Shallowreader Bingo! for August

At the urging of many folks, I have decided to participate in the Shallowreader Bingo! for August.

Here's a copy of the card. It is copyrighted to Vassiliki Veros and ShallowReader. Click on the image to embiggen.



I have completed the first column from the novel Shanna by Kathleen E. Woodiwiss. It is set in Georgian England and the Caribbean. My review is here. The entries in the first columns are:

Delusional: Spoiled, pampered, and indulged, Shanna thinks everyone is there to do her bidding, even a murderer condemned to hang. He would only be too glad to give his name to her in marriage and make her a widow in a matter of days. He would have no feelings in this matter other than gratitude towards her.

I'm Not Worthy: Shanna's beauty and wealth make poor Colonial Ruark feel like he could never be worthy of her. He feels inferior in every way to her despite her willful ways. He's completely under her spell and under her thumb. I felt sorry for him for most of the book.

Dreaming: Ruark spends a majority portion of the book lusting after Shanna. He wants her to fulfill her promise to spend one night with him. She brutally betrays the bargain she made in that prison, when he agreed to marry her, but Ruark is willing to wait for her to come to him of her own accord.

Exclamation Point: Forced Seduction scenes were popular in the romances of the 1970s, but I couldn’t read that scene without seeing it as anything but a rape. Her struggles, her refusals, the pain, his utter disregard for her other than as a warm female body...it didn't feel anything like a seduction. It was rape.

Soft Focus: Other than that reprehensible rape, Ruark never wavers in his desire for her or the courtesy and kindliness with which he treats her. He allows her to abuse him over and over again. She rants and rails at him, calls him hateful things, and once even hits him with her quirt (riding whip) across his bare chest and slaps him hard on his cheeks. And all he does is kiss her.