Julia's was a passionate nature A devastating warmth surged between Julia and her self-appointed guardian, Guy Guerard, the first time they met. Inexperienced in love, Julia let Guy take her to his estate in France, where she was paraded in virginal white before some of the country's most eligible bachelors.
Other men wanted her, but there was something about Guy, something so rare and inexplicable that Julia was at a loss to explain her sudden peculiar hunger to become a part of his world and his heart....
Really enjoyed this one. Between a 3 and 4 star read for me.
Wow – this besotted hero was positively *mellow* for a Margaret Pargeter hero – which is not mellow at all by other standards. He’s also French, with chateaus all over the place but prefers to live with his cowboys in the Camrgue region of France. It is here he brings the young h from London after she is orphaned at 18. His frail stepmother is the h’s maternal aunt and they all feel she should live with them until they can find her a husband.
*checks copyright date * 1984
Okay
The h has been ill with the flu and is very weak. She didn’t write back to her aunt’s invitation so the hero is on her doorstep when the story opens. He bullies her into going to France with him. When she faints once they are in Paris, he actually shows some compassion.
But a MP hero can only stay sweet so long – especially when he has chateaus to run, his half-sister’s twin boys visiting along with a potential OW who is there to make trouble for the h.
The heroine starts falling in love with the hero right away as she gains her strength and hangs out with the twins and learns to ride. The hero introduces her to potential husband #1, a neighbor with a ceramics collector mother. Heroine doesn’t like him, but goes along to get along. Thankfully she is rid of him when one of the twins breaks a priceless vase and the heroine takes the blame. The collector mother can’t imagine having such a clumsy daughter-in-law. The hero is livid since he thinks she did it on purpose to get rid of potential husband #1.
OW starts dropping hints that she and the H will be marrying soon. Heroine is confused because the H takes her on little expeditions around the countryside– like waiting around to see the wild horses – and they always end up kissing.
He throws a party for her to meet more men. She ends up dressing like a tart with a lot of makeup on. He won’t allow her to go down looking like that so he rips her clothes off and cleans off her make up, sticks her in the shower and shampoos her hair. He even blow dries it! It’s a whack scene.
The heroine wants to get a job, but the hero is having none of that. It’s find a husband or stay at the chateau. Hero’s half sister (and mother of the twins) is married to a director who wants the beautiful h to be in his next movie. They invite the heroine to meet that branch of the family and it’s here the heroine meets potential husband #2.
Hero is not thrilled with pick #2, because he is actually charming and competition for the H - but it’s better than the acting job. After a few weeks of taunting by the OW, the heroine tells the hero that #2 has asked her to marry him. Hero doesn’t believe her because she was just kissing him that morning. (Seriously – these two make out all the time)
Heroine realizes she has to do something drastic for the hero to allow her to leave without a husband. She decides that she will steal way in a panel truck and follow him to one of his remote properties. She’ll wait for him in his bed and he’ll be so disgusted that he’ll send her away.
I don’t know. Maybe the OW slipped stupid pills in her tea.
The hero loses control and they have sex. Now he’ll marry her. Heroine is upset because she thinks he hates her for trapping him. On their honeymoon they attend a party at the parents of potential husband #2. The heroine is knocked into the pool, so #2 takes her to his room and strips off her dress. The hero sees this and is crazed with jealousy. He takes her home and is about to rape her without listening to the heroine’s side of the story. The phone rings. It’s potential husband #2 who tells him what really happened and that the heroine had admitted she loved her husband. Hero now understands and tells her he loves her – even though she is a virgin slut. LOL – I know. That’s a compliment for her sexual appetites and how he had absolutely no power against them.
MP really should have written erotica. Think what she could have done with this story line 30 years later.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
This was intense and I loved the crazy way he loved her. For a virgin she sure was forward! Not overly so but that was surprising for a convent girl. He was so obviously in love with her. Loved it. Lost a star because she was always apologizing when she had done really nothing wrong and he never told he he was sorry for the vase, the pool or calling her a slut!!! A virgin slut now I have read it all.
"Storm in the Night" is the story of Julia and Guy.
Get ready for a super horny *cough* I mean sensual story between cousins by marriage and now guardian/ward couple. They are both temperamental- her a virgin seductress who is a vision, him as a jealous, angry, possessive lion who lusts after her from afar. The whole book is him twat swatting other men away from her, while bestowing bruising kisses, glaring and blaming her for all evil in the world. He forbade her from most activities involving other men, and then brutally deflowered her. Ofcourse, this led to a hasty wedding and rest of the book is predictable. I genuinely found the hero too overbearing- and he infuriated me as he shamed the heroine for her desires. Also the semi consensual rape which was shielded by her wavering desires was unpleasant to read.
It was good but the heroine really ticked me off. Her parents were traveling all the time, leaving her alone so why wasn't she more adult? At times she acted like nothing but a child. The novel was a huge contradiction.
She is an insecure child, he's a bully who practically rapes her, there is no communication whatsoever between them, only anger and frustration. Didn't like it one bit.
DnF. I’m giving it a 3 not a 2 cause it hit a personal no-no.
Let’s start with I don’t mind stalkery, abusive, rapey heroes and I consider myself as having a good separation of reality and fiction. Buuuut...
I thought the hero was a creep. I love guardian, father figure heroes but once we get into groping / kissing territory the father acting has to stop. Unless it’s roleplay, just... stop! This guy isn’t someone who was a father figure and as time passed the relationship evolved etc etc. This guy comes in, INSANELY heavy handed, acting like the stereotypical serial killers mom. He was one step away of giving the heroine baths and tying her shoelaces. And below that he’s all gropey. No, no. No! You can’t be playing daddy and taking care of her in bed and then kiss her. Just no!
In a nutshell: Be as obsessed and stalkery as you want hero but if you mask that under the caring daddy facade... I’m sorry, that’s my limit.
Getting to the heroine. Let me point out I like a TSTL heroine buuuut... she acts like a child. She really, really just makes me think of a young teenager. A STUPID one. Who falls in love with the hero in 2 seconds, while thinking it’s so nice that he cares about her as she wasn’t close to her... father? A spineless heroine if you ever met one! I was 19 once, for heavens sake if a grown man I didn’t know started laying down ‘rules’ cause he’s my step-cousin I’d have told him what to do with them. This idiot....
There’s no words. It’s creepy. I’m writing this with a permanent cringe face.
That said... it’s just my take. You may wanna give it a try.
PS. I disliked the writing too. It seemed that the author was just writing one sentence after the other with no passion, poetry, something. Best I can explain. I stopped reading at about 40 pages maybe.
I got a good laugh out of this one. The hero goes and gets the heroine and brings her to France to make his step-mother, her aunt, happy after her neglectful parents croak at the same time for some mysterious reason (that's not what's funny). He's being all nice and nurturing on the trip home saying she needs looked after, when she pops out, "yes, I wished I'd seen more of my dad" making him do a double take for being placed in the dad zone. Heh! He spends most of the book having a hard time keeping his 37 year old hands off her 19 year old parts even while he tries to introduce her to prospective husbands then interferes. Very old school and entertaining enough to keep me from flouncing. I do that a lot.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Even as she asked him, Julia felt he was mocking her.
But Guy only smiled indifferently. "Surely for some things there doesn't always have to be a reason? In this case, for instance, don't you think a reason might sound too much like excuse? Blame the circumstances if you must. The isolation and heat of the day, or merely impulse."
"Impulse?"
His smile became even more cynical. "You're a lovely girl, Julia. Perhaps I was caught unawares and you tempted me.
"You've too much control. " "Yes. Yet---- "his Eyes grew shades colder"------ I don't believe anyone is infallible. At least I don't now. Maybe unconsciously, when I held you and kissed you, I was trying to deal with the restraint that you often wear like an armor."
I honestly though I would hate this novel when I started reading it simply because it has a guardian, and guardian type novels always miserably fail to engage me, but this one was surprisingly enjoyable. I had great fun reading it and the writing style certainly helped.
Guardian/ward romance with a decent sized age gap. I have to admit I found the H's infantilisation of the h a bit.. eehhhhh. I did love how much of a stuffy, hot and cold bastard the H was but the h was way too passive, meek, milk and wimpy for my tastes.
- انت منذ الآن قد اصبحت شاناً من شؤوني... وإذا اثبت انك مطيعة فاسأسعى إلي تزوجيك برجل يليق بك... - مالذي سيحدث إن كنت لا اريد الزواج؟ - كل النساء يردن الزواج، لست اعتزم ان ابقيك عندي الى الابد... كانت هذه معركة إزادت بين جوليا وارد وغاي جيرارد، فهل يستطيع ان يفرض عليها الزوج الذي يظن انه يناسبها، او انها ستختار من تريد؟ وماذا سيفعل بها غاي إذا قررت جوليا انه هو العريس المناسب؟ بل ماذا ستفعل بها صديقته الحميمة فورين؟
Amusing book. I loved the first part, it would have been 4 stars but it was not so good the second part. The heroine is Alice in wonderland. 19, young, naive and innocent, untouched by passion, she has just lost both parents and is recovering from a bad flu. The hero is basically her tutor and will take her to France where her aunt is living and is waiting for her. The heroine is still a child starved for affection and is oh so happy that the hero is a caring and gentle man, and she appreciates very much when he hugs her so she touches him- very innocently - and snugs and sniffs his neck- very innocently-, but the hero, a man in his thirties, starts sweating and has not so very fatherly feelings for her, and finds very difficult to consider her like a sister. His intentions are to help her recover and to find her a proper husband as soon as she's better. The heroine is not very eager to get married but, since she's fond of the hero, complies with his request and tries to be kind with the young men the hero introduces to her. When she arrives at the hero's estate she finds her aunt, a nice woman who is very happy to have her there, the hero's two nephews, and a young woman (ow ) that is taking care of the children and of the hero. Or at least she would like to. The woman is venomous: she lets the heroine know that she's going to marry the hero and the heroine has to go as soon as possible since he sees her as an unpleasant duty. Does the hero knows it? As time goes by, the hero starts behaving in a possessive manner with heroine, so he's not happy that other men are interested in her, and every time she seems interested in a man he finds excuses and prevents her to get serious with any man. He's obviously besotted with her, there are many moments when he kisses and paws her and she responds with enthusiasm, but then he retreats and goes back to ow. This ow is of course nasty and jealous, but the man as always happens in HP, is unable to see how she really is, and often dates her. The heroine is depressed because she understands she's in love with him and eventually she devise a plan that made me feel ashamed for her. Ok she's a teenager and not so smart but my god what a plan. She hides in the back of the hero's car when he's going to one of his property, thinking to sleep in his bed so when he finds her he'll be so horrified that he will send her back to England. What???? Really??? When the hero finds her he's so jealous because he thinks she's going to one of her suitors and he makes love to her (typical reaction of HP furious hero: have wonderful sex with the heroine). Then, of course he asks her to marry. The heroine thinks he's only marrying her for duty and he's in love with ow, but he insists so they get married- both unhappy and both thinking the worst of the other. After more misunderstanding and some nasty swearing on my part, they finally declare their love and have their HEA. Of course the hero was besotted with her, we understood it on the first pages when he had a hard-on the first time he held her in his arms. And every time he was jealous. And every time he kissed her senseless. And when he was furious if another man only looked at her. Therefore, the signs were all there, only the blind heroine didn't see it clearly. Of course the poor man thought she was too young for him and tried to resist his feelings, but ow was never his lover anyway, and never stood a chance. He only ever loved her. Cute story, the first part was sexy and very entertaining, sadly the second was sometimes too messy and there were inconsistencies, because the hero changed suddenly from sweet and gentle to rude and cruel to her, accusing her to be a slut (she was innocent and naive) and acted like an enraged pitbull... And ow? The hero actually never did anything to push her away, she was all over him and he didn't ever complain. But the end was sweet and his grovel and explanation was enough.
I liked this one, though I wish there was a bit less of an age difference between the H and h (he was 37, she was 20.) Also, he could be a bit too controlling and autocratic, and some of the things he said really hurt. (A few times she was ready to slap him, and I kind of wish she had!) Still, he never goes too overboard, and neither does the h, when it comes to snarky remarks or temper displays.
In fact, there are some funny moments, like when one of her ideas to thwart the H's plans backfires, and for an innocent young woman, she sure gets into situations where she ends up wearing only her lingerie!
There's the OW to cause trouble, but it doesn't go too overboard, and there are two OM to give the H some competition!
I would have liked some more info about the family's winery business, and also about his sister and her movie director husband, but that's not needed to hold your attention.
A devastating warmth surged between Julia and her self-appointed guardian, Guy Guerard, the first time they met. Inexperienced in love, Julia let Guy take her to his estate in France, where she was paraded in virginal white before some of the country's most eligible bachelors.
Other men wanted her, but there was something about Guy, something so rare and inexplicable that Julia was at a loss to explain her sudden peculiar hunger to become a part of his world and his heart..
Julia's was a passionate nature A devastating warmth surged between Julia and her self-appointed guardian, Guy Guerard, the first time they met. Inexperienced in love, Julia let Guy take her to his estate in France, where she was paraded in virginal white before some of the country's most eligible bachelors.
Other men wanted her, but there was something about Guy, something so rare and inexplicable that Julia was at a loss to explain her sudden peculiar hunger to become a part of his world and his heart....