Reviews for Three complete novels

The average rating for Three complete novels based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-05-30 00:00:00 pascual anadon Well, this is actually a trilogy where my current re-read leaves me feeling quite different from the previous ones so far. Daring to Dream I still really love the Templeton family, Margo Sullivan and her mother, the idea of Pretenses the shop and the strong family/friend relationship between Laura, Margo and Kate (probably prototype for the Bride Quartet if you think about their exchanges) - but I SEVERELY dislike Josh Templeton. This is a guy who may work hard and have worked hard, but was born with the proverbial silver spoon in his mouth. So he realizes he is in love with Margo when he is in his 20s? I think? She's four years younger or so. He can see her drive is a bit larger than life and that she wants to live the glamorous life - and because he knows her he decides (and this is actually written as an explanation here) to wait for her current life to implode, so he can swoop down on her at her lowest ebb to make her cling to him and consider him and be seduced by the loving and care he gives her: He is an emotional coward. Margo who went after her dream in the face of disapproval from her mother and doubt from her friends, IS melodramatic and easily riled - and it seems as if only harsh treatment will get her out of a despairing spiral (her two best friends do it to her, as well, and she seems to accept it as natural) - BUT she takes ALL the risks. Josh is so much a coward that - even though it has been reiterated numerous times in the story and he has confirmed it too, that he knows that one of Margo's total strengths is loyalty - he interprets one kiss of an old friend with both completely dressed, after he and Margo have admitted they love each other as her having turned into a slut. This is a romance, so of course after some weeks and some talking to from their family, the two of them get together - but he never really has to grovel hard enough - Margo AGAIN makes the first move and lays her heart on the line in grand style. Well - he isn't good enough for her, and only her low self-esteem which she has had all her life, because all she has to offer (she thinks) is her beauty makes me think she'll be happy with the bit she is offered here. She can't conceive of deserving more of an apology after her previous life. Holding the Dream Another real Alpha hero, although not as much of an asshole as Josh, Bryon De Witt only is intrigued by Kate when he sees her glamoured up for a special occasion (she lost a bet with her friends), he had discounted her as too abrasive before. Since he is rarely wrong on a first impression, he is intrigued enough to talk to her some more and when he sees her at her lowest ebb (she was fired from the position she had been working for in her life-plan since a teenager) he offers a sympathetic ear BUT when Kate doesn't take the route he EXPECTS her to take (she has her reasons which she hasn't shared), he goes to Josh to openly encourage him to go after her former employers legally. I do think Kate has some magnificent scenes taking no crap, but even there Byron makes her feel like an idiot with his reasonableness (because a woman making a huge scene when someone manipulates other people on her behalf without asking her if this is what she wants is ... I don't know... shrewish?) - at the same time as his tamed anger makes her cautious (oooooh, the man may unleash his inner bear, so the woman better beware). I really don't remember these as so sexist and stereotypical. I mean the MacKade books are ten years older and they do a much better job of having women and men be equally strong... Maybe it is just the truly crappy row I had with my mother on Monday (long overdue but nevertheless hard on heart and head) that makes me very sensitive toward this. Blockquote directly from the ebook - see what you think: I'm not your type any more than you're mine." "No, you're not," he agreed. "Still, I occasionally enjoy sampling something . . . different." "I'm not a new recipe." She pulled her hand free, pushed her plate aside. "And I came here to have, as you termed it, a civilized discussion." "This seems civilized to me." "Don't pull out that reasonable tone." She had to squeeze her eyes shut and count to ten. She made it to five. "I hate that reasonable tone. I agreed to go to dinner with you so that I could make myself clear, so that I could do so without losing my temper the way I did earlier today." For emphasis, she leaned forward a little, was distracted by discovering that there was a thin gold halo around his pupils. "I don't want you meddling in my life. I don't know how to make it any more plain than that." "That's plain." Since they seemed to have finished the meal, he picked up the plates and carried them to the counter. Sitting again, he took a cigar from his pocket, lit it. "But there's a problem. I've developed an interest in you." "Yeah, right." "You find that difficult to believe?" He puffed out smoke, considered. "So did I initially. Then I realized what kicked it off. I'm driven to solve problems and puzzles. Answers and solutions are essential to me. Do you want coffee?" "No, I don't want coffee." Didn't he know it drove her crazy the way he could slide from one topic to the next in that slow, southern drawl of his. Of course he did. "And I'm not a problem or a puzzle." "But you are. Look at you, Kate. You white-knuckle your way through life." He reached out, deliberately uncurled her fist. "I can almost see whatever fuel you bother to put inside you being sucked away by nerves. You have a loving family, a solid base, an excellent mind, but you pick at details as if they were knotted threads. You never consider just snipping one off. Yet when you're faced with the injustice, the insult of being fired from a job that was a huge part of your life, you sit back and do nothing." Okay, picking up this review after months of having finished the trilogy is probably not the best but for fairness sake I have to say that Byron improves a lot over the course of the book and Kate's personal stubbornness does extend to not sharing her problems with her emotional support people, i.e. her best friends - and that leads to a hospital stay. She starts wising up, Byron starts owning up to him being manipulative but at the same time her happiness becomes more imporant to him so he thinks about the end result and her feelings a lot more and developments in Kate's knowledge about her father's crime (and a total jerkface workplace intrigue) put her at a crossroad where she can decide whether to go back and pick up her old life (and have her employers be grateful for that) or to stay with the shop she has opened with her friends and give Byron a chance for good. The friend support scenes are excellent in this book (none of the others are as introverted as Kate so that drama is especially strong here) and Byron becomes more unsure of himself the further he falls into love with Kate, which makes me like him quite a bit more than Josh. A fun quote from this novel to balance the other one: "This is so incredibly dumb." Naked, Kate fidgeted and blew the bangs out of her eyes. "I feel like an idiot." "Leave your hair alone," Margo ordered. "I worked too hard on it to have you screw it up. And stop gnawing on your lip." "I hate wearing lipstick. Why won't you let me see my face?" Kate craned her neck, but Margo had draped the mirror in the wardrobe room. "I look like a clown, don't I? You made me look like a clown." "Actually, it's more like a twenty-dollar hooker, but it's such a nice look for you. Hold still, damn it, so I can get you into this thing." Suffering mightily, Kate lifted her arms as Margo hooked her into what seemed to be some instrument of medieval torture. "Why are you doing this to me, Margo? I cut the check for your dippy string trio, didn't I? I went along with the truffles'even though they're snuffed out by pigs and hideously expensive." Her face set like a general leading troops into battle, Margo adjusted the bustier. "You agreed to follow my guidance for your image tonight. The Annual Reception and Charity Auction is Pretenses' most important event. Now stop bitching." "Stop playing with my tits." "Oh, but I love them so. There." Margo stepped back, then nodded in satisfaction. "I didn't have much to work with, but . . ." "Keep it up, Miss D Cup," Kate grumbled, then looked down and goggled. "Jesus, where did they come from?" "Amazing, isn't it? In the right harness, those puppies just rise." "I have breasts." Stunned, Kate patted the swell rising above black satin and lace. "And cleavage." "It's all a matter of proper positioning and making the most of what we have. Even when it's next to nothing." "Shut up." Grinning, Kate slicked her hands down her torso. "Look, Ma. I'm a girl." "You ain't seen nothing yet. Put this on." Margo tossed her a thin swatch of stretchy lace. Kate studied the garter belt, tugged it, snorted. "You're kidding." "I'm not putting it on for you." Margo patted the bulge under her sparkling silver tunic. "At seven months and counting, bending over isn't as easy as it used to be." "I feel like I'm in dress rehearsal for a porn flick." But after a struggle, Kate snapped the garter belt into place. "It's a little hard to breathe." Finding the Dream It's probably unfair to this book that I'm reviewing it so late after having finished this reread because it is the best love story of the three. A young man whose past made him leave his hometown, a former friend from the wrong tracks of Josh's, Michael Fury has returned and started to build a new life for himself and the horses he now breeds (he used to be a stuntman in Hollywood), but when a mudslide destroys the stables where he keeps the horses, he asks if he can rent the empty Templeton stables until he can have his own place built. Laura Templeton has always been physically aware of Michael and he's always had a thing for her, too, but when they were teenagers he was much too aware that she was the equivalent of a princess (and his best friend's sister) and that he was poor. Laura for her part was alarmed at the feelings Michael roused in her, because that's not what she thought romance should be like - he didn't fit her stereotype of romantic love. After the first two books the reader already knows that the man who did fit her romantic stereotype was an opportunistic manipulating egoist and now that Laura is finally free and finding her feet again, although the feelings of her daughters about the marriage and their father's lack of interest in them is important to the story and explored in detail, she is open to a casual fling. And that's what both are willing to risk when they realise the old attraction has revived - a fling. But of course it doesn't stop there, because they both feel too deeply when their emotions engage. But there's still Laura whose daughters come first for her, so she has doubts whether they will accept Michael and Michael himself who can't believe Laura won't think that she is slumming at some point. This was two damaged people finding their way to each other and making each other stronger through their love.

Review # 2 was written on 2021-01-11 00:00:00 torgeir breilid [deliberately breaking Peter's nose with a tennis ball, saying he'd have killed Margo if he'd stuck around after thinking he'd caught her with another man. (hide spoiler)]