LynneC’s review of A Dark Sicilian Secret by Jane Porter and Bound to the Greek by Kate Hewitt
Contemporary Romances published by Mills and Boon Modern 1 May 22 and 1 Jan 11
The next two books I read have similar themes, but while one works for me, the other doesn’t.
So for the failure first, Jane Porter’s A Dark Sicilian Secret. This is a DNF. I hate those, I feel as if I’ve paid for nothing, so I do try to read the books I get.
The heroine in this one drives me crazy. Let me explain. She meets Vittorio, who she calls Vitt, falls for him, sleeps with him and gets pregnant with his baby. Unknown to him, she’s been involved with criminal elements before, and she knows how to change her identity and run. So when she gets pregnant, she runs. Turns into a blonde, changes her eye color with contacts, changes her name. Vitt has no problem with that. Although his family was mafia in the old days, they’ve been going straight for a while and they have a chain of successful hotels and resorts (what is it with the Modern/Presents line and hotels?) From the beginning Vitt knows where she is. He’s provided her with a job and safe haven. She has his child and he wants it back.
First, how stupid is the heroine? She’s used to hiding, and yet she’s offered a great job, a nice place to live and a babysitter on a plate? I just don’t buy it. Either she’s savvy or she’s not. The heroine of this book is as innocent as a newborn babe. She’s told by an 18-year-old chambermaid that her husband is mafia, she looks him up on the net, doesn’t realize that several people in his family bear the same name and jumps to the wrong conclusion? What world are we in?
And when Vitt finds her, he’s the typical alpha jerk. He takes over her life, without compunction, and she folds. Just collapses. By this stage I’m thinking that they deserve each other, and I realize that I don’t care about either of them, except that they keep each other off the streets. So I gave up.
My other problem with this book is in the style. There are an irritating plethora of tags. Speech tags (“She said,” “she thought,” “she reasoned”) all those. They are usually attached to a speech when the author can think of nothing else to do. They are liberally sprinkled into every conversation, every thought, so we are constantly reminded, even when we don’t need it, of what they thought and said. Some sentences are just plain clumsy and don’t say what they’re supposed to say.
Vitt takes over. While I can’t really blame him, he’s unnecessarily cruel to the poor, brain-dead heroine, so although I started the story fully in sympathy with him, I ended it exasperated with them both. I gave up because I honestly didn’t care what happened to either of them. I couldn’t possibly begin to empathize with the heroine. She’s been running all her life, changing her style, her hair color, her eye color, so by the time Vitt catches up with her, I never got a handle on who she is or what she looks like. Once the author loses that, she loses a reader. She certainly lost me.
So to the next book, Kate Hewitt’s Bound to the Greek.
Jace meets Eleanor after several years apart. When Ellie announced to Jace that she was pregnant with his child, he walked out, because he knew he was infertile after a teenage bout of mumps. Misunderstandings, secret babies, things that I always approach with a touch of wariness. As it happens, the secret baby doen’t make it, and the hero has the big misunderstanding about the heroine.
What makes this different to the Porter? Lots of stuff.
For a start, the protagonists of this story are thinking, reasoning human beings. They are hurt, and they don’t deny it to themselves or to each other. Self-honesty is important when it comes to matters of the heart. The explanation above is all in the first three chapters. The rest of the story is concerned with Jace and Eleanor coming to terms with their past, their present, and deciding mutually if they have a future together.
They behave like grown-ups. That’s a big difference between the Hewitt and the Porter. They think about themselves, their unborn child, and each other and they care enough to try to work things out. Oh, yes, it contains tropes similar enough that the two books can be taken with each other. But the execution and the satisfaction are poles apart. Poles.
I like Eleanor and I understand why she doesn’t want to give herself to Jace all over again. She’d got on with the pregnancy after Jace walked out. She tried to contact him, but after a while it didn’t matter so much. She has her career, she’s built a life after Jace. While she still loves him, she appreciates that she’s still a person without him and she deserves better than the way he treated her.
Jace didn’t try to take over Eleanor’s life. He tries to understand. He uses his privileged position to get her in a place he can talk to her, but he doesn’t jeopardize her job or her life. He just wants answers.
The style is smooth and accomplished and takes you through the story effortlessly. There are no or few jarring sentences and passages. The characters progress smoothly toward their happy ending, and Hewitt helps us to care about them both. This is everything the Porter isn’t—grown-ups coping with a difficult situation to the best of their abilities and they earn their happy ending. I love that there are no instant fairytale answers to their problem, too. They would work it out. At the end of the Hewitt, I believed it and I was rooting for them to succeed.
Grade: A Dark Sicilian Secret – DNF
Summary:
A Dark Sicilian Secret by Jane Porter:
She can run… Lethally attractive Vittorio d’Severano was everything Jillian Smith wanted – until she discovered his secret life and her dreams of a happyeverafter crumbled into dust… Brokenhearted and terrified, Jill disappeared. But she can’t hide! Now Vitt has returned – to claim the tiny son Jill has sworn to keep from him! But to stay with her child she must put Vitt’s ring on her finger. Yet what kind of relationship can they have when it’s based on secrets…and a heat impossible to resist?
Read an excerpt.
Grade: Bound to the Greek – B+
Summary:
Bound to the Greek by Kate Hewitt
Like a moth to a flame… Greek tycoon Jace Zervas’ legendary control is momentarily shattered when he’s confronted by Eleanor Langley – the flame he extinguished years ago! Gone is the sweet, homely girl; now an ambitious yet alluring New York career woman considers him with steely eyes, a hint of anger, and…surely not?… a touch of longing. Jace doesn’t deal in raw emotions. He hires the ice-queen purely for business. But secluded under the hot Mediterranean sun the real Ellie emerges again – and Jace finds the fire of passion still burns…
Read an excerpt.
