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Valley of No Return
Ancient legends, dark forests...and murder
192 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published September 17, 2010
15 people are currently reading
64 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
August 27, 2011
How are books like this still getting written, let alone published? I understand wanting to read something quick, easy, and satisfying to one's id, but this is just--shit. Classist, Orientalist, sexist shit. The plot is ridiculous, the characters make no sense, the porn isn't even PORN (her hand found his hardness? come on now!), and it reinforces pretty much ever stupid, prejudiced idea our society has managed to come up with.
I just wanted something to amuse me for a little while. I didn't want to end up on goodreads ranting about mass-produced schlock. It makes me feel like a elitist meanie, tearing down other people's pleasure. But books like this are trash. Not because they're romances--a romance is just a book with a relationship at its core, just like a mystery is simply a book with an enigma as its plot. But because they're so lazy. Tiffany tells the sheikh she speaks French and he is amazed. Fifteen pages later, she tells the sheikh she speaks French, and he acts just as surprised as the first time. Holes like this are so common in Saved by the Sheikh that they're practically punctuation. The characters are just mishmashed conglomerations of every romance cliche out there: he's brutally manly, yet cold as ice! she's sensual and feminine, yet so naive she can barely feed herself! She works at a sex club without realizing its a sex club! He thinks she's a filthy slut! He takes her virginity! She gets pregnant! He assumes she's a gold digging whore and tells her so repeatedly! She cries and tells him she just wants a white picket fence! (this actually happens, I swear to god) For no apparent reason, he decides she's not lying. He declares his love for her! Then the book ends!
And then I kill myself out of hatred. I swear, if it hadn't been an ebook, I'd have burnt it. The world would be a better place without filth like this in it.
I just wanted something to amuse me for a little while. I didn't want to end up on goodreads ranting about mass-produced schlock. It makes me feel like a elitist meanie, tearing down other people's pleasure. But books like this are trash. Not because they're romances--a romance is just a book with a relationship at its core, just like a mystery is simply a book with an enigma as its plot. But because they're so lazy. Tiffany tells the sheikh she speaks French and he is amazed. Fifteen pages later, she tells the sheikh she speaks French, and he acts just as surprised as the first time. Holes like this are so common in Saved by the Sheikh that they're practically punctuation. The characters are just mishmashed conglomerations of every romance cliche out there: he's brutally manly, yet cold as ice! she's sensual and feminine, yet so naive she can barely feed herself! She works at a sex club without realizing its a sex club! He thinks she's a filthy slut! He takes her virginity! She gets pregnant! He assumes she's a gold digging whore and tells her so repeatedly! She cries and tells him she just wants a white picket fence! (this actually happens, I swear to god) For no apparent reason, he decides she's not lying. He declares his love for her! Then the book ends!
And then I kill myself out of hatred. I swear, if it hadn't been an ebook, I'd have burnt it. The world would be a better place without filth like this in it.
June 18, 2017
Leído el 03/10/2012
June 26, 2012
Okay...confession time. There is a week to go before the end of the year and I still need to read 2 books to meet my Good Reads challenge goal of 75 books. I have one book I am nearly finished, but I need to pull a rabbit out of a hat (or a quick read out of the cupboard).
Flashback to uni days when in my late teens I use to devour these books by the bucket load. Quick and easy reads....easily achievable to finish within 2-3 hours. So I cheated. I asked my Mum for a stash of her books and I met my quota for the year :-).
This was bad. Actually it was BAD. Characters were horrible. Story was horrible (hmm...let me see...Sheikh thinks girl is a prostitute but sleeps with her anyway. Even though he uses a condom she still gets pregnant. She wants to do the honourable thing so tracks him down to tell him. He is wealthy Sheikh... Yeah. PAINFUL and the title was just hideous....!).
Over the past few years I have moved away from these books and gotten into the paranormal reads where you occasionally come across a kick-ass buffyesqye female character. Not so here. Save some brain cells and give this one a miss...
Flashback to uni days when in my late teens I use to devour these books by the bucket load. Quick and easy reads....easily achievable to finish within 2-3 hours. So I cheated. I asked my Mum for a stash of her books and I met my quota for the year :-).
This was bad. Actually it was BAD. Characters were horrible. Story was horrible (hmm...let me see...Sheikh thinks girl is a prostitute but sleeps with her anyway. Even though he uses a condom she still gets pregnant. She wants to do the honourable thing so tracks him down to tell him. He is wealthy Sheikh... Yeah. PAINFUL and the title was just hideous....!).
Over the past few years I have moved away from these books and gotten into the paranormal reads where you occasionally come across a kick-ass buffyesqye female character. Not so here. Save some brain cells and give this one a miss...
July 31, 2024
Rafiq, típico hombre acostumbrado a salirse con la suya, desconfiado por el entorno en el cual se crió, la vida le jugó una pasada con la típica consecuencia de una noche de pasión. Pobre Jeque! 🙃 Ella muy ingenua, que le dé gracias a Dios que solo eso le sucedió y que a pesar de que todo salió bien al final, su experiencia es algo a considerar. Todo esto es dejando a un lado lo sexual, la diferencia de culturas y otros factores más...
May 1, 2019
Regular
Iba bien la historia, hasta que al acercarse el final, todo se hace de manera muy breve, podría haberse desarrollado más.
Iba bien la historia, hasta que al acercarse el final, todo se hace de manera muy breve, podría haberse desarrollado más.
June 5, 2017
After reading Tessa Radley's The Untamed Sheikh where Rafiq's brother Shafir had his HEA, I was happy to find that Rafiq Al Dhahara got his HEA in this book.
While some readers could find the heroine, Tiffany, unlikable or possible unrealistic due to her naivete - such as not realising the type of bar she was working in when she met Rafiq at the opening of the book and taking Rafiq's business card at face value when she visits him in his home country. Personally, I found that coupled with her background that naivete made sense and fit the story. Overall this is a story I have enjoyed reading each time I've read it.
With both Rafiq and Shafir finding their HEA's with Kiwi heroines, I'm looking forward to seeing what the author comes up with for the final brother Khalid's book.
While some readers could find the heroine, Tiffany, unlikable or possible unrealistic due to her naivete - such as not realising the type of bar she was working in when she met Rafiq at the opening of the book and taking Rafiq's business card at face value when she visits him in his home country. Personally, I found that coupled with her background that naivete made sense and fit the story. Overall this is a story I have enjoyed reading each time I've read it.
With both Rafiq and Shafir finding their HEA's with Kiwi heroines, I'm looking forward to seeing what the author comes up with for the final brother Khalid's book.
July 12, 2023
This was so dreadful I can barely bring myself to talk about it. Tiffany (and what a dreadful name for the heroine!) is such a boring, presumptuous, priggish female. Everything about this story was predictable and embodied the worst kind of patronising descriptions of Asia and the Middle East. Boring - just utterly terrible.
September 27, 2013
I found Tiffany to be whiny, repetitive, and downright annoying. I didn't like the characters, at all. Neither the plot. Talk about bad writing!
October 20, 2013
liked it a lot...until it just ended.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews