Harriet Flint must marry before she's twenty-five if she is to claim her inheritance. She turns to sexy Roan Zandros, who agrees to a marriage in name only.
Their marriage vows exchanged, Roan reveals he is a billionaire whose every demand is granted.
Harriet realizes that Roan has every intention of claiming his inexperienced bride!
Anne Bushell was born on October 1938 in South Devon, England, just before World War II and grew up in a house crammed with books. She was always a voracious reader, some of her all-time favorites books are: "Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen, "Middlemarch" by George Eliot, "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Brontë, "Gone With the Wind" by Margaret Mitchell and "The Code of the Woosters" by P. G. Wodehouse.
She worked as journalist at the Paignton Observer, but after her marriage, she moved to the north of England, where she worked as teacher. After she returned to journalism, she joined the Middlesbrough Writers' Group, where she met other romance writer Mildred Grieveson (Anne Mather). She started to wrote romance, and she had her first novel "Garden of Dreams" accepted by Mills & Boon in 1975, she published her work under the pseudonym of Sara Craven. In 2010 she became chairman of the Southern Writers' Conference, and the next year was elected the twenty-six Chairman (2011–2013) of the Romantic Novelists' Association.
Divorced twice, Annie lives in Somerset, South West England, and shares her home with a West Highland white terrier called Bertie Wooster. In her house, she had several thousand books, and an amazing video collection. When she's not writing, she enjoys watching very old films, listening to music, going to the theatre, and eating in good restaurants. She also likes to travel in Europe, to inspire her romances, especially in France, Greece and Italy where many of her novels are set. Since the birth of her twin grandchildren, she is also a regular visitor to New York City, where the little tots live. In 1997, she was the overall winner of the BBC's Mastermind, winning the last final presented by Magnus Magnusson.
After three ticky-tacky mass produced Harlequin Presents in a row, this one seemed like a masterpiece of creativity and originality. A shabby artist hero, a chilly, starchy, independent heroine... what a relief! And though it did veer into HP cliche land towards the end -- when Roan tears off his false mustache and reveals himself to also be a greek tycoon, and the heroine’s all-important career goes up in smoke without her much noticing -- I still enjoyed it a lot.
In the genre of Mary Sues, Harriet is interesting for being deliberately dislikable -- she’s cold, withdrawn and calculating. In a painful scene early on, she overhears her co-workers mocking her and calling her “hell's spinster”; shortly thereafter she discovers a very unflattering sketch of herself, drawn by the artist she had had thrown off the workplace property, and that last straw causes her to emotionally crack in front of him. Still she desperately clings to her starchy ways, even after the artist has become her convenient husband and insists on a proper wedding night. (For those who fear Sara Craven’s rapey heroes, this is not an objectionable scene, IMO. Roan is clearly only doing what Harriet really wants.)
I liked how Craven really got into Harriet’s head, making her sympathetic despite her petty bitchiness. We don’t see Roan’s point of view, but he’s also well drawn, even with the slip into cliche. It’s perhaps a bit of a fairy tale, that the high maintenance woman should find true love in spite of herself... but then, I’m high maintenance myself, so maybe that’s why I liked it.
This is a marriage of convenience novel with prickly, career-driven heroine doing the asking. She needs to be married by age 25 or her grandfather won't leave her the ancestral home. Since her beautiful mother flits from man to man, the heroine is afraid to love people and has transferred all of her love and passion to the only home she has known.
The hero is a Greek street artist who is very talented and very arrogant for someone so . . . penniless and down on the social scale. At least that is how our bitchy, *petty* heroine sees him when she isn't fighting her attraction to him.
Because the heroine was so shallow, bitchy and petty, I really had a hard time getting into the story for several chapters. She was horrible - and she knew it. But then there were several fun scenes that just made the book.
Even if you don't mind a bitchy heroine, you still might be put off by:
Like it or hate it. This is a memorable story with memorable scenes.
Didn't like it at all. Not buying one bit that the hero loved her. We get to the end of the book and find out that after only 2 horrific meetings between the hero and the heroine, he had gone to her grandfather and claimed to love her beyond reasoning. Not buying it at all. You can't just say it at the end without showing it. They spent no time together where they were in any sort of accord. If he was so in love with her, why did he keep walking away and not seeing her for weeks? Good plan there bud to get her to love you. She was just a bitch to him over and over. No reason for either one of them to love the other.
This book just made me mad the entire time I was reading it and that's not the feeling I want to get from my happy little Harley fix.
I just checked and I've somehow managed to read 6 books by this author and not one have I scored more than 2 stars. I think she's just not for me.
very nice one though there was only 1 sex scene. i dunt understand why roan did not stay after the wedding night n made love 2 her more often. the book lost one star koz of dat. yes dat night she told him she would never love him. he just got married, he was already in love wid her dats y he chose 2 marry her when she only did it 2 gain her inheritance. he knew dat all long,yet he married her 2 make her love him after marriage. but LOL he did not do anything.he did not have any contact wid her whatsoever. as 4 harriet, she was a BIG bitch !!damaged by her mother. n der another star lost 4 me bcoz i did not like harriet's aggressive attitude
For some reason, i am utterly into this book. I don't know why, but I do. I couldn't even bring myself to let this book. I admit, the hero (he's Greek, yay!) falling for the heroine was a total what-just-happen moment since i couldn't even see when or why he'd fallen for her.. But still, I love this book.
The heroine is in big business. Right at the top. Her family. I think her grandfather is old fashioned and does not support her career in his company. So she is taken seriously by nobody over there. There is some condition that she should get married. She finds a candidate but he has lunch with her and informs her that he cannot marry her. His girl friend is against it. She is leaving the hotel and sees a scoundrelly ruffianly man at the reception desk. She is instantly attracted I think. Isn’t she? Read it some time back. She’s rude to him in some way or he is rude to her. Next day she finds him making drawings outside her building. She tries to get him shunted out. He draws her looking like a crow. Next we find that she is seeking him out. Making him an offer he cannot refuse. To marry her. He does. She thinks she can get rid of him. But he turns up at her flat and extracts a wedding night. No doesn’t mean no. Next we find she’s holding the exhibition for him. Or was it his own effort. She didn’t notice how the staff at hotel she had tea with him kow-towed to him. Like he was some VIP. Maybe the owner?! Anyway. As story progresses she discovers he’s a rich Greek. Shipping magnate. Of course. She goes with him to Greece. There are misunderstandings. They break up and make up in the end. Young love is so beautiful. Specially in Greece. Specially with a billionaire (millionaire in those days).
It’s a nice feel good comforting story. For me at least.
Harriet Flint must marry before she's twenty-five if she is to claim her inheritance. She turns to sexy Roan Zandros, who agrees to a marriage in name only.Their marriage vows exchanged, Roan reveals he is a billionaire whose every demand is granted. Harriet realizes that Roan has every intention of claiming his inexperienced bride
Definitely a mold breaker when it comes to characterization. Harriet is not the delightfully cheery, goody two-shoes heroine you typically see in HPland. She's prickly, uptight, judgmental and a bit of a prude. She knows that her standoffish attitude makes people hate her and she knows that people think she's mean and uncaring - but it's all in the cause of protecting herself and insulating herself in her own little world. And despite all these negative characteristics, Harriet, while not necessarily likeable, is an entirely sympathetic character. She feels emotions deeply - people's opinions of her hurt her, she feels loneliness and disappointment and these feelings are pervasive throughout the story. Her frustration is palpable - especially as she wants to reach out, to make the effort to to tell Roan how she really feels, but is waylaid by her fear of rejection and even her past actions. Her efforts amount to nothing because the man she loves has given up and would rather push her away to protect himself and she feels that rejection keenly. I'm not used to seeing these kinds of characters in this genre, so it was really refreshing.
Roan was a bit of different story for me. I did not feel like he loved Harriet at all. His actions on their wedding night were pretty abominable, given that she'd clearly stated no at the beginning and he used their legal contract and the fact that sex was not prohibited in it, to get claim his marital rights. He didn't seem to care what Harriet wanted. And for all that he supposedly had told her grandfather that he loved her and wanted to win her, he didn't make much effort to actually woo her. In fact, it seemed that he'd given up before he'd even started. I may understand why he'd started rejecting her olive branches there towards the end, but why did he reject her so much in the beginning? Unfortunately, we never do get Roan's POV, so his motivations and actions are very difficult to interpret. I also would have liked to see a bit more of a conclusion regarding Harriet's acceptance with Roan's family, the issue with Harriet's mother and most especially how things turned out with her grandfather...and how Harriet felt about his actions. I'd also like to know that Harriet is happy with or without a career, since she worked so hard to prove her worth in the career place. It felt like these ends weren't tied very tightly in the end. This was a great, complex story, but I would have liked a hero whose actions made more sense and a more drawn out ending.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
"The Virgin's Wedding Night" is the story of Harriet and Roan.
So rich girl heroine needs a marriage of convenience to gain her inheritance. After her fiancé deserts her, she approaches the hero, a penniless painter to help her after meeting on wrong terms. To her shock, he agrees but he then demands his wedding night..
Lots of drama in this one, the twist is predictable to long time harlequin readers, but the heroine did annoy me in the last half with how shrill she was. She just could not accept her feelings until the last moment.
This one didn't really gel for me. He was an artistic type and she didn't seem to have enough going for her in terms of looks or personality to attract him in the way the plot demanded. She was pretty horrible to him and I didn't think he deserved it or should have put up with it. I suppose in a way it was a reversal of the usual h/H roles. Still, SC can write a readable tale.
This had so much potential. Just a little re-wording of the most blatantly sexist conversational phrases, and perhaps one more scene of genuine respect if the hero of the heroine for her actions and this would make sense.
The title is ghastly, the blurb misleading, plot has major holes, the romance is hard to take seriously but the female character decent. If he's really in love with her (for no reason whatsoever) then why did he leave during the night and leave her ring with a sarcastic note?
In what decade was this story set? Always a question with Ms. Craven. I checked the editions under Book Details here for publication date and found all were consistent and in this century. The overall tone is “Gothic Horror”, so if you ever read Victoria Holt, Mary Stewart, or even Daphne du Maurier, you will feel quite at home. The book follows a familiar template: heroine is removed from her familiar surroundings and whisked off to a castle, where her safety is threatened. I quite liked the prickly heroine. So much fun. I didn’t think she was an awful person. She just wanted to be recognized and valued for her work, when the odds were stacked against her, given a male cousin on the scene at the family company. And then, yeah, she does try to deceive her grandfather, true. But, nobody’s perfect. And it turns out the H and grandfather had a meeting of the minds from early on, anyway. She didn’t seem to bring her work personality with her to Greece *at all*. For example, she never seems to think about developing housing after her marriage of convenience — not even when spending her days driving around Greece, where affordable, safe housing might be in demand. I agreed with another reviewer here on GR that having the benefit of Roan’s POV would have enriched the story. We don’t get much sense of him beyond “billionaire” “divorced parents” “artist son of an artist mother” and “had a jealous mistress (all sexual contact with OW concluded before meeting our heroine.)” I thought the plot set up was amusing. There should have been one more plot twist at the end — if it had turned out Harriet’s grandfather had bet on the HEA instead of against it. Also, for this century, there should have been explicit, verbal consent. Quite a creepy scene when Roan shows up in Harry’s apartment on their wedding night, which was one source of my suspicion about the copyright date. But, maybe consider this a “throwback” and enjoy the guilty pleasure of it.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
I’ve never found a Presents book where the heroine doing the buying. It’s always the heroes everytime. So despite the stupidity of the action, I guess that gives this book a credit. And the part where Roan begged for a chance to make Harriet fall in love with him, it’s just so sweet. It’s a wonder he didn’t just dump her after all that attitude of her. She hurt him, again and again, and still he always think of her happiness. He is ready to let her go so that she could have her dream. That’s what you called true love, I guess. And the ending. I always love a good ending. And this book’s ending is quite good. Not quite enough grovelling from her part, but I guess that’ll do. Oh, and one last thing. Harriet was left by her mother to be raised by her grandfather. Her mother refused to give Harriet away for adoption when she fell pregnant, even if that means she was disowned by her father. So, it’s not because her mother doesn’t love her, right? But until the end of the book, there’s no explanation why Harriet’s mother did that. It’s not a big issue, but makes the story feels incomplete.
Cliche as this may seem but this book will definitely stick with me. It's been almost a day since I finished this but my mind still kept going back to that final scene of realization, acceptance, and most of all reunion. Of course there's the obligatory love scene as a romance book should have, but the character development was awesome especially with the main protagonist, Harriet Flint, which came off as a convention-bending lass with a passionate heart. Also, it's not hard to fall head over heels with the male protagonist, Roan Zandros. I love how everything unraveled beautifully at the end.
I can't say the title was misleading...but it definitely wasn't its strongest part. Don't let it get to you because this book is more than all of that. This book is kinda sweet and all.. and coming from me, that itself says something.
I've overlooked this genre since forever. But after reading this, I realized how much I missed reading light and romantic story lines. Definitely trying out others of this kind. Any suggestion? :)
إن لم تتزوجني قبل حلول عيد مولدك الخامس والعشرين، لن ترثي غرايس ميد!! لم يكن أمام هارييت فلينت خيار إلا الرضوخ لمشيئة جدها، لكي تتمكن من الحصول على منزل العائلة، لذا اتفقت مع الشاب اليوناني الوسيم روان زاندروس على زواج صوري، في سبيل تحقيق هذا الهدف... بعد تبادل عهود الزواج، ذهبت هارييت برفقة روان إلى اليونان، حيث تبين لها أن زوجها هو وريق العائلة التي تملك سلسلة فنادق زاندروس، وأن هذا المليونير يتوقع من الجميع تلبية رغباته... تحت أشعة الشمس اليونانية الساطعة، أدركت هارييت أن روان يتوقع ليلة زفاف مميزة لا تنسى... إنه ينوي حقاً الحصول على حقوقه الزوجية من عروسه البريئة التي لم تعرف رجل من قبل!!
I liked the book. I have read another of Sara Craven's books...can't recollect the name.....similar style except the hero was French...loved that too. But as I have read other reviews I tend to agree with scepticism of his supposed devotion to her after just a couple of disastrous meetings where she struck him previously no less! It would have been better if he admitted to her how he felt earlier without having to hear it from her grandfather of all people. Still enjoyed it though!
the first book i read of "Sara Craven" was "Mistress on Loan" which was waaaay better then this The Virgin's Wedding Night, i didn't like it, it was very much similar to "bought: one husband" by "Diana Hamilton" but in a terrible way that made me sad all time while reading it