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Rediscover this reader favourite by Sandra Marton, originally published as Cherishthe Flame.
Paige's first encounter with brooding millionaire Quinn Fowler ignited asearing flame between them—and ended any possibility of a quiet marriage to Quinn'sbrother Alan.
Quinn is suspicious of Paige's motives, but he can't help but be drawn toher. The best way to get her away from his brother becomes obvious: he must claim her ashis own bride!
Married to a man who loathes her, but whose touch she craves, Paige hasnever felt more alone. But Quinn has been hiding the truth—that their first meetingindelibly marked him as hers…
Paige's first encounter with brooding millionaire Quinn Fowler ignited asearing flame between them—and ended any possibility of a quiet marriage to Quinn'sbrother Alan.
Quinn is suspicious of Paige's motives, but he can't help but be drawn toher. The best way to get her away from his brother becomes obvious: he must claim her ashis own bride!
Married to a man who loathes her, but whose touch she craves, Paige hasnever felt more alone. But Quinn has been hiding the truth—that their first meetingindelibly marked him as hers…
Unknown Binding
First published October 1, 1989
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480 people want to read
About the author
Sandra Marton
674 books540 followersI've been a writer, one way or another, all my life. Before I could read, I made up poems and my mom wrote them down for me. In elementary school, my teachers almost always let me write poems or stories instead of requiring me to do art projects. Always, I dreamed of becoming a published writer...and that dream came true! I write novels about sexy, powerful men and independent-minded women, and what happens when they find each other and fall in love. My books are sexy and romantic, and they've very often full of romantic suspense. I write the kinds of books I love to read, and I hope that makes my readers happy.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 39 reviews
February 7, 2017
Re Cherish the Flame - Sandra Marton is back with a forced blackmail marriage and the squick factor is very high for me on this one. So take my spoilerization with a grain of salt, I just got the really creepy feeling from the beginning with this, even when I first read it years ago and did not completely understand the undertoned nuances, and I have never entirely lost it.
The story starts with the h, who has had one bad lurve experience in the past, getting ready to marry the guy she has been dating for a year. She isn't in love with the guy, she told the guy she isn't in love and she never actually agreed to marry him. He just announced it to their respective families and set up the wedding and the h passively agrees to it and allows herself to be gotten ready to be married.
At the celebratory party, the h meets a man on the beach whose forceful, roofie kisses make her swoon with passive desire. She tries to tell him no, she is engaged, but the man just bullys through and seems intent on getting a beach's worth of sand into unmentionable areas in the lurve club adventure stakes. The h manages to ward him off by promising to meet him later. She totally ditches the guy only to run into him later and finds out he is her fiance's brother.
Which means this is the cue for the standard H forced blackmail because she is a skanky trampy tart person and the H will not have his innocent brother corrupted and contaminated by her trashy charms. Really the H is just totally envious and doesn't want to share, tho he doesn't mind sloppy seconds. The h, continuing the passivity mode she does so well, marries the H and tacitly agrees to continual beratements of her morals, character and person while enjoying the regularly scheduled teasing lead ups to a semi-forced lurve clubbing the H inflicts on her person, while he is simultaneously coming home drenched in other ladies' perfume.
The h was not precisely a virgin, she did have one brief relationship when she went off to the big city and met a guy and they tried the physical out, but it ended badly with the h's heart being broken. She ran home to mum and got a new job close to home. Which is why she was dating the H's brother. He was nice, respectful, lived close by and was seemingly just happy to bask in having her hang on his arm. He was very keen to marry her, the h wasn't feeling it, but again she is so passive that when everyone else thought it was a good idear, she just went along with it.
The H however, is convinced that she is the Gold Diggingest Tart of Two Continents and after watching all his skeevey business associates try to put the make on her, he is convinced that it is just a matter of time before she ignores the manacles of marriage implied by Her Precious - an Antique Ruby ring - and goes out to Tart for the World with any slug swimming slime swiller who makes an offer. (Then again, with her extreme passivity to any strongly toned suggestion, this H probably had a very valid reason to worry. It is the probably the finest example of HPlandia Tartiness by Passive Suggestibility H provocation ever.)
So it won't be surprising to find out that when the H hears that the h had a male visitor who was putting his hands on her and she gave a ton of money to, he loses his mind and is convinced she is cheating on him with yet another blobfish spawn slime business acquaintance he introduced her to. He throws her out and the h passively accepts his decree. She moves into the prerequisite sub-grotto really grotty flat in a bad area of London, and since she won't use any of the H's allowance money he gave her, she is soon not even able to afford beans on toast. Tho bizarrely she does buy a really pricey gold chain with the last of her money so she won't lose her antique ruby ring.
Naturally the h is completely innocent, the guy accosting her was her father, who needed money because he has a gambling addiction and he was panicking. The H overreacted and read the whole thing wrong and the h was just too passive to even raise an objection beyond a stammer or offer an explanation. Now she is trying to find temp work, but she is in England as an American with no work permit and living in the sub grotto grotty flat has given her a permanent chill. It isn't flu symptoms tho, the h is preggers. She soon dwindles into a completely pathetic limpet rejected toy who collapses and is finally rescued by the H after she passes out when she refuses to sell the ruby ring to feed herself as it is Her Precious and she can't let it go.
Fortunately the H is called in time to catch the h in the emergency ward and after a through research, investigation and signed in blood affidavits, he is prepared to believe that it was the h's father who was touching her and she wasn't trying to tart herself out. He will not require her to fling herself into Mt. Doom - she can keep Her Precious, but she will have to consent to a leash and collaring along with strict hourly scheduling and maybe some wall chaining too. Plus he can always pimp her out for lucrative business deals once he gets tired of her doggie devotion. The h, now that her fears of having to actually think for herself or make a decision are totally annihilated, devotes herself to lap dogging it with her worshipful adorative lurve at the H's feet for the HEA.
In case you couldn't figure it out, this book is a heavily disguised euphemism for an extreme M/s relationship. SM puts it under the guise of jealous alpha H with sweet martyred h, but don't be fooled, this is the quickest devolution of a self sufficient female since Margaret Pargeter took retirement and Lilian Peake took a vacation.
The extremeness of the h's passivity is really, really squicky, she literally would rather starve herself and her baby than give up the physical symbols of her enslaved shackles of the H's total possession. The H is not only a full fledged Dominant, he is a bit of a sadist too, and for the life of me, I just did not feel the love between these two.
They need each other, cause she has NO self agency, not even enough for daily living tasks and he has this obsessive need to fully possess and own a beautiful living object toy. I did think they would stay together, but I was srsly pounding the Captain to keep from screaming in horror.
Cause while the BDSM theme is tolerable in my POV , the degradation of a woman into utter objectification and a helpless malleable H toy for his sadistic pleasure is a little too extreme for my HPlandia tastes. Still this one gets a lot of favorable reviews and mileage always varies, so you might want to give it a go for some euphemistic HP kink.
The story starts with the h, who has had one bad lurve experience in the past, getting ready to marry the guy she has been dating for a year. She isn't in love with the guy, she told the guy she isn't in love and she never actually agreed to marry him. He just announced it to their respective families and set up the wedding and the h passively agrees to it and allows herself to be gotten ready to be married.
At the celebratory party, the h meets a man on the beach whose forceful, roofie kisses make her swoon with passive desire. She tries to tell him no, she is engaged, but the man just bullys through and seems intent on getting a beach's worth of sand into unmentionable areas in the lurve club adventure stakes. The h manages to ward him off by promising to meet him later. She totally ditches the guy only to run into him later and finds out he is her fiance's brother.
Which means this is the cue for the standard H forced blackmail because she is a skanky trampy tart person and the H will not have his innocent brother corrupted and contaminated by her trashy charms. Really the H is just totally envious and doesn't want to share, tho he doesn't mind sloppy seconds. The h, continuing the passivity mode she does so well, marries the H and tacitly agrees to continual beratements of her morals, character and person while enjoying the regularly scheduled teasing lead ups to a semi-forced lurve clubbing the H inflicts on her person, while he is simultaneously coming home drenched in other ladies' perfume.
The h was not precisely a virgin, she did have one brief relationship when she went off to the big city and met a guy and they tried the physical out, but it ended badly with the h's heart being broken. She ran home to mum and got a new job close to home. Which is why she was dating the H's brother. He was nice, respectful, lived close by and was seemingly just happy to bask in having her hang on his arm. He was very keen to marry her, the h wasn't feeling it, but again she is so passive that when everyone else thought it was a good idear, she just went along with it.
The H however, is convinced that she is the Gold Diggingest Tart of Two Continents and after watching all his skeevey business associates try to put the make on her, he is convinced that it is just a matter of time before she ignores the manacles of marriage implied by Her Precious - an Antique Ruby ring - and goes out to Tart for the World with any slug swimming slime swiller who makes an offer. (Then again, with her extreme passivity to any strongly toned suggestion, this H probably had a very valid reason to worry. It is the probably the finest example of HPlandia Tartiness by Passive Suggestibility H provocation ever.)
So it won't be surprising to find out that when the H hears that the h had a male visitor who was putting his hands on her and she gave a ton of money to, he loses his mind and is convinced she is cheating on him with yet another blobfish spawn slime business acquaintance he introduced her to. He throws her out and the h passively accepts his decree. She moves into the prerequisite sub-grotto really grotty flat in a bad area of London, and since she won't use any of the H's allowance money he gave her, she is soon not even able to afford beans on toast. Tho bizarrely she does buy a really pricey gold chain with the last of her money so she won't lose her antique ruby ring.
Naturally the h is completely innocent, the guy accosting her was her father, who needed money because he has a gambling addiction and he was panicking. The H overreacted and read the whole thing wrong and the h was just too passive to even raise an objection beyond a stammer or offer an explanation. Now she is trying to find temp work, but she is in England as an American with no work permit and living in the sub grotto grotty flat has given her a permanent chill. It isn't flu symptoms tho, the h is preggers. She soon dwindles into a completely pathetic limpet rejected toy who collapses and is finally rescued by the H after she passes out when she refuses to sell the ruby ring to feed herself as it is Her Precious and she can't let it go.
Fortunately the H is called in time to catch the h in the emergency ward and after a through research, investigation and signed in blood affidavits, he is prepared to believe that it was the h's father who was touching her and she wasn't trying to tart herself out. He will not require her to fling herself into Mt. Doom - she can keep Her Precious, but she will have to consent to a leash and collaring along with strict hourly scheduling and maybe some wall chaining too. Plus he can always pimp her out for lucrative business deals once he gets tired of her doggie devotion. The h, now that her fears of having to actually think for herself or make a decision are totally annihilated, devotes herself to lap dogging it with her worshipful adorative lurve at the H's feet for the HEA.
In case you couldn't figure it out, this book is a heavily disguised euphemism for an extreme M/s relationship. SM puts it under the guise of jealous alpha H with sweet martyred h, but don't be fooled, this is the quickest devolution of a self sufficient female since Margaret Pargeter took retirement and Lilian Peake took a vacation.
The extremeness of the h's passivity is really, really squicky, she literally would rather starve herself and her baby than give up the physical symbols of her enslaved shackles of the H's total possession. The H is not only a full fledged Dominant, he is a bit of a sadist too, and for the life of me, I just did not feel the love between these two.
They need each other, cause she has NO self agency, not even enough for daily living tasks and he has this obsessive need to fully possess and own a beautiful living object toy. I did think they would stay together, but I was srsly pounding the Captain to keep from screaming in horror.
Cause while the BDSM theme is tolerable in my POV , the degradation of a woman into utter objectification and a helpless malleable H toy for his sadistic pleasure is a little too extreme for my HPlandia tastes. Still this one gets a lot of favorable reviews and mileage always varies, so you might want to give it a go for some euphemistic HP kink.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 18, 2018
This blackmailed into marriage story had everything I like in a vintage.
Hero catches sight of the heroine, dressed as Juliet, at a Halloween ball. He pursues her and she is equally smitten at first sight, but unfortunately she is engaged to a milquetoast and due to be married in the three days. Hero gives her a ruby signet ring and urges her to return to the beach later, but she goes home in an ambivalent tizzy. She is having second and third thoughts. Her father is pressing her into this hasty marriage and -
Ooops.
The man she was canoodling with on Halloween night was her fiance's brother. And older brother has just uncovered the fact that heroine's father has been embezzling from the family company. He thinks the heroine was leading his brother on so that her father's sins will be covered up.
So he forces heroine to write notes to her fiance and her parents, calling off the wedding. They marry in New York City and take the Concorde to London, where the hero lives.
The next day the hero tortures her with a shopping trip, a "nuptial contract" (she only gets 10,000 pounds when he divorces her), and the leering lead up to a wedding night. The heroine successfully holds him off from sex.
After some awkwardness, they begin to spend time together. They are getting along beautifully until the H/h have to accompany a client and his wife to the symphony. Client is handsy with the heroine and hero is jealous. They finally have sex that night. It is great until the next morning when the hero leaves in a snit.
So lots of drama with a bit of angst thrown in. Heroine was a bit of a drip at first, since she let herself be coerced into a marriage with milquetoast. But she improved as the story went on. Hero tried to be cruel, but he really didn't have it in him. He was too smitten. I liked that the author showed them getting along before the final misunderstanding. It made the heroine's angst more understandable. The ruby signet ring was a nice touch. Hero had an adequate grovel for a solid HEA.
Edited to add: Kindle title is His Blackmailed Bride
Hero catches sight of the heroine, dressed as Juliet, at a Halloween ball. He pursues her and she is equally smitten at first sight, but unfortunately she is engaged to a milquetoast and due to be married in the three days. Hero gives her a ruby signet ring and urges her to return to the beach later, but she goes home in an ambivalent tizzy. She is having second and third thoughts. Her father is pressing her into this hasty marriage and -
Ooops.
The man she was canoodling with on Halloween night was her fiance's brother. And older brother has just uncovered the fact that heroine's father has been embezzling from the family company. He thinks the heroine was leading his brother on so that her father's sins will be covered up.
So he forces heroine to write notes to her fiance and her parents, calling off the wedding. They marry in New York City and take the Concorde to London, where the hero lives.
The next day the hero tortures her with a shopping trip, a "nuptial contract" (she only gets 10,000 pounds when he divorces her), and the leering lead up to a wedding night. The heroine successfully holds him off from sex.
After some awkwardness, they begin to spend time together. They are getting along beautifully until the H/h have to accompany a client and his wife to the symphony. Client is handsy with the heroine and hero is jealous. They finally have sex that night. It is great until the next morning when the hero leaves in a snit.
So lots of drama with a bit of angst thrown in. Heroine was a bit of a drip at first, since she let herself be coerced into a marriage with milquetoast. But she improved as the story went on. Hero tried to be cruel, but he really didn't have it in him. He was too smitten. I liked that the author showed them getting along before the final misunderstanding. It made the heroine's angst more understandable. The ruby signet ring was a nice touch. Hero had an adequate grovel for a solid HEA.
Edited to add: Kindle title is His Blackmailed Bride
February 1, 2012
I liked it. I'm sucker for down and out, misunderstood and living on their last dime/schilling heroines. Especially if there's a sweet, believable HEA and a little grovel from the hero.
February 17, 2012
Yay, this is a great one. The hero is just the right balance of alpha/angry/cruel and can't-help-himself caring. Of course it's an old one chock full of misunderstandings and times when you're just like, spit it out people and clear all of this up. But that's what makes it fun too, and I love a righteous heroine who is living in a scrap heap getting too thin from lack of money (though I wish he'd found her like that and we could see him freak out). Anyway, quite a good HP read.
June 16, 2017
sloppy seconds
dnf
July 20, 2018Ugh. DNF.
September 3, 2025
Dippy heroine (25) had spent 4 years away from home but because some guy called her frigid after one night of sex, she ran home from New York to live with her parents for a year and gets engaged to a puppy dog kind of guy (OM) -
Just because.
The hero (late 30s) is the brother of OM and the meeting is 3 days before the wedding. Initially it is all passion, but dumb heroine leads him on with dithering and he thinks it is love. She leaves him on a beach waiting a whole hour (eye roll) for her.
Soon it’s lust and hate as he finds out the heroine is the daughter of the swindling employee of his family’s business, who he realises is marrying his brother the next day. Because he’s crazy for her (in a good and bad way) he stops the wedding and marries her, taking her home to England. But he keeps her on edge by saying it is not her home, getting a prenuptial agreement and kind of making her feel upset - which means she won’t have sex with him. So he tries to 1) date/lay someone else? It’s never made clear, just she smells a woman’s floral scent on him a couple of times. Grim. 2) woo her with dates to nice places and have evenings at home. 3) go double dating with a business contact then rage when he thinks she’s hot for the old perv that keeps touching her - which leads to 4) finally getting the sex and 5) the next day leaving for a business trip with obvious references to deciding whether to divorce when he returns. It seems odd because now he has her, he doesn’t know if he wants her because she might still be implicated in the theft. And did he cheat???
I liked the hero at the beginning, but he needed a reality check. No way would that dumb heroine be capable of any of the things he accused her of. She was too stupid to look after herself for the last couple of months in the book - didn’t think to get a job for ages and wasted money on foolish things. He also did not try very hard to find her. Not sure I believe a HEA here as she is way too submissive.
Just because.
The hero (late 30s) is the brother of OM and the meeting is 3 days before the wedding. Initially it is all passion, but dumb heroine leads him on with dithering and he thinks it is love. She leaves him on a beach waiting a whole hour (eye roll) for her.
Soon it’s lust and hate as he finds out the heroine is the daughter of the swindling employee of his family’s business, who he realises is marrying his brother the next day. Because he’s crazy for her (in a good and bad way) he stops the wedding and marries her, taking her home to England. But he keeps her on edge by saying it is not her home, getting a prenuptial agreement and kind of making her feel upset - which means she won’t have sex with him. So he tries to 1) date/lay someone else? It’s never made clear, just she smells a woman’s floral scent on him a couple of times. Grim. 2) woo her with dates to nice places and have evenings at home. 3) go double dating with a business contact then rage when he thinks she’s hot for the old perv that keeps touching her - which leads to 4) finally getting the sex and 5) the next day leaving for a business trip with obvious references to deciding whether to divorce when he returns. It seems odd because now he has her, he doesn’t know if he wants her because she might still be implicated in the theft. And did he cheat???
I liked the hero at the beginning, but he needed a reality check. No way would that dumb heroine be capable of any of the things he accused her of. She was too stupid to look after herself for the last couple of months in the book - didn’t think to get a job for ages and wasted money on foolish things. He also did not try very hard to find her. Not sure I believe a HEA here as she is way too submissive.
October 8, 2015
5 *Made my heart pitter patter* Stars
February 5, 2022
Hmm, for some reason the song Stuck in the Middle came to mind after I read this book then read reviews. On one hand, I could totally see giving this 4 stars like Stmargarets but something was pulling me from giving it 4. Then I read Boogenhagen’s 2 stars and I was like yeah, I think that is why this isn’t a 4 for me(who knows in a couple of years it might be a 2 or a 3 on reread)
What can I say….This book wastes no time in leaving the gate. Paige, our heroine is engaged to Allan. She doesn’t love him. She has told him this. Her dad pretty much threw them together(it is his boss’s son). She is engaged to him, because he told everyone they were engaged. 🤔Now, I don’t know about you, but I can think of several men that if they were to tell my parents we were engaged, I would have no problem saying, “No, we are most definitely not.” Now if it were Aidan Turner telling my parents that(and clearing it with my husband) I’d be like, “Yep, that is very true!”
Ok, anyway, it is 3 days before their wedding and they are attending a Hallow’s eve ball, where people are wearing masks. There are dozens of Romeo’s and Juliet’s. Like Romeo and Juliet, the h Paige is overcome with emotion when she spies a Romeo(our H, not her betrothed) across the room. He is overwhelmed as well. She avoids getting within his sphere, because, well, she is engaged to another. However, our Romeo catches up with this Juliet and takes her outside to the beach. She informs him several times that she is engaged and she should go. Our hero is following his heart and other body parts and will not hear of her leaving him, He even gives her a ruby ring. (This is within an hour or so of meeting, seriously I am not jumping time here). These two get very close to christening the sand with their love when the h hears her mom calling for her. The H makes her promise to come back and meet him. She agrees, but once she is back inside she realizes that this whole thing is madness and doesn’t seek him out! She puts the ring on a chain around her neck.
The next day(the eve of her wedding) at the rehearsal she sees the H and finds out that he is her fiancés black sheep brother. She figures he will blab all to her fiance and the engagement will be off. Nothing happens. The day of the wedding, the h is getting dressed and the H comes to her. He tells her that she will marry him. He knows that she is a tarty tart who has snowed his brother. Oh, and that her daddy has been siphoning funds from the company. Therefore, she is obviously in cahoots with daddy dearest. So her choice is, marry him or daddy goes to jail. She runs off with the H, they get married and jump the pond to land in merry ole’ England where the H makes his home.
The H lets the h sleep the first night, but the next night he wants his husbandly rights. He gets pretty close to raping her, but her non-response is a cold shower to him. They end up avoiding each other for a couple of weeks. Then the H decides she needs to step up her wife duties in regards to dinner parties etc… Fake it til they make it so to speak. During this time, the h and H get very close they find they have lots in common and they enjoy being together. A night in together is better than any fancy restaurant etc…. One night, they almost succumb to their mutual attraction but the h isn’t quite ready.(our h has only had one sexual experience and it ended poorly, so she isn’t quite sure on the whole sex thing..she never slept with brother)
The next night they need to go out with one of his big clients. The client, despite having a wife, is very handsy with the h. She doesn’t want to make a scene because his business will bring in quite the cash flow for the H. However, things come to a head and the client is exposed. The H is pissed, but he believes that the h had a lot to do with the client coming on to her. He is angry, and insists that they will have sex tonight now that she is hot and bothered by the client. The bedroom moment starts off angry, but soon these two get back the moment they almost shared at their first meeting and it ends up being a night filled with love and sex.
Everything is good, right? Nope still too many pages left in this book. The next morning the H is rather distant with the h and indicates that now that he has what he wanted that a divorce is probably imminent. His comments were cloaked, so he didn’t come right out and say that, but the h was reading between the lines. He leaves for work out of town.
Daddy shows up to get a loan. She doesn’t have access to money. However, she gets in the H’s desk drawer to get money from there. She spends the day with her dad until he flies back. She is not happy, but it is her dad and the loan sharks want their money. After being gone all day she gets back to the house where a very angry H is waiting for her. The housekeeper told him that she had a “male” visitor and left with him. He assumed it was the client. He slut shamed her some more and sent her on her way…no clothes, car etc….
She has enough personal money to fly back to the US, but her heart is in England. Even though the H wants nothing to do with her, she can’t bare to be far away. She gets set up in a bed sit on the less affluent side of town. She is surviving off what was left in her bank account (1000?) She has 2nd hand clothing and no job prospects. 3 months pass and she starts feeling ill…..👶🍼 The Doctor tells her to start taking care of herself. She goes to sell the ruby ring, but can’t part with it and ends up fainting in the pawn shop.
She wakes up in the hospital with a distraught H at her side. He knows the whole story(daddy spilled the beans and is getting treatment) However, he ran after her the very next day before he knew everything. This tart has his heart, and he wasn’t willing to let her go. He has been looking for her ever since thinking she was in the US. They have their avowals of love and the story ends with them canoodling in the hospital bed getting ready to go home.
So, There was some angst here although I never got that pit in my stomach feeling. The H was cruel. I was frustrated a little bit with the h’s willingness to go along with stuff. Every time, the. H shut her down about the past, I really wanted her to say, “look you are going to listen and listen good…..”
One thing I liked in the story was the hero calling her Juliet throughout most of the book. It was kind of cute. I could see myself rereading this some day. There were several things I liked in the book, and I do like my angry, besotted heroes. I think because I recently read a couple of true blue 4/5 star reads (one of them being SM’s)that this didn’t quite hit the mark for me.
What can I say….This book wastes no time in leaving the gate. Paige, our heroine is engaged to Allan. She doesn’t love him. She has told him this. Her dad pretty much threw them together(it is his boss’s son). She is engaged to him, because he told everyone they were engaged. 🤔Now, I don’t know about you, but I can think of several men that if they were to tell my parents we were engaged, I would have no problem saying, “No, we are most definitely not.” Now if it were Aidan Turner telling my parents that(and clearing it with my husband) I’d be like, “Yep, that is very true!”
Ok, anyway, it is 3 days before their wedding and they are attending a Hallow’s eve ball, where people are wearing masks. There are dozens of Romeo’s and Juliet’s. Like Romeo and Juliet, the h Paige is overcome with emotion when she spies a Romeo(our H, not her betrothed) across the room. He is overwhelmed as well. She avoids getting within his sphere, because, well, she is engaged to another. However, our Romeo catches up with this Juliet and takes her outside to the beach. She informs him several times that she is engaged and she should go. Our hero is following his heart and other body parts and will not hear of her leaving him, He even gives her a ruby ring. (This is within an hour or so of meeting, seriously I am not jumping time here). These two get very close to christening the sand with their love when the h hears her mom calling for her. The H makes her promise to come back and meet him. She agrees, but once she is back inside she realizes that this whole thing is madness and doesn’t seek him out! She puts the ring on a chain around her neck.
The next day(the eve of her wedding) at the rehearsal she sees the H and finds out that he is her fiancés black sheep brother. She figures he will blab all to her fiance and the engagement will be off. Nothing happens. The day of the wedding, the h is getting dressed and the H comes to her. He tells her that she will marry him. He knows that she is a tarty tart who has snowed his brother. Oh, and that her daddy has been siphoning funds from the company. Therefore, she is obviously in cahoots with daddy dearest. So her choice is, marry him or daddy goes to jail. She runs off with the H, they get married and jump the pond to land in merry ole’ England where the H makes his home.
The H lets the h sleep the first night, but the next night he wants his husbandly rights. He gets pretty close to raping her, but her non-response is a cold shower to him. They end up avoiding each other for a couple of weeks. Then the H decides she needs to step up her wife duties in regards to dinner parties etc… Fake it til they make it so to speak. During this time, the h and H get very close they find they have lots in common and they enjoy being together. A night in together is better than any fancy restaurant etc…. One night, they almost succumb to their mutual attraction but the h isn’t quite ready.(our h has only had one sexual experience and it ended poorly, so she isn’t quite sure on the whole sex thing..she never slept with brother)
The next night they need to go out with one of his big clients. The client, despite having a wife, is very handsy with the h. She doesn’t want to make a scene because his business will bring in quite the cash flow for the H. However, things come to a head and the client is exposed. The H is pissed, but he believes that the h had a lot to do with the client coming on to her. He is angry, and insists that they will have sex tonight now that she is hot and bothered by the client. The bedroom moment starts off angry, but soon these two get back the moment they almost shared at their first meeting and it ends up being a night filled with love and sex.
Everything is good, right? Nope still too many pages left in this book. The next morning the H is rather distant with the h and indicates that now that he has what he wanted that a divorce is probably imminent. His comments were cloaked, so he didn’t come right out and say that, but the h was reading between the lines. He leaves for work out of town.
Daddy shows up to get a loan. She doesn’t have access to money. However, she gets in the H’s desk drawer to get money from there. She spends the day with her dad until he flies back. She is not happy, but it is her dad and the loan sharks want their money. After being gone all day she gets back to the house where a very angry H is waiting for her. The housekeeper told him that she had a “male” visitor and left with him. He assumed it was the client. He slut shamed her some more and sent her on her way…no clothes, car etc….
She has enough personal money to fly back to the US, but her heart is in England. Even though the H wants nothing to do with her, she can’t bare to be far away. She gets set up in a bed sit on the less affluent side of town. She is surviving off what was left in her bank account (1000?) She has 2nd hand clothing and no job prospects. 3 months pass and she starts feeling ill…..👶🍼 The Doctor tells her to start taking care of herself. She goes to sell the ruby ring, but can’t part with it and ends up fainting in the pawn shop.
She wakes up in the hospital with a distraught H at her side. He knows the whole story(daddy spilled the beans and is getting treatment) However, he ran after her the very next day before he knew everything. This tart has his heart, and he wasn’t willing to let her go. He has been looking for her ever since thinking she was in the US. They have their avowals of love and the story ends with them canoodling in the hospital bed getting ready to go home.
So, There was some angst here although I never got that pit in my stomach feeling. The H was cruel. I was frustrated a little bit with the h’s willingness to go along with stuff. Every time, the. H shut her down about the past, I really wanted her to say, “look you are going to listen and listen good…..”
One thing I liked in the story was the hero calling her Juliet throughout most of the book. It was kind of cute. I could see myself rereading this some day. There were several things I liked in the book, and I do like my angry, besotted heroes. I think because I recently read a couple of true blue 4/5 star reads (one of them being SM’s)that this didn’t quite hit the mark for me.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 8, 2022
Story is excellent but I do not like and do not expect to read blasphemy in a Harlequin.
This is one of those books you know you shouldn't like but you do, rather like chocolate.
He's way too fast to jump to all the wrong conclusions and she keeps starting sentences with "you have to listen" instead of just telling him. He keeps interrupting her and she should have just kept talking over him.
Reread this 18 months later and liked it more - except for the odious blasphemy - and enjoyed the emotional intimacy the author creates between her characters and with us.
There are a couple plot holes; the silliest is when she is offered a job, provided she is not ill with the flu, visits the doctor, discovers she's pregnant and doesn't take the job. Why? No reason, except we need the dramatic fainting scene to bring them back together. It's an annoying plot device.
This is one of those books you know you shouldn't like but you do, rather like chocolate.
He's way too fast to jump to all the wrong conclusions and she keeps starting sentences with "you have to listen" instead of just telling him. He keeps interrupting her and she should have just kept talking over him.
Reread this 18 months later and liked it more - except for the odious blasphemy - and enjoyed the emotional intimacy the author creates between her characters and with us.
There are a couple plot holes; the silliest is when she is offered a job, provided she is not ill with the flu, visits the doctor, discovers she's pregnant and doesn't take the job. Why? No reason, except we need the dramatic fainting scene to bring them back together. It's an annoying plot device.
April 30, 2021
2.75 stars
OM: Marry me.
h: No. I don't love you like that.
OM: Marry me.
h: No.
OM: I told our sets of parents that we're getting married.
h: Umm...okay. I guess we are getting married now.
H: You're going to marry me instead of my brother cuz you're a gold digging hoe.
h: I don't want to.
H: I'll out your dad as an embezzler.
h: My dad shouldn't face the consequences for stealing money for years and years. Okay, I'll marry you.
H: You belong to me now *evil laugh*
Things I didn't like:
-the H unabashedly stole his brother's fiancee
-the h had no agency in her life (she got forced into marriage twice and did not fight either time)
-the h stole $10K from her husband to give to her father. thievery runs in the family.
OM: Marry me.
h: No. I don't love you like that.
OM: Marry me.
h: No.
OM: I told our sets of parents that we're getting married.
h: Umm...okay. I guess we are getting married now.
H: You're going to marry me instead of my brother cuz you're a gold digging hoe.
h: I don't want to.
H: I'll out your dad as an embezzler.
h: My dad shouldn't face the consequences for stealing money for years and years. Okay, I'll marry you.
H: You belong to me now *evil laugh*
Things I didn't like:
-the H unabashedly stole his brother's fiancee
-the h had no agency in her life (she got forced into marriage twice and did not fight either time)
-the h stole $10K from her husband to give to her father. thievery runs in the family.
June 8, 2021
Paige's first encounter with brooding millionaire Quinn Fowler ignited a searing flame between them—and ended any possibility of a quiet marriage to Quinn's brother Alan.
Quinn is suspicious of Paige's motives, but he can't help but be drawn to her. The best way to get her away from his brother becomes obvious: he must claim her as his own bride!
Married to a man who loathes her, but whose touch she craves, Paige has never felt more alone. But Quinn has been hiding the truth—that their first meeting indelibly marked him as hers…
Quinn is suspicious of Paige's motives, but he can't help but be drawn to her. The best way to get her away from his brother becomes obvious: he must claim her as his own bride!
Married to a man who loathes her, but whose touch she craves, Paige has never felt more alone. But Quinn has been hiding the truth—that their first meeting indelibly marked him as hers…
September 10, 2016
This book is very special to me .. it was the first book I've ever read and it was the one that made me fall in love with romance I started reading it Twelve AM in the morning and didn't go to bed until I've finished it and ever since then I've started reading books non stop. I enjoyed the plot and loved Paige and Quinn .. the book was romantic .. full of angst .. overly dramatic .. full of misunderstandings and misjudgments and I loved every second of it.
November 16, 2018
A must read vintage
February 11, 2024
4 mean mean mean hero stars. In real life the heroine would have been lucky if that bus actually hit her.
July 18, 2013
I'm usually a sucker for the besotted hero and the damsel heroine, but this didn't work for me. She was a little too dumb for me and it didn't help that he was in tandem with her. I like at least one of my characters to make sense. Falling in love isn't a rational thing and emotions are heightened, but not to a point of stupidity. At the brink of her very existence when life becomes all the more precious, she makes this ridiculous choice keeping an object to prove her love. I don't think the value of life has change in times, so there is no excuse.
May 6, 2016
I absolutely adore this book. I have reread so many times. Would recommend this book to anyone who loves romantic novels with a sweet twist.
January 15, 2018
His Blackmailed Bride
I really enjoyed this book. This characters were interesting and the story line was good. I couldn’t put this book down until I finished it.
I really enjoyed this book. This characters were interesting and the story line was good. I couldn’t put this book down until I finished it.
December 12, 2018
It was a good romance except some silly parts like h feeling horny for H when some other disgusting man is pawing her.
September 8, 2019
I really love this book, it's amazing , I feel so much sensations: Love, Sadness, Pity, Fear...
I wish there another part, I really excited to know more about Peige and Queenn
I wish there another part, I really excited to know more about Peige and Queenn
November 21, 2025
This book had some flaws, but that's easily overlooked with all the HOT chemistry the H and h have, even so they only have one bed scene. Those other "almost did the deed' scenes sizzle as well! Even when the H is (all too often) hurling insults at the h and she's fighting back with a few of her own, the chemistry's still there, all the desire - frustrated by the misunderstandings - is fueling the anger and making it more passionate.
The scene in the bedroom, before the wedding to the OM that doesn't happen, had some great dialog that makes me wish this had been made into a TV movie, as so many 80's romance novels were. That would have been some scene!
And the fact that the OM is the H's younger brother really adds to the emotional roller coasters in the story!
What makes this book a bit different is that while it's usually the h who jumps to conclusions about a woman who's throwing herself at the H and thinking he's also interested, in this case it was the H who thought that about the h and a really creepy man (and a married one at that) who wouldn't keep his grubby paws off her. Because he was a client of the H's and she was afraid to make a scene and mess up a deal, she did her best to put up with it until it became impossible, but it sets up a big misunderstanding that leads to the H telling the h to leave, and the two of them being separated for months!
The H soon realized his mistake and went looking for the h (in the wrong place, as it was almost a case of hide in plain sight) and he suffered during her absence, but she went through a lot worse.
There are so many emotional scenes in this book, yet the author manages not to overdo them with melodrama or other nonsense.
I wish more had been made out of that ruby ring, which bound the two of them together. It was a symbol of their love and passion, and with the feeling the h had that the two of them had known each other before and were destined to be together, you get hints of reincarnation. The H had said he saw the ring in the shop and felt compelled to buy it, that it fascinated him, and I was hoping for some 19thc flashback or some sense of the two of them having had a past life together.
Oh well, you can't have everything.
I really recommend this one!
The scene in the bedroom, before the wedding to the OM that doesn't happen, had some great dialog that makes me wish this had been made into a TV movie, as so many 80's romance novels were. That would have been some scene!
And the fact that the OM is the H's younger brother really adds to the emotional roller coasters in the story!
What makes this book a bit different is that while it's usually the h who jumps to conclusions about a woman who's throwing herself at the H and thinking he's also interested, in this case it was the H who thought that about the h and a really creepy man (and a married one at that) who wouldn't keep his grubby paws off her. Because he was a client of the H's and she was afraid to make a scene and mess up a deal, she did her best to put up with it until it became impossible, but it sets up a big misunderstanding that leads to the H telling the h to leave, and the two of them being separated for months!
The H soon realized his mistake and went looking for the h (in the wrong place, as it was almost a case of hide in plain sight) and he suffered during her absence, but she went through a lot worse.
There are so many emotional scenes in this book, yet the author manages not to overdo them with melodrama or other nonsense.
I wish more had been made out of that ruby ring, which bound the two of them together. It was a symbol of their love and passion, and with the feeling the h had that the two of them had known each other before and were destined to be together, you get hints of reincarnation. The H had said he saw the ring in the shop and felt compelled to buy it, that it fascinated him, and I was hoping for some 19thc flashback or some sense of the two of them having had a past life together.
Oh well, you can't have everything.
I really recommend this one!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 9, 2018
Ok
This book was just ok. The H had violent tendencies that were a little unsettling. The h was clueless a lot of the time. I may read again just to see if it is better the second time around, I like the premise of love at first sight and the miscommunication that follows with that.
This book was just ok. The H had violent tendencies that were a little unsettling. The h was clueless a lot of the time. I may read again just to see if it is better the second time around, I like the premise of love at first sight and the miscommunication that follows with that.
February 18, 2024
The hero is a freaking psycho. Just a freaking loon! And I don’t trust him around animals or children. Our poor stupid heroine was kinda a wet blanket too, but for some odd reason the story kinda works! Read it for the high silly misunderstanding drama.
March 15, 2019
Either the author doesn’t know a lot of adverbs, or the h is Speedy Gonzales, because she says almost everything “quickly”
January 23, 2021
One of my absloute favourites , I read when I was 17 and it made me change a lot of my thoughts about my personal life ..
Cherish the flame
Sandra Morton
Cherish the flame
Sandra Morton
December 31, 2021
Quinn is a jackass
June 19, 2022
Very non pc. I have read a couple of this author's harlies and her stories aren't a favorite... I have 2 starred all of them and only because as a reader I can't dole out one star reviews
June 10, 2024
This book has a story that just won't let you put it down until you finish.
May 20, 2020
3.5 stars
September 9, 2017
I like this book but it also had a lot of arguing in it. It was a little better then the others that had a lot of arguing. I did like that it had a nice ending.
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