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Total Surrender
Her defenses were hopelessly inadequate
Not since the morning of her nineteenth birthday, when Tony had failed to turn up for their wedding, had Neale felt so disturbed by a man.
Her boss, luxury-hotel developer Lawton Baillie, was even more intimidating on board his yacht in the Caribbean than he'd been in his London boardroom. Although he obviously delighted in the chase, Neale knew instinctively he would be satisfied with nothing less than total surrender.
But if she ever gave in to him, she'd never be able to live without him, and for Neale, that would mean either ecstasy or devastation ...
Not since the morning of her nineteenth birthday, when Tony had failed to turn up for their wedding, had Neale felt so disturbed by a man.
Her boss, luxury-hotel developer Lawton Baillie, was even more intimidating on board his yacht in the Caribbean than he'd been in his London boardroom. Although he obviously delighted in the chase, Neale knew instinctively he would be satisfied with nothing less than total surrender.
But if she ever gave in to him, she'd never be able to live without him, and for Neale, that would mean either ecstasy or devastation ...
Paperback
First published January 1, 1984
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77 people want to read
About the author
Margaret Pargeter
104 books73 followersMargaret Pargeter was a popular writer of 50 romance novels in Mills & Boon from 1975 to 1986.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
December 21, 2018
Re Total Surrender - Well time is moving on in HPlandia, (albeit in a way that defies all known normal physics including quantum,) and MP must have got the memo, 'cause butter me up and call me a biscuit, when I picked TS I had to resort to the restorative brandy to get over the shock.
The Commonwealth of Pargeter is well know throughout HPlandia and HRtopia for having the most abusive, cruel, downright mean H's in all the universes. It is fairly safe to say that MP never met a classic textbook male abuser that she couldn't make an H of and as for her h's -- well most of them never met a doormat or a throw rug that they weren't dying to emulate --with an aim to outperform even the best.
(If you need an example go read the reviews for the book she wrote in HRtopia right before TP, The Odds Against on Amzn or Goodreads. Don't worry, no will force you to read the book, just the reviews are enough to get the gist of MP's style. I don't usually speculate on an HP author's real life, but she writes these stories scarily well, so much so that I feared for her home life. MP books could be used for text books when teaching about abusive relationships.)
TP doesn't feature that sort of H tho. In fact when he forgets he is running for first place for the most sexually harassing boss in HPlandia, (and winning I might add,) this H is NICE, he KIND, he is obviously in love with the h from page 43 on, he woos the h, he pushes a donkey and builds a sandcastle - this H actually has FUN with the h and I had no idear an MP H even knew the word existed.
In fact if it weren't for his little lapses back into his original behavior and a few other telling MP trademark H moves, I would have thought MP was abducted by the same aliens that frequently abduct her other H's and then give them total personality transplants between pages 191 and 192, the last page of the book.
The h is a 23 year old man hating project interior designer working as an assistant to the head designer for the H's worldwide hotel/resort/holiday villa conglomerate. She meets the H for the first time in a production meeting and he is on her like a leaping tiger. He uses a lot of lines and some big blue eyes to try and get a dinner date. She icily refuses and the H tells her that tho she has been hurt and frozen, he is the Freud of Lurve and will set her spirit free, and incidentally he can't wait to see her silvery locks spread upon his pillow.
The h firmly rejects this, but this H is out to prove his Freudliness and orders her to lunch with him. When lunch and a long drive to the current hotel project don't lower her barriers, he orders her to a party he is hosting on the weekend or she is out of a job. She shows up and apparently the half buttoned leisure suit exposing his hairy chest and gold medallion are just too much for her overheated senses. She starts to thaw but runs off when the doorbell inconveniently rings.
The H then finagles her out to his yacht in the Caribbean, he is doing land deals and urgently needs the plans the h is working to finalize the details. Alas this is just an excuse for wooing, altho the H's plans get a bit derailed when he has to rescue the h from not one but two amorous attackers in one night.
The h is despondent when he ignores her after her little adventure and pouts all day, later that night he suddenly relents his distant behavior, and is actually very kind to her. He takes her sailing the next day and after another almost total contact, the h stiffens up over a raucous gull cry and the moment is lost yet again.
Finally the H gets the h to explain why she is so resistant, her fiance abandoned her at the altar when she was 19. This was after he tried to lurve her up the night before but she did not give in so she has kept her chastity intact. ( A huge part of her reluctance by this point is that she has no experience and the H is assuming she does, she worries this lack is going to put him off)
Her parents wanted her married so they could go to Australia, they wind up leaving a week later, and it appears the relationship is a very distant one. The ex fiance had tried to contact her recently, put she was not interested so she sent him off.
The H finally succeeds in wooing her into love and a passionate affair begins, non-experience is NOT an issue. They have fun together and then the trip ends. Upon the h's return to London, she gets a package from the H with his flat key and a note telling her to move in. The h is horrified, she is well aware of the H's habit of affairing for a few weeks and then dumping his conquest. She sends the key and a note back ending the relationship.
The H goes nuts, he is back to bullying and harassing, then back to wooing and the h is having a hard time resisting. Finally the H leaves the country for several weeks and is photographed with another woman. The H and h connect again with the h ready to start the affair up again until he tells her to give up her job and her flat.
(The h's parents call around this point and ask her when she marrying the man who left her at the altar, apparently he is getting a divorce and decided the h was worth a shot after all. She politely tells them to wander off.)
The h can't bring herself to do it, she knows his lack of longevity and she needs the job to pay her rent, as she has no desire to be homeless. The H reverts AGAIN to his bad behavior and is then seen kissing the OW, finally the h can't stand the pain anymore. She throws caution to the wind and in a typical MP h decision, she flies to the H and avows her love - she doesn't care that she will be destitute and homeless when the H is done with her.
The H is joyous and carrying her off to the wonderland of Lurve, when it finally hits him that she has no clue he is expecting to marry her. (Not to be picky here, but it might have helped if he had told her she was marrying him - I didn't expect him to humble himself enough to actually ask, but she can't read minds- tho apparently he was hanging out with the aliens too and expected them to do the alien mind meld with her.) He explains that he wasn't sleeping with the OW in the picture, she was ploy to make the h jealous, and he carefully refrains from mentioning the other 200 or so women he might have slept with.
(I have to confess a snarking need to shake these h's sometime, just because the H honestly admits he did not do anything with the woman the h is focused on doesn't mean he wasn't doing anything with others- these guys are womanizer extraordinaire's, they don't have a little black book, they have 3 terabyte drives with cross indexes of the ladies they see.)
So he finally tells her she will be his wife and he will be with her forever, as he is the God of love and unfreezing, and it is two lurved up and happy people for the HEA.
Actually I do think the H's hot and cold tactics and his reverting to bad behavior, as well as the h's willingness to fling away job and home security for lurve in a rug with the H, to be very reassuring in this one.
For awhile there I was desperately afraid I was stranded in an alternative HPlandia universe and was going to be eternally seeking the passage back to the place I was before. Fortunately MP did not totally let me down and threw a few favored plot devices in the story to reassure me. Tho I was willing to bet that lights went out and a day of mourning was declared all over the Commonwealth of Pargeter when this one made it's debut in HPlandia.
The Commonwealth of Pargeter is well know throughout HPlandia and HRtopia for having the most abusive, cruel, downright mean H's in all the universes. It is fairly safe to say that MP never met a classic textbook male abuser that she couldn't make an H of and as for her h's -- well most of them never met a doormat or a throw rug that they weren't dying to emulate --with an aim to outperform even the best.
(If you need an example go read the reviews for the book she wrote in HRtopia right before TP, The Odds Against on Amzn or Goodreads. Don't worry, no will force you to read the book, just the reviews are enough to get the gist of MP's style. I don't usually speculate on an HP author's real life, but she writes these stories scarily well, so much so that I feared for her home life. MP books could be used for text books when teaching about abusive relationships.)
TP doesn't feature that sort of H tho. In fact when he forgets he is running for first place for the most sexually harassing boss in HPlandia, (and winning I might add,) this H is NICE, he KIND, he is obviously in love with the h from page 43 on, he woos the h, he pushes a donkey and builds a sandcastle - this H actually has FUN with the h and I had no idear an MP H even knew the word existed.
In fact if it weren't for his little lapses back into his original behavior and a few other telling MP trademark H moves, I would have thought MP was abducted by the same aliens that frequently abduct her other H's and then give them total personality transplants between pages 191 and 192, the last page of the book.
The h is a 23 year old man hating project interior designer working as an assistant to the head designer for the H's worldwide hotel/resort/holiday villa conglomerate. She meets the H for the first time in a production meeting and he is on her like a leaping tiger. He uses a lot of lines and some big blue eyes to try and get a dinner date. She icily refuses and the H tells her that tho she has been hurt and frozen, he is the Freud of Lurve and will set her spirit free, and incidentally he can't wait to see her silvery locks spread upon his pillow.
The h firmly rejects this, but this H is out to prove his Freudliness and orders her to lunch with him. When lunch and a long drive to the current hotel project don't lower her barriers, he orders her to a party he is hosting on the weekend or she is out of a job. She shows up and apparently the half buttoned leisure suit exposing his hairy chest and gold medallion are just too much for her overheated senses. She starts to thaw but runs off when the doorbell inconveniently rings.
The H then finagles her out to his yacht in the Caribbean, he is doing land deals and urgently needs the plans the h is working to finalize the details. Alas this is just an excuse for wooing, altho the H's plans get a bit derailed when he has to rescue the h from not one but two amorous attackers in one night.
The h is despondent when he ignores her after her little adventure and pouts all day, later that night he suddenly relents his distant behavior, and is actually very kind to her. He takes her sailing the next day and after another almost total contact, the h stiffens up over a raucous gull cry and the moment is lost yet again.
Finally the H gets the h to explain why she is so resistant, her fiance abandoned her at the altar when she was 19. This was after he tried to lurve her up the night before but she did not give in so she has kept her chastity intact. ( A huge part of her reluctance by this point is that she has no experience and the H is assuming she does, she worries this lack is going to put him off)
Her parents wanted her married so they could go to Australia, they wind up leaving a week later, and it appears the relationship is a very distant one. The ex fiance had tried to contact her recently, put she was not interested so she sent him off.
The H finally succeeds in wooing her into love and a passionate affair begins, non-experience is NOT an issue. They have fun together and then the trip ends. Upon the h's return to London, she gets a package from the H with his flat key and a note telling her to move in. The h is horrified, she is well aware of the H's habit of affairing for a few weeks and then dumping his conquest. She sends the key and a note back ending the relationship.
The H goes nuts, he is back to bullying and harassing, then back to wooing and the h is having a hard time resisting. Finally the H leaves the country for several weeks and is photographed with another woman. The H and h connect again with the h ready to start the affair up again until he tells her to give up her job and her flat.
(The h's parents call around this point and ask her when she marrying the man who left her at the altar, apparently he is getting a divorce and decided the h was worth a shot after all. She politely tells them to wander off.)
The h can't bring herself to do it, she knows his lack of longevity and she needs the job to pay her rent, as she has no desire to be homeless. The H reverts AGAIN to his bad behavior and is then seen kissing the OW, finally the h can't stand the pain anymore. She throws caution to the wind and in a typical MP h decision, she flies to the H and avows her love - she doesn't care that she will be destitute and homeless when the H is done with her.
The H is joyous and carrying her off to the wonderland of Lurve, when it finally hits him that she has no clue he is expecting to marry her. (Not to be picky here, but it might have helped if he had told her she was marrying him - I didn't expect him to humble himself enough to actually ask, but she can't read minds- tho apparently he was hanging out with the aliens too and expected them to do the alien mind meld with her.) He explains that he wasn't sleeping with the OW in the picture, she was ploy to make the h jealous, and he carefully refrains from mentioning the other 200 or so women he might have slept with.
(I have to confess a snarking need to shake these h's sometime, just because the H honestly admits he did not do anything with the woman the h is focused on doesn't mean he wasn't doing anything with others- these guys are womanizer extraordinaire's, they don't have a little black book, they have 3 terabyte drives with cross indexes of the ladies they see.)
So he finally tells her she will be his wife and he will be with her forever, as he is the God of love and unfreezing, and it is two lurved up and happy people for the HEA.
Actually I do think the H's hot and cold tactics and his reverting to bad behavior, as well as the h's willingness to fling away job and home security for lurve in a rug with the H, to be very reassuring in this one.
For awhile there I was desperately afraid I was stranded in an alternative HPlandia universe and was going to be eternally seeking the passage back to the place I was before. Fortunately MP did not totally let me down and threw a few favored plot devices in the story to reassure me. Tho I was willing to bet that lights went out and a day of mourning was declared all over the Commonwealth of Pargeter when this one made it's debut in HPlandia.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 5, 2020
"Total Surrender" is the story of Naele and Lawton.
Well this was a waste. Let's summarize this..
*Main characters meet*
Hero: You're so hot! I want you *heart eyes*
Heroine: Men suck and so do you, bye
Hero: I still want you
Heroine: No
Hero: Let's make sure you spend all the time with me as I'm your boss
Heroine: Yes..No..maybe..Oh alright
Hero: Lemme sex you
Heroine: Yes
Heroine: No
Heroine: GTFO
Hero: Ok. Noted. I saved you from getting attacked twice, lets have sex now.
Heroine: Yes.
Heroine: No! I'm still confused.
Hero: It's been forever and Ive shown you a million ways I want you, lemme enter your chamber of secrets
Heroine: Umm.. Maybe?
*He slithers in*
Hero: Let's take this further
Heroine: I'm gonna continue misunderstanding everything, running away and giving into hysterics without communicating like an adult. Toodles.
Hero: *Has the patience of a saint*
Heroine: *is still annoying until the last page*
Yeah, I struggled and suffered. Not recommended.
Safe
1.5/5
Well this was a waste. Let's summarize this..
*Main characters meet*
Hero: You're so hot! I want you *heart eyes*
Heroine: Men suck and so do you, bye
Hero: I still want you
Heroine: No
Hero: Let's make sure you spend all the time with me as I'm your boss
Heroine: Yes..No..maybe..Oh alright
Hero: Lemme sex you
Heroine: Yes
Heroine: No
Heroine: GTFO
Hero: Ok. Noted. I saved you from getting attacked twice, lets have sex now.
Heroine: Yes.
Heroine: No! I'm still confused.
Hero: It's been forever and Ive shown you a million ways I want you, lemme enter your chamber of secrets
Heroine: Umm.. Maybe?
*He slithers in*
Hero: Let's take this further
Heroine: I'm gonna continue misunderstanding everything, running away and giving into hysterics without communicating like an adult. Toodles.
Hero: *Has the patience of a saint*
Heroine: *is still annoying until the last page*
Yeah, I struggled and suffered. Not recommended.
Safe
1.5/5
May 9, 2022
5 stars.
This book is from 1984. A besotted, jealous alpha male in relentless pursuit of the young virgin h, delivers vintage gold.
I loved it. It reminded me of when I was a teenager reading these books. I only missed a box of chocolates to go with it. And a bag of chips. And acne cream.
The h was a dimwit, in desperate need of a few braincells.
But even the h couldn’t spoil the fun for me of reading his cheeky, naughty remarks to her and his confessions all throughout the book about what he feels for her.
He is the perfect combination of romance and passion. Love and lust.
And he was saying all the mighty alpha stuff, laying down the law for her:
- “You have to get used to the idea of belonging to me.”
- “I can’t leave you alone. I have to wear you down, get you to agree.”
- “You’re mine and I’ll have you know, I won’t tolerate you going out with other men.”
Oh my.
This book is from 1984. A besotted, jealous alpha male in relentless pursuit of the young virgin h, delivers vintage gold.
I loved it. It reminded me of when I was a teenager reading these books. I only missed a box of chocolates to go with it. And a bag of chips. And acne cream.
The h was a dimwit, in desperate need of a few braincells.
But even the h couldn’t spoil the fun for me of reading his cheeky, naughty remarks to her and his confessions all throughout the book about what he feels for her.
He is the perfect combination of romance and passion. Love and lust.
And he was saying all the mighty alpha stuff, laying down the law for her:
- “You have to get used to the idea of belonging to me.”
- “I can’t leave you alone. I have to wear you down, get you to agree.”
- “You’re mine and I’ll have you know, I won’t tolerate you going out with other men.”
Oh my.
May 29, 2022
This one is for MP fans only. These 2 are a mismatch. She is brittle and perpetually scarred from the past. He tries sometimes to be sensitive to her, but it is not his natural state and he keeps on being mean as if he can't stop himself. For once, though, I end up disliking her more than him.
May 4, 2012
3.5 stars. This started out fairly well, but dragged on too long. The story was good, but the whole thing lost a star for being too long without any good reason for it.
August 28, 2018
Hero was so nice. Heroine was silly of course. Nice oldie.
May 17, 2021
Her defenses were hopelessly inadequate. Not since the morning of her nineteenth birthday, when Tony had failed to turn up for their wedding, had Neale felt so disturbed by a man.
Her boss, luxury-hotel developer Lawton Baillie, was even more intimidating on board his yacht in the Caribbean than he'd been in his London boardroom. Although he obviously delighted in the chase, Neale knew instinctively he would be satisfied with nothing less than total surrender.
But if she ever gave in to him, she'd never be able to live without him, and for Neale, that would mean either ecstasy or devastation.
Her boss, luxury-hotel developer Lawton Baillie, was even more intimidating on board his yacht in the Caribbean than he'd been in his London boardroom. Although he obviously delighted in the chase, Neale knew instinctively he would be satisfied with nothing less than total surrender.
But if she ever gave in to him, she'd never be able to live without him, and for Neale, that would mean either ecstasy or devastation.
July 26, 2025
Stalkerific hero. Ninny heroine.
Bicker.
Kiss.
Make out.
Bicker.
Rinse. Repeat.
This is what happens when a 36 year-old man pursues a 20 year-old employee.
Old Skool dynamic, which isn't my favorite.
Bicker.
Kiss.
Make out.
Bicker.
Rinse. Repeat.
This is what happens when a 36 year-old man pursues a 20 year-old employee.
Old Skool dynamic, which isn't my favorite.
November 22, 2018
Started good. Disagreement and discommunication, later on, didn't make sense.
December 4, 2025
Practically got whiplash with all her dithering. What a mess.
Read
February 13, 2021Neale Curtis took an instant dislike to her boss Lawton Baillie. He seemed to find fault with everything she had done. But he also seemed to find her attractive, and his intense pursuit of her was frightening. It wasn't until she was forced to join him on his yacht in the Caribbean that she found her feelings towards him changing. But what good was that when he had obviously got the wrong impression about what she wanted from their relationship.
January 19, 2023
Boring. Did not finish
Tried again and liked it a little better. Upping to 2 stars.
Tried again and liked it a little better. Upping to 2 stars.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews