During the start of the New Year, my online book club took to their usual favorite monthly endeavor and set up a poll to pick our book for the month of January. As our book club is based mainly in old school romance novels, they decided to run with one of the pioneers of the genre to help bring 2016 in the right way. The voting closed and the dust settled and the book of choice was The Flame and The Flower by the legendary Kathleen E. Woodiwiss. Now when I say the dust settled, I mean this almost literally, as this choice once the voting ended caused the most uproar that I have ever seen in any book club. Peace loving romance novel enthusiasts turned into warriors and champions for and against this classic tale due to the content of the work itself.
It turns out that there are two scenes in which the heroine is either about to be raped or is actively raped during the book. This was almost enough to deter me from even downloading it, but as some in the group pointed out, it was normal to have a heroine raped by the hero of the book in early works. Heck it was even a theme way back during the days of Luke and Laura on General Hospital (as well as Kevin and Lily of Young and The Restless during the early 2000’s) that an eye almost wasn’t batted at the subject matter. With this being said, I will be reviewing the book but also taking a step back and analysing whether or not there were any redeeming qualities for the hero, the heroine, or the book itself past the sexual assault.
The story opens in a little village with a young Heather Simmons being verbally and physically abused by her dastardly ugly Aunt. I do not just mean she was ugly physically (while from the description, we know she is just short of being Shrek) I mean she is also one of the blackest souls that I’ve read in literature recently. Her aunt swears that she is the daughter of a witch because her mother was apparently some great Irish beauty. And of course anyone prettier than the troll of an aunt has to be of the devil in order to attain such beauty. Heather who is also of the too beautiful for reality kind just accepts her life for what it is. She knows she will never escape her family’s clutches and just accepts her lot in life. She also suffers from an early romance novel trope of being woefully stupid and extremely biddable.
One day her aunt's favorite brother is set to make his appearance in town and all the stops are pulled out to make life more accommodating for the hoighty toighty rich designer brother. When he arrives, he makes a big show of wanting to take Heather away from her life of toil and take her to London where she will be given a teaching position at a prestigious school for girls. Heather, the featherbrain that she is, leaps at the chance to finally be out of the clutches of her abusive aunt and unattentive uncle. So when she leaves with her other uncle, she spares not a backwards thought to her family for to her safety and travels with a man she knew nothing about. When they arrive at his shop he gives her a most revealing gown and tells her to prepare herself for dinner. It is at this point that I almost deleted the e-book from my inventory and nearly threw my phone across the bedroom.
Her uncle reveals to her over dinner that she was never going to come London to have a normal career. Far from it, as he planned to have her with or without her consent, and then sell her to one of the most high end brothels in the area. He then attempts to force himself on her, and being that she is so small and fragile, she ends up reaching for a nearby fruit knife and drives it into her uncle's chest, where he begins bleeding out.
Now because Heather lacks the normal common sense that God gave a goose, she feels she should just run back to her aunt and uncle because she would just be seen as a criminal set to be hanged, not as a woman who was nearly raped and defended herself. And without a thought to her future, she went tearing out of the shop into dark streets in a city she no longer knows or remembers to flee back to her abusive family members. It is during this flight that she is caught and bodily dragged by two sailors back to a ship and presented to their captain. Yes ladies and gentlemen, Brandon Birmingham is a randy yankee from the colonies and was in need of a roll in the sack by any means, which roughly translates to send two flunkies to do his own dirty work. Our wonderful hero takes one look at our frail slip of a girl and knows right then and there that he MUST have her. It is at this moment where the story grinds to a halt for me because Brandon chases around a very unwilling Heather and rapes her.
While she is sobbing that she is a virgin and that she never wanted any part in the deed, Brandon, paragon of virtue and virility that he is, declares that she shall be his London mistress. Which of course causes Heather even more distress. Eventually she concocts a plan that I must say did make me proud where she stages her escape and makes it to a mail coach. That pride in Heather lasted all of maybe five pages, as the first thing that she did was run straight back to the arms of her aunt and uncle. With her return she noticed an even more reticent version of her uncle but disregarded him. It is here back at home that she begins to feel more and more ill over time as she had no idea that she was pregnant. Her aunt being the sharp eyed beast that she is of course is the only person to notice her nieces slightly rounding form.
Naturally her aunt sees Heather’s pregnancy as an instant cash grab and makes her tell who was the one she gave herself to. Due to the fact that she was raped, our heroine wanted nothing to do with Brandon and would have rather raised the child on her own than to have to lay eyes on the man who hurt her worse than her uncle had, which under the circumstances is completely understandable. However, when the family gets to London Heather is awakened in the middle of the night to come down to a secret meeting in which Brandon is notified that she is pregnant and that he has one of two choices: marry the chit, or be thrown in jail for raping the young lady. Naturally because the book contains almost no logic or foresight into how marrying one’s rapist could possibly destroy one's psyche and life, Brandon and Heather are forced to wed one another.
Did you notice something? Notice how long this review is already? All of these terrible decisions are made within the first third of the book. And this has already reached critical mass of bad decisions and stupidity. At this point in the book and it is now the next day and my phone is once again in danger of being flung off of the Ravenel Bridge at terminal velocity because I was so over reading this book. But still I pushed on, and so shall we through this review! (Save me!)
When the unwillingly married couple return to his ship, Brandon informs his new almost child bride that they are to soon set sail for Charleston, SC (y’know, in America) and that he will never be returning to the shores and smog of London. During the week it takes the ship to be readied, Brandon does take up the mantle of at least making sure that his wife has clothing and some version of comfort for their transatlantic voyage stateside. When they set out for America, our brave seafaring captain chooses a much more dangerous route across the ocean to try and beat several other fleets. The journey across left me hoping that they would encounter a massive iceberg and that this story, unlike my heart, would not go on. Instead we get a vengeful husband who vows he will not touch his wife as punishment for trapping him, as though it was her idea for them to marry one another even though SHE WAS THE ONE WHO WAS RAPED.
With his angry vow, Heather does at least try her best to be amenable, especially during this trip because she is getting farther along in the pregnancy. Brandon tries to ignore her expanding waistline and tries to be agreeable as well, that is until he accidentally brushes her stomach in the middle of the night, causing the little one to squirm with what we can assume is happiness. This sets Capt. Birmingham into a brand new stint of rudeness, and our still featherbrained Heather decides to punish her husband by sleeping near the window. During a winter voyage. In winter. So naturally Brandon finds her the next morning, whiter than a paper bag and half dying of a fever. During this time, he does manage to stay by her side night and day, not allowing any of his crew to help take care of his dying wife and child and cares for her the whole stint of her illness.
When Heather wakes clear headed several days later, she’s terrified that she lost the baby. When she is reassured, she learns who her caregiver was and promises to be a little nicer to her husband. As the ship finally draws closer to American soil Captain Birmingham becomes a tense jerk once again, but this time with somewhat better reasoning (not much better mind you) as his brother and fiancee are there on the docks waiting for his return. Upon arrival, his brother takes instantly to Heather and tries to welcome her to the family. Whereas the unbearably beautiful southern belle Louisa realizes that Brandon not only brought home another woman, but that she is quite pregnant and showing. She flies into a rampage, calling Heather several kinds of harlots and trash while storming off to get in a carriage.
My next issue with this book starts around this point as Brandon owns a sprawling plantation in Charleston, SC. Which as a resident of for most of my life, I can say with absolute certainty was home of the confederacy, and the starting place of the civil war (first shots fired at Ft. Sumter). So in this setting of the book, it strikes me as odd that Woodiwiss would go so far out of the way to make it seem as though the “servant negroes and negresses” were anything but what they would have normally been called. You know, slaves. They are painted as these happy go lucky servants with the most joy and happiness for everything the Birmingham family represented. And sure, it is possible that the house slaves were happy go lucky, as they were not the ones working in the fields to collect the cotton and vegetables that were grown there. And while there were some abolitionists in the south at the time, Charleston was less likely to have seen any than anywhere else in the Southeastern region. But, I digress.
During this time on the plantation, Heather begins to adjust to life in the new land. Feeling a slight twinge of homesickness occasionally, but mostly feeling abandoned by Brandon who still refuses to even give her the slightest inkling that he might even like her. Which apparently he does since she was sick onboard his ship. But in non typical classic alpha male fashion he continues to treat her like less than nothing, all the while brooding that she won’t give in and do him. And Heather is equally as torn because she goes from hating the sight of him to wanting him but not asking because of the fear that he might hurt her again.
It is during this phase of the book where it starts to feel like you typical romantic fare. Brandon showers her with gifts after arguments, they become closer as both friends and husband and wife. He helps deliver their son and becomes a doting father and all the while they still take time before finally just jumping in the sack! And you know what? The book could have ended there, as the couple through trials and sickening tribulations, have finally had their ways with each other. Granted, it was a beautiful scene that was majestically written, but the book could’ve just stopped when they let their love shine through to each other. But no.
What did we get instead you may be wondering? We got a severely jealous Louisa who is still devastatingly beautiful, taunting our poor slip of a heroine with the knowledge that she has slept with Brandon in the past. For a woman who by the author’s own description could have almost any man in Charleston that she wanted, she insists on chasing behind the man who clearly didn’t want her and is devoted and happy to the woman he married? It’s a hard pill to swallow. Even harder to swallow was the murder mystery that got shoehorned into the book during the final third. A man so hideously disfigured that his very soul must be concentrated evil to the core. Because nothing spells evil out quite like being as villainous as one's appearance.
I can understand where some might read what is described as one the FIRST “Bodice Rippers” to ever hit the market and think “I want a man like Capt. Brandon”. However when given the choice between reading “The Flame and The Flower” over again or re-reading “Surrender to Love” for a third time in my life, my answer would probably end up being shooting myself in the foot instead of reading either. I would rather endure physical pain instead of dealing with our whimpering heroine and our brooding jerk of a hero ever again. Honestly while I can see the appeal, I just don’t understand it. Maybe I never will.
When you move past the initial rape scene and the tedium of the trek to America, you do see the love story that drew thousands in to the love between these characters. They do have a slightly charming quality to them when Brandon isn't being deliberately hurtful to Heather. The same can be said for Heather, as she is submissive and humble and could be seen as endearing to those who can appreciate non-strong willed heroines (which if we are judging by the time frame the book is set in would be par for the course.) The issue for me ends up being that I cannot suspend my disbelief for the actions taken in this book. I would never force a woman to marry the man that violated her in order to appease her family members. Not even as a writer. It is insulting to the character, it is insulting as a woman, and it is insulting as a reader. So while many will still read this book going on into the future and fall head over heels, and will use this as a basis for their love of historical fiction romance novels, this will never be one of my favorites. It will stay in the bottom of my e-book shelf until the ends of time. Collecting virtual dust, and harboring what literary anger is left that isn't already reserved for "Surrender To Love".
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