Lynne Connolly‘s review of Savas’ Defiant Mistress by Anne McAllister
Contemporary romance released by Harlequin Presents 1 Apr 09
I was beginning to despair. The Harlequins I’ve read of the recent months weren’t up to the new standard set by earlier releases. I prefer Presents/Modern or Silhouette Desire, so I pick most of my books from those lists, with the occasional Blaze. These books had been showing a refreshingly different take on the mistress/billionaire/tycoon/prince tropes that the lines are stuck with. But the last couple of months had some truly depressing entries where the hero and heroine had Big Misunderstandings, Secret Babies, and the hero showed bullying tactics which, in my world, is never a reason to fall in love with someone. I kept wanting the heroines to run. Perhaps I made the wrong choices (I don’t read them all) but I was beginning to think that the lines were regressing to the old days.
But I can really say I enjoyed Savas’ Defiant Mistress, despite the title and blurb. This is one of the new ones and I had fun with this book.
The blurb is both inaccurate and misleading. Neely isn’t Sebastian’s employee, they are both employees of another character, Max, architects working for a big company. So those of you worrying about employer/employee love affairs, you can relax – there aren’t any. Sebastian is Neely’s landlord, in that she was a sitting tenant in the houseboat he bought to get away from his many stepsisters, who have moved into his penthouse for the wedding of another sister. It’s made clear that Sebastian is wealthy, but it’s not an ostentatious wealth. So not a portfolio, more somewhere to live. And although the exclamation marks are thankfully nearly absent from the manuscript, they aren’t from the blurb, which is a shame. (or maybe A Shame!)
I liked the characters’ internal conflicts, and the way they meshed and differed, and I loved that they are the experiences of many people today. Sebastian’s father is a serial monogamist – he marries and divorces regularly, never sticking with one woman for long. As a result, Sebastian has an extended family. He gets on with them all – except for his father. Neely’s mother was a free spirit, but she found someone and stayed married to him until his relatively recent death, so Neely was spared the kind of rootlessness that Sebastian experienced.
Consequently, Sebastian is an iceman, because he’s found it safer to withhold easy emotion. I liked that he was quite capable of showing it if he wanted to, but was careful and restricted, rather than the exaggerated alpha response that can be so tiring sometimes and leads to all those Big Misunderstandings.
Neely was a bit on the sweet side for me. She keeps lots of pets and although she is a competent architect, she tends toward the small intimate spaces, houses and apartments. I would have loved to have seen those roles reversed – Sebastian designing the small, and Neely doing the big and sweeping. That would have been fun, but McAllister chose to go with type.
And the “mistress” of the title is no such thing. She’s not a kept woman, she even pays her share of the rent and she works hard for a living. Moreover, they don’t sleep together until relatively late on in the novel, when they know they are headed for something more serious than an affair.
They don’t get to go to bed until they know each other quite well, which I also liked because it went with their characters. Both are cautious of getting involved and although Sebastian tries an “it’s only the sex, it means nothing” approach, Neely is having none of that and makes it clear to him. I enjoyed that, too.
McAllister has a charming, light style that was very easy to read, with no jarring moments like strange dialog tags or the overuse of that exclamation mark. The story flows really well and is a pleasure to read.
The story starts with Sebastian’s sister calling him about the little gift boxes for her wedding, and worrying about the color, something that is a recurring and amusing motif through the story.
This book is better than either its title or its blurb, so don’t let them put you off. I enjoyed the morning I spent with Neely and Sebastian, and I think you will enjoy spending time with them, too.
I’m taking a mark off because the author did slip into cliché a couple of times, and you could still see the bones of the tropes, and because Neely was a bit too sweet, but I’m adding a plus because I enjoyed it so much, and because Sebastian, while an alpha, was refreshingly normal. The man actually worried and – gasp – sometimes he shared the way he was thinking.
Grade: B+
Here’s the official blurb, for what it’s worth (not much):
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The friction between Sebastian Savas and his new employee is instant. But unfortunately, the lusciously curvy Neely Robson is also the tenant in the property he just added to his portfolio.
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Neely cannot share her home with iceman Savas: the tension is palpable! On the surface she can take it, but underneath, Sebastian is making her quiver!
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Living and working with Neely, Seb realizes he’s made an error. But the benefits of discovering Neely’s inexperience in the bedroom far outweigh the annoyance of being wrong!
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Read an excerpt here.
