I agree with you that HH is clearly a first book in certain respects, and it doesn’t, IMO, reflect the narrative mastery of, say, For My Lady’s Heart, but emotionally speaking I think it actually surpasses some of her later books — for me, at least.

I couldn’t agree more with this statement, Robin. The Hidden Heart is not as polished a story as some of Kinsale’s later books, but I am fonder of it than many of the ones that probably are technically superior. I found the characters of Tess and Gryphon to be totally engaging and their journey to their HEA to be emotionally wrenching (in the best possible way!) and very satisfying. It is a rare book in which I adore both the hero and the heroine, but The Hidden Heart is one. Gryf is almost a precursor of Sheridan from Seize the Fire with his near mental breakdown and inability to accept love. And I love Tess; she is an original. I am particularly fond of the scene at the end when she has been studying manuals on how to be a perfect English housewife in order to impress Gryf, but then falls apart when a parrot lands on her head and ruins her carefully staged domestic tableau of mother and baby.

The nuances in the character development and the quality and energy of the writing make up for a certain awkwardness in the plotting and the use of the dreaded Double Big Mis plot device. Yes, Tess was perhaps not as traumatized as she should have been by her awful first marriage, but Gryf was certainly traumatized by his past. Even when he was being a jerk, I felt for him. And I loved the way that Kinsale didn’t attempt to shoe-horn this very unique couple into a “Total Acceptance By the Ton” HEA. Far more romantic (IMO) for the two of them to sail around and explore the world together.

Never fear, Robin, I know you and Janet are the same person. Hopefully our readers do too

You weren’t the one I was worried about Janine, lol! Sometimes even I get confused.

Maybe that’s what I mean by innocent. Not that there’s no sexiness to The Hidden Heart, but that a lot of Kinsale’s books (Seize the Fire and The Shadow and the Star especially) deal with loss of innocence and loss of illusions. That element is also present in The Hidden Heart, but it feels to me a bit as if at least in part, Kinsale shied away from it and hadn’t learned yet to go for that emotional jugular vein that she taps so stunningly well in her later books.

I don’t know if Elle is still reading this thread, but I wish she’d come back and talk about HH, which I know is one of her favorite Kinsale books, because I have no doubt she remembers it better than I do. I think you’re right that Kinsale pulls her punches where Tess is concerned, but I think she did a fabulous job of tracing Gryf’s implosion and eventual recovery. The scene in the nursery, where he is totally undone by the presence of his son, where he is so terribly afraid of even touching him, let alone seeing him and Tess together, well, I thought that scene was incredibly wrenching. I agree with you that HH is clearly a first book in certain respects, and it doesn’t, IMO, reflect the narrative mastery of, say, For My Lady’s Heart, but emotionally speaking I think it actually surpasses some of her later books — for me, at least. But, of course, none of that means there’s any similarity between HH and FS. For some reason your discussion of FS just brought HH to mind (and kind of made me want to re-read it, lol).

I love that scene in The Shadow and the Star! I liked The Hidden Heart, but it’s not one of my most favorite Kinsales. Even though it was a very good first novel, I think the fact that it was a first novel shows when I compare it to some of Kinsale’s later works, like Seize the Fire, The Shadow and the Star, Flowers from the Storm, For My Lady’s Heart and The Dream Hunter, to name some of my favorite books in the romance genre. It doesn’t have the same emotional impact on me; I think because I feel that Kinsale glosses over Tess’s first marriage a bit.

Maybe that’s what I mean by innocent. Not that there’s no sexiness to The Hidden Heart, but that a lot of Kinsale’s books (Seize the Fire and The Shadow and the Star especially) deal with loss of innocence and loss of illusions. That element is also present in The Hidden Heart, but it feels to me a bit as if at least in part, Kinsale shied away from it and hadn’t learned yet to go for that emotional jugular vein that she taps so stunningly well in her later books.

To bring this back around to the topic at hand, in Forbidden Shores the characters start out with less illusions than some of Kinsale’s characters begin with. Allen and Clarissa both think they are somewhat cynical and worldly-wise, and then discover that they have some illusions left to lose after all. I liked that element, but I wish it had been brought out even more, especially in the section pertaining to the revelation of Allen’s secret, which seemed somewhat rushed and glossed over to me. I would have liked for Lockwood to really go for the jugular there too, and I think she did in some ways, while holding back in other others, where I wish she hadn’t held back at all. I hope that makes sense.

So besides the beach sex and the shipboard setting, The Hidden Heart and Forbidden Shores do have this other aspect in common. But I wasn’t reminded of The Hidden Heart in reading and thinking about Forbidden Shores, until you mentioned it, and I still don’t think the books have that much in common.

Yes, that’s true, but The Hidden Heart seems like a much more innocent book to me.

Well, I don’t have the comparison, obviously, but I thought HH was such a sexy book, what with Tess’s Tahitian friend imparting all her sexual knowledge and guidance to her, lol — not to mention Tess’s plan to bring Gryf to his knees, so to speak. And I loved it when she passed all that on to Leda in Shadow and the Star. It just seemed to subversive to me, not only in terms of the genre, but in regard to how women learned about sex and their own sexuality more generally.

My cunning plan continues apace! Today, Janine, tomorrow, the world! Mwahahaha!

LOL. The grading part of reviewing is the bane of my existence. I have such a hard time with it, and I never know if I’m being too generous or too stingy with my grades. As a reviewer, I shudder at the thought of readers making up their minds about a book based on the grade alone.