Fortune's Proposal

Fortunes of Texas: The Missing Fortunes #1

by Allison Leigh

Nobody knows how to close a deal like Drew Fortune. But this time it's personal. The Fortune scion has just been handed an ultimatum: marry or lose his claim on the family business. Luckily, the perfect bride is only a cubicle away. Who better to complete the marriage merger of the year than his loyal assistant, Deanna Gurney?Being Drew's fake fiancee has its advantages...especially since Deanna's been in love with her heartbreakingly handsome boss forever. Drew may have made it clear he isn't in it for the long haul. But with another Fortune wedding in the offing, Deanna just might succeed in turning a temporary business arrangement into a permanent takeover...of a certain reticent playboy's heart!

Genres: Romance, Harlequin, Contemporary Romance, Contemporary

224 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published December 21, 2010

About the author

A frequent name on bestseller lists, Allison Leigh's highpoint as a writer is hearing from readers that they laughed, cried or lost sleep while reading her books. She’s blessed with an immensely patient family who doesn’t mind (much) her time spent at her computer and who gives her the kind of love she wants her readers to share in every page. Stay in touch at www.allisonleigh.com.

Reviews

[Sonja Rosa Lisa ♡ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Andrew soll die Leitung des Familienunternehmens übernehmen, aber sein Vater stellt an den Posten eine Bedingung: Andrew soll heiraten! Somit bittet Andrew seine Assistentin Deanna, seine Verlobte zu spielen und für ein Jahr seine Frau zu werden. Deanna willigt ein. Auf einem Familienfest kommen sich die beiden dann bald näher, und aus dem Spiel wird Ernst...

* Meine Meinung *
Die Liebesgeschichte von Andrew und Deanna liest sich sehr leicht, ist nachvollziehbar und schön romantisch. Aber es gibt ein paar Widersprüchlichkeiten in einigen Kapiteln, über die man zwar wohlwollend hinwegsehen kann, die aber dennoch da sind. Für eine anspruchslose leichte Lektüre für zwischendurch eignet sich dieser Roman aber doch recht gut.

[Starbubbles · Rating 3 out of 5]

Uh, this book was stupid. Clearly it was part of a series that I do not possess. It had a ton of promise, but this book was saddled with a lot going on. There was too many people and recapping past events for a just under 300 paged book. There were spots where I loved the book, spots where I was utterly confused and unable to keep up, and spots where I practically hated it.

If I had read the other books, I think I would have been upset by so much recap in this book. There was family tree explanations, crazy plot explanations, and more people explanations.

Then, there was the engagement plot, the dreaded wedding, the mom with the shopping addiction, running a business, the missing dad, a mystery baby (that got maybe a page in total of writing, but was apparently key to things), and mixed signals from our fearless heroes. Truthfully, there were too many ideas in here for all of that. It needed at least 100 more pages or cut out two or three elements. It did not need all of this. I would have nixed the baby and the missing dad plots, but that's just me.

The epilog had me barf a little on the inside. Am I interested in another book? Maybe. But an elopement to end everything. >_> Just - ugh... it was like there was 3 pages left and the happy ending of them hugging it out wasn't enough. Why couldn't that have been the set up for the next book? Missing dad reappears at son's wedding? Whatever. Sometimes I need a dumb book, and this fit it.

[Marite Kuus · Rating 2 out of 5]

2 stars for the story, 5 stars for the experience. First book in our book club which made it really fun to laugh at the often bad writing and outrageous plot lines that sometimes went no where. Too much going on yet also not enough, a lot of filler and bad communication between the protagonists that had us screaming at their incompetence. Anyway, may or may not read another harlequin novel, $1.50 well spent though.

[Harlequin Books]

Miniseries: The Fortunes of Texas: Lost…and Found

[Kate Vale · Rating 3 out of 5]

A familiar trope in the Fortunes of Texas series, in which the company executive falls for his assistant who's harbored a crush on him for years. In this case, Drew Fortune claims to be allergic to marriage and is forced to declare that he will marry because his father requires it if Drew is to take over the family business.

But lots of unsolved mysteries remain at the end of the story in spite of the HEA between Drew and Deanna, including that mysterious baby left on the church steps in the midst of Drew's father's wedding, which doesn't take place because he has disappeared. Is he dead? Is he the man found walking unsteadily along the road, possibly suffering from Alzheimer's?

More grist for this particular series mill.

[Phylis Carpenter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Deanna's mother has a problem. She keeps losing her job and then she goes on a shopping spree and buys things she can't afford and doesn't need. She expects her daughter Deanna to bail her out. The problem is that Deanna can't afford to keep paying for everything her Mom buys. She makes good money working for Drew Fortune as his Assistant but she can't afford her bills and then her Mom's habit.

It's New Years Eve and she is headed to a spa weekend with her friends when she gets done working late for Drew. She finds out that he is in a bad mood.

As the night progresses she finds out why and this is when the book gets very interesting and I just can't put it down. I love the Fortunes and this book was really good.

[Eeeps :) · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decent example of a fake-relationship romance. I was pleasantly surprised because I am often turned off by this trope, but I did not mind it in this book. Drew and Deanna are pretty standard characters for Harlequin books, but they were pleasant enough for me to be happy to go along for the ride. Nothing special but enjoyable.

I will warn any potential readers though that this book is part of a subseries of the long-running Fortune series. The larger Fortune series has been going on at Harlequin since the late ‘90s. The macro arc of the whole series (essentially the series is about all the different branches of the Fortune family) continues across each subseries, and characters from other subseries will show up. You do not need to read the whole macro series to understand what is going, but you really do need to read a subseries in its entirety and in order to understand what is going on. Each subseries has a central mystery or storyline that runs throughout all of the books in that subseries. As a result, if you miss some of the subseries, you will probably be confused.

Since Fortune’s Proposal is the first book is a Fortunes subseries, it spends a fair amount of time setting up the background arc of the “The Missing Fortunes” subseries. If you have no intention of reading the rest of this subseries or just like your romances to be self-contained, this book is probably not for you.

[Delacey · Rating 3 out of 5]

A weird book that you don't actually spend a whole lot of time with the couple together. There was also a cliffhanger side story that feels like it was just thrown in out of the blue- and really it didn't give me enough info/backstory to really care to follow the side plot line. I've read a few of the Fortune series books in the past, some good some just OK. This one I fear is more of an OK read then anything special.

[Katrina Alexander · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a cute book. I'm sure I've read other books of hers with this same family in it. The only problem I had was that there was a mystery left unsolved at the end, presumably as an enticement to buy the next book. However, that was a bit of a let down.

[Tambra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book loved it. Good story.

[Judy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a really good book, but it doesn't end there and there are 47 other books in the series. And I don't want to have-to-read all of them to get the final story!

[Maureen Hubley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book will have to find the next in the series.

[Carolyn R · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good plot and characters

[Janet · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really cute romance. There's a bit of a cliffhanger. I need to pick up the next book to find out what happened.

[Notserp2002 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Liked the story but wish they had cleared up some of the story line at the end.

[Charlie · Rating 2 out of 5]

2 stars, it was okay
zero resolution on the mystery introduced.

[Farzan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Again , the repetitive story of a good dispensable assistant and perfect boss who suddenly the assistant falls in love with her boss and the rest of the story but Allison Leigh tried to wrap it up with some different cover and present to the avid readers like me. I did enjoy reading it but as I said it's just that repetitive story will happen in the offices.

[Deborah · Rating 2 out of 5]

...well, category romances are definitely not my 'thing'. But when somebody hands you a bag of books? So, I am attempting to see how many can hold my interest enough to read..

This was actually not too bad. It was cute and light....

[Elizabeth Mckernan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a good story!