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A review by rjordan19
Dark Torment by Karen Robards
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Overall: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Readability: 📖📖📖📖
Feels: 🦋🦋🦋
Emotional Depth: 💔💔💔💔
Sexual Tension: ⚡⚡⚡
Romance: 💞💞💞
Sensuality: 💋💋💋
Sex Scene Length: 🍑🍑🍑 (some are a bit longer)
Steam Scale (Number of Sex Scenes): 🔥🔥🔥ish
Humor: A bit
Perspective: third person mostly from heroine, and some from the hero (and possibly a side character too?? If so, it’s brief)
More character focused or plot focused? plot
How did the speed of the story feel? medium to fast
When mains are first on page together: Pretty soon in, about pg 17 (towards the end of chapter 1)
Cliffhanger: no, this ends with a happily ever after
Epilogue: yes
Format: read a paperback from the library
Why I chose this book: combined elements of wanting a book published in the year I was born for my library summer bingo challenge and our author of the month in our Vintage Romance FB group bring Karen Robards.
Should I read in order?
I believe this is a standalone.
Basic plot:
Sarah finds herself stepping between a convict and a beating that could take his life. She saves him and he’s brought back to their farm in the Outback.
Give this a try if you want:
- Victorian - 1838
- Australia setting
- Irish hero / Australian herione
- one horse
- kidnapped heroine
- forbidden love
- enemies to lovers
- heroine nurses hero back to health
- moonlight dance lessons
- size difference – hero tops the heroine by at least a foot
- revenge elements – the hero believes the heroine has wronged him and takes his due
- you have to be okay with quite a few content warnings including an owner/slave dynamic and strong dubious consent (more details in content warnings)
- definitely elements of a jerk hero, though he’s way more honorable than other old school heroes I have read
- medium steam – 3ish scenes (one scene fades a bit towards the end), plus plenty of kisses, partials and alluded to scenes
Ages:
- heroine is 22, I think hero is mid 30s, maybe around 35
First line:
“I don’t know what Pa can have been thinking about, telling us to meet him down here!”
My thoughts:
Overall I really enjoyed this one! It definitely had lots of things I loved – the beautiful Australian setting and a sweeping fast paced story that kept me interested. Dominic and Sarah are on page for much of the story and I loved that. There was some surprising moments of humor and sweetness for me from these two, and I enjoyed a great emotional pull from their story.
I struggled with a few minor things...some of the overbearing attitude of Dominic where he wouldn’t believe Sarah or even let her explain herself was trying, including some of the language used (I really hate when the hero calls the heroine a bitch….)
This novel has some very light scenes of body betrayed me (thinks like As she felt his body move, heard his lilting voice shouting at the recalcitrant sheep, and felt his thighs shifting beneath her own, Sarah realized to her horror that her body was responding blindly to his nearness. Having once learned the secret joys of being female, her body was reacting automatically to the overwhelming presence of the man who had schooled it. which usually really bothers me but since it was lighter here it was fine. (This is why I struggled with so many Johanna Lindsey books – let’s hate each other then fuck and go back to hating each other)
Few random reading stats for this author This won’t be totally accurate because I know I read some of hers in high school way before I started tracking.
# of books read: 3
Average rating: 4 stars
Favorite book: Tiger’s Eye
Endearments
The hero calls the heroine ‘cuilin’ and ‘my own’.
Content warnings: These should be taken as a minimum of what to expect. It’s very possible I have missed some.
- fire (arson) with death of horses
- various scenes of violence, beatings, mention of death, gunfire
- slavery/indentured servant serving a convict sentence is a big plot point
- there is a bit of an owner/slave relationship in this one – the heroine’s father ‘buys’ the hero to serve his sentence on his farm
- attempted rape and physical assault of the heroine (not from hero)
- there is a lot of dubious consent in this novel with pushy hero behavior. Non consensual kisses. Sex can cross a bit into the ‘body betrayed me’ trope popular of the time and feel like rape because the heroine doesn’t truly understand what is happening/going to happen or trust her body and the hero doesn’t explain beforehand. For the second full scene he does ask and the consent is explicit (but she does waver a bit internally so it doesn’t feel solid.)
- some elements of domestic violence – the heroine smacks and whip at the hero’s face and cuts him and attempts to hit and punch him
- the hero does call the heroine a bitch more than once in the book
- lashing and imprisonment
Author content warnings? None given
Locations of kisses/intimate scenes, safe sex aspects, consent, pregnancy/child in the story:
Safe sex: Nope
Hows the consent? It’s not very good so if consent is important to you I would bypass this one. The hero does noncon kisses and is generally more pushy and aggressive with the heroine. The sex is more dubcon with some body betrayed me.
Pregnancy/children in story? (Please note this is the best to my memory/note taking. If you see something I missed please feel free to message!) Most of the story is child free, but the heroine does fall pregnant towards the very end (last 30-50 pages-ish)
Pg 94 of 389 – forceful kiss
Pg 120 of 389 - kiss
Pg 160 of 389 – forceful, punishing kiss
Pg 216 of 389 – a bit of a partial with tension, longing and an almost kiss before the hero dumps her in the water for a bath
Pg 225 of 389 – kiss, fingering for her but it’s interrupted
Pg 272 of 389 – kisses, oral for her, missionary
more kisses and alluded to sex in the next 70 pages or so but no ‘full scenes’
Pg 355 of 389 – bj (incomplete and only a few short sentences), then missionary
Readability: 📖📖📖📖
Feels: 🦋🦋🦋
Emotional Depth: 💔💔💔💔
Sexual Tension: ⚡⚡⚡
Romance: 💞💞💞
Sensuality: 💋💋💋
Sex Scene Length: 🍑🍑🍑 (some are a bit longer)
Steam Scale (Number of Sex Scenes): 🔥🔥🔥ish
Humor: A bit
Perspective: third person mostly from heroine, and some from the hero (and possibly a side character too?? If so, it’s brief)
More character focused or plot focused? plot
How did the speed of the story feel? medium to fast
When mains are first on page together: Pretty soon in, about pg 17 (towards the end of chapter 1)
Cliffhanger: no, this ends with a happily ever after
Epilogue: yes
Format: read a paperback from the library
Why I chose this book: combined elements of wanting a book published in the year I was born for my library summer bingo challenge and our author of the month in our Vintage Romance FB group bring Karen Robards.
Should I read in order?
I believe this is a standalone.
Basic plot:
Sarah finds herself stepping between a convict and a beating that could take his life. She saves him and he’s brought back to their farm in the Outback.
Give this a try if you want:
- Victorian - 1838
- Australia setting
- Irish hero / Australian herione
- one horse
- kidnapped heroine
- forbidden love
- enemies to lovers
- heroine nurses hero back to health
- moonlight dance lessons
- size difference – hero tops the heroine by at least a foot
- revenge elements – the hero believes the heroine has wronged him and takes his due
- you have to be okay with quite a few content warnings including an owner/slave dynamic and strong dubious consent (more details in content warnings)
- definitely elements of a jerk hero, though he’s way more honorable than other old school heroes I have read
- medium steam – 3ish scenes (one scene fades a bit towards the end), plus plenty of kisses, partials and alluded to scenes
Ages:
- heroine is 22, I think hero is mid 30s, maybe around 35
First line:
“I don’t know what Pa can have been thinking about, telling us to meet him down here!”
My thoughts:
Overall I really enjoyed this one! It definitely had lots of things I loved – the beautiful Australian setting and a sweeping fast paced story that kept me interested. Dominic and Sarah are on page for much of the story and I loved that. There was some surprising moments of humor and sweetness for me from these two, and I enjoyed a great emotional pull from their story.
I struggled with a few minor things...some of the overbearing attitude of Dominic where he wouldn’t believe Sarah or even let her explain herself was trying, including some of the language used (I really hate when the hero calls the heroine a bitch….)
This novel has some very light scenes of body betrayed me (thinks like As she felt his body move, heard his lilting voice shouting at the recalcitrant sheep, and felt his thighs shifting beneath her own, Sarah realized to her horror that her body was responding blindly to his nearness. Having once learned the secret joys of being female, her body was reacting automatically to the overwhelming presence of the man who had schooled it. which usually really bothers me but since it was lighter here it was fine. (This is why I struggled with so many Johanna Lindsey books – let’s hate each other then fuck and go back to hating each other)
Few random reading stats for this author This won’t be totally accurate because I know I read some of hers in high school way before I started tracking.
# of books read: 3
Average rating: 4 stars
Favorite book: Tiger’s Eye
Endearments
Content warnings: These should be taken as a minimum of what to expect. It’s very possible I have missed some.
- fire (arson) with death of horses
- various scenes of violence, beatings, mention of death, gunfire
- slavery/indentured servant serving a convict sentence is a big plot point
- there is a bit of an owner/slave relationship in this one – the heroine’s father ‘buys’ the hero to serve his sentence on his farm
- attempted rape and physical assault of the heroine (not from hero)
- there is a lot of dubious consent in this novel with pushy hero behavior. Non consensual kisses. Sex can cross a bit into the ‘body betrayed me’ trope popular of the time and feel like rape because the heroine doesn’t truly understand what is happening/going to happen or trust her body and the hero doesn’t explain beforehand. For the second full scene he does ask and the consent is explicit (but she does waver a bit internally so it doesn’t feel solid.)
- some elements of domestic violence – the heroine smacks and whip at the hero’s face and cuts him and attempts to hit and punch him
- the hero does call the heroine a bitch more than once in the book
- lashing and imprisonment
Author content warnings? None given
Locations of kisses/intimate scenes, safe sex aspects, consent, pregnancy/child in the story:
Safe sex:
Hows the consent?
Pregnancy/children in story? (Please note this is the best to my memory/note taking. If you see something I missed please feel free to message!)
Pg 94 of 389 – forceful kiss
Pg 120 of 389 - kiss
Pg 160 of 389 – forceful, punishing kiss
Pg 216 of 389 – a bit of a partial with tension, longing and an almost kiss before the hero dumps her in the water for a bath
Pg 225 of 389 – kiss, fingering for her but it’s interrupted
Pg 272 of 389 – kisses, oral for her, missionary
more kisses and alluded to sex in the next 70 pages or so but no ‘full scenes’
Pg 355 of 389 – bj (incomplete and only a few short sentences), then missionary