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Cord & Stacy #1
No Quarter Asked
Stacy needed time to adjust.
Stacy's world collapsed with the death of her father. She had to sort herself out; decide what she wanted to do with her life.
The secluded cabin in a Texas valley seemed a perfect place to think. But when Stacy met the arrogant rancher, Cord Harris, all her hopes of peace and serenity vanished. Especially when Cord said, "Go back to the city, where you belong."
It was exactly the wrong thing to say to Stacy. It made her fighting mad--and determined to stay!
Stacy's world collapsed with the death of her father. She had to sort herself out; decide what she wanted to do with her life.
The secluded cabin in a Texas valley seemed a perfect place to think. But when Stacy met the arrogant rancher, Cord Harris, all her hopes of peace and serenity vanished. Especially when Cord said, "Go back to the city, where you belong."
It was exactly the wrong thing to say to Stacy. It made her fighting mad--and determined to stay!
186 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1974
453 people are currently reading
404 people want to read
About the author
Janet Dailey
390 books1,839 followersJanet Anne Haradon Dailey was an American author of numerous romance novels as Janet Dailey (her married name). Her novels have been translated into nineteen languages and have sold over 300 million copies worldwide.
Born in 1944 in Storm Lake, Iowa, she attended secretarial school in Omaha, Nebraska before meeting her husband, Bill. Bill and Janet worked together in construction and land development until they "retired" to travel throughout the United States, inspiring Janet to write the Americana series of romances, where she set a novel in every state of the Union. In 1974, Janet Dailey was the first American author to write for Harlequin. Her first novel was NO QUARTER ASKED.
She had since gone on to write approximately 90 novels, 21 of which have appeared on the New York Times Bestseller List. She won many awards and accolades for her work, appearing widely on Radio and Television. Today, there are over three hundred million Janet Dailey books in print in 19 different languages, making her one of the most popular novelists in the world.
Janet Dailey passed away peacefully in her home in Branson on Saturday, December 14, 2013. She was 69.
Born in 1944 in Storm Lake, Iowa, she attended secretarial school in Omaha, Nebraska before meeting her husband, Bill. Bill and Janet worked together in construction and land development until they "retired" to travel throughout the United States, inspiring Janet to write the Americana series of romances, where she set a novel in every state of the Union. In 1974, Janet Dailey was the first American author to write for Harlequin. Her first novel was NO QUARTER ASKED.
She had since gone on to write approximately 90 novels, 21 of which have appeared on the New York Times Bestseller List. She won many awards and accolades for her work, appearing widely on Radio and Television. Today, there are over three hundred million Janet Dailey books in print in 19 different languages, making her one of the most popular novelists in the world.
Janet Dailey passed away peacefully in her home in Branson on Saturday, December 14, 2013. She was 69.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 74 reviews
May 3, 2022
القلب يغضب و العين تدمع و لكن يظل القلب عامرا بالحب كما هو
ستاسي فتاة معتدة بذاتها؛ تنعزل بعد وفاة والدها في احد مزارع دالاس الجنوبية؛ و هناك تصطدم بكورد صاحب المزرعةذو الطبع الشرسة و الشخصية الكاسحة
رواية مناوشات رومانسية تقليدية تنتمي لمنتصف السبعينات
ستاسي فتاة معتدة بذاتها؛ تنعزل بعد وفاة والدها في احد مزارع دالاس الجنوبية؛ و هناك تصطدم بكورد صاحب المزرعةذو الطبع الشرسة و الشخصية الكاسحة
رواية مناوشات رومانسية تقليدية تنتمي لمنتصف السبعينات
July 31, 2023
I want to acknowledge upfront that Janet Dailey is a known plagiarizer. I borrowed this from the library so that her estate would not benefit. If not for our Romance History Project, I would have been happy to continue not reading her. However, Dailey is known for writing the first Western romance and so here we are.
No Quarter Asked was published by Mills & Boon in 1974, making Dailey their first US author. Two years later, Harlequin published it under their Presents line. Dailey’s books were contemporary romances set in the American West, with an emphasis on the rugged settings or elements and the MMC pursuing the FMC. Notably, she based her male characters after her husband, whom she met when she was 19 and a secretary at his construction company. He was 15 years older than her and a father of five. (It’s unclear whether he was divorced when she started working there or if that came later.) After Dailey kept bringing up the poor quality of the romances out then and how she should write one herself, her husband challenged her to follow through. This was the result.
While I didn’t exactly have high hopes for this, contemporary romance is my jam and I’ve been looking forward to this point of the project when we begin delving into other romance subgenres besides historical. However, this turned out to be one of the worst written romances I’ve ever read—and I mean that purely from a prose standpoint. It was very simple and basic. Remember the Dick and Jane books from childhood? Add a few more adverbs and unnecessary adjectives and you’ll have a good idea what this was like. It is perhaps unfair to judge an author on their debut so I looked at a sample of something later in her career and I didn't detect any improvement. Her writing style is very much not for me. On the dubiously positive side, it wasn’t as problematic as some of the other books we’ve read so far. (When will we get to a book we love???) But it still included casual racism, gender essentialism, and anti-fat bias. Maria, the Mexican housekeeper, got a raw deal from Dailey.
Dailey tries to sell a romance between Stacy, who is newly grieving her father’s death from a plane crash which she survived, and Cord, an abusive misogynist who takes an immediate dislike to Stacy just because she’s from the city and staying in Texas for the summer. Cord was the absolute worst. He wants to pretend he’s blue collar but he owns a huge ranch and he dresses formally for dinner. Because he’s a wealthy rancher and significantly older than Stacy, he thinks this means he can order her around. He frequently tells her she needs to be put in her place or that she needs a spanking. He forces her to “work off” her imagined debt to him when her horse accidentally injures a rider and another horse—an accident she had nothing to do with, mind you. Readers are supposed to assign a huge amount of goodwill from the few brief seconds where his face will “soften” toward Stacy or he says something that isn’t condescending. There's no changing Cord's abusive stripes though. He is but one more MMC who is a misunderstanding of what an alpha male should be like.
Suffice it to say, I never believed in the romance. Nor does Stacy, really. Her only thoughts toward Cord are that he is mean and she wants to avoid him. That is until Hank, a grizzled cowboy, tells her she’s actually in love with Cord and then for inexplicable reasons, she agrees. WHAT?! And then at the very end, Cord says he’s been in love with Stacy all along so I guess we’re supposed to buy the fallacy of boys being mean to girls they like. RUN AWAY STACY. She had two other possible love interests and either of them would be better than Cord.
If anything, the real romance is between Stacy and McCloud, Texas. She’s absolutely in love with the land and the hills. Since she traveled the world with her photographer father, this is really saying something. If I can say anything nice about Dailey’s writing, it’s that I did have a good sense of the hunting cabin where Stacy initially stayed and the ranch. So that’s something. It’s interesting to consider how Western romance eventually led to the proliferation of cowboy romance we have today.
There were a ton of loose threads. Stacy’s grief about her dad is completely dropped. We never learn why Cord dangled his Evil Ex around Stacy or how he rationalized his poor treatment of her. Stacy never reacts in a way that makes sense, often coming across as childish and TSTL. She might be young but given all her travels, it was hard to buy this characterization choice. It’s also worth noting that my ebook had a massive amount of typos. I’m not sure anyone ever edited or proofread this manuscript.
Two more books followed No Quarter Asked: Fiesta San Antonio (1977), which is about another couple, and For Bitter or Worse (1978), which occurs several years into Cord and Stacy’s marriage. The synopsis confirms that Cord has only grown into a worse abuser. It sounds awful and I’m glad to be done with this couple for good.
Lastly: I now have a big side eye for Kensington who gave Dailey a contract four years after she plagiarized Nora Roberts. I see no evidence that Dailey ever learned from her misdeeds (she copied Roberts for seven years!! she blamed it on mental illness!!). This is an author better left to the past.
Further reading:
Towards an Accurate History by Steve Ammidown (April 22, 2021)
Tampa Bay Times: Romancing the Reader by Jacquin Sanders (April 27, 1997)
Characters: Stacy is a 20 year old white woman. She has a dog named Cajun and a horse named Diablo. Cord is a white rancher and an abusive misogynist who is significantly older than Stacy. This is set in McCloud, TX.
Content notes: sexual assault (MMC kisses FMC without consent in order to punish her), intimate partner violence (MMC is emotionally abusive and physically rough with FMC, FMC slaps, kicks, and scratches MMC), death of horse, animal harm, recent death of FMC’s father (plane crash), FMC survived the plane crash that killed her father (her dog pulled her out), horse riding accident, broken leg (horse falls on secondary character), rattlesnake, misogyny (not countered), slut-shaming (not countered), racism (not countered), anti-fat bias (not countered), diet culture, MMC’s ex is getting a divorce, Evil Ex trope, taxidermy, cemetery (includes children’s graves), secondary character refers to her white sons as “these two Indians”, past death of MMC’s parents and grandmother, past abandonment by MMC’s mother (left a few years after he was born), past death of FMC’s mother when she was an infant, cigarettes, gender essentialism, ableist language, use of “buried the hatchet”
*Buddy read with Charlotte, Hannah, and Vicky.
RHP ranking, so far:
Maurice (4 stars)
Loyal in All (3.5 stars)
The Moon-Spinners (3 stars)
No Quarter Asked (1 star)
Regency Buck (1 star)
The Sheik (1 star)
The Flame and the Flower (1 star)
The Lord Won’t Mind (1 star)
No Quarter Asked was published by Mills & Boon in 1974, making Dailey their first US author. Two years later, Harlequin published it under their Presents line. Dailey’s books were contemporary romances set in the American West, with an emphasis on the rugged settings or elements and the MMC pursuing the FMC. Notably, she based her male characters after her husband, whom she met when she was 19 and a secretary at his construction company. He was 15 years older than her and a father of five. (It’s unclear whether he was divorced when she started working there or if that came later.) After Dailey kept bringing up the poor quality of the romances out then and how she should write one herself, her husband challenged her to follow through. This was the result.
While I didn’t exactly have high hopes for this, contemporary romance is my jam and I’ve been looking forward to this point of the project when we begin delving into other romance subgenres besides historical. However, this turned out to be one of the worst written romances I’ve ever read—and I mean that purely from a prose standpoint. It was very simple and basic. Remember the Dick and Jane books from childhood? Add a few more adverbs and unnecessary adjectives and you’ll have a good idea what this was like. It is perhaps unfair to judge an author on their debut so I looked at a sample of something later in her career and I didn't detect any improvement. Her writing style is very much not for me. On the dubiously positive side, it wasn’t as problematic as some of the other books we’ve read so far. (When will we get to a book we love???) But it still included casual racism, gender essentialism, and anti-fat bias. Maria, the Mexican housekeeper, got a raw deal from Dailey.
Dailey tries to sell a romance between Stacy, who is newly grieving her father’s death from a plane crash which she survived, and Cord, an abusive misogynist who takes an immediate dislike to Stacy just because she’s from the city and staying in Texas for the summer. Cord was the absolute worst. He wants to pretend he’s blue collar but he owns a huge ranch and he dresses formally for dinner. Because he’s a wealthy rancher and significantly older than Stacy, he thinks this means he can order her around. He frequently tells her she needs to be put in her place or that she needs a spanking. He forces her to “work off” her imagined debt to him when her horse accidentally injures a rider and another horse—an accident she had nothing to do with, mind you. Readers are supposed to assign a huge amount of goodwill from the few brief seconds where his face will “soften” toward Stacy or he says something that isn’t condescending. There's no changing Cord's abusive stripes though. He is but one more MMC who is a misunderstanding of what an alpha male should be like.
Suffice it to say, I never believed in the romance. Nor does Stacy, really. Her only thoughts toward Cord are that he is mean and she wants to avoid him. That is until Hank, a grizzled cowboy, tells her she’s actually in love with Cord and then for inexplicable reasons, she agrees. WHAT?! And then at the very end, Cord says he’s been in love with Stacy all along so I guess we’re supposed to buy the fallacy of boys being mean to girls they like. RUN AWAY STACY. She had two other possible love interests and either of them would be better than Cord.
If anything, the real romance is between Stacy and McCloud, Texas. She’s absolutely in love with the land and the hills. Since she traveled the world with her photographer father, this is really saying something. If I can say anything nice about Dailey’s writing, it’s that I did have a good sense of the hunting cabin where Stacy initially stayed and the ranch. So that’s something. It’s interesting to consider how Western romance eventually led to the proliferation of cowboy romance we have today.
There were a ton of loose threads. Stacy’s grief about her dad is completely dropped. We never learn why Cord dangled his Evil Ex around Stacy or how he rationalized his poor treatment of her. Stacy never reacts in a way that makes sense, often coming across as childish and TSTL. She might be young but given all her travels, it was hard to buy this characterization choice. It’s also worth noting that my ebook had a massive amount of typos. I’m not sure anyone ever edited or proofread this manuscript.
Two more books followed No Quarter Asked: Fiesta San Antonio (1977), which is about another couple, and For Bitter or Worse (1978), which occurs several years into Cord and Stacy’s marriage. The synopsis confirms that Cord has only grown into a worse abuser. It sounds awful and I’m glad to be done with this couple for good.
Lastly: I now have a big side eye for Kensington who gave Dailey a contract four years after she plagiarized Nora Roberts. I see no evidence that Dailey ever learned from her misdeeds (she copied Roberts for seven years!! she blamed it on mental illness!!). This is an author better left to the past.
Further reading:
Towards an Accurate History by Steve Ammidown (April 22, 2021)
Tampa Bay Times: Romancing the Reader by Jacquin Sanders (April 27, 1997)
Characters: Stacy is a 20 year old white woman. She has a dog named Cajun and a horse named Diablo. Cord is a white rancher and an abusive misogynist who is significantly older than Stacy. This is set in McCloud, TX.
Content notes: sexual assault (MMC kisses FMC without consent in order to punish her), intimate partner violence (MMC is emotionally abusive and physically rough with FMC, FMC slaps, kicks, and scratches MMC), death of horse, animal harm, recent death of FMC’s father (plane crash), FMC survived the plane crash that killed her father (her dog pulled her out), horse riding accident, broken leg (horse falls on secondary character), rattlesnake, misogyny (not countered), slut-shaming (not countered), racism (not countered), anti-fat bias (not countered), diet culture, MMC’s ex is getting a divorce, Evil Ex trope, taxidermy, cemetery (includes children’s graves), secondary character refers to her white sons as “these two Indians”, past death of MMC’s parents and grandmother, past abandonment by MMC’s mother (left a few years after he was born), past death of FMC’s mother when she was an infant, cigarettes, gender essentialism, ableist language, use of “buried the hatchet”
*Buddy read with Charlotte, Hannah, and Vicky.
RHP ranking, so far:
Maurice (4 stars)
Loyal in All (3.5 stars)
The Moon-Spinners (3 stars)
No Quarter Asked (1 star)
Regency Buck (1 star)
The Sheik (1 star)
The Flame and the Flower (1 star)
The Lord Won’t Mind (1 star)
November 17, 2019
"No Quarter Asked" is the story of Stacy and Cord.
A super sweet cowboy-city girl romance, in which our heroine moves to the country for some self healing, after her father passes away in a tragic accident. Orphaned with only her dog and horse as her companion, she finds friends in everyone except the ranch owner-our hero- who has apparently taken responsibility for her visit. Facing hostility and contempt, she finds herself falling for the brooding man while proving herself to be a capable and hardworking woman. Ofcourse, there is some expected OW/OM drama, but all ends in a heartwarming confession and HEA.
I love cowboy themed romances and this certainly was a good one. Had a lot of Diana Palmer vibes, whom I absolutely adore.
Safe
4/5
A super sweet cowboy-city girl romance, in which our heroine moves to the country for some self healing, after her father passes away in a tragic accident. Orphaned with only her dog and horse as her companion, she finds friends in everyone except the ranch owner-our hero- who has apparently taken responsibility for her visit. Facing hostility and contempt, she finds herself falling for the brooding man while proving herself to be a capable and hardworking woman. Ofcourse, there is some expected OW/OM drama, but all ends in a heartwarming confession and HEA.
I love cowboy themed romances and this certainly was a good one. Had a lot of Diana Palmer vibes, whom I absolutely adore.
Safe
4/5
July 28, 2023
I read this for science, and please someone tell me when in history romance becomes...good? No Quarter Asked was on our list for the romance history reading project because it was the first book by an American author set in America that was published by Mills & Boon, and supposedly helped spawn the western romance subgenre. Legend has it that Dailey told her husband she could write a better romance than what was already out there and he dared her to prove it. Well, if this is better than other romances of the time, the entire genre was in dire straights because it's a REALLY REALLY BAD BOOK. No wonder Dailey had to plagiarize Nora Roberts later in her career, she appears to have no talent of her own.
Harsh? Maybe. But y'all, when I say this book is bad I mean I was having flashbacks to reading my classmates' creative writing drafts in middle school lit class. One of the friends I buddy read this with pointed out the sentences are structured like Duolingo prompts (think "the tall man spoke to the young girl" kind of prose) and every character is constantly referred to by their full names--no familiarity here. The ebook copy I was reading also had so many typos it made my eyes water, which didn't help matters at all. The plot even made zero sense! First you think it's going to be about Stacy recovering from grief because of the love of a good man--nope. Half the time you're allowed to forget her dad is dead. Then maybe it's a story of a young woman finding herself and asserting her independence in a wild land and the grumpy man who comes to love her, at least in a 1970s misogynistic way--but nope. It's more like: girl goes to Texas. Rancher is asshole. Girl has riding accident forcing her to stay at rancher's house. Another accident happens and rancher manipulates her into working off "the debt" because the accident is somehow her fault (highly debatable). One of the cowboys tells girl she's in love with rancher. Girl believes cowboy and with no basis at all decides she loves asshole rancher. Rancher continues to be manipulative, abusive asshole. They confess love to each other. The end.
Like, what?
People will often excuse the problematic parts of older romance novels because "it was a different time" but seriously, did no one understand what a healthy relationship was in the 70s? Were all of our parents and grandparents in emotionally and sexually abusive marriages and people accepted that as romantic? I just don't see how "it's of the time" can continue to excuse the horrible interpersonal dynamics I'm reading in these books. Like, Cord's behavior is textbook abuser--seriously, I would teach this in a class. Plus there's the expected sexism, racism, fatphobia, slut-shameyness, and classism. This book has no redeeming qualities and frankly if it's influential on the genre we are all in deep, deep shit.
Overall rating: 1.5 (gave an extra star because it's not quite as offensive as others in this project)
Hannah Angst Scale rating: *disgruntled sigh*
Content notes: FMC's father died in plane crash before start of book, FMC was also in that crash but survived, riding accident leading to head injury, other riding accident leading to broken leg and death of horse, racism, sexism, fatphobia, slut shaming, classism, probably many other things I'm forgetting but seriously just don't read this
Harsh? Maybe. But y'all, when I say this book is bad I mean I was having flashbacks to reading my classmates' creative writing drafts in middle school lit class. One of the friends I buddy read this with pointed out the sentences are structured like Duolingo prompts (think "the tall man spoke to the young girl" kind of prose) and every character is constantly referred to by their full names--no familiarity here. The ebook copy I was reading also had so many typos it made my eyes water, which didn't help matters at all. The plot even made zero sense! First you think it's going to be about Stacy recovering from grief because of the love of a good man--nope. Half the time you're allowed to forget her dad is dead. Then maybe it's a story of a young woman finding herself and asserting her independence in a wild land and the grumpy man who comes to love her, at least in a 1970s misogynistic way--but nope. It's more like: girl goes to Texas. Rancher is asshole. Girl has riding accident forcing her to stay at rancher's house. Another accident happens and rancher manipulates her into working off "the debt" because the accident is somehow her fault (highly debatable). One of the cowboys tells girl she's in love with rancher. Girl believes cowboy and with no basis at all decides she loves asshole rancher. Rancher continues to be manipulative, abusive asshole. They confess love to each other. The end.
Like, what?
People will often excuse the problematic parts of older romance novels because "it was a different time" but seriously, did no one understand what a healthy relationship was in the 70s? Were all of our parents and grandparents in emotionally and sexually abusive marriages and people accepted that as romantic? I just don't see how "it's of the time" can continue to excuse the horrible interpersonal dynamics I'm reading in these books. Like, Cord's behavior is textbook abuser--seriously, I would teach this in a class. Plus there's the expected sexism, racism, fatphobia, slut-shameyness, and classism. This book has no redeeming qualities and frankly if it's influential on the genre we are all in deep, deep shit.
Overall rating: 1.5 (gave an extra star because it's not quite as offensive as others in this project)
Hannah Angst Scale rating: *disgruntled sigh*
Content notes: FMC's father died in plane crash before start of book, FMC was also in that crash but survived, riding accident leading to head injury, other riding accident leading to broken leg and death of horse, racism, sexism, fatphobia, slut shaming, classism, probably many other things I'm forgetting but seriously just don't read this
July 27, 2023
Oh this was bad. It was so so bad. An abusive, gaslighting asshole rancher belittles and degrades a ‘spirited’ city girl, whereupon she falls madly in love with him for no discernible reason except for his violent masculinity. And the prose is… it’s unbelievably poor. We really are scrapping the bottom of the barrel in our romance ‘canon’ reading project - please save yourself and leave this where it belongs, on the bonfire of history.
Read
July 30, 2023This book tells the story of Stacy, a wealthy girl from New York City whose father just died in a plane crash (she herself was pulled from the burning wreckage of said crash by her faithful dog Cajun). To cope with her grief, Stacy decides to spend some time in a remote cabin in Texas, where she meets rancher Cord Harris. Cord is right off the assembly line at the Old-School Alpha Hero Factory: tall, muscular, taciturn, abusive, muscular, controlling, emotionally inconstant, did I mention muscular? Cord is immediately hostile to Stacy's presence on the ranch, despite it being none of his business. The two have a series of conversations that mostly consist of Cord blaming Stacy for things that aren't her fault (falling off a horse, causing someone else to fall off a horse... there's very little conflict here that isn't caused by falling and/or horses), culminating in Cord drafting Stacy into indentured servitude to work off the debt she owes him for... someone else falling off a horse.
At some point about 2/3 through the book, and despite no supporting evidence whatsoever, someone mentions to Stacy that she's clearly in love with Cord. Stacy, inexplicably, agrees. A series of minor misunderstandings ensues about whether Cord is in love with Stacy or his Evil Ex, but after a series of great acts of love and devotion on Cord's part (telling Stacy she deserves to be whipped, publicly shaming her for grieving her dead father, trying to control whether she rides her own horse) they confess their love and then the book is over.
This book appears to have been selected for the Book Riot "20 Most Influential Romance Novels" list we're working off because it was Mills and Boon's first American-set romance. And let me say, I'm highly skeptical of the work "Americanness" is doing here! To be fair, the setting probably did feel novel for readers used to Regency ballrooms, and it is nice that Stacy seems to enjoy the Texas wilderness. But really, the American setting seems to mostly provide a ready-to-wear, Made-in-the-USA set of trappings of the colonial heteropatriarchy: from the association between the "rugged, untamed" West and Cord's utter lack of compulsion to control his own emotions, to the "city girl gives up her suspect, independent ways to settle down to a home and ownership of stolen land" plot with Stacy.
And the thing is, it's not that this book doesn't belong on a list of "most influential" romance novels. I think the author of our original list is making a very understandable choice to locate influence in "the earliest instance of something that later became popular." Actually reading these books, though, drives home the fact that the influence of first-ness has nothing, truly nothing, to do with quality.
Regarding quality... while normally I refrain from discussing bad prose, preferring to keep my online presence associated with a (rigorous) celebration of the good stuff: Janet Dailey was a known plagiarizer later in her career, of no lesser figure than NORA ROBERTS. And frankly, you plagiarize La Nora, you get what's coming to you. This book had some of the most repetitive, poorly-constructed prose I have ever encountered in a book of any genre. Every noun got one (1) adjective, every verb got one (1) adverb, to be placed preferentially at the beginning of each sentence. There was an aversion to pronouns that I can only explain via a kind of prescient conservatism: this book never referred to Stacy as "she" or Cord as "him" when instead it could call them "the brown-haired woman" or "the muscular man" (this writing tic worked out ESPECIALLY poorly for any character who wasn't white, young, or thin). This, though. This is the sentence that broke me:
WHY WOULD I NOT ASSUME SHE OWNED HER OWN TOES?
Anyway, that's still better than plagiarism, which this author also did, so, I don't feel so bad venting my frustration here. I only wish I could have back the hours I spent reading this book.
At some point about 2/3 through the book, and despite no supporting evidence whatsoever, someone mentions to Stacy that she's clearly in love with Cord. Stacy, inexplicably, agrees. A series of minor misunderstandings ensues about whether Cord is in love with Stacy or his Evil Ex, but after a series of great acts of love and devotion on Cord's part (telling Stacy she deserves to be whipped, publicly shaming her for grieving her dead father, trying to control whether she rides her own horse) they confess their love and then the book is over.
This book appears to have been selected for the Book Riot "20 Most Influential Romance Novels" list we're working off because it was Mills and Boon's first American-set romance. And let me say, I'm highly skeptical of the work "Americanness" is doing here! To be fair, the setting probably did feel novel for readers used to Regency ballrooms, and it is nice that Stacy seems to enjoy the Texas wilderness. But really, the American setting seems to mostly provide a ready-to-wear, Made-in-the-USA set of trappings of the colonial heteropatriarchy: from the association between the "rugged, untamed" West and Cord's utter lack of compulsion to control his own emotions, to the "city girl gives up her suspect, independent ways to settle down to a home and ownership of stolen land" plot with Stacy.
And the thing is, it's not that this book doesn't belong on a list of "most influential" romance novels. I think the author of our original list is making a very understandable choice to locate influence in "the earliest instance of something that later became popular." Actually reading these books, though, drives home the fact that the influence of first-ness has nothing, truly nothing, to do with quality.
Regarding quality... while normally I refrain from discussing bad prose, preferring to keep my online presence associated with a (rigorous) celebration of the good stuff: Janet Dailey was a known plagiarizer later in her career, of no lesser figure than NORA ROBERTS. And frankly, you plagiarize La Nora, you get what's coming to you. This book had some of the most repetitive, poorly-constructed prose I have ever encountered in a book of any genre. Every noun got one (1) adjective, every verb got one (1) adverb, to be placed preferentially at the beginning of each sentence. There was an aversion to pronouns that I can only explain via a kind of prescient conservatism: this book never referred to Stacy as "she" or Cord as "him" when instead it could call them "the brown-haired woman" or "the muscular man" (this writing tic worked out ESPECIALLY poorly for any character who wasn't white, young, or thin). This, though. This is the sentence that broke me:
"[Stacy's] toes wiggled happily in the coarse sand as their owner gazed blissfully at the beckoning water"
WHY WOULD I NOT ASSUME SHE OWNED HER OWN TOES?
Anyway, that's still better than plagiarism, which this author also did, so, I don't feel so bad venting my frustration here. I only wish I could have back the hours I spent reading this book.
December 18, 2013
Janet Dailey was an eye opener to me in the 70's as the first American Mills & Boon writer. We didn't have access to the Silhouette range when I was growing up so my reading was very anglo-centric. I loved the series she wrote with a book set in each state. It was like a tour of the Unites States. This was one of the first books I read though my favourite was "After the Storm" set in Denver. I liked the way she connected these western books and No Quarter Asked had a sequel called For Bitter or Worse that occurred after the marriage.
This is fairly standard fair with an apparently spoiled young woman, Stacey, heading out west and going head to head with Cord. All her heroes had very manly names. She has to prove herself and while his interest in her is obvious to the reader (this was of course in the days when we didn't get male POV) Stacey thinks he despises her. Of course his ex-fiancee turns up and drips poison to make her more uncertain and finally Stacey old boyfriend arrives with the declared intention of carting her off back east as his fiancee.
You may think it will never pan out but of course it does at the very last minute. Nice one Cord.
This is fairly standard fair with an apparently spoiled young woman, Stacey, heading out west and going head to head with Cord. All her heroes had very manly names. She has to prove herself and while his interest in her is obvious to the reader (this was of course in the days when we didn't get male POV) Stacey thinks he despises her. Of course his ex-fiancee turns up and drips poison to make her more uncertain and finally Stacey old boyfriend arrives with the declared intention of carting her off back east as his fiancee.
You may think it will never pan out but of course it does at the very last minute. Nice one Cord.
May 16, 2014
No Quarter Asked by Janet Daley is a 2014 Open Road Media Publication. I was provided a copy of this book by the publisher and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
Stacy's father dies and she feels compelled to spend a little time alone to grieve and sort out what she should do next. An out of the way cabin in the Texas Valley seems the perfect place. Bringing along her high strung horse and her loyal dog, Stacy arrives and before she can even get to the cabin she has a run in with her landlord, Cord Harris. From the very instant they set eyes on one another sparks fly, but not in a good way. Stacy's future dealings with Cord becomes more and more tense until Stacy actually comes to despise the man... or could it be something else about Cord that has Stacy so unsettled?
This book was originally published in 1974 and is now available in digital format. This contemporary romance with a western tone was pretty typical stuff for the time period it was written in. The big male with a bad attitude toward women that decides to display and voice his displeasure toward them every chance he has, while the woman fights against the attacks. The verbal sparring can be fun but it gets a little old if it goes on for too long. How on earth someone falls in love with a man that was so mean is beyond me. I think if it were me I would not be capable of feeling anything but anger toward a man that treated me so badly. This theme still crops up in contemporary romance but it's toned down quite a bit. I just felt Cord came on too strong, was too over the top , and Stacy's falling for him under those conditions didn't seem realistic. Again, the times were different then and so I took that into consideration. I liked that Stacy stood her ground and held her own in many trying cirumstances. I'm really on the fence about how to rate this one. I'm thinking 2.5 is about right but I will round it up to a 3 star rating.
Stacy's father dies and she feels compelled to spend a little time alone to grieve and sort out what she should do next. An out of the way cabin in the Texas Valley seems the perfect place. Bringing along her high strung horse and her loyal dog, Stacy arrives and before she can even get to the cabin she has a run in with her landlord, Cord Harris. From the very instant they set eyes on one another sparks fly, but not in a good way. Stacy's future dealings with Cord becomes more and more tense until Stacy actually comes to despise the man... or could it be something else about Cord that has Stacy so unsettled?
This book was originally published in 1974 and is now available in digital format. This contemporary romance with a western tone was pretty typical stuff for the time period it was written in. The big male with a bad attitude toward women that decides to display and voice his displeasure toward them every chance he has, while the woman fights against the attacks. The verbal sparring can be fun but it gets a little old if it goes on for too long. How on earth someone falls in love with a man that was so mean is beyond me. I think if it were me I would not be capable of feeling anything but anger toward a man that treated me so badly. This theme still crops up in contemporary romance but it's toned down quite a bit. I just felt Cord came on too strong, was too over the top , and Stacy's falling for him under those conditions didn't seem realistic. Again, the times were different then and so I took that into consideration. I liked that Stacy stood her ground and held her own in many trying cirumstances. I'm really on the fence about how to rate this one. I'm thinking 2.5 is about right but I will round it up to a 3 star rating.
May 29, 2014
When I think of retro romance, I think of authors like Janet Dailey. I remember seeing her books scattered around our house when I was little -- the Calder series rings a bell, and maybe something about planes? But I don’t remember ever reading one.
And now I’m kind of glad I didn’t, because reading a book like No Quarter Asked when I was an impressionable young girl could’ve really cocked up my idea of what I thought a normal heterosexual relationship would be like. First of all, a guy is automatically desirable, whether he actually is or not. He could be the biggest jerk in all jerkdom, but he’s still desirable. It’s just a given. Mostly because you wouldn’t dare argue otherwise with him. He’d scowl at you and make you feel like a child, and then you’d know, Yes, I want him. And a girl can be as smart and strong and stubborn as she wants, but when faced with said scowly guy, she’s instantly brainless and inexplicably unable to defend herself with concrete, indisputable facts like, I actually haven’t been sheltered or pampered a day in my life, you obtuse bucket of rocks. Instead, she crumples and says, “Well, if you say so, it must be true.”
Sigh.
And that’s my impression of Cord and Stacy in No Quarter Asked by Janet Dailey. Undoubtedly other Dailey books are different, but this one kind of made me crazy. It was Dailey’s first, and the first in a trilogy following these hapless characters. Which I suppose explains the insanely quick wrap-up to this book. Like, a couple of paragraphs at most. Which is pretty much all the time the couple spends together alone, and yet two-thirds of the way through Stacy realizes she loves him. This despite Cord berating and belittling her for the entire book, most of these interactions happening offstage so that we don’t even get to experience the tension building between them. Their mutual admiration is just kind of thrust upon us unexpectedly. (Unless you realize you’re reading a romance. If you didn’t, though, I think you’d be a bit confused. There are all sorts of ideas about semiotic codes that I could apply here, but I’ll spare you the geekery.)
However. This was written in the seventies. I’m not going to say that was an unenlightened time (because clearly in many ways it wasn’t!), but maybe readers needed less work put into their heroes before they bought into the myth. They read words like “rugged” and “angry” and “cowboy hat” and saw how the hero treated the heroine like a child and thought, Gimme gimme? And maybe women did crumble that easily when growled at by big manly men, so readers could relate to heroines who did the same? I doubt it, but whatevs. There’s some reason for this author’s popularity, and since it all started with this book, who am I to question?
Besides, Dailey wrote No Quarter Asked because she said she could write a better romance than the ones she was reading and her husband dared her to follow through. I suppose I’ll have to take her word for it. What Dailey did prove through this novel and others was that the American western was a viable subgenre of romance, however, and that legacy continues to this day. (She also inadvertently proved you couldn’t fool savvy readers with plagiarism, but that’s another story. And also a legacy that, strangely, persists.)
I’ll give a quick idea of what the book’s about, and then you can decide. Stacy Adams was raised by her photographer father, travelling the world, but he died in a plane crash that she survived. To recover emotionally, she rents a cabin in Texas and hauls her spirited horse Diablo and her trusty dog Cajun from New York. Immediately she meets up with her neighbour, Cord Harris, who doesn’t think much of this city girl going off into the wilderness with no one to take care of her. He thinks she’s stupid for doing so, in fact. A common refrain among the men she encounters, and not just the backwards outdoors types.
Soon she proves Cord right with horse problems, and she’s stuck staying at his house to pay off a debt Diablo incurred. This is the most interesting part of the book -- he tells her he expects her to help out on the farm like any of his other hands, and soon she’s off on a two-day cattle drive. She handles it perfectly, and we experience the Texas wilderness and the evolving west through her appreciative eyes. Cord begrudgingly admires how well she’s stood up to the long days in the saddle, but also says that clearly she can’t handle it, so he gives her the task of planning his annual horse sale instead, assuming that party planning is naturally in her skill-set. As usual, she doesn’t bother telling him that it isn’t at all the kind of thing she knows how to do, because what would be the point of that? (Argh!)
At some point an old boyfriend comes to rescue her, because even though she’s a stubborn soul and a hard worker and a good horsewoman (somehow Cord the cowboy doesn’t see that he’s freaking her horse out every time he rushes up to save her from it), she always inexplicably needs rescuing. She’s grateful to see a familiar face -- that, I understand -- but all of a sudden she’s confused by her emotions. And by Cord’s emotions. Stupid assumptions and failures in communication continue. Until the very last page.
Blrrrgh. Maybe it just doesn’t age well. And I’m going to assume Dailey’s characterization improved. I think it’s important I find out, although the process may kill me little by little. Call it a summer project. Wish me luck.
Lila
Reviewed from ARC provided by Open Road's Retro Reads program. Re-released by Open Road Integrated Media April 1, 2014.
Full review at nomdeplumepress.wordpress.com.
And now I’m kind of glad I didn’t, because reading a book like No Quarter Asked when I was an impressionable young girl could’ve really cocked up my idea of what I thought a normal heterosexual relationship would be like. First of all, a guy is automatically desirable, whether he actually is or not. He could be the biggest jerk in all jerkdom, but he’s still desirable. It’s just a given. Mostly because you wouldn’t dare argue otherwise with him. He’d scowl at you and make you feel like a child, and then you’d know, Yes, I want him. And a girl can be as smart and strong and stubborn as she wants, but when faced with said scowly guy, she’s instantly brainless and inexplicably unable to defend herself with concrete, indisputable facts like, I actually haven’t been sheltered or pampered a day in my life, you obtuse bucket of rocks. Instead, she crumples and says, “Well, if you say so, it must be true.”
Sigh.
And that’s my impression of Cord and Stacy in No Quarter Asked by Janet Dailey. Undoubtedly other Dailey books are different, but this one kind of made me crazy. It was Dailey’s first, and the first in a trilogy following these hapless characters. Which I suppose explains the insanely quick wrap-up to this book. Like, a couple of paragraphs at most. Which is pretty much all the time the couple spends together alone, and yet two-thirds of the way through Stacy realizes she loves him. This despite Cord berating and belittling her for the entire book, most of these interactions happening offstage so that we don’t even get to experience the tension building between them. Their mutual admiration is just kind of thrust upon us unexpectedly. (Unless you realize you’re reading a romance. If you didn’t, though, I think you’d be a bit confused. There are all sorts of ideas about semiotic codes that I could apply here, but I’ll spare you the geekery.)
However. This was written in the seventies. I’m not going to say that was an unenlightened time (because clearly in many ways it wasn’t!), but maybe readers needed less work put into their heroes before they bought into the myth. They read words like “rugged” and “angry” and “cowboy hat” and saw how the hero treated the heroine like a child and thought, Gimme gimme? And maybe women did crumble that easily when growled at by big manly men, so readers could relate to heroines who did the same? I doubt it, but whatevs. There’s some reason for this author’s popularity, and since it all started with this book, who am I to question?
Besides, Dailey wrote No Quarter Asked because she said she could write a better romance than the ones she was reading and her husband dared her to follow through. I suppose I’ll have to take her word for it. What Dailey did prove through this novel and others was that the American western was a viable subgenre of romance, however, and that legacy continues to this day. (She also inadvertently proved you couldn’t fool savvy readers with plagiarism, but that’s another story. And also a legacy that, strangely, persists.)
I’ll give a quick idea of what the book’s about, and then you can decide. Stacy Adams was raised by her photographer father, travelling the world, but he died in a plane crash that she survived. To recover emotionally, she rents a cabin in Texas and hauls her spirited horse Diablo and her trusty dog Cajun from New York. Immediately she meets up with her neighbour, Cord Harris, who doesn’t think much of this city girl going off into the wilderness with no one to take care of her. He thinks she’s stupid for doing so, in fact. A common refrain among the men she encounters, and not just the backwards outdoors types.
Soon she proves Cord right with horse problems, and she’s stuck staying at his house to pay off a debt Diablo incurred. This is the most interesting part of the book -- he tells her he expects her to help out on the farm like any of his other hands, and soon she’s off on a two-day cattle drive. She handles it perfectly, and we experience the Texas wilderness and the evolving west through her appreciative eyes. Cord begrudgingly admires how well she’s stood up to the long days in the saddle, but also says that clearly she can’t handle it, so he gives her the task of planning his annual horse sale instead, assuming that party planning is naturally in her skill-set. As usual, she doesn’t bother telling him that it isn’t at all the kind of thing she knows how to do, because what would be the point of that? (Argh!)
At some point an old boyfriend comes to rescue her, because even though she’s a stubborn soul and a hard worker and a good horsewoman (somehow Cord the cowboy doesn’t see that he’s freaking her horse out every time he rushes up to save her from it), she always inexplicably needs rescuing. She’s grateful to see a familiar face -- that, I understand -- but all of a sudden she’s confused by her emotions. And by Cord’s emotions. Stupid assumptions and failures in communication continue. Until the very last page.
Blrrrgh. Maybe it just doesn’t age well. And I’m going to assume Dailey’s characterization improved. I think it’s important I find out, although the process may kill me little by little. Call it a summer project. Wish me luck.
Lila
Reviewed from ARC provided by Open Road's Retro Reads program. Re-released by Open Road Integrated Media April 1, 2014.
Full review at nomdeplumepress.wordpress.com.
July 1, 2014
Janet Dailey is one of those authors every romance reader has heard about and probably read. I know I've read one or two or ten of her books. She was always good with the cowboy romances.
No Quarter Asked is her very first book for the Presents line. It was originally published in 1974. This story is 40 years old! Yikes! And reading it, makes me wonder if women were as stupid as the heroine, Stacy back then? Surely not?
I couldn't wrap my head around a heroine who lets a guy bully her the way Cord does, and then decide she's in love with him.
Seriously, I was team Carter!
And she never really talked to Cord, she just let him, ride roughshod over her. (Pun intended)
I know the Presents line is all about the alpha male, but Cord takes things to extreme. He's nothing but a jerk, and that's the nicest thing you can say about him.
There really is no relationship between the two characters romantically. So the ending just doesn't fit. At least not for me.
I've read a lot of vintage Harlequins but none of them had characters this unlikeable for me.
No Quarter Asked is her very first book for the Presents line. It was originally published in 1974. This story is 40 years old! Yikes! And reading it, makes me wonder if women were as stupid as the heroine, Stacy back then? Surely not?
I couldn't wrap my head around a heroine who lets a guy bully her the way Cord does, and then decide she's in love with him.
Seriously, I was team Carter!
And she never really talked to Cord, she just let him, ride roughshod over her. (Pun intended)
I know the Presents line is all about the alpha male, but Cord takes things to extreme. He's nothing but a jerk, and that's the nicest thing you can say about him.
There really is no relationship between the two characters romantically. So the ending just doesn't fit. At least not for me.
I've read a lot of vintage Harlequins but none of them had characters this unlikeable for me.
May 18, 2022
After several books where the love interest starts kissing the main character as soon as they meet, it’s nice to see the relationship build between Cord and Stacy. Stacy has more of a backbone than the last couple of heroines, and it’s so much fun watching her get under Cord’s skin.
It’s not perfect by any means—and the housekeeper Maria is probably bordering on racial stereotype—but it’s entertaining and the scene on the veranda is swoon-worthy. Honestly, I wish this book was longer, not only because I want to spend more time with the characters, but because there were a couple plot points that seemed rushed—specifically Stacy’s realization that she’s in love with Cord.
It’s not perfect by any means—and the housekeeper Maria is probably bordering on racial stereotype—but it’s entertaining and the scene on the veranda is swoon-worthy. Honestly, I wish this book was longer, not only because I want to spend more time with the characters, but because there were a couple plot points that seemed rushed—specifically Stacy’s realization that she’s in love with Cord.
August 3, 2021
Stacy and Cord Stacy needed time to adjust.
Stacy's world collapsed with the death of her father. She had to sort herself out; decide what she wanted to do with her life.
The secluded cabin in a Texas valley seemed a perfect place to think. But when Stacy met the arrogant rancher, Cord Harris, all her hopes of peace and serenity vanished. Especially when Cord said, "Go back to the city, where you belong."
It was exactly the wrong thing to say to Stacy. It made her fighting mad--and determined to stay!
So good there is a sequel
Stacy's world collapsed with the death of her father. She had to sort herself out; decide what she wanted to do with her life.
The secluded cabin in a Texas valley seemed a perfect place to think. But when Stacy met the arrogant rancher, Cord Harris, all her hopes of peace and serenity vanished. Especially when Cord said, "Go back to the city, where you belong."
It was exactly the wrong thing to say to Stacy. It made her fighting mad--and determined to stay!
So good there is a sequel
April 20, 2019
No Quarter Asked
Cord i s an old fashioned Texas rancher. She has never really settled down. Her life with her father was to travel where ever his next assignment took them. She was not the easy to please woman. It will take someone strong and able to handle this filly. Like the horse she rides she is unpredictable and with a touch of the wild side. This is the first book in this trilogy by Janet Dailey
Cord i s an old fashioned Texas rancher. She has never really settled down. Her life with her father was to travel where ever his next assignment took them. She was not the easy to please woman. It will take someone strong and able to handle this filly. Like the horse she rides she is unpredictable and with a touch of the wild side. This is the first book in this trilogy by Janet Dailey
June 1, 2012
A mid-70s Harlequin. Zero emotional connection between h/h. she thinks he rides roughshod over her, he is cold and distant, there are misunderstandings and all of a sudden they are in love. I like modern romances where you see his emotions and she isn't so dumb much better. Of course, it is 35 years old.
August 8, 2025
I’ve always loved this story. The hero (30s) and heroine (20) are one of my favourite couples. She is feisty, kind and appealing and he is devastating. Despite his patience with his ex-fiancée, it is apparent that the heroine is everything to him. The arrival of her long term boyfriend results in a timely confrontation and a lovely HEA (except we know there is unhappiness is store because they star in For Bitter Or Worse (which is also awesome, but stressful).
November 15, 2018
Ya nasıl bir kitaptı bu anlamadım. Çeviri zaten iğrençti ona laf etmiyorum ama ne adamı anlayabildim ne kadını. Abi ne okuttunuz bana ya?
July 28, 2024
I knew what the book was going to be about just from reading the first 20 pages.
Main Character is a Mary sue and lost her father at 19. Or 18.. Book just mentions she's not even 20. Keep that in mind.
Around 25 year old Carter who's dated her before I presume she was even 18 kisses her and asks to marry her. Oooh no, grooming. Yay. I'll admit I didn't read further.
I honestly just flipped between chapters and read tiny bits. Mary is an older women who dotes on Stacey and later says it's cause of her sweetness. Or something like that. More older adult characters dote on Stacey like she's some lost kitten... No wonder girls write fanfictions where they place their self inserts on being super naive girls who can do no wrong. I feel and will admit almost every young adult wants that. But it takes away from their autonomy and sense of agency.
So the Author makes sure to have Stacey doing adult things and what not in her new place. Totally uninterrupted and not snarkily mocked by an older way more experienced person who should have been a mentor or a new father figure for Stacey.
Speaking of which, Cord a new man is introduced as a love interest (wooow, who would have guessed? I did.. After her proposal from Carter and him asking her to consider that, and him foreshadowing tall dark and handsome cowboys, I knew another love interest was going to be introduced. And I had my fingers crossed he'd be younger). Cord is introduced.
He's around her father's age!!! Which is gross, and he's nothing but an asshole, but Stacey likes it so it's okay. Rinse and repeat, he does something infuriating, but Stacey has the hots for him. It's played like a enemies to lover thing. He acts horrible to her so his softer moments seem more meaningful to her. It reminds me of negging, when a guy calls a girl ugly to lower her self esteem enough so she will date him. That's what I felt Cord was doing the whole time.
Cord nearing the end manly forces Stacey to say she loves him. When she does with tears down her brown big eyes and freckled nose and ringlet hair (the authors always describing her appearance to be perfectly endearing and just perfect, but not too perfect!... Which I think does the heavy lifting to why all these older adults adore her and feel they gotta coddle her. Oh yeah.. I also get annoyed at this writing style. Yeah yeah she looks good, let's move on!).
When she admits it he says the most cheesiest line ever, he says he loved her for eternity and was mean to her because he wanted her to love the land as much as he did... He says he loved her from the start.. More like he saw a young girl he could take advantage of by playing the long game. The men in this book are just possessive and entitled.
I notice the male characters always take away her autonomy. Cord literally says something about her being strong headed and her future husband (Carter) not liking that. Until she retorts that she wouldn't have been their if it wasn't for her strong headedness.. Carter tries to stop Stacey from even leaving so his grooming can be even more successful than any other way older man who will sweep her dumb ass up.
Stacey doesn't really feel like a character.. As with a whole other thousands of novels like this.. She's just every girls own personal fan fiction is. Someone people can project themselves onto.
At one point Cord stares at Stacey while talking about a horse with a guy named Hank. Asking "think she'll like ranch life?" Cord saying "I don't know" while super manly masculinly staring at Stacey's pouted irritated face. He compares her to a horse. Hank calls it pretty. Cord stares at Stacey and say she is.. Wow. What a dehumanizing way to talk about your own love interest you wanna court.
Oh yeah, and of course when she moves there, ALL the men stare at her because they want her. But Cord is their boss, so there's an unfair power imbalance, even between him and Stacey.. Well... Of course there is.. He's an older man.
Oh yeah 1 star because they have a racist caricature of a Mexican lady who's some kind of maid or cleaning lady... Very classy.. I was going to put it at 2 for... Reasons I guess? Not to be too mean, but nah.. I dont appreciate poc characters being made to serve white people while being inarticulate and.. Need I say more?
May I also say these two men are groomers? Stacey almost gets close to this other cowboy named Jim until Cord interrupts them time and time again when he suspects Jim has a chance of snatching her up. He's also said to be in his mid twenties, but he acts more closer to age to Stacey and had been more respectful to her out of these two men. He's more kinder and down to earth and doesn't come across as predatory.. There's still his age, but unlike Carter he didn't call dibs and go out with her before she was 18. He respects her agency and let's her come to him kinda deal, instead of forcing interactions on her.
Cord accuses Stacey of seducing his men, which is a load of bs. Stacey only confided in Jim about her father's death. She's been nothing but polite. There is a little romantic chemistry between the two. But that's it. Cord humiliates Jim in order to mark his territory. Since of course he's the strong superior alpha male. He yells at Stacey and forcibly kisses her. He forces a kiss on her. So romantic. And who says chivalry is dead? When Stacey turns Jim down, Jim respects that. She desperately tries to get Cord off of her struggling against his kiss, and he doesn't let go...
But the author has it so Stacey's heart only beats for Cord so it's all okay! Doesn't matter that he treats her like crap. The whole book she worries over what Cord thinks of her. She stays and does anything in the book to appease her own ego to prove herself to Cord... You see the problem here? This is supposedly meant to be a book where the author intends for her to find herself. Not cater to the men around her, who do nothing but corner her into marriage at the ripe age of 19.
And of course Carter is painted as a massive jerk at the end. I knew he was going to be possessive in the first 20 pages. He went after a young girl to make his trophy wife. She's super naive, so of course he'd go after her. The way he pressure her to marry him definitely would have worked had Stacey not gone to Texas.
Which only leaves Stacey with the man aged around 40 who swiftly asks her to marry him instead to have a quick wedding to seal the deal.
Wow. What a romantic non problematic book. I know I'm being harsh and this book was written in it's time... But I'm not sorry about it. I'm always glad we as a society outgrown prenotions that love stories like these aren't okay.
It's just grooming. The book.
Main Character is a Mary sue and lost her father at 19. Or 18.. Book just mentions she's not even 20. Keep that in mind.
Around 25 year old Carter who's dated her before I presume she was even 18 kisses her and asks to marry her. Oooh no, grooming. Yay. I'll admit I didn't read further.
I honestly just flipped between chapters and read tiny bits. Mary is an older women who dotes on Stacey and later says it's cause of her sweetness. Or something like that. More older adult characters dote on Stacey like she's some lost kitten... No wonder girls write fanfictions where they place their self inserts on being super naive girls who can do no wrong. I feel and will admit almost every young adult wants that. But it takes away from their autonomy and sense of agency.
So the Author makes sure to have Stacey doing adult things and what not in her new place. Totally uninterrupted and not snarkily mocked by an older way more experienced person who should have been a mentor or a new father figure for Stacey.
Speaking of which, Cord a new man is introduced as a love interest (wooow, who would have guessed? I did.. After her proposal from Carter and him asking her to consider that, and him foreshadowing tall dark and handsome cowboys, I knew another love interest was going to be introduced. And I had my fingers crossed he'd be younger). Cord is introduced.
He's around her father's age!!! Which is gross, and he's nothing but an asshole, but Stacey likes it so it's okay. Rinse and repeat, he does something infuriating, but Stacey has the hots for him. It's played like a enemies to lover thing. He acts horrible to her so his softer moments seem more meaningful to her. It reminds me of negging, when a guy calls a girl ugly to lower her self esteem enough so she will date him. That's what I felt Cord was doing the whole time.
Cord nearing the end manly forces Stacey to say she loves him. When she does with tears down her brown big eyes and freckled nose and ringlet hair (the authors always describing her appearance to be perfectly endearing and just perfect, but not too perfect!... Which I think does the heavy lifting to why all these older adults adore her and feel they gotta coddle her. Oh yeah.. I also get annoyed at this writing style. Yeah yeah she looks good, let's move on!).
When she admits it he says the most cheesiest line ever, he says he loved her for eternity and was mean to her because he wanted her to love the land as much as he did... He says he loved her from the start.. More like he saw a young girl he could take advantage of by playing the long game. The men in this book are just possessive and entitled.
I notice the male characters always take away her autonomy. Cord literally says something about her being strong headed and her future husband (Carter) not liking that. Until she retorts that she wouldn't have been their if it wasn't for her strong headedness.. Carter tries to stop Stacey from even leaving so his grooming can be even more successful than any other way older man who will sweep her dumb ass up.
Stacey doesn't really feel like a character.. As with a whole other thousands of novels like this.. She's just every girls own personal fan fiction is. Someone people can project themselves onto.
At one point Cord stares at Stacey while talking about a horse with a guy named Hank. Asking "think she'll like ranch life?" Cord saying "I don't know" while super manly masculinly staring at Stacey's pouted irritated face. He compares her to a horse. Hank calls it pretty. Cord stares at Stacey and say she is.. Wow. What a dehumanizing way to talk about your own love interest you wanna court.
Oh yeah, and of course when she moves there, ALL the men stare at her because they want her. But Cord is their boss, so there's an unfair power imbalance, even between him and Stacey.. Well... Of course there is.. He's an older man.
Oh yeah 1 star because they have a racist caricature of a Mexican lady who's some kind of maid or cleaning lady... Very classy.. I was going to put it at 2 for... Reasons I guess? Not to be too mean, but nah.. I dont appreciate poc characters being made to serve white people while being inarticulate and.. Need I say more?
May I also say these two men are groomers? Stacey almost gets close to this other cowboy named Jim until Cord interrupts them time and time again when he suspects Jim has a chance of snatching her up. He's also said to be in his mid twenties, but he acts more closer to age to Stacey and had been more respectful to her out of these two men. He's more kinder and down to earth and doesn't come across as predatory.. There's still his age, but unlike Carter he didn't call dibs and go out with her before she was 18. He respects her agency and let's her come to him kinda deal, instead of forcing interactions on her.
Cord accuses Stacey of seducing his men, which is a load of bs. Stacey only confided in Jim about her father's death. She's been nothing but polite. There is a little romantic chemistry between the two. But that's it. Cord humiliates Jim in order to mark his territory. Since of course he's the strong superior alpha male. He yells at Stacey and forcibly kisses her. He forces a kiss on her. So romantic. And who says chivalry is dead? When Stacey turns Jim down, Jim respects that. She desperately tries to get Cord off of her struggling against his kiss, and he doesn't let go...
But the author has it so Stacey's heart only beats for Cord so it's all okay! Doesn't matter that he treats her like crap. The whole book she worries over what Cord thinks of her. She stays and does anything in the book to appease her own ego to prove herself to Cord... You see the problem here? This is supposedly meant to be a book where the author intends for her to find herself. Not cater to the men around her, who do nothing but corner her into marriage at the ripe age of 19.
And of course Carter is painted as a massive jerk at the end. I knew he was going to be possessive in the first 20 pages. He went after a young girl to make his trophy wife. She's super naive, so of course he'd go after her. The way he pressure her to marry him definitely would have worked had Stacey not gone to Texas.
Which only leaves Stacey with the man aged around 40 who swiftly asks her to marry him instead to have a quick wedding to seal the deal.
Wow. What a romantic non problematic book. I know I'm being harsh and this book was written in it's time... But I'm not sorry about it. I'm always glad we as a society outgrown prenotions that love stories like these aren't okay.
It's just grooming. The book.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 30, 2020
So I read this story after reading book 2 in the series; Fiesta San Antonio. The hero and heroine of this book are in the later chapters of the Fiesta book. I decided I wanted to find out more about them. This was a sweet love story(no gratuitous sex and totally safe for a younger reader) the heroine was a strong character and the hero was a virile handsome cowboy! There were nice supporting characters, including a dog named Cajun...and a horse from hell aptly named Diablo. The book moved along at a pretty good pace and made me long to see the areas described in Texas(I guess I have only been privy to the oppressively hot touristy parts in Texas.) There was angst woven throughout the story, which ramped up near the end. I always look forward to epilogues, but like most of the earlier romance books there is none. However, book 2 kind of gives us an epilogue and takes place about 4 years later. Of course their characters only show up briefly near the end of that book so we only get a glimpse of their HEA. I’m getting ready to read book 3 For Bitter or Worse where are hero and heroine are prominently featured again as their HEA is being threatened.
August 2, 2020
Loved this book upon first reading it as a pre-teen around 1977. Thank heavens for market bookstalls and second hand bookshops when I was growing up. I discovered so many authors and titles browsing around same. Unfortunately today there are so little around in the high streets and town centres now. I loved the story and I fell in love with Cord and Stacy. It remains a keeper and a firm favourite to this day. They had a follow up story a few years later and appeared in 2 other books as well.
December 28, 2012
Somehow this book seems different than the first time I read it years ago. Anyone know if Janet Dailey re-wrote sections of her first books upon re-release? The edition I read was released in the early 90's. I used to really love her books when she wrote for Harlequin. I haven't read any of hers in quite awhile. This was a Christmas present to myself on one of my nostalgia trips...lol!
August 22, 2020
It had so much potential, but was very poorly executed. The writing had many mistakes and it made it annoying to read. I hated how the romance only happened on the last page and it was so dramatic and unrealistic. This reminded me of a bad hallmark movie, but where the guy is constantly moody and a jerk.
September 25, 2012
في الترجمة العربية سميت مزرعة الدموع
لا زالت اسماء الابطال محفورة في ذهني حتى اليوم
وصف الاراضي , معاناة البطلة ستايسي
من اجمل ما قرات لجانيت ديلي :)
لا زالت اسماء الابطال محفورة في ذهني حتى اليوم
وصف الاراضي , معاناة البطلة ستايسي
من اجمل ما قرات لجانيت ديلي :)
April 14, 2022
No Quarter Asked, Book 1 of the Cord & Stacy series, was about Stacy Adams, a New York "city girl", and Cord Harris, a rich Texas cowboy.
After losing her father, twenty-year-old Stacy decided she needed time away from the big city to reflect on where her life was going. Her late father, the world-famous freelance photographer, Joshua Adams, had taken her on his travels after her mother died refusing to leave her to be raised by other people. They would return to New York City for respites, but then they would begin their travels anew when his next foreign assignment took place. Unable to face their home without him, she had chosen a cabin in Texas where she could gather her courage to face life without him.
When Stacy arrived in the small town she would be staying in, she almost immediately ran into Cord Harris, and for reasons unknown to her, he took an instant dislike to her. Not long later, she learned that the cabin in which she would be staying belonged to him and that he would only be a short distance from her.
Cord, for his part, had a past that did not bode well for a city girl like Stacy. With a mother who couldn't handle the ranch life and an ex-fiancee who ran from him because she wanted more than living in the country where there were no social functions other than a country dance and a barbecue here and there.
This was definitely old school Harlequin story, where the big macho-male dominated the poor little rich girl who didn't know how to live it rough. There were misconceptions, misunderstandings, and fights galore, with hardly any romance and very little chemistry between the two main characters. They rarely were in the same spot for any length of time, and definitely never enough for a romance to have bloomed.
While the author never stated Cord's age, it was hinted at several times that he was much older than Stacy's 20 years, so the way he treated her was mostly understandable if there were that many years between them. He was a rough and tumble cowboy, through and through, and did not give her any quarter (no quarter asked, right?) for making mistakes.
Stacy, though she was young, had already seen a great deal in her life, having traveled the globe with her father. She was a very head-strong young lady who did not like to be bossed around. However, she had no issue learning new things, or admitting when she was wrong.
It was a decent book...but there was no great passion or chemistry, though. It really didn't make sense, what with their interaction being so little. They didn't take time to get to know one another. They didn't have long conversations where they told each other about their pasts, their likes, dislikes, etc. There was no relationship whatsoever, so how does the author expect the reader to see a romance bloom from that? Definitely not a five-star worthy book.
After losing her father, twenty-year-old Stacy decided she needed time away from the big city to reflect on where her life was going. Her late father, the world-famous freelance photographer, Joshua Adams, had taken her on his travels after her mother died refusing to leave her to be raised by other people. They would return to New York City for respites, but then they would begin their travels anew when his next foreign assignment took place. Unable to face their home without him, she had chosen a cabin in Texas where she could gather her courage to face life without him.
When Stacy arrived in the small town she would be staying in, she almost immediately ran into Cord Harris, and for reasons unknown to her, he took an instant dislike to her. Not long later, she learned that the cabin in which she would be staying belonged to him and that he would only be a short distance from her.
Cord, for his part, had a past that did not bode well for a city girl like Stacy. With a mother who couldn't handle the ranch life and an ex-fiancee who ran from him because she wanted more than living in the country where there were no social functions other than a country dance and a barbecue here and there.
This was definitely old school Harlequin story, where the big macho-male dominated the poor little rich girl who didn't know how to live it rough. There were misconceptions, misunderstandings, and fights galore, with hardly any romance and very little chemistry between the two main characters. They rarely were in the same spot for any length of time, and definitely never enough for a romance to have bloomed.
While the author never stated Cord's age, it was hinted at several times that he was much older than Stacy's 20 years, so the way he treated her was mostly understandable if there were that many years between them. He was a rough and tumble cowboy, through and through, and did not give her any quarter (no quarter asked, right?) for making mistakes.
Stacy, though she was young, had already seen a great deal in her life, having traveled the globe with her father. She was a very head-strong young lady who did not like to be bossed around. However, she had no issue learning new things, or admitting when she was wrong.
It was a decent book...but there was no great passion or chemistry, though. It really didn't make sense, what with their interaction being so little. They didn't take time to get to know one another. They didn't have long conversations where they told each other about their pasts, their likes, dislikes, etc. There was no relationship whatsoever, so how does the author expect the reader to see a romance bloom from that? Definitely not a five-star worthy book.
September 1, 2025
This was good and you learn something about life on a ranch and what a cattle drive is like. The H and h do a good job of hiding their true feelings behind arguing, feigned indifference, caustic remarks and a lot of stubbornness; you keep trying to guess which one is going to confess their true feelings first!
It had a few flaws: the OW (the H's ex-fiancée, who dumped him for a wealthy man) returns when her marriage ends, but what made her think the H would want her back? And the way the H was so bitter about the way she had treated him, it's a wonder he could stand having her around, even if he did want to make the h jealous.
As for the OM, you can feel sorry for him, he really wanted the h to marry him (and followed her all the way from New York to Texas), even knowing she wasn't in love with him; he thought he could make her happy anyway. She was all set to leave with him back to NY when things seemed hopeless with then H, and while he was staying there, he helped out on the ranch, and for all that, he'll be going home alone. I was hoping he'd meet some woman at the barbecue, he deserved a break.
Also, the H and h finally admitting their love came right at the end of the book and way too abrupt. But I understand their story continues in another book, and I'll have to check that out soon.
It had a few flaws: the OW (the H's ex-fiancée, who dumped him for a wealthy man) returns when her marriage ends, but what made her think the H would want her back? And the way the H was so bitter about the way she had treated him, it's a wonder he could stand having her around, even if he did want to make the h jealous.
As for the OM, you can feel sorry for him, he really wanted the h to marry him (and followed her all the way from New York to Texas), even knowing she wasn't in love with him; he thought he could make her happy anyway. She was all set to leave with him back to NY when things seemed hopeless with then H, and while he was staying there, he helped out on the ranch, and for all that, he'll be going home alone. I was hoping he'd meet some woman at the barbecue, he deserved a break.
Also, the H and h finally admitting their love came right at the end of the book and way too abrupt. But I understand their story continues in another book, and I'll have to check that out soon.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 3, 2019
Oft repeated story line - city girl meets outback rancher. Clash of civilizations that finally blossoms into love. But the Australian authors like Kate Walker do the outback stories so much better. This one is the American equivalent, a good attempt but falls slightly below the mark.
Stacy is an orphaned but rich city girl. She wants to rethink her life priorities , so she hires a cabin at some remote Texas countryside. No points for guessing the land belongs to our rancher hero, Cord. Instant hostilities emerge, he taunts , she retaliates. He kisses, she kisses back. So far so good.
The customary OM and OW make their appearances. Not very impactful.
After all the warring with the hero, she decides to flee back into the city. He climbs down from his high horse, and lays his heart out at her feet.
This is the quintessential dreamy romance that readers love to read. So yes, I loved it!
Stacy is an orphaned but rich city girl. She wants to rethink her life priorities , so she hires a cabin at some remote Texas countryside. No points for guessing the land belongs to our rancher hero, Cord. Instant hostilities emerge, he taunts , she retaliates. He kisses, she kisses back. So far so good.
The customary OM and OW make their appearances. Not very impactful.
After all the warring with the hero, she decides to flee back into the city. He climbs down from his high horse, and lays his heart out at her feet.
This is the quintessential dreamy romance that readers love to read. So yes, I loved it!
January 28, 2020
OK But...
This was an American western book, written with a British flair. Also, I didn’t realize that this book was written many years ago as evidenced by references to smoking and typewriters. I’m also not a fan of overbearing, controlling men as Cord. He seemed more of a father figure rather than a possible love interest. Stacy was a bit too young in my opinion. At 20 years old, she was hardly out of her teens. I do prefer a bit older characters.
I’ve read Janet Daily before and have enjoyed her books.
This was an American western book, written with a British flair. Also, I didn’t realize that this book was written many years ago as evidenced by references to smoking and typewriters. I’m also not a fan of overbearing, controlling men as Cord. He seemed more of a father figure rather than a possible love interest. Stacy was a bit too young in my opinion. At 20 years old, she was hardly out of her teens. I do prefer a bit older characters.
I’ve read Janet Daily before and have enjoyed her books.
November 30, 2024
I used to love Janet Dailey books with a passion. Maybe it was my youthful age, as I'm much older now.
No Quarter Asked by Janet Dailey is typical Janet Dailey ... a wonderful romance, with some angst thrown in by a horse, a woman and a not-the-mail-male character who wants to marry Stacy.
If I was much younger, I would have swooned at this story and given it 5 stars. At my age today, while it's a wonderful story, I just didn't get the "feel goods" from it. Maybe it's Janet Dailey's writing or maybe I've just outgrown Janet Dailey books.
No Quarter Asked by Janet Dailey is typical Janet Dailey ... a wonderful romance, with some angst thrown in by a horse, a woman and a not-the-mail-male character who wants to marry Stacy.
If I was much younger, I would have swooned at this story and given it 5 stars. At my age today, while it's a wonderful story, I just didn't get the "feel goods" from it. Maybe it's Janet Dailey's writing or maybe I've just outgrown Janet Dailey books.
July 10, 2020
Too long to handle and not a good enough ending.
There was no powerful scene but yet I kept reading, hoping, wishing that there would be a love scene or real love shown in the book. However, not until the end was a happy, undetermined ending. Nothing about her friend/ex. Nothing about her business situation back in New York. Very frustrating not to know all of those details or to know more within this book.
There was no powerful scene but yet I kept reading, hoping, wishing that there would be a love scene or real love shown in the book. However, not until the end was a happy, undetermined ending. Nothing about her friend/ex. Nothing about her business situation back in New York. Very frustrating not to know all of those details or to know more within this book.
December 24, 2019
I enjoyed the memories of the '70's (even though shocked each time a cigarette was lit up) but the story had little of interest to me. I've only recently become a fan of the romance genre so I skipped the early Janet Daley. There's a lot of potential but I just didn't see anything attractive about the brutish hero or the one minute arrogant one minute simpering heroine.
September 20, 2017
great book, a real page turner
I thought Good author from books that I have read in the past. I will see if still good. yes wonderful book. I loved the characters and could clearly see them. well written. Couldn't put this book down. I enjoyed reading it.
I thought Good author from books that I have read in the past. I will see if still good. yes wonderful book. I loved the characters and could clearly see them. well written. Couldn't put this book down. I enjoyed reading it.
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