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[published by Zebra Books, 1994.]

When this book was mentioned to me, it was described as something to avoid even though it Ban-bashes. Literary masochism stood me in its usual good stead, but having given it a try, I have to say that was excellent advice.

Despite the romance-ish title, it isn't a romance novel, but one of those fat, best-seller-list soap-operas dressed up in 18th century costume. There's an advertising tag on the cover that's along the lines of the heroine being "torn between love and loyalty," so I was expecting a standard "Loyalist chick falls for rebel stud, says to hell with politics, and changes sides" plot, but it turns out that she's actually torn between loyalty to her rebel (but increasingly loutish, due to a serious personal trauma involving a tomahawk) husband and love for the studly rebel Indian fighter.

I am, however, not going to complain about the single Ban-bashing scene because it's the one part of the book I enjoyed -- albeit because it rises through the "bad" layer to that elusive "so bad it's good" layer. It is actually a pretty funny sequence, though that was most definitely not the author's intention. Apparently she read James Parton's "horsebreaking" anecdote and some of the hype on Carter's Grove, and thought to herself, "Gee, wouldn't it be great if I combined these?"

The result runs something like this... Ban trots into view one night and rides up to the heroine's front door... bursts through the heroine's front door -- the British Army never knocks, apparently -- atop his big, uncontrollable black horse. (Well, perhaps he intended to knock, but the horse had other ideas.) He rides through her living room and up her staircase, then threatens to skewer everybody in sight for no readily apparent reason. (He probably doesn't want to leave any witnesses to the fact that he couldn't get his horse stopped at the door, because he knew Harry Lee would laugh at him if he heard about it.)

So we end up with a bad-tempered dragoon hastily leaping off a badly behaved horse at the top of a staircase before it can throw him off to land on his butt on the carpet. (An amusing image in itself.) The horse then "gracefully" retreats down the stairs and out of the house on its own. (An even more amusing image. If a horse goes down a staircase at all, it is under serious protest and with no grace whatsoever. I'd believe the Carter's Grove story a lot quicker if it had a postscript involving the poor horse starving to death in an upstairs bedroom or having to be lowered through a window on the end of a winch line.)

Anyway, having escaped the clutches of his unruly quadruped, Ban is figuratively twirling his Snidely Whiplash mustache while he menaces the heroine, her hired help (well, not actually "hired", what with them being slaves, but you get the idea), and the small squalling child in her arms. (Far more intimidating, I have no doubt, than a squad of rebel militia.) She's lucky they hadn't invented train tracks in 1781, or sure as anything, she would've ended up tied to them, wondering why everyone was calling her Nell. After this Ban offers the local slave populous freedom (which they, of course, refuse with more predictability than common sense), experiences a few moments of passing lust for the heroine (but, oddly, is enough of a gentleman not to do anything with it except, presumably, think of England), burns everything he doesn't steal and rides out of the story around page 30.

I should have exited with him, but having bought the silly thing (used and cheap), I did actually make an effort to read the rest. That was a week ago, and all I retain at this point is a vague impression of Indian fighting, loss of various bodily bits (including some that heroes really do hate to see run afoul of tomahawks), smallpox, war incidents and soap opera dialogue. The first chunk (ignoring the short, 1779-ish prologue involving the tomahawk) is set in 1781 during the Virginia campaign, and I've no clue when or where it ends up because I tossed it onto the "recycle" stack long long before I got to the last page. Zebra Books usually does better than this.

[Thanks to Gretchen Runnalls for mentioning this one to me.]