Breathless

I gotta start by saying that I love romances where the hero does something villainous or a**holish and then gets the retribution from the heroine at the end. This book is 90% there, the hero is truly terribly villainous and does horrendous things to the heroine, which makes for a very delicious romance novel drama, and Anne Stuart is soo good at that.... but then at the end it's like Anne Stuart got tired and decided to let a fraternity dude finish the book (right after the orgy scene when the heroine went to sleep, I think so did Anne Stuart. The ending is rushed and botched and makes the whole book so disappointing. I mean the hero does criminal and disgusting things to the heroine and what's his retribution: he gets a bump on the head and grudgingly admits he loves her! Is that it????? He paid a man to KIDNAP AND RAPE her and all he has to do is say I love you and all is forgiven???!!WTF? His penance definitely doesn't fit his crimes (most of them actual legal crimes btw) and that makes the book lopsided and frustrating. After the emotional and so dramatically written orgy scene, she admits how deeply she feels hurt and betrayed by him and then 2 minutes later forgives him and gives him a blow job, I nearly fell of my chair in anger... Of course if you think about what happens in this book in term of real life, Lucien belongs in an institution for the criminally insane, he's 1. a serious danger to others 2. has committed terrible crimes (didn't anyone notice that little tidbit how as a boy he killed a man for stomping on his pet scorpion...insane much?) and 3. he could really benefit from some intense mental therapy for dealing with terrible trauma that happened to him as a boy. Overall I would say to Anne Stuart: "please rewrite the ending and give our heroine some real retribution to make the book well balanced and this will be a great dramatic romance novel! Also, if you are seriously sensitive to rape scenes, this book is not for you...there's a lot of that here.... I mean Anne S. tries really hard to present the sexual experience of h and h as seduction ...but in real life that would be rape... I mean after being forced into abduction and consistently threatening her that she will have sex with him, which she herself admits on numerous occassion she doesnt like or want, he says "open the buttons of your clothes or I will do it for you" ... I would say yeah, she was coerced!!