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Somerville-Smythe #1
الحب المقدر
Raff Quinlan was certainly more than Rhea-Jane could handle. Falling in love with him would have to be the most foolish things she had ever done. But knowing that didn't stop her.
Nor did the knowledge that their relationship - such as it was - was based on a tissue of lies. What would Raff say when he discovered the truth about Rhea-Jane and her real relationship with Jordan, the other man in her life?
Nor did the knowledge that their relationship - such as it was - was based on a tissue of lies. What would Raff say when he discovered the truth about Rhea-Jane and her real relationship with Jordan, the other man in her life?
Unknown Binding
First published November 1, 1991
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107 people want to read
About the author
Carole Mortimer
1,296 books907 followersI have written almost 250 romance novels in contemporary and Regency.
I am a USA Today Bestselling Author and recipient of the 2015 RWA Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2014 I received a Pioneer of Romance Award from Romantic Times in the US and in 2012 I was recognised by Queen Elizabeth II for my 'outstanding service to literature'.
I am very happily married to Peter with six sons, and live on the Isle of Man
I am a USA Today Bestselling Author and recipient of the 2015 RWA Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2014 I received a Pioneer of Romance Award from Romantic Times in the US and in 2012 I was recognised by Queen Elizabeth II for my 'outstanding service to literature'.
I am very happily married to Peter with six sons, and live on the Isle of Man
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
cover-bureau
November 21, 2023I can't seem to make myself read CM anymore but I want to mention this beautiful cover by Ted Sizemore which caught my eye this morning. Hero seems enamored by heroine's glorious locks and who can blame him?
May 25, 2018
Re Fated Attraction - Carole Mortimer's first book in the Somerville-Smythe sibling series is published 146 books AFTER it's sequel on the HP side of things. So if you pick this one up, read this before Saving Grace or the big surprise at the end will be revealed.
Or you can just read my spoilerization and get the big seekrit revealed anyways.
The book opens with Rhea-Jane almost getting run over by Raff the H's old skool jaguar when she inadvertently stepped in front of him and then jumped back to safety. Rhea-Jane Sommerville-Smythe, who is now only using Jane Smith as her moniker, has been attempting to fulfill the conditions of her late father's will to be able to access her inheritance in three months.
(Jane and her father had a very distant relationship, her mum died when she was born and her father hated her for that. So Jane was a bit rebellious in her teens and then she was stuck running her father's houses and doing charity work after she left school.
Her father's will states that she has to be self-supporting and working before she can access what he left her. Which is rather unfair, as Jane wasn't able to get any training to hold down a job that pays enough for the basics of living. Jordan, Rhea-Jane's brother and the H of the next book, told Jane that she couldn't make it on her own, so of course she took off to prove him wrong.)
Poor Jane hit the curb hard when she fell after almost getting run over by Raff, plus her nice designer clothes got dragged thru the mud, so Jane is looking like a wet bedraggled kitten in her distress and Raff scoops her up and hauls her off to the emergency ward for a check up.
Rhea-Jane is all bruised up and has no place to go. She doesn't really want to go back to the house she shares with her brother Jordan, mainly cause she is convinced he will make her eat crow and he won't release her inheritance in three months when she turns 21. (Raff, pronounced Rafe, is 37 in this story.)
Fortunately Raff is a nice, but grumpy divorced guy, and he has a big family estate he is trying to save from bankruptcy and he offers Rhea-Jane a job doing his typing. This job includes being able to live in and Rhea-Jane decides to stick with the Jane Smith name and take him up on his offer.
So Jane and Raff are in the same house and aside from a few roofie kisses, don't have a lot to do with each other. Raff is bitter over his ex-wife cleaning him out after he inherited the family estate and she did not like the house. Plus his own aunt is a snide pit viper waiting for him to die childless and alone so her son can inherit the Estate, the aunt has always wanted the place to snob it up in.
We learn that both Jane and Raff had lonely, neglected childhoods and the only spot of brightness in Raff's life was his nanny named Diana. When Raff's pit viper aunt shows up to spread doom and gloom all over, she brings her son. Whom Jane has occasionally dated and he knows who she really is and the pit viper also remarks that Jane looks a lot like Diana, Raff's former nanny.
Rhea-Jane gets a little jolt at that, because she has noticed that Raff acts a lot like her brother Jordan in many ways and she also knows her mum was named Diana and was a nanny before she married Jane's dad and had Jordan and her. (CM puts in a little Diana, Princess of Wales shout out here too.)
Rhea-Jane soon forgets to think about that tho, mainly cause Raff's roofie kisses obliterate her brain function and because she finally convinces Raff to trust her with his super-seekrit plan to turn the estate into an English rural resort complex for wealthy Londoners.
Then Jane's brother calls her at Raff's house, Raff's nephew with the pit viper mother spilled Rhea-Jane's whereabouts to Jordan, so now Jordan demands Rhea-Jane meet him for lunch to discuss her shortcomings.
Jane asks for the day off and Raff assumes she is going out to meet her lover, who probably had just kicked her out when he met her. Rhea-Jane doesn't tell him otherwise and after a lecture from Jordan, she tells him about Raff's seekrit Estate plan and Jordan is instantly interested and wants in on the deal.
Rhea-Jane sends a copy of Raff's seekrit proposal to Jordan and the next thing we know, Jordan is at Raff's house and Raff tells Jordan he can't have Jane back because he, Raff, wants to marry her. Then Jordan spills the beans that they are brother and sister and if Raff wants Rhea-Jane he can have her, but he better be sure, cause Jordan isn't taking her headstrong, bratty self back.
Raff feels like he has been made a fool of on multiple levels, so he kicks everybody out of his house and Jordan is mad Raff doesn't want to do business with him and Rhea-Jane is mad and sad, cause she loves Raff back and would have agreed to marry him.
Rhea-Jane decides to go nag Raff about not taking Jordan up on his business deal, so off we go to Raff's. Raff is still grumpy and tells Rhea-Jane there are other business partners available. Rhea-Jane is very sad now and tells Raff she loves him and would have married him, if he hadn't kicked her out. Then she goes home to go yell at Jordan for messing things up some more.
Raff shows up at Rhea-Jane's and Jordan's soon after and they avow true love forever and decide to marry. Then Rhea-Jane has to confess that she accepted an evening invitation to a party at Raff's Aunt's house - Raff's nephew presumed upon his and Rhea-Jane's friendship and dragooned her into attending it.
Raff and Jordan decide that they will go along as chaperones and when everyone arrives, the pit viper aunt gets really huffy and accuses Jordan and Rhea-Jane of trying to get their hands on the family Estate because Raff's dad is also Jordan's dad.
Before he died, Raff and Jordan's dad was estranged from his evil wife and he had an affair with the h's mother Diana, who was Raff's nanny. So Jordan is Raff's younger half brother. This throws Jordan into his self-identity crisis and sets him up for the next book.
Finally Raff's uncle puts a muzzle on his pit viper wife and Rafe and Rhea-Jane get married. We get a little epilogue where the pit viper aunt is enraged to learn Rhea-Jane is preggers and that the Estate resort plans are full steam ahead and Raff and Rhea-Jane are blissfully in love for the big HEA.
This one was okay, tho the h's antics were kinda annoying when she kept lying about who she was and then betrayed Raff's seekrit plans to Jordan. Plus it was hard to see when Rhea-Jane and Raff actually fell in love, they hardly spent anytime together and then Raff kicked her out. It isn't terrible tho, so this one would probably be a mediocre HPlandia outing if you read it.
Or you can just read my spoilerization and get the big seekrit revealed anyways.
The book opens with Rhea-Jane almost getting run over by Raff the H's old skool jaguar when she inadvertently stepped in front of him and then jumped back to safety. Rhea-Jane Sommerville-Smythe, who is now only using Jane Smith as her moniker, has been attempting to fulfill the conditions of her late father's will to be able to access her inheritance in three months.
(Jane and her father had a very distant relationship, her mum died when she was born and her father hated her for that. So Jane was a bit rebellious in her teens and then she was stuck running her father's houses and doing charity work after she left school.
Her father's will states that she has to be self-supporting and working before she can access what he left her. Which is rather unfair, as Jane wasn't able to get any training to hold down a job that pays enough for the basics of living. Jordan, Rhea-Jane's brother and the H of the next book, told Jane that she couldn't make it on her own, so of course she took off to prove him wrong.)
Poor Jane hit the curb hard when she fell after almost getting run over by Raff, plus her nice designer clothes got dragged thru the mud, so Jane is looking like a wet bedraggled kitten in her distress and Raff scoops her up and hauls her off to the emergency ward for a check up.
Rhea-Jane is all bruised up and has no place to go. She doesn't really want to go back to the house she shares with her brother Jordan, mainly cause she is convinced he will make her eat crow and he won't release her inheritance in three months when she turns 21. (Raff, pronounced Rafe, is 37 in this story.)
Fortunately Raff is a nice, but grumpy divorced guy, and he has a big family estate he is trying to save from bankruptcy and he offers Rhea-Jane a job doing his typing. This job includes being able to live in and Rhea-Jane decides to stick with the Jane Smith name and take him up on his offer.
So Jane and Raff are in the same house and aside from a few roofie kisses, don't have a lot to do with each other. Raff is bitter over his ex-wife cleaning him out after he inherited the family estate and she did not like the house. Plus his own aunt is a snide pit viper waiting for him to die childless and alone so her son can inherit the Estate, the aunt has always wanted the place to snob it up in.
We learn that both Jane and Raff had lonely, neglected childhoods and the only spot of brightness in Raff's life was his nanny named Diana. When Raff's pit viper aunt shows up to spread doom and gloom all over, she brings her son. Whom Jane has occasionally dated and he knows who she really is and the pit viper also remarks that Jane looks a lot like Diana, Raff's former nanny.
Rhea-Jane gets a little jolt at that, because she has noticed that Raff acts a lot like her brother Jordan in many ways and she also knows her mum was named Diana and was a nanny before she married Jane's dad and had Jordan and her. (CM puts in a little Diana, Princess of Wales shout out here too.)
Rhea-Jane soon forgets to think about that tho, mainly cause Raff's roofie kisses obliterate her brain function and because she finally convinces Raff to trust her with his super-seekrit plan to turn the estate into an English rural resort complex for wealthy Londoners.
Then Jane's brother calls her at Raff's house, Raff's nephew with the pit viper mother spilled Rhea-Jane's whereabouts to Jordan, so now Jordan demands Rhea-Jane meet him for lunch to discuss her shortcomings.
Jane asks for the day off and Raff assumes she is going out to meet her lover, who probably had just kicked her out when he met her. Rhea-Jane doesn't tell him otherwise and after a lecture from Jordan, she tells him about Raff's seekrit Estate plan and Jordan is instantly interested and wants in on the deal.
Rhea-Jane sends a copy of Raff's seekrit proposal to Jordan and the next thing we know, Jordan is at Raff's house and Raff tells Jordan he can't have Jane back because he, Raff, wants to marry her. Then Jordan spills the beans that they are brother and sister and if Raff wants Rhea-Jane he can have her, but he better be sure, cause Jordan isn't taking her headstrong, bratty self back.
Raff feels like he has been made a fool of on multiple levels, so he kicks everybody out of his house and Jordan is mad Raff doesn't want to do business with him and Rhea-Jane is mad and sad, cause she loves Raff back and would have agreed to marry him.
Rhea-Jane decides to go nag Raff about not taking Jordan up on his business deal, so off we go to Raff's. Raff is still grumpy and tells Rhea-Jane there are other business partners available. Rhea-Jane is very sad now and tells Raff she loves him and would have married him, if he hadn't kicked her out. Then she goes home to go yell at Jordan for messing things up some more.
Raff shows up at Rhea-Jane's and Jordan's soon after and they avow true love forever and decide to marry. Then Rhea-Jane has to confess that she accepted an evening invitation to a party at Raff's Aunt's house - Raff's nephew presumed upon his and Rhea-Jane's friendship and dragooned her into attending it.
Raff and Jordan decide that they will go along as chaperones and when everyone arrives, the pit viper aunt gets really huffy and accuses Jordan and Rhea-Jane of trying to get their hands on the family Estate because Raff's dad is also Jordan's dad.
Before he died, Raff and Jordan's dad was estranged from his evil wife and he had an affair with the h's mother Diana, who was Raff's nanny. So Jordan is Raff's younger half brother. This throws Jordan into his self-identity crisis and sets him up for the next book.
Finally Raff's uncle puts a muzzle on his pit viper wife and Rafe and Rhea-Jane get married. We get a little epilogue where the pit viper aunt is enraged to learn Rhea-Jane is preggers and that the Estate resort plans are full steam ahead and Raff and Rhea-Jane are blissfully in love for the big HEA.
This one was okay, tho the h's antics were kinda annoying when she kept lying about who she was and then betrayed Raff's seekrit plans to Jordan. Plus it was hard to see when Rhea-Jane and Raff actually fell in love, they hardly spent anytime together and then Raff kicked her out. It isn't terrible tho, so this one would probably be a mediocre HPlandia outing if you read it.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 16, 2021
3 1/2 Stars! ~ Rhea-Jane Somerville-Smythe had taken her brother, Jordan’s challenge to find work and prove herself independent; only in the week that she’d been on her own she’d been very unsuccessful. She’d been on her way to find a taxi for the dreaded ride home, when a passing car had forced her to step back and she tripped on the pavement. Her fall was bad enough, but she landed hardly in a puddle her suitcase sprung open and her clothes scattered in the mud. Rafe Quinlan knew his car had not struck the woman, but he felt obligated to stop and see if she was alright. He could hardly leave her in the street, so he whisked her up and took her to the hospital, where he’s shocked to learn her name is Jane Smith and even more shocked when he sees the extent of her bruises. As it becomes evident that Jane Smith has no place to go, no job, and no money, Rafe takes her home with him. In the morning, Rafe surprises Rhea-Jane with a job offer as typist, that includes room and board and he warns her that he’ll continue to try to figure out her true identity. The more time Rhea-Jane spends with Rafe, the more intense their feeling of attraction becomes and the more Rhea-Jane fears his reaction when he learns who she really is.
Though published later, this is actually a book that is a prequel to Saving Grace, published in 1993. Having read Saving Grace, I realized I had this book also in my TBR. This is also a very lovely story. Rafe and Rhea are both great characters. The witty banter between them is a lot of fun. Another quick and very pleasant read.
Though published later, this is actually a book that is a prequel to Saving Grace, published in 1993. Having read Saving Grace, I realized I had this book also in my TBR. This is also a very lovely story. Rafe and Rhea are both great characters. The witty banter between them is a lot of fun. Another quick and very pleasant read.
June 8, 2013
I can't remember the last time I've been so passionately angry about a book, but reading, no, persevering through 'Fated Attraction' gave me the belief that anybody in their right mind could have the capability of being an author.
It started off ok: a girl being accidentally knocked by the car of a dark and handsome stranger, while escaping a man who's been looking after her financial interests. The guy who knocks her over then takes her into his house and hires her as his secretary, however then, things get a bit strange, as she struggles over how to tell him that she's actually a wealthy middle class woman, who's taking a job with him to prove a point to her brother, who's holding back the family inheritance from her.
There's very little of the Mills & Boon genre in here, and as later events transpire, her brother turns out to only be her half brother, and also the half brother of the man she ends up falling in love with. It's a ridiculous read, shallow, poorly constructed and just... absolutely terrible. If you come across this book, burn it.
It started off ok: a girl being accidentally knocked by the car of a dark and handsome stranger, while escaping a man who's been looking after her financial interests. The guy who knocks her over then takes her into his house and hires her as his secretary, however then, things get a bit strange, as she struggles over how to tell him that she's actually a wealthy middle class woman, who's taking a job with him to prove a point to her brother, who's holding back the family inheritance from her.
There's very little of the Mills & Boon genre in here, and as later events transpire, her brother turns out to only be her half brother, and also the half brother of the man she ends up falling in love with. It's a ridiculous read, shallow, poorly constructed and just... absolutely terrible. If you come across this book, burn it.
May 29, 2017
Classic? *snickers*
So mind numbingly boring.. and not because it was written two decades ago..
But I shouldn't expect much from harlequin novels right?
The thing is even Harlequin publishes half decent novels some times.. this isn't one of them if I could I would give it minus stars
Sooo.. yeah there you go
So mind numbingly boring.. and not because it was written two decades ago..
But I shouldn't expect much from harlequin novels right?
The thing is even Harlequin publishes half decent novels some times.. this isn't one of them if I could I would give it minus stars
Sooo.. yeah there you go
December 28, 2019
Leí la versión en español que se encuentra bajo estos dos títulos: Bajo las apariencias y/o La fuerza del destino.
Un poco confusa al inicio, pero luego se develan "los enredos", me gustó aunque menos que la segunda parte de esta serie.
Un poco confusa al inicio, pero luego se develan "los enredos", me gustó aunque menos que la segunda parte de esta serie.
December 10, 2017
Not bad, and the relationship between the protagonists didn't squick me out, but it could have been a bit longer to give them time to fall in love a little more realistically.
August 23, 2022
This was a cute and quick read. I like those. I loved the characters Raff, Jane and Jordan. It was quite the surprise to discover Jordan is not just Jane’s brother but he is also Rafe’s brother.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 15, 2023
I mean straight up horror, has now caused a deep desire in me to read as many vintage mills and boon as i can
hq-to-read
May 11, 2021When rakishly handsome Raff Quinlan accidentally knocks down Rhea-Jane, he whisks her back to his country manor to recuperate. Her beauty beguiles him and the passion between them is instantly sizzling! Curious about his mystery houseguest, Raff learns that Rhea-Jane needs a job and offers her a position as his personal secretary...
But Raff is unaware that Rhea-Jane hides a secret. And the tighter the desire coils between them, the harder it will be for either of them to walk away unscathed!
But Raff is unaware that Rhea-Jane hides a secret. And the tighter the desire coils between them, the harder it will be for either of them to walk away unscathed!
December 24, 2018
من سنين طويله لم اقرأ هذه الروايه
اتذكر انها لم تكن من مفضلاني في مراهقتي فلم اعد قراءتها
وبعد سنين اعيد قراءتها لاجدني استمتع بها لاقصى حد
حتى انني لا اريدها ان تن��هي
ككل روايات عبير مليئة بالحب
رالف الشهم الذي يساعد جين في مشكلتها
فماذا سيحدث لهذان الاثنين وعنادها
تتكشف اسرار مخفيه من سنين
فمهذه الاسرار ومادخلها ببطلينا
انصح بها
اتذكر انها لم تكن من مفضلاني في مراهقتي فلم اعد قراءتها
وبعد سنين اعيد قراءتها لاجدني استمتع بها لاقصى حد
حتى انني لا اريدها ان تن��هي
ككل روايات عبير مليئة بالحب
رالف الشهم الذي يساعد جين في مشكلتها
فماذا سيحدث لهذان الاثنين وعنادها
تتكشف اسرار مخفيه من سنين
فمهذه الاسرار ومادخلها ببطلينا
انصح بها
September 8, 2017
Carole Mortimer is an author the I will definitely pick up.
An author I have always loved.
There were the usual twists and turns but the suspense was were well built up.
Having said that I have yet to read the sequel to this book 'Saving Grace'
An author I have always loved.
There were the usual twists and turns but the suspense was were well built up.
Having said that I have yet to read the sequel to this book 'Saving Grace'
November 7, 2023
Raff Quinlan accidentally causes Rhea-Jane to fall, badly twisting her ankle. Feeling responsible he takes her back to his country manor to recuperate and where he hires her to be his secretary.
March 7, 2015
boring and tedious!
January 22, 2016
My comment on finishing this book "very weird". Heroine falls in love and in the end it turns out that the man is her half-brother's half brother.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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May 21, 2016الحب المقدر _ كارول مورتيمر
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