Touch Not My Heart

Logan Brothers #1

by Leigh Michaels

A good secretary does whatever is necessary to advance the goals of her boss -- but when Gayle Bradley's employer, computer tycoon Jared Logan, announces that he needs a temporary fiancée in order to cement a business deal, Gayle's professional calm is shaken -- forever. Leigh Michaels is the author of more than 90 books, including 80 contemporary romance novels. She also writes single-title historical romance set in Regency England. Her website is www.leighmichaels.com

Genres: Romance, Harlequin Presents, Harlequin, Hqn, Contemporary Romance

189 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published November 8, 1985

About the author

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.

Reviews

[boogenhagen · Rating 2 out of 5]

RE Touch Not My Heart - another LM that I am not a fan of, this is the sequel to a book that at this point in HPlandia has not been written, The Grand Hotel. The h in GH is a secondary character that goads the h in this book to make a stand against the H as she is married to his brother.

The book starts with the 25 yr old h working for the H as his secretary, she doesn't like the H as a person. He is a frequent flyer at the lovely lady buffet and his petite maison d' amour is right above his office. He also likes to off load all the petty little details of wooing his ladies to the h. She does the reservations, tickets, and morning after gifts/parting flowers - so basically all he has to do is show up, look hot, escort his current toy to his playhouse, pump and dump. (He doesn't really get much better for the whole of the book either.)

The h is mourning a lost love who died when she was 19 and she just hasn't recovered from that yet. One day the H comes into his office and tells her that they are engaged. The h thinks he is joking until he explains that the owner of a software company he wants to buy is insisting he marry his 21 yr old daughter in order to complete the purchase. The H used the excuse that the h is his fiancee to deflect that stipulation and now they are all going to spend a weekend at the H's country retreat.

The h points out that she is dating someone else (she isn't but her brother and sister keep introducing her to men in hopes she will start dating, as she hasn't for seven years and the latest introduction is stalkerishly persistent.) The H blows right over that objection and he really doesn't care that he could be ruining her life or her own engagement, he wants her as a shield and he doesn't care if he messes her over to do it.

The h is angry, but instead of pointing out that she will not be able to work for him after the farce is over, as her professional credibility will be sunk for good with his reputation for the quick trip and kiss off, she sulks and goes along with it. He takes her to buy a fabulous padparadscha sapphire for an engagement ring.

http://www.thenaturalsapphirecompany....

(Come to think of it, the description of the stone may be one of the reasons I don't get into this book - mainly cause I keep flashing on David Eddings' The Malloreon, Vol. 1: Guardians of the West / King of the Murgos / Demon Lord of Karanda where his Sardion stone bears a remarkable resemblance to the h's engagement ring. I keep expecting people to walk through walls and mad journeys around the world being chased by angry dragons every time the stone is mentioned and the h mentions the stone A LOT - it just kept throwing me out of HPlandia.)

Anyhows, she has a fancy pinkish orange ring she is fascinated by, a fiance who insults her quite a bit and a weekend locked in a house and a ski slope with a maneating 21 yr old, her doting dad and a little Yorkie that goes by the name of Underdog - cause he is under and into everything and the H leaves him in the country with his butler all the time. Which instantly put the H lower than pond scum for me, I don't like absentee animal guardians, so yet another reason not to like the book.

There is the usual H and h LM bickering with the nasty subcurrent and the H has the 21 yr old OW all over him all weekend. Then when they get back to the office he has his current married-to-another-man OW laying siege in the h's office and a big engagement to the h announcement in all the papers.

They have to carry on with the engagement as the doting dad and his daughter are now moving to Denver where the H's company is headquartered. The h is upset that her life is out of control and the H keeps kissing her as part of his engagement prop, complaining about her, and then going back to hang all over the OWs.

Then we meet the H's sister in law and she takes the h out to lunch. The h is really, really uncomfortable with the whole ludicrous situation and tells the SIL the real story. The SIL take the h out clothes shopping and max's out the H's credit cards as part of "taking a stand" against the H's really high handed behavior.

The H and h are also organizing a big new computer introduction, so the h is putting in a lot of overtime with work and trying to buy the software company. The day of the new computer launch finally arrives and the h's brother corners her and lectures her about being in love with love and not really in love with the dead guy.

He accuses her of martyring herself for a man who really wasn't all that and gripes at her for not going to college cause dead dude did not want her to. ( I guess the fact that he was her first love and dying of cancer did not matter all that much. Sure she might have been in puppy love, but she did love the guy as much as she was capable of at the time, and a cancer diagnosis is really, really tough - especially at 18 and 19- and she saw the whole thing through to the end.) The h agrees that the brother is probably right and she is now ready to move on to a new love or something. Then the H shows up and announces himself as the h's fiance and things really hit the fan and the h can't tell her brother that it is all a sham.

The party goes on as planed though. The 21 yr. old OW shows up dressed to destroy and conquer and hangs all over the H and the news crews film it and the h believes she is now in the love with the H. There is a weekend with the H, h and h's niece where the h gets frustrated cause the H is getting nowhere near the h and she wants his body.

Then there is a big snowstorm and the h winds up staying overnight at the H's love nest. Nothing happens, but now the entire office is gossiping about her and giving her a hard time. Her professional credibility is shot, but the H finally got the guy to sign the contract. The h tells the H it is over and ends the engagement by returning the ring - right as his mother has had a painting the h really liked delivered to the office as an engagement present and there is engagement announcements in several national magazines 'cause of the H's family.

The h is now totally messed up and when she goes out with her brother and the stalker wanna be OM, (I HATE the forced dating by relatives trope too,) they wind up sitting next to the H and his married-to-another-guy OW.

The h decides she needs to move on and get out of town, she quits but the H won't let her leave. He supposedly loves her and wants her even if she is still in love with a dead guy, he will take what he can get. (Actually he really needs her as his secretary, no one else can do her job and he is probably hoping she is in love with the dead guy still so she won't criticize his extracurricular OW.)

The h says she loves him back, she gets her ring back and HEA for the end. Finally. Thankfully. I wasn't feeling the lurve at all, I wasn't even feeling the passion and I am still wondering just WHAT there was to love about this guy. I think the h was blinded by a pricey rock and the rebound effect.

We will never know tho, cause the h isn't in the Grand Hotel prequel and I don't really feel happy about the H and h from Grand Hotel either. We never see them together in TNMH. Usually in an HP later in time related book, we see the first couple being happy even if there is a dubious HEA from the first story, but there is nothing of that here.

All in all TNMH is a sorta there book and let's just say that both H's in the Logan brother's series are not exactly the most inspiring HP H's ever. Read this if you're bored or are a big LM fan.

I am just glad it is over with, cause the word I would use to sum up this story is TACKY -- now I can go think about that Mallorean series some more and contemplate the nature of weird but pricey stones and how maybe an angry dragon or some walking through walls would have helped this book.

[Nightwitch · Rating 2 out of 5]

I did not love this one. The heroine is an incredibly efficient secretary (I love those!) who is armored against love by her deathless affection for her dead high school boyfriend (don’t love those!) who she never even slept with (OMG). The hero is her womanizing boss who needs a fake fiancee and decides, at some point in the pretense, that he is going to teach his secretary to kiss and feel passion (EW). He also insists that everyone believe the fake engagement is real, including the heroine’s brother and family, which again is gross. It’s patently obvious throughout that the hero is as trapped in this fake engagement as the heroine is - he’s not doing it because he’s secretly in love with her, he’s doing it for exactly the reasons he says he is, and that just makes his total upending of her life seem inexcusable. (He’s also under the belief that the heroine has a boyfriend, although that just kind of gets dropped.)

The heroine realizes she is in love with him very suddenly, which has worked in some of the other Michaels books I’ve read - where the hero and heroine have actual affectionate banter - but in this one, where every romantically charged interplay between the hero and heroine read like the hero had decided to amuse himself by adding another notch on his bed, it just makes the heroine seem like an idiot. There’s nothing endearing about this dude. Even his declaration of love at the ending makes him seem like an asshole. Also, I really wish Michaels hadn't gone to such pains to keep mentioning his mustache because... no.

Three stars because the writing is good, the hero’s not a misogynist, and the characters seem very real - I just don’t like them, and I don’t like the way Michaels has embraced the tropes involved.

[Jane Stewart · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not recommended. I did not like or admire the characters enough to enjoy the book.

On the positive side, the action and events were interesting enough that I didn't feel a need to speed read. Sexual content: mild.

[Tricia Murphy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The order is weird since on this supposedly first one, the couple from the other book are already married.

[Pravana · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would have given this book my average 3 star rating......
The extra star is for boogenhagen’s very entertaining review.

A good secretary according to the Heroine -

1) A good secretary does whatever is necessary to advance the goals of her boss.

2) A good executive secretary was a professional who didn't let things like weather or personal problems interfere with her job. And Gayle Bradley prided herself on being a professional.

3) A good secretary faded into the background and left the honors for her boss.

Apart from the list of attributes of a good secretary,
There’s a fake engagement complete with a fantabulous “padparadschah” ring. ( Boogenhagaen’s review has got a link to a site that gives information about it and sells it.)
There’s a wannabe barely out of her teens OW.
There’s a kindly and friendly sister-in-law.

An okay read. No great highs and no lows either.

Three things which didn’t work for me were -
One. The hero has had a normal upbringing, one would say privileged, his parents are still together, he’s not had a love failure in the past.....so I don’t understand why he’s so against marriage.

Two. When a book is a part of a series, I am very disappointed if characters from the other book (s) don’t make an appearance. In this case only the heroine from the next book Elizabeth makes an appearance.

Three. The ending “I love You’s” were very abrupt. I wanted an epilogue with all the characters from the next book.

[Claire · Rating 2 out of 5]

Typical playboy boss & prudish secretary romance with the engagement-of-convenience plot.

Compared to the other office romance I’d just finished panning (Carole Mortimer: Taming the Last St. Clair, pub 6/11), this book had more story to thrash out the characters and less sex to muddle lust with love. But if I were to list down just five tidbits that I’d remember, I’d go with:

1) the hero’s moustache – because that is so Tom Selleck-y.
2) the engagement ring – because I actually had to google and see if there was such a thing as an orange sapphire called padparadschah.
3) the heroine’s anxiety that her $10,000 shopping spree maxed out the hero’s credit cards and he was supposedly a millionaire – because this dated the book. 10k doesn’t even buy 5 pairs of evening Jimmy Choo’s nowadays.
4) the name of the hero’s pet Yorkie: Underdog, because it was always under foot, under weight, under his skin…, and
5) the hero begging her not to walk out because he was willing to wait forever until she’s forgotten her first love.

One of two books on the Logan brothers. Although written later, the Grand Hotel is the prequel of Touch Not My Heart.

[Melinda · Rating 1 out of 5]

Could not stand the hero and the heroine was not much better. He is a womanizer and has the heroine, who is his PA, set up reservations and send flowers the morning after to his women. One of the women he is sleeping with is married. The heroine is an uptight lady who wears her hair drawn back tightly in a bun and wears long black dresses to work. She has been emotionally stunted since the death of her almost fiance 7 years before. At the end of the book I still wasn't buying it that these two characters were in love.

[Db2567 · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very dated.
Has a new cover but the contents are still from the 1980s.
The love interest boss sounds like Tom Seleck with mustache and all. ....