On the verge of marrying a man she loathes (the betrothal had been made when they were children), Skye O’Malley meets Niall Burke and it’s love at first sight – but the betrothal can’t be broken and Niall must make a better match than Skye. On her wedding night, Niall claims the right of droit du seigneur and gets first shot at the young virgin, enraging her husband Dom. Skye suffers mightily at the hands of her abusive husband, but by the time she’s free Niall is married (unhappily) and what then follows are plentiful ups and downs from capture by pirates on the high seas, being sold into slavery (don’t you worry, our heroine can charm anyone even the “whoremaster of Algiers”), and eventually ending in England in a marriage that brings her to the court of Elizabeth Tudor, but a twist in fate makes the two women enemies in the end. Can Skye win her battle of wits with the formidable Queen of England? Will she and Niall ever have a happy ending?Somehow I missed reading Small’s books back in the 80’s and when I spotted this at a free-book sale I decided to give her a whirl. Yes, I was warned that the purple prose was plentiful, rapes abounded and that the sex was OTT and I was prepared for it, but still –
As his seed thundered into her hidden valley he shook fiercely with the intensity of his passion.”
“Ahh…Skye, your little honey-oven is made for me.
Remember that honey-oven bit. Three (count ’em) three different men use this very same term when referring to Skye.
Let me play the great desert stallion tonight, my Skye. Roll over, and be my little wild mare.
Forgot to mention, Small seems to have a horse fixation…
A moment before his climax, he touched one hand beneath her to tweak at the little button of her sensuality and they shuddered their satisfaction in union.
*rolls eyes*
Your little honey-oven burns my lance with the fiery flow of the passion you would like to deny me, but can’t.
There’s that honey-oven again. Add all this up, toss in some very abrupt POV switches from one paragraph to the next, mix with some annoying info dumps containing waaaaay more background information on secondary characters than necessary (I really didn’t need to know about Geoffrey’s family history all the way back to the Norman Conquest) and what is left was just not the book for me. As for the rapes? Yes, they are pretty much standard for these older books and I can live with a forced seduction or two, but what I can’t live with is when the heroine is raped by the meanest, baddest, most irredeemable man on earth and we get this,
“And though she hated him, her body treacherously yielded itself.”
I won’t spoil, but the reader should also be warned that there is a scene towards the end involving a twelve-year-old girl and an aroused dog. If you’re a die-hard fan of the old school bodice rippers with a strong stomach this might be the book for you – and it’s a series so you can keep on readin’ more. Any one else, I’d recommend steering clear – this is my first and last Bertrice Small book.
At Home With A Good Book and the Cat 
Ew. Totally passing on this one.
I’m caught between laughing madly and a desire to throw up – somehow I missed these too, thankfully!
A twelve year old girl & an aroused dog? do I want to know?…I collected all these cause I heard they were SO good?! now what..door stoppers? if I had a bird..paper for the cage?…do I dare to read:(
Well, try at least one before you toss them all.
I read this years ago and I hated it fiercely! The purple prose was something beyond anything I read in my life! Unfortunately, each time I read anything about Skye O’Malley all the bad scenes (and there were many many many!) come back into my head like a tsunami. The one with the child and dog is probably the worst… I was actually gagging at that point. For me it was also the first and last book by this author.
I agree, the child and the dog was just too much even for an 80’s romance. Ew.
I don’t even remember anything about a girl and a dog. Of course it’s been at least 15 years since I read it. Huh, well, it’s still one of my favorites and on the re-read pile. I guess because this book was IIRC the first romance I ever read, it became my standard of “normal” and most else has been bloodless by comparison. LOL
I’d be interested to see how you react to this as an adult. Of course, you’ve got a whole lot of *new* bodice rippers ahead of you 🙂
Thank you for, well, protecting me from this book. Bertrice Small is one of those highly controversial romance authors I have long thought I should try in order to form my own judgment. But I am finally forced to realise that whatever redeeming qualities there may be in the story or its telling, my stomach is just not strong enough. And the inclusion of droit du seigneur tells me everything I need to know about the attitude to historical accuracy, which I had been wondering about.
Glad to take one for the team. My stomach was just not strong enough for this author.
If I remember rightly, this was her second or third novel, and she’s never shied away from very purple prose. Not to mention the very frank, and occassionally, off-putting sex. The sad thing was, back in the late seventies, early eighties, BR’s were pretty much all that you could get your hands on, with the exception of series romances which were rather dull. It was either one extreme or the other. The later novels, and the second series of books, were just as flamboyant, and sometimes more so, than this one.
I’ll not be going on that ride to find out.
What gets to me now several decades on, is that her books were so damn bad — and that to my shame, I did gulp them down as fast as they came out. Fortunately, my tastes have matured somewhat — I can cope with smut in fancy dress, and the PWP, but I really do draw the line at abuse — and the bit with the maidservant and the dog was just plain sickening.
I recall gobbling up Woodwiss in the older days, but not Small. There are some good ones still out there, but there’s also the dredge like this.
Good grief. This is just ouch. Admittedly I’ve not read any of her books (well, that I recall anyway….the 80s are a blur to me now). Prose like that might drive me over the edge though.
Some of those older romances are surprsingly good finds – but not Bertrice. She’s history.