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Stormy Surrender
Stormy Surrender by Patricia Wilson released on Nov 22, 1991 is available now for purchase.
189 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published December 1, 1990
About the author
Patricia Wilson
77 books184 followersPatricia Wilson (1929 – 2010) was a best-selling writer of 53 romance novels for the Mills & Boon publisher from 1986 to 2004. She placed her novels primarily in England, Spain or France.
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
May 10, 2025
The story begins with the English h meeting the Spanish H after the death of her parents, who passed within months of each other. This is actually the second time they are meeting. H is kind of h's cousin, though not by blood, as h's mother was adopted by H's grandmother. When h's mother grew up, she became estranged from her adoptive family, and ran away to England, where she met and married h's father. Now, H is there to take h back with him to Spain as the adoptive grandmother has summoned her "grandchild" home.
h agrees to meet her grandmother...for the second time. The first time she met her, and the rest of the Spanish family, was when she was 17 years and her mom took her to Spain with her in an attempt to reconcile with her adoptive family. After a few days, the H took it upon himself to throw the h and her mom out of the house because he thought that the h was flirting too much with his brother. Well, his brother was the ADULT, considerably older than the teenage h, and a spoiled brat who was always coddled by his family. He is the one who should have been reprimanded severely. Instead, the H unjustly labels the 17 year old as a hellion, like her mother, and decides to unceremoniously kick them out because the family has had enough of drama.
Grandma stood idly by and did not protest this rash action by the H nor did she make any efforts to communicate with her adoptive daughter and granddaughter afterwards. In fact, she brazenly tells the h years later that she was "happy" with the H's action throwing them out at the time. R U F K M???!!! Are you starting to wonder if h's mom was justified in running away from these assholes and cutting ties for 18 years?
It is quite telling of the toxic nature of these Spanish relatives that not a single one of them came to the funeral of either of h’s parents or expressed any sympathy or assist in any way. It was only long after the funeral that H arrogantly came to collect a grieving, devastated h from her parents' gravesite and bullied her into coming for a visit because now grandma felt lonely and wanted to get to know her granddaughter. Well phooey to them! I am sorry but the more I think about it, the madder I get. The nerve of those people! I disliked the entire family.
The h was not a doormat and fought tooth and nail the entire time against H's aggressive and unwarranted disruption of her established life in London and the guilt trip, threats, and all around rough handling he inflicted on her. Predictably though, she let her traitorous body take over her mind and heart.
Naturally, h is a 25 year old virgin who devoted her life to her career as a fancy restorator of old, moldy castles like the H's monasterio so the H, who has been manwhoring his way through the continent for the past two decades, gets to eat his cake.
As for the spoiled younger brother of the H, he not only never apologized for perving on a teenaged h and letting her take the fall for HIS unscrupulous and immoral actions but kept right up with his sleazy attempts at seduction 8 years later even though he was engaged to another girl.
The story did not work for me at all because their supposed Happily-Ever-After left me doubtful. The h was waaaayyyy too good for H and the rest of the fam, but they made her feel like a second class citizen. Any future misstep she makes will probably have them flinging her mother's alleged past misdeeds in her face yet again, labeling her "like mother, like daughter." Not a very happy prospect for the future.
h agrees to meet her grandmother...for the second time. The first time she met her, and the rest of the Spanish family, was when she was 17 years and her mom took her to Spain with her in an attempt to reconcile with her adoptive family. After a few days, the H took it upon himself to throw the h and her mom out of the house because he thought that the h was flirting too much with his brother. Well, his brother was the ADULT, considerably older than the teenage h, and a spoiled brat who was always coddled by his family. He is the one who should have been reprimanded severely. Instead, the H unjustly labels the 17 year old as a hellion, like her mother, and decides to unceremoniously kick them out because the family has had enough of drama.
Grandma stood idly by and did not protest this rash action by the H nor did she make any efforts to communicate with her adoptive daughter and granddaughter afterwards. In fact, she brazenly tells the h years later that she was "happy" with the H's action throwing them out at the time. R U F K M???!!! Are you starting to wonder if h's mom was justified in running away from these assholes and cutting ties for 18 years?
It is quite telling of the toxic nature of these Spanish relatives that not a single one of them came to the funeral of either of h’s parents or expressed any sympathy or assist in any way. It was only long after the funeral that H arrogantly came to collect a grieving, devastated h from her parents' gravesite and bullied her into coming for a visit because now grandma felt lonely and wanted to get to know her granddaughter. Well phooey to them! I am sorry but the more I think about it, the madder I get. The nerve of those people! I disliked the entire family.
The h was not a doormat and fought tooth and nail the entire time against H's aggressive and unwarranted disruption of her established life in London and the guilt trip, threats, and all around rough handling he inflicted on her. Predictably though, she let her traitorous body take over her mind and heart.
Naturally, h is a 25 year old virgin who devoted her life to her career as a fancy restorator of old, moldy castles like the H's monasterio so the H, who has been manwhoring his way through the continent for the past two decades, gets to eat his cake.
As for the spoiled younger brother of the H, he not only never apologized for perving on a teenaged h and letting her take the fall for HIS unscrupulous and immoral actions but kept right up with his sleazy attempts at seduction 8 years later even though he was engaged to another girl.
The story did not work for me at all because their supposed Happily-Ever-After left me doubtful. The h was waaaayyyy too good for H and the rest of the fam, but they made her feel like a second class citizen. Any future misstep she makes will probably have them flinging her mother's alleged past misdeeds in her face yet again, labeling her "like mother, like daughter." Not a very happy prospect for the future.
September 5, 2017
Re Stormy Surrender - Patricia Wilson is back with her usual cuddlesome but fiery h and her uber Alpha bully H. This time the h is an orphan and has just buried her parents a few months before the story starts. She is 25 and a noted castle restoration specialist who has been nursing ill parents for some time while working as well and now has no other family she acknowledges. Her father passed first and her mother a short time later from complications from Alzheimer's, the h's mother was adopted by a Spanish family in her youth, but had been estranged from them for many years.
When the book opens, the 36 yr old H has come to drag the h his monastery castle in Spain to see her adopted Grandmother. The h is not keen on going. To her mind, her mother's adopted family are evil people. They did not come for the funeral and seven years earlier, when her mother made an attempt to stage a reconciliation visit, the H's brother was trying to seduce the 17 yr old h and the H was upset by that and kicked them out of the castle.
The reason the H was upset is supposedly the h's own mother was in love with the H's father in their youth. The H's father was engaged to the H's mother and the h's mum refused to accept that and caused all kinds of drama until she ran off to England and married the h's dad. (Since the h's recollection is that her mum was a sweetheart and never did a wild thing in her life and given that the H's brother and the H himself are all lady buffet samplers, we can safely assume that the H's dad was trying it on with the h's mum to have his cake and eat it too and the mum wasn't having that and left.)
Of course the H's family all blame the h AND her mother for being temptress tarts who callously inflame the male passions, but really it was just that these guys are uber lady raiders extraordinaire and think all women should just fall at their feet with longing and get REALLY cranky when they don't.
So the h isn't too keen on doing anything to accommodate the H or the elderly lady who so callously left things until way too late and is now only requesting the h's presence cause her own demise is looming near. Then the H shows the h a letter that her failing mother wrote and sent to the wrong address. The letter begged the H and the grandmother for a reconciliation and to get to know the h, but the h's mum was very confused, so the letter got delivered two months too late and the h's mum had already passed.
Logically the h would probably be right in assuming that the h's mother's illness had regressed her to her younger days and the h probably should have continued to resist the blandishments of the H to go and visit this family who seemed intent on blaming the h for the Second Fall of Man. But the h's guilt over her mum's obviously tormented letter and because she has a kind heart about little old lonely ladies needing the comfort of estranged relative visits and because her tycoon restoration specialist boss is keen to get a foot hold in Spain, the h ends up going to visit the H's home and her adoptive grandma.
Now we are all off to Spain where the elderly AG is sorta happy to see the h. The H's younger brother is busy drooling skeevily over the h while his fiancee is off to the US with her parents and the H is busy rescuing the h from wild storms and interior decorating mishaps, ( It isn't PW without a few h rescues by the H,) in between bouts of h Grand Sala castle restoration--as the family is keen to latch on to the h's restorative expertise for free.
We also get the angry, frustrated H ordering the h about and the h irately taking exception to the H's orders, so that he has to provide the h with multiple therapeutic punishing roofie kisses which of course leads to the h falling hopelessly in love.
This is the cue for the entrance of the wicked OW and also the big cue for the H's brother to infer that the h will be nothing more than either brother's bit on the side while they both marry more 'appropriate' women in the castle's newly revamped Grand Sala, that has been restored to it's former magnificence by the h.
The h isn't 17 and a pushover anymore tho, and she isn't taking one more minute of this treatment. She tells the H's brother off, verifies the marriage celebration news with the Adopted Granny and then makes the H's brother drop her at the airport so she can catch a flight back home to London.
Where the H shows up approximately ten minutes after her arrival home, all ready to declare true love and haul the h off to Spain to chain her up in matrimony and to lock her in his monastery castle forever. The H explains that all his prior bad behavior stemmed not from thinking the h was a tart at 17, but because he was 28 and in love with a 17 yr old and wildly jealous and she had to go so he wouldn't be cradle robbing. Then the H blows it all by claiming he fell in love with her when she was 17 and then he put her out of his mind and chased lots of OW.
( This H confession marked this one down in my pov. I like PW H's to be obsessed and pining for YEARS, or it just ruins the PWness of it for me.)
The h doesn't care tho, cause she loves the H back and she will continue to work, but be based in Spain and then when she has babies with the H, she will just redo the H's home instead for the big HP HEA.
This one was okay and had all the essential PW trademarks except the H had a lady buffet feast in the seven years between meetings with the h AND he admitted he wouldn't have tracked her down either, except for her mum's last letter and the pleadings of his grandmother. So no kudos on PW patented obsessive H angstings here but this is still an okay read if you run into it.
When the book opens, the 36 yr old H has come to drag the h his monastery castle in Spain to see her adopted Grandmother. The h is not keen on going. To her mind, her mother's adopted family are evil people. They did not come for the funeral and seven years earlier, when her mother made an attempt to stage a reconciliation visit, the H's brother was trying to seduce the 17 yr old h and the H was upset by that and kicked them out of the castle.
The reason the H was upset is supposedly the h's own mother was in love with the H's father in their youth. The H's father was engaged to the H's mother and the h's mum refused to accept that and caused all kinds of drama until she ran off to England and married the h's dad. (Since the h's recollection is that her mum was a sweetheart and never did a wild thing in her life and given that the H's brother and the H himself are all lady buffet samplers, we can safely assume that the H's dad was trying it on with the h's mum to have his cake and eat it too and the mum wasn't having that and left.)
Of course the H's family all blame the h AND her mother for being temptress tarts who callously inflame the male passions, but really it was just that these guys are uber lady raiders extraordinaire and think all women should just fall at their feet with longing and get REALLY cranky when they don't.
So the h isn't too keen on doing anything to accommodate the H or the elderly lady who so callously left things until way too late and is now only requesting the h's presence cause her own demise is looming near. Then the H shows the h a letter that her failing mother wrote and sent to the wrong address. The letter begged the H and the grandmother for a reconciliation and to get to know the h, but the h's mum was very confused, so the letter got delivered two months too late and the h's mum had already passed.
Logically the h would probably be right in assuming that the h's mother's illness had regressed her to her younger days and the h probably should have continued to resist the blandishments of the H to go and visit this family who seemed intent on blaming the h for the Second Fall of Man. But the h's guilt over her mum's obviously tormented letter and because she has a kind heart about little old lonely ladies needing the comfort of estranged relative visits and because her tycoon restoration specialist boss is keen to get a foot hold in Spain, the h ends up going to visit the H's home and her adoptive grandma.
Now we are all off to Spain where the elderly AG is sorta happy to see the h. The H's younger brother is busy drooling skeevily over the h while his fiancee is off to the US with her parents and the H is busy rescuing the h from wild storms and interior decorating mishaps, ( It isn't PW without a few h rescues by the H,) in between bouts of h Grand Sala castle restoration--as the family is keen to latch on to the h's restorative expertise for free.
We also get the angry, frustrated H ordering the h about and the h irately taking exception to the H's orders, so that he has to provide the h with multiple therapeutic punishing roofie kisses which of course leads to the h falling hopelessly in love.
This is the cue for the entrance of the wicked OW and also the big cue for the H's brother to infer that the h will be nothing more than either brother's bit on the side while they both marry more 'appropriate' women in the castle's newly revamped Grand Sala, that has been restored to it's former magnificence by the h.
The h isn't 17 and a pushover anymore tho, and she isn't taking one more minute of this treatment. She tells the H's brother off, verifies the marriage celebration news with the Adopted Granny and then makes the H's brother drop her at the airport so she can catch a flight back home to London.
Where the H shows up approximately ten minutes after her arrival home, all ready to declare true love and haul the h off to Spain to chain her up in matrimony and to lock her in his monastery castle forever. The H explains that all his prior bad behavior stemmed not from thinking the h was a tart at 17, but because he was 28 and in love with a 17 yr old and wildly jealous and she had to go so he wouldn't be cradle robbing. Then the H blows it all by claiming he fell in love with her when she was 17 and then he put her out of his mind and chased lots of OW.
( This H confession marked this one down in my pov. I like PW H's to be obsessed and pining for YEARS, or it just ruins the PWness of it for me.)
The h doesn't care tho, cause she loves the H back and she will continue to work, but be based in Spain and then when she has babies with the H, she will just redo the H's home instead for the big HP HEA.
This one was okay and had all the essential PW trademarks except the H had a lady buffet feast in the seven years between meetings with the h AND he admitted he wouldn't have tracked her down either, except for her mum's last letter and the pleadings of his grandmother. So no kudos on PW patented obsessive H angstings here but this is still an okay read if you run into it.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 19, 2019
"Stormy Surrender" is the story of Kate and Diego.
A typical PW plot, in which a grieving h is coerced by the H to visit her ailing & estranged grandmother. Extremely reluctant, she finally agrees and soon finds herself finding a second family, after losing her parents in a short period of time. At the same time, she is constantly stalked, belittled, slut shamed and dominated by the H, who looks over her like a hawk stalking its prey..one who would never let her go. After loads and loads and loads of drama, they have their confession leading to HEA (preluded by emotional outbursts, crazy brother drama and OM jealousy).
Frustrating, long and aggravating in parts.
Unsafe/ SWE
2/5
A typical PW plot, in which a grieving h is coerced by the H to visit her ailing & estranged grandmother. Extremely reluctant, she finally agrees and soon finds herself finding a second family, after losing her parents in a short period of time. At the same time, she is constantly stalked, belittled, slut shamed and dominated by the H, who looks over her like a hawk stalking its prey..one who would never let her go. After loads and loads and loads of drama, they have their confession leading to HEA (preluded by emotional outbursts, crazy brother drama and OM jealousy).
Frustrating, long and aggravating in parts.
Unsafe/ SWE
2/5
March 28, 2022
On re-read more 2 stars to 2.5 stars. Definitely not one of PW's better ones.
_________________________________
I have read better by this author. A young woman's mother and father die within months of each other and she finds herself alone in the world. Her step cousin comes to take her back to her estranged grandmother living in Spain trying to convince her that she belongs with family, not living alone. I usually like Patricia Wilson, but this one just seems to be one big bicker fest. H/h's arguments didn't really make sense.
_________________________________
I have read better by this author. A young woman's mother and father die within months of each other and she finds herself alone in the world. Her step cousin comes to take her back to her estranged grandmother living in Spain trying to convince her that she belongs with family, not living alone. I usually like Patricia Wilson, but this one just seems to be one big bicker fest. H/h's arguments didn't really make sense.
October 31, 2015
"Love is mainly imagination," Diego declared
But Kathryn Hart already knew that the lordly Diego Alvarez was a man without a heart. After all, he'd come back into her life like a tiger, demanding and arrogant.
She hadn't wanted to come to Spain in the first place, and she didn't intend to stay with her mother's adoptive family much longer. This time, Kathryn was determined not to fall victim to Diego's outrageous manipulations.
Yet in spite of their mutual dislike, Diego was constantly in her thoughts. And when he was with her, for the first time in her life, Kate felt unsure of herself....
But Kathryn Hart already knew that the lordly Diego Alvarez was a man without a heart. After all, he'd come back into her life like a tiger, demanding and arrogant.
She hadn't wanted to come to Spain in the first place, and she didn't intend to stay with her mother's adoptive family much longer. This time, Kathryn was determined not to fall victim to Diego's outrageous manipulations.
Yet in spite of their mutual dislike, Diego was constantly in her thoughts. And when he was with her, for the first time in her life, Kate felt unsure of herself....
March 12, 2018
Boring with repetitive conversation so much that the reader feels like many pages were read at least twice before.
Most of the book goes like this:
h: I will go.
H: No, you will stay. Because Abuela wants you to.
Most of the book goes like this:
h: I will go.
H: No, you will stay. Because Abuela wants you to.
December 14, 2022
Don't know if this was one of her earlier ones but it read like a debut. Whiplash from these two. One minute the h Kate is independent career woman interior designer, next wilting flower and Diego doesn't know whether he's coming or going either, alternately harsh, uninterested, mocking her and manhandling her but not quite passionately or consistently enough for the dynamic to work. They were a very tiresome pair. The frail abuela and family feud, the renovations, h's altogether too weak and amenable OM business partner, his on/off lothario younger brother and an OW, the times the h does perfectly innocuous things that anger him...just too many plot devices, none successfully carried off. I've read really good PWs but this is jerky and dull.
March 6, 2021
Ψευδαισθήσεις - Patricia Wilson, Χρυσά, 503
July 24, 2026
★★★★☆
Stormy Surrender is an intense, fast-paced romance filled with heightened emotions, strong attraction and almost constant conflict between its hero and heroine. There is plenty of action, the emotional development is reasonably strong, and by the end I did believe that Diego and Kate belonged together and were powerfully drawn to one another.
It is also well written, and readers who enjoy its particular combination of tropes will probably love it. However, several aspects of the romantic dynamic did not suit my personal tastes.
My main problem was the constant arguing. Almost every conversation between Diego and Kate, right up until the end, is tense, confrontational and liable to turn into a fight. This was not merely romantic friction or enjoyable sparring. They repeatedly snap at and provoke each other, creating a relationship atmosphere I found exhausting.
I particularly dislike heroines who seem perpetually angry, moody and temperamental. The author appears to attribute Kate’s behaviour to the passionate Spanish temperament she inherited from her mother, despite having been raised in England and not looking particularly Spanish.
That explanation did not make the behaviour more appealing to me. I wanted Kate occasionally to exercise some restraint and refuse to rise to Diego’s bait. Instead, he could provoke a reaction from her almost every time.
Fortunately, Kate remains likeable in other respects. She is highly competent at her work, behaves professionally when it matters and has interests, abilities and ambitions beyond the hero. I always appreciate a heroine with her own life, work and goals, and those qualities make Kate feel much more rounded than she otherwise might have done.
The story begins with a complicated family history.
Kate’s mother was adopted into a Spanish family and grew up alongside an adopted brother. According to the version Kate later hears, her mother decided she wanted to marry him and reacted badly when he fell in love with another woman. She supposedly attempted to break them apart, and the resulting conflict eventually drove her away from the family, leaving her adoptive mother heartbroken.
There was no reconciliation for many years. Kate’s mother fled Spain for England, where she met Kate’s father, fell in love and apparently became a calmer, less selfish and less temperamental person.
Kate has only ever known her as a kind, gentle and devoted mother. She is therefore shocked when Diego tells her about this very different version of the woman’s past and does not know what to believe.
Kate grew up in England knowing that her mother was estranged from her Spanish family but having no real relationship with them herself. When Kate was seventeen, her mother finally attempted a reconciliation and took her to Spain.
By then her adoptive brother had two sons. The younger was twenty-one, while Diego was twenty-eight and had become head of the family following his father’s death.
The younger brother began flirting with Kate and decided he wanted to seduce her. Kate was extremely naïve and did not know how to deal with him effectively, despite not liking or encouraging him. He gradually pushed her into an increasingly compromising situation.
Diego eventually found them kissing in a car, although his brother had forced himself upon Kate. Rather than holding his brother responsible, Diego blamed Kate. He accused her of being a promiscuous temptress like her mother and ordered both Kate and her mother to leave.
They never returned.
Kate has remained bitter about the experience. She had been drawn to Diego and somewhat in awe of him, making his contempt especially humiliating. His actions also destroyed her mother’s attempt to reconcile with the family she had lost.
Eight years later, Kate is approximately twenty-five and has recently lost both parents within six months. Her father died first, followed by her mother after complications from Alzheimer’s disease.
Kate is grieving deeply and is furious that none of her mother’s Spanish family attended the funeral or made another serious attempt at reconciliation during those eight years. Having met them only once before being rejected alongside her mother, Kate no longer considers them her family.
Diego appears when she is grieving at her mother’s graveside and demands that she return to Spain. Her adoptive grandmother is now seriously ill, has little time remaining and desperately wants a reconciliation.
Kate’s anger at this point felt completely justified. Diego had rejected her and her mother, accused Kate unfairly and allowed eight years to pass without repairing the damage. His sudden expectation that Kate should now obey him and fulfil the family’s wishes is understandably infuriating.
Unfortunately, Kate’s angry, reactive behaviour does not remain confined to these justified circumstances. The same argumentative tone continues throughout the entire book.
Kate initially refuses to go to Spain. She resents the family for abandoning her mother and still despises Diego for blaming her when she was seventeen.
She then learns that her mother, despite suffering from Alzheimer’s, had managed to write to her adoptive mother begging for another reconciliation and asking her to know Kate. The letter went astray because her mother could no longer remember the correct address. It took months to reach the family, by which time she had already died.
This changes Kate’s understanding of the situation. The family had not knowingly ignored her mother’s illness or deliberately stayed away from her funeral. Kate consequently feels obliged to honour her mother’s last wish and visit the dying grandmother, despite wanting nothing to do with Diego.
In Spain, Diego’s mother and Kate’s grandmother welcome her warmly. The family lives in an impressive monastery-castle type of home containing a historically important grand salon that requires specialist restoration.
Kate initially intends to stay only a few days, visit her grandmother and then leave because she is so uncomfortable around Diego.
Diego, however, conspires to keep her there.
He pressures Kate by insisting that she has a responsibility towards the grandmother who never had the opportunity to reconcile with her daughter. He also uses Kate’s career against her, arranging a lucrative contract with her employer for Kate to restore the grand salon. Since Kate is highly skilled in delicate restoration work involving historic buildings, the project is professionally irresistible and effectively forces her to remain.
I thought Diego’s emotional blackmail was rather rich.
He was the person who expelled Kate and her mother eight years earlier. If he cared so deeply about his grandmother’s grief, why did he never repair the situation himself? Why did he allow eight years to pass without bringing Kate’s mother home or attempting another reconciliation?
Anything could happen during such a long period, and in this case it did. Kate’s mother became ill and died before seeing her family again.
The novel never addresses Diego’s responsibility as fully as I needed it to. He occasionally reacts with visible pain when the subject arises and claims to have been tormented by what happened. I believed that he regretted it, but I wanted that remorse to become a proper on-page grovel because what he did was terrible. Plus the book never fully addressed the justifiable anguish this all caused Kate, to watch her abandoned mother die like that. He should have grovelled till his knees were raw and his bones turned to flipping dust.
The remainder of the novel largely revolves around Diego and Kate remaining angry with one another over the past while also becoming increasingly consumed by attraction.
Kate resents Diego for his earlier rejection, the damage he caused her mother and his repeated insistence that she resembles the supposedly selfish, destructive girl her mother once was.
Whenever Kate becomes temperamental, wants to leave because remaining there is emotionally painful, or appears to flirt with Diego’s brother, Diego revives the accusation that she is just like her mother and hurls his contempt at her.
This is particularly cruel because Kate is still grieving that mother. Every comparison makes her feel rejected and distressed, yet Diego repeatedly uses it against her.
Diego, meanwhile, believes Kate’s employer in England is also her lover. He has seen them together and misinterpreted their friendly joking and light flirtation as evidence of a relationship. He is consequently burning with jealousy and assumes Kate already belongs to another man.
That misunderstanding affects all of his behaviour. Diego torments Kate over her physical response to him, but he never fully reassures her or openly pursues a genuine relationship because he believes she has someone waiting in England.
SPOILERS AHEAD
Kate occasionally encourages Diego’s younger brother or agrees to go out with him, not because she genuinely wants him, but because she needs some protection from the way Diego unsettles, pressures and manipulates her.
The story is heavy on Diego’s dominance and manipulative tactics. In real life, I would probably regard much of his behaviour as controlling and deeply unpleasant. Within the context of an old-fashioned alpha-hero romance, I had to suspend some disbelief and accept that he was intended to be a decent man beneath the aggression.
He even uses another woman to try to make her jealous.
The ending is mostly satisfying because Kate eventually flees (after his brother tells her some hurtful lies) and Diego has to come after her. His desperation is clear, and this gives the story the hero-pursuing-the-heroine conclusion I generally enjoy.
Diego explains that he began falling in love with Kate when she first visited Spain at seventeen. He was twenty-eight and considered his attraction completely unacceptable because she was still a girl while he was an adult man.
When he saw his brother attempting to seduce her, he feared the situation would destroy the family if his brother took the girl Diego secretly wanted. He also genuinely wanted to protect Kate from being used by someone who was merely playing with her feelings and who was, within the adoptive family, effectively her cousin.
I could believe that Diego acted partly for Kate’s sake. However, he still took his anger out on her, allowed her to believe she was responsible and expelled both her and her mother.
Even accepting his motives, I cannot understand why he never later made amends to Kate’s mother or brought her back to her family. He should not have allowed the separation to remain permanent, and I continue to blame him for that.
I was also disappointed by part of Diego’s final explanation. After Kate left Spain at seventeen, he apparently decided to treat her as something from his past and made no attempt to find her again. Had Kate’s mother not written to the grandmother and prompted the family to seek reconciliation, Diego would never intentionally have returned to Kate’s life.
This may have been included to explain why Diego had relationships with other women during the intervening years and show that he had attempted to put Kate out of his mind. Unfortunately, it made him seem less emotionally invested and weakened the romantic impact of the final scenes.
The rest of his confession works better. Diego explains that from the moment he saw Kate again, he knew he wanted her and was determined to keep her. He had been consumed by jealousy because he believed she belonged to another man.
His pursuit, possessiveness and extreme reactions whenever Kate appeared to be in danger all make it clear that he is secretly besotted with her. Several dangerous scenes provoke such intense responses from him that it becomes impossible to doubt how strongly he feels.
That romantic dynamic will work extremely well for readers who enjoy heroes who fall first, become consumed with jealousy and aggressively pursue heroines who take longer to understand their own feelings.
It is not quite my preferred balance.
Kate spends much of the book interpreting her feelings as anger, confusion and resentment because Diego completely unsettles her. It takes her a long time to recognise first that she is attracted to him and then that she loves him.
I generally prefer the opposite dynamic, where the heroine becomes aware of her love first and quietly pines while the hero fights or slowly recognises his own feelings. Here, the implication is that Diego is already obsessed while Kate remains slower to comprehend what is happening between them.
The romance also needed more tenderness for me. The book convincingly establishes intensity, physical attraction, jealousy and emotional conflict, but it offers very few gentle scenes showing Diego and Kate filling the lonely or wounded spaces in each other’s lives.
Most of Diego’s apparent tenderness is delivered through mockery or provocation. That works well for creating angst, but I would have appreciated a few moments of uncomplicated warmth and care to deepen the romance.
Overall, Stormy Surrender is a strong, well-written and emotionally intense book. It has a fast pace, plenty of action, powerful attraction and enough development to convince me that Diego and Kate ultimately belong together.
It did not reach five stars for me because the constant quarrelling became exhausting, Kate’s temperamental reactions often irritated me, Diego’s role in the family estrangement was never sufficiently redeemed, and the relationship lacked the gentler scenes of intimacy and tenderness I personally need for a romance to feel exceptional.
However, readers who enjoy highly passionate, angsty romances in which the couple quarrels constantly, the hero is secretly besotted, and his jealousy and possessiveness drive much of the story may find this especially satisfying.
Despite the elements that were not to my taste, it remains a very good book.
4 stars.
Stormy Surrender is an intense, fast-paced romance filled with heightened emotions, strong attraction and almost constant conflict between its hero and heroine. There is plenty of action, the emotional development is reasonably strong, and by the end I did believe that Diego and Kate belonged together and were powerfully drawn to one another.
It is also well written, and readers who enjoy its particular combination of tropes will probably love it. However, several aspects of the romantic dynamic did not suit my personal tastes.
My main problem was the constant arguing. Almost every conversation between Diego and Kate, right up until the end, is tense, confrontational and liable to turn into a fight. This was not merely romantic friction or enjoyable sparring. They repeatedly snap at and provoke each other, creating a relationship atmosphere I found exhausting.
I particularly dislike heroines who seem perpetually angry, moody and temperamental. The author appears to attribute Kate’s behaviour to the passionate Spanish temperament she inherited from her mother, despite having been raised in England and not looking particularly Spanish.
That explanation did not make the behaviour more appealing to me. I wanted Kate occasionally to exercise some restraint and refuse to rise to Diego’s bait. Instead, he could provoke a reaction from her almost every time.
Fortunately, Kate remains likeable in other respects. She is highly competent at her work, behaves professionally when it matters and has interests, abilities and ambitions beyond the hero. I always appreciate a heroine with her own life, work and goals, and those qualities make Kate feel much more rounded than she otherwise might have done.
The story begins with a complicated family history.
Kate’s mother was adopted into a Spanish family and grew up alongside an adopted brother. According to the version Kate later hears, her mother decided she wanted to marry him and reacted badly when he fell in love with another woman. She supposedly attempted to break them apart, and the resulting conflict eventually drove her away from the family, leaving her adoptive mother heartbroken.
There was no reconciliation for many years. Kate’s mother fled Spain for England, where she met Kate’s father, fell in love and apparently became a calmer, less selfish and less temperamental person.
Kate has only ever known her as a kind, gentle and devoted mother. She is therefore shocked when Diego tells her about this very different version of the woman’s past and does not know what to believe.
Kate grew up in England knowing that her mother was estranged from her Spanish family but having no real relationship with them herself. When Kate was seventeen, her mother finally attempted a reconciliation and took her to Spain.
By then her adoptive brother had two sons. The younger was twenty-one, while Diego was twenty-eight and had become head of the family following his father’s death.
The younger brother began flirting with Kate and decided he wanted to seduce her. Kate was extremely naïve and did not know how to deal with him effectively, despite not liking or encouraging him. He gradually pushed her into an increasingly compromising situation.
Diego eventually found them kissing in a car, although his brother had forced himself upon Kate. Rather than holding his brother responsible, Diego blamed Kate. He accused her of being a promiscuous temptress like her mother and ordered both Kate and her mother to leave.
They never returned.
Kate has remained bitter about the experience. She had been drawn to Diego and somewhat in awe of him, making his contempt especially humiliating. His actions also destroyed her mother’s attempt to reconcile with the family she had lost.
Eight years later, Kate is approximately twenty-five and has recently lost both parents within six months. Her father died first, followed by her mother after complications from Alzheimer’s disease.
Kate is grieving deeply and is furious that none of her mother’s Spanish family attended the funeral or made another serious attempt at reconciliation during those eight years. Having met them only once before being rejected alongside her mother, Kate no longer considers them her family.
Diego appears when she is grieving at her mother’s graveside and demands that she return to Spain. Her adoptive grandmother is now seriously ill, has little time remaining and desperately wants a reconciliation.
Kate’s anger at this point felt completely justified. Diego had rejected her and her mother, accused Kate unfairly and allowed eight years to pass without repairing the damage. His sudden expectation that Kate should now obey him and fulfil the family’s wishes is understandably infuriating.
Unfortunately, Kate’s angry, reactive behaviour does not remain confined to these justified circumstances. The same argumentative tone continues throughout the entire book.
Kate initially refuses to go to Spain. She resents the family for abandoning her mother and still despises Diego for blaming her when she was seventeen.
She then learns that her mother, despite suffering from Alzheimer’s, had managed to write to her adoptive mother begging for another reconciliation and asking her to know Kate. The letter went astray because her mother could no longer remember the correct address. It took months to reach the family, by which time she had already died.
This changes Kate’s understanding of the situation. The family had not knowingly ignored her mother’s illness or deliberately stayed away from her funeral. Kate consequently feels obliged to honour her mother’s last wish and visit the dying grandmother, despite wanting nothing to do with Diego.
In Spain, Diego’s mother and Kate’s grandmother welcome her warmly. The family lives in an impressive monastery-castle type of home containing a historically important grand salon that requires specialist restoration.
Kate initially intends to stay only a few days, visit her grandmother and then leave because she is so uncomfortable around Diego.
Diego, however, conspires to keep her there.
He pressures Kate by insisting that she has a responsibility towards the grandmother who never had the opportunity to reconcile with her daughter. He also uses Kate’s career against her, arranging a lucrative contract with her employer for Kate to restore the grand salon. Since Kate is highly skilled in delicate restoration work involving historic buildings, the project is professionally irresistible and effectively forces her to remain.
I thought Diego’s emotional blackmail was rather rich.
He was the person who expelled Kate and her mother eight years earlier. If he cared so deeply about his grandmother’s grief, why did he never repair the situation himself? Why did he allow eight years to pass without bringing Kate’s mother home or attempting another reconciliation?
Anything could happen during such a long period, and in this case it did. Kate’s mother became ill and died before seeing her family again.
The novel never addresses Diego’s responsibility as fully as I needed it to. He occasionally reacts with visible pain when the subject arises and claims to have been tormented by what happened. I believed that he regretted it, but I wanted that remorse to become a proper on-page grovel because what he did was terrible. Plus the book never fully addressed the justifiable anguish this all caused Kate, to watch her abandoned mother die like that. He should have grovelled till his knees were raw and his bones turned to flipping dust.
The remainder of the novel largely revolves around Diego and Kate remaining angry with one another over the past while also becoming increasingly consumed by attraction.
Kate resents Diego for his earlier rejection, the damage he caused her mother and his repeated insistence that she resembles the supposedly selfish, destructive girl her mother once was.
Whenever Kate becomes temperamental, wants to leave because remaining there is emotionally painful, or appears to flirt with Diego’s brother, Diego revives the accusation that she is just like her mother and hurls his contempt at her.
This is particularly cruel because Kate is still grieving that mother. Every comparison makes her feel rejected and distressed, yet Diego repeatedly uses it against her.
Diego, meanwhile, believes Kate’s employer in England is also her lover. He has seen them together and misinterpreted their friendly joking and light flirtation as evidence of a relationship. He is consequently burning with jealousy and assumes Kate already belongs to another man.
That misunderstanding affects all of his behaviour. Diego torments Kate over her physical response to him, but he never fully reassures her or openly pursues a genuine relationship because he believes she has someone waiting in England.
SPOILERS AHEAD
Kate occasionally encourages Diego’s younger brother or agrees to go out with him, not because she genuinely wants him, but because she needs some protection from the way Diego unsettles, pressures and manipulates her.
The story is heavy on Diego’s dominance and manipulative tactics. In real life, I would probably regard much of his behaviour as controlling and deeply unpleasant. Within the context of an old-fashioned alpha-hero romance, I had to suspend some disbelief and accept that he was intended to be a decent man beneath the aggression.
He even uses another woman to try to make her jealous.
The ending is mostly satisfying because Kate eventually flees (after his brother tells her some hurtful lies) and Diego has to come after her. His desperation is clear, and this gives the story the hero-pursuing-the-heroine conclusion I generally enjoy.
Diego explains that he began falling in love with Kate when she first visited Spain at seventeen. He was twenty-eight and considered his attraction completely unacceptable because she was still a girl while he was an adult man.
When he saw his brother attempting to seduce her, he feared the situation would destroy the family if his brother took the girl Diego secretly wanted. He also genuinely wanted to protect Kate from being used by someone who was merely playing with her feelings and who was, within the adoptive family, effectively her cousin.
I could believe that Diego acted partly for Kate’s sake. However, he still took his anger out on her, allowed her to believe she was responsible and expelled both her and her mother.
Even accepting his motives, I cannot understand why he never later made amends to Kate’s mother or brought her back to her family. He should not have allowed the separation to remain permanent, and I continue to blame him for that.
I was also disappointed by part of Diego’s final explanation. After Kate left Spain at seventeen, he apparently decided to treat her as something from his past and made no attempt to find her again. Had Kate’s mother not written to the grandmother and prompted the family to seek reconciliation, Diego would never intentionally have returned to Kate’s life.
This may have been included to explain why Diego had relationships with other women during the intervening years and show that he had attempted to put Kate out of his mind. Unfortunately, it made him seem less emotionally invested and weakened the romantic impact of the final scenes.
The rest of his confession works better. Diego explains that from the moment he saw Kate again, he knew he wanted her and was determined to keep her. He had been consumed by jealousy because he believed she belonged to another man.
His pursuit, possessiveness and extreme reactions whenever Kate appeared to be in danger all make it clear that he is secretly besotted with her. Several dangerous scenes provoke such intense responses from him that it becomes impossible to doubt how strongly he feels.
That romantic dynamic will work extremely well for readers who enjoy heroes who fall first, become consumed with jealousy and aggressively pursue heroines who take longer to understand their own feelings.
It is not quite my preferred balance.
Kate spends much of the book interpreting her feelings as anger, confusion and resentment because Diego completely unsettles her. It takes her a long time to recognise first that she is attracted to him and then that she loves him.
I generally prefer the opposite dynamic, where the heroine becomes aware of her love first and quietly pines while the hero fights or slowly recognises his own feelings. Here, the implication is that Diego is already obsessed while Kate remains slower to comprehend what is happening between them.
The romance also needed more tenderness for me. The book convincingly establishes intensity, physical attraction, jealousy and emotional conflict, but it offers very few gentle scenes showing Diego and Kate filling the lonely or wounded spaces in each other’s lives.
Most of Diego’s apparent tenderness is delivered through mockery or provocation. That works well for creating angst, but I would have appreciated a few moments of uncomplicated warmth and care to deepen the romance.
Overall, Stormy Surrender is a strong, well-written and emotionally intense book. It has a fast pace, plenty of action, powerful attraction and enough development to convince me that Diego and Kate ultimately belong together.
It did not reach five stars for me because the constant quarrelling became exhausting, Kate’s temperamental reactions often irritated me, Diego’s role in the family estrangement was never sufficiently redeemed, and the relationship lacked the gentler scenes of intimacy and tenderness I personally need for a romance to feel exceptional.
However, readers who enjoy highly passionate, angsty romances in which the couple quarrels constantly, the hero is secretly besotted, and his jealousy and possessiveness drive much of the story may find this especially satisfying.
Despite the elements that were not to my taste, it remains a very good book.
4 stars.
September 26, 2020
I love Patricia Wilson’s books and this one is no exception. Patricia Wilson is so outstanding at writing about moods.
The scene after the woman had a car accident and he had come at her rescue swept me off my feet. It was as if I could feel his anger and despair when he confronts her about going outside after she had been warned about the weather.
He is a passionate, dominant alpha male who is doing his best to prevent her to go back to her home country. He wants to keep her in Spain with him, but says he wants so because of his grandmother.
The chemistry is there. His love for her is there, although he is a bit brute about it. And I like how he always rescues her after she manages to get herself in trouble again and again. I can feel his deep emotions. That’s what Patricia Wilson is so excellent at.
I’ll keep this book, so I can re-read it in the future. Definitely 5 stars.
The scene after the woman had a car accident and he had come at her rescue swept me off my feet. It was as if I could feel his anger and despair when he confronts her about going outside after she had been warned about the weather.
He is a passionate, dominant alpha male who is doing his best to prevent her to go back to her home country. He wants to keep her in Spain with him, but says he wants so because of his grandmother.
The chemistry is there. His love for her is there, although he is a bit brute about it. And I like how he always rescues her after she manages to get herself in trouble again and again. I can feel his deep emotions. That’s what Patricia Wilson is so excellent at.
I’ll keep this book, so I can re-read it in the future. Definitely 5 stars.
December 22, 2015
Hero was a bit too controlling and aggressive.
December 4, 2025
Immediately after the death of her beloved mother Diego Alvares showed up and demanded that Kathryn (Kate) goes with him to Spain to meet her grandmother. Her grandmother rejected Kate's mother attempt to reconcile with her when Kathryn was seventeen and so Kate refused not only to meet her, but also to acknowledge her existence! But Diego's forceful personality was too much for Kate and eventually she went with him and that's when she started discovering things about her family and her attraction to Diego!
An Okay read; not the best of Patricia Wilson though. I would even say it's average because of some of the contraries I found in the book. For example Diego left a huge impression on the 17-year-old Kate yet she didn't recognize him when she met him at 25! The hero was supposed to be enchanted with her yet he accused her of seducing his brother, forced her and her mother to leave and for years never contracted her once! At the top of that, instead of softening her heart, he didn't as much as sympathized with her when she was grieving the loss of her mother at the beginning of the story!
An Okay read; not the best of Patricia Wilson though. I would even say it's average because of some of the contraries I found in the book. For example Diego left a huge impression on the 17-year-old Kate yet she didn't recognize him when she met him at 25! The hero was supposed to be enchanted with her yet he accused her of seducing his brother, forced her and her mother to leave and for years never contracted her once! At the top of that, instead of softening her heart, he didn't as much as sympathized with her when she was grieving the loss of her mother at the beginning of the story!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 17, 2019
lots of chemistry here. great characters!
April 11, 2021
3.75 stars
July 15, 2021
The plot had potential. The heroine was great. The problem was the hero.
June 23, 2022
How repetitive could this be? Sheesh these characters are on a boring fight loop. Skip it, too much aggravation.
June 16, 2025
Too much bickering.
September 28, 2019
"Love is mainly a matter of imagination," the arrogant Diego Alvarez informed Kathryn in his usual lordly manner. But Kathryn already knew that he was a man without a heart and she was determined to put up a good fight against his outrageous manipulation. She didn't want to go to Spain in the first place and she certainly didn't intend staying with her mother's adoptive family for long. She and Diego disliked each other heartily...so why did he occupy her thoughts so much?
June 3, 2013
Couldn't stand the constant reference to her as "Lucia's daughter".
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