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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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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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The Bedroom Barter Harlequin Presents Romance by Sara Craven

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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.

The Bedroom Barter from Amazon

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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Bride at Whangatapu – Romance by Robyn Donald

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Bride at Whangatapu marks Robyn Donald’s foray into Harlequin Presents Romance, published in 1977. Since then Ms. Donald has become a very successful and popular author, serving us intensely emotional romances usually set in New Zealand. I enjoy her work.

Plot Synopsis – Click to Avoid Spoilers

Fiona interviews for a job on a rural station in New Zealand. She is a skilled, well-paid secretary with a 4 year old son who is not recovering from bronchitis as he should, and she wants a position in the country so her son can recover in fresh air. Surprise! Her interviewer is Logan, the man she had a brief affair with 5 years ago, the father of her son.

Fiona has not seen Logan since the morning after they slept together. He was so shocked that she was a virgin that he verbally ripped her to shreds, called her every name possible and that she was nothing but a cheap tarty whore. (Which was obviously not the case but let’s go with it.) Fiona was shocked and went home. She was so hurt after Logan attacked her that she refused to tell her parents his name and did not tell him about their son. Her parents died and she lives alone with son Jonathan, wears a wedding ring and pretends to be a widow.

Logan recognizes her and he knows from her application that she has a small boy. He’s suspicious and interrogates Fiona about the boy’s dad. Sure enough, Fiona has a dated birthday picture of her son in her purse and Logan grabs the purse from her and snoops. He coerces Fiona to marry him by claiming he will do everything possible to wrest custody from her and since he’s rich, he can tie her up endlessly in court if nothing else. They agree to tell everyone that they had married 5 years ago and reconciled now for the son’s sake.

Logan takes her to Whangatapu where she meets his mother, his housekeeper and his steady girl friend. The mother and housekeeper are hostile and unpleasant and the girl friend acts superficially friendly but is jealous, possessive, unkind underneath. Fiona refuses to sleep with Logan until they love each other and Logan feels guilty enough that he goes along with this. Of course this adds to the unpleasant atmosphere.

The son, Jonathan, is very happy and recovers from his endless cough. He likes the housekeeper, his grandmother, his father and he also likes Denise, the girl friend. Denise likes him too.

Fiona doesn’t do much to endear herself to the others at first, but eventually she becomes friends with the mother and housekeeper, but she still distrusts Logan and avoids him, acts as his secretary but otherwise avoids him as much as possible. Denise suspects they married only recently and she plays up to Logan and when he’s not around, she makes no pretense of friendship for Fiona. She instead acts as though she and Logan had been engaged, that they are having an affair, and that Fiona should waft away on the breeze, leaving Jonathan behind.

Logan makes several passes at Fiona. They both know that he could seduce her into bed and they don’t sleep together only because he’s honoring her request. Logan’s feelings for Fiona are not at all clear. He doesn’t act lovingly towards her, he encourages Denise and plays up to her, he makes it clear that he married Fiona for Jonathan’s sake, not her own. (Of course Logan imagines that he is completely transparent and that of course Fiona knows he doesn’t love Denise. Clueless.)

Eventually Fiona faces the situation. She has three choices. She can continue, give Logan nothing of herself, distrust him, make a life with his mother and housekeeper and Jonathan. She can leave, leaving Jonathan for Logan and eventually, Denise, once Logan divorces Fiona and remarries. She can trust Logan, give him something of herself. Logan clearly states she is not to leave, there will be no divorce. Fiona chooses the option 3. First she gets rid of Denise. Fiona tells Denise she loves Logan, that she’s staying his wife, that Denise has no leverage, that it will do her no good whatsoever to tell people that Fiona and Logan married recently, that Jonathan had been illegitimate.

Fiona is no coward and once she decides on option 3 she sleeps with Logan but it is not lovemaking. Logan is not cruel but his also not at all tender, somewhat hurtful in fact. Fiona feels she was seduced, not made love to, and she fears this will the rest of her life.

Logan brings her back to bed and they talk. He thinks it was clear that he did not love Denise, did not have an affair, that he loves Fiona. She has to tell him that nothing has been clear. She doesn’t know him at all. He apologizes for being rough with her, she explains why she decided to “allow him his legal rights to her person”. Happy ever after.

Does This Work?

I do believe the happy ever after ending. Logan has been overbearing and he is angry with Fiona for not telling him about Jonathan, even though he recognizes that his verbal cruelty after their night together 5 years earlier gave her plenty of reason to keep their son a secret.

Logan is never had a big problem with anything. Men like him, he’s dynamic and super attractive to women, he’s rich, successful, good looking. He eventually realizes he is super lucky, won the jackpot when he got Fiona as his wife. She’s smart, strong, an excellent secretary, organized, kind and helpful, attractive, very good with people and knows what to say and when to keep still. She does an excellent job raising Jonathan. Unfortunately for Logan, Fiona is still wary of him, she doesn’t know him, doesn’t trust him. She doesn’t completely buy Denise’s persona of jilted almost-bride or lover, but sees Logan play up to Denise and thinks he might still prefer her to herself.

By about the middle of the story Logan is going quietly nuts. The man who never had a problem attracting women can’t get his own wife to sleep with him. His son loves him now too, but fiercely defends his mom when anyone says or implies anything negative. His own mother and housekeeper have brought Fiona into their family and he’s feeling left out. Poor baby.

I love how Fiona treats Denise. She doesn’t let Denise rule the roost or crow over her and she is politely skeptical about the whole almost-fiancée thing. She is never rude but never a doormat. This is one of the best heroine/Other Woman interactions in all of the Harlequin universe. The scene where Fiona tells Denise to take a hike is classic.

Fiona seems to see herself as more wishy washy around Logan than she is. She tells him what she thinks and what she wants quite clearly except for the few days where she seriously considers leaving and letting him have Jonathan and Denise. She eventually tells Logan she loves him at the end after she decides to give up her pride. She tells him she had no idea what he thought or felt, that she had not known him at all. Right there we have a peek into the problems with any marriage of convenience, no matter why the couple marries; if they don’t know each other, trust each other, marriage with its continual intimacy of living together regardless of sexual situation, is difficult.

Summary

I like Bride at Whangatapu for the character development, New Zealand glimpse, Fiona. It lacks some of the emotional intensity that Robyn Donald builds into her later books. Ms. Donald shows us how Fiona grows and develops her relationships with her mother in law, housekeepers, putative other man, family guests, Denise, but she more tells us than shows us how Fiona sees her relationship with Logan. I think that is the missing element that keeps Bride at Whangatapu from being a 5 star read for me.

3 Stars

I got my copy on eBay. You can likely find copies on Thriftbooks or other used book site and Amazon has new and used copies and an audio version.

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Devil Lover – Revenge Romance by Carole Mortimer

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Oh my. This is bad. Unfortunately it is readable and almost compelling but it is not a story to enjoy. The plot centers on revenge, and it’s misplaced revenge at that, and the hero, Andreas (yes, he’s Greek so we have yet another stereotype), makes it clear that he does not and will not love the heroine Regan.

Plot Synopsis – Click to Skip Spoilers

Regan interviews for a job as a companion/governess to a young teen girl that turns out to be a smokescreen to get her to Andreas’s house in rural England. There he tells her that her father stole his wife and deliberately caused a car racing accident that left him blind in one eye. Therefore he’s going to marry Regan, get her pregnant, make her life hell, all to get his revenge on Regan’s dad who is now dead. (His ex wife is dead also but no one seems to care about that.)

Andreas has been thorough and clever, having a young employee act as Regan’s boyfriend the last year or so, in order to keep her pure and untouched. Now she’s shoved into an upstairs room and Andreas threatens to rape her/make her his mistress, until she agrees to marry him. Regan is no pushover so she climbs out the drainpipe but Andreas sees her and she falls the last few feet. She’s hurt but not incapacitated, and he pressures her into marriage. (Her first mistake.)

There is an interlude back in England where Regan goes to her aunt and uncle’s home, finds out they knew all about the accident and bad feelings, but not about Andreas’s revenge drive. Andreas meets her there and takes her semi-willingly to Greece. She’s starting to fall in love with him. (Her second mistake.)

Andreas continually provokes her and then bullies her into apologizing for reacting with “disrespect”, i.e., treating him as he treats her. She apologizes each time. (Her third mistake.)

He takes her to Greece and once she’s healed forcibly seduces/rapes her. Then he leaves with his secretary whom he implies is also his long term mistress.

Regan and Helena, Andreas’s daughter, go to England where Regan goes to a friend’s wedding with Clive, the nice man Andreas had used to interview her initially. Regan is saying good-bye to Clive when Andreas walks in all puffed up with haughtiness and arrogance and conceit and makes nasty comments and jeers at Regan and Clive. Clive ignores the jeers and tells Andreas he’s misjudged his innocent wife. Andreas makes a snide comment about having made sure Regan is no innocent any longer. Clive leaves.

Andreas admits he learned that the car crash that blinded him was truly an accident, not semi-deliberate attempted murder. He kinda sorta apologizes for seeking revenge on Regan but it’s obvious he’s not sorry a bit, more sorry for himself that he had made a mistake.

He pushes at Regan about their one time intercourse, was it rape? She says no. (I guess because at the end she physically responded and enjoyed it. Still rape in my book.) Was it love? She says no, but then you told me it would not be love. It was hate. Andreas makes a big noise about he didn’t hate Regan, in fact he started to love her when she risked death to escape him. We have the great denouement, with both Andreas and Regan saying I Love You. Gag.

Characters

Regan may think she is in love with Andreas, but reading the story it’s clear that her mistakes in first agreeing to marry, then allowing him to browbeat her in accepting blame for his nasty behavior, then mistaking physical attraction for love is going to make for a long and unhappy marriage once she wakes up to the man she is stuck with.

She should have refused marriage and if Andreas raped her, filed a police report. Perhaps Andreas could have talked his way out of a rape charge using the old “lovers’ tiff” dodge, but Regan would have been off the hook. Andreas threatens to follow her, drag her back if Regan attempts to escape before or after marriage, but there are laws against stalking. Andreas can make Regan’s life miserable trying to stay away from him but it’s a better misery than being stuck with a guy like him for life.

Andreas taunts Regan, makes vicious comments, alternates between treating her as a nuisance he can barely tolerate and a sex toy, there solely to please him in bed. He never treats her as a person. There are many jerks and arrogant, obnoxious, self-satisfied mean males (I won’t call them men) in Harlequin Presents but this guy is one of the worst.

I didn’t find either love at all convincing. If Andreas truly loved Regan he would not have forced her, not have continued to treat her like dirt, certainly would have treated her better or offered her an annulment once he learned he was mistaken to blame her father. If Regan loved Andreas she wouldn’t have been so cowed by him.

Overall

I liked Devil Lover the first time I read it, gave it 3 stars on Goodreads, but upon rereading must drop it to a very low 2 star rating. I don’t usually rate books as 1 star unless they are exceptionally lousy, or I don’t finish them or they are filthy. Devil Lover isn’t that bad nor is it smut so

2 Stars.

I got my copy from Harlequin.com and you can read it online for free at Archive.org. Amazon has it in E and paperback formats and it is available on used book sites and eBay.

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Act of Betrayal by Sara Craven 2nd Chance Romance

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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.

Bond of Vengeance – Harlequin Presents Romance by Jessica Steele

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Jessica Steele writes rather good romances that have semi-believable plots and characters. I could feast all day on her books except for one glaring problem. When her heroines worry out their man problem they think through things in a bizarre way, with illogical thinking and illogical, convoluted sentences that are hard to follow. The rest of the narrative and the way the other characters talk and think (when we can see their thoughts) are reasonably straightforward and use normal English sentence structure, not Yoda-speak. I think Jessica Steele uses this to show us that the heroine is all mixed up and miles down the wrong road.

Plot Synopsis

Keely’s widowed mom works as a housekeeper for a widower, Lucas Varley. Now she is so excited and joyful; Lucas has asked her to marry him. They love each other which thrills Keely. Keely rushes down to Lucas’s country home to find her mom is tense and worried because Lucas’s son, Tarrant, offered her money to leave, he assumed she was after his dad’s money and tried to buy her off. Keely dashes back to London and insists on seeing Tarrant in his office where she tells him off and smacks him hard. Tarrant implies that not only is her mom after a rich man, but so is Keely!

The newlyweds plan to stay at home – alone – for a few weeks but Tarrant plans to stay there too; he cynically expects his new stepmom to reveal her true, gold diggery colors and wants to be around when it happens. He’s rather nasty. Keely points out that his dad and his new wife want to be alone and tries to persuade Tarrant to leave, he agrees on condition that she spends the weekend with him at his apartment.

Clearly Tarrant is intrigued and attracted to Keely but she’s not seeing that, she sees only that he wants to humiliate both her and her mom. Tarrant insults her a few more times, they have a heavy make out session on the couch but he leaves her to sleep alone, saying he refuses to allow her to trap him. Did I mention insults? Add conceited and convinced of his own never-fail sex appeal.

Another weekend Keely decides to get her own back at Tarrant and tells Lucas and her mom the exact, literal truth, that she spent the weekend with Tarrant in his apartment and slept in his bed. She omits that she slept there alone and of course dad and stepmom have things to say to Tarrant. That makes him even madder – by this time he’s realized new stepmom loves Lucas and is not after his money – and he’s even more attracted to Keely and frustrated. He decides to forcibly seduce her and does.

A few weeks later, when Tarrant comes back from a long business trip Keely tells him she’s pregnant and says to herself but out loud, that she cannot have this child. Tarrant assumes she plans an abortion and has another fit, insists they marry. While she’s supposedly engaged Keely moves a bunch of heavy furniture around and miscarries, an all too frequent occurence in her family. Tarrant again insults her, yells at her for having an abortion, and Keely is too tired and sad to tell him the truth.

Next visit home Keely’s mom mentions that her neice miscarried and that it is sadly something that all the women in her family face. Tarrant realizes he goofed, and once again insists Keely marry him, but this time for love.

Characters

Tarrant is quite well done. We readers can see him falling for Keely, getting himself twisted in knots trying to avoid the attraction, frustrated because he wants her, angry because he thinks she doesn’t want him and doesn’t want their child. It’s almost funny.

Keely, in typical Jessica Steele fashion, jumps to all sorts of silly conclusions. For example Tarrant calls her from the airport the morning after they sleep together and Keely immediately assumes he wants her to get all of her mom visits done so he can go to his dad’s house on the weekends when he’s back without seeing her. I re-read this section and have no idea how anyone would conclude that’s what he meant, but Keely is in a swivet and not thinking clearly. She knows she’s in love with Tarrant, convinced he does not and never will love her, and her internal musings reflect this.

Mom and new husband Lucas are standard casting central characters with little development or personality. Lucas seems nonchalant when Mom mentions she suffered several miscarriages and that her sisters hae the same problem; it’s rather unnerving to see a man, who supposedly loves someone, listen to that without caring.

Overall

If this were written in straighforward English I’d give it three stars without question. Being as it is, written to show Keely’s illogical thinking, full of split infinitives (and split everything else!) it’s closer to two stars. (That sentence is my attempt to write Jessica Steele-speak. It’s a lot harder than it looks.)

2 Stars

I got my copy in a book lot on eBay and you can find copies on Thriftbooks. Many of Jessica Steele’s romances are available on Harlequin.com or from Amazon in E format, but this one, Bond of Vengeance, is not. Amazon has the comic version as of this writing.

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The Sweetest Trap. Harlequin Presents by Robyn Donald

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I usually like Robyn Donald’s Harlequin Presents for their strong stories, interesting well-developed characters and good dialogue. The Sweetest Trap is disappointing. I made myself finish it despite stopping every few pages to do fun things like dishes and laundry. The plot was simply not enticing enough to overcome wooden characters, continuity problems, spotty dialogue and the cheesy idea of a 35 year old man seducing an 18 year old, unworldly girl.

Plot Synopsis

Cressida, just 18, sails with her domineering father all over the world, gaining him raw material for his philosophical musing/travelogue books that sell well, until her dad has a fatal heart attack off the coast of New Zealand during a dangerous storm. Cressida radios for help since she cannot handle the yacht alone and Luke arrives in his fishing launch to help her bring the yacht into shore.

Luke takes her to his New Zealand home which he shares with his mom, helps her with the inquest, financial settlements, emotional turmoil. Cressida has longed to live the way Luke does, settled in a home surrounded by country yet close enough to the ocean to sail or swim for fun. She had wanted to go to college, had never wanted to accompany her father, but he had promised his dead wife to keep Cressida with him. Now she’s unable to grieve and can feel only bitter regret.

Luke has a long time girlfriend, Paula, who visits several weekends. Luke’s mom tells Cressida that Paula has not wanted to marry Luke since it meant she would have to give up the law career she loves. Later we see that Paula does want to marry Luke and Luke tells Cressida that he had thought seriously about marrying Paula since he cares greatly for her.

Cressida is wise enough to realize she has a crush on Luke and is hoping that it is nothing more, just the usual adolescent strong feelings that dissipate in time. They are physically attracted and Luke kisses her, makes it clear that he wants more. Eventually they take her yacht out on a farewell cruise before she sells it, get caught overnight in a storm and make love. Cressida is horrified afterwards because she knows that was the worst thing to do when she does not want to love Luke and does not want to be pregnant and there’s Paula. Luke says he’ll marry her but it doesn’t sound to Cressida or to me as though he wants to.

When they get back Paula is waiting for Luke in the garage, throws herself in his arms and says “You have to help me. I think I’m pregnant!” Exit Cressida.

She ends up sharing an apartment in Auckland with a nice girl, Jan, who’s pretty fed up with guys – at the moment. Luke shows up and Cressida delivers a great self-sufficiency speech: She wants to find out who Cressida Godwin is and all she’ll ever be if she marries Luke is Mrs. Luke. He’s angry and tells her Paula has been having an affair with someone else, admits he loves Paula, leaves.

Luke’s mom calls Cressida when Luke is hospitalized. Cressida charters a plane to get there and sits with him while he’s unconscious. Paula arrives too and agrees with Cressida that one of the two of them can stay with Luke, and it will be whosever voice he responds to. Luke ignores Paula but reaches for Cressida’s hand. Paula leaves, banished to the cold reaches of discarded HP Other Women. Luke then wakes up and kicks Cressida out.

Things proceed until Luke shows back up one evening when Jan is out, informs her he loves her, won’t take no for an answer, they sleep together again and agree to marry.

Characters and Dialogue

Luke starts his role in The Sweetest Trap by jumping in the ocean during a storm to reach Cressida’s boat, grinning and having a wonderful time playing Viking. Later Robyn Donald tries to show Luke as a thoughtful, emotional, warm and kind man but it doesn’t quite work. Luke is extremely kind to Cressida, supporting her through the horribleness of her dad’s death, offering her a home, helping her gain some basic skills, but he also rides over her and ignores what she wants when it conflicts with what he wants.

Case in point: Luke asks one of his employees to take Cressida shopping since all her clothes are suited to sailing in warm weather, casual or outgrown. Cressida has some money the lawyer for her father’s estate advanced her and she intends to budget only part of that for new clothes. Luke goes behind her back and has his employee go back and get all the other things that Cressida liked but didn’t buy. True, the new things are wonderful and Cressida wants them, but her whole point throughout the story is she wants to be independent, at least long enough to prove to herself that she is a separate person and can take care of herself. Luke was disrespectful.

Let’s not even go to the age difference. The experience gap is even larger and more momentous than the age gap. Cressida went to a convent school in England when she wasn’t cloistered on the yacht with her dad. She met people yes, including a repulsive guy who wanted to buy her for a short term affair, but she was completely under her father’s control. Luke has been an independent adult for almost 20 years.

Cressida had the dubious pleasure of being in the room behind a bookcase when Paula and Luke came in and started kissing and making out. Luke claimed later that was Paula’s last attempt to show him they could make marriage work, supposedly because she didn’t want the affair with the other man. I don’t buy this. This little passionate interlude took many minutes and neither one spoke. It sounded as if Luke enjoyed having Paula try to persuade him, even if he ended up rejecting her.

Cressida has the best dialogue and develops a spine although she berates herself for being weak and easily intimidated. I didn’t think she had allowed herself enough time to discover who she was but overall she was characterized as a person we could visualize being happy. The author tells us instead of showing us a little too much. Cressida is described as feeling empty, bitter, afraid several times but we don’t really see that.

I didn’t like the huge age/experience difference nor that Cressida and Luke sleep together even when Cressida believes he is in love with Paula. She doesn’t seem able to think clearly when Luke is around with his manly self.

The big romance between Cressida and Luke is inconsistent, varying from almost completely physical to metaphysical. Luke says he recognizes Cressida as bone of his bone, part of himself, but this is after he’s tried to push her away, after he’s seduced her, after he’s hurt her, after she’s seen him first make love to Paula then later reject her, after Cressida has escaped his hand. As for Cressida it’s possible for a young lady to truly love a man so much older and more experienced, but it’s far more likely to be a short term crush. Cressida was wise to leave to find out the difference; I was not convinced that she knew what she felt even at the end.

Luke uses Paula. He tells Cressida that he’d seriously considered marrying Paula, that they both cared for the other, that he didn’t love her but knew they could have a happy life together. He keeps seeing Paula and seems to swing between chasing Cressida for physical delight and clinging to Paula for emotional comfort. He finally dumps her, which is when Paula turns to her married co-worker.

The minor characters, Luke’s mom, gossipy neighbors, the young lawyer and his wife, roommate Jan, are nice touches and all have some depth, but are essentially spear carriers, foils to carry the action. I couldn’t visualize any of them.

Style and Continuity

Robyn Donald did not make me care about the characters nor believe any of them are real people. The pace is slow. Sometimes a slow pace with a slow tension build works great with romance novels but this one doesn’t have the tension.

The novel lacks a clear emotional peak. Was it when Luke and Cressida make love in the yacht? When Paula throws herself at him begging for help with a suspected pregnancy? When Luke is in hospital and Cressida and Paula joust over who he will respond to? Is it when Cressida tells Luke she needs to be on her own to find out who she is? The ending is not the peak; in fact it simply happens. Time to sleep together, yay!

I picked a page at random, #104, right after Cressida tells Luke about the degenerate rich guy who wanted her for a couple weeks. There are 6 paragraphs on this page, all quite short. Four paragraphs are tell paragraphs, Robyn Donald tells us what Cressida thinks or describes inconsequential action. Two are mostly dialogue. That ratio is pretty typical, a bit more telling than showing and that, along with the slow pace and icky age difference make this story bland and less interesting than Donald’s usual.

There are at least two glaring and some smaller continuity problems.

  • Luke broke ribs and hurt his arm in a bulldozer accident but Cressida asks him several times about his leg, does it hurt, can he walk OK? Luke says it aches.
  • Cressida doesn’t earn a lot in Auckland yet she charters a plane to get to Luke in the hospital instead of taking the bus.
  • Luke and Cressida make love in the apartment she shares with Jan. I can see Jan having a fit when she comes home and finds them both there, especially if Cressida and Jan share a room.
  • A small problem is when the yacht sells. The buyers are getting it refitted so Luke and Cressida take it out for a last sail. The boat must have been docked near Luke’s house yet we never hear that the buyers came to see it in person. I noticed that which means either the story was weak or the problem was glaring; I usually forgive small problems in a good story.

Overall

The Sweetest Trap combines the big age and experience gap with a domineering man and girl who wants to grow up and develop a spine and personality. I think this should have caused tension and conflict all on its own, and indeed that is so. However the tension is mild and Donald does not develop the conflicts. Instead we have a lot of Luke chasing Cressida around the couch (more or less) and Cressida bemoaning that she has a crush on Luke, a most unsuitable crush object.

The story does not come together.

2 Stars, OK

I got my paperback copy of The Sweetest Trap in a lot on eBay. It is available on Thriftbooks here, and Amazon here, both new and used. I didn’t see it available in E format except in pdf format to borrow on Archive.org.

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Married by Christmas Marriage of Convenience by Carole Mortimer

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Married by Christmas was one of the first books I ready by Carole Mortimer; the intense emotional connections delighted me and I noted it on my books to buy list. I reread it now, about two years later, and I still enjoyed it, but after reading so many other romances I found it closer to good, not great.

Everything happens in London, in the main characters’ homes or hotel. The story is compressed to about a week and a half.

Plot Synopsis and Characters

Lilli lost her mother to a 5 year long bout with cancer just a few months ago, and her fiancé Andrew dumped her right after. She’s had a miserable last year. Tonight her friend Sally convinces her to go to a party given by a lady she knows slightly but doesn’t much like, Gerry. Gerry has a terrible reputation for men, Lilli calls her a man-eater.

Sally points out to Lilli an older, very handsome man who is obviously enraptured with Gerry. The man is Lilli’s dad, Richard. Lilli can’t believe her dad is chasing the man-eating Gerry so soon after her mom died and is disgusted and furious. She wanders around the house where she meets Patrick in the kitchen who clearly is someone special to Gerry. They flirt a bit, Gerry and Richard walk in and Lilli sees that she can get back at both of them (and herself) and having drunk a little too much, gets Patrick to take her to a hotel. Richard and Gerry both try to dissuade them but Patrick isn’t listening and Lilli is too angry and hurt to care.

Lilli is horrified the next morning when she wakes up to Patrick singing in the shower. She goes home where she and her dad have a short argument. Several fast meetings later Lilli learns that

  • Richard owes Patrick’s bank several million pounds that he cannot pay because Lilli’s former fiancé had embezzled the money before dumping Lilli in favor of a another man and her dad doesn’t want to humiliate Lilli by prosecuting him.
  • Patrick wants to marry her.
  • Lilli doesn’t want to marry Patrick

Lilli is no dummy and realizes Richard could go ahead and prosecute Andrew if Lilli marries Patrick. So she agrees but is not too happy about it, especially when Patrick gives the usual Harlequin Presents Hero speech about not believing in love. He wants her body and he wants kids and he intends to marry forever.

Patrick’s ex-wife shows up at the wedding reception and is nasty until Lilli – not Patrick – routs her. The next morning Richard shows up, yes the morning after their wedding night. How tacky! Patrick is not amused and he’s even less thrilled when Richard tells them that Andrew insists on speaking to Lilli. Andrew gives Lilli the money he embezzled and all should be well, except Patrick is in a real tizzy. Lilli walked out! Lilli went to her former fiancé!! Lilli is at Gerry’s house drinking champagne!!!

Patrick races there, they have the usual I Love You scene and a nice epilogue where Lilli has twin girls and Gerry and Richard, now married, have a baby son. There are several explanations in there too, all to show that Richard and Gerry and Patrick and Lilli all are blessed with true love.

Surface Emotions

The main problem I see with Married by Christmas is the characters seem to feel everything on the surface. Author tells us what Lilli thinks underneath her superficial gaiety and sparkle but the emotions don’t feel solid. She tells, not shows us Lilli’s heart.

Patrick has the typical reasons for his anti-love outward stance: He lost his mother when 15, later his dad, had to raise Gerry, had a horrible first marriage with a wife who chose an abortion rather than gaining weight with a baby. Yet he loves Lilli and supposedly fell in love with her when she fell asleep the moment she lay down when they got to the hotel room. He hadn’t slept with anyone since his first marriage broke up although he’d been looking for a solid gold lady, and Lilli completely ensnared him.

This is plausible but not all that likely. Lilli is 17 or 18 years younger than Patrick, beautiful, charming and he wants her very much. Sure. But love? Love a lady who happily leaves a party with a man she never met before and begs him to take her away to make love to her? Maybe. Or maybe he simply finally felt ready to love someone and Lilli is lovely and available, in the right place at the right time.

Carole Mortimer presents the secondary romance between Richard and Gerry as fact. She later has Gerry explain to Lilli how she and Richard met years earlier before his wife got cancer and how the man-eating rumors are false. This is nice but doesn’t add much to the story. The reason Lilli was in despair and left party with Patrick was to spite her dad and Gerry, but it doesn’t advance Lilli’s story to learn how they knew each other.

Summary and Overall Rating

Carole Mortimer is usually a 3 star author for me, some are better, some are worse, some are very much worse. After rereading I would give Married by Christmas a skimpy 4 stars; it’s good to very good.

I bought my copy of Married by Christmas from Thriftbooks. You can find Kindle and new or used copies on Amazon and other used book sites and eBay.

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Bitter Alliance Kay Thorpe Harlequin Presents

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What to say about this? How to rate it?

  • Writing: Good to very good. 3-4 Stars.
  • Characters who act consistent with themselves, character development: Good to very good. 3-4 Stars
  • Setting: Good. 3 Stars
  • Plot: Fair. 2 Stars
  • Drama, tension: Fair to Good. 2-3 Stars
  • Emotional connection between characters and with readers: Bad. 1 Star
  • Believable romance. Bad. 1 Star
  • Likable characters: Horrible. Negative 10.

The hero, Liam, is unlikable with few redeeming qualities and the heroine, Jaime, is foolish, lets Liam manipulate her yet believes she loves him. Liam has all the least endearing qualities in the Nasty Alpha branch of Harlequin Presents land:

  • Double standard in spades. He makes no secret of his past affairs yet holds Jaime in contempt for her past supposed transgressions.
  • He’s terribly jealous of any man she smiles at, much less hugs.
  • He instantly assumes she is on the make, a gold digger when he encounters her 2 years prior with an older, suave married lady killer at a conference hotel. I have personally seen younger ladies swept up in romantic imaginings, believing they are in love with older men with the guy acting as a combination experienced, tender wooer, mentor, safe crush. Girls allow older men’s admiration and pursuit to charm and flatter, perhaps seduce. But I have never seen a young girl, late teens, early 20s, fall for an older man solely for his money. (And if you think of it, a married man with kids, a wife, a mortgage, bills and college isn’t going to have a ton of extra cash to splash about on a young girlfriend.)
  • Yet Liam is convinced that Jaime is with older man Gerald solely for his money. He is beyond cynical. Instead of pointing out that Liam is hurting himself and betraying his nasty mind Jaime tries over and over to prove she is innocent.
  • He talks her into accompanying him to Kentucky as a shield against his former fiancée, now the wife of his Kentucky host. Yet he claims that the only reason he asked her to come and she agreed was to sleep together. He plans to tell his brother, to whom Jaime had been engaged when she met Liam, that she pretended to be his fiancée to get into his bed.
  • The worst thing? Liam does not, can not trust Jaime or anyone. Jaime herself points out that even if he believes her on one point, he’ll instantly suspect the worst the next time anything happens. He even suspects her of chasing another man, their host in Kentucky, when she and the host celebrate his horse’s race victory.

Jaime knows he’s not going to love her, that he’ll always suspect her, that he’ll never cut her slack, but she believes she “loves” him two weeks after meeting. Kay Thorpe tries to show a happy ever after ending with Liam pledging to start again from scratch on their wedding night. Since he staged their wedding night at the same hotel where he saw her with her older supposed lover, this doesn’t ring true. He may have regretted being so vicious, but that won’t last.

I do not find the romance credible. I think Jaime is in for a miserable time with a nasty, suspicious husband to whom she will constantly have to justify herself until she finally decides that even great physical compatibility does not compensate for living with a hateful man.

Overall rating: 2 Stars

I got my copy from eBay in a book lot and you can probably find copies on many used book sites, including Thriftbooks. I didn’t see a copy on Amazon when I wrote this review.