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A review by dtaylorbooks
The Pirate Lord by Sabrina Jeffries, Deborah Martin
2.0
You’re going to be seeing a few of these types of books pop up for the next couple of months. I’m reading them for research. Truly. For style and whatnot. And let me tell you, it’s rather difficult. Thank god all of these books came from PaperBackSwap so I rightly paid nothing for them.
So the reason I’m reading these pirate romance novels is because I want to see how they’re set up, what kind of plot elements are involved, what the characters are like, how it ends, that whole shebang. And I’m reading these books AFTER I’ve done a few months’ worth of genuine pirate research. I took out fat encyclopedias from the library and everything. So going from realism to . . . fantasy is jarring. Especially when the fantasy is so . . . absurd. I don’t normally read bodice rippers anyway so this is double duty newness to me. It’s a big adjustment.
Gideon is a hardened pirate who succeeds in kidnapping a bunch of women from a convict ship in order to force them to be brides for his pirate crew because they want to settle down on a spot of land aptly named Atlantis and give up pirating for good. After I finished gagging I had to contend with my laughing and then after that was done I had to struggle through the rest of the book. I understand a lot of these books are outlandish by their very nature which goes against my need for realism in books. But just coming off of all that research I was just scoffing. I couldn’t help it.
It doesn’t help that Gideon gets a little coochie-coo with the children that came with some of the convict women and let’s them play with his toes and whatnot that I just couldn’t get on board with. That was a pretty big departure from his character, even factoring in how he was with Sara and it really took me out of the story.
And then we have Sara. Expect the push and pull because of PROPRIETY except when orgasms come into play and then screw propriety. Of course poor decisions are made and instigating is done because she wouldn’t be a stubborn dame without it all. I do have to give her credit, though. Her first priority is always protecting the women she’s charged herself with and she really doesn’t waiver on that at all. I can respect her for that.
I do have to say I liked Louisa’s and the cook’s (whose name escapes me) relationship better than anything. It was sad and endearing and it broke my heart and then stitched the pieces back together again. I would have MUCH preferred those two be the focus of the story but, you know, they’re far too NORMAL for that. The male love interest is required to be a chiseled sex god and the woman has to be a hard-nosed noble that swings back and forth on her feelings like a tennis ball.
The sex was good. Nice and steamy and WRONG but GOOD and it poked and prodded at Sara in all the right places (figuratively and literally). She came out of her shell (also figuratively and literally) and opened herself up to a world of pleasure that was always taught to be wrong and forbidden and evil. Orgasms are good. She knows this now. Although in reality her pleasure would have come with a serving of the clap and a side salad of herpes because Gideon most certainly WASN’T a virgin but that’s neither here nor there. Fantasy, remember. It can’t bother itself with communicable diseases.
It was rough getting through THE PIRATE LORD. I just found the plot overtly ridiculous and I really wasn’t connecting with Gideon or Sara much at all. The teasing and sex helped a lot but the inane plot really hurt it for me. The sugary sweet ending was off-putting as well. It was just so . . . happy and the Morticia Addams in me sneered at that. There wasn’t enough for me to latch on to in this book. I could’t care about it enough.
2
So the reason I’m reading these pirate romance novels is because I want to see how they’re set up, what kind of plot elements are involved, what the characters are like, how it ends, that whole shebang. And I’m reading these books AFTER I’ve done a few months’ worth of genuine pirate research. I took out fat encyclopedias from the library and everything. So going from realism to . . . fantasy is jarring. Especially when the fantasy is so . . . absurd. I don’t normally read bodice rippers anyway so this is double duty newness to me. It’s a big adjustment.
Gideon is a hardened pirate who succeeds in kidnapping a bunch of women from a convict ship in order to force them to be brides for his pirate crew because they want to settle down on a spot of land aptly named Atlantis and give up pirating for good. After I finished gagging I had to contend with my laughing and then after that was done I had to struggle through the rest of the book. I understand a lot of these books are outlandish by their very nature which goes against my need for realism in books. But just coming off of all that research I was just scoffing. I couldn’t help it.
It doesn’t help that Gideon gets a little coochie-coo with the children that came with some of the convict women and let’s them play with his toes and whatnot that I just couldn’t get on board with. That was a pretty big departure from his character, even factoring in how he was with Sara and it really took me out of the story.
And then we have Sara. Expect the push and pull because of PROPRIETY except when orgasms come into play and then screw propriety. Of course poor decisions are made and instigating is done because she wouldn’t be a stubborn dame without it all. I do have to give her credit, though. Her first priority is always protecting the women she’s charged herself with and she really doesn’t waiver on that at all. I can respect her for that.
I do have to say I liked Louisa’s and the cook’s (whose name escapes me) relationship better than anything. It was sad and endearing and it broke my heart and then stitched the pieces back together again. I would have MUCH preferred those two be the focus of the story but, you know, they’re far too NORMAL for that. The male love interest is required to be a chiseled sex god and the woman has to be a hard-nosed noble that swings back and forth on her feelings like a tennis ball.
The sex was good. Nice and steamy and WRONG but GOOD and it poked and prodded at Sara in all the right places (figuratively and literally). She came out of her shell (also figuratively and literally) and opened herself up to a world of pleasure that was always taught to be wrong and forbidden and evil. Orgasms are good. She knows this now. Although in reality her pleasure would have come with a serving of the clap and a side salad of herpes because Gideon most certainly WASN’T a virgin but that’s neither here nor there. Fantasy, remember. It can’t bother itself with communicable diseases.
It was rough getting through THE PIRATE LORD. I just found the plot overtly ridiculous and I really wasn’t connecting with Gideon or Sara much at all. The teasing and sex helped a lot but the inane plot really hurt it for me. The sugary sweet ending was off-putting as well. It was just so . . . happy and the Morticia Addams in me sneered at that. There wasn’t enough for me to latch on to in this book. I could’t care about it enough.
2