October 28th, 2009 — 4 Stars, Australia/New Zealand, Book Review, Category, Contemporary, Executive, M-O, Secretary, Virgin Heroine
This romance takes place in New Zealand. Our young 20 year old heroine is striking out on her own in the Queen City far away from the one horse town she grew up in Manawatu. She’s looking for adventure and excitement and finds more than she bargains for in Stuart Newman.
Their first meeting is a chance encounter when he whips by her on the street drenching her in ice cold puddle water. In apology he takes her to his place to freshen up before dropping her home. Using information he learned that night about her he manages to place an ad in the paper and lures her to his office. She becomes his secretary despite the plethora of warnings about Stuart Newman.
Stuart Newman is drawn into a bet by his friend Paul to make Cindy fall head over heels in love with him within a month. He accepts. His only saving grace is that he warned Cindy twice in conversation about “his own personal interest and a bet” when it came to them. She was simply too naive to put two and two together.
Stuart is a hard man, jaded, cynical, and above all scornful of women, love, and finer emotions. He simple doesn’t believe in them. His issues arise from his mother and from one crash and burn relationship, the last time he’d ever open himself willingly to a woman.
It’s a jazzy little category. I enjoyed it thoroughly. The ending has a tangy bittersweet feel to it. I wish though that it had another ten pages to really tie it off. It felt a tad rushed, and a bit jerky, but oh well.
Rating: 3.5 Stars
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September 11th, 2009 — 1 Star, Africa, Book Review, Category, Contemporary, Estranged, Executive, Mistress or Courtesan, Rogues and Rakehells, S-U, Virgin Heroine
FYI: This is basically a rant review with spoilers.
Freya Addison once loved Zac Deverell with all her heart, but Zac was a billionaire playboy used to getting what he wanted when he wanted. After pursuing Freya, enticing her to first work as a stewardess on his yacht then seducing her into his bedroom he is both amused and bemused by how innocent she turned out to be. He persuades her to become his mistress and the little fool agrees. He breaks her heart three months later when she tells him that she's pregnant, by hotly denying it, calling her a two-timing gold digging whore and throwing her out of his penthouse.
Two years later Freya gets into a car wreck and her daughter Aimee is supposed to be in the care of Freya's grandmother. The grandmother is a heartless woman who only tolerated Freya in her life because of what the neighbors and little old bitties she hung out with would think. Freya's mother ran off years ago and hasn't been seen since and doesn't make an appearance in the book. The grandmother decides she's going on her world cruise, manages to find Zac Deverell at his London offices in the midst of a press conference and passes the baby along causing a scandal.
Zac is furious with Freya and the grandmother thinking they cooked this up on purpose. He doesn't blame the two year old baby and tries to temper his voice when he storms Freya's hospital room. He frogmarches Freya to do what he wants; which is to take her and Aimee to Monaco and getting a paternity test done so he can once and for all prove Freya the tramp that she is. Zac is highhanded, arrogant to the extreme, belligerent, and mean spirited. He takes great pleasure pursuing Freya for his pleasure while calling her names. Freya has no pride or self confidence and can't seem to ignore the passion he stirs in her blood. They have several intimate encounters, many leading to full blown sex.
When the child ends up being his he gives a two second apology and gets Freya to agree to marry him. We're about two thirds of the way through by now. This book is not that long... but of course he changes in the last like 3 pages, while appearing to exhibit no real changes.
From his side that we never see:
Doctors told him long ago he had 50% chance of holding the same gene. The disease wiped out his twin sisters before they were a year old. He vows never to have kids and gets a vasectomy. Then he finds out he's a daddy - is terrified but happy because his daughter hasn't shown signs of the disease his parents carried genes for. Goes to doctors and finds out there's a reliable test now to see if he carries the gene.
Meanwhile he wants to have sex with Freya all the time because he can't formulate his feelings and decides to show her by aggressively pursuing sex off and on (which she interprets as he wants me and now he doesn't all the while thinking in abject despair how is this ever going to work? and he's always intentionally hurtful and terse in his comments.)
Now we're at the end and he still hasn't got the results yet, but he suddenly can't go through with the wedding he insisted on. She thinks its because he doesn't want her and wants the woman who came up to her at a party and claimed to be his lover. Woman also said that whenever Zac told Freya he was working he was really with her playing.
When he hotly denies that Freya is all heartbroken AGAIN and tells him if he can't go through with until he tells her something she says she knows what it is and understands that he doesn't love her.
To which he then asks if she's an idiot (ok not really but still) and proceeds to finally open up and explain about the gene that he potentially was carrying and why he had a vasectomy in the first place yadda yadda and that he on some level knew he loved her which is why he was so furious when he thought she'd cheated on him two years ago with the street artist.
Kiss. Sex. Wedding. Epilogue. HEA.
I mean really what is this garbage? Don't read this.
Rating: 1 Star and only because sometimes the sex was decent.
Originally posted 2009-01-14 05:21:39. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
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