Avon, $6.50, ISBN 0-380-78148-4
Paranormal Romance, 1996
Brenda Joyce’s Captive is a time travel romance, but for the most part, the story is anchored in the Barbary coast area in the 19th century.
Wait, let me revise that. This story is set in an inspired-by-Bertrice Small version of the 19th century, complete with unrealistic “the heroine manages to avoid sleeping with the ruler that stuffs her into his harem for over a year while she waits for American peen to give her the, uh, release from the evil, brown-skinned civilization” nonsense. At least, with Bertrice Small, one can count on the heroine being ravished by the sultan or whatever and having a fabulous time in the process.
In the present day of 1996, our heroine Alexandra… hmm, I don’t recall her last name now that I think of it. She’s 23 and is supposedly a brilliant postgrad student that specializes in early 19th-century American history.
She’s also madly in love with Captain Xavier Blackwell, dashing patriot and privateer that took on Barbary ships under the orders of the President because those Barbary ships were all pirates and terrorists, and the Americans were only doing all that to save the world and make it a better place. When she learns while visiting some Blackwell museum that he had an affair with some bashaw’s wife, she is shaken with extreme jealousy that some woman dared to molest her soul mate’s private bits. Alex also shivers and becomes close to tears when she reads about Blackwell’s exploits.
After so much emotional turmoil, this clearly rational and emotionally stable woman buys forged documents to get herself to Libya, which at that time was under the rule of Muammar Gaddafi. However, our heroine is powered by the plot armor that comes with being a strong and independent American woman, so she wanders alone and without any attempt to blend in with the locals.
Fortunately, there are enough servile brown-skinned people cowed by the beauty and strength of their white-skinned superiors, so they form a protective circle around her when they have no reason to, and she gets her hands on some stupid magical lamp that sends her back to Blackwell’s time, and she is then purchased to be the new harem pillow-warmer of the local bashaw.
Even in the 19th century, our heroine’s plot armor remains strong and true. She lies to her husband that she is mourning, and he leaves her be while treating her pretty well, all things considered. He doesn’t beat her or force himself on her; instead, he showers her with luxuries and her status afford her considerable degree of protection. Alas, because he is a brown-skinned and hence inferior lesser man, she has no problems taking everything he has to give while telling me what a horrible loser he is because he doesn’t let her run free with her hair down and for everyone to see.
So, our heroine, the master genius that she is, spends a lot of time sneaking out of the harem and running around without any attempt to blend in, never mind that she is in a different time as well as place. Luckily for her, Blackwell is around to save her each time she gets into trouble, and no, she never learns from her mistakes. She is a proud American white woman, and she will not display any survival instinct, because she will not be controlled by any man—ever!
Well, unless the man is Xavier. Our heroine doesn’t seek to escape her predicament to go back to her time, mind you, because she is convinced that she is sent back in time to be Xavier’s destined pee-pee pincushion. So, she spends a lot of time trying to get Xavier’s attention and get him to shag her, while at the same time fretting that Xavier is going to be killed for consorting with a bashaw’s wife. The fact that she is now the bashaw’s wife, well, one of his few anyway, seems to have slipped her lust-addled mind.
Oh, and she’s supposed to be this postgrad student great with 19th-century American history, but she displays zero of such knowledge. She also acts shocked when she hears the Muslim call for prayer for the first time and runs around acting like she has actually flunked every subject in some special needs school.
Indeed, by the quarter point of this story, I can only wonder whether Alex is even human. Her thought processes and actions are designed solely to get herself in all kinds of self-inflicted trouble—a wretched plot device, in other words.
If the heroine isn’t infuriatingly stupid enough, the author rubs salt and acid onto the wound inflicted on my brain by having Blackwell suspect this brainless gorm of being a spy.
The rest of the story is political intrigue but sadly, most of the drama is powered by the heroine having zero discretion or common sense. The only few characters that show working brainpower are the bad guys, and these bad guys also supply most of the fun sex scenes here as Xavier and Alex are curiously devoid of chemistry and their sex scenes are bewilderingly vanilla and forgettable.
If that’s not enough, the story is overflowing with eye-rolling portrayal of “Moslems” as if the author’s references for the culture and religion had consisted solely of harem romances, and the rare one or two good “Moslems” are considered virtuous solely because they are subservient to Alex and are so pathetically grateful for Alex’s attention.
I’m not saying that Muslims are perfect, mind you. It’s just that the ridiculous “good ‘Moslems’ are those that wag their tails happily when patted in the head by white Americans” vibe is way over the top here and I don’t know whether to cringe or laugh at the absurdity of it all.
Anyway, this is one story that is powered from start to finish by mostly the heroine’s unbelievable stupidity and the rest is boring, uninteresting showcase of white people superiority over those funny brown people. Worst of all, it’s not even unintentionally funny enough to provide some entertainment value. It has absolutely no point or purpose, just horrible through and through.
