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The Devils Love
SHE WAS A FEVER RACING THROUGH HIS BLOOD.Untamed, unpredictable, utterly captivating, Christina as determined to live free as the wind--yet was fatally bound to the one man whose passion could imprison her forever.
HE BURNED LIKE A FLAME IN HER HEART A handsome privateer, the banished son of a Scottish earl, Kade roamed the seas, thriving on danger and the intrigue of a turbulent age. From her lush Caribbean paradise. Christina fled to the dazzling salons of Paris. But Kade had vowed to pursue her across the world... to make her see that at the end of her perilous journey lay the ecstasy they were powerless to resist and a glorious destiny forged by...The Devil's Love
HE BURNED LIKE A FLAME IN HER HEART A handsome privateer, the banished son of a Scottish earl, Kade roamed the seas, thriving on danger and the intrigue of a turbulent age. From her lush Caribbean paradise. Christina fled to the dazzling salons of Paris. But Kade had vowed to pursue her across the world... to make her see that at the end of her perilous journey lay the ecstasy they were powerless to resist and a glorious destiny forged by...The Devil's Love
511 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1981
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
April 3, 2025
Read: 3/7/25 -late review
Setting: 1700's Caribbean, Paris, Scotland
4.7 stars
Later RTC ...so much more to say
Notes:
The H was fantastic! He was charming, suave, and goes after the things he wants and ge wants the h. He watches her from afar and finds her antics funny. I love how he lets her come to him.
The h was great, too. Her rivalry with another girl was hilarious. I love that it takes the h a long time to start wanting the H. No instant love for her. She feels the call of the outside world and is restless on her island. She has to go to France before she can settle down.
I found the h's time in Paris, it was less exciting, but I still enjoyed it.
Conclusion: I wish this author had written more hr books. I really liked and enjoyed this book!
Setting: 1700's Caribbean, Paris, Scotland
4.7 stars
Later RTC ...so much more to say
Notes:
The H was fantastic! He was charming, suave, and goes after the things he wants and ge wants the h. He watches her from afar and finds her antics funny. I love how he lets her come to him.
The h was great, too. Her rivalry with another girl was hilarious. I love that it takes the h a long time to start wanting the H. No instant love for her. She feels the call of the outside world and is restless on her island. She has to go to France before she can settle down.
I found the h's time in Paris, it was less exciting, but I still enjoyed it.
Conclusion: I wish this author had written more hr books. I really liked and enjoyed this book!
July 29, 2020
4- 4.5 stars. Kinda loved most of this book. What a ride...a real page turner until about the last 50 pages, even the end was good just slowed down a bit. This book is a keeper for me I’d probably read it again. Good old fashioned BR.
April 12, 2016
Setting: Caribbean & France, 1768
Genre: Historical Romance
Bodice Ripper? Yes
My Grade: C
This story spans about three years. Christina Evrion is the heroine and is seventeen when it starts. She has blonde hair and light blue eyes. Kade Renault is the hero and his age wasn't given but I'm assuming he's in his thirties. There's usually a big age gap between hero and heroine in these old books. He has black hair and blue eyes.
Christina is a strange heroine. I think French is her native tongue. Until the end she never really even liked Kade and wanted a divorce. They'd met briefly once. Christina's father died and she couldn't inherit her money until she married. She had a terrible relationship with her stepmother, Hilda, and needed to get away from her and live on her own. Christina needed to marry to claim her inheritance so she asked Kade to marry her. She assumed he was going to die within a few days because he'd been captured by the Spanish. They married and much to her horror, he didn't die. She wanted to get a divorce but he didn't want to.
I liked Kade alright but Christina seemed slightly arrogant to me. When they were together I was just uninterested because nothing really happened between them. During the story they lived apart most of the time. He did cheat on her once with her childhood nemesis, Carlotta, while Christina was in France for over a year visiting relatives.
Really the only interesting part of the whole story took place during the last 100 pages or so when she was in France. Her male cousin, Dominique (curly blond hair and green eyes) is a very interesting character, in my opinion. He masquerades as a highwayman, robbing and murdering people. She's staying at his parents's home with him and his sisters. He becomes obsessed with her and ends up drugging and raping her. He also uses women terribly and when he gets yet another one, named Gabrielle, pregnant and wants nothing to do with her, she goes off the deep end and does something terrible...to them both.
The most boring part of the story is near the beginning over a chapter was devoted to how her Scottish father came to live in the Caribbean and how he met her deceased mother. I couldn't have cared less about their backstory.
There was some typical bodice ripper violence near the end when Kade traveled to France to be with Christina. He smacked her once and another time, spanked her. He's clearly physically and verbally abusive (calls her a cold bitch often) but I don't think the title suits him at all.
I'm disappointed with this book but did really like the last part and all the things involving Dominique. Sadly, this isn't a keeper.
Genre: Historical Romance
Bodice Ripper? Yes
My Grade: C
This story spans about three years. Christina Evrion is the heroine and is seventeen when it starts. She has blonde hair and light blue eyes. Kade Renault is the hero and his age wasn't given but I'm assuming he's in his thirties. There's usually a big age gap between hero and heroine in these old books. He has black hair and blue eyes.
Christina is a strange heroine. I think French is her native tongue. Until the end she never really even liked Kade and wanted a divorce. They'd met briefly once. Christina's father died and she couldn't inherit her money until she married. She had a terrible relationship with her stepmother, Hilda, and needed to get away from her and live on her own. Christina needed to marry to claim her inheritance so she asked Kade to marry her. She assumed he was going to die within a few days because he'd been captured by the Spanish. They married and much to her horror, he didn't die. She wanted to get a divorce but he didn't want to.
I liked Kade alright but Christina seemed slightly arrogant to me. When they were together I was just uninterested because nothing really happened between them. During the story they lived apart most of the time. He did cheat on her once with her childhood nemesis, Carlotta, while Christina was in France for over a year visiting relatives.
Really the only interesting part of the whole story took place during the last 100 pages or so when she was in France. Her male cousin, Dominique (curly blond hair and green eyes) is a very interesting character, in my opinion. He masquerades as a highwayman, robbing and murdering people. She's staying at his parents's home with him and his sisters. He becomes obsessed with her and ends up drugging and raping her. He also uses women terribly and when he gets yet another one, named Gabrielle, pregnant and wants nothing to do with her, she goes off the deep end and does something terrible...to them both.
The most boring part of the story is near the beginning over a chapter was devoted to how her Scottish father came to live in the Caribbean and how he met her deceased mother. I couldn't have cared less about their backstory.
There was some typical bodice ripper violence near the end when Kade traveled to France to be with Christina. He smacked her once and another time, spanked her. He's clearly physically and verbally abusive (calls her a cold bitch often) but I don't think the title suits him at all.
I'm disappointed with this book but did really like the last part and all the things involving Dominique. Sadly, this isn't a keeper.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 15, 2024
5 nostalgic stars
3.5 realistic stars
This was a trip down memory lane for me. I first read this book as a teenager. I loved it so much and read it many times. I lost track of it in my 20s and 30s. I thought about it again in my 40s but by then I had forgotten many of the details, including the most important – the author and title. I spent a good decade or so trying to find it again without much luck because most of my memories were so vague.
A few months ago, I posted about this book in a Facebook historical romance group and amazingly enough, someone recognized it based on one small detail I was able to remember. As soon as I saw the cover again, I knew that was the book I had been looking for and I was ecstatic. I immediately searched for a copy of it online, found one, and ordered it.
I can’t say that it’s the greatest book ever, but reading it again after all this time was so much fun. The story came back to me as I read and I can see why teenage me loved it. Adult me noticed more of the book’s imperfections but was pleasantly surprised that there were only a few truly cringey moments.
The hero is definitely an alpha with a couple of real jerk moments, but by bodice ripper standards, he’s relatively kind and gentle. The heroine is young and impulsive and does make a few bad choices, but I still liked her. It’s a longish book and there are a couple places where it drags a bit, but overall things happen at a fairly quick pace and the writing isn’t bogged down with overly long descriptions. It starts off in a Caribbean setting, then spends some time in France, and finishes up in Scotland.
Things I really liked about the book:
-The Georgian time period (the story begins in 1768)
-The settings, especially the island home of the heroine.
-The hero is tall, dark, handsome, and a little mysterious, but he doesn’t have an outrageously traumatic past and he’s not emotionally stunted.
-The hero declares his love first.
-“Pirates” but they’re actually good guys.
-The beautiful cover! (cover art by Elaine Gignilliat)
This was such a fun reading experience for me. I have a couple more books from my youth I’m still searching for, and maybe one day I’ll be lucky enough to find them again, too.
3.5 realistic stars
This was a trip down memory lane for me. I first read this book as a teenager. I loved it so much and read it many times. I lost track of it in my 20s and 30s. I thought about it again in my 40s but by then I had forgotten many of the details, including the most important – the author and title. I spent a good decade or so trying to find it again without much luck because most of my memories were so vague.
A few months ago, I posted about this book in a Facebook historical romance group and amazingly enough, someone recognized it based on one small detail I was able to remember. As soon as I saw the cover again, I knew that was the book I had been looking for and I was ecstatic. I immediately searched for a copy of it online, found one, and ordered it.
I can’t say that it’s the greatest book ever, but reading it again after all this time was so much fun. The story came back to me as I read and I can see why teenage me loved it. Adult me noticed more of the book’s imperfections but was pleasantly surprised that there were only a few truly cringey moments.
The hero is definitely an alpha with a couple of real jerk moments, but by bodice ripper standards, he’s relatively kind and gentle. The heroine is young and impulsive and does make a few bad choices, but I still liked her. It’s a longish book and there are a couple places where it drags a bit, but overall things happen at a fairly quick pace and the writing isn’t bogged down with overly long descriptions. It starts off in a Caribbean setting, then spends some time in France, and finishes up in Scotland.
Things I really liked about the book:
-The Georgian time period (the story begins in 1768)
-The settings, especially the island home of the heroine.
-The hero is tall, dark, handsome, and a little mysterious, but he doesn’t have an outrageously traumatic past and he’s not emotionally stunted.
-The hero declares his love first.
-“Pirates” but they’re actually good guys.
-The beautiful cover! (cover art by Elaine Gignilliat)
This was such a fun reading experience for me. I have a couple more books from my youth I’m still searching for, and maybe one day I’ll be lucky enough to find them again, too.
August 16, 2011
From what my mother tells me of this book I want to read this book so bad! So it going to be seriously EPIC!!! (:
February 8, 2025
This was better than I expected it to be, since it was written in 1981, and those early HR novels tended to go way over the top and this one stayed pretty calm, though it did have some moments I could have done without.
It does get a bit tiresome to have a H and h who seem to have all the qualities in life people envy, coupled with looks that can't compare. At a young age, runaway Kade soon becomes a business owner as well as a sort of Robin Hood pirate, no one can compare with him, men envy him, women long for him. (It goes on a bit much about how he can't walk into a public place without women casting lustful looks at him, how he's broken hearts all over the place, a former mistress tried to kill herself when he dumped her, etc. Enough!!) And of course, Christina is gorgeous, has men pursuing her, other women can't compare to her, she's also so intelligent she's capable of running her late father's shipping business at the tender age of 17 (altogether now: ("WTF!!!!"), she's well read, athletic (swims like a fish, can shoot, fence, you name it) and has a wild, free spirit that compels her to do sexy dancing at native island festivals (apparently due to her being 1/24th black; grandma was an "octoroon". The old stereotype about anyone with a drop of black blood has got to have rhythm!)
It's fine to want to give unique, stand-out-from-the-crowd qualities to your MC, but LETS NOT OVERDO IT!!!
After her father dies, Christina seeks to escape her crummy stepmother and her attempts to marry her off to a gay man, just for spite (though I think many women might be spiteful if their hubby called out his first wife's name while making love to her, and poured out so much love and affection on his daughter that there was nothing left over for her) by using her feminine wiles to get Kade to marry her, since he's being held prisoner and is set to be executed. He agrees and SURPRISE: he's not going to die, after all! (Shades of "The Bride of Newgate".) Now what????
Now comes what seems like an endless battle between the two, as she wants to be free, while he wants her to be his wife in every sense of the word. As is expected, there's one area where their marriage is a success, the one that gives orgasms. Aside from that, if she hadn't been so stupidly stubborn (as others tried to make her see) she would have realized a lot sooner that Kade was perfect for her. He didn't mind her working at the shipping business, he helped her design a mast that'd be strong enough for the sails needed in a newly designed ship, he shared her love of freedom from society's restrictions, and didn't care about the conventions, either.
Instead, she gets a bug in her head about wanting to travel to Paris, something her late mother wanted to do but never did, instead remaining on their island home with her husband and child, then dying all too young. (By only reading part of her mother's diary, she gets the wrong impression that she was unhappy, which wasn't the case.)
In truth, Christina knew nothing about happy marriages, losing her mother too soon to see her life with her father, and only had his second disastrous marriage for a reference. So, she can't really trust in either Kade's feelings or her own. She makes numerous attempts to escape from Kade and they fail every time (with considerable danger to herself) and is finally successful by using the excuse that she needs to find the only person who can save her maid's little brother from dying of a fever. At last, she gets to her relatives in Paris, never stopping to consider that Kade would gladly have taken her there, she just HAD to get away from him. (Obviously, this is because she's afraid of the feelings she has for him, but she's not ready to admit that.) Kade, meanwhile, was honest about his feelings for her. It got to be annoying, because usually in HR books, both the H and h are reluctant to admit their feelings, each waiting for the other to do so, but here, even knowing how Kade felt, she still wouldn't own up to her own feelings. And being married to him in no way curtailed her freedom, so she just came across as a real pain in the neck.
What was also ridiculous, was that nothing she did in Paris by herself wasn't anything that she couldn't have done with her husband: sightseeing, opera, theatre, dinners, dances, etc. It's not like she went there to have affairs with other men. And after the way she acted (leaving Kade a note, telling him she didn't mind if he divorced her) I can't blame him for cheating, by sleeping with sexy Carlotta, who had been horny for him for a long time. That was no romantic romp, in fact, it got pretty rough, but apparently Carlotta liked it that way. (Later, he tells Christina, and she decides to let it go, knowing if she hadn't left him that wouldn't have happened.)
I also can't blame Kade (who later catches up with Christina after a trip to Scotland to claim his inheritance) for the slap he gave her (not hard) or the spanking (hard enough to make her butt sore) because she was so annoying, she deserved it!
She did NOT, however, deserve her psycho cousin's revenge for wounding his shoulder while fencing (long story there), when he drugged and repeatedly raped her! He gets his comeuppance when the sweet girl he jilted gets her revenge! (Unfortunately, in ending his life, hers ended too.) Then, Christina apparently gets over the abuse, by determining not to dwell on it and pretend it never happened. Not very realistic! Getting raped once is horrible enough, but over and over again is a NIGHTMARE!! And she never tells Kade.
I wish the book had spent more time on the shipping business, with the two of them working together, and getting closer, that would have been better than all the run-away-and-chase stuff, which got tiresome.
Not a bad story and fun at times, but lots of improvement needed.
It does get a bit tiresome to have a H and h who seem to have all the qualities in life people envy, coupled with looks that can't compare. At a young age, runaway Kade soon becomes a business owner as well as a sort of Robin Hood pirate, no one can compare with him, men envy him, women long for him. (It goes on a bit much about how he can't walk into a public place without women casting lustful looks at him, how he's broken hearts all over the place, a former mistress tried to kill herself when he dumped her, etc. Enough!!) And of course, Christina is gorgeous, has men pursuing her, other women can't compare to her, she's also so intelligent she's capable of running her late father's shipping business at the tender age of 17 (altogether now: ("WTF!!!!"), she's well read, athletic (swims like a fish, can shoot, fence, you name it) and has a wild, free spirit that compels her to do sexy dancing at native island festivals (apparently due to her being 1/24th black; grandma was an "octoroon". The old stereotype about anyone with a drop of black blood has got to have rhythm!)
It's fine to want to give unique, stand-out-from-the-crowd qualities to your MC, but LETS NOT OVERDO IT!!!
After her father dies, Christina seeks to escape her crummy stepmother and her attempts to marry her off to a gay man, just for spite (though I think many women might be spiteful if their hubby called out his first wife's name while making love to her, and poured out so much love and affection on his daughter that there was nothing left over for her) by using her feminine wiles to get Kade to marry her, since he's being held prisoner and is set to be executed. He agrees and SURPRISE: he's not going to die, after all! (Shades of "The Bride of Newgate".) Now what????
Now comes what seems like an endless battle between the two, as she wants to be free, while he wants her to be his wife in every sense of the word. As is expected, there's one area where their marriage is a success, the one that gives orgasms. Aside from that, if she hadn't been so stupidly stubborn (as others tried to make her see) she would have realized a lot sooner that Kade was perfect for her. He didn't mind her working at the shipping business, he helped her design a mast that'd be strong enough for the sails needed in a newly designed ship, he shared her love of freedom from society's restrictions, and didn't care about the conventions, either.
Instead, she gets a bug in her head about wanting to travel to Paris, something her late mother wanted to do but never did, instead remaining on their island home with her husband and child, then dying all too young. (By only reading part of her mother's diary, she gets the wrong impression that she was unhappy, which wasn't the case.)
In truth, Christina knew nothing about happy marriages, losing her mother too soon to see her life with her father, and only had his second disastrous marriage for a reference. So, she can't really trust in either Kade's feelings or her own. She makes numerous attempts to escape from Kade and they fail every time (with considerable danger to herself) and is finally successful by using the excuse that she needs to find the only person who can save her maid's little brother from dying of a fever. At last, she gets to her relatives in Paris, never stopping to consider that Kade would gladly have taken her there, she just HAD to get away from him. (Obviously, this is because she's afraid of the feelings she has for him, but she's not ready to admit that.) Kade, meanwhile, was honest about his feelings for her. It got to be annoying, because usually in HR books, both the H and h are reluctant to admit their feelings, each waiting for the other to do so, but here, even knowing how Kade felt, she still wouldn't own up to her own feelings. And being married to him in no way curtailed her freedom, so she just came across as a real pain in the neck.
What was also ridiculous, was that nothing she did in Paris by herself wasn't anything that she couldn't have done with her husband: sightseeing, opera, theatre, dinners, dances, etc. It's not like she went there to have affairs with other men. And after the way she acted (leaving Kade a note, telling him she didn't mind if he divorced her) I can't blame him for cheating, by sleeping with sexy Carlotta, who had been horny for him for a long time. That was no romantic romp, in fact, it got pretty rough, but apparently Carlotta liked it that way. (Later, he tells Christina, and she decides to let it go, knowing if she hadn't left him that wouldn't have happened.)
I also can't blame Kade (who later catches up with Christina after a trip to Scotland to claim his inheritance) for the slap he gave her (not hard) or the spanking (hard enough to make her butt sore) because she was so annoying, she deserved it!
She did NOT, however, deserve her psycho cousin's revenge for wounding his shoulder while fencing (long story there), when he drugged and repeatedly raped her! He gets his comeuppance when the sweet girl he jilted gets her revenge! (Unfortunately, in ending his life, hers ended too.) Then, Christina apparently gets over the abuse, by determining not to dwell on it and pretend it never happened. Not very realistic! Getting raped once is horrible enough, but over and over again is a NIGHTMARE!! And she never tells Kade.
I wish the book had spent more time on the shipping business, with the two of them working together, and getting closer, that would have been better than all the run-away-and-chase stuff, which got tiresome.
Not a bad story and fun at times, but lots of improvement needed.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 22, 2024
Captivating beautiful story I love it
May 17, 2025
the author didn't know how to end it
March 20, 2008
You would think that with the front cover proclaiming "The Ultimate in Sensual Romantic Fiction" that I would remember alot more than I do about this book.
May 26, 2014
My fav book. . :D
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews