Reviews for This Time Round

The average rating for This Time Round based on 2 reviews is 2 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2018-06-04 00:00:00 Lisa Monil [Heroine fell in love with hero on her seventeenth birthday the moment he walked into the door of her home, trailing after heroine's brother. At the time, Hero was involved with an actress who was working on a movie about Lord Byron. Hero was the assistant to the director on that set. Then, to everyone's shock, Heroine's brother ran off with the actress and hero had a conniption of Othello-like proportions. Heroine took the brunt of it (guilt by association). She got cured of her puppy love real fast. Hero was sick with rage and jealousy and ready to commit murder/suicide. Heroine looked at the ugly side of love obsession and decided to stay clear of deep entanglements. Over seven years, she studied, became a nurse, then she was demoted to just working in a medical office as a general dogsbody, because of a back injury. She had boyfriends and even went to bed with a couple of them but decided she didn't like the experience enough to repeat it. At the back of her mind, the hero always stood as the ideal man despite all the bad feelings associated with him. She was like a Penny Jordan heroine who walked into a Catherine George story. Seven years after the epic Lord Byron movie jilting/elopement Escandalo, Hero returns to heroine's village . He is now a celebrated director and back to film the Lord Byron bio. The last one was scrapped when the actress ran off with heroine's brother. Actress ended up marrying heroine's brother. Hero runs into his ex from time to time and while he remains civil, he apparently still carries a huge chip on his shoulder about her defection and his former best friend's betrayal. So heroine is very surprised when hero wants to reacquaint himself with her. Despite her best efforts to politely decline his offer of friendship, Hero persists in pursuing her, even going to the lengths of renting the upstairs flat at her house so he can insinuate himself into her life. Yaddi yaddi yadda: They get married. She doesn't really trust him, wondering if hero is merely getting a revenge on her brother and his ex by insinuating himself into their lives and using her as a stand-in for the real love of his life. Heroine unfortunately accepts this unworthy marriage of convenience arrangement because she always Seekretly loved the hero and still does, despite all his flaws. After seven years of unrequited love, she decided that life was too bleak to live without him. Hero makes genuine and very plausible efforts to convince heroine of his love for her and show that he is well and truly over his ex. I actually believed him. When ex shows up on his next movie set, there is a moment of awkwardness at first until someone makes a joke, then they all laugh together and the tension is gone. Hero is gaga over heroine and looks at his ex only in his professional capacity as director. Everything seems rosy and heroine is starting to believe in their HEA. Then heroine gets stuck on a hike with hero's leading actor and close friend. They were huddling together to prevent hypothermia and the actor friend kissed the heroine awake when she was having a nightmare. Cue hero to walk in at that exact moment and catch them in flagrante. Now he thinks history repeated itself and he was betrayed once again by the woman he loved with a man that he considered his best friend. Hero is horrid to heroine, yanking her arm so violently that it is almost dislocated. The result of the physical and emotional stress of the hike gone wrong and her husband's horribleness afterwards is that she miscarries. While she is still recovering from that trauma in the hospital bed, her husband has the cruelty to ask her if the baby was his or the other guy. Heroine tells him off epically and asks for a divorce. Hero is forced to shut his big fat trap for once. There are months of separation during which the hero stubbornly returns every weekend to his rented flat upstairs from the heroine's home. (They hadn't even had time to move in together in a proper house before the marriage blew up in their faces). She puts a deadbolt on the connecting door between the two apartments. He continues taunting her cruelly, telling her he won't give her a divorce because that will be a convenient excuse not to commit himself to any of the many Hollywood groupies panting after him. He tells her he is keeping up the pretense of cohabiting so she can't claim desertion to succeed in her divorce request. Things come to a head when hero's actor friend comes for a visit to the heroine. He apologizes to her for setting her up to spend time alone with her and for putting the moves on her when she was vulnerable. He admits that he ruined her marriage because he had a crush on her and stupidly acted on it. He was so used to women falling at his feet and heroine was the one who got away, so he had to have her. Now he realizes how wrong he was and hopes she will forgive him *eye roll* Heroine graciously accepts his apologies but she very firmly declines any romantic relationship between them. She is not interested in the actor friend and never will be, even if her marriage is over. The actor leaves, pleading one last time that if she ever changes her mind, she only has to whistle and he will come running. The hero, who was in the upstairs flat the whole time, eavesdrops on the conversation. He finally realizes that nothing happened, at least nothing that the heroine instigated, and what's more, the heroine is not interested in the actor friend and she takes her marriage vows seriously even if hero screwed things up royally. There is no grovel. Heroine comes home to find hero has made a nice romantic dinner and he humbly asks her to take him back. Heroine has been miserable without him and she was just waiting for him to make the first step. Hero's half-hearted apologies about his vile words to her especially about the paternity of the baby are justified (by him and somewhat by heroine) because of his past betrayal by his ex, which is the prism through which he sees all women. At least, he accepts that his out-of-control jealousy is a big problem that he needs to work on though I really don't think that kind of Othello style sickness of the mind can be mended without therapy but whatever, it's Harlequin Land! No therapy needed, murderous jealous rage is simply a proof of love. The ILYs are exchanged and the heroine asks the hero to quickly help her make another baby. My favorite character in the whole story was heroine's trusty old dog, who was a fierce and loyal protector even though he had the bad taste to like the hero. The dog was truly the real hero of the piece, especially when he jumped on a would-be date-rapist and inserted his teeth into his wrist and would not let go til heroine told him to. But alas, he had to be put down by the vet due to old age, which made me tear up for realz. I hate reading about animals being abused or dying. That's why I can never re-read Marley and Me, that probably took a few years off my life. But anyway, I digress. The scene on the book cover refers to heroine, sleepless at the thought of the hawt hero sleeping upstairs from her, wandering into the garden at night and the hero finding her asleep on the bench and trying to put the moves on her, which ends ignominously when the heroine tells him he ate too many onions for dinner for his seduction attempt to succeed. LOL (hide spoiler)]

Review # 2 was written on 2017-01-17 00:00:00 Rachel Hausmann 7 years ago, Sean and Leo were good friends. Leo was engaged to Madeline and Davina had a crush on Leo. But Sean and Madeline fall in love and run away together. What happens next? This book loses 3 stars because : I didn't like Davina much. I can't figure out why. The ghost of Madeline always hovered over their relationship. The memory of Madeline is always with Davina, she doesn't forget and won't let the reader forget either. Davina claims that Leo broke her heart but when she was younger, Leo was unaware of her feelings. Even after the drama with Sean and Madeline, I felt Davina's words were careless and hurtful. The runaway couple Sean and Madeline never make amends and are the only ones who escape unscathed. This book gets 2 stars because : I liked Leo. He was passionate, self aware and persistent. He was not confused about his feelings at any point and was open about his problem with jealousy. I enjoyed the parts about the movie and liked the charming movie star, Jack. This was another, not so great read from another favorite author. This is the third book in a row and my reading streak seems to be jinxed. All I can do for now is flail about tragically in the sea of disappointment.