Did the Heroine ‘cry’ everything, like the one in the first book did?

No, but there were, now that you mention it, a lot of dialogue tags. One of the most interesting things was that when a character had an emotion, it was described as beginning: “outrage began,” or “disbelief began” and the like. I haven’t decided whether I like the description or not, but I definitely noticed it because it was different.

I’m trying to recall The Conqueror, but the memories are hazy because that was light years ago. Was this one where the hero slapped the heroine so hard he split her lip? I recall absolutely hating that scene.

I *think* so, but I wouldn’t swear to it, as I’ve blocked a lot out from that book. What pushed me over the edge was when the “hero” married off the heroine to his best friend (because HE couldn’t have her, of course!) and then came on their wedding night and forced the heroine to have sex with HIM (tossing said friend out). Beyond the fact that the whole “lord’s first night” thing is myth, the violence directed at the heroine in that book crossed my line between merely portraying violence toward women and actually perpetuating it for IMO no good reason (and don’t even get me started on the historical issues I had with the book — damn that year of Anglo Saxon language I had in grad school, lol!). So I was very, very glad that DR seemed to have moved on from that kind of heroine victimization. Very glad.

“club-like manhood”

I’m giggling at this one because you’re right: definitely not sexy.

Like I said, I’ve stopped reading her so I didn’t know she progressed to this. I’m trying to recall The Conqueror, but the memories are hazy because that was light years ago. Was this one where the hero slapped the heroine so hard he split her lip? I recall absolutely hating that scene.

Did the Heroine ‘cry’ everything, like the one in the first book did?

Keishon: I was also curious to see if the current Joyce books were different, and in some ways this one was and in others it wasn’t. I couldn’t get past the historical anachronisms in The Conqueror or Dark Rival, although the raping and pillaging in DR were less pronounced than in TC.

DS: I didn’t mention a number of things that bothered me during the book, but the cliched phrases in DR started to wear on me. Sometimes I couldn’t tell whether they were simply supposed to reflect the way the characters spoke — especially in Allie’s case — but they still seemed a bit plentiful to me.

RfP: I had heard of those books, and almost tried them, but someone mentioned to me that there is still a big power imbalance between the hero and heroine. Is that the case? I adore the turn of the century America as a Romance setting, so it might make me crazy if the history is off, lol.

Chantal: thanks for linking to your review of Dark Seduction; I gleaned that Claire and Malcom were the hero and heroine of the first book, and they appear prominently in DR. Allie was pretty impulsive, too, but Royce’s rules didn’t impress me too much, so I kind of understood her defiance. But then, I didn’t understand how the demons couldn’t just come in and snatch Allie whenever she was alone, so I was already having problems with the set up, lol. Is any of that explained in the first book?

Karen: it sounds from Chantal’s review that there is a fair amount of crossover between the two books, but I think it’s tough to predict those things. I only know how it read for me.

Avaron: thanks so much for providing the details. As it was, I spent so much time writing this review (I think it’s the longest one I’ve written for DA) that I was too lazy to go look up the exact example of Giles Corey.

~ Avaron (historian by training.)

This is what I said about the first in the series.
http://dreamydeppmama.blogspot.com/2007/05/dark-seduction.html

After reading this dear author review, I’m not so sure that I will read Dark Rival after all. Perhaps I should just stick to her historicals.

I picked up one of her historical mysteries at the library once and I couldn’t get into them for a number of reasons. I skimmed about 100 pages and had to put it down and re-read an SEP to make myself feel better.