Comadrin's Topics (139)

Her father manipulates her to go on assignment with Hawke (good Lord what a dorky name) because he feels that they're made for each other. Didn't she realize, even subconsciously, that that was not only stupid of him, but slimy and unethical. If she had come home with a baby bump and no ring, no doubt he would have found a way to blame her.
Her boyfriend was a walking, talking illustration of an opinionated, possessive, petty, incredibly juvenile mama's boy. He called her his fiancee, although later in the story she told Hawke that she had turned him down when he proposed. Any woman besotted enough to marry him would be more of a baby sitter than a wife.
Then we come to the mighty Hawke. A seventeen year age gap is really a lot. The only way it could work is for both partners to be calm and mature people who have a great deal of respect for each other, which is the opposite of the case we have here. This male lead is arrogant and supercilious, and deliberately treats her with no respect whatsoever and makes no secret of the fact that he thinks she's rather stupid. About the only good reason for her to marry him would be to wait twenty years, when she'll still be desirable and she can embarrass the crap out of him by telling people how many cases of Depends he goes through.
As to Siri, I thought she was pretty decent. She was far more astute and mature than the pre-pubescent Mark. The two older males that have always been in her life, Papa and Hawke, spend all of their time with her trying to keep her in princess dresses and seem to have no problem whatever continually telling her how immature, spoiled, and childish she is, going as far as to double team her to get her to do what they want. In actuality, she is a reporter, and seems to be an ethical one, from what I saw in the story. What she needs to do is get away from the idiot males in her life and find someone, preferably with a sense of humour, who actually likes women and believes that they are really human and not a sub-class of Homo sapiens, forever inferior to the lordly male.

1. It seems like super masculine men in HarlequinLand lose any intelligence and critical faculties as soon as they fall in love. They immediately decide on little or no evidence and sketchy hearsay that their beloved is a scheming slut.
2. Upon deciding this, they immediately act like psychopaths and do their damnedest to destroy the "loved one's" life, planning elaborate and expensive revenges. The pride thing comes into it, because, to a billionaire who owns Mediterranean Islands, 20,000 pounds is chump change.
3. They also do incredibly stupid things like marry someone they don't love, who will really betray them. Strangely enough, when this happens, they don't plan any revenge or anything like that.
Conclusion: HarlequinLand MLs have no brains, sense of proportion, empathy, and their "love" is so akin to hatred as to often be indistinguishable.

On the last page, at her wedding, what in blazes did she have on her head? She looked like the bride of Frankenstein.

He remained faithful to an adulterous, drug-addicted, broken wife. He was even her moral support. He's not only a demi-god in the depraved male society of HarlequinWorld, he's close to sainthood in our world!

She was a truly strong character, unlike so many Harlequin "heroines" who buckle and collapse at the first sign of testosterone. And she STAYED THAT WAY, which is nearly a first for this genre. He was pretty much of a prejudiced idiot. Not a totally irredeemable one, although the redemption definitely took a while. I was so pleased that she didn't fall back into his arms at the first sign of a thawing of his frozen brain, but made sure that his ridiculous macho pride went pretty much out the window. So much of this genre has the ML doing and saying completely unforgivable things, and the FL going into instant forgiveness mode when he utters something that might possibly perhaps be construed as something approaching love or forgiveness. Tess, bless her, didn't fall for that s*&t and let him know that with the subtlety of a sledge hammer (something Harlequin MLs are in crying need of)! This definitely rates up in the top ten of the 400+ Harlequin manga I've read on this site.

I suppose I'm not a terribly nice person, but Fabia basically tweaking his nose with a vengeance pretty much made my reading experience for the evening. Her saving the guy's life and escaping out the window was icing on the cake.

From the description of the father and mother beating him while laughing at him, I can say with some certainty that the father was not just scarred from his own upbringing. Getting joy from it is taking it a large step past that. The fact that the mother joined him in this torture shows that they were two of a kind, and no one said anything about her having an abused childhood. It seemed that the brother and sister, even though they were both married, still lived together (doesn't sound too healthy). By doing nothing about their younger brother's abuse, they were basically enablers of their parents' horrible acts. Allowing their father access to the brother's son was stupidity in its worst form. Why was the father not arrested when he pushed a toddler down stairs and crippled him? Dirk certainly had a lot of mental scars from his childhood, but his siblings had it even worse, as it seems as though they were under the thumb of the parents even when they were married adults. And where the hell were the sister's husband and the brother's wife when all this abuse was going on?

The couple was really fun. They were silly, and did hilarious things. It was a breath of fresh air from the testosterone spewing mach morons and the ridiculous forced drama. A great read on a rainy day with a pot of tea.

I really enjoyed this story, as the emotions and plot were realistic and well put together. I didn't see the cheating of the late husband as a plot device, but rather as something in her past that made her the person she was, and explained much of her behavior and her reactions. For an Harlequin, I definitely give it five stars.

1. John was nothing more than a louse, so he can be counted out from the get-go.

2. Jake, the ML, was an idiot. "I fell in love with her when she was 16, so I decided to treat her like trash so she will hate me. At the same time, I'm her brothers' best friend, so I'll hang around and treat your home like my place, ensuring that I drive you nuts. Now, I will teach you how to be feminine, mostly in a condescending way, because I love you and want you to be happy with the scumbag who treats you so badly. Oh, by the way, I love you just as you are." Could he possibly have sent any more mixed messages? I doubt it.

3. David, her brother, should have been drowned at birth. He admits that he, the other brothers, and their father raised her to be a complete tomboy. He also talked in her hearing about how attractive girls were all sluts. He then spends all his time making fun of her for not being feminine. He also discusses her in very uncomplimentary ways with both his wife and his BFF (Jake) in places she can easily overhear. He must get a real kick out of knowing that she has no self confidence and that he was part of the reason. Given his amount of sensitivity and empathy, I can only imagine how his children are going to turn out if he has any hand in raising them.

4. The best thing the FL could have done was move far away from these twits.