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Title: Fruto De LA Traicion
Harlequin Enterprises
Item Number: 9780373334759
Number: 1
Product Description: Fruto De LA Traicion
Universal Product Code (UPC): 9780373334759
WonderClub Stock Keeping Unit (WSKU): 9780373334759
Rating: 4/5 based on 2 Reviews
Image Location: https://wonderclub.com/images/covers/47/59/9780373334759.jpg
Weight: 0.200 kg (0.44 lbs)
Width: 0.000 cm (0.00 inches)
Heigh : 0.000 cm (0.00 inches)
Depth: 0.000 cm (0.00 inches)
Date Added: August 25, 2020, Added By: Ross
Date Last Edited: August 25, 2020, Edited By: Ross
Price | Condition | Delivery | Seller | Action |
$99.99 | Digital |
| WonderClub (9296 total ratings) |
Timothy Murray
reviewed Fruto De LA Traicion on June 03, 2011Re Gold Ring of Betryal - Michelle Reid tackles one of the founding tropes of HPlandia in this one, the married couple reunited after a long separation. Anne Mather introduced us to it, way back in 1973 with The Sanchez Tradition, HP outing number eight.
Flora Kidd did innumerable takes on the topic, over half her backlist is all about this trope. Charlotte Lamb even threw her opinion in with a remarkably similar story line, right down to some very familiar themes in her 1981 Abduction.
But MR shows her true HPlandia genius with this one. She takes a common everyday HP trope and she makes literal HP magic that will keep an HP Voyager glued to the page.
The story starts with an ominous kidnapping. Our fragile, introverted, blonde fairy princess Sara is sitting on her settee, counting roses in a small square of carpet in the most meticulous way. That settee is sitting in a luxury seven bedroom upscale London home that is more prison than cozy nest and we are all waiting for an arrival.
Sara's two year old daughter, Lia, has been kidnapped. Stolen out of the local park whilst playing. Sara has a legion of staff to guard and watch her, and yet somehow Sara's beloved mini-Sara was stolen away.
A tall, dark and domineering man arrives, Sara is surprised because she thought it would be hours yet, but the Arrogant Sicilian Alpha Nicolas, explains he took the Concorde. Sara wryly thinks it must have been a jolt for the man to have to use public transportation.
Then in a shocking contrast to the formal and stilled quiet tension that is the tone for this scene, Sara leaps to her feet and demands to know why her Nematode Husband Nic and his Sewer Gulper Father Alfredo have taken her daughter.
Nic denies any and all responsibility for taking the child, yet Sara is adamant. He must have done this - or his father did. We are all left in stunned shock at the accusation, as the backstory begins to unfold.
Sara was the only child of a retired schoolteacher father. Her mother died when she was very young and her father moved her to the Fells of Yorkshire and home schooled her. When he died when she was 13, she was sent to an indifferent boarding school where her only friend was the elderly gardener and at twenty, unable to go to uni, she took a job at garden center.
Part of her job was to go around to various office buildings and care for the plants. On one of these trips, it was raining heavily and she collided with a man in a rush who dropped his wallet. She picked the wallet up, decided to return it to him and thus her fate was sealed.
The man turned out to be big, domineering Sicilian Alpha Nicolas, who took one look at Sara's long blonde locks and big blue eyes and fell head over heels into love. There was a whirlwind courtship and a marriage and then disaster struck. Nic and Sara moved into the family manse in Sicily.
Nicolas's equally domineering and quite evil father, Alfredo, despised Nic's choice of a wife. He sent Nic off on ever increasing and long business trips and in the interim ruthlessly derided, belittled and betrayed Sara on every level he could, hoping to oust her and find a more socially equal daughter in law.
There were snide asides from Alfredo's and Nic's societal compatriots, rudeness and negativity from the household staff and introverted Sara was forced into a social strata she hated, locked in a house she loathed and forced to accept pricey clothes and jewels that she did not give a damn about.
When she tried to tell Nic that she wasn't happy, Nic refused to hear it. All he wanted was a willing and warm bed partner and she needed to just put up and shut up, really she should just be grateful to be there.
It all ended in a high Italian Opera Drama when Sara was told to meet Nic one night at a nearby hotel. Sara waited and waited and finally got ready for bed, figuring Nic had been delayed. But when there was a knock on the door, a social gigolo up to no good and commissioned by Alfredo, barged into the room and grabbed Sara up in an embrace.
Nic walked in at the perfectly wrong time to misinterpret the situation and after one contemptuous glance, announced Sara was nothing to him and turned and walked away. The gigolo had jumped out the window by that point and Sara was sent to live in isolated luxury in London, because if Nic couldn't have her, no man would.
But Sara happened to discover she was pregnant, tho Nic refused to believe the baby was his. She even attempted to get Nic's BFF and personal assistant Toni to intervene for her, but outraged Sicilian males stick together and Sara was tried, condemned and banished without ever getting a hearing.
Alfredo was delirious with joy, Nic was coldly furious and Toni dismissed Sara as a trampy tart. So Sara buckled down and settled in and devoted herself to her beloved and angelic daughter Lia, seekritly hoping against hope that time and patience would bring about a sea change of tides.
Now that long awaited moment, almost three years after the big breakup, has arrived. There are several verbal battles as we wait for the kidnapper's contact and wonder about their demands and Sara finally gets to have her say.
She may be introverted, but she is no longer silent and Nicolas doesn't get everything his own way, Sara gives him smackdown after smackdown and angrily demands he find her daughter. All the tension and angst lead to a big passion lurve club explosion and then Lia is rescued.
Nic has decided that he can't be without Sara any longer, tho he has ostensibly tried with other women, Sara is the only one his passion wants.
So we all go back to Sicily and Alfredo, ill and in a wheelchair, is hovering like a poisonous spider in a fat web of lies, ready and waiting to strike. Sara worries that now that Alfredo has met Lia and become very attached to her, there are moves afoot to get Sara out of the way.
Warnings and threats are issued on both sides of the Alfreado/Sara war and Nic refuses to even acknowledge Lia's existence. After a few nights of purple passion, Nic has determined that Sara and Lia will be staying. But Lia is sectioned off to another area of the house and Nic will have his manly way.
Until Sara hears Lia screaming from a nightmare one night and rushes to the two year old's side. There is an EPIC Mum on the Rampage smackdown and Nic admits that he has been trying to reconnect with Sara while ignoring her child.
Sara is having none of that and if she had the power, the nanny that Nic and Alfredo provided would have been fired for her actions. That doesn't happen, but Nic is told that since he has another woman that he sees regularly twice a week, her name is Anastasia, he can go seek an outlet for his manly desires elsewhere. Sara's bed warming days and being treated like she is a disgrace are over.
Sara and Nic generate some powerful lurve force mojo, because barely a week goes by and then Nic is back, begging to start over on the marriage and Anastasia is now a liaison in the past. Nic even try's to make a connection with Lia, who only calls him "Man" and he allows Lia to call him papa.
Alfredo is still scheming and being nasty behind the scenes, but he needs medical treatment in Switzerland, his heart is failing and he is dying - but even the threat of death is not enough to mend his lying, evil ways.
Still, it is a break for the small family while he is gone and Sara even gets her own little residence inside the family manse. Lia is very attached to Alfredo, she calls him Grandpa, so Sara makes allowances to include him in their daily lives when he gets back.
Then another disaster strikes and it starts at a local society major event. Alfredo, Nic and Sara all dress in their best and make an appearance. As Sara is wandering around, much more socially confident now and indifferently accepting the local's turn about on her prior harassment, she sees Nic holding a tall and lovely brunette in his arms and kissing her.
Sara knows that this is Nic's Anastastia and that all Nic's words were just like his father's - utter lies. So Sara makes Alfredo take her back to the family pile, but when she gets there, she walks into a life and death situation.
Alfredo has a live in nurse and little Lia is very sick. The nurse suspects meningitis. In a mad rush to get the helicopter to the hospital. Sara and Lia take off for medical treatment, leaving Nic and a cursing and wailing Alfredo behind.
Nic eventually makes it to the hospital, later followed by Alfredo, and we learn the situation is very, very dire - there is no word yet on how much damage Lia might have sustained or even if Lia made to hospital and antibiotics in time.
There is a very tense wait of several days, Sara is totally focused on willing Lia to get better and live. Nic is unsure of what to do, but he tries his best to be supportive. Until Alfredo makes his grand confession of how he destroyed Nic and Sara's relationship three years earlier and lied to Nic about Sara's long term adultery.
Nic crashes and Sara, more aware now that Lia has passed the most dangerous point, steps up to care for all the casualties Alfredo's confession has created. Alfredo believes that Lia might die and that it is his fault. In his eagerness to show off the child, he took her to a village where there was a meningitis exposure and so to atone for his sins, he told Nic the truth about his sneaky antics.
Sara manages to bolster Nic up enough to wait with her until Lia is better. But once Lia is released from the hospital, Nic has to runway and be a big baby, cause he is so ashamed of himself. Alfredo isn't much better. He has lost the respect and love of his only child and so Compassionate Sara tries to help him mend it.
But Nic stays gone and Sara has rescinded the right to worry about it, then Nic shows up as Sara is running into the house to escape the rain. In a recreation of the first time they met, Sara tells Nic to drop his wallet. After he gets her dried off and her hair blown out, Nic tosses his wallet to Sara and a reconnection is made.
They finally talk and forgive each other and then Sara asks the big question about Anastasia. Nic is very ashamed of himself as he admits that Anastasia is his BFF Tony's fiancee. But Tony works for Nic a LOT and Anastasia's mum is really ill, so Nic goes and visits her when Tony can't.
He couldn't introduce Anastasia at the party because of his prior lies that she was his mistress, so he had to explain to Anastasia about that and his kissing her was an act of contrition.
Sara believes Nic and then she tells him that he has to forgive his father too, because Lia loves the nasty old man and it is time that Nic learned how to be a father. Nic is willing to try, if Sara will lurve him up first, so we leave the two of them reconnecting on all levels for the big, dramatic and sparkly pink passionate HEA.
This story is very intense and Michelle Reid shows just exactly what a really great HP author can do with a very common trope. The tension never lets up, the passion and the True Love avowals are utterly believable and via Alfredo and his many snarky and nasty comments, we learn that Nic very likely never cheated - even while they were apart.
Alfredo gets a big comeuppance too, in a karmic justice moment. His visits with Lia are now on Sara's sufferance and his own son, who once adored and looked up to him, absolutely despises him and only tolerates being around him for Lia's sake.
There is also the fact that this man, who once strode around causing angst and terror among anyone he perceived as lesser than himself, is slowly dying in the most confining and painful kind of way and very reliant on the very people he treated so badly.
I must admit that I don't think Nic suffered enough in all of this. If I had my way and in my own little ending re-creation, Sara and Lia would have had to go back to London for treatment and Sara would decide there to sort out the mistress situation. While Lia recovered, Sara would file for divorce and cite adultery - with Anastasia as a cross complainant.
The snide and snot BFF Tony would be the one to accept the divorce petition, and upon reading it, would then punch Nic in the face and break his nose for sullying the name of his most unicorn grooming fiancee - who has the gynecological cert and a daddy with a shotgun to prove it.
Eventually, after a year of Nic being unhappy and alone, stuck in a mouldering house in Sicily and only able to eat beans on crumbs because Alfredo died and all the staff quit after Nic's lies about the Beloved Anastasia. Sara would relent after the very nice Anastasia shows up to plead Nic's case. Anastasia and Tony are married by then, but Anastasia has a baby on the way and Tony needs to make a decent living, so Nic will have to hire him back and make him a partner.
Sara decides that Lia really needs a father, and Nic deserves to have to live through the Trying Threes and Eff You Fours. So after a suitably repentant Nic apologizes on his KNEES and humbly extends his wallet, Sara and Nic reunite and live in London and Sara gets a Gold at the Chelsea Garden Show, for a much more satisfying (at least in my rewritten book,) ending to this HP outing.
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