Saturday 21 April 2007

The Long Surrender by Charlotte Lamb

Beautiful, frigid tease Selina and obsessive, violent Ashley try to make their marriage work the second time around.

Ms Lamb used the 3 plot devices present in Long Surrender over and over again in many of her books over the following years but never to such great effect. The story works because the first time Selina and Ashley got married it was because they loved one another. So the pimping brother, the violence and the frigidity are all necessary for their second attempt at happiness to work out. And how many romances feature 2 suicide attempts? The ending is fantastic. The heroine risks her self-respect in order to prove her love for her husband. Believe me, Selina is more than a match for Ashley's anger. I read this in the 1970s and I read it again in the 21st century. The story remains engrossing. Apparently Ms Lamb (RIP) wrote this novel in one weekend.

What this story really needed was for the sex scenes to be more graphic.

Genre; contemporary romance. Movie rating 15; female sells herself for money, a scene of marital rape, suicide attempt.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The Long Surrender is one of my favorite Charlotte Lamb books. I have read it so many times and have never been bored with it. I keep coming back to Charlotte Lamb's books even though there are so many other romance authors out there. I think it will be a long time before another author achieves the wonderful writing ability that Charlotte Lamb has!

bookbot99 said...

Don't forget Night Music and Frustration. Just as twisted and just as enjoyable.