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.

So… what’s wrong with this picture?

• You’re English, a tax accountant, in Greece on a holiday and meet a guy on the beach.
• You really (REALLY) hit it off with him. He’s kind, compassionate, fun to talk to and you really (REALLY) like kissing him.
• But… You know nothing about him. Does he have a family? Is he or has he ever been married? Where does he live?
• You think he is a fisherman who may augment his livelihood by judicious flirting with ladies on holiday and/or dancing in the hotels. But you don’t know because he kind of deflects these questions.
• You don’t have his phone number but it apparently is possible to get in touch by phoning the local tavern.
• You’re good at your job. You don’t know what he thinks of working wives.
• He asks you to marry him within two weeks of meeting.
• You say yes.

OK, I get it. He’s wonderful. But you really don’t know anything about him. Where will you live? Should you keep working? Does he in fact chat up ladies for a living as you suspect?

Our heroine first says yes, then when she returns to pack up at her hotel on a neighboring island gets a call from her uncle that her dad is in the hospital and likely to die. Now that she’s away from Draco (our gorgeous hero) and they haven’t been necking for a couple hours she’s gotten cold feet/common sense/a chance to step back and reassess the situation. Now here comes the big, huge, horrible mistake: She leaves for England and Daddy without talking to Draco!

Just as in so many Harlequins, a simple phone call could save tons of heartaches. A simple “Hey Draco. I’ve got to go home. Dad’s in the hospital in a bad way. And it’s probably a good idea to take a breather here and give us a week away from necking/each other. OK? I’ll get in touch in a week.”

Now let’s look at it from Draco’s perspective. (Sara Craven does a great job letting us see his thinking, albeit after the fact.)

• This really (REALLY) hot blonde thinks you’re super. Super as in super sexy, super easy to talk to, super (REALLY REALLY) super kisser.
• She’s the real thing too. You investigated her (because after all she could simply be a better schemer than all the others) and of course, why not? She truly is a tax accountant – not a profession whose adherents are known for doing crazy spontaneous things like falling in love with a guy they met on holiday and marrying them two weeks later. And her dad was rich until his sugar doll wife conned him out of every penny.
• On the other hand you told her nothing about yourself and she might even suspect you’re a part time gigolo.
• You’ve never talked about the future in any concrete terms. You know, stuff like where you’ll live, what you’ll expect from her (Black dresses and five paces behind? Get good internet and work from home? Cook and clean in a shack with or without electricity and running water? Two kids or eight?) Right. All those pesky detailed things.
• You are falling in lust/love and she is/was a virgin and you really should get married some time and she said “Yes!”
• So you organize a big hot party in your mansion (oops, you forgot to tell her that) and call all your friends and family (oops, not about them either!) and wait for her to come back from getting her stuff in the fancy hotel just across on the other island.

That’s where it went south for me. Would you seriously organize a party before she returns? Or would you possibly have just a niggle of worry that she might, oh, I don’t know, get cold feet or need a bit of reassurance or even want you to come home with her to meet her family?

The engagement party bust is not a trivial incident either but a major plot point. Draco was humiliated and fell apart emotionally when he finally twigged she took off.

Now if you’re a Greek tycoon whose expected wife failed to show you do the obvious thing. You track her down to her family home where you immediately take over all her father’s debts and issue a nasty ultimatum: Come sleep with me for three months or else! Dad’s going to be broke, your housekeeper will be homeless and, and, oh gee, gosh, well, you’ll be miserable and guilty because you didn’t help dear old Dad when you could. Yes, we now have a Miffed Greek Tycoon Seeks Revenge story.

This is the second plot point that fails. Heroine Cressida tells herself that she can find a larger apartment and move Dad in, that he has his pension so he isn’t completely destitute, that she has a decent salary. But when Draco summons her to appear before him she meekly agrees to play unmarried shack-up mistress kissy face for three months instead of telling him to go pound sand. She has very little monetary motivation to agree to his humiliating proposition.

Dad will be more comfortable in his old home. Yes. But ask yourself. Would you accept mistress-hood in exchange for your dad being more comfy? I don’t think so!

That leaves the other possible reason for Cressida to say “yes”. She loves Draco and regrets taking off without a word, especially when she finds out that he truly was heartbroken and embarrassed. So our guilty-feeling heroine agrees and trots off to sunny Greece, leaving dear old Dad behind to grieve himself into an early grave.

In the last part of The Tycoon’s Mistress author Sara Craven explains that Cressida has a hard time trusting and particularly trusting love, due of course to Dad’s disastrous second foray into marriage. That’s nice but not terribly pertinent. Even people who trust easily might find it overwhelming to marry someone after two sunny holiday weeks.

Craven could have played up Cressida’s cut and run – without any notice – which, while possibly understandable, was mean. There was no reason she couldn’t have at least left a message at her hotel or called the taverna where she stayed on the second island. Draco was justifiably angry about being stood up.

The other unsatisfying thing about the story is that Draco never did the formerly-nasty-Greek-tycoon-with-loving-bride grovel. I missed that!

Sara Craven wrote many marriage of convenience novels and a few of the tycoon-meets-innocent-girl type and I find her MOC novels are far more satisfying and better written. (She combined both tropes in a couple stories, notably Wife in the Shadows, and those were also very good.) The Tycoon’s Mistress lacks the dramatic tension of the MOC A High Price to Pay or the deeply emotional characters in MOC Wife Against Her Will. Nonetheless, I enjoyed The Tycoon’s Mistress and followed Cressida and Draco love affair and was sad to reach the novel end.

3 Stars. I’d give it 4 except the two characters fell into misery because they didn’t bother to get to know each other, too busy necking!

All Amazon links are paid ads. I borrowed this through the Archive.org and there are copies on Amazon and Thriftbooks as of October 2020. Please note there is a comic book version but I read and reviewed the original text story.