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Ransom My Heart
by Meg Cabot
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$14.99 |
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$5.06 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. |
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$9.93 (66%) |
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Paperback
Publisher: Avon A
Format: Bargain Price
Mia Thermopolis, Princess of Genovia and star of Meg Cabot's insanely popular #1 New York Times bestselling Princess Diaries books, has "penned" her first historical romance novel . . . with help from Meg Cabot He's a tall, handsome knight with a secret. She's an adventurous beauty with more than a few secrets of her own. Finnula needs money for her sister's dowry, and fast. Hugo Fitzstephen, returning home to England from the Crusades with saddlebags of jewels, has money, and lots of it. What could be simpler than to kidnap him and hold him for ransom? Well, for starters, Finnula could make the terrible mistake of falling in love with her hostage. Princess Mia Thermopolis, Meg Cabot's most beloved character, has always been an outspoken animal-rights activist and committed environmentalist. In keeping with Mia's true spirit, Meg will be donating her advance to Greenpeace.
| Customer Reviews: |
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| WHAT WAS SHE THINKING???? |
| Customer Rating: 1 out of 5 |
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I LOVED THE PRINCESS DIARIES, BUT I DID NOT NOT NOT LIKE THIS AT ALL. I'm 17. I read all the diary books plus many others. Ok. I have to stop before I go on a rant.
#1 I always finish a book I start. Always. You never know when it'll get better, but NOT THIS, because
#2 One word : Oral. That's it. Tons of sex, but that one word describes it all. I felt like I had to go to confession after reading it unexpecetedly. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
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| Courtesy of Teens Read Too |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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Girls will laugh and swoon with RANSOM MY HEART. Princess Mia Thermopolis, heroine of Meg Cabot's THE PRINCESS DIARIES, pens a fun, flirty debut novel that's spiced with the occasional mishap.
Finnula Crais is out to catch a rich man. Why has Fair Finn switched from hunting game to hunting men? To help out her beloved sister, of course!
The family beauty, Mellana, has spent her entire dowry and needs Finn to capture and ransom some poor unsuspecting fool so she can marry the man of her dreams. As luck would have it, her prey is none other than the new local lord, Hugo Fitzstephen, a seasoned knight and womanizer who has just returned from the Crusades.
Inevitably, things begin to heat up as Finn uses herself as bait to lure Hugo. Her hostage is all too happy to find himself the center of attention of such a determined huntress.
I blushed and giggled my way through their mutual and often awkward physical attraction as it blossomed into a romantic but still comedic courtship. I really liked that there were quite a few rocks and some hard slogging to get to true love. There were moments when I envied Finn, but there were also times when I was so glad that I was not in her shoes.
While RANSOM MY HEART has its share of historical romance tropes - scheming teenage girls, corrupt bailiffs, mistaken identity, and disastrous miscommunication - readers will find these as familiar landmarks rather than repetitive scenery. Meg Cabot seems to have a lot of fun playing with our expectations and then subverting them.
Finn may be a seventeen-year-old tomboy, but even when head-over-heels in love, she knows better than to compromise herself or her family over some guy. Likewise, it's super-refreshing to have a hero and heroine who have lives and dreams outside of each other.
Readers, beware! There is a high chance of silly smiles, laugh-out-loud moments, and holding your breath as you frantically turn the pages. Five Stars!
Reviewed by: Natalie Tsang
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| For More Mature Readers...Take into account this is not for YA readers or children |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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I as an adult loved this book and thought it was wonderful. I love Hugo and Finn and their story. And I Although I don't know the age range for this book if my child was under the age of adulthood I would want them to wait to read the book when they are older. Finn is most definetly a unique character and so is Hugo and getting to see both side of their feelings and what watching them grow are wonder and delightful I actually set up into morning just to read it. However it does deal with marriage and what come with in a marriage that a younger person might not need to here.
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| Another airplane-grocery-store trashy romance in the disguise of a bestseller. |
| Customer Rating: 1 out of 5 |
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Ransom My Heart, by Meg Cabot, is a Medieval Romance story about the blossoming love between a feisty, red-haired maiden and a handsome, virile knight, targeted to an audience of young women and mature teenager girls. All romance novels, of course, are written to play upon the romantic fantasies of females. Personally, I felt it was really cheesy, and it makes me quite incredulous with wonder of how I could have ever liked Meg Cabot's books when I was younger.
Ransom My Heart follows the "unlikely" romance between the fearless Finnula Crais, who is a beautiful female Robin-Hood-figure among her fellow peasants, and the dashing Hugo Fitzstephan, a knight who has just returned to England from the Crusades. Rather than staying home and helping her family with the household chores, Finnula goes out to hunt venison for her fellow peasants, and dresses in men's clothing, with a bow and a collection of arrows on her back. Meanwhile, Hugo has returned from the Holy Lands with his garrulous, obnoxious little pageboy, who won't shut his mouth and constantly complains of how hard life is and that he wishes to live among the comforts and splendour of London again. As they return to England, Finnula's extraordinarily alluring, but fatuous older sister, Mellana, has gotten herself pregnant by a lowly minstrel; to help her save face, Finnula must find and kidnap a rich man to hold for ransom in order to pay for Mellana's dowry. Who better than the mysterious knight who has just returned from the Crusades and has pockets filled with riches? Finnula uses her beauty and charm to lure him into her clutches; however, Hugo turns out to be a rather unusual prisoner, as he is enraptured by her beauty and torments her with this suggestive flirting and teasing. Finnula, on the other hand, has a tough facade that is slowly penetrated as she falls for Hugo's charms and exceedingly good looks. But as they come to know each other better, they discover rather alarming secrets of each other that can endanger their love and lives.
Meg Cabot wrote this book in the guise of Mia Thermopolis, the protagonist of the Princess Diaries series. In the final book, Forever Princess, Mia, now a graduating high school senior, secretly wrote this book and tried to get it published, while including excerpts of the book into her diary. From the excerpts I read, it sounded like some over-the-top, ridiculous, cheesy romance story that sounded as though Finnula and Hugo were only attracted to each other because they thought they'd make good sex partners, and that they were both highly attractive. Aside from looks, there was no chemistry or true love between them. When I saw this book sitting on the library shelf, I practically screamed, "Oh my GOD! I cannot believe this is a real book!" and decided to check it out just to see if my impression of the book was correct. After finishing the book, I have to give Meg Cabot the credit of being one of a rare chick lit writer who can ACTUALLY write. She has very good descriptions of how people look, and describes the atmosphere of medieval England well. However, that's the only positive thing I can say about this book. The characters are absolutely cliched and two-dimensional. Finnula is the overused archetype of the beautiful, but tomboy supermodel who has no interest in female domesticity (sewing, cooking, cleaning, etc.), but prefers to hunt and dress in men's clothing. She is tall, idealistically slender (Cabot keeps repeating obnoxious details about how she is as thin as a rail, with no ounce of fat on her), and delicately beautiful, with a mane of fiery red hair. Her love interest, Hugo, is the handsome, blonde, tanned knight who is returning to England to resume his position as a duke. He's quite an arrogant, high-minded pig, who has bedded countless women, and happened to come to the knowledge that he had impregnated one of them, and he only agrees to be Finnula's prisoner because she's so beautiful, and he doesn't mind being a captive of a ravishing maiden. The antagonists are not very well-developed either; Isabella is a beautiful, spoiled, dark-haired beauty who uses her beauty to try to get what she wants, and constantly whines and complains when she doesn't get what she wants. Her father is the typical evil-talking, evil-looking bad guy who wants to get Hugo's fortune. Along with poorly-created characters, there has also been complaining reviews about the fact that this book is sexually graphic; I agree. You can say that Hugo pretty much rapes Finnula, and later, they're all, "Oh, let's get married, blah-blah-blah, because Finnula's now pregnant, and we make a beautiful couple anyway!" This book would appeal to fans of Cabot, and romance-novel lovers, which is quite common among teenage girls. But I found this a completely air-headed read. So, unless if you enjoy a sappy medieval romance novel with bodice-ripping-esque content, avoid this.
In conclusion, for over 400 pages, this book is not a challenging read. I was not proven wrong with my impression that this was a terrible "romance" story with no meaning. The whole time I was reading, I kept thinking, "If Finnula was a real person, she'd be some anorexic supermodel who'd die of starvation," and, "I hope you go to Hell for being a total womanizing bastard, Hugo!" If this book was not written by Meg Cabot, this would've been another cheesy airplane-or-grocery-store-romance trash, not another over-hyped Meg Cabot novel that's taking over "female" literature.
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| If you want amateurish writing |
| Customer Rating: 1 out of 5 |
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log into the National Novel Writing Month website and browse the excerpts posted there. There's no need to smack down twelve bucks for the pleasure. This book reads like the thing it pretends to be: a novel penned by a fairly narcissistic, immature young woman (Mia Thermopolis of Princess Diaries fame) who hasn't had any critical input to speak of. Perhaps writing this was a fun exercise for Meg Cabot, but I think it should have stayed on her flash drive or spiral notebook, or wherever she keeps ideas that don't work out.
Considering the way the two movies that spun off the Princess Diaries series were marketed to young girls (as in, third-grade young), it's reasonable to wonder what the publishers of this book were thinking when they gave no warning as to the ridiculously explicit nature of this story. With Mia Thermopolis' name on the cover, I can imagine some parent picking this up as a gift for their little girl who loves the movies. Yikes.
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