Glynda in Bodice Ripper Readers Anonymous

Mar 13, 2025 Sarah Mac rated it it was amazing

Shelves: bodice-ripper, vintage, keepers-vintage, squeamish-book-cooties, zz-publisher-signet, bodice-shredding-lit-fic, epic-doorstoppers, alpha-asshole-alert, medieval, guileless-ott-joy

”I think Fate likes to play tricks on helpless mortals, taking two people whose paths were never meant to cross and thrusting them together, intertwining their lives until neither man nor God has the power to separate them.”

An exhausting, brutal read in the finest tradition of vintage bodice-shredding doorstoppers. 💕 This book is long, wordy, & emotionally draining—but it’s all those things in a good way. Excepting rare throwbacks like BELLE CORA or THE REVOLUTION OF MARINA M., they really d ”I think Fate likes to play tricks on helpless mortals, taking two people whose paths were never meant to cross and thrusting them together, intertwining their lives until neither man nor God has the power to separate them.”

An exhausting, brutal read in the finest tradition of vintage bodice-shredding doorstoppers. 💕 This book is long, wordy, & emotionally draining—but it’s all those things in a good way. Excepting rare throwbacks like BELLE CORA or THE REVOLUTION OF MARINA M., they really don’t write historicals like this anymore. And that’s a damn shame.

The titular heroine is Glynda, natch. But it’s much more of an ensemble cast than the blurb indicates. Aside from Glynda & her bonehead beloved Philip (seriously, the dude defines ‘slow learner’ 😂), we have a love-pentagram tying them to… *shuffles papers* …Blanche, Philip’s long-suffering wife; Guy, an arrogant alpha Templar; & Deborah, a beautiful young Jew. We also have lengthy cameos by Crusade-era personages like King Richard, Prince John, Robin Hood, & Saladin, plus an assortment of minor OCs that are generally either downtrodden + sympathetic or evul + repulsive. The settings are gritty & vivid, leading to gory, flamboyant vignettes, including an excellently tense final combat between Guy & Philip (one of my fave moments in the story); though the author inserts calm chapters of respite both for characters & reader, the angst & violence accelerate into overdrive at the drop of a hat, which is (partly) what makes it so draining. You’ve been warned. 🫣

NB: the heroine spends much of this novel as the OW—it’s a complicated situation between Glynda, Philip, & Blanche—but it also makes for an interesting juxtaposition in the final section as the triangle between Glynda, Philip, & Guy flips Philip into the role of OM. (Special mention goes to Templar villain Guy, who broke my heart with his unrelenting & unsatisfactory pursuit of Glynda. Poor fellow just couldn’t win. 😗💔)

Special mention also goes to the author not shying away from various characters’ struggles to reconcile self + conscience with the brutality + hypocrisy that ran rampant during the Third Crusade. There are some painfully heavy moments in this sprawling book—which is as it should be, given the period & subject matter. You’ve been warned (again).**

Anyway…I really loved this, despite wanting to bang Philip’s head against a wall on multiple occasions. 😬 Five shiny stars! Thank you, GLYNDA, for being a doorstopper that was worth the effort. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

**Squick list:
-rape/dubcon
-hero raped in prison
-infidelity
-miscarriage
-un-PC language
-Crusades battle gore ...more

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Jul 16, 2010 Vivisection rated it it was ok

Shelves: guilty-pleasures, historical-romance, smutty-reads, golden-age-of-bodice-rippers, all-the-rapey-rape, heroine-is-a-melanie, hot-mess-hero-heroine

I would like to hop into a time machine and warn my sixteen year old self about this novel and then punch myself in the face. I would also take this book away from me and hand myself Susan Faludi's Backlash or some other radical feminist theory book. Many of my ideas regarding male/female relationships were formed by these novels.

When I read Glynda all those years ago, I had a penchant for the heroines who tamed their wild beast warrior lords with their gentle, loving, passive, and yes, we can ...more

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