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Mistress of the Groom
Have you heard the latest? Don't tell anyone but...The groom was having an affair - with his bride's best friend! Jane had been desperate to stop the wedding. She'd had to prevent her best friend from making the biggest mistake of her life... . Marrying Ryan Blair would have been disastrous. He was too rich, too powerful, too hot to handle!There was only one to stand up in church and declare that she, Jane Sherwood, respectable businesswoman, was having a secret torrid affair with Ryan! It had worked. The wedding was finished. But now Ryan was determined to make Jane pay for his wrecked marriage - by making her his mistress for real!
192 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1997
42 people are currently reading
1112 people want to read
About the author
Susan Napier
141 books153 followersPerhaps being born on Valentine’s Day was an omen that Susan Napier would become a romance writer. This New Zealand author has written over 30 Mills & Boon category romances since 1984. Napier and her husband Tony Potter met when they both worked at the Auckland Star newspaper. After they married, she left the newspaper to work for a film company where she learned the art of dialogue. After the birth of her sons, Simon and Ben, she was a freelance scriptwriter for documentaries. It was soon after that she decided to try her hand at writing the romance fiction she dearly loved.
She and her husband still live in the home they bought in Auckland shortly after their marriage.
She and her husband still live in the home they bought in Auckland shortly after their marriage.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 125 reviews
January 9, 2019
RE Mistress of the Groom - Susan Napier's Typhoon of Tackiness Drama takes the Scandals! mini series to epic new lows.
I despise this book from the bottom of my heart, so take this spoilerization with a grain of salt because a lot of HP Voyagers love this one.
The book starts with the h interrupting the wedding of the H and her BFF by claiming she is the H's mistress. Totally Tacky Behavior and it all came about because the BFF was pressured into marrying the H by her family and she is in love with someone else. So she guilted the h by claiming she was pregnant until the h agreed to do something dramatic enough to get her off the hook.
We learn that the H and the h's abusive father have been in competition for years, the father is very unscrupulous and ruined the H's family business years earlier. This is the final straw as far as the H is concerned, he can't have his own way so he is going to war.
He decimates the h's father and then he sets out to decimate the h too for thwarting his will, by bankrupting her, evicting her from her home, blackballing her from getting a job and (tho she helped a lot in this,) humiliating her socially.
This leads to the h punching him out in a completely pathetic scene at a big public dinner, injuring her hand. Then the H decides to sell the bankrupt h as a prostitute to some creepy guy and the h agrees to do this. The H breaks into the room at the last minute and essentially rapes her himself, tho it is presented as forced seduction and of course the h has a physiological response.
The h is bankrupt, socially humiliated, ruined and runs off to a primitive beach hut to sort her garbage out. The H shows up and proceeds to bully, berate, continue to rape and force his way into the h's life.
The h manages to injure both of her hands at this point and is pretty helpless, so the H connives to get her into his home with his fairly decent mother and his skank nematode slime swiller of a sister. There is more H forced seduction attempts and this h just can't stop offering the H opportunities to humiliate her.
Finally it all ends with the H running off in frustration because the h won't trust him. He finally found out about the BFF's pressure on the heroine to ruin his wedding and the h has to borrow money from the H's mother, go to another huge society event and publicly humiliate herself to beg him to take her back.
Which he begrudgingly and humiliatingly does and the h says it is all okay because really she ruined his wedding because she was jealous that he was marrying her friend when she loved him.
There is no remorse, redemption or anything from the H but a continual grinding the h's face in the fact that she is worth nothing more than an objectified masturbatory object and whipping post for the H and the h has now signed up for that for life and this is supposed to be the HEA.
My original rant follows this, but honestly, I throw up every time I even think about this HP outing and this is the last time I am ever reading it.
I can't admire anyone in this book.
The h in this book is the weakest, most pathetic doormat in HP history. She can't stand up to Mr. Potato Head, much less anyone else including her wimpy, scared meek best friend who wants her to stop the wedding cause the BF can't pick up her big girls pants and say 'no, I don't want to marry this guy.'
This h needed therapy or a BDSM club so she could either get over her masochism or find a guy who really cared about her enough to help her live with it.
The H is one huge load of excrement, and that is probably insulting excrement. These two are so dysfunctional it isn't even funny. I foresee them dying within a year of the ending cause they killed each other. There was no romance in this book, just two highly antagonistic, despicable people who probably deserved each other in the end with huge hopes that death hits them before they breed.
At one point in the book the H tells the h that she isn't worth having because she won't trust him to be honorable. She is right not to trust him, aside from bankrupting her, evicting her from her home, prostituting her out and then forcibly seducing her, he does not one thing to prove he is a decent person.
He is focused on revenge until he decides he wants to permanently humiliate her by marrying her and continue the torture and she laps this treatment up like it is candy. There was no redemption for either one of these people, he contemptuously tosses her aside until she is willing to publicly beg and humiliate herself to be with him.
Sadly, she has so little self-respect left she does it, and makes a "grand gesture" proposal in front of people she will have to endure continued slights from as long as she is in his life. That isn't love, that is wretched self-destruction and not my idea of a HEA.
This was dysfunction at its finest, and the only feeling left at the end of the story was a bleak depression that although they deserved to be together as they are both disgusting, there was no joy or real relationship between the two that makes their pairing even remotely loving or with the potential to ever be happy.
I despise this book from the bottom of my heart, so take this spoilerization with a grain of salt because a lot of HP Voyagers love this one.
The book starts with the h interrupting the wedding of the H and her BFF by claiming she is the H's mistress. Totally Tacky Behavior and it all came about because the BFF was pressured into marrying the H by her family and she is in love with someone else. So she guilted the h by claiming she was pregnant until the h agreed to do something dramatic enough to get her off the hook.
We learn that the H and the h's abusive father have been in competition for years, the father is very unscrupulous and ruined the H's family business years earlier. This is the final straw as far as the H is concerned, he can't have his own way so he is going to war.
He decimates the h's father and then he sets out to decimate the h too for thwarting his will, by bankrupting her, evicting her from her home, blackballing her from getting a job and (tho she helped a lot in this,) humiliating her socially.
This leads to the h punching him out in a completely pathetic scene at a big public dinner, injuring her hand. Then the H decides to sell the bankrupt h as a prostitute to some creepy guy and the h agrees to do this. The H breaks into the room at the last minute and essentially rapes her himself, tho it is presented as forced seduction and of course the h has a physiological response.
The h is bankrupt, socially humiliated, ruined and runs off to a primitive beach hut to sort her garbage out. The H shows up and proceeds to bully, berate, continue to rape and force his way into the h's life.
The h manages to injure both of her hands at this point and is pretty helpless, so the H connives to get her into his home with his fairly decent mother and his skank nematode slime swiller of a sister. There is more H forced seduction attempts and this h just can't stop offering the H opportunities to humiliate her.
Finally it all ends with the H running off in frustration because the h won't trust him. He finally found out about the BFF's pressure on the heroine to ruin his wedding and the h has to borrow money from the H's mother, go to another huge society event and publicly humiliate herself to beg him to take her back.
Which he begrudgingly and humiliatingly does and the h says it is all okay because really she ruined his wedding because she was jealous that he was marrying her friend when she loved him.
There is no remorse, redemption or anything from the H but a continual grinding the h's face in the fact that she is worth nothing more than an objectified masturbatory object and whipping post for the H and the h has now signed up for that for life and this is supposed to be the HEA.
My original rant follows this, but honestly, I throw up every time I even think about this HP outing and this is the last time I am ever reading it.
I can't admire anyone in this book.
The h in this book is the weakest, most pathetic doormat in HP history. She can't stand up to Mr. Potato Head, much less anyone else including her wimpy, scared meek best friend who wants her to stop the wedding cause the BF can't pick up her big girls pants and say 'no, I don't want to marry this guy.'
This h needed therapy or a BDSM club so she could either get over her masochism or find a guy who really cared about her enough to help her live with it.
The H is one huge load of excrement, and that is probably insulting excrement. These two are so dysfunctional it isn't even funny. I foresee them dying within a year of the ending cause they killed each other. There was no romance in this book, just two highly antagonistic, despicable people who probably deserved each other in the end with huge hopes that death hits them before they breed.
At one point in the book the H tells the h that she isn't worth having because she won't trust him to be honorable. She is right not to trust him, aside from bankrupting her, evicting her from her home, prostituting her out and then forcibly seducing her, he does not one thing to prove he is a decent person.
He is focused on revenge until he decides he wants to permanently humiliate her by marrying her and continue the torture and she laps this treatment up like it is candy. There was no redemption for either one of these people, he contemptuously tosses her aside until she is willing to publicly beg and humiliate herself to be with him.
Sadly, she has so little self-respect left she does it, and makes a "grand gesture" proposal in front of people she will have to endure continued slights from as long as she is in his life. That isn't love, that is wretched self-destruction and not my idea of a HEA.
This was dysfunction at its finest, and the only feeling left at the end of the story was a bleak depression that although they deserved to be together as they are both disgusting, there was no joy or real relationship between the two that makes their pairing even remotely loving or with the potential to ever be happy.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 18, 2009
This is one of my all time favorite Harlequin Presents. It has the elements that I love about this line: passion, revenge, strong personalities clashing in the arena of life, until they fall in love (and bed).
Jane and Ryan are enemies, for numerous reasons. For one thing, he ruins her father and his business (her father destroyed his family many years earlier and he has been biding his time to take his revenge). Also she ruins his wedding to her good friend, by arriving at the wedding and claiming to be his mistress that he's been having an affair with. Her meek friend has fallen in love with another man and is afraid to cry off from the wedding, so Jane steps in to help her at her own expense. After that, daggers are drawn. Ryan destroys Jane's business prospects and pretty much her life, and makes it impossible for her to find a job.
So it's her turn to get revenge. It sounds like a vicious cycle, but the fiery chemistry between them makes this story worth reading. Jane is tall and buxom (I sort of pictured her looking like Lucy Lawless as Xena or Jane Russell (40s-50s pinup girl and actress). Ryan is a big, tall, blue-eyed, black-haired guy who probably looks like a viking except with the dark hair. They make a striking couple.
There are few love scenes, but they are pretty blazing, and the first one definitely has a naughty vibe (you can read if you want to find out what I mean).
This book shows the strength of Napier's writing. She might have a heroine who's temporarily down on her luck, but she's more than a match for the hero as far as intellect, abilities, and personal fortitude. She isn't a pushover, and she's not going to let him treat her like she's beneath him. I also love that she has heroines who may not be model beautiful and have some insecurities about themselves that they might struggle with, but manage to live productive lives otherwise. You get the impression that they would be successful in life, but it's nice to have the love of a good man to complete them. I love her heroes because they are very alpha and somewhat domineering, but equally caring, and not so bullheaded that they cannot come to see the error of their ways or express their love and caring for the heroine. Plus she has a lot of big, muscular, dark hair, light eyed heroes, which I find very attractive. And they are New Zealanders (Not Italian, Greek, or Latin) and not necessarily billionaires. A lot of them are self-made men and/or have very down to earth values and lifestyles, even if they are wealthy. And usually they are very much heroes in pursuit, who go after the heroine who's not the typical immaculate, society beauty that every other man wants (although they are definitely appealing in their own unique way).
I think you'd have to be a fan of Harlequin Presentseque storylines, at least to a mild degree, to like this one. But I happen to love the revenge and powerful desire between enemies theme that is a staple of Harlequin Presents, so this book was a winner for me, especially in Susan Napier's masterful hands.
Jane and Ryan are enemies, for numerous reasons. For one thing, he ruins her father and his business (her father destroyed his family many years earlier and he has been biding his time to take his revenge). Also she ruins his wedding to her good friend, by arriving at the wedding and claiming to be his mistress that he's been having an affair with. Her meek friend has fallen in love with another man and is afraid to cry off from the wedding, so Jane steps in to help her at her own expense. After that, daggers are drawn. Ryan destroys Jane's business prospects and pretty much her life, and makes it impossible for her to find a job.
So it's her turn to get revenge. It sounds like a vicious cycle, but the fiery chemistry between them makes this story worth reading. Jane is tall and buxom (I sort of pictured her looking like Lucy Lawless as Xena or Jane Russell (40s-50s pinup girl and actress). Ryan is a big, tall, blue-eyed, black-haired guy who probably looks like a viking except with the dark hair. They make a striking couple.
There are few love scenes, but they are pretty blazing, and the first one definitely has a naughty vibe (you can read if you want to find out what I mean).
This book shows the strength of Napier's writing. She might have a heroine who's temporarily down on her luck, but she's more than a match for the hero as far as intellect, abilities, and personal fortitude. She isn't a pushover, and she's not going to let him treat her like she's beneath him. I also love that she has heroines who may not be model beautiful and have some insecurities about themselves that they might struggle with, but manage to live productive lives otherwise. You get the impression that they would be successful in life, but it's nice to have the love of a good man to complete them. I love her heroes because they are very alpha and somewhat domineering, but equally caring, and not so bullheaded that they cannot come to see the error of their ways or express their love and caring for the heroine. Plus she has a lot of big, muscular, dark hair, light eyed heroes, which I find very attractive. And they are New Zealanders (Not Italian, Greek, or Latin) and not necessarily billionaires. A lot of them are self-made men and/or have very down to earth values and lifestyles, even if they are wealthy. And usually they are very much heroes in pursuit, who go after the heroine who's not the typical immaculate, society beauty that every other man wants (although they are definitely appealing in their own unique way).
I think you'd have to be a fan of Harlequin Presentseque storylines, at least to a mild degree, to like this one. But I happen to love the revenge and powerful desire between enemies theme that is a staple of Harlequin Presents, so this book was a winner for me, especially in Susan Napier's masterful hands.
November 11, 2017
Wtf was SHE grovelling for????? And did he EVER apologise for trying to turn her into a prostitute let alone ruining her life?
HOW even in HPLAND is it possible for a woman to fall in love with your pimp?
I really cannot afford to be physically sick by reading books anymore! I really should keep my next therapy appointment!
HOW even in HPLAND is it possible for a woman to fall in love with your pimp?
I really cannot afford to be physically sick by reading books anymore! I really should keep my next therapy appointment!
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January 7, 2025Another old review from deep in the bowels of the internet.
I recently made a slightly doomed attempt to get into category romance. The ‘doomed’ part of the endeavour was my own fault because my research was basically on par with the sort of background reading that leads you to name yourself Ford Prefect or, in my case, read two books by the same author from the same imprint. Win! But, in my defence, category romances are so trope driven and context dependent they can be quite opaque to the newbie reader, so I found it a bit hard to know where to begin.
To reach for an analogy that makes sense to me (and also dates me horrendously), I think seeking out recs for category romance is like trying to get into Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Everyone has their favourite episodes, but the problem is they’re always outliers, like ‘Hush’ or ‘Once More With Feeling’ and their power derives from the wider context of the show, and the ways they subvert and play with your expectations. Really, if you wanted to get someone into Buffy you should probably show them ‘Puppetshow’ because it’s absolutely typical in every conceivable way. It contains none of the really transcendentally awesome stuff about Buffy, but it also demonstrates its strengths (snappy dialogue, interesting characters, a twist) without getting too far away from the type of show it actually is. If you don’t like ‘Puppetshow’, you’re probably not going to like Buffy full stop because if you can’t invest in the monster-of-the-week format or get behind a blonde cheerleader kicking vampire arse, you’re probably not going to care when her boyfriend turns evil or her mother dies.
So basically I think I’ve been reading the category romance equivalents of ‘Once More with Feeling’ – the sort of books people remember because they do something different. Which has made my adventures in this particular corner of romance, shall we say, interesting because, without really knowing what something is different from, or what it’s working within, it can occasionally come across as just plain weird. But I guess what struck me the most was just how very different two books by the same author within the same category could be. So my next two columns are going to be about the two random books by Susan Napier I read, which are united only by the fact they’re category romances and they have word ‘mistress’ in the title when neither of them seem to involve mistresses at all.
Mistress of the Groom opens with our heroine, Jane Sherwood (who is generally considered plain because her legs are too long and her boobs are too big) gatecrashing Ryan Blair’s “I ruined your entire life” party, where she punches him so hard she breaks her hand. To give Mistress of the Groom credit, I think you kind of know where you are when a book opens like this. And while I appreciated the sheer balls-to-the wall, Spinal Tap “our amplifier goes up to eleven” of it, to say nothing of Jane’s commitment to really hurting the hero, it’s unfortunately kind of symptomatic of the book’s attitude to her that she hits Ryan hard enough to crack bone, but he still gets off with a sexy manbruise.
Ryan Blair has been on a vengeance crusade against Jane since she stopped him marrying her best friend three years ago. Admittedly, she did this by standing up in the middle of the wedding and claiming to be his mistress when she, in fact, isn’t, so you can see why he’s a bit peeved. Again, this kind of no-holds-barred absurdity is one of the aspects of the book I was secretly kind of into. I mean, heaven forefend anyone in this novel have a quiet conversation with anyone else. They always burst into each other’s lives and Enact Drama at the least (or, depending on your point of view, most) opportune moments. I don’t know if this is a category thing, or a Harlequin Presents thing, or a nineteen nineties thing but I pretty rapidly came to the conclusion that Mistress of the Groom is the romance novel equivalent to a Nicholas Cage movie.
It doesn’t exactly have a scene in which the hero jumps through the air firing two guns while simultaneously receiving a blowjob but I think it has something pretty damn close. Not long after the punching-in-the-face incident, Ryan sends Jane an invitation to meet him at a hotel to discuss business and since she’s now bankrupt, discredited and physically injured, she’s desperate enough to accept.
So this business, right.
It’s the business of … pimping her out.
Our noble hero has concluded Jane is insufficiently miserable and has therefore decided to employ her as a prostitute without telling her. Which, if nothing else, proves just how unsuited he is to doing whatever high powered job he does because this is seriously poor management strategy. How is it going to look at the inevitable inquiry when he has to confess that ‘sex worker’ wasn’t on the job description at the point of hiring? Anyway, Jane responds to this frankly peculiar behaviour by sitting down with Ryan and calmly addressing the miscommunication that seems to have arisen between them. Oh, who am I kidding? She decides to play along. To … get Ryan back? Somehow? Um? And she’s just about to sleep with some dude to make a point when Ryan bursts in, full of manly sexrage, and argues that – as her operations manager (self-appointed) – he should be entitled to first, uh, I don’t even know how to phrase this. Let’s just say he gets to call dibs.
Then he throws the other dude out and masturbates her with a cheque for $10k. And then they have sex, and also how the hell is she supposed to cash that cheque now? And then they both jump through the air firing two guns. Okay, they don’t really. But I did think it might be on the cards for a moment there. The sex is sufficiently genital-pleasing that he offers to make her his mistress which leads her to run away from him, taking up residence in some kind of shack owned by a friend of hers. Ryan tracks her down, non-consensually moves in and proves himself excellent husband material by cooking, cleaning and having a fax machine. It then turns out they were sort of weirdly into each other all along, so they get married.
I honestly don’t know quite know I felt about Mistress of the Groom. I think I might have to go back to the Nicholas Cage movie comparison: it went sort of beyond good or bad, and was just kind of compulsively entertaining in a completely ludicrous way. You can tell exactly what you’re getting from the very first line:
Honestly, it’s like the nouns are part of some kind of remedial programme and they’re not allowed outside on their own without an adjective to look after them. Also, the hero talks like this:
That poor man. Desperately seeking a one liner. Although, actually, to be fair to Ryan, he has something approaching a coherent motivation for his behaviour and, despite the fact Mistress of the Groom is a pretty slender book, I did appreciate the way Napier gave over at least half of it to transforming him back into a decent person. I mean, I kind of feel alphas are the romance equivalent of an impulse buy. It looks great in the shop but then you get home and it’s like where am I going to put this thing? It doesn’t go with my furnishings and it keeps trying to kiss me punishingly. Whereas, I got the feeling that Ryan did have other qualities beyond aggression and amateur pimping, some of which might make him a sustainable prospect for a long-term relationship.
I did, however, struggle a little with the dynamic between the hero and the heroine. And, weirdly enough, not for the reasons you might think. It’s pretty clear from later dialogue that the whole Prostitution Chicken diversion is some kind of weird foreplay / trust game for both them so I managed to file that away relatively uncontroversially in the “whatever floats your boat” box. No, my main issue was with Jane. Not as a character (she seemed strong and capable and basically functional) but she starts the book having lost everything and, although she soldiers on relentlessly, she’s never allowed to get off the ground. Partially because of Ryan keeping her there, but also because of what looks, sometimes, like sheer unfairness.
For example not long after Ryan tracks her down at her post-prostitution hovel, she injures her other hand. Leaving her completely dependent on Ryan in every conceivable way. And while I could see it was important to give Ryan an opportunity to prove he wasn’t a complete smeghead, there was a part of me left wondering how much you can really respect a man who has spent three years of his life driving a powerful woman to abject dependency. I think we’re meant to accept that it was okay for Ryan to completely total Jane’s life because it was a life she’d only chosen to try and win her evil father’s approval. But I can only say mileage may vary on this one, and the general cracktastic exuberance of the book might not be enough to overwhelm those sorts of concerns.
Everything I learned about life and love from reading Mistress of the Groom: cheques make surprisingly effective sex toys, pimping is foreplay, a fax machine is an important quality in a future husband, when you punch a man in the face, keep your wrist straight and put your weight behind it.
I recently made a slightly doomed attempt to get into category romance. The ‘doomed’ part of the endeavour was my own fault because my research was basically on par with the sort of background reading that leads you to name yourself Ford Prefect or, in my case, read two books by the same author from the same imprint. Win! But, in my defence, category romances are so trope driven and context dependent they can be quite opaque to the newbie reader, so I found it a bit hard to know where to begin.
To reach for an analogy that makes sense to me (and also dates me horrendously), I think seeking out recs for category romance is like trying to get into Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Everyone has their favourite episodes, but the problem is they’re always outliers, like ‘Hush’ or ‘Once More With Feeling’ and their power derives from the wider context of the show, and the ways they subvert and play with your expectations. Really, if you wanted to get someone into Buffy you should probably show them ‘Puppetshow’ because it’s absolutely typical in every conceivable way. It contains none of the really transcendentally awesome stuff about Buffy, but it also demonstrates its strengths (snappy dialogue, interesting characters, a twist) without getting too far away from the type of show it actually is. If you don’t like ‘Puppetshow’, you’re probably not going to like Buffy full stop because if you can’t invest in the monster-of-the-week format or get behind a blonde cheerleader kicking vampire arse, you’re probably not going to care when her boyfriend turns evil or her mother dies.
So basically I think I’ve been reading the category romance equivalents of ‘Once More with Feeling’ – the sort of books people remember because they do something different. Which has made my adventures in this particular corner of romance, shall we say, interesting because, without really knowing what something is different from, or what it’s working within, it can occasionally come across as just plain weird. But I guess what struck me the most was just how very different two books by the same author within the same category could be. So my next two columns are going to be about the two random books by Susan Napier I read, which are united only by the fact they’re category romances and they have word ‘mistress’ in the title when neither of them seem to involve mistresses at all.
Mistress of the Groom opens with our heroine, Jane Sherwood (who is generally considered plain because her legs are too long and her boobs are too big) gatecrashing Ryan Blair’s “I ruined your entire life” party, where she punches him so hard she breaks her hand. To give Mistress of the Groom credit, I think you kind of know where you are when a book opens like this. And while I appreciated the sheer balls-to-the wall, Spinal Tap “our amplifier goes up to eleven” of it, to say nothing of Jane’s commitment to really hurting the hero, it’s unfortunately kind of symptomatic of the book’s attitude to her that she hits Ryan hard enough to crack bone, but he still gets off with a sexy manbruise.
Ryan Blair has been on a vengeance crusade against Jane since she stopped him marrying her best friend three years ago. Admittedly, she did this by standing up in the middle of the wedding and claiming to be his mistress when she, in fact, isn’t, so you can see why he’s a bit peeved. Again, this kind of no-holds-barred absurdity is one of the aspects of the book I was secretly kind of into. I mean, heaven forefend anyone in this novel have a quiet conversation with anyone else. They always burst into each other’s lives and Enact Drama at the least (or, depending on your point of view, most) opportune moments. I don’t know if this is a category thing, or a Harlequin Presents thing, or a nineteen nineties thing but I pretty rapidly came to the conclusion that Mistress of the Groom is the romance novel equivalent to a Nicholas Cage movie.
It doesn’t exactly have a scene in which the hero jumps through the air firing two guns while simultaneously receiving a blowjob but I think it has something pretty damn close. Not long after the punching-in-the-face incident, Ryan sends Jane an invitation to meet him at a hotel to discuss business and since she’s now bankrupt, discredited and physically injured, she’s desperate enough to accept.
So this business, right.
It’s the business of … pimping her out.
Our noble hero has concluded Jane is insufficiently miserable and has therefore decided to employ her as a prostitute without telling her. Which, if nothing else, proves just how unsuited he is to doing whatever high powered job he does because this is seriously poor management strategy. How is it going to look at the inevitable inquiry when he has to confess that ‘sex worker’ wasn’t on the job description at the point of hiring? Anyway, Jane responds to this frankly peculiar behaviour by sitting down with Ryan and calmly addressing the miscommunication that seems to have arisen between them. Oh, who am I kidding? She decides to play along. To … get Ryan back? Somehow? Um? And she’s just about to sleep with some dude to make a point when Ryan bursts in, full of manly sexrage, and argues that – as her operations manager (self-appointed) – he should be entitled to first, uh, I don’t even know how to phrase this. Let’s just say he gets to call dibs.
Then he throws the other dude out and masturbates her with a cheque for $10k. And then they have sex, and also how the hell is she supposed to cash that cheque now? And then they both jump through the air firing two guns. Okay, they don’t really. But I did think it might be on the cards for a moment there. The sex is sufficiently genital-pleasing that he offers to make her his mistress which leads her to run away from him, taking up residence in some kind of shack owned by a friend of hers. Ryan tracks her down, non-consensually moves in and proves himself excellent husband material by cooking, cleaning and having a fax machine. It then turns out they were sort of weirdly into each other all along, so they get married.
I honestly don’t know quite know I felt about Mistress of the Groom. I think I might have to go back to the Nicholas Cage movie comparison: it went sort of beyond good or bad, and was just kind of compulsively entertaining in a completely ludicrous way. You can tell exactly what you’re getting from the very first line:
The tall, statuesque brunette wound her way sinuously through the glittering throng.
Honestly, it’s like the nouns are part of some kind of remedial programme and they’re not allowed outside on their own without an adjective to look after them. Also, the hero talks like this:
‘Or is this martyred, monochrome look supposed to make me feel sorry for you? Have you come to beg for the crumbs from my table? I’m sorry, but as you can see—’ he gestured mockingly towards the tables glittering with crystal and silverware ‘— we haven’t dined yet. Why don’t you call my secretary and arrange to see me at the office? If you’re lucky I might be able to dredge up a few odd scraps to throw your way. I can’t guarantee anything, of course, but then I’m sure you’ve discovered that beggars can’t be choosers, can they, Miss Sherwood...?’
That poor man. Desperately seeking a one liner. Although, actually, to be fair to Ryan, he has something approaching a coherent motivation for his behaviour and, despite the fact Mistress of the Groom is a pretty slender book, I did appreciate the way Napier gave over at least half of it to transforming him back into a decent person. I mean, I kind of feel alphas are the romance equivalent of an impulse buy. It looks great in the shop but then you get home and it’s like where am I going to put this thing? It doesn’t go with my furnishings and it keeps trying to kiss me punishingly. Whereas, I got the feeling that Ryan did have other qualities beyond aggression and amateur pimping, some of which might make him a sustainable prospect for a long-term relationship.
I did, however, struggle a little with the dynamic between the hero and the heroine. And, weirdly enough, not for the reasons you might think. It’s pretty clear from later dialogue that the whole Prostitution Chicken diversion is some kind of weird foreplay / trust game for both them so I managed to file that away relatively uncontroversially in the “whatever floats your boat” box. No, my main issue was with Jane. Not as a character (she seemed strong and capable and basically functional) but she starts the book having lost everything and, although she soldiers on relentlessly, she’s never allowed to get off the ground. Partially because of Ryan keeping her there, but also because of what looks, sometimes, like sheer unfairness.
For example not long after Ryan tracks her down at her post-prostitution hovel, she injures her other hand. Leaving her completely dependent on Ryan in every conceivable way. And while I could see it was important to give Ryan an opportunity to prove he wasn’t a complete smeghead, there was a part of me left wondering how much you can really respect a man who has spent three years of his life driving a powerful woman to abject dependency. I think we’re meant to accept that it was okay for Ryan to completely total Jane’s life because it was a life she’d only chosen to try and win her evil father’s approval. But I can only say mileage may vary on this one, and the general cracktastic exuberance of the book might not be enough to overwhelm those sorts of concerns.
Everything I learned about life and love from reading Mistress of the Groom: cheques make surprisingly effective sex toys, pimping is foreplay, a fax machine is an important quality in a future husband, when you punch a man in the face, keep your wrist straight and put your weight behind it.
May 3, 2021
I'll be honest... I was not expecting this book to go that hard in terms of quality. Two strong-willed MC's clashing and serving us a high stakes enemies to lovers trope, love it. The book opens with the heroine punching the hero in the face because he bankrupted her to the point of homelessness in retaliation for ruining his wedding. These two were fantastic. Mina, where tf you been hiding this thing??
“So now I’ve decided to give you what you wanted back then, sweetheart." The endearment was a subtle insult, an insidious threat. “Tell me, Miss Sherwood, how do you like being the centre of my complete and undivided attention?”
August 1, 2012
Wow, this book pulled some strong emotions from me. First, the beginning was pretty awesome - the heroine punches the hero in front of a crowd for what he is doing to ruin her life. He ruins her financially so that she has absolutely nothing because she broke up his wedding during the ceremony to save her friend who was too chicken to do it herself.
In the first half, things just keep getting worse for the heroine. The hero not only takes away all her money, he tries to leave her homeless and without a chance at a job. Then here comes that craziest part about this entire book - he tried to make her a hooker. That's right, he tries to pimp her out to this random "business associate" to help her earn some money. He even wants to be her pimp daddy in the future. The whole set up is so confusing because she takes pain pills and is out of it, ends up in a hotel room with the creepy guy then the "hero" comes back and "saves" her - then they do the mattress mambo despite the fact he ruined her life and just tried to make her a hooker! WTF are you thinking girl?
Well, she must have a magic vajayjay because all the sudden the "hero" decides he won't try to completely ruin her life anymore. He is such a big hearted guy, he won't give back the company he took from her but he will set her up real nice and let her service him when he decides to stop by - she isn't good enough to live with him though. So, does the heroine run away because he treated her horribly and then wants to further debase her - nope, she runs away because she is afraid she will fall in love with him and have her heart broke.
So they end up together in this run down cottage (I guess we needed a scenery change). Hero wants to help her since she has two messed up hands (she broke one punching him - awesome, and she burnt one when he surprised her). Yada yada, he hangs around trying to talk to her, she ignores him, then his family is somehow involved and the next WTF thing happens - after the second bout of crazy monkey love which before this they are barely speaking, he proposes marriage - then she says no because - get this, she is afraid he is still stuck on the old girl and might not be serious. She doesn't say hell no you a**hole, you ruined my life, ruined my business then tried to prostitute me out. Nope.
I kept waiting and waiting for him to say he was sorry for ruining her life, making her destitute then trying to make her a HOOKER for God's sake - but that was a futile wait. Nope, he makes her make a fool out of herself in public because she dared to say no before to his proposal, so she grovels and tells him she loves him while he screws with her head.
Then instead of a grovel from him, they start talking about how they both enjoyed him ruining her life because it meant he cared about her. So you know what, she deserves him if they both enjoyed that. Hopefully he doesn't get mad and try to pimp her out again! Ha!
So I guess it sounds like I didn't like this book but I actually enjoyed it. HPs are supposed to be addictive and crazy and this one certainly was! The punch and the pimping part both made this a memorable HP!
In the first half, things just keep getting worse for the heroine. The hero not only takes away all her money, he tries to leave her homeless and without a chance at a job. Then here comes that craziest part about this entire book - he tried to make her a hooker. That's right, he tries to pimp her out to this random "business associate" to help her earn some money. He even wants to be her pimp daddy in the future. The whole set up is so confusing because she takes pain pills and is out of it, ends up in a hotel room with the creepy guy then the "hero" comes back and "saves" her - then they do the mattress mambo despite the fact he ruined her life and just tried to make her a hooker! WTF are you thinking girl?
Well, she must have a magic vajayjay because all the sudden the "hero" decides he won't try to completely ruin her life anymore. He is such a big hearted guy, he won't give back the company he took from her but he will set her up real nice and let her service him when he decides to stop by - she isn't good enough to live with him though. So, does the heroine run away because he treated her horribly and then wants to further debase her - nope, she runs away because she is afraid she will fall in love with him and have her heart broke.
So they end up together in this run down cottage (I guess we needed a scenery change). Hero wants to help her since she has two messed up hands (she broke one punching him - awesome, and she burnt one when he surprised her). Yada yada, he hangs around trying to talk to her, she ignores him, then his family is somehow involved and the next WTF thing happens - after the second bout of crazy monkey love which before this they are barely speaking, he proposes marriage - then she says no because - get this, she is afraid he is still stuck on the old girl and might not be serious. She doesn't say hell no you a**hole, you ruined my life, ruined my business then tried to prostitute me out. Nope.
I kept waiting and waiting for him to say he was sorry for ruining her life, making her destitute then trying to make her a HOOKER for God's sake - but that was a futile wait. Nope, he makes her make a fool out of herself in public because she dared to say no before to his proposal, so she grovels and tells him she loves him while he screws with her head.
Then instead of a grovel from him, they start talking about how they both enjoyed him ruining her life because it meant he cared about her. So you know what, she deserves him if they both enjoyed that. Hopefully he doesn't get mad and try to pimp her out again! Ha!
So I guess it sounds like I didn't like this book but I actually enjoyed it. HPs are supposed to be addictive and crazy and this one certainly was! The punch and the pimping part both made this a memorable HP!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Read
December 19, 2017Too toxic.
April 8, 2013
This is one of those books where I disliked it for reasons that would lead other readers to love it. Napier's writing is active and engaging and she paces the storytelling perfectly to avoid both info dumping and dragging the reveal out past the reader's patience.
Unfortunately, this book had nearly every romance trope I despise:
- A revenge-minded hero who's just mercilessly bankrupted and humiliated the heroine
- Lots of forced seduction that felt more like rape than sex
- A caretaker alpha who babies the injury-prone heroine
- A public marriage proposal as a grand gesture
So, if you like your romance over-the-top, this is for you. If you like empowered heroines and heroes who respect their independence, run screaming for the hills and don't look back.
Unfortunately, this book had nearly every romance trope I despise:
- A revenge-minded hero who's just mercilessly bankrupted and humiliated the heroine
- Lots of forced seduction that felt more like rape than sex
- A caretaker alpha who babies the injury-prone heroine
- A public marriage proposal as a grand gesture
So, if you like your romance over-the-top, this is for you. If you like empowered heroines and heroes who respect their independence, run screaming for the hills and don't look back.
January 4, 2016
If you like revenge books this is one for you. Hero goes far - very far - with his revenge, but manages to redeem himself as a caring alpha at the end. Heroine held her own, but kind of falls apart at the end. This is a classic
November 14, 2017
“Mistress of the Groom” is the story of Ryan and Jane.
So three years ago, Jane breaks up her best friend Ava’s wedding to Ryan in order to save her from a life of unhappiness by confessing to being his mistress.
And I understand this causes Ryan to lose “love of his life”, his society respect, business blah blah and pushes him into revenge mode.
What does he do you ask..
-Takes over the heroines business by actually dismantling it, such that she ends up almost being homeless
-Prostitutes, YES SELLS the heroine to his friend in exchange for money (yeah it’s explained as a bait and she shouldn’t have taken it but it’s all authors justification for him pimping her)
-Calls her every vile name in the book
-Also repeatedly calls her “big”, large
-WTF is their obsession with skin color “dark”
Then the author goes into justifications for his actions while the heroine escapes. What does Ryan do again..?
-Stalks her to her sanctuary
-Berates her
The book attempts to improve with their crazy banter, until the hero’s sister gate crashes the house and then sneers at the heroine.
There is some resolution of issues towards the last 3/4 but the ending is absurd. Like, WHY ARE YOU APOLOGIZING WOMAN? He FCKN SOLD YOU.
To be honest, the book never recovers from the blunders and crap in the first half, and the end leaves you desiring for much less. I’m so over THIS.
Egh
Whatever
1/5
So three years ago, Jane breaks up her best friend Ava’s wedding to Ryan in order to save her from a life of unhappiness by confessing to being his mistress.
And I understand this causes Ryan to lose “love of his life”, his society respect, business blah blah and pushes him into revenge mode.
What does he do you ask..
-Takes over the heroines business by actually dismantling it, such that she ends up almost being homeless
-Prostitutes, YES SELLS the heroine to his friend in exchange for money (yeah it’s explained as a bait and she shouldn’t have taken it but it’s all authors justification for him pimping her)
-Calls her every vile name in the book
-Also repeatedly calls her “big”, large
-WTF is their obsession with skin color “dark”
Then the author goes into justifications for his actions while the heroine escapes. What does Ryan do again..?
-Stalks her to her sanctuary
-Berates her
The book attempts to improve with their crazy banter, until the hero’s sister gate crashes the house and then sneers at the heroine.
There is some resolution of issues towards the last 3/4 but the ending is absurd. Like, WHY ARE YOU APOLOGIZING WOMAN? He FCKN SOLD YOU.
To be honest, the book never recovers from the blunders and crap in the first half, and the end leaves you desiring for much less. I’m so over THIS.
Egh
Whatever
1/5
June 30, 2022
Editing my OG review and leaving this much:
A strange plot where the h breaks off her bffs wedding with good intent. The H is mad at his public humiliation and takes a slow cruel path towards getting his revenge. The H also has immense hatred for the h’s father so now it’s two birds on his stone.
They meet again when the H has financially ruined the h and her family business. She has all her possessions wiped out including her house and car.
Surely Ryan was the most ballsy alpha I’ve come across in a while. Saying sadistically vicious things to Jane, to see her crumple into a microscopic being. But Jane was not made ordinary. As an h, she was tough and did not let his painful jabs go below her skin.
There’s a point in this whole fight (physical fight of sorts included) where she hurts her hand. I couldn’t believe Jane’s temerity at not letting that show as a weakness. It was a physical weakness and she was so used to having her own back that she brutally endured a broken bone to not be seen as weak and hurting!
I also disliked the first time the h and H met for their business deal, the H sat back and enjoyed while another man mauled the h. When the h doesn’t back off and keeps her willful indifference to being whored off, the H barges in to save the day. But really, by that time it was already too late.
Glad I reread it .. cuz mixed feelings!
A strange plot where the h breaks off her bffs wedding with good intent. The H is mad at his public humiliation and takes a slow cruel path towards getting his revenge. The H also has immense hatred for the h’s father so now it’s two birds on his stone.
They meet again when the H has financially ruined the h and her family business. She has all her possessions wiped out including her house and car.
Surely Ryan was the most ballsy alpha I’ve come across in a while. Saying sadistically vicious things to Jane, to see her crumple into a microscopic being. But Jane was not made ordinary. As an h, she was tough and did not let his painful jabs go below her skin.
There’s a point in this whole fight (physical fight of sorts included) where she hurts her hand. I couldn’t believe Jane’s temerity at not letting that show as a weakness. It was a physical weakness and she was so used to having her own back that she brutally endured a broken bone to not be seen as weak and hurting!
I also disliked the first time the h and H met for their business deal, the H sat back and enjoyed while another man mauled the h. When the h doesn’t back off and keeps her willful indifference to being whored off, the H barges in to save the day. But really, by that time it was already too late.
Glad I reread it .. cuz mixed feelings!
December 8, 2014
Wow! It's got a really vengeful hero--I don't love that he ruined her business and blackballed her professionally but since Purchased for Revenge, I've been looking for scenes where heroine is treated badly and prostitution comes into play...this is pretty rare in that hero brings another man into play. But I loved the rescue, concern for her physical well-being, nursing of her injury, as well as evidence of his growing concern and romantic feelings for her. There wasn't much of an apology, but I realized that I hate when a single, flowery speech makes up for severe wrongdoing against the heroine. I'll take devotion and hard work anytime. (he didn't work as hard as hero in Simply Love or nurse as big an injury as hero in Angel Creek, but it was still pretty sweet. The gentle kiss on the eyelids totally got me).
December 5, 2011
This one packs quite a punch!
As does the heroine :)
Where to start? When Napier goes there, she really goes there. It's a classic tale of HP revenge but even with the violence and vitriol and "OMG SHE DIDN'T" it somehow never crossed the line into a Horrible Mess.
These two are so well matched in their stubbornness and willfulness and determination. The first scene is a thing of beauty, and perfectly paints a picture of the rest of the book. Or so I thought, because somewhere halfway the tone completely changes in something different, from Taming the Shrew to Persuasion and I totally didn't see that coming.
In truth this was an HP made of win, because it so easily avoids all traps. No surprise virginity, no assholeness until the end, no Big Misunderstanding and no (really) Big Reveal at the end.
Instead we have two very flawed people who do some horrible things but somehow manage to move past that.
I really liked it, and it's definitely one of the better HP's I've read.
As does the heroine :)
Where to start? When Napier goes there, she really goes there. It's a classic tale of HP revenge but even with the violence and vitriol and "OMG SHE DIDN'T" it somehow never crossed the line into a Horrible Mess.
These two are so well matched in their stubbornness and willfulness and determination. The first scene is a thing of beauty, and perfectly paints a picture of the rest of the book. Or so I thought, because somewhere halfway the tone completely changes in something different, from Taming the Shrew to Persuasion and I totally didn't see that coming.
In truth this was an HP made of win, because it so easily avoids all traps. No surprise virginity, no assholeness until the end, no Big Misunderstanding and no (really) Big Reveal at the end.
Instead we have two very flawed people who do some horrible things but somehow manage to move past that.
I really liked it, and it's definitely one of the better HP's I've read.
December 12, 2020
What have I just read... the hero is a cruel bastard, who ruins and try to sell the heroine to another man only for revenge. Then he changes his mind, I didn’t understand why, and after two years of giving her hell he suddenly wants her to trust him. In the end he is so hurt that she can’t believe and trust him, that she must ask him to forgive her. Whaaaaat??? You cannot be serious. In my opinion a man who treats a woman like that is not man enough, is a person without honour and pride, a weak and an abusive, a coward. Who wants a man like that, even if he changes. No, she should have refused him and let him go. The end and the reasons are unbelievable either. Not worth reading.
July 8, 2025
the potential of a serve is real when the book starts off with the female character punching the male character in the face.
January 23, 2012
Sometimes, there is nothing like a good old Harlequin romance to really get your juices flowing. Susan Napier is a Harlequin author I have never come across before. And boy, was I glad to make acquaintance with her delivery of this perfect and sizzling romance of the red-hot variety late into the night, enjoying and reveling in every single moment of the interactions and the scorching hot attraction between two people for whom the phrase “hate is the beginning of love” is pretty much applicable.
Ryan Blair, the successful 33 year old millionaire and 26 year old Jane Sherwood who loses everything to Ryan’s methodical and ruthless revenge on her, are needless to say enemies who loathe and hate the very sight of each other. Jane had intervened and ruined Ryan’s wedding day to Jane’s best friend Ava, succeeding in driving Ryan away and giving Ana what she had wanted and had been afraid to ask for all along. Ryan’s revenge is a well-planned one, one that has Jane reeling from the effect of losing the business that had been the focus of all the churning emotions deep inside of her.
But beneath all the hatred and hostility lies a smoldering fire that blazes out of control the minute Ryan is provoked into taking Jane in his arms; the passion that bursts forth as hot and scorching as the anger that has blazed between them for a long time. One very decadent night of pleasure later Jane flees, the crack in her impeccable shields all but crumbs of dust around her after being so thoroughly seduced. But Ryan is a man not to be deterred in his attempts to seduce and charm the woman he wants into his arms and life, a battle Jane knows she is bound to lose with the love that she has hidden from the one man who has always been the one and only for her.
Mistress of the Groom is a novel that combines ALL the elements that makes a Harlequin romance memorable. I fell in love with romances amidst the stories of intense passion and ruthless heroes that is so much a part the Harlequin series back in the 80′s and 90′s. And I still love re-visiting those stories, and finding a new gem of a story from the thousands of romances that makes up the Harlequin world of romance – let’s just say it makes me one very happy romance reader!
The reason why I loved Mistress of the Groom so much was the fact that the story kept surprising me at every turn. From the beginning which was exhilarating and surprised me to my very core, Susan Napier spun a story that kept me on my very toes and in anticipation of every single bit of emotion that was wrung from me as the story progressed.
Recommended to fans of ruthless, determined and yet endearing heroes who just makes your toes curl up, fans of Harlequin romances and fans of romances where enemies turn to lovers!
Rating=4.5/5
Original review on MBR's Realm of Romance
Ryan Blair, the successful 33 year old millionaire and 26 year old Jane Sherwood who loses everything to Ryan’s methodical and ruthless revenge on her, are needless to say enemies who loathe and hate the very sight of each other. Jane had intervened and ruined Ryan’s wedding day to Jane’s best friend Ava, succeeding in driving Ryan away and giving Ana what she had wanted and had been afraid to ask for all along. Ryan’s revenge is a well-planned one, one that has Jane reeling from the effect of losing the business that had been the focus of all the churning emotions deep inside of her.
But beneath all the hatred and hostility lies a smoldering fire that blazes out of control the minute Ryan is provoked into taking Jane in his arms; the passion that bursts forth as hot and scorching as the anger that has blazed between them for a long time. One very decadent night of pleasure later Jane flees, the crack in her impeccable shields all but crumbs of dust around her after being so thoroughly seduced. But Ryan is a man not to be deterred in his attempts to seduce and charm the woman he wants into his arms and life, a battle Jane knows she is bound to lose with the love that she has hidden from the one man who has always been the one and only for her.
Mistress of the Groom is a novel that combines ALL the elements that makes a Harlequin romance memorable. I fell in love with romances amidst the stories of intense passion and ruthless heroes that is so much a part the Harlequin series back in the 80′s and 90′s. And I still love re-visiting those stories, and finding a new gem of a story from the thousands of romances that makes up the Harlequin world of romance – let’s just say it makes me one very happy romance reader!
The reason why I loved Mistress of the Groom so much was the fact that the story kept surprising me at every turn. From the beginning which was exhilarating and surprised me to my very core, Susan Napier spun a story that kept me on my very toes and in anticipation of every single bit of emotion that was wrung from me as the story progressed.
Recommended to fans of ruthless, determined and yet endearing heroes who just makes your toes curl up, fans of Harlequin romances and fans of romances where enemies turn to lovers!
Rating=4.5/5
Original review on MBR's Realm of Romance
August 18, 2012
4.5 stars
I stayed up to 2:00 am to finish this one. Thank you MelissaB for posting this! I had such a blast reading this story!
This story is a battle of the sexes (actually, the H seeking revenge and the h fighting back), though our H and h weren't playing on a level field, so guess who got the upper hand? The h was strong and likeable and was able to persevere no matter what horrors were thrown her way, and some were pretty low. Our H did some of the most horrible things to the h (not physically) I've ever read. I couldn't imagine how he would ever be redeemed, but the story vindicates him when you get the full picture of why.
And what an emotional roller coaster! It was very provoking but also endearing without being too syrupy. I found myself laughing out loud and clapping at some scenes and screaming "OMG, you can't be serious!" at others. One scene was pretty outrageous where it appears the H is going to force her into something. However, I think he just wanted to humiliate her, never expecting that things would go to fruition. I'm bringing it up because some other readers find that one scene pretty unforgivable. When you come to that part, you'll know what I'm talking about.
I definitely recommend this story but with the clause that I looooove dark, alpha males, so I hope it's not too much for some. For me, the twist with this one is that I didn't believe the H was really dark in character even though his actions towards the h were brutal. There was a basis for his behavior. If you can forgive someone totally ruining someone's else's life...but makes up for it, then you'll enjoy this read.
I stayed up to 2:00 am to finish this one. Thank you MelissaB for posting this! I had such a blast reading this story!
This story is a battle of the sexes (actually, the H seeking revenge and the h fighting back), though our H and h weren't playing on a level field, so guess who got the upper hand? The h was strong and likeable and was able to persevere no matter what horrors were thrown her way, and some were pretty low. Our H did some of the most horrible things to the h (not physically) I've ever read. I couldn't imagine how he would ever be redeemed, but the story vindicates him when you get the full picture of why.
And what an emotional roller coaster! It was very provoking but also endearing without being too syrupy. I found myself laughing out loud and clapping at some scenes and screaming "OMG, you can't be serious!" at others. One scene was pretty outrageous where it appears the H is going to force her into something. However, I think he just wanted to humiliate her, never expecting that things would go to fruition. I'm bringing it up because some other readers find that one scene pretty unforgivable. When you come to that part, you'll know what I'm talking about.
I definitely recommend this story but with the clause that I looooove dark, alpha males, so I hope it's not too much for some. For me, the twist with this one is that I didn't believe the H was really dark in character even though his actions towards the h were brutal. There was a basis for his behavior. If you can forgive someone totally ruining someone's else's life...but makes up for it, then you'll enjoy this read.
December 14, 2014
Lightning Review:
-Jane interrupted the wedding of her best friend because...reasons
-The Groom is rich and vengeful
- Years later he vengefuls Jane right into bankruptcy and homelessness
- But she is a Harlequin Heroine! and She chin quivers with the best of them
- Battle of wills ensue
- Will he pimp her out to make a point?
- Will she prostitute herself out of Pride?
- WIll they give into the hot lust they feel for each other instead?
- This a Harlequin romance so I am thinking...Duh!
- But wait... he was all wrong about her...and she was all wrong about him.
- Sometimes I wonder about what is considered romantic.
- Some scenes were distasteful and makes me wonder why either of these two want each other or why we'd want to care about them.
-Jane interrupted the wedding of her best friend because...reasons
-The Groom is rich and vengeful
- Years later he vengefuls Jane right into bankruptcy and homelessness
- But she is a Harlequin Heroine! and She chin quivers with the best of them
- Battle of wills ensue
- Will he pimp her out to make a point?
- Will she prostitute herself out of Pride?
- WIll they give into the hot lust they feel for each other instead?
- This a Harlequin romance so I am thinking...Duh!
- But wait... he was all wrong about her...and she was all wrong about him.
- Sometimes I wonder about what is considered romantic.
- Some scenes were distasteful and makes me wonder why either of these two want each other or why we'd want to care about them.
December 29, 2014
Less angsty than I prefer and the H really did have reason to be angry with the h (although he took it WAY too far). I suppose I prefer the hero to be WRONG, WRONG, WRONG because that equals more angst. I really liked the h, she managed to be tough and vulnerable. Another case of taste, because it was an engaging read.
December 17, 2022
"we make good enemies but even better lovers. And one night of hot-blooded passion hasn't doused the flames"
Enemies to lovers, where our hero Ryan destroys the heroine's (Jane's ) life, and doesn't grovel when he realizes that he has done so much injustice to her. I think if there was groveling, it would be a great story. Because the beginning hate between them was great, unfortunately it didn't end as great.
"to ruin me, you seemed to want to obliterate my identity."
Rating 2 stars 🌟
Enemies to lovers, where our hero Ryan destroys the heroine's (Jane's ) life, and doesn't grovel when he realizes that he has done so much injustice to her. I think if there was groveling, it would be a great story. Because the beginning hate between them was great, unfortunately it didn't end as great.
"to ruin me, you seemed to want to obliterate my identity."
Rating 2 stars 🌟
April 11, 2018
This has been a book on my hp TBR pile for couple years and hard for me to get hold of copy. Thanks Azet <3
This was worth the wait! This book lived up to my expectations from rave reviews I read. This book has the has the best first half I have read in a book with so much drama! It’s the kind the thing you would expect mid way.
This was very well written and the chemistry between the Jane Sherwood and Ryan Blair was just explosive.
The pimping scene was just disturbing. I felt very uncomfortable and couldn't believe he did that to her. To be frank it was just down right disgusting but it just highlighted how deep Ryan was involved in running Jane into the ground.
I have never seen a hero in hplandia treat a heroine to the degree this H did. It was just so extreme! I felt so sorry for Jane losing her business, home, clothes and getting black listed in the business social circles. It was dark and Ryan was getting high of it. He did redeem himself! There is valid reason for why things took this turn not going to spoil. I never read more intense first half like this hp.
I enjoyed reading this and it in my top ten and keeper list. <3 Must read!
This was worth the wait! This book lived up to my expectations from rave reviews I read. This book has the has the best first half I have read in a book with so much drama! It’s the kind the thing you would expect mid way.
This was very well written and the chemistry between the Jane Sherwood and Ryan Blair was just explosive.
The pimping scene was just disturbing. I felt very uncomfortable and couldn't believe he did that to her. To be frank it was just down right disgusting but it just highlighted how deep Ryan was involved in running Jane into the ground.
I have never seen a hero in hplandia treat a heroine to the degree this H did. It was just so extreme! I felt so sorry for Jane losing her business, home, clothes and getting black listed in the business social circles. It was dark and Ryan was getting high of it. He did redeem himself! There is valid reason for why things took this turn not going to spoil. I never read more intense first half like this hp.
I enjoyed reading this and it in my top ten and keeper list. <3 Must read!
June 17, 2017
Revenge at it's best!!
The H in this book could put megalomaniac villains to shame! When he sets out to get revenge he goes big! He ruined the h's life by destroying her business and taking her home, money, car, even her freakin clothes! Who does that?!
The h went from being a respected, wealthy business owner to living in a hovel without a penny. She fought tooth and nail to keep her business but her flattened her. Then he humiliated her every chance he could.
This book blew me away. I wanted to hate the H but I couldn't. He was cruel and callous, but you still liked the damn man. I couldn't blame the h for falling into his bed. Even after he tried to prostitute her.
I will be reading this one again. It was that good.
The H in this book could put megalomaniac villains to shame! When he sets out to get revenge he goes big! He ruined the h's life by destroying her business and taking her home, money, car, even her freakin clothes! Who does that?!
The h went from being a respected, wealthy business owner to living in a hovel without a penny. She fought tooth and nail to keep her business but her flattened her. Then he humiliated her every chance he could.
This book blew me away. I wanted to hate the H but I couldn't. He was cruel and callous, but you still liked the damn man. I couldn't blame the h for falling into his bed. Even after he tried to prostitute her.
I will be reading this one again. It was that good.
March 12, 2012
4.5 stars.
The story begins with the heroine Jane confronting the hero Ryan at a business event, which, after his mocking, leads to her punching him in the face. Jane is desperately trying to make ends meet and keep her life together after Ryan's two-year long campaign of hate against her that has stripped her of her business, her possessions, her home, and her reputation. Jane knows that, in a way, she deserves his revenge after stopping his wedding to her best friend three years ago by lying that they had been having an affair. But she had done it to protect her best friend, although she can't tell Ryan that. Even though she appears to have lost everything, Ryan still continues to push his revenge against her, which results in one very passionate night in each others arms after a night of sparing. Jane begins to realise that her feelings for Ryan are dangerously closer to love than hate, and this scares her so she attempts to run away. But Ryan tracks her down forcing her to confront what is going on between them as well as forcing Jane to rely on him when she injured.
Wow, what a book! The story has so much going, so many elements you would want from a Presents that it should be a bit of a convoluted mess, but Susan Napier's superb writing makes it work brilliantly. The heroine is a fantastically crafted character - she has every reason to just give up and wail at her total misfortune but she doesn't, she keeps fighting and I loved her for that. This is exactly the kind of heroine I love reading. And the hero... I don't really know what to say about him, other than he is ALPHA (yes, capital letter worthy) to the last, but also caring and gentle and tremendously appealing.
What is so spectacular about this book is that the author keeps you guessing throughout the whole story, and weaves everything together in such a way that I could not stop reading.
There isn't a lot of love-scenes in this book, but, boy, does one of them make up for it! The passion between the characters literally saturates every page, so you don't miss out on chemistry just because there is not much actual sex.
If you like revenge themed Presents - this is not to be missed.
Originally posted at http://everyday-is-the-same.blogspot....
The story begins with the heroine Jane confronting the hero Ryan at a business event, which, after his mocking, leads to her punching him in the face. Jane is desperately trying to make ends meet and keep her life together after Ryan's two-year long campaign of hate against her that has stripped her of her business, her possessions, her home, and her reputation. Jane knows that, in a way, she deserves his revenge after stopping his wedding to her best friend three years ago by lying that they had been having an affair. But she had done it to protect her best friend, although she can't tell Ryan that. Even though she appears to have lost everything, Ryan still continues to push his revenge against her, which results in one very passionate night in each others arms after a night of sparing. Jane begins to realise that her feelings for Ryan are dangerously closer to love than hate, and this scares her so she attempts to run away. But Ryan tracks her down forcing her to confront what is going on between them as well as forcing Jane to rely on him when she injured.
Wow, what a book! The story has so much going, so many elements you would want from a Presents that it should be a bit of a convoluted mess, but Susan Napier's superb writing makes it work brilliantly. The heroine is a fantastically crafted character - she has every reason to just give up and wail at her total misfortune but she doesn't, she keeps fighting and I loved her for that. This is exactly the kind of heroine I love reading. And the hero... I don't really know what to say about him, other than he is ALPHA (yes, capital letter worthy) to the last, but also caring and gentle and tremendously appealing.
What is so spectacular about this book is that the author keeps you guessing throughout the whole story, and weaves everything together in such a way that I could not stop reading.
There isn't a lot of love-scenes in this book, but, boy, does one of them make up for it! The passion between the characters literally saturates every page, so you don't miss out on chemistry just because there is not much actual sex.
If you like revenge themed Presents - this is not to be missed.
Originally posted at http://everyday-is-the-same.blogspot....
July 6, 2012
This is definitely one scorching HP read....that had me absolutely mesmerized. The hero metes out his revenge (way beyond my comfort zone) and the heroine remains strong, refusing to fold, taking everything he dishes out. The chemistry between the two is sizzling and just blew me away.
What prevented me from giving it 5 stars :
What prevented me from giving it 5 stars :
April 6, 2013
For the first two chapters I was angry at the lead female character for not using the stilettos she was wearing to cause more damage than the punch she delivered to the lead male character's jaw. I detected there had to be more than just the speak now or forever hold your peace moment and I was proven right. The love/hate relationship was believable to a point. There was one incident that was very out of character for the lead female and unfortunately that specific scene was a major plot point. It wasn't hard to forgive either characters for their past actions.
not-for-me
June 2, 2022Note to self: Hero pimps out heroine. Too extreme even for hplandia. People need to stop romanticising this. Shame cause the blurb sounded interesting. Skip. And according to boogenhagen's review hero essentially rapes the heroine himself. Skip skip skip.
January 2, 2014
I wasn't too sure about this one... I didn't like Ryan very much... I thought he went a bit too far with his revenge scheme...
September 12, 2019
So I am not sure what it says about me that I actually decided to pick this up based on the BAD reviews this book got. Granted they were funny and made this book seem like a train wreck you have to gawk at I am not sure this was the best decision I could have made (for my reading).
I am very conflicted by this book. Ms. Napier writes well and you can feel the angst and the feeling. In parts the push and pull between the hero and heroine is fun as the heroine is tough (well mostly). It reminds me so much of Sweet as My Revenge that I wanted to go back and read the latter book which is clearly the superior book.
The issue is that this book should have been a fight between equals but the hero pushes a little too much. I had sympathy for him as the heroine did lie and ruin his life but he went too far. I was enjoying the drama for it’s ridiculousness till about 30% in . This was basically when I almost chucked my Kindle out the window.
If you skip this part, the shenanigans are similar to other late 80/early 90s Harlequins. I could have moved on but the hero never grovels and never really apologies. In fact, he accuses her of not trusting him despite “how many times I prove myself”. I must have missed that part while I was throwing up in disgust. He bankrupted her, threw her out of her home, ruined her life, made her feel useless … I guess that is a proving of sorts. Just not the kind I want in my romance novels.
In the end I just plain disliked this romance despite some strong writing. Sorry Ms. Napier - one star it is.
I am very conflicted by this book. Ms. Napier writes well and you can feel the angst and the feeling. In parts the push and pull between the hero and heroine is fun as the heroine is tough (well mostly). It reminds me so much of Sweet as My Revenge that I wanted to go back and read the latter book which is clearly the superior book.
The issue is that this book should have been a fight between equals but the hero pushes a little too much. I had sympathy for him as the heroine did lie and ruin his life but he went too far. I was enjoying the drama for it’s ridiculousness till about 30% in . This was basically when I almost chucked my Kindle out the window.
If you skip this part, the shenanigans are similar to other late 80/early 90s Harlequins. I could have moved on but the hero never grovels and never really apologies. In fact, he accuses her of not trusting him despite “how many times I prove myself”. I must have missed that part while I was throwing up in disgust. He bankrupted her, threw her out of her home, ruined her life, made her feel useless … I guess that is a proving of sorts. Just not the kind I want in my romance novels.
In the end I just plain disliked this romance despite some strong writing. Sorry Ms. Napier - one star it is.
July 14, 2019
4 1/2 Stars! ~ Jane couldn’t stand by and watch her best friend, Ava be bullied into marriage to a man she didn’t love, so on the fated wedding day when the minister had asked if anyone could show just cause, Jane stood up and announced to all that she and the groom were lovers. Ryan left town after the merger with his business and Ava’s father’s fell through, knowing that someday he’d be able to dispute the lies Jane had told. Now after rebuilding his business he came back to Auckland welding a power so strong that in two years, he’d stripped Jane of her family business, home and personal funds. But he’s not through exacting his revenge on her, he wants to own her body and soul. Jane’s not one to go down without a fight, and she uses her every last resource to stay afloat. However, no one in Auckland wants to do battle with the mighty Ryan and Jane finds herself not only bankrupt of funds but of all job prospects.
Wow! Those that are not die-hard Presents fans will have a hard time with the ruthless way Ryan exacts his revenge. Ryan is most definitely alpha but he comes to admire Jane’s determination and spirit. Though justified in hating Jane for breaking up his possible marriage, there is much more that he needs Jane to atone for. Jane, though feeling guilty for her lie, doesn’t understand why Ryan is so bent on ruining not only her but everything that bears her family name. And her loyalty to Ava will not allow her to break her trust to vindicate herself. Beneath their open hatred flares a desire so strong that both can barely control. Intensely emotional. Strongly passionate. A compelling read!
Wow! Those that are not die-hard Presents fans will have a hard time with the ruthless way Ryan exacts his revenge. Ryan is most definitely alpha but he comes to admire Jane’s determination and spirit. Though justified in hating Jane for breaking up his possible marriage, there is much more that he needs Jane to atone for. Jane, though feeling guilty for her lie, doesn’t understand why Ryan is so bent on ruining not only her but everything that bears her family name. And her loyalty to Ava will not allow her to break her trust to vindicate herself. Beneath their open hatred flares a desire so strong that both can barely control. Intensely emotional. Strongly passionate. A compelling read!
April 29, 2012
The heroine needed to stop her best friends wedding, her best friend had told her she was in love with someone else, so the heroine stopped the wedding indeed. She told everyone in church that she was the heroes mistress.
When the hero was done feeling ashamed, confused and humiliated he went after the heroine. She told everyone that she was his mistress, so now he'd make her his mistress. When the heroine finds out his devious plans, she tried to run, scream, kick and hide but she can't deny him anything because she loves him. The only question is, does he love her?
It was a decent book, issue is, it wasn't at all smooth. It seemed like a jerky story to me. I had higher expectations for a Susan Napier novel.
When the hero was done feeling ashamed, confused and humiliated he went after the heroine. She told everyone that she was his mistress, so now he'd make her his mistress. When the heroine finds out his devious plans, she tried to run, scream, kick and hide but she can't deny him anything because she loves him. The only question is, does he love her?
It was a decent book, issue is, it wasn't at all smooth. It seemed like a jerky story to me. I had higher expectations for a Susan Napier novel.
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