LynneC’s review of Too Proud To Be Bought by Sharon Kendrick
Contemporary Romance published by Harlequin Presents 23 Aug 11
Sharon Kendrick is a writer of extremes. She can write books that make you want to scream in frustration or books that give you the rare “happy sigh” moment. This is a happy-sigh book, and I’m going to try to explain why.
Every writer has themes she likes to work with. Kendrick’s is dangerous, because love is her theme, and what people sacrifice for it. That’s why we sometimes get the scream books, because the heroine lies down and takes everything the hero throws at her, and the hero is the biggest jerk in creation. But if she gets it right, it’s immensely satisfying for romance readers. When it doesn’t work for me is when the heroine behaves like a doormat, when the hero behaves like a jerk, or when there’s an external event like a secret baby or a big misunderstanding that comes in the way of the lovers. But when the characters are well delineated and they behave like real people instead of the author’s puppets, the theme can still work remarkably well.
So from the beginning this story has familiar themes and tropes. I wouldn’t expect anything less of Mills and Boon, and while these books appear in the US under the Harlequin Presents banner, they are a product of the London office of the company and they have a distinctive difference from, say, Harlequin Desire that is hard to pin down but is there, nevertheless.
The heroine is Zara Evans, a girl working as a waitress. The hero is a Russian megarich owner of department stores, Nikolai Komarov. They meet when she gate crashes a party in order to model a dress that her friend, an aspiring designer, has made. So far, so absolutely Mills and Boon. And I have to admit, it’s a setup I love in certain circumstances. The Cinderella one taken to its classical best.
Nikolai wants her, takes her home, but she decides against the encounter. Much to his surprise, he pursues her, as he is the kind of billionaire women fall over themselves to get to. And of course he gets her, employs her as a waitress for a weekend visit from a potential client, and they sleep together. At the end of the weekend, he leaves her a big cheque, and she rips it up.
It goes on from there, and you can probably guess what happens. I like this book so much because of the characters. Zara isn’t so much “proud,” as it says in the title, as self-respecting. She respects herself too much to let him have his own way all the time and turn her into an accessory. She loves him, but she doesn’t kowtow. And she doesn’t just flounce off all the time either. She tells him how she feels. At one point she decides to continue the relationship, and later it’s her own realization that she feels cheapened by the accessory tag that makes her leave. Although she’s a waitress, and she started the job after realizing her godmother, who brought her up, had more debts than assets, she is good at it and she enjoys it. She always wanted to go into agriculture and went to college, but after her guardian died, she gave it up without self-pity. I like that about her. And that she explains herself when asked.
Nikolai has what has become the standard Mills and Boon hero. Very rich, made his money himself, brought up in the backstreets of Moscow (or it could easily be London or New York or even Athens, it doesn’t make much difference except that he says “da” instead of “ne,”) and thinks his mother abandoned him to his wicked aunt and uncle. But although he finds it hard to get in touch with his emotions, that doesn’t make him a jerk or, at least, not a deliberate one. When she talks, he listens, and glory of glories, he does something about it. He doesn’t mistreat her or blackmail her into his bed, he doesn’t class her as below him or anything like that, and he tries to buy her because that’s what he usually does. Zara makes him see that’s wrong.
Another thing I like is that Kendrick doesn’t denigrate women who choose to be bought. One features briefly in the story, and she isn’t a bitch, isn’t described as plastic, she’s just doing what she does, and when Zara is her waitress, she doesn’t treat her like dirt.
The story shows how Zara admits she loves Nikolai, and there is a delicious scene at the end when she gives in, drops all her barriers and lets him in. It also shows two people coming to like, respect, and love each other and I totally bought their happy ending.
Get this one if you want to read a classical trope done well.
Grade: A-
Summary:
The humble waitress and the Russian billionaire…Waitress Zara Evans doesn’t belong in glittering high society. That is until she finds herself unexpectedly at an exclusive party, and manages to captivate the most sought–after man in the room—Russian oligarch Nikolai Komarov.
For Nikolai, there’s something about Zara’s beauty that makes her stand out from the first–class crowd. Experience has taught him all women have their price, but he has never encountered anyone like Zara—a young woman who is too proud, too independent, too willful to be bought…
No excerpt available.
