.As this is Romance month on Bodice Rippers, I thought this was a good opportunity to read an author I had never read before, and someone known for romance. After reading Shauni's post on Cynthia Wright...I decided to choose Wright for February's Romance author.
Silver Storm was written by Cynthia Wright in 1979. This is the first book chronologically, in the Raveneau series, though Wright wrote Caroline first. Silver Storm is set in the 18th century during the time when they were fighting the British in the revolutionary wars.The story begins with a wide eyed 12 year old girl, named Devon Lindsay, who lives with her mother in New London, Connecticut. She dreams of adventures on the sea, which she learned from her deceased father, a sea captain. Devon’s mother resents anything that has to do with the sea, and she keeps tight reins on Devon.
As a young girl, Devon meets the dashing Andre Raveneau, a famous French captain. Years later, Devon meets him again and finds herself beginning to dream about him. Now at 18, and the British attacking her town, Devon makes a run for safety to escape being raped by a British sailor, leaving behind her mother, who was also was being attacked. She is saved by a French sailor, who helps her by sneaking her aboard the Black Eagle, whose captain is non other then Andre Raveneau, who will discover her in a short time. But he does not remember Devon.
Andre is your typical swashbuckler, handsome, dangerous and of course, sexy and gorgeous. But despite that, I found him to be somewhat of a cad. He has little respect for women, has them everywhere he goes. Through most of the book, he is not very likeable, despite his sex appeal. Though later in the book, we find out how his father’s mistress caused his outlook on women to be bad, but it doesn’t change how he treats them, and our perspective of him.
He meets his match with Devon, who at her young age stands up to him and Andre has a hard time handling our innocent, but spunky stowaway.
Devon herself, though I enjoyed her, was a bit far-fetched as to putting up with Andre, as well as constantly putting herself in danger. She loves adventure, and cannot resist the attraction of Andre, despite how he treats her.
The last third of the story was good, as finally nearer to the end, as in most romance stories things change for the better. Andre begins to realize that Devon is different then all the women he has known, she was in fact the love of his life. Having left her at his home, while he went to sea, he comes back months later to find out she was pregnant with his child, had a baby girl and left him to go with an old childhood sweetheart, whom she just considered a friend. He goes to find her, captures her back, but now he expresses his love and they get married at the sea.
But the story doesn’t end there. Andre takes her back to her home, to see if any of her friends survived the battle. She finds her mother alive, and remarried, also expecting a child.
I did find the chemistry between Andre and Devon to be sexy, especially during their passionate moments. The end was sweet and of course happy. But even then, as nice as Andre was at the end, through most of the book he really was a brute. Overall, it was a good story, had some excellent parts. I just thought the hero should have been more likeable for the majority of the book, especially in romance books.
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