Reviews for Desire in the Sun

The average rating for Desire in the Sun based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2013-02-25 00:00:00 Rue Jimbo A Forbidden Love and a Tropical Isle'Formula for a Lasting Love! Set in 1792, this tells of Delilah Remy from the British island of Barbados who visits her great aunt in Virginia with the hopes of finding a suitor she actually wants (having previously turned down two dozen proposals and not being very thrilled with her father's choice). One night she encounters Joss San Pietro, the first man she's ever been attracted to. He's tall, dark and terribly handsome and much more mature than the fops who she's been exposed to and better that the oh-so-dull man her father would see her marry on Barbados where they have a plantation. But the night they meet, Lilah and Joss learn a terrible secret about him that means they can never be together: Joss is not entirely white. Robards deals well with a sensitive issue at a time when England had no slaves but America did. Joss is an educated businessman, a merchant sea captain with his own ships, but the one drop of African blood in his veins rules him out as a suitor and throws him into slavery. On the ship voyage south to Barbados, where Joss accompanies Lilah as a slave, they will be shipwrecked on a tropical island for months where none of the rules apply. Robards tells a great tale with wonderful characters and a deep romance that defies the rules of the day. I'm giving it 4 stars because the ending seemed a bit rushed (yes, there was an epilogue but still it seemed something was lacking). I can recommend it and it did keep me turning pages.

Review # 2 was written on 2013-03-30 00:00:00 Joanne Applegate This... was definitely not quite what I had expected from the blurb. Although I'd guessed he was mixed race ("the dark secret that ran in his blood" and all), I certainly had no inkling of what was to come. But once what happened did happen, I was hoping for a bit more exploration on views of people of a different race and maybe some abolition thrown in. However, it was made pretty clear that the heroine would never have fallen in love with the hero if he had actually looked black, rather than looking completely white and just happening to be 1/32 African, and even the hero still seemed to be fine with slavery at the end, as long as it didn't apply to him. The characters' feelings may be historically accurate, but it definitely made the heroine a seem bit unsympathetic. The book had some surprising twists in places, but for the most part it was pretty obvious what would happen next. I was expecting some pirate gang rape, though, so at least in that I was spared. (I can't believe I just typed that.) So not a bad book, just not what I had hoped it would be. But also, what kind of English gentleman in 1792 has a mustache?! Not any that I've heard of, certainly. And the fashions were off, too. Swallowtail coats are Victorian, and the name "empire dress" also didn't come along until much later, even if it described the style of the time.