دروغگوی دوست‌داشتنی

by Flora Kidd, عطیه رفیعی (Translator)

مادلین استوارت دختری خوش‌قلب و رئوف بود و همیشه برایش دشوار بود به درخواست و خواهش کسی پاسخ منفی دهد. بنابراین زمانی که دوستش فیونا از وی خواست تا به جای او و تحت نام فیونا به خانه‌ی عمویش رابرت آستین در اسکاتلند برود، مادلین بار دیگر متوجه شد که تسلیم خواهش او شده است. او به راحتی به عنوان فیونا در خانه‌ی آستین‌ها پذیرفته شد، اما طولی نکشید که فهمید جیک آستین، یکی از اعضای خانواده، به نیرنگ او پی برده است، اما نمی‌دانست چرا جیک این را به دیگران نمی‌گوید؟ آیا حقیقت داشت که جیک مسئول مرگ برادرش آلستر بود؟ و تا چه حد رابطه‌اش با ایزابل، آن دختر زیبا و سبک‌سر، جدی بود؟ مادلین احساس می‌کرد هر قدر بیشتر به آن بازی ادامه می‌دهد، مسائل پیچیده‌تر و بغرنج‌تر می‌شود... ؛

Genres: Harlequin Presents

264 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2017

About the author

Flora Mildred Cartwright was born on 1926 in Liverpool, England, UK. The youngest of four children, Flora and her family lived in the same house until she was a teen. In 1949, she graduated from Liverpool University, where she met Robert Kidd, her husband. They moved to her beloved Scotland, where she began teaching, writing, and raised their four children: Richard, Patricia, Peter and David.

Flora Kidd published her first novel, Visit To Rowanbank, in 1966 at Mills & Boon. In 1977, the family moved to Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada, where she continued her romance career with Mills & Boon until 1989, when she retired. In 1994, she published the first of the The Marco Polo Project novels, to support a project to build a replica of the 19th century ship Marco Polo.

Flora Kidd passed away on March 19, 2008 at Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada.

Reviews

[boogenhagen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Re Beloved Deceiver - FK brings us another flighty, impulsive h. This one is in the Dominican Republic where she is trying to get an interview with a newly famous author. She pretty much decided to drop in out of the blue, based on a casual invitation issued eight years earlier when they were both at uni in Canada.

The h is a freelance writer and sells various articles to magazines, she happened to be near the DR, stopped by to check it out and remembered Mr. Author lived there too. They hung out a few times in uni and the h had actually invited him to her home. They weren't close companions, but the h figures an interview because of his recent best seller status would be ample repayment for her former hospitality.

Except the Mr. Author is never home, finally his staff tells her that he went to the market to buy some fruit. So the h trots herself to the market as well, in the process of buying her own fruit, she sees her target. The fruit seller knows gullible when he sees it, so she has a huge bag of fruit and no money to pay for it, she seems to have misplaced her wallet. Her target then meanders over and pays for her fruit, she leaps into action with a reminder of their past acquaintance and asks for an interview.

The H says she can interview him if she will go with him to his country home and bring some things to spend the night and a swimsuit. The h is feeling a touch nauseous, but gamely gets the H to give her ride to her hotel, finds her wallet and some swim attire but leaves the night clothes in her room cause she doesn't plan on staying with the H that long and then takes herself off with the H. They get to his beachside cottage and the h feels worse than ever, she promptly passes out.

When she wakes up, she is in the H's bed and he is wryly regarding her discombobulation, the h is really nauseous and starts vomiting. The H cheerfully admits he wanted her in his bed, but the isn't the circumstances he had in mind. Then he has to lend her a nightshirt. The h spends the rest of the night and day being ill, but the next afternoon she starts to feel much better as she wanders around the H's house wondering what a best selling author is doing with all these medical texts.

The H returns from his wanderings and he and the h go swimming while chatting about old times. The h was engaged when she met the H before, but the H teases her that she was just a bit in love with him. The h denies this, cause they really only hung out together twice and she was pretty gaga over her fiance. Whom she did eventually marry but divorced after two years when they both decided they wanted a different kind of spouse - and the ex cheated on her, so she dumped him fairly quickly when she found out.


The H and h wind up lurvin it up, but the h is now starting to wonder who this H really is. She knows her author friend has a brother, and that they look very similar - the author was kinda husky and had a little tummy, the H doesn't have that and the h doesn't think an author would really be as fit as the H is - and she has the intimate experience with the H to know that he is not flabby anywhere. She starts to suspect that she has been tricked, and it is practically confirmed when the H refuses to let her interview him and throws her recorder microphone into the nearby jungle so the h can't tape her interview.

Then another woman shows up and it looks like she thinks she has some kinda dibs on the H, AND she calls him by a different name. The h realizes she has been tricked, the H wanders off again and the h gets herself back to town and goes to the author's house. The author is in this time and so is his really possessive and jealous wife.

The wife hates the h because when they were in college, the author liked the h better than the wife and the wife had to get herself preggers to lock up the author in marriage. She is still jealous and very rude to the h, the h doesn't even recognize the woman even tho they went to school together. The H comes to rescue her, because he really is the author's brother. They switch places a lot and the two times in the past that the h had hung out with who she thought was the author, was actually the H - all the way back in university.

The H tells the h that his brother keeps getting entangled in manipulative women, and the H has to help out sometimes because between his mistress and his wife, the poor brother barely has time to write. Then he proposes to the h. But she is furious and turns him down and then lurves him up again. She is leaving for Canada the next day and the H is going back to finish his medical rotation in Nicaragua. He figured he and the h could have a quick marriage and then part for several months and take up married life when he got back. The H is really a doctor.

The h is too angry to listen, so the author has to intervene when he is supposed to be taking her to the airport to leave and the h winds up going back the H's house instead. The OW is there, but the girl decides to go marry some other guy and the h is welcome the H. Big avowals of love are made, but the H tells the h she can't love him that much if she isn't willing to let him go finish his medical mission. The author brother wanted the h to marry the H to make him stay in the country, people were shooting at him in Nicaragua, but the H insists he is going and the h has to prove her love by going back to Canada and waiting for him.

She loves him, so she does and they marry, she goes to Canada and has a baby while waiting for the H to return and then he comes back and decides that they will all live in the Dominican Republic for the HEA.

This was a really disjointed book. FK is usually pretty scatty, but this one was up there in bouncing around with things that made no sense. The H and h basically knew each other for four days before they married, and the h thought the H was someone else for two of them. Then she had to do the Trademark Flora Kidd trope, which was be separated from the H for close to a year, and given how much cheatin' FK puts into her books between all the secondary characters, it kinda made me wonder how much the H cheated too. The h was preggers so she was neutralized.

Overall this book kinda made no sense, but it does have all the usual FK ingredients of enigmatic and lethargic H, impulsive and scatterbrained but really beautiful h, long separations with the married H and h and plenty of cheating all around. It may have been a mistake for this book to follow Penny Jordan's A Savage Adoration tho, cause both books have all the trademark tropes and characters that the author's are known in HPlandia for, but FK just comes off so much worse in comparison.

This book isn't terrible, but it isn't very interesting either-- so go read A Savage Adoration instead and have some tropey PJ time instead of trying to puzzle out FK's eccentricities.

[Wendy, Lady Evelyn Quince · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lately, I've been trying to write as many reviews as I can, before I forget what I read. Even though I read this book in the early Noughties, Flora Kidd's "Beloved Deceiver" still sticks out in my mind for one big reason: it's the only Harlequin/Mills-and-Boon I've read to feature a hero from the Dominican Republic, which is my parents' birth country. There have been plenty of Hispanic, Latino, and Latin-American born heroes in the HP line, but up until this one I'd never encountered a Dominican and a blond one, to boot! That, for me, was like hitting the romance lottery jackpot.

Our heroine, Glenda, is an independent divorcee whose first marriage ended when her husband decided fidelity was too taxing on him. Glenda's a magazine writer from Canada visiting the Dominican Republic on holiday. Her former college classmate, Cesar Estrada, is now a bestselling author and Glenda seeks him out for an interview. Upon meeting Cesar again, Glenda notices some changes, mainly her attraction to him. Back in Montreal, they'd just been friends, however, this tanned, tropical hunk makes her motor run at super high RPMs!

Glenda and Cesar get it on, but all is not what it seems as Cesar appears to be hiding something about himself. Is Cesar really the man she used to know? Who is this Rafael character she keeps hearing about? Could there be another woman with whom Cesar is involved?

The zig-zaggy trail of breadcrumbs that Flora Kidd gives us leads to new revelations and some slight HP angst.

To be completely honest, for me this was a good HP that made the time pass quickly and leisurely even though it wasn't a super-wrecky, extra-memorable experience. I've read a handful of Flora Kidd romances and have found them to be just fine to above average. Here, it was the hero's unique background that ticked the right boxes for me. Plus, I pictured him looking like Carlos de la Mota, a Dominican-born telenovela actor who's an absolute dream:



I gave this a generous 3 1/2 stars, but YMMV.

[PAINTED BOX]

She was a magazine writer, he was a famous novelist

Yet eight years ago Glenda Thompson and Cesar Estrada had known each other as students at university in Montreal.

Now, trying to interview him in his own country, the Dominican Republic, Glenda is puzzled by the mystery surrounding him. Why is he referred to as ''Rafael'' and why doesn't he want to be interviewed. Is he trying to hide something?

When they do meet again, in spite of unsuccessful marriages and the intervening years, they cannot conceal their feelings for each other.