review is of “Raptures Rage” by Bobbi Smith,
The book begins with a backstory about the father of Renee Fontaine, the heroine of the book, Cliffs Notes version: Roger Fontaine, Renees father, meets Anne ChaseParker, They fall in love and get married, He becomes stepfather to her daughter, Elizabeth, Later, Anne and Roger have a daughter, Renee, the future heroine of the book, Anne dies from fever. Roger goes into deep mourning, Elizabeth is taken away by maternal grandparents, Elizabeth later marries Marshall Westlake, the hero of the book and a prosperous lawyer in St, Louis. Their marriage is not a happy one, due to Elizabeths fears, She dies trying to kill their unborn child,
Fast forward several years, Renee is now, Roger has passed and she is going to live with her aunt, Elise, in St, Louis. Renee is courted first by Marshalls brother, James, a ships captain the Westlakes family business is shipping, Marshall is the outlier, but quickly bows out gracefully upon realizing that she only has eyes for Marshall, James will get his own love interest in another book,
Renee and Marshall fall in love, marry, and for a spell, are happy, Their happiness is imperiled, however, by three people: Juliana Chandler, Marshalls exlover, who vows to break up the couple, and Wes and Frank Maguire, fwo outlaws who Marshall sent to jail.
They break out of prison, and with Julianas help, attack Renee and Marshall, injuring her but kidnapping and torturing him, Renee moves back to Louisiana, and discovers she is having Marshs baby, He is later rescued, but believes she is dead,
Renee and Marshall reunite, have a few rocky moments but overcome them, have their own child, a son, and have their Happily Ever After,
Upside: Ms. Smith does a good job of exploring her characters emotions, even her minor ones, Ms. Smith made me feel Marshalls despair when he is kidnapped and isolated in a very small room she made me feel Renees pain when she thinks Marshall is dead, and everything in between.
Downside: “Raptures Rage” has a misleading back cover, At no point is Renee afraid of Marshall, nor does he hate her for a significant length of time Marshall does get upset on a few occasions with Renee, and she with him, but this is nowhere near the “fear” and “hatred” the back cover trailer would lead readers to believe.
A bigger issue for me is Ms, Smiths use of a trope: jilted exlover of hero conspires with evil malefactors to attempt to injure or kill hero and heroine, This is a trope used by Ms, Smith not only in “Raptures Rage”, but AT LEAST four other books by Ms, Smith. I do understand its difficult to come up with new material every time someone writes somethingI find it difficult to come up with new things everytime I write a review, which is why I don't come up with new things!but it would have been nice to see Ms.
Smith not use the same storyline on a frequent basis,
Sex: Ms. Smith is not an erotic author by any stretch of the imagination, Her love scenes are, at best, lukewarm,
Violence: Marshall and Renee are attacked by the Maguire brothers and their gang, Renee is shot, and Marshall is assaulted and imprisoned, Later, the Maguires are shot by a posse, Renee slaps Marshall during an argument, The violence is not graphic,
Bottom Line: “Raptures Rage” is not astar book, but it fits solidly into the,.range.
.Stars
Western Romance
Love at first sight
Damaged Hero
The story starts when Roger Fontaine met a beautiful single mom, Anne ChaseParker fell in love and gets married.
After Anne's Marriage, they moved to Roger's home city with her daughter, Elizabeth,
later Anne had a second daughter, Renne, and died giving birth to her,
Losing her beloved wife, Roger goes into deep mourning, and his stepdaughter, Elizabeth is taken away by maternal grandparents,
Afteryears later, Renee grew up to a beautiful young lady and Roger passed away leading Renne to move to St, Louis to live with her aunt, Elisa,
She met Westlake brothers, James and Marshall who happen to be her aunt's family friends,
At first sight, Marshal stole Renee's, Innocent heart and marshall was shocked to see Renee's resembles his dead wife,
He was everything to her and little did Renne knows that this man holds her future and the family secrets she never knew,
This is my first reading from Bobbi Smith and the story is a mix of romance, thriller, and mystery with twists and turns,
I enjoyed the story a lot and her writing style, Also the setting of the story,
The downside of this story is the misleading synopsis and the pace, It is slow, lengthy and I wish the story could have been a bit shorter, descriptive, Intimacy between two leads was average but no lacking of romance Department, Also, there are a few TW for abortion, Murder, and violence,
Overall I had a very good reading experience and looking forward to reading her other books,
Nothing like an old school bodice ripper, Read through a yard sale box of these during uni with my best friend and decided to do a nostalgic reread, Didnt disappoint. As ridiculously fluffforthebrain as always!Stars
Bobbi Smith has long been one of my favorite authors since I first picked up one of her historical romances back in the's.
I was excited when they came out with the electronic versions, especially since they're available through kindle unlimited, Unfortunately this is not one of my favorite books of hers, I struggled with what to rate this, On one hand this is a solid read and a great value, but the book frustrated me on many levels,
First, between the two epilogues which in itself is not the problem and the first couple chapters of the book, I found it difficult to figure out who was who and their relation to each other.
I read aroundbooks a week and this is the first time I've actually gotten a piece of paper and had to diagram who was who and how they were connected.
It does eventually become
clearer but it made it difficult to get into the story fully, Second, I'm not sure if the issues were because of it being the electronic version and possible formatting problems but there were quite a few editing errors.
The book was still very readable but the misuse of pronouns he instead of she etc, misspelled words and punctuation/capitalization errors were frustrating, In addition, POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT .
Even with these issues though I recommend this book and especially this author, The story is rich in imagery without being over blown and I came to love the characters, There were not a lot of silly misunderstandings and when there was a misunderstanding the hero and heroine dealt with it quickly and with an honesty that was wonderful.
The suspense kept me reading long into the night and I found myself tearing up at times as the hero/heroine dealt with the unimaginable, .