Unwrapping: Review of THE SHEIK RETOLD by Victoria Vane and E. M. Hull

I’m always excited about anything that Victoria Vane writes and I admit that I was a little hesitant about her taking something from the past and updating it, but I am most definitely glad that I read THE SHEIK RETOLD by Victoria Vane and E. M. Hull. It’s a taste of romance of old but with the flair of romance today. As usual, Victoria did not disappoint.

***eCopy provided by author in exchange for an honest and unscripted review.

Blurb for THE SHEIK RETOLD:

The Desert Was Never Hotter...

Pride and passion vie for supremacy in this steamy re-telling of E.M. Hull's romance classic. 

A haughty young heiress for whom the world is a playground…A savage son of the Sahara who knows no law but his own…When pride and passion vie for supremacy, blistering desert days are nothing compared to sizzling Sahara nights…

"There will be inquiries." I choked out. "I am not such a nonentity that nothing will be done when I am missed. You will pay for what you have done."

"Pay?" His amused look sent a cold feeling of dread through me. "I have already paid… in gold that matches your hair, my gazelle. Besides," he continued, "the French Government has no jurisdiction over me. There is no authority here above my own."

My trepidation was growing by the minute. "Why have you done this? Why have you brought me here?"

"Why?" He repeated with a slow and heated appraisal that made me acutely, almost painfully, conscious of my sex. "Bon Dieu! Are you not woman enough to know?"

** NOTE** Due to differing copyright laws, this book is currently only available in the US, Canada, Australia, Japan and India.

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Diana Mayo has just come of age and is free to do as she pleases without her brother’s permission. What does she wish to do? She wishes to spend a month in the Sahara experiencing all that the desert has to offer. What she didn’t expect was to find herself captured by a handsome sheik who wants nothing more from her but her body, for as long as he pleases.

Sheik Ahmed Ben Hassan is a man of power. His word is law among his followers and when he wants something, anything, or anyone, he simply takes it. He wants Diana Mayo, not because she’s a wealthy heiress but because she represents everything he despises and yet he’s drawn to her in such a way that he risks everything to have her.

I so enjoyed this foray back to a time when romance novels were about strong men who took what they wanted, and women who quickly learned that they held the power to control their man with something other than words or demands but instead, with their bodies. I never read the original version of THE SHEIK by Edith Maude Hull but I can see the original mixing with Victoria Vane’s additions that take an exotic adventure and romance to an even higher level of extraordinary.

THE SHEIK RETOLD by Victoria Vane and E. M. Hull is gripping, exotic, visual, and addicting as any romance past or present. I enjoyed being pulled back to a time when men were men and women were stronger but let the men hold reins. By updating this amazing story with more mutually satisfying eroticism, Victoria brings the reader a riveting, steamy adventure that, while probably not acceptable in Miss Hull’s time, is more than desired in our time. By rewriting the rape-to-love trope to become a by my own terms willing act, Victoria makes THE SHEIK RETOLD much more palatable to modern readers. I’m personally glad she took out the animal abuse although, to me, even shooting an animal is abuse but then that’s just me.

I highly recommend THE SHEIK RETOLD by Victoria Vane and E. M. Hull to anyone who loves an erotic exotic adventure and who grew up reading the so-called bodice rippers but still loved romance novels. And for those of you who never read those because it just wasn’t the romance you wanted, try it on for size with this updated version – you might just like it.

Happy Reading Everyone!

THE SHEIK RETOLD by Victoria Vane and E. M. Hull, self-published, available now in print and ebook formats at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

***click on the links above or cover below for purchasing information