My Take in Brief: Good. Really well and economically written. Intense, almost claustrophobic focus on sexual relationship. Raised some questions for me about metaphors of masculine sexual strength. Maybe not the best choice on audio.
Cover comment: So which Harlequin Spice editor drew the short straw to sell her first born child to the devil in order to get to all of the best covers in romance? Cause that’s the only explanation I will buy.
Series?: Yes, published in 2007, Caine’s Reckoning is the first in the Hell’s Eight series, of which there are two in print.
Setting: Texas territory, middle 1800s
Heroine and Hero: Desi was raised a privileged woman back East, but is now an orphaned recovering victim of sexual abuse and other trauma. Caine Allen is a Texas ranger, typical alpha male with a sweet spot.
Fun Factoid: Caine’s Reckoning won the AAR reader’s poll for best Frontier Historical/American romance. In her gracious response, Ms. McCarty wrote,
“For years I’ve been fighting my own personal uphill battle. I started my career with my western historical Promise series. For those that don’t know, making the decision to start a career with a western historical series these days is tantamount to saying, ‘I’ve decided to jump off the Empire state building without a parachute. I think it could be fun.’ Pretty much everyone looks at you like you’re crazy, and no one wishes you luck. Western historical romance is a ‘dead’ genre, killed off through preconceived notions of what a WH must be. Notions honed through the years when the genre was glutted and the multitude of offerings blended to a proven story line.
Also I totally love it that McCarty gives you a choice of excerpts, regular and extra crispy spicy.
Word on the Web:
Karen Scott, very positive
“Caine’s Reckoning is definitely a character-led story, so for the readers who crave fast-paced action, and guns flaring on every other page, this may not be the book for you. However if you appreciate a slower sensual ride, where you have time to smell the roses, feel the warmth of the sun on your skin, and fall in love, then I would highly recommend Caine’s Reckoning.”
Azteclady (at Karen Knows Best), 9 out of 10
There is plenty of graphic language and sexual descriptions in this novel, which may shock some readers out of the story. As far as I’m concerned, though, these scenes both further and highlight Desi and Caine’s developing relationship, the deepening of the trust between them, and their increased understanding of themselves and each other.
The dialogue is another hit with me—there are no flowering speeches, no long winded expositions. Most of it is short and to the point.
Rosie, Nobody Asked Me, mostly positive, but…
Yet, I was waiting for there to be some sort of resolution or turning point because we certainly get the pot stirred and boiling often enough in this book. My quandry is over not really feeling there’s adequate explanation or understanding how Desi and Caine could enjoy the relationship Ms. McCarty carves out for them given Desi’s past. I found myself looking for cues in the book that would make their particular sexual relationship realistic. I just wasn’t comfortable with it.
RR&H Novel Thoughts and Book Talk, B+
Book Binge, Casee, 4 out of 5
TGTBTU, Sandy M, A
Tumperkin, Isn’t It Romance?, has an interesting post on this book, which she rates a B:
But it had a distinct BDSM flavour alright. Caine (the big ole protective cowboy) was very much in charge and Desi had to learn to obey him. And whilst he was very kind about how he trained her, train her he most assuredly did. He was the teacher, she was the pupil, and the watchwords were: protection and trust.
Racy Romance Review:
I listened to this one on audio. It is unabridged, read by Zoe Winslow, and is 14 and a half hours. Winslow is excellent (she also narrated Megan Hart’s Tempted). Be warned that Winslow does a Texas accent. I don’t know how authentic it is, so if you are picky about those things, her performance may not be for you.
Although the story is punctuated by bursts of excitement, for example at the beginning when Caine first meets Desi trying to escape her captors, and then at the end, when the long awaited encounter between Caine and Desi’s tormenters takes place, what I remember about this book is the frequent and extremely long sex scenes. When I say “long” I mean, not just covering a few pages, but covering a few chapters. This can be quite boring on audio.
What made it work for me as well as it did was that McCarty managed to get a lot of character and emotion in the sex scenes. Here’s an excerpt, with a few explicit lines deleted, that gives you a sense of McCarty’s writing :
Urgency gathered in the base of his spine, different than before, hotter, laden with potent embers of emotion he’d identify if passion weren’t riding him so hard. Releasing her breast, he lifted her forward and up. “I need you, Desi. Don’t hold back.”
Her lashes flickered under the lash of truth, but he didn’t see distaste in her expression, just a deepening of the confusion as he coaxed her up. …
Her hair slid free of her braid and tumbled around them. The scent of lilacs and Desi filled his next breath.
He held her gaze and let her see his excitement, his restraint, his passion. A slow blink heralded the arrival of his cock at its destination. The delicate muscles clenched in an intimate kiss. The pressure in his balls built. He wanted her to go with him. Wanted this to be more than a fulfilling of an obligation for her.
He rubbed the petal-soft skin of her cheek. “What’s going through that head of yours, Desi girl?”
“I don’t know who you are.”
“I’m your husband.”
“But what does that mean?”
He pressed up while urging her down, keeping it slow and steady, watching her face for signs of discomfort. “It means you’re not alone anymore.”
Both because Desi was raised to think enjoying sex was not what a good woman did, and because Desi had been whored out by her captors (can you get anymore Madonna/whore than this woman?) the bedroom was the arena where all of her issues lay. Since a lot of things were being worked out, not just the sex, but the relationship and her recovery, I didn’t mind the looooooooong and frequent sex scenes as much as I might have otherwise (but I still found myself wishing they were just cuddling, or maybe gardening, at least 40% of the time).
Now, this is erotic romance, and it is part of the fantasy that one way to help a woman overcome sexual trauma is to make her have a lot of envelope pushing sex (this is very common in the romances I have read with heroine victims of sexual abuse or trauma. Someone ought to write a paper on it). The first sex scene was not consensual and I thought I was going to have to abandon the book, as it was presented as erotic. But I kept going when Caine himself realized this and resolved to stay away from Desi. Of course, we can’t have them apart for long, so after a week we are told that it is worse for Desi to wonder what Caine is going to do to her than to actually have him do it. Is this consensual? You tell me.
I quoted Karen Scott, Azteclady and Rosie above because they all made great points I completely agree with. I really liked McCarty’s straightforward yet detailed and slow paced writing. It was almost like meditation to listen to. She is so focused on details, but unlike the mundane details that had me wanting to throw my iPod at the wall when I listened to Linda Howard’s book, the details here became important. I also really liked the Western setting. And I liked Desi, even though she wasn’t all that likable at several points.
Also, Tumperkin’s comment about BDSM was right on: Desi needs pain, in fact, to orgasm. It is interesting that in this book, Desi’s masochism wasn’t viewed as a legacy of her abuse. I was of two minds about this, the usual battle between my feminist (what bullshit!) and liberal selves (hey, whatever floats yer boat!). I could write about this for several hundred words so I will stop here. You are welcome.
There were two “tropes” used in this book that I found annoying. (1) In their first several sexual encounters, Caine thinks to himself that he wants unleash himself on Desi, but is afraid to. What does this unleashing entail? Thrusting really hard? Drowning her in copious amounts of semen? I really don’t know. I found myself worried for Desi. Worried because, (2) Caine has a super large penis, like all erotic romance heroes. So large that Desi actually has to work up to it, in fear and trembling. It actually seemed kind of painful, just too effortful and dangerous. I have to ask myself, when in real life most women are satisfied with the size of their partner’s penises, and when width has more to do with a woman’s satisfaction than length (there are even support groups for couples dealing with the problem of too much penis length) exactly whose fantasy is this?
Anyway, I may well try the second book in this series, but on paper.
