Romance Books Reviews & Treats

Runaway wife is shocked to see her husband again after more than a year. She left him on their wedding day, after catching him going into his supposed mistress' house right after their wedding. Hero blackmails her into staying with him until she bears his child or else her neighbors will lose their residences. She reluctantly agrees & emotionally steels herself from being hurt again by him especially since his mistress still lives in the vicinity.

The GOOD...As problematic hero & heroine's behaviors were, Craven's writing especially the way she draw me into the story was good. I could feel & sympathized with why the main characters did what they did, even though I disagreed with their choices. Even hero's infidelity shortly after heroine left didn't turn me off very much, which points to Craven's wonderful writing skills. Sexual chemistry was tangible. Love scenes were ok.

The BAD...Although I understood heroine's reasons, I didn't like her prideful & cowardly way of dealing with problems. She kept her suspicions & problems to herself, runs away from him without leaving him a message & strings him along for a year by hiding from him in different towns like an escaped convict. A more mature & stronger heroine would've confronted him about his mistress or annulled the marriage. It also irked me that heroine wouldn't give hero the chance to talk things through or explain himself & slammed down his attempts for discussion with her rude & cold responses of "I don't care". She did regret her actions but she kept on making similar mistakes. Hero wasn't perfect either. It would've helped if her divulged his secrets to heroine before they married. But kudos on his part was that he wanted to discuss things with heroine when they saw each other again a year later but heroine didn't want to hear it. I didn't like that hero cheated on heroine with various women during their year estrangement, although I understood that it was part of how he handled his grief & anger with her. Still, there are so many other ways of dealing with grief & anger from losing your spouse than having sex with nameless women. But that's the HP world for you.

Recommended with some caution.