Reluctant mistress, convenient wife Xandro Caramanis wants a wife. She must be well-bred, willing to give him an heir and accept a loveless arrangement. Ilana Girard is a society beauty with a head for business who understands emotions are not part of the deal...Ilana accepts Xandro's proposal because she needs his protection. He doesn't realize she's never slept with a man before, and it's reluctantly that she takes her place in his bed...
Helen Shirley was born on February 20 1939 in New Zealand, where she grew up, an only child possessed by a vivid imagination and a love for reading. She wrote stories for amusement in her early teenage years, and when she left leaving school, she took a secretarial job at a father-and-son legal firm.
At age twenty-one Helen joined a girlfriend and embarked on a working holiday in Australia, travelling via cruise ship from Auckland to Melbourne. Alas, no shipboard romance, as she spent all four days in her cabin suffering from sea-sickness! After fifteen months working in Melbourne, Helen and her friend bought a vehicle and took three months to drive the length and breadth of Australia, choosing to work in Cairns in order to fund the final leg of our journey to Sydney.
It was in Cairns that Helen met her future husband, Danilo Bianchin, an Italian immigrant from Treviso. He was a tobacco sharefarmer from the tobacco farming community of Mareeba. His English was pitiful, and her command of Italian was nil. Six months later they married, and Helen was flung into cooking for up to nine tobacco pickers, stringing tobacco, feeding 200 chickens, a few turkeys, ducks... plus killing, cleaning and cooking the same! Her knowledge of Italian improved, and there were hilarious moments in retrospect. Some of what she endured was cooking on a wood-burning stove, having no running hot water, a primitive shower and toilet facilities, washing uniforms for two soccer teams during the soccer season... floods, horrendous hailstone damage to tobacco crops, hardship, and the stillbirth of their first child. Then, to their joy, Helen's daughter, Lucia, was born. Three years later the couple returned to New Zealand, where they settled for sixteen years. During those early years, they added two sons, Angelo and Peter, to the family.
With multiple anecdotes of farm life in an Italian community to friends, the idea of writing a book occurred. A romance, set on a tobacco farm in Australia's far north, Queensland, featuring an Italian hero. Helen says, "the background was authentic, believe me!" However the hero was rich and owned the farm artistic license! It took her a year to complete a passable manuscript, typed on a portable typewriter at the dining room table. That first effort was deemed too short with insufficient detail. Helen rewrote it. This time it was considered too long with too much extraneous detail. She revised, then sent it to London. Four months later she received a telegram from Alan Boon (Mills & Boon) to say they intended to publish and a contract would be sent in the mail. It was the most wonderful news!
Helen wrote ten more books while living in New Zealand, then in 1981, her family resettled in Australia, on Queensland's Gold Coast. She has since published twenty-five more books. Today, with computer technology, the mechanics of writing are much easier. However, the writing process doesn't change. Helen says that she's having a good day if she can achieve 5 good pages, which she is likely to change, edit and rewrite the following day.
She loves creating characters, giving them life and providing a situation where their emotions are tested and love wins out. For her, the greatest praise is for a reader to say they couldn't put the book down... then Helen knows that she has achieved what she set out to do -- "create a moving enjoyable story which holds the reader entertained from beginning to end."
Helen's hobbies are tennis, table-tennis, judo, reading. She loves movies, and leads an active social life.
The Greek Tycoon's Virgin Wife starts out with a hero who has decided he's ready to settle down and get married. The perfect candidate is Ilana Girard, only she's not too eager to be any man's bride. Two years ago, she called off her wedding the day before the event. Since then, she's been called the Ice Maiden by society. She's a busy and successful fashion designer who travels in the same high society circles as Xandro due to her aristocratic parents. Ilana has some very good reasons to avoid an involvement, particularly the fact that her ex was abusive and threatened to kill her if she dates another man. Of course, she doesn't let Xandro know this. He merely thinks she's playing Lady Reluctant, but he's determined to woo this lady.
Events escalate and her ex-fiance is now full-on stalking her: leaving threatening messages on her phone, and eventually making attempts on her life. Xandro swoops in to protect Ilana, hiring a bodyguard, and moving her into his mansion. Ilana is finding it increasingly hard to resist this attractive man who shows her gentleness and loving care, the total opposite from the man she was going to marry, who beat her and tried to rape her the night before their wedding.
This one wasn't terribly exciting, but I still enjoyed it. I thought it was funny how Xandro hired another man to protect his would-be wife, instead of swooping in to do it himself. I guess billionaires don't really think about being tough guys, not when he can pay someone else to do it.
Misnomer aside, since Ilana succumbs to Xandro's seduction long before the wedding (hence, no virgin wife--more like virgin girlfriend), I liked this book.
Virgin heroine + Hero coveted by another woman + other woman is a bitch + ex-boyfriend stalker and psychotic + describes parties and clothes of the rich in detail. ---------------------------------------------------- Only thing different about this story is that heroin is a Virgin. I noticed in other books all heroines had previous experiences. But the rest of the story follows the same formula already known of the author. The author has a very cynical view of the life of the rich and social interactions. Endless parties where appearances have to be maintained and true friendships are rarities. There's always a calculating woman seeking fortune and social position of the hero and a man interested in the heroine's family money. In this book the hero sees the heroine a future perfect wife with good family and social position. But gradually his protective instincts are triggered and he just really caring about her. She's afraid because her ex-boyfriend left her too traumatized to trust a man again. But gradually she'll be involving for charm and charisma of the hero.
I read this back before I started recording what I read or writing reviews.
Kind of boring actually.
The hero decides he needs to get married and picks out a lovely candidate. Too bad she's too perfect as the romance comes across as cold-blooded and a little boring.
Nice twist is that she has a real career rather than getting by being a cleaner or a PA. Nothing wrong with either of those situations, but when you have such a disparity in wages there is such a huge power imbalance. I guess you wouldn't get the Cinderella syndrome then.
Quintessential stupid Harley title. This one has all the bells and whistles: greek/tycoon.virgin. Honestly, how are we to recall one from the other. Give me a The Judas Kiss orStormspell. Those are titles you can remember.
4 1/2 Stars! ~ If you love reading a romance where the hero patiently encourages the heroine to get close and a relationship builds more slowly, then you'll be hooked on Xandro and Ilana's story. Xandro has had his eye on Ilana for awhile and when he learns that she's being stalked, he jumps right in as her protector. Unlike, Ms. Bianchin's earlier Presents, in this one, we do get to read the hero's point of view and that makes this lovestory one well worth reading again and again.
Pretty badly written, for example: "She turned to look at him. 'I love you,' she said gently.'So much.' 'Its reciprocal.'" he answers. Its 'reciprocal'??? WTF, is it the most romantic thing he could come up with? Whenever something romantic happens, the author goes into auto-repeat: "How much time has passed, minutes, hours?" This happens 10-20 times, every kiss basically... Heroine endlessly vacillates between being a decisive professional woman (though she lets a designer dress get away without a fight! sue the model, for god's sake) and a confused imp, avoidant in dealing with her stalker while Hero was indulgently patient with all her craziness. Not sure why he liked her in the first place, she is described as The Ice Queen and acts like a prickly pear most of the time.
An enjoyable quick read. However, I do find that Helen Bianchin tends to write the same story over and over again, never trying to break out of the mold. Her stories are about beautiful career minded heroines, usually in the fashion industry, who meet up with wonderful Australian heroes that are wealthy, and of Mediterranean descent. Throw in a vicious ex that hounds the heroine, a vicious OW, a truly loving mother and voila the story.
This one was a little more enjoyable than the others, so I would recommend if you are looking for a light quick read.
HB is a talented author and I find her work very easy to read and enjoyable. I just wish she would break out of the paradigm and venture into some new territory.
Bad Decision Book Club - I started this book close to midnight and couldn't put the book down! Finished at 4am...
My first HB book was Mistress by Contract, a 2001 book. This story is similar in style, a kind of stilted, but nevertheless the likeable hero and heroine made me keep reading. The style is very different from her earlier books from the 70s/80s! Those featured more high strung and slappy heroines, with chauvinistic heroes, very much true to the times!
I remember reading this story before, must be pre Goodreads days because I did not make a record here.
The heroine was a talented fashion designer, so it was interesting to read about her designer award and seasonal fashion showings. The Other Woman wannabe was this hateful model who STOLE the award winning dress argh! I hated that she wasn't made to pay or account for this theft!
I really cannot understand why the hell Ilana didn't go to the police after the evil ex fiancé hit her...The assault and attempted rape two years ago was swept under the carpet because he had some sob story about his mother, but Ilana was foolish to let him continue to terrorise her now. Xandro getting a bodyguard was the best thing but she got angry. Geez...
Love the name Ilana Girard, they were so French calling her mother "maman".
Xandro was the toned down alpha male. He knew what he wanted and would get his way, but was patient and charming enough to do it in style. I love watching him fall for Ilana, he might have coldly chosen her as a mate for the most practical reasons, but b the end he was head over heels in love with Ilana!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
I felt more emotion from Xandro, and I think I would prefer to see more of this in male protagonists 🤔 They are usually portrayed as quite stoic and unfeeling in my opinion...
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Another nice book by Helen Bianchin. I think she may shape up to be a favourite author of mine: her books aren't overly dramatic; the tension stems more from the characters' insecurities than external forces. But if you want to relax reading about an alpha male determined to get his woman and a heroine who falls in love but won't accept anything less from her man, then a book by HB could be a great choice. This is the story of Ilara (a famous fashion designer) and Xandros (a successful businessman). Xandros decides it's time to marry and start a family and he decides his wife has to be Ilara. His choice seems logical, it's even mentioned in the book he thinks so, but personally I believe he was already smitten with her when he chose her. But his choice to spend more and more time with Ilara draws her former fiance from the shadows, putting her at risk. So there is a bit of external drama in this one (plus there's also a wannabe OW who tries to cause some mischief).
Loved it. Thought this was the story I was re-reading when I read The Andreou Marriage Arrangement books, she overuses particular words. In this book, I saw the words "capacious" and "evocative" too many times. Those are both .25 cent words that really should show up only once in any given HQN Presents! Just a little pet peeve to repeat words like this because it's just distracting.
This one was okay. For all it’s worth, this book has an exciting premise. But the execution of the story/plot was a bit fail for me. Plus, the fact that the heroine irritated the hell out of me. I liked my heroine feisty and knew how to stand up for herself. But in this case, she's just stubborn and annoying. She refused to accept help, knowing that she was in danger. Ugh! I don't know if I want to shake her or give her to Grant in a platter. If she drops dead in the middle of the book, I honestly won't give a damn. She's too stupid to live.
Another thing I didn't like was the lack of interaction between Xandro and Ilana. I wanted more dialogue between them. Somewhat disappointing.
First, the Goodreads blurb distorts what the book is actually about. Ilana is a successful fashion designer, moving among Society with great ease, but she also has a past. Her former fiance is violent & is determined that if she won't have him, she won't have anyone. Xandro Caramanis has his eye set on Ilana as his society wife, but she won't have him. He puts out a fake story that they are engaged to try and flush out her ex, but she is determined that it won't become real unless he truly loves her.
This had some good twists in it. I was glad to see such a strong woman, despite the terror she's experiencing & I was also glad that she held out for love & not just settled.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
OK, yes Helen Bianchin does tend to re-write the same story line over and over, slightly varying the names, locals, industry, villains. etc. Yes, Ms Bianchin does get hung up on phrases throughout each book. The heroes and heroine always seem to have a love/hate relationship. The heroes have to save the heroines who seem to always end up in need of a life or death rescue. Yet, I seem to come back over and over to re-read many of her stories when I just want an easy read, a couple of hours of mindless escape or relaxation. So, for that, I'll give Ms Bianchin kudos!
Why to people read this type of crap ninety percent of the time couples usually have a wrecked relationship.So this is a bunch of fictional crap.I would deem vampires more possible than a relationship like this were your truly bonded.
2.5 stars. Would have been 5 but deducted 1.5 stars because I prefer h's being younger than 26, and I wish the mc's would have become intimate before 67% of book--I would prefer she either extended story or trimmed the first 2/3's of the book through simple statements and clever editing. But if you aren't hung up on the age thing like me, and you don't mind a plot peaking after the half way point, I would definitely recommend.
No one paints as well as HB imo, but I don't always care for the picture she creates. It often feels like one of her stories is flawed intentionally to me. This is because I grew up on the old HP standard. And I like it still, even though I am older. But man! she can make me fall in love in just a few pages! She made wish I could go back in time and meet the H. While I was reading I didn't want it to end--like I wanted to stay inside the book with Xandro FOREVER. Talk about dreamie...
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
what the fuck was this. this is the most shitty book ever. you will get so frustrated with the h that you will want to kill her after only a few pages. On one hand she is a confidant career women and on another she is a cowering idiot who suddenly has no self confidence. Such kind of conflicting personality changes can only mean one thing . SHE IS BIPOLAR. Such a fucking waste of time and also put me in a very very bad mood. Why didn't she report that creep. most novels have a justification why but this one didn't. Why did she take the anger out on H like that when she couldn't do the same to that creep who was stalking her
Xandro is a greek tycoon that has decided he wants a wife that will provide him with a heir and he has chosen Ilana. However his plans goes awry when she is not so eager to oblige. Kkkk. Serves him right!! He, for sure, will have to work harder to woo her. Ilana is a successful fashion designer and she has others problems to worry about like her ex, a abusive man, that seems to be lurking at every corner. Nice read but a bit slow.
This was not really written by Helen Bianchin. It's not even written by AI. It is just written by some horrible person who uses a cliche or trite phrase every other sentence because they are illiterate or conducting some weird experiment on how badly a book can be written and still sell. Bianchin's older romances are lovely. I expect harlequins to be formulaic. But this is not what one expects of a harlequin.
Loved the story line. I loved the things he said. "No" and "look at me" were the main ones to start off with. He was determined to have her and he got what he wanted. The side story was very clever too. One thing I would've liked to see happen and that was for Danika to get her comeupance after taking the red dress.
Estuvo bien para pasar el rato, a pesar que encontré que Ilana tenía menos brillo que pelo de chancho y me salté muchas partes descriptivas que aburrían. Y, como latina, me sorprendió que a pesar de la buena relación que la protagonista tenia con su madre, ésta no le preguntara sobre su relación con Xandros. Que clase de madre es esa?!
Strong, yet feminine heroine with strong hero who was tough and masculine, but who was also compassionate rather than being ruthless. I have read quite a few of this author's books, and find her stories to be quite enjoyable.
BORING - DNF 25% The most boring book I've ever tried to read such bad writing - monotone, no tempo change, unemotional, in-depth description of stuff no one is interested in. Just Bad.
Al igual que todos los libros de esta autora, el amor entre los protagonistas es a primera vista, me gustaría ver un poco mas de desarrollo entre los personajes, como pueden amarse tan profundamente en tan poco tiempo xd
First time reading Helen Bianchin’s novel. Loved the characters and love how the İlana has her own career and not always destitute waiting for a billionaire to dig her out in the finance dept. I like that both characters have great qualities.