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Love is in the Cards
HE WASN'T THE MAN SHE WAS LOOKING FOR
When Peggy Mitchell found handsome James T. Marston lying hurt near her Saint Vincent's Caribbean plantation, she hoped he was bringing news of an inheritance. She desperately needed the money to save her farm.
In fact, he was a financial wizard getting away from it all, and he knew nothing about the legacy. However, Jim soon spotted Peggy's redundant crops of arrowroot and, having problems of his own, he quickly devised a deal to suit them both.
Peggy was tempted by his plan --- but just what had her superstitious housekeeper meant when she'd read Jim's tarot cards and had predicted riches, fire ... and love?
When Peggy Mitchell found handsome James T. Marston lying hurt near her Saint Vincent's Caribbean plantation, she hoped he was bringing news of an inheritance. She desperately needed the money to save her farm.
In fact, he was a financial wizard getting away from it all, and he knew nothing about the legacy. However, Jim soon spotted Peggy's redundant crops of arrowroot and, having problems of his own, he quickly devised a deal to suit them both.
Peggy was tempted by his plan --- but just what had her superstitious housekeeper meant when she'd read Jim's tarot cards and had predicted riches, fire ... and love?
189 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1990
2 people are currently reading
40 people want to read
About the author
Emma Goldrick
149 books33 followersEmma Goldrick is the penname used by the marriage formed by Emma Elizabeth Jean Sutcliffe, borned 7 February 1923 in Puerto Rico, and Robert N. Goldrick, borned on 22 March 1919 in Massachusetts, USA. They met in Puerto Rico, where married. She was a licensed practical nurse, volunteered with American Red Cross and she taught American Sign Language and he was a career USA military man. Thirty years and 4 children later they retired, and in 1980 they started to write in collaboration, and their first novel was accepted and published in 1983 by Mills & Boon. They continued publishing 40 novels until Robert passed away at 76, in 22 January 1996. After her husband death, she published her last novel and retired. Emma Goldrick passed away at 85, in 20 November 2008.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
June 29, 2017
Re Love is in the Cards - Emma Goldrick is back with another cultural exploration with a romance veneer. This time on the Caribbean island of Saint Vincent.
The 33 yr old H is a commodities broker. He carries a mental burden of inadvertently contributing to the suicide of his estranged father via a stock manipulation that he won big on and his father got caught on the losing end. The H's father took heavy financial losses and as a result, shot himself.
The H is vacationing around the Caribbean on his yacht and he runs into one the brokers that originally started the stock manipulation that ruined his father. It almost ruined the H at the time too, but he made some shrewd counter moves and came out ahead. The H wants revenge on the people who started the stock deal and he has successfully destroyed three of the instigators. There is only one woman left and when the story starts, the H overhears her paying a private detective to find the H and find out what deals he might be working on.
The H is actually really having a vacation, he has been restless in his lifestyle lately and figured some Island time might help him settle himself. Then he runs over the h's mailbox following a badly maintained track and wrecks his car and gives himself a concussion.
The 26 yr old h had just come with her recalcitrant donkey Satan to check the mail. She is hoping to hear from her grandfather's lawyers about the legacy he supposedly left for her or her now deceased mother in his will.
The h needs the money. She is working an arrowroot plantation all on her own. Her mother was ill for years and the h trained as a nurse and cared for her until her passing. The h's brother has been at school in the US for several years learning agriculture. But her father insisted they buy the plantation they live on now with a big mortgage, he also insisted they plant a bunch of arrowroot that is unsalable because there is no market for arrowroot any longer. Then when things got really hard with a crop they can't sell or use, he just disappeared and the h thinks he ran off.
The h has been scrapping by after setting up a local village cooperative of various secondary crops, but she is in debt and really hopes that her grandfather's legacy will bail the plantation out. (We find out a bit later that neither the h or the housekeeper ever mailed the letter - tho the legacy was only about $9000.00.)
Then the h meets the concussed H and brings him back to her house, where she lives with an island housekeeper who likes to read tarot cards. The H thinks the h is a kid at first. But as soon as the h puts on something a bit more form fitting, he realizes his error by the size of her frontal assets he can't stop ogling.
The h and H soon get to know each other and trade life stories. The H sees an opportunity to hurt the last remaining unscrupulous commodity broker that ruined his father. He gets the h to fake date him in and around the island's main town. He knows the detective is still spying on him and he convinces the h to demand a huge price for the arrowroot she is going to sell to the buyers he is luring in.
(His plan is to make the woman broker think that the H is onto a hot new use for arrowroot and get her to give the h a lot of money in the hopes of beating the H to a big deal. Since there is only the possibility that the arrowroot can be used in computer paper making processes, the H hopes to stick the woman broker with a lot of useless arrowroot and thus ruin her career.)
While the h and H are setting their arrowroot bait, we learn a lot about the island, a LOT of Island patois and the H manages to get some roofie kisses in that the h just thrills over too. Eventually the woman broker and her bosses show up, they buy all the h's arrowroot from the last three years and the H's trap is sprung and the h gets enough money to pay off her mortgage and pay all the island workers who are very underemployed. The H and h also manage to have a big Tower of Power ride experience and when the H realizes the h was untouched by any man, he panics and then the H takes off for pastures new in an attempt to escape his true love fate.
The h is sad and a bit heartbroken, but the H runs off on his yacht to get drunk cause he is now in love with the h and he can't handle it. At the back of the h's plantation is a simmering volcano. It decides to spout out and starts a big fire. The H, ready to admit defeat and claim his h, returns just in time to rescue everybody from the lava caused fires and propose marriage to the h. She refuses for a month as she thinks she has bad taste in men, cause she adored her father and he ran out on her. Then the islanders find her father's remains in the local lake that was significantly lowered by the volcano activity.
The h realizes that her father did NOT run out on her, he had an accident and died and the H has arranged to move the local village and the h's home out of the lava path. The woman broker does manage to sell the arrowroot for a profit, but the H is in love now and has no time for vengeance anymore.
The h and her brother can now plan very profitable sweet almond trees to sell almonds to Japan and the h can trust her taste in men, so she accepts the H's proposal. The HEA is a big wedding plan and the housekeeper's tarot deck indicating that the mega rich H and the h are going to have six kids, so they need to get cracking on the bun baking.
This one was interesting in the island and lifestyle description. The banter between the H and h was fairly entertaining and the story moved along nicely in a shallow surface kinda way. This one isn't a big epic romance, but it was a fairly fluffy and amusing read and a believable HEA for an average HP outing with a little island life style thrown in.
The 33 yr old H is a commodities broker. He carries a mental burden of inadvertently contributing to the suicide of his estranged father via a stock manipulation that he won big on and his father got caught on the losing end. The H's father took heavy financial losses and as a result, shot himself.
The H is vacationing around the Caribbean on his yacht and he runs into one the brokers that originally started the stock manipulation that ruined his father. It almost ruined the H at the time too, but he made some shrewd counter moves and came out ahead. The H wants revenge on the people who started the stock deal and he has successfully destroyed three of the instigators. There is only one woman left and when the story starts, the H overhears her paying a private detective to find the H and find out what deals he might be working on.
The H is actually really having a vacation, he has been restless in his lifestyle lately and figured some Island time might help him settle himself. Then he runs over the h's mailbox following a badly maintained track and wrecks his car and gives himself a concussion.
The 26 yr old h had just come with her recalcitrant donkey Satan to check the mail. She is hoping to hear from her grandfather's lawyers about the legacy he supposedly left for her or her now deceased mother in his will.
The h needs the money. She is working an arrowroot plantation all on her own. Her mother was ill for years and the h trained as a nurse and cared for her until her passing. The h's brother has been at school in the US for several years learning agriculture. But her father insisted they buy the plantation they live on now with a big mortgage, he also insisted they plant a bunch of arrowroot that is unsalable because there is no market for arrowroot any longer. Then when things got really hard with a crop they can't sell or use, he just disappeared and the h thinks he ran off.
The h has been scrapping by after setting up a local village cooperative of various secondary crops, but she is in debt and really hopes that her grandfather's legacy will bail the plantation out. (We find out a bit later that neither the h or the housekeeper ever mailed the letter - tho the legacy was only about $9000.00.)
Then the h meets the concussed H and brings him back to her house, where she lives with an island housekeeper who likes to read tarot cards. The H thinks the h is a kid at first. But as soon as the h puts on something a bit more form fitting, he realizes his error by the size of her frontal assets he can't stop ogling.
The h and H soon get to know each other and trade life stories. The H sees an opportunity to hurt the last remaining unscrupulous commodity broker that ruined his father. He gets the h to fake date him in and around the island's main town. He knows the detective is still spying on him and he convinces the h to demand a huge price for the arrowroot she is going to sell to the buyers he is luring in.
(His plan is to make the woman broker think that the H is onto a hot new use for arrowroot and get her to give the h a lot of money in the hopes of beating the H to a big deal. Since there is only the possibility that the arrowroot can be used in computer paper making processes, the H hopes to stick the woman broker with a lot of useless arrowroot and thus ruin her career.)
While the h and H are setting their arrowroot bait, we learn a lot about the island, a LOT of Island patois and the H manages to get some roofie kisses in that the h just thrills over too. Eventually the woman broker and her bosses show up, they buy all the h's arrowroot from the last three years and the H's trap is sprung and the h gets enough money to pay off her mortgage and pay all the island workers who are very underemployed. The H and h also manage to have a big Tower of Power ride experience and when the H realizes the h was untouched by any man, he panics and then the H takes off for pastures new in an attempt to escape his true love fate.
The h is sad and a bit heartbroken, but the H runs off on his yacht to get drunk cause he is now in love with the h and he can't handle it. At the back of the h's plantation is a simmering volcano. It decides to spout out and starts a big fire. The H, ready to admit defeat and claim his h, returns just in time to rescue everybody from the lava caused fires and propose marriage to the h. She refuses for a month as she thinks she has bad taste in men, cause she adored her father and he ran out on her. Then the islanders find her father's remains in the local lake that was significantly lowered by the volcano activity.
The h realizes that her father did NOT run out on her, he had an accident and died and the H has arranged to move the local village and the h's home out of the lava path. The woman broker does manage to sell the arrowroot for a profit, but the H is in love now and has no time for vengeance anymore.
The h and her brother can now plan very profitable sweet almond trees to sell almonds to Japan and the h can trust her taste in men, so she accepts the H's proposal. The HEA is a big wedding plan and the housekeeper's tarot deck indicating that the mega rich H and the h are going to have six kids, so they need to get cracking on the bun baking.
This one was interesting in the island and lifestyle description. The banter between the H and h was fairly entertaining and the story moved along nicely in a shallow surface kinda way. This one isn't a big epic romance, but it was a fairly fluffy and amusing read and a believable HEA for an average HP outing with a little island life style thrown in.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 11, 2017
Love is in the Cards is an unusal HP in that in takes place in the Caribbean. As a long time Harelquin reader it has the old Superromance feel rather than a Presents feel....
Anyway to the story. What worked- the focus is on building the romance and also the revenge part by the hero but that all brings the hero and heroine together. The storytelling focus was bringing the hero and heroine together. All that pleased me and it was refreshing since modern Presents do more to focus on everything but draw the heroine and hero together.
The storytelling did drag a bit and no epilogue which is why it gets no 5 star rating.
Anyway to the story. What worked- the focus is on building the romance and also the revenge part by the hero but that all brings the hero and heroine together. The storytelling focus was bringing the hero and heroine together. All that pleased me and it was refreshing since modern Presents do more to focus on everything but draw the heroine and hero together.
The storytelling did drag a bit and no epilogue which is why it gets no 5 star rating.
February 24, 2011
I hope it's not a pattern of EG books. This is the 2nd EG I came across where 1) Hero gets the initial impression that heroine is still a teen & 2) Heroine acts child-like (e.g., stamps her li'l foot).
< She might have been 16, he assessed. Or maybe younger. >
H/h meet in Caribbean where he gets injured near her plantation & heroine nurses him back to health (she's a nurse). Hero is a gazillionaire, heroine is @ the end of her rope, desperate for her inheritance to save her farm. I dunno how Caribbean folks talk but EG tries to be authentic. The orphaned Heroine lives w/ a housekeeper cum mommy figure who tawk like dis :
"I ain't worried about what you done, man, I worries about what you gonna do. An' I gonna tell you -- it ain't gonna be nothin' to do with my baby ! Miss Peggy, she one good girl. She know plenty people, my girl, but she don' know from nothin' about men like you. So you listen up, Mr James marston, if that's your real name. You keeps you hands in you pockets around here, or they gonna be cut off at the elbows. You hear me ?"
"You got all that education, you don't gonna believe in nothin' like that Tarot. They teach you everything in that nursing school, no ?"
"I know, missy. But you don't gotta believe. Go take care of you goats, while I does the dishes & warms up the cards."
@ the end, she doesn't wanna marry him for the most dubious reason, 'cuz dear daddy - whom she luved, honored & respected more than anything / anybody in the world - walked out on her & her mom, so she can't live that down. Then 4 pages later someone drops the bombshell that they found a drowned skeleton on a dried lake, which matched her daddy's profile down to the dental records. So she turns 180 degrees & tells him that dear Xpired daddy did luv her after all & now she's willing to change her tune & is ready for their HEA. Wot a lame finish.
Tepid romance & light as bubbles, like listening to reggae music (not my cuppa). Missing the heelarious, witty zingers found in "Silence speaks for love".
< She might have been 16, he assessed. Or maybe younger. >
H/h meet in Caribbean where he gets injured near her plantation & heroine nurses him back to health (she's a nurse). Hero is a gazillionaire, heroine is @ the end of her rope, desperate for her inheritance to save her farm. I dunno how Caribbean folks talk but EG tries to be authentic. The orphaned Heroine lives w/ a housekeeper cum mommy figure who tawk like dis :
"I ain't worried about what you done, man, I worries about what you gonna do. An' I gonna tell you -- it ain't gonna be nothin' to do with my baby ! Miss Peggy, she one good girl. She know plenty people, my girl, but she don' know from nothin' about men like you. So you listen up, Mr James marston, if that's your real name. You keeps you hands in you pockets around here, or they gonna be cut off at the elbows. You hear me ?"
"You got all that education, you don't gonna believe in nothin' like that Tarot. They teach you everything in that nursing school, no ?"
"I know, missy. But you don't gotta believe. Go take care of you goats, while I does the dishes & warms up the cards."
@ the end, she doesn't wanna marry him for the most dubious reason, 'cuz dear daddy - whom she luved, honored & respected more than anything / anybody in the world - walked out on her & her mom, so she can't live that down. Then 4 pages later someone drops the bombshell that they found a drowned skeleton on a dried lake, which matched her daddy's profile down to the dental records. So she turns 180 degrees & tells him that dear Xpired daddy did luv her after all & now she's willing to change her tune & is ready for their HEA. Wot a lame finish.
Tepid romance & light as bubbles, like listening to reggae music (not my cuppa). Missing the heelarious, witty zingers found in "Silence speaks for love".
August 27, 2016
‘Love is in the Cards’ might have been a decent book, had it been turned into a 300+ page novel, rather than a throwaway Mills & Boon read. I say this because the author, Emma Goodrick, clearly had a lot of creative ideas when she wrote this, however crammed them all in to the extent that the effect was convoluted, and detracted from the main reason that a lot of people read a Mills & Boon: for a bit of down ‘n’ dirty!
Taking place in the exotic, Caribbean setting of St Vincent, ‘Love is in the Cards’ is less steamy romance, and more intricate action movie plot. It begins with the handsome James Marston being found by local girl Peggy Mitchell (really) when his car breaks down, and she quickly gets swept up in his plan to deceive rival businessmen into buying her failing crop of arrowroot.
Also within the plot is a volcano eruption, the mystery of a missing father, and… oh yes, a bit of Boon. Though barely – with so much already going on in this A5 189 page read, it’s over before it’s even started. There’s little development given to the characters, and the plot jumps so much it’s difficult to really get sucked in.
I nearly gave this one star, as this was an easy one to put down, however, I did enjoy the parts of the book that explored the culture of St Vincent, which were colourful, insightful, and pretty original for a Mills & Boon novelette.
Taking place in the exotic, Caribbean setting of St Vincent, ‘Love is in the Cards’ is less steamy romance, and more intricate action movie plot. It begins with the handsome James Marston being found by local girl Peggy Mitchell (really) when his car breaks down, and she quickly gets swept up in his plan to deceive rival businessmen into buying her failing crop of arrowroot.
Also within the plot is a volcano eruption, the mystery of a missing father, and… oh yes, a bit of Boon. Though barely – with so much already going on in this A5 189 page read, it’s over before it’s even started. There’s little development given to the characters, and the plot jumps so much it’s difficult to really get sucked in.
I nearly gave this one star, as this was an easy one to put down, however, I did enjoy the parts of the book that explored the culture of St Vincent, which were colourful, insightful, and pretty original for a Mills & Boon novelette.
October 10, 2019
HE WASN'T THE MAN SHE WAS LOOKING FOR
When Peggy Mitchell found handsome James T. Marston lying hurt near her Saint Vincent's Caribbean plantation, she hoped he was bringing news of an inheritance. She desperately needed the money to save her farm.
In fact, he was a financial wizard getting away from it all, and he knew nothing about the legacy. However, Jim soon spotted Peggy's redundant crops of arrowroot and, having problems of his own, he quickly devised a deal to suit them both.
Peggy was tempted by his plan --- but just what had her superstitious housekeeper meant when she'd read Jim's tarot cards and had predicted riches, fire ... and love
When Peggy Mitchell found handsome James T. Marston lying hurt near her Saint Vincent's Caribbean plantation, she hoped he was bringing news of an inheritance. She desperately needed the money to save her farm.
In fact, he was a financial wizard getting away from it all, and he knew nothing about the legacy. However, Jim soon spotted Peggy's redundant crops of arrowroot and, having problems of his own, he quickly devised a deal to suit them both.
Peggy was tempted by his plan --- but just what had her superstitious housekeeper meant when she'd read Jim's tarot cards and had predicted riches, fire ... and love
March 13, 2008
One of the first romance novels I've never found something redeeming in. Both the hero and heorine are so wrapped up in their own shallowness....good God, they don't deserve to live happily ever after.
May 22, 2013
After the first pages I was so bored with it I couldn't even read the rest, I've skimmed the pages, got bored again, and didn't even read the final rows. I think I finished this book in 10 minutes ;) what a waiste of my time.
August 24, 2015
Hated it. Only part i liked was the Tarot card reading that part interesting. Really disliked the
Hero through out the story but especially at the end. The heroine blamed herself for his con come on. So disappointed.
Hero through out the story but especially at the end. The heroine blamed herself for his con come on. So disappointed.
February 24, 2012
Meh. Not keeping my attention. Not worth it. I'm tired of weak women who are portrayed as strong, but fall to pieces as soon as the man comes along.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews