Sara Craven - More Books than Time

His Convenient Marriage by Sara Craven

June 13, 2023 by Kathy Leave a Comment

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

May 18, 2023 by Kathy Leave a Comment

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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The Bedroom Barter Harlequin Presents Romance by Sara Craven

January 13, 2023 by Kathy Leave a Comment

The Bedroom Barter combines an unusual plot that offers many opportunities for a great story with a leaden pace burdened by too much thinking. We spend over half the book inside the heroine’s head. We get to listen while Chellie alternates between being mad at herself for getting into a stupid, very dangerous situation and for falling in love with Ash who can’t possibly love her back, with worrying about how she will live with no money, no job, and virtually no skills.

Plot Synopsis – Click to Skip Spoilers

Chellie is young, barely 20, and works in brothel/girlie joint in a Latin American seaside town. She isn’t a prostitute or dancer, she is a singer. She got stuck in the girlie joint when she ran away from home with her Latin American pseudo-fiancé who promised her all sorts of things until he got her to his country, discovered she didn’t get her trust fund for 15 years, raped and dumped her after stealing all her money, credit cards and valuables.

Her hotel kicked her out and she was quite ill. She asked a policeman for help who sent her to Mama Rita’s house. Mama offered Chellie a singer job, reassured her she wouldn’t have to pole dance, and kept her passport. Naturally the wages barely covered room and board and Mama needs Chellie to pay an inflated bill before she’ll hand over the passport.

Chellie sees Ash across the room when she sings and both are attracted. Ash asks for her to do a “private dance”. Chellie is terrified, starts to dance, then realizes she cannot strip and collapses. Ash offers to get her passport and get her out of the country on the yacht he is boat-sitting in exchange for her cooking during the trip.

Chellie falls in love with Ash on the trip but she sees a photo of a lovely young blond, the boat owner’s daughter, by his bed and assumes the girl is his fiancée. Both are attracted, but separately decide they aren’t going to complicate things by sleeping together. Ash doesn’t feel he can give into his attraction because he hasn’t told Chellie the truth; Chellie resists because she fears to trust her judgement now and believes Ash is serious about the girl in the photo.

Once they reach the island Ash takes Chellie to a home owned by Mister Howard, the same man who owns the boat Ash captained. She is increasingly frantic, wants her passport, wants Ash, wants to decide what she should do back in England.

When Ash arrives they do sleep together, but Ash removes all evidence before Chellie wakes up, leaving her to believe he fears his girlfriend finding out. She decides to borrow money from Ash and leave, but then her father’s right hand man, Charles, arrives and makes it clear he resents having to waste his time fetching her and that her father resents it even more.

Chellie is heartbroken. Ash rescued her for money, at her father’s behest. She goes home to London, manages to get a receptionist job and shares a flat, gets singing lessons and some small singing gigs. She sees Ash while singing at her latest engagement, drops everything and runs after him. Ash confesses he loves her but doesn’t feel that he can get in the way of her singing career. Chellie tells him she loves him and doesn’t care about singing compared to being with him. Happiness ensues.

Why Doesn’t The Bedroom Barter Work?

The Bedroom Barter should be an excellent book with a tight, intense plot, plenty of attraction, interaction, fear, embarrassment. Instead it’s a dreary slog through Chellie’s head. She naturally worries about her future, feels guilty and ashamed of running away with the creep who abandoned her, and is afraid to trust her judgment about Ash, especially since Ash is running hot and cold and she doesn’t know why he helped her.

Chellie knows Ash is physically attracted but she wants more and she doesn’t think he is offering anything except a short affair. Chellie is wise enough to know that sleeping with someone under those conditions is not a recipe for peace and probably a bad step into another disaster.

We get very little of Ash’s point of view, only a couple conversations with Laurent, his boat crew. It’s obvious that there is more going on, that he didn’t simply help Chellie out of kindness, and author Craven doles out little tidbits to tell us it is a paid rescue fairly early in the novel. Chellie doesn’t know this but is astute and picks up that there is more going on. We readers can surmise it’s her father but it never occurs to Chellie that her dad would care enough to track her down or that someone would be able to find her.

The mental head journeys take up over half the word count in The Bedroom Barter. The scenes between Ash and Chellie, or Chellie and Charles or her father, or Ash and Laurent, are excellent, tightly written and move the story. I wish Sara Craven had more of these and less of the endless moaning, self pity, worry and fear. Anyone with a dollop of empathy would know that Chellie is afraid and worried without having pages of the internal monologues. Plus the introspection uses many extra words, “But he… And he… So it…” so on and on and on and on some more. It drags the pace and ruins what could have been a good story by a favorite author.

Sara Craven includes a LOT of internal monologue in her novels but usually offsets it enough that the story moves and we can continue to invest in the characters. Over half the book happened inside Chellie’s head, far too much to keep my attention on the romance and story.

Overall

Chellie is an appealing character, still optimistic, hopeful, loving, despite terrible experiences, being betrayed, confined, exploited. The story almost works because she is a character worth writing about. Her romance with Ash initially is a combination of physical attraction and gratitude until she is able to step back and look at him as a person. Chellie and Ash never spend enough time to get to know each other but their time together is so intense I can understand why both feel they are in love and love the other.

However, it’s a good question how long the love will last under the pressure of day to day living. I would doubt the Happy Ever After for that reason, except strong-willed Chellie and Ash will somehow make their marriage work and be happy together.

Overall I rate this

3 Stars,

middle of the road, good but not good enough that I want to reread. I have a mental list of the books I would pack if we should decide to move again – and it’s a much smaller list than the number we moved here – and The Bedroom Barter wouldn’t make the cut.

I bought my paperback copy from Thriftbooks and you likely will find this on most used book sites, eBay and Amazon. Amazon has the Kindle version here.

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Act of Betrayal by Sara Craven 2nd Chance Romance

May 30, 2022 by Kathy Leave a Comment

Laura divorced Jason a year after marriage when her uncle showed her proof that Jason had raided their joint savings account to pay rent for and support another woman – a woman with a small boy who looked just like Jason. Uncle told Laura that Jason had asked for money, that he was a sponger and might have confused Laura with her cousin Celia who is Uncle’s heiress. Laura confronted Jason, who admitted that yes, he gave Laura’s money, the allowance she received from the business her father had cofounded with Uncle, to Clare Marshall. Laura never asked whether Jason had slept with Clare or whether the two children were his. She left, emotionally devastated, and returned to live with her uncle, uncle’s unpleasant housekeeper and beautiful, malicious Celia.

Plot Synopsis – Click to Skip Spoilers

Act of Betrayal opens when Laura, orphaned she was small, and a trained cook, is called on to make a special lunch for her uncle’s company board members and a prospective customer who could make or break the firm. Jason is now the managing director of Tristan’s construction, the important customer, and he seeks her out after lunch. Laura knows she still loves and misses Jason but she cannot face marriage with a man who has a relationship with a mistress and hides her feelings to protect herself.

Jason comes by Uncle’s house where Celia co-opts him into a spur of the moment cocktail party that evening. Celia makes it clear to Laura that she intends to catch Jason. Laura had planned to go out that evening but her date, Alan, a food critic, stays for the cocktail party then invites Celia and Jason along with him and Laura to the new restaurant. Alan drinks too much and Jason sends Celia home in a taxi and helps Laura get Alan home. Jason pushes Laura aside when she kisses him, and later Laura sees Jason’s car outside Uncle’s home all night, and assumes he spent the night with Celia.

After about a month, when Laura avoids Jason and Celia as much as possible, she learns that Jason has bought Mill Cottage nearby, and that Clare Marshall – whom he calls his housekeeper – will live there too. Laura realizes she needs to leave the area, that she can’t face the ongoing hurt and heartbreak seeing Jason and knowing he is either with Celia or with Clare, and that if she were to come back to him she would be only one of his harem. Laura starts to look for a live in cook/housekeeper job, but her looks and youth are against her.

Laura drives by Mill Cottage and Clare flags her down, wants to talk and be friends. Clare doesn’t explain anything about her relationship with Jason, but makes it clear that she has separate quarters for herself and her children. Laura assumes that Clare’s single bed simply means she will spend most nights with Jason. Laura is going out when Jason comes in, confronts Laura, drags her upstairs and easily seduces her. Laura wakes up, starts to leave. Jason tells her that “I have you now, Laura, and you are not running out on me again.” Too bad, Laura leaves and spends the night at friends’ house.

The next morning her friend, Bethany, tells her she happened to hear about a job. Laura makes an interview appointment for that afternoon, goes back to Uncle’s house to pack and learns that Uncle is anxious for her to come to the office. Yes, her kindly uncle has some news for her. Laura had always thought her father was the junior partner, that her small allowance was a gift, not anything she was owed. In fact Uncle had diverted her trust fund income back into the business, had not increased the income when Laura married Jason, as he should have, and when Jason asked him for money he was not sponging, it was in fact the funds that were Laura’s by right. Uncle says that Jason is holding the contract up for ransom, that Uncle had to tell Laura the truth or Jason would walk away and Uncle’s company would fold.

Laura is dumbfounded at Uncle’s perfidy and when Jason asks her about it she pushes away and goes to her interview. The interview turns out to be with Jason’s mother who has an interesting confession. It was her husband, Jason’s father, who had the long term affair with Clare and fathered her children before he died. Mom used her health to blackmail Jason to keep quiet because she had the crazy idea that she had to pretend her marriage was perfect. She was willing to see anyone suffer, even her own son, in order to pretend that her husband loved her, not someone else.

Jason comes in then and he and Laura go off to remarry.

Characters and Emotions

I wanted to hit Laura and Jason and yes, Clare too, for keeping quiet about this cruel deception. I understand keeping promises and keeping secrets, but never at the expense of one’s marriage, at the cost of heartbreak.

Jason was angry at Laura, thought that she never really wanted to marry him, that she preferred being alone, and that was why she believed Uncle so fast without asking Jason to explain. Laura simply couldn’t. She should have asked Jason just why he was supporting Clare, gave him the opportunity to explain. Jason asked her to trust him, but he didn’t do much to present himself as trustworthy.

Clare too had the opportunity to explain when she showed Laura around Jason’s new home. She had to know that Laura assumed that Jason was the father but she didn’t bother to clear anything up.

Several times I wanted to yell at the characters to ask the question, to explain the problem. Jason could have voluntarily told Laura that he had to help Clare, that he wasn’t the father, hadn’t had an affair with her, but was morally obligated to help her on someone else’s behalf. He did not. He told Laura that she had never understood the obligation he had for Clare, but he never tried to clarify it for her either.

Act of Betrayal could have been improved if Sara Craven had spent time on the issue of trust. Laura did not trust Jason. She says several times that she never really felt she knew him, that he had always withheld something of himself from her. Of course Jason did not make it easy for her to trust him. He lied to her about going to his studio when in fact he went to Clare and he did not tell her he withdrew their savings. Uncle’s lies fell on ground that Jason himself had prepared and fertilized.

Jason did not trust Laura. He always felt she withheld something of herself, that she was glad to be alone again when she left him. In fact she was hurt and lonely, missed Jason whom she loved and regretted leaving him although she didn’t see how she could have stayed.

The author sketched these trust points but didn’t flesh them out. Instead she made it seem as though the physical attraction and need were the main drivers, when in fact they were sub points to loneliness and love.

Sara Craven is particularly gifted at showing strong emotions in her characters and connections between them. We see from the beginning how Jason’s return affects Laura. Craven shows this in party by sharing Laura’s thoughts, but it’s also obvious by how she avoids Jason, tries to hide behind Alan, how she decides to leave Uncle’s home and get a menial job.

It’s not as obvious how much Jason regrets losing Laura. He makes a lot of snide, sarcastic comments, hangs on Celia, makes it clear that although he might want Laura physically that he blames her for their breakup and intends to wreck revenge on her. That could be love or it could be dislike and basic jerk hood.

Overall Summary

I liked Act of Betrayal for the intense emotional connections and also because I wanted to see how Jason can square the circle of having supported a woman with children that look like him and even are named after him. The dialogue is good, the plot is interesting, the pacing is good.

On the other hand, I’m not fond of romances that hinge on not asking/answering questions or misunderstandings. Emotional cowardice keeps people quiet and it’s stupid. It causes immense hurt and harms marriages and friendships.

Using Jason’s mother as the deus ex machina left me unsatisfied. I felt that Jason could have done something before he and Laura divorced, that she should have asked more questions. Laura obviously still loves Jason, so either she or he should have taken the risk to connect beyond the physical. I loved Jason telling Laura that he has her now and she isn’t going to get away again, but then he lets her leave. Of course that’s the spur that has him forcing Uncle and Mother to confess all. I felt the confessions were the easy way out of the tangle, that Laura should have been able to trust Jason and Jason to trust her.

3 Stars

I got my used paperback copy from Thriftbooks. At this moment there is no E version; Archive.org does not have Act of Betrayal in PDF format nor is it available on Amazon.

On a side note, Jason in the cover picture is very good looking. Lots of times the hero looks like an arrogant jerk but this guy looks like he cares about the lady he is holding.

Moth to the Flame – Intense Romance by Sara Craven

April 23, 2022 by Kathy Leave a Comment

Sara Craven has a near-miss with Moth to the Flame. On the plus side this is intensely emotional with rich visual imagery and three vivid main characters. On the minus the romance does not satisfy because it is not believable. The hero, Santino, does not act as though he loves the heroine Juliet. At the end he claims he intends to marry her but he never says he loves her. And I do not think he does.

Plot Synopsis (Click here to skip spoilers)

Juliet’s younger sister Jan works as a model in Italy. She is beautiful, shallow, selfish and the apple of their mother’s eye. Jan hasn’t written for three weeks and mom worries and insists Juliet must go to Italy to find out what is wrong.

Jan tells Juliet she intends to marry Mario, but his older brother Santino adamantly disapproves and intends to stop the marriage. Jan is pregnant and claims Mario is the father although she doesn’t seem to love him. Brother Santino shows up unexpectedly while Juliet is alone in Jan’s apartment, believes Juliet is Jan and demands that she agree to take the buy off he offers her to leave Mario alone. Juliet doesn’t know what he’s talking about but she’s annoyed at Santino’s nasty comments, doesn’t believe Jan would take a payoff, and decides to play along to divert his attention while Jan and Mario supposedly are off getting married. He walks in on her while she’s dressing and makes lewd comments to embarrass her.

They have dinner together and Juliet fends off Santino’s insulting demands that she take his money and acting on Jan’s behalf, refuses to leave Mario, claims she loves him. Santino slips a sedative into her coffee and instead of driving her to Jan’s apartment, kidnaps her to his remote Castillo on the coast. He takes some of Jan’s glamour outfits along but misses Juliet’s more normal clothes and leaves her purse with her passport, return ticket and money behind.

At the Castillo he tells Juliet that he has notified the scandal media that he has brought Jan to his home, expecting this will cool his brother and turn him from marrying Jan. They have several near seduction scenes and Santino, all along believing Juliet is Jan, alternately calls her a prostitute and acts as though he’s attracted himself. Santino shocks Juliet, tells her about several Jan escapades, including one time where she did a striptease dance at an exclusive party.

Juliet found Santino attractive during that first dinner and over the next two days at the castillo she is horrified to realize she’s on the verge of falling in love with him. She knows they are from separate worlds and he’s not likely to fall for her, so she fights the attraction. It doesn’t help when Santino keeps trying to lure her into bed. Juliet believes he’s after her only because she’s there and he thinks she’s Jan, available, not because he’s interested in her.

Finally Juliet has enough, decides that Jan has had plenty of time to marry Mario if that is indeed what they were doing together, and reveals that she is not Jan, she is sister Juliet. She’s dumbfounded that Santino laughs this off as fairy tales. He’s in the middle of seducing her when his mother and stepfather arrive along with a nasty aunt by marriage whose goddaughter is engaged to Mario, and who collects gossip to sell to tabloids. Santino knows this aunt would like the goddaughter to marry her son instead of Mario, but he thinks the intended marriage will help Mario grow up and doesn’t want the engagement broken. He claims Juliet and he are engaged, that the story he planted about Jan was actually a misprint and was supposed to say he had Juliet with him.

Mother is there because Mario is in the hospital after crashing his car with Jan. Juliet goes with the family to the hospital and finds Jan is quite annoyed with the set up. Mario did not marry her, she’s two months pregnant, she has no job and will lose her apartment. And now her boring, stick in the mud, less pretty sister is engaged to the rich and gorgeous Santino. Santino wants her to go along with his story that Mario was bringing Jan to a family party to celebrate his engagement to Juliet, but if Jan spills the truth, it will cause a great deal of gossip and hurt Mario’s fiancée. Jan agrees to keep silent if Santino takes her along with Juliet to stay at his Castillo.

Once the three are together Jan mounts a relentless campaign to supplant Juliet as Santino’s fiancée. Juliet finds herself pushed to the side and Santino doesn’t seem to mind this at all. In fact when Juliet joins them on the beach and insists on talking to Santino in private about getting her passport and ticket to return to her job in England, he is cold, acts as if he was interrupted and sneers at her. He says he knows why she is going and Juliet thinks he means he knows she is in love with him; she does not know that Jan took magnified Juliet’s tepid friendship with another teacher into a huge love affair.

When Santino returns to Jan on the beach he runs his finger down Jan’s spine. That evening he takes Jan to Rome and comes back a day later after his mother has visited again. Juliet tells his mother that they never were engaged, that it was fake and that she’s going home. Mother is fed up with both her sons and cannot understand why Santino took Jan to Rome. Neither can Juliet, unless Santino wants an affair with Jan.

When Santino and Jan return Jan has “all the appearance of the cat who has had the cream and intends to make the saucer hers as well.” Jan tells Juliet that she’s wearing her heart on her sleeve, that Santino is bored with their engagement and Juliet was undignified when she dragged Santino away on the beach and he didn’t want to go. “Learn to be a good loser” she advises. Santino tries to talk to Juliet but she shrugs him off and goes upstairs to her room. She’s convinced that Jan got what she wanted from Santino, either marriage or an affair.

Back in England Juliet is miserable. She now knows she loves Santino, that it wasn’t just infatuation. Walking home after work Juliet sees Santino’s car parked by her home. Jan walks in wearing an enormous diamond. She’s married and brought her husband and wouldn’t Juliet like to come and greet him? No way. Juliet tells her that is a pleasure she must forgo and wishes them both every happiness. Juliet walks up the steps and Santino comes up behind her, picks her up and carries her to her room. He’s not going to watch her walk away up some stairs again. Jan is married to a former lover and Santino wants to marry Juliet. He tells her he wants her, he has always wanted her. He even agrees to wait to marry until she works out her notice at the end of term.

Why Is the Romance Flat?

Juliet’s Side. Juliet felt she knew Santino, as though she had always known him, had been waiting for him all her life. That could be love. That could be infatuation. Both feel wonderful at first but only love lasts. She did not spend much time with Santino, one dinner where he insulted Jan non stop, two days at his Castillo where he insults and tries to seduce her, a drive to Rome, a month at his Castillo when he leaves for days at a time on business and Jan is always there.

Love at first sight romances can be completely believable – Sara Craven’s The Unwilling Wife is a good example from the man’s side – so that is not why this doesn’t work for me. The main reason is Santino.

Santino’s Side. Why did Santino allow Jan to push Juliet aside? More damning, why did he continue to flirt with her and touch her as he did on the beach when she had her bikini top off? I thought of several reasons:

He’s trying to make Juliet jealous.
He knows he hurt and scared Juliet and wants to give her time to grow accustomed to him
He doesn’t think Juliet cares for him and wants to pay her back for it.
Jan is so blatant that Santino is laughing at her internally when he allows her to play up to him.
He wants to keep Jan sweet so she doesn’t spill the beans to the gossipy godmother
He is physically attracted to Jan.

Santino says reason #2 is why he devised the fake engagement and implies it is why he left Juliet alone so much. Frankly, I don’t buy it. True he wanted to give her space but that does not mean letting Jan have the space – all the cream and the saucer to boot – and it certainly does not mean stroking her back when she’s lying on the beach with her top off. I think it was a combination of #4, 5 and 6.

Santino thought Jan was little better than a prostitute, certainly she was promiscuous and accepted an apartment and fancy clothes from the man she eventually marries. All along Santino thought Juliet was Jan and tried his best to seduce her into bed which says it all. Santino was too proud to allow a sleep-around to marry his brother but he wasn’t too proud to take advantage of physical proximity. Santino acted revolted when Juliet revealed she believed he and Jan had an affair and had possibly even married. Santino would never marry someone like Jan, but he was all too willing to have an affair.

Writing Style

I like Sara Craven’s style. In Moth to the Flame she lets the action and dialogue show the emotions and drive the story. We see everything through Juliet’s eyes, and there is quite a bit of introspection when she worries about falling for Santino, when she’s sickened by Jan’s behavior, when she’s desperate to get back home. The author uses Juliet’s thoughts to help explain Juliet’s reasoning and her behavior and doesn’t rely on them to make the story real.

Moth to the Flame is set mostly in Italy, either in Rome at an apartment or restaurant, or at Santino’s old Castillo. The settings are part of the story and described well enough that we can visualize them. The Castillo is built from stone by a cliff so it has some atmosphere that Juliet notes but doesn’t obsess about.

Overall

Moth to the Flame is a decent read albeit not a great story and far from one of Sara Craven’s best. The romance between Juliet and Santino doesn’t work because he spends far too much time insulting her, trying to seduce her, or flirting with Jan, and far too little time developing any connection between them.

3 Stars

I got my used paperback copy of Moth to the Flame from Thriftbooks. Amazon has copies and most likely you can find it on eBay and other used book sites.

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Sup with the Devil – Sara Craven Romance

February 14, 2022 by Kathy Leave a Comment

Sara Craven combines several familiar Harlequin Presents themes in Sup with the Devil:

Semi-forced marriage to bail out family member
Revenge
Enemies to lovers
Reprise long ago almost-romance
Age difference
Family trauma
Wanna be other woman and other man

She uses all of these in a fresh way that feels natural, unforced, with the romance flowing as though it were obvious. This takes skill to pull off, especially to make the story readable and as enjoyable as Sup with Devil.

Characters

Courtney is our heroine, young, realistic, hard-working, patient. She grew up in a ritzy country mansion with her dad and brother Robin, went to boarding school with lots of friends including Kate, had a deep regard for her dad’s business partner whom she called Uncle Godfrey and an uneasy relationship with Godfrey’s nephew Blair.

Two incidents abruptly shift Courtney’s life when she is 17. The first happened when Blair meets her in the garden, gives her a rose and a kiss and promises to return. She realizes she could love him.

The second is serious. Her dad accuses Godfrey of embezzling funds, has him arrested and refuses to countenance bail. Blair is furious and confronts her dad, she gets in the middle, throws an ashtray at him, he leaves. Her dad has a major stroke and she and Robin discover they are broke even after selling the house. Courtney is heartbroken. Her dad is seriously ill and in a nursing home, Uncle Godfrey dies in prison, Blair disappears and she has to organize a new, small home for Robin and herself, quit school and get a job. She does these without self pity and is the family stalwart.

Three years later Blair returns home, buys her old home, pursues Courtney and says she belongs to him. Courtney believes Blair is driven by revenge, that he wants own her, to make her family dependent on him as payback for killing his uncle. This leads to the usual Sara Craven heroine confusion; Courtney realizes she loves Blair and is pretty sure he does not love her.

There are several minor characters who add to the story, their dialogue and actions drive the plot to show Courtney’s uncertainty and longing and Blair’s ruthless streak.

Robin thinks he deserves the best, misses more days than he works, gets in trouble gambling then shady characters embroil him as their catspaw. Neither Courtney nor anyone else can depend on Robin; Courtney has only herself.

Robin’s evil associate Monty lures him to act as his front man to purchase the family’s old home at auction. When Robin loses the auction to Blair, Monty threatens him if he doesn’t pay up – or Courtney could win Robin some leeway if she is nice to him. Luckily Blair walks in while Monty is demonstrating just what “nice to him” entails and throws him out. He offers to clear Robin’s debts and get Monty out of their lives if Courtney marries him.

Robin thinks Courtney should have gone along with Monty (huh??) and should have/could have convinced Blair to loan him the money without marriage. Robin is bitterly angry at Courtney for marrying Blair and leaves, doesn’t attend the wedding or contact her.

Courtney thinks Blair is having an ongoing affair with Kate, based on Kate’s comments and attitudes, and Robin tells her that Blair pays Kate’s rent. Courtney gets even more worried, believes she faces a future of countless heartbreaks watching Blair love everyone except her. (This is typical Sara Craven heroine behavior.) She gets Blair to promise to leave her alone physically.

Blair is pretty intense at the beginning of their honeymoon, says and shows he loves and wants Courtney. Unfortunately she learns that Blair inherited the money to purchase the beautiful Caribbean villa they stay in from a relative. She is horrified that Blair used the money Godfrey embezzled.

When they get home Blair installs Courtney’s dad upstairs even though her dad can barely walk. When her dad falls down the stairs Courtney accuses Blair of wanting him to die, just as his uncle did. Blair realizes that he allowed Courtney to believe he is a villain and he will lose her forever if she continues. They sleep together and admit they love each other.

More drama ensues – it was not Godfrey who embezzled and Blair inherited his money from his mother’s family – and we have a happy ending.

Author uses dialogue and actions to display characters. Courtney thinks Blair might love her until she finds or hears something that makes her doubt and she’s not confident enough to believe he truly can care for her. Blair is pretty sure Courtney loves him but he’s not entirely sure either and he pushes things right to the edge by playing games about her dad and money.

Robin is weak and unpleasant, appalling that he would think Courtney should be “pleasant” to creepy Monty. Kate, who wants to be the Other Woman, is nasty in a superficially pleasant way. She is a plot device that makes Courtney doubt her own attractions and distrust Blair.

The other minor characters make cameo appearances that serve to show the widening rift between Blair and Courtney. Clive, whom Courtney had casually dated, finds her in tears, and Blair walks in when he comforts her. Blair’s friends in the West Indies walk in during the honeymoon and insist on staying, then rope them into social activities. Had they butted out we might not have had a story!

Family Drama

Sup with the Devil has two stories, the romance between Courtney and Blair and family drama between Blair and Courtney’s family. Courtney believes her beloved Uncle Godfrey embezzled so much money that her family suffered, that Blair upset her father so much that he had a stroke, that Blair inherited all that money that he’s now used to semi-force her to marry him.

This is a recipe for tension, dislike, distrust, fear and Blair doesn’t help himself when he moves her invalid dad to a room upstairs, then telephones to ask whether there have been accidents. All these convince Courtney that Blair is unscrupulous, wants her father to suffer and only married her for revenge.

Setting

Sara Craven includes settings in her novels but in a quiet way; she does not write travelogues nor spend page count describing scenery. The action moves from Courtney’s small cottage to local pubs to her old home to a West Indies island and back to England.

Courtney spends time in the rose garden at her old home. This is where Blair first promised her – something – and where she realizes how Monty would despoil the landscape, and where she finds peace after marriage.

Rating and Rationale

4 Stars

I love the way the author sets up the story and uses the family drama background to explore and hinder the romance. I emphasized with Courtney and felt along with her when her feckless brother betrays her and himself and when Blair pushes her into marrying him. She wants him, she loves him and she has good reason to believe the whole thing is an elaborate revenge charade.

Sara Craven tends to write highly emotional novels, especially with marriages based on something other than love, whether revenge or business merger, or family necessities, marriages where the guy is usually in love with her but has somehow made himself look anything but loving. The heroine suspects motive, fears a terrible hurt because she does love him, and does everything she can to hide her feelings and pretend to him (and to herself as much as possible) that she doesn’t even like or trust him. Toss in family drama and hurts and an Other Woman and you have a story that pulls at our emotions too.

I got my copy of Sup with the Devil from Thriftbooks and Amazon also has paperback copies. You can likely find copies on eBay and other used book sites or you can borrow a copy from Archive.org and read for free.

All Amazon links are paid ads.

Solitaire by Sara Craven

February 2, 2022 by Kathy Leave a Comment

Sara Craven tends to write stories where the primary conflict is in the heroine’s head, when she convinces herself that although she is deeply in love, the hero does not and never can love her, and therefore she faces a lifetime of misery. Usually she protects herself by acting as though she cares little, or that the attraction is physical only.

Sometimes this theme happens after marriage, marriage to take care of a child (Devil and the Deep Sea), a coerced marriage for financial/business reasons (Wife Against Her Will, The Marriage Proposition), even when the marriage was ostensibly for love (His Wedding Night Heir). In Solitaire (link is paid ad) her agony of the heart happens during courtship, when Martine leaves her aunt’s house to go to her older cousin, Uncle Jim, in France and discovers Jim is dead and film director Luc Dumaris owns his house now. Martine is not sophisticated but she’s wise enough to realize that there is no future for her with Luc.

Unfortunately she falls for Luc despite telling herself over and over to stop. For the moment she is stuck in his house because she hasn’t enough money to leave (nor anywhere to go since her aunt doesn’t want her back) and she works for him as a companion for his son to earn enough to return to England. She doesn’t see all that much of Luc but everytime they run into each other she is pulled deeper. Luc is likewise attracted and keeps grabbing Martine, kissing and caressing her and suggests they go upstairs to make love. Luc of course loves Martine but she doesn’t realize it and is reluctant to even suspect it.

This is where author Craven must be her strongest, to make such an implausible story work. Martine has zero experience of men and Luc is strong, masculine, successful, good looking, intelligent and fun to be with. In fact Martine spends very little time with Luc and is surprised to find he can be a delightful companion when he’s not kissing her senseless. Solitaire doesn’t show us anything about Luc’s feelings except through his actions, but it’s clear Luc is attracted to Martine physically but also to her integrity and innocence. He’s about 15 years older, an obvious target for her to have a huge crush.

Unfortunately Craven can’t quite pull this off. The romance is all too likely but it is hard to believe they love and are not simply attracted or infatuated or in love with love or with an ideal. The love story is not compelling.

One reason Solitaire falls just short is the sheer implausibility of the pairing, especially given the fact very young women tend to fall in and out of love until they finally are mature enough to love and not simply be in love. A second reason is that Craven doesn’t show us what Luc thinks. He avoids Martine and spends time with the older, more sophisticated other woman. We could infer that he avoids Martine because he’s attracted to her strongly and wants to play fair with such an innocent, or we could surmise that he’s not interested in her except physically and is decent enough to avoid that. If I were in Martine’s place I don’t think I would figure Luc feels love. Lust, yes. Definitely. But love is not evident in his behavior.

Craven shows us too much inside Martine, as she constantly agonizes over Luc and how he doesn’t/can’t love her. She is responsible and has integrity and wants to earn her wage, first by companioning Luc’s son and then by typing his manuscript. If Martine had been older or wiser she would have asked Luc just what was going on the first time he grabbed her and kissed her silly. He could have been leading up to an affair, or he could have been expressing frustration. Or he could have been showing love.

Had Martine been brave enough to confess her love to Luc, risking rejection or even worse, having him rush her into an affair without love, she would have seen that he did love her. Almost all of Craven’s heroines are cowards when it comes to saying “I love you”, and then they are lost in the woods because they have to wait for a crisis to prompt the man to say it. Since the ladies have spent almost 170 pages being aloof, it’s not too easy for the man to say it either.

Craven sometimes builds excellent characters, uses dialogue and actions to reveal them to us. Martine, Luc’s son Bernard, and Jean Paul, the student working at a local café who dates Martine are quite well developed and we can feel like we might recognize them if we were to meet. Luc is an enigma. We know Martine by her verbal dialogue and her inner thoughts, and I feel Craven uses far too many internal monologues to set the stage and show us Martine.

Overall Solitaire is a solid 3+ stars, not quite 4 but certainly worth reading. I got my paperback copy from Thriftbooks and you might see copies on eBay or other used book sites. Amazon has copies available as I write this. The Open Library at Archive.org does not have Solitaire yet.

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Count Valieri’s Prisoner by Sara Craven Harlequin Presents

January 22, 2021 by Kathy Leave a Comment

Oh boy. You know the author is good when you read right by the idiotic plot because you care about the characters. Count Valieri’s Prisoner (#ad) is the story of (surprise!) Andrea, Count Valieri, an Italian businessman, and Madeline Lang, an English researcher for a television company. Madeline is engaged to Jeremy Sylvester, an up and coming man with a driven autocrat for a father. Andrea detests and despises Jeremy’s father and wants to use Madeline as leverage to force him to document how he framed Andrea’s father for embezzlement. Andrea uses the bait of a soprano who suddenly stepped away from music to entice Maddie to Italy where he holds her in his mansion.

At this point you are rolling your eyes and thinking Melodrama! Stockholm Syndrome! Inane Plot! but don’t. Hold your fire and read this. Count Valieri’s Prisoner (#ad)is very good!

First Maddie is no whiny Wilma. She’s tough and uncompromising with Andrea at first, tells him that eventually he’ll have to let her go and then she’ll press criminal charges. She knows that Jeremy’s dad won’t pay a penny for her release, and since Jeremy himself has no money she tells the Count he’s not going to get anything he wants out of this, only a world of hurt when the police arrest him.

The Count holds her in a bedroom with trompe l’oeil scenes and doors that confuse and disorient her and he hid her clothes, leaving her nightgowns and robes to wear. Her room is in a high story so escape is difficult. Nonetheless Maddie persists and manages to get to an abandoned village where – guess who! – is waiting for her. She has encountered a big snake and a wolf by then so Andrea looks pretty good in comparison.

Andrea and Maddie develop first a reluctant friendship, then a type of love for each other, but both are tiptoeing around the fringes of emotion when Andrea takes Maddie to meet his mother. Mom is the singer Maddie came to Italy to interview; Mom is also the lady who’s first husband – Jeremy’s dad – betrayed. Needless to say, Mom isn’t too happy with Jeremy’s family and although she likes Maddie, she and Andrea suspect Maddie is as bad as the family she intends to marry into.

Eventually Andrea convinces Jeremy’s dad that he has incriminating documents and unless dear old dad confesses all in writing and gives up his expected knighthood, Andrea will release everything. Dad complies and sends a toad flunky to bring the papers and get the girl. Maddy takes one look at Toad and decides to make her own way home.

By the last week of her imprisonment Maddie agrees Andrea is justified and once past that hurdle she allows herself to feel the emotional connection and physical attraction that flows between them. However, Maddie is still engaged to Jeremy and still convinced she loves him and will marry him, faith sorely tested when Toad arrives, not Jeremy. She is dumbfounded when Andrea pushes her away to go back to England and he never acknowledges the emotional connection she feels so strongly. She leaves.

It is only when she’s back home she sees Jeremy again and this time he’s pressuring her to marry now, at once. And his mother, who is going to be the mother-in-law from hell, has told the dressmaker to finish the wedding gown NOW. By now Maddie is confused. She believes Andrea. Maddie’s getting suspicious about Jeremy and she’s wondering how much he loves her when he never tried to come to her, and she’s wondering how much she loves him if she could fall for Andrea. She visits future mother-in-law and learns that Jeremy isn’t just a passive dupe with his dad, but a real, bona fide contributing partner and he knows all about the corruption and theft years ago. And it doesn’t bother Jeremy a bit.

Now poor Maddie is in a bad spot. The Count is gone. He pushed her aside and onto a plane. Jeremy is gone. The man she loved didn’t exist and she cannot love the man he is now. Of course a couple months later the Count comes to London and professes eternal love and they have their happy ending.

Let’s look at this story as story.

Plot is ridiculous. Who would kidnap the future daughter-in-law of the man you want to destroy? Anyone else see any flaws with this plan? Especially since it should have been obvious to the Count that father-in-law cared nothing for Maddie and Jeremy was not all that keen either.
Setting and clothing choice are gothic. A room with painted doors that don’t open? Satin nightwear?
Characters are lively and engaging; I was sympathetic to the Count even before learning why he kidnaps Maddie and of course Maddie makes a great heroine, a girl who wants to run her own life and doesn’t roll over either for Jeremy or Andrea.
We feel the emotional connection between Maddie and the Count.
Somehow the overall story works. It just does. Yes, the plot is nuts but the combination of goofy plot and great characters and strong emotional interactions makes Count Valieri’s Prisoner another winner from Sara Craven.

4 Stars

I got my Ebook copy from Harlequin.com, reading it on the Glose app. You can get the Kindle Ebook from Amazon and the Nook book from Barnes and Noble too. If you prefer a printed book then look at Barnes and Noble or Amazon or used books from Thriftbooks.com or eBay. All links are paid ads.

All Amazon links are paid ads.

The Forced Marriage by Sara Craven – Revenge Romance

November 30, 2020 by Kathy Leave a Comment

The Forced Marriage features an outstanding romance between Flora and Marco plus some funny lines, lots of emotion, a wonderful grovel and good side characters. The downside is that this is a revenge romance although neither we nor Flora realize it until about two-thirds through the story.

Marco is rich and drop dead sexy gorgeous and he just rescued Flora from a mugger. Things proceed from here…

Flora is engaged to nice, safe Christopher but she’s starting to wonder whether this is a good idea. You see, Flora is not particularly attracted to Chris and manages to avoid sleeping with him despite him pressing her. Flora’s best friend Hester chides her and challenges her to think this through: Should she marry a man she’s lukewarm about? A man whose main attraction is safety and security? Plus Chris hasn’t been quite the same since he returned from a Caribbean holiday.

On the other hand Flora’s mom likes Chris and Flora’s sister wants her obnoxious son to wear a page boy suit and be a ring bearer at the wedding. And Chris claims to want to marry her. What’s a girl to do?

Answer: Sleep with the warm and loving guy who beat off a mugger. Then run off to Italy with him and live in his spiffy country home, send Chris back his ring, tell Mom and sis to tough it out. Things proceed some more. Now Flora and – apparently Marco – are deeply in love and Flora is sexually entranced by him and thanking her stars she didn’t marry Chris.

Dum-da-dum-dum. Marco goes away for business, leaving Flora behind, ripe for his godmother’s nephew to wreck nasty mischief. Godmom’s evil nephew drags Flora off to see the godmother – who is the evil fairy, not the good one – and godmother informs Flora the whole thing was a set up. Marco was taking revenge on Chris and incidentally on Flora because Chris had a fling with godmother’s niece Ottavia with whom Marco had been engaged and left the niece miserable, high and dry. Marco didn’t give a rip about losing Ottavia but his godmother nagged him and nagged him to seek revenge.

Here’s where this great romance leaves me cold. I can dimly see why someone – preferably Ottavia herself or possibly her brother – might want payback from Chris for leading her on, promising marriage then disappearing – but at what point does this affect Marco? Instead of telling Ottavia to grow up, that holiday flings are notoriously short of permanence, to be responsible for her own behavior, Marco agrees to go along with the scheme.

It gets even sicker. Flora had been engaged to Chris when Chris was flinging with Ottavia, and that makes Flora the injured party, not Ottavia. But no! Ottavia is injured because Chris preferred Flora. Cockeyed logic to me. Dopey.

GRRR! At this point I’d seriously consider taking Marco and tossing him over the villa wall! Flora comes close. Evil godmother has a nice plane ticket for Flora – after all she doesn’t really want to stick around and talk to Marco before decamping in high dungeon, does she? – and Flora goes back to London, to fatigue and yep, morning sickness.

Flora truly loves Marco and even after discovering his rat-ness longs to be with him, misses him, would happily go back, but she believed Bad Godmother’s unsaid story too, that Marco never loved her. In fact Marco did and does still love her and comes for Flora, to ask her to marry him. In fact he says he was coming back to his villa to fess up and offer marriage the afternoon evil godmom spilled the beans. Flora tells him off and kicks him out, but not to fear, the proverbial phone call plot twist intervenes and Marco learns he’s a daddy-to-be. Now he insists on marriage, thus the title, The Forced Marriage.

Flora goes along with it, heart broken by Marco’s deception and miserable. She adopts a stray mutt, leading to more lighthearted moments that lift our spirits (and Flora’s) during this time of sadness and mourning for lost love.

Since this is a Harlequin our happy-ever-after is guaranteed – good! – and eventually both spouses learn to trust each other and in their love.

What I liked:

Flora is strong-willed, perfectly happy to ignore Chris and her family, (even sister with the pageboy suit) and willing to cope with single parenthood if need be.
Flora truly loves Marco, Marco truly loves Flora; the romance is real.
Sara Craven includes lovely descriptions of the Italian setting along with the grittier London flats.
Marco grovel is sincere and heartfelt.
Evil Godmother doesn’t come to a sticky end but she does get turned out of Marco’s island and life
The emotions are strong and feel real and Sara Craven builds a sense of immediacy, it is as though we are there, participating, not watching.
There are some funny moments. I love how Flora’s stuck up sister whines about who will pay for the pageboy suit that Flora never wanted to see anyone wear, much less her obnoxious nephew.
Flora’s best friend Hester is great. Sara Craven uses dialogue between the two to explain some events and thoughts but Hester is a character all her own, not a plot device.

What I don’t like:

Did I mention this is partly a revenge plot? OK, it is a revenge-that-backfired plot, but still. I detest this revenge stuff and I don’t see how it can motivate such behavior.
Flora never points out to Marco or anyone else that she is the injured party – twice in fact – not Ottavia.
Flora flees Italy without talking to Marco because she believes the nasty stuff from evil godmom.

4 Stars. Would be close to 5 stars if not for the ridiculous revenge motivation.

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Amazon has The Forced Marriage in print version as does Thriftbooks and Archive.org has the pdf of the book.

The Highest Stakes of All – Sara Craven Romance More or Less

October 29, 2020 by Kathy Leave a Comment

I’m almost embarrassed to admit liking this book. Our heroine, Joanna, along with her card shark con man father, is on the South Coast of France when Vassos brings his yacht in harbor. Joanna and Vassos see each other across the harbor and are immensely attracted.

Sadly for her, Joanna’s dad likes her to help him out by acting all seductive in skimpy dresses when he plays cards and although she doesn’t like acting like a vamp she goes along with him. Unfortunately the last person she helped con was Vassos’ nephew who lost his fiancé and job because he lost so much at cards. Now Vassos is here for revenge.

The Highest Stakes of All is not your typical strong-alpha-obnoxious-domineering-male meets sweet-virginal-girl story although both characters fit those molds. However Joanna is a bit of a gambler herself since she NEVER – repeat NEVER NEVER NEVER – says ANYTHING when her dad (posing as her “uncle”) stakes her on his last hand with Vassos. Anyone who would sit there and watch without screaming her objections in this situation is herself a gambler, wouldn’t you say?

Things progress as we expect. Vassos has his minions take Joanna to his private Greek island (just how many Greek gazillionaires are there and how many private islands are there?) where she is to wait his pleasure. Of course Joanna is a virgin and has a very painful time when Vassos semi-rapes her (i.e., Joanna doesn’t fight him but she isn’t willing either).

The twist that makes The Highest Stakes of All work is that Vassos has a young daughter, probably four, who lives on the island in a separate house with her dead mother’s former maid as nanny. Vassos doesn’t believe she is his daughter and so rejects her (huh??) and does not allow Joanna or anyone else to go there, since after all he provides food and shelter and that’s enough for this unwanted child. Joanna ignores his edict and spends time with his little girl.

Eventually Joanna brings father and daughter together whereupon Vassos realizes he has behaved criminally and summons Joanna’s father to come get her. Dad comes with his new money-grasping wife who informs Vassos he owes and owes a LOT and tells Joanna not to worry because she can surely find a husband at the country club back in America, and if she is pregnant, well, that’s easily solved. This scene makes the book.

Here’s why this whole nonsense works for me:

Joanna has a lot of character and isn’t willing to go along with Vassos even after she comes to love him.
Vassos isn’t completely a jerk. He treats Joanna with great care and consideration, if you ignore the basic situation. He tracks down his nephew and forces him to admit the truth, that Joanna did not do anything beyond flirt and cajole.
The interplay among the characters develops along with considerable emotion.
The little girl adds rationality to the story and imbues Vassos’ complete turnaround.
The side characters, especially dear old Dad and nasty wife, are great and add considerably.
There are some almost-funny scenes, especially with new step-mom.

Here’s what sticks in my throat and won’t allow me to give this more than three stars:

Rape is ugly.
How do you fall in love with someone who forces you to sleep with them? Who cares how kind and gentle or good looking or engaging he is?
Joanna was semi-complicit in the whole let’s-dupe-the-rubes con.
Joanna never said NO WAY when dear old dad put her up as a stake

But the biggest negative is that as soon as Vassos abducts her, he tells Joanna that he will sell her on to someone else and make a hefty profit from her. Folks, that’s human trafficking, sex slavery and it’s obscene. Probably Vassos doesn’t mean it, but he said it and Joanna believed it.

So let’s go with 3 stars. I’d say 5 for the sheer fun, but subtract 1 for rape and 1 for sex slavery.

I borrowed the paperback from our state library lending system. Amazon has the comic book version of The Highest Stakes of All and the omnibus His Delicious Revenge which includes this novel and the standalone paperback is available on Thriftbooks. All Amazon links are paid ads.