Status Updates From The Fall of a Saint (The Si...

1. The Abyssinian lovebirds~ were obviously ill-advised, but did Maddie forget that she bought Buttercup to spare her and her owner a worse fate?
2. It's a serious problem when the rapist!hero declares that he'll come to hate the heroine if she alienates his tenants and that he's already annoyed that her attitude towards him hasn't improved. St. Aldric has bought his own hype and so has Maggie, but I just can't.

It's hard to empathize with a hero after he sexually assaults the heroine, coerces her into marriage, and expects her to fall in line thereafter, even if he has a painful past. Of course, I knew the plot before I started, but I thought Christine Merrill would avoid rape apologism and forgiveness-as-obligation. She hasn't done so thus far and I'm giving up hope.