La Crimson Femme

What happens when your fiancé is worse than the barbaric murdering pirate that kidnaps you? Jolene is a gently bred English lady who is traveling on a merchant boat with her fiancé to be married in East Africa. Raul Vasco is a rich heir to a shipping company and the one wooing Jolene. Well, he courts her sweetly for a year. Now he's impatient and will take what he wants from his wife to be. Everything is going as planned until his ship is attacked by a ruthless pirate, Kai.

The plot of this story is interesting. The main characters - Jolene, Raul and Kai are all designed with flaws. This is nice because who wants perfect main characters? Kai is actually one of the better anti-heroes I've come across. He is a tormented man and it's hard not to like him. Of course, the way he treats Jolene is what really engages a reader and sways favour to him over Raul. The story is enjoyable and I wanted to know what would happen in the ending. Ms. Temple does a nice job of building conflict and resolving it.

Here are a few suggestions for future stories. First, do not change point of view more than a couple of times. In this story, within one chapter without clear delineation, the point of view changed several times, even to secondary characters. While it was easy to follow, it is jarring and not recommended. Second, if a story is take place within a certain time period, it's best to stay true to the time period's rules. This is fiction, but it's historically a bit off which will cause readers who enjoy this type of time period to be drawn out of the book. Examples of paying attention to detail for this time period:

1. An unchaperoned single female on a boat is stretching it.

2. An orphaned female still in control of her family's manor in England is also a rarity. More like, a distant male relative would have claimed it and tossed her out.

3. Jolene left the manor in her servant's hands and didn't think to return. What is this? How are they going to have money to keep this manor running?

4. A woman allowed on a ship in this time period is very rare. Exactly because women on a ship where thought of as unlucky. I'm frankly surprised this wasn't more of a conflict. Any woman who is also alone on a boat like this is definitely a whore, not a lady and would be treated in that manner by all.

These discrepancies while minor, distracted me from the story and the full enjoyment. It did not however detract from the story itself. The story was still good as long as I didn't pay attention to these inconsistencies.

Let's move on to the sex. The sex in this story was sweet and in line with this genre of story. The scenes flowed in a smooth manner. It didn't feel as if it were thrown in for token sex. For my personal tastes, the sex was tame, but for romance lovers, it is probably just right. This book is recommended to romance lovers who root for the sexy anti-hero and a spunky heroine.