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Yesterday's Echoes
He Knew Her Dark Secrets…
Tragedy had befallen Rosie when she was a vulnerable sixteen-year-old, and the worst thing about the experience was being caught by Jake Lucas, who clearly thought Rosie was a tramp.
Since then Rosie had resolutely concentrated on building up a successful career and had allowed no one to guess that there was another woman behind the cheerful face she showed to the world.
But Jake had entered her life again, and he wasn't about to let her forget the past. There seemed to be no way of avoiding the inevitable confrontation. Would it shatter Rosie's life all over again?
Tragedy had befallen Rosie when she was a vulnerable sixteen-year-old, and the worst thing about the experience was being caught by Jake Lucas, who clearly thought Rosie was a tramp.
Since then Rosie had resolutely concentrated on building up a successful career and had allowed no one to guess that there was another woman behind the cheerful face she showed to the world.
But Jake had entered her life again, and he wasn't about to let her forget the past. There seemed to be no way of avoiding the inevitable confrontation. Would it shatter Rosie's life all over again?
189 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1993
59 people are currently reading
238 people want to read
About the author
Penny Jordan
1,125 books666 followersPenelope Jones Halsall
aka Caroline Courtney, Annie Groves, Lydia Hitchcock, Melinda Wright
Penelope "Penny" Jones was born on November 24, 1946 at about seven pounds in a nursing home in Preston, Lancashire, England. She was the first child of Anthony Winn Jones, an engineer, who died at 85, and his wife Margaret Louise Groves Jones. She has a brother, Anthony, and a sister, Prudence "Pru".
She had been a keen reader from the childhood - her mother used to leave her in the children's section of their local library whilst she changed her father's library books. She was a storyteller long before she began to write romantic fiction. At the age of eight, she was creating serialized bedtime stories, featuring make-believe adventures, for her younger sister Prue, who was always the heroine. At eleven, she fell in love with Mills & Boon, and with their heroes. In those days the books could only be obtained via private lending libraries, and she quickly became a devoted fan; she was thrilled to bits when the books went on full sale in shops and she could have them for keeps.
Penny left grammar school in Rochdale with O-Levels in English Language, English Literature and Geography. She first discovered Mills & Boon books, via a girl she worked with. She married Steve Halsall, an accountant and a "lovely man", who smoked and drank too heavily, and suffered oral cancer with bravery and dignity. Her husband bought her the small electric typewriter on which she typed her first novels, at a time when he could ill afford it. He died at the beginning of 21st century.
She earned a living as a writer since the 1970s when, as a shorthand typist, she entered a competition run by the Romantic Novelists' Association. Although she didn't win, Penny found an agent who was looking for a new Georgette Heyer. She published four regency novels as Caroline Courtney, before changing her nom de plume to Melinda Wright for three air-hostess romps and then she wrote two thrillers as Lydia Hitchcock. Soon after that, Mills and Boon accepted her first novel for them, Falcon's Prey as Penny Jordan. However, for her more historical romance novels, she adopted her mother's maiden-name to become Annie Groves. Almost 70 of her 167 Mills and Boon novels have been sold worldwide.
Penny Halsall lived in a neo-Georgian house in Nantwich, Cheshire, with her Alsatian Sheba and cat Posh. She worked from home, in her kitchen, surrounded by her pets, and welcomed interruptions from her friends and family.
aka Caroline Courtney, Annie Groves, Lydia Hitchcock, Melinda Wright
Penelope "Penny" Jones was born on November 24, 1946 at about seven pounds in a nursing home in Preston, Lancashire, England. She was the first child of Anthony Winn Jones, an engineer, who died at 85, and his wife Margaret Louise Groves Jones. She has a brother, Anthony, and a sister, Prudence "Pru".
She had been a keen reader from the childhood - her mother used to leave her in the children's section of their local library whilst she changed her father's library books. She was a storyteller long before she began to write romantic fiction. At the age of eight, she was creating serialized bedtime stories, featuring make-believe adventures, for her younger sister Prue, who was always the heroine. At eleven, she fell in love with Mills & Boon, and with their heroes. In those days the books could only be obtained via private lending libraries, and she quickly became a devoted fan; she was thrilled to bits when the books went on full sale in shops and she could have them for keeps.
Penny left grammar school in Rochdale with O-Levels in English Language, English Literature and Geography. She first discovered Mills & Boon books, via a girl she worked with. She married Steve Halsall, an accountant and a "lovely man", who smoked and drank too heavily, and suffered oral cancer with bravery and dignity. Her husband bought her the small electric typewriter on which she typed her first novels, at a time when he could ill afford it. He died at the beginning of 21st century.
She earned a living as a writer since the 1970s when, as a shorthand typist, she entered a competition run by the Romantic Novelists' Association. Although she didn't win, Penny found an agent who was looking for a new Georgette Heyer. She published four regency novels as Caroline Courtney, before changing her nom de plume to Melinda Wright for three air-hostess romps and then she wrote two thrillers as Lydia Hitchcock. Soon after that, Mills and Boon accepted her first novel for them, Falcon's Prey as Penny Jordan. However, for her more historical romance novels, she adopted her mother's maiden-name to become Annie Groves. Almost 70 of her 167 Mills and Boon novels have been sold worldwide.
Penny Halsall lived in a neo-Georgian house in Nantwich, Cheshire, with her Alsatian Sheba and cat Posh. She worked from home, in her kitchen, surrounded by her pets, and welcomed interruptions from her friends and family.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 40 reviews
August 18, 2018
Re Yesterday's Echoes - PJ does another of her super sad, but super sugary sweet HPlandia outings with this one.
The h is 31 and living in a small English market town, she has taken over her father's insurance agency and has to deal with a very snide and pushy sister who seems to think the h is two and doesn't have enough sense to come in out of the rain.
(Just once I want a big sister who doesn't boss or bully our sweet little h's, she just uses the skillet on anyone dumb enough to hurt her baby sis.)
But anyhows, in addition to her bossy boots sister, the h has to contend with the older businessman circle being rather sexist because she is a woman in a man's field. The h tries to accommodate the old boy's network (and local Women's Institute Gossips) and has a mind to being perceived as a very conservative woman, but it is hard because the h is also shunning the trappings of marriage and motherhood and that seems suspicious to most of the locals.
The h is an introvert and her snotty witch sister can't understand why the h isn't out there roping a man and producing even more people for the witch to boss around. The h doesn't think marriage and family is ever a possibility for her, tho there is a guy that she has been in love with for many, many years.
Unfortunately the h's long term love H thinks she is a tarty tramp. Because when she was 16 she went to a local party, where the H's cousin roofied her and raped her. The H mistakenly believed the h was beguiled by the coprophagic subsewer slime blobule and in a jealous rage, renounced our sweet little h.
The h was traumatized from the assault, tho we find out later that the slime blobule doesn't even remember, and she was even more traumatized from the miscarriage she had all alone a few weeks later. The h has never been able to seek out help for herself or therapy treatment, the shame and pain are just too deep, in large part because of the H's reaction to her.
Then the h finds out that coprophagic subsewer blob is returning to town with his wife and children. The H feels it is his duty to warn the h off any shenanigans and it finally comes out that the h despises, hates and would love to dump the turd blossom slime blobule down the nearest never ending mine shaft.
The H realizes he got things really, really badly wrong and that scene is excellent, cause we have an OTT, madly in love H beating his ownself up for being a nematode -when he could have been consoling and wooing and winning his girl.
The h's grand confession of rape and trauma, coupled with a lot of wine and a long, long, long term build up of Lurve Force Mojo, leads to a huge almost purple passion explosion, but the h passes out and ends up spending the night at the H's house. Then the h and H get walked in on by the blob pustule turd blossom's wife and the village gossip.
A fake engagement is announced and the h's witch sister - who has just announced another pregnancy at over 40- has an utter hissy fit. The h (finally!) tells the bat witch sister where to get off. The H is all about making the fake engagement real and the h is finding that everyone is a lot more respectful to her with the H around to run interference.
The H eventually learns the whole story about the miscarriage and the rape and in the standard PJ style, we get several pages of both H and h angsting before they realize that they really do BOTH love each other and declare their true love HEA after their big Passionate Casting Adrift on the Golden Shores of Transcendent Bliss.
The H and h decide to marry right away and the sweetest part is the H buys the h teddy bear charms for her bracelet. He buys two, one for the baby the h lost and another for the baby that is on the way and we can leave our lovely couple basking in the pink sparkly unicorn and kitten rainbow dances for another great PJ HPlandia HEA.
I adore this book, we get H and h pov and the only thing I despise is that the H never drowns his coprophage cousin when he gets the chance. However, I understood why PJ went that way. The cousin never remembered even being with the h, he was drunk out of his skull.
So for there to be any kind of public retribution or reckoning would have made things ten times worse for the h - she literally wouldn't have been mentally stable enough to handle other people knowing - most especially not her attacker and he gets off pretty much scott-free.
However as a personal happy little epilogue for me, I know that the evil rapist cousin went home to Australia and his sons' went out and caught a couple of funnel web spiders to dump in his shoes. Then when dear old sot dad was buzzed and not paying attention, he shoved his feet into his spider filled shoes and suffered a long, horrible and very, very painful death.
(PJ was too nice to write that, so I figured I would just help her out.)
Overall tho this is a really super sweet H HP outing, I liked the h too and felt sad that she had to get through all that on her own. The HEA was worth it at the end, so give this one a chance when you need an angsty sweet day at the HP office.
The h is 31 and living in a small English market town, she has taken over her father's insurance agency and has to deal with a very snide and pushy sister who seems to think the h is two and doesn't have enough sense to come in out of the rain.
(Just once I want a big sister who doesn't boss or bully our sweet little h's, she just uses the skillet on anyone dumb enough to hurt her baby sis.)
But anyhows, in addition to her bossy boots sister, the h has to contend with the older businessman circle being rather sexist because she is a woman in a man's field. The h tries to accommodate the old boy's network (and local Women's Institute Gossips) and has a mind to being perceived as a very conservative woman, but it is hard because the h is also shunning the trappings of marriage and motherhood and that seems suspicious to most of the locals.
The h is an introvert and her snotty witch sister can't understand why the h isn't out there roping a man and producing even more people for the witch to boss around. The h doesn't think marriage and family is ever a possibility for her, tho there is a guy that she has been in love with for many, many years.
Unfortunately the h's long term love H thinks she is a tarty tramp. Because when she was 16 she went to a local party, where the H's cousin roofied her and raped her. The H mistakenly believed the h was beguiled by the coprophagic subsewer slime blobule and in a jealous rage, renounced our sweet little h.
The h was traumatized from the assault, tho we find out later that the slime blobule doesn't even remember, and she was even more traumatized from the miscarriage she had all alone a few weeks later. The h has never been able to seek out help for herself or therapy treatment, the shame and pain are just too deep, in large part because of the H's reaction to her.
Then the h finds out that coprophagic subsewer blob is returning to town with his wife and children. The H feels it is his duty to warn the h off any shenanigans and it finally comes out that the h despises, hates and would love to dump the turd blossom slime blobule down the nearest never ending mine shaft.
The H realizes he got things really, really badly wrong and that scene is excellent, cause we have an OTT, madly in love H beating his ownself up for being a nematode -when he could have been consoling and wooing and winning his girl.
The h's grand confession of rape and trauma, coupled with a lot of wine and a long, long, long term build up of Lurve Force Mojo, leads to a huge almost purple passion explosion, but the h passes out and ends up spending the night at the H's house. Then the h and H get walked in on by the blob pustule turd blossom's wife and the village gossip.
A fake engagement is announced and the h's witch sister - who has just announced another pregnancy at over 40- has an utter hissy fit. The h (finally!) tells the bat witch sister where to get off. The H is all about making the fake engagement real and the h is finding that everyone is a lot more respectful to her with the H around to run interference.
The H eventually learns the whole story about the miscarriage and the rape and in the standard PJ style, we get several pages of both H and h angsting before they realize that they really do BOTH love each other and declare their true love HEA after their big Passionate Casting Adrift on the Golden Shores of Transcendent Bliss.
The H and h decide to marry right away and the sweetest part is the H buys the h teddy bear charms for her bracelet. He buys two, one for the baby the h lost and another for the baby that is on the way and we can leave our lovely couple basking in the pink sparkly unicorn and kitten rainbow dances for another great PJ HPlandia HEA.
I adore this book, we get H and h pov and the only thing I despise is that the H never drowns his coprophage cousin when he gets the chance. However, I understood why PJ went that way. The cousin never remembered even being with the h, he was drunk out of his skull.
So for there to be any kind of public retribution or reckoning would have made things ten times worse for the h - she literally wouldn't have been mentally stable enough to handle other people knowing - most especially not her attacker and he gets off pretty much scott-free.
However as a personal happy little epilogue for me, I know that the evil rapist cousin went home to Australia and his sons' went out and caught a couple of funnel web spiders to dump in his shoes. Then when dear old sot dad was buzzed and not paying attention, he shoved his feet into his spider filled shoes and suffered a long, horrible and very, very painful death.
(PJ was too nice to write that, so I figured I would just help her out.)
Overall tho this is a really super sweet H HP outing, I liked the h too and felt sad that she had to get through all that on her own. The HEA was worth it at the end, so give this one a chance when you need an angsty sweet day at the HP office.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
did-not-finish
July 29, 2023DNF @ 20%
I just can’t with this. It’s too dated and casual about rape. The main character’s entire personality is that she was raped at 16 and lost a baby and now laments ever having love and children and has to be a ‘career girl’ in a man’s world. This was written in 1995 but feels like circa 1970.
Pass. These old school HPs are not for me, obviously.
I just can’t with this. It’s too dated and casual about rape. The main character’s entire personality is that she was raped at 16 and lost a baby and now laments ever having love and children and has to be a ‘career girl’ in a man’s world. This was written in 1995 but feels like circa 1970.
Pass. These old school HPs are not for me, obviously.
March 10, 2018
Trigger alert: heroine was roofied and date raped at 16. She fell pregnant and then miscarried, all without telling anyone. She is not okay.
Yesterday's echoes have turned into full-blown PTSD 15 (?) years later when the heroine's rapist returns to visit ye old hometown. It is also at this time that the rapist's cousin (our hero) finally realizes that what he witnessed and appeared so disgusted by, was not a consensual affair, but rape. The hero had a crush on the heroine and was jealous that the heroine appeared to favor his cousin over him.
The heroine was just as traumatized by that look of disgust as the rape because she also had a crush on the hero. When she finally tells her story to the sympathetic hero, her healing begins. The backdrop to all of this drama is a gossipy, judgmental town, hence the need for an engagement of convenience so that the H/h can spend time together without the heroine being labeled a Jezebel.
And that's about the whole story. The hero's love has remained strong for 15 years in true Penny Jordan fashion. That love also heals the heroine and is probably a dessert topping as well. Yes, it's a bit unrealistic, but welcome after being privy to the heroine's tortured thoughts and emotions.
The heroine does mourn all of her lost years of being miserable because she didn't speak up and didn't seek therapy. That was an important lesson in 1995 and it still is today. The rapist did not get a comeuppance and that will bother many readers - so be warned.
Yesterday's echoes have turned into full-blown PTSD 15 (?) years later when the heroine's rapist returns to visit ye old hometown. It is also at this time that the rapist's cousin (our hero) finally realizes that what he witnessed and appeared so disgusted by, was not a consensual affair, but rape. The hero had a crush on the heroine and was jealous that the heroine appeared to favor his cousin over him.
The heroine was just as traumatized by that look of disgust as the rape because she also had a crush on the hero. When she finally tells her story to the sympathetic hero, her healing begins. The backdrop to all of this drama is a gossipy, judgmental town, hence the need for an engagement of convenience so that the H/h can spend time together without the heroine being labeled a Jezebel.
And that's about the whole story. The hero's love has remained strong for 15 years in true Penny Jordan fashion. That love also heals the heroine and is probably a dessert topping as well. Yes, it's a bit unrealistic, but welcome after being privy to the heroine's tortured thoughts and emotions.
The heroine does mourn all of her lost years of being miserable because she didn't speak up and didn't seek therapy. That was an important lesson in 1995 and it still is today. The rapist did not get a comeuppance and that will bother many readers - so be warned.
Read
January 21, 2020** I’m giving away the rotten ending so don’t read further if you don’t mind nasty surprises in your romances. Trigger warnings as rape issues are dealt with here **
I had this on a waitlist at the online library for a long time and as PJ is usually an auto-read for me, I either forgot or didn’t check reviews beforehand. I’m going to flat out warn you heroine was raped by H’s cousin and the fucking rapist got invited to the wedding at the HEA.
I understand that heroines of the 80s are usually written as martyrs. But I draw the line at rape, I don’t care which era it’s written in. One could argue about Heroes who rape heroines and I don’t like that either, but most vintage romance writers are experts in crafting the forced seduction scene, they never linger and the story moves on.
In this case, heroine was 15 when this happened and then spent 16 damned years in deep-freeze. She suffered a miscarriage as the result of the rape and for about three quarters of the book, she deals with the repercussions of a single act that wasn’t even remotely her fault.
She’d had too much to drink and the cousin raped her. When she found out she was pregnant, she believed her terror at having the rapist’s child forced her body to miscarry. She’s carried the guilt around for years that she lost the baby because she didn’t want it.
Now PJ does this angst extremely well, to show her misplaced self-blame and her confusion. She had internalized her pain and made it so private that even the people closest to her, her sister and parents, were unaware of what happened.
Adding to her anguish is the memory of H, her teenage crush, catching them in bed after the deed. She was too dazed to explain and he assumed that the whole scene was consensual, a misconception actively encouraged by the cousin.
H had been fighting his own feelings for a beautiful but obviously under-aged innocent sweetheart who had now seemingly proven herself to be anything but that. He was angry at his own stupidity but she misinterpreted this anger as directed towards her and carried this burden of shame, along with the trauma of the rape.
So eons later, they meet up again. H appears to still hold a candle for her and like most PJ Heroes is unreasonably resentful about this. Unfortunately, the POS dirt-bag asshole cousin, is now a married POS dirt-bag asshoe with kids and a wife to boot, with the wife making the most idiotic excuse for his being a bad father: he’s Australian. Apparently, they take longer to adjust to fatherhood. Wtf, PJ.
Of course, H again misjudges the situation between the h and his cousin as a reunited-hookup. She loses it and in a fit of anger tells him what really happened. H is horrified and totally remorseful. He despises his part in her trauma and begins the process of helping the heroine realize she did nothing wrong and the healing finally begins.
It is a well-written book. PJ captures all the emotions of the h very well, including her agony of believing she is probably barren because she can’t get past the guilt of miscarrying.
So after all that, I need the rapist to be dealt with in ways that doesn’t always happen in real life. Instead he is at their wedding during the HEA!
It didn’t help that I had just read a Pargeter book where the Hero, after the OM took the h out in a boat to hurt her, hit the OM so hard he fell into the water. He then pulled him out, pummelled him some more till he fell again, lol.
So this absolutely non-comeuppance for the rapist hit me strongly. It just negated her whole experience of surviving what happened.
And to top it all off, that sister of hers, to claim to be so close and yet unaware of her younger sister’s pain? She was an insensitive, control freak who only knew how to twist things to make it all about her and then manipulate the poor h.
It’s one of PJ’s best-written books but the non-resolution of the crime ruined it for me so I find it difficult to rate.
I had this on a waitlist at the online library for a long time and as PJ is usually an auto-read for me, I either forgot or didn’t check reviews beforehand. I’m going to flat out warn you heroine was raped by H’s cousin and the fucking rapist got invited to the wedding at the HEA.
I understand that heroines of the 80s are usually written as martyrs. But I draw the line at rape, I don’t care which era it’s written in. One could argue about Heroes who rape heroines and I don’t like that either, but most vintage romance writers are experts in crafting the forced seduction scene, they never linger and the story moves on.
In this case, heroine was 15 when this happened and then spent 16 damned years in deep-freeze. She suffered a miscarriage as the result of the rape and for about three quarters of the book, she deals with the repercussions of a single act that wasn’t even remotely her fault.
She’d had too much to drink and the cousin raped her. When she found out she was pregnant, she believed her terror at having the rapist’s child forced her body to miscarry. She’s carried the guilt around for years that she lost the baby because she didn’t want it.
Now PJ does this angst extremely well, to show her misplaced self-blame and her confusion. She had internalized her pain and made it so private that even the people closest to her, her sister and parents, were unaware of what happened.
Adding to her anguish is the memory of H, her teenage crush, catching them in bed after the deed. She was too dazed to explain and he assumed that the whole scene was consensual, a misconception actively encouraged by the cousin.
H had been fighting his own feelings for a beautiful but obviously under-aged innocent sweetheart who had now seemingly proven herself to be anything but that. He was angry at his own stupidity but she misinterpreted this anger as directed towards her and carried this burden of shame, along with the trauma of the rape.
So eons later, they meet up again. H appears to still hold a candle for her and like most PJ Heroes is unreasonably resentful about this. Unfortunately, the POS dirt-bag asshole cousin, is now a married POS dirt-bag asshoe with kids and a wife to boot, with the wife making the most idiotic excuse for his being a bad father: he’s Australian. Apparently, they take longer to adjust to fatherhood. Wtf, PJ.
Of course, H again misjudges the situation between the h and his cousin as a reunited-hookup. She loses it and in a fit of anger tells him what really happened. H is horrified and totally remorseful. He despises his part in her trauma and begins the process of helping the heroine realize she did nothing wrong and the healing finally begins.
It is a well-written book. PJ captures all the emotions of the h very well, including her agony of believing she is probably barren because she can’t get past the guilt of miscarrying.
So after all that, I need the rapist to be dealt with in ways that doesn’t always happen in real life. Instead he is at their wedding during the HEA!
It didn’t help that I had just read a Pargeter book where the Hero, after the OM took the h out in a boat to hurt her, hit the OM so hard he fell into the water. He then pulled him out, pummelled him some more till he fell again, lol.
So this absolutely non-comeuppance for the rapist hit me strongly. It just negated her whole experience of surviving what happened.
And to top it all off, that sister of hers, to claim to be so close and yet unaware of her younger sister’s pain? She was an insensitive, control freak who only knew how to twist things to make it all about her and then manipulate the poor h.
It’s one of PJ’s best-written books but the non-resolution of the crime ruined it for me so I find it difficult to rate.
July 20, 2015
5 HP stars Liked it just as well on the reread.
This book was very different and is frankly the best one I've read from Penny Jordan. It is the story of a woman who was raped as a teenager but who never told anyone and so she never got over it. Unlike most HPs where the author glosses over the fact that the heroine should have had therapy, here the heroine acknowledges that she should have gone to some but was too afraid to tell anyone what had happened. Of course the only other person who knows what happened is the hero. He is the cousin of the rapist and came upon them just after the fact when the heroine was lying dazed and so he doesn't know that is was rape but thinks it was consensual and that the heroine loved his cousin. The heroine however thinks that the hero despises her for being a 'ho.
All that is slightly different but the thing that makes this book shine is that a lot of the story was told from the hero's POV. You learn very quickly that the hero has loved her all along. When in his POV you see him trying his best to always do things right for her and help her and love her. Especially once he figures out that the heroine does not love his cousin. Then it is all about how he can make her fall in love with him.
If you love different HPs then you definitely need to read this one. It is one of those jewels in the HP world that keeps you slogging away through the dross in hopes of finding the treasure.
This book was very different and is frankly the best one I've read from Penny Jordan. It is the story of a woman who was raped as a teenager but who never told anyone and so she never got over it. Unlike most HPs where the author glosses over the fact that the heroine should have had therapy, here the heroine acknowledges that she should have gone to some but was too afraid to tell anyone what had happened. Of course the only other person who knows what happened is the hero. He is the cousin of the rapist and came upon them just after the fact when the heroine was lying dazed and so he doesn't know that is was rape but thinks it was consensual and that the heroine loved his cousin. The heroine however thinks that the hero despises her for being a 'ho.
All that is slightly different but the thing that makes this book shine is that a lot of the story was told from the hero's POV. You learn very quickly that the hero has loved her all along. When in his POV you see him trying his best to always do things right for her and help her and love her. Especially once he figures out that the heroine does not love his cousin. Then it is all about how he can make her fall in love with him.
If you love different HPs then you definitely need to read this one. It is one of those jewels in the HP world that keeps you slogging away through the dross in hopes of finding the treasure.
September 7, 2021
"Yesterday's Echoes" is the story of Rosie and Jake.
A heartwarming romance that deals with difficult topics like . A tragedy befalls the young sixteen year old heroine, followed by a pain she is not able to share with anyone. Fifteen years later, shadows of the past return and she is forced to reconcile with the feelings she had long buried.
I really like both the hero and heroine, and how they came together. He was understanding, she was broken, they were soothing together.
My only grievance is that the rapist didn't get his comeuppance.
Safe
4/5
A heartwarming romance that deals with difficult topics like . A tragedy befalls the young sixteen year old heroine, followed by a pain she is not able to share with anyone. Fifteen years later, shadows of the past return and she is forced to reconcile with the feelings she had long buried.
I really like both the hero and heroine, and how they came together. He was understanding, she was broken, they were soothing together.
My only grievance is that the rapist didn't get his comeuppance.
Safe
4/5
March 3, 2014
Started off very strong, but fizzled out and left me wondering why I even bother to read these category romances.
- The "reveal" to the hero and his reactions could have been written with more impact. Instead I got a summarized version of what was said and a heroine who decided to drink herself silly. That wasn't very believable given her history.
- They also dived into a relationship too fast. Given she was emotionally wounded and had considered him the enemy for so long made this aspect questionable at best.
- The author missed a golden opportunity to explore his "guilt". After all, he walked away from a woman who had just been raped. How did he miss the signs? Did he really miss them, or was there a part of him that wanted to see something different in order to protect his cousin?
- Now that he knows it was rape, why doesn't he confront his cousin? Instead he invites him to the wedding, and she claims it doesn't bother her? Really, how many women want to face their rapist at their wedding? Is that even logical.
I know this is a category romance, but less up front, more substance in the middle along with more respect towards rape victims, would have made this a 10 star read. If authors are going to take on these subjects, they should invest in the research necessary to make it not only compelling, but respectful.
Now for the positives:
+ Captured my attention from start to finish.
+ I felt he really did love her and that her impressions of him were distorted by fear and guilt. Not surprising given what had transpired.
+ Fairly well written..always a plus!
- The "reveal" to the hero and his reactions could have been written with more impact. Instead I got a summarized version of what was said and a heroine who decided to drink herself silly. That wasn't very believable given her history.
- They also dived into a relationship too fast. Given she was emotionally wounded and had considered him the enemy for so long made this aspect questionable at best.
- The author missed a golden opportunity to explore his "guilt". After all, he walked away from a woman who had just been raped. How did he miss the signs? Did he really miss them, or was there a part of him that wanted to see something different in order to protect his cousin?
- Now that he knows it was rape, why doesn't he confront his cousin? Instead he invites him to the wedding, and she claims it doesn't bother her? Really, how many women want to face their rapist at their wedding? Is that even logical.
I know this is a category romance, but less up front, more substance in the middle along with more respect towards rape victims, would have made this a 10 star read. If authors are going to take on these subjects, they should invest in the research necessary to make it not only compelling, but respectful.
Now for the positives:
+ Captured my attention from start to finish.
+ I felt he really did love her and that her impressions of him were distorted by fear and guilt. Not surprising given what had transpired.
+ Fairly well written..always a plus!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 22, 2016
Well done Penny Jordan. Usually her heroes are HORRIBLE to the h's but we have a nice guy here. Of course, the heroine is raped by his creepy cousin. PJ's heroines NEVER have it easy.
What I really enjoyed about this book is the discussion of women's rights in the early 90s. The heroine struggles to be an independent, single working woman. I was about the same age as the heroine during the 90s, and experienced some of the same stupid questions that directly and indirectly said: why aren't you married, what's wrong with you, aren't you unfulfilled without a husband and children. She also delivered on the not so subtle resistance to older men having a woman in business as well the good old double standard. PJ handled it all very well and with great accuracy. It adds to the reasons why the h could not confide in anyone about the rape.
Still a little dry, but more of a 3.5 than a 4.
What I really enjoyed about this book is the discussion of women's rights in the early 90s. The heroine struggles to be an independent, single working woman. I was about the same age as the heroine during the 90s, and experienced some of the same stupid questions that directly and indirectly said: why aren't you married, what's wrong with you, aren't you unfulfilled without a husband and children. She also delivered on the not so subtle resistance to older men having a woman in business as well the good old double standard. PJ handled it all very well and with great accuracy. It adds to the reasons why the h could not confide in anyone about the rape.
Still a little dry, but more of a 3.5 than a 4.
February 25, 2017
Annoying AF heroine who does everything so wrong that I just wanted to smack her and tell her to get a f-ing grip on herself. Faced with her rapist from 15 years ago she walks away from the crowd into a secluded place so he can follow her, then freezes and silently watches him approach her, just gazing wide-eyed as he gets right up in her face, and probably would have allowed him to rape her again without making a single move or sound because she's in such "shock". I should be used to this helpless-heroine behavior from Penny Jordan by now but ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh it was really extreme in this book. Can anyone be quite so literally helpless? Can shock from the sight of someone be quite that completely immobilizing/stupefying? For all the rapist knew, maybe he didn't even realize he was raping her, from her utterly accepting behavior. Seriously, if they hadn't been interrupted I could see this scenario totally happening:
"Hey baby we had a good time in the past huh?"
(wide-eyed stare)
"Wanna have another go?"
(wide-eyed stare)
"Oh yeah baby, I knew you wanted me-" *sex* "Unf unf. Ohh baby that was good."
(wide-eyed stare)
"Thanks for the fun time. Bye."
(crying, guilt and shame, Oh my God he raped me again what did I do to deserve this I better stay quiet and not tell anyone oh God I hate men so much)
So irritating!!
I hated the heroine too much to dredge up much caring about how she got her problems resolved after that. Everything I despise in a heroine right here. Rapist leaves you traumatized and emotionally stunted for half your stupid, cowardly, helpless little life? Better protect him and his reputation and his marriage, and don't forget to invite him to your wedding! <--this actually happened!!! What- I don't- I can't even.
"Hey baby we had a good time in the past huh?"
(wide-eyed stare)
"Wanna have another go?"
(wide-eyed stare)
"Oh yeah baby, I knew you wanted me-" *sex* "Unf unf. Ohh baby that was good."
(wide-eyed stare)
"Thanks for the fun time. Bye."
(crying, guilt and shame, Oh my God he raped me again what did I do to deserve this I better stay quiet and not tell anyone oh God I hate men so much)
So irritating!!
I hated the heroine too much to dredge up much caring about how she got her problems resolved after that. Everything I despise in a heroine right here. Rapist leaves you traumatized and emotionally stunted for half your stupid, cowardly, helpless little life? Better protect him and his reputation and his marriage, and don't forget to invite him to your wedding! <--this actually happened!!! What- I don't- I can't even.
February 24, 2015
This is just a big waste of time. I got no real closure from this whole story and it was pointless.
August 2, 2020
Heroine was such a sad, pathetic creature who spent fifteen years mourning and guilt-ridden for miscarrying her rapist’s spawn. The rapist, who is the Heroes cousin, goes on with his life and gets off with no comeuppance. Such a sickening way to create conflict.
December 7, 2009
Heroine traumatized for years after being raped is saved by the love of the man she thought hated her. As I read this, I was irresistibly reminded of Megan McDonough's advice to Cathy and Heathcliff: "Oh God, you're so sick, get some therapy!" Or maybe I was talking to myself, since I enjoyed it. :-) It's all very emo and over-the-top, but it works.
March 31, 2019
So good. This was difficult to read at times, but the way Jake loves Rose is so sweet and all encompassing.
January 27, 2020
I didn't find this to be particularly romantic because of the heavy focus on Rosie's emotional torment. Rosie held some longstanding trauma which she'd carried with her for 15 agonizing years. She was so traumatized that I wasn't sure if she was ever going to be ready for a healthy relationship with the very wonderful hero, Jake, whom I loved! However, I only loved him after the misunderstanding cleared up. It was then that he showered Rosie with much-needed tenderness, patience, and compassion (e.g., listening to her pour her heart out and holding her while she cried).
I wasn't sure if Rosie would be able to find a happily ever after, but the author pulled it off, convincing me that Rosie had finally moved on with Jake's love providing the healing balm.
I wasn't sure if Rosie would be able to find a happily ever after, but the author pulled it off, convincing me that Rosie had finally moved on with Jake's love providing the healing balm.
November 3, 2016
4 Stars ~ Rosie's entire adult life had been shaped by one reckless moment when she was a vulnerable 16 year-old wanting to fit in with her peers. She'd snuck out to go to Ritchie's party, and when someone spiked her drink, she was manoeuvered upstairs and then raped by Ritchie. She remembered every humiliating moment and mercifully it was over quickly. But not too quickly for Ritchie's older cousin Jake to barge in while Ritchie finished redressing. She'd been in shock. Jake had assumed she'd only been in an haze from sexual release. In all the years since, Rosie couldn't get the look of Jake's disgust and contempt out of her mind. While she'd always been relieved that Ritchie's family had moved to Australia soon after, she'd had to avoid every situation that might place her in Jake's sphere of friends. Even now 15 years later, just the thought of Jake makes her shake. Seeing him again is the last thing she wants, but there he is, again and again at functions she can't avoid. When Jake visits her at her home to warn her that Ritchie is coming back to England with his wife and kids, and accuses her of still being in love with him, Rosie explodes. How could she love someone who had forced himself on her? The whole horrible experience comes gushing out for the first time, and Jake is shocked to learn that his own reactions had only scarred Rosie more deeply. In all these years, she'd borne her humiliation in silence, and just as Jake thinks he has learnt it all, Rosie tells him her deepest guilty secret yet.
This is an emotionally intense story. Rosie's traumatic experience has shaped every decision she's ever made. Her family doesn't understand why she prefers a quiet life and rarely accepts a dating invitation. How can she get involved with a man when he'll want to know about her past? The first third of the book is consumed by Rosie's self-loathing and her tremendous pain. Jake's love for Rosie over all these years is a little over the top, but Ms. Jordan makes it work when he internalizes how he had viewed the events of that night. When Rosie unleashes her torment to Jake, he helps her to put it all into a different perspective and she's finally able to let go of her guilt. While the emotional aspects of this story can be overwhelming, and the HEA may seem unbelievable, I thought Ms. Jordan skillfully pulled it together.
This is an emotionally intense story. Rosie's traumatic experience has shaped every decision she's ever made. Her family doesn't understand why she prefers a quiet life and rarely accepts a dating invitation. How can she get involved with a man when he'll want to know about her past? The first third of the book is consumed by Rosie's self-loathing and her tremendous pain. Jake's love for Rosie over all these years is a little over the top, but Ms. Jordan makes it work when he internalizes how he had viewed the events of that night. When Rosie unleashes her torment to Jake, he helps her to put it all into a different perspective and she's finally able to let go of her guilt. While the emotional aspects of this story can be overwhelming, and the HEA may seem unbelievable, I thought Ms. Jordan skillfully pulled it together.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 19, 2016
What a lovely and sweet book. Hero adored the heroine...
April 11, 2013
I'm 4 starring this because for the genre and series, it's pretty decent. The hero is actually a human being - yes, he badly judged her, but then he got on the horse - he never tried to impose his physical will on her. I'd say he was a beta alpha. After all the truly awful charlotte lamb stalker/abuser/rapists I'd just reacquainted myself with thanks to scribd, this was a fresh read for me.
January 17, 2016
This was too much about how hurt the Heroine was because she had been raped 15yrs earlier. I like more romance myself. It is written well just didn't really care for story line.
March 10, 2017
A sad story about the devastation and pain that rape causes, especially to someone young and innocent.
Rosie was set up by her friends and raped at a party when she was 16. She was found by Jake, the cousin of her rapist and Jake's reaction and the way he treated her made her trauma worse. The result of the traumas suffer was that Rosie kept a distance from people and men in particular. She felt shame, guilt and responsibility for allowing this to happen, kept it a secret and allowed it to fester for years.
Sixteen years later at a party Jake makes a reappearance in her life and the trauma returns full force. Then she learns that her rapist is returning to town with his wife and kids and finds that she can no longer contain what she has been hiding. During a breakdown with Jake she unintentionally tells him all the things she has been hiding for years and finally is able to mourn her lost self.
I loved this book but it is emotionally wrenching. Rosie's story is mired in pain, shame and unfounded guilt. Jake, who at first appears to be cold, becomes the beacon of light. He is the only person that Rosie can share her trauma with and he quickly becomes my favorite person in the book.
I highly recommend this book. It is an amazing read.
Rosie was set up by her friends and raped at a party when she was 16. She was found by Jake, the cousin of her rapist and Jake's reaction and the way he treated her made her trauma worse. The result of the traumas suffer was that Rosie kept a distance from people and men in particular. She felt shame, guilt and responsibility for allowing this to happen, kept it a secret and allowed it to fester for years.
Sixteen years later at a party Jake makes a reappearance in her life and the trauma returns full force. Then she learns that her rapist is returning to town with his wife and kids and finds that she can no longer contain what she has been hiding. During a breakdown with Jake she unintentionally tells him all the things she has been hiding for years and finally is able to mourn her lost self.
I loved this book but it is emotionally wrenching. Rosie's story is mired in pain, shame and unfounded guilt. Jake, who at first appears to be cold, becomes the beacon of light. He is the only person that Rosie can share her trauma with and he quickly becomes my favorite person in the book.
I highly recommend this book. It is an amazing read.
January 24, 2020
I have to agree with a lot of the other reviews here. I enjoyed reading the book, but I did have a problem with how they dealt with heroine's rapist (i.e. by him being nothing more than a plot device to create conflict between the hero and the heroine.) That was a problem. I do like Penny Jordan's writing style. Overall, I would say it's just okay, not terrible, but not all that great either. I feel if you're going to write about something as serious as rape, then you need to give the kind of weight that it should have, and this simply did not have it.
February 8, 2025
Tw: Rape, miscarriage, lack of justice.
This book’s first act is fully engaged in rehashing Rosie’s untreated trauma and PTSD from an event 15 years ago that completely rules her severely stunted personal life. Lots of angst and despair. This poor woman. I cried for her clear suffering.
Act two abruptly moves into Jake’s take-over of her autonomy when rescuing her from the first encounter with her abuser since the incident (and he knows what she has been through) - kissing her in front of her abuser, assertively arranging for her to go home with him to “talk”, making her drink wine by refusing her another beverage choice. She hasn’t had alcohol since THAT night as an innocent teenager. After 3 glasses she falls into a drunken sleep after a make-out session (she puts a halt to smexy times and he is very respectful of her) and they had an emotional re-hash of the past. He then carries her upstairs, TAKES OFF HER DRESS WHILE SHE IS UNCONSCIOUS, and puts her to bed in the guest room. This was insensitively done by the author to force us/her into being aware of them as the male lead perhaps without the luxury of time, and page count, that a category romance can’t provide. I can only presume anyway.
Act three flies by. Jake has loved her from afar since she was a teenager. Fifteen years of misery dissolved under a clever tongue. Rosie… girl.. you don’t even know if this man chews with his mouth open.
I don’t even know why but this is somehow 4 stars for me.
This book’s first act is fully engaged in rehashing Rosie’s untreated trauma and PTSD from an event 15 years ago that completely rules her severely stunted personal life. Lots of angst and despair. This poor woman. I cried for her clear suffering.
Act two abruptly moves into Jake’s take-over of her autonomy when rescuing her from the first encounter with her abuser since the incident (and he knows what she has been through) - kissing her in front of her abuser, assertively arranging for her to go home with him to “talk”, making her drink wine by refusing her another beverage choice. She hasn’t had alcohol since THAT night as an innocent teenager. After 3 glasses she falls into a drunken sleep after a make-out session (she puts a halt to smexy times and he is very respectful of her) and they had an emotional re-hash of the past. He then carries her upstairs, TAKES OFF HER DRESS WHILE SHE IS UNCONSCIOUS, and puts her to bed in the guest room. This was insensitively done by the author to force us/her into being aware of them as the male lead perhaps without the luxury of time, and page count, that a category romance can’t provide. I can only presume anyway.
Act three flies by. Jake has loved her from afar since she was a teenager. Fifteen years of misery dissolved under a clever tongue. Rosie… girl.. you don’t even know if this man chews with his mouth open.
I don’t even know why but this is somehow 4 stars for me.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 9, 2022
Sexual assault is a difficult topic to cover even in modern books. This book is problematic due to its age and I think that it's going to be disquieting for a lot of people.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 2, 2023
I only recently began reading more of Penny Jordan's Harlequins, and she's fast becoming one of my favourites. There's a lot in this book that I loved, especially for its time in the 90s when the dialogue surrounding sexual assault and trauma was still gradually evolving, and there's some amount that I feel doesn't work now but would have been understood to some extent in its time.
The h, Rosie, is a 31 year old woman in charge of her father's insurance agency, living in a small town and trying to prove herself. She has a much older sister whose bossiness can be both sweet and exasperating. She's never married or had any relationships, owing to unresolved trauma from a sexual assault inflicted on her at age 16, by a young guy named Ritchie Lucas. She had been date-raped - her drink spiked enough that she only gained lucidity halfway through the assault.
The H, Jake, is his much older cousin (closer to Rosie's sister Chrissie in age than either Rosie or Ritchie). Currently he's a successful businessman who is rumoured to have fallen in love a long time ago and never married since. We later find out the rumours are true - and the girl he was in love with was Rosie, except she was a teen at the time and he was disgusted by his own reaction to her.
As it turns out, Jake was unknowingly a witness to the assault (he caught the two in the aftermath of it), but misunderstood the situation. Rosie assumes that he thinks she was promiscuous, Jake assumes that she was in love with Ritchie and wanted to be with him one last time before he and his parents shifted to Australia. Rosie believes Jake was disgusted with her and in fact the look on his face was as traumatizing for her as the assault itself...and Jake's disgust was at *himself* for his first instinct being jealousy towards his cousin.
Rosie blames Jake for her inability to open up to anyone about the incident, understandably, because she was constantly afraid that people would look at her the way Jake did. She also conceived, then miscarried, a child from that rape and grapples with the pain of that loss as well, so that in the present she has conflicting feelings while around babies.
The two avoid each other for 15 years after that, but cross paths again in a series of events that also make the memories of that trauma far more fresh for Rosie. Her sister Chrissie (who doesn't know about the incident) tells her about her pregnancy, she bumps into Jake at multiple events, and it all comes to a head when Jake comes to her house to warn her that Ritchie and his wife are coming to town for a holiday. This proves to be the last straw, as Rosie then corrects him of the notion that she ever had feelings for Ritchie, and lets Jake know that she was in fact raped that night. Jake is shocked by the revelation and almost in denial, but sees her react in revulsion to Ritchie at a party a few days later.
Once that party is over, Jake takes her to his house (she is still in shock from the encounter with Ritchie and is in no state to drive her car) to talk about the incident. She opens up to him after he reveals that he never thought she was a tramp for sleeping with Ritchie, and that he genuinely believed she loved him. In the relief of finally sharing her pain with someone who understands, and her own past feelings for Jake (she had a bit of a crush on him too), she and Jake wind up making out until she is retriggered by the memory of her miscarriage. She passes out drunk sometime later, and Jake makes sure she is comfortable and dry before letting her sleep in one of his rooms.
When she tries to leave Jake's home the next day, his cousin-in-law (Ritchie's wife) and a gossipy neighbour bump into her there, believing she and Jake are lovers. To protect her reputation (it's a small, gossipy town with a lot of old-fashioned values) he tells them that they plan to get engaged. Rosie finds to her chagrin that people seem to take her work more seriously once she's "engaged" to Jake. Word of this reaches Rosie's sister Chrissie, who descends on Rosie to yell at her (Rosie tries to tell her sister that they're not sure about the engagement, then gives her a much-deserved smackdown, hurt by the implication that in sleeping with Jake she will be serving as a bad role model for Chrissie's children). Jake resolves the situation by creating a cover story for Rosie that she was keeping it a secret for his sake, until he finished some business.
He calms Chrissie down, she apologizes to Rosie, and somewhere in the course of that visit, Rosie realizes she's in love with Jake. Shortly after, he asks her about her miscarriage and comforts her the best he can before taking her home. Later that evening, when Jake visits her, the two finally give in to their passion for each other. Jake, knowing this is her first sexual experience after her assault, takes it slow. They reveal their love for each other shortly afterwards, and now Jake wants to skip the engagement and make a beeline straight for the wedding, which Chrissie will gleefully arrange.
The story ends with a sweet scene of Jake gifting Rosie a teddy bear locket to commemorate the child she had lost, and Rosie telling him the news of their pregnancy.
This story tends to be polarizing and I can see why. There are parts of it that I think were progressive for its time - the acknowledgement that Rosie needed therapy and that not having anyone to talk to made it harder for her to cope with her trauma is utterly relatable, but there are also parts that are baffling to us today (like Ritchie bearing such a lack of consequences for his abuse of Rosie while Rosie lost more than a decade of her life in recovering from the trauma). As Boogenhagen mentioned in their review, I can see why PJ ended it like that but I do wish it were expanded on further. Jake clearly was disturbed by it to bring it up, but a lot of the reasoning for why it's not an issue anymore for Rosie is more in the smaller details and can be easily missed. I also felt like it would have been nice to see more indication of Rosie's past crush on Jake than the one hint we did get. I almost missed it the first time and only went back to check when other Goodreads reviews mentioned.
As the story follows through Rosie's thoughts, we see that what affects her most is that she has no one to speak to about what happened to her, no way to fully process what Ritchie's assault and Jake's presumed reaction did to her. The one person who could have helped her process was dealing with his own demons and the time and couldn't fully understand what he saw, for what it was...and was perhaps too ashamed of his feelings to truly be of help. Once she does get that space, and most importantly that validation from him, once she is able to process both the rape and the loss of her child with him, she feels a lot freer. Every rape survivor is different, and their needs for healing are different. Rosie's need was to have someone to talk to, someone who would understand her and validate her trauma, and someone who would have her the safe space to explore her sexuality without the shadow of the trauma. Jake meets all those needs and more.
And it's clear she isn't comfortable with the entire town knowing, and snubbing Jake's cousin would place her directly in such a situation. I just wish PJ had expanded further on that.
I especially love the way PJ wrote Rosie's journey to healing and love, first with a gradual unlayering of her trauma, before hinting at her recovery through small, significant details. She's a very compelling character and you see her ambition, the way she notices and combats the sexism in her town, her attempts to be brave over what she knows will be a bleak, empty future for her. By the time we see her HEA with Jake, I felt fully invested in her having found peace and happiness with a man she loved who would fight the world for her.
We see Jake purely from Rosie's PoV at first, and on first read it's easy to assume he is exactly the slut-shaming bastard Rosie assumes he is because we get his PoV only halfway through the book. PJ does a good job of crafting this because on re-reads we def notice how vague the examples Rosie gives of Jake's "contempt" are, and how the lack of communication between them led her to assume he hated her. It's a real relief to us as the readers too, when it's revealed he had actually loved her and had the most innocent (although very inaccurate) perception possible of the incident. The scene where Rosie bursts out what she's been through to Jake was particularly well done and I found myself getting emotional just reading it, more than once.
I've read a lot of romances by now where the H as an adult falls for the h when she's still a minor, and I did appreciate the PJ mostly has those Hs keep a distance from the h's. Jake doesn't even so much as talk to her when he falls in love with 16-yr-old Rosie, and is disgusted with himself for the way he feels. When he discovers what she went through, he feels guilty for unknowingly adding to her trauma and leaves no stone unturned in attempting to work on their relationship at her pace and keeping her needs first.
I thought the Big Love Scene was particularly interesting because he is openly vulnerable to her, knowing that it would allow her to view sex differently and not as a play of power. I'm not entirely happy that Ritchie's continued presence in their lives is glossed over, but like I said I understand why it was written that way and I take comfort in the fact that Jake was upset by it and hasn't forgotten.
All in all a 4.5 for this book, which would have been a five if PJ had expanded more on the Ritchie thing.
The h, Rosie, is a 31 year old woman in charge of her father's insurance agency, living in a small town and trying to prove herself. She has a much older sister whose bossiness can be both sweet and exasperating. She's never married or had any relationships, owing to unresolved trauma from a sexual assault inflicted on her at age 16, by a young guy named Ritchie Lucas. She had been date-raped - her drink spiked enough that she only gained lucidity halfway through the assault.
The H, Jake, is his much older cousin (closer to Rosie's sister Chrissie in age than either Rosie or Ritchie). Currently he's a successful businessman who is rumoured to have fallen in love a long time ago and never married since. We later find out the rumours are true - and the girl he was in love with was Rosie, except she was a teen at the time and he was disgusted by his own reaction to her.
As it turns out, Jake was unknowingly a witness to the assault (he caught the two in the aftermath of it), but misunderstood the situation. Rosie assumes that he thinks she was promiscuous, Jake assumes that she was in love with Ritchie and wanted to be with him one last time before he and his parents shifted to Australia. Rosie believes Jake was disgusted with her and in fact the look on his face was as traumatizing for her as the assault itself...and Jake's disgust was at *himself* for his first instinct being jealousy towards his cousin.
Rosie blames Jake for her inability to open up to anyone about the incident, understandably, because she was constantly afraid that people would look at her the way Jake did. She also conceived, then miscarried, a child from that rape and grapples with the pain of that loss as well, so that in the present she has conflicting feelings while around babies.
The two avoid each other for 15 years after that, but cross paths again in a series of events that also make the memories of that trauma far more fresh for Rosie. Her sister Chrissie (who doesn't know about the incident) tells her about her pregnancy, she bumps into Jake at multiple events, and it all comes to a head when Jake comes to her house to warn her that Ritchie and his wife are coming to town for a holiday. This proves to be the last straw, as Rosie then corrects him of the notion that she ever had feelings for Ritchie, and lets Jake know that she was in fact raped that night. Jake is shocked by the revelation and almost in denial, but sees her react in revulsion to Ritchie at a party a few days later.
Once that party is over, Jake takes her to his house (she is still in shock from the encounter with Ritchie and is in no state to drive her car) to talk about the incident. She opens up to him after he reveals that he never thought she was a tramp for sleeping with Ritchie, and that he genuinely believed she loved him. In the relief of finally sharing her pain with someone who understands, and her own past feelings for Jake (she had a bit of a crush on him too), she and Jake wind up making out until she is retriggered by the memory of her miscarriage. She passes out drunk sometime later, and Jake makes sure she is comfortable and dry before letting her sleep in one of his rooms.
When she tries to leave Jake's home the next day, his cousin-in-law (Ritchie's wife) and a gossipy neighbour bump into her there, believing she and Jake are lovers. To protect her reputation (it's a small, gossipy town with a lot of old-fashioned values) he tells them that they plan to get engaged. Rosie finds to her chagrin that people seem to take her work more seriously once she's "engaged" to Jake. Word of this reaches Rosie's sister Chrissie, who descends on Rosie to yell at her (Rosie tries to tell her sister that they're not sure about the engagement, then gives her a much-deserved smackdown, hurt by the implication that in sleeping with Jake she will be serving as a bad role model for Chrissie's children). Jake resolves the situation by creating a cover story for Rosie that she was keeping it a secret for his sake, until he finished some business.
He calms Chrissie down, she apologizes to Rosie, and somewhere in the course of that visit, Rosie realizes she's in love with Jake. Shortly after, he asks her about her miscarriage and comforts her the best he can before taking her home. Later that evening, when Jake visits her, the two finally give in to their passion for each other. Jake, knowing this is her first sexual experience after her assault, takes it slow. They reveal their love for each other shortly afterwards, and now Jake wants to skip the engagement and make a beeline straight for the wedding, which Chrissie will gleefully arrange.
The story ends with a sweet scene of Jake gifting Rosie a teddy bear locket to commemorate the child she had lost, and Rosie telling him the news of their pregnancy.
This story tends to be polarizing and I can see why. There are parts of it that I think were progressive for its time - the acknowledgement that Rosie needed therapy and that not having anyone to talk to made it harder for her to cope with her trauma is utterly relatable, but there are also parts that are baffling to us today (like Ritchie bearing such a lack of consequences for his abuse of Rosie while Rosie lost more than a decade of her life in recovering from the trauma). As Boogenhagen mentioned in their review, I can see why PJ ended it like that but I do wish it were expanded on further. Jake clearly was disturbed by it to bring it up, but a lot of the reasoning for why it's not an issue anymore for Rosie is more in the smaller details and can be easily missed. I also felt like it would have been nice to see more indication of Rosie's past crush on Jake than the one hint we did get. I almost missed it the first time and only went back to check when other Goodreads reviews mentioned.
As the story follows through Rosie's thoughts, we see that what affects her most is that she has no one to speak to about what happened to her, no way to fully process what Ritchie's assault and Jake's presumed reaction did to her. The one person who could have helped her process was dealing with his own demons and the time and couldn't fully understand what he saw, for what it was...and was perhaps too ashamed of his feelings to truly be of help. Once she does get that space, and most importantly that validation from him, once she is able to process both the rape and the loss of her child with him, she feels a lot freer. Every rape survivor is different, and their needs for healing are different. Rosie's need was to have someone to talk to, someone who would understand her and validate her trauma, and someone who would have her the safe space to explore her sexuality without the shadow of the trauma. Jake meets all those needs and more.
And it's clear she isn't comfortable with the entire town knowing, and snubbing Jake's cousin would place her directly in such a situation. I just wish PJ had expanded further on that.
I especially love the way PJ wrote Rosie's journey to healing and love, first with a gradual unlayering of her trauma, before hinting at her recovery through small, significant details. She's a very compelling character and you see her ambition, the way she notices and combats the sexism in her town, her attempts to be brave over what she knows will be a bleak, empty future for her. By the time we see her HEA with Jake, I felt fully invested in her having found peace and happiness with a man she loved who would fight the world for her.
We see Jake purely from Rosie's PoV at first, and on first read it's easy to assume he is exactly the slut-shaming bastard Rosie assumes he is because we get his PoV only halfway through the book. PJ does a good job of crafting this because on re-reads we def notice how vague the examples Rosie gives of Jake's "contempt" are, and how the lack of communication between them led her to assume he hated her. It's a real relief to us as the readers too, when it's revealed he had actually loved her and had the most innocent (although very inaccurate) perception possible of the incident. The scene where Rosie bursts out what she's been through to Jake was particularly well done and I found myself getting emotional just reading it, more than once.
I've read a lot of romances by now where the H as an adult falls for the h when she's still a minor, and I did appreciate the PJ mostly has those Hs keep a distance from the h's. Jake doesn't even so much as talk to her when he falls in love with 16-yr-old Rosie, and is disgusted with himself for the way he feels. When he discovers what she went through, he feels guilty for unknowingly adding to her trauma and leaves no stone unturned in attempting to work on their relationship at her pace and keeping her needs first.
I thought the Big Love Scene was particularly interesting because he is openly vulnerable to her, knowing that it would allow her to view sex differently and not as a play of power. I'm not entirely happy that Ritchie's continued presence in their lives is glossed over, but like I said I understand why it was written that way and I take comfort in the fact that Jake was upset by it and hasn't forgotten.
All in all a 4.5 for this book, which would have been a five if PJ had expanded more on the Ritchie thing.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 7, 2021
Pina Colada’s are those nice, light frothy drinks one might read by a pool. Then you have a Sazerac. There is nothing light about this drink, and when done correctly, even fire is involved.
This book is a Sazerac. It is sad with people living half lives. The evil doer doesn’t get a comeuppance. Which, unfortunately, is the reality for many woman. PJ could have made a lot of her readers happy if she would have given the rapist his just desserts. She chose to keep this part of the story a little too real by letting him get away with it. I love the hero in this story, because he really does love the heroine.
🛑🛑🛑SPOILERS AHEAD🛑🛑🛑SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!!
The past:
Rosie is our heroine. In her youth, she wasn’t into the careless ways of horny, partying teenagers. She was more shy. Unfortunately, people who are shy are sometimes labeled as being arrogant or stuck up. I believe that is what happened with our heroine. So, when she was 16 she was peer pressured into going to a party. (Her family was out of town). Ritchie the Rapist, spiked her drink, and she became drunk. He took her upstairs to his parents room and raped her. He then told her it was all part of a dare to knock her off her pedestal. The Hero, 23/24 year old Jake, cousin to Ritchie walks in on the scene. Our poor heroine still lying on the bed while the hero looks at her disdainfully(more on that in a minute). It is his condemnation that stays with her for years. The cousin, Ritchie, blows off the incident, and is even so drunk, that he doesn’t remember a thing the next day and moves away a few days later to Australia with his family. Jake checks on her a week or so later, to see if there were consequences of her night. She tells him no. Unfortunately, there was. However, she miscarries and immediately feels guilty about it, as she dreaded having the child.
Present: Now 31, the heroine has devoted her life to business. She has taken over her father’s business and has to deal with the good ole’ boy network. She lives in a small cottage where she does her gardening. She is very pretty, and wouldn’t lack for company, but lives like a nun. Crying babies set her nerves on edge. She has never told anyone what happened to her, and continues to suffer to this day. She has an older sister, who treats her like a daughter and can be a little too much at times. Her parents are still alive but are on a world tour. The town is small, but large enough where she can avoid the hero…..until she can’t.
The hero: He still can’t forget the woman he fell in love with years ago. He didn’t act on it because she was only 16 and he was 23/24(someone with values). He was willing to wait and suffered in silence. When he came across the heroine sprawled across his aunt and uncle’s bed, he was consumed with jealousy. He wanted to kill his no good cousin. His heart was breaking. Through his jealousy he misread the situation. When the h tells him she is not pregnant, and seems to want nothing to do with him, he moves on with his life(kind of). We find out later that he probably would have married the h himself if she had been pregnant. They live in the same town, move in different circles, and he travels a lot for business. They have rarely seen each other in the 15 years since the rape. Now a party has thrown them together. Then again they meet outside a business office. He then goes to her house. He tells her Ritchie the Rapist is coming to town with his wife and 2 kids. Her reaction is such that he thinks she is carrying a torch for the cousin, but bully for her, she tells him exactly what happened. She is quite certain the hero doesn’t believe her, but we the reader can tell the hero is shocked and most likely ashamed he didn’t handle it differently back in the day.
Moving forward:
Another party happens and Ritchie is there. We get to see he hasn’t aged well. He is also a jerk of a husband who probably has multiple affairs. When the h sees him she tries to slip away. He follows her and starts to come onto her(he still has no recollection of the night). The hero comes in because he followed his cousin. He doesn’t misread the situation now, and can see the heroine is visibly shaken. He stakes claim to the heroine and whisks her away to his house.
The heroine lets everything out. The hero is there to hold her and comfort her. She seeks comfort from the hero, of course he being a true hero would never take advantage of the fact that she has just had 3 glasses of wine, and has released an emotional storm. He takes her to a spare bedroom, whispering to the sleepy heroine that he loves her.
Skipping a lot now, just because I know I type too much:
To protect her reputation they enter into a fake engagement. There are more truths shared and the fake engagement becomes real, they consummate their relationship, and they are married(off page)3 months later we find she is pregnant!
Cause for disgust? Ritchie was invited to the wedding. This one line in the book causes many a reader to knock this book down a star or 2. I liked the book so how the hell can I justify this action? Well, I am going to try, just for my own piece of mind.
Ritchie the Rapist doesn’t remember the night. To not invite him to the wedding would cause a lot of questioning by the Hero’s family. So, I guess the hero could apprise the cousin of the event 15 years ago. This in turn would open it up to who knows what. The heroine has just gone through the torture of reliving the rape by sharing all with the H. It ended up being a healing thing for her. She is able to move on. Does she really want to open this all up again? The hopes of prosecuting him all these years later would probably result in nothing except people choosing sides. Well, you know how high school boys can be(🤬), or you were drunk so maybe you didn’t realize you encouraged him, and so on. By having the cousin at the wedding, the h was able to take her power back. He may have screwed up 1/2 her life, but he isn’t screwing it up anymore. Now there may come a point in the future where the H has to say, nope, we won’t be attending if the cousin is going. There are lots of reasons for not wanting to hang with the creep.
My wonderings or lovings of the hero:
Why did the hero stay away for so long(15 years)? I am not sure. Maybe because he thought the h carried a torch for the cousin, or maybe it was because anytime he saw the h she ran far, far away.
I do think the H was celibate. It was said earlier that it was believed his heart was broken years earlier(aka the heroine) and any dalliances he had were not public knowledge.
I like that once he reconnected with the heroine, he was going to take his time to win her over. He believed her, he acknowledged her grief over her lost baby, and he supported her career by scaling back on some of his work in Greece(I believe Greece was his way of escaping the pain of losing the h). He said he didn’t want to be away from her, and understood that her business was not easily run if she has to travel with the H. I do believe he will always be her champion, so anyone who crosses her better watch out.
This book will not be for everyone. I was very sad about all the wasted years, and I was very pleased that the H and h found there HEA.
This book is a Sazerac. It is sad with people living half lives. The evil doer doesn’t get a comeuppance. Which, unfortunately, is the reality for many woman. PJ could have made a lot of her readers happy if she would have given the rapist his just desserts. She chose to keep this part of the story a little too real by letting him get away with it. I love the hero in this story, because he really does love the heroine.
🛑🛑🛑SPOILERS AHEAD🛑🛑🛑SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!!
The past:
Rosie is our heroine. In her youth, she wasn’t into the careless ways of horny, partying teenagers. She was more shy. Unfortunately, people who are shy are sometimes labeled as being arrogant or stuck up. I believe that is what happened with our heroine. So, when she was 16 she was peer pressured into going to a party. (Her family was out of town). Ritchie the Rapist, spiked her drink, and she became drunk. He took her upstairs to his parents room and raped her. He then told her it was all part of a dare to knock her off her pedestal. The Hero, 23/24 year old Jake, cousin to Ritchie walks in on the scene. Our poor heroine still lying on the bed while the hero looks at her disdainfully(more on that in a minute). It is his condemnation that stays with her for years. The cousin, Ritchie, blows off the incident, and is even so drunk, that he doesn’t remember a thing the next day and moves away a few days later to Australia with his family. Jake checks on her a week or so later, to see if there were consequences of her night. She tells him no. Unfortunately, there was. However, she miscarries and immediately feels guilty about it, as she dreaded having the child.
Present: Now 31, the heroine has devoted her life to business. She has taken over her father’s business and has to deal with the good ole’ boy network. She lives in a small cottage where she does her gardening. She is very pretty, and wouldn’t lack for company, but lives like a nun. Crying babies set her nerves on edge. She has never told anyone what happened to her, and continues to suffer to this day. She has an older sister, who treats her like a daughter and can be a little too much at times. Her parents are still alive but are on a world tour. The town is small, but large enough where she can avoid the hero…..until she can’t.
The hero: He still can’t forget the woman he fell in love with years ago. He didn’t act on it because she was only 16 and he was 23/24(someone with values). He was willing to wait and suffered in silence. When he came across the heroine sprawled across his aunt and uncle’s bed, he was consumed with jealousy. He wanted to kill his no good cousin. His heart was breaking. Through his jealousy he misread the situation. When the h tells him she is not pregnant, and seems to want nothing to do with him, he moves on with his life(kind of). We find out later that he probably would have married the h himself if she had been pregnant. They live in the same town, move in different circles, and he travels a lot for business. They have rarely seen each other in the 15 years since the rape. Now a party has thrown them together. Then again they meet outside a business office. He then goes to her house. He tells her Ritchie the Rapist is coming to town with his wife and 2 kids. Her reaction is such that he thinks she is carrying a torch for the cousin, but bully for her, she tells him exactly what happened. She is quite certain the hero doesn’t believe her, but we the reader can tell the hero is shocked and most likely ashamed he didn’t handle it differently back in the day.
Moving forward:
Another party happens and Ritchie is there. We get to see he hasn’t aged well. He is also a jerk of a husband who probably has multiple affairs. When the h sees him she tries to slip away. He follows her and starts to come onto her(he still has no recollection of the night). The hero comes in because he followed his cousin. He doesn’t misread the situation now, and can see the heroine is visibly shaken. He stakes claim to the heroine and whisks her away to his house.
The heroine lets everything out. The hero is there to hold her and comfort her. She seeks comfort from the hero, of course he being a true hero would never take advantage of the fact that she has just had 3 glasses of wine, and has released an emotional storm. He takes her to a spare bedroom, whispering to the sleepy heroine that he loves her.
Skipping a lot now, just because I know I type too much:
To protect her reputation they enter into a fake engagement. There are more truths shared and the fake engagement becomes real, they consummate their relationship, and they are married(off page)3 months later we find she is pregnant!
Cause for disgust? Ritchie was invited to the wedding. This one line in the book causes many a reader to knock this book down a star or 2. I liked the book so how the hell can I justify this action? Well, I am going to try, just for my own piece of mind.
Ritchie the Rapist doesn’t remember the night. To not invite him to the wedding would cause a lot of questioning by the Hero’s family. So, I guess the hero could apprise the cousin of the event 15 years ago. This in turn would open it up to who knows what. The heroine has just gone through the torture of reliving the rape by sharing all with the H. It ended up being a healing thing for her. She is able to move on. Does she really want to open this all up again? The hopes of prosecuting him all these years later would probably result in nothing except people choosing sides. Well, you know how high school boys can be(🤬), or you were drunk so maybe you didn’t realize you encouraged him, and so on. By having the cousin at the wedding, the h was able to take her power back. He may have screwed up 1/2 her life, but he isn’t screwing it up anymore. Now there may come a point in the future where the H has to say, nope, we won’t be attending if the cousin is going. There are lots of reasons for not wanting to hang with the creep.
My wonderings or lovings of the hero:
Why did the hero stay away for so long(15 years)? I am not sure. Maybe because he thought the h carried a torch for the cousin, or maybe it was because anytime he saw the h she ran far, far away.
I do think the H was celibate. It was said earlier that it was believed his heart was broken years earlier(aka the heroine) and any dalliances he had were not public knowledge.
I like that once he reconnected with the heroine, he was going to take his time to win her over. He believed her, he acknowledged her grief over her lost baby, and he supported her career by scaling back on some of his work in Greece(I believe Greece was his way of escaping the pain of losing the h). He said he didn’t want to be away from her, and understood that her business was not easily run if she has to travel with the H. I do believe he will always be her champion, so anyone who crosses her better watch out.
This book will not be for everyone. I was very sad about all the wasted years, and I was very pleased that the H and h found there HEA.
May 26, 2020
2.5 stars from me but a lot of mixed reviews for this book. There is rape in this book, which I don't have an issue reading about BUT I do have issues if the rapist is known and allowed to run helter-skelter, probably raping his own wife and other women now and again. What? How? Why?
Before I list my second issue, I will admit to understanding that the h is not ok and completely traumatised BUT she barely spoke in this book unless it was about work. I get that she's introverted but wow, your rapist follows you into an empty room and you say nothing? His wife and the local gossip have found you in the H's house and you say nothing? The H "saves" the day by announcing your engagement to the local gossip and you STILL say nothing? Are you perhaps socially catatonic? As another reviewer said: annoying AF.
The older sister was a little bossy but as older sisters go they tend to be that way - I know, I'm the little sister! But I wouldn't trade my older sister in for another. I love her bossiness sometimes. I could totally relate to her being upset that she had to hear about the h's engagement from a stranger. That's just messed-up.
Before I list my second issue, I will admit to understanding that the h is not ok and completely traumatised BUT she barely spoke in this book unless it was about work. I get that she's introverted but wow, your rapist follows you into an empty room and you say nothing? His wife and the local gossip have found you in the H's house and you say nothing? The H "saves" the day by announcing your engagement to the local gossip and you STILL say nothing? Are you perhaps socially catatonic? As another reviewer said: annoying AF.
The older sister was a little bossy but as older sisters go they tend to be that way - I know, I'm the little sister! But I wouldn't trade my older sister in for another. I love her bossiness sometimes. I could totally relate to her being upset that she had to hear about the h's engagement from a stranger. That's just messed-up.
July 6, 2014
This was a really good romance novel. I was a little bit confused at times but i flew through this book. I haven't read a romance novel in a while and this was a good book to get me back into the romance genre! LOVED IT!!
August 8, 2018
This story is really heart-warming, I loved how developed the misunderstanding and miss comunication between the hero and heroin and resulted in a really good realtionship with respect, love and comunication between each other.
I loved it, it's amazing.
I loved it, it's amazing.
July 17, 2013
A nice read
August 1, 2023
No one does gut-wrenching like Penny Jordan. The first half of this book isn’t really a romance:
So… yeah. That was a thing. I don’t know, Penny Jordan. I feel like I kind of get what she was trying to do here - Jake's actual presence in the book is Morale-Affirming Ken Doll, he says nothing but the right, most loving, most affirming things possible in response to the reveals of all of Rosie's trauma - but the overall environment of the book and the actual plot stuff that was taking place was gross.
So… yeah. That was a thing. I don’t know, Penny Jordan. I feel like I kind of get what she was trying to do here - Jake's actual presence in the book is Morale-Affirming Ken Doll, he says nothing but the right, most loving, most affirming things possible in response to the reveals of all of Rosie's trauma - but the overall environment of the book and the actual plot stuff that was taking place was gross.
May 30, 2021
Yesterday's Echoes
Fifteen years ago she had been at a party where her drink was spiked and she was raped. The one person who she cared about came in and she felt he condemned her. Now years later they are in the same township again. And she isn't going to allow him or anyone else condemn her for what happened to her. But he is now finding out what really happened back then. And he is beside himself. What happens when he has the chance to reconnect with her, like he had always wanted?
Fifteen years ago she had been at a party where her drink was spiked and she was raped. The one person who she cared about came in and she felt he condemned her. Now years later they are in the same township again. And she isn't going to allow him or anyone else condemn her for what happened to her. But he is now finding out what really happened back then. And he is beside himself. What happens when he has the chance to reconnect with her, like he had always wanted?
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