Yikes, rape ahoy

umm.. i really don know what to say..

hero d novel ini kaya psikopat gila.. anthony, jatuh cinta ama ibunya heroine-cassandra.. tp krn ia ga berhasil ngedapetin ibunya, maka ia memutuskan utk mjd kan cassandra sby calon istrinya d masa depan.. yaiks,, cassandra masi berumur 5 th pas itu..!!

after years passed by,, trnyata cassandra jatuh cinta ama her childhood friends - edward, n they decided to marry.. sehari sblom the wedding, si anthony menculik cassandra..

dalam penculikan ini, si anthony berkali2 nge rape cassandra.. n dy bener2 yakin klo cassandra emg his soul mate, n bakal jatuh cinta ama dy (rada sinting)
n like any other kidnapping case in history romance, adegan sex hero n heroine, dr yg awalnya no-no-no, jd yes-yes-yes..

btw.. adegan sadis d novel ini bener2 graphic.. rape by anthony, gangbang rape by cassandra kidnapper ( 5 men vs 1 woman ), adegan pas anthony ngejait luka in cassandra's woman flesh ( digambarin klo robek ampe belakang *shudder shudder*),,

plot cerita jg lemah.. ending villain nya diceritain cm dlm sepucuk surat.. ga diceritain gmana si anthony solved the problem or gmana emosian nya cassandra.. cuma datar2 gt aja..

doing some organization and lmao I just realized I borrowed this from the library a few months AFTER I had already bought a physical copy from a vintage shop.

I think I skimmed a lot? Love the cover I own, though!

Disclaimer: I did not finish reading this book.

Most of the bodice rippers/historical romances (and let's be real, most of the romances in general) that I read have some instance of rape in them, couched in various degrees of "romance". And it generally sucks, but also? I've been able to see past heinous action into the fantasy beneath? There is something sexy about releasing control to someone/passion - rape is NEVER ok! But in a fiction, especially when the heroine secretly finds pleasure in it (Again, NOT an excuse in real life! But in the books it tempers acts of violence into fantasy), I can read on.
Unfortunately, that's not what happened here. I almost put the book down when Anthony rapes Cass by tying her to the bed and forcing her despite her literal sobbing and screaming. It was bad enough that he basically groomed her because he thought her mom was hot? And then kidnaps, abuses, and humiliates her? But I picked it back up and tried a little bit more.
I can't. I just can't. It's too gross a dynamic for me, and Cass isn't even into it in like a sexy secret way. I don't need to watch him "break down her walls" or whatever. I've read heinous stuff before, but I just can't do this.
"not for the faint of heart" is something I'm seeing in a couple reviews and that's not even what it is? It's just not hot what's happening, not dangerous in a fun sexy way, not appealing to read if you're looking for the fun and interest of a romance novel. Alas.

Sorry, I knew it was a bodice-ripper from the 80s, so I was ready for a forced seduction but other atrocities??? No!
This book should come with a WARNING!

Devil... #1? Oh, god, this is a series?

I find that i like the sequel more better!

This was my first book of the modern literature that I started to read (2009 year). Catherine Coulter surprised me with her pace of the words, rhythm and twists in this story. I think because of her I found out how was born the Dark Romance genre. I don't know who was the first who started to write like that but for me she was the first. Maybe Shakespeare I also can include in that list - "Romeo and Juliet" is not a sweet romance at all - you can see crimes, murders, hate, love, and suicide as well.
I really enjoyed the characters and the story "DEVIL'S EMBRACE". Yes, in some ways, it was rough, cruel, but I think Dark Romance never was a sweet or clean romance ever! That's why it calls DARK Romance and this difference highlights DR among others.
This book shows the real people and real events that can happen in our life. Of course, I can predict that people will argue with me saying that the main heroine was annoying and bla-bla-bla thing, but for me, these heroes was like breath of a fresh air. They were passionate, not perfect, like all of us, people who want to find their own happiness.
GREAT BOOK! I would love to read it again!

Had he nurtured her, as would a gardener, raised her in the image that he himself had created for her?

One romance writer’s hero is another romance writer’s villain. Nowhere is this more obvious than in Devil’s Embrace, a bodice ripper that tells the classic love story of boy-abducts-girl. There are precise notes of physical and mental abuse the so-called heroes of bodice rippers hit, whether they employ rape as a form of punishment, hatch a plot to seclude the heroine away as a kept woman, call her slurs or simply beats her.

Oftentimes the hero is simply the villain that the heroine loves, and I would argue Anthony, Earl of Clare and his Pygmalion motivations, more than his pirate-like abduction of Cassandra, is what makes him one of the most psychologically scarring lovers to grace the history of cult romances.

The spirit of so-called heroes like Lord Clare lives on in villains in romances published decades later. For example Lisa Kleypas’ Worth Any Price (my review:  https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2405101154): The hero and heroine meet because she is running away from an older man that wants to control her life.

Half of the fun in going back to OG romances is to see their influence on today's romances and how there is a new spin to familiar plots and archetypal figures, where one generation's hero archetype is another generation's villain.

Upon Cassandra’s realization that the man who has boarded her fishing boat is a somewhat familiar face, she observes of Anthony, “You seem different, changed. I have always thought of you as an indulgent uncle.”



Which is honestly one of the best things that’s ever happened in a romance novel.

Coulter then does her very best to convince the reader that Anthony is hot and not old, so much so I judge Cassandra's powers of perception. Yet that little line that would have been scrubbed if it had been published today, along with other scenes, is a perfect moment. No matter how much you expect (ok anticipate) the shocking bits, there will be a moment that will jar you out of your suspension of disbelief in the bodice ripper.

In Devil’s Embrace , the discovery of the letters is one of the most stomach-churning moments of the story that touts an  gang rape  scene. Sweeping aside Anthony’s infatuation with Cassandra’s mom (seriously, how old is Anthony) because all romance novels get one pass from the reader, Anthony has been grooming Cassandra to be his wife since she has been a minor and that is a tough pill to swallow. The details of how Anthony singled her out with his attention since she was a minor, lavishing chess sets and having his female relation installed as her chaperone and teaching her Italian as a child is sketchy af, especially when Anthony admits he first noticed her due to her physical similarity to her mother.



Consider Cassandra herself is just 18. We’re all here for the sordid tale, but now we’ve gone to the Flowers in the Attic with our accumulation of taboos here. Cassandra tries very hard, along with the reader, to reconcile this new and horrifying information with her love of Anthony in the final act of the novel. Anthony has been proven right about his opinions throughout the novel. Early on, he asserts she would never have been happy with Edward but with him, and this casts a shadow over Cassandra’s triumphant moment of clarity about choice, as it never fully convinces the reader that she’s made a choice at all.

Read in August/2016

The only seemingly "good" part about this disaster-of-a-novel was the fact that it was less than 400 pages, 397 to be exact... a fairly fast read. If it'd not been for how short this train-wreck was, I'd have tossed it in the bin before the 100 page-mark!

LET ME BE HONEST HERE: You need a LOT of patience to get through this novel. I've read a lot of the old-school bodice rippers where the heroines get abused & raped by the heroes, but NONE have faired as worse as this.

Devil's Embrace fails to give readers a meaningful storyline, one with purpose and depth. While the plot is somewhat slightly existent, it desperately lacks significance and motivation. It could've been on Coulter's part or simply that she just isn't a good writer. It was an utterly annoying and irritating read for me and I'd found myself skipping large parts of this book, simply because the story failed to keep me interested.

While story did have an exciting, promising beginning, however it did turn into disappointment, cliches, disgust, and outright boredom. I do not recommend it for anyone who prefers to read more faster-paced novels with a lot of drama and meaningful storylines.

The first time I read this book, I was in high school in the 90s. I loved it so much, and have reread it dozens of times since. It had been probably a decade since my last reread, so I decided to see if it still holds up.

It has all the stuff I love in a 1980's Bodice Ripper:

Okay...my turn...i read this book when i was eighteen, more than a decade ago, i loved it then and i still love it till now even when times have changed. This book made me fall in love with Catherine Coulter and i read every one of her books i could find. Sue me but this book would forever be a classic! The Earl's ways maybe bother-line neanderthal but lets face it apart from this being fiction, this was set almost two centuries ago, they did a lot of downright cringe worthy things.

Still a beautiful book...