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Australian Trilogy #3
Смела любов
Макар и наследник на голямо имение, Бен Пенрод не желае да се обременява със семейство. Самата мисъл за женитба кара обруленото му от ветровете лице да пребледнее. Но всичко това продължава до момента, в който пред очите му се появява най-привлекателното и своенравно същество, което е виждал. С коси, подобни на слънчеви лъчи и очи с цвета на морето, Тиа е дребничка като дете, но извивките на тялото й издават съвършената жена. Със самото си присъствие тя омагьосва всички наоколо. И тогава се случва нещо неочаквано — вместо в привичната роля на преследван богат красавец Бен се вижда отблъснат от единствената жена, която е успяла да плени сърцето му…
256 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 1992
9 people are currently reading
252 people want to read
About the author
Connie Mason
133 books534 followersConnie Mason or Cara Miles is the best-selling author of more than fifty historical romances and novellas. Her tales of passion and adventure are set in exotic as well as American locales. Connie was named Story Teller of the Year in 1990 by Romantic Times and was awarded Career Achievement award in the Western category by Romantic Times in 1994. Connie makes her home in Tarpon Springs, Florida with her husband Jerry.
Prior to her first published work in 1984, Connie was a full time homemaker. Always an avid reader, writing was one of Connie's dreams.
In 1995 Connie was featured on a segment of the CBS news show 48 Hours, a television production that devoted an entire program to the romance novel industry. Connie was also featured in an article published by National Inquirer.
In addition to writing and traveling, Connie enjoys telling anyone who will listen about her three children and nine grandchildren, and sharing memories of her years living abroad in Europe and Asia as the wife of a career serviceman. In her spare time Connie enjoys reading, dancing, playing bridge and freshwater fishing with her husband.
Prior to her first published work in 1984, Connie was a full time homemaker. Always an avid reader, writing was one of Connie's dreams.
In 1995 Connie was featured on a segment of the CBS news show 48 Hours, a television production that devoted an entire program to the romance novel industry. Connie was also featured in an article published by National Inquirer.
In addition to writing and traveling, Connie enjoys telling anyone who will listen about her three children and nine grandchildren, and sharing memories of her years living abroad in Europe and Asia as the wife of a career serviceman. In her spare time Connie enjoys reading, dancing, playing bridge and freshwater fishing with her husband.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
July 27, 2024
Brave Land, Brave Love (1992) is the final book in the Australian Trilogy by Connie Mason. It’s is a sizzling romance with a mystery all set against the backdrop of newly settled Australia.
🦘 1818.. 28 year old Ben Penrod, the younger brother of Dare (hero in the first book), has been in London for 2 years “sampling the women from one end of England to the other.” On his way home late one night he’s accosted by a pickpocket…and catches Tia who’s disguised as a boy. . He threatens to take her to the police unless she helps him with an urgent problem he has … pretend to be his wife because he doesn’t want one.
🦘 Tia’s a mystery, she won’t tell him her background… she’s 18 and has been living on the streets for 3 years. There’s plenty of resistance on Tia’s part tho both are attracted to each other… they won’t admit it. Ben’s determined, and eventually the story moves to Australia where there’s plenty of nail biting scenes.., one after the other.
🦘 The writing is more complex in this book compared to the first two… greater emotional ARCs for the MCs and more descriptive. The story is BRAVE..., Tia is brave, Ben is brave like the book title says. Mason’s style is distinctive… focusing on the action, and numerous passionate sex scenes. Ben also likes to give Tia oral sex… described in glorious detail. In some HRs a lot of sex scenes can feel like filler but that’s not the case with this story. The author perfectly weaves them thru out … Ben and Tia are continually frustrated with each other as they hide their true feelings… then sex happens!
🦘 Brave Land, Brave Love is a fitting ending to this amazing series… strong to the very end, and wonderful that it includes the couples from the previous books. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Cover of the paperback by Franco Accornero.
🦘 1818.. 28 year old Ben Penrod, the younger brother of Dare (hero in the first book), has been in London for 2 years “sampling the women from one end of England to the other.” On his way home late one night he’s accosted by a pickpocket…and catches Tia who’s disguised as a boy. . He threatens to take her to the police unless she helps him with an urgent problem he has … pretend to be his wife because he doesn’t want one.
🦘 Tia’s a mystery, she won’t tell him her background… she’s 18 and has been living on the streets for 3 years. There’s plenty of resistance on Tia’s part tho both are attracted to each other… they won’t admit it. Ben’s determined, and eventually the story moves to Australia where there’s plenty of nail biting scenes.., one after the other.
🦘 The writing is more complex in this book compared to the first two… greater emotional ARCs for the MCs and more descriptive. The story is BRAVE..., Tia is brave, Ben is brave like the book title says. Mason’s style is distinctive… focusing on the action, and numerous passionate sex scenes. Ben also likes to give Tia oral sex… described in glorious detail. In some HRs a lot of sex scenes can feel like filler but that’s not the case with this story. The author perfectly weaves them thru out … Ben and Tia are continually frustrated with each other as they hide their true feelings… then sex happens!
🦘 Brave Land, Brave Love is a fitting ending to this amazing series… strong to the very end, and wonderful that it includes the couples from the previous books. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Cover of the paperback by Franco Accornero.
February 28, 2017
Just finished the last book in this trilogy, and have to say I enjoyed it as much as the other two books. Ben was a bit aggravating at times, but then, so was Tia. They were both very strong characters so it is only natural their personalities would clash. This book was well written, suspenseful, and the story was just beautifully told in my opinion. Have no qualms about recommending this trilogy to anyone who likes steamy and suspenseful historical romance. The fact that it took place mostly in Australia was an added bonus for me. Will definitely read all three books again!
May 25, 2012
London 1818 and Australia 1819
Our hero Ben is 27 and Tia is 18. He swears to never marry, ever. Tia is a guttersnipe he meets when she snags his money and runs. Thinking she's a lad, he takes her home to clear her up and then finds out, he is a she. So they stay around in London, her pretending to be his wife, so he won't have to marry a sneaky tramp that set him up. So at his father's request he returns to Australia taking Tia with him. Once there he passes her off as his wife instead of mistress. He offers marriage many times and she turns him down.
Our hero Ben is 27 and Tia is 18. He swears to never marry, ever. Tia is a guttersnipe he meets when she snags his money and runs. Thinking she's a lad, he takes her home to clear her up and then finds out, he is a she. So they stay around in London, her pretending to be his wife, so he won't have to marry a sneaky tramp that set him up. So at his father's request he returns to Australia taking Tia with him. Once there he passes her off as his wife instead of mistress. He offers marriage many times and she turns him down.
October 27, 2017
Connie Mason always seems to be a hit or miss author for me - she has written some fabulous books over the course of her career, but she also has a fair few that seemed forced. Brave Land, Brave Love was one of the latter.
Bold Land, Bold Love (book one in her Australia/Penrods series) is probably my favorite of all her novels and is one I enjoy revisiting every few years or so. While not quite reaching my top 100 favorite books list, Wild Land, Wild Love (book two) is still one I enjoy rereading every once in a while. For some reason I cannot recall, I had never read book three, Brave Land, Brave Love until I borrowed it on Archive.org a few days ago. As an obsessive reader, it has gotten more and more difficult these past few years to find really good historical romance novels I have not already read, so I happily sat down to revisit Australia and the Penrods.
Unfortunately, this book did not live up to expectation. The whole story felt forced to me. I know publishing companies often seem to think three is the magic number for a book series, so I kept wondering if perhaps this book was written because of a contractual agreement rather than resulting from Ms. Mason's muse inspiring a story crying out to be told. The whole thing felt like a series of generic, commonplace romance novel ideas all thrown together with a ridiculous number of intimate scenes thrown in as filler.
When you read a well written book, the story slowly climbs throughout until you reach the climax where it then winds down a bit and a happy ending is thrown in for good measure. -- This is my analogy (to help explain what I mean above)... The good novel is like a road which climbs steadily uphill. There might be a few bumps, twist and turns, or even some accidents on the way, but you still proceed steadily toward that summit. When you reach the top of the hill, there is a great deal of excitement and discovery (this where we learn all the answers and the action culminates into an exciting conclusion). After that, you coast back down the hill a bit, enjoying the ride because it's all smooth sailing from here. However, with this book, the "road" felt like country lane "paved" with rocks of various sizes and with a good many pot holes. The drive was nothing more than a series of small, jarring encounters that mostly seemed unnecessary, and the road didn't seem to climb at all nor lead to any particular destination... it was like driving on that horrible road just because it was there.
There were also a good many story ideas with potential introduces but none of them seemed to ever lead anywhere (going back to my road analogy, they were all side streets with dead ends). It just didn't make any sense at all. I'm avoiding giving specifics because I don't want to give spoilers (though I do not recommend the read), but I think this much can be said without giving anything away... The heroine has secrets (big ones) that are revealed as the story goes (though even with those I guessed what was coming long before it was revealed - as I said at the start, much of this book was nothing more than a collection of standard romance novel issues, so it wasn't a stretch to figure them out). When the first secret is revealed, there was SO much that could have been done with it! But, instead, she tosses that obstacle out almost as soon as it is made known! So, what was the point? Then another secret comes up on the heels of that one, and the excuses and explanations for why she was hiding it were so thin that I kept thinking she was trying to stretch this out to make it more exciting but instead made it all just ridiculous (and, for me, at least, it completely ruined the fun I would have otherwise had with that particular nugget).
She also changed the hero's characteristics a bit from the earlier books. He's such a good guy - one you can't help but adore - in book one, but I felt like the version of him in book three was his body double (again, trying to avoid spoilers, I'll just say he lies and breaks promises FAR to often to be the honorable young man who, in the first book, was willing to marry a woman he didn't love simply to protect her for his brother).
The last issue is one I hesitate to go into because I feel it is often brought up in a way vastly different from my complaint, but here it is... As I said at the beginning, it felt like Ms. Mason was trying to use intimate scenes to either smooth over all the ruts in the road or perhaps just distract the reader enough to make the bumps less noticeable. I have NO problems whatsoever with sex scenes (I don't even mind reading erotica as long as the story is a strong one and not just a collection of overly-descriptive intimate scenes) and am actually remarkably open-minded, so I'm not bringing it up because I have an issue with the nature of the author's style of writing love-scenes. My issue is simply with the quantity and repetition of them. It felt like she threw one in every time she needed filler or a transition into a new scene (went to a fancy dinner party at night but need the characters to be running all over London the next day. Hmm, well, just toss in a bedroom scene in between. Or, I just heard something devastating while eavesdropping, but rather than deal with it, I'll fall into bed - yet again - and then can ignore it completely from then on. And, my favorite... The big baddie is coming to take me away so rather than come up with a solution we'll just roll in the hay for two days - yeah, that works..NOT!). As I said, it wasn't the scenes themselves but the sheer volume and poor placement of them that had me just skimming over those sections after a while (they also were highly repetitive - especially for a rogue!). I didn't actually count pages, but I started wondering just how much shorter the book would be if all the bedroom scenes after the first one were removed (I love long books, but, again, only when they are well-written).
So, overall, I was extremely disappointed - actually, I had to force myself to even finish the book (a first for me with this author). This isn't the first time a book that is high up on my favorites list has a sequel that just tanked, but it is no less regretful.
Bold Land, Bold Love (book one in her Australia/Penrods series) is probably my favorite of all her novels and is one I enjoy revisiting every few years or so. While not quite reaching my top 100 favorite books list, Wild Land, Wild Love (book two) is still one I enjoy rereading every once in a while. For some reason I cannot recall, I had never read book three, Brave Land, Brave Love until I borrowed it on Archive.org a few days ago. As an obsessive reader, it has gotten more and more difficult these past few years to find really good historical romance novels I have not already read, so I happily sat down to revisit Australia and the Penrods.
Unfortunately, this book did not live up to expectation. The whole story felt forced to me. I know publishing companies often seem to think three is the magic number for a book series, so I kept wondering if perhaps this book was written because of a contractual agreement rather than resulting from Ms. Mason's muse inspiring a story crying out to be told. The whole thing felt like a series of generic, commonplace romance novel ideas all thrown together with a ridiculous number of intimate scenes thrown in as filler.
When you read a well written book, the story slowly climbs throughout until you reach the climax where it then winds down a bit and a happy ending is thrown in for good measure. -- This is my analogy (to help explain what I mean above)... The good novel is like a road which climbs steadily uphill. There might be a few bumps, twist and turns, or even some accidents on the way, but you still proceed steadily toward that summit. When you reach the top of the hill, there is a great deal of excitement and discovery (this where we learn all the answers and the action culminates into an exciting conclusion). After that, you coast back down the hill a bit, enjoying the ride because it's all smooth sailing from here. However, with this book, the "road" felt like country lane "paved" with rocks of various sizes and with a good many pot holes. The drive was nothing more than a series of small, jarring encounters that mostly seemed unnecessary, and the road didn't seem to climb at all nor lead to any particular destination... it was like driving on that horrible road just because it was there.
There were also a good many story ideas with potential introduces but none of them seemed to ever lead anywhere (going back to my road analogy, they were all side streets with dead ends). It just didn't make any sense at all. I'm avoiding giving specifics because I don't want to give spoilers (though I do not recommend the read), but I think this much can be said without giving anything away... The heroine has secrets (big ones) that are revealed as the story goes (though even with those I guessed what was coming long before it was revealed - as I said at the start, much of this book was nothing more than a collection of standard romance novel issues, so it wasn't a stretch to figure them out). When the first secret is revealed, there was SO much that could have been done with it! But, instead, she tosses that obstacle out almost as soon as it is made known! So, what was the point? Then another secret comes up on the heels of that one, and the excuses and explanations for why she was hiding it were so thin that I kept thinking she was trying to stretch this out to make it more exciting but instead made it all just ridiculous (and, for me, at least, it completely ruined the fun I would have otherwise had with that particular nugget).
She also changed the hero's characteristics a bit from the earlier books. He's such a good guy - one you can't help but adore - in book one, but I felt like the version of him in book three was his body double (again, trying to avoid spoilers, I'll just say he lies and breaks promises FAR to often to be the honorable young man who, in the first book, was willing to marry a woman he didn't love simply to protect her for his brother).
The last issue is one I hesitate to go into because I feel it is often brought up in a way vastly different from my complaint, but here it is... As I said at the beginning, it felt like Ms. Mason was trying to use intimate scenes to either smooth over all the ruts in the road or perhaps just distract the reader enough to make the bumps less noticeable. I have NO problems whatsoever with sex scenes (I don't even mind reading erotica as long as the story is a strong one and not just a collection of overly-descriptive intimate scenes) and am actually remarkably open-minded, so I'm not bringing it up because I have an issue with the nature of the author's style of writing love-scenes. My issue is simply with the quantity and repetition of them. It felt like she threw one in every time she needed filler or a transition into a new scene (went to a fancy dinner party at night but need the characters to be running all over London the next day. Hmm, well, just toss in a bedroom scene in between. Or, I just heard something devastating while eavesdropping, but rather than deal with it, I'll fall into bed - yet again - and then can ignore it completely from then on. And, my favorite... The big baddie is coming to take me away so rather than come up with a solution we'll just roll in the hay for two days - yeah, that works..NOT!). As I said, it wasn't the scenes themselves but the sheer volume and poor placement of them that had me just skimming over those sections after a while (they also were highly repetitive - especially for a rogue!). I didn't actually count pages, but I started wondering just how much shorter the book would be if all the bedroom scenes after the first one were removed (I love long books, but, again, only when they are well-written).
So, overall, I was extremely disappointed - actually, I had to force myself to even finish the book (a first for me with this author). This isn't the first time a book that is high up on my favorites list has a sequel that just tanked, but it is no less regretful.
July 28, 2018
In the final book of the Australian Trilogy Ben Penrod is a strapping ladies man determined never ever ever ever ever to marry (if there is a reason other than just a random aversion to marriage I don't know it). Ben has been traveling around sowing his wild oats and almost falls into a marriage trap while in London. Desperate to escape it he Plucks a street urchin, Tia, off the street to pretend to be his wife.
Before long sparks are flying and Ben ends up bringing Tia back to Australia with him to be his Mistress. Neither of them know it yet but they won't be content to stay that way for long. They will need to overcome some major (and dangerous) hurdles to be together.
This book nicely wraps up the whole series for Dare and Casey, Robin and Kate, Ben and Tia, and even your giant friendly bushranger Big John.
Before long sparks are flying and Ben ends up bringing Tia back to Australia with him to be his Mistress. Neither of them know it yet but they won't be content to stay that way for long. They will need to overcome some major (and dangerous) hurdles to be together.
This book nicely wraps up the whole series for Dare and Casey, Robin and Kate, Ben and Tia, and even your giant friendly bushranger Big John.
March 30, 2016
I found that Tia and Ben's relationship is one of the few that I feel made sense and had the proper amount of growth needed. I like that Tia, found in the slums and had a fowl mouth, is at the same time a lady in every sense of the word. It really keeps Ben on his toes. There is proper amount of romance mixed with some action as Tia works to escape her past with her husband, her adventures in Australia, and dealing with her growing feelings for Ben.
October 16, 2017
Really good and engaging! There's a decent mystery and lots of twists and turns; more than the average romance novel. It made me want to read the other novels in the trilogy because they feature many of the same characters who are all incredibly well-developed.
April 1, 2012
I loved the characters in this book, so real and loving and just this whole trilogy was amazing!
September 19, 2019
Absolutely Fabulous
This was one of the best series I have read. I would recommend reading them in order and I hope she writes another series like this one.
This was one of the best series I have read. I would recommend reading them in order and I hope she writes another series like this one.
May 12, 2021
I thought this was a okay read. Not my favorite. Too much happened that wasn’t believable. I did like the main characters. It was lots of little things that bothered me in the story.
July 16, 2025
3.5 stars
September 29, 2025
Lovely final part to the Penrod trilogy.
February 23, 2020
"Смела любов" на Кони Мейсън е исторически любовен роман за Австралия. Книгата не е лоша, но любовните сцени идват в повече. Иначе тези книжки са доста романтични и разтоварващи, като в същото време имат от всичко по-малко.
February 23, 2008
This is book #3 in Ms. Mason's Australian Trilogy and I enjoyed reading it. Nice change of pace from the typical historical...Fun read
4 1/2 Stars from This Reader.
4 1/2 Stars from This Reader.
April 23, 2012
Excellent
October 20, 2015
I've read it before i stumbled unto this site. yes....it's awesomely captivating.
i still haven't figured out how to read a book here though. can't someone point it out for me??
i still haven't figured out how to read a book here though. can't someone point it out for me??
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews