Romance Books Reviews & Treats

Widowed heroine is shocked to meet her one-time lover from a year ago. She slept with him when she was drunk & grieving her deceased husband. She tries to resist him now b/c he's dating his stepsister & she's still holding on to her deceased husband's memory. But Hero is determined to make her his & obtain the villa that heroine now owns for his grandfather. So he blackmails her to marry him & sets out to be the man in her life instead of her dead husband.

I had mixed feeling about this Baird book. On one hand, Baird's writing, emotional involvement, & dialogue were good. On the other hand, I was disturbed by the amount of time the book spent on heroine still in love & grieving her 1st husband. It wasn't until 3/4 of the book that heroine cut emotional ties with her dead husband & began to feel love towards hero. It was believable & her difficulty letting go of her 1st husband's memory is understandable. I just don't like reading so much of it my romance novels. I felt sorry for Hero but also wondered if maybe a big part of his persistence with heroine was b/c of his hurt pride when heroine informed him that she mistook him for her deceased husband when she 1st met him. I understood Hero's manipulative & sometimes mean behavior towards heroine when her deceased husband is involved. He was competing with someone who was dead. I liked how he wooed her to love him. It was refreshing to get hero's POV along with heroine. Sexual chemistry & love scenes were good.

Partly recommended.