Comadrin's Topics (139)

As to the ML, being better than toxic pond scum is kind of damning with faint praise. When he was pretending to be Willie the Window Washer, he was so pushy that he was trying to get a date with her 3 TIMES A DAY! I can't think of another word for that than stalking. Shortly after they are married, he makes it clear that he has no intention of holding to their agreement. Isn't that called "Going back on your word?" Where I was raised, that is considered the opposite of gentlemanly conduct, and definitely a deal breaker for any trust and respect in a relationship. Then, after she pretty much bares her soul about her past (something she apparently hadn't done to anyone before), he calls her a coward, and when she, against all common sense, confesses her love, he STILL keeps deceiving her. It's nice that he isn't a serial sexual abuser/harasser, but that doesn't make him very a very decent human being.

Perhaps I was expecting too much, but wasn't the ML pretty devoid of personality. He blew hot and cold, but there was never enough to give the reader the least idea of what he was thinking or where he was coming from. His being so devoid of character makes it difficult to see how the FL could fall in love with him at all. Even when being supposedly affectionate with the children, he seemed more like a stick figure.

So, did he break the rules by not acting like a Harlequin male lead? He pretty much treated the FL with empathy and respect, thereby totally ignoring the fact that his status as a Harlequin ML depends on sexually assaulting and/or raping the FL, getting her pregnant, and then assuming, on the absolute flimsiest of pretexts, that she is a money grubbing slut. Why? If he keeps this up, the reading public might come to think that being gentlemanly is romantic, when we all know it's a sign of abject weakness and most unmanly and unattractive. Good Lord; next thing, the women in the books might even start expecting the ML to listen to them when they speak! Da Silva has DOOMED the Harlequin world!!!

The eldest brother was a pretty decent guy. The youngest brother wasn't too bad, even though he made some stupid judgments. This guy though, was a douche. Even if he hadn't raped her after tying her hands up with his necktie, the fact that he was always snickering, especially when he thought he had put her in a no win situation made me feel that he was the kind of scumbag who gets off by forcing other people to dance to his tune. Aside from him, her former boss from the university needed to have his glasses slapped off his pudgy little self-important face. First, he drags her along to crash a party, where he tells a man he's never met before that she is a single mother. Then he makes the decision, while she's not there, that she will give up her university job and take a private job just to get money for his university project. When he's around her, he tells her what she's going to do all the time. When he's around the ML, he could suck start a Peterbilt truck

Why is it that so many males cannot accept that some women don't want either a fling or to be someone's mistress? They can't accept "no," move on. They have to put all of their time and effort into trying to make her change her core values. If all the energy Harlequin MLs put into trying to get a woman into bed could be harnessed, it could rival a gamma ray burst for raw power.

Wow! Do they get any dumber? Or more cowardly? Or more of a douche bag? I'm guessing that his only redeeming feature is being good in bed. Had I only known this fact of life in my younger days, I would have gone somewhere and become a tantric priest. Then I would have ended up as a rich CEO with a trophy wife! Oh, sorry. I'm really not dumb enough to believe that. Or to have a CEO job, a ranch, and a trophy wife as a goal in life. As to the plot, it was convoluted beyond belief, and was mainly good for a few laughs.

Two things ruined it. First, the rape: something there is no excuse on God's Green Earth for. Second was the brother and his wife. I sort of understand the wife's cowardice, as she was supposedly a timid and very unconfident person. She should have stood up, but didn't. What I couldn't understand was the husband. He knew, and yet didn't tell his brother what really happened. What a total douche. I understand that they didn't want to spend their time vilifying the couple after they were killed, but to think of them watching over them from heaven was ludicrous.

Point being that the ML, at the time of the fire, had been deceived and lied to by his business partner and his then fiancée (exactly what her business position was, I didn't figure out). The FL and even her uncle admitted that he was also a victim. At the trial, he was found not culpable, yet he still took on all the guilt and responsibility. Most people in his case would have been defensive, and blamed those who deceived him, rather than take responsibility for the victims. Redemption is for people like this; not the Bernie Madoffs and Jeffrey Epsteins of the world.

Aside from the FL, who was a really nice and loyal girl, the twins were the only decent characters in the book. In fact, they rocked. They should have told their dorkbite brother and shrill moron sister where to go, and run away from home to be with the FL and become a family with affection and a pleasant life instead of living with a moody butthead and a ridiculous drama queen.

I came across the book, so I read it. Lusty sex permeates the book so much I felt like a voyeur, and the ML is such a toxic a**hole that I figured the author was going to kill him off or something. Hilary actually ends up having more of a character in a 125 page graphic format than in a full novel.