A Guilty Passion

by Laurey Bright

Ethan Ryland knew it was mad to invite his brother's widow to stay at his island home. But beautiful Celeste was alone and suddenly too fragile to be on her own--hardly the wanton seducer his brother had accused her of being. Instead, to Ethan's chagrin, she was still the quietly sensual woman who had once stirred his guilty passion.

He didn't want her resurrecting memories. He'd spent years denying the overpowering emotion she'd awakened in him--emotion that had exploded into shame at his brother's raging jealousy. But as Celeste became stronger, Ethan's desire mounted ... and his willpower weakened. Loving Celeste had shattered his world, yet he realized only her love could make him whole.

Genres: Harlequin

253 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1990

About the author

Laurey Bright is another pen name of Daphne Clair.

Daphne Clair de Jong decided to be a writer when she was eight years old and won her first literary prize for a school essay. Her first short story was published when she was sixteen and she's been writing and publishing ever since. Nowadays she earns her living from writing, something her well-meaning teachers and guidance counsellors warned her she would never achieve in New Zealand. Her short stories have appeared in many magazines and anthologies, and a collection of them was presented in Crossing the Bar, published by David Ling, where they garnered wide praise.

In 1976, Daphne's first full-length romantic novel was published by Mills & Boon as Return to Love. Since then she has produced a steady output of romance set in New Zealand, occasionally Australia or on imaginary Pacific islands. As Laurey Bright she also writes for Silhouette Books. Her romances often appear on American stores' romance best-seller lists and she has been a Rita contest finalist, as well as winning and being placed in several other romance writing contests. Her other writing includes non-fiction, poetry and long historical fiction, She also is an active defender of the ideology of Feminists for Life, and she has written articles about it.

Since then she has won other literary prizes both in her native New Zealand and other countries. These include the prestigious Katherine Mansfield Short Story Award, with Dying Light, a story about Alzheimer's Disease, which was filmed by Robyn Murphy Productions and shown at film festivals in several countries. (Starring Sara McLeod, Sam's wife in Lord of the Rings).

Daphne is often asked to tutor courses in creative writing, and with Robyn Donald she teachs romance writing weekend courses in her home in the "winterless north" of in New Zealand. Daphne lives with her Netherlands-born husband in a farmlet, grazing livestock, growing their own fruit and vegetables and making their large home available to other writers as a centre for writers' workshops and retreats. Their five children, one of them an orphan from Hong Kong, have left home but drift back at irregular intervals. She enjoys cooking special meals but her cake-making is limited to three never-fail recipes. Her children maintain they have no memory of her baking for them except on birthdays, when she would produce, on request, cakes shaped into trains, clowns, fairytale houses and, once, even a windmill, in deference to their Dutch heritage from their father.

Daphne frequently makes and breaks resolutions to indulge in some hearty outdoor activity, and loves to sniff strong black coffee but never drinks it. After a day at her desk she will happily watch re-runs of favourite TV shows. Usually she goes to bed early with a book which may be anything from a paperback romance or suspense novel to history, sociology or literary theory.

Reviews

[StMargarets · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm dubbing this a "psychological romance" - a story that is heavy with the psychology of both characters and a little lean in the romance department. The main conflict of the story is the software developer hero's misguided views of the widowed heroine. The hero's views are misguided because of the jealous rantings his stepbrother, the heroine's now-dead professor husband, had sent him in letters over the years.

The heroine has problems of her own. She is very depressed - not just from the grief of her husband's sudden death (and apparent suicide) but from the psychological warfare her dear hubby had been subjecting her to for 8 years. She had been a vivacious 19 year-old student when she married her "heroic" professor husband. He was considered heroic because he carried on with his duties at the university after his legs were severely injured in an accident while on an anthropology expedition.

The story opens at the funeral of the husband. The heroine is withdrawn and catatonic. The hero whisks her away to an island off of the Australian coast and wages a bit of psychological warfare of his own. The heroine doesn't realize what he is doing until she finds a letter - much, much later in the story.

While a depressed heroine and an obsessed hero doesn't sound like a compelling read - it was because of the slow unraveling of what really happened to the heroine during her marriage, what kind of history she had with the hero, and what the dead hubby was really up to with his university work that really kept my attention. These three characters were mysteries to be solved - that had to be solved - before the romance could blossom in the last few chapters of the story.

[Preeti ♥︎ Her Bookshelves · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the second book with triangle-with-brothers I’ve read by Laurey Bright this week. If Marrying Marcus is nice and predictable then this one goes into psych mode with a clinically depressed h.

Sorry to compare but can’t resist.*Spoilers*
*In the other book the H is the older brother who has always been in love with the (neighbors since childhood) h while she puppy worships the younger brother and patiently waits for his return from the US where he’s gone to study.
*Here the h/H meet after she marries the much older brother…and it’s instant connection/rapport that later turns into an attraction, which they both try their best to snuff out. After an almost sexual conflagration they don’t meet again for years – intentionally.

*In the other (easy) story, the om returns with a fiancée and breaks the h’s heart and the H happily picks up the pieces and pushes his own agenda and corners her into marrying him>>hea.
*Here the husband/brother dies and the H is full of anger and hostility as the husband has painted his wife as a flighty, unsupportive wife who flirts with other men. All lies and workings of a sick twisted mind but the H now wants to make her confess to her said sins and then make her pay.
The h is understandably confused and hurt as she cannot understand why he's being so mean to her.
The h’s in a fragile state of mind – not just because of her widowhood but also because of a delayed reaction to the subtle abuse she’d suffered over years. The husband has been physically disabled in an accident and so had transferred his insecurities into belittling his wife. The H takes her to his island retreat (or some such place) – the idea is to let heal and then attack!

The h comes across as apathetic and depressed and the H’s insinuations add to the angst. There’s a doctor on the island who acts as an informal medical/psychiatric support. I think that the author put him there just so the H would be let off from getting her actual medial help - and so stay on the island. She needed psychiatric evaluation and help, but is given sun, sand and intermittent unkind and hurtful comments instead.
And yes, time as well. In a way, it's good that the story pans out over almost a year (the island time and later) because otherwise it would have been a greater farce.

[Saly · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had problems galore with the book and I really don't know how to rate it, for most of the book the hero makes offensive comments pertaining to the heroine's character and she doesn't seem to respond at all and instead goes on as if everything is normal, living in his house though sometimes she makes a token protest of leaving.

Oh, she is his sister-in-law who was married to his much older brother, her marriage basically sucked the life out of her, her husband once a very able man, had become injured when he met her, she was 20 and a college student and she fell for his charm and married him quitting studies and then trying to please him, she felt like a trophy sometimes he tried to show off and then later on he became jealous and she started dressing down and before she knew it, she had no friends her age and when he died, she kind of went about life in a stupor and for most of the book only that happens and I kept wondering am I supposed to be in a fog like her?

She gets better, worse and then better and somehow she finally leaves and creates a life for herself when Ethan comes to her months later. Honestly, I didn't see the romance and didn't understand why after going through a bad marriage she agreed to marry him. He had been so disparaging about her and suddenly she is all okay?I liked the writing but somehow the book left a lot to be desired.

[Lyuda · Rating 3 out of 5]

The writing was very good and the story grabbed my attention but something in the book was off. It was less of a romance book but more of a story of a woman overcoming depression, self-imposed guilt and doubts after death of her much older husband. The hero, her husband’s step brother, was off putting. I didn’t feel any sparks or chemistry between H/h.

[DamsonDreamer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hadn't (somehow) realized, when I began this, that it was 258 pp instead of the usual 187 and frankly I think it would have benefited from the compression. This ticked so many of my boxes: 2 brothers, her late husband was her university professor and was 17 yrs older, lovely antipodean settings... Alas, it had some longeurs. In part, that does represent the tedium of complicated grief Celeste was going through following her (disabled) husband's "accidental" death (suicide). So many cups of coffee, uneaten meals, fainting spells. But it really dragged in places and the romance between her and her late husband's step brother didn't get properly going for too long. There was a lot of psychology needed for all the relationships in this triangle: revenge, guilt, control, manipulation... you name it. It was certainly readable but just lacked something, given the explosive ingredients. I rate it most highly for the Hs island home in which she convalesces. A simple, elevated house in a secluded setting with a glass wall/ balcony overlooking the sea and a private path to the beach where nude bathing is the norm. Add in a charming OM writer and a doctor/artist couple as near neighbours (complete with giving the h art lessons) and frankly, take me there right now. My idea of bliss.

[Neri]

Another good one from Laurey Bright a.k.a. Daphne Clair. She's aces when it comes to the psychology of romance -- her character's psyche and motivations are always explored in depth. Even when they're behaving poorly, you understand fully why even if it's annoying. It makes HEA way more believable when the characters have actually taken time to understand the aspects of their personalities that may cause them to implode and destroy their relationship.

Only complaint is like everyone else -- Clair stories are very slice of life and introspective. Romance is lean, but it's good when you get it and the tension is delicious. I think I just really like romance cut into day-to-day life in general though so it didn't bother me. I enjoy seeing relationships beyond the sex and declarations. How two people live and interact silently around each other is just as interesting.

[Sara · Rating 1 out of 5]

I thought that this would be one of those books where the h had been abused by her husband (and I was hoping for a virgin widow)
But the husband was just insecure about the h being fateful because of his own mummy issues. He didn't actually say bad things about the h to the H, just that he felt like he held her back from being young and having fun. And the H interpreted that as her being a man eater, apparently?
The h and her husband had a good sex life but the h could feel the husbands insecurities and began to change to make him feel better. And I guess that was why she got depressed? I'm not really sure.
As another reviewer said, this book was a little light on the romance. The psychological angle was good. But then I like it when the H tries to get inside the h's head!
The H wasn't accually mean to the h, on the contrary he tries to help her.
This book wasn't bad I was just expecting something else, so I gave it one disappointed star