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Stormfire
Like a moth to flame.
Powerful and ruthless, Jake Hollingsworth was a force unto himself - dangerous and totally without mercy.
He'd hated Lisette three years ago when she'd married his father. Clearly, his feelings hadn't changed, so why this intrusion into her life? She'd renounced her claim to the family fortune when Jake's father died. None of his actions made sense, unless he was attempting a cruel game of revenge.
Yet, against her will, Lisette was being swept closer to the mesmeric lick of flame, wanting to tempt the devil - knowing she'd never be the same...
Powerful and ruthless, Jake Hollingsworth was a force unto himself - dangerous and totally without mercy.
He'd hated Lisette three years ago when she'd married his father. Clearly, his feelings hadn't changed, so why this intrusion into her life? She'd renounced her claim to the family fortune when Jake's father died. None of his actions made sense, unless he was attempting a cruel game of revenge.
Yet, against her will, Lisette was being swept closer to the mesmeric lick of flame, wanting to tempt the devil - knowing she'd never be the same...
Paperback
First published July 1, 1992
68 people want to read
About the author
Helen Bianchin
380 books228 followersHelen 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
January 17, 2018
RE Stormfire - Helen Bianchin does the stepmother h vs stepson H trope - but unlike Lindsay Armstrong's Surrender, My Heart HB keeps it all very platonic and chooses to focus on the gropey hands/forced roofie kisses angry jealous H action with lots and lots of driving around.
The h in this story is French Australian. She was in law school being poor and trying to be supportive of her hard working French mum and terminally ill father when she met the father of the H.
He was very much older than her and he had cancer. In return for her caretaking and marrying him, he provided her and her mother with some badly needed financial security so the h could finish school and her mum could spend the remainder of her father's days caring for him. There was no question of consummating the marriage - the H's father just needed someone to help him out and apparently the H was too busy for that.
So the h, who has all the practicality of a French housewife, married the H's dad. The H was furious and evil to her at the wedding - dismissing her as another gold digging hussy. The fact that that after the father died, the h returned the bulk of what the H's father left her to the h seems to be irrelevant. (Tho again, the fact that the h is French and practical means that she keeps carefully selected investments to keep her and her mum financially secure.)
When the book opens, the h is a conveyance lawyer and the H has decided to use the firm she works for to do some Australian business - of course the h's boss is ecstatic and it soon becomes clear that the H is stalking the h.
There is lots of the h driving smoothly around in her very nice car, drinking warm milk with brandy, getting tarty harlot gold digger H accusations, followed up by roofie kisses and so much gropey harassment that really this poor girl needed a taser. The h's mother is delighted her daughter is being so diligently harassed by the handsome nematode H, after all she is very French and the H is very rich and the h's mum has a huge practical streak that means you may as well be harassed by a rich man as opposed to a poor no-hoper one.
Wash , rinse, repeat and then do it again a few more times.
Really tho both the h and her mum are the usual very chic and elegant and controlled HB ladies, the main focus on this is the H's continual harassing pursuit of the h which eventually leads to a semi-forced seduction.
The h finally gets wise that the H is going to hound her unmercifully until the heat death of the universe, so the h takes leave from her job and goes to a holiday resort. The H tracks her down after bullying the h's mum and then has a hissy because the h never told him her marriage was in name only and he was going mad thinking his dad got in first cause she is his, his, his.
The H claims he loves the h, or at least he is possessive enough to want to chain her to him until he feels he has groped her enough. The h has finally been roofie kissed into compliant declarations of love avowals back and they decide to marry as the h has another brandy and warm milk for the big HEA.
This is for all those who love to OD on the stalkerific H trope - or if you like warm milk and brandy or want to vicariously experience smoothly driving around in a nice luxury car. There is a tiny bit of showers and fruit for breakfast, and of course some really nice clothes, but really devoted HB followers will just have to develop the taste for warmed milk and brandy to really get the maximum enjoyment out of this one.
The h in this story is French Australian. She was in law school being poor and trying to be supportive of her hard working French mum and terminally ill father when she met the father of the H.
He was very much older than her and he had cancer. In return for her caretaking and marrying him, he provided her and her mother with some badly needed financial security so the h could finish school and her mum could spend the remainder of her father's days caring for him. There was no question of consummating the marriage - the H's father just needed someone to help him out and apparently the H was too busy for that.
So the h, who has all the practicality of a French housewife, married the H's dad. The H was furious and evil to her at the wedding - dismissing her as another gold digging hussy. The fact that that after the father died, the h returned the bulk of what the H's father left her to the h seems to be irrelevant. (Tho again, the fact that the h is French and practical means that she keeps carefully selected investments to keep her and her mum financially secure.)
When the book opens, the h is a conveyance lawyer and the H has decided to use the firm she works for to do some Australian business - of course the h's boss is ecstatic and it soon becomes clear that the H is stalking the h.
There is lots of the h driving smoothly around in her very nice car, drinking warm milk with brandy, getting tarty harlot gold digger H accusations, followed up by roofie kisses and so much gropey harassment that really this poor girl needed a taser. The h's mother is delighted her daughter is being so diligently harassed by the handsome nematode H, after all she is very French and the H is very rich and the h's mum has a huge practical streak that means you may as well be harassed by a rich man as opposed to a poor no-hoper one.
Wash , rinse, repeat and then do it again a few more times.
Really tho both the h and her mum are the usual very chic and elegant and controlled HB ladies, the main focus on this is the H's continual harassing pursuit of the h which eventually leads to a semi-forced seduction.
The h finally gets wise that the H is going to hound her unmercifully until the heat death of the universe, so the h takes leave from her job and goes to a holiday resort. The H tracks her down after bullying the h's mum and then has a hissy because the h never told him her marriage was in name only and he was going mad thinking his dad got in first cause she is his, his, his.
The H claims he loves the h, or at least he is possessive enough to want to chain her to him until he feels he has groped her enough. The h has finally been roofie kissed into compliant declarations of love avowals back and they decide to marry as the h has another brandy and warm milk for the big HEA.
This is for all those who love to OD on the stalkerific H trope - or if you like warm milk and brandy or want to vicariously experience smoothly driving around in a nice luxury car. There is a tiny bit of showers and fruit for breakfast, and of course some really nice clothes, but really devoted HB followers will just have to develop the taste for warmed milk and brandy to really get the maximum enjoyment out of this one.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 3, 2024
In Stormfire, Helen Bianchin gives us a widowed Australian heroine of French origins who works as a successful attorney, and a super wealthy, sexy American tycoon looking to expand his international empire in Australia, so he hires heroine's firm to handle all the necessary transactions. Except that is not where and when they initially meet. The 25 year old heroine is the 37 year old hero's former stepmother. LOL
Three years ago, when she was working part time jobs while putting herself through law school, she met an older man who frequented the restaurant she was waitressing at. They struck up a friendship. He was charming, worldly, and wealthy but very lonely and sad. She had no time for dates as she was too busy working and studying.
That man, the hero's father, soon proposes a marriage of convenience to the heroine. He would take care of her and her destitute parents financially, put her through her final year of law school, and basically treat her to anything and everything she needed. In return, she would be his companion, giving him the pleasure of her friendship, youth, and kindness during the last months of his life. He had been diagnosed with a terminal illness and didn't want to burden his son, who was busy running the family empire in the United States and Europe.
Heroine agrees. She genuinely likes and cares for her husband. There is no question of consummating the MOC as he is too ill and frankly, there is no sexual attraction for her towards a man who could age-wise be her grandfather nor does he expect her to take on that role. It is strictly a MOC with both parties satisfied as to the boundaries of their platonic relationship. However, for the sake of his pride, this fact remains between the two of them. For everyone on the outside, including his own son, this is a real marriage.
When the hero is summoned for the wedding of his father to a twenty year old girl with no prospects, he wastes no time branding her a gold digging floozie. A year later, the hero's dad dies, leaving half his fortune to the heroine. She promptly signs almost all of it back to the hero, except for the apartment her husband had bought for her to live in, and some minor investments made specifically to provide for her now widowed mother. Having successfully completed her legal studies and secured a lucrative position with a law firm, she doesn't feel morally entitled to the hero's rightful legacy. Yet the hero continues and persists in treating her as a Merry Widow, something that ignites a very real hatred of him.
After two years, hero shows up in Australia. He has specifically chosen her firm and her in particular as the attorney to handle his business. He starts a long drawn-out stalker campaign to win her over, even as he STILL makes insulting and spiteful remarks about her moral integrity and her dubious relationship with his father.
She thinks he just wants to get her into bed to score against her and does her best to ward him off. I must say, she had a spine of steel and whenever he verbally sparred with her, she was more than able to hold her own and put him in his place. So I appreciated that a lot. However, overall, the book was so filled with their antagonism that it didn't leave much room for love and romance.
Interesting story but not one that I clicked with emotionally. A heroine who was dignified, intelligent and classy yet there was such a coldness to her that I really didn't feel anything for her. Her only real relationship, one with warmth and genuine tenderness and affection, was with her mom. I didn't feel that she cared for the hero, even to the last page. She seemed to hate him even while fighting her proverbial traitorous body.
As for the hero, we are not privy to his thoughts until the last few pages when he makes his declaration. In typical HPlandia fashion, he claims that he was horrible to her because he had fallen in love at first sight with her and could not forgive her for marrying his father for financial reasons. His actions, from the very beginning, showed more of an unhealthy obsession with his father's wife than true love for the heroine. So much loathing and contempt mixed with lust. I didn't feel genuine love there either.
Three years ago, when she was working part time jobs while putting herself through law school, she met an older man who frequented the restaurant she was waitressing at. They struck up a friendship. He was charming, worldly, and wealthy but very lonely and sad. She had no time for dates as she was too busy working and studying.
That man, the hero's father, soon proposes a marriage of convenience to the heroine. He would take care of her and her destitute parents financially, put her through her final year of law school, and basically treat her to anything and everything she needed. In return, she would be his companion, giving him the pleasure of her friendship, youth, and kindness during the last months of his life. He had been diagnosed with a terminal illness and didn't want to burden his son, who was busy running the family empire in the United States and Europe.
Heroine agrees. She genuinely likes and cares for her husband. There is no question of consummating the MOC as he is too ill and frankly, there is no sexual attraction for her towards a man who could age-wise be her grandfather nor does he expect her to take on that role. It is strictly a MOC with both parties satisfied as to the boundaries of their platonic relationship. However, for the sake of his pride, this fact remains between the two of them. For everyone on the outside, including his own son, this is a real marriage.
When the hero is summoned for the wedding of his father to a twenty year old girl with no prospects, he wastes no time branding her a gold digging floozie. A year later, the hero's dad dies, leaving half his fortune to the heroine. She promptly signs almost all of it back to the hero, except for the apartment her husband had bought for her to live in, and some minor investments made specifically to provide for her now widowed mother. Having successfully completed her legal studies and secured a lucrative position with a law firm, she doesn't feel morally entitled to the hero's rightful legacy. Yet the hero continues and persists in treating her as a Merry Widow, something that ignites a very real hatred of him.
After two years, hero shows up in Australia. He has specifically chosen her firm and her in particular as the attorney to handle his business. He starts a long drawn-out stalker campaign to win her over, even as he STILL makes insulting and spiteful remarks about her moral integrity and her dubious relationship with his father.
She thinks he just wants to get her into bed to score against her and does her best to ward him off. I must say, she had a spine of steel and whenever he verbally sparred with her, she was more than able to hold her own and put him in his place. So I appreciated that a lot. However, overall, the book was so filled with their antagonism that it didn't leave much room for love and romance.
Interesting story but not one that I clicked with emotionally. A heroine who was dignified, intelligent and classy yet there was such a coldness to her that I really didn't feel anything for her. Her only real relationship, one with warmth and genuine tenderness and affection, was with her mom. I didn't feel that she cared for the hero, even to the last page. She seemed to hate him even while fighting her proverbial traitorous body.
As for the hero, we are not privy to his thoughts until the last few pages when he makes his declaration. In typical HPlandia fashion, he claims that he was horrible to her because he had fallen in love at first sight with her and could not forgive her for marrying his father for financial reasons. His actions, from the very beginning, showed more of an unhealthy obsession with his father's wife than true love for the heroine. So much loathing and contempt mixed with lust. I didn't feel genuine love there either.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 13, 2012
There's not much to say about this one, other than to note that she drank a heck of a lot of warm milk. He was a controlling bully and she stayed mad and blew him off most of the time while having trembling inner tissues. I can't say this one was bad, just that it should be saved until you don't have anything else to read.
April 19, 2024
"Damn you," сказала вона всоте, тремтячи від збудження і ненависті, і я зрозуміла, що з мене досить😄не дотягнула я до геппі енду. Типовий любовний романчик 90тих, доволі непогано написаний як на представника свого жанру.
October 30, 2017
A copy of this book was lent to me by my office mate that I haven’t got around to reading until now. I liked the story well enough it encouraged me to finish it in a day. Funny how this book was released 25 years ago (the year I was born!) and it’s still felt like contemporary read.
July 14, 2022
Icky stepmom/son situation and I got tired of him threatening her with such eroticism to remove all doubt, erotic kisses, erotic this, that and the other. I finished it, it’s somehow compelling but it’s not a good romance.
This author is rarely a winner for me.
This author is rarely a winner for me.
October 26, 2022
Lindsay Armstrong did this plot much better. Read that book, not this one. Surrender my Heart is the title and for an HP, genuinely moving.
April 27, 2025
Compelling writing, a heroine with strong motivations, and a story that I liked overall.
February 16, 2023
He's a controlling, rich jerk, while she is innocent as the driven snow despite her earlier marriage to the hero's father (oh yes you heard me); he uses her job as a means to force her to continue contact with him, despite the fact that Bianchin is so vague on what her job entails that I'm not sure even the heroine really knows what she does all day. The heroine is attacked and then stalked in a plot thread that goes absolutely nowhere; another woman attempts to sink her talons into the hero but once again is not mentioned ever again as soon as she vanishes. It's all very standard Bianchin. Is it good? No. Is it bad? Well, if you want a Bianchin novel it is fine. If you are unfamiliar with the level of high-camp drama which Bianchin brings, then no, you will not like this; if you really require Bianchin to be at the top of her game, then you will not like this either. It is fine; that's really all there is to say about it.
April 10, 2018
I really don't know what to think about this one - on the surface it had the potential to be a great star crossed lovers story but as I pondered it over a slightly sore head I found myself asking far too many questions about the plot. Why did the dad not feel he could tell his son he was terminally ill? It's not like they had a poor relationship. Why did he need to marry a girl young enough to be his daughter/granddaughter he could have just given her money if he wanted. In addition to this the H seemed to hate the h for most of the story although he listed after her and the h just seemed to dislike the H just as much. She never really gave her feelings away tbh even at the end except in a throwaway remark. She seemed rather cold. Finally our H had magical pixie builders who sorted an entire house out and had it habitable in 2 days.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
abrierto-to-read-hr-other
February 9, 2021His fathers widow. Father married her to help her. He knew he was dying. Like a moth to flame.
Powerful and ruthless, Jake Hollingsworth was a force unto himself - dangerous and totally without mercy.
He'd hated Lisette three years ago when she'd married his father. Clearly, his feelings hadn't changed, so why this intrusion into her life? She'd renounced her claim to the family fortune when Jake's father died. None of his actions made sense, unless he was attempting a cruel game of revenge.
Yet, against her will, Lisette was being swept closer to the mesmeric lick of flame, wanting to tempt the devil - knowing she'd never be the same.
Powerful and ruthless, Jake Hollingsworth was a force unto himself - dangerous and totally without mercy.
He'd hated Lisette three years ago when she'd married his father. Clearly, his feelings hadn't changed, so why this intrusion into her life? She'd renounced her claim to the family fortune when Jake's father died. None of his actions made sense, unless he was attempting a cruel game of revenge.
Yet, against her will, Lisette was being swept closer to the mesmeric lick of flame, wanting to tempt the devil - knowing she'd never be the same.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 28, 2011
Un conflicto muy bien creado, dos protagonistas fuertes; familia y negocios, pasado y presente mezclados en la dosis perfecta.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews