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The Deception Trap
She couldn't miss this opportunity!
Teressa had plotted revenge against Ashe Warwick for years. She had no compunction about deceiving him now.
It helped that the now slim, glamorous Teressa bore little resemblance to the awkward, overweight Tess of six years ago who'd had a crush on Ashe. Ashe, who had heartlessly walked out on her family when they lost their money.
So Teressa was shocked to learn that the ruthless picture of him fixed in her mind was entirely wrong! Even worse, she was falling in love with him all over again.
Teressa had plotted revenge against Ashe Warwick for years. She had no compunction about deceiving him now.
It helped that the now slim, glamorous Teressa bore little resemblance to the awkward, overweight Tess of six years ago who'd had a crush on Ashe. Ashe, who had heartlessly walked out on her family when they lost their money.
So Teressa was shocked to learn that the ruthless picture of him fixed in her mind was entirely wrong! Even worse, she was falling in love with him all over again.
187 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 1986
About the author
Ann Charlton
39 books16 followersAnn Charlton was born in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, and now lives in Brisbane. She traces the beginning of her writing to a childhood period when, in trying to avoid nightmares, she began telling herself a story, continued each night. She wanted to be a commercial artist but became a secretary. She wanted to play the piano but plays guitar instead, and she never planned to be a writer. Her professional writing began with a short-story contest. She published her first romance novel in 1984.
Now Ann writes every weekday, interspersed with looking after her family Tennis, sketching, reading, modern music and dancing are other interests. When both daughters have finished high school, Ann looks forward to travel and seeing new places. She would like to do more tapestry work and paint miniatures and has absolutely no plans to research a book in the Amazon or to learn to play the bouzouki. From time to time she abseils, which surprises her because she is afraid of heights.
Now Ann writes every weekday, interspersed with looking after her family Tennis, sketching, reading, modern music and dancing are other interests. When both daughters have finished high school, Ann looks forward to travel and seeing new places. She would like to do more tapestry work and paint miniatures and has absolutely no plans to research a book in the Amazon or to learn to play the bouzouki. From time to time she abseils, which surprises her because she is afraid of heights.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
June 3, 2016
Re The Deception Trap - another just visiting HPlandia couple - the 22 yr old h decides to get revenge on the H who supposedly dumped her sister (they were engaged but never slept together,) right after her father lost his business and his fortune and then the dad died.
The h thinks that the H dumped her flighty sister because wasn't getting a lot a money - in short she thinks he is a male gold-digger and she resents all the success and high society contacts he has that she will never get now that her life has changed so drastically. This h is carrying around a boatload of envy and anger over her dad's death and the hypocrisy of the so-called friends who came to his funeral after they socially cut him out.
So she masquerades as her elderly cleaning lady neighbor's daughter to inveigle her way into the H's house by working as the maid when the cleaning lady goes to see her family. The h looks very different from her teenage years and she also has a big silver streak in her hair. She does her best to foil what is rumored to be the H's second engagement to another wealthy heiress, but the woman was pretty nasty so perhaps a better revenge would have been to the leave the H to marry her instead.
The very immature h uses all sorts of little fibs and deceptions to provoke an argument between the H and his supposed new beloved, but since the H was only doing business with her father, it doesn't amount to very much.
The H is much more interested in the h and uses some little fibs and deceptions of his own to keep her around. To the h's great surprise, the H is really , really nice to everybody and the h is having a hard time remembering that the H is only a gold-digging fortune hunter.
She eventually falls head over heels for the H and he is srsly liking her back, but then a series of OM show up in the h's life and the H decides he was greatly deceived - he knew who she was about a third of the way in the story, but he also thought she was a sweet little innocent - and because these strange OM keep showing up, he thinks it is all an act and that the h is the gold-digger. The h gets a big hoist on her own petard when the H accuses her of being a tart and backs off.
The h finally figures out that her sister lied about what happened with the H when the engagement was broken. Turns out the sister was the actual tart and cheated on the H and the sister lied to the now deceased father and the h about what happened. She is married now and the H did not want to tarnish the sister's image, so he just let the h dither a bit - besides he was more amused by her little plots and it kept her in his orbit.
The H finally realizes that he was mistaken about the tartiness of the h when it turns out that one OM was just a visiting friend on his way through town and the other is actually the elderly cleaning lady's real son that was waiting at the h's flat for his mum to show up. The elderly cleaning lady had a bit of an accident and was in hospital, so the h drags the son along and the H realizes his error.
Finally the H, realizing that he has been pretty much a beta for the previous 180 pages, puts his foot down, starts to seduce the h. He gets waylaid with huge avowals of love and mutual explanations of the sister's tartiness and the misconceptions of the h's supposed OM and decides to propose to the h and lurve it up for the HEA.
This one was kinda just there, the h needed some more maturity, but AC threw in a lot of top 80's songs in for background during various scenes and that provided most of the story's entertainment.
It isn't a terrible story, but there isn't a lot of substance here either and the h's antics were vaguely annoying after a bit, I sorta felt bad the H got stuck with her in the end.
The h thinks that the H dumped her flighty sister because wasn't getting a lot a money - in short she thinks he is a male gold-digger and she resents all the success and high society contacts he has that she will never get now that her life has changed so drastically. This h is carrying around a boatload of envy and anger over her dad's death and the hypocrisy of the so-called friends who came to his funeral after they socially cut him out.
So she masquerades as her elderly cleaning lady neighbor's daughter to inveigle her way into the H's house by working as the maid when the cleaning lady goes to see her family. The h looks very different from her teenage years and she also has a big silver streak in her hair. She does her best to foil what is rumored to be the H's second engagement to another wealthy heiress, but the woman was pretty nasty so perhaps a better revenge would have been to the leave the H to marry her instead.
The very immature h uses all sorts of little fibs and deceptions to provoke an argument between the H and his supposed new beloved, but since the H was only doing business with her father, it doesn't amount to very much.
The H is much more interested in the h and uses some little fibs and deceptions of his own to keep her around. To the h's great surprise, the H is really , really nice to everybody and the h is having a hard time remembering that the H is only a gold-digging fortune hunter.
She eventually falls head over heels for the H and he is srsly liking her back, but then a series of OM show up in the h's life and the H decides he was greatly deceived - he knew who she was about a third of the way in the story, but he also thought she was a sweet little innocent - and because these strange OM keep showing up, he thinks it is all an act and that the h is the gold-digger. The h gets a big hoist on her own petard when the H accuses her of being a tart and backs off.
The h finally figures out that her sister lied about what happened with the H when the engagement was broken. Turns out the sister was the actual tart and cheated on the H and the sister lied to the now deceased father and the h about what happened. She is married now and the H did not want to tarnish the sister's image, so he just let the h dither a bit - besides he was more amused by her little plots and it kept her in his orbit.
The H finally realizes that he was mistaken about the tartiness of the h when it turns out that one OM was just a visiting friend on his way through town and the other is actually the elderly cleaning lady's real son that was waiting at the h's flat for his mum to show up. The elderly cleaning lady had a bit of an accident and was in hospital, so the h drags the son along and the H realizes his error.
Finally the H, realizing that he has been pretty much a beta for the previous 180 pages, puts his foot down, starts to seduce the h. He gets waylaid with huge avowals of love and mutual explanations of the sister's tartiness and the misconceptions of the h's supposed OM and decides to propose to the h and lurve it up for the HEA.
This one was kinda just there, the h needed some more maturity, but AC threw in a lot of top 80's songs in for background during various scenes and that provided most of the story's entertainment.
It isn't a terrible story, but there isn't a lot of substance here either and the h's antics were vaguely annoying after a bit, I sorta felt bad the H got stuck with her in the end.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 21, 2015
Would have been 5 stars, but the heroine got in the way.
January 25, 2012
The heroine Teressa is helping out her elderly neighbour with her cleaning business when she see's Ashe, the hero. Ashe was once engaged to Teressa's sister but had seemingly abandoned her and Teressa and their father when their father was in financial trouble. As a teenager at the time, Teressa has idolised Ashe and took his betrayal hard. She has imagined being able to get revenge on him, so when her neighbour needs her to go to Ashe's home as a housekeeper for a weekend party he is holding, she sees this as her chance. But Teressa is disconcerted when Ashe turns out to be nice, and especially surprised when she is extremely drawn to him and he seems to share the attraction. When Ashe discovers her web of lies he is angry and vows to make Teressa sorry for deceiving him.
This is an interesting book, and I enjoyed reading it. I liked the plot and it is well written, but I wasn't too keen on the heroine. She seemed a little too flaky and immature in my opinion. There is no POV from the hero so I found it difficult to understand him and his character, but I liked the impression I did get, especially that he is actually a nice guy and not the 'villain' he starts out being.
This being an older book, the passion level is quite low (compared to what I'm used too!) but there was no lack of sizzle between the characters.
As I said, an enjoyable book.
Originally posted at http://everyday-is-the-same.blogspot....
This is an interesting book, and I enjoyed reading it. I liked the plot and it is well written, but I wasn't too keen on the heroine. She seemed a little too flaky and immature in my opinion. There is no POV from the hero so I found it difficult to understand him and his character, but I liked the impression I did get, especially that he is actually a nice guy and not the 'villain' he starts out being.
This being an older book, the passion level is quite low (compared to what I'm used too!) but there was no lack of sizzle between the characters.
As I said, an enjoyable book.
Originally posted at http://everyday-is-the-same.blogspot....
August 17, 2018
I liked this book even though throughout it I tried to figure out if I had read it before or not.
I'm disturbed by the fact that the hero dated the heroine's sister (was engaged) to her beforehand but eh, that's romance I guess.
The hero is misunderstood to be the root of all evil in the heroine's life. When she gets a chance to be close to him, she lightly manipulates him. This gets the hero angry. He realises he likes the heroine and tricks her into thinking that he is the worst.
Strangely, by this point, the heroine had stopped being so sure he was evil. Finally, when she finds out the truth it's time for the hero to have a misunderstanding.
When all of this is sorted we get an HEA. The book fairly dragged between the points when the hero and heroine were together. The hero was a nice person, truly nice. The author went through pains to paint him as an angel. I mean, he was a nice guy which is a rarity in HPs of today.
I'm going to have to pace myself and pick up books with some nasty heroes so that I can go back to having a warped view of romance.
I'm disturbed by the fact that the hero dated the heroine's sister (was engaged) to her beforehand but eh, that's romance I guess.
The hero is misunderstood to be the root of all evil in the heroine's life. When she gets a chance to be close to him, she lightly manipulates him. This gets the hero angry. He realises he likes the heroine and tricks her into thinking that he is the worst.
Strangely, by this point, the heroine had stopped being so sure he was evil. Finally, when she finds out the truth it's time for the hero to have a misunderstanding.
When all of this is sorted we get an HEA. The book fairly dragged between the points when the hero and heroine were together. The hero was a nice person, truly nice. The author went through pains to paint him as an angel. I mean, he was a nice guy which is a rarity in HPs of today.
I'm going to have to pace myself and pick up books with some nasty heroes so that I can go back to having a warped view of romance.
July 17, 2017
Strange book. The h is just wierd. Her sister had been engaged to the H six years before when she was a chubby 16 year old who wore braces. He was nice to her and she crushed on him. Her Father lost all his money and then the H broke up with the sister and her Father ended up dying. She blamed him for it. She is now skinny and beautiful and she lives next door to his cleaning lady so she goes to help her and sees him and he doesn't recognize her and so she plays some dumb trick on him pretending to be naive, and ugly and it was just stupid. She ends up making him think she is promiscious and self serving while she dates another playboy and it was convoluted. There is an HEA but I honestly wasn't sure I cared by that point. It was just silly.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 9, 2023
By AC standards this was just ok. Teressa, 15 and beset with puppy fat, had a crush on her big sister's fiance (who, completely unbelievably, given he would have been 26 and the sister an unashamed nymphomaniac - you go girl - didn't sleep with the sister 🙄) who then dumped her when her father went bankrupt. Cue daft revenge plot. Teressa has an elderly neighbour with a contract cleaning company that does the Hs offices. He, Ashe, is now a 34 year old rich novelist and businessman. Long story short they are thrown together at the office then the Hs beach mansion while he entertains. It's clear that Ashe is not a sleaze ball and she needs to grow up. This was a bit slow in parts but ok.
abrierto-to-read-hr-other
November 30, 2019She couldn't miss this opportunity!
Teressa had plotted revenge against Ashe Warwick for years. She had no compunction about deceiving him now.
It helped that the now slim, glamorous Teressa bore little resemblance to the awkward, overweight Tess of six years ago who'd had a crush on Ashe. Ashe, who had heartlessly walked out on her family when they lost their money.
Teressa had plotted revenge against Ashe Warwick for years. She had no compunction about deceiving him now.
It helped that the now slim, glamorous Teressa bore little resemblance to the awkward, overweight Tess of six years ago who'd had a crush on Ashe. Ashe, who had heartlessly walked out on her family when they lost their money.
June 11, 2021
I liked this quite a bit, probably wouldn't like as much on a different day, but he was so willing to do whatever he had to to make her realize he was not a rotter and never could be one. Liked the dialogue and Mrs. RIchards was great.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews