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The Roses of Ridgeway #1
Kissing the Captain
Kissing the A Roses of Ridgeway Historical Romance
From Heartbreak to New BeginningsIn 1879, near the small northern California town of Ridgeway, Lilly Warren is a young woman who has recently lost her father. There is little time for mourning, though, as the responsibility of running the twenty-six-acre farm now belongs to her. To make matters even more complex, her father has deeded the house and the land to her in his will with an interesting that she share the land with a person she's never met, or forfeit ownership.
Leaving the Sea Behind for a New LoveRicardo Benigno is a Spanish captain of the Anna Juanita, a shipping vessel bringing spices and oils to the shores of California. Seeking out the farm of his old friend Leonard Warren, he discovers that the older man has passed away. To his surprise, Ricardo has also been willed joint ownership of Warren land, as long as he shares it with Lilly, Warren's only child.
Will There be Romance, or Rebellion?The attraction between them is instant, and they both agree that marriage is the only acceptable way they can share the land. But can two people from such different worlds learn to love each other, or will Lilly's heart be broken if she dares to kiss the captain?
From Heartbreak to New BeginningsIn 1879, near the small northern California town of Ridgeway, Lilly Warren is a young woman who has recently lost her father. There is little time for mourning, though, as the responsibility of running the twenty-six-acre farm now belongs to her. To make matters even more complex, her father has deeded the house and the land to her in his will with an interesting that she share the land with a person she's never met, or forfeit ownership.
Leaving the Sea Behind for a New LoveRicardo Benigno is a Spanish captain of the Anna Juanita, a shipping vessel bringing spices and oils to the shores of California. Seeking out the farm of his old friend Leonard Warren, he discovers that the older man has passed away. To his surprise, Ricardo has also been willed joint ownership of Warren land, as long as he shares it with Lilly, Warren's only child.
Will There be Romance, or Rebellion?The attraction between them is instant, and they both agree that marriage is the only acceptable way they can share the land. But can two people from such different worlds learn to love each other, or will Lilly's heart be broken if she dares to kiss the captain?
174 pages, Kindle Edition
First published February 18, 2012
350 people are currently reading
460 people want to read
About the author
Kianna Alexander
108 books558 followersI've always loved the written word. For as long as I can remember, I read as much as I could, as often as I could. Cereal boxes, newspapers, product packaging. Ebony, Essence, and Jet Magazine. Billboards. I loved it all. I read the entire Fear Street series, as well as the Sweet Valley Books, from Twins and Friends through Sweet Valley High. Each week I'd bring 15 or 20 books home from the library, and read them all before the due date.
Now, my mother owned a pristine, barely touched collection of Harlequin romance novels, and I was not to touch them under any circumstances. Well, as a teenager, you know what that meant. I read some of them, and got my first introduction to romance.
When I was sixteen, I picked up my stepmother's copy of Night Song, by Beverly Jenkins. The cover showed an obviously historical image of a black couple, against a beautiful backdrop, locked in a passionate embrace. With my love of history, I had to crack this book. What I read inside literally blew my mind. I was exposed to a wonderful, touching love story involving people who looked like me! What a thrill. To this day Night Song remains my favorite book, and I credit it with planting the seed of desire to write romance. I didn't get serious until many years later, but that's where it all began.
Now, my mother owned a pristine, barely touched collection of Harlequin romance novels, and I was not to touch them under any circumstances. Well, as a teenager, you know what that meant. I read some of them, and got my first introduction to romance.
When I was sixteen, I picked up my stepmother's copy of Night Song, by Beverly Jenkins. The cover showed an obviously historical image of a black couple, against a beautiful backdrop, locked in a passionate embrace. With my love of history, I had to crack this book. What I read inside literally blew my mind. I was exposed to a wonderful, touching love story involving people who looked like me! What a thrill. To this day Night Song remains my favorite book, and I credit it with planting the seed of desire to write romance. I didn't get serious until many years later, but that's where it all began.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 46 reviews
October 19, 2019
2.5 stars.
February 23, 2016
Full review at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books
For me, Kissing the Captain was bad. It was mind-numbingly, throw-against-a-wall bad. While many historical romances are gloriously cheesy and I adore them, this romance was not ‘so bad it’s good’ – it was just bad. The dialogue was clunky and false, no one behaved in an even remotely plausible manner, the hero was a jackass, the heroine vacillated between being a kickass woman and a doormat, and the villain was cartoonishly one-dimensional and relentlessly fat-shamed.
There’s only one moment in the book that seemed authentic. Ricardo and Lilly have just had sex for the first time (the book is strictly fade-to-black on the sex scenes) and he thinks his troubles are over and that now Lilly will quit her seamstress work and devote herself to making babies. Lilly gets really pissed about this, and they pout at each other, but then they actually have a very honest conversation about their different backgrounds and expectations. It’s the one time I felt like I was reading about people as opposed to hot tempered paper dolls.
There is one other thing I liked about the book, which is that it’s a multicultural story set in California, my very own home state, in 1879. Lilly is African American and Portuguese, and she lives in a predominantly Black community. The idea that these people could have a prosperous farm together is at least reasonably plausible – certainly as plausible as most other historical romances are, and it’s always lovely to see some of the diverse history of California represented in fiction.
Ultimately, this book doesn’t fail for me because interracial marriage in California was illegal in 1879. It fails because of the fat-shaming, the stilted dialogue, the inconsistent characters, and the fact that no one in the book responds to any given situation in a plausible way. I’m fine with the marriage of convenience plot, but in order for it to work the reader must be convinced that the marriage of convenience is actually convenient and necessary. In this story, it comes out of nowhere. Normally an inclusive romance set in post-Gold Rush California would be right up my alley, but this book just didn’t work for me.
- Carrie S.
For me, Kissing the Captain was bad. It was mind-numbingly, throw-against-a-wall bad. While many historical romances are gloriously cheesy and I adore them, this romance was not ‘so bad it’s good’ – it was just bad. The dialogue was clunky and false, no one behaved in an even remotely plausible manner, the hero was a jackass, the heroine vacillated between being a kickass woman and a doormat, and the villain was cartoonishly one-dimensional and relentlessly fat-shamed.
There’s only one moment in the book that seemed authentic. Ricardo and Lilly have just had sex for the first time (the book is strictly fade-to-black on the sex scenes) and he thinks his troubles are over and that now Lilly will quit her seamstress work and devote herself to making babies. Lilly gets really pissed about this, and they pout at each other, but then they actually have a very honest conversation about their different backgrounds and expectations. It’s the one time I felt like I was reading about people as opposed to hot tempered paper dolls.
There is one other thing I liked about the book, which is that it’s a multicultural story set in California, my very own home state, in 1879. Lilly is African American and Portuguese, and she lives in a predominantly Black community. The idea that these people could have a prosperous farm together is at least reasonably plausible – certainly as plausible as most other historical romances are, and it’s always lovely to see some of the diverse history of California represented in fiction.
Ultimately, this book doesn’t fail for me because interracial marriage in California was illegal in 1879. It fails because of the fat-shaming, the stilted dialogue, the inconsistent characters, and the fact that no one in the book responds to any given situation in a plausible way. I’m fine with the marriage of convenience plot, but in order for it to work the reader must be convinced that the marriage of convenience is actually convenient and necessary. In this story, it comes out of nowhere. Normally an inclusive romance set in post-Gold Rush California would be right up my alley, but this book just didn’t work for me.
- Carrie S.
April 17, 2018
This book was good
May 27, 2020
Meh
September 6, 2012
This was a really enjoyable Historical romance also this is the first book i have read by Kianna Alexandra ... i liked that heroine she was feisty one was very headstrong and worked right along with the Captain ..I liked how miss Alexander handle the interacial issues but did not keep repeating all the time it.. you read about the couple and not their race...just the love and the things they have to face getting to know each other.. the book was fast paced which i loved i thought it was going to long and dragged out but it was wrong.made the book enjoyable to read and laughed at some of the things that happened not matter what time or year people can be crazy.. all around great book i will be reading the other in the series ... good job Miss Alexander ..
September 12, 2018
I love a good historical romance novel, but this one missed the mark for me. My biggest gripe is that it felt like the author performed minimal research on the time period and location she decided to use as the story's setting, leaving me with a complete lack of immersion. With the exception of a few references here and there, the entire book could have taken place in a completely different era with no one the wiser. I was left with a lot of questions that broke the illusion for me.
If one were to make quite a few assumptions, some of which are hinted at but never explicitly stated, a fair number of things can be explained.
Under the spoiler I've written out a few of the questions that plagued me throughout the book and what inferences I was forced to make in order for the story to make more sense. Possible spoilers ahead.
My secondary issue with the story is the characters. They're all rather flat, often with unrealistic reactions to various situations.
For the female lead, it felt like the author really wanted to go for a strong, independent woman, as certain actions would suggest, but then created a character who's reactions more often consisted of bursting into tears, feeling faint, or getting angry and pouting. The fine balance of a strong, emotional woman who is independent but welcoming of outside ideas cannot be found here. Instead, we end up with a character who comes across as irrational and childish. The male counterpart has similar issues.
TLDR: The author should have spent more time researching her chosen time period and location for better immersion, and needed to pay more attention to developing fully fleshed characters with believable responses to stimuli that harmonize with each character's personality.
If one were to make quite a few assumptions, some of which are hinted at but never explicitly stated, a fair number of things can be explained.
Under the spoiler I've written out a few of the questions that plagued me throughout the book and what inferences I was forced to make in order for the story to make more sense. Possible spoilers ahead.
My secondary issue with the story is the characters. They're all rather flat, often with unrealistic reactions to various situations.
For the female lead, it felt like the author really wanted to go for a strong, independent woman, as certain actions would suggest, but then created a character who's reactions more often consisted of bursting into tears, feeling faint, or getting angry and pouting. The fine balance of a strong, emotional woman who is independent but welcoming of outside ideas cannot be found here. Instead, we end up with a character who comes across as irrational and childish. The male counterpart has similar issues.
TLDR: The author should have spent more time researching her chosen time period and location for better immersion, and needed to pay more attention to developing fully fleshed characters with believable responses to stimuli that harmonize with each character's personality.
June 11, 2019
From Heartbreak to New Beginnings In 1879, near the small northern California town of Ridgeway, Lilly Warren is a young woman who has recently lost her father. There is little time for mourning, though, as the responsibility of running the twenty-six-acre farm now belongs to her. To make matters even more complex, her father has deeded the house and the land to her in his will with an interesting condition: that she share the land with a person she's never met, or forfeit ownership. Leaving the Sea Behind for a New Love Ricardo Benigno is a Spanish (captain of the Anna Juanita), a shipping vessel bringing spices and oils to the shores of California. Seeking out the farm of his old friend Leonard Warren, he discovers that the older man has passed away. To his surprise, Ricardo has also been willed joint ownership of Warren land, as long as he shares it with Lilly, Warren's only child. Will There be Romance, or Rebellion? The attraction between them is instant, and they both agree that marriage is the only acceptable way they can share the land. But can two people from such different worlds learn to love each other, or will Lilly's heart be broken if she dares to kiss the captain?
November 4, 2020
The Captain
I have read some other books by Ms. Kianna, but this was different. A good different and I enjoyed reading about Lilly and Ricardo. I started reading Historical romance by MS. Jenkins as well so it wasn't new for me. I picked this title looking for something short but it ended too soon, I was looking for more. For Ricardo to show up when he did and be willing to marry Lilly was odd, I just knew he was out to take advantage of her. I'm glad I was wrong. And for her to give him a hard time and be jealous, that meant trouble for her heart. I Knew she had fell for him. I loved this, looking forward to reading the complete series.
I have read some other books by Ms. Kianna, but this was different. A good different and I enjoyed reading about Lilly and Ricardo. I started reading Historical romance by MS. Jenkins as well so it wasn't new for me. I picked this title looking for something short but it ended too soon, I was looking for more. For Ricardo to show up when he did and be willing to marry Lilly was odd, I just knew he was out to take advantage of her. I'm glad I was wrong. And for her to give him a hard time and be jealous, that meant trouble for her heart. I Knew she had fell for him. I loved this, looking forward to reading the complete series.
June 7, 2019
Kissing the Captain
Lily meets Riccardo after her father dies when the lawyer is telling her she has to wed in order to keep the property. Riccardo is a Captain and is seeking Lilly’s father and is told by the lawyer he is to wed her and gained the property. He accepted because he says he is tired of the sea.
A fat older man wants Lily for his self and the property only she keeps refusing him.
Good short story, violence is involved and the marriage bed is kept private.
Lily meets Riccardo after her father dies when the lawyer is telling her she has to wed in order to keep the property. Riccardo is a Captain and is seeking Lilly’s father and is told by the lawyer he is to wed her and gained the property. He accepted because he says he is tired of the sea.
A fat older man wants Lily for his self and the property only she keeps refusing him.
Good short story, violence is involved and the marriage bed is kept private.
July 20, 2021
Took me a minute to really enjoy this book an then it was over. Captain inherits land an a independent bride. Captain leaves adventure of the sea because of vertigo of the Ocean. Bride has a enemy of a devious land owner who wants the land an the "gal" by any means necessary. Captain is enthralled by his bride even with bullets in his body, until death do us part. Funny, mysterious, suspense an romantic.
November 9, 2018
A pretty realistic romance. Complete strangers -- almost ill will between them -- But when they began trusting each other -- BOOM While there was sex, not pages devoted to "how" of sex, tho it sure led up to that possibility. A great read. So I finished it in one sitting. I like that. I just may have to find more of Kianna's work.
April 8, 2019
Everyone was a weird paper cutout of a character. Nothing believable or honest, save one accidental conversation about her not being willing to give up being a seamstress. She couldn't remember the term suffragette (and her aunt didn't seem to give feminist advice, though she claimed to be one), but she seemed to know how it applied to her independence.
At least it was mercifully short.
At least it was mercifully short.
May 21, 2018
Kissing the Captain: A Roses of Ridgeway Historical Romance
Get ready for a great story! I had to read this one straight through. Just couldn't put it down! I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!
Get ready for a great story! I had to read this one straight through. Just couldn't put it down! I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!
September 8, 2018
Totally Enjoyed!
Five stars because it was nice to read a story without a lot of cursing in it. It was a quick shot read and perfect for a laid back rainy day. As of now, I would recommend this author.
Five stars because it was nice to read a story without a lot of cursing in it. It was a quick shot read and perfect for a laid back rainy day. As of now, I would recommend this author.
September 10, 2018
Oh to only see the best of people thru a caring heart
Her farther had died. She was a young woman without the protection of anyone Her father taught her to be indecent in thinking and life. But her dad also gave her a great future thru his will
Her farther had died. She was a young woman without the protection of anyone Her father taught her to be indecent in thinking and life. But her dad also gave her a great future thru his will
Read
July 9, 2019The lead male character slightly got on my nerves. He had absolutely no qualms with the marriage which seems unrealistic. Also, he expects the girl to follow what he says even though she has never met him.
May 30, 2020
Awesome
I loved the storyline and how Lillie and Ricardo was brought together. However, what made the prostitute cry and want to kill herself over Ricardo? That was not clarified, and made no sense.
I loved the storyline and how Lillie and Ricardo was brought together. However, what made the prostitute cry and want to kill herself over Ricardo? That was not clarified, and made no sense.
September 23, 2021
On the reading of her late father's will, she found that the farm was gifted her, and another person, whom she had to marry, as per the requirements of her father's bequest.
The man, was a complete stranger.
The man, was a complete stranger.
November 30, 2021
Kissing The Captain
You can't always choose who you fall in love with. Ricardo and Lilly were made for each other and her made sure they would marry and take care of each other.
I recommend the Ridgeway series.
You can't always choose who you fall in love with. Ricardo and Lilly were made for each other and her made sure they would marry and take care of each other.
I recommend the Ridgeway series.
June 23, 2018
Just felt rushed
September 10, 2018
Good
This was a good book. It was easy reading so did not take long to finish. It was a relaxing book.
This was a good book. It was easy reading so did not take long to finish. It was a relaxing book.
September 15, 2018
Well written loved the characters.
The story was well written. The characters were easily relatable to. Nice and easy read. I liked the spunkiness of Lilly.
The story was well written. The characters were easily relatable to. Nice and easy read. I liked the spunkiness of Lilly.
September 15, 2018
Short, sweet but very clunky.
September 21, 2018
Vertigo
After experiencing bouts of vertigo, Ricardo found he could no longer sale without losing his balance. So he went to visit a fri
After experiencing bouts of vertigo, Ricardo found he could no longer sale without losing his balance. So he went to visit a fri
September 21, 2018
Lovely sweet story
I liked this book very much. Sweet, clean read with just the right touch of romance! A new author for me,looking forward to see her next adventures. Good read.
I liked this book very much. Sweet, clean read with just the right touch of romance! A new author for me,looking forward to see her next adventures. Good read.
September 26, 2018
Enjoyable story
I liked these unique characters worked well. Typical antagonist and scenarios. Good short read. I was able to complete in one day.
I liked these unique characters worked well. Typical antagonist and scenarios. Good short read. I was able to complete in one day.
October 4, 2018
Enjoyable and funny. Ricardo is gallant, Lily is stubborn .
March 26, 2019
See SBTB review - the audio was disappointing as well.
June 12, 2019
Kissing the Captain
This was a sweet romance without any
explicit sex scenes. It is so nice to read a book that is clean and straightforward.
This was a sweet romance without any
explicit sex scenes. It is so nice to read a book that is clean and straightforward.
Read
February 6, 2021Dnf. Writing style didn’t work for me. No nuance.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 46 reviews