Seize the Fire

by Laura Kinsale

The plump, innocent, exiled princess of a tiny country seeks help from a jaded, cynical Naval hero with post-traumatic stress, who thinks to steal her jewels as well as her innocence, and finds himself immersed in a love so deep it threatens to tear them both apart.

"A writer who always provides a triumphant novel."-Affaire de Coeur

Genres: Historical Romance, Romance, Historical, Historical Fiction, Regency, Audiobook, Adventure

583 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published October 2, 1989

About the author

Laura Kinsale is a New York Times bestselling author and both winner and multiple nominee for the Best Book of the Year award given by the Romance Writers of America.

She become a romance writer after six years as a geologist--a career which consisted of getting out of bed in the middle of the night and driving hundreds of miles alone across west Texas to sit drilling rigs, wear a hard hat, and attempt to boss around oil-covered males considerably larger than herself. This, she decided, was pushing her luck. So she gave all that up to sit in a chair and stare into space for long periods of time, attempting to figure out What-Happens-Next. She and her husband David currently divide their time between Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Texas.

Reviews

[Wicked Incognito Now · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am often reall embarrassed to be a lover of romance novels. I don't tell everyone, because I don't want them to think I am simple-minded because I just like reading about love stories and happy endings.

Then, I feel irritation at myself and anyone who would judge my reading choices. I am more intelligent than the average bear. I have just as much (or more) capacity for deep, intellectual thought as the next person. And I DO enjoy excellent literary fiction. I just ALSO enjoy romance novels :-)

And I'm still a discerning reader.

What chaps my hide the most is the assumption by most literary snobs that romance novelists write trite drivel.

In fact, the truly great romance novelists are better authors than many of the critically acclaimed, award-winning authors of general fiction that I have read. These authors (the good ones) have just as much capacity for symbolism and social commentary as the latest Booker Prize winner. The only difference between a genre writer and these other authors is that genre writers must uphold the rules of their genre. For instance, a romance most focus on the hero/heroine relationship and end with a "happily ever after."

My long and drawn out point is that Laura Kinsale is one of the truly excellent romance writers who I refer to. Her writing is truly extraordinary. When I discovered her about six months ago, I promptly went out and bought every novel of hers I could find, then stashed them like nuts to be brought out slowly and with relish.

This Kinsale novel, Seize the Fire, is one of her better ones. Not quite as stunning as Flowers from the Storm or For My Lady's Heart, but darn good.

This is a story of PTSD and it's long-suffering effects.

I have a few problems with the heroine. She was kind of annoying in a Pollyanna, gullible indominadable spirit sort of way. But her character needed to be so darn silly in order to fall so far, and then to truly understand the hero's internal demons.

The story goes in many unexpected and odd directions. But it works in a way that only Laura Kinsale can pull off.

Altogether great.

[Blacky *Romance Addict* · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the BEST historicals I have EVER read! Bravo!!!!!




The second half of the book:




My fav quote:

"He shrugged. "I suppose I'm a fairly downy bird when it comes to hoaxing dragons. But when one of 'em ties you down and punches you in the stomach, not to mention beating you over the head and drowning you by degrees, it's high time to retire from the field with what grace you can muster." He looked at her, his dark lashes swept low over the silver firelight in his eyes. "I'm sorry you were caught out in the middle, but it's no place for princesses, you know. Dragons have a particular taste for a sweet and helpless royal highness."
　　"I thought that was what the hero was for," she said tartly. "To rescue the princess."
　　"Well, you're not eaten, are you? And we heroes weren't created just for the convenience of some feather-headed princess gone astray. We have lives of our own. Hopes, plans, railway stocks…" He shook his head. "But nobody ever thinks of that. It's just rescue the princess and live happily ever after. I've never heard precisely what we're supposed to do when the princess would prefer to start a revolution than marry the poor sod who risked his neck to rescue her. Or announces"—his smile held a bitter twist—"that she'd rather become a streetwalker."
　　Olympia sat up away from him. "Steal her jewels, perhaps," she said acidly.
　　To her astonishment and rage, he had the gall to catch her back. Olympia struggled, pushing at his hands, but in spite of her fight he held her up close to him, his arm around her chest. "You'll have your damned jewels returned," he said into her hair."

I love this quote <3 And I love him! Best damn anti-hero ever written. He can't even be labeled an anti-hero, he is just a person who does what is necessary to survive. I love every scheming, lying bit of him <3

[Preeti ♥︎ Her Bookshelves · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anti-hero is too glamorous a label for him. He is a scoundrel, a lying low-life, a common thief, a blackguard, a cad and he should be boiled in a vat of hot oil for his self-serving ways. Only his fallen angel charm, devilish wit and bad boy sex appeal lets him get away with it. Of all the cheating, lying Hs I’ve read about, he has to be the worst but at the same time the most lovable and the most swoonworthy!
He dares you to not like him despite his repeated transgressions and acts of treachery. But really he is so much more than all that…

The h is a chubby princess- idealistic, naïve and dim-witted with it - no other way to put it. A perfect foil for him perhaps. He is an accidental naval hero turned down-on-his-luck civilian. So when the wide-eyed ingénue turns to the scoundrel for help, he naturally tries to hatch the perfect plan to take advantage of her. What follows is a trans continental flight, dodge, hide and chase. They even end up stranded on a cold deserted island near the Falkland’s and that was my favorite part of the story. Things get heavy and serious towards the end but at the same time more gripping.

The story takes a long circuitous route to its happily, refreshing your geography and history along the way. And it’s almost as if the book is written by two people, or at least by a person in two very different moods. The story gets choppy and confusing at places, making me skim some pages but then he shines through with his dry wit and inimitable manner, and you are solidly hooked again. He's like an actor with an amazing star presence carrying an otherwise average movie through, on his very capable shoulders.
Also, unwittingly the master manipulator ends up teaching the novice - too well.

A/N: I would have liked a confrontation between Miss Plump and Mrs. Plumb, but alas ‘twas not to be!

[nastya · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't even know what to do with this book. It's a 1 star read (I've seen other reviews calling it racist but, oh boy, I wasn't prepared; to call the plot convoluted is an understatement of the century. Why 80% of what happened, happened, I have no idea; the treatment of trauma and PTSD I don't think was well done at all.). But then it has the saddest and most hopeless ending for a romance novel in a way that you don't even know how they will be able to go on, being now husks of humans they were before, especially her. It's like the genre is constraining for a story with such a deeply pessimistic view of life, noble hopes and dreams, justice, but the genre demands a happy ending and sex scenes and the story itself rejects it. They say they love each other on the last pages and maybe there's some promise of healing in the future for them, but HEA is undeserved in the text. Damn, what a frustrating downer of a book that makes me like it a little more, and so it gets one additional star from me.

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

Actual Rating: 4.5

I am so glad I didn't give up on this book. More coherent thoughts later.

Edit:

This book isn't perfect - let's get that out of the way first. After having read three novels by Kinsale, I'm coming to understand that she tends to shove A LOT into 400 pages. I read this after My Sweet Folly which really suffered under the weight of the twists and turns she introduced, but that was not the case here - despite global adventures, pirates, a revolution, and a pet penguin.

I almost DNF'ed this at 30% due to my frustration with the Heroine. She was ridiculously naive and I had a hard time connecting with her. Luckily, the Hero - Sheridan, (well, anti-Hero), was so fascinating, amazingly dryly funny, and a delight to read so I stuck with it - and I am so glad I did.

She felt along his arm, outlining the shape and curve of the net. "Oh," she said. "A hammock."

"Hmm."

"Will you be quite comfortable?"

"Oh, quite," he said with heavy irony. He heard her move into the berth below him. She bumped him and apologized at least seven times.

Finally, she settled down.

The creak of the deck and the gurgle of water filled the silence. Sheridan crossed his arms and swung gently.

In the berth below, Olympia lay with her shoulders propped against the hard bulkhead. She chewed her finger and stared into the shapeless dark above her.

"Sir Sheridan?"

He grunted.

"I didn't go back to see Fish, you know."

He made another uninterested sound.

She fumbled in the dark at her blankets. "Fish gave me his harmonica. Do you mind if I play it for a little while?"

"Oh, God."

Our Heroine grows a spine (for those who have read the The Fever Series by Karen Marie Moning, I was reminded a lot of Mac's character development over the first five books - going from an annoying girl to a competent woman) in a fantastic fashion that made me whoop out loud.

How noble, she'd thought. How selfless, how gallant, how brave. What a fool she must have looked. What an idiotic, mindless, calf-eyed little fool...

She and Mustafa would track the vicious traitor down. They would find him. And then… Then she would do what the thugs had not. She would kill him with her own hands.

I also adore that this novel took place over a year. Often I will be reading a historical romance and a character will make mention of a ridiculously small time frame - i.e. "It's hard to believe I met him only a fortnight ago..." and I'm instantly taken out of the story. Thankfully, Kinsale lets her characters grow and fall in love within a more natural time table.

Sheridan is one of my favorite Heroes of all the time. ALL TIME. For the first bit of this book I didn't consider it to be a historical romance, instead it was a character study into a truly charming cad of the highest order. He is not a good person. He taunts the Heroine to a degree that should be shameful, but I just loved him for it. Kinsale writes him in such a way that you know he is not truly being cruel, despite his horrific actions, and each page offers the opportunity to discover his true motivations.

Sheridan closed his eyes. Hysteria fluttered in his throat. He wanted to shout and curse and babble fear. Instead he only managed one pathetic oath before a wave slapped his mouth and filled it with seawater. He spat it out and sobbed for air.

The cannon still filled the sky with the crashing, uneven sound of battle. He thought, with a kind of grief, of fresh eggs and hot coffee. Another wave hit him, washing furious tears off his face. With sodden, sluggish strokes, he tried to swim.

Something large and shadowy slid past beneath him in the water. His muscles went paralytic. He floated and prayed. It was bloody hell being a hero.


So we have a Hero who is a reluctant figurehead of an ideal man and a Heroine who is incredibly naive. The best thing about this novel is that they both acknowledge these faults and accept each other for who they are. Too often in historical romances you have rakish men committing sins against their Heroines who then accept them back because it was only caused by a dark past, or some such. That does play in here, but these two are on equal footing. Sheridan loves Olympia, and vows to protect her, fully aware that she is not the most level-headed of people. That, to me, is almost revolutionary in a historical romance. I really found their partnership to be so much deeper because of their acceptance of each other. Nothing here is one sided. He is patient. She is understanding. They are made for each other.

She closed her eyes, breathing rapidly. "I can't do it," she said. "I can't do it. I know I can't."

He said nothing, no arguments, no advice or encouragement. When she opened her eyes, he was still watching her steadily.

"I'm afraid," she said in a trembling voice.

He waited.

"There must be some other—" She swallowed, hearing the pleading in her words. "I can't. Oh, God, I have to, don't I?"

His eyes were infinitely patient. "I have to do it," she said. "We can't live without that knife."

"I won't let you fall," he said quietly.

"I have to do it." She couldn't quite conquer the quiver in her voice. "I will."

He took her face in his hands and kissed her hard.

Plus, there is a pet baby penguin. That rests on the toe of a boot. I'll let you figure out whose toes :).

Really, truth was such an abominably awkward inconvenience.

In summary, it's been quite sometime since I had the urge to immediately re-read a book again after reaching the last page. I just know this one would improve upon a second or third pass - and I confess, I would not mind spending some more time with Sheridan.

[Mei · Rating 1 out of 5]

I humbly ask for forgiveness, Caz… but I just couldn’t go on…
DNF at 41%...

[Zoe · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a crazy book!?

The plots are crazy, the characters are crazy. They travelled from Europe then the Americas, stranded on an island, then to Turkey and there was a sultan. A princess, a revolution, a un-heroic hero. This book is ce-razy!!

What I loved about the book (and what earned this book 4 stars in my book):

CHARACTERIZATION all the way

Sheridan (38) and Olympia (24?) are by no means the usual character types you see in this genre. Sheridan is a handsome scoundrel with no principles. He was a selfish coward and did not have a noble bone in him. Olympia is a pudgy and naive princess who was constantly down on herself because she had been told that she was too fat. Who wants a coward who abandoned the damsel in distress for a hero? And who wants a naive Her Highness who berated herself for being fat for a heroine? How do you portray such characters in a realistic way but positive light?

Laura Kinsale did it. She made Sheridan and Olympia dear and sweet in their own authentic ways. I could not be mad at Sheridan for being the ass that he was. He was a survivor, not a hero, and never claimed to be one. He was not mean-spirited. He just did what he believed necessary for his survival, and that had usually excluded the possibility of being noble. Olympia the character really owed everything to Sheridan. She thought herself fat and unattractive. But Sheridan made her beautiful and as a reader I saw Olympia through Sheridan's eyes. She was his love. Her appearance wasn't relevant. I could not NOT see Olympia as Sheridan saw her: his princess.

For any writer who wants to write a "plain" heroine, please take a lesson from Laura Kinsale. I have always said, I do not need my heroine to be Helen of Troy, but it is enough already with all the "she knows she is not attractive" and all the attempts to paint the woman in less flattering ways. It is ok if you want to write about a plain girl, but please let me see through the hero's eyes. She must be pretty to him. Show me how she looks like, as perceived by him.

This is what Laura Kinsale did. I saw Olympia through Sheridan's eyes, a woman of his own heart. She was what was beautiful to Sheridan, and that was all that mattered. I was entirely captured by the endearing characters and their relationship. They were not anywhere near perfect but I loved them despite their imperfections. Now that, is fantastic characterization.

The story itself, for most the time when I was reading this book, I thought: am I too stupid to appreciate the mastery in storytelling and writing or is this book that crazy? I struggled with the nonsense and the incredulity of these 430 pages of lunacy. But like a lunatic I held on to it. If Sheridan and Olympia were crazy, I went a little nuts going on the wild ride with them. It didn't make sense, what was happening. I wanted to scream out of frustration because I didn't know where Laura Kinsale was going with what she had going on. One outrageous event after another, I watched Sheridan and Olympia pull themselves through this muddy book. Now I got imaginary mud on my hand because I couldn't stop myself from getting into the mud with Sheridan and Olympia. And I am sitting in the mud after the fight, wondering as much as I had despised getting mud on my hands, why the hell did I enjoy it so much?

Someone please read this book and tell me I have not gone mad. I am completely lost at how I feel about this story. I can only say I couldn't have stopped reading if I wanted.

[Caz · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this a while back and haven't had time to write a full review. I did, however, write this mini-review for AAR.

I felt emotionally exhausted by the time I’d finished reading this book. There’s no way to do it justice in couple of paragraphs, but there’s no question that in Sheridan Drake, Ms Kinsale has created one of the most complex, compelling heroes – should that be anti-heroes? – I’ve ever read.

A decorated naval officer, widely regarded as one of the nation’s heroes, Sheridan knows he’s a fraud. He’s clever, ruthless and manipulative, but finds himself on the receiving end of similar treatment following his father’s death, when his father’s former mistress – who is companion to Olympia, princess of a small European state – insists Sheridan marries Olympia in order for him to obtain the inheritance left him. Olympia already has a serious case of hero-worship, even before she meets Sheridan, and of course he exploits that to the full – but she nonetheless turns him down. A series of misadventures sees the couple running off in secret, captured by convicts, stranded on an island together, and then sold into slavery, and over the course of those events, Olympia comes to see Sheridan at his worst, and his best – and to love him in spite of it all.

I honestly couldn’t put the book down. It’s not an easy read at times, because Sheridan is a difficult character to like. But it gradually becomes clear that he is not really what he seems to be, and that he’s in fact a deeply troubled man who is haunted by so many of those events for which he has been lauded as a hero. My one complaint about the book is that the ending is very abrupt, but it’s still an amazing story.

[Glamdring · Rating 3 out of 5]

The best asset of this book is Sheridan, the hero. He alone is worth a 4 stars. But then we have the heroine and the story.

Sheridan
Sheridan is not your standard bad boy or gamma hero, he is a anti hero plain and simple and doesn't apologize about it. Also, he is honest and clear about it with the heroine. I enjoyed him a lot.

Olympia
I have nothing against naive or/and idealist heroines in historical romances. But let's face it, Olympia wasn't only that. At one point of the story, Sheridan went to great length to build them a cover, and she blew it on a whim. A bit latter, two men got killed because of her. That's what I call being criminally stupid. Then she seemed to redeem herself, unfortunately that didn't last long.

The story
While reading this book I was under the impression that Laura Kinsale was under a creative frenzy but couldn't wait to write several books so she packed all her ideas in this one.

I won't lie, some parts of the book were great, but other were way too far fetched or OTT and other didn't make sense at all.

[Melissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first time I read Seize the Fire was last year, shortly after finishing my first (and still favorite) book by Laura Kinsale, Flowers from the Storm, and I have to admit -- I just didn't get it. It was so weird! Flowers from the Storm had been unusual and full of heartrending emotions and high angst, but it was grounded in a setting I recognized in historical romances. The whole story takes place in England, and its concerns -- health, finances, religion -- were fairly domestic, if far from prosaic.

Then I read Seize the Fire, with its exiled princess heroine, its cynical sea captain hero, its high seas adventures and pirates and desert islands; with its long treks across Middle Eastern deserts, its sultans, slaves, and harems, its Ruritarian coup d'etat. I was very puzzled. What the heck was I reading? It all seemed so far-fetched and out there. And then there was the plump, extremely naive heroine, Princess Olympia of Oriens, who for the first part of the book I almost despised for her stupidity.

There were parts I liked. The hero, Captain Sir Sheridan Drake, wasn't a rogue in name only, but a genuinely self-centered liar and thief, and he was pretty intriguing. The stretch of the book set on an island in the Falklands was exciting, romantic, and full of wonderful character development. (Plus, Napoleon the penguin!) But overall I felt let down and confused. This was no Flowers from the Storm. Where were Maddygirl and Jervaulx? A duchess inside!!!!

Since that first reading, I've read other books by Laura Kinsale, and it didn't take me long to realize that a.) no two of her books are alike or cookie-cutter in any way, and b.) Flowers from the Storm is more the anomaly in her oeuvre, not Seize the Fire. Many of Kinsale's books take plots, characters, and settings to wild extremes -- that's kind of her thing, and in truth it's pretty wonderful. In fact, it grew to be one of the things I loved most about her stories, that unpredictability, and the grand adventures that accompanied the romances of heroes and heroines as they swept from the sands of Arabia to the Hawaiian islands, from Provence to Tahiti, from pirate ships to English country manors.

So, I read this book again -- listened to the audiobook narrated by Nicholas Boulton, actually -- and this time I liked it much, much more than I had before. The crazy twists and turns of plot and setting seemed like good things, not bad, and I got completely wrapped up in the emotional journey of Olympia and Sheridan. Olympia still bugged the heck out of me during the early part of the book, but I think she's supposed to. She annoys Sheridan, too. But as she grows and changes, becoming stronger and less silly, she becomes a heroine worth admiring.

As for Sheridan Drake, in him Kinsale created one of the most complex, multi-layered, fascinating, funny, maddening, and heartbreaking of all her heroes -- and Kinsale writes some amazing heroes, so that's saying something. He really made this book for me. The story of him coming to terms with the horrors he experienced during his time in the Navy, and the guilt, self-loathing, and post-traumatic stress that came along as a result, is told with depth, beauty, and empathy. He's a great character, and Nicholas Boulton's portrayal in the audiobook is unbelievably moving.

I do still have some quibbles. For one, the character of Mustafa veers too close to Middle Eastern stereotype for me at times and makes me a little uncomfortable. The end of the book, while very touching, felt a bit abrupt; I would've appreciated spinning out the story of what happened to Sheridan and Olympia just a little bit more. As it is, their "happy ever after" is a tenuous and bittersweet one. Though maybe that's okay. It's very realistic, at least. These are two damaged and broken people, and even though they've both seemed to reach a turning point by the story's end, I can't help feeling that they have a long, hard road ahead of them in order to find some normalcy and peace.

Overall, though, what a story! All written in Kinsale's elegant, sophisticated, stylish prose that paints incredibly vivid pictures and evokes such strong emotion, too. She is, in the words of Tina Turner, simply the best -- better than all the rest. ;)

[Cece · Rating 2 out of 5]

This overstuffed and disjointed book has the exceptional characterization I’ve come to expect from Laura Kinsale, compelling emotional complexity, and an inconsistently persuasive central romance. It’s also full of racism.

Ok, let’s start at the beginning. The plot is shambolic, but I’ll try my best:

When the novel opens, 38-year-old former captain Sheridan Drake is in the midst of his formal retirement from the Navy. He’s being celebrated as a decorated hero, but we understand from his internality that his sentimental reputation is a complete sham. He’s terrified during battle and deeply cynical of the abstract political forces – like liberty and freedom of tyranny – that have led to his involvement in conflict around the globe. He sees his own survival in the most pragmatic terms while allowing others to romanticize his career. These early scenes reveal how this works: when his commander’s ship is engaged in action, an enraged Sheridan goes to push him and accidentally saves his life when the mast topples to the exact location where the superior officer had previously stood. For his “heroic” act, Sheridan is knighted.

Months later, after taking possession of his late father’s booby-trapped manor house, Sheridan receives a visitor – the young Princess of Oriens, Olympia St. Leger.

Olympia is Sheridan’s opposite in every way. As a minor European royal in exile, she’s led a sheltered life, comfortably free from hardship or danger. She’s committed herself to the same political and philosophical theories – like equality and justice – that Sheridan has been tasked with violently implementing abroad. Naïve and romantic, she also hero-worships Sheridan. To her, he’s an awe-inspiring crusader for democracy and she turns to him for help. Her evil uncle is trying to usurp the throne through marriage to her and he’s seeking a papal dispensation to legitimize the consanguineous match. She wants to argue against the Pope’s approval and avoid marriage to her uncle.

I had a tough time settling into Seize the Fire . The set-up I’ve outlined above accounts for the first 50 pages of the novel so the beginning really works as an extended character study. And that’s fine. But Sheridan is violent, cynical, entitled, manipulative, bitter, and deceitful, and he’s paired with a heroine whose greatest flaw is her inexperience and naiveté. I had just finished Midsummer Moon and it has a similar misalliance. My heart wasn’t ready for what I knew was coming – Sheridan lying, tricking, and manipulating Olympia…and that’s exactly what happens:

~ Spoilers ahead! ~

Desperate for money and under the control of his father’s late mistress/Olympia’s governess (huh?), Sheridan proposes to Olympia so she may avoid her uncle’s matrimonial schemes. She refuses. Once he realizes his engagement to her would endanger him, he reconsiders and agrees to Olympia’s original plan to secretly run away to Rome. The whole thing is a lie: he has written to her uncle, in an effort to extort him for his niece’s whereabouts. Eventually, they reach Mallorca and Sheridan’s conscience seems to wake up. He now decides to rob her, fake his own disappearance, and abandon her in an unfamiliar place with strangers! However, when his servant Mustafa hears what’s happened from Olympia, he insists it’s all a ruse and demand they follow Sheridan’s probable trail to Australia.

On the way, the ship Olympia is on stops and rescues a group of shipwrecked men on an archipelago off of the Southern coast of South America. The men turn out to be the convicts who were headed to Australia and they take over the ship. Sheridan is among them. In the ensuing torture of Sheridan and fight over the location of Olympia’s stolen jewels, the couple escapes on an auxiliary boat and must survive on an uninhabited island for five months. Of course, they fall in love.

Far and away, the castaway bits were my favorite!!! This part of the book is very reminiscent of Naked and Afraid , which is one of my favorite TV shows. Like Naked and Afraid , Olympia and Sheridan get thrust into this stressful survivalist scenario and their relationship isn’t comfortable or easy to begin with. They’re forced to trust and depend on one another, communicate fully, and be sensitive to their partner’s needs. There’s no room for their maladaptive coping mechanisms, like Sheridan’s artifice and façade and Olympia’s philosophizing. Their relationship is stripped down to its essential elements and it was a joy to read because they brought out the best in each other.

In retrospect, I wish the book had ended with their rescue from the island. It feels like a natural conclusion to their love story because their strong connection is now grounded in a profound unification of their psyches, which is what the HEA ending represents. But I keep having this problem with Laura Kinsale’s romances from the ‘80s – they end organically in the second act! 1986’s The Hidden Heart, 1987’s Uncertain Magic, and this 1989 novel have awkwardly tacked-on, materially inconsistent third acts. In these sections, previously rock-solid couples are thrown apart by senseless miscommunications, unpersuasive love triangles pop up, and the conflict becomes irritatingly cyclical over issues the pair have already worked through. The characterization – Kinsale’s most obvious strength – suffers amidst this unfocused haste. Worse yet, the third acts stop centralizing the romance and instead focus on something else entirely (murder + Victorian death row in The Hidden Heart, the Irish Rebellion of 1798 in Uncertain Magic, Napoleonic tech spies in Midsummer Moon).

This problem is worse in Seize the Fire because the last third of the novel is a tour of offensive Orientalist cliché. But, it’s also about…trauma?

Olympia and Sheridan get rescued. Instantly, almost all of Sheridan’s growth disappears. He immediately reverts back to lying and deceiving Olympia and acting out of his own self-interest. When Olympia finds out, she accepts a proposal from the ship’s captain who has rescued them. In response, Sheridan has a psychotic break! He has visual and auditory hallucinations and then barricades himself in his cabin, full of hard alcohol and suicidal ideation.

It’s at this point that Sheridan’s character takes a sharp turn I wasn’t expecting. I read Sheridan as a man who is enraged by his powerlessness as a pawn in Britain’s empire expansion. His father cynically toyed with Sheridan’s life when he was a child and now he does the same with others. He’s survived out of pure pragmatism, but he has no real attachments and bitterly resents the heroic narrative that surrounds the career he neither wanted nor enjoyed. His journey – as I understood it – is towards authentic connection and away from detachment and casual cruelty, which is what I saw in the story when he and Olympia were on the island together.

After his psychotic break, Sheridan’s central motivating conflict isn’t his pre-established tendencies towards selfishness, misanthropy, and anger – it’s trauma. His trauma is triggered by Olympia’s actions (ugh) and he becomes even more severely detached and casually cruel. He self-medicates with drinking, dissociation, and drugs for the rest of the novel. He also rationalizes his continued proximity to Olympia by casting himself in the role of savior and preternaturally skilled bodyguard, which consequently doesn’t stop him from ignoring her and coolly leveraging her feelings so he can have sex with her before they’re separated. And despite all his melodramatic internal monologues about keeping her safe, he immediately consents to their separation once her countrymen locate her.

But I shouldn’t get ahead of myself.

They sail to the Arabian Peninsula, where pirates quickly overtake their ship. Sheridan, a former beloved slave of the sultan, persuades the head pirate to send them to modern-day Turkey by land. When they arrive, the sultan re-enslaves Sheridan and hands Olympia over to a delegation from Oriens. Sheridan has settled down comfortably enough – disinterestedly cultivating his harem of brown women and modernizing the sultan’s navy – when he receives news that Olympia’s uncle demands he ruin the wedding ceremony or the uncle will have him killed by Indian assassins. During her vows, Olympia ruins her own wedding and accidentally kicks off a revolution that leads to her uncle, governess, and grandfather’s massacre. Sheridan whisks her to safety, but receives an injury that gets infected when Olympia tries to return to the action. When he’s ill and unconscious, she flees in self-recrimination. He finds her, alone and homeless, and tells her the most traumatic thing that has ever happened to him. THE END.

There’s a lot of great stuff in this novel. I’m still not convinced that First Act Sheridan and Third Act Sheridan were the same character, but Kinsale writes compelling emotional complexity in each mode. There are also pockets of pure excellence, when Sheridan finds soul-deep relief in Olympia’s comforting authenticity or Olympia realizes she has hoodwinked herself with self-created romantic fantasies. It’s often beautifully written and recognizably true-to-life, which are two of the best qualities to find in fiction.

But there’s also a lot of garbage. None of the nonwhite characters are drawn with any suggestion of depth or complexity. Brown people, in this novel, are limited to their cliché reductions of stupidity and barbarism; they’re framed as licentious, tyrannical, and incapable of advancement without the intervention of a more competent white man. Freeing white women from life in the harem is crucial; brown harem girls are collateral. And no matter how dangerous the Indian assassins, Arabian pirates, or all-powerful sultan seem, our white hero is able to effortlessly outmatch them. In fact, they’re easily bamboozled by his irrational bravado. So, we’re left with a lot of white saviorism and white victimization and an Orientalist fantasy of Afro-Eurasia that legitimizes white exploitation and violence in the region.

I actually think this is part of a larger problem in Kinsale’s earlier novels: her heroes demand a lot of empathy but that empathy is never “requested” for anyone else.

Kinsale’s male leads are complicated, prickly, and intentionally difficult to understand, and for the story to be effective, we’re required – as readers – to extend sympathy to them. To achieve this empathetic bond between open-minded reader and “unlikeable” hero, Kinsale must spend a lot of time constructing the hero’s backstory, rationalizing his decisions, and dwelling in his perspective within the text. Therefore, there really isn’t much room left for the hero’s corresponding alternate: the heroine. Since Kinsale doesn’t spend much authorial attention on her female leads and often over-relies on their extreme behavior to move the plot forward, these early heroines often come off as under-developed Too Stupid to Live types.

While Kinsale’s anti-heroes win us over in the spotlight and her heroines languish in the wings, her minor characters are used as pure cannon fodder. There’s a six-year-old boy who is being regularly raped by the villain in The Hidden Heart and he is never rescued. It’s suggested that the young lady’s maid – who made the fatal error of expressing sexual interest in Sheridan – is gang raped by a group of convicts. In the last pages of this novel, when Olympia expresses grief over the murder of her governess who had slept with Sheridan, he announces that he doesn’t care because the woman was a “scheming, selfish bitch”. Like Sheridan, we’re not supposed to care about this woman’s death either.

As a reader, this creates a bizarre imbalance between the central figure – the male protagonist – whom we’re being asked to care deeply about and the rest of Kinsale’s cast whom we’re supposed to feel nothing for. It’s especially problematic when the characters we’re not meant to care about are marginalized to begin with, like an undernourished lady’s maid, dependent older woman, sexually abused child, or ALL THE BROWN PEOPLE. This lop-sided attention also throws the racism and homophobia into sharper relief. When the white heterosexual hero receives sensitive, finely tuned characterization and the homosexual (The Hidden Heart) or brown villain is an offensive cliché, it’s impossible to ignore the implicit bias and hostility.

Considering that the Orientalism is present from the beginning and only becomes denser as the story goes on, I can’t rate this novel higher than 2 stars. I wanted to love it and there were parts that foretell Kinsale’s later accomplishments in Flowers from the Storm and For My Lady's Heart, but the third act mess and racist caricature is too limiting.

[Corduroy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, I had some feelings about this book, which seemed like it was really multiple adventure-romances Vulcan mind-melded together into one totally next-level insane adventure-romance.

Heroine is Olympia, a princess of "Oriens", a tiny kingdom in the Alps. Hero is Sheridan, an outwardly heroic Navy dude. Olympia is on fire with democratic longings and wishes to get back to the kingdom she's never actually seen, to lead her people to a peaceful democratic revolution. Sheridan just got out of the Navy and is totally broke. Through various complex plot mechanisms, they wind up jaunting about the globe together, heading (with many accidental side journeys) to Oriens. Also, toward LOOOOOVE.

Okay, things in no order:

*Man, the parts where Sheridan is obsessed with Olympia's body totally worked for me. It's weird how rarely you actually get this in historical romances - there's a lot of the hero thinking that the lady is very attractive, but not as much of him feeling compelled to bite her flesh as you'd think, you know what I mean?

*In the beginning, Olympia is extremely silly, extremely naive. By the middle she's less silly but still very idealistic. By the end she is less idealistic. I wasn't sure while reading and am still not totally sure how I felt about this progression. I mean, in the beginning, she is EXTREMELY silly. Not stupid, but totally naive and kind of foolish.

*Sheridan is initially revealed to be a knave, and then revealed to have crazy intense PTSD from all of his crazy melodramatic backstory issues (not just the military stuff - it turns out that he was also enslaved, and that his dad was a totally loopy trickster figure. Oh also, he was captured by Thugs and forced to become a holy assassin for a time. Oh yeah. Sheridan really got around.) - I wasn't sure about this, either. Sometimes I didn't understand why he needed so much melodramatic Action!Backstory, when it seemed like maybe just being a Navy dude who'd seen a lot of brutal action would be enough.

*All of that said, I totally liked Sheridan and Olympia, and I'm not really sure how Kinsale pulled this off. I think she may be some kind of romance wizard.

*If you have ever wished that historical romances really exploited the slow burn of having sexual dalliance while also needing to preserve someone's technical virginity, then this is the book for you. Phew! Um, I found it effective. Also the parts where Sheridan is explaining to Olympia why people want to have sex and why it feels good. Why don't other authors play with this trope? Because it was an awesome scene.

*I can't even describe the insane adventure melodrama. You've got pirates, maroonings, houses full of trap doors, assassins hot on your trail, slave caravans, revolutions, forced marriages, spies, it just went on and on and on. I felt kind of like maybe it would have worked better for me to have about a third of the adventure and save the rest for other books, but what do I know, I am not a romance wizard.

*I completely failed to understand the whole situation with Sheridan's dead dad and why he was a crazy person who loved to "prank" his son by enlisting him in the Navy at 10 years of age and so on, and his relationship with Julia, Olympia's governess, and why (and how) the British government was involved with all of this. It was probably in the book, I just couldn't focus any more because of all the SULTANS SLAVE TRADERS PIRATES ORPHANED PENGUINS and so on.

*I kind of felt at a couple of moments like this book had weird feminist elements. Sheridan is Olympia's protector and so on, and he is very hot and tough and violent, but there are also a couple of moments where he demands that Olympia behave like a grown woman and help save them/herself, and is first flabbergasted ("But I'm a lady!") and then actually gets it together and does it, and it was kind of moving to me. And really surprising, for a historical romance.

This book was crazy and outlandish and ridiculous and I also really loved it. Kinsale's prose, as always, is gorgeous, and she can sell you characters, no matter how odd they are, like nobody's business. I also totally believed in the chemistry between the two by the time anything started to happen.

[Victoria (Eve's Alexandria) · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't think I would see the day that I gave a Laura Kinsale novel 2 stars but, wow, this book was a steaming pile of colonialist fantasies that made me deeply uncomfortable. The central romance has some powerful moments - generally when the couple are 1000s of miles away from anyone else - but overall their story reads like a vehicle for messaging about white victimisation at the hands of people of colour.

[Bona Caballero · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nadie hace los héroes dañados como Kinsale, y esta novela, que tengo entendido que es la primera que publicó, es paradigmática. Sheridan Drake es un sufridor en grado superlativo, con su aterrador PTSD avant la lettre. Este tipo es un sinvergüenza y un mentiroso, héroe a su pesar. Olympia de Oriens se enamora de esa imagen ideal, y tarda páginas, muchas páginas, en desencantarse de este canalla. Es una novela tan larga que da para mucho, enamorarse y desenamorarse, el amor y el odio, los engaños y las mentiras… Estos dos vagarán de acá para allá, se juntan y se separan...
Una novela de esas a la antigua, histórica de los ochenta, que exige leer con paciencia. Yo me quedo, sobre todo, con el héroe.
Crítica más amplia, en mi blog.

[MisskTarsis · Rating 2 out of 5]

Aburrido.
Largo y completamente aburrido, el personaje femenino es completamente tedioso e idealista, tengo casi dos meses intentando terminarlo, hasta que lo logré. Cada página se me hacía súper pesada de leer y la trama sinceramente no me atrapó.

[Ashley · Rating 5 out of 5]

How do I describe my love for this book? Laura Kinsale had me nearly in tears when I finished it last night. The hero and heroine are both still so messed up at the end, suffering from PTSD and without a ridiculous epilogue to make everything better. Truly, I loved how unsentimental it was, and how Sheridan and Olympia, the hero and heroine, don't expect their love to fix them. They only recognize that they care deeply for each other and don't want to be alone when the world is easier for them to face together. The very direct and kind dedication at the end of novel was also really lovely. This book is on par with Flowers from the Storm for me; it really is that good. Sometimes I feel like nostalgia or general giddiness causes me to over-inflate my rating for a book, but that is not the case here. The first thing I woke up thinking this morning was, That was a fucking amazing book.

Thank you to everyone who recommended it to me. Yes, it ticks a lot of my boxes--almost the entire story takes place outside of England, the heroine grows into a capable, wily, independent person, and the hero is an asshole who is more of an anti-hero than anything--but it's also just a really fantastic, beautiful, well-written novel.

I loved how this was so much a coming of age story for the heroine; it took place over the course of a year, perhaps slightly longer, and Olympia grew and changed so much. She is a heroine truly worth taking interest in, not a blank slate for readers to project themselves onto, and seeing every one of her illusions about herself and the world she lives in shattered was oddly gratifying, and quite relatable for most readers, I'm sure.

Sheridan Drake, the hero, is maybe my all time favorite Historical Romance hero. He's Jamie Fraser levels of amazing. I like him even better than the Duke of Jervaulx.

Ignore the fact that I chose an edition of this book with a godawful cover. It is a wonderful novel that deserves better than a ridic cover like this.

Basically Alex wrote a much better, more coherent review of this book here, and you should definitely read it.

Oh, and I totally think Kinsale was inspired by the Moldavian Wedding Massacre. Just saying.

[Océano de libros · Rating 4 out of 5]

4,5 estrellas.

Sheridan Drake es un capitán, un hombre de honor… solo que él no es nada de eso es un canalla que solo entiende a sus propios intereses. Ahora debe ayudar a Olympia St. Leger, la princesa de Oriens a lograr su objetivo, pero Drake no hace nada sin que con ello obtenga lo que desea. Entre ellos hay una relación de amor odio muy particular.
Sin duda Laura Kinsale vuelve a demostrar que es una de las mejores escritoras en su género, pero esta vez nos trae a unos protagonistas muy singulares. Sheridan es el antihéroe perfecto, un hombre cuyo pasado le obliga a pensar únicamente en sus intereses, en vivir el día a día y siendo un canalla la mayor parte del tiempo porque esa es la manera de afrontar su vida. Por otra parte tenemos a la inocente Olympia que tiene unos ideales bien anclados, es la antítesis de las protagonistas femeninas, ella no es lo que se dice un bellezón que arrastra a los hombres a la perdición. Entre Sheridan y la princesa se forma una relación rara pero atractiva, de amor y odio; él es todo lo canalla que se puede ser, ella ingenua y se deja arrastrar, piensa que Sheridan es un hombre con principios pero poco a poco irá abriendo los ojos.
El libro me ha gustado mucho y de los tres que llevo leídos de la autora éste se queda en el tercer lugar, es distinto a los demás sobre todo por los protagonistas, el antihéroe y la chica regordeta que se menosprecia. La pluma de Kinsale de nuevo impecable, la ambientación, donde viajaremos por Inglaterra, Madeira, Turquía… fácilmente te imbuyes en la historia y la vives con ellos, sobre todo lo veréis cuando estén en la isla que es una de mis partes favoritas.
No tengo que ponerle ninguna pega a la novela, por ahí hay gente a la que no le gusta pues a mí me encantó, la primera parte me pareció divertida principalmente por lo canalla de Sheridan; a mitad del libro cuando se encuentran en la isla es donde podemos apreciar lo bueno de los dos y te enamoras y luego la parte final que es más dura pero que a la vez es muy realista y donde se os pondrá un nudo en la garganta. Así que pegas podría ser lo escueto del final, yo quería un epílogo pero qué se le va a hacer.

[Nabilah · Rating 5 out of 5]

In a sea of hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of historical romance books, Ms Kinsale's books STOOD out. I can probably tell you the story's outline 20 years later, even if I have only read it once. Her books are that unique.

This book is no different, of course. I have to admit the first 50% was a slog, but the second half made up for it, and the final 10% was a real whopper.

Love might exist in strange shapes, and demand more than simple commitment. A wolf was not a lapdog, not after a lifetime in the wilderness—but still it might long for a hearth and home.

Sheridan Drake is one of the most complex heroes I've ever encountered. Ms Kinsale did not provide an info dump on his back story; his back story was instead peeled layer by layer. Gosh, this guy was definitely put through the wringer. After close to 30 years of a naval career, he just wanted some peace and quiet and for someone to love him as he is (warts and all). Love is never straightforward. It's a thousand kinds of messiness, and this book highlights this. Some people have remarked that her heroines are hard to like, but you won't find that here. Olympia is the epitome of innocence and gullibility. She is also plump, which is a departure from all the slender heroines I've read. I'm glad they found each other even though their journey to HEA was riffed with thorns and obstacles.

The lack of epilogue might put some people off, but it ended poignantly and on a beautiful note to me.

"Sheridan." Her lips were trembling, her voice a feeble breath next to his ear. "My terrible lonely wolf." Her arms tightened, and he could feel the wetness on her face against his throat.

He stroked her hair with shaking hands.

"I'm here," she said into his shoulder. "I'm here, and I love you. I love you no matter what."

[Caz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review from 2015

A+ for narration / A for content.

Even though I have eagerly snatched up every single audiobook from this hugely talented author/narrator team as soon as they’ve appeared, Seize the Fire is one I’ve been waiting for ever since Laura Kinsale and Nicholas Boulton began their collaboration. The prospect of hearing Sheridan Drake brought to life in all his tortured, roguish, f**cked-up, delicious glory by such a wonderfully skilled narrator made this one of my most highly anticipated listens of the year. And needless to say, my expectations were more than met.

Although the action of Seize the Fire takes place in a number of locations, from England to the Falkland Islands, from Turkey to the fictitious Oriens – homeland of its heroine – and across the world’s great oceans and deserts, the story is, in essence, a character-driven romance between naval hero, self-confessed blackguard and all-round scoundrel Captain Sir Sheridan Drake and the exiled Princess Olympia of Oriens, a naïve young woman who is desperate to return to her country (although in fact, she was born in England and has never actually been to Oriens!) in order to serve as a rallying point for the overthrow of the corrupt regime currently in power there.

The various machinations of the plot which see the couple running off together – Olympia believing Sheridan intends to escort her across Europe while he intends to fleece her of her jewels and leg it as soon as possible – are complicated by a mixture of political expediency and personal animosity on Sheridan’s part towards his father’s ex-mistress, who has been left in control of his inheritance. A series of misadventures sees him and his princess captured by pirates, stranded on an island together and then sold into slavery; and throughout it all, we are treated to the development of a fascinating and enduring relationship between them which really does run the gamut of emotions.

Olympia already has a case of serious hero-worship over Sheridan before she even meets him, which makes it easy for him to manipulate her into trusting him. He’s the epitome of the charming rogue – and he really is a rogue, acting despicably towards Olympia on more than one occasion. He’s deeply flawed, short-tempered, self-serving and manipulative, yet he’s utterly compelling, with an unexpected streak of vulnerability that is revealed gradually as the story progresses. Unusually (I think) for a romance novel, he’s an unreliable narrator; he frequently describes himself as a bad person, yet he consistently acts in a way that proves otherwise, especially when it comes to his desire to protect Olympia at all costs. Laura Kinsale very skilfully SHOWS us time and time again, that in spite of his flaws, Sheridan possesses a core of honour and nobility, and he emerges as a true hero, a man who has taken his lumps throughout life (and boy, has he taken them!), made tough and often impossible decisions and who has done what he had to do in order to survive.

At the beginning of the book, Olympia is young and idealistic, and doesn’t fully understand the implications of what she intends to do, seeing only that leading her people to independence is the right thing to do. While it’s true that Sheridan treats her badly throughout the story in both word and deed, her resulting character growth is quite extraordinary, and she becomes stronger, more confident and self-reliant through the course of her association with him. She eventually comes to see Sheridan as he truly is – a flawed and deeply troubled man who is haunted by so many of the events for which he is lauded as a hero – and even though she tries to hate him for the things he has said and done, it’s impossible. She sees him at his best and at his worst – and loves him anyway.

Both Olympia and Sheridan are profoundly changed by their interactions, but their path to happiness is a very difficult one, and they both have to fight hard and endure much if they are to stay together. This love story between two such mis-matched people is simply wonderful; they complement and support each other through some truly terrible times, and the way they gradually bring purpose back into each other’s lives is both poignant and beautiful.

When it comes to the narration, there was no way this was going to be anything other than superb with Nicholas Boulton at the helm. He portrays Sheridan incredibly well, giving him a rather affected, slightly nasal drawl and putting an unpleasant sneer into his voice throughout much of the story. This is Sheridan the Scoundrel, the man he believes himself to be and it’s not until his more unguarded moments – of which there aren’t many until late in the book – that the affectation in his speech gradually begins to disappear, perfectly mirroring the way his thickly veneered exterior starts to crack as the demons Sheridan has so far managed to keep at bay come back to haunt him in full force. It’s at those points that the listener gets glimpses of the real Sheridan, the vulnerable, haunted man labouring under a ton of survivor’s guilt who questions his very existence; and Mr Boulton brings all of that anguish and despair to his portrayal to such a degree that there were times I was on the verge of tears.

His interpretation of Olympia is equally good, her naively hopeful and trusting nature at the beginning conveyed by a simplicity and lightness of tone. But as the story progresses, he adds a variety of nuance to her speech as she experiences some of the hard knocks of life that her sheltered upbringing has spared her hitherto. Disappointment and betrayal take their toll on her, too, and the listener is left in no doubt of her newly acquired backbone or her heartbreak in the later stages of the book.

For a story that travels the world, there are surprisingly few secondary characters. Among the foremost of these are Mustafa, Sheridan’s crafty manservant and the Turkish Sultan Mahmoud. Mr Boulton does a terrific job with the accents he employs for both, which are distinctive but not too thick, and his whining, wheedling portrayal of Mustafa is often very funny.

He’s also excellent at bringing out the humour and, more importantly, the irony in the narrative, especially when we’re in Sheridan’s head. This is, for the most part, a fast-paced and rather serious story, dealing as it does with a man who has lost himself and is now on the verge of total breakdown, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have its lighter moments.

Seize the Fire is another terrific addition to the collection of audiobooks by Laura Kinsale and Nicholas Boulton and one I know I will be returning to often.

[Madeline · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think Laura Kinsale puts together some great sentences, and this makes me forget that I really only liked one of her novels (the delightful Lessons in French) even though I've respected others (For My Lady's Heart). Okay, so I guess Seize the Fire is only the fourth of her books I've read. Details. They do all have very nice sentences!

And I thought I was going to like Seize the Fire a lot, at the beginning. It starts out like a Ruritanian romance: fictional European countries, a stranded princess, a secret whore, a naval hero for a leading man, the promise of democracy, and ACTUAL WICKED UNCLE . . . So far, so frothy. But if this book has a problem it's that there's too much of a good thing. Or, rather, there are too many kinds of good things. Our hero and heroine basically travel the world on their trip to Rome. They are placed in peril. Not the "music by Erich Wolfgang Korngold" peril that the book starts out with, either. Like, actual peril. With PTSD and stuff.

And here is the thing. The book doesn't handle that stuff that well, actually! First of all, it's poorly integrated - like, learn to read the room, you know? (The room you wrote, so.) Second, horrible stuff happens to other people and it's treated very lightly. (Trigger warning for the spoiler, I guess?) Olympia's maid is handed off to some pirates to be raped so that Olympia's virtue is safe. This is barely remarked upon. Later, her governess gets killed and that gets more of a reaction, but it's still not handled particularly well. I don't mind reading about bad people, particularly. But I do mind when the narrative seems unaware of the problems.

The book does end up where it started - only after a needless exercise in Orientalism, of course (actually, like seven needless Orientalist tropes, what is this, The Mystery of Edwin Drood?) - except by then everything's gone Very Serious but without any work done to earn that transition.

Ugh, what a mess.

Also, for a book where preserving the heroine's virginity is a big issue, you'd think there would be more oral sex.

[Brontesruleromance · Rating 5 out of 5]

CW: Slavery recounted, off -page rape, torture, suicidal ideation, ethnic slurs, slurs against gays.

There were lots of exciting adventures and locales in this book, and Kinsale did a brilliant job of peeling back every layer of both characters, so you got to know them at the deepest possible level. This book was full of angst, but it was very well done. Both the MMC and FMC are badly broken, and they are not healed by their love, but they are comforted by it.

This quote explains it better than I ever could:

“ 'Then you came and I started to feel again. I started to think there was a reason I survived, that you were my reason. But nothing's so simple, is it? I didn't protect you. Here you are hurting so bad, and I can't even help. I'm just here and I need you. That's all it comes to. I need you to be brave when I haven't been. I know how hard it is. Look at me. Look at what's happened to me. Jesus, I feel like I'll be crying for the next century.' He bent his head, pressed his tear-wet cheek to her dry cold skin. 'But I'm here. I'm not hiding anymore. Princess, I'm asking you. Come back to me. You're my life.' ”

[MomToKippy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kinsale is a master story teller. Do not be misled into thinking that her work fits neatly in the romance category. Kinsale succeeds on all levels again. We have complex character development, a demanding plot with twists and turns, important psychological subject matter, a roller coaster ride taking us around the world to unexpected places, and ability to convey love/grief that transcends all. Full of tragedy and angst and nail biting adventure. I am spent. 4.5

[Kid Disaster · Rating 5 out of 5]

New book for the reread pile.

[Sally · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reread June 2021

On this reread I listened to the audiobook. For the first few chapters I did have a couple of moments where I wondered why this book consistently makes it into my top 5 HR lists but I should not have doubted it because it soon reminded me just why I loved it so much the first time and I have now added it to my all time favourites shelf. Part of me wants to go back and reread it again already!!

It does have it's problematic moments and characterisations, but I honestly don't think I care because the rest of it is just perfect.

And the ending was perfect for these two characters. I know some people won't like it because it's not the typical fluffy happy ending you usually get with a HR, but it was perfect considering what Sheridan and Olympia have been through. There's a lot of pain, but there's also hope, and I'm glad it wasn't ruined by some fluffy epilogue a few years later. I have my own thoughts on how their lives look after the end of the book :)

********

I don't think I can accurately describe my love for this book (I even think I prefer it to Flowers from the Storm!). I almost don't want to think about it too much just in case I find some issues that I can't get past.

I think that Laura Kinsale is becoming one of my favourite authors. I've now read three of her books over the last month or so and I've really enjoyed all of them. Her writing is so beautiful and it brings up such vivid pictures in my mind without being overly descriptive and her characters are a joy. I loved the 'hero' Sheridan. Even though he could be an utter arsewipe at times, I never quite felt that he'd gone TOO far. And Olympia... well, in pretty much any other book I would have thought that her naivety was just unbelievable and ridiculous, but I kind of bought it. Maybe it helped that I half thought of this as having a fairytale like quality right from the beginning.

NAPOLEON IS POSSIBLY THE CUTEST THING I HAVE EVER READ. Oh god, that baby penguin. I teared up when they had to give him up and let him go back to his own kind. I would NOT have minded if they'd stayed on that island forever, all three of them together.

There were so many scenes that I'd like to go back and reread either because they made me smile or they made me cry. I actually loved the scene in the hut where Sheridan is delivering his lecture before the practical demonstration. For some reason it worked for me.

I am glad there's no epilogue and that it's left up to me to imagine what happens next. A lot of the time I find epilogues to be completely unnecessary.

Ugh, I still can't get all my feelings out properly. I can't untangle them all!

Original review

Proper review to follow when it's not stupid o'clock in the morning and I don't have tears running down my face.

[☾ Dαɴιyα ☽ · Rating 5 out of 5]

How strange it is that of the princess in need of a knight in shining armor and the notorious scoundrel pretending to be a white knight, it was the scoundrel who won my affection first, and who had me rooting for him for over 400 pages. Or perhaps it isn't. When have I ever not liked a hero from Laura Kinsale's books? Even the one who thought being a hero was hell couldn't be the exception. It seems so silly now I was a little worried I wouldn't like this hero before I started reading. Ridiculous even!

Princess Olympia and Captain Sheridan Drake were an unusual pair. One was a member of a royal family of a small, but important country who had lived a sheltered life away from her family and home country. The other was a navy man life hadn't been kind to, who had been through a lot, and seen too much. One was dreaming of one day doing something important like leading a revolution and bringing democracy to her people. The other knew all too well what bloody business that is in reality. One was unbearably naive. The other was realistic and cynical. And they were put together to go through one ordeal after the other.

Laura Kinsale's characters have all been memorable. What I appreciate most about them is that whatever they do, it is true to that character. Even when they're being irrational and stupid, I can always say that it makes sense, though sometimes it can be frustrating. Olympia was frustrating for a good part of the book. She is the third princess I've read about in Ms. Kinsale's books, and she made me appreciate all the more Melanthe and Elena. After 24 years of being sheltered from any harm, real life came knocking at her door, and she was unprepared, but didn't know it. She did one stupid thing after the other, causing serious trouble in the process. For that, and many other reasons I was on Sheridan's side. That tortured cynic who was called every bad name in the book is the one I stood by. I could go on and on as to why I loved his character so much, but that would exhaust me, so maybe another time.

By the end, after mutinies, shipwrecks, months on a desert island, captivity, separation, revolution, and whatnot, Olympia had matured a lot from the overly naive princess she was at the beginning, and Sheridan.... Oh, Sheridan... His walls crumbled, and the man who appeared was a ruin. It was heart-breaking.

The ending was both heart-breaking and heart-warming. I wish there was an epilogue. Oh, how I wish there was an epilogue! And a book about a side character who would make a great main one. I doubt there's a chance for either of those. Seize the Fire is thirty this year, after all. Ah, that epilogue deficiency again...

[Chels]

I want to airlift Olympia and Sheridan, a truly unique historical romance couple that I often delighted in, and drop them into a completely different book. Specifically Olympia, who has the rare privilege of being a heroine that veers so thoroughly away from the vaulted "Strong Female Character" (ugh) archetype that it feels transgressive to let her be shy, afraid, and naive to the point of ridiculousness.

Olympia is a princess of a small fake principality, and Sheridan is the war hero she enlists to help her return to her home country and start a revolution. Sheridan's reputation as a hero masks his true nature: a jaded, lying, cad who is looking to steal from Olympia and hang her out to dry.

They were absolutely amazing together. Sheridan would call Olympia a "corkbrain" and it would be equal parts exasperation and endearment. Their exchanges were delightful:

"I'm not beautiful."

He tightened his fingers over hers.

"I'm sorry to say you have no idea what you're talking about. Which comes as no surprise to me. You generally don't."

But Kinsale's globe-trotting adventure story hinges on threat of violence from not only Olympia's home country, but the Southeast Asian countries they travel through. In one breath Sheridan curses the Queen and England's self-preservation politics, and in the next there's an emphasis on a sheik's violence that just feels racist. And that's without mentioning Mustafa, Sheridan's wily sidekick who mostly exists for comic relief.

I listened to the audiobook of this slowly over the course of three weeks, and my thoughts were all a complete jumble until the dedication at the end, where Nicholas Boulton solemnly reads that this book is for Vietnam veterans. Then I understood what Kinsale was going for. At the end of the book, both Sheridan and Olympia have PTSD from the revolution and Sheridan's long naval career. They don't have good feelings of heroism to cling to, nothing good came of it except each other. They both have to live with that trauma and try to find a reason to keep going.

But Kinsale has biases that make this anti-colonialist sentiment fall completely flat. I'll take Sheridan and Olympia anywhere else, but not here.

[Melanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really didn't think I'd like Sheridan Drake, especially after reading the first 100 pages... He had his moments, where I could maybe understand why Olympia, naive that she was, would fall for him.. And I was still surprised when he abandoned her in Madeira, especially after that sweet "Greensleaves" moment.. Then, when they met up again, if I'd been her, I'd have killed him, no kidding! I only started falling in love with him when they were shipwrecked, and by the time they were rescued (yes, the five months were probably necessary for Olympia to fall back in love with him, lol), I was head over heels, even though he still got on my nerves, what with his attitude, and lying.. All in all, it was probably one of my favorites for three reasons:

1. The book took place over a year, which, I must say, given Sheridan's actions, is the necessary time for Olympia to fall in love with him.. I only wish we'd had more time with them on the island..

2. Sheridan: Ok.. I hated him the first third of the book, him being such a lying and scheming coward, but he redeemed himself on that island, and once you find out his past, you can't help but want to take him to your breast and comfort him (and eventually do other things, lol)...

3. Weirdly enough, I enjoyed the convoluted plot: Our couple - one princess and one ex-slave - travels half the world, is shipwrecked for 5 (!) months, sold into slavery and captured by a sultan, before having an attempted forced marriage and a civil revolution... Crazy stuff!!! If you can suspend reality long enough to read this book, it's a great and diverting read, and you never know what to expect...

So there... It's a weird plot, Sheridan is a villain-turned-hero, Olympia is hopelessly naive, but it works! 5*!

[Mimi · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not quite sure what to say. This is my second Kinsale book, the first being "Flowers from the Storm." Like FftS, Seize the Fire was a long, arduous and often convoluted plot which ended in a powerfully emotional, tear-inducing, grab-you-by-the-gut-type of ending. The difference is that... with Flowers from the Storm, I felt as though the ends justified the means. In other words, as the reader, I really understood why it was absolutely necessary for Kinsale to take the readers along for the detailed, long, and complex story. Whereas, in Seize the Fire, I didn't feel that way.

It was just... heavy. And sometimes really difficult to follow. Complexity and angst is awesome - I love that stuff. But in this case it just felt superfluous. Either way... it was still mostly ok. I did enjoy parts of it immensely. And I always wanted to know what was going to happen next.

[Teresa Medeiros · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although some will swear by FLOWERS FROM THE STORM or THE PRINCE OF MIDNIGHT, it was SEIZE THE FIRE that gave me my first introduction to the wonderful and full-bodied romances of Laura Kinsale. In this extraordinary romantic adventure, plump exiled princess Olympia St. Leger wins the heart of nearly unredeemable rake Sheridan Drake. Kinsale was the first author I remember who wasn't afraid to make her characters less than likeable so that you could watch them grow during the course of the story. As a reader, I would gladly accompany her on any journey--either by camel through the desert or through the more complex and perilous pathways of the human heart. (Alternate: FLOWERS FROM THE STORM.)

[puppitypup · Rating 5 out of 5]

Historic Romance I thought this was going to be another silly romance. I was wrong. Not since Jamie sent Claire back through the stones has a book hurt this much to read. This book deals with PTSD with such realism, I could hardly breathe.

The author put her dedication at the very end, understandably so. It reads "This book is dedicated to the combat veterans of Vietnam. With respect, and love, and hope for healing."

This is one of the most romantic books I've read, in a class with Tale of Two Cities, but I feel bad calling it a romance, it's so much deeper than that. Highly recommend, for adults only due to intimate scenes.

For heaven's sake, I just read the book blurb. I'm pretty sure whoever wrote that hasn't read past Chapter 8.