Reviews for Placeres Prohibidos

The average rating for Placeres Prohibidos based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2019-02-10 00:00:00 Patrick Schadle Re Sinful Pleasures - Anne Mather celebrates 25 years of HPlandia with a little romance skewered in between some epic family drama. The h in this is 31 and AM does the older woman/younger man trope here, but it really is negligible since the h is only five or six years older than the H. Where the age difference becomes apparent is NOT in the relatively few H/h interactions, but in the H's almost rebellious teen aged reactions to his mother and his grandfather. In fact the h is very much an adjunct and a plot device to move along the main story, which is about an elderly hotel resort owning dying man, his mixed heritage daughter and her son, who is the H. Mostly tho, this story is just plain weird as AM tries to dispel some of her earlier biases and present herself as a modern, enlightened HP writer. The story opens with our recently hospitalized h traveling to the Caribbean Island Resort of her mother's second husband. We learn that the h has never been back after her mother had an affair with the owner of the resort and divorced her church minister husband of twenty years for him. The h's father took things VERY badly, as you might do when you helpmeet wife turns into a harlot Jezebel, and the h decided at 15 to live with her father. The h only knows that her parents had been vacationing at the resort for years, her mother fell in love with the resort owner, got preggers, they married and then her mother miscarried. The h felt a lot of outrage on her father's behalf and only saw her mother on rare occasions after that. Then her mother got skin cancer and died in London about five years earlier and her heartbroken father died soon after, probably from suicide. The h felt no real connection with the mother's second husband or his family, so when an invitation is kinda imposed upon her by her step-sister and accepted by her gay housemate, the h feels duty bound to accept. She is recovering from a perforated ulcer and not really keen to see these people. In her mind, her mother is the more guilty party for throwing away twenty years of marriage for passion. The new husband came across as a bit of a bully, especially with his own daughter and the h isn't too keen to get mixed up in that. But for the most part, the past is the past and the h has her own life now. So while the h has no desire to reconnect, she likes the atmosphere of the island and she will be polite, since she is basically getting a free vacation. When the h arrives, she met by the beach bum looking H and she has no clue he was the mischievous eight year old who once put a frog in her bed. The H is smoking sizzling in the looks department and the h is a little ashamed of herself for eyeballing his many masculine attributes before she recognizes him. We all go back to the hotel and we learn that the step-sister is very weird. She seems to be happy to see the h, but she hates the H's father and wants to put all kinds of disparagement and blame for the h's mother's actions upon him. The h is also there to see her step-father, apparently at his request. He is very ill and will soon die and his daughter, the h's step-sister, seems remarkably intent on interrogating the h every time she lets the h into see him. The h believes the step-father wants to see her because he is ill and she looks like her mother. The h feels a lot of compassion for the dying man and she spends the limited time with him talking about her mother and how she was before she died. The h thinks nothing of it, but as we flip back and forth between the h's boring activities and the H's POV, a lot more starts to surface. The grandfather is slightly misogynistic and wants the H running the resort. The H is a lawyer and not really interested. He also has a sorta girlfriend that his mother, the h's step-sister, is determined to get him married off to. The girlfriend is the daughter of one of the island's plantation owners and she is a very immature 20 yr old. It is hinted that the H has slept with her, but it is also clear that while she is determined to move in with the H when she turns 21, the H isn't too keen on that and not too keen on a relationship. He has become fascinated with the h, tho he does his best to hide that from his mother. The h's step-sister has a seekrit and is also very concerned that her father might leave part of the hotel shares to the h, cutting into her own and her son's inheritance. After a lot of interrogations of the h about her visits to the dying guy, an abortive dinner party where the H's mother practically pimps him out to the sorta girlfriend resulting in an H temper tantrum and a few encounters where the H tries to seduce the h, the whole story is revealed. The h's step-sister announces that her mother was African Caribbean and that she was going to be introduced to the H's father's parents at fifteen. But then the H's father found out about her mother's heritage and was utterly appalled at the mixed heritage and ran away. Supposedly the h's father knew this and was horrible to the step-sister for being of mixed heritage and horrified that his wife was marrying into that. The h knew nothing about any of this and she does wonder that the whole family seems to think the h's father was a bigot. The h remembers her father doing a lot of missionary work in Africa and he certainly never made biased remarks in front of her. The h does remember her father begin aghast that a fifteen year old was raising her son instead of offering him up for adoption, but AM gives us a few different interpretations on that, besides the obvious one that the father felt his wife and daughter shouldn't be mixing with multi-heritage people. One interpretation is that the h's step-sister clearly sacrificed a LOT for her son and lost several opportunities in her own life to get an education and maybe marry. (Not to mention the h's father's probable horror that a fourteen or fifteen year old girl was encouraged and allowed to date a 22 or 23 yr old holiday barman.) This has led the woman to be practically psychotic on running the resort and excessively controlling about who has a stake in it. The H's mother's need to justify herself via the hotel also makes her demand that the H take much more of an interest in running it. The H has no real interest in the hotel, he likes his law practice and he fiercely resents his mother attempts to marry him off to his semi-girlfriend. The H's mother wants the H to start producing children to ensure the hotel legacy carries on. She also seems to believe that the H's grandmother's ancestry is enough to separate him from most of the eligible lady buffet, so she is pushing the match with the fellow islander's girl because she too has a mixed heritage. The H is pretty childish in his reactions to both his mother's machinations and in the way he decides to push the attraction between the h and himself. The H and h do end up having a lurve club event or two, but the whole thing falls apart when the H's grandfather dies and his mother finds out that the h has inherited ten percent of the hotel. The H believes the grandfather did it to make the h feel part of the family and also to create a neutral buffer between the H and his mother, because they clash a LOT. The h on the other hand is appalled by the whole lot of them and their backstabbing machinations. She has supposedly fallen in love with the H while the family drama develops, but when her step-sister goes off the rails in her verbal attacks at the reading of the will, the h takes herself back to London and her fashion design consortium pretty sharply. The H finally learns just how manic and manipulative his mother has become, he tells her off and then has a mopey moment about the h. The h, meanwhile, goes home to find that her gay business partner has finally met his man and they are going to sell the h and partner's shared house and move in together. The h waits a month and settles up her business and housing interests in London, then she goes back to the island and looks up the H. Even after a month missing the h and trying to find her address and whining about how the love of his life is gone, the H still acts like a quarrelsome toddler when the h shows up to talk to him. Finally the H and h get around to declaring that they love each other and the H proposes. He doesn't want the h to give her shares in the hotel back to his mother and the h's step-sister is not happy when the h decides to keep them. The step-sister gets over it tho when the h produces the first grandchild, the h finds that marriage to the H has mellowed her and she is mostly tolerant of the woman's jibes. We leave the H and h happily married and planning a lifetime of kids and laughter on their island, for another whacktastic, weird AM HPlandia outing with a somewhat dubious whacktastic HEA. This one was okay, the h was the most mature and together person out of all of them, even tho she came across as plot device to allow the family drama to play out. She was surprised over the big seekrit revelation about the H's dad running off, but she did not really see what the big deal was about the H's heritage. Her consideration was always more about her mother wrecking her family. Tho the h believes the mother had her reasons, her POV was that her home life was trashed and that was an absolutely reasonable view for someone in her circumstances to have - especially because of the way it came about and more especially because the h's mother used the h as an excuse to continue traveling back to the island to continue her illicit affair. One thing noteworthy about this story is that when AM has the h have this non-reaction to the mixed heritage issues, it shows that AM herself had come a long, long way. AM had been biased against both homosexuality and against mixed heritages in her past stories, so for her to write a story that included both elements in a very non-judgmental and almost positive manner was a real step forward in her HPlandia writings. It was nice to see that even veteran HP authors can move with the times and learn a new outlook and then successfully convey that on the page. Tho I am not sure that the new AM outlook makes the book worth an HP outing with it and I am not sure just how acceptable AM's story scenario would be if the book were written today.

Review # 2 was written on 2021-03-26 00:00:00 Martin Kryger When we meet our hero, Remy, he�s wearing �faded jeans and a skin-tight vest, with a single gold earring.� OMG. The heroine is five years his senior and his mother�s stepsister, leading him to refer to her as �Aunt Megan.� OMG OMG. That said, the plot of the book was kind of� not great. The vast majority of the drama revolves around Remy�s mother and Megan�s stepsister, who is controlling and kind of crazy; Megan like a normal person is just like �okay, I�m going to do my best to get along with you while I am here visiting with your dying father,� while Remy is like �WHY DON�T YOU LOVE ME AUNT MEGAN YOU ARE MY ONE.� I mean, the romance is kind of an afterthought to all this drama and Secrets! and Lies! and Anger! On the plus side there�s a fair amount of diversity - Remy�s grandmother was black, and while Megan doesn�t actually tell anyone why she�s rolling her eyes every time they assume she�s romantically involved with her business partner, when we learn at the end that he has met and is moving in with a very nice young man named Keith it doesn�t really come as a surprise. While the book was published in 1998 so gay and biracial characters shouldn�t be surprising� it is a Harlequin category romance from 1998, so, y'know...