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A review by torilovesheas
Dream Fever by Katherine Sutcliffe
5.0
It’s been a bit since I’ve read an absolutely bonkers old school romance and I need to read one more regularly like I used to. The bodices? Ripped. The MMC? An asshole. The consent? Dubious. The plot? Zero to 100 real quick.
Sutcliffe truly is a talented writer and I’m sad she isn’t active anymore. She’s one of maybe five authors that can make me enjoy a romance as wild as this. I mean in the first FIFTY pages, the MMC had murdered someone in a duel and gets shipped to New Zealand to escape Newgate prison and drunkenly signs a proxy marriage document. Meanwhile the FMC finds out her mother, who was an aristocrat’s mistress, has died, moves into said aristocrat’s house as a maid, accidentally ends up pushing him down a flight of stairs after he maybe murders her friend, and then takes her friend’s identity and hops on the ship to New Zealand to meet her new proxy husband. Because her friend was proxy married to the MMC OBVIOUSLY.
And it just went from there. There’s guess between farmers and sheep station owners. There’s school house burning. There’s an ongoing battle between MCs because he wants to ship her back to England and she’s determined to put her foot down and stay. The party didn’t stop until page 405 of 406 and EVEN THEN there was another plot twist!
I loved every second of it. Of course. It’s who I am.
But honestly, there’s some real emotion in this one and some heavy content that really made my heart hurt. Sutcliffe brought the punch and I wasn’t prepared. Ouch.
This was a ‘91 release and a few things didn’t age well, but if you’re a fan of older historical romance, this is truly a delight! A bonkers bananas delight.
CW: violence, murder, suicide/suicidal ideation, miscarriage due to violence, dubious consent between MCs, handsy/grabby old school dude aggression, animal cruelty (not by MCs), savage/savages used to refer to indigenous peoples
Sutcliffe truly is a talented writer and I’m sad she isn’t active anymore. She’s one of maybe five authors that can make me enjoy a romance as wild as this. I mean in the first FIFTY pages, the MMC had murdered someone in a duel and gets shipped to New Zealand to escape Newgate prison and drunkenly signs a proxy marriage document. Meanwhile the FMC finds out her mother, who was an aristocrat’s mistress, has died, moves into said aristocrat’s house as a maid, accidentally ends up pushing him down a flight of stairs after he maybe murders her friend, and then takes her friend’s identity and hops on the ship to New Zealand to meet her new proxy husband. Because her friend was proxy married to the MMC OBVIOUSLY.
And it just went from there. There’s guess between farmers and sheep station owners. There’s school house burning. There’s an ongoing battle between MCs because he wants to ship her back to England and she’s determined to put her foot down and stay. The party didn’t stop until page 405 of 406 and EVEN THEN there was another plot twist!
I loved every second of it. Of course. It’s who I am.
But honestly, there’s some real emotion in this one and some heavy content that really made my heart hurt. Sutcliffe brought the punch and I wasn’t prepared. Ouch.
This was a ‘91 release and a few things didn’t age well, but if you’re a fan of older historical romance, this is truly a delight! A bonkers bananas delight.
CW: violence, murder, suicide/suicidal ideation, miscarriage due to violence, dubious consent between MCs, handsy/grabby old school dude aggression, animal cruelty (not by MCs), savage/savages used to refer to indigenous peoples