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The Perfect Crightons #3

Perfect Marriage Material

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Doskonaly plan Piekna Amerykanka Bobbie przyjezdza do Anglii tylko po to zeby skompromitowac znana i szanowana prawnicza rodzine Crightonow W przeszlosci bardzo skrzywdzili jej matke Pora by kompromitujaca tajemnica sprzed lat wreszcie ujrzala swiatlo dzienne Doskonaly partner Saul Crighton jest ucielesnieniem kobiecych marzen pelen osobistego uroku zaradny oddany dzieciom Do tego samotny W powszechnej opinii czlowiek godny podziwu Tullah ktora z reguly nie ufa mezczyznom ma na jego temat inne zdanie Kiedy zostaje wspolpracownica Saula w kancelarii prawniczej stara sie dostrzegac tylko jego wady Do czasu az bedzie zdana na jego pomocS

181 pages, Mass Market Paperback

Published March 1, 1998

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About the author

Penny Jordan

1,126 books668 followers
Penelope Jones Halsall
aka Caroline Courtney, Annie Groves, Lydia Hitchcock, Melinda Wright

Penelope "Penny" Jones was born on November 24, 1946 at about seven pounds in a nursing home in Preston, Lancashire, England. She was the first child of Anthony Winn Jones, an engineer, who died at 85, and his wife Margaret Louise Groves Jones. She has a brother, Anthony, and a sister, Prudence "Pru".

She had been a keen reader from the childhood - her mother used to leave her in the children's section of their local library whilst she changed her father's library books. She was a storyteller long before she began to write romantic fiction. At the age of eight, she was creating serialized bedtime stories, featuring make-believe adventures, for her younger sister Prue, who was always the heroine. At eleven, she fell in love with Mills & Boon, and with their heroes. In those days the books could only be obtained via private lending libraries, and she quickly became a devoted fan; she was thrilled to bits when the books went on full sale in shops and she could have them for keeps.

Penny left grammar school in Rochdale with O-Levels in English Language, English Literature and Geography. She first discovered Mills & Boon books, via a girl she worked with. She married Steve Halsall, an accountant and a "lovely man", who smoked and drank too heavily, and suffered oral cancer with bravery and dignity. Her husband bought her the small electric typewriter on which she typed her first novels, at a time when he could ill afford it. He died at the beginning of 21st century.

She earned a living as a writer since the 1970s when, as a shorthand typist, she entered a competition run by the Romantic Novelists' Association. Although she didn't win, Penny found an agent who was looking for a new Georgette Heyer. She published four regency novels as Caroline Courtney, before changing her nom de plume to Melinda Wright for three air-hostess romps and then she wrote two thrillers as Lydia Hitchcock. Soon after that, Mills and Boon accepted her first novel for them, Falcon's Prey as Penny Jordan. However, for her more historical romance novels, she adopted her mother's maiden-name to become Annie Groves. Almost 70 of her 167 Mills and Boon novels have been sold worldwide.

Penny Halsall lived in a neo-Georgian house in Nantwich, Cheshire, with her Alsatian Sheba and cat Posh. She worked from home, in her kitchen, surrounded by her pets, and welcomed interruptions from her friends and family.

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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
Profile Image for boogenhagen.
1,993 reviews886 followers
February 8, 2019
Re Perfect Marriage Material - Penny Jordan continues with her ginourmously epic The Perfect Crightons series.

As this is another sorta filler book to entice you to read the mainstream books PJ wrote in this series, (which are mostly quite well done,) this one focuses on the more minor characters. There is still a lot of little side paths taken about the major characters, but I am only spoilerizing the main romance in this one.

We get the updated cast of characters as follows:

BEN CRIGHTON: Proud patriarch of the family, a strong- minded character in his seventies, determined to see his dynasty thrive and prosper.

RUTH CRIGHTON: Ben's sister, a vibrant, mature woman, now happily reunited with the man she was tragically separated from during the war years.

DAVID AND TIGGY CRIGHTON: Glamorous couple, heirs to the family fortune. David disappeared some years ago after a stay in hospital. Tiggy has had to make a new life for herself, away from the family.

OLIVIA JOHNSON: Warm-hearted and independent young lawyer who's devoted to her husband CASPAR, an American law tutor, and baby Amelia. Years ago, the family hoped Olivia and her cousin Saul would get together. Now a close friend of Tullah's, Olivia plays matchmaker between Tullah and Saul.

JON AND JENNY CRIGHTON: Steady, family-oriented couple. Jon keeps the Crighton law firm running smoothly, and Jenny is a partner in a local antiques business.

LOUISE and KATE: Twin teenage daughters of Jon and Jenny Crighton, Now at university, they are spirited characters determined to go their own way. Louise, the elder twin, has a passionate crush on Saul...

MAX CRIGHTON: Son of Jon and Jenny, a self-assured, sexy, ruthlessly ambitious lawyer who married his wife MADELEINE, a gentle woman and daughter of a High Court judge, to advance his career.

JAMES CRIGHTON: Charming, easygoing lawyer who becomes friends with Tullah.

TULLAH RICHARDS: Beautiful, talented lawyer who has sworn off romance and devoted herself to her career...until she meets Saul Crighton.

SAUL CRIGHTON: Tullah's new boss, and a teasingly charismatic man. He's a single father to three children, but isn't looking for a wife—although his entire family want him to marry again!

This one focuses on Saul and Tullah - Saul is another Crighton cousin who has divorced his cheating harpy ex wife and when she decides that her three kids she pressured Saul into having are too much trouble, she dumps them out of her life and her new marriage and gets herself sterilized.

Saul is a genuinely nice man, he loves his kids and his biggest issue is that he worries about being a good single father. His family is all very gender role orientated and believes that he can't parent properly without a wife, so they are hell bent on getting him hooked up and they decide that career focused Tullah is the perfect woman to pimp out.

(Tullah's mother agrees and works hard to push her into marriage in the background.)

Which is ludicrous because PJ does a really good job of showing how Saul is fantastic at doing the dad and the mum things. He manages to soothe little kid fears, find lost teddy bears, help them repair their self images that were shattered by the bovine sewer slurping ex wife and mother who pretty much hated them and get them active and happy with life again.

The only real cloud on his horizon is the fact that Louise, one of Jenny and Jon's twin daughters we met at their party in the last book, is coming home from Uni and DETERMINED to get Saul to sue for her hand. (Louise is actually quite immature and tarty with it.)

Enter Tullah, who has massive baggage of her own from when her parents divorced when she was 16 and a forty something year old friend of the family took advantage and conned her into an affair. Tullah is highly antagonistic from the get go toward Saul and she is NOT shy about hiding it, even tho he is her boss.

Tullah overhears a conversation between two random women and she believes that Saul, who had a bit of a crush on Olivia way back in the day, tried to break up Olivia and Caspar's marriage. She also believes that Saul is leading Louise on to pump and dump her, just like the 'family friend' nematode did to her as a teenager.

Throw in Tullah mistaking Max's rampant womanizing for Saul's behavior as well and there is a perfect storm of misunderstandings brewing that is all going to explode in Shrewish Tullah's face.

Somehow Olivia, who becomes Tullah's BFF and is fully aware of Tullah's disdain for what she thinks is Saul's behavior, never manages to clarify any of the situations.

(That the whole family tried to push her and Saul into a semi arranged marriage and that Louise is a man-eater in training and that Max is the womanizer not Saul.)

But Olivia is great at finding ways to pimp these two out to each other. After too many nasty remarks to Saul from Tullah, who is hiding a major attraction for Saul underneath the bitter remarks, Saul and Tullah have to go to the Hague to defend a company patent.

Tullah is the lead on the case and she wins, but over dinner she gets really drunk and that leads to her and Saul's big lurve club event. However PJ isn't ready to concede the war to get to the pair's HEA yet, so we have Tullah believing the whole thing was a drunken dream and Louise gets set out make her plays.

Louise's chasing of Saul is so blatant that Saul has a think about things and takes a tack that the H of the last book, Luke, tried to use on his h. He forces Tullah to pretend to be his girl, broadly insinuating that he and Tullah are getting engaged to ward Louise off.

There is lots of Tullah, Saul and little kid times and Tullah falls in love with Saul's children, while still believing Saul is a mud dwelling toe rag. After enough Tullah/Saul's kids bonding time, the final confrontation is set to begin.

There is going to be a big historical costume ball, (it is an HP rule you can't have a big family saga without a big party in every book,) and Saul and Tullah are scheduled to attend as a couple.

Louise decides to sneak into the ball in disguise and use her tightly revealing bodice and her seductive wiles to finally make Saul realize that she is the only teen aged tart for him.

So Louise sneaks in, with only half her breasts showing, and she leads Tullah off into the big ancient maze that is part of the Earldom Estate where the ball is being held at. She gets Tullah lost in the dark maze and then takes off to throw herself at Saul.

But Saul spies Louise carrying Tullah's purse that she dropped and he forces the truth out of Louise after threatening to put her in time out and scaring her into better behavior. Saul goes to rescue Tullah, who is totally lost and fraught with it, and Saul's brave heroism leads to a mutual true love declaration for both of them forever.

We leave the happy couple getting married, with the enthusiastic encouragement and participation of Saul's kids. PJ ends the story as all of five of them are going off to honeymoon as a family and we can all await the next installment and another HPlandia Crighton HEA.

This one was more of 2.5 because Tullah was really impossible at times, she needed a few whacks with the skillet to sort her out. However Saul was a sweetie pie and I really liked how he did the dad bits.

The kids were cute too, so overall it wasn't a truly horrible HP outing and if you like the Crighton series, you probably be okay with it.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Profile Image for Jenny.
3,160 reviews558 followers
August 17, 2018
I hate it when a heroine has an affair with a married man even if she doesn’t know it at the time.
Profile Image for KC.
527 reviews21 followers
February 1, 2019
I enjoyed this especially since the focus remained more on the romance between Tullah and Saul than on the various Crighton family members, unlike the preceding book in the series. But I'm not sure when Tullah fell in love with Saul since she acted fairly antagonistic towards him for most of the book. It could be argued that her attitude was an attempt to hide her feelings, but that only goes so far.

Add into the mix their mutual commitment-phobias, Saul's position as Tullah's boss, and the result was a setting ripe with conflict. It worked out in the end, though, as Saul proved Tullah wrong in her assumptions about him while he realized that she was worth the risk. And, the sweet spot, they each realized they were perfect for one another.
Profile Image for Amy Leigh.
556 reviews2 followers
September 28, 2021
This book is part of Penny Jordan's Crighton series. Tullah Richards is a young lawyer who is moving to a small town to take a new job. Her boss is Saul Crighton, a divorced father of three, object of the massive crush his young cousin Louise has. Tullah believes Saul is like the older man who once took advantage of her own youth and innocence, and she is determined to think the worst of him.

Seeing what a concerned and engaged parent he is begins to change Tullah's mind about Saul. When they travel to The Hague on business, they grow closer, and she finds it difficult to fight her growing attraction to him.

Cons: The cast of characters is large, because the series spans several books. This book is the only one in the saga, so it was difficult to keep up with all the side characters and relationships. Also, Tullah is the type of heroine Penny Jordan often writes--wounded, over-emotional, with a grudge against the hero that's based on a misunderstanding. She's written it better in other books, but Tullah's not a bad heroine, just not a particularly good one.

Pros: With all the problematic romance elements of some vintage Harlequins, it's nice to read one with an unequivocally good guy. Saul is a loving dad and a good boss. Except for one scene where Tullah has had too much to drink, there are no issues of consent or pressure.

It's a decent vintage romance.
Profile Image for Priscilla.
1,928 reviews16 followers
May 4, 2022
Tullah, a protagonista, consegue a façanha de ser uma das mulheres mais burras e preconceituosas que já li em minha vida. Obviamente, as duas categorias estão interligadas.

Como Saul, seu par romântico, consegue perdoar todas as mancadas que ela dá no livro e todas são sempre relacionadas a julgamentos apressados é que não dá para entender.

Principalmente porque sabe-se lá como, Tullah é uma famosa e respeitada advogada. Pura encheção de linguiça por parte da autora, pois não há nada no desenvolvimento da personagem que justifique essa característica.

Se está seguindo a série, pode ser interessante ver situação dos outros personagens que fazem ponta nesse volume. Caso contrário passe por cima, pois não há muita coisa a se aproveitar desse romance.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews

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