Jack & Jilted

by Cathy Yardley

When his chef eloped with the masseuse, Captain Jack McCullough knew he'd have to pitch in to keep his four-star yacht afloat. Too bad he didn't know one end of the galley from the other, but he did have the looks, the charm and...the jilted bride? Dodging caterers' bills instead of confetti, jobless Chloe Winton did what every suddenly-single woman should. She talked herself into taking the week-long honeymoon cruise her former fianc&eacute had paid for. (Yes--for the whole week!) But when she meets the hot, sexy--do-gooding--captain, she's not sure the six days and seven nights will be enough!

Genres: Romance, Harlequin Blaze, Contemporary, Adult, Harlequin, Harlequin Romance, Fiction

Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

Cathy Yardley is an award-winning author of romance, chick lit, and urban fantasy, who has sold over 1.2 million copies of books for publishers like St. Martin's, Avon, and Harlequin. She writes fun, geeky, and diverse characters who believe that underdogs can make good and that sometimes being a little wrong is just right.

Reviews

[Jacob Proffitt · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fun romance though on the serious side, for all it was tragedy-free. Jack and Chloe both had some maturity issues to start with, and there's really no way through those than making mistakes, hurting one another, talking things through, and, eventually, forgiveness. I was much more engaged with Chloe than Jack, but that's mainly because I don't find the fancy-free vagabond terribly alluring (unless he's played by Nathan Fillion, of course). I was relieved to find that it wasn't as one-sided as I feared it would be (because Jack had the more obvious learning curve). And I was delighted to see how well they fit together in that each had a need for the strengths of the other.

I thought Chloe's fiancé was a bit clichéd, and his mother was still worse, but we don't have to deal with them much, so that's all good.

In the end, this was a solid 3.5 stars or so, but the crew of the Rascal and the variety of passengers we met (and their underlying stories) were enough for me to bump it to four.

A note about Steamy: As a Harlequin Blaze title, I expected this to be at the far range of my steam tolerance. And I wasn't wrong. That said, the steam was actually on the light side for a Blaze title, so it didn't overwhelm the story. There were four or so explicit scenes (the first couple of which were quite lengthy), but not a lot of teasing or fooling around at all, so that was pretty much it.

[LaFleurBleue · Rating 4 out of 5]

Considering the blurb, a bride jilted at the altar decided to go on her honeymoon alone and fell for the boat captain, I started his book warily.
However I soon was positively surprised. First the author did not stop at just describing the feelings of the jilted bride but described well the aftermath, with the interfering good-willing family, the financial consequences of the cancelled marriage, the difficulty of agreeing on anything including on selling the common house, etc. The description of Jack's financial woes and the solutions found to it by Chloe were all very realistic, which I found rare especially in short-length romances. The main characters, lead couples, parents of the bride and remainder of the crew also seemed like real persons and not merely caricature of characters, which I also really appreciated.
The overall story-line managed to mix plenty of different things that I could have read before, but thus managed to make the read quite compelling and not overly done and rehashed.
Regarding emotions, that might be one of the weakest point of the book. With the writing which was only ok, but nothing to rave about.
I might well read another from this author, given the chance.

[Ness]

Not bad. Not a new favorite. Seriously, it wasn't bad, I liked it okay. But I don't think I liked it enough to read anything more by this author. *sigh* I need to quit book binging as a escape and figure out what I want out of my life; so that means cutting down on the escape reads and focusing on the awesome ones. And while this wasn't bad, it wasn't awesome (and admittedly by overly literal brain had some issues on the legal financial liability portion of breaking an engagement).

Borrowed from Kindle Unlimited.

[Martina Spinaci · Rating 3 out of 5]

sivabbè... questo mi è piaciuto, storia che si legge bene e lui è figo :P lei è un po' maniacale ma ci si passa sopra

[Ness]

Not bad but not great. Pass on future books by this author.

Borrowed from Kindle Unlimited.

[Krista Soda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Easy & light read with some interesting twists. Good pool read - felt like the characters could have been dug into further but I enjoyed not having to think too much LOL