Review: worst of this series
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 11 12, 2013
In a series I had enjoyed, this book was disappointing. The female lead is a woman who grew up a snobbish brat, making it acceptable to be continually abusive to the poor parson's boy who is infatuated with her. Upon returning from seminary he finds the former brat to have softened in her regard of him, so much so that they are soon sexually  promiscuous, in spite of his supposed intention to be a good pastor, unlike his father and grandfather. The resulting pregnancy has the woman claiming to him in a private meeting between the two of them that she has betrayed him in the worst possible way, by becoming pregnant by their mutual friend, having arranged for said friend to support the lie as he's leaving for America and won't have to face the consequences. The young man is heartbroken at the lie so she leaves him in that tortured condition because she reasons that he should not have believed her. After staying away for five years she returns threatening to take his step daughter away from him, the little girl he loves and has been raising. She continues to threaten him with that every time she is displeased with him. For some reason he still loves that sadistic nightmare of a woman, but she continues to get angry and abusive whenever he proposes because he didn't use the right words nor has he figured out that she was lying to him in the first place, which she continues to hold against him. On one occasion she gives him a black eye, which his housekeeper thinks is funny because he hadn't figured out the truth. Reverse these roles and let it be the arrogant man who blackens the eye of the confused love-sick girl and see if anyone would find an abusive relationship cute! But the author seems to find it the stuff of romance as she even reintroduces a husband-hunting girl from a previous book in the series who can't find a husband as she keeps beating them up. Of course she finds true love in finding a man who doesn't reject her after she knocks him down and bloodies his nose. Domestic violence is fine, obviously, if it is the woman who is abusive. Of course it will all come out fine due to the guiding hand of a matchmaking puppeteer. The last chapters of this book really bog down with the predictable plot lines playing out in super slow motion with TONS of gratuitous sex scenes being included. Even the sex scenes are clinical and hardly exciting. This is NOT a good romance, despite the fact that the author is capable of writing good ones.