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Because You're Mine

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Hoping to regain her stolen Southern California ranch, Sabella Rios targets the thief's son for marriage, only to find herself unprepared for her growing love for him

384 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published August 1, 1995

20 people are currently reading
185 people want to read

About the author

Nan Ryan

43 books71 followers
Nancy Henderson is the middle daughter of a Texas rancher and postmaster. She's been married for many years to Joe Ryan, a television executive. Hisoccupation has taken them from border to border and coast to coast. Fortunately, writing is something that can be done anywhere - and Nan shouldknow. The Ryans have lived in Washington, California, New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, Missouri, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, and their own home state of Texas. Nan says it was fun to move around the country and honestly believes that it has helped her writing. The library and the Internet offer a great deal of information on any given place, but there is nothing quite likeactually living in a locale where a book is set.

She began her writing career in 1981. She flirted with writing mysteries, but never finished any. Then, as fate would have it, she saw an article in Newsweek magazine entitled "From Bedroom to Boardroom." It was an interesting story on the women who were writing romance novels. Nan was intrigued. She had never read a romance. She bought a couple, read them, and knew she'd found her calling. She sat down at the Smith Corona typewriter and began her own romance. The first one never left her house. It is burieddeep in a trunk and Nan says it will never be shown to anyone. Her second book sold and she's been writing since. Twenty-two romance novels later, shestill enjoys writing and realizes she's been blessed to have found what she loves to do.

The winner of numerous awards, Nan Ryan says one of the nicest things ever written about her was printed in the St. Petersburg Times. Correspondent AnnV. Hull wrote: "Romance novelist Nan Ryan could step right into the pages of one of her paperbacks. Tall and slender, with smokey eyes and pearly skin,Nan Ryan looks like movie star Jessica Lange's older sister. Ryan writes the most imaginative and bold love scenes, some of which would surely shock herformer teachers at Abilene Christian University."

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5 stars
37 (27%)
4 stars
42 (30%)
3 stars
40 (29%)
2 stars
12 (8%)
1 star
6 (4%)
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
Profile Image for Jena .
2,313 reviews2 followers
June 1, 2023
3.5 ⭐️

Safety spoilers

No cheating between the MCs (read note below), but the H, at the start of the book had a (evil) fiancée that he didn’t love, and he cheated on her with the h.
Actually, he cheated on his fiancée constantly even before he met the h.

The h seduced him for revenge, so she didn’t care that he had a fiancée.
she meant to marry him, and then take his son away from him, because his father stole her mom’s inheritance, and her parents died of poverty. This is not a big spoiler, since you’re told this at the start.

- there is a descriptive BJ scene at the start between the H and the fiancee. This was before the MCs had even met, but he did see the h across the room, and instantly fell for her, so he was imagining that it was the h giving him a blow job.


-they fell in love, and after a sweet honeymoon period (my fav part of the book),
H finds out the truth about the h, and they’re estranged for about a 8 months.

During this time, she gets pregnant, and they’re still living together, but not sleeping with each other- living in separate rooms.
+NOTE+ It doesn’t mention whether or not he was celibate during this period.
However, he did go out late most nights and didnt come home til late, and she worried that he might've gone to see other women or went to a brothel. THIS was never cleared up at the end, and left a bad taste in my mouth.
H was a HUGE manwhore before the h, he cheated constantly on his ex fiancee, so this leads me to think that there is no way this guy would've stayed celibate for almost a year.
So he mightve cheated but this was never confirmed.


The last 20% of the book was quite angsty.


- pros: strong h

- cons: too much foreplay
Profile Image for DelilahW.
58 reviews
June 20, 2012
I don't know why I gravitate toward Nan Ryan's novels considering they are all pretty much the same. I guess it's the curiosity of how much can two people hate each other and still have sex? This one begins with the heroine scheming to steal a Texas ranch from a man who inherited it from his father. She worms her way into his life and convinces him that he wants to marry her. She of course finds herself falling in love with him because he's stupendous in the sack. Aren't they all? Once their relationship reaches a loving and trustful place, he finds out all her affections were based on lies. He punishes her by raping her repeatedly and forcing her to remain married to him until she becomes pregnant with a son. Lots of juicy scenes.
Profile Image for L..
1,497 reviews74 followers
December 20, 2021
I had only read one other Nan Ryan book, her The Legend of Love, a story simply soaked in crazysauce and so off-the-rails how could I be anything but entertained? Because You're Mine isn't as bad as Legend of Love, which may be its problem. I just didn't feel like anything was going on.

Sabella Rios' family was done dirty by the Burnett clan, so she's out for revenge. Everything so far is going as planned until, you guessed it, Sabella finds herself accidentally in love with her intended target, son Burt Burnett. I didn't hate Burt, I didn't hate anybody, because no one did enough to make me feel anything. There are almost-villains in the story who never live up to any potential. A bit of a spoiler here but the one character who was directly responsible for wronging Sabella's family, that character dies pretty early, never having faced any consequences. Burt has a spurned ex-fiancee who swears she'll get him back but when that doesn't pan out she just shrugs her shoulders and moves on with her life. She has an skeevy accomplice who is set up to be a dangerous threat but he does one minor thing and then rides off into the sunset. Why was he even in this story?

So what are the H/h doing? Why, they're having a grand old time, spending money like water and sexing it up all along the California coast. Then Burt finds out the truth about Sabella and he mopes. I'd say Because You're Mine is 75% sexy times and 25% sexy times and sulking.
372 reviews
April 27, 2021
No. This was comically bad. This guy talked about his happy leather chair on their wedding night. & he really meant a chair. The hero has a chair that he sits in when he’s happy. Nobody is allowed to sit in it previously until Sabella aka his wife. Wtf, LOL. Hero & heroine were both despicable. Burt has no morals and he has the lust of a teenager. Immature characters. Dull & lacking. They were just making out for the first half of the book. Horrible execution of characters
& plot. Sorry not sorry
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
288 reviews3 followers
July 5, 2021
Typical bodice ripper with an engaging revenge plot as the center theme. The h was cheated from her rightful inheritance and vowed to take it out on the H. Unbeknownst to her, the H was innocent in all of this. Just had a few problems with how it was written - the explanation for certain events wasn’t clear enough nor was justice served to the ultimate wrongdoer.

3 stars for originality and sensualness.
Profile Image for Eliza Lloyd.
Author 42 books159 followers
August 6, 2019
Love the intensity of Sabella's hatred and her ability to hide it! When they are together it's like an explosion. Loved the train ride/honeymoon. I need to read this again.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews

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