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Reader Reviews Romance: Clipper Beach

Discussion in 'The Dive' started by Reader, 13 May 2016.

  1. Reader

    Reader Vile Critic

    Bookangel Note: This is not a review. Reader is not allowed to review romance books except under limited circumstances due to her utter loathing of the conventions of the genre. We in the club have been subjected to these research-backed tirades, so here, for your education, are a few in written form.

    This should not be taken as a serious review or critique of the book.


    Reader's Note: We have our first Patreon supporter, so I did say I'd write up another one of these. I did pick this up for serious review and then realised what I was reading as my eyebrows edged upwards - and I'm sorry but escalating violence is not what I'd call a romantic relationship... Angel or anyone else, if you want to try and give it a fair review go ahead.

    Taking a break, Sandhya, a well-off career woman arrives at a small hotel, the Rising Tide Inn, at Cape Harriet, but this isn't just a holiday to her. She has an agenda and past links to the area that she's not willing to share. James, the hotel handyman, has similar secrets and a past with almost every woman in the area. It's never covered why they didn't last but the reader can make a shrewd guess as the book goes on.

    Sandhya is surprisingly vulnerable for someone as allegedly tough as she is. She's going to be a director of her Wall Street listed company, is a millionaire, and yet has no ability to say "no" or situational awareness to identify a threat and avoid it. Her head is far too easily turned by good looks.

    The hotel owners are an interesting pair of characters, but have far too much tolerance for James. If they run a hotel and ever allow their guests to be treated the way she was treated when trying to leave, that is how you make sure they never come back.

    The longer the book went on the less I cared about the main character, and, yes, spoilers follow: She spent ten years away from her child, never seeing them and then expects to just jump back into their lives and be accepted as Mummy? The child already has a mother: the woman who raised them! She didn't even arrange an open adoption so the kid knows who she is, and is considering not contacting the child because she has a promotion? What the hell? Has she not considered an open adoption, or at least getting in touch by letter or phone or email or anything rather than her alternatives being turning up an announcing she's their mother full time or having nothing to do with them?

    I'm sorry, but the second she agrees to be alone with someone who has manhandled her and forgives him because he's goodlooking I completely stopped caring about the character.

    This brings me to James. James Angeli is a thug who needs a severe attitude adjustment. He's shoved her around repeatedly, she's taken it, and he suddenly starts thinking that she's rich, smart, and tough? And apparently women who have children aren't allowed to have their own lives. He goes into a screaming, towering, rage because Sandhya's child is with her mother, not with her. God knows what he'd have thought of my regular months staying with my grandparents growing up and no, my mother didn't come.

    You know what, when the tragic past came out, this book made me glad his wife had died, because once she'd had that child she wouldn't have been a person to him. What would he have done if she'd gone to the shops and left the kid with grandma's?

    "I am sorry, I apologise" right after he's kicked the bikes in front of Sandhya as a threat, just shows he's the type of worthless man who punches a wall right by his wife to threaten her because he doesn't want to give her an excuse to walk out but wants to scare her because he's just so damn big*. And then he decides they are going to have a relationship? It's one thing if the partner turns violent during a relationship, but she's walking into this one knowing she's going to get bruises because he's already given them to her. And then he says he wants to meet her daughter. For heaven's sake woman, at least keep your kid out of it!

    This is a textbook case of the start of an abusive relationship between a very damaged woman and a very violent man. From the text it appears that she enjoys the drama and adrenaline, because she never takes steps to protect herself, repeatedly places herself in danger when they is no need to, and never asks him to stay away from her or imposes consequences for his violence. James escalates from ordering her around and creeping on her when she's just a hotel guest, and her accepting it, to manhandling her, to getting her to agree to a date, giving her the classic honeymoon treatment in the morning and then switching to violence again using her words as an excuse and making her blame herself for it, then approaching her where she can't tell him to go away without making a scene to switch back to the honeymoon phase.

    This is absolutely not a romance. There is nothing equal about the relationship, nothing loving about it, and it is just very very broken.

    I won't be reviewing this. It's not my type of book.

    *Appropriate response is a cold stare and "You have to sleep sometime. Now get out."

    For helpful links and contact for support about domestic abuse, the following link has helplines and lists of warning signs: Domestic Violence and Abuse: Signs of Abuse and Abusive Relationships
     

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