I kept thinking we had come to the end only to have essentially the same plot repeat on itself. It was good, but much too long.

*SPOILERS*
Honestly, the 'love' story in this book hasn't aged very well. Yes it is passionate but it actually reads more like an abusive relationship than anything else. They routinely punish each other for every imagined transgression and I was honestly disgusted by the way the strong 'heroine' has to give him some indication that she's forgiven what was essentially rape. The context, his reasons, they don't matter the brutality he showed in that moment ruined him for me and I do not understand how it didn't ruin him for Whitney. ( )

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La mirada oscura y lánguida de Clayton Westmoreland, duque de Claymore, acaba de descubrir el cambio que su viaje por Europa ha producido en el cuerpo y las maneras de Whitney Stone, ahora convertida en una mujer espectacularmente sensual. Tras su triunfo social en París, ha regresado a Inglaterra para conquistar el corazón de Paul, su amor de la infancia...
Pero su padre, completamente arruinado, la ha comprometido con el atractivo y arrogante duque. Enfurecida, Whitney desafía a su prometido. Pero incluso cuando la fogosa pasión del duque la seduce y la llena de una tormenta de deseo, Whitney no puede ni quiere renunciar a su sueño de un amor perfecto.

OBVIOUSLY this is a 5 star read and it is so infuriating and i have never been so ANGRY and IRATE in my LIFE.

i'm so mad it took me years!! to read this. i adore kingdom of dreams so much, i'm pretty certain it's the first historical i've read, and it's still one of the best; i'm ashamed!! judith mcnaught is an excellent writer, and so masterful at crafting these maddening and wonderful characters.

and now i will NEVER EVER E V E R read another book with even a hint of miscommunication ever again or i will pull my hair out. ( )

Perhaps very minor spoilers, I don't mention anything specific, but if you're sensitive to even vague references then skip to be safe.

I knew going in that this was sort of a 'love it or hate it' book and I felt that even though I don't particularly like heroes to always be grabbing a woman and things, I could still go in with a pretty open mind. People like different sorts of things, and this makes a lot of Favorites lists so I was curious about it. Like a third of the way in it was feeling very Gone with the Wind, similar levels of 'headstrong female/man used to getting his own way/butting heads' (the two stories have quite a bit in common besides that as well) but I was still feeling pretty forgiving. Unfortunately though, the hero's behavior got worse, like, a lot! And then, in case my memory of the first atrocity had started to fade or something- he got downright vicious *again* quite late in the story! One thing he plots in his head, (though he never gets far enough along to go through with), made my mouth fall open and I actually whispered to myself *out loud*, "he's a monster". lol. There just was no coming back from his level of intentional cruelty at that point. More significant spoiler-
He's already being just absolutely horrid to his wife, *who is pregnant*, because he assumed something that hurt his feelings basically, and on top of all that already- he actually plots that he'll take away her child, just to inflict pain on her. But that he won't do it right away, he'll let her become even more attached to it for a couple years and *then* rip it away... Purely as punishment- (for an entirely imagined betrayal btw!). Think about that though. You would need to be positive that she massacred your family or something to even think about doing that to someone you've ever even had a kind thought about. It's terrible. And his complaint is an eon short of justifying his revenge. And I'll say this, even if things went down as he thought- it still wouldn't have justified his reaction. And if he didn't learn a lesson after the first time(!), I don't see any reason to feel confident that it'll never happen again. And there's only very tiny slivers of groveling to try to compensate for his wrongs. There were some sweet parts sprinkled in, but overall I just can't qualify their relationship as anything beyond dysfunctional or toxic (which relationships often *also* have some sweet parts sprinkled in as it happens). I didn't like the heroine very much either, and the schemes and the awful advice given from other characters, there was a lot that I disliked. I think it should have been shorter as well, but it was otherwise written in a pretty engaging way once it got going, so I won't give it just a single star. The hero's level of unchecked wrath did tempt me to though.


I kept thinking about this so I decided to just write it out, and then added it here since it was already written anyway. There is some repeat of the arguments above. You can read it or ignore it. =)

I feel like, how someone treats you when they're displeased with you is more telling of their true character than what they do when you happen to be in their favor. And this hero really became unhinged (twice!) on the mere *assumption* that he'd been wronged.

They tried to spin it as proof of his love, but honestly the pattern of overreacting in anger only to claim it was out of love and apologize profusely and promise never to do it again and shower the person with affection- just to repeat the whole process, is *the classic* abuse cycle.

AND physical violence almost always escalates given enough time. The fact that he's already giving her bruises pretty much any time he's angry, is a very troubling red flag!

And that he would repeat pretty much the exact same horrible mistake only a few months after the first utter disaster, despite their practically ideal relationship in the interim, really makes me skeptical that this will be the last time he doubts her and jumps straight to retaliating for it. They're not even out of the honeymoon phase yet! Life can get a whole lot more challenging from there.

And it's not just that he raped her, I'm not okay with any rape, but I feel like there are levels of evilness to it or something, (This is not at all to belittle someone's pain if their partner wasn't checking in with them, or had been drinking and got careless, or didn't realize their partner had been drinking and couldn't give consent, or got carried away in the moment or anything else. I'm sure each can be thoroughly devastating in its own right!)- raping with the purposeful intention of humiliating and degrading and punishing the person though, has got to be especially near the bottom of human decency. I'm not sure there was any recovering for him with me after that, even if he hadn't repeated his same terrible mistake in judgement, (only with new and creative forms of punishment), later on.

And I hold a grudge against him for the things he planned to do even if he didn't actually get around to enacting them. (Plotting to take away someone's child at any point is horrible, but planning especially to let them keep their baby for a couple years so that they become even more attached to it only to *then* snatch it away, **purely for the purpose of inflicting maximum suffering** is a special level of atrocity). That's still a reflection of his character even if he never made it past the planning phase. ( )