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OK, I *had* to post this. I love Lady Danger by Sarah McKerrigan which features a strong female character. Someone said if I liked Lady Danger that I really should read The Wolf and the Dove by Kathleen E. Woodiwiss. I was just SO so upset by this book. Here is my review. My question to you all is - do modern women really feel that a man who continually rapes you is someone you want to be with??

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SPOILER WARNING - THIS REVIEW TALKS ABOUT PLOT POINTS

I adore the Lady Danger series by Sarah McKerrigan. Someone in that review suggested if people loved meaningful medieval romances that they should check out The Wolf and The Dove. This was written back in 1974, but I love medieval romance and eagerly bought a copy. I mean, medieval times haven't changed that much, right?

Well, medieval times haven't changed - but WOMEN have changed since the early 70s. At least, I had really thought we had until I saw some of the reviews here! It really upsets me that women readers thought that Wulfgar was a hero. To delve into this we have to examine the plot.

Aislinn is raised as a loved noble woman. She is engaged to a neighboring lord and all is going well. Then in storms the Normans and her father is slain right before her eyes. Her mother, an intelligent, caring healer, is beaten and turned into a rag-wearing slave. Aislinn herself is raped by the first knight who comes through. Then Wulfgar shows up.

He pretty much immediately begins to RAPE HER DAILY. She is clear about not wanting sex. He doesn't care and continually rape her. His "excuse"? He's a bastard son. So what? William, his liege lord, is a bastard and he's crowned king. There were lots of bastards in these days. I understand the whole "wanted love as a child" angle. But that doesn't give a man leave to continually rape a woman.

You could say "all men raped women in 1066" - but first, this is not true, and second, he was a knight. Knights took vows. Yes, some shady knights would occasionally rape a woman. However, a knight I would want to fall in love with would not be one of those. And no worthy knight would continually rape a woman.

OK, let's say he felt a simmering love for her and this was his (albeit inappropriate) way of showing it. But then when his sister shows up and starts emotionally abusing Aislinn, he just lets it go on. Soon Aislinn is wearing rags, the sister has stolen all her property and Wulfgar keeps raping her. Oh yes, and the mother is still wearing rags and treated like dirt too. Aislinn doesn't really seem to mind.

Wulfgar treats her completely as a whore. Yes he eventually buys her nice clothes (because she has none left and is going to appear at court). He's hoping to get some good sex in return, because right now she's being passive while he rapes her.

Which brings us to Aislinn. We are told repeatedly in the book that her main quality is that she is gorgeous. Any man who looks at her wants her. That is the sole reason they desire her - to have sex with her. Wulfgar doesn't really seem to care if she's happy or being sniped at by his sister. He just wants her more active in bed. Aislinn herself is entranced by his handsome good looks - but she refuses to put out in bed because she's just a whore and it bugs her. So her solution is ... to nag him incessantly. She is grumpy and sour, with the intention of getting him to marry her! She nags him non stop so that finally in the end he gives in and "surprises" her with a wedding.

Voila! She is now a tigress in bed, and he is thrilled.

I know there are MANY women out there who like male agressors, and that is fine. I am quite happy with a strong male. But there is a very distinct line between a strong male and an abusive male. A survey of women in the 15-24 age range found that **60%** were involved currently in an abusive relationship! *All* of them had been in a violent relationship at some point in their life. Isn't that scary? Do you think if we women read about repeated rape as being a "normal" part of a sexual relationship - never mind a relationship that is full of emotional abuse as well - that it affects our ability to draw the line when our actual sexual partner gets rough with us and refuses to respect our wishes?

Back to the book. So let's just say for a moment that it IS ok for a knight to repeatedly rape a woman - and for this woman to get "Stockholm Syndrome" and want this to go on forever and marry this guy. Is the rest of the story enjoyable? Well, the answer is NO. Rather than having actual depth to the characters, the ending makes everything completely meaningless. It turns out Aislinn WAS a virgin when she first slept with Wulfgar and somehow NEITHER noticed it!! Hah, highly unlikely! She was a healer, she knew about sex and virginity. Certainly Wulfgar knew from the soldiers he hung out with what the signs were! It also turns out Wulfgar isn't a bastard, that his siblings were. So now all childhood and modern traumas are neatly sewn up into little squares and made smooth.

How about the writing style? I know many books with horrendous plots where the writing was amazing and I loved it anyway. Here we have typos, we have grammatical errors, and we have jumps of scene and time without any transition or warning. You have to re-read a section to make sure you know who is talking and when it is taking place.

The book is very beauty obsessed. People are looked down as being "old women" or "too thin" or "infertile" or such. People are only treasured if they are curvy, beautiful and can have kids.

I was taking notes as I read this and I kept writing down that there was "odd situations" going on. What characters did or said made no sense based on their background and personality. They were being dragged along to suit the plot. Several aspects of the ending situation involving a child were completely unbelievable to any parent.

There were several God-like situations where characters made allusions to things they couldn't possibly know. There are historical inconsistencies. Just one example - they talk about rapiers in the year 1066, when rapiers were developed in the 1500s. There are also factual errors. Most birthmarks are caused by the birth process and the very few that are inherited do not skip generations. That was a deux ex machina if ever one was written.

I really wanted to like this story. I appreciate authors who can write long novels and fill them with interesting content. I adore the medieval period and love stories based in this time frame. I am generally VERY lenient as far as storyline goes. But this one bothered me greatly. It really concerns me that so many readers (judging by the reviews) felt that repeated rape of a woman was fine - and that her technique of nagging constantly at a guy to force him to marry her was fine as well. These are about the OPPOSITE of what romance is supposed to be about.

We need more books about QUALITY relationships. The guy should be worthy of marrying, not a rapist. They should share a relationship where they wed because they want to, not because the guy is nagged endlessly until he gives in to the "feminine desire for a ring". Maybe then we could start seeing a drop in this incredibly distressing 60% domestic violence rate that modern women are trapping themselves in.

I don't consider myself a feminist - but it really bothers me greatly that women are allowing themselves to be abused like this - and extolling the behavior in book form as a great, fun read.

You know what? I think the universal answer these days is no, but back when Woodiwiss wrote this book (in the late 70s or early 80s?) this was acceptable in a romance novel. The alpha male was the only male, and every historical romance had scenes like this.

With the exception of a few of the 'erotic romances' on the market these days, you won't find this anymore. The market has evolved as the readers and society have evolved. And you definitely can't judge current romances by a twenty-year-old book.

OH!! I want to clarify when I said "reviews here" in my review I meant reviews on AMAZON. I went to Amazon after I read the book, to see what others had thought of it and it was getting five star reviews from readers who had JUST read the book. It just upset me so much, that modern readers in the year 2008 were praising the hero as being "sensitive" and "caring".

I can understand people in the early 70s MAYBE feeling this way - but women in 2008???

I'm sort of waiting for all of her fans to start negatively rating my review on Amazon too, but I had to post it - the book just upset me so much, and then to go on Amazon and find modern readers claiming this was the perfect hero guy really really upset me as you can tell

In fact look, one of the Amazon reviews says "... if you're a mother who wants to introduce romance novels to a young teenager this book would be perfectly OK." - that was posted in 2007. So they're actively promoting this for young teenage girls!!!

Did these people actually read the book? Sheesh. I certainly wouldn't want my teenager (if I had one) to read about a relationship as degrading as this.

Yes that is what upset me so much. These people had *just* read the book - in modern times - and thought that the hero / rapist was sensitive, sweet and the perfect man. They wanted someone as take-charge and powerful and sexually driven in their own lives. I am all for a guy being strong and liking sex - but this guy didn't care at all what the woman wanted, he raped her whenever he felt like it, and he let his sister emotionally abuse her and steal all her belongings. It really bothers me that women right now, in this current age, would think this is a fantastic partner that they should nag into marrying.

I cannot agree more with your analysis. I read "The Flame and the Flower" last week, wondering what the so-called first book in the modern genre of romance was all about, and was more than a little disgusted with the hero. Thinking that perhaps Woodiwiss would come to her senses with her second book, I picked up "The Wolf and the Dove" over the weekend, and I am still in a state of shock. I've got about eighty pages to go before I finish it, so I skipped the part of your review that looked like it might discuss the end, but I am wholeheartedly of the same opinions you have expressed as to the rest. I read the reviews on Amazon before reading the book -- if you're the one who warned about the repeated rape, thank you for that. At least you can't say I went in completely unprepared.

And yet, how do I prepare myself for the idea that a man who repeatedly rapes a woman can EVER be considered a "hero" by modern standards? Silly me -- repeated intentional assault generally disqualifies anyone from being a "good guy" in my mind. In addition, as you noted, he treats Aislinn terribly in every respect. What in the world could EVER cause her to fall for him? I don't get it. But even accepting the possibility that this poor, battered woman who has just lost her family, her home, her old life, many friends, security, and any semblance of personal safety, might turn to her tormentor/protector as some kind of knight in shining armor (which is plausible, I suppose), how can any modern woman find this story appealing? There are reviews out there describing Wulfgar as "never cruel". Come again?!?!! Woodiwiss did a decent job in "Flame" expressing the heroine's feelings about the rape, though I never felt that it was really a terrible trauma. In "Dove", the trauma seems not to exist at all. What I wonder is, are we so coddled in our safe, independent society that we can't even imagine the horror in a situation like Aislinn's?

I'm still trying not to be sick.

Thank you for your comments. I'm glad to know I'm not the only one out there with this reaction.

Being a victim of date-rape myself, I'm tempted to read this book. It's just incomprehensible to me that anyone at anytime considered rape romantic (outside of S&M community that is).

It's been a very long time since I read any romance novels period. I read a few harlequins when I was in high school (the 80's)- and quite often the woman was talked into sex. I don;t remember any actual rape scenes, but coercion and pressure, yes!

It was one of the main things that turned me off of romances. I couldn't stand reading scenes of a woman falling for a man like that after my rape.

TrueMind - welcome to our forum!! It is so good to have you here

Yes that was me on Amazon being so completely upset by it. I was only "partially upset" by the book - but then when I went to Amazon to post a review, I saw all these women with recent reviews saying they ADORED the hero and it just sent me over the edge I couldn't believe that modern 2008 women were loving this character!! It was very scary to me.

I am SO glad you posted, after seeing all the glowing reviews of this book I was beginning to think that I was alone out there.

Michelle - as a victim of date rape I have to say this book is probably the LAST book you want to read because it will just infuriate you. There's no reason for you to spend 4-8 important hours of your life - hours you could spend being happy and with loved ones - getting yourself upset.

It's not even like one of those "the delivery man came in, and he was so gorgeous, and then he took me" rape fantasies. It was very cold and cruel - and then there's the sister who emotionally abuses the woman and the woman's mother too. And the heroine's response is to "not enjoy it" until she can nag the hero into marrying her. Because of course then everything will be OK.

There are TONS of great romance novels out there that are well worth reading. In a way part of what really upsets me about this book is that modern readers are apparently promoting this to others as an "ideal romance novel to read now in 2008" which will make people new to the genre think that ALL romance novels are like this, and be completely sickened.

If you do want to try a few romance novels, poke around this forum for other suggestions which are much more sane