Zebra Lovegram, $4.50, ISBN 0-8217-4218-3
Historical Romance, 1993

Jolene Prewitt-Parker’s Sweet Stolen Passion came out in 1993, close enough to the roaring 1980s, a time when romance novels tended to be on the epic side.

Such stories were really into throwing the flailing Heroine around from this country to that country, forcing the damsel to brave her way through a sea of lascivious men bent on forcibly stealing her virtue, until she meets that cute guy that makes her horny and she soon lifts up her skirt in the name of true love… and the turbulent drama that follows because there are still so many pages to go to the happily ever after.

Well, this is one such story.

It’s the 1600s and our French heroine Ameran Michol is about to be burned, accused by all the lascivious men whose horny paws she’d rejected to be a witch. She refuses to show remorse or confess, because she’s actually pretty awesome that way, and she is saved at the last minute by English admiral Lord Grayson Carlisle that just happens to be passing by with his men.

Struck by her beauty, he quickly woos the bloomers off her with compliments such as:

“Nay, my darling, I haven’t begun to show you the magnitude of my love for you.”

Sadly, he doesn’t rip open his shirt and does the Tarzan dance, so the line never really reaches a climax.

Ameran does reach hers, a few times in fact, until she is abandoned by Gray shortly after the ecstatic trip to the moon and back, to the machinations of the evil Gideon Horne, whom Gray considers a stalwart friend when it’s convenient and someone he doesn’t trust when that is what the plot dictates. Naturally, the plot dictates whichever action that will make life more difficult for our heroine, and in the process that makes the hero come off as sharp as a circle.

I’m getting ahead of myself, though. Ameran is the illegitimate daughter of King Charles II, however, and no, this is not a spoiler because this fact is revealed very early in the story, and the king wants her in his court, so I’m sure we can all guess which bloke is tasked to bring her to her father.

Can Ameran show Gray that their love is true and meant to be? Can she open his eyes to Gideon’s perpetual villainy that is so obvious even the simplest child in the village?

Oh, and there’s also this woman that simply hates, hates, hates Ameran for being awesome because why not.

I don’t know why Ameran bothers with Gray, to be honest, because that guy is dumb beyond belief. For example, she points out the obvious signs that Gideon is behind her initial attacked by the goonies episode, and he’s all “Uh… um…” before apparently forgetting the whole thing. The villains are so blatantly obvious that Gideon even cackles and gloats openly about how evil he is, but Gray just doesn’t get any of this until late into the story.

In the meantime, Ameran does pretty much everything to move the story on her own. Whether it’s saving herself or dealing with her father, she is truly the star of the show to the point that there are actually stretches of pages when Gray is gone and I never even realize until he shows up. Oh, there’s the hero. Whatever, I just hope he didn’t eat too many paint chips while he was away.

While it’s nice that this one has a kick-ass heroine that is smart and capable, the hero having the intellectual range of a toadstool means that the poor guy may as well be a talking vibrator for the heroine to enjoy after a hard day at being awesome. I like my romance stories to have the hero and the heroine both having equal moments to shine, but this one pretty much pushes the hero into a corner for people to laugh at what a dumb dumb he is.

In fact, the story takes a turn into the bizarre path when the heroine and her allies begin to try to keep the truth from the oblivious hero, as if the hero were too fragile to face facts and realize that he’s dumb. I can honestly say I don’t recall reading a romance in which the hero is too stupid to confront the truth and hence his fragile mind needs to be protected at all cost.

Aside from the hero basically having a “You definitely do not want this!” shining over his head, the heroine can also be a bit too awesome, to the point that there is nothing here that truly feels threatening. All the drama eventually becomes tedious filler instead of suspenseful. Oh, another conflict? Who cares, our heroine will have it sorted out in no time!

Still, a part of me still likes this one despite its flaws because, come on, look at the heroine. It’s not often I come across a romance story that has a heroine that can take care of herself, think and put things together, and make sensible decisions. Hence, three oogies, even if the heroine really deserved a smarter fellow to worship her awesomeness.

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