RATING GUIDE:
5 – A keeper!
4 – Very good
3 – Passable
2 – I’d rather read a telephone book
1 – An absolute bomb.
Read at your own risk
“Love In The Highlands” is one of
the books from the late Barbara Cartland’s Pink Collection. A historical romance set in the 1800’s, it
is the story of Lavinia, a pretty, slightly vain and pampered young lady whose
troubles begin when Queen Victoria demands that she marries Prince Stanislaus
as a matter of national interest.
Unfortunately, Prince Stanislaus is an oily character whose “oiliness”
matches his actual skin type. He is, to
use Barbara Cartland’s description, a man “who does not wash.” This is a nightmare for Lavinia, who
believes in marrying only for love.
Marrying a stinky man like Stanislaus?
She’d rather die!
Thankfully, Lavinia’s father is
able to think of a plan to help her escape this terrible marriage of
convenience. He arranges to have
Lavinia become the fake fiancée of Ivan, the Marquis of Elswick, a sullen,
brooding, masungit man, a complete asshole, except for the fact that he
is so damned handsome.
At first, Ivan refuses to have anything to do with the
scheme. But the mention of Stanislaus’
name makes him change his mind, and he’s suddenly enthusiastic about the idea
of being Lavinia’s fake fiancé. He goes
along with the plan, and after much bickering, they soon make beautiful music
together (literally and figuratively), as all romances go.
To be honest, I expected to be
bored to tears by this book. But after
reading this book, I now realize why Barbara Cartland was, is and will be
forever known as the Grand Dame of Romances.
As we all know, romances have a
recipe of their own. Throw in some
bickering here and there, add some sexual tension, let everything boil to a
climax. Something like that. However, what is amazing about Barbara
Cartland’s writing is, she manages to come up with a romantic recipe that FEELS
absolutely REAL, even though everyone knows it’s fabricated and, well,
over-conservative by today’s standards.
Barbara Cartland sneakily manages to get hold of your emotions so you
feel like you’re one of the characters, so that when it’s time for The First
Kiss, you feel like you’re the one who can’t breathe, you’re the one who melts
when those lips crush yours, the one whose knees are turning into jelly …
The visual imagery is also
surprisingly very sexual. Like that
visual image of Ivan and his rain-soaked clothes, clinging to him (and begging
to be ripped off him?). Wow. I’d take that over Christian Gray and his
numerous (to the point of boring) BDSM any time! This book just goes to show that you don’t have to read about sex
until your eyes pop out of their sockets to get turned on.
Since this is a historical
romance set in the 1800’s, modern readers with a feminist bent might want to
set aside their modern ideas in the meantime.
In this book, women are still treated as objects of desire and objects
to be pawned. Thankfully, Barbara
Cartland’s idea of a woman (in this book, at least) is someone who isn’t just
beautiful, but someone with an opinion and a mind of her own.
I always thought that romances
were one and the same. Read just one
and you’ve read them all. I was wrong. It takes great skill to make a reader feel
romance, and that was what Barbara Cartland demonstrated in this book.
RATING: 5
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