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Kathy
Joined: 31 Mar 2009
Posts: 46
Location: Southeast U.S.
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 Posted: Fri Oct 28, 2011 12:46 pm Post subject: The worst romance EVER (cont'd) |
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This is a continuation of the other thread called "What is the worst romance you ever read?"
My nominee is Caress And Conquer by Connie Mason. It may have been in the other older thread, but I just recently read this one.
CAC reminded me why I stopped reading romances for several years. I never understood why or how Amanda loved Tony who was selfish, cruel, hateful, etc. I didn't find any redeeming qualities in him. The villainess was way over the top, and the right HEA would have been for the Letty and Tony to stagger off into the sunset together, so to speak. I know CAC was written in a different era for romance novels, but I just hated this book.
Last edited by Kathy on Fri May 11, 2012 9:11 am; edited 1 time in total |
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maggie b.
Joined: 23 Mar 2007
Posts: 2253
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| Posted: Sun Oct 30, 2011 4:58 pm Post subject: Re: The worst romance EVER |
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| Kathy wrote: | This is a continuation of the other thread.
My nominee is Caress And Conquer by Connie Mason. It may have been in the other older thread, but I just recently read this one.
CAC reminded me why I stopped reading romances for several years. I never understood why or how Amanda loved Tony who was selfish, cruel, hateful, etc. I didn't find any redeeming qualities in him. The villainess was way over the top, and the right HEA would have been for the Letty and Tony to stagger off into the sunset together, so to speak. I know CAC was written in a different era for romance novels, but I just hated this book. |
LOL, I always have trouble thinking of books I really hated. I think my brain performs some sort of protective amnesia so that my mind is cleared of the awful experience  One book that I can't forget, unfortunately, is Hungry for Your Love a so called anthology of zombie romance. This collection of porno/horror stories with the occasional romance thrown in left me with some memories that still make me feel slightly nauseous.
maggie b.
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Hopeless_Romantic
Joined: 21 Jan 2010
Posts: 114
Location: U.S.
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| Posted: Sun Oct 30, 2011 7:23 pm Post subject: Re: The worst romance EVER |
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| maggie b. wrote: | | LOL, I always have trouble thinking of books I really hated. I think my brain performs some sort of protective amnesia so that my mind is cleared of the awful experience |
That is exactly how my mom is about movies - she either loves or hates, but she tends to blank out the bad ones. 
A book I didn't like, at all [and I might get my head handed to me for this if there are fans of it on here], but i couldn't finish "The Wild Child" by Mary Jo Putney. The excerpts were great, but ICK - too many things to complain about (and I usually force myself to finish a book, but I just couldn't bear this one).
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graceC
Joined: 28 Mar 2007
Posts: 440
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| Posted: Mon Oct 31, 2011 7:50 am Post subject: |
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| Wuthering Heights. To this day I don't dare pick up another Bronte. |
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PWNN
Joined: 11 Apr 2010
Posts: 820
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| Posted: Mon Oct 31, 2011 4:36 pm Post subject: |
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SEP's THIS HEART OF MINE. Man forced to marry his pregnant rapist after being punched in the face and having his career threatened by her family. Rapist plays the woe is me victim to her family, the public and to herself. Rape victim then has to coddle her to make her feel better then bizarrely not only falls in love with this bunny writing sad sack nut job (who should be in jail) but insult to numerous injury has to apologize for not loving her sooner and then woo her and prove he's good enough for her by sacrificing his NFL career.
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MrsFairfax
Joined: 27 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Mon Oct 31, 2011 6:53 pm Post subject: |
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| graceC wrote: | | Wuthering Heights. To this day I don't dare pick up another Bronte. |
Emily only wrote the one. Her sisters' works are very different.
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erhea13
Joined: 01 Nov 2008
Posts: 114
Location: So Cal
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| Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2011 7:07 pm Post subject: |
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| MrsFairfax wrote: | | graceC wrote: | | Wuthering Heights. To this day I don't dare pick up another Bronte. |
Emily only wrote the one. Her sisters' works are very different. |
But they still have the same melodramatic feel. I re-read Jane Austen once a year (I am a nerd and she is my favortite) but I will never revisit any Bronte novel.
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JamiSings
Joined: 28 Dec 2010
Posts: 94
Location: Costa Mesa, CA
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| Posted: Wed Nov 02, 2011 8:11 am Post subject: |
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| erhea13 wrote: | | But they still have the same melodramatic feel. I re-read Jane Austen once a year (I am a nerd and she is my favortite) but I will never revisit any Bronte novel. |
Too bad, I kind of liked Jane Eyre myself. Hated WH though. I didn't read it but mom made me watch the movie a lot.
I thought of another I never cared for but can't remember the name of. Something with "Sun" in the title, I think. I hated it because the ending was so ambiguous.
This noble girl (I think it took place in Cromwell's time, but it defiantly started in England) decides she wants to see what the big deal with sex is. So she has sex with this guy who's a notorious rake that wants to marry her for her money. She decides sex isn't worth having but has to flee because he threatens to tell everyone they had sex so she'd be forced to marry him.
Now, this is important to the plot - she happens to be so incredibly thin that unless she's buck naked, she looks like a boy. So these rebels against - I forget who, really, but I think it was Cromwell - take her in and dress her as a boy as part of a bombing plot. She somehow gets separated from the rebels and ends up on a ship to the Middle East. There she's sold into slavery to a sultan who, in actually, is a pedophile that prefers little boys. (They don't use the term pedophile, of course, or even try to make it sound wrong that he likes to rape kids. ICK!) But he owns wives for appearances sake. She's sold to him because she looks so much like a boy.
She spends the majority of her time in the harem drugged. They use some lime based substance to remove all her body hair. Even describing how the other brides pluck at her pubic hairs until they start coming away easily. Then wipe her down and wash her.
While it's never described, the number one wife basically rapes her in the tub. Yep. Because the heroine is drugged the whole time the number one wife takes advantage of her. Later the heroine thinks about the wife's "sharp nipping teeth" and how they felt on her nipples.
Hero finally enters. Can't remember much - not even if he was English or American - but eventually they escape the sultan together. Adventures ho. Soon they have sex and she worries about his reaction because her pubic hair still hasn't grown back.
They never get married and in fact, when the book ends with them going to South America, I get the feeling she didn't even really love him. He was just someone she's with because it's better then being in a harem drugged up all the time. He was just someone to be with for now.
And I forget why I think this, but I believe it's mentioned she's still hairless down there. That just totally broke it for me. She had been gone from the harem for nearly a year. Unless that lime like substance totally burned her skin down to past the hair follicles, her pubic hair should have grown back! In fact, they should have been growing back just before her and the hero's first sex scene.
I wish I could forget bad books easily. I can forget their titles and the names of their characters, but I can never forget their plots! ARG!
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ChrisReader
Joined: 05 Sep 2009
Posts: 685
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| Posted: Wed Nov 02, 2011 8:44 am Post subject: |
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PWNN said | Quote: | SEP's THIS HEART OF MINE. Man forced to marry his pregnant rapist after being punched in the face and having his career threatened by her family. Rapist plays the woe is me victim to her family, the public and to herself. Rape victim then has to coddle her to make her feel better then bizarrely not only falls in love with this bunny writing sad sack nut job (who should be in jail) but insult to numerous injury has to apologize for not loving her sooner and then woo her and prove he's good enough for her by sacrificing his NFL career.
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That made me literally laugh out loud. SEP annoys me too but because her titles are so generic I can't always remember which is which without a description. When I got to the "bunny writing sad sack nut job" I was like "Oh yeah I read that one!" Priceless description. Isn't this the one where she hisses "Slytherin" at people she doesn't like?
I have a real problem with a lot of SEP's stuff, especially the way she feels people have to be publicly humiliated and somehow that shows they really love the person. |
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Tee
Joined: 22 Mar 2007
Posts: 4053
Location: Detroit Metro
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| Posted: Wed Nov 02, 2011 9:32 am Post subject: |
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| JamiSings wrote: | | I wish I could forget bad books easily. I can forget their titles and the names of their characters, but I can never forget their plots! ARG! |
Probably something similar to school staff. They remember the difficult and challenging students and the students who excel much more than the well-behaving average pupils. But that's how it goes. The exaggerated on either end of the scale leaves an imprint on the mind. Think Hollywood's antics and people!  |
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Lea AAR
Joined: 11 Apr 2007
Posts: 403
Location: Oklahoma
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| Posted: Wed Nov 02, 2011 10:11 am Post subject: |
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| PWNN wrote: | | SEP's THIS HEART OF MINE. Man forced to marry his pregnant rapist after being punched in the face and having his career threatened by her family. Rapist plays the woe is me victim to her family, the public and to herself. Rape victim then has to coddle her to make her feel better then bizarrely not only falls in love with this bunny writing sad sack nut job (who should be in jail) but insult to numerous injury has to apologize for not loving her sooner and then woo her and prove he's good enough for her by sacrificing his NFL career. |
I thoroughly enjoyed This Heart of Mine and have listened to it as well as read it. However, your post cracked me up! I guess it could be seen that way! Still laughing...
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MrsFairfax
Joined: 27 Mar 2007
Posts: 1065
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| Posted: Wed Nov 02, 2011 2:35 pm Post subject: |
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| erhea13 wrote: |
But they still have the same melodramatic feel. I re-read Jane Austen once a year (I am a nerd and she is my favortite) but I will never revisit any Bronte novel. |
That's sort of like saying you won't read any Wilkie Collins because you disliked Great Expectations. Like Jami, I disliked WH but Jane Eyre is a lifelong favorite.
My worst book ever was Demon Lover by Victoria Holt. Miniature painter Kate goes to paint the Baron's portrait, and gets a crush on some fellow in the castle, but the Baron wants that fellow to marry his old mistress, since the Baron has to marry some heiress or other and he wants his woman happy. The fellow refuses, so the Baron kidnaps and drugs poor Kate and rapes her repeatedly, making sure that fellow sees them in the act. The fellow marries the mistress, Baron marries heiress, Kate has child out of wedlock. Eventually there's a war, or something, and Kate has to fall back on the Baron's protection, where she languishes until the heiress dies and she can marry the Baron herself. Even for the gothic 70s, this was putrid.
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Cora
Joined: 12 Mar 2008
Posts: 1088
Location: Bremen, Germany
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| Posted: Wed Nov 02, 2011 7:39 pm Post subject: |
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| Tee wrote: |
Probably something similar to school staff. They remember the difficult and challenging students and the students who excel much more than the well-behaving average pupils. But that's how it goes. The exaggerated on either end of the scale leaves an imprint on the mind. Think Hollywood's antics and people! |
When I met my old chemistry teacher again for the first time in fifteen years and asked him if he remembered me, he looked at me and said, "Weren't you the one who blew up the volleyball net?"
I was a straight A student in chemistry and all he remembered was that bloody volleyball net.
Jamie, that book sounds absolutely horrendous BTW.
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Dabney
Joined: 21 Jul 2010
Posts: 70
Location: the middle South
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| Posted: Wed Nov 02, 2011 9:25 pm Post subject: |
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| PWNN wrote: | | SEP's THIS HEART OF MINE. Man forced to marry his pregnant rapist after being punched in the face and having his career threatened by her family. Rapist plays the woe is me victim to her family, the public and to herself. Rape victim then has to coddle her to make her feel better then bizarrely not only falls in love with this bunny writing sad sack nut job (who should be in jail) but insult to numerous injury has to apologize for not loving her sooner and then woo her and prove he's good enough for her by sacrificing his NFL career. |
See, I can see the validity of all your points, but I still love this book.
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JamiSings
Joined: 28 Dec 2010
Posts: 94
Location: Costa Mesa, CA
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| Posted: Thu Nov 03, 2011 12:55 am Post subject: |
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| Cora wrote: | | Jamie, that book sounds absolutely horrendous BTW. |
Yes, yes it was.
And what sticks with me to this day is the fact I always got the feeling she was really in love with the woman who raped her. Well, Stockholm Syndrome type love. But it did seem she had more feelings for her rapist then for any of the men she had sex with willingly.
It was one of the romance novels my friend pushed on me insisting I read it. Up until high school I avoided romance novels like the plague but she was always pushing them on me. Most were the Rapetastic kinds filled with Alpholes.
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