LynneC’s review of  Forgotten Daughter (Bad Blood Collection, Book 7) by Jennie Lucas
Contemporary Romance published by Mills and Boon Modern Romance 15 Jul 11

In this series, where some of the stories have taken chances with the usual themes used in the Modern line, this book is like stepping back into the past. And the title makes me scratch my head because Annabelle has been featured and talked about all through the series. Hardly forgotten. Before I get to the matter of the book, the cover is another WTF, because it shows a brunette, and Annabelle is a blonde. I can’t place either of those things at the author’s door, though. She won’t have had much input, if any, into the cover or the title. And the picture is of the Escorial, the huge palace cum monastery cum memorial built by Philip II. Hardly a horse ranch, but at least in the right country.

Annabelle was whipped so hard by her abusive father that she still bears scars, including a nasty one down the side of her face, which she uses make-up, presumably the specialized kind, to cover up. The scar is described as red and livid, although it’s nearly twenty years old now. I couldn’t believe that, since scars tend to fade to a silvery white over the years. The main problem is that it’s dead tissue, so it doesn’t take a tan, and it can distort the surface of the skin. She has other scars on her body from that fateful night. Since they have caused her so many problems, I don’t understand why Annabelle hasn’t had plastic surgery to cover the worst of the scars. They could have made a significant difference to her. And her lover in this book never suggests it, either, if only to make her feel better.

Stefano owns a horse ranch in Spain. Are they called ranches in Spain? I’m not sure, but I had to check the location, as the word made me blink. He only sells his horses to certain customers and has been known to turn wealthy would-be customers down. He was a poor boy and made his fortune in the show-jumping ring (I can hear the guffaws from the participants here, but this is a Modern Romance, okay?) He has a fearsome reputation with the ladies, only spending one night with many of them. And he doesn’t bring them back to the ranch. He hires a room at the local inn when he sleeps with them. What a charmer.

See what I mean about the old-style Modern?

Lucas is somewhat of a guilty pleasure. Occasionally her wildly rampant heroes are too much to take, and they don’t just cross the line into abusive, they leap into it with gusto. Stefano isn’t like that. He understands. In fact, the man described and the man in the book have little resemblance to each other, except at the beginning where there is much twirling of imaginary mustaches, and “I will have her” thoughts. I like that he makes friends with her before he takes her to bed and that he shows her how little her scar matters to him.

The style is extreme, in all shades from lavender to deep purple. But I’ve seen far worse from Lucas. The characters are extreme, they are either This or That, never In Between. So Stefano is either the heartless seducer or the kind, gentle lover.

And, sigh, Annabelle is a virgin. At thirty-two. I don’t buy  that her childhood beating is enough to put her off men for life. She gets on well with her brothers, and her ice queen persona doesn’t mean she can’t make friends. Her assistant, Marie, is presently on maternity leave, (convenient!) and Annabelle thinks of her with fondness. She can apply her make up with great skill, and in any case, she could leave the lights dim or off. The thirty-two-year-old virgin is a rare thing, and of course, Stefano doesn’t realize she is one when he takes her for the first time. And they go at it like bunnies after that, even the first night. No. Really, no. After a few days, Annabelle is described as “pleasantly sore.” Ugh. I’d have thought she’d have been red, raw, and wincing with every step. Rampant R Us.

But Stefano is an acceptable hero and Annabelle is no doormat.

Grade: C

Summary:

Annabelle…Reserved. Elegant. Scarred.
Sister to seven brothers, Annabelle should be used to men, but her trust was shattered the night her father almost killed her. Now Annabelle is an ice-queen, whom no man has ever touched… Stefano Cortez can tame a wild horse quicker than any man, and this passion heats the blood in his veins. Annabelle may seem untouchable, but beneath the frost, he sees the real woman…

No excerpt available.

LynneC’s review of Reckless Night in Rio by Jennie Lucas
Contemporary Romance published by Harlequin Presents Extra 28 Jul 11

There are Belgian chocolate truffles. There is fine champagne, single malt whisky, silk velvet Dior gowns, and Casablanca. There are also big bars of supermarket chocolate, alcoholic ginger beer, outrageous dresses so badly put together you can only wear them a couple of times, and  Pretty Woman. And there is Jennie Lucas.

Sometimes, the supermarket chocolate is more fun, and sometimes anything less than champagne would be an insult. If you had enough nerve, you could wear the cheap dress to the Ambassador’s soiree, but you might be more comfortable in the Dior. I’m not telling you which group I think Lucas belongs in, but both of the groups above have one striking thing in common. They’re both guilty pleasures, and Jennie Lucas is definitely a guilty pleasure.

She writes about men so brutal that sex is more like rape. She writes about fragile, helpless women, women who give everything up for the men they love. She takes familiar Harlequin tropes and squeezes every drop out of them. And that’s her secret. The other tropes that authors tentatively use and then make right with careful reasoning and logic, she tears through and wallows in them. Logic, shmogic. Like watching a hippopotamus taking a mudbath, reading her books is both repellent and glorious.

Reckless Night in Rio is no exception. In some ways it’s vintage Lucas. With any other writer I would have given up reading on the second chapter, but because it’s her, and because I know that reality isn’t on her agenda, I can take it.

The heroine, Laura, had a fling with her boss, Gabriel, before leaving him and her job fifteen months ago to return to her family and have the baby neither of them realized they’d conceived that night. And she doesn’t tell him about it, because he told her he wouldn’t fall in love and didn’t want babies. Her family is impoverished, but she still doesn’t tell him. There we have our first disconnect. If she’s finished with him, she has nothing to lose by claiming maintenance and giving her baby, who she claims she loves, the money and privilege he is entitled to. She can take Gabriel to court and demand a DNA test, get scheduled payments, and unless she was negligent and caused harm to her baby, no court would think of taking the child from her. But those issues never appear in the book, not once. No, she won’t do it because it will make him saaad. And she doesn’t give him the benefit of the doubt, either. She makes the decision for him. But, hey, this is a Jennie Lucas book. Par for the course. Suck it up and move on.

Gabriel returns to her on the day of her sister’s wedding. He doesn’t realize that the baby, Robbie, is his, because, hey, he’s a brilliant businessman and he never has to cope with the unexpected. And, in any case, they used protection. He’s forgotten that they used Harlequin brand condoms, the kind that are guaranteed to fail. So he assumes that she had a one-night stand just after she left him, ignoring that it’s completely out of character, and she was a virgin when they first slept together. A twenty-six-year-old virgin. Yeah.

He wants her to pretend she is desperately in love with him to convince a business rival to sell him a company. I know, but by the time Lucas has finished mugging your logic, you can buy into it. Sort of. Besides, the situation is irresistible. Laura is really in love with Gabriel, but she has to pretend she’s in love with him and expect to walk away from him at the end of a couple of days and bring up her child in secret heartbreak. Plus, he has a secret, but it needn’t bother us overmuch. He refuses to allow himself to love her because of a Big Secret in his past. It doesn’t really matter what the secret is, does it? Be honest, it really doesn’t.

Plus, she gets the plain Jane makeover, melting glasses and all (“Take your glasses off, Miss Smith. My God, you’re beautiful.”) We are now talking about several hippopotami in a great big mud bath. We are wallowing. Of course, her pregnancy has made her more voluptuous and more beautiful, and of course her rival is a stick-thin supermodel. And of course there’s a bikini smackdown. You know, all the things you secretly crave for but few people write anymore, especially so blatantly.

You can take several attitudes to this book, and it depends what mood you’re in. After a fraught week at home, I wanted escapism, pure and simple. The Jennie Lucas brand virtually guarantees it. If I’d wanted something that dealt with real issues, that gave me a story that made some kind of logical sense, I would have gone elsewhere. As it was, it gave me a couple of hours off. I won’t remember this book next week, and in writing this review, a couple of hours after finishing the book, I had to look up the names of the hero and heroine, but it did its job. And it made me laugh, because you can’t write a book like this without over-the-top prose and making assumptions that  in real life would probably get someone sued for something.

So this one is at your own risk. I’ve given it a C because, well, I wasn’t sure what grade to give it.

Grade: C

Summary:

“All you need to do is… pretend to love me.”

The task should be easy for Laura Parker— after all, Gabriel Santos is outrageously good-looking, it’s for one night only and he is offering her a million dollars.…

There are just three things to consider, however:

1. They’ve already had one steamy, unforgettable night together in Rio.

2. Laura’s been in love with Gabriel ever since.

3. Gabriel’s never wanted children, but he’s not aware he’s the father of Laura’s baby.…

Read an excerpt.

Lynne Connolly‘s review of The Christmas Love-Child by Jennie Lucas
Contemporary romance released by Harlequin Presents 10 Nov 09

I harshed on the last book I read by Jennie Lucas, The Innocent’s Dark Seduction because the alpha hero went way, way over the top for me. This is different, this is Ms Lucas back to form. 

Grace is a doormat for her boss, the appalling Alan Barrington, who knows she’s hot for him and uses her. He could be the hero of a different romance, but thank goodness, he’s not the hero of this one. She’s running an errand for him when she is splashed by Maksim’s car. Maksim, it appears, is in wait for her, but she doesn’t know that at the time. Recognizing her boss’s business rival, she refuses to get involved with him, but he offers his help to her.

I liked the way Maksim abandoned his idea to use Grace as soon as he hears her story and realizes he wants her more.

This is a Cinderella story and it wears its clothes lightly, otherwise some aspects of the story would be uncomfortable. Instead of dropping a shoe, she drops a bag of lingerie, and she lives in the basement of her boss’s house. But it’s easy to see the origins, and Lucas intends it that way, making the veil between Cinderella and Grace almost transparent at times.

Grace is a doormat, like Cinderella, and Maksim is a prince, a Russian one to be precise. There isn’t a fairy godmother, thank goodness, but there is an evil ex mistress taking the place of both stepsisters (yawn).

Maksim is delicious. His turnaround halfway through the book is a bit too much to believe, and he deliberately hurts Grace, something I don’t think a hero should deliberately do, but while I hated Ms Lucas’s previous excursion into fairy tale, I enjoyed this one. Very Christmassy.

The epilogue will probably make your teeth ache, but the final scene in the book proper is delicious. Ms Lucas never forgets that this is a Christmas book, and this is one to be savored while sitting under the tree on Christmas Eve.

A B from this curmudgeon. Have a good one.

Grade: B

Summary:

It’s Christmas time in London, and unwittingly Grace is swirled into the sumptuous and scandalous world of Prince Maksim Rostov. When the unworldly secretary learns he took her innocence in exchange for a business deal, broken-hearted she flees.

But when Maksim discovers Grace’s pregnancy secret, the ruthless Russian drags her to his guarded mansion in snowy Moscow. There he’ll keep her as his captive bride and unwilling princess….

Read an excerpt here.

Lynne Connolly’s review of The Innocent’s Dark Seduction by Jennie Lucas
Contemporary romance released by Harlequin Presents 1 Sep 09

You know how you’re supposed to always look for the good points in a book? I decided to do that with this review. 

So – let’s start with the best thing about The Innocent’s Dark Seduction. The line editing is great. I didn’t spot one typo in the whole thing, no silly spelling mistakes, like using “they’re” for “their.” And in these days of silly spelling mistakes, typos and appalling grammar, that’s no mean thing and I’m grateful for it. I would love to see more books like this, with careful line editing that means you don’t stop every five minutes to go, “huh”?

The next best thing? Lia sure knows her brands, knows a designer suit when she sees it. She doesn’t wear a grey silk dress, she wears a Chanel grey silk dress, even if it’s a pre-Lagerfeld shirt dress. She likes expensive clothes, even if they are vintage. And she knows just the hairstyle to go with it, too, a smooth, discreet chignon. She drives a silver grey Aston Martin Vanquish convertible, because when she arrives at her Italian castle, she slams its door. Then she forgets it, because she doesn’t use it again. And when her life is falling apart she is wearing a diamond-encrusted Piaget watch. We know, because she takes a moment to admire it before she notes the time. Roarke’s not far behind, and manages to find a hotel suite in New York that costs $20,000 a night. He remembers the cost when he’s riding up in the elevator with Lia, ready for their second explosive encounter. So classy.

Lia is a good girl. A virgin widow, married to an old friend, who left her all his money when he died, stunningly beautiful, highly intelligent, with a fortune that kind of varies. At one point it’s hinted she’s spent it all. Well, she’s given all her money to buy a large park in the centre of Manhattan as a memorial to her dead sister, and for the benefit of all the children of New York. Isn’t that wonderful? Even if the Roarke wants to buy it and put five skyscrapers on it, to create a kind of alternative downtown. On the Far West Side, I suppose he’d have to install helipads so that the executives could fly between that and Wall Street when they needed to, but with Ground Zero the last real estate available there, he didn’t have much choice. But nasty Roarke isn’t going to get his skyscrapers. So rich he can afford a million dollars for a single dance with Lia, he is the man of her dreams. Our nightmares, Lia’s dreams.

More good things. Roarke certainly knows his mind. True, he treats Lia badly for most of the book, but he knows why. She kept her Big Secret from him, even if it was for his own good. It’s his excuse to treat her worse than dirt on his shoe, ignoring her by day and using her body at night. For months. Roarke has ruined Lia’s life before he met her, taking over and asset stripping her father’s business, so he died, her sister died of a rare illness and her mother killed herself. But the business was going under anyway, so maybe he did Lia a favour. But she is generous and kind-hearted and she falls in love with him despite knowing that. She can’t help herself.

We have a magic vajayjay in this book and I haven’t come across one of those in a while. One experience with Lia and all Roarke’s other women melt away as if they never existed. He can’t do without it. He craves it. He just wishes the woman didn’t go with it. And however badly he treats her, she can’t do without his purple-headed mushroom of passion, or his kisses, which are dynamite. She falls madly for him and the worse he behaves, the more besotted she gets. We don’t have enough of those women in romance. Once there were oodles of them, but not now. If you miss them, this is the book for you.

The grovel scene – go straight there if you’re in a hurry. Great grovel scene, really. Complete 360 degree turnaround from complete bastard to sainted husband and father.

I’m afraid this book didn’t work for me, but what doesn’t work for me may well work for you. And if you want to read a book with a great line edit, I can’t recommend it enough.  And since you’ve got to give kudos for good line edits, from me a…

Grade: D-

Blurb:
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When a passionate possession leads to pregnancy…
.
Roark Navarre is ruthless and relentless. He wants beautiful Lia, and he will have her! When he discovers that she is a virgin, taking his prize becomes even sweeter. But the innocent’s dark seduction has only just begun!
.
Many years ago, Lia was the innocent victim of Roark’s merciless financial ruin of her father. But it’s too late for regrets-soon she finds she’s carrying his child. She doesn’t want Roark, her bitter enemy, to know. Because surely he will do what he’s always done-exact his price!
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Read an excerpt here.