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Sequel to Sweet Savage Love
Desire -- savage, untamed and undeniable -- bound tempestuous Virginia Brandon to Steve Morgan,her magnificent, dangerous soldier of fortune. And in the blistering heat Of revolution's flames, they swore to love for an eternity and beyond.

Now explosive events have shattered their turbulent union -- tearing Steve and Ginny apart and casting them upon fateful tides flowing toward separate perils and faraway secret affairs. But no great distance, no sensuous betrayal, no treacherous intrigue of warrior or king can extinguish the brilliance of their majestic love. For their passion their destiny -- and it will blaze anew with a white hot intensity when their bodies at last entwine once more.

604 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1975

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About the author

Rosemary Rogers

113 books420 followers
There is more than one author with this name

Rosemary Jansz Navaratnam Rogers Kadison

Rosemary Jansz was born on 7 December 1932 in Panadura, British Ceylon (now known as Sri Lanka), she was the oldest child of Dutch-Portuguese settlers, Barbara "Allan" and Cyril Jansz. Her father was a wealthy educator who owned three posh private schools. She was raised in colonial splendor: dozens of servants, no work, summers at European spas, a chaperone everywhere she went. A dreamy child, she wrote her first novel at eight, and all through her teens scribbled madly romantic epics in imitation of her favorite writers: Sir Walter Scott, Alexandre Dumas and Rafael Sabatini.

At 17, Rosemary rebelled against a feudal upbringing and went to the University of Ceylon, where she studied three years. She horrified her family by taking a job as a reporter, and two years later marrying with Summa Navaratnam, a Ceylonese track star known as "the fastest man in Asia." The marriage had two daughters. Unhappily, he often sprinted after other women. Disappointed with her husband, in 1960, she moved with her two daughters and took off for London.

In Europe she met her future second husband, Leroy Rogers, an african-american. "He was the first man," she recalls, "who made me feel like a real woman." After getting a divorce from her first husband, she married Rogers in his home town, St. Louis, Missouri. They moved with her family to California, where she had two sons. Six years later, when that marriage broke up, Rosemary was left with four children to support on her $4,200 salary as a typist for the Solano County Parks Department. In 1969, in the face of a socialist takeover of Ceylon, her parents fled the island with only ?100, giving Rosemary two more dependents. At 37, the rich girl from Ceylon was on her uppers in Fairfield.

Every night for a year, Rogers worked to perfect a manuscript that she had written as a child, rewriting it 24 times. When she was satisfied with her work, she sent the manuscript to Avon, which quickly purchased the novel. That novel, ''Sweet Savage Love'', skyrocketed to the top of bestseller lists, and became one of the most popular historical romances of all time. Her second novel, ''Dark Fires'', sold two million copies in its first three months of release. Her first three novels sold a combined 10 million copies. The fourth, ''Wicked Loving Lies'' sold 3 million copies in its first month of publication. Rosemary Rogers became one of the legendaries "Avon Queens of Historical Romance". The difference between she and most of others romance writers is not the violence of her stories, it is the intensity. She says: "My heroines are me", and certainly her life could be one of her novels.

In September of 1984, Rosemary married a third time with Christopher Kadison, but it was a very brief marriage and they soon began to live apart. "I'd like to live with a man," she admits, "but I find men in real life don't come up to my fantasies. I want culture, spirit and sex all rolled up together."

Today single, Rosemary lives quietly in a small dramatic villa perched on a crag above the Pacific near Carmel. Her four children are now away from home and she continues to write.

Rosemary passed away at the age of 87 on November 12, 2019 in Carmel, California where she called home since the early 1970s.

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5 stars
463 (36%)
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409 (32%)
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290 (23%)
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66 (5%)
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25 (1%)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 50 reviews
Profile Image for Sarah Mac.
1,224 reviews
August 17, 2025
True story: I thought I’d culled this years ago after not liking Sweet Savage Love, but found it today while looking for a different book I wanted to cull (the sequel to that snorefest Wild Swan). So apparently I didn’t get rid of it. Go figure. 😬 But since the poor thing successfully hid for years—dodging my regular Donation Patrols, no less—I decided to give it a try. I respect that kind of tenacity in my bookshelves. 🙃

P.S. Still haven’t found Wild Swan 2. Perhaps it’s cowering in the secret spot where this book hid? Further investigation is necessary. 🧐
Profile Image for Hot Mess Sommelière ~ Caro.
1,486 reviews241 followers
November 22, 2022
Who is the biggest clown?

- Steve the wanna-be James Bond among the tasteless rapist turds
- Ginny, a deranged woman with Stockholm Syndrome and visions of grandeur
- Me, because I am actually trying to read book 2 in this shitty series

It's me, I'm the biggest clown.

I hate Steve, but what really grinds my gears is Ginny and Steve, together. And even apart, theirs is such an all-consuming love they simply cannot concentrate on anything else.

This book isn't all bad: the villainous Russian Prince Ivan is wildly entertaining and I loved reading about his shenanigans. He was is so bad! That was fun.

Halfway through I found a happy place to DNF this book, imagining that Steve got trampled to death by hippos and Ginny got over it somehow.

In my head she is living happily ever after in Paris and taking pottery classes. :)
Profile Image for Sammy Loves Books.
1,137 reviews1,679 followers
June 14, 2018
The sequel to Sweet Savage Love started out great but by page 300 it began to drag and just became a bore. Once again Ginny and Steve waste more time and energy trying to prove that they do not love one another. Ginny flaunts other men in Steve's face to make him jealous.

Ginny


Though Steve loves her, he thinks the worse of her in all things. He assumes that any man she flirts with is a lover of hers. Any bad situation in which Ginny becomes a victim is perceived as orchestrated by her. After pushing Ginny away, Steve actually admitted to himself on page 335 that he had just not wanted her to know his weakness. That weakness being that he loved her. He was so prideful that he refused to tell her he loved her until the very last paged of this long drawn out book.

Steve was a total jerk in Sweet Savage Love but I could never bring myself to hate him. However he and Ginny both drove me crazy in Dark Fires. I also grew tired of Steve's many lovers. More love scenes were spent with him and other woman, than with him and Ginny (his wife).

Steve Morgan

Ginny drove me mad throughout this book. After Steve left her, she was brutally attacked and went into shock. She then spent over 200 pages as a victim and a drug addict carelessly floating through life in a daze. Oh the Angst! Since Steve had hurt her, she refused to let him in on her secret. That secret being that she loved him, but was too prideful to let him know.

I won't give anything more of the plot away because there was so much that took place, I felt as if this book could have been three separate books. There was just so much going on. Dark Fires was so well written and would have been a solid 5 star if Ginny and Steve could have put their energies together to fight as one against all the conflicts instead of fighting each other.

I would have loved it if Steve and Ginny had worked together to uncover the evil that was the Russian prince. Or if they had teamed together to take down the wicked Toni Lassiter. That would have been so much better than all of this angst.

I don't believe I will ever be able to read another book involving this couple. But they are so memorable that I will never forget them. And for that I thank Rosemary Rogers.
Profile Image for Frances.
2 reviews2 followers
June 9, 2013
this review is comprised of three tumblr posts I wrote during the reading of DARK FIRES. Contains Spoilers!!! you have been warned : )

so…since my sister finally finished FLOWERS IN THE ATTIC, I decided to get stuck back into DARK FIRES (the sequel to SWEET SAVAGE LOVE which I read last year) and OMG Rosemary Rogers!!! So far Ginny and Steve have parted ways (after a mere seventeen pages of married bliss), Ginny was captured by blonde!Carl (booo!!) and ravished repeatedly against her will in a dungeon before she killed him. Then she was told she is actually the daughter of the Tsar and tricked into marrying this russian prince guy who drugs her with *’headache powders’ while attempting to whore her out to multiple men. Of course nobody realises she is being drugged, despite the fact that she just blobs around like a spaced out hippy, not even Steve- who cant decide whether he wants to slap or screw her.

Speaking of Steve…if Ginny would just communicate with him then nearly all their conflict would be over. He’s always like ‘you left me and hooked up with some russian dude and now you’re rubbing it in my face you whooooore!’ and then, instead of saying ‘no steve i was drugged and married against my will and i love you and only you’ she just says stuff like ‘why are you soo mean to meeee!!! WAAAHHH!’ or ‘believe what you want to believe, Steve…nothing I can say can change it’……..except, yes, Ginny you could TRY TELLING HIM THE TRUTH PROPERLY.

and I’m only halfway through…seriously…I am in anticipation for the amnesiac-assassin-Steve plotline which I heard about….

Honestly if you like books with lots of crazy shit, a breakneck pace, and just general ‘WHAT DID I JUST READ’ -ness…you should try Rosemary Rogers!

* (edit) turns out it was opium…which Steve realised all along and kept supplying her with while still berating her about her evil russian husband even though he knew that the guy was SECRETLY TURNING HER INTO AN OPIUM ADDICT. And Steve’s just like ‘Hah hah haaa…now that you’ve let me use your body for the zillionth time while still maintaining that you hate me…I HATE YOU WHOOOORE…and BTW you’re addicted to OPIUM, BITCH!’

which, of course, Ginny doesn’t believe

Apparently Steve & Ginny’s marriage was never annulled, so she’s not actually married to the russian dude (its so hard to keep track) so although Ginny knows Evil Russian Prince! has been drugging her, she still hates Steve more so she decides to run away with the prince to Russia and they go by boat and at one point the prince is like ‘you must be starting to like me, I can tell because I haven’t had to rape you for the past two weeks’ (i’m paraphrasing but he seriously says that). Anyway, she thinks she’s getting away with no hassle, and starts dreaming of balls and dances and bats called Bartok, when a strange ship pulls up alongside theirs.
GUESS WHO? Yeah it’s Steve (and Ginny’s dad, who has now decided he likes Steve after all) and he’s come to get Ginny back because although he hates her whore guts, he can’t bear to let her go. But Ginny’s all ‘Nuh uh, am gonna stay with the russian dude, because even though he drugs me and rapes me he STILL RESPECTS ME!! and calls me PRINCESSA!!!’
But Steve is like ‘You’re leaving with me bitch!”
And the prince is like ‘FUCK OFF’
and the random crew-members are like ‘WTF’
So Steve and the Prince end up having a swordfight to the death and Ginny’s eyes well up with reluctant tears because she thinks Steve is going to lose because the Prince is like mad-skilled but then Steve wins.
So they go back to the mainland and announce to society that they are married (and the book hits the halfway mark) and then Ginny fucks off to europe while Steve stays in the USA to simmer with rage and recieve cryptic letters informing him that Ginny is bedding dudes left right and center.

And now this Opera singer named Francesca has been introduced and she is desperate to get into Steve’s pants and you know he ain’t gonna resist.

So, three days ago, I finally finished DARK FIRES - the 604 page sequel to Rosemary Rogers’ SWEET SAVAGE LOVE. Unfortunately a lot (and I mean A LOT) of shit went down in the last 300 or so pages that I will most likely not be able to re-cap it all.

Okay, so Steve takes up with this opera singer named Francesca and decides to head south with her for some reason and then ditches her halfway through their journey because she was asking him too many questions or something. Well he learns that this guy who was in the chain gang/prison with him in the first book has been (MURDERED?) and his wife is now an ashamed prostitute, so Steve heads down to find out what’s up but unfortunately he contracts some disease (can remember what so lets just say SWAMP DISEASE) and he loses his memory. Fortunately he is nursed back to health by a native american woman (who is nanny to an outspoken red-haired teen named Missy - more on her in a mo) who, in order to protect him, tells Steve (and everyone else) that he is her husband MANOLO. Yeah, well….

Life is sweet in the southern swamps for a while until Billy-Boy Dozier, the foreman of a local plantation, decides to rape and murder Steve’s new wife. Although Steve is now Warrior!MANOLO, he is still Steve, and so vows revenge and breaks into Billy-Boy’s bedroom where he is screwing the lady-of-the-house Antoinette (Toni) Lassiter. After watching him stab and SCALP Billy-Boy, Toni reacts like any normal crazed villainess and begs Steve to rape her over her lover’s dead body. yeah……

MEANWHILE…in Europe, Ginny reveals that she wasn’t really sleeping with all those dudes she’s been hanging around with and that she is in fact surprise! pregnant with Steve’s babies. Her stepmother Sonya implores her to return to America and Ginny does so - giving birth to twins at Steve’s grandfather’s home. Some guy arrives to tell her that Steve (who is now Toni Lassiter’s new foreman/lover) has been causing trouble down south and can Ginny please go and sort him out.

It turns out Toni Lassiter is possibly the sickest bitch ever - a perverted, sadistic, manipulative stuck-up southern-belle hiding behind angelic blonde hair and blue eyes. She turns the amnesiac Steve into her own personal assassin in a bid to take over all the land in the south. Her cousin Nicholas Benoit is just as bad. Although the teenage Missy tries to convince Steve that he is not the man he has become (while daydreaming about his strong arms and dark eyes) he resists her, angered because she reminds him of another red-haired lady…and the mere thought of red hair and slanted green eyes PISSES HIM THE FUCK OFF…even when he can’t remember who the hell Ginny is.

When Ginny arrives she soon realises that Steve has no idea who he is (and yet still gets pissed off when he doesn’t recognise her). Befriending Missy by giving her a makeover, she throws a ball and has a bitchy exchange with Toni - who is both threatened and excited by Ginny’s beauty. Nicholas, meanwhile, wants to bang her. Sulky because Steve is paying more attention to Missy than to her, Ginny does what she always does at parties- dances like a whore - and gets Steve to make out with her against a wall in full view of all the guests. BUT HE STILL HAS NO IDEA WHO SHE IS. So he thinks she’s just some random whore and, egged on by Toni, he sneaks stealthily into her bedroom one night and rapes her. Just for shits and giggles you know. But he was nice about it…so that’s okay.

In retaliation Ginny puts out a warrant on his head - citing cattle stealing or something, because she doesn’t want to admit that her own amnesiac husband raped her. Some stuff happens and Toni, Steve and Nicholas travel somewhere where Steve randomly kills some dudes in a bar and then Toni and Nicholas decide to beat him almost to death and drag him by a rope through the town. Just for fun, you know. But Steve escapes and runs into FRANCESCA! who shelters him and restores his memory with her mere existence. They have sex for a while until he decides that he wants revenge on GINNY (WTF).

Back home, Toni seduces Missy’s brother Matt who has always had a crush on her, and gets him to kidnap Ginny and frame Steve for it. Once she has Ginny chained in her dungeon, she and Nicholas decide to rape her (of course) but sadly Steve shows up and kills Nicholas…yet only knocks Toni out. He drags Ginny off into the swamps, berating her for being a whore (because apparently being kidnapped and raped is somehow HER fault) and making her walk around naked. They argue and insult each other in circles until Ginny suddenly thinks fondly back to the first time he abducted her, when she was just an innocent girl, and remembers that she loves him after all. One glance into Steve’s eyes confirms that he too feels this way, despite the fact every word he has uttered in the past 600 pages confirms the opposite.

Well anyway, Toni and Matt somehow find them and Toni is all ‘LOL BABE I WAS TOTALLY JOKING WHEN I BEAT YOU HALF TO DEATH AND TRIED TO KILL YOU. SRSLY I LOVE YOU. LETS KILL GINNY AND MAKE LOVE ON HER CORPSE. BTW MATT SUCKS I WAS JUST USING HIM BECAUSE YOU DISAPPEARED!’ Well Matt is justifiably pissed over this speech and socks Toni one in the face, causing her to fall, moaning in pain, into the swamp (this scene is actually very well written - I was wincing, and actually felt horror over Toni’s fate - despite the fact that she is a despicable character) Ginny & Steve leave her fate to Matt, despite Ginny’s reservations and walk hand in hand into the sunset. Oh yeah, and Missy marries Steve’s nice, kind, attractive cousin Renaldo.

This book was intense. I admit that Steve and Ginny’s constant headbutting can be grating, but I do root for them as a couple. The story is crazy, but enthralling, and the villain is one you won’t forget - and it’s rare for me to get behind a female villain like this, but Toni is really a great introduction past the halfway mark. Although I didn’t really cover it, Missy & Renaldo’s romance is slow, sweet and provides good relief from the tempestuous saga of the two leads. There are two more books chronicling the story of Ginny and Steve - the third being LOST LOVE, LAST LOVE, which I’ll get around to at some point…but right now I need a time out on Rosemary Rogers! Steve, Ginny…it’s been real…
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Profile Image for MaryReadsRomance.
184 reviews
July 29, 2013
LOVED, LOVED Sweet Savage Love when it hit the book stands in the late 70's (yes, I was alive then LOL).

This book, and the follow up series, was shocking and HOT at that time and, like 50 Shades in recent years, revolutionized the entire romance genre then.

As much as I loved Sweet Savage Love, I really didn't like the follow up books as much as they put Ginny and Steve through too much continued melodrama and trauma and frankly it became somewhat absurd that they kept surviving and forgiving each other. They even had twin children which they virtually ignored! It just became a bit sordid and sad.

We fans had to beg for a happy ending and in the last book finally Steve and Ginny get one!

Still nostalgic about the whole series so giving it a 4 stars.
Profile Image for Maya.
174 reviews40 followers
dnf
May 29, 2024
oh my god there are FIVE books about these two morons???

but yes I’ll be tuning in 🤡

Edit: I genuinely cannot comprehend why every man is so desperate for this woman

Can she not catch a goddamn break
Profile Image for Nick Stewart.
216 reviews14 followers
May 17, 2025
It’s just as easy to become swept away (and along) by the melodramatic wave after wave of over the top crises as it is to feel bogged down by the all-consuming passion that drives Steve and Ginny into all manner of astonishing situations.

This is yet another of Rosemary Rogers’s doorstop sized sagas of lovers who don’t appear to like, trust, or respect one another but who are willing to forget the emotional and bodily harm they’ve consistently inflicted on each other for a good roll in the hay. Or the swamp which is how the book climaxes, so to speak.
Profile Image for Korey.
584 reviews18 followers
February 10, 2018
Buddy read with Nenia :)

This is bug fuck crazy and I wouldn't have it any other way. My mouth literally hung open at some of the craziness Rogers conjures up here. The plot twists are so nuts and so many wacky things happen that I was in a continuous state of delighted shock. Steve and Ginny don't actually spend a lot of time together so don't go into this expecting much in the way of romance, but there is a lot of action and depravity and unhinged creativity. I'm giving this the same star rating as Sweet Savage Love and I enjoyed both books roughly equally but I think this book did one significant thing better than that book, and one significant thing worse. This book did a better job of avoiding bloat and filler. Sweet Savage Love bogs down in a way this book doesn't. However, Steve has charm as a character in Sweet Savage Love that is missing here. We don't get to see snarky, sarcastic, wise cracking cool guy Steve here which was a disappointment.

On the one hand, I'd love to lovingly catalog every crazy thing that happens here. On the other hand, I feel like I might be doing a disservice to anyone reading this review if I spoil every twisted surprise. So I'm going to provide a very abbreviated list of some of the special things that happen in text. Consider this your spoiler warning and don't read on if you wish to avoid spoilers.

Scheming Russian Prince and evil doctor sidekick. "Headache powder." Kung fu fighting. Rape. Murder. Typhus induced amnesia. Secret pregnancy. Assassin! Hate sex. Miscommunication. Mistaken Identity. Infidelity? Kidnapping. Evil Toni. Opera. Mystical Native American lady healer. Angry ballroom dancing. Bounty hunting.

Obviously don't go into this expecting realistic characters or a plot bound by the conventions of our Earth logic but if you're in the mood for wild spectacle you could do a lot worse. Let yourself have the fun of watching two hateful sex robots get tortured by the cruel hand of fate for 600 pages.
Profile Image for Chrisangel.
382 reviews11 followers
April 29, 2022
I read the Steve and Ginny trilogy, and didn't care for most of Book One (too much violence, time apart, rape and infidelity, not to mention forced prostitution) and HATED Book Three (no reason to write it, and too much adultery) but Book Two is another story!

I surprised myself by checking it out, since I wasn't overly impressed with the prior book, but curiosity got the better of me, and I'm glad it did. While the story's as believable as Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny buying the Brooklyn Bridge, then selling it to the tooth Fairy and the Great Pumpkin, who then rent it out to the Jolly Green Giant, so he can impress the Pillsbury Doughboy, who just won the Publisher's Clearinghouse Sweepstakes, but all the same, it's one hell of an entertaining novel!
Profile Image for Terri's Dangerous When Reading.
898 reviews13 followers
September 22, 2025
This was a big one for me. "Sweet Savage Love" was the book that made me fall in love with reading romance novels and "Dark Fires" was the second book in that continuing series. I first read it in the early 70's. Before that I was a big fan of Gothic novels but "Sweet Savage Love" was so different. There was a heroine at odds with the hero. They were attracted and yet sometimes I thought they were enemies. So much chemistry, so much cruelty. I think if this book wasn't the one that started the term "bodice ripper" it should have been. Feminism has come a long way since this book was published and it doesn't suit modern women but back in the day this book was a page turner!
Profile Image for Nikz Westbrook.
1 review
August 2, 2013
The first romance novel I had read, which got me hooked into romance novels as a teenager and fell in love instantly...the characters, the history, the countries and the author. I couldnt put it down, and still to this day I go back to it and read my favourite parts even with my book falling apart...will always be one of my all time favourites....Ginny & Steve
Profile Image for Caroline.
Author 3 books50 followers
November 30, 2018
The heroine and hero are so stupid that it's distracting. I don't mind character flaws, but stupidity isn't one of them. It ruined the book for me.

**I can't remember reading this! Re-read is called for!
22 reviews
November 24, 2013
I love the entire Dominic Challenger series... it's so captivating and makes me want to keep reading more and more! 100% recommend it.
Profile Image for Joe.
223 reviews29 followers
April 9, 2024
I’m hard pressed to call Dark Fires a romance because there’s little-to-no romance in it at all. In fact, it’s more of a frustrating adventure novel chronicling the continuing saga of Steve and Ginny — two individuals who should never be in a relationship, let alone in the same room.

In this sequel to Rosemary Roger’s best-selling, genre defining, bodice ripper romance novel Sweet Savage Love we check in on Steve and Ginny who are living a quiet, somewhat happy life in Mexico during the tail end of the late 1800s Mexican revolution but that bliss is short lived in typical Rosemary Rogers fashion. Steve is called off to duty. Ginny is left to her own devices. And myriad misunderstandings ensue.

Broken up into two parts, Book One follows Ginny and is easily the best half of the novel. Steve is tricked into believing Ginny is being unfaithful so he ditches her without just cause. Meanwhile, Ginny is relentlessly pursued by former beau Carl, learns her marriage to Steve has been annulled, “rescued” and tricked into marriage by evil Russian Prince Ivan, informed she is actually the daughter of the current Russian Tsar, develops a casual addiction to her “headache powders” and “tonics”, and listlessly bops around San Francisco high society wondering where the heck is Steve?

Book Two follows Steve, who starts a relationship with famed opera singer Francesca di Paoli. After a bout of typhoid leaves him stranded with amnesia in the swamps of Southern Louisiana, Steve has no recollection of Francesca and a persistent memory of a green-eyed, copper haired woman (Ginny). Steve hooks up with the Indian woman who saves him and when that doesn’t work out eventually finds himself the lover of and hired assassin for the beyond evil villainess Toni Lassiter (girlfriend is seriously messed up, for real). Yet, he consistently tries to recall who is this green-eyed woman that haunts his memories and why?

These separate parts are also why Dark Fires is so disappointing as a “romance”. What made Sweet Savage Love so much fun is Steve and Ginny spend 90% of the novel together getting into and out of one over-the-top situation after another. Even though they loved to hate each other it was still easy to buy into the “romance” of it all.

In Dark Fires Steve and Ginny spend 90% of the novel apart from one another. When they do think of each other they become immediately angry. Ginny doesn’t know if she wants to slap or screw Steve, and Steve doesn’t know if he wants to beat or bang Ginny because literally sex — hot angry sex — is all these two have in common.

Plus, every situation, every misunderstanding could be resolved with a simple conversation. For example, Ginny is led to believe the Russian Tsar is her father but at no point does she consider actually asking her dad, Senator Brandon who is a major side character, if this is true. She just believes it. Steve is tricked into believing Ginny cheated on him but instead of talking to her he just packs up his stuff and leaves but only after beating up her former beau Carl. People in love don’t behave like this. It’s frustrating.

I believe there’s at least 2 or maybe 3 more novels in the Steve and Ginny saga but Dark Fires is where I call it quits. I’ve reached my limit of the irritating situations Rosemary Rogers puts these two through for the sake of a lukewarm toxic “romance”.
Profile Image for Suzy Vero.
467 reviews16 followers
July 12, 2023
Dark Fires (1975) and Lost Love, Last Love (1980) by Rosemary Rogers continue the epic love story of Steve and Ginny that began in Sweet Savage Love and that would be completed in Savage Desire. It has been decades since I read them and this reread was emotionally painful. I’d forgotten how intense and how savagely awful Steve and Ginny were to each other! It was a contest of wills… full of mistrust, misunderstanding, melodrama, meanness and infidelity.

Both books which begin and end with Steve and Ginny together, reconciled, professing love for each other, are convoluted bodice ripping stories where their paths cross but they are not together for long. Much of the stories are about them with other people… lovers, mistresses … infidelity and cruelty in abundance. Steve while suffering amnesia doesn’t know who Ginny is and accosts her, ties her to a bed, gags her and rapes her. He kills others, gets imprisoned, tortured, and nearly hung twice. Ginny runs off with other men, becomes addicted to opium, takes lovers, has two other husbands, suffers blindness, and taunts Steve with scandalous behavior. Throughout the stories Steve comes to Ginny’s rescue.

These two books as far as I can tell, are not available as ebooks. Absolutely great writing… Steve and Ginny come alive on the pages. However, we don’t see very much character development for Steve and Ginny … both are still impetuous and selfish.… that happens in the next book Savage Desire.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
31 reviews
May 4, 2024
The story was a complete disaster. Just like the relationship between Steve and Ginny. Both are idiots and I've had some crappy relationships but I feel pretty stable comparing myself to these two. I know it's fiction. The sections were disjointed, again, just like the relationships. The "hero" is shagging women across the United States. The "heroine" in a bit of sexism (yes, I know it's rampant in this genre) it is alluded to as being "escorted" across Europe. She is married, there's an annulment, married again. Then people die. Lots of people die as these two cut a swath of of pain for everyone across the US and Mexico. Don Francisco should have been featured more prominently as the voice of reason a long with Renaldo, and it would have been a welcome break from the mayhem to have something more scripted on Renaldo and Melissa rifing off happily ever after. But the story ends with the same confusing "I love you/I hate you" nonsense as was woven through the 500 and some pages. Onto the next one though.
Profile Image for Lori.
Author 18 books91 followers
August 12, 2025
Who can't help falling in love with Steve and Ginny Morgan's story? Rosemary Rogers was one of the first authors I fell in love with when I was in high school.

This series is still everything I remember and loved. Emotional, violent, wild steamy love affair that spans time.

Steve and Ginny bring out the worst in each other but no matter how much they fight and fall apart they have this love, a bond that nothing breaks. It doesn't matter where they end up they always return to each other.
Profile Image for BURMA.
220 reviews
August 23, 2017
Better even that the first one in the series! Not many explanations in the end but still great!
This no-explanation between them about the events which happened is completely alíen to my personality. That's the reason why it is so surprising to me the happy end. Or maybe not so happy. Anyway, a very entertaining reading! Really original.
Profile Image for Melanie.
41 reviews24 followers
January 27, 2020
At times, reading this novel was similar to being bitch-slapped continuously (pleasantly),
with each plot twist my head was bounced in a different direction...
This is certifiable, old fashioned BR craziness.
699 reviews1 follower
July 22, 2019
Read this years ago & liked it much (of course, I was in my romantic 20's)
Profile Image for ♥︎♥︎Sofia♥︎♥︎.
949 reviews3 followers
Read
February 26, 2020
I’ll admit to skimming through great swaths of this book. There was just so much eye-rolling one can do before they pop clean out my head.
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