LynneC’s review of The Petrov Proposal by Maisey Yates
Contemporary Romance published by Harlequin Desire 24 Jan 12
Maisey Yates is one of my go-to authors and while she didn’t disappoint with this book, it isn’t as amazing as last year’s Highest Price to Pay. It is still a highly enjoyable read.
Madeleine is event planner for Aleksei Petrov’s highly successful jewellery company. He designs high-end jewellery, so prestigious presentations at luxury resorts and hotels is an important part of the job. She’s worked for him for a while, but hasn’t met him, although she’s seen his picture. He is, naturally, gorgeous. The story starts when they meet, and it’s a satisfactory “wow, you’re gorgeous” kind of meeting, but, of course, they don’t act on it. Yates does the stages of intimacy thing very well, increasing and teasing until the reader is really ready for them to get together.
Aleksei believes in love, but he doesn’t want it. His wife was killed in a car accident six years before, and he loved her to bits. Until she was in bits, so to speak. (sorry!) He has designed nothing for six years, but has used other designers and concentrated on the business side. I think there’s a slight problem here, because Aleksei is known as a brilliant designer of jewellery, and by his own admission later in the book, he wasn’t the tycoon he is now when his wife died, he was “getting there.” So how is he a brilliant designer? I suppose people could retrospectively love his work, but most designers have to keep current and that is very noticeable in jewellery. But he has designed a necklace, and it will be shown at the upcoming exhibition.
I think that’s my problem with the book. The background is drawn very lightly, and in some parts it doesn’t make sense, like the designer conundrum. When the necklace is shown, Madeleine wears it for him, and she’s hardly at the party five minutes before Aleksei drags her on the dance floor, then kisses her a lot, then drags her off to bed. It just doesn’t seem realistic to me, and the necklace is priceless, so taking it off and dropping it on the bedside table seems a bit nutso, too. I just can’t see it happening, even if the necklace belongs to Aleksei’s company. But it is for sale, it’s not a personal possession. It would be the centre of the show, and she’d be expected to show it off to the clients. Then it would be in the media. When she wrote about fashion in Highest Price To Pay, I got a real sense of the industry, although, of course, romanticised and simplified somewhat. (When I told my mother I wanted to go into the fashion industry, she said, “Over my dead body.”) I didn’t get the same sense in this book of the jewellery trade. For one thing, security is frightening. Every diamond has its own ID number, and the really expensive stuff is so rigidly controlled, it hardly gets an outing.
I think Aleksei is a little more in the usual mold. I do like the way he listens and understands Madeleine, but I have read his kind of hero a lot. He is powerful, from humble roots, is self-made, and the Russian side of him is drawn very lightly. A couple of endearments and references to Moscow. I’d have liked something a little more specific. Maybe not Moscow, maybe more of a Russian syntax, or reference to the gangsters who run much of Russia these days.
The heroine, Madeleine, is an interesting character, too. And a grown-up, which is something I really appreciate about Yates’s books, Madeleine is the daughter of wealthy parents who don’t care. She has a brother, Gage, who loves her, and Gage is considerably older than Maddy. I think she is more developed as a character, and something from her youth, discussed later in the book, is really heart-stopping. But she doesn’t repine, and even her later, and very public, affair with a married man is treated with stoicism. In fact, part of Maddy’s journey is to get over the way her lover deceived her and then left her to face the press on her own. I did enjoy this part, and it does account for most of the higher grade I gave the book. She has a lot to get over, but she does it with humour and without self-pity. Maddy doesn’t believe in love, and at first she’s happy to indulge in an affair, even if it is with her boss, but she comes to admit that she’s falling for him.
I don’t want to denigrate this book, as it’s a well-written, entertaining romance, but I would like a few more specifics. The hero is satisfyingly alpha, but not as well depicted as some of Yates’s other heroes. Still, I can’t deny I had a good time with this book.
Grade: B-
Summary
The first time Maddy Forrester heard her boss’s mesmerizing voice barking orders down the phone, she knew he was a force to be reckoned with. But nothing prepared her for the sight of Aleksei Petrov. He is the last thing Maddy needs, but the first thing she wants!
Aleksei is determined not to mix business with pleasure, but he struggles with the irresistible sparks his feisty secretary ignites in him—she’s a problem he does not want.
The proposed solution? One unforgettable night to fulfill their every wicked desire.
Read an excerpt.
