Claiming the Courtesan in Dangerous Hero Addict Support Group

Nov 23, 2008 Danielle The Book Huntress rated it it was amazing

Shelves: flawed-hero, angsty-read, antihero, captive-kidnapped, courtesan-prostitute-mistress, owned-copy, scary-sexy-cool-dangerous-hero, favorites, noir-romance, stalkerific-hero

I must admit I am not a fan of the courtesan/prostitute heroine because I dislike the idea of a woman having to sell her body for survival. For that reason, I did not read this book right away, although I was very intrigued by the storyline of a hero who would do just about anything to keep his heroine. I read some scenes from it at the bookstore, trying to decide if I was "ready" to read it, and I couldn't stop thinking about story and how good the writing was. Finally, I decided I had to read I must admit I am not a fan of the courtesan/prostitute heroine because I dislike the idea of a woman having to sell her body for survival. For that reason, I did not read this book right away, although I was very intrigued by the storyline of a hero who would do just about anything to keep his heroine. I read some scenes from it at the bookstore, trying to decide if I was "ready" to read it, and I couldn't stop thinking about story and how good the writing was. Finally, I decided I had to read it and I read it within a few days of buying it.

This book is one of the best historicals I have ever read. It was intense, it was well-written, it had believable characters who made real choices, good or bad. And at the heart I think it did have a really good love story. Not the sweet and light kind, but a love story all the same. I have championed this book and I have tried to explain why Kylemore isn't a bad man. He's not an emotionally healthy man. And he does some things that are not right, namely forcing Soraya to have sex with him after he kidnaps her, not to mention kidnapping her in the first place. I would never defend or excuse that behavior. But reading the book, you can understand what his motivations are. He is completely desperate at the thought of losing her. Yes, he's like a child who has a toy taken away from him, on one level. But I believe that he is motivated by a deep, obsessive love for her. I find myself very intrigued by obsessive heroes. I don't know why because that would be really scary in real life, but I do like it in romance novels. I love when the hero truly cannot exist without the heroine.

Kylemore somehow found his way into my heart. I did find him to be a sympathetic, albeit flawed hero. There were aspects about him that I did like, such as his devotion in his own way to Soraya. He waited for Soraya for years when she was with another protector. As far I as I recall, he didn't even take another lover in that time. When he had her as his mistress, he compartmentalized their time together, making it seem that it was not as important as it was. But deep down, I believe being with her was the highlight of his existence. Also, he was going to ask Soraya to marry him. Dukes did not marry their mistresses. It just wasn't done. They had their mistresses but married virgins or respectble widows, and the two aspects of their existences didn't meet. Yes he told himself it was to anger his mother, but I believe it was because he genuinely loved Soraya and wanted to make a life with her.

So, viewing his actions in light of the facts given, I do believe that his behavior was not completely rational. His kidnapping and captivity of her was done from a knee-jerk, emotional level that wasn't ruled by logic and negated right and wrong. Not excusable, but definitely actions I could understand in light of what motivated Kylemore. There was also an aspect of knowing that as a powerful duke, he shouldn't have to be told no or be denied anything he wanted. That is the part I didn't like.

The scenes where they struggle against each other physically, mentally, and emotionally were riveting, and I didn't even want to put the book down for a minute. I was drawn in and I knew I had rarely if ever read a romance novel with this degree of complexity of relationships. In some ways it was hard to watch how Kylemore scared Verity and wore her down. At some points I wondered if he would drive her to insanity. That was painful to read. She deserved better. I wanted to tell him, "If you're trying to get this woman to stay with you and love you, you're going about it the wrong way." But Kylemore was raised by a very evil woman, his mother. How would a man raised in that environment know how to give or receive love? You could not expect that of him, considering his background.

Truly Verity was the more emotionally stable and well-adjusted of this pair. I really liked how Ms. Campbell really plays with society's concepts of morality in both this book and in Tempt the Devil, having the courtesan be the more virtous and more respectable and laudable of the pair. And truly in my mind they are (in most cases).

Back in this time period, there was no such thing as equality between the sexes. Women were property and chattel. Women's choices were extremely limited. Men had the power and they had the choice to have sex with women according to their wishes and wants. Women had to submit in various ways, either as wife or mistress. I can see that this dynamic is played out in this novel. Verity had to become a courtesan out of survival, and she did it until she was financially secure. I found it repugnant that her first protector was an older man who made her an offer to become his mistress at the young age of fifteen, and he felt that that was the right way to save her from a harrowing situation. If he really wanted to help her, he could have placed her in a safe situation and helped her to get a living that wasn't prostitution, or at least waited until she was older. But he saw how incredibly beautiful she was and wanted her. Thus his motives were selfish and although Verity now had some protection, he sent her into the life of a demimondaine.

Verity/Soraya accepted her position as a courtesan and made the best of it, but it wasn't the life she wanted. When Kylemore made her an offer, it was business, pure and simple. She could not make the mistake of getting her heart involved. She didn't expect Kylemore to be emotionally involved either. When their two year contract was up, she had achieved the means for financial security. There was no reason to continue in that life. By leaving Kylemore, she could close her life on one chapter and start another. I want to reread this book to study again how the wall broke down and Verity was able to love Kylemore. I think that this part is probably one of the most important elements, because knowing that she accepts and loves him doesn't make what he did okay, but at least you can hope that they will have a hopeful future together and that there can be some emotional healing for both of them.

Words fail me to express why I loved this book so much.I just did. It's not for the faint of heart reader who wants a happy-go-lucky rakish hero who wouldn't ever consider harming a woman or doing anything she didn't consent to. But for a reader who is willing to put aside her list of what a hero does and doesn't do and read this book and evaluate Kylemore as an individual, I believe that this reader may find that there are untapped depths to this book that make it a fascinating and enjoyable read. ...more

57 likes · Like · see review

Nov 18, 2008 Holly rated it really liked it

Shelves: romance

This was a fascinating book. It was truly fascinating and yet so depressing. It's quiet and moody and well, romance noir. The aliented, doomed hero and the femme fatale. Corruption, madness, and moral breakdown. It's all here. And it's sometimes hard to read.

Claiming The Courtesan starts with the incomparable beauty Soraya and her protector the Duke of Kylemore, Justin Kinmurrie enjoying a postcoital glow. All is right with Kylemore's world, he possesses the mistress that is the envy of the ton This was a fascinating book. It was truly fascinating and yet so depressing. It's quiet and moody and well, romance noir. The aliented, doomed hero and the femme fatale. Corruption, madness, and moral breakdown. It's all here. And it's sometimes hard to read.

Claiming The Courtesan starts with the incomparable beauty Soraya and her protector the Duke of Kylemore, Justin Kinmurrie enjoying a postcoital glow. All is right with Kylemore's world, he possesses the mistress that is the envy of the ton and he's decided upon the perfect revenge against his interfering witch of a mother. Marriage to the courtesan, Soraya. What he doesn't know is that Soraya has been planning her escape of him and is in fact going to leave him within a fortnight. Enraged and humiliated, he tracks her down three months later and by gunpoint, kidnaps her and drags her to his tumbledown hunting box deep in the Scottish Highlands. He's determined to break her indomitable will and force her to acknowledge him as her master, her lover and eventually, her husband. He doesn't know that beneath Soraya's silken sensuality and urbane sophistication lies Verity, the woman underneath the courtesan facade, and Verity has a core of steel that refuses to bow down to his demands. Her refusals to accept him threatens to break Kylemore's tenuous hold on his sanity and his methods of ensuring her obedience grows desperate. She must submit to him. She must love him, because if she does not, the madness that lurks within the Kinmurrie blood could overtake him and then all he holds dear will be lost.

Kylemore has the requisite tortured childhood and the type of evil mother that has ruined many a good man. He knows the threat of insanity that lies dormant in his family blood because he watched his father go down that path and to this day, it terrifies him. The only thing that stands bastion against his fears is knowing he has his Soraya by his side. When she leaves he is desperate to get her back. While he is desperate, I wouldn't call Kylemore pathetic. Anna Campbell, IMO, straddles that line well and as such, makes him a man who can be redeemed. He knows that what he is doing to Verity, the woman, is wrong. He literally can't help himself. He needs her. He needs her to keep the demons away and save him from himself. While that need and love battles back and forth from obsession and dependence he will eventually stand on his own two feet. To see him do that at the end of the book was, well, for lack of a better word, fascinating. I applauded his ability to shake off the shackles of his parents and realize that despite the ever present threat of insanity, he can rise above it and be a better man. In all honesty, I don't believe there was an actual insanity gene in his bloodline, more like a debilitating capacity for horrifying self indulgence. With Verity removing herself from Kylemore's grasp/toybox, he at first reacts with childish fury. How dare she steal herself away from him, he thinks. When she stood up to him, she forced him to realize that his needs and wants can't always come first. He might have wanted to strip away the strictures of his dukedom, but he liked the power. When he comes to terms with that and realizes that Verity is a person, he can allow himself to step back a little, and learn to love the woman.

Soraya/Verity was I thought, worse off than Kylemore. At least he knew he had problems, she didn't. She was forced to create the courtesan Soraya out of need and desperation and over the years she completely split herself in two. Soraya, who could do anything or be anything and Verity, who remained clean and untouched. When Verity leaves Soraya behind she thinks to immerse herself in good works and live a celibate and demure existence. While I completely sympathize with her anger and frustration at being dragged back to Kylemore I think he ultimately did her a favor, because she needed to come to grips with both sides of her personality and meld them into one person.

In my opinion Kylemore raped Verity. Repeatedly. While I understand his confusion in Verity's claims that she was not Soraya, I still believe what he did to her constitutes rape and humiliation. The journey from Yorkshire into the Highlands was meant to break her will and he nearly succeeds. He holds the threat of her rape over her head the entire time and when he finally comes to her, she tells him plainly and in an unequivocal manner, no. She does not want him to touch her. In fact, she's practically exhausted herself with fear. He ignores her wants and desires and forces himself on her anyway. It is part desire on his part and part punishment. I hated Kylemore in those scenes. Anna Campbell doesn't stop at one scene, however. Kylemore comes back for more, night after night. She tries to run away from him repeatedly, into the deadly wilderness of the Highlands but he just drags her back. Whether or not he knows enough about her body to make her respond to him is irrelevant, he forced her to engage in sexual acts not of her choosing.

Once all the inner emotional turmoil is dispensed with however, their sex turns into lovemaking. Verity realizes she has always been fascinated by the duke and once she comes to terms with the fact she can be both Verity and Soraya, both the Madonna and the whore, she acknowledges to herself at least that she loves him. She refuses to be deserted by him though and have her heart broken, so when he asks her to marry him again she refuses. She won't make him a laughingstock and a pariah and neither will she do that to herself. This is when Kylemore realizes she is sincere and whole and that there is nothing more he can do but challenge her as she challenged him.

After all this exhausting angst and inner turmoil, Claiming the Courtesan delves back into familiar romance territory with the damsel in distress and the rescuing hero on horseback and then the requisite groveling scene. While it's still dark as hell, this is actually a relief!

What I'm trying to say with this exhaustive review is that Claiming the Courtesan was a fascinating read, but I wouldn't want to read it again. Too exhausting, too depressing and too full of emotional inner turmoil. This is not a romance to be swept away in, nor is it a book full of humor and love. It's full of everyday people and problems hiding behind a mask of Regency glitter and titles. This is not a pretty story and in actuality gets down right ugly at times. It's a grotesque gothic horror that leaves you feeling stunned and awed. If ever two people deserved a happily ever after, it was these two. ...more

12 likes · Like · see review

Feb 23, 2010 Megan rated it it was ok

Shelves: dangerous-hero, historical-romance, captive-kidnapped-trapped

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

3 likes · Like · see review

Oct 14, 2008 Pamela(AllHoney) rated it liked it

Shelves: tortured-hero, dukes-earls-viscounts-etc, jerk-or-abusive-heroes, mrs-robinson, rakes-rogues-womanizers, hr-georgian-regency, courtesan-mistress-gigolo

Justin Kinmurrie, Duke of Kylemore, kidnaps his mistress, Soraya aka Verity Ashton, when she attempts to flee. I did not love it like some reviewers did but it wasn't too bad and it was different. It was very dialogue driven. The courtesan theme element is not one that I care for but I was willing to give it a chance. ...more

Like · see review