บ่วงรักลวงใจ The Cutting Edge

by Linda Howard, พิชญา (Translator)

เบรตต์ รัทแลนด์คือนักแก้ปัญหามือหนึ่งของคาร์เตอร์เอ็นจิเนียริ่ง
เป็นตัวเลือกที่เหมาะสมของบริษัทเพื่อจัดการกับคดียักยอกเงินภายใน

เทสซา คอนเวย์ เป็นสาวสวยรวยเสน่ห์
เสียงหัวเราะและน้ำเสียงเอื่อย ๆ ที่เร้ารัญจวนนั้นทำให้ใคร ๆ ก็ตกหลุมรัก
แต่เมื่อมีการพบว่ามีคนยักยอกเงิน เธอก็ตกเป็นผู้ต้องสงสัยคนสำคัญ
เพราะเธอเป็นนักบัญชีของบริษัท

เบรตต์เป็นผู้ชายกระด้าง...
เขาต้องเป็นเช่นนั้นในสายงานของเขา...แต่ไม่กระด้างพอที่จะต่อต้านเทสซา
เขาพยายามแยกชีวิตการงานและชีวิตส่วนตัวออกจากกัน...
เขาไม่คาดฝันว่าจะตกหลุมรัก
ในวันที่เบรตต์เปิดโปงผู้ยักยอก
ความรักนั้นต้องเผชิญหน้ากับการท้าทายที่ยิ่งใหญ่...

Genres: Romance, Contemporary Romance, Contemporary, Romantic Suspense, Audiobook, Suspense, Fiction

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1985

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.

Linda S. Howington is an American best-selling romance author writing under the pseudonym Linda Howard. After 21 years of penning stories for her own enjoyment, she submitted a novel for publication which was very successful. Her first work was published by Silhouette in 1982. She is a charter member of Romance Writers of America and in 2005 Howard was awarded their Career Achievement Award.

Linda Howard lives in Gadsden, Alabama with her husband, Gary F. Howington, and two golden retrievers. She has three grown stepchildren and three grandchildren.

Reviews

[StMargarets · Rating 3 out of 5]

Four star angst after the hero had heroine arrested for embezzling. (Her throat was so sore from crying she could barely speak!) Hero was remorseful. Heroine was dignified throughout.

But I had to knock off a star for the quick forgiveness by the heroine. (Make him suffer, honey.) And for the computer genius for forgiving his girlfriend for embezzling the funds. There are plenty of Jayne Ann Krentz heroines who don't break the law who would have scooped him up. *sigh*

Just a fun little category.

[Mo · Rating 3 out of 5]

First off, the cover for the kindle edition is not at all appropriate. This book was written 35 years ago. The cover/picture should sort of portray this.

He sees her, he wants her, he gets her. LOL. Not much to say about it really. He is a dick but of course she forgives him and all's well that ends well.


The original paperback version might have suited better. More dated looking!

[Esther · Rating 4 out of 5]

Okay, this time around I struggled a little with the hero. Also the development of the romance between the MC didn't sit well with me. Reread #4 I think.

Reread.

Just as good the second time around.

Lot's of angst.

Alpha hero and sweet/strong heroine.

Chemistry and sexual tension.

Loved the ending.

[Kari · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ms. Howard, I love your books, but with this one, I was not feeling the love. The Cutting Edge has one of the worst alpha males I have ever read. Now, I love a good alpha male. Brett was not an alpha, he was just an ass-hat The things he says to Tessa throughout the book just had my jaw dropping. Don't even get me started on Tessa. She was such a weak minded wimpy female that I had a hard time finding much to like about her. Their love story was just unbelievable.

The mystery of who is setting up Tessa was pretty easy to figure out. I thought the resolution was lame and totally unrealistic. I kept shaking my head at the "evidence" the DA had against Tessa. There is no way they would have pressed charges with the iffy evidence that they had against her. I know this was written in 1985, but still it was a stretch. There are better books out there by this author, I would suggest you find another one to read and skip this one.

[Vintage · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really like Linda Howard for the most part, and this almost made it to a 3 star except for a couple of things.

PLOT:
The H has been hired to investigate embezzlement and is distracted by the flirty and very Southern heroine. He does the typical LH jerk around.

It's very dated and seemed incredibly YA for LH with the H and h analyzing her ying to his yang for pages. Written in 1985, she seemed to be cutting her teeth on romance. I liked how her nerdy friend is working on am awesome newfangled thang, a computer for the home!


As for the hero, he has three strikes against him. First, LH was a little heavy handed with his dismissiveness of the heroine and how he'll have sex with her until he gets her out of his system, and she will become just another notch on his bed. Two, he betrays her completely without giving her a chance to defend herself. Lastly, he's the worst investigator ever. I don't know much about embezzlement, but I would think that a decent embezzler would not sign checks with their own last name. Finding the heroine's last name all over the place should have been a HUGE tipoff she might have been innocent.


I did love all the angst due to the betrayal, but she really needed to sharpen her knives a little more before she forgave the hero.

[KatieV · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars.

I did like it. I loved the heroine, she was identifiable. I'm a girl from East Tn and I so identify with the casual flirtiness. It doesn't mean anything. We're just friendly to everybody from the geeky awkward guy to the CEO and treat everyone basically the same regardless of who they are.

I also loved the cruel betrayal of the H. BUT, so far, this seems to be the pattern with LH.

1) H/h get together and all is well
2) H betrays heroine because he thinks she betrayed him or for some other cause (i.e. using her as bait to catch a killer)
3) h swears she's done. done. done. DONE.
4) Hero gets angry and flat out orders that she's not done and they have sex. He does apologize, but it's all over fairly quickly. No extended wooing. She never gets to leave him and make him suffer. Which makes me suffer. :(

[Debbie DiFiore · Rating 3 out of 5]

Time did not make this better

I just re-read this book and all I am thinking is 'I actually liked this once'? I can't believe it. It was just very dated and I really didn't like the hero. He was a jerk! When she finally fell apart I did almost cry because it was pretty emotional but it was detached. I felt like I was just watching people act out their parts and neither they or I were actually invested in it! Just a bad read for me tonight. I just couldn't buy into it. Maybe it's because of the readers slump I have been going through, I don't know. It was just okay. I expect more from Ms. Howard.

[Alp · Rating 4 out of 5]

I saw my GR friend finish reading this book then I tried to think about the story, but I found myself somewhat forgetting most of it! That bothered me a lot so I immediately decided to start re-reading this book. Although this is my second time reading, it could still bring tears to my eyes when Brett thought Tessa was a thief and filed the charges against her. He had her arrested for embezzling and it had torn her heart apart. They had misunderstood each other. Both Brett and Tessa had thought that everything they had shared, every great moment they had spent together, and every passionate lovemaking they had had, it had all been lies. Oh, I absolutely loved this drama!

This was my pleasurable read. I enjoyed reading this book very much that I could finish it in one sitting. I'm happy I chose to re-read it!

[Corandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Al limite"

[Aou · Rating 4 out of 5]

“I love you so much I think I can forgive you anything. That doesn’t mean I’d let you get away with it”
Of course she did immediately! 🤦‍♀️ But due to the angst fest and tears I jerked, 4 full stars.

[*CJ* · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The Cutting Edge" is the story of Brett and Tessa.
When Brett Rutland, the troubleshooter at Carter Engineering is called in to investigate the embezzlement of money, he zeroes in on Tessa Conway, firm accountant and book-keeper, initially as an informant, and later as a suspect..
Tessa has been burnt twice badly by love, but when Brett ends up relentlessly pursuing her, she ends up falling for him- not knowing about his true motives, or the heartbreak she would soon suffer..
I had read that this was somewhat inspired/similar to one of my favorites "Double Standards" by Judith McNaught- and I agree. The happy and chirpy Tessa going through the humiliation and pain was gut wrenching. This was extremely high on angst and I cried a LOT (which is always something I enjoy in a book with a good HEA). I felt the hero could have groveled more after he realized the truth- and the heroine could have made him work a bit more for it, but the way he dealt with her somehow worked- and overall made this a satisfying read.
Would have loved a more detailed epilogue.
Safe
4/5

[Deniz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Linda Howard is always a great read. I've never read a Linda Howard book that I didn't LOVE.
yes, this is an oldie. It was written in 1985 and also this isn't the greatest Linda Howard novel I've ever read but it is still a pretty good book.
this book has a similar theme with Double Standards by Judith McNaught
Brett is a wonderful example of the alpha male, but Tessa taking him back after all that?

[Jenny · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sweet heroine gets falsely accused of embezzlement by the man she recently fell in love with. She gets arrested and is hurt by his betrayal. He realizes his mistake and he must grovel to win her back though it's not hard because poor girl she loves him with all her heart! Very romantic book.

[Izzy · Rating 4 out of 5]

She forgave him too easily after all that. Needed more grovelling!! 😭

[Diane · Rating 1 out of 5]

It makes me so mad when authors I typically like re-release their ancient books, and deceive you into thinking they're new. Thankfully, I didn't buy this one. I grabbed it off the new release shelf at my library. By page 2, I realized something was off. I looked at the copyright page and discovered this had originally been published in 1985. It read like a really dated Harlequin romance -- and a bad one at that. There's virtually no plot, and it's so cheesy -- stick your finger down your throat and gag cheesy. Linda Howard's writing has definitely improved over the years. I still can't believe she wrote this.

[AvidReader · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 🌟.

A fantastically written, angst filled love story with superb characters.
Hero Brett behaved like and ogre most of the book and he was also the reason I couldn’t give this book more star. Even though I absolutely adore a possessive alpha’s, in the beginning he came as callous, cold, controlling and calculating (the famous 4 ‘C’s). I felt that though he was attracted to hero Tessa, she was more like a challenge to him. Or another notch on his bed.

Tessa was an unusual heroine. She loved to flirt and did it shamelessly. She was aware of the power her beauty gave her and used it like a second skin. But she was never rude or cruel infact she took her time to be kind to others. She was also an innocent. I liked her.

Beside hero, I thought Tessa falling in love with hero after just two date and very minimal contact and information were rather abrupt, when I believe in love at first sight. That made me check the date of publishing and I realised this book was released in 1985! So I think that was the main problem. But because it was released before the mobile phone era, certain things were charming to read too. One thing that stood out to me was the old fashioned usage of word ‘Loving’ instead of f**king. It was so endearing and refreshing to read.

I loved that Tessa didn’t immediately forgive him and he had to grovel for what he did. And when going alone through the ordeal and the crippling hurt Brett caused, Tessa invariantly found steel in her backbone and decided to fight- I was cheering for her.


Overall a good entertaining book.

[Starlitz328 · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is so much harder to leave a review when you enjoy a book so much. A really great read! My first Linda Howard book! (Are there other Linda Howard books that focus more on the romance (like this book) than a mystery of some sort? If so, lmk)

Only thing is, i didn’t love that the H quit his job to go back to being a rancher and the H/h living their lives in Wyoming. I picture it to be empty and boring with no people around. The h is described at the life of the party—what is she gonna do in Wyoming? 😂 but then again, they both grew up in small towns, maybe they’ll be fine.

[Rose Maria · Rating 4 out of 5]

H34(? ), h25
Was waiting for a long time to read this story..
Hero, Brett is in disguise searching for the some money fraud that happened in the company... our heroine, Tesse is in bookshop dept, she is sweet, lovely and a little flirt.
Hero saw her and want her. Period.
Since men are stupid (don't you agree? ) she gets hurt..... and i cried with her.
Anyway finally they find the culprit

[Love love · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've gotten tired of waiting for new Linda Howard books to come out, yes I know she just came out with one but I read it right away and now I have to wait for another year or so for another one to come out. I've read most of her back list except for some of the really old ones so I decided to start reading those.
Keeping in mind that THE CUTTING EDGE was written in the early 80's and that it's one of her first books ( I think ), I really enjoyed the story. The only thing that I would say is that I never got the feeling that I got to know the H very well,but she did a good job with the h. Oh and even back then nobody writes a woman in emotional pain better than Linda Howard.

[Ery · Rating 1 out of 5]

Is this for real? No. Just...... No.

DNF.

[Beanse · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bored House wife porn of the 80's. Overly macho men and dumb minded females collide in a long boring romp of no fun what so ever. I am running out of good material to read!!!!

[Lisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't know when I picked this audiobook up at my library that it was a re-issue of a book written in the 80's. However, after listening to the first chapter, I figured it out. The hero, Brett, displays all the worst alpha-male behaviors that today read like a pamphlet on abusive stalkers.



Tessa works for an engineering company and Brett is called in to find an embezzler. Before he even meets Tessa, he reads her file and decides that he's going to have sex with her. She's attractive and he's going to have her, end of story. Her wishes on the matter are irrelevant. He also feels that, by happy coincidence, he can use the relationship to pump her for information about her coworkers. Then he sets about basically bulldozing her into going out with him. The whole time he fully intends to use her the way he's used all the women before - to satisfy his physical needs before ditching her without a backward glace. On their first date, he spends the whole meal subtly interrogating her on her coworkers and then takes her back to her apartment with the full intent of sleeping with her. He forces a kiss on her, then orders her to kiss him back. When she does, he takes that as an open invitation to feel her up. When she protests that they'd just met, he actually curses at her for leading him on...and SHE APOLOGIZES! She says that she's "not a tease" and hadn't meant to "let" things go that far, as if it hadn't been his single-minded plan all along.

He demands they go on a second date the next night but she's already got plans. Brett immediately goes into crazy stalker mode and orders her to break off any relationships she has with other men. She's not even allowed to have platonic friendships with other men. He says that she's his and he doesn't share so everything else has to stop. That's insane. They barely know each other and went on one date and he's acting like he owns her!

The next day she gets together with her friend and the following morning that same male friend comes by her desk for a chat. Brett shows up and is murderous with rage that Tessa is speaking to the man...her coworker...at the office...where they have every reason to talk. Later that night when Brett sees Tessa he growls at her that he'd ordered her to break things of with that guy, why didn't she do it? Again, this is the behavior of a dangerous psychopath. He's still planning to just screw her and then leave, but he feels he has the right to dictate her life? There's no logic in that whatsoever. After date number 2 they're again in Tessa's apartment and he's trying his best to get her into bed. Tessa, meanwhile, is basically terrified because she thinks she's falling in love with Brett (why exactly???) but realizes that he doesn't love her back and is probably incapable of love. So she confesses this to him and he backs off. He says that love is a fairy tale and he won't even bother pretending to offer it to her, but that he intends to have her. She belongs to him and he refuses to let her go.

By their third date, Tessa has admitted to herself that she's in love with Brett and has decided to take the risk of giving him her heart without knowing if he'd ever return her affection. I really couldn't understand what it was that Tessa fell in love with. We'd seen Brett being a knuckle-dragging troglodyte, an abusive stalker with violent tendencies, and an ice-cold manipulator, but we definitely hadn't seen him doing anything that a woman should be able to fall in love with. The only thing they had going for them was chemistry and it frustrated me that Tessa so naively fell for him.

When they do finally have sex, lo and behold she's a 25-year-old virgin. If Brett had been in the least bit honorable, this might have given him pause to think about the fact that he was planning to use her and lose her, but he's not so it doesn't. There's no question about him having sex with her. He wants her, end of story. Before they do the nasty, Tessa confesses that she's in love with Brett (again, WHY?) and that still doesn't make him reconsider his actions or think that he's just maybe taking advantage of this woman. Nope, man want sex. Nothing else matters. So they have sex and through the power of 1980's virgin sex magic a crack begins to form in the flinty black carapace around his tiny heart. He decided that he wants to always have sex with her. She belongs to him. No other man should ever feel her silken skin. So he makes plans to marry her and take her away to his family ranch in Wyoming. Again, her views on this subject aren't even a consideration to him. This is what he wants so therefore, it's going to happen. He never actually gets around to informing her of his grand plan though, but again, she hardly needs to be informed, let alone ASKED about their impending marriage because he's the man and what he says goes.

They spend a whole day having sex and then, having finally gotten his rocks off, he's able to concentrate on work again and goes back to searching for the embezzler. He turns up evidence that suggests someone created a fake vendor account that happens to be the same as Tessa's last name, Conway. Then when the banks open on Monday they get a copy of the cancelled checks and see that they've been signed with Tessa's name. That is the sum total of ALL the evidence they possess against her. He even takes note of the fact that the handwriting doesn't match Tessa's but says that she must have been making an attempt to disguise her script.....right, she changed her handwriting but still used her real name. It doesn't even make a tiny bit of sense for it to have been Tessa, but of course Brett immediately believes it was her. And not only that, he decides that she must have set out to seduce him in the hopes that he'd feel too kindly toward her to actually press charges. Um, I'm sorry, have we been reading the same book? HE pursued HER! HE'S the one who wouldn't let her go no matter how many times she protested!!

But no, he's devastated that she'd "tricked" him in this way and the only solution is to lash out and try to hurt her as badly as possible. So he turns the "evidence" over to the DA and gets a warrant for her arrest. Then, like the coward he is, he refuses to take her calls. Not only did he not even have enough faith in her to ask for her side of the story before taking action, but he didn't even have the decency to tell her to her face what he was doing. He sent other people to do his dirty work for him and let Tessa get blindsided. They haul her down to the police station where she's fingerprinted and has mug shots taken. When they give her a phone call she tries to call her passionate lover, Brett, thinking that he'll get her out of this crazy situation. It's only after the hotel refuses to put her through that she calls Brett's colleague and that poor bastard has to be the one to tell her that it was Brett who sold her up the river to begin with. But even then, she still gives him the benefit of the doubt, thinking that there must be some very strong evidence against her and it must be tearing Brett up inside to have "had" to have her arrested.

The next day, she tries to call him at the office, but he's still hiding like a coward and his secretary refuses to put her through. She finally goes to see a lawyer, who makes it fairly obvious that he doesn't believe she's innocent, and then goes to Brett's hotel room. Instead of saying "I'm innocent" the moment she sees him, she babbles on about how he didn't even warn her the cops were coming. He, nursing his wounded pride, decides that the best defense is a good offense and behaves as callously as possible. Saying that he'd never cared for her, only wanted to have sex with her, and that he'd been using her to get information. Then scathingly says that if she'd hoped her "charms" would keep him from prosecuting then she vastly over-estimated her appeal. He wraps up by saying that, if she's pregnant, it'll change things because, even though she'd probably have done it on purpose as further insurance, he still couldn't let his baby be born in prison. Never mind that he knew that, as a virgin, she wouldn't have any way of protecting herself against pregnancy and that he'd been taking care of it every time they had sex, and it had been he who'd forgotten to take said precautions the last time they were together. Nope, it's all gotta be part of her master plan to keep herself out of prison.

It never, not one single time, occurs to him to even consider the fact that Tessa might be innocent. That it would make her the stupidest embezzler on the planet to have USED HER OWN NAME on all the accounts and checks. After Brett murders her spirit, Tessa locks away her emotions and tries to focus on getting herself out of her current situation. All of her friends and family rally around her, which just makes it even more disgusting that Brett never gave her even the slightest benefit of the doubt. After a week, Brett finally decides that, despite how evil Tessa is, he's still got to have her, so he goes to his boss and works out a deal with him to keep Tessa out of jail. If she'll sign a statement admitting her guilt, and give the money back, then she can go free. Brett feels pretty proud of himself for striking this deal. He's even willing to pay the $54,000 out of his own pocket. All so he can have Tessa in his bed every night. The really disgusting thing is, though, is imagining what her life would have been like in this scenario. He would have held the fact that she was a thief over her head for the rest of her life. He'd NEVER have trusted her because he'd have held onto his beliefs that she'd been using her feminine wiles to gain his protection...and that it had worked! Theirs would have been a long and ugly relationship with him dominating and her cowering. Toward the end of the book he happily admits that he'd fully intended to spank / beat Tessa when he got a hold of her after this deal was worked out. That she'd "deserved" to be taught a lesson for her wicked ways. It's sick.

Once this deal is lined up, Brett calls Tessa for the first time since all this happened. She hangs up on him immediately but hearing his voice shatters the walls she'd put up against her misery and she spends the next few hours crying herself hoarse. After she's all cried out, she's essentially broken. The spark inside her has gone out and she wanders around dazed and separate from the world. Her lawyer comes banging on her door to drag her off to a meeting with the DA. She looks like death, all pale and lifeless, and even her indifferent lawyer is worried about her. They go to the meeting and Brett keeps trying to catch her eye, but she won't look at him. They make the offer to her and her lawyer strongly urges her to sign the confession. She comes out of her stupor just long enough to say that she won't confess to something she didn't do and then walks out, still ignoring Brett. I was actually happy to see Tessa ignoring him. I didn't want her to continue loving him when he'd been so cruel and it seemed like she'd reached the point where he'd killed everything she felt for him.

As soon as the door shuts behind her Brett says "what have I done to her?" and finally clues in to the fact that she was innocent all along. Tessa's lawyer takes her home but doesn't want to leave her alone when she looks like she could just curl up and die at any moment. He too now believes in her innocence. Then Brett shows up at the door and despite the fact that Tessa makes it plain she doesn't want him there, and the fact that he's the one who brought the charges against her in the first place, her male lawyer has a quick word with Brett and then pats Tessa on the head before assuring her that Brett would take care of her now and leaves. WTF?? He just leaves her there with the guy who caused all this grief in the first place? After she's made it clear she doesn't want him there? Only in 1980's romance novels do the men band together to decide what's best for the weak-minded little woman.

Brett proceeds to force his company on Tessa for the next several days. She can barely speak because she's strained her throat with all the crying, but when she does speak, she tells him in no uncertain terms that she hates him and wants him to leave. He ignores all her protests and when she's too weak to protest further, he strips her naked and then undresses himself and gets into bed with her. That's insane. There's no reason they had to sleep naked together and it's disgusting that he forces this unwanted contact on her. And the thing that really, really pissed me off about this whole scene is that he NEVER APOLOGIZED for what he'd done. NOT ONCE! He said a bunch of things like that she had every right to be mad at him and he'd do whatever it took to win her back, but he never, EVER said the words "I'm sorry" to her. He just kept forcing his presence on her until she eventually caved and again through the magic of 1980's sex, everything is better once they've done it a few times. According to Tessa, the reason she caved was because she still loved him, despite all he'd done, because what she'd felt for him was "real" love...after only knowing him for 3 days and him acting like an neanderthal the whole time.

They finally track down the real culprit and when Brett gets the call that the person has been caught, he refuses to tell Tessa who it is. He goes off and leaves her alone for hours and hours. And she sits there at home waiting for him to come back. She's furious with him for abandoning her at such a time when he should know how much she needs his support. Then when he finally comes back, she demands to know what happened and he thinks it's a good idea to try to tease her. He asks if there's any coffee and when she says no, he says he'll go make a pot. When she gets pissed at his stall-tactics, he chuckles indulgently and calls her a "hellcat" in a very patronizing way, as if she's being a typical little woman, too emotional for her own good, instead legitimately demanding the answers she of all people deserves. Once they reveal the culprit's identity, Brett forces Tessa to decide what will happen to the thief. Should he prosecute, or give the person the same deal Tessa was offered - confession and returning the money in exchange for no jail time. Tessa contemplates and finally says to let the person have the deal. As soon as that's out there, Brett demands to know why she's willing to give this stranger a second chance but she's not willing to give him one. She more or less shrugs and say he's got a point, but she's still not sure she can trust him. Then he explains to her that he's got this big plan for them to move up to his ranch in Wyoming and start pumping out kids. She demands to know if that's his indelicate way of proposing to her and he says that yeah, kind of, because he plans to father her children and he'd "prefer they be legal". Wow, be still my heart you poetry-spouting Romeo.



And that's pretty much the end of the book. Brett was a caveman from start to finish and it just really pissed me off that he never apologized. That's just crap. Tessa wavered between decent and bad as the heroine. At some moments I thought she was reacting appropriately but whenever Brett was present she became a weakling. I didn't understand why she slept with him at the end. Nothing he'd done deserved to be rewarded with sex. He was ignoring her wishes and forcing his attention on her. Frankly, she should have called the police to have him removed, but she couldn't because he never left her alone long enough to get to a phone...just like how an abusive kidnapper would behave.

[Paige Turner · Rating 1 out of 5]

Thank goodness I discovered Linda Howard later in her career. Had The Cutting Edge been the first book of her's that I read, I highly doubt I would have continued to read her books and would have missed out on a good writer whose later work I enjoy. The entire premise of this book is implausible and pretty silly, actually. That a self sufficient, vibrant woman, who has most men falling at her feet, would allow herself to be treated as if she were a cave woman to be dominated and dragged around by her hair by the neanderthal who is the main male character, is ridiculous. Even in the 1980s, when this book was written. They go out to dinner after meeting that very first day. He proceeds to dominate her from their first encounter. Upon returning from this dinner date, he demands the key her house, checks it out to make sure there is no danger like the manly man that he is, then grabs her for a kiss...ordering her to "open your mouth" and "kiss me like you mean it." He then further orders her not to see anyone else but him. Seriously? After their first meeting and dinner date? And she lets him do this because she "LOVES" him after this very first encounter? Come on now! It gets even worse from there. A lot worse. Totally unbelievable storyline and not that well written. I am so glad Ms. Howard has evolved quite a bit the last 30 years because this book was a joke. Big time.

[Judy · Rating 1 out of 5]

I've read other Linda Howard books and I've really enjoyed them. With this book, I debated between rating that it was okay and that I just didn't like it. Ultimately, I decided that there were too many parts of the book that I really didn't like to rate it as anything better than that. The 'main man' drove me crazy. I don't mind a strong male, but he was a bully and, at times, his actions and words were abusive and made me think of a rapist (she says 'no', but he does what he wants anyway because he *knows* what she wants -- oh, please.) Then, for the main female character to not only accept this behavior and his unreasonable demands, but love him regardless made me ill. And, for her to love him in less time than one date was beyond believability.

Sorry, there are other Linda Howard books I would recommend, but this is definitely not one of them.

[Jacqueline J · Rating 3 out of 5]

A reread of this old drama. I was in the mood for books where the hero does the heroine wrong and then has to grovel to get back into her good graces. This old romance fit right in but honestly he doesn't do much groveling. When he realizes she intends to kick him to the curb he just moves into her apartment and won't leave although he does do sweet things for her. Enjoyable.

[Aly is so frigging bored · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was really bad:
-I disliked both characters
-it was too much in the 80's, if you get what I mean
-the narrator lady was trying too hard
-the conflict and the resolution were stupid

[Serial Romance Librarian · Rating 4 out of 5]

So the cover of the book I just read makes no sense! It’s not flowers like the GR cover. It’s two people in modern leather jackets and looks like it was at the most recent, early 2000’s! 😂 Quite misleading!

That issue aside, I thoroughly enjoyed this old school LH that may or may not have come out the year I was born! 😜 The fact that it’s almost a 40 year-old book gave it lots of leeway with me. It’s classic, comforting LH! I enjoyed the angst and semi-groveling!

Love me some LH!

[Holly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book after finishing Double Standards by Judith McNaught, a book with a similar theme. I feel like Howard does a better job of redeeming the hero than McNaught does, plus the shorter page count makes for a less bogged-down feeling.

Brett is investigating an embezzling scheme at the company Tess works for. He decides he's interested in her and pursues her..until he realizes she's the one doing the embezzling. Then he has her arrested and intends to press charges. The only problem? Tessa hasn't been embezzling and she'd fallen so in love with Brett his betrayal devastates her.

This is definitely an angsty novel. It grabbed me by the throat right from the beginning. I hated Brett right along with Tessa. Though his high-handedness grated, I was able to move past his betrayal because he suffered greatly for what he'd done.

The end did leave me somewhat unsatisfied, however. I think another chapter would have helped resolve things completely in my mind.

[Anita · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brett is a hardass troubleshooter for a major corporation. Tessa is a fun, lively, flirty worker in the bookkeeping department of that corporation. Someone has been stealing money from the company and Brett has been sent to find out who. But first, he finds himself under Tessa's spell and in her bed. That is a real problem, because it looks like Tessa is the thief.

Brett thinks he has been used. Tessa thinks she has been used. Someone has a lot of money that doesn’t belong to them and Brett and Tessa have some real issues to sort out. Brett is an all out Alpha and Tess barely holds her own, still it was a great read.

[Cecily Black · Rating 4 out of 5]

I believe this is the second Linda Howard novel I have read and the thing I am noticing is that her love stories are INTENSE like I AM SO IN LOVE WITH YOU (even though we just met yesterday because I tripped and fell on my face in an elevator you happened to be in...) It has a good story though and the intensity makes you feel like that kind of love exists even if it is only bestowed on special people, somewhere, out in the world....
I will continue to read more Linda Howard, she is good in her intense delivery!
Good Read!