Ride the Wind Home [Mass Market Paperback]

Four years later, Huntley has been dead for over a year, but her father wants Diana to marry Lord Runsfield. She never told him what an abomination her first marriage was, but refuses to wed anyone though she wishes her savior David was available. David has just returned to England after being held prisoner by a Barbary prince. He seeks internal peace and so he decides to wander until he recovers his equilibrium before taking over his dukedom. David sees Diana traveling by herself and decides he must keep safe the woman he fell in love with four years, not realizing she may be his healer.

RIDE THE WIND HOME is an enjoyable Regency romance that stars two delightful lead protagonists. The story line is exciting although the country seems loaded with too many repulsive aristocratic males. Still the tale catches the audience attention from the moment the two stars meet and never releases the reader until the final climax.

Harriet Klausner

Diana, the story's heroine, is (the author tells us) a strong, independent woman. So then why does she allow her father to pick husbands for her? I can understand when she was sixteen, but the second time is stretching the bonds of credibility. And, as she has her own fortune, one has to wonder why she doesn't just live by herself. Kingston may tell us she's strong and independent, but Diana's actions indicate that she can't do anything without another person's help and approval. She trains herself in self-defense (as if a woman in the nineteenth century would actually do that), yet spends all of the book depending on Smythington for defense, being nice to her father which he clearly doesn't deserve, reacting passively to everything every man does to her, and then making excuses for them! Aaaargh! Push her forward a hundred and fifty years, and she'd make a great Stepford wife.

Beside my principle objections to the story, this book is, to put is simply, badly written. It starts off wonderfully in the prologue, with Smythington as a likable, original, and interesting hero, and real chemistry between him and Diana. There is also a great, ready-made conflict to move the story along. But Kingston demolishes all of these factors almost immediately: the "conflict" dies, and Diana and Smythington spend most of the first half of the book apart, which is not only completely nonsensical for a romance novel, but BORING!!!!! I knew when I started this book that Kingston doesn't tend to think about plot (hence her writing what is essentially the same book four or more times), but this one apparently was not even edited to smooth out the wrinkles.

The most annoying aspect of RIDE THE WIND HOME, however, were the completely illogical characterizations. I've never encountered so many characters with absolutely irrational personality traits. The father is kind and sweet, yet he marries his daughter off at the first opportunity to a cruel, lecherous swine? An overweight man who hesitates to kill a fly, yet is somehow an expert marksman, swordsman, horseman, and highly decorated army officer? In fact, NONE of these characters behave consistently and that, combined with a story that would try the patience of Tolstoy, is what finally made me put this book down.

RIDE THE WIND HOME is, to put it mildly, not one of Kingston's better books. Try RIDE THE WINTER WIND instead and give this one a pass.

A year later, he returns to England after spending a that time enslaved. At first, he disguises himself as a young seaman, going only by one of his names, David. By this time, Diana is a widow, but is not ready to be a wife again, especially considering how distasteful she has found all the men her father would choose to be.She flees to London, and meets David there. Diana fails to recognize him as the man she never stopped loving, but despite that, there is an attraction to this stranger. David remembers and loves Diana, but wants her to love him for himself, not his title, so does not reveal who he is. The problem is, Diana may be in love with "David", but knows he is beneath her in station, and she loves another man, the Duke of Smythington.

***** With a combination of sweetness and passion, this charming story weaves a place in the reader's heart. Love's power is tenderly portrayed in a modern classic that will leave you feeling warm.