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Defiant Rose
Rose Carney expects day-to-day difficulties in running her circus on the American frontier of the 1870s, but she does not count on her backers backing out, nor on the handsome representative sent by them to close down the show. Original.
337 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 1992
About the author
Colleen Quinn
10 books22 followersColleen is the bestselling author of twelve historical romance novels published under the names
Colleen Quinn
and
Katie Rose
. She is the recipient of the Romantic Times Achievement Award, and the Colorado Romance Writer's award, as well as the Doug Perry award for excellence in journalism. A graduate of Temple University with a BA in Communications, Colleen lives on a lake in Medford Lakes, New Jersey, and is hard at work on her next novel.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
September 16, 2014
I am the author!
April 21, 2023
There were a lot of things about this book that sounded good, but when it came to the actual story, they didn’t happen.
I really liked the circus setting, but it wasn’t shown as much as I thought it would be. For example, they don’t really practice their acts, and you don’t really see them doing much apart from travelling from town to town.
A few times it talks about ‘circus loyalty’. What a joke. There are a few scenes where it talks about how the other performers are fond of Rose, but they don’t really act like it. The first time it’s mentioned that Marcus will be taking over managing the circus, Zachary is glad that Rose will finally see what it’s like when she’s not in charge anymore, and the others don’t really care until it starts to affect them. A specific scene comes to mind about this so called ‘circus loyalty’: lots of the performers said that they wanted to get rid of Marcus so they come up with a plan, but as soon as it goes wrong, they all gathered in a tent and blamed everything on Rose, saying that if she hadn’t done the plan, they would have been fine.
Marcus was the worst. Everything had to go his way and he didn’t care about Rose enough. He comes to the circus, changes everything because of course he knows best, even though he’s never been to a circus and it’s Rose’s whole life. He breaks Rose’s heart because he balks at the idea of people from his real life seeing her with him. He blackmails her into coming with him, and acts nice for a bit, before deciding that she’s an embarrassment. He expects her to become a completely different person and becomes furious when she makes the smallest mistakes even though she’s trying as hard as she can to change and fit in. Most people will see the last few chapters as him accepting her, but does it count when he only acts like he likes her when they aren’t around his friends/colleagues from society? I honestly believe that the second they meet someone he knew, he will be embarrassed again and try to change/hide her.
I didn’t like Rose’s mother either, and I didn’t see how what Rose went through could make her understand her mother’s situation.
The only characters that I liked were Rose (but she spent too much time with Marcus to really like her) and James (even though he could have been shown more).
I could be wrong, but I really don’t like the title of this book as it feels like just because Rose didn’t completely change her personality, she’s suddenly bad and ‘defiant’.
The idea of this book could have been good, but there were so many things that made me angry or didn’t happen as they were described. This book definitely discourages me from reading more by this author.
I really liked the circus setting, but it wasn’t shown as much as I thought it would be. For example, they don’t really practice their acts, and you don’t really see them doing much apart from travelling from town to town.
A few times it talks about ‘circus loyalty’. What a joke. There are a few scenes where it talks about how the other performers are fond of Rose, but they don’t really act like it. The first time it’s mentioned that Marcus will be taking over managing the circus, Zachary is glad that Rose will finally see what it’s like when she’s not in charge anymore, and the others don’t really care until it starts to affect them. A specific scene comes to mind about this so called ‘circus loyalty’: lots of the performers said that they wanted to get rid of Marcus so they come up with a plan, but as soon as it goes wrong, they all gathered in a tent and blamed everything on Rose, saying that if she hadn’t done the plan, they would have been fine.
Marcus was the worst. Everything had to go his way and he didn’t care about Rose enough. He comes to the circus, changes everything because of course he knows best, even though he’s never been to a circus and it’s Rose’s whole life. He breaks Rose’s heart because he balks at the idea of people from his real life seeing her with him. He blackmails her into coming with him, and acts nice for a bit, before deciding that she’s an embarrassment. He expects her to become a completely different person and becomes furious when she makes the smallest mistakes even though she’s trying as hard as she can to change and fit in. Most people will see the last few chapters as him accepting her, but does it count when he only acts like he likes her when they aren’t around his friends/colleagues from society? I honestly believe that the second they meet someone he knew, he will be embarrassed again and try to change/hide her.
I didn’t like Rose’s mother either, and I didn’t see how what Rose went through could make her understand her mother’s situation.
The only characters that I liked were Rose (but she spent too much time with Marcus to really like her) and James (even though he could have been shown more).
I could be wrong, but I really don’t like the title of this book as it feels like just because Rose didn’t completely change her personality, she’s suddenly bad and ‘defiant’.
The idea of this book could have been good, but there were so many things that made me angry or didn’t happen as they were described. This book definitely discourages me from reading more by this author.
May 23, 2025
Charming.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews