Here's A Golden Oldie: The Sheik's Captive by Violet Winspear

Much has been said about the popularity of sheikh and desert romances. It's a genre in which opinion doesn't swing to great extremes, alternating between revulsion and plain confusion. People often forget that one of the aims of romance is to provide escape from reality. And there's nothing wrong with hopping on the dream plane every now and then. We need to entertain ourselves, and if it involves some two hundred pages about swarthy desert Alpha males, then why not?

I have to say that this Violet Winspear-helmed romance (uh-huh, she of the writing her males as "capable of rape") will always be special (though I think she's nuts). She gave me my first swarthy desert Alpha male, after all.

Characters
Sheikh Khasim ben Haran and Diane Ronay

Plot

Our heroine gets thrown off her horse and ends up crawling her way to the Sahara until our desert hero comes her way. She's given water, is rescued, plunked on the divan. Standard hospitality, so far so good. Then the big reveal: Diane is the granddaughter of the man who massacred Khasim's tribe, his mother among the victims. Khasim then thinks to keep her and terrorize her grandfather about all the unthinkables he'd be doing to her.

And did he?

*SPOILER ALERT*
Except for two instances that had them horizontal and him "wandering the soft hollows and curves" (i.e., boobs) and when he was "at the very gates of her innocence," this Harlequin romance is pretty GP.

Best Line

"I should hope I've more sense than to behave like a frustrated nitwit out of a novelette!"

I Like Her and I Also Don't Like Her

Diane really fights Khasim. Among the women of the many sheikh romances I've read, she's pretty up there when it comes to keeping her head on her shoulders and absolutely refuses to be swept away. But then she does an about-face. Ah, love. The extremes we're driven to.

Goes into the Kasbah or Cast Out:
I'm keeping this one. Flowery language aside, this book is pretty decent.