Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Review: The Price of Innocence by Susan Sizemore

Publisher: TKA Distribution
Imprint: None
Publication Date: December 12, 2011
ISBN: 9781937776091
Genre: Historical Romance
Received via NetGalley


The Blurb:


Sherrie Hamilton is a woman with a scandalous secret past. When she travels to London for a Season of helping to launch her cousins on the marriage mart, she runs into her past. Literally. In the one place she never expected to find a pirate, she encounters the sensuous rogue who kept her as his lover years before.

Jack PenMartyn, Earl of PenMartyn, seeks to put his wicked past raiding the China Sea behind him. One thing he can't forget is the young woman whose pure innocence he stole; the woman who is the mother of the child he never knew he had.

He knows that with one false word, Sherrie will expose the secrets of his past. But does he dare to hope that she will give in to the temptation of their reckless passion for a future together?



My Take:


I have mixed feelings as I write this review. I'm not sure what I think about it or the characters. It's a mixture of feelings I guess. On the one hand I couldn't stop turning the pages, Ms. Sizemore definitely had me captivated, on the other hand the hero is constantly man-handling the heroine. There's, what appears to be to be forced seduction of the sort that yes she enjoys it but she says "no" and tries to stop him and then there's the revelation at the end that even though the hero, Jack has been beating himself up because of his repeated raping of Sherrie when she was his concubine nine years ago and the one time he raped her in present day, that Sherrie did not believe she had been raped at all and that Jack is mistaken. Rather, all her resisting was foreplay. I'm not sure if I believe that it's true and that Sherrie really believes this or if I believe Sherrie is clearly confused about what defines rape etc. 


I'm mostly confused because it both bothers me and doesn't bother me. I have a feeling a lot of people will not like this story and hate the hero and at times I did too. I particularly didn't like how toward the beginning of the book he called Sherrie a bitch (not to her face and more as internalization) but I feel it uncalled for, regardless of whether he was jealous or not. 


To me, as long as you get past it, you get to see Jack's good qualities particularly with the daughter he never knew he had. You can see his immediate love and caring for the girl and he has these moments when you clearly can tell he loves Sherrie and things do make a little more sense once he reveals some truths toward the end of the novel. Like I said, my mind keeps flip flopping on my feeling for this book. I really liked it and I would read it again, but a lot of it made me mad. Not sure what that says about me :-/ 


All I can say is that clearly, the pair have a very complicated relationship and that while they love each other, I'm not sure that it's a healthy relationship. At least not through most of the book. The ending seemed to clean some things up so that they were able to get a past a lot of their history that was hurting each other and ultimately I did find myself rooting for the couple to make it and so that they could have their little family and make it a bigger family and I adored their daughter and loved that he hardly even questioned whether the child was his when he found out. He just accepted it and started playing the role of father as though he was meant to all along which for me was a big redeeming quality for him. Also, his need to protect Sherri and Minnie redeemed him quite a bit. There were also a lot of small "sweet" moments, mainly of dialogue, toward the end that I very much enjoyed.


I did feel the whole suspense portion of the story with Lord Summer's fell a little flat to me. It could have been amped up to be more action oriented, but I did like how he was ultimately dealt with. 


I guess, even though the book made me mad in parts, it did keep me reading and I did enjoy it and found myself rooting for the couple and I would honestly read the story again so confused on my feelings or not, I think that basically says it all. I just want to warn some readers that they may not be as forgiving on the forced seduction as I was.


My Rating: 3 Lattes 





All My Best,


Kayla

2 comments:

  1. This book does sound like something I would like, but I think I would also have the same problems you did with the hero, and suspense in HR's is always hard. Sometimes I think that part of the plot isn't needed at all.

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    1. Yes, I think it's definitely worth the read, I just couldn't justify giving it four stars when it left me so confused on my feelings toward it and the hero...and the suspense part could have been really good, i just feel that when you add in suspense you need to add in SUSPENSE. Thanks for stopping by! I appreciate your opinion.

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