Book Review: The Virgin's Wedding Night by Sara Craven

January 17, 2015

Title : The Virgin's Wedding Night
Author : Sara Craven
Series : -
Genre : Romance/ Harlequin Presents
Publication Year : 2008
Rating : 3 of 5 stars

THE HERO. . .
Roan Zandros. At first he was portrayed as a struggling artist. Not that he wasn’t really an artist. He is an artist, yes, but not just that, he is also a Greek Billionaire. His mother was an English and a painter, too. But his father doesn’t approve him to be a painter. So he came to England to prove to his father that he could be succesful as a painter, so that his father would let him to keep painting. I like him enough. Yes, he has that arrogant and take-charge trait that every Presents’s heroes have, but not overly so. He is actually fell in love with the heroine from the beginning, no denial from his part. He even willing to beg to heroine’s grandfather to give him a chance to win her over. And after all that attitude the heroine dump on him. Sweet, right? But like all the other heroes, he is also stubborn he won’t just said it outright that he loves her.

THE HEROINE. . .
Harriet Flint. The most arrogant heroine I’ve ever known. Usually it’s the hero who is arrogant, right? But this time people don’t like her not because they just envy her. She was disliked by many people, especially her colleagues, because she acted so high and mighty. Well, yeah, maybe she just wants to prove herself. And the lack of her mother’s presence and with her grandfather’s hard and old-fashioned personality may cause that attitude of her. She is also too obsessed with that house, the Gracemead. Yeah, that place is her anchor when she was a child, but still, to marry a stranger just so she could inherit that house? When a hero did that, it looks that he was ruthless, because like we know that’s the usual attitude from Presents’s heroes. But when a heroine did that, it just look plain stupid. For my, at least.

THE STORY. . .
Despite what I said about Harriet, that behaviour is made this book quite unique. I mean, I’ve never found a Presents book where the heroine doing the buying. It’s always the heroes everytime. So despite the stupidity of the action, I guess that gives this book a credit. And the part where Roan begged for a chance to make Harriet fall in love with him, it’s just so sweet. It’s a wonder he didn’t just dump her after all that attitude of her. She hurt him, again and again, and still he always think of her happiness. He is ready to let her go so that she could have her dream. That’s what you called true love, I guess. And the ending. I always love a good ending. And this book’s ending is quite good. Not quite enough grovelling from her part, but I guess that’ll do. Oh, and one last thing. Harriet was left by her mother to be raised by her grandfather. Her mother refused to give Harriet away for adoption when she fell pregnant, even if that means she was disowned by her father. So, it’s not because her mother doesn’t love her, right? But until the end of the book, there’s no explanation why Harriet’s mother did that. It’s not a big issue, but makes the story feels incomplete.

THE QUOTE. . .
‘I woke early, and all I could think of was your voice telling me you would never love me. I was so scared it might be true, and I needed a talisman to keep with me—to give me hope.’
Roan Zandros

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

Perhaps it is Roan who owes Harriet an apology as he hurt her repeatedly as well.

For someone who is 'wanting to devote his life to your [Harriet's]happiness' he does seem to enjoy her torment over her mistaken belief that Lucy is his lover and that night is a one night stand.

Roan also has quite the temper and understandably Harriet is in shock when the man she married is revealed in his entirety. He himself acknowledged, "I hope there would be more time, so I could prepare you a little...' Yet he is angry when Harriet's anguish response revealed a sense of betrayal, 'You made me believe in you.' She offered him two olive branches that night, she dressed in the manner in that he wanted and latter removed the robe...yet because she could not assimilate the revelation in the manner Roan expected, he rejects her.

This is the pattern of her refusal of Roan. He discloses a piece of information but does not allow Harriet the time to process it. Harriet does admit, 'Like so much else. I've got used to the idea.' She needs time to get to the same emotional space as Roan (which he often seems cognisant of so cannot plead ignorance) but he sees it as rejection and resorts to silent treatment and avoidance.


In SC-verse, an absent mother is best kept at bay. Harriet's mother effectively has abandoned her twice, physically when Harriet is six and the adolescent Harriet emotionally when she ceased to answer her letters. It seems that SC's belatedly equates Gracemead to Caroline as otherwise the ugly reality for Harriet she cannot have both her dream of owing Gracemead and be Roan's wife. These are not incompatible objectives. Brutality, Roan expects Harriet to be 'content to be nothing but his wife , and the mother of his children'. The very thing Vanessa chaffed against. Perhaps, it could be argued that Harriet will never be a 'free agent' unless she is freed from Gracemead. That she cannot spend the rest of her life waiting for a mother that will never return and for it be to used as instrument of control by her grandfather. Yet Harriet exchanges one prison for another.

Perhaps that is why the book lingers. Harriet forfeits too much to be with Roan for a promise of 'together' which may not be enough for her as it wasn't for Vanessa.

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