It's a thin book, only 187 pages, but jam-packed with drama, memorable details (like the heroine's penchant for the color yellow) and touches of humor, with nary a dull moment. It's a very well-written book, but at times a highly infuriating one.
The hero (if we can call him that) of the book is the "pirate" of the book's title, a former soldier named Simon Kendrick who rarely seems to be all that "gentle" in his manner. In an unusual touch for a contemporary romance novel, Simon is missing a hand, and instead uses a removable steel hook. Presumably Krentz added this element to give this modern-day story some of the attraction and danger that was associated with historical romance novels of the time, where the heroine might be kidnapped by a pirate (with whom she would eventually fall in love). In her later writings about the genre, Krentz has emphasized that the modern romance novel uses classic archetypes that hold universal appeal, and the pirate (like the devil or the vampire) would be such an iconic figure possessing a dark allure.
The heroine of the story is Kirsten Mallory, who is working as a reference librarian in a company called Silco based in Richland, Washington. Simon has been hired to "trim some of the fat from the organization," and Kirsten suspects that her job may be one of the things Simon decides to trim. Kirsten is 27, but already a widow, having previously been married to an ex-Marine named Jim Talbot. She left him when Jim beat her, and later he was killed in a car accident. She has been dating a coworker named Ben, who "was a man a woman never need to fear" due to his kind manners. And yet, Kirsten finds the easygoing Ben to be too soft for her taste, and wishes she was able to find a man in "the middle" -- not as soft as Ben, but not as rough as Jim.
Simon doesn't fit the bill, it appears, because of his forceful manner, inserting himself into her private life (beginning with intruding on her date with Ben) and inviting himself into her apartment to stay the night after she discovers the place has been ransacked in her absence. Throughout the novel, Simon continues to give orders to Kirsten about what she can or can't do, expecting his demands to be obeyed, and uses his large physical size to push her around when she resists his commands. His familiarity eventually culminates in his demand that they be married, even though they have only known each other for a week.
I was reminded of an Anne Stuart novel that I read a couple years ago, Chain of Love (from 1983), that also had a large arrogant 'hero' who ordered the heroine around so much that a few times I was hoping she'd pull out a gun and shoot the jerk. In my review of that book, I had written: "As I got to the last few chapters, I wondered how that obligatory happy resolution would come about since it seemed like if the two went their separate ways then nothing worthwhile was achieved, but if [she] submitted to [him] then she would be stuck in another potentially abusive relationship." I felt the same way here -- although I do have to say that Gentle Pirate is the better book due to how entertainingly it is written, despite the outrage I felt toward Simon's sense of entitlement in his treatment of Kirsten.
When I had gotten to page 84 of the novel, I decided to see if I could predict how the plot would be resolved. Here's what I wrote to myself at that point: "It seems to me that the only way that the jerk 'hero' Simon can be satisfyingly redeemed is if he has been putting up a fake front of arrogance this entire time in order to protect the heroine. For example, if it turns out that Simon has secretly been assigned (perhaps by the government) to expose corruption in the company they work for, and that is why he is warning Kirsten away from going on a date with Roger Townsend, if Roger is actually the object of Simon's investigation. Or perhaps Simon is really Phil Hagood, the friend of Kirsten's late husband Jim Talbot, and so that is why Simon wanted to obtain the package that had been mailed to her. Or Hagood could be the person who trashed Kirsten's apartment, looking for the contents of the package. Perhaps the reason that Simon insisted on sleeping overnight in her apartment after it was trashed is because Simon believed her to be in danger and wanted to protect her. And that would also explain why Simon insists on moving into her apartment complex, so that he can be able to be nearby in case she is in danger. I think this would be the only way that Simon's horrible behavior could be excused and that it would make the reader want Kirsten to end up with him romantically."
Well, yes and no. I won't spoil the plot here, but Simon was not assigned to protect Kirsten, is not really Phil Hagood (who we meet later), and is not putting up a fake front. He's just as arrogant at the end of the novel as he was as the beginning, perhaps even moreso. However, he is trying to protect Kirsten, which does explain why he wants her to stay with him. No, Simon simply wants Kirsten for himself and isn't going to take no for an answer. In real life, if someone who had control over another's employment (as Simon does when it comes to Kirsten's job) and did a fraction of the things to her that Simon does in this novel, it would be a clear-cut case of harassment. In real life, Kirsten ought to have a restraining order against him.
Since this is an old-school romance novel from 1980, however, Kirsten's mind may be saying no, but her body is saying yes, and that reflects her true feelings for him, not any denials that she might make with her mouth. The reader may be objecting to Simon's actions, but Krentz provides the occasional suggestion that Kirsten is really fine with it -- and who are we to argue with the heroine, right? For example, on page 97, we read: "She wanted to tell him now that he had no business acting as if she was a schoolgirl who had overstayed her curfew but couldn't work up the courage to confront him. She sneaked a glance at his hard profile and swallowed her words. But nowhere in all the discomfort she felt was there any sensation of genuine fear such as she had known with Jim Talbot." This is intended to signal to the reader that Simon may be rough around the edges, but is not abusive, not like Jim. And yet, Jim didn't abuse Kirsten until after they were married, so this observation is hardly reassuring.
I'm the kind of person that dislikes the idea that a book -- mere words on a page -- can be deemed "harmful" -- as if adult readers need to be protected like children from bad ideas. But by the time I got to page 170, with no "grovel" from the hero in sight as he takes Kirsten, an abuse survivor, over his knee and gives her a spanking for disobeying him, I was disgusted and alarmed by the message that Krentz's words were sending to her readers: that this is okay, that this man is a hero, that he is in the right and that this is somehow true love. It's not. Perhaps some readers may find it romantic when Simon says, on page 176, "Don't you know that the reason I must have you is because you are the other half of myself?" But a closer reading of that question reveals that his "love" for her is all about himself. On page 180, Kirsten asserts her expectation of equality in their relationship: "I consider you as much my property as you consider me yours!" And yet, just prior to the spanking, on page 170, Simon tells her: "I want you to understand, sweetheart, that what I am about to do is not simply for your own good, nor is it merely a means of letting you know who will be the ranking partner in our marriage." In other words, he holds the power, not she.
Certainly most readers (one hopes) would never tolerate such patronizing behavior from their own husbands (or, in this case, an unmarried man they met a week ago), but perhaps some impressionable readers would conclude that this is how women ought to be treated by men, and that's an insidious message to receive. It's frustrating to see such a well-written book -- in some ways a modern (for 1980), funny, clever, entertaining book -- used to promote such a reactionary view. It's hard to understand that indeed a woman wrote this book, after the societal change achieved by the Women's Liberation movement of the 1970s, and that other women ate it up. Sure, it's fiction, it's a fantasy, but it's also infuriating, and just the kind of book that a feminist reader would likely fling across the room in disgust.
And when I had finished the book, I felt that Krentz had a lot of gall to subsequently be on the forefront of defending the romance novel genre from its critics, when Gentle Pirate is such an obvious example of what was wrong and unenlightened about the genre at the time. Its values are deranged, and there's really no convincing defense of it, at least from a moral point of view. I'm rating it 3 (out of 5) stars, although it would have rated higher had the hero been likable, or at least made to grovel or change his behavior at the end. There was plenty for me to like about this book (including a mention of Nick Carter [Killmaster] near the end!) but a lot to dislike about its outdated view of real love.
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