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Hot Bed of Scandal #2
Revealed: A Prince and a Pregnancy
When pampered heiress Simone Duvalier sashays back into Rafael Alexander's life, Rafe can't wait for her to head back to France where she belongs and leave him to his empire-building in Australia. He'd believed in her once but not any more. Loved her once too but those days were over. All that remained were unwanted memories and a compulsion to bed her that he would not surrender to.
Simone has never forgotten Rafael, the housekeeper's unloved, unwanted, fiercely ambitious son, or the hold he once had on her heart. Making amends isn't easy. Gaining his trust is next to impossible, but she is making headway.
Until a princely secret threatens to destroy his fragile trust in her forever...
Simone has never forgotten Rafael, the housekeeper's unloved, unwanted, fiercely ambitious son, or the hold he once had on her heart. Making amends isn't easy. Gaining his trust is next to impossible, but she is making headway.
Until a princely secret threatens to destroy his fragile trust in her forever...
192 pages, Paperback
First published September 30, 2009
36 people are currently reading
243 people want to read
About the author
Kelly Hunter
285 books422 followersAustralian born Kelly Hunter is a three time Romance Writers of America Rita finalist, a USA Today Bestselling author and loves writing to the demands of the short category romance form.
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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
March 20, 2012
This one was better than the first in the series which I DNFed. The story was pretty over the top. There were some very romantic lines in it. The writing style was odd and not what I've come to expect from Kelly Hunter. That is basically why I'm only giving it 3 stars. Because that kind of writing doesn't really work for me. It was kind of hazy and fairy tale ish. It could have used some solid details in places. Occasionally the dialog was stilted but I think it was part of the hazy tone the author seemed to be going for. These two were childhood friends and young lovers. There was a running thread about how he used to give her frogs when they were little that carried through until he gives her an emerald frog necklace at the end.
Awwww...
'They were never really frogs you know,'he said. 'They just looked like frogs, hopped like frogs and lived like frogs.'
'So what were they?' she murmured. 'Princes?'
'They were pieces of my heart,' he said gruffly and shoved his at her feet. He dug into his pocket for the emerald frog and held it out towards her. 'It's the last piece,' he said. 'I gave the rest of it to you bit by bit.'
Awwww...
April 20, 2018
Sweet little second chance story told in an easy-breezy style that I had to get used to. While the circumstances are angsty, the characters are all very matter of fact and don’t take themselves too seriously.
The story opens with the French wine-making heroine arriving at a guest house in Australia. She is there for the wedding of her brother and the hero’s sister. All four of them grew up at a chateau in France. The heroine and her brother were the rich heirs to the vineyard. The hero and his sister are the offspring of the abusive housekeeper. The hero left at 18 and wanted the heroine to accompany him. Heroine felt she had to stay with her father and the vineyards. Hero hasn’t forgiven her.
There is a lot of wedding talk that establishes the heroine’s practical side. The night of the wedding the H/h spend the night together – but their happiness is short-lived when the hero is introduced to his biological father who is king of a mythical European country. (!) The hero thinks the heroine knew this all along and that’s why she went to bed with him – she wouldn’t be slumming anymore.
Heroine returns to France. Hero realizes he made a huge mistake, but instead of chasing the heroine, he goes with his father to the mythical kingdom and begins to learn about his inheritance. Heroine mopes around the chateau. The hero’s sister lets the hero know the heroine is pregnant.
This was certainly different. I enjoyed the heroine’s brisk practicality and her competence. Hero was supposed to be beautiful with a sunny smile, but he just pouted a lot. Very beta. However, If heroine is happy, I’m happy. Mythical country is in good hands with the heroine.
The story opens with the French wine-making heroine arriving at a guest house in Australia. She is there for the wedding of her brother and the hero’s sister. All four of them grew up at a chateau in France. The heroine and her brother were the rich heirs to the vineyard. The hero and his sister are the offspring of the abusive housekeeper. The hero left at 18 and wanted the heroine to accompany him. Heroine felt she had to stay with her father and the vineyards. Hero hasn’t forgiven her.
There is a lot of wedding talk that establishes the heroine’s practical side. The night of the wedding the H/h spend the night together – but their happiness is short-lived when the hero is introduced to his biological father who is king of a mythical European country. (!) The hero thinks the heroine knew this all along and that’s why she went to bed with him – she wouldn’t be slumming anymore.
Heroine returns to France. Hero realizes he made a huge mistake, but instead of chasing the heroine, he goes with his father to the mythical kingdom and begins to learn about his inheritance. Heroine mopes around the chateau. The hero’s sister lets the hero know the heroine is pregnant.
This was certainly different. I enjoyed the heroine’s brisk practicality and her competence. Hero was supposed to be beautiful with a sunny smile, but he just pouted a lot. Very beta. However, If heroine is happy, I’m happy. Mythical country is in good hands with the heroine.
October 6, 2019
There were some great lines. The main flaw was that we never saw them fall in love because what happened in the past was told in very small snippets.
The two halves of the book seemed like two different stories. For a while, I thought I was reading the wrong book, because there was no prince or pregnancy in sight. BTW, what's up with Harlequin and revealing everything in the title?
The two halves of the book seemed like two different stories. For a while, I thought I was reading the wrong book, because there was no prince or pregnancy in sight. BTW, what's up with Harlequin and revealing everything in the title?
January 23, 2015
In ‘Misbehaving with the Magnate’ prequel couple Gabrielle and Luc overcame fairly minor obstacles with a minimum of drama to reach their happy ending. ‘A Prince and a Pregnancy’ opens with their wedding at Gabrielle’s Australian vineyard, and it’s choc full of boozy wealth and my version of Australianess. The wedding was like an episode of ‘Real Housewives’ except everybody was happy drunk, rather than snarky vindictive shouty drunk. I couldn’t manage a whole book where everyone behaved fairly nicely, but it was a refreshing change. Nobody put on gumboots and took a machete out back to kill the tiger snake coiled around the base of the Hills Hoist, nobody said ‘crikey’ or wore a hat with corks without irony. I’m sure setting the opening of a novel in an Australian winery is a huge temptation to have someone’s uncle Keith wear such a hat, and Kelly Hunter deserves an extra star simply for resisting.
I love it when romance heroines get happily buzzed. Mostly they are resisting the demon liquor because of their Goodness, or bitterly knocking back Prosecco without tasting it because the hero sitting across the table is being So Mean. And until that titular pregnancy happens, Simone has plenty of drinking fun.
Simone is lots of fun. She could win a gold medal at table setting, and how to amusingly niggle at a hero about his reticence in naming his ducks. Rafe is the vineyard owner and duck non-namer. Simone and Rafe have a Past. Simone is the daughter of wealthy French champagne makers, and Rafe was the housekeeper’s son until he ran away to Australia when Simone was eighteen, and she refused to go with him. This is such a big deal to Rafe, who is all about how this is the ultimate rejection and betrayal and I thought perhaps he was going to be one of those kinds of heroes, and that Simone would be wracked with the terrible guilt of having been a normal teenage girl who didn’t actually want to leave her home and wasn’t that keen on forever ultimatums, but awesomely: she calls him on it. She even gets Rafe to sort of acknowledge that maybe she also had cause to be angry over him being a jerk.
However, there’s no fun without a good degree of unreasonableness, and Rafe’s kicks in when he learns the truth of his parentage, and realises that Simone had worked it out before him without telling him. They sort of stumble along together being a bit miserable but not over the top about it … and that’s probably my main problem with the book – I had nothing to be really outraged over. It also meant that I thought the passionate aspects of their romance were sort of muted – and that may not be this book’s fault, it may just be that my head’s in completely the wrong space after a steady diet of Harlequin Presents. Simone and Rafe were both such nice, sensible people who could clearly work everything out eventually.
What’s interesting about this book and its prequel is the way Kelly Hunter mythologises her characters’ pasts. They are frequently referred to as the children of Caverness. Which is the name of the French vineyard, and as an aside, I could never quite hear it as French in my head. Its inherent Scottishness kept throwing me. Anyway, the references made it clear that there was this unbreakable bond between the characters, who shared an idyllic childhood tainted by darkness. It’s an interesting technique, to stick such an identifier on their pasts, and it always felt out of genre. I didn’t dislike it, but it stuck out each time I read it. Which was twelve times over both books, and in this one, the phrase ‘the children of Caverness protected their own’ occurs three times.
Ultimately, I like Kelly Hunter’s more light-hearted approach, but found it undermined some awful backstory. Everything working out just right with a minimum of fuss is a nice antidote, but one that is best taken in small doses.
I love it when romance heroines get happily buzzed. Mostly they are resisting the demon liquor because of their Goodness, or bitterly knocking back Prosecco without tasting it because the hero sitting across the table is being So Mean. And until that titular pregnancy happens, Simone has plenty of drinking fun.
Simone is lots of fun. She could win a gold medal at table setting, and how to amusingly niggle at a hero about his reticence in naming his ducks. Rafe is the vineyard owner and duck non-namer. Simone and Rafe have a Past. Simone is the daughter of wealthy French champagne makers, and Rafe was the housekeeper’s son until he ran away to Australia when Simone was eighteen, and she refused to go with him. This is such a big deal to Rafe, who is all about how this is the ultimate rejection and betrayal and I thought perhaps he was going to be one of those kinds of heroes, and that Simone would be wracked with the terrible guilt of having been a normal teenage girl who didn’t actually want to leave her home and wasn’t that keen on forever ultimatums, but awesomely: she calls him on it. She even gets Rafe to sort of acknowledge that maybe she also had cause to be angry over him being a jerk.
However, there’s no fun without a good degree of unreasonableness, and Rafe’s kicks in when he learns the truth of his parentage, and realises that Simone had worked it out before him without telling him. They sort of stumble along together being a bit miserable but not over the top about it … and that’s probably my main problem with the book – I had nothing to be really outraged over. It also meant that I thought the passionate aspects of their romance were sort of muted – and that may not be this book’s fault, it may just be that my head’s in completely the wrong space after a steady diet of Harlequin Presents. Simone and Rafe were both such nice, sensible people who could clearly work everything out eventually.
What’s interesting about this book and its prequel is the way Kelly Hunter mythologises her characters’ pasts. They are frequently referred to as the children of Caverness. Which is the name of the French vineyard, and as an aside, I could never quite hear it as French in my head. Its inherent Scottishness kept throwing me. Anyway, the references made it clear that there was this unbreakable bond between the characters, who shared an idyllic childhood tainted by darkness. It’s an interesting technique, to stick such an identifier on their pasts, and it always felt out of genre. I didn’t dislike it, but it stuck out each time I read it. Which was twelve times over both books, and in this one, the phrase ‘the children of Caverness protected their own’ occurs three times.
Ultimately, I like Kelly Hunter’s more light-hearted approach, but found it undermined some awful backstory. Everything working out just right with a minimum of fuss is a nice antidote, but one that is best taken in small doses.
June 8, 2018
This was the second in a duo of books and I found that in some respects it was too careful to close up a lot of the messy personal relationships brought up in the first book; Simone and Rafe have reached an uneasy accommodation relatively early in the book and then the question is which life will Rafe choose - which is an interesting question, and an unusual one for a Harlequin category romance (which usually goes: hey, secret prince? awesome!). But the strictures of the genre mean that the book is too brief to really go in-depth the way I think might have been more interesting with that. So the romance, emotionally, is kind of in the background as both characters suffer around other life issues. Additionally, there was a lot of forgiveness for the parental generation here - Josien, Rafe and Gabrielle's awful mother, was left a little more one-note evil here than she had been in the previous books, while Rafe's biological father ended up getting basically a complete pass on abandoning his biological child with an abusive, far-from-wealthy mother until he realized he needed an heir thirty years later. For that matter Harrison's abandonment isn't really covered either, although at least there's sort of a reason for that (he couldn't take Gabrielle without abandoning Rafe). Hunter's books tend to be pretty realistic for Harlequin category romances, which means that we don't get the kind of sweeping put-downs or revenge that other authors put in; that has its up sides but it has its down sides, too, as here, where I really wanted Rafe's biological father to suffer some actual consequences, or at least get yelled at, for screwing his kid over.
June 8, 2021
Overly angsty. Imagine Courtney Milan but not quite pulling it off. But, not too bad for HP. I have one bone to pick: Tattoos are not carved into the skin. The only characters I know of who put permanent messages on their backs via scarring are the Black Dagger Brotherhood. Yet, this author uses the word “carved” many, many times when referring to MC’s tattoo.
December 27, 2017
I was sort of enjoying it. But it was a little boring.
I'm not sure what went wrong but it just wasn't interesting.
I'm not sure what went wrong but it just wasn't interesting.
Read
August 13, 2023It needed an epilogue
May 20, 2018
A surprisingly sweet and charming story
April 1, 2012
Having read the first of the duology, Exposed: Misbehaving with the Magnate, I was looking forward to meeting Rafe, the brother of the heroine in EXPOSED. I probably sound like a broken record when it comes to Kelly Hunter's books, but again, I loved the chemistry and the banter between the h/h - her writing never fails to make me smile. The big secret was possibly a bit OTT, but this is a M&B after all.
February 28, 2013
3.25 stars. Rounding down because, among other things, this is not a stand-alone book: You must read Exposed: Misbehaving with the Magnate first.
This second book of a two-parter is rather more satisfying than the previous story. It was good enough to make me go back to re-read the first part, which I had read quite some time before.
That said, there were plot holes and conveniences that annoyed me. I found it an average - though imaginative - read. YMMV.
This second book of a two-parter is rather more satisfying than the previous story. It was good enough to make me go back to re-read the first part, which I had read quite some time before.
That said, there were plot holes and conveniences that annoyed me. I found it an average - though imaginative - read. YMMV.
June 23, 2015
Woot woot... another Kelly Hunter's...
One thing I learn from this book:
The richer you are, the more complicated your love life will become
Haha... I just have no idea what I should write about this book. I mean, the story is typical Harlequin story, and there is a Prince who was born as a winemaker but raised in champagne empire and falls in love with one of the wealthiest champagne heiress. I just can't imagine, how life could be really that complicated?
Perhaps, I need to be rich first to find out. Well, I'm working on it hahaha...to be rich I mean ^^
e
One thing I learn from this book:
The richer you are, the more complicated your love life will become
Haha... I just have no idea what I should write about this book. I mean, the story is typical Harlequin story, and there is a Prince who was born as a winemaker but raised in champagne empire and falls in love with one of the wealthiest champagne heiress. I just can't imagine, how life could be really that complicated?
Perhaps, I need to be rich first to find out. Well, I'm working on it hahaha...to be rich I mean ^^
e
September 6, 2012
I read the first one but i don't really remember how it was.This one was bleh...the heroine was running after the hero, blablabla...
Recently, i've been reading "oldies" and i have seen the huge difference, not only in writing but also the story itself.
I'm afraid to admit that the "oldies" are more interesting to read.I don't really care about the great sex but more about the story and the relationship.I do hope that it's not the case for all modern books..
Recently, i've been reading "oldies" and i have seen the huge difference, not only in writing but also the story itself.
I'm afraid to admit that the "oldies" are more interesting to read.I don't really care about the great sex but more about the story and the relationship.I do hope that it's not the case for all modern books..
February 19, 2015
Double sibling couples always make me roll my eyes a little, but I liked this as a companion story to Exposed: Misbehaving with the Magnate. It helps that their relationships are very different. This is also a reunion story, but a more bittersweet one because they'd actually been together and there'd been a not-so-amicable breakup. I could have done without the surprise pregnancy, but it was better handled than a lot of other ones that I've read, so at least it had that going for it.
November 16, 2010
I couldn't wait to read this book. I wanted Simone and Rafael to come to terms after reading his sister's story. No one said love was easy and Rafael didn't make it easy on Simone but she truely loved him enough to embrace all that he was.
December 11, 2012
3.5 Stars!!!
August 27, 2011
another really good book by kelly hunter
February 6, 2012
A somewhat angstier second chances romance than book 1, but another winner.
August 7, 2012
Two-haiku review:
She refused him once
But he's never forgotten
One night's all it takes
Second of duo
Again, damaged character
Shaped by sad childhood
She refused him once
But he's never forgotten
One night's all it takes
Second of duo
Again, damaged character
Shaped by sad childhood
January 29, 2014
it was a fast read lol i liked it alot
April 18, 2014
Not quite as amazing as the previous book in this series but still good.
November 18, 2014
I liked the characters. I wanted to know a little more. The Heroine was great in handling the hero. The ending was cute
March 17, 2016
4,5 stars!
really enjoy reading this :)
really enjoy reading this :)
May 26, 2013
I really liked this story. didn't read the first related one, either.
Read
July 9, 2017Blah.
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews