A Cautionary Tale: The Nipple and the Fishhook

Every so often, I browse through A Mystical Unicorn online bookstore, looking for old categories that I want to re-read. Today, I was browsing through the books and hit this one … and cringed.

This book is a memorable one. Not just because it takes place in Colorado (not unheard of for Harlequin Romance at the time — in fact, one of my favorites from this time period is also set in Colorado — but it was still rare), but because of the scene where the heroine’s nipple is stabbed by a fishhook.

Yes, a fishhook. A barbed one.

She’s kissing the hero while he’s wearing his fishing vest. The next moment, she’s nearly fainting from the pain. Missy, who was flat-chested at the time and barely had any nipples to speak of, almost fainted, too. And twenty years later, I see the title of the book and feel the pain all over again.

So, as a warning to all romance readers out there … if you buy this book, be prepared for the nipple and the fishhook.

Here’s the book’s description:

Seeing him awakened painful memories. As a teenager Sara had corresponded with Brad Rawlins, her brother Peter’s best friend in Vietnam, but when Peter was killed the link had been severed. Brad had never written again. Now he was here in Colorado, a battle-scarred veteran with bitter memories of his own, and Sara realized her love for him had been no passing infatuation. How could she make him understand, though, when to him she was still just Peter’s kid sister?