Against the Rules

By: Linda Howard

Narrated by: Lesa Lockford

Length: 7 hrs and 36 mins

Publisher's Summary

When Cathryn Ashe was 17, she ran away to the anonymity of the city after a romantic encounter with Rule Jackson, the manager of her father's ranch. Now, eight years later, her father has passed away, leaving her the ranch, and Cathryn returns to claim what's hers...and to challenge Rule like never before.

©1983 Linda Howington (P)2015 Dreamscape Media, LLC

Creepy

It's her ranch, but he's the only one who can run it. He also knows she belongs to him, and until she surrenders, he will mock her, treat her with contempt and arrogance, and kiss and handle her with or without her consent. But it's ok, because as much as he frightens and enrages her, his touch makes her mindless. Maybe if I'd been able to hack it past the 6th chapter the author would have found some excuse for the hero's misogynistic behavior, but I kept hoping the heroine would grow a spine and get a restraining order.

1983 Linda Howard Classic

Audible Escape
If you are new to Ms Howard, check out After the Night, Up Close and Dangerous, and Heart of Fire for heroines who are strong, focused, and know their own minds. I do use 1.25x speed to match their spunk.
This classic has the writing of the times,, which many young women today have no idea what mature women went through during that period. Romance writers have evolved and of course so has Ms Howard. But if like me you have waited over 20 yrs to even get to listen to this classic, then this is for loyal Ms Howard fans.
Publishers summery is spot on so no need to add to it.
Producers Dreamscape is an avenue to get hard to find books from some classic Romance authors eg Ms Howard. Unfortunately at $24.95 and NOT telling potential customers the original book publish date is a real failure on their part. Hence the poor reviews of this book from other reviewers.
Dreamscape used narrators that deliver good heroine voices, but fail to capture the male essence of the hero who always gives you a HEA ending, hence my rating and my recommendations above. Ms Ross and Ms Eby deliver what Ms Howard intended, strong female characters and Male voices that are masculine and believable. I have re listened to those 3 books many times over the years and they will not disappoint.
Were my comments of help?

Boss Lady Comes Home~ early Howard~ good~

PLOT: Cathryn comes home to inherit her ranch and Rule her former lover is now firmly the foreman and boss.

Rule Jackson is now the foreman and "official" Boss of the Ranch. He was the official "town bad boy" in his youth. Abused and neglected he was picked up from a ditch by Cathryn's father and he became a part of the family. The abuse shows in the form of a very SILENT restless adult. Cathryn and Rule became lovers when she was 17. Now years later Cathryn is returning to inherit her Ranch. She is "resents" Rule's hold on the ranch and HER. She also has do deal with her slutty step sister who wants Rule for her own. When Rule is injured his RECOVERY becomes mingled with her own ..... she slowly feels the Ranch is finally her "home." This is a very early Linda Howard. Still a good solid early romance. She has NOT added the "mystery" elements we have in her more current novels. I would label this one a CLASSIC early Howard ROMANCE. She was honing her craft and we still enjoy her early works. The reader is good and I give it 4 STARS~

Disappointed or maybe disgusted!

Until now I have enjoyed the books by Linda Howard, but this one doesn't even seem to be written by the author. Good thing it was in the Romance collection and I didn't waste a credit.

Couldn’t even finish this.

Between the eye-rollingly cliche violence leads to passion crap, and the horrifying way a grown man spanks a 15 year old girls bare ass, then sleeps with her at 17, there is nothing likable about this lead character.

Disappointed

I like Linda Howard. She's written some books that I thoroughly enjoyed. This wasn't one of them. Her writing style works for me, the characters, how they are introduced, setting the scene...all good. Unfortunately in this story, her female lead spent too much time whining and throwing tantrums for me to ever like her. I spent all my time rolling my eyes and thinking "this again?". The male lead was stoic and gruff and "unreadable" and spent all his time chasing her and ignoring her pleas of no. The man-handling and constant no's into uncontrollable yes's rubbed me wrong for a modern day romance. I kind of expect that in my 80's romance but in current it just felt misogynistic. I haven't given up on Linda Howard's books but I chalk this one up to a loss.

Too much pondering in the mind. Not enough plot.

I believe this may have been one of the first books Linda Howard wrote. It was published in 1983. It reminded me of early Harlequin novels. Too soap-opera-ish. No interesting character development. The author frequently refers to the hero Rule as pantherlike. He’s brooding and silent and all women want him. Cathryn is rich and good looking.

One main plot conflict was: Rule and Cathryn are in lust with each other. Cathryn loves him. Rule asks her to marry him. Then she gets all angsty and decides she must leave town. Her reason is that he never said the words “I love you.” She wonders if he just wants her because she owns the ranch.

Another angsty conflict. Cathryn’s father died and left the ranch to her. Her stepmother Monica was supposed to be in charge of things until Cathryn’s 25th birthday. Monica wasn’t interested in writing checks and being in charge, so she put Rule in charge. He was listed as the check signer. When Catherine sees that Rule is a check signer, she freaks out and gets mad at him. As if he violated something. He did nothing wrong. He managed the ranch very successfully.

Most of the story is Cathryn being overly angsty about deciding what to do.

AUDIOBOOK NARRATOR:
Lesa Lockford was good with female voices, but her voice for the hero was awful. She spent so much energy trying to sound gravely and low that there was no emotional interpretation in his dialogue. He did not sound seductive or sexy. He sounded like a frog with laryngitis.

DATA:
Narrative mode: 3rd person. Unabridged audiobook length: 7 hrs 36 mins. Swearing language: none. Sexual language: mild. Number of sex scenes: 5 plus 1 referred to. Book copyright: 1983. Genre: contemporary western romance.

Older Linda Howard

What was most disappointing about Linda Howard’s story?

Bimbo woman can't speak when gruff primitive male oozing testosterone comes close or forcefully grabs and gropes bimbo.

Did Lesa Lockford do a good job differentiating all the characters? How?

Narrator does a decent job.

Any additional comments?

Not the first book Linda Howard has done where the woman is helpless in the presence of primitive male. Will have to read the reviews more closely in the future to avoid the silly books.

Insight into what was acceptable 50 years ago and is NO t now

Linda Howard is now in a fairly good writer of romance novels and often writes around themes of woman’s victimization or trauma.

This is a novel from the early ‘80’s and reflects what was once was acceptable female fantasy. Included as acceptable are sex with a minor by an older man, bullying, restricting a woman from leaving her home, physically restraining her, sexual pressure and the like. All with a happy ending of true love and marriage. A lot of it is cringe worthy.

We as a society have evolved a lot in 50 years and so has Linda Howard. Some of the behaviors depicted in the book were acceptable, permissive or at least not criminal then.

This is definitely a pre- Me Took book. Read it as a window to the past put but not as a fun , escape romance novel.

Great Cowboy Romance

Would you consider the audio edition of Against the Rules to be better than the print version?

Yes, can enjoy while driving or doing anything else.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Rule, a manly man.

Have you listened to any of Lesa Lockford’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

No

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

When Rule finally came clean by what he felt.

Any additional comments?

No