Rage to Love

I think everything reader from New York wrote was right on target! I started with Brides of Prairie Gold and fell in love with her writing style.I continued with The Promise of Jenny Jones, A Stranger's Wife, Seduction of Samantha Kincaide, Silver Lining, The Best Man and The Wives of Bowie Stone. I do, I do, I do was very good along with the Bride of Willow Creek, Prairie Moon (very touching), Lady Reluctant (very funny) and Emerald Rain.I even enjoyed Chase the Heart though it seemed a small departure from the others. I finished Rage to Love yesterday having found it through our libraries nationwide loan system. What New York said was true but I had more trouble with the graphic violence. It made me keep putting the book down and then later coming back to it. I dont think I will try the 4 she wrote before this but have alread found 7 from Harlequin American and other sections. I can't wait to read them.

After reading The Promise of Jenny Jones, I went on a Maggie Osborne binge. Ordered and read whatever books were still in print and then started tracking down out-of-print books. The consensus among fans seems to be that the early books can't hold a candle to the ones written after 1985 or thereabouts. Certainly her later books (Jenny Jones, A Stranger's Wife, Brides of Prairie Gold, Seduction of Samantha Kincaide, Silver Lining, The Best Man and The Wives of Bowie Stone to name a few)represent Ms. Osborne's very best work. These books each have original storylines and characters that stay with you long after the books are finished. She is truly one of the best writers in this genre that we have. But this early book, Rage to Love, is worth reading. The lady of the book, Garnet Winters, makes so many errors in judgment you may want to shake her sometimes, but her heart is in the right place and she matures throughout the short time frame of the book. On the other hand, the hero, Jean Belaine is the ideal man. Phew! He is hot! And what an ending.The story of slave labor on sugar plantations in the French Caribbean around the time of the French Revolution is often brutal and many sections are hard to read they are so graphic, but the message is very relevant to our times today and the story never falters. It is a page turner and a unique story in almost every respect. If these books are ever reprinted it would be good to have the covers more in line with the more recent books. The old books look like bodice-rippers and this doesn't do them justice. If you are a Maggie Osborne fan, this is another one of her books that should be read. (Couldn't get into Yankee Princess, though, no matter how hard I tried. Maybe later.)