Sharon E Cathcart, $1.99, ISBN 978-1301523375
Contemporary Romance, 2013
Sharon E Cathcart’s His Beloved Infidel is set in 1978, so does it count as a historical romance or a contemporary one? Let’s set an arbitrary division for this: anything set 50 years or more before the date of publication of the story will be considered a historical romance. How’s that?
1978 is noteworthy because it’s when the Iranian Revolution took place, and that’s the backdrop against which this story is set in. Our Iranian Muslim hero is Farukh Aria, while his infidel buxom-pillow is Catherine Ellis. They fall in love, and… well, that’s about it.
Now, I should point out that this story came out in 2013, long before white self-proclaimed progressives begin to compete to be the loudest in paying lip service to races and religion that they barely know anything about. Hence, folks expecting a tale of Catherine going all self-loathing about her privilege and race, et cetera, are going to be disappointed.
Farukh here is more in vein with those fake sheikhs that plagued Harlequin category lines. Are they still around, those sheikhs, by the way, or has Harlequin decided to cancel them out of embarrassment?
Back to our hero, from his first scene he is already expressing his unease when it comes to fitting in with his own culture and religion, as he is far more fond of the Western values he’d picked up while studying abroad. He has no issues with premarital sex or making any move on the woman, and there is barely any mention of his religion because it’s established early on that he’s not that kind of Muslim. In other words, he’s an American dude with a bigger beard that his American counterparts, in all but name.
Mind you, I’m not saying that this portrayal is inaccurate. I can tell you from my own experiences with these guys, they do smoke, sleep around, and drink—especially those from the upper classes that believe they are entitled to all these enjoyable vices while paying lip service to a religion they barely practice. At the same time, they will marry some Muslim lady, often picked by their family, before ho’ing around with men or women of other races (preferably fair-skinned ones) some more.
Take out the last part, as Farukh is a romance hero after all, and our hero is actually a more accurate portrayal of a modern day Muslim man than any woke, non-Muslim American can ever come up with in their works of fiction.
However, the fact that our hero is so American-ized, for the want of a better word, also means that this story could have been set anywhere and at any time, and the whole romance wouldn’t be much different. These two meet, fall in love quickly, have premarital and even shack up together while never encountering any of the supposed prejudices the locals have against non-Muslims during that time, and then she’s knocked up and yay, here’s a happily ever after.
Well, sort of, as the author then ends the story with a reminder that this story is set during the Iranian Revolution. It’s a good thing she does that, because I can barely remember at that point.
In the end, I can only say that readers will need to adjust their expectations accordingly when it comes to His Beloved Infidel.
As a romance and only as a romance, it’s alright—nothing too bad, but at the same time, it lacks interesting conflict to make it interesting.
However, it also fails to completely capitalize on its setting. The author seems to go out of her way not to address religious and racial issues that will surely arise when a Muslim man—a brother of a vocal Muslim fundamentalist to boot!—shacks up with a white non-Muslim woman and worse, without the sanctity of marriage. Hence, my question: why set this story in such a time and place when the author is going to write a story that could have easily taken place anywhere else? It’s not like one can only find bearded men in Iran!
