Books › A Savage Sanctuary (2293)
A Savage Sanctuary (2293)
First published 1979 · 189 pages
A windswept, brooding vintage romance where a bleak island winter sets the stage for an inescapable, tempestuous attraction.
What it feels like
Reading this vintage romance feels like being stranded on a stormy, desolate Scottish island where the weather perfectly mirrors the turbulent emotions of the characters. The narrative moves at a brisk, breathless pace, plunging the reader into an atmosphere thick with isolation, brooding tension, and a touch of gothic melodrama. The prose leans heavily into the pathetic fallacy, using the bleak winter landscape to heighten the stakes of an irresistible, almost mythic attraction. It is a story of fleeing the safe and predictable only to be caught in something wild and overwhelming. Fans of 1970s category romances will devour the earnest, melodramatic tone and the classic trope of a mysterious, domineering stranger who upends the protagonist's world.
- Mood
- windswept
- isolated
- stormy
- claustrophobic
- romantic
- Tone
- melodramatic
- earnest
- breathless
- brooding
- Pace
- brisk
- Themes
- fleeing commitment · inescapable attraction · isolation and vulnerability · the power of myth
- The writing
- Heightened and atmospheric, using the bleak, stormy landscape to mirror the intense, melodramatic emotional stakes.
- The arc
- The protagonist moves from anxious flight and uncertainty into a tempestuous, overwhelming romantic surrender.
- Who it's for
- Readers who crave the intense, brooding heroes and isolated, gothic-tinged atmospheres of vintage 1970s category romance.
Content notes
- outdated cultural language
- dubious consent
- emotional manipulation
About the book
Could the legend possibly come true?
Strangely enough, her fiance's assurance that he'd have married her even if she'd gone blind, only increased Anna's prewedding doubts. So she fled to her island cottage in Scotland.
But St. Morag's in summer was different than St. Morag's now - bleak, deserted for the winter. And the one other resident, Paul Peralta, a dark mysterious Gypsy of a man, disturbed and excited Anna.
For the island had a legend about dark men. If a girl answered their call, she was forever enslaved!
Description from Open Library.
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