Review of Tender Wings of Desire

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Tender Wings of Desire is a novella written by “Colonel Sanders” as a sort of Mother’s Day joke by the KFC restaurant chain and I totally picked it up because their mascot is lovingly holding a woman on the cover and it was free. I don’t regret a thing, it was surprisingly sweet, not to mention hilarious, especially if you’re as big a Romance fan as I am.

The story follows a noble woman named Madeline who is dealing with the worst thing a Regency heroine can, an arranged marriage to man she doesn’t love and hardly knows. Here is where the story deviates from the cliché a little. Instead of going through with it and slowly falling in love with her suitor, she says screw that and in a truly dramatic scene hops on the back of her beloved horse and runs away into night before her wedding and finds herself in a peaceful down by the sea called Mistle-Thrush-by-The –Sea. There she gets a job at an inn owned by a woman named Caoimhe (pronounced KEEVA, and no that doesn’t make sense even if she’s Irish, why do you ask?) and a man named Carson. Later Madeline meets a much younger, sailor version of Colonel Sanders going by the name Harland and they fall in love.

As I’m sure you can tell this story is more than a little tongue-in-cheek, but I think that’s part of the novella’s charm. The laughs begin at the start of the story when Madeline’s sister and her mother are plotting to get her married to duke named Reginald that has shown some interest in her but Madeline isn’t having it. To me they played the part of normal Regency readers; they know that eventually Madeline will fall head over heels for her husband because that’s basically how life apparently works in their universe; this is further reinforced by the fact that Reginald would be the hero in similar novels, at least of the beta-hero variety; he’s gentlemanly, hot and totally into the heroine. Madeline on the other hand is totally planted in reality and doesn’t think that’s possible, until she takes off into the night and finds herself in Mistle-Thrush-by-The –Sea (hilarious name by the way and appropriately Saccharine)

I love the jokes here as well about Caoimhe ridiculous name and her over-the-top world weariness because a sailor she fell in love with ran off with another woman one time, so she totally can’t reciprocate Carson’s feelings for her, which of course he has. I also love the fact that the hero really doesn’t enter the heroine’s life until about chapter six of a nine chapter books, it is a fun nod to Old school “Romances” where the heroes that the heroine falls in love with are secondary to her story that usually spans decades.

Harland’s entrance is absolutely hilarious as well, I won’t quote it here, but the dramatics attached to it are hilarious considering the hero is Colonel Sanders complete with his glasses, mustache and the beard. There’s also a brief period of longing for the other why the hero is away at sea, which is also a fun nod to older romances.

My favorite part in the whole novella though is how their first love scene is handled. The author takes a fade to black approach to the love scene, but the heroine’s next morning reaction makes the book more empowering and sex positive than it had to be. For some context, the scene takes place right before the brief longing phase. Harland hangs around the next morning just long enough to say goodbye and then sets out to sea once again. Right before their night together, Caoimhe warned Madeline about sailors and how their first love is the sea and all that. The next morning her bed appears empty and Madeline thinks about what she said, but instead of feeling guilty or worrying that’s she just a notch on the hero’s bed post she thinks this:

“In the harsh light of morning, Madeline expected to feel mortified, but instead felt rather pleasant….She half expected Harland to be gone leaving Madeline behind as the product of some terrible rake. As she opened her eyes and realized that she was alone in her bed, it seemed as though her expectations were coming true.

“It was a strange feeling to be sure, mostly because if he did love her and leave her, she probably would just go on living. She had expected, in a way, to be spoiled, but she did not feel that way at all. She simply felt like a woman who had lived through an experience, an enjoyable one. She was a woman who had embraced an attraction to a beautiful man and now was free to go on with her life”

A silly book like this doesn’t have any right to be this deep, but Tender Wings of Desire goes the extra mile and I think more people should give it a read.

If it wasn’t for the hero in question this book would receive a Good ranking, but he’s still Colonel Sanders, and the ending is hilariously overdramatic, so I consider this book certified Crazy and if you need a light book with some deep moments I’d add this one to your Kindle.