העבודה של דרוסילה בנט מתקרבת לסיומה. דרו, שרוצה להחזיר לעצמה את חייה ולהתרחק מהשטן - שמוסווה בדמותו של הבוס שלה - מגייסת את האומץ לומר לו "אני מתפטרת!" דבר מעולם לא הצליח להפתיע את קאיו וילה - עד עכשיו. המילה "לא" פשוט לא כלולה באוצר המילים שלו, ולכן התפטרותה של העוזרת האישית הכי טובה שהיתה לו אי פעם פשוט לא באה בחשבון! דרו כבר שמעה על הקסם האגדי של קאיו, אך עתה, כשהקסם הזה מכוון אליה, היא מבינה למה קשה כל-כך לומר לקאיו וילה את המילה "לא".
Caitlin Crews discovered her first romance novel at the age of twelve, in a bargain bin at the local five and dime. It involved swashbuckling pirates, grand adventures, a heroine with rustling skirts and a mind of her own, and a seriously mouthwatering and masterful hero. The book (the title of which remains lost in the mists of time) made a serious impression. Caitlin was immediately smitten with romances and romance heroes, to the detriment of her middle school social life. And so began her life-long love affair with romance novels, many of which she insists on keeping near her at all times, thus creating a fire hazard of love wherever she lives.
Caitlin has made her home in places as far-flung as York, England and Atlanta, Georgia. She was raised near New York City, and fell in love with London on her first visit when she was a teenager. She has backpacked in Zimbabwe, been on safari in Botswana, and visited tiny villages in Namibia. She has, while visiting the place in question, declared her intention to live in Prague, Dublin, Paris, Athens, Nice, the Greek Islands, Rome, Venice, and/or any of the Hawaiian islands. Writing about exotic places seems like the next best thing to actually moving there.
She currently lives in Oregon with her animator/comic book artist husband and their menagerie of ridiculous animals.
As expected from any Caitlin crews' book, there is a generous amount of angst, tension and even melodrama, that keeps the reader with frayed nerves and a stomach in knots throughout the whole book. Dru has been Cayo's perfect PA for five years. Accommodating to the extend of hiding her real personality behind a facade of calm efficiency. The only cloud in this otherwise bright sky is a kiss they shared 3 y ago. They acts as if it never happened. But Dru, secretly in love with her boss, has never been able to forget it. Dru is a strong heroine. When her twin brother dies and her financial obligations come to an end, she decides its time to move on with her life and leave Cayo for good. But Cayo isn't a man to be crossed. He ll do everything in his power to keep the best PA he ever had. Even if he has to kidnap her. Cayo is cold, ruthless and sometimes even cruel. He shuts himself down emotionally. But he is intrigued by the real Dru hidden behind her professional persona. These 2 characters, damaged by their dark pasts, has a lot to learn in order to open up to each other and find their HEA.
Rating 3.5 stars . A nice HP with loads of melodrama, the heroine kind of has a love-hate relationship with the hero, she has worked with him for 5 years and has no illusions about him , he is a cad ruthless in business and with women, but she has had it with him , the thing that got to her was finding out that three years ago he stopped her cater advancement and that chafes because they shared a passionate moment three years back and in one corner of her brain she remembers it. She is the perfect secretary dressing down , catering to all his whims but her twin brothers death frees her from the job since money is no longer a issues. The hero is a jerk and acts like a boor tuning her out when she says she is done, she tells him off yet he kidnaps her . Both the hero ands heroine could be president of crappy childhoods yet the heroine looks forward . They have an affair yet she sticks to an expiry date even when he wants to marry her , in the end she makes the hero beg to marry her. Drama galore!
I wanted to like A Devil in Disguise but the prose left me cold. I liked the hero. He was uber wealthy, alpha, damaged from an unhappy childhood and a self made billionaire.
Unfortunately, I didn't care for the heroine. She was cooly competent. Icy. Her history is revealled in layers which I hate because one isn't given a chance to get to know what motivates the character. I didn't like that the heroine wasn't a virgin. She was so cold about leaving the hero after their great smex ended. Such a modern bang him leave him attitude was a turn off. Most unbelievable was her sudden realization she loved the hero...really...I didn't buy it. She worked for him for years had one kiss years ago but thinks she loves him based on nothing!
So I wanted to like this but it failed to capture my interest to the point where I gave up almost toward the end. I just didn't care in the hea.
I really got annoyed with this book it started off with so much promise after our was a total rat to her when she quits her job and she shows him that h's don't play like that anymore by jumping off his super yacht and making a swim for it. Sure they both had uber crap childhoods and she's tried to do her best by her twin who clearly had mental health issues. I found him unforgivable at the end when he says she only loves those who can't love her back like her brother. That's just plain mean and untrue and I wanted to give him a very un PC slap for that. His character was basically pretty unlikeable and although he declared his love I just didn't get that HEA glow I usually get from this schtick. I'd forgotten how awful the H was in this at the end he was a real meanie
Nice story, but I couldn’t relate to the Hero. His cruelty and coldness is too exaggerated, something that should be explained by his extremely loveless childhood.
I only wonder why the author put such unlikely behaviour as it is in today’s age and time that an unmarried woman enters a convent because she has given birth to a child. But let’s have here the author’s exact sentence: “he had been the fatherless child whose mother, all the village had known too well, had been so disgraced that she had taken to the convent after his birth rather than face the wages of her sin in its ever-growing flesh” This is very dramatic indeed, but that wouldn’t happen in today’s Spain. For this kind of behaviour to be believable, we would have to go as far back as 1950 in a small village.
This one was severaldifferent kinds of crazy. The heroine has decided to quit her job as the hero's PA after 5 years. He doesn't want her to quit so he kidnaps her. Her response was pretty crazy too but fun. He had a lot of issues and was one of the best representations of an unfeeling hero I've ever read. He had a hard time dealing with her no longer being his buttoned up assistant when she started letting her true self loose because she wasn't trying anymore to keep her job. This was pretty wacky and fun. Although I don't think it was written for laughs. It was definitely one of those train wrecks you couldn't look away from.
Don't know if I'll get back to review this one. Just wanted to note it had lots of wtfery with a side of trainwreckiness. Oh! And fellatio! Very enjoyable.
This was fantastic.The transformation of Cayo from a cold, ruthless arrogant tycoon to a man who wasn't afraid to open up his heart or admit his insecurities was heat wrenching. He tried to barricade himself from feeling anything. And he does have reasons to be the way he is. Both the hero and the heroine are imperfect and damaged but they are absolutely perfect together.
I really admired the heroine . She stood her ground, refused to get daunted by the hero and in spite of giving in to the temptation for a little while, she refused to change her decision.
I won't castigate the heroine for going back to the hero in the end. Why cut your nose to spite your face? She loved him and he certainly did feel a lot for her even if he didn't actually say the word. Thankfully, the hero did grovel well and confessed his love in the end. I liked how she kept him on tenterhooks for few months to see if he had really changed and meant what he said before she agreed to marry him.
The story made me laugh, cheer for the heroine when she refused to budge from her decision and was extremely candid about her boss, the hero. And it also made me a little teary eyed when I saw them both trying to fight their past and learn to love.
I am easy to please. My ratings are based on how much I enjoyed a particular book without getting too much into moral or ethical side of things. I intend to fully enjoy the fantasy for fantasy it is and nothing else.
Not being a huge romance reader, I wasn't entirely sure what I was in for when I was told this was a straightforward Harlequin "enemies become lovers" book - but now I do and I'm so glad I picked it up. What a fun little back and forth, the story of an underappreciated admin assistant and the tyrannical boss she has been falling for ever since they shared a passionate kiss three years ago. Finally realizing she needs to leave if she's going to make something of her life, she quits, and her boss has to come to terms with his inability to let her go for reasons he had never suspected until he was forced to confront them head on.
We featured this as a fun buddy reading in my Discord book club and had a blast not just reading it together, but chatting with the author since Caitlin Crews joined the group to laugh with us as we both hated and then loved the idea of this romance.
Dru a perdido a su hermano y ahora es tiempo de dejar el trabajo que la a mantenido como esclava durante 5 años de su vida. Sabe que debe alejarse de Cayo Vila porque su cordura depende de ello para poder sobrevivir. Al presentar su renuncia ya se esperaba una batalla con aquel hombre al que nadie le dice que no o intenta cambiar sus planes sin que el lo permita y no tenga consecuencias por osar desafiarlo.
La perfecta asistente de Cayo Vila se quiere marchar y el no piensa permitirlo, ya que es buena en ello y no en balde a dejado que pasen de ella para ocupar otros puestos mas en la empresa para los cuales es muy capas, pero el la quiere donde esta con el a su lado, dándole algo de humanidad a su despiadado ser.
Las dos semanas que Cayo la obliga a cumplir antes de desaparecer son las mas ardientes de la vida para los dos ¿Amor o solo deseo?
Drusilla “Dru” Bennett worked for the competitive Cayo Vila for five years to pay off some debts. Once those were finally cleared, and she knew how he really felt about her, she hands in her resignation for her PA position. Cayo is reluctant to let the very efficient Drusilla go. He is also very surprised to see her without her professional, icy mask that she had employed over the years. Cayo means to hang on to Dru by any means necessary, and so he attempts to employ some questionable methods to realize that goal. Soon Dru realizes exactly what she has released in prodding this devil in disguise, because he just can’t accept no as an answer.
A Devil in Disguise was priceless and extremely amusing, while still evoking a sort of emotional connection between the characters and the readers. A Devil in Disguise had me rooting for Dru to show Cayo up, while at the same time feeling a little drawn to him as well. The lengths that Dru went to in order to avoid Cayo in the beginning were gratifying. I thoroughly enjoyed the fact that while Cayo attempted to go the route of the typical HP hero in the end, he was unable to because he really couldn’t. The fact that Dru stood up to Cayo several times in A Devil in Disguise was quite refreshing as well.
It was very satisfying that Cayo admits to himself that Dru throws him off balance in A Devil in Disguise, and early on to boot. He soon realizes that because of a past incident, his roosters have finally come home to roost and Cayo needs to deal with them in A Devil in Disguise. Cayo lies to himself about so many things, and Dru can’t stand the fact that she has this weakness, but watching these two come together in A Devil in Disguise is enthralling! A Devil in Disguise had me from the very first line and didn’t let go until the last. I enjoyed all the byplay between Cayo and Dru, their growth and understanding of the deeper aspects of their characters, their realization that what they had hidden away was finally seeping out and making them take notice of things in A Devil in Disguise. I liked that Cayo called it what it was with Dru’s character flaws, and showed her that things aren’t always what they seem. I have to comment that while on the surface Cayo seems like the devil in A Devil in Disguise, I found myself wondering if Dru could fit that role as well. That made the story even better for me, because I never felt like she would lie there and take things once her disguise had been kicked to the curb. Everything about A Devil in Disguise was just so gratifying that I HAVE to Joyfully Recommend A Devil in Disguise.
This book was reviewed by Vanessa for Joyfully Reviewed (JR), and was provided by the publisher/author at no cost to JR for the purpose of being reviewed.
2.5 estrellas Estas novelitas rosas siempre me han funcionado cuando necesito desconectar, y esta no fue la excepción.
Sin embargo, se queda coja en varios aspectos: el protagonista masculino es más frío que un cubo de hielo (aunque tiene sus motivos, pero... nah, eso de ser un robot no funca), y la protagonista, con sus dramas y todo, carece de amor propio. Muy parecida a las novelas de Lynne Graham, con el prota de nacionalidad "exótica" que se deja ablandar. Creo que volveré a las de Helen Bianchi (al menos, son más divertidas).
3.5* usually I enjoy reading this author's work more... good beginning ,tension building, angst till you want to say -please stop now you're irritating! and it's the heroine cause she's the bully here and acting kind of immature and hostile,insulting him with no good reason-ok maybe some. it's familiar plot-boss*secretary+let's forget about little heated moment of passion and vulnerability some time back... and heroine is perfect,efficient secretary that needs to free inner passion and real self now that has no one to pay debts for but is instead of butterfly self centered brat.
I am impressed with the theme, not the regular ingredients you would find in a HP or M&B. The H was arrogant, pig-headed, heartless but passionate. He took the h for granted and although he was a thorough professional he denied himself because of his 'stained' past. I adored the heroine, she was a mess, unloved, emotionally strung, but she pulled herself together, made up her mind, admit her mistakes and got the man she love. She fought and won. A recommended read! loved it
normalmente ste tipo d novelas cortas no pasan d ser aceptables para pasar el rato... Sin embargo he d decir q sta m gusto.... Durante la historia se conocieron los personajes se desarrollaron sus personalidades y se pudieron crear lazos mas reales ... realmnt disfrute q el matrimonio fuera x algo mas q lujuria ... Totalmnt recomendable!!!
I loved this book! Cayo, the hero, is one of the most infuriating I have ever read. But he is also irresistible. I love Caitlin's ending which is so true to the book and characters and so real.
As a bit of an aside - the listing for this book is all screwy and IDEK but I'm definitely not messing with it. I read the kindle version of the traditional USA HP type cover but it's not shown so ... whatever. ANYWAY.
>.> ok so I was wavering between 3 and 4 stars but I saw someone rated this 1 star because she didn't like the heroine wasn't a virgin so. <.<
ANYWAY. Drusilla and Cayo. He ... my gosh. Is thick. Although - HOLY HELL HIS BACKGROUND. Heartbreaking. And when Dru at the end is like "I can't even blame you." And I love how they both make gestures in the end - because for them, that's what fit and was necessary.
Three (or even five) years is a long time coming.
I loved how it started with Drusilla quitting ... and that she doesn't just roll over. (I'd wondered about giving actual notice and was glad to see that did become a thing.) And her jumping off the boat O_O ... I do wish Cayo had been a bit more sympathetic then ... at least outwardly.
Really sexy HP with extremely strong willed characters, with no overt emotion, in a way - other than those "slips" - then lots of sexuality - but they were both so broken. So fitting though - and so perfect for each other. Great ending too.