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The Forbidden Touch of Sanguardo
Her heart-rate was raised, rapidly. And she knew exactly what had caused it. Rafael Sanguardo… Celeste Philips’s night was meant to be about raising money for charity. Not trying to douse the flames of attraction between herself and self-made millionaire Rafael Sanguardo. A man who always gets what he wants. Celeste knows she shouldn’t fall for Rafael’s practised charm, and yet the more her head tells her to walk away and protect her fragile heart…the more she craves his forbidden touch! Discover more at www.millsandboon.co.uk/juliajames
192 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2014
16 people are currently reading
64 people want to read
About the author
Julia James
724 books163 followersJulia lives in England with her family. Mills and Boon novels were Julia's first "grown up" books she read as a teenager ("Alongside Georgette Heyer and Daphne du Maurier."), and she's been reading them ever since.
Julia adores the English countryside ("And the Celtic countryside!"), in all its seasons, and is fascinated by all things historical, from castles to cottages. She also has a special love for the Mediterranean ("The most perfect landscape after England!") — she considers both are ideal settings for romance stories! In between writing she enjoys walking, gardening, needlework and baking "extremely gooey chocolate cakes" — and trying to stay fit!
Julia adores the English countryside ("And the Celtic countryside!"), in all its seasons, and is fascinated by all things historical, from castles to cottages. She also has a special love for the Mediterranean ("The most perfect landscape after England!") — she considers both are ideal settings for romance stories! In between writing she enjoys walking, gardening, needlework and baking "extremely gooey chocolate cakes" — and trying to stay fit!
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
April 12, 2015
A heroine who prostitutes herself for easy money is not my cup of tea. But if you liked Pretty Woman and a prostitute heroine u might enjoy this. What I found extremely insulting as a woman is that the author even glorifies prostitution stating it as a courageous thing to do and an act of love. Hmmm no actually it isn't.....
April 2, 2014
3.5 stars
I always learn a new word in Julia James' HPs. this time it was lambent.
not sure what I think about this story, although Hero is the nicest guy ever so that's refreshing. heroines big secret was a first for me in an HP, I'm still not sure what Harley is thinking. but the heroes' issue with it felt way too contrived. But James is still one of my autobuy authors. love scenes are more on the sweet side, not too graphic. other woman was kinda interesting, almost wish JJ would write her story.
I always learn a new word in Julia James' HPs. this time it was lambent.
not sure what I think about this story, although Hero is the nicest guy ever so that's refreshing. heroines big secret was a first for me in an HP, I'm still not sure what Harley is thinking. but the heroes' issue with it felt way too contrived. But James is still one of my autobuy authors. love scenes are more on the sweet side, not too graphic. other woman was kinda interesting, almost wish JJ would write her story.
December 22, 2016
Model Celeste has a miasma and a boss who’s about to get real handsy.
Serial entrepreneur Rafael can’t get his bad ex girlfriend with her slack thighs out of his head. He wants you to know that he wasn’t emotionally damaged by that red-headed, slack-thighed hussy. But he’s on the lookout for a lady who is her exact opposite, and when Celeste comes swanning down a staircase, and then later swans down a runway, he knows he’s found the real deal.
Rafael was once poor and comes from a poor country in South America. He got a scholarship to a fancy US school and became a serial entrepreneur. I don’t know what a serial entrepreneur is. Nothing good comes of putting ‘serial’ in front of a word, so I’m going to assume that Julia James is trying to tell me that Rafael makes money by engaging in vile and creepy episodes. I don’t know why she wants me to think that Rafael does vile and creepy things, especially when Rafael sees himself as rather liberal in his politics. Raphael is also gorgeous, which I’m assuming is some compensation for his evil business dealings and crap seduction technique.
Celeste is all blonde and beautiful, but she’s busy thinking about this terrible creepy miasma that’s all over her skin, and how her boss is a creep, and I’m thinking she’s just being terrible at this modelling job. I mean: isn’t she supposed to swish around in her fancy clothes and mingle with people? And shouldn’t she be able to walk a runway without coming over all weird when she catches sight of some handsome guy?
She takes her troubles out onto the lawn, where Rafael decides to pounce. He gives her an astronomy lecture and Celeste is all, yeah thanks, I have to go model now. Then he pounces again when she’s about to eat, and gives her a lecture on how models are to blame for the entire fashion industry’s obsession with skinny women.
Buddy, just shut up. She knows all that shit, and she’s a woman so she also knows she’s to blame for something that has nothing to do with her, and thanks so much for being critical of her eating habits, I’m sure that’s really helped. And, couldn’t you introduce yourself to her, and ask her name like a normal person? No? Urgh.
The two big main points of this book are how whatever secret pain Celeste is very carefully not thinking about is directly related to the untold flaw in Rafael’s previous girlfriend that he couldn’t forgive.
Celeste’s secret pain means that, even though she wants to immediately get naked with Rafael on the lawn, she continually rejects him, and attempts to shut down his pursuit.
And his pursuit is, rather charmingly, pretty low key. Sure, he’s stalked her modelling agency for her contact details, but I’m so used to alpha heroes wielding the Cudgel of Great Wealth to force the heroine into spending time with them, that when Rafael didn’t, I was terribly impressed. I forgave him (mostly) for his penchant for delivering stupid lectures. I didn’t even ponder what, exactly, Girlfriend had done that had left him so disgusted.
And, he made her sound like quite the sociopath. Girlfriend was super-rich and self-made, but hated poor people, parents, the environment, and any energy expended outside the pursuits of wealth and thigh-slackening pleasure. When Celeste’s new model friend is drugged by Celeste’s creepy ex-boss, Rafael reflects that Girlfriend would have laughed at some girl getting raped.
When Rafael pursues Celeste to Hawaii and issues the ‘date me or I’ll stop following you around everywhere’ ultimatum, Celeste finally caves. And they have a good time, because Celeste is in that tremulous phase of daring to hope that her secret doesn’t mean she can never have nice things. I’d sort of hoped that Celeste’s secret, given her keen interest in astronomy, might be some shame over failing out of a STEM degree for some noble heroine reason. Julia James likes secret maths/science etc geeks, so there was some chance this could be the secret.
They are sweet together. Celeste and Rafael have the exact same world view, and they have a good time in Hawaii, and they like cuddling. Nothing about Julia James’ sex scenes stands out to me, so it's safe to assume that they have the best time ever and are super compatible. Rafael also wants to form a long-term relationship with a woman, and what with only doing some mild stalking, and with his fair-minded conclusion that while Girlfriend was a bad egg, not all ladies are, he’s a highly evolved hero. His only flaw seemed to be his great love of delivering lectures.
I'm putting the revelation of the secret into a spoiler (and having a rant about it), but this was a rather lovely story. Julia James loves playing out her little secrets. She does have a tendency to drag them out longer than needed, but I always appreciate the fun, silliness of her characters’ drama, and how clear she is on their compatibility.
And the secret is …
Serial entrepreneur Rafael can’t get his bad ex girlfriend with her slack thighs out of his head. He wants you to know that he wasn’t emotionally damaged by that red-headed, slack-thighed hussy. But he’s on the lookout for a lady who is her exact opposite, and when Celeste comes swanning down a staircase, and then later swans down a runway, he knows he’s found the real deal.
Rafael was once poor and comes from a poor country in South America. He got a scholarship to a fancy US school and became a serial entrepreneur. I don’t know what a serial entrepreneur is. Nothing good comes of putting ‘serial’ in front of a word, so I’m going to assume that Julia James is trying to tell me that Rafael makes money by engaging in vile and creepy episodes. I don’t know why she wants me to think that Rafael does vile and creepy things, especially when Rafael sees himself as rather liberal in his politics. Raphael is also gorgeous, which I’m assuming is some compensation for his evil business dealings and crap seduction technique.
Celeste is all blonde and beautiful, but she’s busy thinking about this terrible creepy miasma that’s all over her skin, and how her boss is a creep, and I’m thinking she’s just being terrible at this modelling job. I mean: isn’t she supposed to swish around in her fancy clothes and mingle with people? And shouldn’t she be able to walk a runway without coming over all weird when she catches sight of some handsome guy?
She takes her troubles out onto the lawn, where Rafael decides to pounce. He gives her an astronomy lecture and Celeste is all, yeah thanks, I have to go model now. Then he pounces again when she’s about to eat, and gives her a lecture on how models are to blame for the entire fashion industry’s obsession with skinny women.
Buddy, just shut up. She knows all that shit, and she’s a woman so she also knows she’s to blame for something that has nothing to do with her, and thanks so much for being critical of her eating habits, I’m sure that’s really helped. And, couldn’t you introduce yourself to her, and ask her name like a normal person? No? Urgh.
The two big main points of this book are how whatever secret pain Celeste is very carefully not thinking about is directly related to the untold flaw in Rafael’s previous girlfriend that he couldn’t forgive.
Celeste’s secret pain means that, even though she wants to immediately get naked with Rafael on the lawn, she continually rejects him, and attempts to shut down his pursuit.
And his pursuit is, rather charmingly, pretty low key. Sure, he’s stalked her modelling agency for her contact details, but I’m so used to alpha heroes wielding the Cudgel of Great Wealth to force the heroine into spending time with them, that when Rafael didn’t, I was terribly impressed. I forgave him (mostly) for his penchant for delivering stupid lectures. I didn’t even ponder what, exactly, Girlfriend had done that had left him so disgusted.
And, he made her sound like quite the sociopath. Girlfriend was super-rich and self-made, but hated poor people, parents, the environment, and any energy expended outside the pursuits of wealth and thigh-slackening pleasure. When Celeste’s new model friend is drugged by Celeste’s creepy ex-boss, Rafael reflects that Girlfriend would have laughed at some girl getting raped.
When Rafael pursues Celeste to Hawaii and issues the ‘date me or I’ll stop following you around everywhere’ ultimatum, Celeste finally caves. And they have a good time, because Celeste is in that tremulous phase of daring to hope that her secret doesn’t mean she can never have nice things. I’d sort of hoped that Celeste’s secret, given her keen interest in astronomy, might be some shame over failing out of a STEM degree for some noble heroine reason. Julia James likes secret maths/science etc geeks, so there was some chance this could be the secret.
They are sweet together. Celeste and Rafael have the exact same world view, and they have a good time in Hawaii, and they like cuddling. Nothing about Julia James’ sex scenes stands out to me, so it's safe to assume that they have the best time ever and are super compatible. Rafael also wants to form a long-term relationship with a woman, and what with only doing some mild stalking, and with his fair-minded conclusion that while Girlfriend was a bad egg, not all ladies are, he’s a highly evolved hero. His only flaw seemed to be his great love of delivering lectures.
I'm putting the revelation of the secret into a spoiler (and having a rant about it), but this was a rather lovely story. Julia James loves playing out her little secrets. She does have a tendency to drag them out longer than needed, but I always appreciate the fun, silliness of her characters’ drama, and how clear she is on their compatibility.
And the secret is …
October 5, 2014
I enjoyed this story on multiple levels. On the surface, it is a tale of illumination into the glitzy world of fashion, where things are definitely not what they seem. Half starved models attempt to put on a pretty face for the cameras and enthralled audiences, while masking lives wrecked by tragic death, unholy bargains and lifetimes filled with misery.
It is also the story of Celeste Phillips, a woman who made an incredible sacrifice to give her mother a chance to return to a life she loved before cancer claimed her. Celeste's devil's bargain has tarnished her life ever since, never allowing her to get involved with anyone. She can't allow any man close enough to see the real woman inside her, to glimpse the horrible creature she feels she has become. That is, until Rafael Sanguardo enters her life.
Suddenly, Celeste finds she has a chance at a real life. She reaches for love, for all of the things she suspects may be denied her forever, but finds only tragedy. Can Rafael find the courage to move beyond the tarnished image of an old flame, the vixen Madeline who forces him to make cruel judgments about Celeste? It will take bravery, honor, strength, and most of all, love, to reach for love.
It is also the story of Celeste Phillips, a woman who made an incredible sacrifice to give her mother a chance to return to a life she loved before cancer claimed her. Celeste's devil's bargain has tarnished her life ever since, never allowing her to get involved with anyone. She can't allow any man close enough to see the real woman inside her, to glimpse the horrible creature she feels she has become. That is, until Rafael Sanguardo enters her life.
Suddenly, Celeste finds she has a chance at a real life. She reaches for love, for all of the things she suspects may be denied her forever, but finds only tragedy. Can Rafael find the courage to move beyond the tarnished image of an old flame, the vixen Madeline who forces him to make cruel judgments about Celeste? It will take bravery, honor, strength, and most of all, love, to reach for love.
April 3, 2016
Dull, flat characters, predictable, cliche phrases used and way too many exclamation marks for my liking.
To be honest, I didn't expect anything less.
Even though the characters were clearly intended to have some sort of depth to them with their "mysterious" and tragic pasts, it backfired completely making the plot cheesy and ridiculous.
The only thing I liked was the description, especially their visit to Hawaii. But then again that's probably only because I really want to go to Hawaii.
To be honest, I didn't expect anything less.
Even though the characters were clearly intended to have some sort of depth to them with their "mysterious" and tragic pasts, it backfired completely making the plot cheesy and ridiculous.
The only thing I liked was the description, especially their visit to Hawaii. But then again that's probably only because I really want to go to Hawaii.
June 10, 2014
The morality of prostitution is very polarizing as many of the reviews demonstrate. Along with that, Julia James heroes tend to be arrogant asshats needing to be taken down a peg. So it came as a surprise that this hero was so gentle, patient and loving. The angst of moving forward from the past was a great theme and I enjoyed this HP interlude
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July 27, 2021Went in blind, no clue why. It’s not clicking.
Karl Reiner can’t be the villain… Carl Reiner, brilliant comedian… Alan Brady… Meathead’s dad. It’s distracting.
And I still can’t stand Julia James’ lack of dialogue and page after page of tormented inner monologue.
Maybe I’ll come back to it… doubtful.
Karl Reiner can’t be the villain… Carl Reiner, brilliant comedian… Alan Brady… Meathead’s dad. It’s distracting.
And I still can’t stand Julia James’ lack of dialogue and page after page of tormented inner monologue.
Maybe I’ll come back to it… doubtful.
December 7, 2024
Listened on audio and the AI narrator was really very good. But this is not JJ's best work. Unlike FROM DIRT TO DIAMONDS, there's no sense of urgency, let alone desperation. The hero is well-meaning and sweet and he has all the time in the world to make the ice-cold heroine lower her defenses. And all Celeste does page after page is keep on chanting, "it can't be, it can never be, it can't be, it can never be" like that in itself is enough to make her a compelling heroine. Enough already!
April 20, 2015
when i was browsing a local bookstore i always go by the name of the author. as soon as i saw julia james' name i grabbed it and went for the counter without reading its synopsis.
the reason why i just rated it 3 stars is because its not the usual julia james romance that i read. i mean yes theres the angst, theres the mystery that will keeep turning pages till the end but i find the H very tamed. (sorry but thats just me. i like alpha male high handed H and thats the reason i read almost all of her books.)
i think the climax for me was when the truth came out and bothr H and h were trying to deal with it in their own ways.
but still JJ's on top of my list. :)
the reason why i just rated it 3 stars is because its not the usual julia james romance that i read. i mean yes theres the angst, theres the mystery that will keeep turning pages till the end but i find the H very tamed. (sorry but thats just me. i like alpha male high handed H and thats the reason i read almost all of her books.)
i think the climax for me was when the truth came out and bothr H and h were trying to deal with it in their own ways.
but still JJ's on top of my list. :)
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January 12, 2016received 4 1/2 stars @ RT Book Reviews
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January 12, 2016received 4 1/2 stars @ RT Book Reviews
July 20, 2014
he tries too hard and she too little, it's like their love is one sided.
February 14, 2015
I liked the book. Very different from other romance novels I have read.
February 7, 2018
Rafael has come out of a horrible break up with his girlfriend after he learned that and when he spies Celeste, a model at a party, she is the polar opposite of his ex and therefore catches his eye. He is absolutely determined to woo her and win her. He doesn't expect it to be so difficult. Celeste is obviously very wary of Rafael, and guys in general and so it takes Rafael a lot of time and patience to earn her trust. Celeste has a traumatic past and doesn't give her trust or her heart lightly, believing she cannot escape her past and that it will ruin her present if Rafael ever learns of it.
This, believe it or not, is not the dramatic angst-fest I typically expect from this author. It's mostly how Rafael takes his time to earn Celeste's trust, they fall in love and then the secrets spill out. There were quite a few things that I did enjoy about this book, but mostly not so much. First, I REALLY liked Rafael. He was a bit preachy at times, but in his actions, he was patient and affectionate and not an asshole to Celeste. For once, a HP-male looks at a woman and thinks, " I want a relationship with her," instead of how to get her in the sack for a night. And he truly does pursue a "relationship" - he builds a friendship, earns her trust and is not an attack-kisser and never pushes her past her limits. Of course, this relationship building combined with Celeste's wariness of guys and sex means that there doesn't feel like much passion between them. At one point, it felt like just two friends going on excursions - having fun and all, but not really feeling the chemistry. And this and the lack of angsty drama probably is why I started spacing out about the 50% mark and to struggle to push through. Not something that typically happens with an HP.
There was however, one thing I didn't like about Rafael and that was his sort of double standard...or should I say his hang up about his ex-girlfriend's particular sin. Madeline, the ex, is an abhorrent specimen of humanity. The fact that she is probably the least offensive thing about her. So how can Rafael call himself even a half-way decent judge of character when THAT was the only reason he left her. And then he finds a wonderfully pure, innocent and nice girl like Celeste and he is willing to leave her for the same sin. It's mind-boggling. His hang up about one thing is cause for leaving the woman he loves...and I could probably rant on and on about comparisons to manwhores in HPlandia, and the transactional nature of mistresses and even the feminist side of things, like it's her body she can do what she wants with it, so what right does he have to be so morally outraged by it? But then we get to the end, where Rafael learns that Celeste's actions were justifiable, where his ex's were not and so that's why he's able to forgive her. It's not that she's just a better person or that his ex is the devil incarnate or even that Rafael learns to get past his hang-up and see what truly matters about a person - no. He realizes that he was right all along in his opinions and now Celeste's actions fit into his little morality box and she's acceptable again. Not good character growth there. But I did appreciate that Rafael's acceptance of her actions allowed Celeste to finally put it behind her and confront what she'd done.
This, believe it or not, is not the dramatic angst-fest I typically expect from this author. It's mostly how Rafael takes his time to earn Celeste's trust, they fall in love and then the secrets spill out. There were quite a few things that I did enjoy about this book, but mostly not so much. First, I REALLY liked Rafael. He was a bit preachy at times, but in his actions, he was patient and affectionate and not an asshole to Celeste. For once, a HP-male looks at a woman and thinks, " I want a relationship with her," instead of how to get her in the sack for a night. And he truly does pursue a "relationship" - he builds a friendship, earns her trust and is not an attack-kisser and never pushes her past her limits. Of course, this relationship building combined with Celeste's wariness of guys and sex means that there doesn't feel like much passion between them. At one point, it felt like just two friends going on excursions - having fun and all, but not really feeling the chemistry. And this and the lack of angsty drama probably is why I started spacing out about the 50% mark and to struggle to push through. Not something that typically happens with an HP.
There was however, one thing I didn't like about Rafael and that was his sort of double standard...or should I say his hang up about his ex-girlfriend's particular sin. Madeline, the ex, is an abhorrent specimen of humanity. The fact that she is probably the least offensive thing about her. So how can Rafael call himself even a half-way decent judge of character when THAT was the only reason he left her. And then he finds a wonderfully pure, innocent and nice girl like Celeste and he is willing to leave her for the same sin. It's mind-boggling. His hang up about one thing is cause for leaving the woman he loves...and I could probably rant on and on about comparisons to manwhores in HPlandia, and the transactional nature of mistresses and even the feminist side of things, like it's her body she can do what she wants with it, so what right does he have to be so morally outraged by it? But then we get to the end, where Rafael learns that Celeste's actions were justifiable, where his ex's were not and so that's why he's able to forgive her. It's not that she's just a better person or that his ex is the devil incarnate or even that Rafael learns to get past his hang-up and see what truly matters about a person - no. He realizes that he was right all along in his opinions and now Celeste's actions fit into his little morality box and she's acceptable again. Not good character growth there. But I did appreciate that Rafael's acceptance of her actions allowed Celeste to finally put it behind her and confront what she'd done.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 11, 2019
This was a challenge to read. I know nothing about this author, but if I had to say something based on this book I'd say she was an extremely new/young author and this was her first book. I'm not sure if there was not an editor or what, but this reads like (at best) a first draft. There are so, so, so many POV shifts I got whiplash. Sometimes the POV shift happens IN THE SAME PARAGRAPH.
Thoughts are not set off from the narrative beyond putting them in a new paragraph (I am thankful for that small mercy). Though again, one paragraph will be from limited 3rd POV and the next will be first person POV. Word choices are weird as if the author grabbed a thesaurus and changed it up every chance she got. Then there are the weird word choices that seem like typo errors (sweated instead of sweaty) or verb tense errors (loosened instead of loose).
The sentence structure is so out of the ordinary in multiple places that I began to wonder if maybe English was not the author's first language. There are sentences so convoluted by commas and em-dashes I'm not sure what she was trying to say. The dialog is often embarrassingly cheesy and there are a lot of exclamation points. It's like the stereotypical telenovela dialog more often than not. Every interaction is over the top. And amongst other such crimes, she uses the word 'exposited' instead of 'said' after a bit of dialog. *deep breath*
Then there's this that she has Rafael say to Celeste after they save a girl from being date raped via drugged drink:
"But you know..." His voice changed. "You have to allow for the fact that she was there of her own free will, and might very well have been perfectly willing to go ahead with whatever it was that Karl Reiner had planned."
No. N.O.
I read through the first ten chapters and finally had to stop.
The leads are somewhat interesting, as is the premise. Sometimes the author trips across a neat turn of phrase, bordering on poetic even. But mostly it is sloppy and utterly confusing.
Thoughts are not set off from the narrative beyond putting them in a new paragraph (I am thankful for that small mercy). Though again, one paragraph will be from limited 3rd POV and the next will be first person POV. Word choices are weird as if the author grabbed a thesaurus and changed it up every chance she got. Then there are the weird word choices that seem like typo errors (sweated instead of sweaty) or verb tense errors (loosened instead of loose).
The sentence structure is so out of the ordinary in multiple places that I began to wonder if maybe English was not the author's first language. There are sentences so convoluted by commas and em-dashes I'm not sure what she was trying to say. The dialog is often embarrassingly cheesy and there are a lot of exclamation points. It's like the stereotypical telenovela dialog more often than not. Every interaction is over the top. And amongst other such crimes, she uses the word 'exposited' instead of 'said' after a bit of dialog. *deep breath*
Then there's this that she has Rafael say to Celeste after they save a girl from being date raped via drugged drink:
"But you know..." His voice changed. "You have to allow for the fact that she was there of her own free will, and might very well have been perfectly willing to go ahead with whatever it was that Karl Reiner had planned."
No. N.O.
I read through the first ten chapters and finally had to stop.
The leads are somewhat interesting, as is the premise. Sometimes the author trips across a neat turn of phrase, bordering on poetic even. But mostly it is sloppy and utterly confusing.
May 3, 2024
Okay, so the male character is a billionaire who had a serious girlfriend who ended up being a prostitute and it made him sad, heroine is a model who almost gets raped by a big fashion sponsor and gets rescued by the male lead because he thought she was hot. He is a pest about dating her, a literal pest, and she goes along with it only to see the same rape guy roffie a teen model. The "hero" helps with the rescue but them proclaims that since the teen agreed to a date than roofing her wasn't that immoral at all and just drops the teen off with her roommate and tries to get with the heroine some more.
At this point I almost gave up. The book goes on, and it finally comes out the heroine had spent a summer hooking for billionaires in Dubai or somewhere and the "hero" freaks out. She was short of money and wanted more. So his baby fit goes on for pages and pages.
Finally it comes out her mother was dying and the heroine did the hooking to fund a lavish style trio for mom before she passed on. Then it was okay.
This was like some sick sad tragic abuse story. What editor gave the okay to print this in the presents line?
At this point I almost gave up. The book goes on, and it finally comes out the heroine had spent a summer hooking for billionaires in Dubai or somewhere and the "hero" freaks out. She was short of money and wanted more. So his baby fit goes on for pages and pages.
Finally it comes out her mother was dying and the heroine did the hooking to fund a lavish style trio for mom before she passed on. Then it was okay.
This was like some sick sad tragic abuse story. What editor gave the okay to print this in the presents line?
August 6, 2018
The prose - is purple! The heroine - has a Terrible Secret! The hero - is preternaturally patient! I don't know, I enjoyed reading it, so I'm not going to complain. That said, the big secret is that the heroine ; the hero is but learns that the heroine . If you have strong feelings about this one way or the other - either that you will probably hate this.
December 3, 2022
It was terrible, the plot and characters were so boring. Heroine had zero personality and I don't see why hero was drawn to her at all. Hero was constantly thinking about his ex and was comparing her to the heroine all the time. I wasn't a fan of the heroine's revelation that she whored herself out as a "summer bride" to make easy money for her dying mother (no mother would want her daughter to do that for them). Np.
June 23, 2020
Even by Mills and Boon standards this one was a shocker 👎
April 2, 2025
DNF. I could get past the stiff writing of this book. It just felt forced and the use of strange fancy words to describe things just made me loose interest.
own-but-wont-read-or-wallbanger
September 4, 2018She is a prostitute???? Her heart rate was raised rapidly. And she knew exactly what had caused it. Rafael Sanguardo…
Celeste Philips's night was meant to be about raising money for charity. Not trying to douse the flames of attraction between herself and self-made millionaire Rafael Sanguardo, a man who always gets what he wants.
Celeste knows she shouldn't fall for Rafael's practiced charm, yet the more her head tells her to walk away and protect her fragile heart…the more she craves his forbidden touch!
Celeste Philips's night was meant to be about raising money for charity. Not trying to douse the flames of attraction between herself and self-made millionaire Rafael Sanguardo, a man who always gets what he wants.
Celeste knows she shouldn't fall for Rafael's practiced charm, yet the more her head tells her to walk away and protect her fragile heart…the more she craves his forbidden touch!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 30, 2016
Hyvä kirja loppuun asti!!
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