STOLEN BIRTHRIGHT

Author: Margaret Tanner ISBN: 9781603133562 8/2008 HISTORICAL Publisher: WHISKEY CREEK PRESS
Time Period: 1850's Australia

Georgina, a wild colonial girl is, brought up by O’Rourke, a rough and ready Irishman, who she believes is her uncle. While helping the bushranger, Johnny Dawson, escape from prison she meets and falls in love with a dashing young English aristocrat, Marcus Lindquist. When Johnny Dawson is ambushed and killed, Marcus finally learns the secret of what has bound him to Georgina. Johnny is her brother, not her lover as he had jealously supposed, but even darker secrets from the past overshadow their love. How can an English nobleman marry the daughter of convicts? Meanwhile, twelve thousand miles across the sea, Marcus’ Godfather is plotting Georgina’s death, to keep his dark secrets from ever seeing the light of day.

RRAH's THOUGHTS AND PONDERINGS:

STOLEN BIRTHRIGHT by Margaret Tanner is set in Australia, I guess during the pioneer stages of that country. Georgiana—or George, as she is called throughout the book—is a poor girl with outlaws for a family while Marcus is of the English elite. Throughout the book, George finds herself in trouble and Marcus comes to her rescue.

This is not a bad recipe for a romance, although maybe a little cliché, but I just wasn't thrilled with the way it was executed. Throughout the book I tried to figure out why this was, because I did enjoy Ms. Tanner's writing style and I didn't have a problem turning the pages and continuing. But upon reflection, I think there were two things that spoiled this romance for me.

First, George is just so pathetically eager and grateful. I know she's young and everything, but, my god! Some of the things she said made me want to smack her. Hard.

The second thing I wondered about, and I really wish authors would pay attention to this, is why, oh why, are we still clinging to the virgin heroine in romance? Okay, I realize this is a historical novel and in those days the double standard was the rule, but this is fiction and I really don't see it being debated over the round table for accuracy. Besides, Tanner takes it too far for my enjoyment. Marcus, thinking George was able to take his "manhood" too easily to be a virgin, immediately calls her a whore—right there while he's still on top of her! Then he walks out on her and dumps her (effectively making her a whore now, if you go along with the standard). Later, he accepts that she was probably a virgin after all, but I couldn't forgive him. I was still hoping Tanner had another, much nicer hero up her sleeve that she was going to spring on us at the last minute. But the point here is, and I can't stress this enough, why in this day and age are we still pushing virgins? (A little off topic, but while I'm at it and since I'm on a roll here... Why do heroines in romance have to be young, thin, perfect, etc.? Haven't we reached the point where we could imagine love happening to someone that looks like the rest of us? And I'm not just saying this because I need to drop 10 (or 20) pounds, either. But does it ever occur to any author that their readers might not appreciate the unspoken put down?)

Getting back to STOLEN BIRTHRIGHT, though, I felt it was rather childish the way George was so devoted to Marcus without reason, and I never believed for a moment that she was a grown woman who was truly in love.

Joanne Schaeffer