Helpful Score: 2
An Arab chieftain, Sharif Aziz Hamad, kidnaps American heiress Temple DuPlessis Longworth, because her family makes the munitions that are being sold to the Turks, the enemies of Sharif and his people. Also, Sharif has another reason to hate the DuPlessis-Longworth family: it turns out that his parents, English geologists traveling in Arabia, were killed in a raid where the Turkish raiders used DuPlessis bullets.
This being a romance novel, when Sharif, aka Christian Telford, spends a prolonged period of time with Temple, his hatred of her family (which is not a strongly developed plot point in the story, in any case) rapidly decreases as his physical attraction to Temple increases.
This book is flawed by the shallowness of Sharif/Christian, and Temple. Temple, frankly, is a real dope. The author actually has her make an escape attempt with nothing more than a water bottle, some dried fruit, and wearing a white silk evening dress. OK, so the white silk dress is all that's available for her to wear (since her mouthing off to Sharif about escaping forced him to remove her practical clothing) - but, come on, even the stupidest woman would realize that in this situation, you can't travel on a horse over miles & miles of desert, in a white silk evening dress and with one water bottle!!
I guess I should have given up on this book when Temple's second escape attempt lands her directly in the hands of Sharif's enemies, but I was sort of hoping against hope that she'd be made to suffer a little for her stupidity. However, Sharif rescues her in time.
Attempting to make Temple a "spirited, independent" kind of heroine, most of Ms. Ryan's writing falls flat. Temple is a Barbie doll heroine who does the stupidest things, all in the name of being "clever", "bold" or whatever adjectives Ms. Ryan is using at the moment to describe her.
Sharif and Temple think about and speak to each other in, well, such corny ways: Sharif - "Never forget it is I who holds your fate in my hands." "I am the only force. I am the one who gives the orders, not you." "You cannot win against me. You will not go until I set you free." Temple - "She simply had to escape him. Tonight!" And so on.
There's lots of detailed sex, which could be a good point or a bad point depending on how you like that in romance novels. For me it was a bad point because this started to read like a soft porn novel instead of a good romantic "conflict" spiced by occasional romantic scenes.
I liked Nan Ryan's YOU BELONG TO MY HEART very much, so reading BURNING LOVE was a letdown.
This being a romance novel, when Sharif, aka Christian Telford, spends a prolonged period of time with Temple, his hatred of her family (which is not a strongly developed plot point in the story, in any case) rapidly decreases as his physical attraction to Temple increases.
This book is flawed by the shallowness of Sharif/Christian, and Temple. Temple, frankly, is a real dope. The author actually has her make an escape attempt with nothing more than a water bottle, some dried fruit, and wearing a white silk evening dress. OK, so the white silk dress is all that's available for her to wear (since her mouthing off to Sharif about escaping forced him to remove her practical clothing) - but, come on, even the stupidest woman would realize that in this situation, you can't travel on a horse over miles & miles of desert, in a white silk evening dress and with one water bottle!!
I guess I should have given up on this book when Temple's second escape attempt lands her directly in the hands of Sharif's enemies, but I was sort of hoping against hope that she'd be made to suffer a little for her stupidity. However, Sharif rescues her in time.
Attempting to make Temple a "spirited, independent" kind of heroine, most of Ms. Ryan's writing falls flat. Temple is a Barbie doll heroine who does the stupidest things, all in the name of being "clever", "bold" or whatever adjectives Ms. Ryan is using at the moment to describe her.
Sharif and Temple think about and speak to each other in, well, such corny ways: Sharif - "Never forget it is I who holds your fate in my hands." "I am the only force. I am the one who gives the orders, not you." "You cannot win against me. You will not go until I set you free." Temple - "She simply had to escape him. Tonight!" And so on.
There's lots of detailed sex, which could be a good point or a bad point depending on how you like that in romance novels. For me it was a bad point because this started to read like a soft porn novel instead of a good romantic "conflict" spiced by occasional romantic scenes.
I liked Nan Ryan's YOU BELONG TO MY HEART very much, so reading BURNING LOVE was a letdown.
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