There had always been a peculiarly bitter hatred between Jenny and her stepbrother, Dane Sutherland. She'd so much resented his influence with her father she had run away from home.
Now, five years later, she was back in Iowa, and apparently nothing had altered. Dane, not content with controlling the family, was trying to take over her father's business, too.
It didn't occur to her that there might be something more to her emotions than mere sibling rivalry...
Leigh Michaels is the pseudonym used by LeAnn Lemberger (b. July 27 in Iowa, United States), a popular United States writer of over 85 romance novels. She has published with Harlequin, Sourcebooks, Montlake Romance, Writers Digest Books, and Arcadia Publishing. She teaches romance writing at Gotham Writers' Workshop (www.writingclasses.com) She is the author of On Writing Romance.
When Leigh was fifteen she wrote her first romance novel and burned it. She burned five more complete manuscripts before submitting to a publisher. The first submission was accepted by Harlequin, the only publisher to look at it, and was published in 1984.
Michaels was born in Iowa, United States. She received a Bachelor of Arts in journalism from Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, after three years of study and maintained a 3.93 grade-point average. She received the Robert Bliss Award as top-ranking senior in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, and won a national William Randolph Hearst Award for feature-writing as an undergraduate.
She is married to Michael W. Lemberger, an artist-photographer.
It's amazing to me how back in the day, 1984 to be precise, covers like this were the norm. No preggo h, no kissing-and-nearly -doing-it-on-the-bed. Just a kiss on the forehead by the H to convey his love. AW!!!!!!
Anyhoo. This is one of the only hard-core old school romances I have read from LM. If you've wondered what LM would have written had she embodied Carole Mortimer's spirit: this is your answer. Any yet, she still managed to inject humor in it. AMAZING! haha!
choice quotes:
[Finnegan is H's dog. Lucifer is h's cat]
H: "I'm afraid my dog is going to have a nervous breakdown because of your cat" h: "I doubt it. There has to be a certain amount of intelligence present for there to be mental illness."
P.S This book has everything: bickerfest, step siblings, OW, OMan, tasty goodies, engagement on, engagement off. a cute 8 mo old baby, a dog, a cat, ducks, snow storm, driving lessons, PR ideas to name a few
My thoughts: I like those forbidden love themes and stepbrother/stepsister is one of my families (sorry sue me =P) I liked the back and forth fighting/dialogue between the hero and heroine. I thought it was absolutely cute that the hero was so in love with the heroine way back when and even asked for her hand back then. Of course some of you might be like ewww pedophile (she was 15 when he realized he loved her and she was 17 when they had that "incident" and he was 22 I think) The heroine was ok too but I guess she was a little dense about the hero's feeling and her own feelings, LOL. It was a little annoying/mean of the heroine too to keep ragging on the hero for stealing/attempting to steal her family inheritance/taking over but of course there has to be a story. Anyhow, I love the story.
this cud have been an interesting read but I was bored wid their petty quarrels. reading the book, I felt like the author was recounting the love story between two teenagers ! at my age, I think I'm looking for something more intense, wid more angst ! between Dane's annoying habit of calling Jenny "Red " and getting a free grab at Suzanne whenever he felt like it and Jenny's indecision about Brian, Steve and Dane himself; I was beyond irritated and annoyed wid all the hassles going on!
Sadly, I can’t seem to get into works produced by this author. Occasionally, I found the author’s writing style to be non-descriptive——failing to properly portray or completely carry a scene & emotions as it should, especially at times when it matters the most. Leaving page fillers to be a tad bit dull to nothingness.
The H was in love with the h since ages and the h never knew but was insanely affected by being near him etc. The bickering was definitely more than I am used to in romances from this era, and that is saying something - maybe because the taunts hit a little too close to the truth and were pretty incessant. The h had a sharp tongue tbh, while the H mostly said taunting stuff to hide his love/attraction. Her friend Alison and her step mom Margaret, heck even the hospital doctor delivered some hard home truths to her and we see the h improving as a person.
One thing I realized after finishing the book was that the h basically dangled 3 men throughout the story - Brian, Steve and Dane. Dane had a semi regular thing with Suzanne, his PA. Both discarded their SOs extreeeeeemely casually towards the end, and both continued harping on about finances, the inheritance, the stock, constantly - very unromantically jarring.
PS The H's mom and h's dad married when she was 12 and he was 17. The h comes from a rich family with it's own factory while the H was apparently other side of the tracks but is now a hot shot chemist with multiple patents and super rich. The H admits 1/4th of the way to the h that he had never considered himself as a brother to her.
This one was actually pretty fun, mostly because Jenny and Dane really did a good job yelling at each other, but Dane's manipulation of Jenny was pretty obvious and the fact that she didn't register any of it - or much of anything, really - makes it clear she's dumb as rocks. Also, Michaels apparently thinks that Dane could run a successful bakery conglomerate (and be beloved by all employees) while spending hours holed up in a lab in the back developing new perfumes which have made him millions - um, okay.
There had always been a peculiarly bitter hatred between Jenny and her stepbrother, Dane Sutherland. She'd so much resented his influence with her father she had run away from home.
Now, five years later, she was back in Iowa, and apparently nothing had altered. Dane, not content with controlling the family, was trying to take over her father's business, too.
It didn't occur to her that there might be something more to her emotions than mere sibling rivalry.
They acted like petulant children for 99% of the story. Every conversation led to an argument. The icing on the cake was when the h cut her long hair off because the H said he liked it. The next minute she was bawling because she cut her hair. SMH. They finally acknowledged their love for each other in the last three pages of the book.
There had always been a peculiarly bitter hatred between Jenny and her stepbrother, Dane Sutherland. She'd so much resented his influence with her father she had run away from home.
Now, five years later, she was back in Iowa, and apparently nothing had altered. Dane, not content with controlling the family, was trying to take over her father's business, too.
It didn't occur to her that there might be something more to her emotions than mere sibling rivalry ....
Cute story with humor and conflict. The one BIG downside is that it did not have a particularly "Iowan" flavor about the book. It could have taken place almost anywhere and I did not feel like I was IN IOWA. Also, the spelling of some of the words were European which did not make me feel like I was in Iowa either.
I think the guy on the new cover is hot, and he sounds hott in the book as well. Cute story, I'd recommend anyone looking for humour-laced romance. 2/5 stars.
Didn't care for this one. Don't really like books where H uses the OW to the extent this guy did. As much exclusive attention he paid to her she expected more out of him.