An Innocent in Paradise

Island Paradise duet #1

by Kate Carlisle

Grace Farrell is a genius scientist first, a woman a distant second—until she meets Logan Sutherland. The self-made millionaire is wickedly sexy, and with him, Grace learns a new lesson—how it feels to want a man.

Logan has his roving eye on Grace from the moment she steps onto his tropical island. But when he discovers she's there under false pretenses, he orders her to leave. Faced with her refusal, the cynical bachelor works it all to his advantage. He'll let her stay—in his bed! But will one night be enough?

Genres: Romance, Contemporary Romance, Harlequin, Harlequin Desire, Category Romance

192 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 29, 2011

About the author

Golden Heart and Daphne du Maurier Award winning author Kate Carlisle spent over twenty years working in television production as an Associate Director for game and variety shows, including The Midnight Special, Solid Gold and The Gong Show. She traveled the world as a Dating Game chaperone and performed strange acts of silliness on The Gong Show. She also studied acting and singing, toiled in vineyards, collected books, joined a commune, sold fried chicken, modeled spring fashions and worked for a cruise ship line, but it was the year she spent in law school that finally drove her to begin writing fiction. It seemed the safest way to kill off her professors. Those professors are breathing easier now that Kate spends most of her time writing near the beach in Southern California where she lives with her perfect husband.

A lifelong love of old books and an appreciation of the art of bookbinding led Kate to create the Bibliophile Mysteries, featuring rare book expert Brooklyn Wainwright, whose bookbinding and restoration skills invariably uncover old secrets, treachery and murder. Kate is a member of Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, International Thriller Writers and Romance Writers of America. She loves to drink good wine and watch other people cook.

Despite the appearance of overnight success, Kate's dream of publication took many, many years to fulfill.

Reviews

[Jenny · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very cute love story. Heroine was virginal, funny and sweet. Hero was your typical tycoon with trust issues cause his wife had cheated on him. Both characters were lovable and super nice. Sadly I hated the lack of an epilogue but other than that great read!

[Susan Mallery · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great example of what makes Harlequin Desire so terrific - AN INNOCENT IN PARADISE was a wonderful romance. Logan and Grace were well drawn characters with rich lives. Logan is smart and athletic, a genuinely nice man, but he's leery of love because his mother abandoned him and his twin brother when they were young. Of course he doesn't trust women - he was betrayed by the one woman who was supposed to love him no matter what!

Grace is a brainy scientist who has been sheltered in academia her whole life. She has a genius IQ, and yet she's very naive. At heart, Grace is a sweet woman who craves connections. She didn't know what she was missing until she got a job at Logan's luxury resort in the Caribbean so that she could collect samples for her experiments during her time off work.

I loved watching Logan and Grace find each other and realize that they had found the missing piece of their lives. Stayed up late to finish this one!

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book. Grace was very smart, and very sheltered. Thanks to her incredible intelligence, she has spent most of her life in an academic environment, and has no experience with male-female relationships. But there was a reason she was on the island, and she had no intention to leave before she accomplished it. Logan had a cynical distrust of women, thanks to his late wife. But he had wanted Grace from the time he met her, and intended to enjoy a fling with her for as long as she stayed. The more he got to know her, the more he enjoyed the way she looked at things, and the less he wanted her to leave.

[Helen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is such a good read I loved the romance between Logan and Grace and of course there is the releationship between Logan and his twin brother Aiden which adds to the story. A real page turner and I am looking forward to Aiden's story

[Desi · Rating 3 out of 5]

leído el 20/09/2012

[Susan (susayq ~) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I won this as a first-reads! Thank you so much!

Grace and Logan were complete opposites...she was the nerdy-smart scientist who spent all her time in the lab (but she was gorgeous) and he was the rich surfer type guy who owned an entire island. But they worked so well together! They're relationship (that they were denying being something that was real and could be lasting) was moving along great. In fact, I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. And wrongly enough, I figured it would be Logan's twin that would screw it up for them. I was pleasantly surprised that it wasn't and I'll just leave it at that LOL Thankfully Grace had the guts to go to him to work things out. Even though Logan said he would have gone to her, I kind of doubt it. I just don't see him as that type of guy. But, I'm glad they got their HEA.

There was mention of other family members in this book...I need to find their stories ;)

[Christine (KizzieReads) · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was cute. Grace is an above average IQ women in STEM studying spores that can only be found on his island. She takes a job at the his hotel's bar as a waitress. She's never done anything like that before and when she has to lift a tray filled with drinks, she drops them. Logan fires her, but she convinces him to let her stay with the promise that it'll never happen again. The customers all love her, so they help her out by carrying their own drinks. He's dumbfounded, but he think's she's cute. He doesn't want any relationship, as he's been burned by women before and doesn't trust them at all.

I like the characters and the romance. I wasn't a fan so much of Logan's twin brother Aidan, but I'm sure I'll like him more in the next book.

[A · Rating 3 out of 5]

The h in this book has an iq of 171 and smarter than Einstein who had an IQ of 160 approx. The h is a scientist with 4 Phds! and the H along with his brothers co-own a chain of bars in hotels. They meet and have wild jungle sex paraphrasing h. Then, there is a big misunderstanding with H making a huge gesture and then the h comes back with an apology. Standard HEA follows.

[Vicenta Ramos Giner · Rating 1 out of 5]

No me ha gustado ¡¡que decepcion de libro !! le doy un uno porque me esperaba otra cosa

[Sarah A · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read book 2 in this series first or I think I would have enjoyed this more! A nice cleverly written romance between a cocktail waitress who is actually a spire-botanist and the millionaire flyboy.
Fun, romantic, nice clever twists.

[Shirley Hudson · Rating 5 out of 5]

A sweet story

[Doris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it!!!!!

[Trish Welsh · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am on page 24 of this book and I am reminded of The Big Bang Theory, particularly the character Amy Farrah Fowler. If Amy had been a cocktail waitress and if this book also became a television series or even a movie, she would be perfect for the role of Grace Farrell.
I am now on page 157 and it’s a good book for the most part, but if I have any complaints, it’s the amount of time Logan spends going on and on about Grace’s naked and lush body and how he can’t wait to get her in bed again. Once or twice was enough, but it turns into page after page of it and that got annoying to me after awhile.

[Bianca · Rating 4 out of 5]

*Originally Posted on Pages Of Forbidden Love

So I am still starting to dip my toes into reading some more adult books and I saw this sitting on the shelf at my library so I said why not. I liked the cover and the story intrigued me so I checked it out. I am glad I did. It was a quick but enjoyable read. Sometimes (okay most of the time) with shorter books I feel like I don’t get everything I want out of it. I always feel like there isn’t enough time to connect to the characters, things happen too fast, there should have been more, the list could go on. An Innocent In Paradise was only 187 pages but I really didn’t feel any of the things shorter books, at times, make me feel. It was shorter so things did progress more quickly (I have found that’s the case for all the adult books I have read so far, which isn’t many) than in longer books but I didn’t feel like it was too quick and I did have a chance to get to know both Logan and Grace. I was able to root for them as a couple.

Logan and Grace meet at Alleria Resort. Logan and his brother design cocktail bars in expensive hotels and they own most of the island that the resort rests on. Grace got a job at the resorts bar but she knows nothing about being a cocktail waitress and when she breaks a glass it becomes all too clear that she lied on her job application. Logan tries to fire Grace but she isn’t one to give up easily and she refuses to go. She has scientific business to take care of on the island and she can’t leave. I love that she stood up to him the second he tried to fire her. I couldn’t help but smile. I doubt people stand up to Logan often. Besides being passionate about her work she also has a distrust of men. The fact that Logan distrusts women doesn’t help their situation. He agrees to let Grace stick around for a while but all he can think about is sleeping with her. Just one night and he think he can kick her off the island. Their both passionate about their work, they both have their issues and they can both be stubborn so it made for quick, but cute, and interesting read.

[Julie Barrett · Rating 4 out of 5]

An Innocent in Paradise by Kate Carlisle
Logan Sutherland and his twin own the whole Carribean island and the buildings on it.
Grace Farrell works as a waitress for their bar til she tips all the drinks over and Logan rescues
the rest. He finds out she's never done this type of work but is willing to do any job he wants her to so she can continue her research into the rare spores that are on the island for medical research.
He's given her one week to learn the job or she's off the island.
He starts to watch her at work and they spend time together. He talks to her of his plans for a sports center and she talks of her spores and what they can mean to the world for cures for diseases.
His father and brother show up with their friends who are the architect/designers and they spend
a whole day just going over the whole island.
Little does Grace know what they have decided but she ends up seeing some plans that were old ones
but she jumped to the wrong conclusions.
Will they ever be able to be together?

[Milena · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed reading this book. I think the characters were well written and the descriptions of Alleria and everything else kept me captivated. Grace's really intelligent, smart and independent. Her sheltered life as a child genius justifies the reaction's she has later in the story. Logan sounds like a dreamy guy, though one instance in the book had me cringing for a while. Overall, the read was enjoyable and fun.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a sweet, fast read. I know Carlisle for her cozy mysteries and this is a nice departure that shows she has talent in multiple genres. I enjoyed getting to know the characters and the setting. I look forward to finding more of these hidden nuggets from Carlisle!

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fun read

[Isabel · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was goood until it went soso. A good read still.