Bodice Ripper Readers Anonymous discussion

I have had this book on my shelf for a while and decided to start it this weekend. When I grab it off my bookshelf I noticed that the cover says "A magnificent romance in the tradition of Wicked Loving Lies" and I thought "Well now I really want to read this!" I know some of you read WLL in the buddy read started by Karla so if you enjoyed that maybe you might want to read this with me!

Flowers of Fire by Stephanie Blake


Descriptions from Goodreads: From the Irish revolution to the American Civil War, from the slave plantations of the South Seas to the Wild West, this sweeping love story follows the tumultuous life of a strong-willed woman and the two men who engulfed her in their passion and fought for her love.
RAVENA -- the stunningly beautiful woman who is torn between twin brothers, one whom she hates and detests but is forced to marry, the other whom she loves deeply but cannot have.
ROGER -- the treacherous, twisted brother who, through lies and deception, takes lovely Ravena for his own.
BRIAN -- the rogue who said, "Hate me or love me, but never forget me," and captured Ravena's heart for all time.

GoodReads Rating: This book is unrated on GoodReads so I think for the common good of the GoodReads community we have an obligation to read and review this bodice ripper! Think of it as your GoodReads civic duty. :)

Avalability: This book is out of print but it shouldn't be to difficult to hunt down.
Paperbackswap has several copies avalable (You can buy credits for 3 bucks or so if you don't have any or are new to paperbackswap. It is awesome!)
Amazon also has a few used copies avalable.
Of course check out your local used bookstore.

I hope some of you will join me! I will be starting this in the next day or two but feel free to jump in anytime this month! I will be checking in here as I read!

I'm in. The HF about Nell Gwyn I'm reading is boring me to bloody tears. I can finish that up fast and tuck into this one, which I've had on the TBR for a few years now.

Oh, and I take my mission to correct those "0.0 stars, 0 ratings" very seriously.

Too early to tell yet, although I do wish authors would think about when they're writing. To have a description of family resemblances include the phrase "genes and chromosomes" in a story that takes place in 1847 is a wee bit jarring.

I'm really liking the Irish rebel storyline - nice companion plot since I've recently read Stormfire. Brian is a more toned-down Sean Culhane, and I have a feeling at the part I'm at now, he's going to find the Irish have problems in America like they do in the old country.

Apart from a bit of too-modern language here and there, it's going nicely! On page 60.

Oy vey! Decisions....decisions.... ;)

I'm around page 40... it's just meh so far. The slightly modern language is thowing me a bit too. I'm waiting for some dramma to kick in between the brothers!

Not liking this book much at all. It's a weird "more historical than romance" hybrid overall, IMO. Characters pontificate about the issues and sound like psychics about how things will end up. The heroine is reminding me a lot of Ashton Main from Jakes' "North and South" - quite a slut, but not as mean as Ashton. (I love Ashton, and if Ravena had some of that meanness, at least she'd be entertaining.) Her feminist rants are far more jarring than Marisa's in WLL which had some subtlety. Ravena's don't.

Characterizations are pretty thin. The 3 characters on the back aren't really interacting at all. I guess this was Blake's first book? If so, it shows it. I'll keep reading because it's moderately interesting. It's just not good.

Yeah, this could be one you might want to pass on.

I am struggling with this one a bit too. On page 74 and I am just interested enough that I know I will keep reading it, but not so much that I am excited about it. We will see... hopefully it will pick up.

As I have been reading this I just could not shake the suspicion that it reads more like what a man might think a woman's thoughts and motivations would be.... it just seems a bit off. I know some men wrote/write romance novels and use pseudonyms so I looked up Stephanie Blake. Yup! Guys real name is Jack Pearl! From what I can tell, this was his second book after Callie Knight.

Getting more and more convinced that "Stephanie Blake" is actually a Stephen. If the writing style hadn't made me think so before, the long & dry Civil War battle recaps certainly did.

This is not a bodice ripper at all, IMO. It's like a cut-rate John Jakes book. At least so far on page 182 it's reading that way.

ETA: Hah! You posted while I was typing. my suspicions were right! :D

LOL! Great minds think alike Karla! :)

I'd have posted first, except I was starting to watch Dynasty for the first time ever (John Forsythe RIP) and my fingers were hovering over the keyboard as my eyes were glued to the screen. So my sudden, odd fascination with Bo Hopkins (of all people! but such pretty eyes) let you get the jump on me. LMAO

I'm very curious about Jennifer Wilde's stuff, though. That was a guy. Maybe it's more romancey than Blake, which really reads like a guy trying to write romance but it just sounds crass and tough.

Maybe it's just my bias, but brief sex scenes don't read so badly in Colleen McCullough's Roman novels as they do in John Jakes' stuff, even though McCullough's prose is pretty unsentimental. Shame on me for assigning gender attributes! :P

Has anyone read Wilde? I've got a few, all unread. (Well, I read part of Dare to Love back in high school and never finished it for some reason. The subject matter will interest me more now, I think - Liszt, Wagner, thinly-disguised Lola Montez) Angel in Scarlet will probably be the first I read since it's about the theater.

Yeah, I'm finding a lot of the historical and romance books I've gotten have some pub dates going back to the 40s and 50s. But they have a 70s romancey cover. Like Jan Cox Speas. Won't make me like them any less, but there's always that moment of disappointment or period of "Just what the hell am I reading??" to go through.

My anal retentive moment:

Caught a historical goof. There was no such thing as a Booth Theater in Washington DC during the Civil War. Booth's Theater wasn't built until 1869, and it was in New York. The Booths were famous during the war, but not to the point of having theaters named after them.

That's why novels about silent film have never satisfied me. Too many authors don't know their ass from their elbow. Yet I keep reading and hoping. :P

Karla wrote: ... Like Jan Cox Speas. Won't make me like..."

I just bought 3 of her books at the UBS. Have you read any of her books yet?

No, I haven't. But Bride of the MacHugh is my mother's favorite romance. As in EVER. Apparently the hero Alexander MacHugh is quite swoonworthy. Good enough for me!

I'm done with FoF. What an excruciating "romance" that was. It was only "meh" as a historical. I have more of Blake's books, but they won't be topping the TBR anytime soon.

Karla wrote: "I'm done with FoF. What an excruciating "romance" that was. It was only "meh" as a historical. I have more of Blake's books, but they won't be topping the TBR anytime soon."


All done? I'm still only on page 110 or so... I am going go finish it... eventually :)

Yeah, I was motivated to finish it to go onto something better. I can't read more than one book at a time and I can't set books aside and come back to them. Attention span won't allow it. :P

Oh I tend to read at least two at a time. Usually one on my Kindle and one "dead-tree" book. My Kindle book right now is winning most of my reading time :) I have been reading at least one or two chapters of this one every day. I will get it done.

Great review BTW! Took care of that 0.00 rating! Mission accomplished! :)

I now have 2 copies of this book, so if anyone wants one, PM me.

I'm at the half way point, pg 220. It's not sooooo bad. The characters are pretty flat and the author does have a tendency to info dump..... but I can't really say that I am hating it or anything. There is enough drama to keep me going :) Twin brothers, one on each side of the civil war, and one woman married to one brother but sleeping with the other.... could be worse! I think I am going to try and finish it up this weekend.

Finished this today :) Entertaining enough to keep my interest even if I was rolling my eyes the whole time. (Custer's last stand, Butch Cassidy, Scarlett O'Hera? Really???)

I will be posting a review sometime soon, but just some initial thoughts:

The characters were flat, nothing to them. No mixed emotions, no turmoil, I didn't understand their motivations for anything they did, just flat flat flat. Eck!

The ending was frustrating for me. It just kinda ends. No indication of how things work out for Roger or how Ravina chooses to deal with her marriage to him. You know that Ravina and Brian are together but I still can't call it an "emotionally satisfying ending". We are dealing with some pretty complicated family dynamics with Roger, Brian, Ravina and Sabrina but not really given any indication about how that all works out. Very frustrating. The author just doesn't get it!

The prologue's at the beginning of each book are ridiculous. The voice just does not match up with the rest of the book and it really thew me off. Completely unnecessary and just confusing for me I guess.

I could go on... there were lot's of things wrong with this book, but I don't know, maybe I am in a forgiving mood... I still enjoyed it. :) Can't really call it a bad read. (Maybe a bad romance tho)

Yeah, that was my thought...bad romance, but not bad bare-bones/superficial historical. I'm reading a book now (Master of Rosewood) that also is lacking in characterization and stuff doesn't match up (or have a point). Hate to be sexist, but both books were written by guys and maybe I just expect more from a book than what they're capable of dishing out in the romance-ish territory.

I mean, MoR has more description about some kidnapped free black getting sodomized by a Haitian slave-sorcerer than the heroine does about her hair color. I'm still pretty foggy on just what she looks like because I can't recall the author ever telling me! It's not even really a plantation novel, but some corny southern Scarlet Pimpernel kind of thing. Still, it'll be 3 stars unless something goes horribly wrong.

Finally got around to writing my review.