The Keeper by Kalita Kasar

[reviews_and_ramblings]

There is a main tag that I use to classify a very special type of romance, the Breeches Ripper romance. Usually an historical (but not always), I consider a breeches ripper a novel in which the main characters are dressed in those frilly garments. This may could explain the "breeches" part of the tag (a woman in bodice, a man in breeches...) but the ripper ones? A true breeches ripper should have also a minimum (or great) component of "forceful" love/sex, one of the hero should give up to the sensual mastery of the other ones, but giving up he should enjoy the act.

The Keeper is a truly Breeches ripper! Thomas is a cobbler apprentice in the late eighteen century London. During one of his few free morning he is kidnapped and sold to a strange man, a frenchman who lives in a secluded manor far from the city. The man is called the Keeper and Thomas soon discovers that he provides London gentlemen with pretty boys to use as they please. But before putting them on display, the Keeper, Leon, trains the boys to the art of pleasure.

Leon is intrigued by this particularly pretty boy. Usually who arrive to him are poor young men from the poorest side of the city, and innocence is something they lose many time before. Instead Thomas is still naive, completely unaware of the worldly pleasures. But even if he is enchanted by the boy, Leon will not save him from his destiny. But maybe, once in a time, the Master will become the slave...

As often in a truly breeches ripper, the most weak hero (in body if not in will) has to suffer a lot, to the hand of the other hero but not only. So poor Thomas will not get over his adventure unarmed... Thomas is not an invincible hero, who always finds a way out of his trouble; Thomas is that type of hero who needs a stronger partner to lead him; he was taught to despise the things he now has to do, but he not dares to risk his life to avoid his fate, in this case the fate is not worst than death. So, even if in his submissive way, he makes a choice, maybe one that he even knows to have done. And then I always find quite unbearable those bodice ripper heroines who never stay put and always arise trouble!

What maybe I found quite strange is that at 19 years old Thomas is still so innocent...

http://www.torquerebooks.com/zencart/

Amazon Kindle: The Keeper

Waiting Reading List:

http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bottom.php?tag=waiting reading list&view=elisa.rolle

Comments

[cicirossi.livejournal.com]

grins. I call them codpiece rippers

[elisa-rolle.livejournal.com]

Yes, also codpiece is good, but breeches reminds me more bodice... I love when I fid one of them! Elisa

[zamaxfield.livejournal.com]

As always, I find myself clicking buy links and spending money after reading your posts. Oh, if it were only that simple on man candy day!

[elisa-rolle.livejournal.com]

ehm no, I'm not yet so well organized to be able to give you a link to buy my men candy... but today pretty Vince left a comment on my LJ. He seems quite amused to be a "man candy"! Elisa

[erastes.livejournal.com]

I nearly said something about his age in my review. The fact that he had been an apprentice (cobbler, not copper, sweetie)for 10 years was wrong, right off, as they only served seven years. aged 14-21.

The trouble with so many publishers is that they insist on protags being at least 18 (which is daft as this is historical fiction!! A 19 year old apprentice would be muscly and he'd be a man. He'd be a man from about 14-15.

I think this would have worked better if she'd made him more of an innocent rather than an apprentice, perhaps someone who was too weak to get an apprenticeship, or someone who had had a very sheltered life for some reason. But I couldn't get past the rape and the Stockholm Syndrome, which was a shame.

[elisa-rolle.livejournal.com]

This two points, the rape and the "innocence" of Thomas is what has left me more perplexed in the story. I haven't read your review (as I said the feed on SIN didn't work for me :-) ) so now I will go to read it. Elisa

[gehayi.livejournal.com]

You know, Thomas might as well be a Thomasina. Read this revamped versions. The only things that have been changed are the pronouns, an allusion to "the other man" and Thomas' name.

Julia could only moan in response. She knelt, trembling as if chilled as Lucien continued to stroke her skin, soothing her, speaking softly in French. Closing her eyes, Julia let her head fall back against Lucien's shoulder, leaning into the man's chest. She felt exposed, vulnerable, as though every eye in the room was on her. She daren't look, could only rest in the gentle arms of the first person to show her anything approaching kindness in this house.

But worse than the "chicks with dicks" phenomenon was the ending. Thomas gets kidnapped, sexually molested, forcibly raped--he said "No!" repeatedly--is humiliated publicly, is thrown to the press gangs and then brought back by the guy who raped him in the first place...

And Maitre tells him that he only did all these things because he loved Thomas on first sight.

And Thomas--passive, gullible, idiotic Thomas--does not think for a minute that Maitre is lying through his teeth. There is no internal sarcastic commentary contradicting what Maitre says, no impulse to beat the rapist black and blue. No. Thomas accepts it as Twu Wuv, and we the audience are supposed to as well.

I retch.

I loathe stories in which the rape victim falls in love with his or her rapist, and in which Stockholm Syndrome is presented--generally by an author who should know better--as undying affection. Yes, they are a convention of the genre. That does not make them acceptable.

You see, there was a time in America--and not too long ago--when blacks were routinely depicted as caricatures in books, comic books and movies. It was conventional and accepted as normal...back then. But authors of books and comic books and movies kept making sneak border raids, showing that blacks were far from the weak, stupid, cowardly caricatures that were so widely accepted. That they were, in fact, PEOPLE.

Call me crazy, but I would like it if the romance genre admitted that women and gays are not the weak, stupid, passive creatures, that rape does NOT equal rough sex, that stalking is NOT justified by passion, that Stockholm Syndrome is NOT true love. I am sick to death of reading stories that are nothing more than justifications for sexual exploitation and sexual violence. And I abhor such tales precisely because the anti-woman and anti-homosexual attitude of "But he or she orgasmed! That means she WANTED it" seeps so easily into people's minds.

Have the protagonist brutally raped and emotionally battered. That's fine.

But don't pretend for one single second that a rapist rapes ANYONE out of affection or respect, or that a captive's reaction to a captor who isn't cruel all the time has one iota to do with undying love.

[elisa-rolle.livejournal.com]

Yes you are right, and in fact I think something is changing, there aren't many bodice rippers anymore, and probably the reasons are all those above. As I said in the comment above the rape (more the second, but you are right, in a way also the first one was a rape it was non consensual sex) is one of the reason who left me perplexed about this novel.