OYENTE

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My favorite of the series

Total
5 out of 5 stars
Ejecución
5 out of 5 stars
Historia
5 out of 5 stars

Revisado: 04-09-25

Morley was the best MMC in the series, and probably one of my personal to 10, ever. One of the reasons I read these books was because I was drawn in by how she writes the most gripping, believable, emotional, and intense opening chapters.

Her opening chapters made me decide the books were worth putting up with the arrogant, overblown, ridiculous leading male characters, and the predictable, crazy, psycho, over-the-top, cape wearing, mustache twirling, tie-her-to-the-train-tracks type villans. I'm also glad that I did, because in this final book, the MMC is redeemable, lovable, likeable, and relatable. Also, the villan is a lot more realistic.

Overall, this book came the closest to matching the riveting story telling of first chapter through the entire story.

I would write about the MFC's, but I've loved all of them.

Honestly, great book, beautiful story, with lovable and relatable main characters.

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Rape, not love, could trigger some people

Total
2 out of 5 stars
Ejecución
5 out of 5 stars
Historia
1 out of 5 stars

Revisado: 04-06-25

Not a likable MMC. Quite hateable actually.

I actually started to get very uncomfortable every time there was a "love" scene because they all had a weird kind of rape vibe. From the first one, where she is forced to do it because her livelihood is in jeopardy, to the next one where he says "Don't tell me no," etc, they all felt weirdly wrong and made me uncomfortable. I think for some readers these scenes could actually be triggering.

There is not enough redemption at the end of the story. MFC deserved so much better than what she got. I wish I could say that when he pays the 20£ he doesn’t know...so it isn't rape...but if he wasn't told no in the first place he wouldn't have offered so much...she says he stands there negotiating for a long time.......I really wanted to be able to believe in his redemption, but my logical brain just couldn't pretend to be dumb enough for me to get past all the times she said NO.

There was actually a lot of potential in this story, but it fell very far from the mark.

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Need to focus on substance, not 'substance'....

Total
5 out of 5 stars
Ejecución
5 out of 5 stars
Historia
3 out of 5 stars

Revisado: 04-02-25

Was it really necessary to constantly talk about how revolting Catherine de Medici was because she was fat? I understand there needs to be a villan, and obviously from this perspective she is the bad guy...but constantly going on about her weight (especially from Henry's POV after she finished giving birth to his children) only makes the main characters seem shallow and callus.
Seriously, mentioning her "fleshy" this and her "lumbering" that...it was too much. It was low hanging fruit and her evil character could have been developed far better with more focus on behavior and personality. Overall, the book was really good, but in this one thing...I expected better.

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Very disappointed

Total
3 out of 5 stars
Ejecución
3 out of 5 stars
Historia
3 out of 5 stars

Revisado: 03-30-25

Two of the most selfish, self-centered, unlikeable main characters I've ever read about. Neither one thought for one second about anybody else. This is the first time I've ever felt like I didn't really care if one of them died or if they didn't have a HEA. The main reason I gave the book more than one star was because the history in it was fantastic and the writing truly beautiful.

Seamus was a horrible disappointment as a MMC, especially after finding out he was distant towards and rejected his own wife once he had his side piece. The only person who ever really saw Willa accurately was her brother. I agreed with every thing he said to or thought about her. She was spoiled, selfish, and whiny. "He called me cruel Seamie..." I almost stopped the book right after that line.

They both always thought everyone else was too stupid to know what was going on and what they were doing. The arrogance of that disturbed me almost as much as the never ending self pity, 'I want to die' kind of behavior from Willa that started after she grew a teeny tiny, itty bitty conscience way too late in the story. If the writer was using that sort of thing to redeem the main characters in the readers eyes, it failed, badly. Neither one ever apologized to Jenny, they never tried to make amends, they just felt sorry for themselves and depressed about not being together, even that was a result of their own stupidity in the first place. They never once considered how lonely, neglected, and abandoned she must have felt.

For those people who say that Willa and Seamies characters are better understood if you read the first two books...well, I did read them, in order, and I still hated both MCs.

Willa lost her leg, couldn't cope with it, and spent the next 8 years having a temper tantrum away from Seamie to both punish him and and live in a self-imposed exile, then she decides she wants him back as soon as he's promised himself to someone else, like a toy she doesn't want until another child picks it up....

It's also a small thing...but it really bothered me that she never once tells him thank you, not in the last book or in this one, never thanks him for literally carrying her for 5 straight days, without food and almost no water or rest after she broke her leg on the mountain. Nope, she just gets all *#^$&# over it and runs away from "the man she loves more rhan her own life"...a little over-dramatic for a woman who can't bear to be near him.

Also, for some insane reason all the men are constantly falling in love with Willa, which actually got a little irritating after a while.

Two selfish, spoiled, self-centered, and unlikable main characters that I wish could have somehow been redeemed, but the writing just kept falling short of the mark.

Would someone please tell this narrator how to pronounce the word 'grimace'? Seriously! Also, if someone is described as having a certain accent, maybe try to use that accent....Americans with New York accents shouldn't sound like they speak the king's english.

The twist at the end was also kind of ridiculous, over the top, and predictable.

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Distinctive writing style

Total
5 out of 5 stars
Ejecución
4 out of 5 stars
Historia
5 out of 5 stars

Revisado: 03-27-25

J Donnelly is a skilled writer. I disagree with reviews that say her book had too many plot lines or went too off topic, etc. I thought the storylines all first together very well, and I thought it made sense that multiple situations happened to multiple characters, after all, life isn't lived in a vacuum.
One thing that really strikes me about J Donnelly's books is that she is not afraid to let her characters get hurt. She doesn't always create a rescue scene at the last minute, she lets characters make very bad decisions, marry the wrong people, and even get hurt when they put themselves in danger. It makes for a more realistic and rather painful experience when reading her books. If you are the kind of person who only wants over-the-top fantasy and fluff, you will probably hate these books. If you want a high level of character development, detail, and years covering loss, trauma, love, sadness, and joy...then you might love her writing. It isn't for the faint of heart.

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Awesome story, ok narration

Total
5 out of 5 stars
Ejecución
4 out of 5 stars
Historia
5 out of 5 stars

Revisado: 03-24-25

This was a really, really good book. It was well written, smart, emotional, and didn't rely on over-used tropes and clichés. The best part though....it is a historical novel about NORMAL PEOPLE! It isn't a stupid story that romanticizes some member of the upper class, focusing on how different that person is from everyone else in their entitled, arrogant, self-centered world. It was really nice to read a story about regular people, and what makes those regular people special...not simply admiring those people because they simply meet the bar when it's set at basic human decency.

I thought the performance was overall good, but I wish she had tried to distinguish between voices more, (for example her male and female voices were the same) and it made following many of the conversations very difficult unless the characters had opposing accents. I had a difficult time listening to her voice for Fiona, it was too deep and harsh, it did not sound like a 17-18, or 28 year old woman, at all.

Also, she used English accents for almost all of the American-born extraneous characters like the gardener, the book-seller, the reporters, and even main characters like Will and his whole family. It felt like she forgot where the setting was, and it disappointed me because the very few times she used an American accent she was actually really good at it.

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1988

Total
5 out of 5 stars
Ejecución
5 out of 5 stars
Historia
5 out of 5 stars

Revisado: 01-28-25

I'm writing this review because I almost didn't read this book. I read all of the comments about a "rape" scene and they freaked me out. I thought I deleted it, but I guess I forgot and didn't realize it was the same book until I'd already started it a month later. Now, I'm really glad I did read it, and I would like to give other readers an opportunity to understand this book from another point of view.

This book was originally published in 1988. I absolutely loved the story. I understand how a love scene in a novel from almost 40 years ago can come across to many modern listeners in a negative way. However, if you pay attention to the historical setting and the context, it isn't so black and white.

While trying to understand the complexity of this issue, I started to wonder, how does the FMC feel about what happened? Later in the book, a number of times she is asked if she wanted it to happen, and she says yes, she did, she loves him, and she wanted him but didn't feel she had the self control to stop, and so she wanted him to be the strong one instead, etc. She says it was not rape. She also says it wasn't her choice and yet she does not regret what happened. Her character is always described as an extremely honest, practical, and self-aware woman. She is not traumatized. She also says she doesn't regret what happened to her. She doesn't hate him. She doesn't even blame him.

Does what happened primarily fit the most updated, modern day definition of rape? Yes, of course. However, a super modern day consent seeking scene just would not have fit this story. In many ways it was actually a very accurate historical depiction and the FMC is treated far better than she ever would have been in real life.

Think about it, and woman gets backhanded and knocked to the ground in the very first chapter of the book...and the man who does it is one of the heros of the story. Modern day viewpoint would be that he's a bad man, period. However, in the context of the story, the woman he hit was so determined to see the bloodlust on the battlefield, she almost gets all of the children killed, including his babies. This woman ends up being one if the major villans of the story, which makes readers more comfortable with her learning a serious lesson even though in real life hitting a woman like that (not to mention she was his wife) would be an absolute no. Also, the villains of the story are into BDSM and orgies and according to 1988 standards that makes them even worse people. The modern day view point would be not to judge others for their sexual proclivities as long as everyone involved is a consenting adult.

There are a number of times women are attacked physically in this book, but the writer always gives the reader an "out" with the context. She does the same thing with the sex scene in question. Does the way the scene is written fit better with the historical setting and leave a little wiggle room for the reader to accept it? Yes. Does that mean it's ok in real life? No.

What I'm trying to say is that, in books, context matters and so does the time the book was written, so take all of that into consideration before reading.

I was actually very impressed that the author took the time to add an additional scene much later in the book where another character does try to rape the FMC. She responds physically (and for 1988 that's pretty ahead of her time to write that so boldly). The FMC goes out of her way to tell him her body is not doing what she wants, she tells him this is not what she wants, that he will regret doing this, that she does not want him to touch her. The author goes quite far in showing how the FMC would behave when she is in that situation, and it is very different from the first scene. It's an out, this way the reader can see the difference between when she does want the man and when she doesn't.

I really loved the way she wrote about women's sexuality and needs compared to men's needs, the pain a woman feels when contemplating a man's possible infidelity and how they feel the same. I loved the conversation the FMC had with another character about all of that toward the end if the story. It was so beautifully written and well said. The language in this book is poetic, and it is just lovely to listen to. Most writers don't write like this anymore, and that is a shame.

Toward the beginning of the book there are many conversations between characters that address sexual assault as a mode of warfare. I thought that was a very serious subject to address in a romance novel and it was brave of the author to bring it up. Most romance novels written today are so focused on making the heros into paragons of modern virtue and modern idealism they end up spending too much time over-explaining and just sound ridiculous and out of place.

Honestly, the whole point of books like this is to create an imaginary world, a fantasy. Not everything in our fantasies is black and white either.

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Please read this review

Total
1 out of 5 stars
Ejecución
4 out of 5 stars
Historia
1 out of 5 stars

Revisado: 01-18-25

If you are in undecided about spending your money or credit on this book, please read my review first.

Sometimes I really don't understand how some people not only manage to get their writing published...but they actually succeed in making a living off of it. How does this happen? I'd call it a miracle, but that would imply it was a good thing.

The main conflict in the story, the stalker, was very poorly constructed. This storyline was weak, and worse, forgettable. I do believe the writer recognized the story needed more conflict and decided to supplement it.

I applaud this decision. After all, the basic plot and storyline were pretty anemic and much was needed to fill the empty space. Between the MMC telling the FMC how to cope/dress/feel about her own trauma responses and then the FMC having a breakthrough and finally getting her crucial bikini wax (after all, she'd let herself go after her trauma, so at least she finally got her priorities right...) there wasn't much substance to the story. It was also probably better not to continue to fill more of that empty space with further discussion of how some women are the kind you have group sex with and other women are the kind you bring home to meet your mother.... Yeah, probably better to create more conflict than to continue to build on those narratives.

Unfortunately, the decision to add conflict by creating a "sharing is caring" trope seems to have been unwise. In this story, the MMC believes he must include his two best friends/cousins when he has sex, even though his virginal soon-to-be partner disagrees, (after all, what does her opinion matter) and this is where the main conflict of the story resides. She thinks intimacy should go both ways, he thinks it should go four.

The author deserves credit for creativity, after all, this trope is rather original, but that's about it.

Does any reader actually buy into the idea that a normal man (one who wasn't brainwashed and/or being held captive by a cult) would truly believe his "sexuality" only truly exists in its purist/fullest form when his two cousins join in with him? Seriously? Besides being codependency at its finest, this is both disturbing and difficult to believe.

First, as a woman, I'd be concerned with any man insisting he should probably have backup (especially ×2) to satisfy a woman...it sounds like a serious confidence defficiency, or a fear of potential performance issues.

Second, the whole explanation the MMC gives about how a woman begins to build a "special bond" with the man/men who take part in her first sexual experience....I'm confused...I thought it was baby geese that imprinted on their first...wait...well...maybe I got those mixed up....

Maybe something is wrong with me, but I thought it was a little strange to have the MMC describe a woman's reaction to experiencing physical intimacy/sex for the first time in a way that implied women are little more than farm animals imprinting on whomever is present when her hymen is broken.

Yeah, I stopped listening half way through. I'd wanted a book that didn't require much thinking, but I didn't want one that required no brain cells for it to make sense.

Even a fantastic narrator couldn't save this one.

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Loved it!

Total
5 out of 5 stars
Ejecución
5 out of 5 stars
Historia
5 out of 5 stars

Revisado: 01-16-25

I hope she writes more books like this. The banter was both clever and hilarious. The richness of the characters was beautiful. I loved it.

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Exhausting!

Total
1 out of 5 stars
Ejecución
1 out of 5 stars
Historia
1 out of 5 stars

Revisado: 01-15-25

I can tolerate a lot, but when the book is so exhaustingly long, and then the narrator can't pronounce the most basic words correctly......I finally stopped the book and gave up about three quarters through when the narrator pronounced the word "rapist" as "wrapist" (as in wrapping a present)......I just couldn't take any more after that. It is so distracting and confusing to listen to constant mispronounciations. Overall, the book was worse than weird, it was overkill weird. It was exhausting weird. Not worth a credit or the time, and this narrator could destroy a really good book with little effort, so this one never stand a chance.

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