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Ransacked Heart
The past...
Six years ago, Maria had been devastated by the brutal way in which she had been sacked from her first job -- and all because of Luke Scott.
The present...
Now Luke was back in her life...and this time his demands were far greater -- he wanted her!
The future...
Maria was determined to fight the powerful attraction that existed between them -- but Luke was so tempting, it seemed he would get what he wanted in the very near future....
Six years ago, Maria had been devastated by the brutal way in which she had been sacked from her first job -- and all because of Luke Scott.
The present...
Now Luke was back in her life...and this time his demands were far greater -- he wanted her!
The future...
Maria was determined to fight the powerful attraction that existed between them -- but Luke was so tempting, it seemed he would get what he wanted in the very near future....
- GenresHarlequin Presents
Paperback
First published January 1, 2011
About the author
Jayne Bauling
58 books71 followersJayne was born in England but grew up in South Africa. After many years in Johannesburg and 17 women's fiction novels published in the UK, a move to White River, Mbombela in Mpumalanga, coincided with an exploration of new writing directions - youth fiction, short stories and poetry. Her YA novel E Eights won the 2009 Macmillan Writer's Prize for Africa, Stepping Solo was awarded the 2011 Maskew Miller Longman literature award for novels in English, and Dreaming of Light won the 2012 Gold Sanlam Prize for Youth Literature and was chosen for the 2014 IBBY Honour List. Her youth short story Dineo 658 MP won the 2009 MML silver medal, while This Ubuntu Thing was shortlisted for the inaugural Golden Baobab award and The Saturday Dress was shortlisted for the same award in 2014. In 2011 she also won the inaugural African Writing flash fiction prize for Settling. She has twice been shortlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize. Another youth novel Our Side of the Wall was shortlisted for the Sanlam Prize. Her adult short stories have appeared in The Bed Book of Short Stories (Modjaji Books), The Edge of Things (Dye Hard Press), African Pens 2011 (Jacana), Feast, Famine & Potluck (Short Story Day Africa), the e-anthology Behind the Shadows, and (the stories An Inappropriate Woman and Witch and Bitch)in the People Opposing Women Abuse Breaking the Silence annual anthologies (Jacana). Rage and Misfortune, her retelling of the OT Samson story was published online by Ludic Press. Poetry: Symbiosis won SAFM's Express Yourself prize, Fist was placed 3rd in the 2008 POWA Women's Writing Project and published in Murmurs of the Girl in Me, while Unschooled was published in POWA's 2010 anthology Stories of the Othere(ed) Woman and The Ladies Take Tea in POWA's 2012 anthology Sisterhood. More poetry in ouroboros review, Markings, poetandgeek, Ons Klyntji, Litnet and the Lowvelder.
Her latest novel is Soccer Secrets (Cover2Cover Books).
Visit her Facebook page Jayne Bauling Writer or follow her on Twitter @JayneBauling
Her latest novel is Soccer Secrets (Cover2Cover Books).
Visit her Facebook page Jayne Bauling Writer or follow her on Twitter @JayneBauling
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
September 29, 2021
If you like jealousy, slut-shaming and misunderstandings, this one is for you.
Hero is a media executive. Heroine is 19 when she first meets him. He thinks she is having an affair with a married disc jockey and pushes for her to be fired from her first job at a radio station in South Africa. Heroine has to move far away from her parents for a new job and is unable to be with her father when he dies.
The H/h meet again in Taiwan six years later. The married dj is now working there and has hired the heroine to work with him. Hero thinks heroine is still having an affair and goes out of his way to make her life miserable.
They eventually work it out by having a no-strings affair they keep secret from everyone. It’s just bad behavior all around until hero wakes up to his feelings. The travelogue of Taiwan was interesting, but the romance was not convincing.
Hero is a media executive. Heroine is 19 when she first meets him. He thinks she is having an affair with a married disc jockey and pushes for her to be fired from her first job at a radio station in South Africa. Heroine has to move far away from her parents for a new job and is unable to be with her father when he dies.
The H/h meet again in Taiwan six years later. The married dj is now working there and has hired the heroine to work with him. Hero thinks heroine is still having an affair and goes out of his way to make her life miserable.
They eventually work it out by having a no-strings affair they keep secret from everyone. It’s just bad behavior all around until hero wakes up to his feelings. The travelogue of Taiwan was interesting, but the romance was not convincing.
January 10, 2022
The hero was the heroine’s boss when she was 19 and he fired her because he thought she had an affair with a married colleague.
Years later he’s back and still thinks she has an affair with said married man.
Even if she assures him they’re only ever been friends he’s immovable in his beliefs and it’s all a slut-shaming for 95 percent of the book.
Oh, it’s not enough.
He wants her as his mistress- his secret mistress since he’s ashamed to be seen with a slut like her.
And the heroine of course kicks his sorry a** and tells him where he can go.
Does she really?
No! Of course not!
She gives up and becomes his mistress, sex only.
No cuddles, no kisses, only shabby sex in the weekend. Oh sex and verbal abuses, many of them.
Until she can’t stand the situation any longer and dumps him.
But then her friend, her supposed lover of a lifetime, accidentally tells the hero he’s so happy she’s with a man because she is his best friend, a sister he never had, a woman he never found attractive in his life.
Nice guy.
So now the hero believes her, and confess that he always loved her and he thought of her when he screw ow, and he blurts out excuses and what is the worst grovel in hp history.
Because it’s all about him, his past, his beliefs, his feelings.
Not once he’s worried for her or he cares for her feelings. Not once.
But she’s so happy to be treated as a worthless slut that all I could do was think oh, well you deserved it all.
Yes, no pride, no dignity, no self preservation whatsoever.
What a poor excuse of a woman.
What a disgusting waste of space the hero was.
I didn’t really enjoyed this book, it was too much abuses and zero love, from both.
And in the end he believes a man he barely knew but he never believed her.
Cute.
Years later he’s back and still thinks she has an affair with said married man.
Even if she assures him they’re only ever been friends he’s immovable in his beliefs and it’s all a slut-shaming for 95 percent of the book.
Oh, it’s not enough.
He wants her as his mistress- his secret mistress since he’s ashamed to be seen with a slut like her.
And the heroine of course kicks his sorry a** and tells him where he can go.
Does she really?
No! Of course not!
She gives up and becomes his mistress, sex only.
No cuddles, no kisses, only shabby sex in the weekend. Oh sex and verbal abuses, many of them.
Until she can’t stand the situation any longer and dumps him.
But then her friend, her supposed lover of a lifetime, accidentally tells the hero he’s so happy she’s with a man because she is his best friend, a sister he never had, a woman he never found attractive in his life.
Nice guy.
So now the hero believes her, and confess that he always loved her and he thought of her when he screw ow, and he blurts out excuses and what is the worst grovel in hp history.
Because it’s all about him, his past, his beliefs, his feelings.
Not once he’s worried for her or he cares for her feelings. Not once.
But she’s so happy to be treated as a worthless slut that all I could do was think oh, well you deserved it all.
Yes, no pride, no dignity, no self preservation whatsoever.
What a poor excuse of a woman.
What a disgusting waste of space the hero was.
I didn’t really enjoyed this book, it was too much abuses and zero love, from both.
And in the end he believes a man he barely knew but he never believed her.
Cute.
Read
September 4, 2015Hmmm how should i write this review? Oh well i picked it up because of its angsty nature. You know, guy hated the girl and the girl hated the guy. H wants to avenge himself and the h wants nothing to do with him and so the chase would go on. And it did.
When i was reading reviews, i always read comments like "I'm frustrated with the heroine" or "the hero's such a douchebag"... And now i finally understand. I felt really frustrated with the heroine, i swear. It took her a long time to have the courage to end it. And when the end came, she was still the first one to say ILY to the hero who in reality had nothing for her but lust.
Im sorry I'm not even gonna rate this book.
When i was reading reviews, i always read comments like "I'm frustrated with the heroine" or "the hero's such a douchebag"... And now i finally understand. I felt really frustrated with the heroine, i swear. It took her a long time to have the courage to end it. And when the end came, she was still the first one to say ILY to the hero who in reality had nothing for her but lust.
Im sorry I'm not even gonna rate this book.
September 6, 2022
"4.5/5"
"Συνάντηση στη Ταϊβάν", Jayne Bauling, Συλλογή 1457
Δυνατή ιστορία, ανάμεσα στο αβυσσαλέο μίσος και την παράφορη αγάπη! Οι δύο ήρωες περπατούν σε "τεντωμένο σχοινί¨ βιώνοντας ισχυρά συναισθήματα: απέχθεια, περιφρόνηση από τη μια μεριά και από την άλλη μια εκρηκτική σεξουαλική έλξη πέρα των δυνάμεών τους! Αν δεν υπήρχαν οι εμμονές του ήρωα σχετικά με το παρελθόν της ηρωίδας θα ήταν για 5. Μου άρεσε πολύ!!!
"Συνάντηση στη Ταϊβάν", Jayne Bauling, Συλλογή 1457
Δυνατή ιστορία, ανάμεσα στο αβυσσαλέο μίσος και την παράφορη αγάπη! Οι δύο ήρωες περπατούν σε "τεντωμένο σχοινί¨ βιώνοντας ισχυρά συναισθήματα: απέχθεια, περιφρόνηση από τη μια μεριά και από την άλλη μια εκρηκτική σεξουαλική έλξη πέρα των δυνάμεών τους! Αν δεν υπήρχαν οι εμμονές του ήρωα σχετικά με το παρελθόν της ηρωίδας θα ήταν για 5. Μου άρεσε πολύ!!!
April 18, 2026
Dear sweet Baby Jesus, may this kind of """"love"""" never, ever come within 100 light-years of me.
Wow. Just, wow. I really should have read this with some wine or something.
Ladies and gentlemen and etc. : If you ever find yourself in any kind of romantic or sexual relationship that requires you to sacrifice your self-respect and your partner degrades and disrespects you constantly (not in a consensual kinky way, just straight-up despises you, refers to you demeaningly, considers themselves ashamed to be attracted to you, etc.), RUN. Run like your tampon is on fire. Run as far and as fast as you can.
This absolute bottom-feeding despicable, hateful, life-sucking, abusive, delusional, self-hating degenerate of a male of the species somehow has gotten it into his head that the heroine, whom he met when she was a teenager working at a radio he managed/owned (ns on the deets of that), was a home-wrecking hooooooooorrrr of a slutty Mcsleazoid based on literally zero reason: no one told him this, there was no reason to believe it other than his own weird insta-obsession and jealousy and the "OM" who was not actually an OM except in the H's delusional brain, happened to be the only other male within the right age group for the H to focus his bizarre delusions upon. OM is an old friend of the h's and is married to a friend of hers whom he cheats on regularly, just not with the h, because she's actually a decent person, albeit with the spine of a jellyfish where the H is concerned, more to come on that.
So he fired the h in the most hateful and dramatic fashion, literally kicking her off the premises with an armed escort with no notice, so that she was forced to drop her college courses in radiology (that's the degree right? LOLOL) and move to another city while her dad was dying of emphysema to continue working in radio, which was her passion.
Fast-forward like idk 5-8 years later I think? And the h has slowly moved onward and upward and has now gotten a job at a radio station in Taipei, Taiwan, of all places, and is working with the "OM" (we'll call him Flo because that's his nick-name; he's another bottom-dweller of the narcissistic, vain, cheating kind, but not with the h bc they've been like siblings since they were kids) again.
Cue the entry of the H who is actually the owner of this station albeit being based out of Hong Kong. He is still under the delusion that the h and Flo are having a long-term adulterous affair, while the h absolutely despises him for the way he fired her and tried to ruin her radio career.
So naturally the H coerces the h into a secret sexual liaison (I wouldn't even call it an affair) in which she is always on-tap whenever he's in town and they don't get to cuddle because he despises her for her ongoing imaginary affair with Flo. Yes, the h has, after discovering that he's always thought she was having an adulterous liaison with Flo behind Flo's wife's back, told the H numerous times, consistently and convincingly, that she has never had an affair with, loved, had sex with, or anything, Flo, at all, ever, and that anything the H thinks is all in his head but the H will. not. believe. her.
And he is constantly bringing up how awful the h is, how ashamed he is that he is physically attracted to her, how degrading it is to eff her (it's definitely not making love that's for sure), etc.
Now, the only reason this forced "affair" between the H and h actually works at all is that she has zero spine and the worst case of body-betrayal syndrome in the history of HPlandia, which is saying a lot. He literally only has to brush up against her in passing and she could be in the middle of hating his guts (with reason) and she immediately falls, begs him to eff her, etc. It's pretty sickening and I frankly would despise myself and run for the hills if this unlikely affliction ever afflicted me.
Like seriously anyone who behaves as the H does, even IF his presumptions were correct- even IF the h had been a serious homewrecker and having an affair with the Flo for years and in love with him and whatnot- just, the absolute AUDACITY to then near-force that person into a sexual liaison with you and treat them like dirt beneath your feet. Dude. YOU'RE the despicable one here, being verbally and emotionally abusive to your sex partner when you're the one who is desperate to have sex with her! Jeez.
And then.
And THEN.
At the end, somehow they all end up in an elevator (oh, sorry, there is another OW that the OM is cheating on his wife with. She's perfectly kind and I feel bad for her because Flo is a real piece of work, but whatevs) as the h has finally sort of-kind-of found the spine to break off their godawful situationship.
The Flo/OM starts going on about how un sexy the h is and how he still doesn't know why all the men keep falling for her, etc. etc. etc. and suddenly? The H's eyes are opened. Flo doesn't even categorically deny that he and the h never had an affair, because he has no idea anyone has ever suspected such a thing, but the H finally realizes without him coming out and saying it, that the h was telling the truth all along.
He did not believe her, at all, ever. He believed the man he thought was his rival, though.
The absolute audacity of that, but wait there's more!
THENNNNNNN.
The two get upstairs and start talking, and the H starts turning everything around on the h somehow, even while sort of non-pologizing for his behavior!!!!!!!!!!!!
First, the nonpology consists of him explaining why and how he was so quick to believe the worst about the h, while not so subtly blaming it on her because it's ofc her fault that he was wildly attracted to her. of COURSE.
Then, he starts acting like he really just wanted her to lurrrrrvvvveeeee him all along and SHE was the one rejecting HIM. Somehow. So that even toward the end, when she was trying to give tender touches and he violently rejected everything but pure sex, it was still HER fault somehow because of course she was faking being tender for some reason of her own and he was just sooooo sad that she didn't love him even though he made it clear, over and over and over, that he could and would never love her, didn't want love, didn't want anything but sex, but now he's all, oh, but sweetie, I secretly just wanted your love the whole time!
OMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMG.
And then he's all confessing that he really did love her all this time and it was totally not just an obsession with the one woman he could never have, and then she's actually backtracking and saying oh! If I'd have known you LOVED me, I would have tried harder to make you accept the truth?! Girl how could you have tried any harder?! You cried, you yelled, you said it straight and emotionlessly- I guess you could have had it skywritten? Done a singing telegram?
Anyhow, his entire denouement of love is pretty much him confessing his bad behavior and excusing it in the same moment, and the h just being all, "love means never having to say you're sorry; of course all the trauma and psychological torture you've put me through in the past few months is magically erased with a few short words! We'll just live happily ever after and this will totally not taint our relationship for the rest of our lives! It'll be fine!!!!" Kiss kiss.
The end.
One thing I WILL say about this book is that it snapped me out of my sort of review-block I've been in for several weeks lol. I have a few I've been meaning to get through and review, but this one raised my blood pressure so much it jumped the queueueueueue. I'm not adding a star for that though lol.
Wow. Just, wow. I really should have read this with some wine or something.
Ladies and gentlemen and etc. : If you ever find yourself in any kind of romantic or sexual relationship that requires you to sacrifice your self-respect and your partner degrades and disrespects you constantly (not in a consensual kinky way, just straight-up despises you, refers to you demeaningly, considers themselves ashamed to be attracted to you, etc.), RUN. Run like your tampon is on fire. Run as far and as fast as you can.
This absolute bottom-feeding despicable, hateful, life-sucking, abusive, delusional, self-hating degenerate of a male of the species somehow has gotten it into his head that the heroine, whom he met when she was a teenager working at a radio he managed/owned (ns on the deets of that), was a home-wrecking hooooooooorrrr of a slutty Mcsleazoid based on literally zero reason: no one told him this, there was no reason to believe it other than his own weird insta-obsession and jealousy and the "OM" who was not actually an OM except in the H's delusional brain, happened to be the only other male within the right age group for the H to focus his bizarre delusions upon. OM is an old friend of the h's and is married to a friend of hers whom he cheats on regularly, just not with the h, because she's actually a decent person, albeit with the spine of a jellyfish where the H is concerned, more to come on that.
So he fired the h in the most hateful and dramatic fashion, literally kicking her off the premises with an armed escort with no notice, so that she was forced to drop her college courses in radiology (that's the degree right? LOLOL) and move to another city while her dad was dying of emphysema to continue working in radio, which was her passion.
Fast-forward like idk 5-8 years later I think? And the h has slowly moved onward and upward and has now gotten a job at a radio station in Taipei, Taiwan, of all places, and is working with the "OM" (we'll call him Flo because that's his nick-name; he's another bottom-dweller of the narcissistic, vain, cheating kind, but not with the h bc they've been like siblings since they were kids) again.
Cue the entry of the H who is actually the owner of this station albeit being based out of Hong Kong. He is still under the delusion that the h and Flo are having a long-term adulterous affair, while the h absolutely despises him for the way he fired her and tried to ruin her radio career.
So naturally the H coerces the h into a secret sexual liaison (I wouldn't even call it an affair) in which she is always on-tap whenever he's in town and they don't get to cuddle because he despises her for her ongoing imaginary affair with Flo. Yes, the h has, after discovering that he's always thought she was having an adulterous liaison with Flo behind Flo's wife's back, told the H numerous times, consistently and convincingly, that she has never had an affair with, loved, had sex with, or anything, Flo, at all, ever, and that anything the H thinks is all in his head but the H will. not. believe. her.
And he is constantly bringing up how awful the h is, how ashamed he is that he is physically attracted to her, how degrading it is to eff her (it's definitely not making love that's for sure), etc.
Now, the only reason this forced "affair" between the H and h actually works at all is that she has zero spine and the worst case of body-betrayal syndrome in the history of HPlandia, which is saying a lot. He literally only has to brush up against her in passing and she could be in the middle of hating his guts (with reason) and she immediately falls, begs him to eff her, etc. It's pretty sickening and I frankly would despise myself and run for the hills if this unlikely affliction ever afflicted me.
Like seriously anyone who behaves as the H does, even IF his presumptions were correct- even IF the h had been a serious homewrecker and having an affair with the Flo for years and in love with him and whatnot- just, the absolute AUDACITY to then near-force that person into a sexual liaison with you and treat them like dirt beneath your feet. Dude. YOU'RE the despicable one here, being verbally and emotionally abusive to your sex partner when you're the one who is desperate to have sex with her! Jeez.
And then.
And THEN.
At the end, somehow they all end up in an elevator (oh, sorry, there is another OW that the OM is cheating on his wife with. She's perfectly kind and I feel bad for her because Flo is a real piece of work, but whatevs) as the h has finally sort of-kind-of found the spine to break off their godawful situationship.
The Flo/OM starts going on about how un sexy the h is and how he still doesn't know why all the men keep falling for her, etc. etc. etc. and suddenly? The H's eyes are opened. Flo doesn't even categorically deny that he and the h never had an affair, because he has no idea anyone has ever suspected such a thing, but the H finally realizes without him coming out and saying it, that the h was telling the truth all along.
He did not believe her, at all, ever. He believed the man he thought was his rival, though.
The absolute audacity of that, but wait there's more!
THENNNNNNN.
The two get upstairs and start talking, and the H starts turning everything around on the h somehow, even while sort of non-pologizing for his behavior!!!!!!!!!!!!
First, the nonpology consists of him explaining why and how he was so quick to believe the worst about the h, while not so subtly blaming it on her because it's ofc her fault that he was wildly attracted to her. of COURSE.
Then, he starts acting like he really just wanted her to lurrrrrvvvveeeee him all along and SHE was the one rejecting HIM. Somehow. So that even toward the end, when she was trying to give tender touches and he violently rejected everything but pure sex, it was still HER fault somehow because of course she was faking being tender for some reason of her own and he was just sooooo sad that she didn't love him even though he made it clear, over and over and over, that he could and would never love her, didn't want love, didn't want anything but sex, but now he's all, oh, but sweetie, I secretly just wanted your love the whole time!
OMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMG.
And then he's all confessing that he really did love her all this time and it was totally not just an obsession with the one woman he could never have, and then she's actually backtracking and saying oh! If I'd have known you LOVED me, I would have tried harder to make you accept the truth?! Girl how could you have tried any harder?! You cried, you yelled, you said it straight and emotionlessly- I guess you could have had it skywritten? Done a singing telegram?
Anyhow, his entire denouement of love is pretty much him confessing his bad behavior and excusing it in the same moment, and the h just being all, "love means never having to say you're sorry; of course all the trauma and psychological torture you've put me through in the past few months is magically erased with a few short words! We'll just live happily ever after and this will totally not taint our relationship for the rest of our lives! It'll be fine!!!!" Kiss kiss.
The end.
One thing I WILL say about this book is that it snapped me out of my sort of review-block I've been in for several weeks lol. I have a few I've been meaning to get through and review, but this one raised my blood pressure so much it jumped the queueueueueue. I'm not adding a star for that though lol.
October 2, 2021
Ghastly, with cruel, vicious man who “knows “ all about her and refuses to consider he might be wrong. Of course he won’t believe her but believes the supposed OM, whom he despises, and even when he realizes the truth he only is concerned with the damage to himself not her. I stopped after 40 pages, jumped to end.
hq-to-read
September 24, 2022The past…
Six years ago, Maria had been devastated by the brutal way in which she had been sacked from her first job—and all beacuse of Luke Scott.
The present…
Now Luke was back in her life…and this time his demands were far greater—he wanted her!
The future…
Maria was determined to fight the powerful attraction that existed between them—but Luke was so tempting, it seemed he would get what he wanted in the very near future
Six years ago, Maria had been devastated by the brutal way in which she had been sacked from her first job—and all beacuse of Luke Scott.
The present…
Now Luke was back in her life…and this time his demands were far greater—he wanted her!
The future…
Maria was determined to fight the powerful attraction that existed between them—but Luke was so tempting, it seemed he would get what he wanted in the very near future
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews