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Gabriola Island #1
With Strings Attached
Book 1 of the Gabriola Island SeriesWhen Molly accepted her father’s gift of a log cabin on a beautiful island, she knew there would probably be strings attached. But she didn’t expect neighbor Patrick McNaughton. Dark and dangerous, he epitomized all she had ever feared about men-and fantasized. But could he continue to set her dreams on fire when morning came?
192 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1991
8 people are currently reading
87 people want to read
About the author
Vanessa Grant
88 books44 followers"I love writing fiction - it's the perfect occupation for someone who can't decide what they want to be when they grow up. With each new story, I get to explore a new world."
Vanessa Grant's love affair with writing fiction began during a protracted illness at the age of 12 when she decided to write a novel of her own, sitting up in bed using the typewriter she'd been given for her birthday. Not a computer, not an electric typewriter, but a then-state-of-the-art manual typewriter. The story ground to a halt on page 50 but Vanessa never forgot the excitement of bringing her own characters to life.
In 1985 Vanessa's novel Pacific Disturbance was published in hardcover by Mills and Boon. She now has over 10 million books sold and has been translated into 15 languages. She also has written what one critic described as, "by far the best writing book I've ever read." Writing Romance, published by Self Counsel Press, won the Under the Covers Best Writing Book Award, and is currently in its third edition.
Over the years her love of storytelling and curiosity about people led Vanessa to study psychology, volunteer on a crisis line, complete individual and relationship counselor training, volunteer as a peer counselor for a family life organization, and tell stories about life, love, and secrets. Vanessa is also a university professor, a publisher of educational materials and eBooks, and has given workshops to writers' groups in Australia, New Zealand, the USA and Canada.
Vanessa and her husband live on Vancouver Island in the Pacific Northwest with their two Australian Shepherd dogs.
Vanessa Grant's love affair with writing fiction began during a protracted illness at the age of 12 when she decided to write a novel of her own, sitting up in bed using the typewriter she'd been given for her birthday. Not a computer, not an electric typewriter, but a then-state-of-the-art manual typewriter. The story ground to a halt on page 50 but Vanessa never forgot the excitement of bringing her own characters to life.
In 1985 Vanessa's novel Pacific Disturbance was published in hardcover by Mills and Boon. She now has over 10 million books sold and has been translated into 15 languages. She also has written what one critic described as, "by far the best writing book I've ever read." Writing Romance, published by Self Counsel Press, won the Under the Covers Best Writing Book Award, and is currently in its third edition.
Over the years her love of storytelling and curiosity about people led Vanessa to study psychology, volunteer on a crisis line, complete individual and relationship counselor training, volunteer as a peer counselor for a family life organization, and tell stories about life, love, and secrets. Vanessa is also a university professor, a publisher of educational materials and eBooks, and has given workshops to writers' groups in Australia, New Zealand, the USA and Canada.
Vanessa and her husband live on Vancouver Island in the Pacific Northwest with their two Australian Shepherd dogs.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
December 15, 2017
Re With Strings Attached - Vanessa Grant takes us to Gabriola, British Columbia for the start of her Gabriola Island trilogy.
The h is a 25 yr old dinosaur artist and her skeezy sleazoid waste of a father has suddenly taken off for Europe and left the h his cozy Gabriola Island cottage and a cat.
(I hated the father and wished for his immediate demise. The first thing VG lets us know about the father is that he abandoned his cat outside, with no food or water and called the h who is 3000 miles away to drive to his cabin and take care of the cat. As an afterthought, he gives the h the cabin too, but I was outraged over the cat's treatment. )
The h is excited that her irresponsibly reprehensible father has finally gotten his act together and given her a real home of her own. Her life was a series of random stoppages when she lived with her artist father as a child and it wasn't until her aunt threw a fit when she was 12 that the h got any kind of stable home life. So tho the h isn't thrilled that she literally got a last minute rescue mission, she is happy that at last she has a place from her father that she can call her own.
The H, on the other hand, is the h's next door neighbor. His family owns a large farm on the island and the land that the h's cabin sits on used to be owned by his family until each sibling got a separate parcel and his brother sold his share so he could develop the family farm he runs. He liked the h's dad, tho he thought he was a bit of a ladies man. However the cat, which the h's father got from the Canadian SPCA, is a whole other matter and lives up to her name - which is Trouble.
We know the H is a good person because even tho Trouble climbs up the H's sun-room screens to get to the H's roof and tears them up, he still tries to feed Trouble and gave Trouble a bath when Trouble decided that the chimney was a great place to look at things and got covered in soot. The H is very kind to Trouble, even when Trouble fights and scratches him. However, the H obviously has no home improvement skillz as he is a big fail in building Trouble cat highways so Trouble can do cat things and look down at people, it is pretty clear Trouble is a sky cat and not a floor cat.
Trouble doesn't have any POV, but she is a cat, so we already know she is going to go wherever she likes and do what she wants to do - the H's only mistake is in thinking people own cats instead of cats owning people, but he will soon learn otherwise. The h understands the rules of cat ownership instinctively, so while the H has to give her a few basic cat care lessons, she and Trouble are soon the best of friends and the h makes a very good cat staffer. (She also makes sure that Trouble gets proper nutrition instead of the father's habit of only feeding Trouble bacon and yet another reason to despise him.)
The H and h meet when the h is initially arriving on the island via the ferry from Vancouver. There is an instant attraction that the h doesn't want to acknowledge and the H can't stop obsessing about. The H initially assumes that the h is breaking into the cabin, then he assumes that the h is on of her father's lady friends and the h, fearing the tummy melting heat mojo, doesn't tell him the truth.
The H does help the h figure out the wood stove and cabin amenities - tho the cabin does have electricity and water. He also steals a little kiss or two and leaves the h in more confusion. The H's nephew soon discovers that the h is one half of a very popular children's book series about dinosaurs - the h is the one who draws them while the her partner writes the stories. When the H sees a painting of the h as a little girl and realizes that she is her father's daughter, he starts up his campaign to woo her again.
Eventually the H and h become lovers and start a relationship, interspersed with inconvenient and time consuming demands from the h's father to do things for him - like get seventeen canvases of paintings ready for next day early morning shipment and the h has to pay several bills he left owing. The H is also considering running for political office. There is a little neighborly interaction, some island travelogue and some sequel baiting when we meet the H's brother who will be the H of the next book.
Then the big bombshell hits. The h's father is actually wanted by the government for tax evasion. They are planning on taking the h's cabin to cover the back taxes - so the real reason that the H's father gave her the cabin was to avoid paying taxes and the h knows that the whole transfer was invalid.
The H has declared he loves her by this point and the h loves him back. But when her father refuses to return and clear up his tax problem, the h decides to run away as she thinks her problems caused by her father will either obligate the H to help her (he is really rich from his computer business,) or ruin his budding political career.
The h runs off, but the H catches up to her before she is off the island. The h lies and claims she doesn't love the H, but then has a change of heart and goes to stay at the H's sisters as the government has locked up the cabin. The H goes off to sort things out with the h's father.
Eventually the H returns and the father has made a deal and the h apologizes to the H for freaking out and everybody is happy as the two of them avow true love forever and Trouble gets to mess up all the screens she wants to for the big HEA.
This one was a standard HP outing with a nice HEA. It wasn't really wrecky and Trouble was very entertaining, but really needed her own POV. Anyone who isn't a cat person might be a mite bored, so save this for when your only other option is the phone book or a cereal box and you want a placid HPlandia day trip.
The h is a 25 yr old dinosaur artist and her skeezy sleazoid waste of a father has suddenly taken off for Europe and left the h his cozy Gabriola Island cottage and a cat.
(I hated the father and wished for his immediate demise. The first thing VG lets us know about the father is that he abandoned his cat outside, with no food or water and called the h who is 3000 miles away to drive to his cabin and take care of the cat. As an afterthought, he gives the h the cabin too, but I was outraged over the cat's treatment. )
The h is excited that her irresponsibly reprehensible father has finally gotten his act together and given her a real home of her own. Her life was a series of random stoppages when she lived with her artist father as a child and it wasn't until her aunt threw a fit when she was 12 that the h got any kind of stable home life. So tho the h isn't thrilled that she literally got a last minute rescue mission, she is happy that at last she has a place from her father that she can call her own.
The H, on the other hand, is the h's next door neighbor. His family owns a large farm on the island and the land that the h's cabin sits on used to be owned by his family until each sibling got a separate parcel and his brother sold his share so he could develop the family farm he runs. He liked the h's dad, tho he thought he was a bit of a ladies man. However the cat, which the h's father got from the Canadian SPCA, is a whole other matter and lives up to her name - which is Trouble.
We know the H is a good person because even tho Trouble climbs up the H's sun-room screens to get to the H's roof and tears them up, he still tries to feed Trouble and gave Trouble a bath when Trouble decided that the chimney was a great place to look at things and got covered in soot. The H is very kind to Trouble, even when Trouble fights and scratches him. However, the H obviously has no home improvement skillz as he is a big fail in building Trouble cat highways so Trouble can do cat things and look down at people, it is pretty clear Trouble is a sky cat and not a floor cat.
Trouble doesn't have any POV, but she is a cat, so we already know she is going to go wherever she likes and do what she wants to do - the H's only mistake is in thinking people own cats instead of cats owning people, but he will soon learn otherwise. The h understands the rules of cat ownership instinctively, so while the H has to give her a few basic cat care lessons, she and Trouble are soon the best of friends and the h makes a very good cat staffer. (She also makes sure that Trouble gets proper nutrition instead of the father's habit of only feeding Trouble bacon and yet another reason to despise him.)
The H and h meet when the h is initially arriving on the island via the ferry from Vancouver. There is an instant attraction that the h doesn't want to acknowledge and the H can't stop obsessing about. The H initially assumes that the h is breaking into the cabin, then he assumes that the h is on of her father's lady friends and the h, fearing the tummy melting heat mojo, doesn't tell him the truth.
The H does help the h figure out the wood stove and cabin amenities - tho the cabin does have electricity and water. He also steals a little kiss or two and leaves the h in more confusion. The H's nephew soon discovers that the h is one half of a very popular children's book series about dinosaurs - the h is the one who draws them while the her partner writes the stories. When the H sees a painting of the h as a little girl and realizes that she is her father's daughter, he starts up his campaign to woo her again.
Eventually the H and h become lovers and start a relationship, interspersed with inconvenient and time consuming demands from the h's father to do things for him - like get seventeen canvases of paintings ready for next day early morning shipment and the h has to pay several bills he left owing. The H is also considering running for political office. There is a little neighborly interaction, some island travelogue and some sequel baiting when we meet the H's brother who will be the H of the next book.
Then the big bombshell hits. The h's father is actually wanted by the government for tax evasion. They are planning on taking the h's cabin to cover the back taxes - so the real reason that the H's father gave her the cabin was to avoid paying taxes and the h knows that the whole transfer was invalid.
The H has declared he loves her by this point and the h loves him back. But when her father refuses to return and clear up his tax problem, the h decides to run away as she thinks her problems caused by her father will either obligate the H to help her (he is really rich from his computer business,) or ruin his budding political career.
The h runs off, but the H catches up to her before she is off the island. The h lies and claims she doesn't love the H, but then has a change of heart and goes to stay at the H's sisters as the government has locked up the cabin. The H goes off to sort things out with the h's father.
Eventually the H returns and the father has made a deal and the h apologizes to the H for freaking out and everybody is happy as the two of them avow true love forever and Trouble gets to mess up all the screens she wants to for the big HEA.
This one was a standard HP outing with a nice HEA. It wasn't really wrecky and Trouble was very entertaining, but really needed her own POV. Anyone who isn't a cat person might be a mite bored, so save this for when your only other option is the phone book or a cereal box and you want a placid HPlandia day trip.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 4, 2012
Decent enough story. The heroine is always in difficulties which are caused by her famous artist father's lack of common sense. The hero helps her out. Nothing real melodramatic or OTT. Well written and fairly interesting.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews