Green Lightning by Anne Mather

For some reason this book just popped into my consciousness after reading through the tiresome shenanigans between Butch and Marissa in Lover Revealed. I wish the author had been aware of Green Lightnings heroine's attitude to deflowering because then she might have cut down on the padding and let the readers enjoy the vampire adventure a bit more.

I miss May/December romances.

This novel is completely un-pc and independently awful. It's over 25 years old but then again Jane Eyre was written 200 years ago so no modern author can really complain if their early work is dissed.

The 17-year old heroine falls in love with her 39-year old playwright guardian. That's right. They live in the same house (some of the time) and she falls in love with him. They are not related however.

This story has one truely shameful scene. For some reason the guardian decides to spank the naked bottom of his ward. Amazing even for 1983. I couldn't believe my eyes as I read it. But the author was too decent to take it further. However this is one of the few romances that I have ever read where the virginal heroine doesn't feel pain on her first night. In fact she tells the hero 'It was the most marvellous experience.' How sweet. I just wonder why 99.9% of romance authors didn't pick up on the fact that sex for the first time doesn't have to be painful.

Unfortunately once the hero has done the deed he sends the heroine away to live with a shirt-tail relative. Out of guilt I think. A bit late. The 17-yo heroine also likes to light up a cigarette or two. How times change.

Generally speaking I don't like romances set in show-biz land. It's a setting more appropriate for cynics like Philip Marlowe to explore. But ultimately the characterisations were poor in this story. The heroine suddenly became irrationally jealous of her guardian's older girlfriend. And the hero was a grouch too. Something like that.

I am actually too scared to post this review over on Amazon. pc-ness is also a tyranny.