THE PLOT
On the voyage from France to Saint Martin, where she is to wed the rich Comte that her father has chosen for her, Bettina Verlaine is captured by Captain Tristan, a fearsome pirate. He can't resist her, so he rapes her a lot. Every time she tries to run away and escape, she gets kid
napped and nearly raped by someone else who is inevitably far more foul than Tristan, who is good to her even though he rapes her and who saves her from being raped by these other guys. Tristan decides that he's going to take her to his island estate and keep raping her there for a while before returning her to her betrothed, Comte de Lambert. She escapes to find her fiance but finds out that he's a total dill hole. Then Tristan kidnaps her back. Bettina tells Tristan she is pregnant, and tells him that he is the father but leaves enough room for doubt that the baby could belong to Lambert. Meanwhile, Tristan has been searching for his nemesis, Don Miguel de Bastida, who raped and killed his mother when Tristan was a boy. Tristan's ex-flame, the piratess Gabby, comes to visit and Bettina gets super jealous and realizes she's in love with Tristan. Tristan kicks Gabby out because he loves Bettina. But then Bettina gets kidnapped by Bastida and Tristan goes to rescue her. Tristan and Bastida engage in a sword-fight while Bettina is in the other room, shackled to a bookcase and in labor. Tristan kills Bastida, delivers the baby, and they go back to the island paradise and live happily ever after.MY TAKE
There is a part of me that wants to believe that this book is a big joke. No book could possibly be so blatantly misogynistic, right? For example, Bettina's nursemaid advises,
"Why do you still resist him, Bettina? ...He is a handsome young man...It would be much easier on you if you gave in... He rapes you because you resist him. He wants you, that is all. I thought you would have accepted your situation by now"
Srsly, Johanna Lindsey? There are three main takeaways from this book:
1) Bettina is at fault for being kidnapped and raped all the time because she is so damn attractive. As Tristan says, "No, I didn't [have to rape you]. But you are just too tempting, little one. I'm afraid I don't have the will to resist you." In fact, the only reason her ship gets captured by pirates in the first place is that she was on the deck of the ship and the pirates saw her. It's her own fault. She wasn't supposed to be on the deck in the first place because her beauty could incite her own crew to rape her!
2) If Bettina would just give in, it wouldn't be rape! Her own mother insists, "He does not strike me as such a bad man, even though he forces you to sleep with him." I mean, at least he's handsome, unlike the other scummy dudes who try to rape her. And his logic is infallible: if she just consented to sex, he wouldn't have to rape her!
3) Arousal = desire, which is as good as consent. "What you are feeling now is not disgust, little flower. It is pleasure, pure and simple - you know it, and I know it. You curse me, but you want me. Your passion conquers your hate, and your body cries out for the fulfillment that only I can give." Riiiiight. (In my head that sounds like the part in The Mask where Jim Carey turns into a French horn-dog. Even though Tristan is English.)
It was pretty tough to make it through this book because lines like that kept making me want to throw the book across the room. (And it would be the book's own fault. It's so deplorable, it's just *asking* for punishment.) But I soldiered through it for the sake of one day blogging about it. Luckily, the plot is intricate enough that it held my attention.
THE HERO
Tristan is pretty much a jerk. He is arrogant and possessive and manipulative and condescending. He also fails to see the irony in hunting for the man who raped his mother to death while he rapes Bettina every night.
THE HEROINE
I can't say I like Bettina a whole lot, either. She's got determination, though, running away again and again. She falls in love with Tristan out of nowhere. It might be more Stockholm Syndrome than love. And when she is tied up and in labor, she forces herself not to scream because she doesn't want to distract Tristan from his duel. Come on, guys.
THE SEX
There isn't very much sex in this book, just lots and lots of rape. Like this:
He went deep inside her and remained still as he covered her face and neck with kisses. His lips found hers again, branding her with the passion of his kiss. He started to move inside her, slowly at first, then faster. A feeling was building, spreading through her loins like liquid fire. And soon Bettina clung to Tristan as ecstasy exploded inside her.
Bettina heard Tristan laugh deeply, triumphantly, and she felt more humiliated by this than by anything she had gone through so far. So this was his revenge – to give her that wonderful, that unbelievable pleasure. And at the height of the moment, she had clung to him as if she couldn’t bear to let him go.
I know some people are into humiliation, but I found this repugnant. Maybe Johanna Lindsey wants the reader to be simultaneously repulsed and aroused so as to identify with Bettina. But I don't think that's what she's trying to sell. And if she is, I ain't buying it.
THE PIRACY
Tristan is a privateer. He commandeers the ship that Bettina is on. That's about it.
MY RATING
Rape: 5/5 stars
Writing: 3/5 stars
Backwards logic: 4/5 stars
Overall: 1/5 stars. Blech
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