My Harlequin Hero

The Secret Virgin by Carole Mortimer My rating: 2 of 5 stars I admit I picked up this book because I was tantalized by the title and had hoped that the aforementioned virgin was the hero because I’ve grown weary of heroes who have screwed half of the Eastern seaboard and most of the French Riviera and doesn’t hesitate to screw the heroine without protection. That’s just bad manners. Why is it the heroine who’s always the virgin? I can write a whole book on that alone. There’s something about virginity that’s always guaranteed to thaw the hero’s cold heart and bitter cynicism that all women are whores, except this one good one with a pure heart and a unicorn vagina. Virginity separates the whores from the whore-nots. That’s in the Bible or something. Trust. Tory Buchanan is asked by her friend, the famous actress Madison Famous Actress , to pick up her brother Jonathan Mcguire , an American, from the airport. He will be staying on a holiday at Madison’s house on the Isle...

The Dominant Male by Sarah Holland My rating: 4 of 5 stars Gabriel Stone is one of those heroes we just love to hate on, but ugh, he ended up charming me, anyway, even though he is a self-proclaimed “proud chauvinist” and sexually harasses the heroine at every opportunity. If Gabriel Stone were an IRL character, he’d be one of the powerful men being currently brought down by the #Metoo movement and it’d be a shame because by the end of the book, he’d presumably become a reformed rake and going to be living a happily ever after with the heroine and in twenty-five years, have a handful of grown kids and touring the Caribbean with heroine in their giant yacht or something. But because he has to face all his accusers accrued over years of being a sexually harassing chauvinist pig, he’d probably lose a bunch of his money and the numerous court cases would put a strain on his marriage, and Rhiannon and the children would probably leave him. Good thing Gabriel Stone is not a rea...

House of Glass by Michelle Reid My rating: 4 of 5 stars Here’s another book that’s going to be hard for me to not get shouty about because it holds some personal triggers and made me so mad at the so-called hero that I found it hard to forgive him at the end even if he did try to make up for his dickishness. His assholery in this book and his overall boorish behavior toward the heroine are just epic hall of fame stuff, bordering on psychotic, even considering the events that transpire. But then again, it’s a Michelle Reid, so it’s compulsively readable and of course, super angsty. Dane is mad at Lily because he really, really wants to have sex with her all the time, not just once, ALL THE TIME, but he can’t, because Lily is married to his younger brother, Daniel. He’s extra super-mad at her because he found out Lily is hella into him just before she married Daniel because they made out in his apartment and Lily was really responsive, but she married Daniel, anyway, becau...

Baby Makes Nine by Vivian Leiber My rating: 3 of 5 stars It’s so hard to review this book on its face because it was very triggering to me as a Liberal American and there was a lot about the setting that raised my hackles a little bit and made me cringe a whole lot with the un-PCness and everything. Two examples: the heroine is desperate to gain the respect of her neighbors because she’s always wanted to be a member of the Daughters of the Confederacy and… she names her child after Andrew Jackson because he saved Louisiana… or you know, he slaughtered a bunch of Native Americans in the Trail of Tears, the motherfucker . Screw that guy, seriously. Anyway, Jack Tower is some big-deal neurosurgeon in Boston who gets all the chicks and the accolades and I’m sure all the CNN interviews or whatever and he’s up for a very big promotion in his big fancy hospital, but first he has to fill a requirement that he never got around to doing before because he was so busy being ahead a...

Smoke in the Wind by Robyn Donald My rating: 2 of 5 stars The hero Ryan Frane is infamous in the HP messageboards for being one of the worst heroes in HPlandia and with good reason: he is not a good guy. He is cynical, arrogant, selfish, and a proud chauvinist. You’re probably thinking that’s pretty standard for an HP hero, but Ryan does something that’s pretty unforgivable in the book: he falls in love with someone else and dumps the heroine. And that someone is the heroine’s cousin. Venetia is an up and coming reporter in New Zealand when she meets Ryan who is a world-famous Kiwi who makes political documentaries that have been known to topple dictators and despots. The two of them hit it off immediately, but Venetia wants to play it cool because Ryan is a known playboy and a commitment-phobe. She was briefly married when she was eighteen since she got pregnant but the baby miscarried and the marriage was scrapped immediately and she hasn’t had a lover since then, but ...

Snowfire by Anne Mather My rating: 3 of 5 stars Hot, young studly doctor telling your skinny, bony ass that he's been in love with you since he was sixteen and you've been the star of all his sexual fantasies? Uh, yes please! Olivia was twenty-three years old when her closest neighbors died, leaving behind a fifteen-year-old son, Connor, who is now an orphan. Olivia was best friends with Connor’s mom and has basically known Connor since he was a baby, so she’s very fond of him. Connor wants to stay with Olivia, but of course he can’t because Olivia isn’t a relative and he has to go off with his uncle, who is his dad’s brother and lives in Florida. Connor is also in love with Olivia, but that doesn’t matter because she thinks he’s just a kid, so he goes off with his uncle and gets on with his life. Meanwhile, Olivia gets married, but not happily because she gets cheated on by her ratbag husband and also gets in an accident that gives her a bad limp. Eleven years...

Sinful Truths by Anne Mather My rating: 1 of 5 stars I’ve read some silly HP plots in my time, but this one truly takes the cake, eats it whole, and shits it out for the world to enjoy. I read the whole thing in ninety minutes with my mouth half-hanging open, muttering to myself, “What the hell is this rubbish and why am I still reading it?” Talk about a wall-banger. If I could have reached in and strangled everyone in this book, I would have and probably would have been convicted of capital murder of five people and I wouldn’t have been sorry at all. They’d flip the switch on the electric chair and I’d yell “Worth it!” just before they fried my gleeful ass. Let’s say you’re Jake McCabe and you’re a millionaire who runs on your own company and you bang hot models on the side and you’re famous enough that British rags write about it. Ten years ago, you found your beloved wife drunk and in bed with the guy you thought was your best friend and you loved her enough that you...

Dark Dominion by Charlotte Lamb My rating: 3 of 5 stars This was one HP that actually made me doubt if the heroine was going to end up with the guy on the cover or if Charlotte Lamb was going to pull a fast one on me and have her end up with the other guy. Hah, no chance. James Fox, the “hero” has gray eyes and Charlotte Lamb fans know the author loooooves gray-eyed heroes. Other than this book, I don’t think I’ve ever encountered an HP since where the heroine actively desired someone else and told the hero “I want you both” to his face. This is a real love triangle, y’all. Caroline and James Fox, an up and coming barrister, have been married for two years and they’re both miserable, living without sex and affection and barely talking. When Caroline first met James, she was an actress in London and was cheerful, happy, and outgoing, but James didn’t like her outlandish theater friends and he slowly cuts her off from them, refusing to go to their parties, and Caroline sto...

Who's the Daddy? by Judy Christenberry My rating: 3 of 5 stars I’ve read this book a couple of times now and tend to make fun of it a lot because the plot is so ridiculous. A woman wakes up pregnant in a hospital, surrounded by a bunch of people she doesn’t know because she has amnesia, and three men are claiming to be the father of her baby, only she’s never met them before, never mind recognize them. Well, we all know instantly who the father of the baby is, don’t we, readers? It’s the sexy one who makes the heroine’s knees weak and her nipples stiffen like pencil erasers. DNA, schmee-ehn-ay. The heroine isn’t a triflin’ ho who sleeps with three or four guys at the same time; let’s make that clear. She’ll only sleep with the guy who has a five o’clock shadow by noon and shoulders that would challenge most doorways, holds blue steel in his gaze, and can silence nimrods and pencil-necks with a tersely spoken word. Max (you can tell he’s the hero because he has a na...

Nine Months to Redeem Him by Jennie Lucas My rating: 3 of 5 stars Edward St. Cyr is a bad guy, duh. I didn’t realize this book was a sequel to “Uncovering Her Nine Month Secret,” which I previously reviewed and the hero was the antagonist of that book, until I was already a couple of chapters into it. I read this one first, so I thought, yeah, okay… so he got carried away, had some misplaced passion for the heroine, misread her feelings for him, and thought he was trying to help by getting her away from her domineering, alpha-hole Spanish husband, but then I read that book and I was like, holy shit, this guy is nuts. He should be in prison! And yet here we are, diving right into Edward St. Cyr’s story. Let’s find out what makes this guy tick. Diana is the personal assistant to her movie star step-sister Madison Lowe, who stole her boyfriend Jason Black, also an actor, in a very public event where they frolicked together naked and drunk under the Eiffel Tower. Humiliated...

Uncovering Her Nine Month Secret by Jennie Lucas My rating: 4 of 5 stars I read “Nine Months to Redeem Him” first and the villain in this book is the hero in that one, so when I saw his antics in full display here, I was aghast that he would get a book of his own because he was frickin’ psycho in this one. He threatens the heroine, obsessively follows her around, kidnaps her—he’s rich, handsome, powerful, and the only difference between him and the hero is that the heroine doesn’t love him back, ergo he’s the bad guy. Lena Carlisle is a Cinderella heroine who lived in the attic of her evil cousin, serving as her personal assistant slash slave, while the evil cousin plots to ensnare Alejandro Navarro, the last Duke of Alcazar, for marriage. As these things go, Alejandro takes one look at Lena and decides he wants her, instead, so he courts her and seduces her, and gets her pregnant. Claudie, the evil cousin, tells Lena that the she and Alejandro will be married and only ...

The Ultimate Betrayal by Michelle Reid My rating: 5 of 5 stars The one trope I always have a hard time reading is the Cheating Hero because I cut my reading teeth on Mills & Boon romance novels and I’ve been devouring them since I was a girl, so I developed this warped belief that for a romance hero, there is just one person and he’ll love that woman body, heart, and soul till his dying day. Yeah, I know, it’s not very woke because it’s all very cisgendered and heteronormative and mostly white, but we all sigh and cry and emote and laugh, because it’s all so beautiful and the stories take us somewhere else, somewhere in time for a couple of hours. I love romance novels, damn it, and that’s why I get so mad when my fantasy gets ruined by a hero who breaks the rules and falls in love with someone else. Daniel and Rachel have been married for seven years and they have three children. Daniel owns and runs his up and coming investment company, while Rachel keeps house and...

Shattered Dreams by Sally Wentworth My rating: 2 of 5 stars I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Virginity is the great separator of the whores and the whore-nots in HPLandia. No matter how much the heroine insists that she’s telling the truth and she has never had sex with anyone, much less half of the cisgendered, heterosexual males in Greater Manchester, the hero will not believe her until he finally gets it in there and breaches her hymen with his mighty, thrusting steed. Then all of a sudden, he’s all apologetic and the kindest, most sensitive dude the heroine has ever met and he’s on his knees, begging the heroine for forgiveness for how could he have been so blind, not to believe a beautiful wide-eyed innocent such as she? Give me a break. Our “hero” Hugo Merrion shatters the heroine Kate’s dreams, all right, and practically breaks her down mentally and emotionally after all is said and done in this book. Hugo is unforgiving and brutal, even though all of ...