Review: A selection including 2 books made into movies
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 03 25, 2013
This selection is really worth your while if you are a Cortland fan or even if you want to get to know her. These are probably longer (hard to tell in a kindle edition) and have more depth than your typical Cartland romance novel. It would be nice to see further editing, specially kindle format editing.Elizabethan lover (4 stars)I can't help feeling that this is what Cartland would have accomplished if she had written 20 books instead of 500. The complexity of the human relationships and the development of the characters are far superior to her usual novels. A nice surprise.The historical time is also a much earlier one: during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I and it feels well researched and authentic. Here the Spaniards are the enemies of England and they are in general portrayed as brutal people, while English captains like Drake and Raleigh are described as merciful and gallant heroes. It all depends on who writes the History books, for me, a South American born Latina who was taught the Spanish point of view; they were no more than pirates. I know that it is dangerous to judge other times with our modern values, therefore it isn't the historical event than I criticize, but the point of view of the author.All this said I savored the story and the writing and although I did some skimming over battles and description I couldn't put the book down after the first half of it.Pretender (3 stars)It was interesting to read this story set in Scotland after the rising because it depicts the English as the villains of the story. Good for Mrs Cartland to be able to put the rightful blame on her own countrymen.  On the contrary the son of the exiled King James (The pretender to the Scottish throne) is portrayed as all what is noble and gallant. Having read a lot about this time in Diana Gabaldo's novelsOutlander (20th Anniversary Edition): A Novel(who is a writer in a totally different style and level), my opinion of the pretender is very low. Despite this, the heroine is an interesting character, but the love story felt short and abrupt in my opinion, because the hero takes the love of the heroine for a fact, despite that they had no conversation about their feelings.The Ghost (4 stars)I was very happy to finally get my hands on this out-of-print novel. The used copies out there were too expensive, probably because of the filmA Ghost in Monte Carlo. That is also the reason I wanted to read the book. The story is interesting enough. There is a lot of introspection and mental reminiscences about the early life of the characters and even several secondary characters are fleshed out. We have here a gallery of women who have been mistreated, some become better persons because of it and others became monsters. An interesting fairy tale and a page turner mystery. It would benefit from some further editing and I found myself skimming over some lengthy descriptions.Duel of hearts (5 stars)It was a nice surprise to realize that this novel is about the daughter of the main characters in another of Cortland's moviesA Hazard of Hearts / Lady Hamiltonand was also made  into a movieBarbara Cartland's Duel of Hearts [VHS]. The heroine is not some destitute girl, for a change, but  a spoiled, impulsive, rich and yet endearing young woman. We see a bit of her parents too. The book is difficult to put down despite a convoluted story line that would make any soap opera writer proud. There is also much more interaction between the Hero and heroine and we see more "boudoir" scenes because they marry about half into the book.