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Blue Jasmine
"You will go to a lonely place in the sands of the desert," the Arab diviner warned Lorna, "pursued by a man with dark hair."
Lorna scoffed. Her plans would not be spoiled by foolish tales.
But she was wrong. For now she found herself held captive by Kasim ben Hussayn—a man with the power to make people love him. Lorna wanted only to hate him!
Lorna scoffed. Her plans would not be spoiled by foolish tales.
But she was wrong. For now she found herself held captive by Kasim ben Hussayn—a man with the power to make people love him. Lorna wanted only to hate him!
186 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1969
3 people are currently reading
147 people want to read
About the author
Violet Winspear
175 books140 followersViolet Winspear was a British author renowned for her prolific output of romance novels, publishing seventy titles with Mills & Boon between 1961 and 1987. In 1973, she became a launch author for the Mills & Boon-Harlequin Presents line, known for its more sexually explicit content, alongside Anne Mather and Anne Hampson, two of the most popular and prolific British romance writers of the time. Winspear began writing while working in a factory and became a full-time novelist in 1963, producing her works from her home in South East England, researching exotic settings at her local library. She famously described her heroes as lean, strong, and captivating, “in need of love but capable of breathtaking passion and potency,” a characterization that provoked controversy in 1970 when she stated that her male protagonists were “capable of rape,” leading to considerable public backlash. Her novels are celebrated for their vivid, globe-spanning settings and dramatic tension, often employing sexual antagonism to heighten conflict between the alpha male hero and the heroine, who is frequently portrayed as naïve or overwhelmed by his dominance. Winspear never married or had children, and she passed away in January 1989 after a long battle with cancer, leaving a lasting influence on the romance genre.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
February 26, 2017
The only reason this one lost a star for me was the smoking!!!!
Omg!
It was nuts I had to pretend he was taking a shot of whiskey or a glass of water for her cause it was sooooo gross.
So much smoking and also too much taking baths and brushing hair.
Blah blah blah!
It would have been improved with a few wild love making scenes for sure but I loved that he tried to respect her space.
He was not a barbaric desert hero but a nature lover. It was a joy to read once but that's it!
Omg!
It was nuts I had to pretend he was taking a shot of whiskey or a glass of water for her cause it was sooooo gross.
So much smoking and also too much taking baths and brushing hair.
Blah blah blah!
It would have been improved with a few wild love making scenes for sure but I loved that he tried to respect her space.
He was not a barbaric desert hero but a nature lover. It was a joy to read once but that's it!
February 26, 2017
Right off the bat, I have to say that I don't like these desert romances with the willowy blonde heroine being ravished by the swarthy Sheikh. But because it is VW, I decided to give it a chance.
Surprisingly, it is not the cliche, racistish elements that bothered me (If things like that bothered me, I could probably not read a single Harlequin book since they are all filled with gross, cartoonish generalizations about all ethnicities). It was the incredible fact that VW managed to write a captive-captor story set in the desert and make it tedious, monotonous and boring! If I read trash, I expect to be entertained dammit!
The captivity was a succession of tea parties and lamb roast dinners inside the Sheikh's tent, alternated with horseback riding in the dunes. Even a sandstorm and a visit to the royal palace left me snoozing.
And the end was pretty terrible. Apparently, it was taboo either to the author or the editor to have the heroine marry even a half-
Arab so they made him the secret product of an affair between the Emir's Spanishe wife and a visiting French scholar. *eye roll* Pretty ironic really, since this "desert barbarian" actually handled the heroine with kid gloves. Apart from the original kidnapping, there was no hanky-panky until they were safely married, which is more than I can say for most other Harlequin heroes of assorted nationalities including European ones.
Surprisingly, it is not the cliche, racistish elements that bothered me (If things like that bothered me, I could probably not read a single Harlequin book since they are all filled with gross, cartoonish generalizations about all ethnicities). It was the incredible fact that VW managed to write a captive-captor story set in the desert and make it tedious, monotonous and boring! If I read trash, I expect to be entertained dammit!
The captivity was a succession of tea parties and lamb roast dinners inside the Sheikh's tent, alternated with horseback riding in the dunes. Even a sandstorm and a visit to the royal palace left me snoozing.
And the end was pretty terrible. Apparently, it was taboo either to the author or the editor to have the heroine marry even a half-
Arab so they made him the secret product of an affair between the Emir's Spanishe wife and a visiting French scholar. *eye roll* Pretty ironic really, since this "desert barbarian" actually handled the heroine with kid gloves. Apart from the original kidnapping, there was no hanky-panky until they were safely married, which is more than I can say for most other Harlequin heroes of assorted nationalities including European ones.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 2, 2012
This is the first book that Violet Winspear wrote. It was quite eloquent and evoked such vivid images of the desert. It's a book filled with the requisite amount of tension, chemistry and angst. The hero is quite scrumptious...and the heroine strong...though sometime she did drive me a bit batty.
It's beautifully written with a level of sophistication that you don't find in the newer HP's. The author leaves a lot up to the reader to decide and her subtle depiction of how they spend their evenings together kept me wondering if they had consummated the relationship or not. Even at the end, I couldn't really decide...I just know that if I had found him in my bedouin tent....we would not have been playing chess all night. : 0 )
It's beautifully written with a level of sophistication that you don't find in the newer HP's. The author leaves a lot up to the reader to decide and her subtle depiction of how they spend their evenings together kept me wondering if they had consummated the relationship or not. Even at the end, I couldn't really decide...I just know that if I had found him in my bedouin tent....we would not have been playing chess all night. : 0 )
September 10, 2010
"Quaint," is how I described it when I first began reading it after it had been recommended by a friend with certain common interests.
Quaint, but with definite elements of male dominance that made it a rather wistful read. Entertaining, preposterous in plot and stilted in dialogue, the real story took place between the presence and the pearls.
I'd read it again in a heartbeat.
Quaint, but with definite elements of male dominance that made it a rather wistful read. Entertaining, preposterous in plot and stilted in dialogue, the real story took place between the presence and the pearls.
I'd read it again in a heartbeat.
April 29, 2018
The nightingale sang in the garden where the blue jasmine starred the moonlit walls and Lorna no longer fled from the arms of her desert lover. Never would either of them be lonely again. They had searched and found the golden garden ... and it was the garden of love.
"Blue Jasmine" is the story of Lorna and Kasim.
Lorna is out visiting the desert in order to fulfill her late father's dying wish. When a veiled flute player prophecies about her being owned by a dark haired stranger, she scoffs him off, never knowing how soon it would come true.
When she is out exploring a desert Oasis despite warnings, she is kidnapped initially by a horse thief- and later rescued and re-kidnapped by Prince Kasim ben Hussayn, who makes her his captive. As Lorna desperately tries to escape, Kasim is adamant about keeping her, wooing her with soft words as well, romantic gestures and letting his land work its magic on her. Will Lorna be ultimately owned by a Desert King?
A quintessential Sheikh-Harem romance, this had a very aesthetic feel to it with dialogues resembling well written prose. The description of the land and people were accurately beautiful, with the author both respecting the Arab culture, as well as using the language Arabic aptly. The hero was quite sweet and obsessive, the heroine resilient yet obstinate- and this was so NOT the bodice ripper I was dreading.
Overall, a well written flowery romance- where the heroine eventually does give in.
Safe
4/5
"Blue Jasmine" is the story of Lorna and Kasim.
Lorna is out visiting the desert in order to fulfill her late father's dying wish. When a veiled flute player prophecies about her being owned by a dark haired stranger, she scoffs him off, never knowing how soon it would come true.
When she is out exploring a desert Oasis despite warnings, she is kidnapped initially by a horse thief- and later rescued and re-kidnapped by Prince Kasim ben Hussayn, who makes her his captive. As Lorna desperately tries to escape, Kasim is adamant about keeping her, wooing her with soft words as well, romantic gestures and letting his land work its magic on her. Will Lorna be ultimately owned by a Desert King?
A quintessential Sheikh-Harem romance, this had a very aesthetic feel to it with dialogues resembling well written prose. The description of the land and people were accurately beautiful, with the author both respecting the Arab culture, as well as using the language Arabic aptly. The hero was quite sweet and obsessive, the heroine resilient yet obstinate- and this was so NOT the bodice ripper I was dreading.
Overall, a well written flowery romance- where the heroine eventually does give in.
Safe
4/5
September 29, 2016
Originally published in hardcover in 1969 by Mills & Boon, Violet Winspear’s category line classic Blue Jasmine, had three Harlequin Romance line reprints by 1976. If there was to be a romance canon, Blue Jasmine might make the list.
But it’s impossible to review Blue Jasmine without the foundation of E. M. Hull’s The Sheik. It’s like trying to discuss Samuel Johnson without mentioning James Boswell. And really, why would you want to?
E(dith) M(aude) Hull’s (1919) The Sheik is, in fact, an even surer ringer for the romance canon (again, if such a thing existed). The Sheik’s Ahmed Ben Hassan was played by Rudolph Valentino in a 1921 film adaptation to audiences who just couldn’t believe it. As a romance subgenre, it’s a long-time market win.
The two novels are similar enough in storyline and character development that I’ve had students argue Blue Jasmine is plagiarized. I say instead that Blue Jasmine is a worthy tribute that imitates to flatter.
Take as a goose-pimpling example the scene when the heroine realizes she’s trapped in a tent with the sheik, surrounded by his loyal entourage in the middle of the desert, and there’s no escape from his animal spirits…
In The Sheik by EM Hull:
Why have you brought me here?” she asked, fighting down the fear that was growing more terrible every moment.
He repeated her words with a slow smile. “Why have I brought you here?” Bon Dieu! Are you not woman enough to know?
And in Blue Jasmine by Violet Winspear:
I have no need of your money, so I fear it cannot buy your freedom. There is only one thing that can, and you are a surpassing innocent if you don’t know what it is.”
She stared at him, her eyes like bruised flowers in her pale, shocked face. “I don’t know,” she whispered.
“Really?” His eyes flicked over her. “With your unusual looks, you tell me you don’t know what a man means when he brings you to his tent. Ma belle femme, I think you do know.
Both The Sheik and Blue Jasmine present typical Winspear heroes. Winspear presents heroes who “frighten but fascinate…the sort of men who are capable of rape: men it’s dangerous to be alone in the room with.” Winspear, however, likely wouldn’t have loved Ben Hassan. Sadly, Diana, the heroine of The Sheik, is raped off-scene, repeatedly, and for several months (until she falls in love, as any woman would).
Although Blue Jasmine‘s sheik, Kasim ben Hussayn is a Mr. Angrypants of the first order, heroine Lorna is yet spared rape. A Winspearean hero, a product of his time, would threaten, but never follow through (unless he was a captain of a sailing vessel).
As for the heroines, Blue Jasmine‘s Lorna is independent, saucy, up for adventure. Diana in The Shiek is presented as all these things, but, in addition: boyish and unfeeling, an interesting corruption of womanhood that in the first quarter of the twentieth century might demand correction more so than by the late 1960s. But, of course, both heroines fall for their captors, succumbing (in similarly described pivotal scenes) on a far side of the enemies-to-lovers trope continuum.
After all is said and done, Winspear’s heroine, like Hull’s, is revealed (thank the Almighty Christian God) to have fallen for a European. Today’s popular romance market might not balk with singular voice at a bona fide Arab hero (and all of our gods please bless this guy), but in 1919 and 1969, a sheik had to look like a Princeton man.
But it’s impossible to review Blue Jasmine without the foundation of E. M. Hull’s The Sheik. It’s like trying to discuss Samuel Johnson without mentioning James Boswell. And really, why would you want to?
E(dith) M(aude) Hull’s (1919) The Sheik is, in fact, an even surer ringer for the romance canon (again, if such a thing existed). The Sheik’s Ahmed Ben Hassan was played by Rudolph Valentino in a 1921 film adaptation to audiences who just couldn’t believe it. As a romance subgenre, it’s a long-time market win.
The two novels are similar enough in storyline and character development that I’ve had students argue Blue Jasmine is plagiarized. I say instead that Blue Jasmine is a worthy tribute that imitates to flatter.
Take as a goose-pimpling example the scene when the heroine realizes she’s trapped in a tent with the sheik, surrounded by his loyal entourage in the middle of the desert, and there’s no escape from his animal spirits…
In The Sheik by EM Hull:
Why have you brought me here?” she asked, fighting down the fear that was growing more terrible every moment.
He repeated her words with a slow smile. “Why have I brought you here?” Bon Dieu! Are you not woman enough to know?
And in Blue Jasmine by Violet Winspear:
I have no need of your money, so I fear it cannot buy your freedom. There is only one thing that can, and you are a surpassing innocent if you don’t know what it is.”
She stared at him, her eyes like bruised flowers in her pale, shocked face. “I don’t know,” she whispered.
“Really?” His eyes flicked over her. “With your unusual looks, you tell me you don’t know what a man means when he brings you to his tent. Ma belle femme, I think you do know.
Both The Sheik and Blue Jasmine present typical Winspear heroes. Winspear presents heroes who “frighten but fascinate…the sort of men who are capable of rape: men it’s dangerous to be alone in the room with.” Winspear, however, likely wouldn’t have loved Ben Hassan. Sadly, Diana, the heroine of The Sheik, is raped off-scene, repeatedly, and for several months (until she falls in love, as any woman would).
Although Blue Jasmine‘s sheik, Kasim ben Hussayn is a Mr. Angrypants of the first order, heroine Lorna is yet spared rape. A Winspearean hero, a product of his time, would threaten, but never follow through (unless he was a captain of a sailing vessel).
As for the heroines, Blue Jasmine‘s Lorna is independent, saucy, up for adventure. Diana in The Shiek is presented as all these things, but, in addition: boyish and unfeeling, an interesting corruption of womanhood that in the first quarter of the twentieth century might demand correction more so than by the late 1960s. But, of course, both heroines fall for their captors, succumbing (in similarly described pivotal scenes) on a far side of the enemies-to-lovers trope continuum.
After all is said and done, Winspear’s heroine, like Hull’s, is revealed (thank the Almighty Christian God) to have fallen for a European. Today’s popular romance market might not balk with singular voice at a bona fide Arab hero (and all of our gods please bless this guy), but in 1919 and 1969, a sheik had to look like a Princeton man.
September 24, 2010
(The stars I assigend to this book are probably based more on nostalgic childhood memories than on the merits of the book.) I first read this book at the tender age of about 8 years old. On a whim, I decided to find a copy and give it a read with my forty-something perspective. I find it a charming story with a fairy-tale quality.
October 25, 2017
Thoroughly cliched stuff. Love thy abductor. Desert Prince getting away with a spirited English traveler.
For mental comfort of the readers, the author turns him into a European by birth, at the end.
3 stars simply because of a likeable, sweet hero.
For mental comfort of the readers, the author turns him into a European by birth, at the end.
3 stars simply because of a likeable, sweet hero.
September 25, 2022
Yep, it was written in the 70's but it still made my skin crawl. Poor dumb blonde goes by herself out in to the desert and gets kidnapped. Poor girl is hit so hard by the Stockholm syndrome that I felt truly sorry for her.
June 24, 2017
WOW
Well written in a different era but I love the by-play! the hero - Respectful/lover yet dominating and controlling
Well written in a different era but I love the by-play! the hero - Respectful/lover yet dominating and controlling
July 2, 2024
This should be called the 'Blue Cheese ' specially when you are an African Arab like me ..The HEA is is just horrible ...
July 15, 2015
I picked this up at a thrift shop, curious to see how it was done in 1970. Some of it was plus ca change ("Time in the desert seemed timeless" -- E.L. James worthy prose, right there) and omg, racist!
Evidently being kidnapped by a bedouin is only okay if he's not actually a dirty, polygamous Arab (which is implied to be a genetic trait) but instead a civilized European raised as an Arab... irrational and skin crawling characterizations.
Also, evidently a convent education at the time included feminist ideals along the lines of "No man is the boss of me!"
I find it hard to believe this was ever "cool" but oh tempora and all that.
Evidently being kidnapped by a bedouin is only okay if he's not actually a dirty, polygamous Arab (which is implied to be a genetic trait) but instead a civilized European raised as an Arab... irrational and skin crawling characterizations.
Also, evidently a convent education at the time included feminist ideals along the lines of "No man is the boss of me!"
I find it hard to believe this was ever "cool" but oh tempora and all that.
pback-to-read
June 6, 2020You will go to a lonely place in the sands of the desert," the Arab diviner warned Lorna, "pursued by a man with dark hair."
Lorna scoffed. Her plans would not be spoiled by foolish tales.
But she was wrong. For now she found herself held captive by Kasim ben Hussayn—a man with the power to make people love him. Lorna wanted only to hate him!
Lorna scoffed. Her plans would not be spoiled by foolish tales.
But she was wrong. For now she found herself held captive by Kasim ben Hussayn—a man with the power to make people love him. Lorna wanted only to hate him!
Read
April 25, 2011Might have more then 4 copies
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews