LynneC’s review of Love Without Lies by Lee Wilkinson
Contemporary Romance published by Harlequin Presents 16 Aug 11

and

Innocent in the Ivory Tower by Lucy Ellis
Contemporary Romance published by Mills and Boon Modern Romance 1 Oct 11

I read these books one after the other, and they were both hmm, I don’t know books, but for very different reasons. So I thought it would be interesting to do a compare and contrast. One is a book by a veteran Mills and Boon/Harlequin author, and the other is a debut novel. Both are polished and exactly what you’d expect from the Modern/Presents lines and both are acceptable reads. But for very different reasons.

Lee Wilkinson is a long-term Mills and Boon writer, whose last book seems to have been Captive in the Millionaire’s Castle from 2009. Lucy Ellis is a writer formerly writing as Lucy Snowe (shades of the Brontes?), but I could only find fanfiction under the Lucy Snowe name, so I think we’re safe to assume that she hasn’t done much before this.

In Love Without Lies by Lee Wilkinson, Madeleine is a physiotherapist who deals with a minor injury that Rafe has suffered when he crashes his racing car (of course!) and then she dates him. At first it all seems perfect, then she learns things about him that worry her, and she doesn’t like it.

It’s a Big Misunderstanding book, the kind that can be sorted out if the hero and heroine are honest with each other. But they don’t trust each other enough, or they don’t trust themselves, and they don’t confide. The Big Misunderstanding is really difficult to get right, and even more so in the shorter category format, because the writer has fewer words to do it. It doesn’t work here for me. Madeleine is depicted as a mature woman who is intelligent, knows her own mind, but is sexually inexperienced. However, all her vaunted intelligence flies out of the window when she’s approached by a complete stranger and told that Rafe is a wolf who goes around seducing women and abandoning them. So all that time Rafe has lavished on her and the courting counts for nothing when Madeleine meets a bitch who lies to her. She doesn’t have the sense to do any research online or to just ask him. Oh no.

I do enjoy the dialogue between the couple. It flowed easily, read well, and had a touch of humor that I enjoyed. But the actions of the characters tell another story.

There are a few too many disembodied body parts. It’s a technique that, used sparingly, can be okay, but I wonder that Wilkinson’s editor let so many through: “his hand wandered over her,” “his mouth returned to pleasure her,” “his fingers found the nest of pale curls” – and that’s just one scene. Too many of those and you start to wonder if his body breaks up into little bits that do their own thing independent of their owner. And it starts to get a bit weird.

When Madeleine finds out about Rafe, or thinks she does, she does something so crassly stupid, he goes away. But this is his Big Misunderstanding, because Rafe doesn’t ask and doesn’t wait for an explanation. He just storms off. For two so-called intelligent people, they really act stupidly.

The book is told mainly from the heroine’s point of view. Insights into the hero are few and fleeting. And that makes me wonder. For some reason, the book was published in 2006 in the UK and is only just now coming out in the US, so that explains its slightly old-fashioned approach. Recently, Mills and Boon editors have made a real effort to update the tropes and themes and have taken on quite a few new writers. One imagines that life as a Mills and Boon author is increasingly precarious.

But such as it is, the story is explained smoothly and the story flows. So well that you can predict “they’re going to kiss around here” and “this is where they come back together.” Wilkinson has been writing so long for Harlequin/Mills and Boon that she can probably write one of these books in her sleep.

On the other hand, Lucy Ellis has her debut in Innocent in the Ivory Tower. A more ridiculous title is hard to think of, but Ellis’s original title seems to have been A Russian Affair, which I like much better. For a start, an “ivory tower” tends to indicate, to me at least, a scholar, locked away from real life, not, as in this book, an innocent person living in luxury. So I was expecting something a bit different to the book than I actually got. I know that in biblical terms it means an innocent, but in most uses today, it means an academic locked up in their own world.

Maisy is working for her friends as a nanny to their small child when said friends are killed in a car accident. They leave the guardianship of their son to playboy and tycoon Alexei Ranaevsky. There is a reason, but it’s hard to think of a less qualified guardian. The money is about all Alexei has going for him as far as guardianship is concerned. Maisy, one of the titian-haired, pale-skinned, curvy beauties, is shy, sexually inexperienced and has the magic vayjayjay that captivates Alexei from the start. The book has the rich bitch character and the usual denigration of the sophisticated woman who knows how to dress properly and may have had a little cosmetic work done on the side. That trope really annoys me, the way women who actually make an effort are contrasted against the sweet, innocent, naturally beautiful heroine. Maisy is all those things and unworldly, too. She doesn’t like Alexei spending lots of money on her and she won’t accept the jewelry and clothes he wants to give her. Yep, that’s right, Maisy is one of those heroines you want to slap. Or I do, anyway. I should add if sweet and innocent and not too bright is your fantasy, and I know it is of many readers, then this is so your book.

Alexei is delicious, and Maisy just doesn’t deserve him. He’s Slavic, self-made, and he gives Maisy everything he can, until she forces him to give it all.

The bits that I enjoyed most are the parts that went off-base. There are certain expectations of a Presents novel, and when Ellis obeys them and makes her characters play their allotted parts, the story goes a bit flat and unbelievable in parts. Can anybody these days be that innocent, that stupid? But it’s required for the mechanics of the story. But when Maisy forgets she’s a Modern/Presents heroine and takes her fate into her own hands, I started to warm to her. She becomes an innocent with a mind of her own, and I could see what a story like that could do. But then we are back in the dance.

So while Wilkinson has few problems getting her characters to run along the tracks, you could sometimes see the way Ellis has to force them. I suspect that Ellis received a harder edit than Wilkinson, because there are parts of the story that read listlessly, the kind of read you get when a story is overworked. The rich bitch, for instance, is completely cardboard and is obviously only there to move the plot along a bit and give Maisy yet another reason to doubt herself. However, when she gets drunk and Alexei looks after her, I enjoyed that part. It shows Alexei’s protectiveness and Maisy’s despair and exasperation really well.

Although both these books are Cs for me, it’s for very different reasons. I’d like to see what Ellis produces next, but I’d hate for her editors to pound all the originality and fun out of her voice and style. I’d like to see what she does with different tropes, because there’s definitely a spark there. Wilkinson I haven’t seen for a few years, and this book is an older one. So did she walk or was she pushed? Or is there more to come?

Grade: C

Summary:

Love Without Lies:

The whirlwind romance Rafe Lombard lavished on Madeleine Knight was enough to win him her heart. It was only when she learned of secrets in his past that Madeleine knew he would never be hers. So she ran—as far away as she could…. Rafe is determined to prove that no woman leaves him without his say-so. He is determined to have Madeleine back, and he knows there is only one place to keep her—close by his side…

Read an excerpt.

Innocent in the Ivory Tower:

When purity and passion collide… Nanny Maisy Edmonds is furious when a stranger tries to take her orphaned little charge – stealing a shockingly explicit kiss from her into the bargain! Can infamous tycoon Alexei Ranaevsky really be the child’s godfather? Installed in Alexei’s remote Italian villa, Maisy is intent on protecting little Kostya – and nothing else… Alexei’s childhood-turned-nightmare means he allows himself no emotional attachments. But Maisy’s beguiling sweetness has the uncompromising Russian determined to seduce her down from her inexperienced pedestal

Read an excerpt.

LynneC’s review of  Lone Wolfe (Bad Blood Collection, Book Eight) by Kate Hewitt
Contemporary Romance published by Mills and Boon Modern Romance 1 Sep 11

All through the Bad Blood series, there have been snippets about Jacob – that he took off, spent time in a Tibetan monastery, took up architecture and made himself wealthy. So by the time we get to the last book in the series, Kate Hewitt’s Lone Wolfe, we’ve been primed to expect somebody awesome, deeply flawed, and perhaps with hidden secrets that we don’t yet know about.

From the first book we know that Jacob killed his father, stayed a year, and then left. Some of the siblings resent him for that, some don’t, they understand that he needed to get away. But we don’t know what caused him to leave so suddenly.

I have a few problems with that character. First, you can’t just “pick up” architecture. It requires a lot of training, if the buildings you design aren’t going to fall down. Even the medieval masons have their failures. I might have missed something, but I don’t remember any formal training being involved. So the fact that all of a sudden this man, who has been intent on finding himself, finds how to build large structures isn’t believable.

Also, all this buildup reminds me of numerous books where the last book is built up to such an extent that nobody could do justice to it. So when we find Jacob to be a perfectly acceptable alpha male, it comes as a bit of a disappointment.

The heroine, Mollie Parker, knew Jacob as a child and is friends with his sister, Annabelle. She has returned home from a break in Italy after nursing her father, who had dementia and used to be the gardener on the estate.

Jacob scares Mollie half to death when he accuses her of breaking in. But once they sort things out, he gives her a cheque for her father’s back pay, which his father withheld. Although she’s short of cash and needs some for a project of her own, Mollie doesn’t cash the cheque. I have a few problems with cheques being bandied around, since most of my banks are discontinuing them. I can’t remember the last time I wrote out a cheque. But meh, maybe at this point I’m looking for problems. So let it go.

Apart from her stupidity in not taking money that she’s entitled to, I start to like Mollie. Even when she starts the will-she-won’t-she dance so familiar to Modern/Presents readers. You know she will. They go to London together, and Jacob starts to relax with Mollie around. But he’s the kind of self-flagellating alpha, the “I’m not worthy” kind. They tend to irritate me a bit. Because this bright, intelligent guy who has spent years trying to work out his problems isn’t any further on than he was twenty years ago when he walked out.

There is a lot of introspection on both sides, and they both go through a lot of the I’m-not-worthy stuff. It tends to get old. There are no huge revelations in this last book, and in a way, I’m quite pleased by that, because that can come across as a cheap shot. A twist that most readers have seen in advance anyway. But Jacob needs something to live up to the awesomeness that is the oldest Wolfe, some Yodaness that will make him special. And he doesn’t have it. He’s a perfectly acceptable alpha.

While Hewitt does her best to live up to the rest of the series and wrap it up with a deeply felt book, it just doesn’t get there. Compared to some of the other books in the series, it falls a tad short. I’m not sure what I would have done in Hewitt’s situation. Given a Superman with a tortured soul, it can be really hard to make it work. I did appreciate all the work she did to give him a special character, but maybe it’s that there’s nothing new in the plot. Maybe if Mollie has a real health problem or they’ve been lovers years before or, I don’t know, something that means the book is more than the finale to a series, it might have worked for me better.

And I almost took a full grade off for the ending epilogue, which is so sweet it makes my teeth ache. But I’m guessing she had to write that one. So if you read this, you might like it much better than I did, but do yourself a favour and skip the epilogue.

But then, I’m one of the odd people who didn’t like Devilish when it came out (Rothgar is okay, but Diana is intensely irritating). So you don’t need to listen to me.

Grade: C

Summary:
Jacob…Master. Untamed. Protector.
After years of lying neglected, the walls of Wolfe Manor tremble as the master returns. Reputation in tatters, Jacob Wolfe licks his wounds alone. When Molly Parker takes her tentative steps across the threshold, she brings with her the light missing from his darkened soul. The lone Wolfe will never be tamed – but she knows that once he loves, he loves for life.

No excerpt available.

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.

LynneC’s review of Princess from the Past by Caitlin Crews
Contemporary Romance published by Mills and Boon Modern Romance 1 Feb 11

Fired by my new enthusiasm for Caitlin Crews, I embarked on this book with high expectations. Now I don’t know what to think. Is this a romance?

The story is about a marriage on the rocks. Prince Leo Di Marco has a life of privilege, and he was born into it, so he’s known nothing else. He expects, he gets. He also works hard at his hotel business. Bethany is a sheltered Canadian girl who met Leo after she has nursed her father in his final illness. She’s not indigent, but she’s young. The attraction between them is instantaneous, and they marry, something out of character for them both.

After two years of being pushed aside and expected to behave in a way that she finds difficult, Bethany leaves him, although she still loves him. Three years later Leo comes back for her. He lures her back to Italy on a pretext of giving her the divorce she’s asking for.

The characters are beautifully delineated, so that neither comes across as either stupid or jerk-y. They just find it difficult to fit, their two worlds too different. My heart bleeds for them both. Leo is honorable and hard working, and he has never known what it’s like to be what most of us would consider normal. Formal dinners, flying all over the world on business is normal for him. And his expectations of Bethany are normal for him, too. She was just too young and inexperienced to cope. Add to that the cousins who live in the castle before and made her life a misery by carping on about her not being the wife for him.

Bethany responds with tantrums. She smashes vases and china in a bid for attention. That made me understand more what is going wrong between them. She’s too young, powerless, and wanted the attention he isn’t giving her and that she has a right to expect, and he is confused and exasperated by her behavior, thinking she is behaving childishly. So he let her go and live in his house in Canada, hoping she would grow up. She did. She finishes the degree interrupted by the illness of her father and has some time to herself. When Leo comes back for her, she has more resources to draw on.

This time she doesn’t have tantrums, she tries to talk to him, only to find that he thinks they can continue where they left off. She refuses to accept that. The story has no dramatic events and is set mainly in the castle and its environs, and is all about Bethany and Leo coming to terms with each other and coping with the raging attraction they still feel for each other.

The explanations and the delving into character is done really well.

So why didn’t I like the book more? There are a few reasons that stop me enjoying it as much as Crews’ Shameless Playboy, which I ate up with a spoon. This book is angst, angst all the way, with little relief. Even their first lovemaking session is filled with foreboding and worry, as if they’re indulging in an addiction they know is bad for them. In fact, although they say they love each other, all I see is the sex.

This is a great study of a marriage in trouble, but by the end I’m not convinced that they would last. I could see divorce or separation in their future, as soon as the raging desire for sex fades a bit. I didn’t see any change in Leo’s behavior, except for a slight lifting in his formality. Maybe it is because they have only just begun to unbend. I think if there is another book, showing them building their new lives, working with each other towards the happiness they both want, it would have made for a better book. As it is, the ending is too rushed and too sudden for me to really believe that it will last.

However, it’s very well written, and a study in two people striving to come to a better understanding with each other. It gets the grade because within the constraints of the line, it’s as good as it can be. But it’s unrelenting, grinding unhappiness until close to the end. However, I’m not convinced this is a romance.

If I compare it to a book with a similar theme, Janette Kenney’s Illegitimate Tycoon, the characters in that one are more fully rounded and their happy ending more believable. But there is no doubting that Princess From the Past is well written and definitely worth your while.

Grade: B-

Summary: Behind the imposing walls of the castle, free-spirited Bethany Vassal discovered that her whirlwind marriage to Prince Leo Di Marco was nothing like the fairytale she’d imagined. Before long the forgotten princess ran away, hoping the man she fell in love with would one day see sense and come and find her… Marrying Bethany is the only reckless thing Leo has ever done, and now he is paying the price. The time has come for him to produce a royal heir – and Bethany must return to the castle whence she fled!

No excerpt available.

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  Illegitimate Tycoon (Bad Blood Collection, Book 6) by Janette Kenny
Contemporary Romance published by Mills and Boon Modern Romance 1 Jul 11

I’ve been reading this series hoping to find another gem like the Caitlin Crews book. Although this one doesn’t quite reach it,  for me anyway, it’s still a great read and a different take on the usual Modern Romance line.

By this stage in the “Bad Blood” series, it’s becoming obvious that the authors are trying out slightly different, edgier themes. In this one the hero and heroine have been married five years and are in love with each other. So what’s the problem?

Their careers are tearing them apart.

Rafael is the illegitimate son of William Wolfe. His father deliberately made him feel left out, deliberately taunting him and his mother about his illegitimate status. His siblings made him welcome. But, as a result, he wants to make a family of his own. Rafael has a Brazilian mother, but he was brought up mainly in England, it appears, near Wolfe Manor. He’s a successful businessman and a maker of top-level electronic phones and gadgets. His business has needed constant maintenance and he’s in the habit of traveling often.

Leila is a top model. She works hard on her career and is proud of what she’s achieved. She has a controlling mother, but Rafael rescued her from that and gave her the confidence to soar free. Her job takes her all over the world.

At the start of the story, they meet at a film premiere. Rafael’s newest phone is featured in a new film, he and his brother Nathaniel have financed and directed an indie film, and Leila has a perfume to promote. He reflects that they have met a handful of times in the last year and he wants more.

While Rafael is an alpha male, capable of alpha jerk behaviour, during the course of this book Leila comes to know him better, learn about the childhood he’s never quite left behind. If she’d given in to him, this would have been a C, maybe a D review, but it isn’t. The compromise works, but with a few rough edges.

Kenny lets the reader know enough about Rafael to understand why he sometimes behaves with less-than-perfect sensitivity. That kept me reading, while if I didn’t know the facts about him and how he reacts to it, I might have given up. The line is changing its remit, somewhat, from a Vogler-type story where the heroine is on a quest for a prize – the prize being the hero – to a more richly developed story that involves the hero and the heroine, where both contribute to the internal plot. I love it.

It’s certainly refreshing to read a story about a couple who have problems in their marriage and seek to redress them. They separate and come together, their busy lives are explained enough for the reader to sympathise. And on a less exalted level, we all have problems like this, or most of us do. The answer in this case is to compromise.

There is another event, also typical for the line, but it’s treated with an interesting twist and it forces Leila to face a problem she’s had for most of her life. She’s an anorexic. I absolutely love the way this is treated in this book. Her modeling career isn’t the cause of her problem, but it doesn’t help. She’s had treatment, but the author has obviously done a lot of research, or knows someone involved, because her understanding of this condition furthers mine and helps me to see how anorexia can impact on someone’s life and their subsequent life after they’ve recovered. She doesn’t pull any punches either. Rafael knows that Leila has had this problem and is still fighting the aftermath, and he has also done his research. He worries about her.

The only thing that really mars my enjoyment of this one is that it isn’t as carefully edited as the others in the series. While it’s easier to cope with the cover ballsup, typos and tense inconsistencies are more difficult to ignore. The author uses “that’s” when she means “that was,” for instance. And several times the wrong word is used.

Talk of the cover reminds me. They’ve done it again. The heroine on the cover is a brunette, but Leila is a blonde.

This book is definitely worth your time, and I’d definitely give it an A.

Grade: A

Summary:

Rafael…Illegitimate. Brooding. Proud.
Always an outsider, Rafael spent his life looking in on his priviledged Wolfe siblings. Determined to create the lifestyle denied to him, Rafael worked his way to the top – his marriage to beautiful Leila the icing on the cake! Now his marriage is crumbling. Rafael chased a rainbow – but made his wife feel like she was a trophy… Now it will take all of his courage to win her back…

No excerpt available.

LynneC’s review of Heartless Rebel (Bad Blood Collection, Book 5) by Lynn Raye Harris
Contemporary Romance published by Mills and Boon Modern Romance 17 Jun 11

A bit of desperation setting in on the titles? Jack isn’t heartless and he isn’t a rebel. He isn’t a card sharp, either, he’s an investment manager.

Cara has been brought to Europe as a croupier for a special night, when her boss plans to scam a wealthy card player out of millions. Unfortunately, when it comes to the crunch, Cara can’t do it. Jack realizes that Cara is in trouble when he susses out what’s going on and risks his life to rescue her. He gets a beating for his pains. I wasn’t sure how Cara and Jack get out of this life-threatening situation, it just doesn’t work out right. The boss doesn’t seem to know who his customers are, which is highly unlikely in a high-stakes private card game and gets his goons to beat Jack to a pulp. Later on, Jack has no trouble getting what he wants from him. So that early part seems contrived, to say the least.

Cara is a croupier from a white-trash background, but she’s fighting to succeed. I like that about her. But I don’t find the set up entirely convincing, and then when Jack points out that her boss wouldn’t have let her go, her insistence on believing otherwise is rather annoying. She’s asked to wear an unusually sexy outfit, and then to cheat? She does it for unselfish reasons, of course, and then can’t go through with it. And she thinks she’ll get away with it?

Cara is a bit irritating in her naïveté, and she also has a trope I’m not particularly fond of – she’s supporting the family back home and she needs the money to care for them. Her New Orleans background is described, and her Cajun-style French came in useful in Paris, though, and that is fun, together with Jack’s arousal at the husky, less-than-crisp French. Because Jack tells her he’s no good and not to rely on him at the start of their affair, Cara takes that as gospel, rather than the fact that at the beginning, Jack had risked his life to rescue her. I find that pretty irritating. Cara isn’t a bright girl.

And they keep secrets from each other. Jack is fooling himself that he’s only helping a pretty girl and having a fun affair, while Cara refuses to face herself, as well as Jack. The conflict keeps going a bit too long. Until the reader, in this case me, is saying, “Just tell her already.”

Jack is not a card sharp, he just plays cards well. He is the typical fare for this line – a fabulously wealthy businessman, in his case an investments manager for himself and others, as well as the inevitable charities. I say inevitable, because that is a trope to show the inner goodness of the hero – he gives a lot to charities. He spends hours on investments. I do get a little tired with the comparison between card playing and other gambling to managing investments. If you manage investments like you play cards, then you’re doing it wrong and you’re not going to make any money, much less billions of dollars.

Jack is more interesting than Cara, but barely so, because in this book Harris relies a bit too much on the tropes. I wanted to see more of their characters and how they cope given that situation.

In this book, this parallel isn’t made directly, only that Jack likes taking risks. But it is dealt with too lightly for my liking, and I’d prefer more color in that part of the story to deepen the understanding of Jack’s character. It might be just me, but I’m left with a character, which, while fun to read, is only skin deep.

Grade: D

Summary:

Jack…Red-Hot. Renegade. Restless.

Notorious gambler Jack no longer gets a buzz from the risks he takes at the card table. In fact it bores him. Until one night he wins more than he ever bargained for…

His prize is stunning Cara Taylor – she might be down on her luck but she certainly doesn’t need rescuing by a card-shark like Jack! Now she’s stuck with him she doesn’t know whether to love him or loathe him.

No excerpt available.

LynneC’s review of  Fearless Maverick (Bad Blood Collection, Book 4) by Robyn Grady
Contemporary Romance published by Mills and Boon Modern Romance 3 Jun 11

This one has little connection with the main Bad Blood series, apart from the links the author must have been required to put in. I think it makes it a better book and meant that Grady could write something she’s comfortable with. It has a different feel from the books I’ve read so far in this series and doesn’t make for the best of fits. But in its own right, it’s an enjoyable read.

My only cavil with the main character, Alex, is that he is a race driver. In Formula One, all the drivers are, to say the least, pretty short and I’m not awfully fond of the short hero. I think Grady made Alex tall, and while this is improbable, it’s not entirely unknown, so I could go along with it. And she’s done enough research to make the background believable. She also knows about the duties of a physiotherapist. That extra bit of research makes for a more interesting story and better characters.

I’m a bit uncomfortable with Libby treating Alex and being responsible for signing him back to work while she’s sleeping with him. I think the company would have insisted on a different physio at that point.

Libby was a surfing champion in her day, but a horrific accident stopped her career. Since the nature of her accident is described in the first three chapters, I don’t feel like it’s a spoiler to say that she lost part of one leg and wears a prosthesis. I really love that a not-perfect heroine is put into a book, and I like Libby’s realistic attitude toward what she could and couldn’t do. Of course, she feels sadness, but it gives her a link with Alex, because she knows what it’s like to be a champion.

I’m a little disappointed when it comes to the sex scenes. They are hot and the connection is there, but the issue with her prosthesis is skimmed over. Does she take it off before going to bed or leave it on, for instance. And there are no detailed descriptions of it, so I don’t know if it’s one of the old-fashioned kind or the more sensitive, responsive modern ones. Once the issue is introduced, it’s kind of skimmed over and made light of. A friend of mine who has one tends to have several, as once they’re worn in, switching between them can bring relief, and she always takes it off when she’s relaxing, because however well made it is, it still is a bit of a strain wearing it. I want to know the limitations the disability brought to Libby’s life, not just that she has to overcome her worries about sleeping with a man in her condition. But I know this line has strict length guidelines and Grady does a reasonable job of respecting the problem while not dwelling on it too much.

The conflict is fun, and Libby doesn’t lie down and take all the stuff Alex dishes out, but since Alex has been away from his family, the angst isn’t as strong as it is in other books in the series. He’s made a life for himself that he’s comfortable with. However, he does have issues arising from his background and his profession, and the fact that he lives in Australia is symptom of that. He runs away.

Alex is a devil-may-care type, one of my favorites, and he doesn’t let his awful beginning in life get in the way of living life to the fullest, once he gets his career underway. He makes a nice change to the other angsty heroes in this series.

Both characters are made to face their fears because of their feelings for each other, which is what I love about romance and what keeps me reading. However, while I enjoyed the read, I wanted more. Perhaps that’s a good sign.

Grade: B

Summary:

Alex…Thrill-seeker. Player. Champion.

Driven to succeed, Alex’s only desire is to win. A champion race-car driver, he lives like he drives – fast and reckless! But after a huge crash, his career faces ruin.

Physio Libby Henderson is there to help him get back to fitness, and all Alex wants to do is get physical! Libby’s dealt with more challenging things in life, but it’s taking all of her professionalism to keep this playboy at bay!

No excerpt available.

LynneC’s review of  Restless Billionaire (Bad Blood Collection, Book 3) by Abby Green
Contemporary Romance published by Mills and Boon Modern Romance 20 May 11

Sigh. Another doormat heroine, and I had such hopes for Aneesa.

Aneesa meets Sebastian when he attends her wedding, because he owns the hotel where it’s taking place. Aneesa is to marry a fellow Bollywood star, but she knows he’s gay. She backs out, almost literally, and Sebastian gives her the wedding night she deserves. I found all this charming, hot, and different enough to be really interesting, but after the first section, the book takes a backward step.

Aneesa discovers she’s pregnant. Her career finished, she finds Sebastian in London, and he offers her a room and support for the baby. Of course they become lovers.

Aneesa was a Bollywood star. I didn’t find it believable that her career could be ruined and she’d lose all her money like that. Bollywood stars have faced worse, and if she couldn’t take better care of her money, she’s an idiot or had the worst agent ever. She could do other things that cash in on her fame. Bollywood stars, like their Hollywood counterparts, endorse make-up, jewelry, and other luxury goods. She could have done that.

And there’s a cultural error – in one scene she wears a knee-length dress, although at the beginning she’s going through the big Hindu wedding ceremony. She wouldn’t show her uncovered legs if she’s Hindu. That shook me somewhat. Even if she isn’t a strict Hindu, cultural norms would have made her doubtful about showing her legs in public, probably for the first time ever.

She sticks with the hero, even though he treats her really badly. It is part of the Indian culture to obey your husband, but she’d already eliminated that by living with him outside wedlock.

Sebastian decides he’ll date and treat Aneesa as a friend only. So he puts her up at his London apartment while going on dates. Sheesh. It’s meant to prove to him that he can’t do it anymore, that he’s more involved with Aneesa than he cares to admit, but what a guy. I’d have accepted it more if the date had somehow been set up before Aneesa’s arrival, so he had no choice but to go on it. Not that he’s trying to break away from the inevitable attraction between them or that he’s afraid to get so involved. If there’d been a really great grovel scene, that might have helped, but I didn’t read one in this book.

Even when he and Aneesa sleep together, Sebastian decides it’s a casual thing. Sure, he’ll support the kid, but he doesn’t want anything long term. Because of his past, you understand, the same past he shares with his siblings. No. Just no. Whatever your past, it doesn’t excuse behaving like a jerk, and that’s what Sebastian does.

Mind you, it’s made easy for him. Aneesa feels guilty about landing herself on him, but she doesn’t try to make money for herself so she can move out. She leans on him. Although her traditional Indian background might have lent itself to that attitude, her career would not have done. If her agent was as useless as he seemed to be, she could have done well in London, as is demonstrated on her one, foolish jaunt to Brick Lane, where there is a vibrant Indian community in London. Sebastian rescues her (again) from the inevitable mobbing by fans. I find it hard to believe that she didn’t realize what would happen if she went into an area like that. She just lies around feeling sorry for herself. I find it hard to like Aneesa, although I’d more than welcome other Bollywood heroines in Modern/Presents books. Give me someone more like Silpa Setty and I’m so there.

But as I’ve said elsewhere, one of the worst mistakes is in the cover, something the author has no control over. A Bollywood heroine depicted as a blonde on the cover of the book? Sorry, Mills and Boon, but that’s a big mistake.

I guess these two deserve each other, and when their happy ending comes, I can only sigh in relief.

Grade: C-

Summary:

Sebastian…Sharp. Cool. Controlled.
Ruthless in business, Sebastian is at the top of his game professionally. Emotionally he keeps himself alone, aloof and almost untouchable. Escaping her wedding, it takes one look at ice-cool Sebastian for Bollywood star Aneesa Adani to be hooked! Letting Aneesa in could ignite the fire that melts even the hardest of hearts…

Read an excerpt.

LynneC’s review of  Tortured Rake (Bad Blood Collection, Book 1) by Sarah Morgan
Contemporary Romance published by Mills and Boon Modern Romance 1 May 11

Sarah Morgan leads off the first in a new series from Mills and Boon. Although I usually love her books, this time there are some elements that don’t work for me. They might work better for you.

Rake? For a contemporary? Really? Though I can’t hold that against Sarah, because she doesn’t have much input into the titles.

The hero is Nathaniel Wolfe, the youngest of eight siblings, all damaged one way or another by their controlling, abusive father. Nathaniel witnessed his little sister receiving a savage beating from their father, and then his older brother, Jacob, disappeared after his acquittal. Nathaniel has since become one of Hollywood’s most bankable stars. The story starts when he’s about to take the stage for his London debut, in a modern dress version of Shakespeare’s Richard II. He sees Jacob in the crowd and leaves the stage without uttering a word.

Katie Field is a talented costume designer at the start of her career. Nathaniel cannons into her in his panic, and he takes her with him, fleeing to her flat, where the media won’t find him.

Of course they do.

I found the two characters in this story difficult to like. Nathaniel flees the stage and doesn’t return, despite his ambitions to be a great stage actor as well as a bankable film star. He hides behind the masks he creates and covers his fears behind his handsome face. The production folds when he doesn’t return. He doesn’t give a thought to the people who worked so hard to make the production a success and the financiers who’d put money into it. Insurance would take care of them, but not the people who hoped to advance their careers or stay in paying work.

Katie wears brown, almost exclusively, although she designs beautiful costumes. She seems to have no market savvy but helplessly expects her talent to take her forward. In the world of costume design, she should have an agent at least, someone to push for her, but she has none. And she takes everything Nasty Nathaniel throws at her. He doesn’t exactly treat her well for most of the book, and because he’s tortured, that seems to excuse him. He is pretty nasty to Katie, taking her in bed, enthralling her, then dragging her around with him while he sorts his problems out. I wanted her to slap him from time to time to keep him in line, and I’m not a violent person. Either that, or find a gentler man to love, someone she deserve. I wasn’t entirely convinced that this marriage would end happily, because both need to develop a bit more at the end of the book.

Sarah Morgan’s style is assured and smooth and it takes me through this book. The progressions are great, the sex hot, and the interactions well described. Maybe she’s better when she has more freedom to create her own characters from scratch, but the characters seem a bit squeezed in, as though she had to force them into their molds.

I hate to say I didn’t enjoy this one, because I look forward to her releases, and she is a friend. And yes, I told her I was doing this, and she said I had to do what I think is best. A great sport and a very nice person. I could have declined to review this one because of our relationship, but I didn’t want to leave a book out of the series.

Grade: C-

Summary:

Nathaniel…Icon. Celebrity. Heartthrob. But beneath the movie star’s good looks is a man battling with his past. One night he is forced to rely on Katie Field, an ordinary woman who isn’t blinded by his fame. Can Nathaniel trust her enough to reveal the man behind the mask?

Read an excerpt.

LynneC’s review of In Want of a Wife? by Cathy Williams
Contemporary Romance published by Mills and Boon Modern 1 Apr 11

In this new series from Harlequin, they’ve taken some literary classics and used the themes to make contemporary stories for the Modern line. Seems a difficult request, and from reading the first in the series, I’m not sure it’s an entirely successful one.

I can’t entirely blame Cathy Williams for this, because in some ways she has the worst of the lot. Most romance readers have a copy of Pride and Prejudice on their shelves, and the astonishing success of the BBC’s serialization of the series means many of us picture Colin Firth in this book. Not a bad thing, either.

But how do you love a clever, beautifully written story of early nineteenth century manners and morals and transpose them to the modern day? It just doesn’t work. While Williams does her best to reconcile the stories, there are some serious disconnects that mean this story is neither one thing nor the other, and it fails to entirely convince.

Lizzy Sharp (could we have a sly reference to Vanity Fair here?) meets Louis Jumeau in a snowstorm. Louis has bought the local manor house for his boutique hotel business, and this is Scotland in winter. Lizzy is riding a motor bike, although from the extended conversation she and Louis have on the road, I wonder if Ms. Williams has ever ridden pillion. You can’t have a conversation on a motor bike unless you also have radio transmitters in the helmets. But they manage, due to the magic of romanceland, one imagines.

Louis makes some assumptions about Lizzy and Lizzy about Louis. Lizzy is irritating here, far more TSTL than Lizzie Bennett. She doesn’t just jump to conclusions, she hangs on for dear life and won’t let go, even when she has no reason to think things like that. There is no Lady Catherine in this story, which is a shame, but there are all the sisters, with different fates which more or less parallel the differences in the original.

But some things just don’t work well. The main impetus behind the story, the need to marry, just isn’t there. In the original, if Mrs. Bennett doesn’t get at least one of her daughters married off, once her husband dies, they could find themselves in the poorhouse. It’s more than love, it’s necessity. The desperation adds to Mrs. Bennett’s character, and to the obligations her daughters feel under. And it explains why Lizzie’s rejection of Mr. Collins is so foolhardy, as well as the only decision Lizzie can make. In In Want of a Wife? Lizzy is a teacher in London and she can walk away at any time, with no real hardships for her family. Williams does her best to explain that, but it seems forced and doesn’t work for me.

Mr. and Mrs. Bennett go from clearly delineated, fascinating characters to wallpaper. They don’t come to life, they are just loving parents who want the best for their daughters. The secondary couple, Jane and Nicholas, is also a cipher, just a young couple who want to get married, dissuaded by Louis and then persuaded again.

Louis suffers from being under the shadow of Fitzwilliam Darcy. To be honest, he doesn’t stand a chance. There is none of Darcy’s reticence, almost shyness, that helps to explain his terse nature. Louis is, frankly, a fairly standard Modern/Presents hero, and in many books would be perfectly adequate. But not next to Darcy.

Lizzy and Louis go through their story, and it’s partly because I know the story, not just the end but the bits in between, and partly because comparisons keep popping up that I find this a disappointing, disjointed read, with nothing to lift the story and make me go “hmmm.”

Oh, and the cover? Hideous. That simpering woman is by no means either the Lizzy of this story or the Lizzie of the original.

While I understand that Harlequin wants to take some of the themes and the characters from the books, and not mirror the books themselves, comparisons are inevitable, and, of course, the Harlequin author will suffer. Without the length Austen had to explore the characters, without the leisure to explore and write the characters, they are bound to come off worse.

Grade: D

Summary:

He’s the last man in the world she would ever marry! To Lizzy Sharp, businessman Louis Jumeau is a real-life Mr Darcy: insufferably proud, infuriatingly prejudiced…and impossibly good-looking! Louis knows exactly what gold-digging families like the Sharps are after – his money. But the universally acknowledged truth is that this billionaire needs a wife. Independent Lizzy might not seem the perfect candidate, but her curves are proving powerfully tempting. And the arrogant and well-practised Louis is sure all it will take to wed – and bed! – her is a little seductive persuasion… The Powerful and the Pure When Beauty tames the brooding Beast…

No excerpt found.

LynneC’s review of His Unknown Heir by Chantelle Shaw
Contemporary Romance released by Mills and Boon Modern Romance 1 Feb 11

I always think long and hard before putting up a review of a book that I didn’t like. If I don’t have anything to contribute to the discussion, I’m likely to shrug and put the book aside. But with this one I do have something to say, and, hopefully, it’s of interest.

Recently, Jessica and Tumperkin did a joint review of Michelle Reid’s latest, The Italian’s Future Bride. Parts of that story annoyed them. Well, this is a new release from the Modern/Presents line and it annoyed me with tropes that were either old-fashioned, insulting to today’s woman, or inadequately thought-out. Perhaps all three. Jessica and Tumperkin had similar issues.

Harlequin books are basically coffee-time books. A book to read when you’re taking a break from real life. But they have to reflect real life enough to make a believable read, even if the world isn’t populated by relatively young, extremely rich businessmen in their early thirties who all know how to dress well and beautiful, put-upon heroines. You buy into that when you buy a book from this line, but this, this was too much for me.

This book is a secret baby book with knobs on. Right at the start in the prologue we are given the moment that Lauren decides not to tell Ramon that she is pregnant, when he makes it clear that he regards her as his mistress, nothing else, and that in the fullness of time he will marry someone of his own station and have suitable children.

While I can understand her anger and humiliation, nothing, in my opinion, gives anyone the right to keep a secret like that from the father. I’ve read secret baby stories that have, despite the odds, worked, but this wasn’t one of them. Lauren has no excuse other than her determination not to tell Ramon about the baby. She acts like a spiteful teenager who wants to deprive her baby of the wealth and privilege that he could have by birth. While at this stage she doesn’t know that Ramon is a Spanish duque, she does know that he’s very rich and influential in the business world, although, considering Ramon is a tabloid favorite, it’s hard to know how she could have been ignorant of the fact.

Oh yes, and later on in the story, when Ramon reappears, it seems to be assumed that the baby, Mateo, is Ramon’s heir after he marries Lauren. As far as I know, Spanish law is like the British variety, and titles of nobility can’t be passed onto illegitimate children, even if the parents marry after the birth. No dukedom, or duquedom, for Mateo.

At this stage in the story, there is not even consideration of a termination. With Lauren so determined about not telling Ramon, and with a demanding career that she’s worked years to attain, it seems like the natural choice for her. But it isn’t even discussed. I can understand that this is a marketing decision by HMB, in that some of the readers might not agree with that, and the anti-abortion lobby is vocal and even violent in the USA, but if they want to avoid it, don’t set up this kind of situation. Lauren isn’t religious, she doesn’t have any convictions, and so for a woman in her position, that’s the obvious solution. It might have made for a more interesting book, although not a long one. Personally, I dislike the HMB attitude to termination. It doesn’t make a woman “bad,” and it doesn’t mean she won’t have children in the future and it annoys me when a woman doesn’t take the rational view, but instead goes off on a I-can’t-possibly-terminate-his-child rant of guilt. It would certainly have solved their problem.

The use of the word “mistress” is something I find confusing in HMB romances. It’s unsuitable for a contemporary, outside the realms of the gutter press who sometimes use it for effect, but in this book the real meaning to the coded word is made more than clear. In this context, “mistress” means “prostitute” or maybe even “fuck buddy” without the buddy bit. Albeit one man at a time.

Despite Ramon’s insulting behavior, at this point in the story my sympathies are with him because of Lauren’s choice. Her reason, that her father walked out on her and her mother, seems petty and even irrelevant. Certainly not enough to merit such a momentous decision.

So they part, and fourteen months later, Ramon seeks out Lauren again. Here’s where he loses my sympathy. Lauren is a lawyer specializing in commercial property, working for a big London firm. She is called into her boss’s office to be told that she will work for Ramon exclusively on a project. So Ramon has used his “tycoon” status to get her back, and at this stage he doesn’t know about the baby. What’s more, she’s expected to work from his penthouse, the place where they used to make love on a regular basis. Coercion and nasty manipulation, he has it.

At this stage, Lauren could have gone back to her boss and come clean. He already knows about the baby, and if she explains the whole situation to him, he’d have known that he’s in extremely dangerous legal waters and wouldn’t have allowed her to take the job anyway, no matter how hard Ramon pushes for her.

Of course, Ramon soon seduces her and then discovers about Matty, and is, understandably, angry. He then threatens to take Lauren to court for custody, because she shoves him into daycare all day and he can take better care of her (how? By employing nannies? Whoop-de-doo). Double standards, he has them, too. This was where I get angry instead of irritated.

There are plenty of working, single mothers out there who do very well, and this book is an insult to them. Daycare doesn’t equal neglect. Instead of defending herself, Lauren goes into guilt mode. She also shrinks like the proverbial violet from the thought of a court case. This is a lawyer, folks, and although her specialism lies elsewhere, she’d surely know about the legal ramifications. The court wouldn’t give Ramon custody just because he’s richer than Lauren, however much money he throws at the case. She could threaten in return, and she would be highly likely to win because she’s the mother and because she has a good record of care where her child is concerned. Only in areas of neglect would the courts seriously consider awarding sole custody to the absent father, and there is no evidence of neglect here. So why did Lauren decide to go to Spain with him and let him take care of Matty? Here, I think, is where the motivation of the characters is too weak to overcome the trope. If she feels overwhelmingly guilty, then maybe. But although there is a mention of it, there is more mention of Ramon’s hawtness. Oh, yes, and how about a court case for inappropriate behavior while she’s working for him? Sure as hell she’d win that one.

Like many HMB heroines, Lauren loses all her mental faculties in bed. He seduces her and she regresses to teenagerdom, the equivalent of the fangirl squee. Ramon continues to treat Lauren like shit and misunderstands her feelings and her motivations, although he, like her, loses any maturity he might have between the sheets. He uses sex to manipulate her into changing her mind, and he does it with a cold-blooded calculation that made me decide that perhaps he did deserve Lauren after all. It ends with Lauren happy to give up her career, although to do him justice, Ramon does find out the way she could become a lawyer in Spain. That part I liked, but it was too little, too late.

I have other issues, notably the Beautiful Bitch Ex-Mistress, but that on its own wouldn’t have been enough to put me off. And the drunken colleague, who is seen off by the macho hero.

So, a hot mess of a book. I can’t decide whether Chantelle Shaw was pushed for time and just turned out a book, whether her editor destroyed her original intentions, or whether it’s just that the tropes have reached the end of their lives. A good book might have been possible, but the appalling behavior of both the hero and the heroine made me angry rather than entertained, irritated rather than involved in their dilemmas. I’ve read some great Mills and Boon/Harlequin/Silhouette books recently that tell a wonderfully romantic story without insulting my intelligence, but this one breaks all the rules, and not in a good way.

And here’s where an author writing a review might have a different viewpoint. You often see comments by disgruntled authors receiving bad review that miss the point. They will say, “Let’s see her write one!” But in this case, yes, I could write a better story than this one. I’d make Lauren discover she was pregnant after she’d walked out on Ramon, and then not be able to get in touch with him to tell him the news. Very wealthy people can effectively block access to their presence. I’d definitely make her not a lawyer but in a different profession, so that by the time she discovers he’d stepped into seriously actionable behavior, it would be too late and she’d agreed to marry him. I wouldn’t have Ramon take her to his penthouse and a spurious “office” there. That’s totally unacceptable and there’s really no need for it. If she needs to go to his apartment, she could take an important document there, just to deliver it or something similar. The emotions, not the tropes, and the motivations beefed up a bit. I’d also make the bitch ex-mistress come and see her later, and say, well, the best woman won and all that. Just because I’m tired of the irredeemable bitch thing.

Grade: D-

Summary:

She committed a sin. And hides a shocking secret. Ramon Velaquez, heir to the Velaquez winery, clearly stated his cardinal rule to Lauren Maitland – he can’t promise her more than a red-hot affair. Whilst she heard the words, her heart wasn’t listening, and her punishment for falling in love was to be sent away. Two years later, and Ramon still can’t escape the memories of the woman he banished. But when he finds Lauren again she’s independent, strong, and harbouring a shocking secret.

Read an excerpt.

Since I’ve started writing romances, I’ve heard no end of times that the category romance is easy to write for. Not from the people writing them, but the people reading them, with the addendum “I’d write one myself, but I don’t have the time. After all, how hard can it be?” So after three attempts at writing one, I think I have the answer.

Romance writers come at the task from different directions. A story, in order to be successful, has to have two forms of conflict – internal and external. And by “conflict,” I don’t mean two people arguing, then making up, arguing and making up over and over again. Or even coming to blows. I mean the things that are stopping them getting together. If they meet, sleep together, fall in love and marry, there’s not much of a story. It’s what happens to stop them that makes it really interesting. The conflicts can come from inside and out. There’s “I’m not worth loving, so nobody will love me,” (internal) and there’s “Shit, that monster attacking me wants to kill me. But he’s so hot!” (external).

Most people (including me, ten years ago) who want to write romance tend to start with the external. It’s easier to write, easier to visualise and much easier to make a story out of it, or it is for me, anyway. If the protagonists are constantly running away from the bad guys and getting shot at, a story is much easier to keep rolling. But it’s not a romance if they don’t have that external push and pull, as well. It took me a few attempts to learn that one. More, to learn that a romance that stays with the reader is the one with more internal story than external. Memorable characters with real problems, not contrived ones, people the reader can care about and root for, whatever their situation.

I write paranormal romance and historical romance. In both there are built-in conflicts, but the more I write, and the more I read, the more important the internal story becomes, for me at least. And it’s hella difficult to get right. For most of my career I’ve been interested in instalove and the conflicts that engenders. What if you instantly fall for the most unsuitable man around? What if he falls for you? How do you know it’s the real thing, and how do you cope with the seismic shifts in your life? I’m still interested in that, but the falling in love process is also beginning to have an insistent pull.

I’ve read Mills and Boon Moderns (Harlequin Presents) a lot, even more in the past couple of years. They’re short, easy reads, and they have a comfort feeling about them. There are well-worn tropes, beloved of the reviewer – secret babies, big misunderstandings, revenge plots and so on. The hero is always alpha, a leader, and the heroine a Cinderella type. These are, as successful Modern author Penny Jordan explained to me a few years ago, fairy stories set in modern times.

But the tropes are there because the authors have to make the inner life far more important. In the 50,000 words they’re allotted, they have no time to set up elaborate fantasy worlds or the nuances of history (which is why the historical romance authors are allowed a slightly longer word length). It’s the core, the basis of romance – what internal forces are driving the hero and heroine apart.

Because I started from the other end, the complex worlds and the detail. I still love writing that, I guess I always will, but I thought it would be good for developing my skills to strip that all away and work with the internal life of the characters only.

I tried to write one earlier this year, and ended up with a story that had bombs and violence in it, as well as the love story. Well, I just couldn’t resist. I’d planned this story set in Naples and New York, and nobody could have been more surprised than me when the mob showed up and started throwing firebombs. But it seemed such a good way to develop the story that I couldn’t resist. Now I have a 75,000 word story that wouldn’t fit in the Modern line, and I don’t know what to do with it. But writing it was a blast. Oh yes, and it turned out a bit hotter than I’d planned, too. The two protagonists couldn’t keep their hands off each other.

So I’ve started again. This time my protagonists are more Modern-ish. A heroine who is the daughter of a wealthy man, forced to marry another wealthy man because of a business deal. How hard could it be?

The answer is, very.

But I’m not doing this just to sell a book. In fact, the chances of selling a book to the line is really low, because of the thousands of queries they get every year. I’m doing it to force myself to concentrate on the internal conflict, and to improve my writing in general. If a writer isn’t constantly trying to improve, maybe she should ask herself why. I’ve built a reasonably successful career, but there is no way on earth I want to write without trying to improve what I do. There is always, always room for improvement. If I were writing books just to make money, I might as well give up and start flipping burgers, because the hourly rate is so much better!

The tropes are there, because they’re not as important as what is going on in the heads and hearts of the protagonists. When a Modern fails, it’s often because the inner lives aren’t believable, or just don’t work. The eternal virgin, the magic vayjayjay that converts a hardened philanderer into a one-woman man, the sexy tycoon (I’ve met a lot in real life, but sexy doesn’t describe most of them, to put it mildly), the I’ve-been-shafted-by-one-woman-so-all-women-are-worthless trope. When used skilfully, they can be shortcuts to an exploration of inner feelings, and when the hero and heroine finally lay aside their preconceptions, it can be a great read. When used to provide a quick thrill, they usually fail, or provide a ho-hum read.

Working to make these people special and specific, individuals instead of types, is hard, especially when there are no frills in the way, details of scene and setting, to distract. I’m loving it. I don’t know how successful it will be, and God knows I have other stories to write, but I had to get this one out before I started on the next.

Which is one that I’m looking forward immensely to writing, and dreading at the same time. The last Richard and Rose book in this cycle. I really need a clear head for that one. Meantime, if you want a failed Modern romance about a millionaire, a woman trying to start a new life for herself and the Italian mob, I’ll keep you posted. I’ll start submitting it soon, and we’ll see if it can succeed on its own.

The process has given me an immense respect for those authors who keep writing the stories and, for the most part, keep them fresh and new. I still don’t know how they do it. That doesn’t mean I’ll be getting softer in my reviews. I’ll still be telling it like it is, saying when a story doesn’t work for me and why. It’s given me new insights, which I hope will help me develop as a writer.

And I should mention that I have a new Cougar story coming out at the end of December. Sunshine on Chrome. It’s part of the Cougar Challenge series, something I’ve so enjoyed working on that it’s almost shameful. I’ll probably write something about that, sometime, because the trope has a grip on me and I have a feeling I’ll write more.

LynneC’s review of Untouched Until Marriage by Chantelle Shaw
Novel released by Mills and Boon Modern Romance 6 August 10, Harlequin Presents March 2011

A fairly good read, with some rough edges

In terms of plot, Chantelle Shaw writes pretty standard Harlequin Mills and Boon books with hot millionaires and innocent heroines. Well, somebody has to. There were one or two things that put me off slightly, although Shaw worked hard to make it acceptable, and anyone less squeamish than me will have no problem with it.

Let me explain. Raul meets Libby in the slum of a seaside gift shop, where she is looking after his baby brother. He believes she was his father’s mistress, and bore his son, whereas she is the baby’s half-sister. Her mother, a wild child and latterly lap dancer, met his adoptive father on a cruise and was only made aware of his son’s existence shortly before his own death.

So Raul decides to marry Libby and fancies the pants off her despite believing that she was his father’s mistress. Now Raul is adopted and Libby isn’t related to him in any way, so it’s quite all right for them to hop into bed together. No problem there. But the thought of anyone sharing a woman with his father, for his man-thing to go into the same place as his father’s man-thing made me shudder. Is that wrong of me? Probably, and of course the misunderstanding is sorted out on their wedding night when he discovers that she is a virgin.

I think Shaw missed an opportunity here. I’d have had him squeamish, but forced into compliance by his need to control his father’s business, half of which was left to the baby Gino in his father’s will, with his mother controlling the shares until the baby came of age. Then he discovers his wife is a virgin, realises he’s her first, and feels relief. Instead he goes into the usual alpha-fueled rage that she lied to him. Boring. I wanted more of him and his feelings, not just his immediate reactions to Libby. He goes through all the usual reactions, disbelief, betrayal, fury, and then adoration. No surprises there.

Libby was a devoted foster mother, and the baby was her reason for accepting him. She doesn’t care about his money, only what it will bring to Gino, and when he tries to buy her expensive things, only accepts reluctantly. She dresses in clashing colours and has red hair, which didn’t really endear me to her, because she is supposed to be an artist, and I thought she might have a better sense of colour. My bad. But what really didn’t work for me was Libby being 22 years old. I know some 22 year olds, and while they’re capable of being mothers, and indeed caring for 36 year old men, I found it sad that she didn’t have a chance to be properly young and feckless.

It is a hallmark of HMB heroines that they don’t, in general, ever have a wild past. Unlike Blaze heroines, who have been known to kick out the jams on occasion. Even dressed in garish clothes Libby was too staid for me, and her artistry didn’t permeate into her character, only into her appearance.

The other thing that squicked me a tad was the age difference, but then it always has. I know there are successful May/December romances, but when I read Heyer as a teenager, in my mind I always made the heroine older or the hero younger, so there wasn’t a massive age difference between them. It just seems a bit sad that anyone misses such a big chunk of experience and rushes straight into One True Love and marries. But that is some people’s ideal, so you might love it. The fantasy of the older protector is a strong one, and HMB has used the trope highly successfully for years, so it might be just what you’re looking for.

However their emotions and reactions were predictable, and pretty standard. Except for the wedding night, which I thought was much more realistic than many I’ve read in this line. Libby is a virgin, and her reaction to Raul’s lovemaking is much closer to how it must be for a young woman to have as her first an older, more experienced man who assumes she knows what she’s doing.

One of the best things about the book, and the reason I keep reading Chantelle Shaw is her writing ability. She had a great way with words and some of the best parts of the book are her descriptions of the villa in Italy and its appearance by day and by night. She has a real talent for drawing a reader into a scene. The sex is hot and explicit, and the connection between Raul and Libby, after the first trauma, is fun to read. I can’t help thinking just how explicit the Presents/Modern line has grown in the last few years. My mother would have been shocked.

Grade: C

Summary:

Mother of the Carducci heir…or innocent virgin?

When infamous Raul Carducci learns that a little baby may challenge his inheritance he will stop at nothing – a new Carducci heir will not take away what is rightfully his.

To safeguard baby Gino, unassuming Libby Maynard has been forced to pretend she is his mother – but she hasn’t counted on having to convince the wolfish Raul Carducci of her deception.

And when Raul, with his achingly seductive voice, asks her to marry him, Libby is powerless to refuse…even if their wedding night will blow her cover!

Lynne Connolly’s review of Mistress at What Price? by Anne Oliver
Contemporary Romance published by Harlequin 13 Jul 10

I said in a previous review that I wouldn’t be reading Harlequin Presents if I didn’t tolerate the tropes that come up. This book proves that you can use them and still come up with a good, heartfelt read about people with more depth to them than a piece of paper. This is a good one.

Anne Oliver is a writer who comes up with some goodies and some that are standard Harlequin reads, but she’s usually worth a look. But after a disappointment or three, I didn’t have high expectations when I came to this one. Harlequin, I thought, is losing it.

I’ll keep on reading, thanks to this one. Mariel is a refreshing 27, and she’s not a virgin. I loved that, and the fact that she’s nearly 6 foot tall. She was working as a photographer’s model, but has come back to Australia after a scandal ended her career. A scandal not of her making. She wants to start again as a designer. And she meets old flame Dane. Their affair ended before it had begun, with her finding Dane in flagrante with someone else.

But now she’s back, and Dane and Mariel are strongly attracted to each other. Wealthy Dane offers Mariel a deal – he’s been voted Bachelor of the Year and he’s sick of the press attention. He wants to show the world he has a regular girlfriend and get out of the deal, even though he did it in the first place for his personal charity.

I liked Dane’s charity (bringing computers to the outback) and I liked that the setting meant something in this book. I enjoy books set in Australia, but I prefer them to have a flavour of the place, not to have it as a mere setting. And glory be, the hero talks like an Australian, using occasional phrases that I enjoyed (Strine is one of the best versions of English that there is, IMO!) I also liked Mariel. She’s competent, intelligent, and she doesn’t do anything stupid for the plot’s sake. I could enter into her dilemma with her, that she and Dane weren’t going to get serious, and when she finds herself falling for him, she wants out before he realises, because she doesn’t want him to find out and get hurt, or feel obliged in any way. I could buy into that because Dane, despite his insecurities, was a nice man and never intentionally hurt or upset her.

I also liked that we don’t get the meaning of his nickname for her—Queen Bee—until nearly the end of the book, and it’s a definite “aw” moment, so I won’t spoil it for you. They are romantic and loving without getting too mushily sentimental or making my teeth drop out with the sheer sugariness of their ending.

The medical stuff towards the end of the book is believable, too (it happened to a friend of mine). Oliver has done enough research to make it work, without overwhelming the reader and making it a Medical Romance.

I wanted Dane and Mariel to have their happy ending because I thought they deserved it. Grown up people, about the same age, fighting through their insecurities and the hand that life has dealt them to get their happy ending. Good one, Anne Oliver. Thanks for the read.

Grade: A

Summary:

Struggling fashion designer Mariel has never forgotten Dane Huntington, or his cruel rejection of her. But now, years later, the red-hot chemistry is still there and the devilish tycoon has a tantalizing deal to offer her.

He’ll help Mariel set up her dream business—if she will help him distract the paparazzi by playing his adoring mistress! Of course, both Dane and his offer are irresistible…but now the man who broke her heart is the father of her unborn child….

Read an excerpt.

LynneC‘s review of Mia and the Powerful Greek by Michelle Reid
Category novel released by Mills and Boon Modern/Harlequin Presents July 10

Like many prolific Harlequin writers, Michelle Reid is sometimes great, and sometimes not so great. For me, this was a not so great.

Mia is discovered just before the death of her father’s wife. She’s his illegitimate daughter, and basically, a Cinderella. Although her mother is married to a powerful man, Mia was brought up by her aunt in poverty. While a reason is given for Mia’s rejection by her mother, there was no explanation of why her aunt was kept short of money, and at one  point there is mention that her mother sent maintenance money. It seemed a bit forced to me.

When Mia goes to meet her biological father, he tries to care for her, but with his wife on her deathbed, and later, seven more daughters to take care of (no guesses as to how many books will be in this series – the daughters plus the secret son nobody knows about – that’s just a guess) he finds her hard to cope with. She’s shy, reticent, and she likes sewing. Any more Cinderella references and I might just have given up. There is shy and there is doormat. Even a shy girl knows when to draw the line. Perhaps after the man she wants sleeps with her and then blames her for it and disappears for a couple of months? I think I might have tried to beat his girlfriend tally with boyfriends. Or maybe when he admits he got carried away and didn’t use protection? He’s a man-slut. And Mia doesn’t know about contraception, doesn’t realise he should have used a condom. Bad upbringing, I call that. Pregnant, maybe with a disease, she still hangs around.

Nikos is the usual alpha male with a dark secret, a secret most readers will have worked out long before he vouchsafes it to Mia at the end of the book. He treats her like shit, and she lets him, although thank goodness, she does let fly occasionally. But when she does, it tends to be in a hysterical way, and then she hangs around so that he can devour her with passionate kisses. Me, I would have walked. But Mia never does. Which makes her a bit of a doormat.

Reid’s style irritated me a tiny bit from time to time. Exclamation! Marks! Less of them, please! I read the British version so maybe they’ll change that for the US version, but I doubt it. And the characters never say anything. They husk (the hero needs good throat candy), they rasp, they invite, they confide – you get the picture. And when they say, it’s often qualified with an adverb, one of my pet dislikes.

So occasionally the style brought me out of the book, with a slightly irritable, “Why don’t they just say?”

There are some nice touches. The way Nikos refuses to have locks in any of his houses, except on the outer doors, and then leaves all the doors open (why didn’t he live open plan, I wonder?) and Mia actually does answer him back sometimes. She doesn’t completely suffer in silence. She takes the cast off dresses of her stepsisters, but does it because she can’t abide waste, not because she’s kept short of clothes. It’s a kind of return to the old days, when men were abusive and women suffered, only to win through in the end. And did I mention that she’s only 21? A bit of an ick factor for me, I’m afraid. But as ever, YMMV.

Grade: C-

Summary:

While scrubbing floors, Mia dreams of a better life. Then she discovers she’s a Balfour – the illegitimate daughter of one of the world’s richest dynasties! Thrust headfirst into her new family’s spectacularly glamorous lifestyle, she’s scared..
But then comes an opportunity to learn about high society, through the chance to work for Greek tycoon Nikos Theakis, who struggled his way up, himself, from the slums of Athens to Millionaire’s Row. Nikos has got where he is by always having taken what he wanted.. Until Mia’s sweetness and integrity stop him in his tracks. Read an excerpt.

Lynne Connolly‘s review of Desert Prince, Blackmailed Bride by Kim Lawrence
Contemporary romance released by Harlequin Presents 1 Nov 09

Another daft title, but a bit more accurate than some I’ve read recently, where the title seems to have been drawn out of a hat.

I enjoyed this one. Like most HMB’s it suffers from the shoehorn aspect, where certain aspects have to be there, but in this one I could believe in the 24 year old virgin, and it’s not for any angsty reason, either. But I am getting tired of the “he stilled above her” moment in the Presents books.

Gabby arrives in Zatara trying to help her brother, who is in prison accused of drug smuggling. Although she will do anything to free him, she accepts that he’s a feckless person, so it’s not a case of blind love.

When she meets Rafiq, she thinks he’s in the palace clandestinely, but she doesn’t think that way for long.

I really liked Rafiq, who had a proper sense of duty. It overwhelmed him somewhat and certainly needed moderating, but he started from a good point. I didn’t believe the first scene, where the doctor tells him he’s dying, because he’s the hero and this a romance, and, well, heroes don’t die in romances, do they? But nobody else took it terribly seriously, either.

And the news should have brought his father, who remains absent throughout the book, even when Rafiq marries (this happens late in the book, but it’s in the official blurb so I’m mentioning it too).

Gabby has enough spirit to be interesting and not enough to be irritatingly feisty. She is the blonde, slight beauty that is so not Rafiq’s type, and her refusal to play dress-up can be irritating. Also the insistence on “designer” as if they are interchangeable. Everything is designed by somebody, and without the names the reference becomes fairly meaningless, it’s just a synonym for “expensive.”

However, their falling in love is believable and you get to see it and share it, which is the most important part of a Harlequin romance and that’s why I enjoyed the book.

Grade: B+

Summary:

Rafiq Al Kamil, heir to the desert kingdom of Zatara, thinks innocent Gabby will be the perfect convenient wife for his brother. But Gabby isn’t as biddable as she seems…

Now Rafiq will have to persuade her! Except the more time Rafiq spends with Gabby the more he wants her—in his own bed. But when he discovers she’s a virgin, the earth collapses under his feet. Suddenly, having her as his mistress is not enough— Rafiq demands she become his bride!

Read an excerpt here.

Lynne Connolly’s review of Blackmailed into the Greek Tycoon’s Bed by Carol Marinelli
Contemporary Romance published by Harlequin Presents 7 Aug 09

This one I loved, despite it having a few strikes against it. First, it’s a rugby book. HMB decided to do one book a month with a rugby theme, and with a few honourable exceptions, they’ve been unmitigated disasters. One in particular breaks the rules of the game several times during the course of the story.

This one understood the passion the fans had for the game and used it as a background, and it was all the better for that. Used in that way, the rugby background provided a non-intrusive, but unusual tinge to the story, and actually enhanced it.

To all intents and purposes, Karin Wallis is a rich, spoiled girl, but the reality is very different. Yes, this is a Cinderella story but with a realistic feel about it. Her grandfather had been a star of rugby and an all-round good egg, but her parents and her brother dissipated the family fortune while wanting to keep up appearances. So much like so many of our revered families today (why does the word “Spencer” come to mind?)

What I loved about this story is that during the course of it, Karin goes from doormat to someone who is prepared to do something about her situation, and do it independently of the hero. She sorts her own life out, thank you very much, and if you listen very hard, you can hear me cheering her on.

Xante Rossi, our Greek shipping tycoon hero, has dragged himself up from being a poor fisherman’s son to one of the richest men in the world. A bit like Regency dukes – lay them end to end and they’d encircle the earth. But Marinelli goes a bit further than the usual rich, handsome, domineering blah, she shows the scars and the difficulties in Xante’s character. He doesn’t trust easily, but he’s intelligent enough to see there is something behind the heroine’s prickly behavior. He realizes it’s not all about him. (Hoo-yah!)

There is an initial misunderstanding, but it’s reasonable, considering the front Karin’s family has been putting up, but when Karin steals the jeweled rose he has bought from her brother without her knowledge, a rose that belonged to her grandfather, he knows there is more to it than a spoiled woman taking what she believes she’s entitled to, despite her protestations to the contrary. (You do realize that’s such a long sentence my editors would have made me change it? Ha!)

Sometimes you wonder how these heroes got where they were, because they are sooo stupid they can’t see when a naïve woman is fooling them. Not this one. He will take so much, and then he realizes he can’t force her, can’t change her life for her, and trusts her enough for her to gain the courage and resolution to do it for herself.

There’s a side issue. Karen has ugly scars on her arm and breast, legacies of a car accident. She’s embarrassed about them, has shown them to a previous boyfriend (a non virgin heroine, hallelujah!) and he rejected her. I did become a trifle bored with that, but Marinelli uses it as a trust issue. When she trusts Xante enough to show him everything, all of her, then they have reached the place they want to be.

So all in all, a good book and one I really enjoyed. A solid B+ from me. I wanted to know more about Xante’s fortune and how he built it up and at the beginning the misunderstandings made me a tad frustrated, but apart from that, go for it, because this is a good one.

Grade: C-

Bookish heiress Karin has failed in her first act of defiance She’s tried to take back the symbol of everything good in her life, but ruthless billionaire Xante Rossi has caught her red-handed

Why is this shy beauty stealing from him? Xante is intrigued. Karin’s purity belies the corruption her family name represents.

To save her from scandal and uncover the truth, he’ll make a proposal. If Karin wants her precious heirloom, she’ll have to earn it back in his bedroom.

Read an excerpt.

Lynne Connolly’s review of The Sicilian’s Marriage Arrangement by Lucy Monroe
Contemporary romance released by Harlequin 1 Feb 07 (U.S. rls date)

I have to say that this isn’t my favourite Monroe book. I usually enjoy her books, but not this one.

My personal hot button was pushed when I learned that the hero was 42 and the heroine a young 25. When that happens I usually ‘imagine’ them closer in age. In the main HMB lines, it can be more of a problem because of the relative power. The hero is always alpha, always a powerful megatycoon or the equivalent and the heroine is usually the virginal, innocent type. Certainly in this book that was the case.

What made it worse was that the heroine was involved as a friend with the hero’s son, who was much closer to her age, and the son had feelings for her too.

Ick. She sees the son as her friend. But dude, no. As a result there is some father/son rivalry over the same woman, which made me feel distinctly uncomfortable.

Add to that, the hero and heroine keep falling out with each other and every time it happens, she runs away. I never felt that Luciano was a fully realized character, he never came alive for me.

I did like that Hope was a real waitress and proud of it, though there is a point later on in the book that made me cheer, because I was thinking “Okay, she’s a waitress” when it got to that point. And the hero actually does some work of an executive nature, which was a nice change. The chemistry between the hero and heroine is lacking, too. I didn’t really believe in their happy ending, I could see divorce maybe five years or so in their future, when he grows up a bit and he wants a bit more – well, more personality, maybe.

It won’t stop me getting more Monroe books, though. It might just be my thing, that father/son rivalry over the same woman isn’t for me. So for this one…

Grade: C-

Summary:
.
Hope Bishop is stunned when darkly sexy Sicilian tycoon Luciano di Valerio proposes marriage. Brought up by her wealthy but distant grandfather, she is used to fading into the background and being ignored.
.
But Luciano’s sensual lovemaking makes her feel vibrantly alive. Hope falls in love with her husband and is blissfully happy–until she discovers that Luciano ruthlessly married her…for convenience!
.
Read an excerpt.