The Caged Tiger

by Penny Jordan

Davina's love had long since died. It had been killed the night she'd given birth to their son while Ruy, her husband, had been dallying with another woman. Only for her child's sake was Davina now returning to Spain, to the aristocratic de Silvadores family - and to Ruy. But Ruy was changed beyond belief. What had once been a man of virile strength was now a devil of snarling bitterness confined to a wheelchair. And Davina was not prepared for this new assault on her emotions...

Genres: Harlequin Presents, Romance, Harlequin, Second Chance, Contemporary Romance, Contemporary, Disability

188 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1982

About the author

Penelope Jones Halsall
aka Caroline Courtney, Annie Groves, Lydia Hitchcock, Melinda Wright

Penelope "Penny" Jones was born on November 24, 1946 at about seven pounds in a nursing home in Preston, Lancashire, England. She was the first child of Anthony Winn Jones, an engineer, who died at 85, and his wife Margaret Louise Groves Jones. She has a brother, Anthony, and a sister, Prudence "Pru".

She had been a keen reader from the childhood - her mother used to leave her in the children's section of their local library whilst she changed her father's library books. She was a storyteller long before she began to write romantic fiction. At the age of eight, she was creating serialized bedtime stories, featuring make-believe adventures, for her younger sister Prue, who was always the heroine. At eleven, she fell in love with Mills & Boon, and with their heroes. In those days the books could only be obtained via private lending libraries, and she quickly became a devoted fan; she was thrilled to bits when the books went on full sale in shops and she could have them for keeps.

Penny left grammar school in Rochdale with O-Levels in English Language, English Literature and Geography. She first discovered Mills & Boon books, via a girl she worked with. She married Steve Halsall, an accountant and a "lovely man", who smoked and drank too heavily, and suffered oral cancer with bravery and dignity. Her husband bought her the small electric typewriter on which she typed her first novels, at a time when he could ill afford it. He died at the beginning of 21st century.

She earned a living as a writer since the 1970s when, as a shorthand typist, she entered a competition run by the Romantic Novelists' Association. Although she didn't win, Penny found an agent who was looking for a new Georgette Heyer. She published four regency novels as Caroline Courtney, before changing her nom de plume to Melinda Wright for three air-hostess romps and then she wrote two thrillers as Lydia Hitchcock. Soon after that, Mills and Boon accepted her first novel for them, Falcon's Prey as Penny Jordan. However, for her more historical romance novels, she adopted her mother's maiden-name to become Annie Groves. Almost 70 of her 167 Mills and Boon novels have been sold worldwide.

Penny Halsall lived in a neo-Georgian house in Nantwich, Cheshire, with her Alsatian Sheba and cat Posh. She worked from home, in her kitchen, surrounded by her pets, and welcomed interruptions from her friends and family.

Reviews

[Sandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Twenty-four-year-old Davina (living in England with her three-year-old son Jamie) goes back to Spain (after she receives a letter asking her to) and to her surprise discovers her estranged husband Ruy (who is 35) has had an accident and is now paralyzed and in a wheelchair. (A few years ago Ruy’s mother and his ex-girlfriend Carmelita tried and succeeded in breaking Davina and Ruy up.) While Davina is in Spain Ruy and Davina try to make another go of their marriage for Jamie’s sake…

Ruy was overbearing and cranky most of the time, bitter over his accident and the fact that his wife Davina left him and he was now in a wheelchair. (He was also under the wrong impression that Davina left him for another man and Jamie might not be his child.) Davina was a sweet heroine but she did have some TSTL moments. She also dwelled too much on Ruy’s ex-girlfriend Carmelita (who Davina thought he was still in love with, which he wasn’t). Davina and Ruy should have trusted each other more. This book had a lot of misunderstandings, tension, arguing, and over-the-top drama but I still enjoyed it. It also had a nice Spanish setting.

An entertaining vintage Harlequin Presents from the 1980’s.

[StMargarets · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was awesome vintage fun. The hero has hysterical paralysis, brought on by being gored by a bull and having the heroine leave him with her newborn. The heroine thinks the hero loves another and was with her when she was giving birth. The hero's evil mother is the one behind all of these lies and misunderstandings (Hero never cheated) and she must swallow her pride because the hero's brother's wife can't have children and that child in England is the only way she's going to have an uninterrupted line to take over the bull raising, sherry distilling, and Seville orange harvesting this family is involved in.

So fasten your seatbelts, we're off to Spain with a not-so-secret toddler and a quivering heroine who just *knows* the hero will never love her like he does the OW.

The hero snarls and carries on, so the angst is just lovely at the beginning. Then a wannabe OM shows up to enflame the hero some more. An HP doctor tells the heroine that the hero's hysterical paralysis would be cured if he could witness/or be part of another bull goring, so the heroine dons a red blouse and steps in front of a bull.

*cackles*

Of course it works. The mother-in-law is very sorry for all the mischief she caused. The hero is contrite. The OM is smug that his jealousy scheme worked. The heroine is lucky to be alive. The little tyke will get riding lessons from Papa. All is well.

[boogenhagen · Rating 3 out of 5]

PJ outdid Anne Mather in this one's evil mother in law.

Estranged h and mentally bound wheelchair H fight it out over MIL evildoing and probable infidelity and the most miraculous leg reanimation walking scene in a bull pen ever.

This book is so OTT it is almost a cult classic and dang I miss PJ. Srsly, in who else's books does a man being unable to walk translate to his woman being a selfish whore - I miss that PJ logic.

[Anne E ♡ emo + OTT Hs · Rating 3 out of 5]

The GOOD:
Good extended angst from now-disabled 35yo Spanish Count H's misjudgements of his wife mid-20s British h, who returned to Spain after she left him 4 years ago with their newborn son who he had never seen or talked to until now. His not being there for her during the birth of their son or even visiting them at the hospital 4 years ago was the last straw that made her finally leave him, after 9 months of marriage (where H always slept in a separate room from h & h stopped having sex with H some weeks after their quickie wedding after his ex-fiancee OW & his MIL told her that H was still in love with OW & only married h to punish OW for breaking up with him). H was lead to believe by both his mother & OW that h was having an affair with another man (OM) whom H's mother saw h talking to 1 day at a cafe (h befriended fellow-Briton OM & talked with him a couple times). So, H wasn't sure who the father of her baby was & didn't seek to find out the truth. She came back to Spain with her son after his mother's note re: her son's inheritance but mostly due to her son's recent illness required him to be in a warmer & sunnier climate. She was shocked to see H now disabled & in a wheelchair after being gored a few years ago by 1 of his bulls.

Good pacing/overall writing/S chem/S. Likable h who quietly endured her mostly-cold marriage to H because she loved him since meeting him but had to save their baby from the dysfunction of their marriage & H's household so left him. Also liked that she matured from being so meek & passive to being more firm & stronger to voice out what she liked/didn't like but mostly when it came to her now-3yo son.

MEH or the BAD:
Didn't like H much. He kept heaping h with cruel remarks re: her having many lovers/her only coming back now that he can't have sex with her/her coming back for their son's inheritance. He was also very self-absorbed with his self-denigration of his physical disability, caused by a bull goring him on his stomach area a few years ago. Yet he forced h to sleep in his bed with him & tend to him instead of his man-servant. He was a very bitter, vengeful, & passive-aggressive man. His ILY & apology to h @ the end (as well as showing her he can now walk & is no longer disabled since watching her getting hurt by his bull was shock enough to get him to want to move) wasn't enough & only came about because his mother finally confessed re: her & OW's ploys 4 years ago to sabotage his marriage to h. H needed to grovel to h instead of joking around & lightly placating long-suffering h, who was just injured from a bull who gored her thigh as her grand gesture of her love for H & to hopefully shock him out of his psychologically-caused physical paralysis. H lacked character growth & his sudden change of heart towards h at the end seemed more circumstantial (because his mom confessed the truth) than from serious assessement of their relationship and/or himself.

Average romance but not much romance development. Their relationship dysfunction led them to ignore their son's welfare (i.e., her getting herself possibly killed/disabled from the raging bull without thinking about their son, H didn't even bother to find out if he was the bio father of their son or not & was completely out of their son's life until they came ). Some questions remain unanswered with this book like why did H wait to devirginize his wife h if he was already in love with her & he's the 1 who wanted to get married right away?/why did he insist on them sleeping in separate rooms when they were 1st married?/how come he didn't he accuse her cheating on him with OM then if he had photo proof from his mom & if he wasn't sure who's baby it was she was carrying? Unsure HEA.

Sexual History:
virgin h only shared “fumbling” kisses with a few boys. H was her only lover who she had to seduce to devirginize her days/weeks? after their wedding, which occurred 1 week from their 1st meeting. She let H's flirty matador cousin (OM2) kiss her a few times in the guise of OM2 helping H snap out of his psychologically-induced paralysis. It worked once but not enough to motivate H to move his legs more after. H had other lovers, which likely included his seductive ex-fiancee. No info if H was celibate after h left & how long since not clear exactly when his accident happened after h left him. He definitely became celibate after he became wheelchair-bound from his accident.

[Raffaella · Rating 2 out of 5]

Stupidity contest here.
Who’s the winner?
The heroine I suppose.
She married the hero very young, he was from Spanish royalty.
Her mother in law hated her and told her he only married her to spite the woman he really loved.
She left him, pregnant with his child.
Mil from hell sent her a photo of H and ow together (having sex, huh??? Yuk!) when she called her to advise she was giving birth to his son.
So she never contacted him anymore.
Mil from hell also told the hero she was cheating on him with om and the son was not his.
Years later the H is hurt and paralyzed and evil mil calls h back with her son.
Then begins the stupidity contest 2 part, where h and H hurt each other, misunderstand each other and do all things possible to avoid speaking clearly and be happy together.
It’s obvious to everyone but the h that H has always loved her, and never wanted to marry ow.
Actually ow went away and married another man.
Of course, being PJ, there are inconsistencies and unresolved matters.
Why the hero never looked for heroine after she left him if he was so in love with her?
Why h believed mil without even asking H if it was true?
Did H cheated on h with ow while estranged from h?
And most of all, why do I keep on hurting myself with all this stuff???
Anyway, the stupidity of those two make me wonder how the poor child will grow, since they don’t ever bother to abstain from quarreling in front of him, poor soul.

[*CJ* · Rating 2 out of 5]

"The Caged Tiger" is the story of Davina and Ruy.

Insecure heroine moves back to her husband's home with her son only to realize he is wheelchair bound and everything she thought about him is a lie. She however, continues to misconstrue his words while he taunts her, a frustrated process that ends in an underwhelming HEA.

Meh.

Safe for me
2/5

[Jenny · Rating 2 out of 5]

Heroine kissing paralyzed hero's friend in order to make him jealous and trying to kill herself by bulls was idiotic.

[Booklover · Rating 1 out of 5]

all i can say is two idiots who meet,get married and destroy each others life in name of love

Ignore it

[Aou · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meaningless angst was very good when h was not too much annoying. 🙄

[Sudakshina · Rating 2 out of 5]

"The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven."

John Milton (Paradise Lost)

This is definitely true for Davina, the TSTL heroine. She had already made up her mind and she glorified in her pitiable existence. The hero Ruy had dropped enough hints about his feelings for her but the heroine believes only what she wants to believe. She wanted to believe the worst in spite of the air being cleared by her mother-in-law.

I could not sympathize with her. I could sympathize with the hero. But not with the heroine, never with her.

Her jumping to conclusions and feeling pity for herself grated on my nerves and she deserved all the hell she herself was responsible of. Had the heroine not been so annoying, the story had lot of potential. Who doesn't love alpha male and angsty romance?

I wanted to read a Penny Jordan book and hence I picked this one up. If you feel inclined to read this book, think twice before you do so because the heroine rouse violent tendencies in oneself.

[Grace Harwood · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was very torn with this book and couldn’t decide whether it was really, really good or a bit awful. The premise is this: the heroine (Davina) meets the hero (Ruy) whilst on holiday in Spain. They fall in love, get married and have a son. However, Ruy, it transpires, is a noble count and his mother is not at all happy that he’s married an English pauper on her holidays. The mother, it turns out, wanted him to marry a Spanish woman called Carmelita, and between her and Carmelita they set out to wreck the marriage. They succceed all too easily, leaving Davina back at home in rainy old England, a single parent, with a sickly baby son and an irrational fear of oranges (the baby was conceived in an orange orchard apparently). She’s still in love with Ruy, so when the call comes that he wants her back, she packs up the baby and hops on the nearest plane. When she does get back, she’s in for a shock – Ruy’s now in a wheelchair and as it looks like his brother will never be able to have children, her baby is the only heir to the family estate and name. So they need her now (but he doesn’t love her at all – at least that’s what she tells herself, despite the confused looks of all when she announces this to his friends and family).

Carmelita (the other woman) never actually appears in the book, but her presence permeates over everything, as it has done through Davina’s marriage (a master stroke from Jordan there). But despite this, it’s an odd one, this one. The hero, Ruy (and I never did learn how to pronounce his name – was it “Roy” as in Coronation street – and about as sexy as Coronation Street too – or “Ry” as in a type of bread...) has made his family fortune through supplying bulls for the bull fight – something which an English audience is ALWAYS going to have problems with. Roy/Ry’s argument is that the bull is a proud animal that doesn’t want pity (much like him in his wheelchair) but that argument to me sounded a bit like the Romans saying the slaves were very happy to die in the gladiatorial arena. Roy/Ry has ended up in the wheelchair because he’s been gored by a bull – a fate which an English audience will similarly rejoice at – it serves him right. And not just for tormenting those poor bulls, but for tormenting poor Davina as well. Jordan sets this up as an old-fashioned romance, but she mixes her time genres terribly – first she’s the image from a Renaissance portrait; then she’s a Victorian heroine; finally, we’re somewhere a Udolpho-like scene with the action situated somewhere in an eighteenth-century gothic novel. Some of the more romantic scenes are also a bit sketchy because Jordan clearly doesn’t know how to manage the mechanics of a sex scene featuring a man with a disability.

However, despite the oddity of the story, it’s all quite predictable. When the doctor tells Davina that the only way to get Roy/Ry walking again is for him to have a terrible shock – possibly get gored by another bull – you know that poor old Davina needs to brace herself to get gored by a bull so that Roy/Ry can leap out of his wheelchair and save her. (She wears a red blouse to effect this, leading Jordan to make the common error of believing that bulls react to red – they don’t – they’re colour-blind. They see yellow brighter than red).

So is this a terrible book, because of the dodgy un-PC content? Or is it a master stroke of literary genius from Jordan because Roy/Ry so clearly pays for his crimes in animal cruelty (including crimes against Davina). I might have said the latter but the ending is all too trite and conventionally happy (unless you’re a bull) with Davina forgiving him despite the fact that a crappy apology is all she gets for his years of mistreatment of her.

[Alexis-Morgan Roark · Rating 1 out of 5]

There are holes in this story like a MILE WIDE! I am all for "suspending belief" to enjoy a story, but you gotta have a lobotomy to choke down this one!

The whole scene in the bull pen is pure bullshi&!

[Fiona Marsden · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh joyful misunderstandings, evil Other Woman, lying family. What more could you ask for really?

Davina left her husband four years ago when he failed to turn up for the birth of their child. Ruy was supposedly with his true love, the woman he had argued with and then married the heroine as revenge. Yup, gotta love a guy who ties himself up to a sweet little innocent in order to punish his ex. If it were true.

Until Davina arrived at Ruy's family home in Portugal after their noneymoon, she believed she was living the fairy tale. Unfortunately her insecurities were no match for a lying mother in law and a stunningly attractive ex-girlfriend in a new country far away from home. When it all got too much, she ran, but now she is returning at the invitation of her husband, who wants to see his son.

Son needs a nice warm climate to recuperate, so Davina agrees, arriving only to find it wasn't Ruy who invited her but desperate Mother-in-law. Ruy is in a wheelchair, brother's wife is infertile, so Davina's son is the only hope for the dynasty.

Like a lot of Jordan's early romances, it relies heavily on misunderstandings, lying other people and heroine insecurity. This is particularly evident in this story where heroine wilfully misunderstands just about everything about heroes feelings, assuming he is pining for evil Ex. This did get a little annoying at times. But Jordan always brings it home even when the final denouement relies on a soap opera-ish sacrifice by the heroine for the sake of the hero. I enjoyed it.

[Julz · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars

Trainwreck maximum. I would write a review but willaful wrote it perfectly. Go read her's because I ditto it word for word.

[Maura · Rating 2 out of 5]

Davina married Ruy and was swept away by love and passion. But then she found out that he had married her to make another woman jealous. Then, after she'd given birth to their son (for which he was absent and she believed he was with his mistress), she left him and took their son with him. Some four years later, after receiving a note asking her to return, she inexplicably does. Because she supposedly loves him or something. Turns out though, he didn't write the note and he doesn't want her there. He's been in an awful accident and is paralyzed...he doesn't want her pity and he cannot face that she will never want him again.

Now, Ruy was pretty vicious. He was a cruel, sneering and emotionally abusive asshole. But truly, this is one story in which the hero's actions are completely understandable. He is in fact a caged tiger, unable to be the man he wants to be, forced to watch the woman he loves flirt with another guy and his only choice left is to lash out at the woman who has caused him all this pain. This is especially more understandable when we realize how much he loves her and that she left him without an explanation, breaking his heart . Davina is just an idiot. He must have indicated that he loved her twenty times and she never figured it out. She just kept feeling sorry for herself and harping on about how he must love Carmelita so much to still be hurting over her. Meanwhile, she's never mentioned by the hero, so this is just the tendency toward masochism on the heroine's part. Then, after copious warnings about rousing her husband's jealousy, she goes off and starts flirting outrageously with some other guy. She can see how angry it makes Ruy, but she keeps doing it. And considering how much she supposedly loves him, it certainly isn't helping her case any! I think with a stronger heroine, this could have been an excellent story. It really was well written and Ruy was spot on, although a little more grovel would have been nice.

[Desi · Rating 2 out of 5]

Leído el 23/04/2010

[Ellyn (Mrs. Darcy in my Dreams) · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was all misunderstandings, a simple lack of questions and answers! The only bad point is not getting to meet the OW! The mother should have explained all to H before the h even arrived if she truly wanted to help. I could have done with less of the bull fighting!

[Sandi *~The Pirate Wench~* · Rating 3 out of 5]

Better than most...

[MaryD · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very intense story of rejected love, lies, and intense passion.

[RomLibrary · Rating 3 out of 5]

Davina's love had long since died. It had been killed the night she'd given birth to their son while Ruy, her husband, had been dallying with another woman. Only for her child's sake was Davina now returning to Spain, to the aristocratic de Silvadores family - and to Ruy. But Ruy was changed beyond belief. What had once been a man of virile strength was now a devil of snarling bitterness confined to a wheelchair. And Davina was not prepared for this new assault on her emotions

[Roub · Rating 1 out of 5]

the book was too silly! i can't believe two people wud separate bcoz of a packed of lies,fictitious facts which they did not even bother to confirm. ruy and davina acted like two gauche teenagers! the author made the story too far-fetched for me and too much scheming in the past which was not explained clearly as if the author herself was confused as to what shud have had occurred lol!

[HÜLYA · Rating 2 out of 5]

Offff çok sinirlendim okurken yahu..Bu adamın seni aldattığından eminsin de ne diye dönüp kendini aşağılatırsın hadi ya ...Adam desen o ayrı bir çaylak annesi ve sevgilisi karısının onu aldattığını soyluyorlar o da inanıyor..Geri zekalı..
Kadına yapmadığı hakaret kalmadı..Kadın da onursuz gurursuz..

[Su · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the first romance books I have ever read. I liked it then, I don't know if I would still if I read it again.

[More Books Than Time · Rating 2 out of 5]

One of the worst Penny Jordan’s I have read. Can’t even call it a romance. H was full of self-pity and whined constantly about being less of a man because he was partially paralyzed. Our h was sorry for herself because H didn't love her, etc., etc. The mother in law felt guilty and the kid was working on getting as spoiled as possible. Ugh.

[Tricia Murphy · Rating 1 out of 5]

I could not finish it was so dumb. She was ridiculous, going off half cocked because her awful mother in law and other woman tell her lies and she takes them at their word without checking anything. What a dope of an h.

[Anai Arce · Rating 2 out of 5]

lenta

[FOTINI · Rating 5 out of 5]

perfect.....

[Aswathy · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don't know how Penny Jordan could have writte it... It's really a poorly written book....

[Myrna · Rating 2 out of 5]

Davina and a wheelchair-bound estranged husband

[James Saru · Rating 2 out of 5]

Es bastante perturbador.
Se que es de otra época pero eso no lo hace menos perturbador....