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Tender Savage

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Lara Clavel has come to the Caribbean prepared to risk her life to free Ricardo Lazaro, legendary poet-warrior and rebel leader. Once in his cramped gaol cell, she feels a savage desire to be possessed by him, and Ricardo is trapped by circumstance into taking all that this golden angel offers.

192 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published September 1, 1990

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About the author

Iris Johansen

234 books7,445 followers
Iris Johansen is a New York Times bestselling author. She began her writing after her children left home for college. She first achieved success in the early 1980s writing category romances. In 1991, Johansen began writing suspense historical romance novels, starting with the publication of The Wind Dancer. In 1996 Johansen switched genres, turning to crime fiction, with which she has had great success.

She lives in Georgia and is married. Her son, Roy Johansen, is an Edgar Award-winning screenwriter and novelist. Her daughter, Tamara, serves as her research assistant.

IRIS JOHANSEN is The New York Times bestselling author of Night and Day, Hide Away, Shadow Play, Your Next Breath, The Perfect Witness, Live to See Tomorrow, Silencing Eve, Hunting Eve, Taking Eve, Sleep No More, What Doesn't Kill You, Bonnie, Quinn, Eve, Chasing The Night, Eight Days to Live, Blood Game, Deadlock, Dark Summer, Pandora's Daughter, Quicksand, Killer Dreams, On The Run, and more. And with her son, Roy Johansen, she has coauthored Night Watch, The Naked Eye, Sight Unseen, Close Your Eyes, Shadow Zone, Storm Cycle, and Silent Thunder.

http://www.irisjohansen.com

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5 stars
196 (28%)
4 stars
226 (32%)
3 stars
192 (27%)
2 stars
69 (9%)
1 star
16 (2%)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 42 reviews
Profile Image for Karla.
1,494 reviews385 followers
August 29, 2016
3.75 stars!
Profile Image for Jenny.
3,201 reviews566 followers
February 13, 2016
Hero is a rebel leader and heroine a fierce young girl who embroils herself in a plot to help the legendary leader escape. She ends up in his jail cell as bait and while in prison they fall in love.

Ricardo is a very noble man but he can't resist sweet Lara. He takes her virginity and despite her reservations she falls for him. Ricardo wants her forever but when he realizes that Lara may lose her life because of him he sends her away without realizing that Lara is pregnant.

Cheesy, romantic, passionate love story. I adored the noble, vulnerable hero and the sweet but fierce heroine. Their chemistry was sizzling!
Profile Image for Kiki.
1,217 reviews697 followers
December 23, 2017
I see hero's point.
But that doesn't excuse his behaviour.
He pushes heroine away not once but THREE times.
He practically has the heroine kidnapped because she wouldn't tell him about his kid just to tell her he wants nothing to do with the kid, except for providing child support.
He could've done that without any contact.
At least then heroine would have been able to move on, she was already moving on and healing.
He evaded her life just to tell her he doesn't care.
He was nothing but a selfish man and whatever he felt for her wasn't love! It was his selfish way of protecting himself yet making sure heroine doesn't forget him at the same time!
There would've been no HEA if h wasn't so shameless and would keep begging for after being rejected the third time!
Profile Image for Zeek.
929 reviews149 followers
March 3, 2015
Re-read 2015
Despite the cheesy 80’s title and cover, this is one of my go-to’s. (The original unrevised version). It’s an old category romance, but I’ve re-read it hundreds of times and it never disappoints. (Often a snippet of it will come to mind and I find myself helpless to go to it yet again. I’m serious, it has that much a pull on me.)

Ricardo Lazaro , poet and rebel leader is looking to bring democracy to his tiny country. But the regime in charge have caught and imprisoned him to stop it. Enter Lara Clavel.

At first, Lara could care less about Lazaro’s political leanings- but her brother, the only family left to her, is willing to follow him into hell. To prevent her injured and convalescing brother from doing just that, she embroils herself in a plot to help the legendary leader escape.

Though determined to stay aloof, she too cannot resist the pull of this magnetic man. And right there, in the midst of captivity with him- she finds herself surrendering to the passion blooming between them. Little did she know she will one day find herself willing to follow him anywhere too- or die trying to keep him safe.

Much of the this book happens in an imprisonment setting- how the author manages to make us feel safe and threatened for the characters both at the same time surprises me, yet she does it. You'll also be surprised with where she leads you by the end.

Some of H/h's moments together are incredibly erotic despite how tame it is relatively- even now- and the romance is top notch. If I could get some new romance readers to try this, I will have felt as though I’ve accomplished something for romancelandia! ;)
Profile Image for *CJ*.
5,302 reviews662 followers
November 9, 2017
"Tender Savage" is the story of Lara and Ricardo.
Ricardo is the leader in revolutionary Santa Pierre, and is captured by rebels. Our heroine Lara volunteers to rescue him in order to save her twin brother Brett's life, who is loyal to Ricardo.
Soon passions arise due to forced captivity, and love strikes.
Honestly, I did not like the hero. Martyr or not, he seemed too gullible and thick headed. One minute he's madly in love, next he is scared for the heroine and sends her away. Ending unsatisfactory, no groveling, but average love making scenes.
Warning: Trigger
MEH
Safe?
2/5
Profile Image for Chantal ❤️.
1,361 reviews939 followers
February 9, 2016
Great story and very existing. She goes to save her brothers saviour and ends up falling for him. He is a freedom fighter with a very hard shell and he pushes her away several times. However they do have sex and he wants her to leave to be safe cause he loves her and wants her to live. He was not a sweet guy but he had a heart of a poet. So smooth.
Profile Image for ᗰ.ᑕ. ⛵ O͎L͎D͎E͎R͎ ͎&͎ ͎W͎I͎S͎E͎R͎.
1,892 reviews35 followers
May 28, 2026
Long Ago = It was good.
2026 = It was okay. / Review written

I read this as a library paperback in my younger days. Unlike most books these days, the plot was memorable, and I hoped to find it again. I thought Anne Stuart wrote it, but Against the Wind had few similarities. Eventually, I found it in I.J.'s older books. Sadly, my taste has changed, and I now find it mostly annoying. The story focuses on relationship drama, with the MCs taking turns pushing each other away. It takes until the last few pages for their issues to be resolved, ending without an epilogue.

▪️Lust = Sex = Love
▪️Melodramatic writing
▪️No realism
▪️The h does most of the pursuing

🤷‍♀️ It's unclear how the h can spend money without a care, given she and her twin brother have no family and were raised in foster care. She has a pre-law degree but no job.

🔥 The sex scenes are fairly tame, but the author does a good job creating tension. The MCs' chemistry could be felt, which made their scenes more sensual.

I'm done with this author. No more Harlequins, and I have no interest in her mystery thrillers.

————————————————

📕 S͓̽O͓̽M͓̽E͓̽ S͓̽P͓̽O͓̽I͓̽L͓̽E͓̽R͓̽S͓̽ 📕

Brett, Lara's twin brother, is an injured freedom fighter.

Lara (21) travels to a war-torn country to protect Brett. There she helps free Ricardo Lazaro, a legendary writer and leader, imprisoned for five months.

Lara hates to lose, and boy is that evident by the end!

Ricardo Lazaro (29) is the perfect hero with thousands of loyal followers. He's charismatic, brilliant, an amazing lover, and fiercely dedicated to freeing his people. Underneath his formidable exterior is a lonely man who's suffered for nine years.

During two days locked up, the MCs are forced together and Lara loses her virginity. She shows her courage by risking her life, facing gang rape, and getting whipped. Ricardo, protective and possessive, is enraged when Lara is seriously injured.

38%: Lara wakes up in Ricardo’s main base in the caverns. She quickly recovers and for some dumb reason, resists his advances. He patiently waits as he shares and shows his love. She insists she doesn’t feel the same. He forces her to stay with him for a week, and after a few days of her stubbornness, she finally gives in and goes to his bed. Each day, they grow closer, and each night, their passion deepens.

70%: Ricardo takes Lara outside to swim in the lake. During a tender moment, Lara realizes she really loves him. Ricardo getting shot in the shoulder ends their happy time together. He turns distant and insists on sending Lara away for her safety. Later, it's revealed he feels guilty over his parents' deaths when he was 19.

It's Lara's turn to be pushed away when Ricardo says he doesn’t love her. Heartbroken, she travels to Barbados to be with her brother Brett for a few weeks. Nine-year-old Manuel is sent to take care of her and be a spy, reporting on Lara regularly. He lets his contact know when Lara visits an obstetrician.

While Lara was away, Ricardo announced the enemy's surrender, the creation of the Republic of Saint Pierre, and upcoming democratic elections. Three weeks later, he was elected president.

85%: Lara is forced back to talk to Ricardo, to discuss the baby and receive a bravery medal at the inauguration ball. When she read his amazing book, she saw his tender side and was moved to tears. Then, she learned he sent her away for her protection. This makes her fight for their love, despite his continued efforts to send her back to the US.

94%: Ricardo again says he doesn’t love Lara. She seduces him, and a night of passion happens off-page. The next day, Lara wakes up alone and is told to get ready to leave. She finds out Ricardo went to his home (his late parents’ ranch) and goes after him.

97%: Ricardo says, "How can I make it any plainer? I don’t want you—or your child." Lara tells him to shut up. She claims she knows he loves and wants her, and desperately pleads for him to give them a chance. Lara refuses to leave him. She says things like he’ll have to lock her up, and she'll follow him around barefoot and pregnant, ruining his image.

😬 FINALLY at 98%, Ricardo admits his love. He still insists that Lara should go, because he's terrified of losing her. But Lara continues to insist she'll never leave him. Ricardo says she's crumbled his walls, and softly quotes the final verse of the poem he shared earlier, showing her his heart.

😂 Swelling, Hardening & Pressing:

She could feel her breasts swell, the nipples harden with arousal.

...her nipples pressed against the gauze.

...his glance shifted to her breasts swelling beneath their veil of gauze.

She could feel her breasts swell as they lifted and fell...

...she felt her nipples harden against his palms in mindless response.

Her breasts swelled beneath the gauze of her gown...

the swelling of her breasts,

His gaze fastened on the clear delineation of her nipples pressing against the velvet...
506 reviews
November 12, 2022
I imagine I would have liked this book much better at the time it was published. So glad the age of the Too Stupid to Live Heroine is over. Really. If Lara wanted her brother not to be part of the revolution, there were better ways than subjecting herself to degradation and whipping in an odious prison. Ricardo is an interesting character but the two of them have a problem being honest with feelings at the same time.
Profile Image for Shymaa.
12 reviews1 follower
September 17, 2018

overall, I enjoyed reading the story of Lara and Ricardo but there are some points which i dislike. some scenes were expected. i didn't like some of Ricardo's behavior as he is considered as an hero and a leader. there is a combination between love and sex here and i guess there is misunderstanding as they are not one thing
Profile Image for Nancy.
646 reviews4 followers
April 3, 2024
Nancy

Very interesting story. I’m at the one character in another book and he was very strong and intriguing. The storyline was intense and in-depth of a true heroes. Both characters were very strong people. Thanks for the good book and the happy ending.
2,778 reviews
February 5, 2021
Not my type of reading. I wanted to read something by this author.
Profile Image for Louisa.
8,881 reviews103 followers
April 26, 2022
Really great book, loved the romance, though I do prefer her more recent books, I had a fun time reading about these two!
Profile Image for Basheer Shikh.
64 reviews
February 22, 2023
I really think i should give it two or even one star, but I finished it in one day, so that has to mean something...
Profile Image for Maura.
3,883 reviews116 followers
July 25, 2015
Lara wants to keep her twin brother Brett safe. So she arranges to go to the island of St. Pierre, where he has been serving in their revolutionary army, to sacrifice herself to rescue the very charistmatic leader, Ricardo Lazaro, so that she can extract a promise from him to keep her brother out of the war. She ends up in his jail cell as bait. There's a lot of danger and close circumstances sort of bring on some very intimate feelings for the both of them. He falls in love with her, but a revolutionary leader can have no weaknesses, and for Ricardo, love for Lara is his greatest weakness.

This is pretty good for the oldie it is. The story was a quick read with plenty of angst. Ricardo is very likeable for most of the book. Although, for a man who proclaims that every person has a right to their own choices, he certainly makes a lot of effort to take Lara's away from her. Lara is very stubborn and self-sufficient, but not always very honest with herself. I liked that Lara was a go-getter and refused to back down and that she wasn't all irritating and petulant in her stubbornness. All in all I did like this story.

That being said, I didn't 100% buy the premise for Lara being in St. Pierre in the first place. It seems she risked so much danger and her very life for a very uncertain outcome. I just couldn't buy it. I also had a lot of trouble believing the HEA could actually be happy.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Profile Image for Regan Walker.
Author 32 books837 followers
August 12, 2012
Tender Romance From the Caribbean.

I have learned to love Iris Johansen's romances (I've listed some of my favorites at the bottom of this review). One thing many have in common is wonderfully complex plots, multifaceted characters and exotic locales. I loved this story, and like the related story, ONE TOUCH OF TOPAZ, it takes place in the Caribbean. While I recommend it, I cannot give it 5 stars because like TOPAZ, it's lacking some meat in my mind. That is, I wanted more story, more plot, more of what Iris Johansen delivers so well. 277 pages just wasn't enough.

Lara Clavel, an American, is out to make sure her twin brother Brett isn’t wounded again, or worse, in the fight for freedom of St. Pierre, a Caribbean island country (fictional). So she agrees to risk her life to save the life of the poet warrior who is the rebel leader, Ricardo Lazaro. She agrees to purposefully get caught and taken to the dreadful Abbey prison where he is being held and the guards use her to try and get to him, forcing Lazaro to take her virginity. In the process, Ricardo falls in love with her. Once free, he does not intend to let her go.

The only negative here is that there could have been so much more story. I didn’t want it to end so soon. So, if you're looking for a quick read that won't disappoint, get this one--and the related one, ONE TOUCH OF TOPAZ. But if you like her very complex stories, you might want to consider her other historical novels that I believe justify 5 stars:

Profile Image for Kari.
4,070 reviews101 followers
October 15, 2012
Tender Savage (Loveswept, September 1990) was a better book than One Touch of Topaz. I liked it a lot more than the first book. Laura was a great character. She was a strong person and had a lot of guts. Any woman who is willing to go through what she did just to rescue a man from imprisonment would have to be,. I thought the characters were a bit more realistic and more mature.

Laura and Ricardo have a great chemistry together. I was so frustrated with Ricardo and his insistence that he couldn't be president of his country and have happiness as well. I was rooting for their HEA.
Profile Image for Annette.
1,420 reviews7 followers
June 24, 2016
Totally predictable. A quick read for in between the serious stuff. This story was so unbelievable but that's what so fun about books like this. You know it's implausible but you keep reading anyway. Naive American girl goes to foreign country to offer her help in rescuing the leader of the local revolution so he can tell her already injured twin brother he is no longer needed to help fight for the cause. How stupid. I'm sorry , you'll just have to read this story for yourself. It is so predictable and cheesy but I did small a little at the end.
Profile Image for Christine.
1,500 reviews40 followers
September 12, 2016
What a great story. Some not so nice accomodations but at least the outcome was better at the end then the start. Lara being stubborn went to help Ricardo so that her twin brother Brett would not be part of the revolution. She bit off way more than she could chew. Some tender moments, ha ha moments and some ahhhh- wipe away the tear moments. Would love if there was a followup to their story.
Profile Image for Amy Grossman.
103 reviews13 followers
June 30, 2011
Another light romance novel, but this one actually had a bit more depth to it. Captured more of the emotion, and you really saw the connection between the hero and heroine (Ricardo & Lara). I recommend this book for the romance novel lover
Profile Image for Alice.
364 reviews
November 10, 2011
I waited 8 months to get this from the library. Since I've read all the other romance novels that the library had by Iris Johansen, I wanted to read this one. There's still a long line of readers who have put a hold on this. Ms. Johansen does not disappoint.
27 reviews1 follower
October 30, 2014
So not like her others books that Iris Johansen writes. This was a very quick easy to read (about 1.5 hours). Kept you entertained while reading it. Amde you want to know what was going to happen.
1,309 reviews
Read
September 21, 2010
I read in high school and with this original cover they have been revised and are still great!
3 reviews
February 10, 2011
What's not to like about a cheesy, unrealistic, love story between a freedom fighting rebel and as all-American 21 year old?
Profile Image for Kathie.
22 reviews2 followers
February 23, 2012
I listened to it on a playaway (electronic recording from the library). I didn't realize it was going to be so "steamy" but yet so tender.
Profile Image for Barb.
1,203 reviews
May 18, 2012
A clear 5 star in every sense. Great story, typical Johansen plot. You don't know till the end of the book what will happen. Very well written. 5 stars don't do it justice.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 42 reviews