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Sins #7
Hot Blood
Burning with passion!
Kit and Liam were business partners by day and lovers by night. But Liam was content to hold Kit at arm's length emotionally. Kit was frustrated--they were two mature people, for goodness' sake; surely by now they should be closer?
However, as hard as she tried, Kit just couldn't get Liam to open up and let her in...until she met Joe, and Liam met the glamorous Cary. Without warning, tensions erupted, and Kit realized that beneath his controlled exterior, Liam was red-hot! Would he do today what he'd been putting off till tomorrow?
Kit and Liam were business partners by day and lovers by night. But Liam was content to hold Kit at arm's length emotionally. Kit was frustrated--they were two mature people, for goodness' sake; surely by now they should be closer?
However, as hard as she tried, Kit just couldn't get Liam to open up and let her in...until she met Joe, and Liam met the glamorous Cary. Without warning, tensions erupted, and Kit realized that beneath his controlled exterior, Liam was red-hot! Would he do today what he'd been putting off till tomorrow?
189 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published February 1, 1996
4 people are currently reading
70 people want to read
About the author
Charlotte Lamb
261 books316 followersSheila Ann Mary Coates Holland
aka Sheila Holland, Sheila Coates, Charlotte Lamb, Sheila Lancaster, Victoria Woolf, Laura Hardy
Sheila Ann Mary Coates was born on 1937 in Essex, England, just before the Second World War in the East End of London. As a child, she was moved from relative to relative to escape the bombings of World War II. Sheila attended the Ursuline Convent for Girls. On leaving school at 16, the convent-educated author worked for the Bank of England as a clerk. Sheila continued her education by taking advantage of the B of E's enormous library during her lunch breaks and after work. She later worked as a secretary for the BBC. While there, she met and married Richard Holland, a political reporter. A voracious reader of romance novels, she began writing at her husband's suggestion. She wrote her first book in three days with three children underfoot! In between raising her five children (including a set of twins), Charlotte wrote several more novels. She used both her married and maiden names, Sheila Holland and Sheila Coates, before her first novel as Charlotte Lamb, Follow a Stranger, was published by Mills & Boon in 1973. She also used the pennames: Sheila Lancaster, Victoria Wolf and Laura Hardy. Sheila was a true revolutionary in the field of romance writing. One of the first writers to explore the boundaries of sexual desire, her novels often reflected the forefront of the "sexual revolution" of the 1970s. Her books touched on then-taboo subjects such as child abuse and rape, and she created sexually confident - even dominant - heroines. She was also one of the first to create a modern romantic heroine: independent, imperfect, and perfectly capable of initiating a sexual or romantic relationship. A prolific author, Sheila penned more than 160 novels, most of them for Mills & Boon. Known for her swiftness as well as for her skill in writing, Sheila typically wrote a minimum of two thousand words per day, working from 9:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. While she once finished a full-length novel in four days, she herself pegged her average speed at two weeks to complete a full novel. Since 1977, Sheila had been living on the Isle of Man as a tax exile with her husband and four of their five children: Michael Holland, Sarah Holland, Jane Holland, Charlotte Holland and David Holland. Sheila passed away on October 8, 2000 in her baronial-style home 'Crogga' on the Island. She is greatly missed by her many fans, and by the romance writing community.
aka Sheila Holland, Sheila Coates, Charlotte Lamb, Sheila Lancaster, Victoria Woolf, Laura Hardy
Sheila Ann Mary Coates was born on 1937 in Essex, England, just before the Second World War in the East End of London. As a child, she was moved from relative to relative to escape the bombings of World War II. Sheila attended the Ursuline Convent for Girls. On leaving school at 16, the convent-educated author worked for the Bank of England as a clerk. Sheila continued her education by taking advantage of the B of E's enormous library during her lunch breaks and after work. She later worked as a secretary for the BBC. While there, she met and married Richard Holland, a political reporter. A voracious reader of romance novels, she began writing at her husband's suggestion. She wrote her first book in three days with three children underfoot! In between raising her five children (including a set of twins), Charlotte wrote several more novels. She used both her married and maiden names, Sheila Holland and Sheila Coates, before her first novel as Charlotte Lamb, Follow a Stranger, was published by Mills & Boon in 1973. She also used the pennames: Sheila Lancaster, Victoria Wolf and Laura Hardy. Sheila was a true revolutionary in the field of romance writing. One of the first writers to explore the boundaries of sexual desire, her novels often reflected the forefront of the "sexual revolution" of the 1970s. Her books touched on then-taboo subjects such as child abuse and rape, and she created sexually confident - even dominant - heroines. She was also one of the first to create a modern romantic heroine: independent, imperfect, and perfectly capable of initiating a sexual or romantic relationship. A prolific author, Sheila penned more than 160 novels, most of them for Mills & Boon. Known for her swiftness as well as for her skill in writing, Sheila typically wrote a minimum of two thousand words per day, working from 9:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. While she once finished a full-length novel in four days, she herself pegged her average speed at two weeks to complete a full novel. Since 1977, Sheila had been living on the Isle of Man as a tax exile with her husband and four of their five children: Michael Holland, Sarah Holland, Jane Holland, Charlotte Holland and David Holland. Sheila passed away on October 8, 2000 in her baronial-style home 'Crogga' on the Island. She is greatly missed by her many fans, and by the romance writing community.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
July 11, 2011
Thirty years ago, I’d have snubbed this book because the lead characters were old. The heroine is a 52 yr old divorcee, the hero is a widower in his late 40s – early 50s. Romance in the autumn of one’s life held no deep fascination for me as love in the springtime.
I should have listened to my younger self.
The book started off intriguing. The heroine Kit is catching a late night movie solo when she catches the attention of an attractive man (age: 42 years. -- Roar! She’s a cougar.) She fobs him off because she’s still licking her wounds from a break-up with the hero Liam. Apparently, she had dared ask Liam if they were going to get married or continue on with the nightly bed-meanderings for another year. His response: Exeunt, stage left.
The next day, at work, she overhears Liam asking a younger, version 2.0 colleague out to dinner. But the gall of this hero! He turns around and berates her for going out with a younger man the evening before. She had been seen with the OM and had set tongues wagging.
And so the story proceeds. His behavior towards Kit teeters between contempt and possessiveness. But to give the heroine credit, she establishes a platonic relationship with the OM and fends off Liam until the forced seduction in Chapter 8.
However, the dealbreaker in this story was the ending. There were just so many loose ends concerning the OW: Why did he go off with her on that business trip? Did he actually sleep with her? Was he planning to have an affair with her to get back at the heroine? What the heck was he thinking – bringing the OW to the same restaurant he and Kit patronize? Could he be that insensitive? Didn’t he realize how much his actions were hurting the heroine or was he just plain sadistic? Would he sever ties with her after he and Kit get married?
AND the $1M question: what made him decide to go back to the heroine? Any love declaration sounds spurious after the OW.
I must admit: it was unusual in an HP to read the hero and heroine interacting with their respective grandchildren. And when one of the children yelled "Granma!" I expected a doddering old minor-character to appear, not the heroine. But it was nice to know that both H/h were accepted by each other's families.
However, avoid this book if you can’t stand to watch old dogs abysmally attempting new tricks.
I should have listened to my younger self.
The book started off intriguing. The heroine Kit is catching a late night movie solo when she catches the attention of an attractive man (age: 42 years. -- Roar! She’s a cougar.) She fobs him off because she’s still licking her wounds from a break-up with the hero Liam. Apparently, she had dared ask Liam if they were going to get married or continue on with the nightly bed-meanderings for another year. His response: Exeunt, stage left.
The next day, at work, she overhears Liam asking a younger, version 2.0 colleague out to dinner. But the gall of this hero! He turns around and berates her for going out with a younger man the evening before. She had been seen with the OM and had set tongues wagging.
And so the story proceeds. His behavior towards Kit teeters between contempt and possessiveness. But to give the heroine credit, she establishes a platonic relationship with the OM and fends off Liam until the forced seduction in Chapter 8.
However, the dealbreaker in this story was the ending. There were just so many loose ends concerning the OW: Why did he go off with her on that business trip? Did he actually sleep with her? Was he planning to have an affair with her to get back at the heroine? What the heck was he thinking – bringing the OW to the same restaurant he and Kit patronize? Could he be that insensitive? Didn’t he realize how much his actions were hurting the heroine or was he just plain sadistic? Would he sever ties with her after he and Kit get married?
AND the $1M question: what made him decide to go back to the heroine? Any love declaration sounds spurious after the OW.
I must admit: it was unusual in an HP to read the hero and heroine interacting with their respective grandchildren. And when one of the children yelled "Granma!" I expected a doddering old minor-character to appear, not the heroine. But it was nice to know that both H/h were accepted by each other's families.
However, avoid this book if you can’t stand to watch old dogs abysmally attempting new tricks.
November 4, 2018
Re Hot Blood - Charlotte Lamb's final treatise on her seven book Sins Series tackles the vice of Sloth.
Of all the Vices/Mortal Sins, Sloth is the hardest to categorize. That is because unlike all the others on our list, Sloth is the sin of omission rather than commission.
Dante defines Sloth as a lack of love for everything, including one's self. Chaucer describes it as a sense of peevishness unwilling to participate in life. In both descriptions, it is the individual's feeling of ennui and apathy, a failure to connect with anyone or anything or even really care very much, that cuts the human soul off from Divine Love.
CL takes a similar view, her Author's Note CL tells us:
This book is highly unusual in that it features a heroine quite a bit older than any other HP h. In fact, Kit may well be the oldest h in HPlandia. She is 52 and to up the ante a bit, she is actually older that her hero by two years and older than her wanna be hero by ten.
CL uses a long time favorite trope of her's in this one. Since her earliest days of writing, CL has used the h torn between two H's trope.
One H is her locked up, emotionally distant, domineering Alpha type and the other is the debonair, charming, but equally aggressive playboy Alpha type. She has pitted the two off against each other, with the heroine being the judge, since time immemorial.
Sometimes the cold Alpha wins and sometimes the playboy does, but it always a very entertaining journey when CL decides to go there.
This one is no different and when you first pick up this book, it is easy to assume that Joe, the 42 yr old former war photographer seeking some balance in his life, is going to be our debonair, dashing, aggressively charming playboy hero.
He picks Kit up at a local movie house's old time movie re-screening. Kit is a fan of the classic days of Hollywood and she and Joe start their relationship when he invites her out for coffee after a showing of Greta Garbo's Camille.
The two quickly find a lot of common ground for a friendship and soon Joe is dragging Kit off for a nice Sunday of fishing with food porn gourmet picnics. Something Kit has never done before, but she rapidly adjusts to the pleasant idyll of lazing about on a riverbank, enjoying great food and watching Joe catch some very nice trout.
Kit has been married prior to the story starting and she has a grown son. She is a partner in an antiques shop in her hometown and Kit has never wanted or yearned to live anywhere else. Kit likes constancy in her life, with a few surprises thrown in to liven things up a bit.
Joe and his declaration of attraction is a very nice surprise for Kit, tho she is a bit apprehensive about starting a new relationship at this point in her life.
There are reasons for that. First, Kit is divorced. Her husband of twenty years fell in love with a girl half his age and ran off with her. Interestingly, Kit has no bitterness or anger about her husband's defection. She is a bit envious that he fell so completely in love that he threw his entire life over to be with his new wife, but overall her marriage was just OK.
So while she was surprised, she wasn't so in love or devoted to her husband that his desertion was traumatic, she was actually stunned to find herself pretty happy with doing her own thing and developing her own interests, after she got over her initial feelings of failure.
Now that she was freed from the mendacity of her married life, she became a partner with Liam in his antiques shop, sold her big house and got a flat in her little market town and started enjoying her life.
She also started an affair with Liam, but when Kit meets Joe, she and Liam have ended things after a two year relationship. Kit gave Liam an ultimatum, she was tired of being his occasional bed partner and trying to force Liam to communicate with her. Kit told Liam he either normalizes their relationship with something like marriage, or they needed to be done.
Liam, who is a distant, uncommunicative man at the best of times, tells Kit he will never marry again and Kit decides it may be time to move on. So she begins seeing Joe and spending time with him. Meanwhile Liam is seething behind his mask and to Kit's mind, making eyes at the new young and gorgeous clock maker that soon turns up on the scene.
(It is never really clear just what Liam's relationship with the red-headed OW is. We only meet her one time and it is entirely from Kit's extremely jealous POV. I tend to think that for Liam, it really was just business.
Liam is messed up, tho we don't learn that until almost the end of the book, so even tho he goes off to evaluate an estate for a week with the OW, I wasn't getting that he actually did anything with her. It is CL tho, and she always likes to keep her reader's guessing, so be prepared for very little resolution on the OW front - Liam denies any intimacy with her, but the issue is not resolved.)
Liam and Kit are working together and having a bit of a war of attrition and the weapons are their potential new partners. Kit does a great job of fretting over being 52 and thinking that men get the all the advantages of being older and nobody minds if they hang out with younger women, while everybody is being scandalized when an older lady hangs out with a younger man.
Eventually things culminate when Kit is going out with Joe. Liam has been seething for weeks and his daughter comes to visit. She has lunch with Kit and explains that her now deceased mother was an alcoholic for years and having to hide it messed the entire family up.
This gives Kit a whole new insight in Liam, but since he still won't talk to her about anything important, she is not able to move their relationship forward. Which is a problem for her, because she is head over heels in love with Liam and she is also wanting someone to share her life with and come home to at night.
It looks like Kit just may be moving on with Joe, but then her son and daughter in law have a huge car accident. Liam surges to the fore as the Alpha protector hero and soon has everything arranged so that Kit can go get her grandchildren and care for them while her son and daughter in law spend months in recovery.
CL does a great comparison of Kit, (who is starting to feel the bodily effects of age, but not in any huge way,) with her daughter in law's mother, who isn't much older than Kit but has terrible arthritis. (I liked this little comparison, it was an interesting look at how age affects people differently and an interesting look at how people handle it.)
Liam and Kit finally give into their big passion for each other again. After their emergency-induced lurve club Purple Passion reunion, Liam finally confesses he is obsessed with Kit and has been for years. Even before they were married. Liam talks about his first wife and the hell he suffered through with her alcoholism.
Apparently the lady started drinking even before the young Liam married her and it only got worse as time went on. Liam couldn't divorce her, had to hire caretaker's continually to keep his children safe and ultimately was so damaged by the effects of his wife's alcoholism on his life and having to hide it that he just grew emotionally apathetic.
When his wife finally died, the only emotion Liam had left was relief. Then he was able to establish a physical connection with Kit and he really does love her, but he couldn't get past the barrier of his fear that marrying again would mess everything up.
So Liam denied Kit any type of relationship security and used the threat of the OW to punish Kit because he was furious that Kit might move on with Joe. But then Liam realized that Kit and Joe were really well matched and that Joe probably wouldn't be shy about a serious commitment.
So Liam wants Kit to marry him now and to ensure that she will, out of loyalty if nothing else, he arranges to have Kit and her grandchildren stay at his house while their parent's recover. Kit is relieved that Liam finally explained his mental state and happy that he wants to marry her, because she is now convinced that Liam loves her as much as she loves him.
Tho interestingly, Kit tells Liam that he doesn't have to marry her, she is fine just living together and at their ages, nobody is going to care anyways. But Liam is determined that they will be wed, Kit will not see Joe anymore and he is going to be all in on the relationship front.
We leave the two of them lurvin' it up and planning the wedding for a very interesting CL HEA and a final conclusion to the Sins series.
This is CL's final HP mini-series and bit mixed on the quality of the romances. However, CL only has seven more HP's left and will only be writing for three more years by the time this is published, so the entire series could be categorized as a long time writer's reflections on life.
A lot of the Sins series has more to do with CL's conclusions about life and her worldviews more than romance. This particular one is probably one that is the most auto-biographical of all CL's works.
She talks about the effects of alcoholism on families extensively in this one, and I have long wondered if Liam's descriptions of his emotional apathy over the course of his marriage are reflections of CL's own.
Her husband was also rumored to be an alcoholic, tho that information was not widely known, and there is almost no mention of CL's private life outside of her immense love and pride in her children in any public account of her life.
Whatever her reasons for writing this series, it truly is one that every CL fan should read. Her writing is still crisp and engaging even when the romance is not. These stories really are not groundbreaking in the traditional HP sense, but by this time CL has the HP gravitas to pretty much write whatever she wants and be fascinating with it.
It seems what she wanted was to share some of her ideas and worldviews with us, her readers, and leave a legacy that will still keep readers glued to the pages decades after her HP reign. CL at an older age is still providing readers with many happy hours of intense HPlandia outings and tho her books are a bit more reflective than her earlier works, they are still worth the time spent to read them.
Of all the Vices/Mortal Sins, Sloth is the hardest to categorize. That is because unlike all the others on our list, Sloth is the sin of omission rather than commission.
Dante defines Sloth as a lack of love for everything, including one's self. Chaucer describes it as a sense of peevishness unwilling to participate in life. In both descriptions, it is the individual's feeling of ennui and apathy, a failure to connect with anyone or anything or even really care very much, that cuts the human soul off from Divine Love.
CL takes a similar view, her Author's Note CL tells us:
Dear Reader,
In this book I deal with the sin of Sloth. Sometimes when you've been under a terrible strain, it is vital to take time out, to let your physical and emotional bruises heal before getting back into life's struggles.
But there's another form of laziness. I picture this as a two-toed sloth, a comical, cuddly, furry animal, lumbering along a branch upside down, taking forever to get anywhere. It's a rather lovable creature and we all know someone who is prone to move like that, refusing to hurry, or make decisions, reluctant to take responsibility, putting off until tomorrow what they should do today. You can hurt someone you love, who loves you, by being slow to show how you feel; you might even lose them altogether.
This book is highly unusual in that it features a heroine quite a bit older than any other HP h. In fact, Kit may well be the oldest h in HPlandia. She is 52 and to up the ante a bit, she is actually older that her hero by two years and older than her wanna be hero by ten.
CL uses a long time favorite trope of her's in this one. Since her earliest days of writing, CL has used the h torn between two H's trope.
One H is her locked up, emotionally distant, domineering Alpha type and the other is the debonair, charming, but equally aggressive playboy Alpha type. She has pitted the two off against each other, with the heroine being the judge, since time immemorial.
Sometimes the cold Alpha wins and sometimes the playboy does, but it always a very entertaining journey when CL decides to go there.
This one is no different and when you first pick up this book, it is easy to assume that Joe, the 42 yr old former war photographer seeking some balance in his life, is going to be our debonair, dashing, aggressively charming playboy hero.
He picks Kit up at a local movie house's old time movie re-screening. Kit is a fan of the classic days of Hollywood and she and Joe start their relationship when he invites her out for coffee after a showing of Greta Garbo's Camille.
The two quickly find a lot of common ground for a friendship and soon Joe is dragging Kit off for a nice Sunday of fishing with food porn gourmet picnics. Something Kit has never done before, but she rapidly adjusts to the pleasant idyll of lazing about on a riverbank, enjoying great food and watching Joe catch some very nice trout.
Kit has been married prior to the story starting and she has a grown son. She is a partner in an antiques shop in her hometown and Kit has never wanted or yearned to live anywhere else. Kit likes constancy in her life, with a few surprises thrown in to liven things up a bit.
Joe and his declaration of attraction is a very nice surprise for Kit, tho she is a bit apprehensive about starting a new relationship at this point in her life.
There are reasons for that. First, Kit is divorced. Her husband of twenty years fell in love with a girl half his age and ran off with her. Interestingly, Kit has no bitterness or anger about her husband's defection. She is a bit envious that he fell so completely in love that he threw his entire life over to be with his new wife, but overall her marriage was just OK.
So while she was surprised, she wasn't so in love or devoted to her husband that his desertion was traumatic, she was actually stunned to find herself pretty happy with doing her own thing and developing her own interests, after she got over her initial feelings of failure.
Now that she was freed from the mendacity of her married life, she became a partner with Liam in his antiques shop, sold her big house and got a flat in her little market town and started enjoying her life.
She also started an affair with Liam, but when Kit meets Joe, she and Liam have ended things after a two year relationship. Kit gave Liam an ultimatum, she was tired of being his occasional bed partner and trying to force Liam to communicate with her. Kit told Liam he either normalizes their relationship with something like marriage, or they needed to be done.
Liam, who is a distant, uncommunicative man at the best of times, tells Kit he will never marry again and Kit decides it may be time to move on. So she begins seeing Joe and spending time with him. Meanwhile Liam is seething behind his mask and to Kit's mind, making eyes at the new young and gorgeous clock maker that soon turns up on the scene.
(It is never really clear just what Liam's relationship with the red-headed OW is. We only meet her one time and it is entirely from Kit's extremely jealous POV. I tend to think that for Liam, it really was just business.
Liam is messed up, tho we don't learn that until almost the end of the book, so even tho he goes off to evaluate an estate for a week with the OW, I wasn't getting that he actually did anything with her. It is CL tho, and she always likes to keep her reader's guessing, so be prepared for very little resolution on the OW front - Liam denies any intimacy with her, but the issue is not resolved.)
Liam and Kit are working together and having a bit of a war of attrition and the weapons are their potential new partners. Kit does a great job of fretting over being 52 and thinking that men get the all the advantages of being older and nobody minds if they hang out with younger women, while everybody is being scandalized when an older lady hangs out with a younger man.
Eventually things culminate when Kit is going out with Joe. Liam has been seething for weeks and his daughter comes to visit. She has lunch with Kit and explains that her now deceased mother was an alcoholic for years and having to hide it messed the entire family up.
This gives Kit a whole new insight in Liam, but since he still won't talk to her about anything important, she is not able to move their relationship forward. Which is a problem for her, because she is head over heels in love with Liam and she is also wanting someone to share her life with and come home to at night.
It looks like Kit just may be moving on with Joe, but then her son and daughter in law have a huge car accident. Liam surges to the fore as the Alpha protector hero and soon has everything arranged so that Kit can go get her grandchildren and care for them while her son and daughter in law spend months in recovery.
CL does a great comparison of Kit, (who is starting to feel the bodily effects of age, but not in any huge way,) with her daughter in law's mother, who isn't much older than Kit but has terrible arthritis. (I liked this little comparison, it was an interesting look at how age affects people differently and an interesting look at how people handle it.)
Liam and Kit finally give into their big passion for each other again. After their emergency-induced lurve club Purple Passion reunion, Liam finally confesses he is obsessed with Kit and has been for years. Even before they were married. Liam talks about his first wife and the hell he suffered through with her alcoholism.
Apparently the lady started drinking even before the young Liam married her and it only got worse as time went on. Liam couldn't divorce her, had to hire caretaker's continually to keep his children safe and ultimately was so damaged by the effects of his wife's alcoholism on his life and having to hide it that he just grew emotionally apathetic.
When his wife finally died, the only emotion Liam had left was relief. Then he was able to establish a physical connection with Kit and he really does love her, but he couldn't get past the barrier of his fear that marrying again would mess everything up.
So Liam denied Kit any type of relationship security and used the threat of the OW to punish Kit because he was furious that Kit might move on with Joe. But then Liam realized that Kit and Joe were really well matched and that Joe probably wouldn't be shy about a serious commitment.
So Liam wants Kit to marry him now and to ensure that she will, out of loyalty if nothing else, he arranges to have Kit and her grandchildren stay at his house while their parent's recover. Kit is relieved that Liam finally explained his mental state and happy that he wants to marry her, because she is now convinced that Liam loves her as much as she loves him.
Tho interestingly, Kit tells Liam that he doesn't have to marry her, she is fine just living together and at their ages, nobody is going to care anyways. But Liam is determined that they will be wed, Kit will not see Joe anymore and he is going to be all in on the relationship front.
We leave the two of them lurvin' it up and planning the wedding for a very interesting CL HEA and a final conclusion to the Sins series.
This is CL's final HP mini-series and bit mixed on the quality of the romances. However, CL only has seven more HP's left and will only be writing for three more years by the time this is published, so the entire series could be categorized as a long time writer's reflections on life.
A lot of the Sins series has more to do with CL's conclusions about life and her worldviews more than romance. This particular one is probably one that is the most auto-biographical of all CL's works.
She talks about the effects of alcoholism on families extensively in this one, and I have long wondered if Liam's descriptions of his emotional apathy over the course of his marriage are reflections of CL's own.
Her husband was also rumored to be an alcoholic, tho that information was not widely known, and there is almost no mention of CL's private life outside of her immense love and pride in her children in any public account of her life.
Whatever her reasons for writing this series, it truly is one that every CL fan should read. Her writing is still crisp and engaging even when the romance is not. These stories really are not groundbreaking in the traditional HP sense, but by this time CL has the HP gravitas to pretty much write whatever she wants and be fascinating with it.
It seems what she wanted was to share some of her ideas and worldviews with us, her readers, and leave a legacy that will still keep readers glued to the pages decades after her HP reign. CL at an older age is still providing readers with many happy hours of intense HPlandia outings and tho her books are a bit more reflective than her earlier works, they are still worth the time spent to read them.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 9, 2023
This one lacks the sparks of many other books of my favorite old school Hp writer.
It’s an attempt to write about a middle aged couple but, besides some sad hints about leg and back aches ( I think it refers to rheumatoid pains, sigh!) it’s basically the same as between any other couple of any other age. With the same level of immaturity and misunderstandings.
So it seems that, either you are 25 or 50 the brain never changes and it is very sad and depressing.
The couple have children- and grandchildren- with other previous partners and they are now in a relationship that is basically sex and some company. The heroine would like them to get married because, back pains and silver hair aside, well, she’s still a romantic, while the hero had a nasty experience with his first wife and is not inclined any longer towards marriage. So they break up and he becomes the same old immature idiot that goes out with ow to make the heroine jealous.
And there’s the sad thing, she’s in love and even if she has grandchildren and years of experience she still acts like a naive victim, hurting and pining after that a**hole of a man instead of leaving him behind and move on. She dates om for some time but it’s very platonic and she’s anyway in love with the hero.
Their age is really hilariously described, both are in their early 50s but believe me, people nowadays are much younger looking and healthier than those two, thanks to healthy habits and right nutrition. Those two seems my uncle and aunt both in their 70s, and then some. Whatever.
Both are unpleasant characters, that have only become physically older but not at all more mature. Eventually he realizes he doesn’t want to lose her and they get married but I don’t know, it seems that she’s stubborn in her request of marriage at first then in the end she’s willing to accept everything he dishes out, while he’s hurtful and cruel to a woman that for years he had considered as a friend first and as a lover afterwards so I don’t understand his love for her. I just don’t feel it, that’s it. Maybe it’s me or maybe it’s the whole middle age thing that doesn’t work, why write a book about a mature couple if they have the same pattern of reasoning of a couple half their age, I didn’t like it very much. Yet I can’t rate it less than two stars, it’s Ms Lamb and it’s always a pleasure to read her works.
It’s an attempt to write about a middle aged couple but, besides some sad hints about leg and back aches ( I think it refers to rheumatoid pains, sigh!) it’s basically the same as between any other couple of any other age. With the same level of immaturity and misunderstandings.
So it seems that, either you are 25 or 50 the brain never changes and it is very sad and depressing.
The couple have children- and grandchildren- with other previous partners and they are now in a relationship that is basically sex and some company. The heroine would like them to get married because, back pains and silver hair aside, well, she’s still a romantic, while the hero had a nasty experience with his first wife and is not inclined any longer towards marriage. So they break up and he becomes the same old immature idiot that goes out with ow to make the heroine jealous.
And there’s the sad thing, she’s in love and even if she has grandchildren and years of experience she still acts like a naive victim, hurting and pining after that a**hole of a man instead of leaving him behind and move on. She dates om for some time but it’s very platonic and she’s anyway in love with the hero.
Their age is really hilariously described, both are in their early 50s but believe me, people nowadays are much younger looking and healthier than those two, thanks to healthy habits and right nutrition. Those two seems my uncle and aunt both in their 70s, and then some. Whatever.
Both are unpleasant characters, that have only become physically older but not at all more mature. Eventually he realizes he doesn’t want to lose her and they get married but I don’t know, it seems that she’s stubborn in her request of marriage at first then in the end she’s willing to accept everything he dishes out, while he’s hurtful and cruel to a woman that for years he had considered as a friend first and as a lover afterwards so I don’t understand his love for her. I just don’t feel it, that’s it. Maybe it’s me or maybe it’s the whole middle age thing that doesn’t work, why write a book about a mature couple if they have the same pattern of reasoning of a couple half their age, I didn’t like it very much. Yet I can’t rate it less than two stars, it’s Ms Lamb and it’s always a pleasure to read her works.
December 9, 2022
Very depressing. Somehow both horrifying and banal. Read the other reviews. It's rare when they are all so unanimous about what is wrong with the book. Steer clear of this one. I just cannot understand how Charlotte Lamb went from the writer she was in the 1960s and '70s to the writer of appalling tripe like this. Did she have a ghostwriter? Did another author purchase her name or something?
May 13, 2021
The only hot-blooded thing happening here was 50-year-old Liam's apparent courtship of a younger woman, because his and Kit's romance was definitely off the burner. The reader isn't given much insight into the exact nature of Liam's relationship with the OW, but I like to think that Liam did not sleep with her. Maybe he kept things on a professional level. Or maybe he only used her as a delay tactic so he could buy time and decide what to do about Kit. *fingers crossed* It's later revealed that Liam had an aversion to marriage because of his disastrous first marriage, but it's just touched upon without any in-depth exploration.
Kit and Liam didn't interact enough to make this a romantic read. Not when they spent the majority of the book with other people, even if those people were just friends or a casual date. They did not seem to yearn for each other all that much either.
And wow, the cover is really unflattering. The heroine is 52, not 72 and near death! (By the way, doesn't Liam look like he's ready to give Kit a very helping hand in signing her last will and testament? In which all of her assets are given to him. Now I know why he strung her along! Hehehe) On the other hand, I'll take the illustrations of the '80s and '90s over the digital covers of today anytime. They're much more romantic and emotive in comparison.
Kit and Liam didn't interact enough to make this a romantic read. Not when they spent the majority of the book with other people, even if those people were just friends or a casual date. They did not seem to yearn for each other all that much either.
And wow, the cover is really unflattering. The heroine is 52, not 72 and near death! (By the way, doesn't Liam look like he's ready to give Kit a very helping hand in signing her last will and testament? In which all of her assets are given to him. Now I know why he strung her along! Hehehe) On the other hand, I'll take the illustrations of the '80s and '90s over the digital covers of today anytime. They're much more romantic and emotive in comparison.
February 8, 2018
This is a terrible book. Period. I've always loved Charlotte Lamb's books but this mish-mash of category romance/bungled women's fiction isn't worth anyone's time. If she was trying "something new, something different" it was a major fail.
Two women and two men were mentioned on the back cover. One female/male have been involved in a working relationship as well as a private physical relationship. He's happy with that and wants the status-quo. The cover hints that each individual meets someone new so following HQ formula you figure there will be a shuffle. What actually takes place is crazy sauce.
SPOILERS SPOILERS ahead. I'm not worried about spoiling this book. The 'heroine's' new man is 42 years old - oh, and she's 52. Her 'previous' partner is around her age but meets up with a much younger woman. The previous partner is the biggest assjack between romance covers. He rants and acts like a pathologically jealous dog-in-the-manger douche who continually baits the heroine and twists everything she says so badly she's in danger of strangling on his venom.
The heroine isn't perfect - she's spineless and whiney - a couple of times when she's actually fearful of him she still gets turned on at certain moments when they're close together.
The 'new guy' turns out to be a childish, selfish, laissez-faire knob who kinda wines & dines her but wants to be foot-loose and fancy free.
End of story: she ends up with her original 'boy-friend' the passive-aggressive jerk who has had a major epiphany. I'd be shit-scared of him. She would have been better off walking away from both of them. She hated being 'alone' but eventually marrying the jerk couldn't have been her wisest decision. I feared for her safety after I closed the book.
Do not bother with this one.
Two women and two men were mentioned on the back cover. One female/male have been involved in a working relationship as well as a private physical relationship. He's happy with that and wants the status-quo. The cover hints that each individual meets someone new so following HQ formula you figure there will be a shuffle. What actually takes place is crazy sauce.
SPOILERS SPOILERS ahead. I'm not worried about spoiling this book. The 'heroine's' new man is 42 years old - oh, and she's 52. Her 'previous' partner is around her age but meets up with a much younger woman. The previous partner is the biggest assjack between romance covers. He rants and acts like a pathologically jealous dog-in-the-manger douche who continually baits the heroine and twists everything she says so badly she's in danger of strangling on his venom.
The heroine isn't perfect - she's spineless and whiney - a couple of times when she's actually fearful of him she still gets turned on at certain moments when they're close together.
The 'new guy' turns out to be a childish, selfish, laissez-faire knob who kinda wines & dines her but wants to be foot-loose and fancy free.
End of story: she ends up with her original 'boy-friend' the passive-aggressive jerk who has had a major epiphany. I'd be shit-scared of him. She would have been better off walking away from both of them. She hated being 'alone' but eventually marrying the jerk couldn't have been her wisest decision. I feared for her safety after I closed the book.
Do not bother with this one.
September 6, 2022
This book deals with interesting tropes, such as dating at a mature age, and an aging single woman who wants to remain desirable. Unfortunately, Charlotte Lamb decides to take a cop ou and it all seems a bit of a wasted opportunity.
What I liked:
-The older hero and heroine. It's pretty rare to see a 50 something hero in a HP book, or a heroine who is a grey haired grand ma with a bit of sagging skin. It was refreshing.
- The nice Other Man. I think Charlotte Lamb might have been inspired by real life photographer Kevin Carter, who very famously authored The Vulture and The Little Girl. It makes him a very interesting character that I wish Lamb had explored more. More on that later.
Unfortunately:
- I thought the hero is detestable. He's a sophisticated brute and tyrant. It seems to me that his only redeemable qualities are his good looks and his elegant sophistication (perhaps also his suitable upper middle class). Towards the end especially, he does two things that made me hate his guts: Also, I'm sorry but I think he probably drove his wife deeper into addiction, by being ashamed of her, and making her feel like a dirty pile of old underwear.
- At first I thought the heroine was alright, but towards the end, she turns into something else when her spine instantly dissolves because he said "I love you", and also she seems to forget about her son and his family being in critical conditions.
- The OM was done wrong here. He was the most interesting character here, but it's only towards the end that we get some interesting insight into his inner demons. As I said, I think Lamb might have been inspired by Kevin Carter. Knowing that Carter took his own life because of the similar issues, I find it disturbing that the last time we see his fictional counterpart, he's acting very intense after expressing very deep anguish and self loathing.
- Why did the hero have to spend a whole week with his potential new girlfriend at a hotel? My cynical mind thinks maybe he was dumped by the young woman and then decided it was time to settle down with the sexy silver fox his children seemed to approve of.
What I liked:
-The older hero and heroine. It's pretty rare to see a 50 something hero in a HP book, or a heroine who is a grey haired grand ma with a bit of sagging skin. It was refreshing.
- The nice Other Man. I think Charlotte Lamb might have been inspired by real life photographer Kevin Carter, who very famously authored The Vulture and The Little Girl. It makes him a very interesting character that I wish Lamb had explored more. More on that later.
Unfortunately:
- I thought the hero is detestable. He's a sophisticated brute and tyrant. It seems to me that his only redeemable qualities are his good looks and his elegant sophistication (perhaps also his suitable upper middle class). Towards the end especially, he does two things that made me hate his guts: Also, I'm sorry but I think he probably drove his wife deeper into addiction, by being ashamed of her, and making her feel like a dirty pile of old underwear.
- At first I thought the heroine was alright, but towards the end, she turns into something else when her spine instantly dissolves because he said "I love you", and also she seems to forget about her son and his family being in critical conditions.
- The OM was done wrong here. He was the most interesting character here, but it's only towards the end that we get some interesting insight into his inner demons. As I said, I think Lamb might have been inspired by Kevin Carter. Knowing that Carter took his own life because of the similar issues, I find it disturbing that the last time we see his fictional counterpart, he's acting very intense after expressing very deep anguish and self loathing.
- Why did the hero have to spend a whole week with his potential new girlfriend at a hotel? My cynical mind thinks maybe he was dumped by the young woman and then decided it was time to settle down with the sexy silver fox his children seemed to approve of.
August 20, 2023
Hero is 50yr old widower and has an antique business. Heroine is 52yr old divorcee who works for the hero. H/h have been dating for about two-years. h misses having someone to come home to and wants to get married and move in with the H, but he does not. A younger 42yr guy hits on the h and asks her out. She dates him platonically. H is jealous of OM, eventually he comes around to the marriage idea.
It was interesting to read about a mature romance, but unfortunately the story missed the mark, as the OM was way more interesting than the H.
It was interesting to read about a mature romance, but unfortunately the story missed the mark, as the OM was way more interesting than the H.
August 27, 2018
A confusing story. I got to about page 85 and had to have a quick look at the last page to find out who she ended up with. (I never look at the last page in a story, so I must have been confused to do so in this story). The story line was ODD. His strange attitude did not say "jealous" to me but that is what he was. The last few chapters were good but there was a lot left up in the air. (don't like the cover either). 1.5 stars.
October 24, 2019
I was really excited when our fifty-something heroine meets an extremely interested forty-something man in the first few pages, but alas, he exists merely to spur her "more age-appropriate" love interest (and long-time lover) into action. Which takes a while. So close!
February 2, 2021
I skimmed this one, it was rather matter of fact, not much happens.
January 18, 2014
51 years old heroine...hmmm, i guess it was fine but the cover? seriously??
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