Tempt Me At Twilight, third in the Hathaways' series. It's well-written as per usual and I loved all the Hathaways, also as per usual we got to see more Winifred/Merripen yes yes yes but the book was spoiled for me by the hero, who I started out loathing. By the end of the book, the loathing dwindled to strong dislike, which is not something I want from a romance novel hero.
Our lovely hero decides he wants to marry Poppy Hathaway. Oops, she is in love with someone else. So he sabotages her relationship and then deliberately compromises her in public so she'd have to marry him. That's what I call a real charmer! UGH! Also, a total aberration from the rest of the Hathaways series. I haven't read Leo's book so no idea how that went down, but he seems much too lazy to blackmail anyone, Amelia and Cam had a lovely playful relationship throughout, Merripen was prepared to tear his heart out and have Win go to another if it was better for her (the whole angst of their book was that they loved each other madly but he was terrified of being with her and harming her/being unworthy), and Christopher had all sorts of 'I have battle PTSD and am not good enough for you, am I really what you want?' conversations with Beatrix. But nooooo, poor Poppy ended up with a guy who should have been smacked on the head with a 2-by-4 repeatedly. I couldn't escape the sense that she eventually fell for him because she was a kind woman married to him and so what other choice did she have?
Kleypas tries to justify Psycho Harry's actions by giving him a horrid, emotionally brutal childhood which leaves him unable to cope with feeling in a normal fashion, but while that explains, it doesn't excuse. Actually, Harry's childhood is another issue, instead - Poppy herself realizes after finding out about it that this is something that can't be fixed through conversation or even a year of living together happily but then kablam, two pages later, all Harry needed was a hug and some good boinking and he's somehow turned into a mostly normal, very affectionate person. Are you kidding me?
Anyway, WTF, Kleypas! I am just going to reread my favorite Win/Merripen and Beatrix/Christopher bits and pretend this book doesn't exist.
Our lovely hero decides he wants to marry Poppy Hathaway. Oops, she is in love with someone else. So he sabotages her relationship and then deliberately compromises her in public so she'd have to marry him. That's what I call a real charmer! UGH! Also, a total aberration from the rest of the Hathaways series. I haven't read Leo's book so no idea how that went down, but he seems much too lazy to blackmail anyone, Amelia and Cam had a lovely playful relationship throughout, Merripen was prepared to tear his heart out and have Win go to another if it was better for her (the whole angst of their book was that they loved each other madly but he was terrified of being with her and harming her/being unworthy), and Christopher had all sorts of 'I have battle PTSD and am not good enough for you, am I really what you want?' conversations with Beatrix. But nooooo, poor Poppy ended up with a guy who should have been smacked on the head with a 2-by-4 repeatedly. I couldn't escape the sense that she eventually fell for him because she was a kind woman married to him and so what other choice did she have?
Kleypas tries to justify Psycho Harry's actions by giving him a horrid, emotionally brutal childhood which leaves him unable to cope with feeling in a normal fashion, but while that explains, it doesn't excuse. Actually, Harry's childhood is another issue, instead - Poppy herself realizes after finding out about it that this is something that can't be fixed through conversation or even a year of living together happily but then kablam, two pages later, all Harry needed was a hug and some good boinking and he's somehow turned into a mostly normal, very affectionate person. Are you kidding me?
Anyway, WTF, Kleypas! I am just going to reread my favorite Win/Merripen and Beatrix/Christopher bits and pretend this book doesn't exist.