Costume Reference: The Victorians - Marion Sichel - Hardcover Book

Re Pulse of the Heartland - Melinda Cross takes us to the Midwest of the USA in this one. The h is a 27 yr old virginal florist who lives in a small town of 500 people. She has basically spent her whole life fulfilling her obligations to her farming family as they had no son to help out with the farmwork and nursing her fragile mother. In her childhood she got the nickname Earnest Emily as she never had time to do anything but study, school and help out on the farm. Her big achievement is being able to toss 80lb bales of hay and she loves flowers.

The H is the town golden boy, he left to become a Doctor and run around sampling the lady buffet. He returns for his grandfather's funeral and immediately makes a beeline to humiliate and seduce the h. The h was apparently the only girl in school who never had time for him and he aims to correct that on this visit. The h has never really dated, all she sees around her is domineering men and subjugated women and she really doesn't want that kind of life. Her one big kiss was on graduation day where the H basically forced a big punishing kiss on her and she felt embarrassed and belittled.

The H is now on a mission to get her into bed and the whole story really reads like the big stud in high school who may or may not be a big success in the big city wanting to score with the one girl who never really noticed him until he humiliated her in front of everyone. The H decides his plan of attack is to continually taunt and show up drunk in the middle of the night at the h's shop and her apartment over the shop and insinuate to the very incestuously judgemental populace of the town that he and the h are getting it on.

The h, who is a very low key kind of person, gets really flustered and irate and the H pretty much goes the route of forcing himself on her and then bullying her into accepting his presence. He isn't nice about it and it isn't charming.

I think MC was trying to be funny but it just comes off as rather sadistic subjugation. The h lives with these people and the H does his best to continually make her look like a fool or imply to other people that she is a pity pike when he really has no intentions of doing anything but using her as a quick pump and dump while he is around.

He finally gets enough of a physical response from her to make her curious and after several incidents of making the h look pathetic and needy and spreading gossip about her to the other townspeople and telling the h that she really wants him when she isn't sure she really does, the H sets up a big town dance and then proceeds to hang all over every woman but the h. The h doesn't know how to dance, her life has been spent working. So tho she dresses up and looks great, an old farmer is the guy who teaches her how to dance. Later on the h gets attacked by some random weird guy and the H jumps in and helps her out, but when the h is ready to try a little mojo experience, the H walks away.

The H really wants her to beg him to stay in town but the h isn't ready to 'submit' to the H. The H is stopping off at a picnic before leaving for good and the entire town is blaming the h because she isn't begging the H to hang around. There is a big tornado and the h goes to help and is panicked at the thought of the H being hurt. Everybody works together to rescue the people trapped by the tornado and at the end of it, the H takes the h back to his house and she asks him to stay and he leads her off to the bedroom for the dubious HEA.

This book was odd and I don't mean that in a good way. The H thinks romance consists of telling the h that she wants him, forcing kisses on her and groping her and the h is pretty sheltered, so the overall feeling is that she is confusing physical passion with love. There is way too much repetitive focus on how the h doesn't want to subjugate herself to a man and yet that is just what MC has her doing.

MC hammers home the h's unwillingness to enter into bondage with a man and then hammers home that a woman isn't anything unless she is a subservient housewife. In MC's corner of HPlandia, if you aren't laying down to be a doormat and popping out the mini H's, then you are morally wrong and have no value and should be pimped out and humiliated until you learn better.

This was not a romance in my POV, the h and H never make the big love declaration, the h just falls into line with being the H's willing doormat and blow up doll because that is what MC wanted her to do.

My overwhelming feeling on this one was that the H maybe wasn't as successful in the big city as he wanted everyone to believe, so he decided to go back where he could be a big fish in a small pond and his ego required that he score with the only girl he never got.

Since he and the secondary characters were successful in beating the h down to a spineless mass of quivering jellyfish just waiting to be trodden upon, he figured she would be as good a doormat as any - the h is a very hard and efficient worker in pretty much everything she does - and there are always more interesting lady buffet options around. I also have to wonder just how long the H was actually going to stick around, he really did not seem like the long term small town type and MC never has the two of them actually discuss anything but the h going to bed with the H.

Supposedly the h's mother convinces the h that marriage isn't some kind of enslavement, but the mother's 'convincing' really read like marriage was the only licensed way to have sex and not be branded a tart - so the mum and her marriage really is a front for being a sex slave.

I saw no long term happiness or compatibility between these two and the ultimate test of any successful outing in HPlandia is the believablity of the HEA. I did not find it here and that made this one not my cuppa and a rather bad day at the HP office.