| $@%&! level: Low “Bedroom” level: Low Violence level: Low Back Cover: “New York, 1880. Bertie, recently emigrated from Ireland, is a seamstress in the home of textile tycoon J. P. Wellington. When the Wellington family fortune is threatened, Bertie's father boasts that she can save the business, as Bertie can 'practically spin straw into gold.' Amazingly, overnight, Bertie creates exquisite evening gowns—with the help of Ray Stalls, a man from her tenement. Ray uses an old spinning wheel to create dresses that are woven with crimson thread and look like they are spun with real gold. Indebted to Ray, Bertie asks how she can repay him. When Ray asks for her firstborn child, Bertie agrees, never dreaming that he is serious.” |
And there's the thing that bothers me about this book. While I accept that it's possible for a man to decide to pursue a woman after meeting her only once, any man who tells a woman that she actually is in love with him and just doesn't know it—and demands that she kiss him in order to prove it—is just plain creepy. I mean stalker-level creepy. I know, they had to get to the first born child problem somehow in order to follow the fairy tale, and it's true that the original Rumplestiltskin was a creepy little dwarf. Actually, the ways this story finds to follow the original are very clever, and I'm impressed with the skill it took. I think the time setting was especially appropriate and useful for that. And I like that it points out just how much of an utter jerk the prince actually is. But having Ray turn out to be right after using a line like that just seems very wrong to me.