Comments on: REVIEW: Virgin’s Wedding Night by Sara Craven

By: Ariani

Ariani — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 11:24:56 +0000

This is my first time reading Craven’s book. The title interest me to read the book.
The story is nice , even a bit lame and boring at the beginning, but the story began to get interesting when Roan decided to receive her offer. I was disappointed when Harriet keep rejecting him, what was she thinking?? Doesn’t she realize how lucky she is to have a nice&sweet man like Roan ?
Well, overall, this book is nice to read and I’m looking forward to this story becoming a movie,I’ll definitely go to the cinema for it!

By: Meljean

Meljean — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 21:43:57 +0000

I liked this one, too. Harriet’s character was definitely well-drawn and unusual — but, although I thought Craven did a great job of giving us hints to how Roan felt, the ending (particularly) suffered from never having the “tell me how you fell in love with me” speech. Because we never get his POV, and I really, really wanted to know when it happened. So although Craven did a great job of demonstrating his feelings, there wasn’t so much evidence toward how those feelings began. I mean, it must have been near-instant … but it isn’t until the wedding night that we get a sense that his feelings are deeper.

And I was really, really uncomfortable with the beginning of the forced seduction, but about halfway through, she obviously got a choice, and from there I was okay with it. (That sounds like something to detract from my overall opinion of it, but that she was able to turn my opinion of that scene around so fully was really amazing.)

******HERE THERE BE SPOILERS*******

And I was dissatisfied with how the declarations were carried out. The first, I could understand, because there had to be an explanation of what Roan had been doing in the background, because we never knew his POV. (And if his POV had been shown, oh man — how wonderfully angsty that would have been. But, given category word count, I don’t think Harriet’s character could have been written so deeply and have had Roan’s plot included, so if something had to be sacrificed, I’m glad it was Roan’s plot.) So I understand how it was the grandfather who did the reveal. The second declaration, though, I was disappointed that it wasn’t made directly to Roan. I needed some payoff *between them* at that point, and having her tell Roan’s father, and then turning to see Roan had overheard, just fell flat for me.

But those are really small problems that I had in the overall story — I was engaged through it all, had the little angsty heart-jumping moments that I love, never had an eye-rolling moment, and thought the prose was very smooth, with a couple of gems in there.

By: Nancy Mansfield

Nancy Mansfield — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 17:53:06 +0000

Haven’t read the Sara Craven book, but the plot sounds very similar to Suzanne Brockman’s Stand-In-Groom, first published in 1997 for Bantam’s Loveswept series. An heiress has to be married by a certain date or risk losing her inheritance according to the terms outlined in her grandfather’s (if I remember correctly) will. Needing the money to save a fledgling business, the heroine taps a friend, who agrees to the marriage and subsequent annulment, meets the love of his life and backs out at the last minute. Enter the hero, who saves the heroine from muggers and subsequently agrees to become the stand-in…attraction follows, sparks fly, etc. and they all live happily ever after. I guess after 10 years everything old becomes new again. The Brockman was quite a fun read. It stayed on my keeper shelf for a long time.

By: Kathleen O'Reilly

Kathleen O'Reilly — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 03:54:30 +0000

Sara Craven writes some of the best stuff for Presents, and no, I don’t know her, nor am I related to her. There’s a real talent for writing all the drama and conflict and fairy-tale worlds in the Presents without coming across as trite, and her stuff always works for me.

By: Keishon

Keishon — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 23:29:36 +0000

The title scared me off – I was thisclose to buying it, but I chickened out. I have my own Harlequin Presents to read. Later.

By: Meriam

Meriam — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 22:33:10 +0000

As I said on your blog, if you don’t mind an “ebook”, I would love to gift this for you.

I would love to receive it. Do you need me to email you?

By: Jane

Jane — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 21:13:53 +0000

I don’t get the sense that the hero is “taming her” but Harriet’s self realization of her own worth as a person is prompted, in part, through allowing herself to be seduced.

There are definitely scenes of “no means yes” in this book, but the way that Craven described it seemed less forced seduction and more true to Harriet’s idea of sexual submission being part of the patriarchal dominance that she had struggled against all her life.

Whether Craven intentionally challenges assumptions or whether she was just writing a character with consistency, I can only guess. As I said on your blog, if you don’t mind an “ebook”, I would love to gift this for you.

By: Meriam

Meriam — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 21:06:47 +0000

Interesting. I finished my own Presents last night and it was god-awful. Like, really bad. As I was reading it I thought, this is precisely what Bindel is talking about. But, of course, it was only one book and I'm going to have to read a few more before I'm qualified to make sweeping generalizations. The Virgin's Wedding Night at least sounds as though it's trying something different. I read a comment by angel over at teachmentonight that really struck me:

Bindel's article made me think that a Romance doesn't have to be like those horrid twenty M&B books she read to be patriarchal. All it has to do, imo, is be written by someone who's not actively trying not to be patriarchal. The unexamined assumptions are just going to come through , whether in a "funny" conversation where the hero razzes his male friend for being "like a girl" to show male bonding, which is enforcing the idea that female = weak and less than, or where the hero's allowed an active sex life, and the heroine must be a virgin to be worthy, or where the hero "tames" the heroine by forcing sex on her... whatever, it's going to be there to a greater or lesser extent....

It seems as though Sara Craven is actively challenging some assumptions?