Dear God Almighty, it's Georgina Gentry
Okay, to start with my first string of Romance novel reviews, I decided to start with Ms. Gentry's work.
My love for romance novels began exactly with the reading of the Time-Swept Warrior by Ms. Gentry. It wasn't the first novel I read as a wee 13 year old (I remembered my first was the Enchantress Mine and my mom tried to read the Saracen Blade for a bedtime story that bored the snot out of all of us).
Enchantress Mine was much too much of a highly sexualised late 70's story for myself to digest. For even though I cannot call myself girly and protected, I just couldn't understand the wording and behaviour the people did.
So Georgina Gentry was a shorter step on the stairs to getting to know romance. Time Swept Warrior was a western time travel involving the huge blue-eyed modern heroine going back in time to save a mixed-race warrior (the half-white and half-native american kind of dude). I appreciated this one a lot more because the story had time to focus on characterisation, and the girl was sort of modern, so despite that she was VERY TSTL, at least Ms. Gentry put in her thoughts as to why she did it, ridiculous as they were.
It also helped for Ms. Gentry that this reader also had a massive crush on War Cry, so I found myself hoping for this one's salvation, and therefore drift along the current of the plot.
So, I had a lot of feeling of nostalgia for Time Swept Warrior. I liked it as a kid, and it helped rev me up to take on the other more risque books my mom had in her collection.
Which was why I was a little awe-struck when I found another of her work on the donation box of a local library. Sweet! A FREE novel from an author I actually knew!
So I smuggled it in my purse before going back to my mom's car (who had serious ISSUES with anything that looks old and tattered).
And I had to say, it SUCKED.
At first I was a little irked by the fact that she wrote yet another story about a white chick meeting a mixed native american (Trying not to use half-breed here). It was a year after I went under Mme. Webster's tutelage, who taught me many things on history of modern colonialsim, especially on the patronizing image of 'The Noble Savage' used since the 19th century. Even watching old movies tickling on the aspect of stereotypes on other races set a grim line on my mouth. The Bitter Tea of General Yen (1933) and a few of Rudolph Valentino's movies used to piss me off a bit. When I was 14 I developed a serious obsession over oriental men, and I didn't lose it until I was 17 and found a new love for men in togas when I found roman history fascinating. So during those years I was eagerly searching for romances involving austere and strong men from the East. Even though I absolutely HATED the typical sexual interactions of men dominating over weak women, and absolutely HATED the sexual intrigue between oriental women (I also hate kung-fu movies that are not made by Jackie Chan), so it's really hard to find what I had liked.
As of yet, I only found the Bitter Tea of General Yen. I found the couple awesome, but I hated how patronizing the story went and how it made the main guy commit suicide. It was almost as if, 'the romance is ONLY okay to show if it's tragic and unfulfilled'. I also found how the romance is only possible if the guy was educated in the western ways, yet still unlikeable by having the worst stereotypes stuck on him.
Like let's look at Rudolph Valentino and his Shiekh characters. They always seem to kidnap women/go rough on them, yet even though they are wild, reckless and somehow obsessive over white women, they are still knowledgeable and educated over western ways, like having french valets and university titles.
It's almost as if that's a license for girls to think, 'This guy's actually legal, I suppose.' which is not a message I want at all.
Frankly, I have no respect for chauvinism. I only have one man that has DARED to say what a woman's place was and I let him live unharmed because he's my grandfather.
But still, I suppose what I am looking for is the reconcilliation of the two forces. The man and woman. Rather than make the hero a bastard to fulfill rape fantasies, and only make it not disturbing only because he's closer to being 'good' in terms of culture and identity...I'd rather have it like the1989's Warlock. Warlock illustrated reconcilliation wonderfully. At first the main guy was gruff, unhelpful and demanding, and the main gal had a mind of her own and couldn't help but misunderstand his ways, but when they had to team together, they found an actual balance between themselves, THEY learn TOGETHER as to where and how to achieve this balance.
Hence my motto, "Respect FIRST, then love." THAT is how my ideal romance has to go for.
So I don't want a romance novelist to pander to me that it's okay to fantasize over a redskin because he's part white and speaks english despite being an asshole. I also I scratched my head over the strong similarities with these characters and her other characters from other books. Not only in looks, but also in character....
That's not how a writer works, Ms. Gentry...
Reading the book though, I just had to realize if Time-Swept warrior was a remake of this. Because:
1) We have a meek, WASP country girl who's such a goody gum drop that she hasn't said a filthy word nor had sex because people think she's not hot despite that ITS OBVIOUS THAT SHE IS.
2) We have ANOTHER mixed native american whose character is simply: THE ALPHA MALE.
3) Lust at first sight.
4) Girl is the frickin' Deus ex Machina.
5) Bad guys with barely a mention of a sentence strive to ruin them.
6) Gentry must have been forced to remake the story because this one here is a NASTY piece of work.
It's also a bit annoying when the girl this time is just so...DOPEY. I actually imagined her with huge tear-filled anime eyes coupled with Bambi's grace.I even can't imagine for the life of me how her back and organs are held up without a SPINE.
The story begins with her coming to apply for a job with a massive oil and ranch tycoon (I think, it's been a year since I read it). Unknownst to her, the tycoon is actually a real indian who became immortal when he sold his soul to the devil so he could survive, but only for a number of years. Now, the deadline is fast approaching.
Okay, first flaw?
Why would the devil bother about this guy? He was a robber shot down, he couldv'e just sat there and waited a while for him to die and take his soul. And why would the devil give him a number of years if he hadn't used it to commit massive damage on the world ( like Damien from the Omen?). The book doesn't explain this, and the next flaw later on was, 'Jesus, Georgina is taking this religious element much too seriously'.
To those hoping that this would be a neat 'O brother where art thou' kind of plot or the battle against evil in form of 'The prophesy', you're gonna get cheated with this novel.
Basically, our bambi-eyed blonde meets our guy and somehow gets him to like her (we only know this by him telling her that), and so she begins to work for him and causing him to trust her. We get some too-good-to-be-true aspects of the man's character, like him sneaking out in disguise to reeneact western shows for charity (WTH?) or him giving checks for charity, or something. He starts to feel remorse over what he did (only apparently, that he signed his soul away), and tries to tell the dame this.
Second Flaw:
Johnny Logan (yes that's his name) asks Angel (YES THAT IS HER NAME!), "Have you watched the Highlander" (to explain what's wrong with him).
Angel comes off confused and starts to wonder, 'Hmmm, the Highlander, that strange movie about men being immortal, what did he mean by that?'
Okay, Ms. Gentry. When you saw Highlander, did you come off thinking that was strange?
Did ANYONE think it disturbingly weird?
Is there no one out there besides me that would go, "HIGHLANDER?! Did you watch that too? Shit, I thought that movie was awesome!" etc. etc.
But no, Angel seemed to be a telepathic too cause she randomly got why Johnny was feeling so low in so little time they've known each other.
Still, I don't remember what happened next, only that Johnny decided to go back in time and try to fix things before he signed that contract. Angel, stupidly, blunders right behind him. ONE SERIOUS CASE OF UNREALISTIC PLOT-DRIVEN CHARACTER BEHAVIOUR COMING UP!
She takes a fuckload of time to get where the hell she really is. I'd notice by smell alone. She needed a fuckin' army of people to tell her what year it is.
But Angel still dawdles like a bandy-legged retard with no sense of direction. She tries to find her boss and finds someone who looks like him on horseback, and therefore chases after him calling his name. STUPID.
Poor Johnny was forced to twist her fingers off of him and tell her she's got the wrong guy. He's got stuff to do with his old friends and doesn't have enough time, so, REMORSEFULLY ONCE MORE, he gallops away, while Angel gets herself in some more trouble.
The main villain of the plot is the Devil, of course, who was absolutely adamant in getting his soul (reason not explained). His color code is grey, because we all know Gentry wanted to dress him in black so bad but decided to act smart-ass and original by making him wear a shade lighter. Still, NOTHING--NAH-THING made me groan out loud when a character happen to introduce him.
"Excuse me, there's this Mr. Nick Diablo who wants to meet you."
OH HOLY FUCK ON A CHEESECAKE.
I can imagine this fat woman going "Thar's this Mr. Nick Die-Able-O who wants to meet youse..."
I mean, seriously, I've never seen a worst interpretation on the devil character in my life. I'm not a Satanist of a die-hard fan of his, but PLEASE, don't write this like you're a 9 year old girl playing Barbies!
This is exactly how everything supernatural is treated in this book. When in the end our Mary Sue Angel finds Johnny dying on the ground with Mr. Die-Ablo fast approaching, she actually shouts up in the sky imploring for God's help. AND LO AND BEHOLD! GOD SHOOTS HIS LIGHTNING AND KILLS DA DEBBIL!
With the devil destroyed, Johnny Logan gets better on the spot and speaks in amazement of this 'angel' God has sent him. They finish together a sick monologue of their love and long future together, despite that...hey, they're in the middle of a burning desert with every surrounding town searching for Logan's blood. The End.
Henceforth, the book was immediately taken by yours truly STRAIGHT back into the donation box.
Eternal Outlaw: ZEEERO POINTS!!
My love for romance novels began exactly with the reading of the Time-Swept Warrior by Ms. Gentry. It wasn't the first novel I read as a wee 13 year old (I remembered my first was the Enchantress Mine and my mom tried to read the Saracen Blade for a bedtime story that bored the snot out of all of us).
Enchantress Mine was much too much of a highly sexualised late 70's story for myself to digest. For even though I cannot call myself girly and protected, I just couldn't understand the wording and behaviour the people did.
So Georgina Gentry was a shorter step on the stairs to getting to know romance. Time Swept Warrior was a western time travel involving the huge blue-eyed modern heroine going back in time to save a mixed-race warrior (the half-white and half-native american kind of dude). I appreciated this one a lot more because the story had time to focus on characterisation, and the girl was sort of modern, so despite that she was VERY TSTL, at least Ms. Gentry put in her thoughts as to why she did it, ridiculous as they were.
It also helped for Ms. Gentry that this reader also had a massive crush on War Cry, so I found myself hoping for this one's salvation, and therefore drift along the current of the plot.
So, I had a lot of feeling of nostalgia for Time Swept Warrior. I liked it as a kid, and it helped rev me up to take on the other more risque books my mom had in her collection.
Which was why I was a little awe-struck when I found another of her work on the donation box of a local library. Sweet! A FREE novel from an author I actually knew!
So I smuggled it in my purse before going back to my mom's car (who had serious ISSUES with anything that looks old and tattered).
And I had to say, it SUCKED.
At first I was a little irked by the fact that she wrote yet another story about a white chick meeting a mixed native american (Trying not to use half-breed here). It was a year after I went under Mme. Webster's tutelage, who taught me many things on history of modern colonialsim, especially on the patronizing image of 'The Noble Savage' used since the 19th century. Even watching old movies tickling on the aspect of stereotypes on other races set a grim line on my mouth. The Bitter Tea of General Yen (1933) and a few of Rudolph Valentino's movies used to piss me off a bit. When I was 14 I developed a serious obsession over oriental men, and I didn't lose it until I was 17 and found a new love for men in togas when I found roman history fascinating. So during those years I was eagerly searching for romances involving austere and strong men from the East. Even though I absolutely HATED the typical sexual interactions of men dominating over weak women, and absolutely HATED the sexual intrigue between oriental women (I also hate kung-fu movies that are not made by Jackie Chan), so it's really hard to find what I had liked.
As of yet, I only found the Bitter Tea of General Yen. I found the couple awesome, but I hated how patronizing the story went and how it made the main guy commit suicide. It was almost as if, 'the romance is ONLY okay to show if it's tragic and unfulfilled'. I also found how the romance is only possible if the guy was educated in the western ways, yet still unlikeable by having the worst stereotypes stuck on him.
Like let's look at Rudolph Valentino and his Shiekh characters. They always seem to kidnap women/go rough on them, yet even though they are wild, reckless and somehow obsessive over white women, they are still knowledgeable and educated over western ways, like having french valets and university titles.
It's almost as if that's a license for girls to think, 'This guy's actually legal, I suppose.' which is not a message I want at all.
Frankly, I have no respect for chauvinism. I only have one man that has DARED to say what a woman's place was and I let him live unharmed because he's my grandfather.
But still, I suppose what I am looking for is the reconcilliation of the two forces. The man and woman. Rather than make the hero a bastard to fulfill rape fantasies, and only make it not disturbing only because he's closer to being 'good' in terms of culture and identity...I'd rather have it like the1989's Warlock. Warlock illustrated reconcilliation wonderfully. At first the main guy was gruff, unhelpful and demanding, and the main gal had a mind of her own and couldn't help but misunderstand his ways, but when they had to team together, they found an actual balance between themselves, THEY learn TOGETHER as to where and how to achieve this balance.
Hence my motto, "Respect FIRST, then love." THAT is how my ideal romance has to go for.
So I don't want a romance novelist to pander to me that it's okay to fantasize over a redskin because he's part white and speaks english despite being an asshole. I also I scratched my head over the strong similarities with these characters and her other characters from other books. Not only in looks, but also in character....
That's not how a writer works, Ms. Gentry...
Reading the book though, I just had to realize if Time-Swept warrior was a remake of this. Because:
1) We have a meek, WASP country girl who's such a goody gum drop that she hasn't said a filthy word nor had sex because people think she's not hot despite that ITS OBVIOUS THAT SHE IS.
2) We have ANOTHER mixed native american whose character is simply: THE ALPHA MALE.
3) Lust at first sight.
4) Girl is the frickin' Deus ex Machina.
5) Bad guys with barely a mention of a sentence strive to ruin them.
6) Gentry must have been forced to remake the story because this one here is a NASTY piece of work.
It's also a bit annoying when the girl this time is just so...DOPEY. I actually imagined her with huge tear-filled anime eyes coupled with Bambi's grace.I even can't imagine for the life of me how her back and organs are held up without a SPINE.
The story begins with her coming to apply for a job with a massive oil and ranch tycoon (I think, it's been a year since I read it). Unknownst to her, the tycoon is actually a real indian who became immortal when he sold his soul to the devil so he could survive, but only for a number of years. Now, the deadline is fast approaching.
Okay, first flaw?
Why would the devil bother about this guy? He was a robber shot down, he couldv'e just sat there and waited a while for him to die and take his soul. And why would the devil give him a number of years if he hadn't used it to commit massive damage on the world ( like Damien from the Omen?). The book doesn't explain this, and the next flaw later on was, 'Jesus, Georgina is taking this religious element much too seriously'.
To those hoping that this would be a neat 'O brother where art thou' kind of plot or the battle against evil in form of 'The prophesy', you're gonna get cheated with this novel.
Basically, our bambi-eyed blonde meets our guy and somehow gets him to like her (we only know this by him telling her that), and so she begins to work for him and causing him to trust her. We get some too-good-to-be-true aspects of the man's character, like him sneaking out in disguise to reeneact western shows for charity (WTH?) or him giving checks for charity, or something. He starts to feel remorse over what he did (only apparently, that he signed his soul away), and tries to tell the dame this.
Second Flaw:
Johnny Logan (yes that's his name) asks Angel (YES THAT IS HER NAME!), "Have you watched the Highlander" (to explain what's wrong with him).
Angel comes off confused and starts to wonder, 'Hmmm, the Highlander, that strange movie about men being immortal, what did he mean by that?'
Okay, Ms. Gentry. When you saw Highlander, did you come off thinking that was strange?
Did ANYONE think it disturbingly weird?
Is there no one out there besides me that would go, "HIGHLANDER?! Did you watch that too? Shit, I thought that movie was awesome!" etc. etc.
But no, Angel seemed to be a telepathic too cause she randomly got why Johnny was feeling so low in so little time they've known each other.
Still, I don't remember what happened next, only that Johnny decided to go back in time and try to fix things before he signed that contract. Angel, stupidly, blunders right behind him. ONE SERIOUS CASE OF UNREALISTIC PLOT-DRIVEN CHARACTER BEHAVIOUR COMING UP!
She takes a fuckload of time to get where the hell she really is. I'd notice by smell alone. She needed a fuckin' army of people to tell her what year it is.
But Angel still dawdles like a bandy-legged retard with no sense of direction. She tries to find her boss and finds someone who looks like him on horseback, and therefore chases after him calling his name. STUPID.
Poor Johnny was forced to twist her fingers off of him and tell her she's got the wrong guy. He's got stuff to do with his old friends and doesn't have enough time, so, REMORSEFULLY ONCE MORE, he gallops away, while Angel gets herself in some more trouble.
The main villain of the plot is the Devil, of course, who was absolutely adamant in getting his soul (reason not explained). His color code is grey, because we all know Gentry wanted to dress him in black so bad but decided to act smart-ass and original by making him wear a shade lighter. Still, NOTHING--NAH-THING made me groan out loud when a character happen to introduce him.
"Excuse me, there's this Mr. Nick Diablo who wants to meet you."
OH HOLY FUCK ON A CHEESECAKE.
I can imagine this fat woman going "Thar's this Mr. Nick Die-Able-O who wants to meet youse..."
I mean, seriously, I've never seen a worst interpretation on the devil character in my life. I'm not a Satanist of a die-hard fan of his, but PLEASE, don't write this like you're a 9 year old girl playing Barbies!
This is exactly how everything supernatural is treated in this book. When in the end our Mary Sue Angel finds Johnny dying on the ground with Mr. Die-Ablo fast approaching, she actually shouts up in the sky imploring for God's help. AND LO AND BEHOLD! GOD SHOOTS HIS LIGHTNING AND KILLS DA DEBBIL!
With the devil destroyed, Johnny Logan gets better on the spot and speaks in amazement of this 'angel' God has sent him. They finish together a sick monologue of their love and long future together, despite that...hey, they're in the middle of a burning desert with every surrounding town searching for Logan's blood. The End.
Henceforth, the book was immediately taken by yours truly STRAIGHT back into the donation box.
Eternal Outlaw: ZEEERO POINTS!!