Reviews for Contra Su Voluntad : (Against Her Will)

The average rating for Contra Su Voluntad : (Against Her Will) based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2016-09-11 00:00:00 David Henry [ The cousin's husband shows up at their engagement party to make mischief and to remind the hero "he had her first." The hero is jealous and angry when the heroine won't explain herself. The OM also tells her that hero is love with his cousin and that's why he's settling for second best with the heroine. Now heroine is jealous of the cousin and realizes she's starting to care about the hero. They marry and go off to the Caribbean for their honeymoon. On her wedding night the heroine explains that she was raped by the cousin's husband and fell pregnant. That's why she showed up at the stag party - to tell him she was pregnant. But their rough handling caused her miscarry later that night. The hero listens with concern and believes her - and then - unbelievably - tells her she needs to get back on the proverbial horse so she won't be afraid of sex in the future. They do have sex with a lot of objections from the heroine - but it's all good until the next morning when she overhears the H talking to his cousin and she thinks he's still in love with her. For the rest of the honeymoon, the heroine is terrible to the hero. And the hero is feeling guilty about pushing the sex on the first night. Then the heroine finds out that her father decided to have heart surgery while they were gone and complications have set in. They return to England. Daddy dies and leaves a messed up will with the house going to the h/H and the money going to a trust for their future children. Heroine leaves hero. The heroine was hoping to finally have her independence. Hero offers to buy out her half of the house. Heroine goes to see him, only to watch him leave with his cousin. She thinks they're together. Just as the house is about to be sold, the hero finally shows up to tell her he fell in love with her at first sight and was disappointed when he thought she was a stripper. That's why he was so mean. But then he saw her photo two years later on her father's desk and realized that this was his big chance. Misunderstandings about the honeymoon are cleared up. HEA. (hide spoiler)]

Review # 2 was written on 2017-12-31 00:00:00 Rosalyn Hope This is the worst offering I've read so far from Sara Craven - but even this is entirely readable and quite enjoyable in its own way. The premise is as follows: Darcy Langton suffers a horrible experience at the hands of her rapist next door neighbour (a toff named Harry). She tries to confront him with the evidence of his crimes, when she finds herself pregnant, but ends up gatecrashing his stag night and being accused of being a stripper. Two years later, after bumming around Europe for a bit and serving as a hostess on a yacht with a playboy, because her father (another upper-class oik) refuses to let her get any qualifications, she ends up being coerced into a marriage she doesn't want to Joel Castille by her dear old Daddy. Joel is going to take over the running of the company and if Darcy agrees to marry him for a while to make things easier with the company's Board, then he'll pay for her University education later. (Yes, it's nonsense - nobody uses this strategy EVER in controlling an Executive Board, but Darcy falls for it. If only the heroines had more common sense and stood up for themselves a bit more, then they wouldn't end up in these ridiculous predicaments). The whole thing is a complete stitch up of course - despite telling Joel over and over again that the only condition of their marriage (beside him funding her degree) is that she won't sleep with him, he ends up almost forcing herself on her during their wedding night. It's a nightmare for the woman whose first experience of sex has been rape. There's a brilliant scene where the heroine confronts the hero with his actions and holds up a mirror to him as the counterpart of rapist Harry: 'I thought you were going to leave me alone.' She choked on a sudden sob. 'My God, I married you on that one condition. You know I did. But men can never believe that you don't want to be mistreated - brutalised. Because "no" really means "yes", doesn't it, Joel? Because it's what we bitches all want." (p. 106). This should be enough to put any man off - but sadly not Joel (oh no, he's made of sterner stuff than that!) This is the best moment of the novel (apart, maybe, from the comedic game of hide and seek which happens earlier on in the text at a party when Darcy is trying to avoid him). It should be the key moment when Joel changes. But he doesn't. Sadly, it's Darcy who is forced to change in order to accommodate her 'love' for him. The novel becomes a recreation of all of those heroines from the eighteenth-century onwards (for example, Charlotte Smith's Monimia in her "Old Manor House") who are forced into situations because the heroine is not allowed to say "no" - or her "no" is interpreted as "yes" because they don't have as much power as the hero in the text, and from that moment onwards they are doomed. Feminist masterpiece, this ain't, and one can't help but feel sad as one reflects on what will happen to Darcy as she abandons her career plans to be Joel's trophy wife. She could have been an engineer, but instead, she's end up serving canapes in designer dresses to red-faced boors like Harry and her father. However, there are some good points in the novel. Darcy openly acknowledges herself as a bit of upper-class totty - she's witty and smart and altogether wasted by being forced into a marriage at the age of 20 just because "Daddy" wants her looked after. I also liked Craven's nod to the modern age - Darcy finds herself being "compartmentalised" by her new husband because of his work - and compares herself to an open window on a computer being minimised. It's a great image. The prose is brilliant and the heroine is beautifully constructed - it's just a shame she ends up where she does - it's hardly the happy ending, but there you go. Worth reading for the clever things this at least tries to do with gender politics in the earlier stages of the text, but don't expect a happy ending (for the heroine anyway).