Fallen Hero

Pennington #8

by Catherine George

A damsel in distress...

As a teenager, Elinor had worshiped Miles Carew from afar. But even though Miles was now back in her life and wanted a relationship, she couldn't believe that, at last, she'd won his love. She was half afraid that her former idol had grown up into a father who needed a ready-made mother for his child.

But whatever Elinor's heart said to her about Miles's intentions, her head told a different story; she had to trust and rely on him. Because both of them were being stalked by a menacing stranger ....

Now Elinor really did need Miles to be a hero!

Genres: Harlequin Romance

Paperback

First published November 1, 1995

About the author

Deirdre Matthews was born in a village on the Welsh-English border, where the public library featured largely in her life. Her mother, who looked upon literature as a basic necessity of life, fervently encouraged her passion for reading, little knowing it would one day motivate her daughter into writing her first novel.

At 18, she met a future Engineer, who had set in a pendant a gold sovereign, that his grandmother put in his hand when he was born, and she have never taken off since. After their marriage he swept her off to Brazil, where he worked as Chief Engineer of a large gold-mining operation in the mountains of Minas Gerais, a setting which later provided a very popular background for several of her early novels. Nine happy years passed there before the question of their small son's education decided their return to Britain. Not long afterward a daughter was born, and for a time she lived a fulfilled life as a wife and mother who always made time to read, especially in the bath!

Her husband's job took him abroad again, to Portugal, West Africa, and various countries of the Middle East, but this time she stayed home with the family. And spent a lot of lonely evenings in between the reunions when her husband came home on leave. "Instead of reading other people's novels all the time," he suggested one day, "why not have a shot at writing one yourself?" So she did.

But first she took a creative writing course. Encouraged by the other students' enthusiasm for her contributions, she decided to try her hand at romance, and read countless Mills & Boon novels as research before writing one herself. Her first novel was accepted in 1982 as Catherine George, which Romantic Times voted best of its genre for that year, along with more than sixty written since.

These days son and daughter have fled the nest, but they return with loving regularity to where she and her husband back for good from his travels live, with Prince, the most recent Labrador, in a house built at the end of Victoria's reign in four acres of garden on the cliffs between the beautiful Wye Valley and the River Severn.

Reviews

[Naksed · Rating 1 out of 5]

Hero" is a Gulf War Vet who overpowers his longtime family friend, next door neighbour h, into a "forced seduction" and then tells her it wasn't rape because she liked it. Even in 1995, when this was published, that HAD to be unacceptable. How did the author get away with it?!!!

He then proceeds to ask her for a marriage of convenience over the phone so she can be a mother to his neglected daughter, as glam actress ex-wife (admittedly the only woman he has ever loved) has remarried and is off gallivanting round the world with her new millionaire husband.

H is outraged that h is not panting after his AMAZING proposal.

There was also a really strange side plot with H being stalked by a former Army colleague suffering from PTSD. The horrible man stalks heroine, assaults her, kidnaps her and almost kills her except that heroine gets away. Hero tells heroine he will not press charges because the guy needs help and he is sorry for what he is done. WTH????!!! He just lets him loose on the unsuspecting public?

I can't even with this book. Catherine George is very uneven for me but this hit rock bottom.

[A · Rating 1 out of 5]

I loved the secondary plot involving H's fellow gentleman officer and the reactions following the incident by the h and H. It really added to the storyline and bought them together in a way only people who have shared experiences with danger come together. But, after that I really didn't like H and his style of 'forceful' seduction! If two people aren't willing and didn't mutually consent to have sex to being with, its rape according to me even it ends up with both of them having an orgasm and forced me to downgrade my rating from 4 stars to 1 star :(

[PAINTED BOX]

As a teenager, Elinor had worshiped Miles Carew from afar. But even though Miles was now back in her life and wanted a relationship, she couldn't believe that, at last, she'd won his love. She was half afraid that her former idol had grown up into a father who needed a ready-made mother for his child.

But whatever Elinor's heart said to her about Miles's intentions, her head told a different story; she had to trust and rely on him. Because both of them were being stalked by a menacing stranger ....

Now Elinor really did need Miles to be a hero!