The one and only! (Fictiondb) |
Published: 1985
Genre: Regency Period, Historical Romance
My Rating: 2 stars
99 in AAR Top 100 List
Whitney
Stone is in love with Paul. But, alas! he is not interested in her, so she
goes to Paris for a make-over. When she comes back, she has already attracted
the attention of another man, the rakish Clayton
Westmoreland, Duke of Claymore, who likes her spirit and her liveliness. Kind
of Regency ‘Gone with the Wind’, but without the war, isn’t it?
Many people love this book. They think the
characters are so intense that they take you into a whirlwind of emotions. ‘Whitney,
My Love’ has been in the AAR Top 100 from the beginning, but it’s going down
with each passing year, from the 5th place in 1998 to this 99th place in 2013.
I’m one of those that dislike this book.
A wilful girl and an overwhelming ‘macho’ are not my cup of tea. Clayton is a
rapist –something a little bit usual in the 70s and 80s romances – but without
the final groveling. He is so obsessed with the ‘taming’ of this ‘shrew’ –a hateful
literary topic from a feminist POV- that he does not respect her, he is groping
her all the time, he even buys her to
her father! I was not surprised when I read that, in the original version of
the book, he even hits her with a riding crop.
What else? The plot moves forward with a
lot of stupid misundersdings, and in the end Whitney is more mature, but
Clayton keeps on being the same asshole. So, I’m afraid, that their HEA will be
full of forgiveness from Whitney’s part.
So, ‘Whitney, My Love’ is part of the
Romance canon. It has all the topics that you can easily find in many novels
published after this one. So you have to read it to know where this genre comes
from and how it was in the past.
The long review of this book, in Spanish,
can be found here.
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