Love Storm is a story of intense
lust and passion about the handsome Russian Prince Alexander
Nikolaevich Kuzan and the young, innocent, beauty, Zena Turku, the
daughter of Baron Turku. Alex has a past of hard, cold-hearted women in
his bed and life and has learned to use women as a means to only warm
his bed, not his heart. He rescues Zena as she is running away from a
forced marriage with the revolting, aging General Scobluff. Thinking
she is a courtesan, he takes her innocence and then attempts to justify
his action by taking her into his protection. Zena has been raised to
be a lady, and although she feels the passion and desire that Alex has
awakened in her young body, her heart becomes more involved and she
begins to fall deeply in love with Alex. She soon discovers that she is
carrying his child and knowing that he can never offer her the love she
so desires, she flees, only to be captured as a love slave in a harem.
Alex begins his search and rescues Zena once more while in this erotic
sensual captivity. As Zena is with him once more, he continues to take
her in passion and lust while struggling with his hard heart and
unrecognized feelings of love. Finally her family discovers the
relationship and insists on a marriage, which causes further conflict
as a marriage of convenience is anything but. This is not a story for
the light romance reader. The sex scenes are intense and many times
rough, as intense and rough as the emotional relationship between these
two intensely passionate individuals, time and place. The story twists
and turns and sweeps across Russia and the harems of Turkish sheikhs
and beys while Alex fights his love for Zena. Zena continues to give
into Alex time and again. Some readers may have problems coming to
terms with the intense sex and Zena appearing weak, but in a period of
history where women did not have much power, in this character's
defense, Zena begins the story as a young, weak girl, who at the end
becomes a strong woman winning the love of a man who seemed incapable
of ever loving. The story is well-researched and developed, as the
reader is swept away in the beauty and history of the Russian
aristocracy. It is a pleasure to see this reissue of an epic erotic
romance destined to be part of a new generation of romance collections.
Publisher: Fanfare
(April 1995)
Reviewed
by Beverly,
Beverly Romance Books
