I avoid books that degrade women into possessions or objects of sex, and I’m afraid this book didn’t do enough to redeem itself. In this story, beatings were promised in the future if the wife did not give absolute obedience. Jamie spanked Claire in the “Outlander” but she taught him never to beat her again. These weren’t gentle love pats but brutal spankings. Then when she doesn’t obey him completely, even though she had a good reason not to, he beats her because she did something he perceived as dangerous, and his job is to protect her. He shows her sex can be good but he forbids her parents to visit and allows others to mistreat her. Instead of winning her love, he takes her and forces her to accept marriage to him. Then we have the initial attraction, but she rejects him. It takes her 80 pages before Falcon appears. This can be a problem for writers who create an original setting and feel they have to explain everything to the reader before any action occurs. Lindsey spent a lot of time setting up the fantasy world. Some of the stories work and some do not. Her men are giants and warriors who take their women by force only to be opposed by their pride, stubbornness, and demands to be respected. Lindsey was master of the fantasy romance and liked chains, whips, and violence in her stories. He has to rescue her from a woman who has her chained to a wall and plans to whip her. Falcon then fights in the arena and is wounded by her father, but he agrees he can have her hand even though she has no say in it. He wants to show her it can be beautiful, but she flees.įalcon brags to Shanelle’s brother about the woman he wants to make his slave not realizing it is his sister. Shanelle is afraid of pain and passes out during sex. She sees Falcon, and he reacts to her so they go back to his tent. She does not want to marry a warrior and plans to find a husband at the fair on her planet who is less alpha male. Her father is a warrior who controls his emotions and doesn’t show love, but her father does love her mother, but it is not the sort of marriage Shanelle wants. I stumble over complicated names and a writer should limit names to something simple or create a nickname for the remainder of the story. Shanelle Ly-San-Ter and her friends have graduated from World Discovery and are heading to her home planet with a couple of androids.

I thought this was a medieval love story like many of Lindsey’s book, but she tries something new by adding a science fiction element. Keeper of the Heart by Johanna Lindsey 1993 Avon Books

Keeper Of The Heart by Johanna Lindsey