was a cheap read on a rainy day - and it gets an honest three stars.
November 30, 2023
What does one even begin to say about this book!? Normally I'd have avoided a Jack the Ripper plot, as I find it distasteful to profit off of a real life serial killer regardless of legendary status, but i bought this book without knowing anything about it.
Cosgrove Paynes writes female characters that I find interesting to read. They feel like women of their time and station, and while often in the beginning I find them unlikeable and incredibly naive, they are written like products of their upbringing and make sense, and usually as the book goes on the heroine's world perceptions are widened, and we get to see them blossom into worthy leads.
This book had a few lovely surprises that delighted me, and a few 'omg, seriously!?' face palm moments which made this book a really enjoyable rollercoaster to read. I was entertained, and I enjoyed nearly every moment of this book, no matter how bonkers it started to get. The abrupt ending has me cackling bc damn, we're really just gonna end this without unpacking what this news means to any of the character's left!? Classic.
Cosgrove Paynes writes female characters that I find interesting to read. They feel like women of their time and station, and while often in the beginning I find them unlikeable and incredibly naive, they are written like products of their upbringing and make sense, and usually as the book goes on the heroine's world perceptions are widened, and we get to see them blossom into worthy leads.
This book had a few lovely surprises that delighted me, and a few 'omg, seriously!?' face palm moments which made this book a really enjoyable rollercoaster to read. I was entertained, and I enjoyed nearly every moment of this book, no matter how bonkers it started to get. The abrupt ending has me cackling bc damn, we're really just gonna end this without unpacking what this news means to any of the character's left!? Classic.
April 2, 2016
Kate & Derek
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