What do you think?
Rate this book
The Tiger's Lair
"I've waited a long time for you, Sachi.
"Years," Dominic continued. "Watching, waiting for you to grow up, for the time when there'd be no one else you could turn to--except me."
Sachi's only choice was to marry Dominic Preston. Outmaneuvered by hire, she accepted his ring as the price she must pay to escape her problems.
Yet she couldn't help wondering if she were jumping from the frying pan into the fire. For she had absolutely no idea what Dominic really felt about the wife he'd bought.
"Years," Dominic continued. "Watching, waiting for you to grow up, for the time when there'd be no one else you could turn to--except me."
Sachi's only choice was to marry Dominic Preston. Outmaneuvered by hire, she accepted his ring as the price she must pay to escape her problems.
Yet she couldn't help wondering if she were jumping from the frying pan into the fire. For she had absolutely no idea what Dominic really felt about the wife he'd bought.
186 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 1990
About the author
Helen Bianchin
383 books231 followersHelen Shirley was born on February 20 1939 in New Zealand, where she grew up, an only child possessed by a vivid imagination and a love for reading. She wrote stories for amusement in her early teenage years, and when she left leaving school, she took a secretarial job at a father-and-son legal firm.
At age twenty-one Helen joined a girlfriend and embarked on a working holiday in Australia, travelling via cruise ship from Auckland to Melbourne. Alas, no shipboard romance, as she spent all four days in her cabin suffering from sea-sickness! After fifteen months working in Melbourne, Helen and her friend bought a vehicle and took three months to drive the length and breadth of Australia, choosing to work in Cairns in order to fund the final leg of our journey to Sydney.
It was in Cairns that Helen met her future husband, Danilo Bianchin, an Italian immigrant from Treviso. He was a tobacco sharefarmer from the tobacco farming community of Mareeba. His English was pitiful, and her command of Italian was nil. Six months later they married, and Helen was flung into cooking for up to nine tobacco pickers, stringing tobacco, feeding 200 chickens, a few turkeys, ducks... plus killing, cleaning and cooking the same! Her knowledge of Italian improved, and there were hilarious moments in retrospect. Some of what she endured was cooking on a wood-burning stove, having no running hot water, a primitive shower and toilet facilities, washing uniforms for two soccer teams during the soccer season... floods, horrendous hailstone damage to tobacco crops, hardship, and the stillbirth of their first child. Then, to their joy, Helen's daughter, Lucia, was born. Three years later the couple returned to New Zealand, where they settled for sixteen years. During those early years, they added two sons, Angelo and Peter, to the family.
With multiple anecdotes of farm life in an Italian community to friends, the idea of writing a book occurred. A romance, set on a tobacco farm in Australia's far north, Queensland, featuring an Italian hero. Helen says, "the background was authentic, believe me!" However the hero was rich and owned the farm artistic license! It took her a year to complete a passable manuscript, typed on a portable typewriter at the dining room table. That first effort was deemed too short with insufficient detail. Helen rewrote it. This time it was considered too long with too much extraneous detail. She revised, then sent it to London. Four months later she received a telegram from Alan Boon (Mills & Boon) to say they intended to publish and a contract would be sent in the mail. It was the most wonderful news!
Helen wrote ten more books while living in New Zealand, then in 1981, her family resettled in Australia, on Queensland's Gold Coast. She has since published twenty-five more books. Today, with computer technology, the mechanics of writing are much easier. However, the writing process doesn't change. Helen says that she's having a good day if she can achieve 5 good pages, which she is likely to change, edit and rewrite the following day.
She loves creating characters, giving them life and providing a situation where their emotions are tested and love wins out. For her, the greatest praise is for a reader to say they couldn't put the book down... then Helen knows that she has achieved what she set out to do -- "create a moving enjoyable story which holds the reader entertained from beginning to end."
Helen's hobbies are tennis, table-tennis, judo, reading. She loves movies, and leads an active social life.
At age twenty-one Helen joined a girlfriend and embarked on a working holiday in Australia, travelling via cruise ship from Auckland to Melbourne. Alas, no shipboard romance, as she spent all four days in her cabin suffering from sea-sickness! After fifteen months working in Melbourne, Helen and her friend bought a vehicle and took three months to drive the length and breadth of Australia, choosing to work in Cairns in order to fund the final leg of our journey to Sydney.
It was in Cairns that Helen met her future husband, Danilo Bianchin, an Italian immigrant from Treviso. He was a tobacco sharefarmer from the tobacco farming community of Mareeba. His English was pitiful, and her command of Italian was nil. Six months later they married, and Helen was flung into cooking for up to nine tobacco pickers, stringing tobacco, feeding 200 chickens, a few turkeys, ducks... plus killing, cleaning and cooking the same! Her knowledge of Italian improved, and there were hilarious moments in retrospect. Some of what she endured was cooking on a wood-burning stove, having no running hot water, a primitive shower and toilet facilities, washing uniforms for two soccer teams during the soccer season... floods, horrendous hailstone damage to tobacco crops, hardship, and the stillbirth of their first child. Then, to their joy, Helen's daughter, Lucia, was born. Three years later the couple returned to New Zealand, where they settled for sixteen years. During those early years, they added two sons, Angelo and Peter, to the family.
With multiple anecdotes of farm life in an Italian community to friends, the idea of writing a book occurred. A romance, set on a tobacco farm in Australia's far north, Queensland, featuring an Italian hero. Helen says, "the background was authentic, believe me!" However the hero was rich and owned the farm artistic license! It took her a year to complete a passable manuscript, typed on a portable typewriter at the dining room table. That first effort was deemed too short with insufficient detail. Helen rewrote it. This time it was considered too long with too much extraneous detail. She revised, then sent it to London. Four months later she received a telegram from Alan Boon (Mills & Boon) to say they intended to publish and a contract would be sent in the mail. It was the most wonderful news!
Helen wrote ten more books while living in New Zealand, then in 1981, her family resettled in Australia, on Queensland's Gold Coast. She has since published twenty-five more books. Today, with computer technology, the mechanics of writing are much easier. However, the writing process doesn't change. Helen says that she's having a good day if she can achieve 5 good pages, which she is likely to change, edit and rewrite the following day.
She loves creating characters, giving them life and providing a situation where their emotions are tested and love wins out. For her, the greatest praise is for a reader to say they couldn't put the book down... then Helen knows that she has achieved what she set out to do -- "create a moving enjoyable story which holds the reader entertained from beginning to end."
Helen's hobbies are tennis, table-tennis, judo, reading. She loves movies, and leads an active social life.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
July 19, 2017
Re The Tiger's Lair - Helen Bianchin gives us blackmail and forced marriage in her usual high society excursion into HPlandia.
The h is HB's usual socialite type, but this socialite has lost her status. Her sister is a slime swiller tarty type, her mum died when she was kid and her father died in her late teens. Unfortunately daddy dearest gambled and drank and lost the family millions. The h had an adored younger brother too, he had Muscular Dystrophy and the h had to sell what little remained of the family treasures and the family home as well, in order to provide financially for his medical care.
Even with all that, the h is still massively in debt. Sadly the h's brother died six months earlier from pneumonia and that is where we first see the H. The H was a poor college student studying for the bar and to help make ends meet, he worked as a gardener on the h's family estate. She adored him as a child, until she found him and her sewer sludge slurper sister swapping spit in the garden one day and the h ran off to cry about it.
Eventually the H made good and got rich and he is the one who actually purchased the h's old family 24 bedroom bungalow. He showed up at the h's brother's funeral and the h is a bit perturbed by all the social gossip and tabloid news contrasting her fallen status to his newly risen one.
The h is working two jobs when the book opens, her dream interior design job and a waitress job at night. The H decides he wants her interior decorating services for his newly acquired estate and so he hires her firm and demands she do the decoration.
Except the whole house but the master bedroom is already decorated and the h is having some serious qualms. She just knows that the H is playing some sick game of vengeance and status bullying over all the years they spent when she was rich and he was poor. (This did not quite make sense to me, the h never did anything mean to him and he left for his new career when she was still preteen, but this HB's HPlandia, so just roll with it.)
The h wants to dump the job but the H demands that she marry him or he will get her fired. The h is all set to resist, but then her car dies and her other job is horrible and she is on the verge of bankruptcy, so she goes ahead and marries the H.
We get the usual HB trifecta of clothes, high society parties and food celibacy and the h is falling more and more under the spell of the H's rapturous lurve club mojo. Then the slime swiller sister returns and makes a play for the H. He isn't interested, so the sister physically attacks the h by slapping her down and kicking her instead. In a manly show of under-aggression, the H makes the sister leave the country in lieu of actually pressing assault charges. (I couldn't help but think if this was a Jacqueline Baird book, at the least the H would ruin her financially. But HB has wimpy vengeful H's, they only really blackmail the h into the marital bed - they rarely go even the mistress route.)
The h is all aflutter and in love and upset, so she gets the H to "let" her take off for a week to the H's Gold Coast apartment in Surfer's Paradise. In a rare moment of HB h law breaking behavior, the h gets a speeding ticket and the H goes into paternal warning mode, telling her not to speed again. The spends the next bit going shopping, eating boring omelets with defrosted frozen bread and moping at night about not snuggling up to the H.
Finally after a week the h does the sad, pathetic 'I am missing you but don't want to admit it and you're probably going out with someone anyways' phone call to the H. She gets flustered and hangs up and the H shows up for the big roofie kissing session an hour and a half later. They both missed each other over the past week and the H was never into the h's sister, she just managed to snog him the garden a few times when he was younger and he couldn't throw his employer's daughter in the midden, so he just acted dull.
The H declares her loves her. But I have to confess there was a bit of a creepy feeling when the H confesses that in her childhood, she was his forbidden obsession - the h was only ten when they were buddies- and he has been plotting to get her for years. However the h utterly adores him back, so with huge kisses and a big seduction, the H and h cast themselves on the shores of pink tinged fluffy cloud bliss for the big HEA.
This one is par for the course HB, and the H was fairly nice except for the childhood obsession with the h. Tho I was wondering if that obsession was more about getting the h for her social status and her jelly-like moldable compliancy, as opposed to her overwhelming inspiration of passion in the H. Mainly cause the H knew all about her financial difficulties and how much she loved her brother, he had been distance stalking her for years, just waiting for the inevitable collapse.
I would think if he really loved her and not just her bloodlines for broodmare status, he would have stepped in after her father died and the h started having problems. The fact that he just let her sink and then let her fall into a huge pit of grief without any support, tends to knock the declaration of love through the years askew. The H certainly did his rounds of the lady buffet circuit while waiting for the h to fall in the abyss, so while the story was okay, I wasn't completely sold on the HEA on this trip to HPlandia.
The h is HB's usual socialite type, but this socialite has lost her status. Her sister is a slime swiller tarty type, her mum died when she was kid and her father died in her late teens. Unfortunately daddy dearest gambled and drank and lost the family millions. The h had an adored younger brother too, he had Muscular Dystrophy and the h had to sell what little remained of the family treasures and the family home as well, in order to provide financially for his medical care.
Even with all that, the h is still massively in debt. Sadly the h's brother died six months earlier from pneumonia and that is where we first see the H. The H was a poor college student studying for the bar and to help make ends meet, he worked as a gardener on the h's family estate. She adored him as a child, until she found him and her sewer sludge slurper sister swapping spit in the garden one day and the h ran off to cry about it.
Eventually the H made good and got rich and he is the one who actually purchased the h's old family 24 bedroom bungalow. He showed up at the h's brother's funeral and the h is a bit perturbed by all the social gossip and tabloid news contrasting her fallen status to his newly risen one.
The h is working two jobs when the book opens, her dream interior design job and a waitress job at night. The H decides he wants her interior decorating services for his newly acquired estate and so he hires her firm and demands she do the decoration.
Except the whole house but the master bedroom is already decorated and the h is having some serious qualms. She just knows that the H is playing some sick game of vengeance and status bullying over all the years they spent when she was rich and he was poor. (This did not quite make sense to me, the h never did anything mean to him and he left for his new career when she was still preteen, but this HB's HPlandia, so just roll with it.)
The h wants to dump the job but the H demands that she marry him or he will get her fired. The h is all set to resist, but then her car dies and her other job is horrible and she is on the verge of bankruptcy, so she goes ahead and marries the H.
We get the usual HB trifecta of clothes, high society parties and food celibacy and the h is falling more and more under the spell of the H's rapturous lurve club mojo. Then the slime swiller sister returns and makes a play for the H. He isn't interested, so the sister physically attacks the h by slapping her down and kicking her instead. In a manly show of under-aggression, the H makes the sister leave the country in lieu of actually pressing assault charges. (I couldn't help but think if this was a Jacqueline Baird book, at the least the H would ruin her financially. But HB has wimpy vengeful H's, they only really blackmail the h into the marital bed - they rarely go even the mistress route.)
The h is all aflutter and in love and upset, so she gets the H to "let" her take off for a week to the H's Gold Coast apartment in Surfer's Paradise. In a rare moment of HB h law breaking behavior, the h gets a speeding ticket and the H goes into paternal warning mode, telling her not to speed again. The spends the next bit going shopping, eating boring omelets with defrosted frozen bread and moping at night about not snuggling up to the H.
Finally after a week the h does the sad, pathetic 'I am missing you but don't want to admit it and you're probably going out with someone anyways' phone call to the H. She gets flustered and hangs up and the H shows up for the big roofie kissing session an hour and a half later. They both missed each other over the past week and the H was never into the h's sister, she just managed to snog him the garden a few times when he was younger and he couldn't throw his employer's daughter in the midden, so he just acted dull.
The H declares her loves her. But I have to confess there was a bit of a creepy feeling when the H confesses that in her childhood, she was his forbidden obsession - the h was only ten when they were buddies- and he has been plotting to get her for years. However the h utterly adores him back, so with huge kisses and a big seduction, the H and h cast themselves on the shores of pink tinged fluffy cloud bliss for the big HEA.
This one is par for the course HB, and the H was fairly nice except for the childhood obsession with the h. Tho I was wondering if that obsession was more about getting the h for her social status and her jelly-like moldable compliancy, as opposed to her overwhelming inspiration of passion in the H. Mainly cause the H knew all about her financial difficulties and how much she loved her brother, he had been distance stalking her for years, just waiting for the inevitable collapse.
I would think if he really loved her and not just her bloodlines for broodmare status, he would have stepped in after her father died and the h started having problems. The fact that he just let her sink and then let her fall into a huge pit of grief without any support, tends to knock the declaration of love through the years askew. The H certainly did his rounds of the lady buffet circuit while waiting for the h to fall in the abyss, so while the story was okay, I wasn't completely sold on the HEA on this trip to HPlandia.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 24, 2026
Hero first met heroine when she was a child and he was a poor college student working part-time for her parents at their estate. He was kind to her and the lonely, shy heroine put him on a pedestal. Until she walked in on him and her older, super-skanky and cruel sister making out in the garden shed. She felt terribly betrayed and immediately retreated into her shell, avoiding him until he eventually stopped working for her parents.
Ten years later, Hero is now on top of the world, with a lucrative law practice and he is the toast of high society. Heroine, on the other hand, has had a reversal of fortune. Parents died in debt, older sister went overseas and has run out of BLEEPS to give, and heroine was left to sell the estate and take care of nursing home fees for her younger brother, who was suffering from muscular dystrophy.
Six months before the story starts, heroine runs into the hero for the first time in ten years, at the funeral of her younger brother, who unfortunately succumbed to pneumonia. Hero buys the heroine's former mansion and contacts her boss at the interior design firm where she works, to hire her for refurbishing the house. Except when the heroine gets there, the house has already been beautifully renovated: The gardens, the foyer, the kitchen, bathrooms, guest rooms etc. all beautifully restored to their former glory.
Except for the Master Bedroom. Hero tells heroine he wants her specifically to redesign that one room. LOL.
Heroine is very resentful of hero. She suspects his motivations and doubts his sincerity. Is he enacting some sort of sick, gloating revenge in hiring her to work at the palatial estate where he once worked as a lowly gardener's assistant? Does he simply want to acquire her like any of the beautiful objects that he has collected to showcase in his new home?
She tries to get out of the job but hero makes it clear that if she walks, he will ensure that she is fired from her job. Soon, he reveals that he wants a marriage of convenience with heroine. He will take care of all the debts she has incurred trying to take care of her younger brother, and she will be his social hostess and a willing participant in his bed. Heroine is appalled and tells him to go to hell...for about 24 hours before she decides to take the easy way out of her destitute lifestyle and agree to his terms.
This is where the story started losing me because this spunky little Mary Sue totally lost her nerve and spent the rest of the book meekly accepting her fate, pining for her sexy husband, and just generally being a jellyblob.
After his initial Big Fat Jerk moment, the hero couldn't have been any nicer. He suddenly morphed into a Beta hero who treated his wife as if she was a goddess who walked on water, acceeded to all of her demands including that she remain at her job and not fall into being a kept woman. He was totally devoted to her and when the mean, skanky, older sister made a short-lived appearance to try to make trouble in their marriage, he made mincemeat out of her. It wasn't therefore a real surprise when he confessed to her at the end that he had been in love with her from Day One (not Day One when they met and she was still a child, Day One when they met again as adults). Their marriage was never a question of "avenging" himself on his former employer's daughter or get a trophy wife to boost his social status.
So my question is: Why would he not simply court her romantically in order to lead to marriage? Unfortunately, there was never an answer to this question and the whole story ended up seeming rather pointless and unnecessary.
I would however recommend this book as the antidote to the piece of shit wallbangers that HPlandia sometimes offers to the reader because I would take a nice story like this, plotholes and all, ANY DAY, over the cheating, arrogant, trainwrecky "heroes" who have made my blood pressure rise to nearly fatal levels.
Ten years later, Hero is now on top of the world, with a lucrative law practice and he is the toast of high society. Heroine, on the other hand, has had a reversal of fortune. Parents died in debt, older sister went overseas and has run out of BLEEPS to give, and heroine was left to sell the estate and take care of nursing home fees for her younger brother, who was suffering from muscular dystrophy.
Six months before the story starts, heroine runs into the hero for the first time in ten years, at the funeral of her younger brother, who unfortunately succumbed to pneumonia. Hero buys the heroine's former mansion and contacts her boss at the interior design firm where she works, to hire her for refurbishing the house. Except when the heroine gets there, the house has already been beautifully renovated: The gardens, the foyer, the kitchen, bathrooms, guest rooms etc. all beautifully restored to their former glory.
Except for the Master Bedroom. Hero tells heroine he wants her specifically to redesign that one room. LOL.
Heroine is very resentful of hero. She suspects his motivations and doubts his sincerity. Is he enacting some sort of sick, gloating revenge in hiring her to work at the palatial estate where he once worked as a lowly gardener's assistant? Does he simply want to acquire her like any of the beautiful objects that he has collected to showcase in his new home?
She tries to get out of the job but hero makes it clear that if she walks, he will ensure that she is fired from her job. Soon, he reveals that he wants a marriage of convenience with heroine. He will take care of all the debts she has incurred trying to take care of her younger brother, and she will be his social hostess and a willing participant in his bed. Heroine is appalled and tells him to go to hell...for about 24 hours before she decides to take the easy way out of her destitute lifestyle and agree to his terms.
This is where the story started losing me because this spunky little Mary Sue totally lost her nerve and spent the rest of the book meekly accepting her fate, pining for her sexy husband, and just generally being a jellyblob.
After his initial Big Fat Jerk moment, the hero couldn't have been any nicer. He suddenly morphed into a Beta hero who treated his wife as if she was a goddess who walked on water, acceeded to all of her demands including that she remain at her job and not fall into being a kept woman. He was totally devoted to her and when the mean, skanky, older sister made a short-lived appearance to try to make trouble in their marriage, he made mincemeat out of her. It wasn't therefore a real surprise when he confessed to her at the end that he had been in love with her from Day One (not Day One when they met and she was still a child, Day One when they met again as adults). Their marriage was never a question of "avenging" himself on his former employer's daughter or get a trophy wife to boost his social status.
So my question is: Why would he not simply court her romantically in order to lead to marriage? Unfortunately, there was never an answer to this question and the whole story ended up seeming rather pointless and unnecessary.
I would however recommend this book as the antidote to the piece of shit wallbangers that HPlandia sometimes offers to the reader because I would take a nice story like this, plotholes and all, ANY DAY, over the cheating, arrogant, trainwrecky "heroes" who have made my blood pressure rise to nearly fatal levels.
avoid
May 25, 2017Hero seems like a cold manipulative bastard.
I mean who blackmails someone who lost everything with their bread winning job?
He really just seems cold heartless controlling little shit.
So I'll be skipping!
I mean who blackmails someone who lost everything with their bread winning job?
He really just seems cold heartless controlling little shit.
So I'll be skipping!
January 31, 2021
Book 1 on my journey to read books I enjoyed in my child/teen years. I started with an easy read, mills and boon because I remember those days in my teens where I pretty much inhaled these books.
I only have one question to past teen me - WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?????
This book is disturbing and creepy, Sachi (love the name) is blackmailed into a marriage to an old family gardener who got very rich as a lawyer, she is in debt up to her eyeballs after caring for a relative, working 2 jobs and barely holding it together.
The Lawyer and very rich guy has bought her old home, threatens her job unless she marries him and being a mills and boon book she eventually falls in love. Along the way we have dubiously consensual sex, a nasty sister and all the clothes she could want.
Although mills and boon books can be a genuinely delightful read sometimes, in most cases I have found the older books (this one being published in 1990) haven't aged well. These were the dreams of girls and women 20+ years ago but women have moved on and maybe its time to leave the older books to the side.
I only have one question to past teen me - WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?????
This book is disturbing and creepy, Sachi (love the name) is blackmailed into a marriage to an old family gardener who got very rich as a lawyer, she is in debt up to her eyeballs after caring for a relative, working 2 jobs and barely holding it together.
The Lawyer and very rich guy has bought her old home, threatens her job unless she marries him and being a mills and boon book she eventually falls in love. Along the way we have dubiously consensual sex, a nasty sister and all the clothes she could want.
Although mills and boon books can be a genuinely delightful read sometimes, in most cases I have found the older books (this one being published in 1990) haven't aged well. These were the dreams of girls and women 20+ years ago but women have moved on and maybe its time to leave the older books to the side.
April 25, 2013
3 1/2 Stars ~ Sachi grew up in a life of privilege but when her mother died her father took it hard and he sought solace in gambling and heavy drinking. By the time Sachi turned 19 the household staff was reduced to a cleaner and a gardener once a week and Sachi was left to care for her younger brother, Sam, who suffers from muscular dystrophy. Three years later her father died in a car accident and she found that the house was mortgaged to the hilt. Slowly to cover debts and Sam's increasing medical bills, she is forced to sell off the remaining antiques and paintings. After a year, the bank forces Sachi to sell the house and much to her surprise and that of the press, Dominic, the former gardener's helper, was the buyer. The press loved to point out how far the mighty have fallen and how right it was that the one who worked hard to put himself through law school should rise so high. For Sachi working for a prestigious interior design firm was a dream job but her wages were never enough to cover her brother's increasing medical care which included a daily nurse. When Sam's young life ended from pneumonia, Sachi was shocked to look across his grave into Dominic's eyes. It's been six months since Sam's death, and Sachi, even with her second job as a waitress, is so heavily burdened with medical and funeral expenses that she's near personal bankruptcy. Dominic has approached her firm to make a design proposal for his new home and he has requested Sachi to be his designer. The last person Sachi wants to see is Dominic, who was the object at one time of a childhood adoration. She can't fathom why he'd want her except perhaps as a form of revenge as the press had alluded. But her meeting with Dominic brings more surprises. He's well aware of her precarious financial situation and he offers her a way out - she can marry him. Outraged, Sachi promptly refuses. Dominic's not above a bit of blackmail, she'll marry him or else he'll put in a negative word with her employers which will undoubtedly lead to her dismissal. And in exchange her debts will vanish and she'll once again have a life of privilege. Sachi's determined to refuse but on the way home the last straw is broken when her beat up car stalls on the side of the road. The wedding, within a week, is a whirlwind and much to Sachi's dismay her body betrays her and she can't help her response to Dominic's lovemaking. It's not long before Sachi realizes that her once childhood adoration for her husband has morphed into a deep and passionate love. But of course, Dominic doesn't love her, he just wants a trophy wife and a bedmate.
Sachi's life had been filled with bitter disappointments but she took on all the challenges life threw at her and plodded on. As we don't have Dominic's point of view, we are left to speculate on his motives for buying the Tarrant estate and for blackmailing her into marriage and as Ms. Bianchin plays up the role reversals quit a bit, we are left believing Sachi's opinion that this is some sort of revenge or status claim. Sachi reads Dominic's remarks as mocking or sardonic and while she can't help but respond to him physically she fights her growing love for him. While Dominic comes off as rather controlling, he does have his moments where he shows concern and caring. The conflict really is their lack of communication and Sachi's own personal battle to not be the loser as she's lost so much already in her life. There are some rather poignant scenes that lead to a very satisfying HEA.
Sachi's life had been filled with bitter disappointments but she took on all the challenges life threw at her and plodded on. As we don't have Dominic's point of view, we are left to speculate on his motives for buying the Tarrant estate and for blackmailing her into marriage and as Ms. Bianchin plays up the role reversals quit a bit, we are left believing Sachi's opinion that this is some sort of revenge or status claim. Sachi reads Dominic's remarks as mocking or sardonic and while she can't help but respond to him physically she fights her growing love for him. While Dominic comes off as rather controlling, he does have his moments where he shows concern and caring. The conflict really is their lack of communication and Sachi's own personal battle to not be the loser as she's lost so much already in her life. There are some rather poignant scenes that lead to a very satisfying HEA.
November 30, 2022
Okay, ni sé cómo escribir el enojo que tuve por el protagonista, entiendo que quieran retratarlo como un hombre frío y de negocios, pero el nivel de chantaje al que llegó fue demasiado, literalmente la amenazó con dejarla en la calle si no se casaba con él porque "él ya había esperado demasiado tiempo por ella". Dios, y entiendo la época en la que creció la autora, sin embargo no es excusa para el nivel de machismo que hay presente, ella tiene que PEDIR PERMISO para salir, para trabajar, o para hacer cualquier cosa que como adulto pueda hacer, las peleas fueron absurdas porque siempre él estaba en modo burlón, incluso cuando era algo serio que ella quería expresar.
Ni voy a concluir esto, ya me arreché de nuevo
Ni voy a concluir esto, ya me arreché de nuevo
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 3, 2022
Pretty boring. The heroine was kinda sour, she never warms up or falls in love. And the hero is all manipulative and seems like a butthead. Skip.
July 19, 2014
i've read so many HPs dat i've become jaded. i was awfully bored wid this one, too much introspection, too many details about sachi's appearance or mundane chores. as for dominic,i did not feel him involved. the story lacked intensity, lacked angst. they were childhood friends and there's not reason for this animosity bet them. it's said sachi caught him kissing her sister but how this altered things or what happened after dat was never narrated. this is a poor storyline if i may so and definitely not mrs bianchin at her best!:P
March 21, 2013
Someone gave me this book, and I almost sent it to the thrift store without reading it, because there are very few Harlequin Presents books that I can read all the way through. This proved to be one of them. I just really liked boththe main characters, which surprised me because Dominic started as a real jerk. Quite an emotional book for only having 186 pages.
March 29, 2014
It wasn't all that great of a novel. I was just frustrated with the heroine. She really pissed me off, she had other options and was too, well for the lack of a better word, pussy, to take them.
April 8, 2016
Helen Bianchin's heroines can be so juvenile. This book made me bored to tears, so many "I hate yous". just so childish. not worth reading, really.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews