UN Hombre Inolvidable Book

Re An Unforgettable Man - Penny Jordan's editor called again. It seems Roberta Leigh is on her way out and there just isn't any of the old guard left to write your ultimate Nematode Slime Pustule Hero or submit a fifth entry in the Dangerous Liaisons series.

Robyn Donald was involved in her next three book miniseries, Sara Craven had semi-retired to one book a year at this point and Carole Mortimer gave up mostly nematode H's when culottes went out of fashion.

Plus, in order for the Sexual Blackmail by Nematode Slime Pustule Hero trope to work, the h has to be a certain type.

An RD h won't cut it, cause her h's would knee the H in the dangly bits and spit in their face before they would actually allow themselves to be used as a sex slave more than once.

Sara Craven's h might make the attempt, but ultimately SC h's prefer actual rape scenarios to coercion, which would not engender the suitable amount of Stockholm Lurve Force Mojo to get us to a believable SC HEA. (Plus an SC h does tend to be rather pragmatic and wouldn't have the necessary mental fragility to invoke true horror in the coercion scenario.)

A Charlotte Lamb h would probably wind up chaining the H to the bed and then parading him around in a collar and a leash, after appropriate food porn amounts of Dover Sole, Spanish Paella and a dollop of cherry preserves.

So that leaves PJ with her chaste and sensitive, pristine h's. Really an PJ h is ideal for plumbing the depths of this trope, because no other HP author's heroine's so strongly equivocate sex and love as being virtually inseparable. Sex IS love to a PJ heroine and there is not one ounce of practicality or a lessening of idealism in a PJ h.

So when coercive sex is introduced that has nothing to do with any type of love or affection, the mental torture and agony is multiplied by a factor of a gadzillion and we get ourselves a HUGE trainwrecky angstfest PJ HP outing.

Buckle up your seat belts, get appropriate wall padding ready for banging and pull out your Captain and your Tim Tams, we are going into the dark side of PJ's Province of HPlandia.

This one has our h newly back in England from a well liked job in Hong Kong and looking for work locally. The h's beloved granny needs a major heart operation, but the waiting list is two years, granny is really ill and mostly the h is told just to enjoy what time granny has left.

Since granny rescued the h as a teenager from an incredibly perverted and sick pedophile stepfather and an equally corrupted stepsister, our h would do practically anything to be able to afford the private operation to get granny's heart fixed.

To the h's great relief, she soon gets a decent paying job as the comptroller for a millionaire businessman's corporate estate, complete with private golf course. Even better, our millionaire businessman is quite happy to lend the h the necessary funds to get granny her private operation.

Things are burbling along and there is an occasion for a magic roofie kiss. All of the sudden our unicorn grooming h is hurled back to when she was 16 and kissed her stepfather's garden boy and the magic burst all around her, just like now.

Unfortunately the aftereffects of that magic first kiss was the firing of the garden boy after he and the h were discovered and the tart shaming of the h by the step-father.

The h belatedly realizes that all of that was a set up by her stepsister to discredit the h with stepdaddy dearest, who wants to keep his sweet little peaches all to himself and doesn't like to share.

Apparently things went bad for a while with the garden boy after the firing incident. But that tough time hardened him enough to go after what he wanted and lo, he is now our millionaire businessman with a private golf course owner that the h is working for today.

Since the h has conveniently and easily put herself within his all powerful grasp.... Welp, revenge is a dish best served cold, but if you can it get hotted up with some genuine PJ HP Lurve Force Mojo Purple Passion, that is even better.

The H forces the h into becoming his on call blow up doll for multiple rounds of the lurve club boudoir bouncing. The h, who had fallen in love with the H from one kiss at 16 and then again when she started working for him recently, is horrified.

Mostly because she is rapidly coming to hate the H and his treatment of her. (Which includes flaunting the typical vain OW "Princess" and possibly having lurve club moments with the OW too. In one memorable scene the OW stays at the H's estate and the h goes to strip the OW's bed the next day and the H accuses the h of trying to steal the OW's used underwear. )

But even as the h cringes and shrinks from the H's verbally abusive and bullying tart shaming treatment, she just cannot help her Treacherous Body Syndrome. This is the source of the overwhelming angst and sheer stomach turning misery that is this book.

PJ vividly describes having a very, very unwanted pleasurable physical reaction while mentally loathing every second of the experience and it is enough to almost drive this h, (and the reader,) to a nervous breakdown.

The H doesn't let up either. He pushes and prods and the tart shaming verbosity is constant, as are the boudoir purple passion moments. Eventually the estate's cook gets the whole story out of the h when she hears her repeated nights of anguished sobbing and since the cook is only working for something to do so she doesn't drive her kid's nuts, she offers the h the money to repay the H.

The H refuses to accept it at first and tries more coercive moves on the h. But then the cook steps in and in one of the few HP instances of a secondary female character standing up to defend the heroine, she lets the H have it. He is a sadist and a bully and a rapist and he should be in prison making intimate friends with a guy named Killer for his sins.

The h escapes and the cook is right behind her. The h can go back to her old job in Hong Kong and the cook will look after granny once she recovers from her successful surgery. The H is left to stew in the HP mists for a few weeks, until the h has had enough PJ mopey moment time and then the big explanations can begin.

The H seeks out the h and apologizes for his actions. He went and talked to the h's granny and she explained the whole step family situation and the perversions that went on there. The H also admits that he was willing to try it on with stepsister anyways - he was lookin' for a little piking action himself and so he probably would have been fired even if it hadn't been a set up.

The H tries to apologize as he tells the h that the loan is completely written off and he hopes that makes up for what he did. The h lets him know that there is nothing he can say or do to make up for what he did to her.

He turned an innocent unicorn groomer into a tawdry and mentally diseased tramp and now the h can never have a decent marriage or a date because he has corrupted her forever.

The h rants on that even tho it is fine for men to feel lust, for a woman to have that experience is the ultimate in tawdry trampy behavior. Now the h is besmirched for life because how can any decent man love her after what the H made her?

The H objects to the word lust and goes on to describe feelings of longing, comfort and adoration and wanting to cuddle up with the other person, then he tells the h that he is describing his feelings, not hers.

It seems our nematode H has been haunted by the h's sweet kiss for years and years too. So when he found it again, he kinda lost his mind for a while, cause his independent Manly HP Mojo fiercely resented the h's hold on part of him and he had to punish her for that.

Now tho, if she will forgive him, he would like to marry her and lurve her up and have a houseful of plot moppets to adore along with their mother. Since this is a PJ h and the H had her at cuddles, the h rapidly agrees to whatever the H wants and we leave the two of them lurving up in a pinkly sparkly unicorn dancing PJ HP HEA.

On the surface of it, this book is nothing really unusual for HPlandia. We have had H and h quid pro quo arrangements before and there are literally thousands more awaiting HP voyagers in the future.

What sets this one apart from all the others is that PJ was exquisitely detailed and convincing in conveying the h's horrific mental anguish over the H's coerced seduction.

This book gets so many varied ratings because the descriptions of the h's experiences are so evocative of what it might actually feel like to be put into a situation like that.

The h's pain and torment is palpable, the reader is drawn into the maelstrom right along with the h and the lead up to the big denouement is extremely intense.

There are not too many writers that can provoke the visceral response that this book generates. PJ does it with a style and flair that will leave you breathless with a true muscle clenching anticipation that guarantees you an unforgettable outing to the more whacktastic trainwrecky side of HPlandia, if you are brave enough to travel there.