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The Perfect Crightons #6
The Perfect Sinner
O renomado advogado Max Crighton tinha uma família modelo… ou assim parecia…
Acostumado a seduzir as clientes e desprezar Madeleine, sua esposa, ele não passava de um grande patife. No entanto, quando escapa por um triz de um atentado brutal, passa a ver a vida com outros olhos. Ao sair do hospital, Max está arrependido e quer ser perdoado… mas conseguirá ele reconquistar a confiança perdida?
Acostumado a seduzir as clientes e desprezar Madeleine, sua esposa, ele não passava de um grande patife. No entanto, quando escapa por um triz de um atentado brutal, passa a ver a vida com outros olhos. Ao sair do hospital, Max está arrependido e quer ser perdoado… mas conseguirá ele reconquistar a confiança perdida?
376 pages, Paperback
Published June 1, 1999
13 people are currently reading
251 people want to read
About the author
Penny Jordan
1,125 books666 followersPenelope Jones Halsall
aka Caroline Courtney, Annie Groves, Lydia Hitchcock, Melinda Wright
Penelope "Penny" Jones was born on November 24, 1946 at about seven pounds in a nursing home in Preston, Lancashire, England. She was the first child of Anthony Winn Jones, an engineer, who died at 85, and his wife Margaret Louise Groves Jones. She has a brother, Anthony, and a sister, Prudence "Pru".
She had been a keen reader from the childhood - her mother used to leave her in the children's section of their local library whilst she changed her father's library books. She was a storyteller long before she began to write romantic fiction. At the age of eight, she was creating serialized bedtime stories, featuring make-believe adventures, for her younger sister Prue, who was always the heroine. At eleven, she fell in love with Mills & Boon, and with their heroes. In those days the books could only be obtained via private lending libraries, and she quickly became a devoted fan; she was thrilled to bits when the books went on full sale in shops and she could have them for keeps.
Penny left grammar school in Rochdale with O-Levels in English Language, English Literature and Geography. She first discovered Mills & Boon books, via a girl she worked with. She married Steve Halsall, an accountant and a "lovely man", who smoked and drank too heavily, and suffered oral cancer with bravery and dignity. Her husband bought her the small electric typewriter on which she typed her first novels, at a time when he could ill afford it. He died at the beginning of 21st century.
She earned a living as a writer since the 1970s when, as a shorthand typist, she entered a competition run by the Romantic Novelists' Association. Although she didn't win, Penny found an agent who was looking for a new Georgette Heyer. She published four regency novels as Caroline Courtney, before changing her nom de plume to Melinda Wright for three air-hostess romps and then she wrote two thrillers as Lydia Hitchcock. Soon after that, Mills and Boon accepted her first novel for them, Falcon's Prey as Penny Jordan. However, for her more historical romance novels, she adopted her mother's maiden-name to become Annie Groves. Almost 70 of her 167 Mills and Boon novels have been sold worldwide.
Penny Halsall lived in a neo-Georgian house in Nantwich, Cheshire, with her Alsatian Sheba and cat Posh. She worked from home, in her kitchen, surrounded by her pets, and welcomed interruptions from her friends and family.
aka Caroline Courtney, Annie Groves, Lydia Hitchcock, Melinda Wright
Penelope "Penny" Jones was born on November 24, 1946 at about seven pounds in a nursing home in Preston, Lancashire, England. She was the first child of Anthony Winn Jones, an engineer, who died at 85, and his wife Margaret Louise Groves Jones. She has a brother, Anthony, and a sister, Prudence "Pru".
She had been a keen reader from the childhood - her mother used to leave her in the children's section of their local library whilst she changed her father's library books. She was a storyteller long before she began to write romantic fiction. At the age of eight, she was creating serialized bedtime stories, featuring make-believe adventures, for her younger sister Prue, who was always the heroine. At eleven, she fell in love with Mills & Boon, and with their heroes. In those days the books could only be obtained via private lending libraries, and she quickly became a devoted fan; she was thrilled to bits when the books went on full sale in shops and she could have them for keeps.
Penny left grammar school in Rochdale with O-Levels in English Language, English Literature and Geography. She first discovered Mills & Boon books, via a girl she worked with. She married Steve Halsall, an accountant and a "lovely man", who smoked and drank too heavily, and suffered oral cancer with bravery and dignity. Her husband bought her the small electric typewriter on which she typed her first novels, at a time when he could ill afford it. He died at the beginning of 21st century.
She earned a living as a writer since the 1970s when, as a shorthand typist, she entered a competition run by the Romantic Novelists' Association. Although she didn't win, Penny found an agent who was looking for a new Georgette Heyer. She published four regency novels as Caroline Courtney, before changing her nom de plume to Melinda Wright for three air-hostess romps and then she wrote two thrillers as Lydia Hitchcock. Soon after that, Mills and Boon accepted her first novel for them, Falcon's Prey as Penny Jordan. However, for her more historical romance novels, she adopted her mother's maiden-name to become Annie Groves. Almost 70 of her 167 Mills and Boon novels have been sold worldwide.
Penny Halsall lived in a neo-Georgian house in Nantwich, Cheshire, with her Alsatian Sheba and cat Posh. She worked from home, in her kitchen, surrounded by her pets, and welcomed interruptions from her friends and family.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 49 reviews
April 17, 2019
The H is a sorry cheating, nematode parasite bastard who has a near death experience and suddenly reforms.
The h is the stupid cow that puts up with his garbage AND meets a better man AND still doesn't dump his cheating ass, even after he rejects her AGAIN after his 'reformation'.
I would have respected her more if she had stayed for his money and his parent's really nice house, but not shagged him every chance she got, even knowing he slept with someone else that day.
I would have adored her had the main nematode returned all reformed and she dumped his ass for the better man - after the reformed nematode walked in on the h having a great time in bed with the OM and took the opportunity to point out how much the nematode was lacking.
This book probably would have been better as an erotic novel with some kink.
As it is you can't believe the HEA, cause for most of the book the H and h aren't even together.
You kinda have to read this to get through the Crighton mini series but really it would have been better if the H had just died and the h wound up with her other love interest.
The h is the stupid cow that puts up with his garbage AND meets a better man AND still doesn't dump his cheating ass, even after he rejects her AGAIN after his 'reformation'.
I would have respected her more if she had stayed for his money and his parent's really nice house, but not shagged him every chance she got, even knowing he slept with someone else that day.
I would have adored her had the main nematode returned all reformed and she dumped his ass for the better man - after the reformed nematode walked in on the h having a great time in bed with the OM and took the opportunity to point out how much the nematode was lacking.
This book probably would have been better as an erotic novel with some kink.
As it is you can't believe the HEA, cause for most of the book the H and h aren't even together.
You kinda have to read this to get through the Crighton mini series but really it would have been better if the H had just died and the h wound up with her other love interest.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 16, 2011
First off, hate books with a PASSION where there is obvious cheating from either H/h in a novel, that said ,and I knew what I was reading when this book arrived in the mail today.Read this book in one sitting.I Hated the hero ,Max Crighton in this book by Penny Jordan , and to say Hate is a gross understatement.Never had I read a character who was so mean and hateful ,not only towards his wife and 2 children, but this guy hates his entire family, and the feelings are entirely mutual,even his own little son cringes at the site of his father.This is a man who told his wife to abort his own children as he felt jealous that they were stealing the affections of his own Grandfather.He constantly berated his wife and has made her feel totally worthless as a wife and as a lover, not that they had sex that much.He even told her that he had never married her for love, only for her family connections.This man was so in love with him self, you really wanted him to get his just deserts, and did he ever!He gets brutally beaten and left for dead on a Jamacian beach with his young cousin, as his Father is at his bedside ,our H experiences a near death experience and is now a man changed who LOVES his children ,wife and family....pleaseeee.......while all this is happening ,his wife has found her backbone and has met a man who appreciates her and her children,she feels something for him and her chlidren like him.But they are not to be as the h finds out what has happened to her husband and when he comes back home, she is confused as to how to get a handle on this new and improved Max.The heroine was never sexually unfaithful to her husband,but I am sure if the H was not beaten up ,she would have left him and took up with the other man,and I would be cheering her on......my thoughts on this book.....I am not sure if this couple can have a happily,ever after.Some books, you are so sure of a couple's love,but in this book, even though they loved each other, they never said it to each other in the end, was left hanging at the last sentance.Will proably have to read the next book in this series to find out if they get their HEA.The h in this book really deserved one if she is to get stuck with that SOB.
April 10, 2017
I’m quite satisfied that I dusted this book off my 'books-to-avoid' shelf and read it.
Knowing the (non)-H was a d-bag like no other, made it easier for me to bear the astonishing cruelties he heaps on the h. I wouldn’t even rate it a romance per se, more a 'diary of a spoilt sociopath' for 60-70% of the book. Many times he seemed like a cartoonish caricature of the schoolyard bully who finds gratification in mindless cruelty.
**Spoilers Alert**
I can understand the 1 star or dnf tags for this book, but for me it was unputdownable although I did skim some of the family/charity stuff. Most reviewers seem offended by his ritualistic cheating but I felt that was the least of the problem.
• Imagine an adult going about pulling out flowers planted around his dead baby brother’s grave just to hurt his mother.
• Getting morbidly jealous of his own small son when he gets more attention from his father and grandfather.
• Lying, cheating and using wealthy women to fulfill his professional ambitions is second nature.
• He thinks using his neglected wife’s money and her family connections for his career is his privilege.
• Humiliating his wife in bed and gleefully denying her sexual gratification at times made him especially happy. (This was the most unforgivable imo.)
• Putting down, hurting his wife with cruel jibes seemed to be as essential to him as the air he breathes.
• Ignoring his kids’ existence after asking for abortions was as far as he contributed as a parent.
• He hates and is contemptuous of his parents, siblings and cousins.
So using the flat bought with his wife’s money as a busy love nest while the wife and kids are conveniently tucked away in the country would not move his conscience much.
The author went out of her way to portray the picture of a deeply troubled sociopathic personality with not a single normal (forget redeeming) quality, and certainly no guilt or remorse ever. His childhood did contribute to his psychology like when he overheard a half conversation and decided his parents didn’t love him. But I think he was a bit of a psychopath too as even as a toddler he disliked touching and cuddling. Only thing- at least physical cruelty to people or animals was thankfully left out.
The h, I could not condemn for staying on in this abusive sterile relationship. She was a complete opposite of her cruel self-centered husband. She was a self-effacing gentle soul who willingly took care of family and friends and stayed on in the marriage as she felt the big extended family of her in-laws provided her children with a loving stable environment (when her own parent were cold unaffectionate kind). By now, she was mostly unaffected by the H’s taunting and preferred to live for her children. In her opinion his absence for weeks and months was really a blessing.
I liked that the story did not begin with the accident and reformation part but we were given a ringside view of his spiteful behavior for good 60% of the book, though the author shied away from actually showing cheating in the present as his latest affair falls apart and he was planning for future sexual conquests. (Only one disappearance from his son’s play with the teacher was unexplained!)
Then his transformation after the attack was ‘miraculous’ in more ways than one! The author showed it more a result of the near death I-saw-the-white-light experience and a greater hand wiping his slate clean, rather than a true realization and reformation. But then a ‘mortal’ change could not have explained such a great purge. It was a complete brain/personality/morals transplant! His parents accepted it easily after an initial hesitation knowing his macabre sense of humor, but the h wasn’t buying it so easily. By this time she had discovered some spine and self worth (along with a physical makeover) and figures that it was her own apathy that had contributed in her humiliation.
Coming to the om, I really felt bad for him. He was just the kind of guy the h needed- a strong, caring and attractive man. Their almost ‘love at first meet’ was so very sweet and endearing. So, yes I shipped and hoped for them but well it was a pipedream. To elaborate on my pipedream -I wished the h would leave the H (which she definitely would have done but for this ‘change’) and marry the om for a hea, and the H was shown peeking into their happy life and wiping off tears and snot with his shirtsleeve! Yes, that would have been wonderful but then the H fought himself back in the reckoning.
Overall I may be in a minuscule minority but I feel it was one of PJ’s better and more interesting works. Usually her asshat Hs do a very perfunctory and condescending grovel/explanation anyways, so this redemption could be swallowed especially with the divine meddling. (Reminded me of another book Falling Angel where too normal mortal redemption just wouldn't have done.) He asks her not to forgive and forget (the unforgivable) but for a second chance to make her happy. This was a hea in progress and as Vashti says in her review we will have to read the later books in the series to get their ‘epilogue’.
I’d put it at a 3.75* at least.
Knowing the (non)-H was a d-bag like no other, made it easier for me to bear the astonishing cruelties he heaps on the h. I wouldn’t even rate it a romance per se, more a 'diary of a spoilt sociopath' for 60-70% of the book. Many times he seemed like a cartoonish caricature of the schoolyard bully who finds gratification in mindless cruelty.
**Spoilers Alert**
I can understand the 1 star or dnf tags for this book, but for me it was unputdownable although I did skim some of the family/charity stuff. Most reviewers seem offended by his ritualistic cheating but I felt that was the least of the problem.
• Imagine an adult going about pulling out flowers planted around his dead baby brother’s grave just to hurt his mother.
• Getting morbidly jealous of his own small son when he gets more attention from his father and grandfather.
• Lying, cheating and using wealthy women to fulfill his professional ambitions is second nature.
• He thinks using his neglected wife’s money and her family connections for his career is his privilege.
• Humiliating his wife in bed and gleefully denying her sexual gratification at times made him especially happy. (This was the most unforgivable imo.)
• Putting down, hurting his wife with cruel jibes seemed to be as essential to him as the air he breathes.
• Ignoring his kids’ existence after asking for abortions was as far as he contributed as a parent.
• He hates and is contemptuous of his parents, siblings and cousins.
So using the flat bought with his wife’s money as a busy love nest while the wife and kids are conveniently tucked away in the country would not move his conscience much.
The author went out of her way to portray the picture of a deeply troubled sociopathic personality with not a single normal (forget redeeming) quality, and certainly no guilt or remorse ever. His childhood did contribute to his psychology like when he overheard a half conversation and decided his parents didn’t love him. But I think he was a bit of a psychopath too as even as a toddler he disliked touching and cuddling. Only thing- at least physical cruelty to people or animals was thankfully left out.
The h, I could not condemn for staying on in this abusive sterile relationship. She was a complete opposite of her cruel self-centered husband. She was a self-effacing gentle soul who willingly took care of family and friends and stayed on in the marriage as she felt the big extended family of her in-laws provided her children with a loving stable environment (when her own parent were cold unaffectionate kind). By now, she was mostly unaffected by the H’s taunting and preferred to live for her children. In her opinion his absence for weeks and months was really a blessing.
I liked that the story did not begin with the accident and reformation part but we were given a ringside view of his spiteful behavior for good 60% of the book, though the author shied away from actually showing cheating in the present as his latest affair falls apart and he was planning for future sexual conquests. (Only one disappearance from his son’s play with the teacher was unexplained!)
Then his transformation after the attack was ‘miraculous’ in more ways than one! The author showed it more a result of the near death I-saw-the-white-light experience and a greater hand wiping his slate clean, rather than a true realization and reformation. But then a ‘mortal’ change could not have explained such a great purge. It was a complete brain/personality/morals transplant! His parents accepted it easily after an initial hesitation knowing his macabre sense of humor, but the h wasn’t buying it so easily. By this time she had discovered some spine and self worth (along with a physical makeover) and figures that it was her own apathy that had contributed in her humiliation.
Coming to the om, I really felt bad for him. He was just the kind of guy the h needed- a strong, caring and attractive man. Their almost ‘love at first meet’ was so very sweet and endearing. So, yes I shipped and hoped for them but well it was a pipedream. To elaborate on my pipedream -I wished the h would leave the H (which she definitely would have done but for this ‘change’) and marry the om for a hea, and the H was shown peeking into their happy life and wiping off tears and snot with his shirtsleeve! Yes, that would have been wonderful but then the H fought himself back in the reckoning.
Overall I may be in a minuscule minority but I feel it was one of PJ’s better and more interesting works. Usually her asshat Hs do a very perfunctory and condescending grovel/explanation anyways, so this redemption could be swallowed especially with the divine meddling. (Reminded me of another book Falling Angel where too normal mortal redemption just wouldn't have done.) He asks her not to forgive and forget (the unforgivable) but for a second chance to make her happy. This was a hea in progress and as Vashti says in her review we will have to read the later books in the series to get their ‘epilogue’.
I’d put it at a 3.75* at least.
May 28, 2019
Maddy the doormat and Max the psychopath/schizophrenic. I'm going to click off the 'read' button, even though I skimmed most of this god awful piece o cr*p book. Never been a big penny Jordan fan and now I just have to add her to my 'ain't my cup' shelf.
Max is a the worst husband ever for the first half of the book. He is verbally abusive to Maddy, cheats on her flagrantly and is horribly neglectful of their two kids. Really, the only way the author could possible redeem him was to have him mugged and on the point of death, leading him to change his personality 180 degrees. Pretty soon his family and everyone is the best of pals with Max and forgiving of his past like it never happened. Luckily Maddy is not so forgiving but she was still pretty spineless. The ending, (and really the whole book) was so utterly unromantic that I just didn't know what to think. The ending is an HFN at best, and kind of a cliffhanger. Turns out the book is part of a series that is written like a soap opera where the stories interconnect. But really this book was so bad, that I would just skip the whole series!!!
Max is a the worst husband ever for the first half of the book. He is verbally abusive to Maddy, cheats on her flagrantly and is horribly neglectful of their two kids. Really, the only way the author could possible redeem him was to have him mugged and on the point of death, leading him to change his personality 180 degrees. Pretty soon his family and everyone is the best of pals with Max and forgiving of his past like it never happened. Luckily Maddy is not so forgiving but she was still pretty spineless. The ending, (and really the whole book) was so utterly unromantic that I just didn't know what to think. The ending is an HFN at best, and kind of a cliffhanger. Turns out the book is part of a series that is written like a soap opera where the stories interconnect. But really this book was so bad, that I would just skip the whole series!!!
March 13, 2017
Maddy actually annoyed me more with her pathetic behaviour and lack of pride or spine!
July 8, 2022
I read this when I was an idiot teenager 5 staring cheating bodice rippers, and even then I hated this book.
I don’t recall too many horrible books in my childhood but this book is still vivid in my memories as being vile.
I didn’t hate the H, but the doormat h!
When someone treat you like garbage the first time it’s not your fault.
But if he continues to shit on you and you stay then guess what. It’s 100% your fault!
Then there’s him being nasty to his own kids, and emotionally abusing them. Letting the kids see how he is to their mom. And the h stayed even though she’s wealthy.
So the h didn’t even protect her own kids from their dad.
How could any sane person read this garbage, and then believe a HEA. Unless you’re fucked in the head, I just can’t.
What is this book about? Cheating. Abuse of the h and their kids.
And the H telling the h how ugly she is,
how boring she is in bed - so he needs to fuck ow.
He is with her for her money, and he spends it on a fuckpad for his affairs.
It’s all done in her face!
And the h stayed, and then forgave all at the end.
Omg please don’t teach your daughters to act like this!
I don’t recall too many horrible books in my childhood but this book is still vivid in my memories as being vile.
I didn’t hate the H, but the doormat h!
When someone treat you like garbage the first time it’s not your fault.
But if he continues to shit on you and you stay then guess what. It’s 100% your fault!
Then there’s him being nasty to his own kids, and emotionally abusing them. Letting the kids see how he is to their mom. And the h stayed even though she’s wealthy.
So the h didn’t even protect her own kids from their dad.
How could any sane person read this garbage, and then believe a HEA. Unless you’re fucked in the head, I just can’t.
What is this book about? Cheating. Abuse of the h and their kids.
And the H telling the h how ugly she is,
how boring she is in bed - so he needs to fuck ow.
He is with her for her money, and he spends it on a fuckpad for his affairs.
It’s all done in her face!
And the h stayed, and then forgave all at the end.
Omg please don’t teach your daughters to act like this!
August 29, 2018
Max and Maddy didn't spend enough time together, so Max falling in love with Maddy so soon after he'd adopted his new outlook on life seemed forced. Yes, the two had been married for a while but I need to see my heroes and heroines interacting to get a basic sense of romance.
The real crux of the matter, though, is that I found Maddy to be rather bland. She didn't fit the mold of someone capable of inspiring as much love and devotion as she did.
And, amazingly enough, I didn't hate Max (probably 'cause I'd gotten used to his scumbag ways in the previous books). I found the reason for his transformation from cheating cad to hero believable, and was looking forward to reading about it. Too bad this book didn't deliver on a convincing romance.
The real crux of the matter, though, is that I found Maddy to be rather bland. She didn't fit the mold of someone capable of inspiring as much love and devotion as she did.
And, amazingly enough, I didn't hate Max (probably 'cause I'd gotten used to his scumbag ways in the previous books). I found the reason for his transformation from cheating cad to hero believable, and was looking forward to reading about it. Too bad this book didn't deliver on a convincing romance.
September 9, 2022
Okayyy.. cheating hero was not really my thing! Halfway through the book, I was like.. "What the hell is this? Oh my gosh!" This book was totally horrifying! Dude, seriously, what's wrong with you? I am actually considering DNFing this one. But surprisingly, I find myself still curious to know what happens next. And when I finished it, I decided to give it only 1 star. So, why did I rate it three? The ending totally left me hanging! So I decided to read the next book, and the next, and the next.. until the last book in the series. Well, I did not really read them because I didn't actually care about the entire book. I only read the part about Max and Maddy because I really, really want to know what happened to them, to their marriage, to their family.
Oh yes.. everything went well with them. Max was now totally, irrevocably, in love with Maddy. He was the epitome of a perfect husband and father. He has done a complete 180; he has completely given up his old ways. And you could really say that he genuinely loved her and their children, and he was totally devoted to them. It wasn't only Max who changed. Maddy changed as well; she didn't revert to her previous role of full-time wife and mother and having low self-esteem. She's blossomed into a more confident woman. They were now equal partners in their marriage. Max didn't just love her; he respected her as well. They make a perfect couple! And it was really nice to see them close and intimate and loving each other.
Book 10: Coming Home
"Indigestion." Max's eyes danced with laughter. "That's what marriage does for you. The woman you love stops seeing you as someone who is sexually exciting and
thinks of you instead as someone with indigestion."
"I wouldn't say that," Maddy responded with a small smile.
"No?" Max questioned, his voice muffled as he took her in his arms and buried his mouth in the warm, soft, creamy, cooking-scented curve of her throat.
"Nooooo..." Maddy sighed.
"Where is one, two, and three?" he murmured against her throat as he nibbled hungrily, referring to their three children.
"At your mother's," Maddy told him huskily.
"Mmm...let's go upstairs."
"If any man's going to be crying on my wife's shoulder, it's going to be me."
As she looked up from the sauce she was making, Maddy teased, "You aren't getting jealous, are you...not of Caspar?"
"Not of Caspar," Max mimicked back. "No. Then whom should I be getting jealous of?"
"No one," Maddy protested.
"No, I'm not jealous," Max told her with a smile. "I'd just rip apart any man who tried to take you away from me."
"I like it when you get all possessive about me. It makes me feel—"
She wriggled and protested as Max crossed the kitchen and took her in his arms. "You make me
feel horny," he told her trenchantly. "Forget supper. I want to eat you and then—"
"Max," Maddy said, laughing. "The children..."
"No, I don't want to eat them," Max replied mock seriously, relenting as he suggested, "Give them their supper and let them watch that wretched video they've been going on about, and then you and I—"
"Max..." Maddy warned.
"I'll go out and get you your favorite take-away," he promised. "It's Saturday night. Married couples always have sex on Saturday night."
"No, they don't," Maddy protested. "Most of them have it on Sunday morning."
"Mmm..." Max lifted his mouth from the warm curve of her throat where he had buried it. "Well, we can do that, as well. I don't mind," he offered obligingly.
"If he's been upsetting you—Maddy," he protested with concern as she suddenly started to cry. "My darling girl, what is it? What's wrong?"
Whatever his grandfather had done to upset her, he, Max, was going to make sure the older man made reparation for it with no allowances being made for his age.
"Maddy. Maddy, please, tell me what's wrong. If looking after this place and Gramps is too much for you, say so. We'll move somewhere smaller. What do we need with a damn great barn-like this anyway? A decent-sized modern house with four bedrooms and—What on earth is it?" he demanded as Maddy suddenly started to shake in his arms. Anxiously, he held her just far enough away from himself to be able to look down into her face. When he did so, instead of still crying as he had expected, she actually seemed to be laughing—if a little hysterically.
"We can't," she was saying tearfully. "Four bedrooms wouldn't be enough. Not now. We..."
"We...what?" he began and then stopped as he saw the faint flush of colour staining her face and the almost bashful look in her eyes.
"I'm pregnant, Max," she told him. "I...I should have guessed, I suppose, but with being so busy and things have never gone quite back to normal after Jason's birth, I didn't...! wasn't... But I had to go for a regular check-up today, and when I was there—"
"You're pregnant?" Max repeated, bemused. "But—"
"We weren't planning for another, I know," Maddy interrupted him, "but...well, I wasn't... you didn't...and..." Blushing like a schoolgirl, she told him, "When you touch me, I forget about being a sensible married woman and mother and I...Max, stop looking at me like that," she scolded him breathlessly, then gave a small squeak of protest as Max pulled her determinedly against him. He started to kiss her, one hand splayed against her back, the other resting tenderly on the small swelling of her stomach.
"Another baby," he whispered. "Oh, my God, Maddy. You know what this means, don't you?" he demanded as he swung her round in his arms, his eyes alight with love and laughter.
"Mmm...we won't be able to move to a smaller house," Maddy answered wryly.
"No, worse than that," Max told her, bending his head to whisper in her ear as he said jokingly,
"First Jason and now this baby. Everyone's going to know we can't keep our hands off each other."
"Oh, Max." Maddy laughed in protest. "You—"
"I what?"
"You're teasing me, but are you sure you don't mind?"
"Mind? Why should I mind? You're the one who's going to be carrying it—for nine months. All I have to do is look proud and accept everyone's congratulations. Mmm... I wonder what it is about knowing that your wife...your woman...is having your child that makes a man feel so very much a man. Something deep-rooted and atavistic, I suppose."
Book 11: Coming Home.
"What is it? What's happened? What's wrong?" Max asked her anxiously as he smoothed her hair back off her face and cupped it, his gaze searching hers as his heart hammered against his ribs.
She was so precious to him, so very much beloved, the bedrock on which his life was now built.
Whilst Maddy tried haltingly to explain the situation, Max tried and failed to comprehend how he could endure his own life if he were to lose her. All the sins of his own past came back to him; this was his deepest and most secret dread; this fear that somehow the same fate which had given him so much, forgiven him so much, should choose with savage and inescapable malignancy to punish not him but those he loved most; and of all those that he did love, Maddy was his most beloved.
In his more logical moments, he knew his fears were unfounded and illogical, but the same change of heart that had shown him the error of his old ways and opened the locked door in his heart to show him the true meaning of love had also opened that same door to show him fear; fear, not for himself but for those he loved.
"You had chosen my life above our baby's, and you say there was no need for me to know."
"Maddy, please try to understand," Max begged her desperately, leaving his desk to go to her, watching white-faced as she stepped back from him, ignoring the silent appeal of his outstretched hand. "I couldn't bear the thought of losing you, even though..." He was the one who had to turn away now, as his own feelings overwhelmed him.
"Even though what, Max?" Maddy demanded; her voice was as sharp with pain as his.
"Even though I knew you would hate me for choosing you above the baby," Max admitted. "The children we already have needed you and I... There's no way I could bear to live without you," he told her.
"Do you think it's been easy for me?" he demanded when she made no response. "Do you think I haven't suffered, cursed myself in my heart over and over again...hated myself...? In my worst moments, I've even imagined that..." He stopped, unable to tell her about the true awfulness of his nightmares. Max closed his eyes. Having admitted so much, he might as well admit the rest. "And if you want the truth, Maddy, if I had to live through the whole hellish thing again, I'd still make
the same choice. I thought I was strong, but I'm not. I'm selfish and weak. You're my life, Maddy."
"Don't say any more," Maddy begged him.
Max waited, tensing his body against the pain of seeing her walk away from him, of knowing that he had destroyed her love for him. But to his astonishment, Maddy was actually walking towards him. When she reached him, she lifted her hand to his face, her eyes luminous with emotion as she touched his skin.
It shocked her that he could have borne so much pain without saying anything to her. She had known, of course, how much he loved her and their children, but the raw naked intensity and
depth of the emotion she was now seeing came as a revelation to her.
"I can't bear knowing that I wanted to destroy our child," he told her emotionally. "And I don't—can't— blame you if you hate me for it, Maddy."
"I don't hate you," Maddy told him softly, adding, "and Max, it wasn't our child you wanted to destroy, it was me you wanted to save!"
As she watched him, Maddy could see from his expression that she hadn't managed to reassure him.
His voice cracking with pain, Max told her, "I even actually thought...wanted..." He stopped, groaning. Then, covering his face with his hands, he said thickly, "I wished that this child had never been conceived." He drew a deep shaky breath. "And now," he stopped and then told her harshly, "it haunts and torments me, Maddy, that somehow he or she will know and that
when it is born, it will be born hating me for...for what I contemplated doing."
"Max!" Maddy's voice rang with shocked compassion. "No, you mustn't think that."
"I should have been the one to protect you both and not... But I couldn't bear the thought of losing you, Maddy, and now I can't bear to think that this child, when it is born, will believe—"
"Max, stop it!" Maddy commanded him firmly. Wrapping her arms around him and holding him
tightly, she whispered to him, "You're torturing yourself unnecessarily. Look at me," she demanded. The unfamiliar note of command in her voice surprised Max into obeying her. The tears had gone from her eyes now, and they were clear and calm. "I promise you, Max, this baby, if it knows anything, will know that it was conceived in love, created out of love...our love for one another and it."
"I was so afraid that if you knew what I'd felt...what I would have done...you'd stop loving
me," Max confessed, as the loving reassurance of her words soothed his anguish like cooling healing balm applied to a raw festering wound.
Maddy looked at him steadily, her eyes full of the feelings she wanted him to see. As she squeezed his hand, she told him shakily, "There is nothing...nothing you could do that could stop me loving you now."
"Maddy...Maddy..."
As she lifted her face for his kiss, Maddy felt the dampness of his tears on her face.
"We're safe now, Max," she whispered reassuringly to him. "We're all safe, and this baby will love you just as much as I do!"
March 13, 2022
review in Portuguese and English
07/10/2010
Pobre Maddy!!!!
Meu Deus! Eu achava que já tinha lido minha cota de canalhas!
Que sujeitinho desprezível!
A mulher, apesar de rica, é uma mosca morta sem iniciativa que se submete a tudo que o babaca quer... a cena em que ele "usa" o corpo dela e a deixa sem orgasmo e ainda fica desdenhando dela é o fim!!!!!
Fiquei enojada, mas li até o fim esperando uma reação da dita mulher... louca que ela desse um pé na bunda do infeliz e fosse reconstruir a vida com alguém que a valorizasse, mas...
Só nos livrinhos mesmo que uma mulher iria aturar uma situação destas, sendo ela rica!
Se vocês odiavam o Rodrigo Ramirez, este cara vai pro topo da minha lista!
---------------------------------
Poor Maddy!!!!
Oh my god! I thought I had read my fair share of jerks!
That despicable guy!
The woman, although rich, is a dead fly without initiative which undergoes all the asshole wants ... the scene where he uses her body and let her without her cum and still is snubbing her is the end!!!!!
Grossed out, but I read to the end hoping for a reaction of the woman in the hope that she got dumped the cheater and rebuild her life with someone that appreciates, but ...
Only in fiction even if a woman would put up with a situation like this, being rich!
If you hated the Rodrigo Ramirez, this guy goes to the top of my list!
UPDATE: 2018
==================
The hero is an abominable and despicable being. A piece of shit.
In my opinion he raped her instead of having sex with her. He did not allow her to come and even humiliated her during and after sex.
He wanted her to abort his children and treat them very badly. So much so that the children were afraid of him.
He had several lovers and did not hide from her, he had immense pleasure in rubbing in her face that they were better than her.
His family and friends all knew and were very sorry for her and the children. She was practically renamed Poor Maddy.
The reader goes suffering and hating him throughout the reading and in the end she accepts the cheater back.
Poor Maddy is an imbecile and spineless doormat. What an example she will pass on to her children, who are ok to be a cheater scumbar and cruel asshole.
07/10/2010
Pobre Maddy!!!!
Meu Deus! Eu achava que já tinha lido minha cota de canalhas!
Que sujeitinho desprezível!
A mulher, apesar de rica, é uma mosca morta sem iniciativa que se submete a tudo que o babaca quer... a cena em que ele "usa" o corpo dela e a deixa sem orgasmo e ainda fica desdenhando dela é o fim!!!!!
Fiquei enojada, mas li até o fim esperando uma reação da dita mulher... louca que ela desse um pé na bunda do infeliz e fosse reconstruir a vida com alguém que a valorizasse, mas...
Só nos livrinhos mesmo que uma mulher iria aturar uma situação destas, sendo ela rica!
Se vocês odiavam o Rodrigo Ramirez, este cara vai pro topo da minha lista!
---------------------------------
Poor Maddy!!!!
Oh my god! I thought I had read my fair share of jerks!
That despicable guy!
The woman, although rich, is a dead fly without initiative which undergoes all the asshole wants ... the scene where he uses her body and let her without her cum and still is snubbing her is the end!!!!!
Grossed out, but I read to the end hoping for a reaction of the woman in the hope that she got dumped the cheater and rebuild her life with someone that appreciates, but ...
Only in fiction even if a woman would put up with a situation like this, being rich!
If you hated the Rodrigo Ramirez, this guy goes to the top of my list!
UPDATE: 2018
==================
The hero is an abominable and despicable being. A piece of shit.
In my opinion he raped her instead of having sex with her. He did not allow her to come and even humiliated her during and after sex.
He wanted her to abort his children and treat them very badly. So much so that the children were afraid of him.
He had several lovers and did not hide from her, he had immense pleasure in rubbing in her face that they were better than her.
His family and friends all knew and were very sorry for her and the children. She was practically renamed Poor Maddy.
The reader goes suffering and hating him throughout the reading and in the end she accepts the cheater back.
Poor Maddy is an imbecile and spineless doormat. What an example she will pass on to her children, who are ok to be a cheater scumbar and cruel asshole.
Madeleine’s dreary, boring plainness.
Madeleine did, of course, have one redeeming feature as his wife. She was extremely wealthy and extremely well connected, or at least her family was.
‘What do you mean, you don’t want our baby,’ she had faltered in shocked disbelief...
‘I mean, my oh-so-stupid wife, that I don’t want it’,
I married you because it was the only way I could get into a decent set of chambers,’ Max had told her coldly and truthfully, and cruelly.
‘You said you loved me,’
‘And you believed me…. Did you really, Maddy, or were you just so desperate to get a man, to get laid, to get married, that you chose to believe me?
‘Get rid of it’ he had instructed her,...
Max felt not the least degree of compunction about the affairs he had enjoyed during his marriage, relationships that in the main, had been conducted with female clients.
‘Your wife is so lucky….’ Max totally agreed, Madeleine was lucky. If he hadn’t married her she could have been condemned to a life of being the unmarried daughter.
He loved himself, of course,
Poor Maddy, indeed. Bobbie didn’t know how she could bear to stay in her marriage, but then, of course, there were the children.
She had never been able to understand how she and Jon had ever produced a person like Max,
poor Maddy just wasn’t…just couldn’t… Poor Maddy!
In private Maddy knew that Max couldn’t care less whether the children ignored him or not.
Max swearing under his breath and telling Maddy with chilling cruelty that she was as useless as a mother as she was a wife.
Max had left a woman behind in London whom he would far rather be with.
Maddy knew that her mother-in-law and the rest of Max’s family felt very sorry for her.
Poor Maddy. Poor Maddy. She had heard herself so described so often that sometimes she thought she ought to have been christened thus, Maddy reflected several hours later, unwillingly recalling hearing Bobbie whisper the two words under her breath as she had turned to smile at Luke.
They had been lovers for more than two months, and Max had to admit that he was impressed. He doubted that Justine had a single ounce of emotional vulnerability in her entire make-up. She was one of the most sexually demanding women he had ever had, abandoning herself completely and totally to the sexual act and not allowing him to stop until she was completely and utterly satisfied.
...he was the one who never lacked a willing sexual partner—a variety of willing sexual partners.
Maddy had been a virgin when he had first taken her to bed, inexperienced and unknowing, untutored, but her body had surrounded him with a softness, a warmth as instinctive and natural as her protective mother love for her children.
He knew he could make love to her more often and easily turn her resistance into molten liquid acceptance and desire, but what was the point? The last thing he wanted was for Maddy to be sexually demanding or sexually possessive.
Without waiting for Max’s assent, Justine’s husband stepped determinedly into the hallway.
A friend tipped me off. Apparently you’ve got quite a reputation for bedding your female clients….’
Unless, of course, you’ve decided that it’s more financially profitable for you to trade on your reputation in the bedroom rather than in the courtroom. Rumour does have it, of course, that it wasn’t so much your legal skills or qual-ifications that got you into your chambers in the first place. Does your wife know that you regularly bed your female clients?’
And of course, he still had women friends in Chester with whom he could alleviate his undoubted boredom.
A few weeks in Jamaica at his grandfather’s expense was exactly what he needed right now.
Max ignoring Leo, turning his back on him and deliberately showing the child how little he cared about him.
Max did love himself. Max would always love himself— and never love any one else?
Ten minutes later, when she walked back into the other room, Max had gone, and so, too, had Barbara Severn.
‘Surely you don’t think that I’m deliberately avoiding spending time with you… not when you’re such a wonderful, stimulating and exciting…partner….’
She didn’t need Max underlining for her just how dull and boring he found her.
She didn’t know what hurt her most, Max’s obvious contempt for her or the fact that he could so callously and so openly admit to using his grandfather’s desperate wish to see his son again to fund what both she and Max knew was going to be an abortive trip. She doubted that Max would make even the smallest attempt to find David.
Max stood and watched, without making any attempt to give her assistance. It would never have occurred to her to ask for his help, and, anyway, Leo, now that he had caught sight of his father, was already stiffening in her arms, his body tense with rejection and fear.
She had realized very early on in her marriage how little she meant to Max, and had long ago stopped being hurt by his lack of love and respect for her, or so she told herself.
Don’t bother taking it off,’ he had advised her tauntingly. 1 don’t want to look at you. Anyway,’ he had said as he pushed her night-dress aside, ignoring the tense hostility of her motionless body and the pain in her eyes, ‘why should I pay someone else when I’ve got you here. After all, one—’ he had then proceeded to use a phrase that had seared Maddy’s emotions, sickening and humiliating her as he concluded ‘—is much the same as any other and gives the same degree of release.’
As he entered her, Maddy wondered why he was with her. Was the reason he was with her now, the reason he needed her, because whomever he had been with, whomever he had been expecting to spend the night with had, for some reason or another, turned him down?
‘With her, the situation wouldn’t have arisen because she would have taken good care to make sure there was no…problem. You see, unlike you, my dear, she enjoys sex, and she knows how to make sure her partner enjoys it as well.’
He, after all, always had a lover he could take to bed, a lover who was always far, far more attractive and far, far more adventurous in bed than Maddy could ever be. Or at least he had until recently!
...he himself preferred the lean, longer-limbed, model-girl, head-turning type of woman, and if she wasn’t so humble and eager to please, if she made a bit more of an effort with herself…
For one thing, it left him free to concentrate on pursuing his own sexual adventures without having to worry about what Maddy might be up to behind his back. With any luck, his present unwanted faithfulness to his marital vows would soon be over. Max had no doubt that he would very quickly find just the kind of woman he most liked. Jamaica could well prove to be very fertile ground for producing a congenial bed mate—or two—for him.
Leo and Emma bored him, and it irritated him to see the way his father fussed over them both, especially Leo, picking him up, hugging him, showing him the affection Max could never remember him showing him.
...return home until well after midnight, to tell her unmercifully that he wanted her to move onto her own side of their bed so that her body didn’t come into contact with his while they slept.
Making love… that was something she and Max never did, even if she had once stupidly thought…
The first time he had touched her like this, he had laughed at the way she had responded to him, totally unable to control the intensity of her reaction to his touch.
...if he was to touch her intimately, gently caress her clitoris or play with it for a few seconds with the firmer touch of his tongue, she would orgasm almost immediately. He knew it, but he had no intention of giving her that pleasure, no intention whatsoever.
Maddy lay mutely beneath him as Max turned her over and entered her. She knew better than to protest or to resist. This way at least it would all be over quickly. Fighting against what she knew to be the inevitable only prolonged the ignomy she had learned to fear.
Lying on his side and awake, Max watched her. It appealed to the cruel, dark streak pervad-ing his nature to picture Maddy alone and tearful in the bathroom, forced to relieve the tension of the sexual desire he had aroused inside her, by herself.
‘I closed my eyes and thought about your trust fund’ he had taunted her. ‘But you were so…you…you wanted me’ Maddy had protested awkwardly, blushing a little at her own forwardness. ‘No… I’ve never wanted you,’ Max had told her cruelly. I’m a very good actor, my dear. I just pretended that I wanted you.
On the edge of sleep, Max luxuriated in the pleasure of his own sexual satisfaction. One of the pluses of having sex with Maddy was that he didn’t have to use a condom.
‘You were a long time in the bathroom,’ he taunted Maddy, enjoying the shocked tension he could sense gripping her body as she realized that he wasn’t asleep. ‘What were you doing?’
What had not been quite so much fun, however, had been the accidental discovery in the mews house of several items of another woman’s underwear. Maddy was no fool. She knew that Max wasn’t faithful to her.
...wealthy women had approached him, using the excuse of asking if Jack was his son. He was supposed to be meeting one of them later.
Eleanor Smythson—his date for tonight—had mentioned that her husband’s private yacht was moored at one of the island’s most exclusive marinas.
‘Max hated it when the girls were born. The first time he saw them he said they looked like two blind kittens and that he wanted to drown them. I was terrified of leaving him alone with them. He was terribly jealous of them.
Max had never been the kind of child who had liked being touched.
Her children, for that’s what Leo and Emma were. Max might have provided the sperm, the seed, for their conception, but apart from that he had had about as much input into them and their happiness, their physical, emotional and mental welfare, as a bull who’d inseminated a cow, she decided with bleak self-awareness.
If Max was a bad husband and a poor father, then why hadn’t she done something before now to remove his destructive effect from their lives, why had she so apathetically stayed within a marriage that she had known was damaging not just to herself but to her children as well?
She closed her eyes for a second. Unlike Jenny, she was dreading Max’s return home.
You have no marriage in the true, real sense of the word. All you have is a certificate…a piece of worthless paper. That is your marriage. That is all your marriage is.
Maddy wasn’t like that. She was biddable, dependable, obedient. As an adult she was as firmly controllable as a small child.
‘Do you think he’s just…that it’s just something he’s doing to amuse himself with at our expense?’ Maddy had asked him quietly.
With her he had been an extremely selfish lover, if lover was the right word to use to describe his sexual behaviour towards her.
I allowed you to treat me badly. I’ve only just begun to be my real self, to know my real self, and I feel… I think…’ She stopped and shook her head. ‘I need time, Max… time to learn to live happily in my own skin, with my own self and…’
January 5, 2022
This is the Book where PJ tries to redeem a sociopath and fails.
Is it possible for a complete bastard sob of a sociopath, with narcissistic traits and sadistic streaks, without an ounce of empathy to completely change his personality and character after a bad blow to his head and consequent head injury? Yes, it is. It’s scientifically proved.
Am I interested in a book who deals with a sadist turned into a good husband because he was badly injured after a beating?
Being his beating to an inch of his life the best part of the book?
Nope.
He should have died and PJ should have bothered a lil bit more and wrote about the hero who took his place with the heroine.
He didn’t deserve a second chance or a chance whatsoever.
Nor this book does.
Sorry.
Is it possible for a complete bastard sob of a sociopath, with narcissistic traits and sadistic streaks, without an ounce of empathy to completely change his personality and character after a bad blow to his head and consequent head injury? Yes, it is. It’s scientifically proved.
Am I interested in a book who deals with a sadist turned into a good husband because he was badly injured after a beating?
Being his beating to an inch of his life the best part of the book?
Nope.
He should have died and PJ should have bothered a lil bit more and wrote about the hero who took his place with the heroine.
He didn’t deserve a second chance or a chance whatsoever.
Nor this book does.
Sorry.
August 30, 2018
I expected this book to be bad but still fun to read. I was wrong. It wasn't bad, it was awful and not in a fun way. The Perfect Sinner is an insult to lovers of the romance genre.
I think the author was going for a Christmas Story-type of book where the hero was a complete jerk except instead of being haunted by ghosts of Christmas past, he gets his a$$ kicked leading him to a near death experience where he 'sees the light' and has a complete turnaround in his attitude towards life and the people in his life.
First of all, the turnaround felt like a personality transplant which didn't feel like it rang true. Secondly, this personality transplant happened approximately 70-75% of the way through, which did not give him nearly enough time to make amends to the people in his life that he hurt, and he hurt many people very badly with his downright cruel ways.
In addition to the hero being completely unredeemable, in my opinion, the heroine was not much better. She had the personality of a limp dish-rag. She put up with the hero's emotional abuse without ever standing up for herself or even without contemplating that she should leave him.
My intention isn't to blame the victim, however, it got on my nerves that she didn't consider leaving him for several reasons. For starters, he wasn't only emotionally abusive to her, but to their infant children as well. Their son (i'm guessing he was around 4-5), was terrified of the father and at the same time yelled at the father if he came close to the mother. When the hero wasn't being mean to the children, he was completely ignoring him. There is no way that those children were not impacted by that kind of abuse, especially at such young ages when they absorb everything like a sponge. That she didn't consider leaving him just to save her children from his abuse really p*ssed me off. She also never stood up to him when he was being awful to the children. Has she no protective instincts whatsoever?
The second reason she should have left him (or at least made attempts to leave him), is because she had her own money. We learn that the reason he married her in the first place is because she came from a rich family and she had tons of money from her parents. This isn't a case where a woman struggles to leave an abusive husband because she has nowhere to go. She came from a place of privilege and would continue to live that kind of lifestyle even after leaving his sorry a$$.
The third reason she should have left him is that she had a support system from HIS family. His own mother and other close family members told her that she should leave him and that they'd support her if she left him. Again, this isn't a case where a woman has nowhere to turn to. The family loved her and knew she was being treated terribly by her husband. It's not as if she'd be alone in the world raising two small children. She could have stayed in close contact with the family while still leaving him, especially because he lived in London and only visited the family a few times per year (i.e. holidays, weddings, when he had no choice but to make an appearance).
Those three reasons on their own are strong enough for the heroine to leave someone who is abusing her and her children. Yes, it's emotional abuse and not physical abuse but the emotional abuse he inflicts on them was severe and cruel. Examples:
- initially told her to have an abortion when she got pregnant with the first child. Then he decides that having kids is to his advantage when he has affairs with his female clients so he can tell them if they get to clingy that he can't leave his wife because he has kids, and then the women coo what a great father and husband he is to be so devoted (also, this sh*t was published in 1999, he would have been disbarred very quickly after screwing around with the first few female clients. I'm a lawyer in Canada and though our law society rules may be a bit different than in the UK, sleeping around with multiple clients would be seen as a huge breach of professional conduct)
- tries to take a comfort toy away from the little boy (Leo) because he thinks the boy is too old to cuddle with it;
- goes to a school play/production the boy is in and forces the mother to take Leo home right after instead of letting him play with the other children and have some snacks even though the mother tells him that Leo was looking forward to it;
- when the hero forces his wife to have sex with him, he gets her horny enough to do the deed but only gets himself off and even though he knows how to get her off he refuses to do it, knowing that she'll sneak off to the bathroom to finish herself off and then mock her when she comes back;
- telling his wife how awful she is in bed and that the women he f*cks behind her back are so much better (even though we get to see his perspective and we find out that he does in fact enjoy how she is in bed but he enjoys humiliating her even more)
- sooooooo many more examples of how he's awful to the wife and kids and the wife does absolutely nothing about it.
Maddy's (the heroine) wet dishrag personality was also annoying because while we'd get some of her thoughts during her POV, she rarely spoke when she was having conversations with people. We're told how smart and capable she is and yet whenever she's in a room with someone, she just sits and stares.
Then when her idiot husband takes off on a trip to Jamaica (for about 7-8 weeks and this is where he gets beat up), she meets nice guy Griff who falls for her immediately. He's gentle and encouraging with her and makes an effort with her kids. Maddy sees how her kids start blooming under Griff's attention because it is so different from what they're used to with their father. This is when she considers getting a divorce but this thought is short lived because the hero returns from his trip a changed man.
The problems I had with the changed man part of the story is that, as stated above, it happens far too late in the story and he doesn't actually make amends for his wrongs. Everyone around him (his large family and wife) are so amazed by his personality transplant that they straight away accept him as this new person. They act as if they're so grateful that, for once, he's not treating them like sh*t, that they better not look a gift horse in the mouth and just accept him for who he is now.
Maddy tells him that she doesn't trust the new him quite yet and needs time to accept the idea. Except that she doesn't actually do that. She's fawning over him like everyone else is because wow he's so nice now, lucky us!
I could not accept that because of how awful he was before. No one is perfect and I could understand if he was a generally ok person but did some sh*tty things that hurt his family and then realized how much he was hurting them. In this case, he was so awful that merely having this realization and changing his attitude would not be enough to make amends to the people he hurt. It would take a long time to heal that kind of pain.
Also, I thought that Maddy should have been happy that he's now more involved with the kids and is a much better person but she should have left him to be with someone who cares about her. Even after he has his realization, he knows that his and Maddy's relationship is not a love match and that he doesn't really want her (until he sees her and realizes that she might leave him). So he wanted to take part in his kids' lives but was ready to let Maddy go until the last 20 pages or so. And on top of that, she was the one who went to bed with him in his room to let him know that she forgave him. F*ck that.
Ok, rant over.
I think the author was going for a Christmas Story-type of book where the hero was a complete jerk except instead of being haunted by ghosts of Christmas past, he gets his a$$ kicked leading him to a near death experience where he 'sees the light' and has a complete turnaround in his attitude towards life and the people in his life.
First of all, the turnaround felt like a personality transplant which didn't feel like it rang true. Secondly, this personality transplant happened approximately 70-75% of the way through, which did not give him nearly enough time to make amends to the people in his life that he hurt, and he hurt many people very badly with his downright cruel ways.
In addition to the hero being completely unredeemable, in my opinion, the heroine was not much better. She had the personality of a limp dish-rag. She put up with the hero's emotional abuse without ever standing up for herself or even without contemplating that she should leave him.
My intention isn't to blame the victim, however, it got on my nerves that she didn't consider leaving him for several reasons. For starters, he wasn't only emotionally abusive to her, but to their infant children as well. Their son (i'm guessing he was around 4-5), was terrified of the father and at the same time yelled at the father if he came close to the mother. When the hero wasn't being mean to the children, he was completely ignoring him. There is no way that those children were not impacted by that kind of abuse, especially at such young ages when they absorb everything like a sponge. That she didn't consider leaving him just to save her children from his abuse really p*ssed me off. She also never stood up to him when he was being awful to the children. Has she no protective instincts whatsoever?
The second reason she should have left him (or at least made attempts to leave him), is because she had her own money. We learn that the reason he married her in the first place is because she came from a rich family and she had tons of money from her parents. This isn't a case where a woman struggles to leave an abusive husband because she has nowhere to go. She came from a place of privilege and would continue to live that kind of lifestyle even after leaving his sorry a$$.
The third reason she should have left him is that she had a support system from HIS family. His own mother and other close family members told her that she should leave him and that they'd support her if she left him. Again, this isn't a case where a woman has nowhere to turn to. The family loved her and knew she was being treated terribly by her husband. It's not as if she'd be alone in the world raising two small children. She could have stayed in close contact with the family while still leaving him, especially because he lived in London and only visited the family a few times per year (i.e. holidays, weddings, when he had no choice but to make an appearance).
Those three reasons on their own are strong enough for the heroine to leave someone who is abusing her and her children. Yes, it's emotional abuse and not physical abuse but the emotional abuse he inflicts on them was severe and cruel. Examples:
- initially told her to have an abortion when she got pregnant with the first child. Then he decides that having kids is to his advantage when he has affairs with his female clients so he can tell them if they get to clingy that he can't leave his wife because he has kids, and then the women coo what a great father and husband he is to be so devoted (also, this sh*t was published in 1999, he would have been disbarred very quickly after screwing around with the first few female clients. I'm a lawyer in Canada and though our law society rules may be a bit different than in the UK, sleeping around with multiple clients would be seen as a huge breach of professional conduct)
- tries to take a comfort toy away from the little boy (Leo) because he thinks the boy is too old to cuddle with it;
- goes to a school play/production the boy is in and forces the mother to take Leo home right after instead of letting him play with the other children and have some snacks even though the mother tells him that Leo was looking forward to it;
- when the hero forces his wife to have sex with him, he gets her horny enough to do the deed but only gets himself off and even though he knows how to get her off he refuses to do it, knowing that she'll sneak off to the bathroom to finish herself off and then mock her when she comes back;
- telling his wife how awful she is in bed and that the women he f*cks behind her back are so much better (even though we get to see his perspective and we find out that he does in fact enjoy how she is in bed but he enjoys humiliating her even more)
- sooooooo many more examples of how he's awful to the wife and kids and the wife does absolutely nothing about it.
Maddy's (the heroine) wet dishrag personality was also annoying because while we'd get some of her thoughts during her POV, she rarely spoke when she was having conversations with people. We're told how smart and capable she is and yet whenever she's in a room with someone, she just sits and stares.
Then when her idiot husband takes off on a trip to Jamaica (for about 7-8 weeks and this is where he gets beat up), she meets nice guy Griff who falls for her immediately. He's gentle and encouraging with her and makes an effort with her kids. Maddy sees how her kids start blooming under Griff's attention because it is so different from what they're used to with their father. This is when she considers getting a divorce but this thought is short lived because the hero returns from his trip a changed man.
The problems I had with the changed man part of the story is that, as stated above, it happens far too late in the story and he doesn't actually make amends for his wrongs. Everyone around him (his large family and wife) are so amazed by his personality transplant that they straight away accept him as this new person. They act as if they're so grateful that, for once, he's not treating them like sh*t, that they better not look a gift horse in the mouth and just accept him for who he is now.
Maddy tells him that she doesn't trust the new him quite yet and needs time to accept the idea. Except that she doesn't actually do that. She's fawning over him like everyone else is because wow he's so nice now, lucky us!
I could not accept that because of how awful he was before. No one is perfect and I could understand if he was a generally ok person but did some sh*tty things that hurt his family and then realized how much he was hurting them. In this case, he was so awful that merely having this realization and changing his attitude would not be enough to make amends to the people he hurt. It would take a long time to heal that kind of pain.
Also, I thought that Maddy should have been happy that he's now more involved with the kids and is a much better person but she should have left him to be with someone who cares about her. Even after he has his realization, he knows that his and Maddy's relationship is not a love match and that he doesn't really want her (until he sees her and realizes that she might leave him). So he wanted to take part in his kids' lives but was ready to let Maddy go until the last 20 pages or so. And on top of that, she was the one who went to bed with him in his room to let him know that she forgave him. F*ck that.
Ok, rant over.
March 13, 2022
12/30/2020 Reread during a “how bad can it be” tour. Yep, it’s still pretty bad. Even a near death experience can’t fix him enough. Only God can forgive this lowlife.
1/26/2020. So, can a near-death experience turn an asshole to a new level hero into the greatest husband and father on the planet? Yeah, I don’t think so either.
1/26/2020. So, can a near-death experience turn an asshole to a new level hero into the greatest husband and father on the planet? Yeah, I don’t think so either.
June 28, 2016
I really hated this hero. He didn't appreciate anything he had and he treated his wife like dirt. I think that she was nuts to allow him anywhere near her again. If it only took a life or death miracle to cure him from being a pompous twat than someone should of stabbed him a long time ago.
October 6, 2020
Sometimes I just have to read the cringeworthy horrible ones and this fits that category perfectly.
Why did Max get a glimpse of "heaven/pure love" as his near death experience? I think he should have gotten one of those black smoke demons from the movie Ghost.
Why did Max get a glimpse of "heaven/pure love" as his near death experience? I think he should have gotten one of those black smoke demons from the movie Ghost.
October 12, 2018
I would feel I was being a little unfair with the one-star rating because I am judging this as a romance (which it is NOT), but even if I understood the parameters of the melodramatic family saga genre, I would still despise the “hero’s” redemption arc (or lack thereof) in The Perfect Sinner.
Max Crighton is a waste of flesh and oxygen. He is selfish, cruel, egotistical, petty, chauvinistic, misogynistic, and quite possibly psychopathic in the sense that he lacks both empathy and remorse. He married the plain, plump heroine because her family was wealthy and had the necessary connections to get him a seat in chambers that he lacked either the skills or work ethic to get for himself. Since the marriage, he has been a serial adulterer (mostly with his clients, trophy wives seeking to divorce their wealthy husbands), but that is the least of his offenses against his wife, whom he belittles and abuses emotionally and sexually.
Via Max, I have discovered the line no “hero” may cross for me: when he does have sex with his wife, Max denies her an orgasm. How I yearn for the wife to be swept up by a blackmailing billionaire who will take his revenge on her for some imagined slight by giving her orgasms and fabulous jewels until he finally confesses his love. But, no. We have Max.
Max Crighton is a waste of flesh and oxygen. He is selfish, cruel, egotistical, petty, chauvinistic, misogynistic, and quite possibly psychopathic in the sense that he lacks both empathy and remorse. He married the plain, plump heroine because her family was wealthy and had the necessary connections to get him a seat in chambers that he lacked either the skills or work ethic to get for himself. Since the marriage, he has been a serial adulterer (mostly with his clients, trophy wives seeking to divorce their wealthy husbands), but that is the least of his offenses against his wife, whom he belittles and abuses emotionally and sexually.
Via Max, I have discovered the line no “hero” may cross for me: when he does have sex with his wife, Max denies her an orgasm. How I yearn for the wife to be swept up by a blackmailing billionaire who will take his revenge on her for some imagined slight by giving her orgasms and fabulous jewels until he finally confesses his love. But, no. We have Max.
January 7, 2022
I have read HP’s for almost 40 years now. And never have I ever come across such a cruel, cold H.
He is not physically cruel, but he is verbally cruel. And he is emotionally abusive towards her and their two little children.
He cheats on her with a lot of other women. If that’s not enough, he degrades her by having sex with her as if she is a prostitute. He likes to call her ugly and boring and he likes to put her down by saying how lousy she is in bed.
The h notices that the H’s bad character is dragging their kids down. He is not nice to the kids either. She doesn’t need to be with him financially, because she is wealthy herself. But she still stays with him.
This woman doesn’t only need to find a backbone, she needs a whole body. She is the doormattiest of all doormats.
Anyway, it’s a stupid story. Because after he has a near death experience, he is suddenly Mr Nice Guy and he is suddenly in love with the h.
This H should have done a lot of groveling, but there isn’t any groveling. So disappointing.
This is not a romance. This is the story of a narcissist married to a doormat.
I give it two stars and not only one star just because I kept reading this utter trainwreck.
He is not physically cruel, but he is verbally cruel. And he is emotionally abusive towards her and their two little children.
He cheats on her with a lot of other women. If that’s not enough, he degrades her by having sex with her as if she is a prostitute. He likes to call her ugly and boring and he likes to put her down by saying how lousy she is in bed.
The h notices that the H’s bad character is dragging their kids down. He is not nice to the kids either. She doesn’t need to be with him financially, because she is wealthy herself. But she still stays with him.
This woman doesn’t only need to find a backbone, she needs a whole body. She is the doormattiest of all doormats.
Anyway, it’s a stupid story. Because after he has a near death experience, he is suddenly Mr Nice Guy and he is suddenly in love with the h.
This H should have done a lot of groveling, but there isn’t any groveling. So disappointing.
This is not a romance. This is the story of a narcissist married to a doormat.
I give it two stars and not only one star just because I kept reading this utter trainwreck.
April 15, 2020
This is my second book the saga, but somehow, through the comments and the synopsis, I got an idea of all the family members and their respective stories in the other books. So I knew from the start that Max is everything but a H: an hateful, unfaithful and abusive man. However, I liked this book. It was interesting to understand his character better, although my favorite part is Maddy's inner growth and her relationship with the other women in the family. I'm sorry that none of them went to Maddy to tell her: "If you want to leave that asshole of your husband I am there and I will help you in everything you need", I would have expected it from a family of lawyers and owners of a refuge for single mothers. But for her story with Luke's friend, I think it wasn't love as much as a search for support, a desire to feel desired, to be a person of value to someone. Max's redemption is too sudden and instantaneous to be credible, but I admit that in the end I hoped that the two of them could mend their marriage. I'll have to read the book about Kathe to find out if they can!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 5, 2021
This rating is not just for the loathsome, gum on my shoe non - man, but for the horrible way this story was told. The non-man bragging about being a bitch (men are bitches, too)and asswipe to himself !
And everyone else in the book saying , "Poor Maddy" and watching her being abused. I did not like the that 60% of the book was written like a prologue. I didn't experience their story, I was told their story from the characters ( every character in the book) POV.
IN THE WORDS OF MY GRANDMOTHER, "YOU COULDN'T POUR HIM ON ME IF I WAS ON FIRE, LET MY ASS BURN!
And everyone else in the book saying , "Poor Maddy" and watching her being abused. I did not like the that 60% of the book was written like a prologue. I didn't experience their story, I was told their story from the characters ( every character in the book) POV.
IN THE WORDS OF MY GRANDMOTHER, "YOU COULDN'T POUR HIM ON ME IF I WAS ON FIRE, LET MY ASS BURN!
November 14, 2025
I paid a lot for this book on kindle. Then I found I already had it on my tablet from before.
And the story was just ok. The attraction between the hero and heroine is not the main story.
The transformation of the hero into good person from being a narcissist by divine intervention is the story.
And the heroines coming into her own. Even perhaps falling a little under the spell of another man is the story.
I didn’t really feel that happy with it frankly.
It’s ok.
The whole series is done to death. (What did I mean when I wrote this sentence?!!)
The whole series is just dragged out too much.
I liked the one in which the girl is in love with her cousin but her professor is in love with her. I liked the back story. The second half was a dud.
I never found the book about the thoughtful little boy who is so caring and sensitive. Forget the child’s name. Searched for that book.
Anyway. If you’re reading the whole series then pick this one up.
And the story was just ok. The attraction between the hero and heroine is not the main story.
The transformation of the hero into good person from being a narcissist by divine intervention is the story.
And the heroines coming into her own. Even perhaps falling a little under the spell of another man is the story.
I didn’t really feel that happy with it frankly.
It’s ok.
The whole series is done to death. (What did I mean when I wrote this sentence?!!)
The whole series is just dragged out too much.
I liked the one in which the girl is in love with her cousin but her professor is in love with her. I liked the back story. The second half was a dud.
I never found the book about the thoughtful little boy who is so caring and sensitive. Forget the child’s name. Searched for that book.
Anyway. If you’re reading the whole series then pick this one up.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 23, 2017
Rating: 2.5 stars.
I didn't like it that the hero and heroine had MINIMAL interaction for 70% of the book. I had found myself rooting for Griff Owens! I couldn't feel the chemistry between the two main characters. I felt that the plot had so much potential, but Penny Jordan was far too busy writing about the Crighton family and whatnot.
I didn't like it that the hero and heroine had MINIMAL interaction for 70% of the book. I had found myself rooting for Griff Owens! I couldn't feel the chemistry between the two main characters. I felt that the plot had so much potential, but Penny Jordan was far too busy writing about the Crighton family and whatnot.
May 22, 2016
I was bored ...hated the hero immensely...he was the lowest life form ....AND ....she was a doormat
June 7, 2019
Hated the hero. Hated the heroine.
November 27, 2014
Max es un idiota que teniéndolo todo para ser feliz no supo valorar nada hasta el momento en que casi pierde todo
March 14, 2017
I read this some time ago but never rated. I saw Preeti's review and decided to re-read, and had the same opinion. It really had to be a miracle because this guy really was the devil. I'm not a great reviewer, so I recommend reading Preeti's review, it explains things so much better. :-)
March 13, 2022
Predictable. Unenjoyable. Disappointing. This is my first read of Penny Jordan. I thoroughly enjoy a good romance but this just never delivered the goods for me.
December 7, 2019
This book is one I’ve read before when I was at University. I remember browsing along the shelves at Waterstones in 2000/2001 and picking this book up for a couple of days and racing through it. The memory of this book is intertwined by the thought of Cambridge, cold rainy days and the pleasure of being near books. Even though I am generally a fan of Ms Jordan I can’t say that this is the most objective review. Anyway - on to the book.
This is book 6 in Ms Jordan’s Crighton family saga of which I’ve read a couple more (most recently The Perfect Father which I enjoyed). The blurb in the back is very misleading here - it’s not correct. Our “hero” Max does survive an attack and has a miraculous change from an utter ass-hat. But all this happen in the last 40% of the book.
The rest of it is more of a family drama than romance. Max is a genuinely awful man and he is callous to everyone but especially his wife. This novel is more in the vein of a soap opera and he is the villain or anti hero. For readers who are expecting a Romance this can, and will be, jarring.
I found the first half of the book quite compelling and was even convinced of Maddy, our heroine’s growth. I was totally rooting for her to leave Max and fall in love with the accountant.
However, the last half veered towards more unbelievable territory where Max wakes up basically after being touched by God. Maddy forgives him too easily so I didn’t feel that he earned his redemption. Irrespective of whether you see the light or not, forgiveness requires work. Here I thought the Romance conventions hurt the book as divorce would have been more convincing, or a longer time spent on the post accident time would have helped.
Ms Jordan writes well and the book clips along. Despite some of the structural issues I had with the book, it did not irk me. Max was clearly awful and a cheater but I never felt that the author was condoning that behaviour or saying it was Maddy’s fault.
In the end for the writing and the first half (again, which is NOT a romance) I rate this 3 stars as a did enjoy it.
However this is a caveated rating as romance readers will likely not like it and there is a huge nostalgia factor here for me which I acknowledge.
This is book 6 in Ms Jordan’s Crighton family saga of which I’ve read a couple more (most recently The Perfect Father which I enjoyed). The blurb in the back is very misleading here - it’s not correct. Our “hero” Max does survive an attack and has a miraculous change from an utter ass-hat. But all this happen in the last 40% of the book.
The rest of it is more of a family drama than romance. Max is a genuinely awful man and he is callous to everyone but especially his wife. This novel is more in the vein of a soap opera and he is the villain or anti hero. For readers who are expecting a Romance this can, and will be, jarring.
I found the first half of the book quite compelling and was even convinced of Maddy, our heroine’s growth. I was totally rooting for her to leave Max and fall in love with the accountant.
However, the last half veered towards more unbelievable territory where Max wakes up basically after being touched by God. Maddy forgives him too easily so I didn’t feel that he earned his redemption. Irrespective of whether you see the light or not, forgiveness requires work. Here I thought the Romance conventions hurt the book as divorce would have been more convincing, or a longer time spent on the post accident time would have helped.
Ms Jordan writes well and the book clips along. Despite some of the structural issues I had with the book, it did not irk me. Max was clearly awful and a cheater but I never felt that the author was condoning that behaviour or saying it was Maddy’s fault.
In the end for the writing and the first half (again, which is NOT a romance) I rate this 3 stars as a did enjoy it.
However this is a caveated rating as romance readers will likely not like it and there is a huge nostalgia factor here for me which I acknowledge.
December 31, 2011
Max Chrighton tem tudo para ser feliz e uma família exemplar aos olhos dos outros. Acostumado a seduzir as clientes e trair e ignorar a sua esposa Madeleine, a vida corre-lhe bem até que sofre um grande acidente ao qual escapa por pouco. Depois disto Max irá ver a sua vida com outros olhos e arrependido tenta conquistar a sua mulher...nas será tarde demais?
O Max é daqueles homens da pior espécie e a Maddy não sabe se impor perante das infedelidades do marido. Não gostei muito mas para quem quiser uma história leve e previsivel é o livro ideal.
O Max é daqueles homens da pior espécie e a Maddy não sabe se impor perante das infedelidades do marido. Não gostei muito mas para quem quiser uma história leve e previsivel é o livro ideal.
April 28, 2020
It is definitely a no for me.
I don't how penny was able to write this garbage.
It stupid and not worth my time or my money.
H doesn't redeem his self.
h is a doormat.
No healing period between both of them.
Everything was rushed.
Purely a waste
I don't how penny was able to write this garbage.
It stupid and not worth my time or my money.
H doesn't redeem his self.
h is a doormat.
No healing period between both of them.
Everything was rushed.
Purely a waste
January 14, 2011
Very sad story, but i like how max change his attitudes in the end of the story..Happily ever after pa rin..
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