Harlequin romances would have you believe that Greece's population is 90% millionaires. Their GDP seems to be incredibly lavish wedding parties of their countrymen to enterprising jeunes filles. #TheMoreYouKnow
THE GREEK'S LONG-LOST SON is one of those titles where the summary of the book is in the title. Pretty self-explanatory, but let me explain anyway. Stella is the daughter of a powerful businessman, and a rich heiress. None of her family, with the exception of her kindly brother Stasio, approve of her relationship with the son of struggling restaurant owners, Theo. When she finds out that she's pregnant, he seems happy, and they plan to elope, only for Stella to find out that Theo absconded when offered the princely sum of $100,000.
Flashforward to the future where Stella is now a strong independent single woman living off the charity of Stasio, with her young son, Ari. She's happy but tortured over the way things used to be, when she conveniently gets a phone call from Theo summed up basically as, "Bitch, I'm rich now and I'm still sexy AF. I want to see my son." The meeting goes... surprisingly well, and Theo seems to like his son, but Stella, of course, manages to ruin it because she blames him for the past without talking to him about the Big Misunderstanding and of course the hero doesn't want her to realize she lives in a family of garbage monsters, so he suffers silently and says nothing while taking a big one for Team Trash. No flaws in that plan.
The book ends with a final showdown between Theo and Nicolas, the not-so-nice brother, where the truth finally outs and Stella learns the importance of asking questions instead of swallowing down your family's lies with the eagerness of a Trump supporter watching FOX News rail on about the so-called "Deep State" (ooooops, did I say that aloud? My bad). There's a happy ending. It was actually... happy. I didn't hate Theo. I was a little suspicious of him, and my d-bag alarms were on full alert, but nothing tripped my sensors. He was actually a nice guy. He didn't even clock Nicolas, which I would have accepted (despite my dislike of violence as the answer) because Nicolas totally deserved it - and actually, that was the one sour chord in this book. At the end, Stella has her fairytale ending and finds out her love has been redeemed, but she's like, "What about Nicolas? I wish he was here." Bitch, is your name Apple Jacks? I mean, are you freaking cereal? Did you not SEE what he did? I mean, really, at some point you have to decide when to write someone off. That was lame.
Thanks to Netgalley/the publisher for the review copy!
Harlequin romances would have you believe that Greece's population is 90% millionaires. Their GDP seems to be incredibly lavish wedding parties of their countrymen to enterprising jeunes filles. #TheMoreYouKnow
THE GREEK'S LONG-LOST SON is one of those titles where the summary of the book is in the title. Pretty self-explanatory, but let me explain anyway. Stella is the daughter of a powerful businessman, and a rich heiress. None of her family, with the exception of her kindly brother Stasio, approve of her relationship with the son of struggling restaurant owners, Theo. When she finds out that she's pregnant, he seems happy, and they plan to elope, only for Stella to find out that Theo absconded when offered the princely sum of $100,000.
Flashforward to the future where Stella is now a strong independent single woman living off the charity of Stasio, with her young son, Ari. She's happy but tortured over the way things used to be, when she conveniently gets a phone call from Theo summed up basically as, "Bitch, I'm rich now and I'm still sexy AF. I want to see my son." The meeting goes... surprisingly well, and Theo seems to like his son, but Stella, of course, manages to ruin it because she blames him for the past without talking to him about the Big Misunderstanding and of course the hero doesn't want her to realize she lives in a family of garbage monsters, so he suffers silently and says nothing while taking a big one for Team Trash. No flaws in that plan.
The book ends with a final showdown between Theo and Nicolas, the not-so-nice brother, where the truth finally outs and Stella learns the importance of asking questions instead of swallowing down your family's lies with the eagerness of a Trump supporter watching FOX News rail on about the so-called "Deep State" (ooooops, did I say that aloud? My bad). There's a happy ending. It was actually... happy. I didn't hate Theo. I was a little suspicious of him, and my d-bag alarms were on full alert, but nothing tripped my sensors. He was actually a nice guy. He didn't even clock Nicolas, which I would have accepted (despite my dislike of violence as the answer) because Nicolas totally deserved it - and actually, that was the one sour chord in this book. At the end, Stella has her fairytale ending and finds out her love has been redeemed, but she's like, "What about Nicolas? I wish he was here." Bitch, is your name Apple Jacks? I mean, are you freaking cereal? Did you not SEE what he did? I mean, really, at some point you have to decide when to write someone off. That was lame.
Thanks to Netgalley/the publisher for the review copy!
I was such a liar to myself last weekend. I was like, "I'm going to read SO MANY BOOKS," and then I basically read nothing and spent the whole time proofreading my WIP and drinking wine and obsessing over the imaginary people I'd already decided would hate it. Because this is what it is like being a writer with anxiety.
Anyway, I finished this book earlier this week but I've been so busy I forgot to review it which literally like NEVER happens, so you know that the world is basically ending if I don't review something ASAP (and if you read the news, which I don't suggest you do, you'll know it basically is), but at least I fucking published that book and now I feel like I can breathe again, and what am I going to do in all my "copious" free time... but write reviews of other people's works? I know right. The struggle. It never ends.
So THE MARAKAIOS MARRIAGE is an adaption of a Harlequin novel by the same name, with art and storyboarding by Marito Ai. Ai is one of my favorite mangaka and prior to this, everything I've read from her has been 4- or 5-star worthy. I don't know how these books get assigned, if the manga artists get to pick what they work on or what, but everything she's worked on has been just the right blend of angsty and romantic and I SWOON.
I've already forgotten the names of the people in this book, but CEO and Normal Woman were married and are now separated pending divorce. CEO's mother has terminal cancer and doesn't know they're separating and it's her name day so he wants Normal Woman to come to Greece with him to celebrate and perpetuate the ruse that they're still together because it's very important to lie to people with cancer who have made peace with the world because-- you know-- cancer.
So NW and CEO go to Greece and she immediately has a panic attack at dinner. And then CEO finds out that he's kind of been a douche and NW fell in love with him but not his lifestyle and he's always been too busy to listen to her every time she tried to talk about how he was making her uncomfortable. Obviously, he feels really bad about this like a normal human being would and is like wow, I was a jerk. I love you. So I will step down and no longer be CEO. Now I shall be Ordinary Man and we shall live our humble life together while you support us with your professorship. THE END.
I honestly felt like this was a bit anticlimactic. Loved the fact that the heroine was in STEM and that the book was so casual with the anxiety/panic attack rep. It wasn't really milked for drama either and I thought it was a refreshing change that the miscommunication wasn't a big misunderstanding so much as just them not really talking things out until it was too late. That felt more realistic than a lot of the manufactured hammy drama that normally comes my way in these books. But the story and the characters just felt so blah to me. Especially considering the other works I've read from this author.
So I give it a three. It was entertaining but not memorable.
I think I gave this book more than a fair shot even though, as a rule, I really don't like sheikh romances. But I do love Harlequin romance manga, and I'm wickedly behind on my reading challenge, so maybe I was in the mood to be surprised. Was I surprised? No, unless you count being more annoyed than I thought I would be with this book.
So first off, sheikh romances tend to do this thing where the authors will make up a "fake" Middle Eastern country and then, you know, make it a cultural mishmash of several other countries. I had high hopes at first because the hero had an Iranian last name instead of something made up, so I was like, oh cool, is this actually set somewhere real? NOPE. This fake country is named "Quishari" which kind of made me feel like the author came up with the story idea over brunch one day and was looking at her quiche and was like, BINGO. I guess we're just lucky that she didn't call it something like "Mimosastan" or something even more stupid. If you're going to set your book in some far-off location, just do the research into the culture. Seriously, it'll be so much better, and so much more respectful to the people who actually live there. I read this bad romance set in India (by a white lady), but it was in a real place and the author actually did some research into the scenery and setting, and even though it was totally yikes-on-bikes levels of problematic, that did factor into my rating. Trappings of Orientalism aside.
The story itself was super meh. The heroine is a glassblower who lives in the house of this rich lady (wife of a sheikh I guess) who basically gives her board in exchange for free art. This, my friends, is what is known as being paid in exposure, but hey, whatever floats your boat. Anyway, the heroine likes to walk by the ocean late at night by herself to cool off from working with all that fire, but one night she sees something even hotter: a naked man skinnydipping in the sea. So obviously she stays and watches.
IT TURNS OUT THIS MAN IS THE SHEIKH.
I bet you totally weren't expecting that. :yawn:
I got bored with this story because one, I was getting annoyed with the generic Middle East setting; two, nothing interesting was happening; and three, the sheikh is arguably conventionally attractive (I mean, it's a manga so it's hard to tell, but YOU KNOW), except for this scar on his face, and he's just SO SHOCKED that the heroine isn't turned off by this scar because literally every other woman he meets is either like EW GROSS or LOL I'LL PUT UP WITH IT FOR THOSE DOLLAR BILLS. Which I find hard to believe, ma'am. Jason Momoa also has a facial scar, and I don't see ladies being all, EW JASON MOMOA?! BUT HE HAS THAT GROSS SCAR THO.
I think we can all agree that MILLION-DOLLAR AMNESIA SCANDAL might be the cheesiest, best title there is. I went into this book expecting something truly ridiculous, eye-rolling monocle at the ready, so you can imagine my surprise when this book railroaded my emotions with a surprisingly sweet and emotional story that had no douchebaggery, no OM/OW drama, and no psychopathy. WHAT.
Marito Ai is one of my favorite mangaka and all of her adaptions have been absolutely amazing. I don't know if Harlequin lets the artists choose which stories they want to work on, but all the ones Ai does have been unfailingly good and this one is no exception.
The story is this: April is a talented jazz singer with amnesia. In the car accident that gave her the head trauma, she was riding with the son of a billionaire hotelier who had just taken over her record label in exchange for ownership of the Lighthouse Hotel, a luxury seaside hotel with a big old lighthouse. Obviously, her mother/ex-manager and the brother of the hotel guy are angry and both of them want her to sign a document voiding the deal, but April refuses to sign anything until she gets her memories back because she wants to know why she made the deal.
The brother, whose name is Seth, isn't actually a bad guy, and so when he starts to feel attracted to April, there is not one iota of creepiness. In fact, he takes her out on a boat and they have sex together for the first time under the stars, and the way it is drawn and written is so beautiful that I actually had an ~emotional moment~. Seth's biggest problem is that he's an illegitimate son so he has all these emotional hangups when it comes to love because he saw firsthand how it fucked his mother and younger brother over, but it hasn't turned him into a douchelord. He's just emotionally cagey.
A lot of the time when I read these things, people behave in ways like if an alien was told about what people do when they're upset and was like beep bloop blorp, I shall do the human thing. And then wrote that. Which usually leads to me swearing at my Kindle and/or laughing hysterically and asking myself rhetorically (and sometimes you guys, also rhetorically), "WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON." This is one of the few contemporary HQN romances I've read where I actually understood or agreed with all of the characters' decisions and liked all of the characters, including the secondary cast.
If you like sweet romances with just the right amount of angst and drama, this is your jam, baby.
Look, I'm not all that difficult to please, okay? Give me an angst-ridden storyline with some Gothic elements and some really good character arcs, and I'll be a happy girl. It's as simple as that. And a book with a title like SECRETS OF CASTILLO DEL ARCO sure seemed promising. First, it's got "castle" in the title, which is only a step away from one of those lurid Gothic pulps that had some maiden fleeing from a crumbly cliffside manor. Second, it's about secrets and I love nosing around those puppies. GIMME.
In case you're familiar to the concept of Harlequin manga, they are literally Harlequin books in manga form. Which is AMAZING. Obviously, the books can only be as good as the source material and sometimes the art can suck, but sometimes you get a good story and an amazing artist and then it's like the perfect marriage of trashy goodness. And that's basically what this was for me.
This book is about Gabriella and Raoul. Gabriella is this shy and sheltered rich girl who's been living under the care of her grandfather and he wants her childhood friend Raoul to take care of her after his death to make sure she's not taken advantage of by predatory rich men. Raoul is this aloof rich guy who isn't mean or douchey, but he does kind of project "I might be dangerous" vibes. Also his wife died under mysterious circumstances and he has weird locked rooms in his castle. Red flag? More like blue flag-- for a Bluebeard. Amirite? Of course, that isn't going to stop Gabriella for falling for him. Because abs.
Like I said, I liked this a lot more than I thought I would. The art is great. The story is great. I liked the Venice setting and how it has all these Gothic and fairytale bits woven in. The heroine was sweet but not TSTL (even though she's clumsier than Bella Swan-- how do you fall out of a WINDOW?) and I thought Raoul was the perfect blend of sweet and dangerous. I don't always feel like chasing down the novel editions of these books, but for this one, I actually might.
Omg this was not good. So, this is about Niccolo and Kiley who come from rival families and Kiley is claiming ownership to some priceless heirloom that Niccolo has... or something. Anyway, the meeting does not go well, and as Kiley storms off, she gets hit by a vehicle. Niccolo decides to lie to the paramedic and claim he's her husband because, you know. That makes sense.
Anyway, Kiley has amnesia and Niccolo takes her home. ALSO, and this is the best part, Niccolo's last name is Dante and his family has something called the "inferno," where you feel the scorch of flames when you meet your soulmate. LMAO WHAT. That's not how that works. But what even is biology? This is a romance novel, BITCH.
I'm sure other stuff happens but I had already decided that this book was so stupid that I wouldn't be continuing.
Meagan McKinney is one of my FAVORITE romance authors, so obviously when I found out that one of her Harlequin romances had been adapted into a manga, I was all over that like white on rice. The M.D. COURTS HIS NURSE is about a Rebecca who hates her new boss, Dr. Saville. Why? Because he makes her wear a work uniform and demands professionalism in the office. So far, I don't really see a problem, but apparently her last boss let her wear pretty dresses and gossip as much as she wanted, so fuck the new guy, ammirite?
Anyway, this book is pretty dumb. Not just because the hero really isn't in the wrong here, but also because the way that they end up falling for each other is super problematic. Rebecca has this older friend named Hazel who is sort of a parental figure for her since I believe her actual parents are dead. Anyway, Hazel sets Rebecca up with this would-be rapist and then makes a fake emergency call to the restaurant that they're eating at so Saville can come and rescue her. UM. What if he didn't? And what if Mr. Date Rapist already dragged Rebecca off and Saville was too late? I never really got over that, tbh. It was the ultimate fail of meet-cutes and Hazel can go fuck herself. I mean, really.
So the blackmailed mistress trope is one of my FAVORITE tropes (which you could probably guess if you read my own books, because it's a trope that features heavily in my works), so obviously when I found out that that was the premise of PICTURE OF INNOCENCE, I *may* have screamed, especially when I found out that it had two of my other favorite tropes: cruel heroes and REVENGE.
PICTURE OF INNOCENCE is a manga adaptation of a Harlequin novel by the same name that was published by Jacqueline Baird. Lucy is now in charge of a plastics company that was owned by her late brother and is in danger of going bankrupt. To save it, she goes to the bank owned by a hot Italian dude, to take out a loan. Why this bank, IDK, because hot Italian man's younger brother, Antonio, died on a mountain climbing expedition with Lucy's brother, Damian. And the fact that Lorenzo already yelled at Damian and goaded him to what was essentially suicide doesn't matter. Lorenzo is still mad AF and he's decided his next order of revenge will be on Lucy.
Yeah, it might be time to switch banks.
Lorenzo buys up all the shares of her company and essentially blackmails her into pretending to be his girlfriend and being his actual mistress. The reason is stupid. Someone photographed them at a party and his mom got all excited and since his mom has a weak heart, blah, blah, blah, she might get upset if she finds out what a gigantic dick he is, so she has to come to Italy with him to meet his mother. Man, this is so stupid, but I don't even care, GIVE ME MORE. So they go to Italy and there is sex and Lucy is way more into it than she should be, but oh no, there is angst because she's NOT LIKE THOSE WOMEN, and now there is crying. And Lorenzo starts to realize what a dick he is. But not really. And then he does realize-- FINALLY-- because Lucy is a saint, dammit! A SAINT.
And they all live happily ever after.
What.
Moral of the story: all you have to do to make a douchebag love you is donate a kidney. Pass.
SSShafiq really hit it on the head with her review. No chemistry between the h and the H, seriously questionable portrayals of the Native people on the island, and-- my feelings, personally-- the white-washing of the hero, as he is Brazilian and yet has blue eyes and speaks English. Not that there is anything wrong with that (the blue eyes and the English-speaking, that is), but it felt-- to me-- that there was an attempt to distance him from the other people of color in the book to make him a better love interest.
Part of that, though, is that this book is a product of its times. It's based off a really old Mills and Boons romance that was published under the same name back in the 1960s. And if you think the hero was white-washed in this edition, check out the original cover.
So while it may be a product of its times, you don't have to buy the product.
Have you ever read something trashy that you knew in your heart of hearts that you should not like but you ended up liking it anyway? If you answered no, you're either a liar or no fun because EVERYONE does that. I saw that Harry Potter book on your shelf. You can't fool me. The difference between you and me is that I (intellectual, erudite) not only announce to the world "I'M READING SOMETHING PROBLEMATIC, Y'ALL", I also talk about why you maybe shouldn't read it. Even though some of you also totally will. And that's fine, maybe.
Anyway, this book is problematic as fuck, in case you couldn't tell from the rapey looking man of color holding the scimitar to the white lady's throat on this romance cover. I wanted to cringe and write an apology letter to someone just for looking at that art. It felt like my eyeballs were committing a hate crime. WHO APPROVED THAT IMAGERY, BTW? It literally never happens in the book and I almost feel like someone is trolling.
Anyway, this book is set in India. Which, points for not making up a fake country that we all know is India and then pretending that cultural appropriation isn't a thing. I've read way too many sheikh romances that treat the Middle East like window dressing and it's gross. This book is actually set in Rajapur and it talks a little about the local markets, the textiles, the booming IT and tech industry, and how colonialism caused many prestigious to fall to ruin after the economic collapse. Which, wow. I actually thought that was nice. Especially since this is based off a Penny Jordan book and Jordan is one of those old skool Harlequin Presents novelists that aren't exactly known for being PC.
Major PC points off, though, for making the Indian lead a dick. He spends most of the book talking about how women only want him for money and calling the heroine a prostitute. I guess his family are descended from the maharaja of the area before the nobility kind of ceased to be a thing and they went into business instead. But whoops, it turns out the heroine is actually the interior designer he hired on to decorate his mansion and he's humiliated for like half a second before he's like HEY BE MY MISTRESS WHILE YOU'RE WORKING FOR ME. And the heroine is like okay. Because, you know, confidence. But then he finds out she's a virgin and he thinks she's the Honeypot Avenger and he is PISSED because obviously she's just trying to venus flytrap a wedding ring onto his finger by using her vagina.
There's a sob story about how the heroine's mom was a prostitute who got into booze and drugs and died of disease and this would be touching if she didn't call her mother a "dirty woman" and refer to herself as a "dirty woman" while she's with Jay. Also-- AND I KNOW THIS WILL SHOCK YOU-- Jay has mommy issues too because his mom was a mistress to his father, who was also a douche, and it was his older brother Rao who took him in off the streets and raised him like the dad he basically never had. (We stan Rao, btw. He is the rare Nice Brother who doesn't do anything dickish like trying to rape the heroine (see one of the last Harlequin manga I've read) and he dresses up as Santa to his dickbag brother's costume party. WE STAN RAO.)
This is the struggle with reading bodice-rippers and Harlequin Presents books. Sometimes you read a book and your feminism is like NO NO NO and your inner trash can is like BUT ALSO YES. FOUR STARS BECAUSE THEY FELL IN LOVE. And then you slam down the lid so you can't hear your feminist self saying, "Internalized misogyny, what?" because you save that shit for Twitter when you decide to engage in online arguments with assholes who want to shut down abortion clinics.*
* No, I'm not projecting.**
** JK, I totally am
Also, NOT THAT THIS HAD ANY BEARING ON MY RATING***, but this is one of the most graphic HQN manga I've read in terms of sex scenes. It really went for that spice jar with both hands.
SWEET COMPULSION is a manga adaptation of a work by Charlotte Lamb of the same name. The mangaka is Earithen, an artist whose works I actually did not really care much for in the past, but whose style has seriously evolved for the better. She's toned down the puffiness of the lips when she draws the characters and her male and female characters look more similar (as in, drawn in the same style) and I really like these changes.
The story? Cute as fuck. Marcy is land rich and money poor. She owns a crumbling mansion in the middle of town that she's turned into a community playground for low-income kids to pay. This rich development company has been trying to bully her into selling, taking advantage of the fact that she's young and female, but so far she has stood her ground. (This part of the story kind of reminds me of Up.) So the CEO-- the hot and suave young Randal-- has decided to persuade her, ahem, personally.
I loved the heroine of this book. She was the perfect blend of headstrong and sweet and I liked how she didn't lose herself over the hero and never forgot her goals, even when she was falling for him. She didn't let people push her around, which was quite refreshing after some of the retro and sexist pulps I've been reading lately.
Is there a lot of substance to this? No. But it's incredibly cute and it made me smile.
This is an adaptation of a Sara Craven romance novel by the same name. Craven was one of the big names in the Harlequin Presents books, and I'm delighted that so many of her books are being rereleased in this new, easily accessible format.
SEDUCTION NEVER LIES is a pretty cute rock star romance. Tavy (Olivia) is the daughter of a vicar in a small English village that is struggling to stay afloat. She's a virgin, too, and is dating this dude named Patrick who's already talking about marriage even though they never slept together. Before you can say "conflict of interest," she's also working for his mom, who runs the village school.
One day, Tavy is doing some nude bathing in a river (as one does), and finds out that a hot guy is watching her. It turns out, he's just bought the property and is a retired musician named Jago. This plot twist kind of reminded me of that old 80s YA romance, EASY CONNECTIONS, except, you know, no rape. Yay.
Anyway, drama happens. Tavy is attracted to Jago but wants to stay true to Patrick. Patrick, on the other hand, has no such qualms and is seeing Tavy's childhood friend-turned-frenemy Fiona, on the side. To make matters worse, it turns out that he was just pretending to be dating her because Fiona is going through a divorce and wants that extra coverage lest her husband's lawyers find out about her affair and it impact her settlement. To make matters worse-worse, Fiona has her eyes on Jago, too!
OMG, So. Much. Drama.
Except for the slight fetishization of the heroine's virginity, this is a pretty great romance. I normally really hate rock star romances with a passion but I thought it was touching how Jago was an artist at heart and how he left his music career after some soul-searching because the sex, drugs, n' rock n' roll lifestyle weren't giving him what he needed out of life. He was just a really swell guy, which is a rarity in old skool Harlequin romances like these, so I was touched.
Tavy is a bit too passive and woe-is-me for my liking, but she wasn't awful or TSTL either, which is a low bar, I know, but this is what desperation has driven me to and beggars can't be choosers. If you're into the whole Harlequin manga thing, you'll enjoy SEDUCTION NEVER LIES.
Have you ever read a book all the way through and blanked on what happened? That was me with this book. Olivia goes to London to meet up with her lover, only to find another dude living there in his stead. Has she just been catfished? Or is it something worse?
I liked Decan-- the hot guy she meets in Jeremy's stead-- and I thought the drawing style was gorgeous, but the story is just so bland. Olivia has zero personality and I didn't really feel invested in what happened to her or her happiness at all.
Sara Craven is a big name in some of those Harlequin Presents books, so I was really excited to pick this one up. But this one just wasn't it. I've liked some of the other manga adaptations of her works that I've read, but I would pass on reading the actual novel version of this story. Meh.
THE DARK DUKE is a manga adaptation of a Harlequin historical romance by Margaret Moore. I haven't read many manga adaptations of books by authors I've actually read in paperback, so this was a treat. I really like Moore's books. They're typically pretty light and fluffy, but there's usually enough tension and drama to keep them from being boring (always a risk for me with the fluffy ones).
The heroine of this book is a "plain" woman named Hester who is the companion to a spoiled Marquise who likes to play cards and boss people around. One day, the two sons-- her stepson, Adrian, and her biological son, Elliott-- return to the property. Adrian is known as the Dark Duke: a ruthless playboy and a wastrel. Elliott, on the other hand, is gregarious and charming. He seems like the obvious choice but for some reason, Hester is drawn to Adrian.
I actually really liked the hero in this book. He's a little tortured and there's a bit of a Mr. Darcy thing going on with how his attraction and awkwardness make him say and do all the wrong things. There's a scene when he confesses why he is the way he is that was so heartwrenching. I honestly felt so bad for him. And the grovel/confession at the end! LOVE.
I'm giving this a three because it took a while to get off the ground and there's an attempted rape that's basically just glossed over with no real consequences (not by the hero). I also found it annoying that the so-called "plain" heroine was drawn to look classically beautiful. Whether it's "pretty-washing" the characters or playing into the "she's beautiful because she doesn't know it" trope, it's kind of gross.
This manga is an adaptation of a Miranda Lee romance. It's one of three I've read today and I've already figured out that Lee was an author who liked to play with tropes. Sometimes it works out, like I read a cute Harvest Moon vibes one that took place on a farm. But then I read a really shit one about reproductive coercion (made romantic! Barf!), so by the time I got to FUGITIVE BRIDE, I was, shall we say... skeptical.
First, a warning: this review is going to contain spoilers because the twist is probably going to be triggering or annoying to some people. You have been warned.
Leah is on the run from her rich husband because she heard him talking to one of his underlings and he said he married her because he liked that she was a virgin because that meant that she was a tabula rasa for him to mold into his perfect wife. Being a sane person of rational mind, Leah nopes out of there and starts doing what she did before she met her husband, Gerard: working on boats.
One day, while on a boat headed to Indonesia, she sees a man who looks just like Gerard. But no, the man is Gareth, his twin. Gareth shows her a scar on his chest that Gerard didn't have and tells her a little bit more about their family. Gerard told her that his parents were dead, but apparently the mom is still alive. Their parents had a messy and abusive relationship where the dad kept accusing the mom of cheating and the dad ended up in a car accident after driving off in a rage at a failed attempt to confront her at her place of refuge.
At first, Leah is wary of Gareth but he seems like a totally different guy from Gerard. He's attentive to her emotions, he's not an arrogant asshole, and he seems to actually care about her as a person. He even saves her from a car when she's rage-walking into the street. All in all, Gareth seems like a bang-up guy and when she falls for him, Leah decides to return to Australia to confront her husband and demand a divorce...
BUT OH NO! GARETH IS ACTUALLY GERARD!
Surprise!
So apparently, Gerard had a car accident after being totally distraught over Leah's leaving and when his mother and her new husband came to his bedside, they hashed out the past and he realized that he was wrong to side with his father all these years, and that his mistreatment of his own wife stemmed from his fear of letting people in and being hurt. Leah is angry about being catfished (as one would), but Gerard's secretary takes it upon herself to force Leah to stay and hear him out WHICH I'M PRETTY SURE IS ABOVE HER PAY GRADE BUT OKAY.
Anyway, Leah is like NOPE BYE but Gerard hunts her down again-- on ANOTHER BOAT, and reproposes to her with a new ring and a bouquet of flowers. And... okay, it's an epic grovel. He doesn't blame her at all or try to excuse his actions. He apologizes for everything and tells her how in love with her he is and how his near-death experience changed his outlook and all that good stuff. SOOOO I decided that even though I hate catfishing, I was like... I'll allow this.
The last Miranda Lee adaptation I read was really cute, so even though this is about a "love-child," I thought to myself that maybe it wouldn't be so bad. NOPE. IT WAS WORSE.
So Miles and Maddie first meet at a party and she hits on him but he turns her down. Little does she know that it's because he was engaged to another woman but because he can't stop thinking about how hot she was, he's broken things off with his fiancee and run a secret background check on Maddie, finding out where she lives, what she does for a living, and that she's newly single. He uses one of their mutual acquaintances to trick her into furnishing a house for him under false pretenses, thinking to seduce her.
Maddie is no innocent, though. She's jealous of her friend's baby and decides she's going to have one of her own-- by tricking a man into having sex with her without protection so she can be a single mother. GROSS. Not only that, but in the beginning of this book, she keeps referring to Miles as her "sperm donor" which seriously made me want to vomit in the back of my mouth a bit. After their relationship becomes more serious, she kind of feels bad about tricking him but when she finds out he's moving back out to England, she's like "Fuck it-- BYE BYE BIRTH CONTROL."
I hate this trope in romance so, so much. It makes me so angry. I feel like it's a form of sexual assault, to be honest, tricking someone into impregnating you or being impregnated. I personally don't want children at all for reasons that are very personal that I don't want to get into, and that is MY choice. If I found out someone was trying to trick me into having children, I can't tell you what a violation that would feel like. And of course, when it works and Maddie ends up pregnant, Miles is just like YAY THAT'S GREAT NEWS. What the fuck, Miles?! This woman is a psycho. RUN.
Maddie apparently has a lot of issues with men because her mother slept with married dudes who only wanted her for her body and then dumped her when things got serious. Maddie's father was a politician who refused to acknowledge her. And okay, your mother's apparent fetish for emotionally unavailable men is actually tragic, but that is something that should be dealt with by a therapist and not raping a man who doesn't know about your conveyor belt full of emotional baggage.
I liked the art but after that fun little twist, there was no going back. That's so fucked up. I'm seething.
I'm not sure if I've ever read anything that was adapted by Natsu Momose before but I really like her art style, which is SO important for these manga adaptions because it can really make or break the story for me. THE RUTHLESS MAGNATE is about a girl named Abbey who ends up catching the eye of a Russian billionaire while filling in for a model at a fashion show for ~charity~.
Obviously he's super attracted to her and obviously she's so not interested, but he pursues despite her wedding ring, which turns out to be convenient because her husband is dead and also she's a virgin widow. A trope, I might add, I normally hate, but here it kind of works because her husband had... a secret.
I thought the story was decent and it was kind of exciting to see the couple from the previous book, THE GREEK TYCOON'S DISOBEDIENT BRIDE, make a comeback. I love little Easter eggs like that. The courtship was also great (not too rapey) and I liked that Nikolai turned out to be much kinder and more loving than the heroine initially thought he was.
I accidentally bought another omnibus edition of Sara Craven manga adaptions and this was the second book in the collection. The heroine is, like, the caretaker of the mansion where she grew up and ends up in hot water when the previous owner sells it and skives off, leaving behind a mountain of fees. The new owner is actually her childhood friend, of Brazilian ancestry, who she became estranged from during a malicious act of childhood cruelty. He holds the money over head to blackmail her, because of course he does. And then they live happily ever after, because whoops, it was all a big misunderstanding.
I'm not sure if I over-gorged myself on too much Sara Craven but this one felt utterly forgettable to me. The "whoops, it was all a big misunderstanding" plot had me rolling my eyes, and even though I thought the really old skool style shoujo manga art was charming (it looks like the 1970s/early 1980s manga art I've seen), it couldn't save the story, which I'd half-forgotten by the time I finished the book.
I thought I was only buying one Harlequin manga on sale, but the book I bought (RUTHLESS AWAKENING by Junko Okada) actually turned out to be a three book omnibus edition of manga adaptions from author Sara Craven. Which was super mega cool, because I had already bought the book on sale and I'm pretty sure there's an expression about not looking gift omnibuses (omnibi?) in the mouth... or pages... or whatever. Anyway.
MARRIAGE BY DECEPTION was the last story in the omnibus and that was kind of nice, because it meant ending on a high note, since this is the story that ended up being my fave. It kind of reminded me of How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days (2003), which I recently watched as part of my #LiveTweetThursday project. The hero is writing an article about dating women in personal ads (#dated reference) and his boss is his ex-girlfriend or a woman he turned down (I wasn't sure), who probably has at least one sexual harassment lawsuit pending because she is totes inapropes in the extreme. Anyway, he's writing an article about dating.
The heroine, Ros, is the sister to a flaky but beautiful cosmetics saleswoman who signed up for dating ads to teach her on again, off again guy a lesson. Ros ends up going on one of the dates, even though she has a boyfriend, because I guess she feels bad and doesn't want the guy to be left hanging and also cell phones and maybe not email have been invented yet. So she goes and has a great time and she ends up going on more dates and they end up sleeping together, but also it's okay because her current boyfriend is a momma's boy douche who is self-centered and privileged and also he's cheating on her with his physical therapist, so it turns out that everything is right and trashy in the karmic universe.
I know, whaaaaaaat.
Obviously, this does not represent the most functional or healthy relationship in the book (or at all), but I thought the story was fun and the mangaka, did such an amazing job adapting this work and making it appropriate for the manga format. She has a great art style that's unique and lovely, and I'm definitely going to seek out more of her stuff because I enjoyed it so much. It was also surprisingly risque in some of the sex scenes, too, which was interesting, since a lot of them are totally prudish about that lol.
Nenia ✨ I yeet my books back and forth ✨
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