True Bliss
Nonconforming Senator's daughter who runs an artist colony is reunited with her high-school love. Fifteen yrs ago, he leaves her on the day they were supposed to elope to marry his pregnant ex-lover. Now-successful businessman hero professed to have always loved heroine & regretted leaving her but couldn't divulge all the reasons why. He is intent on doing right by her this time around but many people in both their lives are against their reunion due to its financial & social impact & are secretly sabotaging them.Cameron's writes with some emotional impact & made reading this book go quickly. But it had too many bad moments & bad characters to make it an overall good read.
I liked the intensity of hero & heroine's instant attraction/love but I was very turned-off by hero's choice & reasons for leaving heroine. His reasons for leaving her where urgent but he didn't give heroine the opportunity to help him brainstorm some other solutions than him abandoning her. What's worst is that he didn't even try to contact her himself, whether by mail/phone/email/in person, to explain himself or at least apologize. So, when he shows up in her doorstop & tells her he's always loved her 15 years later, I thought he was an arrogant, lying, selfish jerk & hoped the heroine would make him eat some dust. But, no! Heroine was stupid enough to take him back right away without even knowing exactly why he trampled on her heart when they were younger. She was just glad he was back in her life & tried to avoid any detailed discussion of the hurtful events.
There were a handful of villains in the story & they were described so negatively, I couldn't find any redeemable value in them. And I guess Cameron didn't either b/c she killed them all in the end. Some scenes (i.e., sex scenes) that involved them were superfluous & sensationalistic. I skipped some pages that featured these villains b/c I didn't care for them & it was patently obvious that their fate were doomed.
Watch out for unlikeable characters.
