This is not a good book. The writing style is juvenile with go-nowhere dialogue and short, choppy sentences and little to no description, no setting and poor characterization. I did not believe the romance.
The novel has a lot of sex scenes and some are explicit. Outside of sleeping together the hero and heroine have little connection – there is a mention of her enjoying his company but that’s it – and there is virtually no sense of them becoming a family or caring about each other.
The plot is Harlequin Presents goofy la-la. She’s half Greek, half English and her Greek dad used devious methods to keep her with him while growing up. Now she’s grown up and still lives with Dad and works for him too, even though she knows he’s a pretty bad egg, mean and selfish to the bone. Good ol’ dad is going bankrupt so like any good smart dad sends his gorgeous virginal daughter to ask his dearest enemy for a bazillion dollars (or Euros as the case may be) and just as any dear enemy would do, our hero takes one look at gorgeous lady and says sure thing, sweetums, but you gotta marry me too. One thing progresses after another, all in this same vein.
So the story lacks any depth or believablility, the characters are 2-dimensional at best, there’s too much kissing and not enough caring, we never see or read much about the lovely Greek locations (aside from noting gardens exist) and the writing style is aimed at mid teens. Other than that this is a lovely novel.
So why am I reviewing it when I’ve a stack of others that I’ve left high marks on Good reads? For one thing I almost liked this the first time I read it, about 6 months ago, and gave it 3 stars on Goodreads, which is funny because I recalled it as not good at all and have avoided Margaret Mayo ever since. For another, Bought for Marriage is part of the Forced to Marry Harlequin E book bundle which I purchased and I try to review what I buy. (I’m behind over 60 books but who’s counting.)
I recommend you avoid this novel unless you are really tired and really bored and just want something fluffy to keep you going for a couple of hours.
2 Stars / 1+ Star
I read this first as a standalone pdf on Archive.org. Amazon has the Forced to Marry bundle in Kindle and the standalone novel Bought for Marriage is available on Kindle or, more expensively, in hardback or paperback.
All the Amazon links are paid ads.
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