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Too Hot to Handle #6
Final Surrender
The heat is on...
Sorcha Riordan and Rui de Braganca were complete strangers--but they both inherited half of the same business.
Sorcha had fifty-one percent and she knew nothing about running a company. Rui de Braganca did, and he had been left forty-nine percent. What he lacked in shares, however, he more than made up for in sheer male magnetism. It was a potentially explosive situation. And Sorcha was finding it increasingly difficult to keel) a cool head ....
Sorcha Riordan and Rui de Braganca were complete strangers--but they both inherited half of the same business.
Sorcha had fifty-one percent and she knew nothing about running a company. Rui de Braganca did, and he had been left forty-nine percent. What he lacked in shares, however, he more than made up for in sheer male magnetism. It was a potentially explosive situation. And Sorcha was finding it increasingly difficult to keel) a cool head ....
192 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published June 1, 1992
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
July 22, 2018
Re Final Surrender - Elizabeth Oldfield gets the final slot for the Too Hot to Handle miniseries. This time we are going back to EO's beloved Portuguese Algarve.
We meet our H and h at the h's stepfather's funeral. The h is colorfully dressed compared to the other mourner's black clothes and the H is all about judging the h for trouble making. The H has never met the h before, but he was told all about her wild and wanton ways by the now deceased stepfather.
The H is actually the deceased stepfather's manager for a resort in the Algarve. It turns out that the stepfather was the spoilt younger son of a prominent Spanish family and the H actually built the resort and did all the work while looking for his niche in life.
The h's mother married the stepfather when the h was 11. Her parents had split up when the h's dad wanted to try being an artist instead of a real estate developer and her bovine mother divorced him because she did not want to lose her financial security.
Hence the bovine's willingness to marry the womanizing, pedophile stepfather. He was rich and his family told him to get a respectable wife or he would be cut off. The h's bovine mother fit the bill, the only problem was that she was ill a lot in the early part of the marriage, she had twin boys with the stepfather, and the slime pustule put the moves on the twelve year old h. Until she threatened to scream and wake her brother up and then call the police.
The bovine mother DID NOT want to know, apparently financial security was more important to her than protecting her daughter from a predator. The h demanded to be sent to boarding school after the slime pustule showdown, then she spent a few years acting out until she was old enough to go off on her own.
In return, the pedophile slime pustule berated her to all and sundry and her mother just pretended that everything was fine. Needless to say, the h isn't sharing anyone's pain now that the slime pustule is dead, but she is really shocked to find out that she inherited 51% of the stepfather's Portuguese Algarve resort.
The other 49% is held by the H and proper tart shaming words are bandied about by him for at least three chapters. Until the H is forced to eat his words, because the h is a accepted artist with regular gallery shows and she does have a real career and the H knows the stepfather only used the excuse of the resort to chase women and local teenagers.
(This is a perpetual trait of EO, she tries so HARD to do emo wrecki drama and she fails, mainly because her characters are too busy adulting to go off into the usual hysterical h and badly behaving H antics. Tho I have to say EO gave it a good go for a chapter or three with the mildly badly behaved H and his tart shaming resentment that the h has controlling interest in the resort.)
When the H suggests that the stepfather left the h the shares as a token of repentance for his many, many sins against her, the h decides to shut the H's nasty remarks up and rid herself of the taint of the stepfather. She decides to sell her shares in the resort.
This wakes the H up that he better start behaving better. Mainly cause if she sells to anyone but him, he will lose all that he has worked for and his resort will be crassly commericialized. So the H starts being nice to the h and listening to her resort experience improving suggestions. The h also saves his hiney a few times by substituting for critical missing staff for the guest programs.
During all of this, the H and h are experiencing a build up of the Lurve Force Mojo. When they almost get to the Blissful Shores of Transcendent Passion, the h has to put a stop to things. She still has PTSD about the slime pustule's abuse and the H helps her piece together her emotional response and then respectfully waits for her to make the next big move.
Eventually the h comes to terms with her past abuse, the uselessness of her bovine mother and also appreciates that she can use the money from her part of the resort to make her life or others' lives better, so she decides not to sell.
Instead she goes to the H to confess her love and he confesses his love back and she also gives the H two of her shares in the resort, so he will have the controlling interest and she will continue her artistic career after marrying the H for the pretty nice and sweet HEA.
This one deals with some very sensitive issues maturely and without a ton of drama. Which is kinda why I wonder how it made the Too Hot to Handle series, cause these two were way too adult for the rest of the drama ridden stories in this set.
Still for EO, this was a dramafest, so I liked it and recommend it for a nice little HP outing. Mainly because EO has a great sense of fairness, so after the H does his bad behavior chapters, the h gets to make him sorry for it and as we all know, a nice comeuppance for any type of H bad behavior is rarer than a sincerely nice OW in HPlandia.
We meet our H and h at the h's stepfather's funeral. The h is colorfully dressed compared to the other mourner's black clothes and the H is all about judging the h for trouble making. The H has never met the h before, but he was told all about her wild and wanton ways by the now deceased stepfather.
The H is actually the deceased stepfather's manager for a resort in the Algarve. It turns out that the stepfather was the spoilt younger son of a prominent Spanish family and the H actually built the resort and did all the work while looking for his niche in life.
The h's mother married the stepfather when the h was 11. Her parents had split up when the h's dad wanted to try being an artist instead of a real estate developer and her bovine mother divorced him because she did not want to lose her financial security.
Hence the bovine's willingness to marry the womanizing, pedophile stepfather. He was rich and his family told him to get a respectable wife or he would be cut off. The h's bovine mother fit the bill, the only problem was that she was ill a lot in the early part of the marriage, she had twin boys with the stepfather, and the slime pustule put the moves on the twelve year old h. Until she threatened to scream and wake her brother up and then call the police.
The bovine mother DID NOT want to know, apparently financial security was more important to her than protecting her daughter from a predator. The h demanded to be sent to boarding school after the slime pustule showdown, then she spent a few years acting out until she was old enough to go off on her own.
In return, the pedophile slime pustule berated her to all and sundry and her mother just pretended that everything was fine. Needless to say, the h isn't sharing anyone's pain now that the slime pustule is dead, but she is really shocked to find out that she inherited 51% of the stepfather's Portuguese Algarve resort.
The other 49% is held by the H and proper tart shaming words are bandied about by him for at least three chapters. Until the H is forced to eat his words, because the h is a accepted artist with regular gallery shows and she does have a real career and the H knows the stepfather only used the excuse of the resort to chase women and local teenagers.
(This is a perpetual trait of EO, she tries so HARD to do emo wrecki drama and she fails, mainly because her characters are too busy adulting to go off into the usual hysterical h and badly behaving H antics. Tho I have to say EO gave it a good go for a chapter or three with the mildly badly behaved H and his tart shaming resentment that the h has controlling interest in the resort.)
When the H suggests that the stepfather left the h the shares as a token of repentance for his many, many sins against her, the h decides to shut the H's nasty remarks up and rid herself of the taint of the stepfather. She decides to sell her shares in the resort.
This wakes the H up that he better start behaving better. Mainly cause if she sells to anyone but him, he will lose all that he has worked for and his resort will be crassly commericialized. So the H starts being nice to the h and listening to her resort experience improving suggestions. The h also saves his hiney a few times by substituting for critical missing staff for the guest programs.
During all of this, the H and h are experiencing a build up of the Lurve Force Mojo. When they almost get to the Blissful Shores of Transcendent Passion, the h has to put a stop to things. She still has PTSD about the slime pustule's abuse and the H helps her piece together her emotional response and then respectfully waits for her to make the next big move.
Eventually the h comes to terms with her past abuse, the uselessness of her bovine mother and also appreciates that she can use the money from her part of the resort to make her life or others' lives better, so she decides not to sell.
Instead she goes to the H to confess her love and he confesses his love back and she also gives the H two of her shares in the resort, so he will have the controlling interest and she will continue her artistic career after marrying the H for the pretty nice and sweet HEA.
This one deals with some very sensitive issues maturely and without a ton of drama. Which is kinda why I wonder how it made the Too Hot to Handle series, cause these two were way too adult for the rest of the drama ridden stories in this set.
Still for EO, this was a dramafest, so I liked it and recommend it for a nice little HP outing. Mainly because EO has a great sense of fairness, so after the H does his bad behavior chapters, the h gets to make him sorry for it and as we all know, a nice comeuppance for any type of H bad behavior is rarer than a sincerely nice OW in HPlandia.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 29, 2011
Sorcha comes home for step-dad's funeral. She finds out he left her 51 % of his business & Rui gets the other 49 %. She has to come to terms w/ her past. Creepy step-dad became touchy-feely when mum was away & tried to molest heroine when she was 12 y/o but she didn't go to the police & mommie dearest didn't wanna know. She grew up w/ the label of a rebel cum family blacksheep & avoided step-dad @ all costs. When Rui tries to take it to another level, she freezes up & he accuses her of stringing him along, so she feels compelled to fess up the big reveal that she's frigid (tho'no longer a virgin). In turn, he tells her that her step-dad assaulted a 16 y/o gal so history repeated itself, the victim didn't report him to the police, the parents only found out after Sorcha's step-dad's already expired. Sorcha has had relationships to prove to herself she's not damanged goods but having escaped a couple of rape attempts by a whisker, the physical side of relationship has always been unappealing to her, 'till she finally meets Rui & he gotta peel back her self-made mental chastity layers.
U know that feeling when U try out a new restaurant, the meals look bettah than they taste ? Sorta like this HP. Neither liked / disliked the colorless H/h, the writing & characters felt verra flat to me. Despite the bombshell, the book was monotonous, didn't have any emotional depth & no discernible personalities. Not romantic either.
U know that feeling when U try out a new restaurant, the meals look bettah than they taste ? Sorta like this HP. Neither liked / disliked the colorless H/h, the writing & characters felt verra flat to me. Despite the bombshell, the book was monotonous, didn't have any emotional depth & no discernible personalities. Not romantic either.
February 20, 2018
Soracha and Rui first meet after the death of her step-father and discover they both inherited Marim Club which angered Rui who was the manager. Soracha had to travel to Portugal and take her responsibilities for the club seriously, but Rui wouldn't let her in the assumption that she would ruin things he cared so much for. He believed she was a trouble maker.
The story is fine, but the characters are not! The heroine is so fickle! She was supposed to have matured and showing it! The hero is worse! He was supposed to be rational yet he judged her by what he heard from her step-father.
Not a story I would much care to read twice. No, thanks!
The story is fine, but the characters are not! The heroine is so fickle! She was supposed to have matured and showing it! The hero is worse! He was supposed to be rational yet he judged her by what he heard from her step-father.
Not a story I would much care to read twice. No, thanks!
March 8, 2020
Sorcha Riordan's step-father has died and after the funeral, she learns that she's inherited 51% of the shares in his beach club in Portugal, despite having a contentious and rocky relationship with him. This is unfortunate for Rui de Braganca, who was his club manager, and who only inherited 49%. So now he has a partner who he believes is spoiled, rebellious and uncommitted because of everything her stepfather had told him. Sorcha is rather contented to let him believe what he wants at first, but pretty soon corrects him, informing him that she is a prominent, up and coming artist with responsibilities and stable finances - that her stepfather was spouting off at the mouth about things he knew nothing about. When Rui suggests the possibility that her stepfather left her part of the club in an effort to manipulate her even after death, Sorcha decides to sell her shares to the highest bidder. This puts Rui in a panic because he doesn't know if he'll be highest bidder or if the person who buys her shares will still leave him in control. So he pretends to seduce her (though not really) to get those shares. In actuality, he's fallen in love with her. But even after Sorcha decides not to sell (thus removing that barrier), she has secrets that may keep her from taking that final step and being with Rui forever.
Really good up to the 50% mark or so. I liked the initial tension between Sorcha and Rui as he kinda believes the worst of her and she is trying to exert some control over her life, the resort and trying to make Rui respect her. About the time she comes back the second time, after she's agreed to sell her shares, things slow down quite a bit. Rui sees her with another guy and gets jealous which prompts him to turn on his seduction techniques, though he lets her believe it's just to get the shares. Things start to heat up between them, but her fear of not being able to respond sexually gets in the way and she finally has to admit her past secret. But then Rui stops coming near her for days and she starts to think he's changed his mind. This is where the author had the opportunity to ratchet up the tension just a bit more and maybe create a mini-conflict, as we're starting to doubt that Rui will follow through. But then the heroine does the mature thing and confronts him (without any drama whatsoever), admits that she loves him but can respect it if he can't get over her past but that she'd like them to still keep in touch. He admits, maturely, that he'd been waiting for her to make the decision to come to him. No hurt feelings or crying about how much she'd been hurting the past few days thinking he didn't want her and then they have their HEA. It felt anti-climactic really. I love mature and non-OTT sometimes, but these two spoiled my enjoyment of the angst because of their maturity. Fortunately it was just that section - they pulled through in the rest of the angst, even managing to be reasonable and adult at the same time. So I don't know what happened at the last.
Really good up to the 50% mark or so. I liked the initial tension between Sorcha and Rui as he kinda believes the worst of her and she is trying to exert some control over her life, the resort and trying to make Rui respect her. About the time she comes back the second time, after she's agreed to sell her shares, things slow down quite a bit. Rui sees her with another guy and gets jealous which prompts him to turn on his seduction techniques, though he lets her believe it's just to get the shares. Things start to heat up between them, but her fear of not being able to respond sexually gets in the way and she finally has to admit her past secret. But then Rui stops coming near her for days and she starts to think he's changed his mind. This is where the author had the opportunity to ratchet up the tension just a bit more and maybe create a mini-conflict, as we're starting to doubt that Rui will follow through. But then the heroine does the mature thing and confronts him (without any drama whatsoever), admits that she loves him but can respect it if he can't get over her past but that she'd like them to still keep in touch. He admits, maturely, that he'd been waiting for her to make the decision to come to him. No hurt feelings or crying about how much she'd been hurting the past few days thinking he didn't want her and then they have their HEA. It felt anti-climactic really. I love mature and non-OTT sometimes, but these two spoiled my enjoyment of the angst because of their maturity. Fortunately it was just that section - they pulled through in the rest of the angst, even managing to be reasonable and adult at the same time. So I don't know what happened at the last.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 18, 2019
4.8/5 angel stars
February 27, 2022
Romance didn’t seem to evolve, it was just there.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews