Captive of My Desires

I've just finished reading Captive of My Desires by Johanna Lindsey. Lindsey is one of my favorite romance writers, and she certainly creates lush settings, exciting heroes and heroines, and sultry erotic scenes. But although I went through this book quickly, I found the plot so improbable as to be preposterous.

Who would believe that a young Englishwoman on her way to the Caribbean to seek out her father after her mother's death would be captured by "benevolent and honorable" pirates who only seek to hold her for ransom? Who would believe that she would discover that her own father is one of these honorable pirates, and instead of suffering at the hands of her captors, she would be ransomed by him immediately and taken to live at his lovely Caribbean home?

Who would then believe that he would send her back to England to find a husband, and she would end up pirating the ship belonging to the very man she is in love with, in order to rescue her father from the "bad pirates" who have captured him with HER as the ransom?

This time Lindsey goes too far and weaves a tale that strains credulity. I had fun reading it but the situations were so absurd that I couldn't feel much sympathy for the characters and their problems. This is not one of Lindsey's best, though the heat is there and the lushness is there. She needs to rein in her imagination enough to make the situation believable.

Still, if one wants a beach book that is amusing and cotton candy for the mind, this is the one to take along, get sand between the pages, and scan the horizon for ships sporting the Jolly Roger.