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Barbary Wharf #5
A Sweet Addiction
Eén kus kan toch geen kwaad?Sophie Watson vindt het een slecht idee om voor Guy Faulkner te vallen, ook al gaat de man van wie ze houdt met een ander trouwen. Niet dat Guy niet aantrekkelijk is - want dat is hij beslist wel - maar omdat hij haar baas is en alleen voor zijn werk leeft. Waarom laat ze zich dan toch verleiden tot een kus? En nóg een en nóg een...Dit verhaal is ook verkrijgbaar in een 2-in-1 bundel.
184 pages, Mass Market Paperback
Published February 1, 1993
5 people are currently reading
154 people want to read
About the author
Charlotte Lamb
261 books316 followersSheila Ann Mary Coates Holland
aka Sheila Holland, Sheila Coates, Charlotte Lamb, Sheila Lancaster, Victoria Woolf, Laura Hardy
Sheila Ann Mary Coates was born on 1937 in Essex, England, just before the Second World War in the East End of London. As a child, she was moved from relative to relative to escape the bombings of World War II. Sheila attended the Ursuline Convent for Girls. On leaving school at 16, the convent-educated author worked for the Bank of England as a clerk. Sheila continued her education by taking advantage of the B of E's enormous library during her lunch breaks and after work. She later worked as a secretary for the BBC. While there, she met and married Richard Holland, a political reporter. A voracious reader of romance novels, she began writing at her husband's suggestion. She wrote her first book in three days with three children underfoot! In between raising her five children (including a set of twins), Charlotte wrote several more novels. She used both her married and maiden names, Sheila Holland and Sheila Coates, before her first novel as Charlotte Lamb, Follow a Stranger, was published by Mills & Boon in 1973. She also used the pennames: Sheila Lancaster, Victoria Wolf and Laura Hardy. Sheila was a true revolutionary in the field of romance writing. One of the first writers to explore the boundaries of sexual desire, her novels often reflected the forefront of the "sexual revolution" of the 1970s. Her books touched on then-taboo subjects such as child abuse and rape, and she created sexually confident - even dominant - heroines. She was also one of the first to create a modern romantic heroine: independent, imperfect, and perfectly capable of initiating a sexual or romantic relationship. A prolific author, Sheila penned more than 160 novels, most of them for Mills & Boon. Known for her swiftness as well as for her skill in writing, Sheila typically wrote a minimum of two thousand words per day, working from 9:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. While she once finished a full-length novel in four days, she herself pegged her average speed at two weeks to complete a full novel. Since 1977, Sheila had been living on the Isle of Man as a tax exile with her husband and four of their five children: Michael Holland, Sarah Holland, Jane Holland, Charlotte Holland and David Holland. Sheila passed away on October 8, 2000 in her baronial-style home 'Crogga' on the Island. She is greatly missed by her many fans, and by the romance writing community.
aka Sheila Holland, Sheila Coates, Charlotte Lamb, Sheila Lancaster, Victoria Woolf, Laura Hardy
Sheila Ann Mary Coates was born on 1937 in Essex, England, just before the Second World War in the East End of London. As a child, she was moved from relative to relative to escape the bombings of World War II. Sheila attended the Ursuline Convent for Girls. On leaving school at 16, the convent-educated author worked for the Bank of England as a clerk. Sheila continued her education by taking advantage of the B of E's enormous library during her lunch breaks and after work. She later worked as a secretary for the BBC. While there, she met and married Richard Holland, a political reporter. A voracious reader of romance novels, she began writing at her husband's suggestion. She wrote her first book in three days with three children underfoot! In between raising her five children (including a set of twins), Charlotte wrote several more novels. She used both her married and maiden names, Sheila Holland and Sheila Coates, before her first novel as Charlotte Lamb, Follow a Stranger, was published by Mills & Boon in 1973. She also used the pennames: Sheila Lancaster, Victoria Wolf and Laura Hardy. Sheila was a true revolutionary in the field of romance writing. One of the first writers to explore the boundaries of sexual desire, her novels often reflected the forefront of the "sexual revolution" of the 1970s. Her books touched on then-taboo subjects such as child abuse and rape, and she created sexually confident - even dominant - heroines. She was also one of the first to create a modern romantic heroine: independent, imperfect, and perfectly capable of initiating a sexual or romantic relationship. A prolific author, Sheila penned more than 160 novels, most of them for Mills & Boon. Known for her swiftness as well as for her skill in writing, Sheila typically wrote a minimum of two thousand words per day, working from 9:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. While she once finished a full-length novel in four days, she herself pegged her average speed at two weeks to complete a full novel. Since 1977, Sheila had been living on the Isle of Man as a tax exile with her husband and four of their five children: Michael Holland, Sarah Holland, Jane Holland, Charlotte Holland and David Holland. Sheila passed away on October 8, 2000 in her baronial-style home 'Crogga' on the Island. She is greatly missed by her many fans, and by the romance writing community.
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December 11, 2017
Re A Sweet Addiction - Charlotte Lamb continues the torture with the penultimate book of the Barbary Wharf never ending saga.
This book's cast of characters includes:
PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS IN THIS BOOK
NICK CASPIAN: International media tycoon. He is a ruthless and dangerous predator who set his eyes on owning the Sentinel and on destroying anyone who gets in his way. What Nick Caspian wants, he usually gets and he has set his sights on the Sentinel and Gina Tyrrell, possibly in that order….
GINA TYRRELL: The young widow of Sir George's beloved grandson, James and, following Sir George's death, the joint owner, with Nick Caspian, of the Sentinel. She blames Nick for Sir George's death and vows to make him pay.
MAC CAMERON: International star of stage and screen. Mac has the reputation of being a merciless lady-killer who. rumour has it, will stop at nothing to achieve his goal. Mac is suing the Sentinel for what he contents is a false report claiming he fathered a young woman's child.
GUY FAULKNER: The sophisticated Sentinel lawyer. He has recently realized that his career has become his whole life. It's time to devote some attention to outside pursuits, it is time to fall in love.
SOPHIE WATSON: Guy Faulkner's young and impressionable assistant, Her hopes of love seem destined to be destroyed now that Gib Collingwood, a man she has been long attracted to, has become engaged to award winning feature writer Valerie Knight.
ANDREAS KIRK: A powerful and extremely enigmatic lawyer. He is a man who is not too proud to mix with members of the criminal underworld. He is obviously pursuing Sophie Watson, although his motives for his sudden interest are not as easily discerned.
This one starts with Sophie moping about at Valerie and Gib's Sentinel sponsored engagement party. She was in love with Gib, who dumped her in the last book for Valerie - thus proving Val's last book suspicions that Gib really is a love and leave em kinda man- and is very sad that he is so obviously besotted and now she has no chance.
Guy, her lawyer boss, gives her a ride home when he notices her distress. He flat out interrogates her about Gib on the way to her home, which makes Sophie jump out his car without checking. She gets hit by a passing car and injures her shoulder. Guy follows her into her basement flat and forces his way inside. Sophie lives in her eccentric Hungarian Uncle's Chelsea home, he rents out the various levels for high rents. But Sophie only pays a small rent and helps her uncle out with his writing - he is too poor to afford a secretary and Sophie is a good one.
Guy attempts to forcibly seduce an initially protesting Sophie, he claims he was dating Valerie Knight (which he really wasn't unless you count two Sentinel business meetings as a date and apparently everyone at the Sentinel does,) but she threw him over for Gib. So Guy thinks a nice little seduction would be a good thing for him and Sophie both.
Then the phone rings and it is Fabian, the senior editor of the paper, looking for Guy. When Guy answers the phone in Sophie's flat, he gives the impression that she and he are engaged in a full fledged affair. This really upsets Sophie as Guy rushes off to cope with a story's legality as the other Sentinel council has been hospitalized with a heart attack. Guy claims Fabian is the Editor in Chief and won't gossip, but Sophie decides she has to resign anyways.
The next bit is our so respectable editor Fabian spreading the gossip far and wide and to Gina and Nick that Sophie and Guy are having it on. Gina smacks the gossiping little parasite down with a nicely delivered statement about making assumptions and ruining a nice girl's reputation. Nick is undeterred however and insists on spreading more salacious rumors around - which shows you just what a slime swiller sewer blobfish he really is.
Then Gina gets invited by Sir Dermot - her father in law's godson who seems intent on destroying Nick and whose own relative is share holder Phillip Slade - now engaged to a Japanese American lady whose family is also involved in American newspapers- out to the opening of a new nightclub that is a big celebrity event. The other unexpected guest in Sir Dermot's party is Mac Cameron and the obvious conflict of interest is regarded by both Gina and Mac as one of Dermot's devious sneaky games.
Tho it does give Mac and Gina the opportunity to talk and Mac confides that he was told he was infertile and that is why he believes that he isn't the father of the baby that Molly (formerly pregger girl in the last book,) has just given birth to.
Sophie is also at the club opening and shocked to see photographers taking pictures of Mac and Gina dancing together. She was dissuaded from resigning earlier in the day by Guy, who refused to accept her resignation, but Sophie is unsure that she will be able to continue working for him. Sophie also gets introduced to Andreas Kirk, who is a shady lawyer with dubious underworld connections. He gives Sophie his card and invites her to look him up, he can always use a good legal secretary.
In the meantime, back at Gina's place, Nick has stormed her penthouse next door to his- he was dining at Number Ten Downing Street and happened to stop by the Sentinel and catch a glimpse of the early edition - which has a front page picture of Mac and Gina dancing together. Furious words are exchanged and all that passion results in a forced seduction on the living room floor, with Gina in mortal terror cause now Nick will show no restraint and mercilessly live up to his Caspian the Barbarian nickname.
We jump back to Sophie, who spies Guy and Valerie in a cosy twosome walking into work. The spite that Sophie mentally vents about Femme Fatale Valerie is a bit shocking to say the least, so Sophie goes to flirt some with Gib, Valerie's fiance, but it is clear that he really isn't interested in her.
She has another argument with Guy, where we learn that half of Sophie's family were Hungarian refugees from the 1965 revolution and the other half are Italian, when her paternal grandmother fled her Italian fiance and married Sophie's grandfather. Guy accuses Sophie of being a tease and then when their argument ends in a roofie kiss, he accuses Sophie of throwing herself at him - which she did not, it is just typical sewer slurper behavior from a man who wants to convince himself that his current would be conquest is really asking for it when she says she isn't.
Then Andreas Kirk calls Sophie and to spite Guy, Sophie agrees to go out to dinner with him. (The pettiness and vicious games these people play with each other in this episode was pretty cringy, have a Captain Consult here, cause it is only going to get worse.)
We also find out that Mac Cameron has agreed to DNA testing, so the whole baby lawsuit issue is temporarily shelved until we find the results out at a later date.
We flip back to Gina and the aftermath of her night with Nick and find out that Nick tried it on again in the morning after the night before and Gina passively refused his advances by pretending to be asleep. She goes into work and shouts down Hazel, who is firmly on the gutter side of the press publishing story wise and incautiously refers to Nick as Gina's owner. Gina quite rightly informs her that she has equal controlling interest in the Sentinel and that if reporters don't check their facts and who they hurt with their yellow journalism, it is very likely that the government will make plenty of laws to muzzle them.
Nick has conveniently taken himself off on business again, so Gina is left to deal with an upcoming printer's crisis, as many of the current paper printers have been given notice and made redundant - right at Christmas time on Nick's orders. Nick is furious as the printers are making noises about a strike and Gina jumps in with a compromise about the two groups talking about the redundant positions and thus avoids a strike.
Nick goes ballistic and accuses Gina of trying to take over, in actuality the printers were ready to walk out and the Sentinel would have lost more in non-production costs that it would to carry the extra workers until a compromise could be reached. Nick's answer, as always is to force some more punishing kisses on Gina, all the while berating her for actually using her equal shareholder authority and putting a hold on a very bad managerial decision. Nick storms off again after vowing Gina's utter humiliation and subjugation and Gina wishes she had never heard of any of these people.
We then switch back to Sophie and her date with Andreas, they go to a nice restaurant and Sophie shares all about her life at Andreas's subtle interrogating. He seems to be way more interested in Guy than Sophie tho and over a delicious meal of sea bass on fresh greens, Sophie chatters away about Guy and who the firms use as libel council. The next day Sophie runs into the Sentinel's star crime reporter, Tom Birny, who is in the store buying lettuce and vegetables cause he doesn't cook and Sophie invites Tom over for a home cooked Hungarian meal - we get a lot of Hungarian food porn in this one, with various goulashes and Magyar dumpling deserts. Tom has a little crush on Sophie, but she doesn't really like him for a date, she just wants to get over Gib and Guy.
Guy shows up while Sophie is agitating over how much she now wants his body and there is angry looks when she tells him that Tom is coming over for dinner and accusations of tarthood abound. Guy came over to let Sophie know that he is joining Nick in Luxembourg and as he storms off, he almost runs over Sophie's Hungarian Uncle - who stopped by to let her know that her entire crazy family is coming for Christmas and Sophie has to cook the goose for dinner - Hungarian Uncle Theo also claims that Guy is in love with Sophie.
Back to Gina again, Sir Dermot has some kind of sneaky take over deal of the Sentinel board and hints that Gina might be the one to run the paper after Nick is ousted - he claims he has the backing of Phillip Slade - who sides with Gina on things and keeps the shares in balance against Nick- and tries to play on Gina's loyalty towards the Tyrrell's to use her against Nick in his plotting.
Hazel, who is very preggers now with Piet's baby, has decided to resign along with Piet and Sophie is selected to take over her job. This is a problem for Gina, as she doesn't have Sophie's loyalty and Sophie is intimidated by Nick. Gina is losing more allies as things move along and then Nick wants Gina to go San Francisco with him for Christmas. Gina, who is very uncertainly swimming in the shark infested waters swirling around him, refuses to go with him and with another shouting match between them over, Nick storms off again to do more Nick things.
Then Gina and Valerie arrange a seekrit meeting between Mac and Molly behind the back of Colette Tse, the half Asian Features Editor and Valerie's boss- who wants to doorstop both Mac and Molly together in a pictorial expose'. Gina gets Molly to come to her house and Mac, who has now dropped the lawsuit cause the DNA tests prove that the baby is his, is invited to Gina's too. Mac and Molly have a happy little reconciliation and wander off into the HPlandia mists, a happy united family at last.
We finally get the conclusion of Sophie's portion of the story when she finds out that Andreas is actually dating the woman who is Guy's fiancee - except it is a fake engagement to fool the woman's father cause Guy's family is gentry and rich and Andreas is a dubious criminally connected lawyer. The woman herself is a barrister and she and Gib see Sophie in a pub and convince her to ask her boss, Guy, to break the news that his now ex-fake fiancee is marrying Andreas to the woman's father.
Sophie tells Guy about her promotion and he tells her that he is travelling to the family estate for Christmas, but the roads might be bad and maybe he could go to her house instead. Sophie explains that her crazy family is coming, so Guy should not and then springs the Andreas and ex-fiancee need a go between news on him. Guy agrees to talk to the girl's father and Sophie thinks she is a fool for falling in love with another good time using kinda man.
Sophie is getting all ready for the family Christmas when her uncle and the family cat Violet and the family dog Stanislaus collide and wine and a big mincemeat pastry mess is all over the kitchen and Sophie. (Violet and Stanislaus escape uninjured tho Stanislaus decides to try becoming a doggie wino until Uncle Theo makes him stop.) Guy shows up at the height of the disaster, as Sophie is picking mincemeat out of her hair, supposedly to drop off her Christmas present, but really to wangle an invitation to stay out of Sophie's uncle - Guy claims the roads are too bad to drive to his family home.
So Guy gets his invitation and then proceeds to declare that he loves Sophie. Sophie doesn't believe him, what about his fake fiancee and Valerie? Guy claims he and the fake fiancee were only a couple in law school and not since and that Valerie may look like a femme fatale, but really Gib is probably her first lover. Sophie doesn't believe him at first, but Guy is insistent, so Sophie gives in and true love is declared as the rest of the crazy relatives start arriving.
Up next in the final episode - Gina and Nick have their final showdown, Hazel leaves the Sentinel for Holland and Nick is furious at Piet, Sir Dermot has plots in plots running amok and Phillip Slade's new American fiancee has some sneaky ploys of her own in store for the big Barbary Wharf Finale.
This book's cast of characters includes:
PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS IN THIS BOOK
NICK CASPIAN: International media tycoon. He is a ruthless and dangerous predator who set his eyes on owning the Sentinel and on destroying anyone who gets in his way. What Nick Caspian wants, he usually gets and he has set his sights on the Sentinel and Gina Tyrrell, possibly in that order….
GINA TYRRELL: The young widow of Sir George's beloved grandson, James and, following Sir George's death, the joint owner, with Nick Caspian, of the Sentinel. She blames Nick for Sir George's death and vows to make him pay.
MAC CAMERON: International star of stage and screen. Mac has the reputation of being a merciless lady-killer who. rumour has it, will stop at nothing to achieve his goal. Mac is suing the Sentinel for what he contents is a false report claiming he fathered a young woman's child.
GUY FAULKNER: The sophisticated Sentinel lawyer. He has recently realized that his career has become his whole life. It's time to devote some attention to outside pursuits, it is time to fall in love.
SOPHIE WATSON: Guy Faulkner's young and impressionable assistant, Her hopes of love seem destined to be destroyed now that Gib Collingwood, a man she has been long attracted to, has become engaged to award winning feature writer Valerie Knight.
ANDREAS KIRK: A powerful and extremely enigmatic lawyer. He is a man who is not too proud to mix with members of the criminal underworld. He is obviously pursuing Sophie Watson, although his motives for his sudden interest are not as easily discerned.
This one starts with Sophie moping about at Valerie and Gib's Sentinel sponsored engagement party. She was in love with Gib, who dumped her in the last book for Valerie - thus proving Val's last book suspicions that Gib really is a love and leave em kinda man- and is very sad that he is so obviously besotted and now she has no chance.
Guy, her lawyer boss, gives her a ride home when he notices her distress. He flat out interrogates her about Gib on the way to her home, which makes Sophie jump out his car without checking. She gets hit by a passing car and injures her shoulder. Guy follows her into her basement flat and forces his way inside. Sophie lives in her eccentric Hungarian Uncle's Chelsea home, he rents out the various levels for high rents. But Sophie only pays a small rent and helps her uncle out with his writing - he is too poor to afford a secretary and Sophie is a good one.
Guy attempts to forcibly seduce an initially protesting Sophie, he claims he was dating Valerie Knight (which he really wasn't unless you count two Sentinel business meetings as a date and apparently everyone at the Sentinel does,) but she threw him over for Gib. So Guy thinks a nice little seduction would be a good thing for him and Sophie both.
Then the phone rings and it is Fabian, the senior editor of the paper, looking for Guy. When Guy answers the phone in Sophie's flat, he gives the impression that she and he are engaged in a full fledged affair. This really upsets Sophie as Guy rushes off to cope with a story's legality as the other Sentinel council has been hospitalized with a heart attack. Guy claims Fabian is the Editor in Chief and won't gossip, but Sophie decides she has to resign anyways.
The next bit is our so respectable editor Fabian spreading the gossip far and wide and to Gina and Nick that Sophie and Guy are having it on. Gina smacks the gossiping little parasite down with a nicely delivered statement about making assumptions and ruining a nice girl's reputation. Nick is undeterred however and insists on spreading more salacious rumors around - which shows you just what a slime swiller sewer blobfish he really is.
Then Gina gets invited by Sir Dermot - her father in law's godson who seems intent on destroying Nick and whose own relative is share holder Phillip Slade - now engaged to a Japanese American lady whose family is also involved in American newspapers- out to the opening of a new nightclub that is a big celebrity event. The other unexpected guest in Sir Dermot's party is Mac Cameron and the obvious conflict of interest is regarded by both Gina and Mac as one of Dermot's devious sneaky games.
Tho it does give Mac and Gina the opportunity to talk and Mac confides that he was told he was infertile and that is why he believes that he isn't the father of the baby that Molly (formerly pregger girl in the last book,) has just given birth to.
Sophie is also at the club opening and shocked to see photographers taking pictures of Mac and Gina dancing together. She was dissuaded from resigning earlier in the day by Guy, who refused to accept her resignation, but Sophie is unsure that she will be able to continue working for him. Sophie also gets introduced to Andreas Kirk, who is a shady lawyer with dubious underworld connections. He gives Sophie his card and invites her to look him up, he can always use a good legal secretary.
In the meantime, back at Gina's place, Nick has stormed her penthouse next door to his- he was dining at Number Ten Downing Street and happened to stop by the Sentinel and catch a glimpse of the early edition - which has a front page picture of Mac and Gina dancing together. Furious words are exchanged and all that passion results in a forced seduction on the living room floor, with Gina in mortal terror cause now Nick will show no restraint and mercilessly live up to his Caspian the Barbarian nickname.
We jump back to Sophie, who spies Guy and Valerie in a cosy twosome walking into work. The spite that Sophie mentally vents about Femme Fatale Valerie is a bit shocking to say the least, so Sophie goes to flirt some with Gib, Valerie's fiance, but it is clear that he really isn't interested in her.
She has another argument with Guy, where we learn that half of Sophie's family were Hungarian refugees from the 1965 revolution and the other half are Italian, when her paternal grandmother fled her Italian fiance and married Sophie's grandfather. Guy accuses Sophie of being a tease and then when their argument ends in a roofie kiss, he accuses Sophie of throwing herself at him - which she did not, it is just typical sewer slurper behavior from a man who wants to convince himself that his current would be conquest is really asking for it when she says she isn't.
Then Andreas Kirk calls Sophie and to spite Guy, Sophie agrees to go out to dinner with him. (The pettiness and vicious games these people play with each other in this episode was pretty cringy, have a Captain Consult here, cause it is only going to get worse.)
We also find out that Mac Cameron has agreed to DNA testing, so the whole baby lawsuit issue is temporarily shelved until we find the results out at a later date.
We flip back to Gina and the aftermath of her night with Nick and find out that Nick tried it on again in the morning after the night before and Gina passively refused his advances by pretending to be asleep. She goes into work and shouts down Hazel, who is firmly on the gutter side of the press publishing story wise and incautiously refers to Nick as Gina's owner. Gina quite rightly informs her that she has equal controlling interest in the Sentinel and that if reporters don't check their facts and who they hurt with their yellow journalism, it is very likely that the government will make plenty of laws to muzzle them.
Nick has conveniently taken himself off on business again, so Gina is left to deal with an upcoming printer's crisis, as many of the current paper printers have been given notice and made redundant - right at Christmas time on Nick's orders. Nick is furious as the printers are making noises about a strike and Gina jumps in with a compromise about the two groups talking about the redundant positions and thus avoids a strike.
Nick goes ballistic and accuses Gina of trying to take over, in actuality the printers were ready to walk out and the Sentinel would have lost more in non-production costs that it would to carry the extra workers until a compromise could be reached. Nick's answer, as always is to force some more punishing kisses on Gina, all the while berating her for actually using her equal shareholder authority and putting a hold on a very bad managerial decision. Nick storms off again after vowing Gina's utter humiliation and subjugation and Gina wishes she had never heard of any of these people.
We then switch back to Sophie and her date with Andreas, they go to a nice restaurant and Sophie shares all about her life at Andreas's subtle interrogating. He seems to be way more interested in Guy than Sophie tho and over a delicious meal of sea bass on fresh greens, Sophie chatters away about Guy and who the firms use as libel council. The next day Sophie runs into the Sentinel's star crime reporter, Tom Birny, who is in the store buying lettuce and vegetables cause he doesn't cook and Sophie invites Tom over for a home cooked Hungarian meal - we get a lot of Hungarian food porn in this one, with various goulashes and Magyar dumpling deserts. Tom has a little crush on Sophie, but she doesn't really like him for a date, she just wants to get over Gib and Guy.
Guy shows up while Sophie is agitating over how much she now wants his body and there is angry looks when she tells him that Tom is coming over for dinner and accusations of tarthood abound. Guy came over to let Sophie know that he is joining Nick in Luxembourg and as he storms off, he almost runs over Sophie's Hungarian Uncle - who stopped by to let her know that her entire crazy family is coming for Christmas and Sophie has to cook the goose for dinner - Hungarian Uncle Theo also claims that Guy is in love with Sophie.
Back to Gina again, Sir Dermot has some kind of sneaky take over deal of the Sentinel board and hints that Gina might be the one to run the paper after Nick is ousted - he claims he has the backing of Phillip Slade - who sides with Gina on things and keeps the shares in balance against Nick- and tries to play on Gina's loyalty towards the Tyrrell's to use her against Nick in his plotting.
Hazel, who is very preggers now with Piet's baby, has decided to resign along with Piet and Sophie is selected to take over her job. This is a problem for Gina, as she doesn't have Sophie's loyalty and Sophie is intimidated by Nick. Gina is losing more allies as things move along and then Nick wants Gina to go San Francisco with him for Christmas. Gina, who is very uncertainly swimming in the shark infested waters swirling around him, refuses to go with him and with another shouting match between them over, Nick storms off again to do more Nick things.
Then Gina and Valerie arrange a seekrit meeting between Mac and Molly behind the back of Colette Tse, the half Asian Features Editor and Valerie's boss- who wants to doorstop both Mac and Molly together in a pictorial expose'. Gina gets Molly to come to her house and Mac, who has now dropped the lawsuit cause the DNA tests prove that the baby is his, is invited to Gina's too. Mac and Molly have a happy little reconciliation and wander off into the HPlandia mists, a happy united family at last.
We finally get the conclusion of Sophie's portion of the story when she finds out that Andreas is actually dating the woman who is Guy's fiancee - except it is a fake engagement to fool the woman's father cause Guy's family is gentry and rich and Andreas is a dubious criminally connected lawyer. The woman herself is a barrister and she and Gib see Sophie in a pub and convince her to ask her boss, Guy, to break the news that his now ex-fake fiancee is marrying Andreas to the woman's father.
Sophie tells Guy about her promotion and he tells her that he is travelling to the family estate for Christmas, but the roads might be bad and maybe he could go to her house instead. Sophie explains that her crazy family is coming, so Guy should not and then springs the Andreas and ex-fiancee need a go between news on him. Guy agrees to talk to the girl's father and Sophie thinks she is a fool for falling in love with another good time using kinda man.
Sophie is getting all ready for the family Christmas when her uncle and the family cat Violet and the family dog Stanislaus collide and wine and a big mincemeat pastry mess is all over the kitchen and Sophie. (Violet and Stanislaus escape uninjured tho Stanislaus decides to try becoming a doggie wino until Uncle Theo makes him stop.) Guy shows up at the height of the disaster, as Sophie is picking mincemeat out of her hair, supposedly to drop off her Christmas present, but really to wangle an invitation to stay out of Sophie's uncle - Guy claims the roads are too bad to drive to his family home.
So Guy gets his invitation and then proceeds to declare that he loves Sophie. Sophie doesn't believe him, what about his fake fiancee and Valerie? Guy claims he and the fake fiancee were only a couple in law school and not since and that Valerie may look like a femme fatale, but really Gib is probably her first lover. Sophie doesn't believe him at first, but Guy is insistent, so Sophie gives in and true love is declared as the rest of the crazy relatives start arriving.
Up next in the final episode - Gina and Nick have their final showdown, Hazel leaves the Sentinel for Holland and Nick is furious at Piet, Sir Dermot has plots in plots running amok and Phillip Slade's new American fiancee has some sneaky ploys of her own in store for the big Barbary Wharf Finale.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
dnf
March 20, 2025Too much happening in this book - I didn’t realize it was part of that big unwieldy soap opera series she wrote. 🥴
August 28, 2022
It’s a no for me dawg.
I could try to give the excuse that this is a part of a series as to why it feels like you walked into the middle of a set of a movie that is halfway finished, but there is really no excuse for half baked characters. It’s not a simple thing to write a large ensemble, and when it’s written very well it’s a beautiful thing.
All the men are the same in the story. The reaction to similar events are repetitious and stupidly animalistic in the worst ways. And the “career women” just need a man’s physical attention to get them in line. This book is horribly outdated. It might be forgiven if there was any skill in the writing, but this was all tell and what was shown I didn’t want to see.
I recommend this book as an example of what red flags are.
I could try to give the excuse that this is a part of a series as to why it feels like you walked into the middle of a set of a movie that is halfway finished, but there is really no excuse for half baked characters. It’s not a simple thing to write a large ensemble, and when it’s written very well it’s a beautiful thing.
All the men are the same in the story. The reaction to similar events are repetitious and stupidly animalistic in the worst ways. And the “career women” just need a man’s physical attention to get them in line. This book is horribly outdated. It might be forgiven if there was any skill in the writing, but this was all tell and what was shown I didn’t want to see.
I recommend this book as an example of what red flags are.
August 30, 2023
I don't know how to use Goodreads
Pls help me out
Pls help me out
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