Search - Patience

It’s not Passion.

After reading her first novel, I was enthralled with Lisa Valdez. I eagerly awaited her 2nd novel, but overall found it somewhat disappointing. Passion was remarkable for its explictness and eroticism, but was also very emotional and Romantic. It seems that with Patience, the author has made a decision to concentrate more on erotica than romance. The story begins with Matthew Hawkmore having been “outed” as illegitimate by his mother. He’s ostracized from society when he meets Patience, Passion’s younger sister. He’s immediately taken with her and aims to seduce her.

Matt has a proclivity toward (fairly mild) BDSM and much of the book is devoted to his lessons to Patience in how to act the submissive to his dominant. He repeatedly tells her she must submit to him. He very nearly turns her into a sexual slave by withholding her orgasm until she does exactly as he orders. These scenes, while initially interesting and well written, soon became repetitive and far too long. Interestingly, Patience tells Matt she is a virgin & wants to remain one. She manages to technically stay a virgin until page 305, but they engage in every other imaginable sexual act. The book suffered from pacing problems. The beginning was interesting, but it got bogged down in the middle with (of all things) to much sex and BDSM. It did somewhat redeem itself in the end, however. The Cello lesson scene is marvelous. I think there was also a missed opportunity in that much more could have been done with the revenge theme. This was a book in search of an editor. With some editing down of the middle of the book and the expansion of the ending, it could have been a great book. As it stands, I can only give it a C rating. The author delayed publication because she had “lost her muse.” It’s clear after reading Patience that the muse is still missing in action. I can only hope that she regains her muse before writing the third book in this series, Primrose. Her talent is still apparent, and while flashes of brilliance can be found in Patience, they are, unfortunately, few and far between. I hate to think a talented author has only one great book in her.

This book turned out to be a real disappointment. After the first book, Passion, which was well received and well written, this one was not worth the wait and anticipation. Mainly focusing on the sexual emphasis of bondage and submission (this got quite boring after being repeated several times), the story line was disjointed and uninteresting. I found myself simply scanning through pages by about half way through. What happened to the good storytelling this author introduced us to in her first book?

If I hadn't been such a fan of "Passion," I might have liked this better. The bondage might not be everybody's cup of tea, but at least it's something a little bit different than the norm, so I appreciate that. However, the lack of emotional connection between the characters really bothered me here. There are occasional glimpses of emotion, but it never reaches the heights the first book in the series was able to master.

I actually enjoyed this book, and the frequent domination scenes and character relationship seemed well-done and well-suited to the plot. I admit Passion was heavier on the romance aspect, but if I had to read anything about cervix pounding in this novel, ala Passion, I would have chucked the book into the nearest trash can I could find. I think Valdez matured as an author, wrote sex scenes with more emotional connection, and got rid of the extra, annoying characters that made Passion hard to read. But if you don't enjoy domination or you want gentleman who act like doormats, this is not the book for you.

This book was not what I thought it would be-Be warned it very heavy into the male disciplining the female of this book!

I'm one of the few reviewers who didn't like PASSION, but I *really* hated PATIENCE. I only had to read the line, "Her sex felt bloated. Where was Matthew?" to start howling with laughter. Whenever the author described Patience's clitoris it sounds as if it's a balloon about to explode. The author brings back the dread purple-headed, thick red love thang for Matthew too (same as his brother, in PASSION). There is NO emotional connection between these two characters. Matthew is consistently, and angrily, downright cruel to Patience. Frankly, it's as if once he finds out he's illegitimate, he takes it out on Patience. The descriptions of Patience (a vicar's daughter and Victorian miss, for heaven's sake) getting happy over being spanked - HARD, five or six times in one go, were hard for me to take. The author tries to soften this by describing Patience's butt as "blushing", but it's ridiculous. PATIENCE wasn't erotic, it wasn't emotional, it wasn't about a romance. It was about two emotionally stunted idiots, one with a need to be cruel and one who wanted to be on the receiving end. I thought it was a piece of crud. Thank God I didn't pay for it, I found it for credit in a used book store! (And I want my credits back!!)