Building Passion

by Jane Bierce

Jacqui Belpre has her hands full, running the home building business she inherited from her parents and riding herd on her teenage brother Kyle and sister Janice. She doesn't know how lonely she is until she meets Christopher, who's angry that his sister is smitten with her brother. Christopher Warden's resort hotel is expanding and in need of a contractor. He doesn't intend to hire a woman for the job -- but Jacqui is the only one who submits a certified bid. They'll be working very closely together. . . Jacqui sets out to show Christopher that despite the dirt under his fingernails, Kyle has every bit as much intelligence as Christopher -- it's just focused on learning the building trades in preparation to take over the business. But just in case that doesn't work, she has a plan to discourage Alaine Warden's crush on Kyle. She includes Alaine in the family's weekend work party painting a model home. Best laid plans backfire. Janice and Alaine form a bond and Alaine wheedles a weekend invitation at the resort for the Belpres. The girls are plotting something and Kyle is distracted by the strain of taking his contracting exams. Christopher makes unexpected romantic overtures. Jacqui begins to see all too clearly that her building-trades colleagues may be right to warn her that the Warden firm still employs the same delaying tactics in paying their debts that put their original contractors out of business.

ebook

First published January 1, 1983

Reviews

[C. Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

My interest in this book built as it went along... heh heh. Actually it was pretty good all the way through. I believe the author's husband was in the building trade, and Bierce effectively used details from her family's experience in this book. It was one of the earliest titles in the Harlequin American Romance line (R.I.P.) and showed a lot of what was good about those titles. Some of the little sub-narratives (e.g. the bone spur in the shoulder) could have been omitted to save a few pages, but they weren't really negatives, either.

[Melinda · Rating 2 out of 5]

Boring it just seems to go on forever.