Virgin Princess, Tycoon's Temptation

Royal Seductions #7

by Michelle Celmer

Being the wealthiest landowner on Thomas Isle was still not enough for Garrett Sutherland. He'd spent his life creating his vast fortune…and his sensational notoriety. But he wanted his biggest claim to fame to be the seduction of Princess Louisa—the infamous virgin princess.

The tycoon had carefully planned his agenda. He'd insinuate himself into Louisa's heart…and then her bed. And when the news broke, he'd dutifully propose. Yet this close-hearted millionaire had not realized luring Louisa into an opportunistic marriage could cost him more than even he might be willing to pay.

Genres: Romance, Harlequin, Harlequin Desire, Contemporary Romance, Royalty, Fiction

192 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

Michelle Celmer was born in Detroit, Michigan, USA, where she grew up. She wanted to be cosmetologist, but after three months at cosmetology school, she decided to left it. She married at 19, and within five years had three kids. She read voraciously, and decided writing. She signed up for a composition course at her local community college. After various manuscripts, her mother gave her "Tell Me Lies" by Jennifer Crusie, and she discovered the romance novels. She decided writing her own romance novel and on 2004, her firts book was published.

Michelle continued linving in southeastern Michigan with her husband, their three children, two dogs and two cats. When she's not writing or busy being a mom, you can find her in the garden or curled up with a romance novel. And if you twist her arm real hard you can usually persuade her into a day of power shopping.

She loves to hear from readers. Write her at P.O Box 300, Clawson, MI 48017.

Reviews

[Dee]

Another solid read by Michelle Celmer.

I am not sure if I like Garrett or not and was still unsure even at the end of the book. Louisa is a very happy, outgoing and open person but considered to be a bit naive and Garrett played upon that. Even at the end I was not convinced of his motives or his love which kind of spoiled it a bit for me.

[Megan]

A fun dynamic between the hero and the heroine: he thinks he's seducing her while she, despite being labelled in the press as innocent and being known for her naivete, is in fact the one who consistently makes the first moves, sets the pace, grows and changes and gains maturity, and consistently asks for what she wants and isn't ashamed of her needs and desires. Within a week of their meeting, she tells him straight out she thinks about him and masturbates (okay, she's a princess and says she touches herself), not to mention that she's a frequent reader of Literotica (okay, she doesn't mention that site specifically, but I think it's implied) and has lots of ideas from it that she's interested in, and in a scene that amused me, she teases him about not knowing where her clitoris is (him: "I WAS TRYING TO TAKE MY TIME!"). So, their dynamic was enjoyable to read, and having enjoyed Michelle Celmer's characters and books before, I wasn't surprised, but this sort of dynamic isn't usually found in the Desire line!

The "plot" made this less enjoyable. He's seducing her to marry into the royal family and get power and land and whatever, but that motivation is more or less ignored for most of the book, basically to just be brought up again at the end of the book for some final conflict. And, this being a super short Desire, there wasn't much space for developing any nuances, which was unfortunate, because Louisa and her tone were a lot of fun to read.

So. I liked the book, and if a bold-but-sheltered heroine is your kind of thing and you can overlook a lesser-developed hero, I'd recommend giving it a try, but it doesn't quite rise above the category box it's stuck in.

[Selenita]

¡Qué libro más soso e insustancial! Todo sucede rapidísimo y con nulo desarrollo. No hay profundidad ni argumento real ni personalidades ni nada. Sólo un conjunto de tópicos que se suceden uno tras otro sin descanso. Parece que el libro fuera una apuesta sobre cuántos tópicos se podían introducir en las menos páginas posibles. Se conocen 10 minutos en un baile y ella ya está hablando de casarse y tener descendencia. Él en realidad la quería por conveniencia, pero eso tampoco recibe ningún tratamiento y en pocas páginas ya está enamorado. Salen un par de escenas de sexo genéricas sobre que ella pierda la virginidad (por supuesto, ella tenía que ser virgen; y, por supuesto, se lo pasa muy bien la primera vez porque él, un hombre 10 años mayor y experimentado, es un súper macho). Luego hay un desengaño cuando ella se entera de los planes iniciales de él, pero en la siguiente página se arregla todo porque él hace un gesto romántico desinteresado estándar para declarar su amor. Fin. El libro se lee en horas y estoy bastante segura de que en un par de horas también lo habré olvidado por completo.

Parece que es parte de una saga, por lo que no sabía que pasaba con el resto de personajes, pero tampoco me ha interesado como para leer el resto y averiguarlo.

[Casey]

In it's own way this book is one of the funniest books I've ever read, but is by no means great or even good fiction. I read this with my sister, aloud making funny voices, because really it was the only way I would've been able to read this book. Louisa has got to be the dumbest human alive, and not because she had about as much knowledge about sex as a newborn but because she idolized sex and had this idea that she was going to become some new human just because she finally f*#ked someone. Characters like that are what really gives YA and chick fiction a bad name.
Garrett isn't much better though, he's supposed to be this mysterious tycoon who is going to take Louisa for all shes worth (which isn't much mind you) but it turns out to be as threatening as Pee-Wee Herman. I don't think anybody is reading this book and thinking it's serious fiction, you'll be hugely disappointed if so. It's not even well written, kinda sad stuff like this gets published of work that's actually thought provoking. (I've read better on FF.net) but as I said starting off it had its moments of being 'so bad its good' but I can't say I'd actually recommend this book to anyone.

[Jesica]

CLASIFICATION: 2.0 ESTRELLAS

Bueno pues otra decepcion mas a la lista de este año.
Tenia esperanzas con esta historia pero a medida que avanzaba se fueron por eñ tubo porque lamentablemente a esta historia le falto desarrollo y un buen final.
En fin, como ya dije fue decepcionante.

[Andy Febrico Bintoro]

Another royal princess story from the middle east, fall in love with a mediterran tycoon. The story was fast forward, the up and down was fast, by the end of story always happy ending.

[Maura]

Garrett Sutherland has acquired as much as he can so far. But he wants more. He sets his site for a title, some royal land and power within the royal family. To do this, he has to seduce a princess - the youngest, most gullible member of the royal family, Princess Louisa. He'll seduce her, marry her, accomplish his goals and she'll never know it was just a lie - she'll be well taken care of anyway and he certainly won't mind his marriage duties. Louisa is tired of being sheltered by her family - she wants love, sex and responsibility. So when Garrett approaches her, she knows he's the one and lets herself be seduced. Pretty soon, Garrett's scheme backfires, as he comes to love Louisa, but can't stand the guilt of knowing what he'd planned to do to her.

A very solid read. Not my favorite, but not bad either. Louisa is certainly naive and gullible, but she's not shy and withdrawing. She's actually borderline socially awkward with how direct and brazenly curious about things she is. She comes across as really awkward at times - even Garrett remarks on it at times. He finds it refreshing, I didn't quite so much. It borders on TSTL with how trusting and innocent she is. I never really warmed much to Garrett, maybe because we don't get enough of his POV during his transformation. We definitely get a sense of his guilt toward the end, but most of his transformation amounts to moments of surprise when he realizes he really likes Louisa. So, I never really liked Garrett, just as I never really liked Louisa. But, I did really appreciat Garrett's remorse. At the moment that Louisa realizes what he's done, his feelings of regret and remorse and devastation for the pain he's caused her are palpable and exactly what I need to see in a hero if I'm to believe his apology later. And when Garrett realizes he's responsible for killing Louisa's innocent trust in people, Garrett FEELS it. And so did I. That was nicely done.

[The Half-blood Reader]

Princess Louisa is a somewhat naïve and gullible princess in search of the one and all those romantic and domestic ideals, like marrying a virgin and being a mother. When she meets Garrett Sutherland at a party, she is positive they are meant together. The wealthy landowner, on the other hand, has his own greedy plans to gain more power, which involve an opportunistic marriage with the princess. Little does he know, she's not quite exactly what he's expecting.

The story itself was entertaining enough, and the writing was fine, but it was too short. I didn't think their feelings were completely believable, it all went so fast, including Garrett's change of heart. The sex scenes weren't exhaustingly obnoxious and overboard in the vocabulary used, as many of these books are.

[Mary]

I would have to say that I loved this book from the very beginning right until the end! I found Garrett and Lousia's love triangle, very enchanting and captivating. This is the kinda book's I personally love to read, and will often buy them in bulk. Once you get started you don't want to stop reading!! Give it Five Stars!

[Tawnya]

Although somehow this book ended up being the last I read in the series, I loved it. Things did seem to wrap up a little too quick in the end, but Harlequin's are known to do that.

[Manua]

Uno dei libri più brutti che io abbia mai letto.

[Leslie]

I really liked this one! Call me the eternally optimistic but I knew Garrett thought he was there for revenge - when he truly wasn't!! Loved the butlers help in the story!