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Angst Galore! The Greek’s Forced Bride – Michelle Reid

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Calling Angst Junkies! Yes, the hero Leo is Greek. Yes, he marries the heroine Natasha. Forced? Not exactly. More blackmail and manipulation. And it works! If you like emotions, passion and angst The Greek’s Forced Bride is a winner.

Plot Synopsis – Click to Skip Spoilers

Let’s do a quick sweep through the plot – which is skimpy to allow plenty of room for emotion and character development.

Blonde and curvy Natasha wears baggy, prim clothes and is engaged to useless Greek playboy Rico. Rico sleeps his way around Europe, pursues stick thin blonde model types, never ladies with curves and never ever ladies who wear baggy clothes and avoid the spotlight. Rico is shallow. We see just how shallow he is when his stepbrother, Leo, who runs the family business, barges into Rico’s office to confront him for embezzling millions. Oops. Rico is busy fornicating with a blonde on his desk. Natasha arrives to challenge Rico on cheating, enters right behind Leo, just in time to see Rico with her own sister, pop singer Cindy.

Cindy is 18, thin, blonde, petulant, spoilt, greedy, spiteful, vicious to her proper and morally upright sister Natasha whom she has hired to run her business affairs for a few months until Natasha marries Rico and Cindy’s new professional management company steps in. Natasha knows darn well Cindy doesn’t even like Rico, she simply can’t stand the idea of Natasha having something she does not. Cindy set up Natasha to visit Rico’s office and staged the scene for the fun of hurting her sister.

Natasha flees. Leo kicks Rico out – “and take the slut with you” and chases after Natasha. She’s throwing up. Leo stuffs her in his car and takes off for his apartment while they both ignore frantic phone calls from the cheats who are desperate to keep things smooth. Leo kisses Natasha which ignites; she decides she wants someone, even Leo, to want her and tries to seduce him but he realizes that she’s simply using him to get back at Rico and pushes her away.

Leo confronts Natasha as she leaves Leo’s home. He wants her to return $2 million Euros that Rico stole. Rico stashed it in an account in her name and Leo wants her to give it back then get out of his life. Leo is disillusioned, the woman he has lusted after, is nearly in love with, is a thief. Natasha had not realized Rico had stolen the funds and agrees to give it to Leo, except she cannot access the funds for 6 weeks. Leo threatens to get her arrested for fraud unless she comes with him to Greece for the 6 weeks, and oh, by the way, keeps him sweet with sex. Natasha is appalled but terrified by the threat of jail and overwhelmed with Leo’s sexual attraction. She agrees.

Leo accompanies her to Cindy’s apartment to get her passport and clothes; Cindy attacks her the second she arrives. Rico panicked, called their parents who are on the way and Natasha had better darn well take the blame for everything (?? I’m at a loss here how that would work) and do some major damage control or else Cindy would do it herself and throw Natasha under every bus, train and plane she can. Leo tells Cindy to shut up and threatens to ruin her singing career if she makes Natasha look bad. Cindy’s and Natasha’s parents arrive and are all over poor Cindy, completely ignore Natasha – who in one swoop lost her family, her fiancé, her home and future. Who cares? It’s CINDY who must be protected and cosseted.

Leo takes Natasha to his home in Athens, seduces her (she’s willing but not happy with herself or with him). He tries to shame her first, refuses to believe she’s never slept with anyone, then discovers that oops, yes, she was a virgin. In fact when Natasha gets up and showers Leo sees the blood and changes the sheets himself to protect her from seeing the evidence herself. He proposes marriage to save his honor and she tells him to stuff his honor, stick to the deal, she’s not interested in marrying him, he’s tacky.

Leo alternately acts as protector and as seducer. His ex-wife Gianna barges in when he’s kissing Natasha and shrieks at them both, insults Natasha. Leo introduces Natasha as his future wife which restarts the shrieks until Leo manhandles Gianna out. He tells Natasha “‘I do not have a relationship with my ex-wife,’ he spoke finally. ‘I do not sleep with her and I have no wish to sleep with her, though Gianna prefers to tell herself I will change my mind if she pushes long and hard enough…In case you did not notice,’ he continued as Natasha turned to look him, ‘Gianna is not quite—stable.’”. ” Natasha is more than fed up by now.

When they eat dinner Leo grabs Natasha’s breast which sends her out the door to find a quiet private spot to crumple and cry. Leo knows – has known all day – that he’s acting horribly. He comforts Natasha, puts her to bed.

The next day Leo sends her shopping at a friend’s store. Although he he had instructed his friend to outfit Natasha in elegant, refined clothes, he first accuses Natasha of being an easy victim for all the self-confident harpies like her sister or Gianna. Natasha takes the challenge and buys elegant but very sexy clothes which infuriate Leo. He tells off one of his friends who’s ogling Natasha, “Get your eyes off my future wife’s breasts”. Natasha has it out with him that night, or tries to. Leo won’t fight with her as he has a fail-safe strategy in his back pocket to get his way.

The next morning Leo drags Natasha out of bed. The tabloid headline looks awful. “Love Cheat Chooses Riches over Rags.” Cindy got her damage control and it’s a doozy. Poor victim Cindy knew nothing about Natasha dating Leo behind poor Rico’s back and oh, by the way, look at her new single that her new management company is releasing. Leo is impressed with the job Cindy’s management company did to whitewash her and promote themselves at the same time. The lies are sordid and will hurt Natasha. But not to worry! He has a plan.

He, Leo could dump Natasha, thus enhancing his own reputation for ruthlessness, or Natasha could leave him and look even worse or yes, they could marry. And incidentally, here’s the notice of their impending marriage in the reputable papers. Natasha reluctantly agrees and they marry the next week. Leo takes her on a tour of his businesses in several countries where she and he draw closer and she gets familiar with his world of big business and fancy socializing.

Their lovemaking is working its magic on Natasha. She knows she’s falling in love with Leo, she isn’t very happy about it. “And if this was real love, then it made her hurt like crazy, because, no matter how profoundly she knew she affected him, she also knew deep down inside her that the mind-blowing sex was as deep as it went for him.”

Leo and Natasha return to Athens about two weeks before she can access the stolen funds and she realizes she needs a job because she isn’t willing to take money from Leo for anything except the fancy designer clothes he wants her to wear. Her intransigence infuriates him and they hit bottom when she reminds him of the theft. “‘Don’t you think I know I owe you enough money already without letting you shell out even more?’”

Gianna confronts Natasha the next day, digs her long nails into her arm. Leo comes home early and tries to pick a fight with her. He misses the old Natasha, Miss Prim and Cool, misses hunting her down. Leo asks her to stay home the next day, skip job hunting. It’s the day she had planned to marry Rico and he doesn’t want to remind her of his stepbrother. They spend the afternoon making love before Leo leaves for Paris.

Cindy calls Natasha out of the blue the next morning, ostensibly about a problem with their parents. She’s in Athens, can they meet? It’s Rico who meets her, wants Natasha to sign the documents giving him access to the overseas account holding Leo’s stolen money. He shows Natasha a video of Leo going into a hotel with Gianna the night before. Natasha signs, goes home without even trying to talk to Cindy.

Leo comes in blazing angry, even more furious when he sees Natasha packing.

“What the hell were you doing with Rico?’ he bit out.
Natasha didn’t answer; she just turned back to her bag.
‘I asked you a question.’ He arrived at her side and caught hold of her arm to swing her around. It was only as he did so that his eyes dropped to the bag she was packing. Cold fury suddenly lit him up. ‘If you think you are leaving me for him you can think it through again,’ he raked out.
Natasha just smiled.
The smile hit him as good as a hard slap. ‘You bitch,’ he choked, tossing her arm aside and reeling away from her. ‘I can’t believe you could do this to me.’
‘Why not?’ Natasha let herself speak at last—

Page 233

Leo accuses her of signing the money over to Rico. “‘Yes, I did, didn’t I?’ she said smoothly. ‘Are you going to inform the police?’” She tells Leo that the only reason she’s his wife is he was punishing Gianna. ‘I was there, if you recall. Until she turned up, I was just the little thief you took to your bed to enjoy for six weeks until you got your precious money back.” (Actually Leo proposed just before Gianna burst in.) Leo then dumps her suitcase, drags her to bed and forcibly seduces her.

Natasha gets up, packs only the clothes she brought with her and walks out, takes a taxi to the airport, nearly too hurt to cry or feel anything. Leo watches her walk down the drive. He’s hurting, angry with Natasha, angry with himself. Then he sees the envelope Natasha left with the banker’s draft for the money Rico stole. He’s even more appalled at himself. Natasha did not give the money to Rico. Whatever she signed it was not the open sesame to the foreign bank account.

Leo and his security team dragoon Natasha from the airport and into his helicopter. Natasha is terrified how he treats her, thinks he might have his men dump her overboard and sits alone until they arrive at his island home (which she had not known of).

‘You came into our bedroom today expecting to see a cheating wife so you treated m-me like a cheating wife.’
‘I thought you had signed the money over to Rico. It—hurt me.’

p 266

Leo asks her what she wants. “‘A speedy way off this island and an even speedier divorce!’ she flicked out, then turned to walk back to the house.” Deal, he agreed, in exchange for one more night in my bed.” He pushes and pushes until finally Natasha sinks down on the steps and starts to cry. Finally they talk. Leo tells her that he loves her, is insanely jealous of Rico, that Gianna uses sex for love, that he was done with Gianna after she had conspired with Rico against them. Lovemaking ensues and Happy Ever After beckons.

Why The Greek’s Forced Bride Works

1. Excellent Characters. The main characters are Leo and Natasha who take up almost all the page count. Minor characters Cindy, Rico and Gianna each say a few lines, (or screech a few), yet all three are important to building romance between Natasha and Leo. Natasha’s parents, housekeeper Beatrice and security chief Rasmus have almost no page time but are present enough that we could pick them out of a crowd. By focusing our attention on Leo and Natasha Michelle Reid moves the story along and builds romantic and emotional tension between them and with us readers.

Cindy Natasha calls Cindy a “self-seeking, spoiled brat” and Cindy confirms that judgement by her actions and words:
1. She shows she is selfish, shallow, vindictive, immoral, without conscience when she has sex with Natasha’s fiancé after making sure that Natasha would visit Rico’s office that morning so Natasha will see them in action.
2. She confirms that when she verbally attacks Natasha, screeching at her to get out of her safe, derail their parents, claims she only did Natasha a favor, struts and throws threats around, then lies to her parents and later to her fans.
3. Cindy is cunning, uses her management company to put all blame on Natasha – in fact Natasha herself is a nobody that the media would never have noticed until Natasha stumbled into Leo’s orbit and Cindy used her to deflect attention from Rico.
3. Just in case we didn’t realize it, Cindy is a great manipulator, using residual love to con Natasha into seeing Rico.
Cindy is a great foil for Natasha in the story beginning: Cindy is successful, self-confident, pretty with a fashionably thin figure, demanding, while we see Natasha getting sick in the parking garage after seeing Cindy with RIco. As Natasha’s story develops we see Cindy as an ongoing contrast. Leo challenges Natasha to stop letting bullies block her, when they later see Cindy celebrating her top single in the news Natasha is confident enough to be glad for her, no longer wracked by insecurities about her looks or standing.

Rico has even less page time than Cindy but Leo is horribly jealous of him, every time Natasha mentions him Leo nearly attacks Natasha and uses sex to burn his image in her mind and kick out Rico from her thoughts. Leo considers Rico his “vain and shallow, gut-selfish stepbrother” which is accurate. Rico is just as manipulative and greedy as Cindy, as jealous of Leo as Leo is of him (but with far more reason).
1. Rico lies to Natasha to get her to open the overseas account.
2. Rico conspires with Gianna to set up Leo and Natasha.

The author leaves it vague why Rico and Cindy both attempt to smooth things with Natasha until Rico admits that even his own mother doesn’t like him now, and as Leo says, Rico depends on his mom for money. (Yes, he is a parasite.) Cindy simply wants to avoid blame.

Gianna is unstable, sad, with little integrity. We see this when she barges into Leo’s bedroom and screams at him for missing a date he never made, attacks Natasha verbally then and later with her nails. Gianna is the least developed character, about all we need to know about her is that she’s obsessed with Leo and hates herself.

Natasha’s Parents It’s no surprise to read that her parents adopted her then essentially froze her out when they had their miracle baby, Cindy. Her parents rush right past her to comfort Cindy for meanie Rico, completely ignore Natasha and ignore that both Rico and and Cindy betrayed Natasha. Natasha does not expect anything more than she gets from her folks, which is good since they act as though she might as well not exist. Later Natasha gets a standard commercial congratulations card from them wishing her happiness in her marriage – with no message to Leo, no hint of love or affection. Leo suggests they may feel guilty but Natasha knows they simply do not care; they have blocked her off.

Rasmus, Leo’s Security Chief Rasmus appears just a few times. Leo assigns him to shadow Natasha and it’s Rasmus who helps her out of the helicopter. We expect Rasmus to be taciturn, discrete, loyal but know nothing else about him.

Beatrice, Leo’s Housekeeper in Greece Beatrice is deeply loyal to Leo and adds Natasha to his orbit. She’s blunt when Leo is blunt, “Go make the nice babies now” but otherwise talks little.

Natasha Reid shows us Natasha, a reserved, cool, composed lady who falls apart when Leo touches her. The story begins when Natasha goes to Rico’s office to end their engagement because she’s almost certain he has been sleeping around despite their engagement. Natasha was flattered and captivated by Rico’s charm offensive because she has never been wanted or even loved before, not even by her adoptive parents. She wants someone to want her and was easy game for Rico. Rico chose Natasha to ingratiate himself with his mother who knows too well that he’s a feckless womanizer.

Leo has been obnoxious and sarcastic to Natasha and she doesn’t much like him. She quickly realizes that disliking Leo’s sarcasm does not immunizer her to his good looks or determined seduction and his pursuit invigorates her. Natasha doesn’t know why she falls in love with Leo, it is more than physical attraction and lovemaking and more than the fact he wants her. Leo annoys her, drives her up the wall, but she loves him.

Leo Reid does an outstanding job developing Leo. She uses his point of view and gives us peeks into his thinking and feeling and combines that with Natasha’s view and Leo’s actions. We end up knowing him at least as well as we do Natasha.

Leo is by nature faithful, loving, warm, demanding, loyal, truthful, trustworthy, has integrity and demands it in his friends and wife and family, is willing to go a very long way to help his friends and family. He does not, likely never did, love Gianna who has behaved horribly to him and later to Natasha, yet he takes care of her. He continually reinforces that they are done as a couple, that he does not want to sleep with her or bring her back into his life as anything other than someone he has an obligation to.

Leo claims at the end that he never believed Natasha a thief; contrast this with his thinking once PA Juno informs him that Rico deposited the stolen money into an account in Natasha’s name. He mentally called her a thief, castigated her for her prim exterior and himself for being taken in with her act. So did he truly never really think she was Rico’s confederate, that his nasty thoughts mainly were aimed at himself for being immensely attracted to her, while he thought she was in love with the wastrel Rico? “‘I have never, for one second, believed you were a thief,’ he denied. ‘I have a split personality. I can go wild with jealousy over Rico and can still recognize that you’re the most honest person I know.’”

The thieving charge was very difficult for Natasha; it got in the way of open dialogue and stopped her from telling Leo she loved him. At the same time it was a handy crutch for Leo early on, something he could always drag out of the closets in his mind to diminish her. It caused heartache for both. Leo doesn’t want Natasha to bring up the money yet he never tells her that.

I suspect that Leo did have two opposing views of Natasha-as-thief. One view is sheer shock that this innocent appearing, prim woman would have been party to theft and the other is nah, no way she knowingly stole anything. Of course Leo was very happy to use the thief charge to bring Natasha to Greece and into bed. As he says at the end, “I was fighting for my woman.” Leo does indeed have a split personality regarding Natasha with Rico.

Leo is driving himself nuts with Natasha. He wants her, loves her, torments himself wondering what she feels for Rico, at first isn’t sure whether she loves him, but later realizes that her every actions say she loves him. Throw in the thief thoughts and his guilty knowledge that he’s treated her with far less respect than she deserves and he’s a basket case.

Although The Greek’s Forced Bride is ostensibly about Natasha, it is in fact more about Leo. He pushes and pushes and pushes her the first week they are together, lets up a bit then reverts to pushing her to get a response when he kidnaps her to his island. Leo is happiest when he can plot and plan his hunt for Natasha and that revitalizes him. He tells her he is blindly, jealously in love with her, has been almost from the moment he saw her and we readers realize it’s the truth.

Overall

The Greeks Forced Bride has several bedroom encounters that are neither explicit nor fade to black, vivid enough for us to realize that Leo takes immense care with Natasha and they both enjoy their physical intimacy, their emotional intimacy. Leo is surprised Natasha was a virgin, delighted yes, but horrified that he was so pushy, was nearly brutal in how he talked to her, acted towards her and knows that he acted nearly unforgivably.

It was wonderful to see a man realize he had been acting like a jerk, propositioning a woman who was wounded by seeing her fiancé betray her with her own sister, then being ignored by her parents in favor of the same sister. I think seeing Leo face up to his behavior and his unremitting skunky treatment is the one of the best parts of the story.

I don’t usually care for books with a ton of bedroom scenes as too often the authors use smut instead of interaction and character development. The Greek’s Forced Bride is not smutty and uses the bed times to develop the characters along with their actions and speech.

About my only quibble with this is the last paragraph in the book. Leo and Natasha have both admitted they love each other, although Natasha says she has no idea why, and are kissing on the steps. Leo says THIS is why she loves him, and she agrees. We readers know it is far more than physical passion that binds these two and it’s unnerving to see the author denigrate their deep emotional, mental, spiritual and physical connection to only the physical.

5 Stars

I got my E book copy from Harlequin.com and read it on the Glose app. You can get E versions from Amazon or Barnes and Noble and many sites have paperback formats.

All Amazon links are paid ads.

Michelle Reid uses dialogue to drive the plot and show us the Leo and Natasha.

Handful of Stardust – Big Disappointment by Yvonne Whittal

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Yvonne Whittal writes romances with deliciously awful heroes we love to hate, plus a few good guys to leaven the mix. Handful of Stardust disappoints with a hero who alternates between blah, bland, bossy and icky. Quick synopsis of the plot first, then let’s look at why this left me cold.

Plot Synopsis – Click to Skip Spoilers

Samantha is 20 years old, quite lovely, lives with her widowed father and works as a typist. She is in love with Clive Wilmot, a very good looking, smooth talking charmer who wants two things: Sex and money. He’s not fussy, since Samantha has no money then she’s the target for an affair. Neither Sam’s dad nor her friend Gillian can stand Clive, they see he is using Sam and has no intention to marry her, and if they were to marry he would make her miserable with infidelity.

One evening Clive is being particularly importunate, wanting Sam to move in with him (he can’t afford a wife just now you see (which makes no sense)) and she excuses herself from the group to walk around the garden grounds of the posh hotel where they are eating. She runs into Brett who chats with her for a few minutes, wants her to go out with him the next evening. Sam is not thrilled with the invitation and declines. Brett is rich, much older and he definitely does not like Clive. She goes out anyway when Brett shows up at the door. Brett is manipulative.

They have a lovely evening and several more. Brett and Sam’s father spend quite a bit of time together and her dad approves of him. He proposes but Sam won’t even listen.

Clive has to go out of town for a few weeks and Sam wants to meet him at the airport when he returns. Brett offers to take her. They get to the airport quite early and Brett offers to take Sam up in his plane, promises to have her back in time to meet Clive, but he does not follow through. Instead Brett takes her to his somewhat remote farm, informs her that he and her father agreed that Sam should stay there until she can see reason about Clive and once more Brett proposes and once more Sam refuses.

Sam gets along with Aunt Emma and with Brett despite being furious with him for virtually kidnapping her. She attempts to escape twice and twice Brett forces her back to his home. Finally he makes a deal with her. If Brett can bring her proof that Clive is seeing another lady then she will marry him, if he cannot find proof then he will let her go. Foolishly Sam agrees. Of course Brett gets photographs of Clive with another lady, an apartment rented in the names of Mr. and Mrs. Wilmot and Sam marries him as promised.

Sam dreads the honeymoon but in fact they have a lovely time after Brett tells her he will wait for her. They get along once back home too, and although he makes it clear he wants more from her he does not push and Sam is reluctant to allow any intimacy. She’s got an idea that once she sleeps with Brett she won’t be able to not love him.

After two months Brett has a 2 week trip and gives Sam an ultimatum. He wants the complete marriage package and he expects her to reconcile herself to a sexual relationship on his return. Sam uses the two weeks to think carefully and clearly about him, about herself, about the future, about their marriage. She’s still not thrilled with being Brett’s wife but she knows she can fall in love with him if she lets herself. Once he gets home they do sleep together and Sam realizes she does in fact love Brett, that he’s pretty wonderful.

However, Sam does not know whether Brett loves her. He’s somewhat distant and once she gets pregnant doesn’t seem to find her enticing. Clive makes trouble, writes to Sam that Brett only married her because he needed an heir before 40 to keep his inheritance. Sam doesn’t tell Brett about the letter, makes herself miserable thinking about it. When she’s in the city by herself to shop for the baby’s nursery Clive shows up, tries to strong arm her into bed, Sam shoves him out.

When she gets home she finally asks Brett about Clive’s insinuations. They are partly true. If Brett does not have a child then his cousin’s son inherits, but only upon Brett’s death. Oh joy, kisses and HEA.

Why Doesn’t Handful of Stardust Work?

Brett is obnoxious, bossy, full of himself, not loving or warm towards Sam. He treats her more as a possession than as a beloved wife, a person. “Allow me to know what’s best for you.” is a typical Brett comment. (Time to get the big skillet out to smack him with!) There is no evidence that he cares for Sam. Wants to get her into his bed, yes. Wants to derail Clive, yes. Love? Honor? Trust? Respect? Not sure. Cherish, yes, but on his terms.

We learn at the end that Clive had chased Brett’s younger sister, got her pregnant, dumped her once he learned that Brett had zero intention to allow him to touch his sister’s money. Little sister deliberately ran her car off a cliff and Brett has a very good reason to hate Clive and to want to keep him from hurting another young girl.

Most of Whittal’s heroes are either deliciously awful (the yo-yo-ing hero in House of Mirrors), or just plain awful (The Devil’s Pawn) and a few are pretty nice (Where Seagulls Cry). This fellow in Stardust lacks any appeal.

Samantha seems colorless. She has enough spirit to attempt escape but she is easy for Brett to manipulate. She doesn’t have the common sense to see that Clive is a waste of air nor does she challenge Brett to explain why he obviously hates him. Sam isn’t a doormat, she is simply there, a body to push and pull and do things in the plot. Even her two weeks of self-examination seem disconnected from the character, it is simply something she does, not something she feels.

When she does decide she loves Brett she goes overboard, tells Aunt Emma that Brett has no flaws, lets herself be miserable because he doesn’t seem to love her, won’t ask him how he feels. She is more a nonentity than a lively character.

Clive is just a jerk. Aunt Emma is under Brett’s thumb and Sam’s father is a plot device.

There is a very big age gap; Sam is 20 and Brett is almost 40. Normally I read these and the age difference either doesn’t strike me as important or it is something that causes conflict. Handful of Stardust left me feeling eeewww. Brett calls Sam “child” especially before they marry, comments how small she is, how she is so beautiful, how she belongs to him. It made me feel as though he is attracted to young girls, knows that’s wrong, so sought out a lady who appears and is very young. Ick.

The book is boring with a doubtful romance and cheesy characters. The cover shows a very young girl smiling in front of a dark-haired man who looks like a smarmy casino operator. (I really did NOT LIKE this book!)

Overall

I had Handful of Stardust sitting around for months, read a page or two at a time, did not enjoy it.

2 Stars

I got my paperback copy from Thriftbooks. Amazon has it too here at this link.

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    His Mistress by Marriage by Lee Wilkinson

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    His Mistress by Marriage from Lee Wilkinson has a lousy title and a mediocre story. The main characters, Deborah and David, were engaged three years earlier before Deborah believed David was having an affair with her flat mate. She dumped him, claimed she wanted her fashion designer career more than him and left England for New York, all without asking David about it.

    Plot Synopsis – Click to Skip Spoilers

    His Mistress by Marriage opens with Deborah and her new fiancé, her boss Gerald, driving through backroads England to visit her parents two weeks before their wedding. Deborah has not been home since she dumped David. Gerald is obnoxious, says right out that no one with any intelligence would live in a backwater like her folks do, and makes it clear he resents having to come over for the family visit. After all, Deborah must not be at all close to her family since she’s not been home and why should he have to waste time visiting unimportant people?

    Gerald’s nasty tone and comments disconcert Deborah as does the fact that no one in her family nor her New York friends think he’s a good match for her. Deborah dieted down to fashion model gauntness to catch Gerald’s eye and she lives a life full of high fashion to keep him. She has not slept with Gerald although she slept with David three years before.

    Gerald takes Deborah to California to see his parents the next week, and when they get back to New York he seems reluctant to take her home to her flat even though she is exhausted by the trip and asks him to skip dinner out. He takes her out anyway and drags his feet getting her home. We find the reason when she finally does return home.

    David is there, waiting impatiently for her. He tried to contact Deborah but when her office said she was out with Gerald, called him directly. Deborah’s brother Paul is badly injured from an accident, in a coma, his very pregnant wife had her baby a bit early, and the family needs Deborah to come home. She and Paul are close and they hope that she can reach him since his wife cannot spend much time with him. Deborah is furious that Gerald did not pass on the message. She informs David she would have been on the next flight had he told her.

    David uses his private jet to get them both back to England and to the hospital. Paul responds slightly when Deborah talks to him; even the tiny response gives hope. David takes her to the old family home where Paul and his family live now; David is staying there too. He makes lots of nasty comments about Deborah not caring, being hard, etc., etc., especially when Deborah asks who is running Paul’s company.

    Deborah is shocked to realize she still loves David, there is a lot of sexual chemistry between them too, and she figures that she probably cannot marry Gerald feeling as she does. But she’s not sure and intends to go home on the Friday, just in time for their wedding. Gerald is rather nasty on the phone, angry that she left him, angry that she had her friend call him, angry that she felt it necessary to go.

    Deborah is now leaning towards cancelling the wedding and wants to go back to New York to dump Gerald in person. David will have none of it. Instead of driving her to the airport as promised he takes her to the country house he bought when they had been engaged three years earlier. Now comes the blackmail. David is running Paul’s company and provided some interim financing to head off a take over. If Deborah leaves David will pull the plug. Deborah must stay in England as David’s mistress.

    Deborah doesn’t believe this since Paul’s wife is David’s sister, but she’s not going to chance a rebuff. And she wants to regain the love she and David had shared. Finally, after a couple days Deborah tells Paul the reason she dumped him. Claire, her best friend at the time said she was having an affair with David, was pregnant by him and Deborah saw her going into David’s room at Christmas and getting a great big embrace and kiss.

    David says nothing doing, he didn’t ever sleep with Claire, is not the dad and Claire staged the whole thing, threw herself at him and he threw her out but unfortunately Deborah was already back in her own room. He implores Deborah to trust him.

    They sleep together, David is loving but never says he loves her or forgives her. Deborah promises to never doubt him, to trust him. They go back to Paul’s house in London and Paul has to go out for a business meeting. By chance Deborah ends up in the same restaurant where she sees Claire with David, acting as intimately possessive as one can in a restaurant. Deborah goes for a very long walk in the freezing rain, decides David lied to her and that she’s leaving.

    She eventually gets back to Paul’s house where David gets her warm and puts her to bed. The next morning Deborah drops her bombshell. She knows David had and is still having an affair. David says OK, let’s go talk to Paul and tell him how awful I am.

    Oops. It was Paul who had the affair with Claire before he met his wife. He hadn’t told his wife for fear she would not forgive him and Claire has been blackmailing him since. Claire wants money for her son because neither her ex husband nor current lover will have the boy. Paul got the business in trouble trying to pay her off. Paul’s wife arrives and he tells her the whole sad story. His wife offers to adopt the little boy and David offers to talk to Claire’s sister who takes care of him.

    Deborah is sick. She doubted David and he’s pretty blunt that this was too much, he is done with her except for sex. She goes with him to Claire’s sister where they find the sister wants to adopt the little boy and is grateful when David offers to set up a small trust fund to help with the expenses. The little boy has brown eyes and both Paul and Claire have blue, thus the child is highly unlikely to be Paul’s son.

    David reiterates that he wants nothing from Deborah now except her body, they are done. She pleads with him, she promises never to doubt him again, tries to explain how damning it looked. Finally she gives up and starts to undress. David relents. She should not have to promise never to doubt, he should not give her any reason to. Kiss and Happy Ever After.

    Why Doesn’t His Mistress by Marriage Work?

    The ending does not satisfy. David goes from wanting to kick Deborah out to suddenly they are in love. Granted three years ago she was all-too-easily suspicious of him, but in her defense, the situation was suspicious and her supposed best friend was all-too-plausible. David made it easy for the wanna-be OW to plant seeds of doubt and suspicion.

    In the present time David made trouble for himself. He should have told Deborah that he was meeting with Claire and he could have asked her brother to explain the situation. Granted he is adamant that he never looked at Claire now or in the past but since he knows that Deborah has a wide jealous streak he could have avoided some trouble.

    Remember, David blackmails Deborah into staying with him, that is bound to anger her, and he never says anything about love. She never should have felt she had to promise never to doubt him, that’s a teenage thing, not what an adult does. Adults may doubt but they check and resolve, not have tantrums.

    Even those misunderstandings apart, this is not a satisfying story. The whole family is mixed up and it’s incredible that Paul was so eager to believe Claire’s son is his and never got a DNA test. David is all too eager to believe badly of Deborah the entire time and I was not feeling the love between them. I don’t give their happy-ever-after much chance.

    2 Stars

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    Guilty of Love by Jennifer Taylor

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    I wish this author wrote more in the straight Harlequin line instead of the medical line because she always has some unusual plot points and character attributes. Guilty of Love features Alexandra Campbell, in her mid 20s, attractive, who designs, makes and sells her own jewelry and lives with her younger brother, Kenny, in a flat over her shop.

    Kenny is a problem. Although he’s 20 years old and has a job, he has little common sense and Alex has shielded him and helped him out of his constant problems. Recently Kenny lost more gambling than he could possibly pay and Alex had to squeak out of her bank business loan to pay his debts. He also got into trouble at his work, Lang’s Engineering, and is generally immature. The story opens in late fall when Alex is tense and worried about her overdue loan and working flat out to prepare for Christmas shoppers.

    Plot Synopsis – Click to Skip Spoilers

    Kenny’s latest stunt is swiping design plan printouts for Lang’s top secret engine. He panics when he gets home and realizes what he did. Oops. What now? Kenny asks Alex to go with him to the factory, slip in to his boss’s office and return them. Kenny will distract the security guard for her. What could go wrong?

    Well, two things go wrong. First Jordan Lang, the boss, comes in as Alex slips out. Second, Jordan knows that someone has sold some engineering designs to his competitor. He knows there is industrial espionage and now he know who did it. Alexandra Campbell is the spy.

    Jordan needs a week to get his engine finished. He grabs Alex, forces her into his car and kidnaps her to his remote Wales cottage, intending to hold her for the week he needs. Alex tries to fight, tries to get away but cannot. She does not tell him her name and he calls her Jane as in Jane Doe. They stop at Jordan’s neighbor to exchange the car for a 4-wheel drive car to get up the rough hill track.

    The power goes out at the cottage. Jordan goes to fix the generator and gets banged on his head, nearly knocked out. Alex finds him and helps him in the cottage, grabs the keys and drives off. As she walks out the door Jordan yells “I shall find you, Jane. Even if I have to move heaven and earth, I shall find you and make you pay for what you’ve done!” Jordan believes Alex is the spy and attacked him, hit him on the head – he’s not thinking rationally around her.

    Jordan does not know who Alex is, has no idea that she is related to Kenny who works for him. Even so she is terrified that he will find her. And he does.

    Alex is working when the shop bell rings and someone throws aside the bead curtain that separates her workroom from the store. It’s Jordan.

    He threatens Alex. He will go to the police and report her and Kenny to the police for industrial espionage and assault. And if by some miracle Alex gets off then he will do everything he can to ruin her business and her personally. In fact he will ruin her business if he goes to the police since the bank will call her loan.

    Jordan offers her a choice. Face ruin or marry him. Design flaws have delayed his engine development and that plus his competitors announcing a nearly identical design have caused his investors to drop out. He needs money and he needs it now. His mother left him enough money to complete his engine but he must be married to receive it. Thus marry Alex.

    Jordan makes it clear it would be a short term, paper marriage although he demonstrates that they both are attracted to the other. He kisses Alex, acts seductive, then when she’s enthralled backs off and makes nasty comments about how they could make it a marriage in bed and on paper.

    Alex is angry at him and even angrier at herself for responding to his pseudo passion (actually there was nothing pseudo about it although Jordan claims it was). She agrees and the date is set three weeks ahead.

    Alex claims her innocence again and gets Jordan to agree that if he finds out that she was not the spy that he will drop the marriage idea. And they can divorce after six months. Jordan agrees with both but insinuates she might decide she likes being married. He’s insulting.

    Jordan takes her to a fancy restaurant dinner with many friends to announce their engagement. One guest is James Morgan, Lang’s chief designer and Kenny’s boss. A lady asks Alex how they met and she tells the truth. Jordan saw her at his factory, jumped to conclusions and kidnapped her! Morgan asks the obvious next question, did Jordan realize he was wrong? Alex is saved from answering since the lady jumps in that of course he must have since they are now in love and engaged. Everyone laughs, although Alex doesn’t think Morgan is laughing at all or that he believes it.

    Alex quickly finds out that Morgan did not believe it. Jordan takes her to the factory and is called away. Morgan inveigles her into touring the building, starts with his office, insists on showing her the engine plans then he leaves her in his office with the plans. Alex should have walked away but she knows the plans are confidential and starts to fold them up to shove into the file cabinet when Jordan and Morgan come in the office. Morgan denies getting the plans out, denies asking Alex to look at them and of course Jordan assumes she is back to her old espionage tricks.

    Jordan is furious and disappointed. and moves the wedding up to a few days ahead. Alex reluctantly marries him and they go to his house in a close by town. He makes a pass at her, insults her some more, then leaves her to go back to work.

    One night, after three weeks of steadily increasing sexual tension Alex cannot face going back to his house after she closes her shop. She goes shopping and out for a meal by herself, then back to her flat. She’s in the tub when Jordan rings the doorbell and keeps ringing it. She wraps herself in a towel (apparently no one in Harlequin land owns a bathrobe) and answers the door. Jordan is furious; he was worried she was injured or dead or had left him. They make love.

    Next morning both are so happy, Alex decides to go home early on the off chance Jordan also came home. Unfortunately James Morgan is there, full of poison and eager to spill it all over Alex. Turns out that Jordan discovered before they married that it was Morgan, not Alex, who sold company secrets, moreover, Jordan only got half his inheritance. He gets the other half when he has a child.

    Horrified Alex tries to dismiss Morgan’s insinuations, but she remembers. She remembers Jordan promised to let her off the marriage if he found the true spy beforehand. He knew she was innocent of his spy charge yet forced her to marry him. She remembers Jordan never said he loved her. Wanted, yes. Loved, no. She remembers that the only thing Jordan seems to care about is his business. He never seemed to care about her. She does not know that Jordan slept with her because of the will, but by now she doesn’t care. She is in love with Jordan and he broke her heart.

    Alex lays into Jordan when he gets home; rather than defend himself or claim any love he gets on his high horse. “Lang’s isn’t some little two-bit concern. It’s been in my family for years. It’s part of me and yes, I would do anything to stop it being taken from me.” That seals it for Alex. She starts to walk out the door when Jordan grabs her and tries to seduce her into staying. Now she’s angry on top of hurt. She returns to her flat and shop and tries to stop hurting, stop caring about Jordan.

    A few weeks later, just before Christmas, Jordan comes in the store as she’s closing up. She refuses to sell him anything nor will she talk to him. She hits the panic alarm when he refuses to leave, then runs upstairs and packs to go stay with Kenny since she know Jordan will return. Jordan catches her when she leaves the building and tries to compel her towards his car, but stops when she refuses to go with him or listen. Finally he tells her that he simply wants to talk to her, to explain, but if she won’t then he will get out of her life. He walks away, she yells and runs into his arms. (Cue Tchaikovsky.)

    They drive into the country and Jordan tries to explain to her. He HAD to have the funds or Lang’s would go bankrupt since he had invested everything into his new project. He didn’t think she would marry him if she didn’t have to (apparently he didn’t think of the handy Harlequin buy-a-wife scenario) so he didn’t tell her he knew she had not spied on him. He loves her. He slept with her because he loved her, it went way beyond sex for both of them; he knows it, she knows it and he won’t let her cheapen it by claiming it was just sex. Jordan realized the company meant nothing compared to Alex. He sold a good chunk to a Japanese firm and put all the inheritance money into a trust fund for any children they might have.

    Happy ever after.

    Believable Romance

    When you read the plot without reading the story the romance seems off kilter. How can Alex love a man as cold as Jordan? As obsessed about his business as Jordan? Who breaks a serious promise as did Jordan? True Jordan is immensely attractive and has a compelling personality. True, we can love people who do not “deserve” our love – in fact does anyone “deserve” another’s love? It’s fairly easy to believe Alex’s love is real.

    Can we believe that Jordan turned himself around as he claims? That he truly puts Alex first, ahead of Lang’s? Jordan himself tells Alex that he knows she would find it difficult to believe him, that he repaid the inheritance into the trust fund he set up for any children, that he found investors in order that she can believe him. It’s remarkable and it is believable.

    Overall

    I liked Guilty of Love the first time I read it, reread and still enjoyed, in fact I liked it even better the second time. I bought a paperback copy and have re-reread and still like it. Sometimes it’s not clear why a book appeals so much, but let’s try.
    * Jordan is a jerk at the beginning, suspicious, hard-hearted, almost cruel, accuses Alex of espionage and assault, kidnaps her. Whew.
    * Alex fights him and wins, at least temporarily. She escapes and goes back to her jewelry business.
    * Jordan tells Alex point blank that she’s doing Kenny more harm than good by easing his way through life. Later Alex realizes that Kenny is growing up now that he’s on his own. I detest entitled brats and it’s good to see Kenny grow up.
    * Author Taylor shows, she does not tell.
    * I like beautiful hand-made jewelry and drooled over the descriptions of Alex’s pieces.
    * The love scene isn’t fade to black but it’s not at all explicit. Jordan promised to make it beautiful for them and he succeeds.
    * Alex doesn’t rely solely on Morgan’s claims. Jordan sank his own boat when he refused to talk of love.
    * Alex confronts Jordan before walking out. She is completely clear why she is going.
    * Alex refuses to allow Jordan to seduce her into staying.
    * She wins again (temporarily) when she gets Jordan out of her shop via the alarm.
    * Jordan not only claims to love her, he defends his decision to force the marriage because Lang’s is so important, yet he also has now given up significant control in order to demonstrate his love.

    4 Stars

    I got my paperback copy from Thriftbooks. Amazon has used copies and you can likely find copies on other used book sites and eBay. As of this writing it is available on Archive.org but note they have lately made many books unavailable (I suspect because they are available to buy in paper or in E form).

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    Court of the Veils – Vintage Romance Violet Winspear

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    Plot Synopsis – Click to Skip Spoilers

    Violet Winspear set her 1968 romance Court of the Veils in an oasis plantation in the Sahara. The main character, Roslyn Brant, is suffering amnesia after a plane crash. She had been traveling with her fiancé, Armand, to meet his family, his French grandmother Nanette, brother Trevor who writes operas and cousin Duane who manages the family date and fruit plantation. Armand died in the crash and so did her best friend, Juliet Grey, who was a stewardess on the plane. Nanette invites Roslyn for a visit to recover and give Armand’s family time.

    Nanette and Trevor are hospitable, kind and welcome Roslyn. Trevor’s guest, beautiful singer Isobela, has her sights on Duane and does not welcome Roslyn. Duane does not welcome Roslyn, implies several times that Roslyn is not actually who she is and warns her not to deceive Nanette or to claim amnesia and a fake identity. Since Roslyn has no memory she cannot say who she is; people identified her by her blonde hair and the fact she was clutching Armand’s engagement ring when they found her.

    Roslyn slowly gets better but her memory is still not there. She develops close friendship with Trevor; Trevor likes her very much but they are just friends, not lovers. Nanette warns Roslyn not to confuse Trevor with Armand, they are very different.

    The four young people, Isobela, Roslyn, Trevor and Duane, go to the city for the weekend. Trevor takes Roslyn around the souk and to lunch, they have a lot of fun while Isobela gets Duane to take her for lunch. Trevor and Roslyn see Isobela leaving Duane’s room wearing only a lacy robe; Roslyn is pretty sure they are lovers, at least they are if Isobela has her way. Later the four go out. Duane insists Roslyn dances with him but she’s not much of a dancer. Isobela is a bit nasty about it, elbows Roslyn out of the way and shows off her dancing skills.

    She had memory flashes of to going in a lake with her friend Juliet and there is a lake near the hotel. After everyone is in bed she walks there, down the cliff staircase to the shore. Sadly she gains no more memories. Duane is there too. It starts to rain violently while they talk and wash away the cliff stairs. Duane insists they take shelter in the boathouse and the two go to sleep in the punt. They manage to get up the hill at dawn and into the hotel without anyone seeing them.

    By this time Roslyn is fully recovered physically and still has little memory but wonders whether she did love Armand; she cannot be sure, she just doesn’t think she would have forgotten love that easily. She decides it’s time to go home to England and hope she recovers her memory there.

    A few days later Nanette suffers a heart problem. Roslyn takes care of her, decides to stay until Nanette recovers. Isobela realizes Duane has a connection with Roslyn and that is not in her plans at all. Isobela is determined that Duane should leave the plantation and get a management job in Europe where she can sing. She’s not interested in Nanette, Trevor is only a cog in the wheel of her operatic career and Roslyn is a threat.

    Duane talks to Roslyn in the courtyard, mentions the night they were together at Lake Temcina. Isobela overhears and decides it’s time to do something about Roslyn. She invites Roslyn to go for a drive with her out on the desert highway, accuses her of loose behavior, insults her, then loses her scarf out the window and asks Roslyn to get out and pick it up. Isobela drives off, leaving Roslyn stranded at least 30 miles from the plantation in the desert, with no water and a sandstorm on the way. No one knows they went out.

    Fortunately for Roslyn Duane drives that way and takes her back. They get caught in the sandstorm, the car heaves around and Roslyn bangs her head. Afterwards she remembers. She is not Roslyn Brant, she was not engaged to Armand, she is Juliet Grant, Roslyn’s friend. She grabbed Roslyn’s hand in the crash and the ring must have come off in her clutch. Duane figured this out weeks before and is not surprised.

    Nor is Duane surprised that Isobela left Roslyn to die in the desert. He calls her a neurotic, charming, selfish to the bone and with no knowledge or care for others. He says his mother, Nanette’s daughter, was the same. It was his mother who betrayed him and his father, leaving him not able to trust his heart to women.

    Juliet says she had envied the real Roslyn not for Armand, but for gaining Armand’s family. Both girls were orphans, spent years together in an orphanage and Juliet wanted to be part of a family. Duane tells her that she still can be part of theirs, what about Trevor? Juliet says no, she and Trevor are very good friends but that’s all. Duane gets riled up, exclaims he has nothing to lose since Juliet doesn’t like him or want him to touch her, grabs her and kisses her. They he tells her that she can slap his face, but that he loves her. Juliet loves him back.

    Happy Ever After

    What Doesn’t Work

    Mistaken Identity. It’s nearly incompressible today that someone could get misidentified after an airplane crash. Juliet and Roslyn both worked as stewardesses although Roslyn was a passenger on that flight, they resembled each other only slightly. Apparently no one took fingerprints or worried about the fact the girls would have been dressed differently (assuming their clothes were recognizable after the crash). Even in 1969 we’d expect the airline, which employed both girls, would have made an attempt to confirm identity.

    Dislike to Love. Every time Juliet/Roslyn interacts with Duane she found him distrustful, almost insulting. She stays wary throughout the story, shows no indication that she loved him. We readers can see Duane is interested in her, but without knowing much about her it’s not completely believable.

    Roslyn/Juliet Driving with Isobela Juliet knows the sandstorm was coming and Duane and the servant had warned her to stay home. She has no real reason to go for a drive with Isobela. She would have died had Duane not found her and Isobela likely would have claimed no knowledge how she got lost in the blowing sands.

    What Does Work

    Low Key Romance The feelings here build slowly. Juliet slowly gains memories and we get glimpses that Duane finds her intriguing even as he insinuates she lies about her amnesia and identity. Keeping her feelings out of display other than a general discomfort with Duane and his insulting hints keeps the tension low.

    Point of View We have only Roslyn/Juliet’s point of view. Winspear comments only one time on something that happened in front of Roslyn/Juliet, but that she did not see, and that was when Isobela saw that Duane was interested in her. Limiting the point of view keeps the focus squarely on Roslyn/Juliet and her growing frustration with her memory and her discomfort around Duane.

    Characters Despite the quiet plot and lack of strong emotions, Winspear makes the five characters alive to us. We feel we would recognize them.

    Nanette is the most cardboard-cutout of them, a former Parisian singer who fell in love with the French planter and went with him to make her life in the Sahara.

    Isobela is not complex; she is completely self-centered. Somehow she believes she has enough charisma to entice Duane away from his family home and the plantation he loves. She’s well aware of her sexual appeal and uses it without compunction and she belittles Roslyn/Juliet for her looks, lack of memory, lack of dancing skill, dependence on Nanette’s generosity. Isobela is too full of herself to care a bit about someone else. If we hadn’t known that before we certainly learned it when she inveigled Roslyn/Juliet to get out of the car a long way from home in the desert. That is attempted murder.

    Trevor has little page time but enough that we see he’s dedicated to his music, not the plantation and intends to move to Brittany. He’s kind, undemanding. Initially he chases Isobela before he sees through her charm to the ruthless selfishness beneath.

    Roslyn/Juliet sees Duane as enigmatic when he is not threatening. She’s not sure why he’s so negative towards her, she’s intrigued by him but stays away because he insinuates she’s lying and a fraud. The basic conflict is that Duane is pretty sure Roslyn is actually Juliet; he cousin told him that his fiancée was full of gaiety and chic and he knows Armand was not likely to fall for the girl who calls herself Roslyn. Juliet knows Duane doesn’t trust her; she herself does not know enough to know whether his suspicions are correct and in fact she never claims to be Roslyn. It bothers her to wear the clothes that Nanette provides, even though many were purchased specifically for Armand’s fiancée. She does not feel engaged and she feels like a fraud, which Duane’s attitude exacerbates.

    Roslyn/Juliet herself is quiet. Duane calls her quiet and deep and we see her as essentially kind, friendly in a reserved manner, grateful for Nanette’s kindness, wary of Duane. We end up knowing Duane better than we do Roslyn/Juliet.

    Setting Winspear describes the locations in the Sahara vividly and with liking. I could not find a real Lake Temcina or the other locations described. The Gebel d’Oro is a real place in the south of Egypt but I couldn’t find Ajina or the other locations.

    Language and Style. I really appreciate the way older writers – way back in the 1960s and 70s – assumed we readers were literate and willing to see unfamiliar words. It’s a treat to see a word that was new to me, chatoyant, meaning like a cat’s eye. Some recent Harlequins write to middle school reading levels.

    Overall

    Court of the Veils is an early romance that Harlequin reprinted because it was popular. I can see why it was popular; the story is interesting, the characters are well done, setting unusual, plot makes sense. It’s dated in the sense that today such a misidentification would be unlikely and of course, no cell phones and the hotel lacks running water. The story itself is not dated.

    3 Stars

    Court of the Veils is not on Archive.org as of October 2023 nor is in Ebook format. I got my paperback copy from Thriftbooks. You can find copies on Amazon and likely on eBay and used book sites online.

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    Wife by Agreement – Harlequin Presents by Kim Lawrence

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    I liked Wife by Agreement the first time I read it. It was a “good book”, not excellent, but somehow it stuck with me and I reread it. Then reread again. And again. And again. Finally I realized that it resonates so much it is better than “good”. Try “Excellent”.

    Why? What about this simple-appearing romance appeals so much? Let’s take a quick look at the plot, then delve into why this book is one I reach for when I’m tired or just want a pleasant, happy time.

    Plot Synopsis – Click to Avoid Spoilers

    Hannah married Ethan Kemp a year ago. Although she calls him “Ethan” and they visit his friends together and she has the bedroom next to his, they still relate to each other as nanny and employer. Ethan was widowed three years earlier and after several nannies lasted only a few months, leaving his 5 year old daughter Emma wary and unhappy, Ethan decided to marry Hannah when he thought she too might be considering marriage.

    Hannah accepted because she loves Ethan, loves Emma and 3 year old Tom, and although she knew he felt nothing for her, decided to risk heartbreak and take what she could. What she gets was essentially nothing. Ethan remains disinterested, leaves early, gets home late, rarely talks to Hannah. He is a loving father and spends what time he has with his children, never with her.

    Besides Ethan’s indifference, Hannah’s main problems are lack of time with people she likes, the oppressive feeling of living in a shrine to Ethan’s beautiful and ultra-talented first wife Catherine, and his former mother-in-law Alexa. Alexa constantly belittles Hannah and makes sure she realizes that she could never match up to the incomparable Catherine.

    Wife by Agreement opens when Hannah comes home around 1 AM, scratched and bruised from jumping out of a moving car. She had gone out for a drink after her evening French class with several others and took a ride home with Craig who turned out to be a louche. Hannah figures she can get in without anyone knowing she had been so foolish, but Ethan is still up and he gets angry. In fact he’s nasty, attacks Hannah for unwisely accepting a ride with a man she does not know, putting herself at risk and she ought to stop taking French classes.

    Hannah retorts that she likes French class, that she goes on her night off (Ethan objects to that term, she’s not the nanny but his wife and can have any night off), that she doesn’t intend to quit class.

    The next day Hannah’s French teacher Jean-Paul visits and asks her to reconsider dropping his class and more, wants her to pursue a degree. Hannah is furious that Ethan so arrogantly quit for her and intrigued to get a degree. She left school before taking A levels because she had aged out of the foster care system and worked several bad jobs while she trained as a nanny. Hannah became a nanny because she like kids, had no way to pursue more education and the jobs provide room and board.

    As Jean-Paul is leaving Hannah retrieves his glasses from Tom when Alexa walks in.

    ‘Does Ethan know you entertain your men whilst he is out working?’ Alexa settled herself into the chair Jean-Paul had vacated. ‘I expect you’ve been playing up a couple of scratches for all it’s worth.

    Chapter 2

    Alexa exaggerates the incident to Ethan as yet another example of Hannah being unworthy, incapable, careless with the children. That night Ethan is mostly angry because up to now he has shoved Hannah into the back of his mind, she’s in a box marked no-trouble/needs nothing, and now she’s causing all sorts of upsets to the household. He wants everything to be smooth, placid, peaceful.

    ‘No, you married me because you wanted a low-maintenance wife who would make as little impact as possible on your life!’ … He flinched as the accuracy of her husky accusation hit him. … He wanted things back to normal. At the end of the day he could always come home knowing she would have coped with any household crises with quiet efficiency, his children would be happy and content and nobody would make any emotional demands on him. He hadn’t realized how much he’d come to rely on this small oasis of peace until he’d been unexpectedly deprived of it.

    Chapter 3

    Up to now Hannah has clothes shopped with Ethan’s colleague’s wife (at Ethan’s request) who has horrible taste, but Hannah goes elsewhere for the next party and buys a few lovely, becoming and rather sexy dresses, gets her hair cut and highlighted and looks nothing like the nonentity she was at past parties. Ethan is wary of the change, he doesn’t want to Hannah to rock the boat because he likes his life just as it is yet he’s attracted to Hannah and decides to seduce her.

    After the party – where Ethan was furious with the attention Hannah attracted – Ethan and Hannah get home. Surprise! Ethan’s widowed mother is visiting. And she’s getting married. Moreover, she has Drew with her, 35, good looking, a bit scruffy with a back pack. Drew instantly notices Hannah is wary, stiff and sore, bruised, looks at Ethan glaring murder at him and figures Ethan’s been hurting Hannah. Hannah tells him it’s fine and goes to bed.

    She wakes up screaming from a nightmare, knocks a lamp over and both Drew and Ethan come in. Ethan shoves Drew out of the room with a few insults then seduces Hannah. This begins a halcyon few weeks when Ethan and Hannah make love, spend some time together, have a marriage.

    Alexa can’t stand this. She is at Hannah’s when Jean-Paul calls to ask her to come discuss a degree and offers to take care of Tom and pick up Emma. She lets Emma wait a while and calls Ethan, frantic. Hannah abandoned the kids, forgot Emma at school, all to pursue her own pleasure.

    Ethan believes her. Hannah tells him it is not true, that Alexa hates her for usurping Catherine’s place but Ethan refuses to consider this. Why would Alexa lie? Clearly Hannah is moving on, doesn’t care for the kids or him, is using them as a stepping stone. Hannah is horribly hurt. She loves the kids, Ethan won’t believe her and he says there is no “us”, she was convenient and he had needs, and that as for the house, she’s the hired help.

    A couple weeks later Hannah and Ethan have the kids at a downtown hotel for Faith’s wedding. Ethan is cutting, disparaging, hurtful. Hannah has Emma’s hand when her hat blows off, she lets go of Emma for a second, long enough for the little girl to run across the busy street. Hannah drops everything, charges after her. She manages to toss Emma out of the way of the car before she is hit.

    Ethan is horror-struck. He saw it all. Now he’s waiting at the emergency room to find out whether Hannah will live or have permanent damage. The doctor tells him she had been pregnant but lost the baby in the accident. Ethan tries to comfort Hannah but she won’t let him. She won’t talk about the baby. Both are grieving.

    Ethan overhears Alexa apologizing to Hannah for sowing anger and discord and he’s appalled at his own behavior. Hannah tells Alexa and him that it no longer matters. She’s numb, so badly hurt. She doesn’t even care when Ethan apologizes, says he loves her, she tells him she married him for love, not security. “But don’t worry, mistrust and suspicion did what complete neglect couldn’t.”

    Later Hannah has coffee with an old friend who came to her for help and learns that Ethan has been giving pro bono time to a trust that helps people find their way. She realizes she still loves him and visits his chambers. She apologizes for saying such awful things and she still loves him. They make love, Ethan burns their prenuptial agreement and sets off the fire alarm and sprinklers. HEA.

    Technical Quality

    This romance novel started off with a bang. Right away in first scene we see Hannah is wary of Ethan, that he takes her for granted, that things are changing. Both interact on page 2. Author skillfully lets us see Ethan growing frustrated with Hannah changing and rebelling (in his mind) and Hannah, fed up after turning herself inside out to ease his life, when he attacks her for the first ripple in the smooth water.

    Kim Lawrence builds the tension, slowly then accelerates to the heartbreaking crisis when Ethan claims Hannah neglects the kids. Hannah is optimistic when Ethan makes love to her, sees them develop a true marriage, only to have it crash when Ethan believes Alexa instead of her. She isn’t completely surprised since Ethan had never taken her side with Alexa no matter how poisonous the comments, but Hannah had been hoping Ethan might eventually love her.

    The pacing follows the same arc as the emotional tension: a bang, then accelerating followed by slower, more poignant scenes, then very fast at the emotional peak, then gently retarding as Ethan struggles, realizing he may have lost the woman he loved, and Hannah blind by grief and bitterness. This pacing is very well done.

    Lawrence sets the slow, emotional scene where Ethan teaches Hannah to swim and they make love immediately before the cruel confrontation where Ethan accuses Hannah of abandoning and neglecting his children. That gives us readers time to catch our breath and see the growing love and care, the increasing warmth and time together before Ethan rips it apart with Alexa’s lies. Perfect contrast in pace, tension and emotions.

    Characters

    Alexa, Ethan’s former mother in law. “Alexa Harding had been horrified when she’d learnt that the nanny was to take her daughter’s place. Having any woman take Catherine’s place would have been hard for her to accept, but the fact that Hannah was, in her eyes, menial household help made the situation unacceptable to the older woman.” Alexa cannot accept Hannah, sees her as stealing Catherine’s place, resents that the children’s love Hannah as their mom.

    She never lets a chance go by to run down Hannah, to compare her to Ethan’s first wife who was gorgeous, owned her own company and was an Olympic-level rider. “Catherine never let personal discomfort stop her doing what she wanted. She wasn’t afraid of anything!’ Alexa’s laugh was shrill. … And I’m sure Ethan remembers what he lost every time he looks at you,’ she sneered.

    Finally Alexa snaps when Ethan asks her to take the kids while he and Hannah go on a belated honeymoon. She first offers to take care of Tom and pick up Emma from school so Hannah can talk to the college about a degree course, then she lies to Ethan. She lets Emma wait alone at her school so she can accuse Hannah of forgetting about her!

    Hannah is more horrified that Alexa could do that to Emma than she is that Alexa lied – Alexa did everything she could to tear Hannah down – and she is heartbroken that Ethan believed her. She heard Alexa’s apology but was too numb and hurt to verbally offer forgiveness.

    Faith, Ethan’s Mother. Faith doesn’t have a big part, mostly serves to observe and create plot points. Hannah is surprised that Faith is so friendly when she visits before her wedding. ‘‘I knew Ethan didn’t love you, and in my view marriage with love is hard enough, but without it…’ She lifted her shoulders expressively. “I could also see you loved him.’ Her blue eyes grew compassionate as she watched the colour flee dramatically from Hannah’s face. ‘I didn’t want to see you hurt.’

    Faith comments that she is surprised that Hannah had not changed the home’s décor. Ethan is put out, ‘And Hannah knows perfectly well she can do anything she wants to the house.’ ‘From the expression on her face I’d say she might have felt more comfortable if you had told her that, Ethan.’

    Drew, Faith’s To-Be Stepson Drew makes Ethan jealous, horribly, horribly jealous when he finds Drew in Hannah’s room when she has a nightmare. This is the impetus for Ethan to make love to Hannah.

    Drew is an interesting person in his own right and it would be fun to read a romance with him as the hero. A couple years earlier his fiancée dumped him the day before their wedding because she thought he would need to have his suit removed surgically by the time he was 40. He sold his business clothes, took a leave from his banking job and went around the world. His dad caught up with him in Patagonia and this is where Faith met both of them. Drew is good looking, kind, fun and attracted to Hannah, a good spur for Ethan!

    Ethan. Hannah’s Husband and Employer. Ethan is the most complex character and Lawrence shows him to us through Hannah and Ethan’s own point of view.

    Ethan’s first wife, Catherine left two children, one 3 and the other an infant, when she died, leaving Ethan to find a nanny to care for his kids. Hannah knows Ethan is devoted to his children, enough to marry her in fact, and she admires him for this. He does not spend very much time with them as they are usually asleep when he gets home from work but he makes them his priority when possible. (She wishes she could be his priority too, but chastises herself for wanting even more when she has so much.)

    Everyone says Ethan was devastated when Catherine died; everyone believes he was deeply in love with her and was filled with grief. In fact he and Catherine had drifted apart; she prized her accomplishments and public acclaim more than she cared for the kids or Ethan. Of course Ethan keeps this to himself. He doesn’t seem to realize (or care) how his silence and comments from Alexa and his friends affect Hannah, or how much his house feels to her like a shrine to Catherine with many photos and her medals and awards displayed prominently.

    Hannah remembers the first time she hosted a dinner party with Ethan and his friend’s wife compared Hannah – dull and quiet – to the so much better Catherine. Ethan looked resigned and bleak and he barely defended Hannah beyond saying she is bright and he doesn’t care for the friend’s snobbishness.

    Ethan started to story seeing Hannah as just another piece of furniture, ambulatory and loving to his kids, but unnecessary to him and simply there. “‘I took your contribution to this house pretty much for granted,’ Ethan continued, noting her expression with a look of satisfaction.” Hannah tells him off at one point, that she twisted herself into knots to give him the smooth, placid home he wanted and she is angry that just one false step causes him to accuse her of looking for excitement and on the verge of looking for an affair. Ethan is confident in her Hannah V1, but Hannah V2 challenges him immensely and he does not like it.

    Ethan starts to see Hannah as a separate person when she comes home beat up from jumping out of a moving car. He’s flabbergasted she would do that, worried that she’s somehow inviting trouble, disquieted that she has a personality, quiet yes, but not a doormat and not solely a docile childminder. He insults her by saying she’s trouble and he’s not happy about it.

    Ethan’s view of Hannah continues to evolve when Hannah reacts to his insults by dressing the way she likes, acting more the way she feels, saying more what she thinks. She still is quiet, peaceful, helpful, willing to stay in the background, do what she needs to provide Ethan a sanctuary, but she’s not going to put up with his silly assumption that she’s now looking for an affair or has completely changed or is willing to quit night class. The more he annoys her, the more Hannah acts like herself, and the more he finds he both likes and is afraid of the changes.

    Once we know that Catherine was distant, cold to Ethan and to her children, then we can understand Ethan’s reactions to Hannah. Initially he simply wants her there, essentially as a nanny who can’t quit, a nonentity in his life, essential to his children. He claims later that he would never have married her without feeling a great deal more, but his thoughts at the beginning say otherwise. He may have realized she was a very good deal and could come to mean something more, but I don’t think she did, not at first.

    Later Ethan is intrigued. He has been celibate for three years and Hannah is right there, in the room next to his, only a door between. He’s going to think sexually about her regardless of his emotions. Once he sees her as a person he isn’t able to think clearly about Hannah without his feelings about Catherine, about his children, his mother, his friends swirling around in his mind about his wife. He’s intrigued, starts to notice more, begins to listen to her, challenges her to express herself (and isn’t happy with what she says!), physically attracted to her. It’s how many of us respond when we find someone we might want to love.

    He’s falling in love, realizes he loves Hannah, and he’s scared. Things are changing and he’s not sure he can cope with a wife who is his equal at his side. He’s not sure he wants to be in love or whether he’d prefer their earlier quiet, sterile non-relationship. Also, if Hannah is his equal, then she needs and deserves part of him, deserves his time and trust and attention, and her wants and desires are just as important as his.

    Why does he believe Alexa? As Hannah says, he has zero reason to think she’d abandon the kids, zero reason to think so badly of her, she had never been anything other than reliably loving and always put them first. Yet Ethan condemns her without even considering what she might say. He had to realize Alexa is bitter, grieving, possibly blames him, certainly blames Hannah, but he chooses to believe Alexa instead of his own lying eyes.

    It’s tempting to say he is frightened of his own feelings with his heart frozen, and that is part, but I think the bigger reason is that he doesn’t want to have to factor in another adult, his equal, who might want other things than he wants her to want. Ethan liked it when Hannah put his kids and him first, now she’s asking for herself. (Actually she isn’t asking, she is simply doing, but always leaving her family as top priority.) Hannah says at the start of the story that “Ethan could be mind-bogglingly selfish at times”. He is also a little scared and it’s so much easier to push Hannah aside, blame her, and after he does it once, it’s very tough to apologize and backtrack.

    We don’t know how long it is between the confrontation where he accuses Hannah of neglect and Faith’s wedding, maybe around two weeks, but that is plenty of time for Ethan to harden his heart and keep it hard, especially when “the sight of her bewildered, distressed face hurt too much…what he’d find ‘incredibly easy’ would be taking her in his arms and kissing her.” But “he couldn’t let himself be sucked in again.”

    Once Hannah shoves her care and love for Emma in Ethan’s face he has to face himself. Once he learns that she knew she was pregnant but had not told him, he has to face how he treated her. Once he hears her fear that Emma is hurt, that she knows Ethan will blame her for letting go of Emma’s hand, he has to realize exactly how much he destroyed the trust and growing love. Once he hears Alexa admit she lied out of jealousy it is too late. Hannah will think any apology is because Alexa lied, not because he knows Hannah and trusts her. She’s not going to believe his hooey any more. Oops.

    It is only because Hannah truly loves him and doesn’t want to live in an emotional desert that they get back together. Ethan apologizes but obviously has no clue what to do next. Thankfully Hannah is able to overcome the gut wrenching hurt that Ethan inflicted, allows him to apologize and forgives him. She is even big enough to apologize for saying he was glad their baby died when she knows that his is not happy at all.

    Overall

    Kim Lawrence does an excellent character study of Ethan wrapped up in a category romance. On the surface Hannah is the main character and we mostly have her point of view but she does not change much, she begins the story as a complete character (albeit not one that Ethan sees) and ends the story richer and blessed, but still the same warm person. Ethan changes as he recognizes Hannah as the wife he truly is lucky to have.

    5 Stars

    I got my E copy from Harlequin.com and read it on Glose. You can find Wife by Agreement in Nook E format from Barnes and Noble and from Amazon in Kindle and paperback. (Harlequin has frequent sales.)

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    The Yuletide Child by Charlotte Lamb, One Romance, One Fizzle

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    Heroine Dylan was a prima ballerina dancing a very sensuous role when her to-be husband, Ross, spots her and instantly wants/must have/dazzled by/passionately attracted to her. Dylan feels the same way. She quits the ballet company – leaving her good friend, costar and choreographer in the lurch – and marries Ross within a few weeks of meeting.

    Ross works for a commercial forest company near York; his house is surrounded by evergreens and miles from anywhere or anyone. Dylan is a city girl and finds it hard to cope, and other than their intense physical passion they have nothing in common. Ross wants his wife to be friends with his best friend’s wife, Suzy but the two ladies do not hit it off and are not going to be friends. Suzy treats her own husband badly, mocks him, is sarcastic, that’s repulsive to Dylan.

    Dylan gets pregnant right away and has morning sickness, backache and all the usual problems exacerbated by the fact Ross no long touches or kisses her, never mind sleeps in the same bed nor makes love. He never had much to say and he doesn’t explain why the embargo on physical contact (supposedly because his sister told him not to ???) nor does he spend time with Dylan. They barely even eat together.

    Ross thinks he would like Dylan to be more like Suzy, down to earth, upbeat, wishes he had known Dylan better as he regrets marrying her and taking her so far from her milieu. He recognizes it’s hard for her to live in the forest.

    Dylan sees him with in his car alone with Suzy with their heads together and wonders. A month before her due date, and just before Christmas, Ross has to go to York for a business meeting and will stay overnight, and NO, Dylan can’t come. No wives you see. Yeah, right. Dylan is frightened because the weather looks like a blizzard is on the way but Ross will neither stay nor take her with him. He grudgingly gives her his cell just in case.

    Ross asks her for her three wishes from York and isn’t too pleased when Dylan shouts that 1) that she never met him, 2) that they never married and 3) that she wasn’t pregnant. Ross is furious and leaves.

    His cell rings and Dylan doesn’t have a chance to say hello. It’s Suzy, all full of darlings and oh, I can’t wait to meet you tonight and I can’t leave because I don’t want hubby to know. Dylan has had it. All suspicious are now on red alert. She leaves a note, drops her wedding ring on it and takes off in her flower-painted car to visit her sister in the Lake District. No wonder Ross wouldn’t take her with him! No Wives??? Hah!

    Blizzard starts and Dylan takes a wrong turn, crashes into a stone wall. She’s not badly hurt but the car isn’t going anywhere. She manages to get to a nearby farm house, escorted by Fred the resident goat, and welcomed by Ruth, the 40-something owner and Cleo, Ruth’s cat. Dylan is bruised and cut and her ankle is swollen and she is very pregnant. Ruth’s good friend and doctor, Harry, sees the car smushed into the wall and checks it out. Dylan is OK, no serious problems, and he has other people to see but will be back.

    Meanwhile Dylan’s sister tracks Ross down. Dylan is late, very late, and she’s worried with the snow she may have had an accident. Suzy is coming to Ross’s hotel room (platonic of course) and Ross manages to catch her there to tell her he’s leaving to go look for Dylan.

    Ross finds Dylan at Ruth’s, the baby decides it time, eventually Harry comes too. Harry’s wife dumped him about 2 years prior to run off with a younger golf pro. Ruth really likes Harry, she had been engaged when younger but her fiancé drowned and she went to London for a career until her mom got too sick to live alone. Harry and Ruth are very good friends and Ruth would like a warmer relationship. Harry appreciates that Ruth never alludes to his wife nor conveys sympathy nor mocks him.

    Ross claims to Dylan that he was meeting Suzy because they were having a surprise birthday party for her husband that night – to which his 8 month pregnant wife was NOT invited nor aware of – and they were planning the party and the darlings and sultry voice are just the way Suzy is. Ross claims he doesn’t want Suzy, isn’t attracted to her, doesn’t like that she talks all the time or plays loud music. (This is the same Ross that just a few days before wished his wife was just like Suzy.) Dylan isn’t too sure she believes him but she’s having her baby so that’s taking precedence.

    Meanwhile Ruth and Harry realize they each love the other, Harry proposes and Ruth accepts. Dylan names her new baby Ruth and asks them to be godparents and the story ends.

    Happy Ever After or Fizzle?

    Ross and Dylan are excited by their new baby and Ross is once again attracted to his wife. Everything is rosy and just peachy with them. At least for that day. I wonder how they will cope when baby Ruth keeps them up at night, when Dylan is run off her feet, tired, exhausted with caring for the baby and recovering and Ross once again neglects her for his forest and Suzy.

    I do not believe Ross’s explanation. If there was a birthday party, then why not bring Dylan? She offered to wait in the hotel for him to finish his work meetings, why could she have not waited in the hotel then joined the party? I don’t think there was a party, I think it was just what Dylan suspected, an affair.

    We’re supposed to believe that Ross shifted from wishing he had a wife like Suzy to not liking Suzy and only wanting his beautiful Dylan. It looks to me like Ross is physically attracted to Dylan but that’s it, no other depth of commitment nor love. When Ross told Dylan he wasn’t having an affair he said he wouldn’t do that to Suzy’s husband. Not a word that he would not do it to his wife!

    Give it a few months and these two will separate. It’s probably too late for Dylan to recapture her prima ballerina role but who knows. Ross will happily go look for someone with Suzy’s personality and Dylan’s body, or he’ll show up from time to time to claim his marital rights. Dylan is just as attracted to him, so maybe that’s what they will end up with, passion.

    Ruth and Harry are quieter but they look to have a true Happy Ever After.

    Overall

    I did not like The Yuletide Child. Liked Ruth, liked Cleo who was the best character, liked Harry, but did not care for Dylan and even less for Ross. Dylan should have found out more about Ross before tossing everything and going with him, or once she married, she should have found a way to make it work. She was completely sincere when she said she regretted marrying and being pregnant, the baby was much too soon for her to adjust to Ross’s life while feeling awful.

    Ross made no concessions that we readers see to having a wife. He wouldn’t spend time with her, wouldn’t explain why he no longer wanted any physical contact, wouldn’t even take her to mythical party! He mocked her when she was afraid to stay alone with a blizzard coming, after all the weatherman wasn’t forecasting a blizzard, and he was not convincing with his denials of the affair nor avowals of love.

    Ross tells Dylan he loves her, wants only her, finds her nearly perfect, but his love didn’t come through when she was suffering a hard pregnancy. Seems like he loves her when the going is easy, not when it’s hard.

    Nonetheless, Charlotte Lamb writes well and certainly shows us two marriages, one in fact and one to come. She creates a nice contrast between Harry and Ruth’s quiet devotion and the ultimately selfish wants of Ross and Dylan.

    3 Stars

    I got my paperback copy used from Thriftbooks. Amazon has it in Kindle and paperback and you can likely find used copies at most online sites.

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    Dark Master by Charlotte Lamb – Harlequin Romance

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    Charlotte Lamb’s 1979 Dark Master is a romance between a bossy, possessive, rich French count and an ordinary English girl. I enjoyed it and found the romance believable despite the different personalities and backgrounds.

    Plot Synopsis – Click to Skip Spoilers

    Alex, an orphan, works at the front desk of a holiday hotel in England and is engaged to the hotel manager, Hal. She opens the story running along the groine (a wooden structure to reduce beach erosion), loving how the wind feels in her red hair as it flies around her head. Philippe sees her and wants to own all that wildness; he catches her when she falls at the water edge, both slide on the ground and he wets his suit with the salt water, rejects her offer to pay for cleaning.

    Later, when Alex is working, Philippe asks her to dinner but she refuses. Hal expects to have time free that evening to spend together and she wants to be available for him; however, Hal ends up busy. When Alex is off work the next day she sees Hal in a clinch with young widowed hotel guest, Deidre. Both are talking “love you but we must not hurt Alex” and neither sees her standing by the stairs. Alex is stunned, Philippe walks by, takes in the situation, grabs Alex and hustles her first to a handy closet, then to his room. Philippe talks her into letting him take over and make it look like she has fallen for him and he sets up a scene for Hal that looks like they have made love.

    Alex thinks Hal is in love and is being noble so as to not hurt her, that he will reject the lovely Deidre and Alex isn’t having that. She does not want to marry a man who loves another lady and marries her out of duty and pity.

    Philippe spins her a tale that he too suffers from unrequited love, that the lady he loves married someone else and he wants to show her that he doesn’t love her. He carefully diverts Alex from realizing that Hal is a flirt, is not in love with Deidre, is unable to be completely faithful. Had Alex known that she would have dumped Hal without a worry, but thinking he’s in love, Alex gives Hal back his ring and Philippe takes her to London and marries her out of hand. As he says later, he didn’t want to give her time to think.

    Two days later they arrive at his large chateau which is connected to the remains of a castle. Alex, coming back to her usual self, wonders why she let Philippe take her away, what she is doing at a castle. Philippe is not sympathetic, tells her she will cope just fine.

    Alex meets Philippe’s family at dinner. His brother Gaston is younger, bitter about his marriage but warm and friendly, sister in law Elise is icy cold, nasty and clearly does not respect or love her husband. Alex overhears Elise insulting her to Philippe and assumes that Elise is the woman Philippe wanted to show he doesn’t care.

    Alex is angry and hurt and scared. She had somehow not thought past the wedding and hadn’t thought about the marriage, assumed Philippe didn’t intend to sleep with her. Philippe tells her that he doesn’t give a d— why she sleeps with him, but sleep with him she will. He comes to bed and seduces her.

    Over the next few weeks Alex learns how to run the chateau and the estate books, learns to ride and gets to know the staff and some of Philippe’s friends, even hosting dinner parties. She and Gaston become good friends, threatening to Philippe who makes Gaston and Elise move to the dower house about a mile away. Alex is fitting into Philippe’s world but she still doesn’t feel comfortable in her marriage; she does not think Philippe loves her although they make passionate love almost every night. She falls in love with Philippe and is not happy about it.

    Alex is gobsmacked when Gaston shows that he is in love with her. She thought they loved each other like brother and sister, not romantic or sexual. Philippe says he should have known a man frozen by the iceberg Elise would instantly fall for Alex’s warmth.

    Alex realizes she is pregnant while Philippe is away and is ambivalent. She wants this child but now she will never be able to leave and she still does not think Philippe cares for her. She goes up to the old battlements and runs down the stairs, falls. She wakes up in hospital, concussed, somewhat amnesiac and badly injured, miscarried. She does not recognize Philippe when he visits, only knows she doesn’t want to see him, doesn’t like him.

    Eventually Alex heals well enough to have other visitors. Gaston’s visit triggers Alex’s memory. Elise left him for another man and Philippe is sending Gaston to London to set up a sales branch for their very expensive dinnerware. She refuses to leave with Gaston and goes home with Philippe but they are not sleeping together and Philippe is distant.

    When Alex is more robust Philippe takes her to London, first to the hotel where Hal works, then to visit Gaston. She challenges Philippe that next he will give her away with a set of dinnerware! She feels like a lost kitten someone tries to find a home for and decides to find her own home. She gets a job and room at a hotel, packs and leaves, puts a note under Philippe’s hotel room door. He comes out and drags her into his room, finally tells her that he loves her, that he needs to give her the opportunity to choose since he railroaded her into marriage.

    Alex claims she doesn’t want him either but he doesn’t believe it and forces the issue. The next scene is 18 months later when their baby is christened.

    Why Romance is Believable

    Dark Master is intensely emotional. Author Charlotte Lambshows us Gaston’s feelings, shows Alex’s falling in love with Philippe. She’s a little less obvious with Philippe but he is no enigma.

    We readers know Philippe was Lying when he claimed he wanted to marry Alex only to show the girl he supposedly loves that he didn’t care at all. For one thing, this is more a high school girl’s approach than a mature man’s, for another he gives no indication he likes the supposed Other Woman Elise, nor does Elise act as if he does. The OW treats her own husband with scorn and antipathy but never tries to thrust herself at Philippe.

    Of course Philippe claims this to Alex to save his pride and it backfires on him when she remains wary and unsure of him, even tries to leave him. Alex is gullible and silly to believe the lie, but since Philippe doesn’t act particularly loving nor cherishes Alex, she has reason to believe. Even though we readers know Philippe doesn’t want to show Elise anything (except the door), author keeps Alex guessing whether he loves her given his dismissive “you’ll cope” attitude.

    Philippe wants Alex physically, relishes their sexual relationship and teaches Alex to enjoy making love with him. She comes to love Philippe’s home, to care for his staff and his friends, and eventually to love him despite feeling uncertain of his attitude towards Elise or herself. When she realizes she is pregnant she knows Philippe will never let her go and is frightened, yet she is glad to have something of him to love.

    Philippe confuses Alex by how he treats Gaston and Elise. He doesn’t trust Gaston with Alex and he pulls Gaston away when he gets through to Alex in the hospital. Philippe thinks Alex might be in love with Gaston but isn’t sure whether she loves either Gaston or Hal or himself. He challenges Alex about her passionate response to him in bed when she claims she hates him to touch her; he knows he gets through to her physically – calls it their one sure line of communication – but he also knows that Alex hasn’t put it together yet that he loves her.

    The part where Alex challenges Philippe as to why he is trying to find her a home – and a man – is funny in a poignant way. By this point Alex is certain Philippe does not love her, isn’t even sure he still wants her physically because they have not made love since the accident. She decides to cut her losses and find herself a new home, make a new life for herself. She tries to sneak away without talking to Philippe because she knows she cannot deny him and doesn’t want the heartbreak of making love without love. Finally Philippe is forced to be blunt and they talk through their beliefs and love. It is heartfelt and we can believe they are in love and will have a happy life together.

    The sex scenes are not at all graphic, but intense. Lamb keeps the attention on Alex’s response and feelings, first dismay as she tries to push Philippe away, then physical enjoyment, then fear and finally joyful response. Philippe is intent on seducing Alex and on giving and invoking passion.

    Dark Master uses plot to drive and build emotion and follows a classic plot event/Alex action/Alex emotional reaction and build. Author Lamb cycles through the events and builds the emotion to a peak in London. The final epilogue-like chapter adds nothing except a chance to see Alex and Philippe’s happy future and a parallel with her maid’s romance.

    Overall

    I like romances that feel real – even when the events and characters are way outside my experience – and Dark Master fits the bill. The initial seduction scene is one of the best in the Harlequin universe and I wish more authors realized we do not need technical descriptions nor a master class in arousing a partner. The physical actions can fade into the background as long as the scene creates and builds emotional response.

    I keep a few romance novels handy for when I want to read a few pages that I know and enjoy. Dark Master is one of those. I like the London scenes where Alex rejects Hall, Gaston and tries to reject Philippe, only to be pulled up short when he questions whether she would show any man the passion she shows him. I liked how Alex takes charge of her own life, finds a job and a place to live and even more, how she gives into Philippe and stays with him when he finally confesses he loves her. The two bedroom scenes are excellent, clearly show Philippe’s character. The beginning confusion when Philippe pushes Alex into compromising herself and then into marriage is well done.

    4 Stars

    I got my paperback copy from Thriftbooks. Amazon, eBay and other used book sites likely have used copies. As of July 2023 Dark Master is not available on Archive.org nor in electronic format on Barnes and Noble, Amazon or Harlequin.

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    His Convenient Marriage by Sara Craven

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    His Convenient Marriage ranks low on both Amazon and Goodreads but I like it. Reviewers notice the romance seems to come out of left field, that Miles, the hero, gives almost no indication he loves heroine Chessy, that the minor characters complicate the relationship, that Chessy is weak willed at the beginning and that the sister and nasty neighbor are overdone. I shared this opinion the first time I read the story, but it stuck in my mind and I reread it several times and liked it better each time.

    The romance is subtle but real. Miles shows he cares about Chessie immediately although he’s not demonstrative and thinks she is in love with someone else.

    Let’s see whether I can show why His Convenient Marriage is a winner for me. First a quick plot synopsis.

    Plot Synopsis – Click to Avoid Spoilers

    Story opens with Chessie’s spoiled younger sister Jen bursting with news. Alastair, son of the local rich guy, whom Chessie dated the summer before her dad died in disgrace, is back. His father sent him to America two years before and Chessie heard nothing from him after a couple letters. Many things changed in his two year absence: Chessie’s dad died bankrupt and in disgrace after embezzling from his clients, Miles bought their old home and Chessie now works for him and lives with Jen in a separate annex in their old house. Quite a come down.

    Jen is excited. Surely Alastair will ride in like a white knight to save Chessie from her life of drudgery working for novelist Miles as combination housekeeper and secretary! Except Chessie isn’t excited. She realized long ago Alastair was never serious about her and isn’t keen to reprise her role as lovestruck girlfriend, especially given her current status.

    Jen is antagonistic towards Miles, has no consideration for him, resents her sister’s willingness to work for him (and support her by the way). Chessie likes Miles in a distant way and makes peace between him and her sister. Miles treats her with respect but not warmth until that same night when he asks Chessie to go out for dinner. In fact it’s the first time he calls her by her first name, not Miss LLoyd.

    More surprises. Miles asks Chessie to marry him; he says while it could be platonic initially he will want closer relations eventually. He says he wants to entertain and needs a hostess and he’s angry with Jen on Chessie’s behalf; Jen takes and takes, complains all the while. This is first hint Miles might care for Chessie.

    Chessie promises to consider it, She imagines making love with Miles, and is stunned when she realizes just how attractive he is. In the restaurant foyer she runs into Alastair’s step mother, the glamorous, ultra malicious, spiteful Linnet who makes her usual catty comments, implies Chessie is virginal and untouched because no one wants her. Chessie immediately corrects her, in fact she is engaged to Miles. Miles is angry that she used him to score points and has not committed herself.

    Jen has Alastair in their sitting room when they get back and he’s chagrined that Chessie doesn’t fling herself into his arms. His dad, Sir Robert, had a stroke and moved himself, Alastair and Linnet back home to recover. Alastair wants to sell the home while Sir Robert is incapacitated and resents that his dad will prevent it. Chessie doesn’t like Alastair’s attitude about his father.

    Meanwhile, Jen is getting into trouble. She attends an expensive school on scholarship and Chessie has ensured Jen has all the right label clothes and gear. Lately Jen has been out drinking with an unsavory guy and we learn later has cut classes, and not studied for her A levels. If Jen does not secure top grades then she cannot go to university; Chessie is counting on Jen leaving home and being on her own.

    This evening sets the stage: Chessie, the heroine torn between her care for Jen, her natural resentment of Jen’s selfishness and her own growing feelings for Miles; Miles the ex war journalist turned author who tells Chessie his former fiancée rejected him after his injury, revolted by his scars and handicap. Alastair who expected Chessie to fall all over herself being grateful he returned, Linnet who cannot stop making trouble with gossip and malicious spite. Jen, the spoiled, careless sister.

    We have several scenes with Linnet playing lady-of-the-manor, patronizing Chessie, flirting with Miles, being an all around first class obnoxious vamp. More scenes with Miles insisting Chessie play fiancee, wear his ring, sit at his table, entertain his visiting sister and Linnet when she calls. Alastair shows himself to be vile, selfish and unloving towards his father and complacent towards Chessie.

    Linnet tells Chessie that Miles had been engaged to actress Sandie Wells, recently divorced after she married someone else and she is back in England. Surely Chessie realizes she cannot compete, that Miles simply was using her as Sandie’s temporary stand in? Chessie decides to find a different job and quit living at Miles’ once Jen is at college.

    Eventually everything comes to a head at Sir Robert’s midsummer party. Miles buys Chessie a gorgeous dress and escorts her. He cannot dance due to his injuries but watches Chessie swirl around with all the men who lined up to ask her to dance. At one point he disappears due to a lady phoning for him. Chessie decides to leave herself. When she’s retrieving her wrap she overhears Alastair and Linnet; it’s obvious they have been lovers for years, even the summer Alastair dated Chessie, that Alastair greatly fears his father recovering and disinheriting him.

    Chessie goes home, disgusted with all the lies and deceit, with Alastair and Linnet, with her sister jeopardizing her future, and most of all, with Miles for pretending to care for her even while he’s spending days in London when Sandie Wells is staying at his flat. She’s ready to chuck it all in and leave the bunch to fend for themselves when Miles comes home with crying Jen. Jen was with her boyfriend who wanted her to buy and then sell drugs; he was arrested and the police took her in too. She called Miles who brought her home. Miles tells Chessie he knows she wants to leave but she should delay until Jen’s more settled.

    Chessie and Miles go to bed together, he tries to tell her something important, but Chessie cuts him off. She thinks he’s going to tell her about Sandie Wells and doesn’t want to hear it. Miles is in great pain afterwards from his back injuries, tells her that he wants to be free of the pain, free to take his wife to bed, to kick a soccer ball with his kids.

    The next morning she discovers he’s gone and he took his portable typewriter with him, indicating a long absence. She’s heartbroken that he left without a good-bye. She finishes typing his manuscript and takes it to the post office where she runs into Sir Robert’s nurse who tells her that Miles is in London for a risky back surgery.

    Chessie goes to the London clinic and tells Miles not to have the operation, it’s not worth the risk and if Sandie Wells really loved him she would love him the way he is, not require perfection at the risk of long term damage. Miles tells Chessie he is doing it for her, that she’s the one he loves, that Sandie Wells stayed at his flat but he stayed elsewhere, that he wants to make love to her all night long, that he fell in love with her two years earlier when they met. Chessie tells him that she’s marrying him no matter what happens and we have the Happy Ever After.

    Why His Convenient Marriage Works

    From the synopsis you can see why readers find the romance lacking.

    Miles is emotionally distant and it’s hard to believe he could have been in love with Chessie for two years without showing it. However, I find this realistic given the situations for both characters two years prior. Chessie’s world caved in. Her dad revealed as a crook, dead, she herself responsible for her sister, homeless and dumped by friends after the scandal. Miles, badly injured in his last journalism assignment, in pain, dumped by his former fiancée horrified by his scars. Even had Miles not been in pain emotionally and physically he wouldn’t have tried to court a girl as devastated as Chessie was.

    Chessie acts wimpy. Actually Chessie acts like someone who put her life and emotions in the freezer two years ago and simply wants to get through the time until Jen is off at school and she can look to her own future. Chessie shows great strength to take on a housekeeper/typist role, to live in her old home as an employee, to put up with her sister’s tantrums. She doesn’t stand up to Miles but she doesn’t need to.

    Linnet is appalling. This is true. Linnet is constitutionally incapable of not flirting with any decent looking or rich man and she’s vicious, spiteful, takes glee in seeing Chessie living as an employee and in her mind, humbled. Chessie is a lady and Linnet is a bad imitation, and everyone can tell the difference. Add to that natural envy that an aging vamp has for a younger, pretty girl and we have all the reason Linnet needs to be malicious and make trouble. I suppose one could see Linnet as over the top, but given her character as sketched in the first 20 pages, Linnet is perfectly cast.

    Alastair is an entitled jerk who gets little page time. He tries to make Chessie believe he’s in earnest about her at the midsummer party but Chessie by this time knows she loves Miles and doesn’t like Alastair at all, even before learning he’s been cuckolding his own father.

    Sister Jen is a flat character. True. Author Craven portrays Jen as spoiled, willfully ignoring reality in favor of “well it should have been”, rude to Chessie and Miles, lazy, selfish. She doesn’t develop much as a person until the very end when she realizes that ignoring studies to go drinking might mean no university. We don’t see her after this so cannot see whether she matures.

    The romance is believable given the people and the situations. The other characters act consistent with their personalities as written, the setting and plot are solid. Author Craven advances the plot and story with dialogue that shows personalities and actions that confirm character.

    Overall

    Given the complex set up followed by simple plot, author Sara Craven tells a very good story, a believable romance between two people who were badly injured two years ago who now find their future and happiness with each other.

    Title misleads. Miles proposes a marriage for convenience, all the while wanting more, but the characters are engaged, not married through the story. His Convenient Marriage is part of the Wedlocked! series. The story is excellent and the characters are very well created, act consistent with their given personalities as cast.

    4 Stars

    His Convenient Marriage is available on Archive.org here, as a Nook here and in Kindle form here. You can find used paperback copies at most online used bookstores, Amazon, eBay. I bought the Kindle for myself.

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    Pagan Adversary – Intensely Emotional Romance by Sara Craven

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    Sara Craven uses “pagan” in Pagan Adversary to describe hero Alex, a ruthless Greek businessman who intends to take his dead brother’s child away from his English aunt, Harriet. Harriet’s sister Becca had died along with her husband, Kostas, in a car crash, leaving little Nicky to his aunt. Pagan Adversary adds family hatred, fear, an Other Woman, a possible Other Man, rich and poor plus a big helping of sexual attraction to make a compelling read.

    Plot Synopsis – Click to Avoid Spoilers

    Alex’s family essentially disowned Kostas when he married Becca and no one came to their funeral. Harriet coped alone on her typist’s small salary, selling the family house, moving herself and Nicky to a London bedsitter and finding Manda to care for Nicky during the work day. Things were going along, difficult but manageable, when Alex’s demands Harriet hand over Nicky. Oh, and by the way, Alex will compensate Harriet financially for him.

    Naturally Harriet is furious that Alex thinks he can buy Nicky, furious that he wants to remove Nicky and allow no further contact, plus she is heartbroken on Kostas’s and Becca’s behalf that Alex and his entire family had zero contact with them, did not even acknowledge Nicky’s birth. Alex uses a proxy to meet with Harriet while he observes behind a one-way mirror, and Alex is not impressed. Harriet is much too emotional and unrestrained to have anything to do with his highfaluting family!

    Eventually Alex threatens to take Harriet to court. It is not clear whether Kostas and Becca left wills or instructions naming Harriet guardian, even if they had Harriet knows Alex can afford to sue, appeal and appeal and make her life miserable. Plus Alex tells her about his mother who is grieving and wants to see Nicky grow up with his Greek family, oh, and by the way Alex is loaded and Nicky can have a much better life.

    Now a word to the wise. If you are on the outs with your family and have a child make SURE you leave clear instructions and formal guardianship for any children. Make it clear in your will that you do NOT want your child to go to your estranged family. Just think about all the HP families who would end up gnashing their teeth in vain as they find other schemes to get the kid (and the girl) if the parents had been smart.

    Alex has Nicky visit him overnight and realizes how much Nicky depends on Harriet, gets her to come stay in his hotel room to care for him for several nights. Alex takes advantage of proximity and makes several passes at Harriet which she resists despite being attracted to him.

    Eventually Harriet agrees to let Alex take Nicky and she will accompany him and stay for a few months until Nicky is settled. Alex hints that he might allow future contact too. (This is one of the things that makes me see red myself reading books with this trope. How dare one side think they should exclude the people who have loved and care for the child!)

    Nicky and Harriet arrive at Alex’s family home in Greece. Alex’s mother Madam Marcos is cold and barely civil to Harriet, slightly warmer to Nicky. Alex’s aunt Tia Zoe is not even civil. Alex is not there. The servants follow Madam Marcos’s lead except for Nicky’s nanny Yannina who is loving and warm.

    Harriet is given a tiny airless room near Nicky with one tiny window and no A/C, clearly a closet not a bedroom. She cannot sleep and goes outside for fresh air and runs into Alex who is swimming nude. Of course Alex, knowing he is Mr. Irresistible, assumes she is there for sex and doesn’t want to believe she came out for air or that the A/C isn’t working in her room. He insists on going to her room to show her how to turn it on. Surprise! Harriet is in a closet! Alex is angry, takes her to another room to sleep which turns out to be his.

    Things proceed. Madam Marcos’s rich godchild Maria comes to visit and is thoroughly nasty and dismissive to Harriet, treats her as a servant not a fellow guest. Tia Zoe’s son Spiro shows up too and is friendly and fun for Harriet, makes the situation bearable. Spiro tells her that Maria is the girl whom Kostas was supposed to marry and that now Alex is slotted for that dubious honor. (No one except Madam Marcos can stand Maria.)

    Alex comes too and is obviously jealous of Spiro’s friendship with Harriet although Harriet does not realize it is jealousy. Madam Marcos still ignores Harriet as much as possible and is stiff and cold with Nicky; once Alex comes he makes sure to play with Nicky and include his mother. Alex and Harriet enjoy each other’s company but it’s complicated by strong sexual attraction and distrust.

    Harriet knows the family is cold to her because of Kostas and her sister. She wants to know why the whole family hated her sister without ever meeting her, why they disowned Kostas, why they are so unfriendly towards Nicky. Finally Spiro informs her that Kostas had a big argument with his mother about not marrying Maria, about marrying Becca and demanded the ruby ring that his mother held for Kostas’s wife. Supposedly when Madam Marcos refused the ring Kostas took it; he took several documents of his own from the safe where the ring was stored and it was missing afterwards.

    Harriet is horrified. She knew Kostas well and knew he would never have done that. Nor would Becca have demanded the family ring nor accepted it if Kostas had given it to her if she knew he took it. Of course no one believes that.

    Meanwhile Harriet sees the undercurrents. Tia Zoe seems to want Spiro to pay attention to her yet is also pushing Spiro and Maria together and Harriet sees there is something off about her. Spiro doesn’t like Maria, in fact he tells Harriet that if he were doomed to marry her as is Alex, that he too would spend no time at home. Alex and Harriet have several more kissing encounters; Harriet tries to avoid him although she’s falling in love with him.

    Finally Alex finds Spiro and Harriet on the beach; Spiro grabs Harriet’s bikini top while she has it undone to sunbathe and Alex has a fit. Alex sends Spiro back to Athens to work and takes Harriet out in his place. Alex alludes to his upcoming marriage, never saying whom he intends to marry. Harriet tells him that she cannot accept that Kostas would have stolen the ring, that Becca would not have accepted it, that there was no ring anywhere in their home or safe deposit, that she despised Alex for condemning his own brother. Alex furiously claims he condemned Kostas only because of overwhelming evidence, that it was the hardest thing he ever did.

    Then he pulls the car over and necks with her, stops when a huge thunderclap hits and she pulls away. Harriet claims she’s afraid of the storm and Alex mocks her.

    When they get back Nicky is nowhere in the house. Harriet knows Nicky doesn’t like thunder and wouldn’t have gone outside but she’s got a feeling there’s something very wrong. He had been almost asleep in his own room, he is too short to open the door himself yet he is gone.

    Harriet tells Alex Nicky is gone, and when Alex disputes that he would be outside, tells him bluntly that it was not raining when “he was taken out.” Alex is outraged that Harriet suspects someone in his home; Harriet says (he was taken out) “Probably because he’s his father’s son. Or hasn’t it ever occurred to you that someone got rid of Kostas too?”

    She finds Nicky unconscious by the path to the beach, soaked and cold and injured from a blow to the head. Alex and others help her and Nicky back to find pandemonium in the house. Everyone is there, Madam Marcos is nearly incoherent, and someone is wailing distraught. The someone is Tia Zoe.

    Later that night Harriet wakes up to find Alex holding her on the bed. Tia Zoe wanted her son Spiro to inherit from Alex and had the ruby ring all along in her sewing bag and fostered Madam Marcos’s intransigence against her own son and her son’s wife. Alex again alludes to his marriage plans, then takes Harriet in his arms, kisses and undresses her. “Tonight you will wear only my kisses.”

    Alex seduces Harriet carefully, knowing she is a virgin, and they make love several times. The next morning Alex says they must talk but he must leave her room now to avoid the servants. This frightens Harriet because Alex said nothing of love, he implied he intended to marry someone, and maybe a short affair is all he wants.

    Madam Marcos has Harriet escorted “almost like being in custody” to see her where she puts a knife in Harriet’s heart and hope. Of course Harriet knew that her presence was temporary, correct? And that now she was Alex’s mistress she was “hardly an appropriate companion for Nicky”.

    Further “Clearly you have been cherishing some illusions about Alex’s intentions towards you. Perhaps you even hoped to emulate your sister and contract a marriage within our family. If so you made a grave mistake. Alex will marry Maria in the new year.” Lastly, of course, Alex would normally be generous to his discarded mistresses, which Harriet now is, thus Madam Marcos an expensive bracelet to give her as a good-bye gift. “A piece of jewelry, Harriet thought, the ultimate insult.” Madam Marcos has reserved a plane seat for Harriet and don’t let the door hit you on the way out. Harriet sticks up for herself, sliding the unopened box back, “Keep it for the next lady. Alex isn’t likely to stay celibate until the new year.”

    Harriet goes home to no job, no bedsitter, no money. She stays with Nicky’s old babysitter for a couple weeks scrounging for work during a bad recession when she gets a call from Alex’s man of business to come see him about Nicky. Of course Harriet is frightened and dashes over there.

    It is Alex. He thinks Harriet left because she had a fiancé in London, offers her the diamond and sapphire bracelet to “compensate your fiancé for the loss of his – virgin bride.” Harriet can hardly believe him. She admits she made up a story to Spiro to deflect him, Alex says Spiro would not have made love to her because “he knew I wanted you for myself.” Harriet is hurt, furious, goes to leave.

    Alex won’t allow her to leave, takes her to his hotel where he explains that his mother wanted him to marry Maria, that he told his mother he intended to marry Harriet, that he knows Harriet loves him. He “bought your bracelet, not as a farewell, but to fasten round your wrist when I asked you to marry me, you little fool.”

    He claims he wants to marry her not solely for Nicky’s sake but to give his child a name. Harriet jumps up, tells him she’s not pregnant and tries to leave. Alex picks her up and takes her to bed. “Now tell me you don’t want me.” Harriet says “Wanting isn’t love, Alex, and it takes love to make a marriage.” Alex thinks she means she does not love him, tells her he can teach her to love him, to need him, to trust him. Harriet realizes Alex loves her and tells him she loves him too. Happy Ever After.

    The plot uses the Betty Neels’s favorite and very annoying approach: Alex talks about getting married but never tells Harriet he intends to marry her, never gives her any hint he sees her as anything other than a nice fling, never suggests he has any more feelings for her than desire. I hated this in Neels’s romances and hate it here too. None of Betty’s heroines nor Harriet ever ask “Who are you marrying?” They assume it’s the Other Woman. That hits my grr button and leans on it!

    Characters and Setting

    Alex is described as “impatient” throughout the book, also shows himself arrogant towards Harriet and towards Spiro, caring towards his mother and Nicky. He’s desperate to get Harriet in his bed and makes no bones about wanting her and that he know she wants him. He quickly realizes she would never have sold Nicky to him, that she’s honest and caring.

    Alex is cruel, openly states he intends to separate Nicky from Harriet permanently and never corrects this even after he gets to know Harriet. He manipulates Harriet’s love and care for Nicky to get her to Greece, then to stay in his home and eventually to see him in London.

    He’s not a particularly endearing character. Extremely attractive, forceful, sometimes caring, sometimes pleasant, I doubt Harriet truly loves him until near the end. I think she is so attracted to him she confuses sex for love at first, but then she finds immense emotional connection to him when they make love and she certainly is in love with him.

    Harriet finds Alex cruel and nearly despotic when he’s not being wonderful and has very mixed feelings about him. His family except Spiro and the house staff treat her with disdain and near rudeness, make it clear she is simply not worth their time. Yet they want Nicky. As Harriet’s friend Manda says, Harriet reminds Madam Marcos of things that shouldn’t have happened so they did not want her around, but Nicky would also be a reminder and they kept him.

    She struggles with choosing to let Nicky go to Alex’s family; she knows he would be better off materially but worries about Madam Marcos and Tia Zoe being cold and distant. She’s far more confident that Alex loves and cares for Nicky, especially when he says he intends to keep Nicky with him and his wife when he travels.

    She struggles even more with her feelings for Alex. Harriet is smart enough to know that they have no future together – Kostas, her sister, his mother will always come between them – and Alex is super rich and supposed to marry Maria. She knows this but she enjoys his company and his compelling physical appeal.

    I kept wanting to redo Harriet’s conversations with Alex in London after his mother kicked her out. Here is my personal preference for dialogue:

    Alex: “I want to talk to you. You left so precipitately we didn’t have time.”
    Harriet: “Why? Didn’t your mother say everything? Or did you find she missed an insult or two? Or did you just want to put the boot in yourself?”

    See? Shortcut the chaff and rigmarole and get right to the point. “You had me kicked out. You had me insulted. You slept with me and never said anything about marriage or anything permanent. I was stupid enough to think there was something between us.” Put Alex on the spot and make him declare himself. True, he did get there – eventually – but Harriet did not tell him how much his mother’s (and supposedly his) insults hurt her. While it isn’t necessary to rehash every insult or every misunderstanding in a marriage one should not allow something this major to slide.

    Sara Craven’s heroines always have spines but they are also jelly toast when the hero puts the moves on and Harriet is no exception. Her heroines tend to think they are in love, rely on their feelings, confuse “in love” with “loving” which are very different.

    The minor characters clearly show their personalities, Madam Marcos, Spiro, even Tia Zoe and a couple servants. Nicky is more a plot moppet than a person. One reason I enjoy Craven’s romances is she creates vivid, well-characterized minor characters who are far more than spear carriers.

    Craven sets this romance in London hotel rooms and Harriet’s austere bedsitter and the Marcos corporation headquarters, plus Alex’s gorgeous Greek island villa. She makes us feel the warm sunshine on the beach and contrasts that with Harriet’s constrained life alone in London.

    Overall

    I enjoyed reading Pagan Adversary for the tension between the characters and seeing Harriet struggle with her feelings. She did not want to fall in love with Alex but she did. She did not trust him and she did not want to give Nicky up to him nor giver herself. But she did. We don’t see Alex’s thoughts well enough to believe his love either, although Alex has enough experience he should recognize the difference between attraction and love.

    Overall 4 Stars. I can’t rate this higher despite the good writing simply because I’m skeptical the happy ever after will last. Nonetheless the story is compelling.

    I got my copy of Pagan Adversary from Thriftbooks. Amazon, eBay and most online used book sites will have it too. As of this writing Pagan Adversary is not available online in E format nor on Archive.org.

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