this historical romance, set in post Civil War Mississippi, was written in 1989-and it shows.

Brenda Joyce is a talented writer-but in this novel she had both hero and heroine doing stupid, dangerous, implausible things.

The hero is VERY Alpha male-to the point of grabbing, throwing the heroine about-constantly thinking about his lust for the heroine, but not really caring about anything she believes in-doing things that ruin her reputation, make her lose TWO jobs and become a outcast-but doesn't understand why she doesn't want to be with him?

Sadly-the heroine is even worse. For someone who is supposed to be a strong, intelligent neo-feminist/suffragette-Grace comes across and a mean, mealy mouthed,insipid, just plain stupid-even the dreaded "too stupid to live".

One wonders why the hero would want to be with her-she is hateful to him and accuses him of bigotry, womanizing, and a host of other sins simply because he's a Southerner. She spends the entire book getting herself into one perilous situation after another-and Rathe must come save her every time-real independant, huh?

Also-I understand this is a post civil war book-but the author paints a simply terrible picture of all Southerners. The women are stupid and all the men vicious "Dark Riders"(klan) who seem to go around all day raping, killing and torturing former slaves, being ignorant and turning a blind eye to everything. Not one Southern character is shown in a positive light-enough to throw me off this book for sure.
It is a testimony to Miss Joyce's writing style that I actually stuck around for about 250 pages before I gave up in disgust!

If you like intelligent, loving characters-then definately SKIP this book.

Violet Fire gets better every time I read it. Grace and Rathe are two of my favorite characters of all time. Their story is very sweet, often laugh out loud funny, occasionally sad, and is one of the best romances out there.

I've read my share of romance novels and many of them are predictable, hackneyed, and extremely lacking in plot. Violet Fire is lacking in none of the above and it's extremely funny, and absolutely charming.

This book was nonstop action and romance in one I could not put it down Rathe and Grace are awesome. Their is only one thing about it that worries me if Rick Bragg is Rathe's son it doesn't say anyhting about him in the Bragg Books only in the Deadly Seris

This was good enough to spur me to read the rest of the series. Wonderful read!