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Wife in Exchange
He was a man without mercy
Kaara knew that before the night was over, she would become Juan de Carvallos's possession. Abducted, held prisoner, she would be ravished like some captive woman of old, a victim of the Spaniard's lust for revenge against her brother.
Fear clogged Kaara's throat so that she couldn't speak. It was like a nightmare--but the man facing her was real.
"You can't prevent me from doing what I want with you," Juan said harshly. "I'll keep you shackled close to me, Kaara, until you learn to love the chains that bind you."
Kaara knew that before the night was over, she would become Juan de Carvallos's possession. Abducted, held prisoner, she would be ravished like some captive woman of old, a victim of the Spaniard's lust for revenge against her brother.
Fear clogged Kaara's throat so that she couldn't speak. It was like a nightmare--but the man facing her was real.
"You can't prevent me from doing what I want with you," Juan said harshly. "I'll keep you shackled close to me, Kaara, until you learn to love the chains that bind you."
188 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published April 1, 1979
About the author
Robyn Donald
450 books150 followersRobyn Elaine Donald was born on 14 August 1940 in Northland, New Zealand. She was the oldest child in her family, and as a child, she thrilled her four sisters and one brother with bloodcurdling adventure tales, usually very like the latest book she'd borrowed from the library.
Robyn owes her writing career to two illnesses. The first was a younger sister's flu. She was living with her husband and Robyn and spent most of that winter acquiring, suffering, and recovering from various infections. One day she croaked that she had read everything on Robyn's bookshelves, so would Robyn please buy her something cheerful and sustaining. Robyn found three paperbacks- one Mills and Boon Modern Romance novel and a couple of other romances. Robyn read them, too, of course, and so enjoyed them she spent the next couple of years hunting down more Mills and Boon books. This was much more difficult then than it is today, so she decided to write her own, and for the following busy 10 years she wrote and hoped that one day she would finish a manuscript good enough that was good enough to send to a publisher.
The second illness was her husband's, and it was bad a heart attack. He was so young it terrified them all. While he was recovering, he suggested that Robyn finish the manuscript she was writing and send it off. It wasn't a perfect manuscript, but the doctor had said to humour her husband, so she finished the manuscript, edited it as best she could, and sent it off. Three months later, she was astounded to read a letter from the editor saying that if She made a few revisions they would buy her novel Bride at Whangatapu.
Published since 1977, Robyn sees her readers as intelligent women who insist on accurate backgrounds, so she spends time researching as well as writing.Robyn Donald sometimes thinks that writing is much like gardening. It's a similar process creating landscapes for the mind and emotions from the seeds of ideas and dreams and images. Both activities can also lead to moments of extreme delight, moments of total despair, and backache.Now Robyn lives in the Bay Islands. She continues writing, and also finds time for a very supportive husband, two adult children and their partners, a granddaughter and her mother, not to mention the member of the family that keeps her fit - a loud, cheerful, and ruthlessly determined "almost" Labradordog.
Robyn owes her writing career to two illnesses. The first was a younger sister's flu. She was living with her husband and Robyn and spent most of that winter acquiring, suffering, and recovering from various infections. One day she croaked that she had read everything on Robyn's bookshelves, so would Robyn please buy her something cheerful and sustaining. Robyn found three paperbacks- one Mills and Boon Modern Romance novel and a couple of other romances. Robyn read them, too, of course, and so enjoyed them she spent the next couple of years hunting down more Mills and Boon books. This was much more difficult then than it is today, so she decided to write her own, and for the following busy 10 years she wrote and hoped that one day she would finish a manuscript good enough that was good enough to send to a publisher.
The second illness was her husband's, and it was bad a heart attack. He was so young it terrified them all. While he was recovering, he suggested that Robyn finish the manuscript she was writing and send it off. It wasn't a perfect manuscript, but the doctor had said to humour her husband, so she finished the manuscript, edited it as best she could, and sent it off. Three months later, she was astounded to read a letter from the editor saying that if She made a few revisions they would buy her novel Bride at Whangatapu.
Published since 1977, Robyn sees her readers as intelligent women who insist on accurate backgrounds, so she spends time researching as well as writing.Robyn Donald sometimes thinks that writing is much like gardening. It's a similar process creating landscapes for the mind and emotions from the seeds of ideas and dreams and images. Both activities can also lead to moments of extreme delight, moments of total despair, and backache.Now Robyn lives in the Bay Islands. She continues writing, and also finds time for a very supportive husband, two adult children and their partners, a granddaughter and her mother, not to mention the member of the family that keeps her fit - a loud, cheerful, and ruthlessly determined "almost" Labradordog.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews
January 4, 2026
HE LOVED HER ALL ALONG, Y'ALL!
And *hangs head* I believe him. Hero's actions can't be explained any other way. He saw her photo, her brother took his betrothed, pride/honor demanded revenge. He sent a cable to lure the heroine to his island lair and gave her the choice: rape/release or marriage? Heroine chooses marriage and away we go to a gothic tale of marriage with benefits.
NZ heroine chalks up his "eccentricities" to his Spanish heritage and shows a lot of thought and forbearance as she takes on her role as wife and chatelaine of the castle. Hero tries every trick in vintage alpha handbook - gentle sex, punishing sex, arbitrary rules and power trips, jewels, horseback rides, insults, sarcasm, sweet talk, jealousy. Finally, he gives up and offers her her freedom, along with the get out-of-grovel-free card shown above.
This was published on April 1, 1979. LOL It's a fun vintage story, but be prepared for forced everything and some mental gymnastics to get to the HEA.
And *hangs head* I believe him. Hero's actions can't be explained any other way. He saw her photo, her brother took his betrothed, pride/honor demanded revenge. He sent a cable to lure the heroine to his island lair and gave her the choice: rape/release or marriage? Heroine chooses marriage and away we go to a gothic tale of marriage with benefits.
NZ heroine chalks up his "eccentricities" to his Spanish heritage and shows a lot of thought and forbearance as she takes on her role as wife and chatelaine of the castle. Hero tries every trick in vintage alpha handbook - gentle sex, punishing sex, arbitrary rules and power trips, jewels, horseback rides, insults, sarcasm, sweet talk, jealousy. Finally, he gives up and offers her her freedom, along with the get out-of-grovel-free card shown above.
This was published on April 1, 1979. LOL It's a fun vintage story, but be prepared for forced everything and some mental gymnastics to get to the HEA.
March 19, 2017
Oddly, the second book this week that presented me with a revenge plot against an innocent bystander heroine to redress a perceived grievance for something her brother has done.
The previous book I read with this plot was Response by Penny Jordan. In that story, the arrogant, autocratic Greek tycoon hero seduces the virginal English Rose heroine, even forcing her to admit she has fallen in love with him, then cruelly dumps her the morning after he takes her virginity, telling her the whole hoax was a revenge scheme against her brother, whom the hero believed was his sister's rapist.
Here, Robyn Donald gives us an arrogant, autocratic Spanish tycoon who tricks the modern and liberated but still innocent and virginal New Zealander heroine to his lair on the fictitious Pacific island of Melindi, which looks suspiciously similar to Hawaii if it was ruled by a throwback to Spanish Conquistadors.
The heroine's brother's crime in this story is that he eloped with the hero's betrothed. So hero planned to rape the heroine as revenge. However, ten minutes after he meets and experiences this red-headed firebrand, who rightly slaps his face and douses him with his own champagne, he decides she is wife material. His revenge will now be complete because his brother and his new bride will forever have to live with the guilt that their happiness comes at the cost of heroine's lifetime of misery, being at the beck and call of a man who does not love her nor does she love. Plus, he gets to have hot firebrand sex and beget a couple of heirs for his dynasty.
*sigh* As usual, the logic and common sense in HPlandia abound.
Though Robyn Donald's version of the revenge-on-sister-of-man-who-defied-you is a lot better written than Penny Jordan's, it is by no means less trainwrecky. It is almost more of a hot mess because there are so many tangent threads left unconcluded or at least not satisfactorily concluded (a flirtation with an OM, a catty distant cousin OW, a former mistress with her own demands on hero, a depressed neighbour, a haughty aunt, a mistress love nest right on the property, etc.).
But worst of all was the lack of clear motivation for hero's constant blowing hot and cold. Though he tries to explain it all away at the conclusion of the book, I could not for the life of me figure out his bouts of anger followed by charming episodes followed by more rage followed by more suaveness.
Did he enjoy or loathe her smart mouth? Did he want her to be afraid of him or not? Did he want her to fall in love with him or not? Did he or did he not pine for his ex-fiancee? His explanation that he did not call out the ex's name in an agonized way during his sleep, rather it must have been just another word that sounded like the ex's name, was not convincing at all, given the fact that he called out that name not once but almost every night according to the heroine.
And of course, he gives the heroine's brother the ultimatum of giving him back the ex-fiancee he stole from the hero in exchange for the heroine's freedom. He explained that one away by saying he was jealous of the bond between the heroine and her brother, whom she obviously admired and loved, and by proving that her brother would choose his own wife over his sister, he hoped to sever that bond so heroine would then have no choice but to fall back on the hero and become totally dependent on him, with no more risk of heroine trying to run away. Ooooookay. That's not weird at all. Right. Moving on...
I accuse HPs of having too many cardboard cut-out stock characters and I constantly admire authors' effort to at least try to create more complex, layered characters but here, it wasn't that the "hero" character was ambiguous, he was frankly opaque.
Overall, despite its plot and character holes, I did enjoy Wife in Exchange more than Response, based on the strength of the writing alone but I must say that this trope is just too illogical to suspend my disbelief, even in a plausibility-free zone like HPlandia.
The previous book I read with this plot was Response by Penny Jordan. In that story, the arrogant, autocratic Greek tycoon hero seduces the virginal English Rose heroine, even forcing her to admit she has fallen in love with him, then cruelly dumps her the morning after he takes her virginity, telling her the whole hoax was a revenge scheme against her brother, whom the hero believed was his sister's rapist.
Here, Robyn Donald gives us an arrogant, autocratic Spanish tycoon who tricks the modern and liberated but still innocent and virginal New Zealander heroine to his lair on the fictitious Pacific island of Melindi, which looks suspiciously similar to Hawaii if it was ruled by a throwback to Spanish Conquistadors.
The heroine's brother's crime in this story is that he eloped with the hero's betrothed. So hero planned to rape the heroine as revenge. However, ten minutes after he meets and experiences this red-headed firebrand, who rightly slaps his face and douses him with his own champagne, he decides she is wife material. His revenge will now be complete because his brother and his new bride will forever have to live with the guilt that their happiness comes at the cost of heroine's lifetime of misery, being at the beck and call of a man who does not love her nor does she love. Plus, he gets to have hot firebrand sex and beget a couple of heirs for his dynasty.
*sigh* As usual, the logic and common sense in HPlandia abound.
Though Robyn Donald's version of the revenge-on-sister-of-man-who-defied-you is a lot better written than Penny Jordan's, it is by no means less trainwrecky. It is almost more of a hot mess because there are so many tangent threads left unconcluded or at least not satisfactorily concluded (a flirtation with an OM, a catty distant cousin OW, a former mistress with her own demands on hero, a depressed neighbour, a haughty aunt, a mistress love nest right on the property, etc.).
But worst of all was the lack of clear motivation for hero's constant blowing hot and cold. Though he tries to explain it all away at the conclusion of the book, I could not for the life of me figure out his bouts of anger followed by charming episodes followed by more rage followed by more suaveness.
Did he enjoy or loathe her smart mouth? Did he want her to be afraid of him or not? Did he want her to fall in love with him or not? Did he or did he not pine for his ex-fiancee? His explanation that he did not call out the ex's name in an agonized way during his sleep, rather it must have been just another word that sounded like the ex's name, was not convincing at all, given the fact that he called out that name not once but almost every night according to the heroine.
And of course, he gives the heroine's brother the ultimatum of giving him back the ex-fiancee he stole from the hero in exchange for the heroine's freedom. He explained that one away by saying he was jealous of the bond between the heroine and her brother, whom she obviously admired and loved, and by proving that her brother would choose his own wife over his sister, he hoped to sever that bond so heroine would then have no choice but to fall back on the hero and become totally dependent on him, with no more risk of heroine trying to run away. Ooooookay. That's not weird at all. Right. Moving on...
I accuse HPs of having too many cardboard cut-out stock characters and I constantly admire authors' effort to at least try to create more complex, layered characters but here, it wasn't that the "hero" character was ambiguous, he was frankly opaque.
Overall, despite its plot and character holes, I did enjoy Wife in Exchange more than Response, based on the strength of the writing alone but I must say that this trope is just too illogical to suspend my disbelief, even in a plausibility-free zone like HPlandia.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 11, 2012
Pretty crazy old school. Maybe I should give it more stars just for that. He kidnaps her and threatens to rape her in revenge for her brother making off with his fiance. Instead he marries her so that the revenge will just go on and on. Then he proceeds to treat her like crap. He was totally domineering sneering and lord of the manor. He kept telling her that she was such a complaining child and couldn't she find something to do? A good spanish wife would be happy. And I'm thinking: she's on an island. She's not allowed to go to the village/town even to buy some craft supplies. Her sister in law runs the house. She can't read spanish. What the hell exactly does he expect her to do with her time? That always bothers me in HPs that the women are expected to be happy just sitting around but it was pretty extreme here. He said right out that he controlled her every thought and action. I think that even though I know it's fiction and what's more it's an old Harley, it still got too much on my feminist bone and I don't even have a very well developed one. ;-) She doesn't stand up to him very well just eventually decides to take whatever crumbs he offers.
He blows hot and cold and he does force her once or twice but it's all explained in the end as him just loving her so much. So all is forgiven.
He blows hot and cold and he does force her once or twice but it's all explained in the end as him just loving her so much. So all is forgiven.
November 14, 2021
It could be acceptable if it was written in the 1920s.
The heroine is kidnapped by the hero because his fiancée run away with her brother, so first the hero threatens the heroine to rape her and to make her his mistress for revenge then he manhandles her, throttling her, then he proposes.
Just like that, in a matter of minutes.
Is he a psychopath?
Likely.
They get married and they also have good sex, the hero live in some tropical island where he rules as a medieval sovereign, while the heroine is a young liberated woman, and they often clash.
He behaves strangely in my opinion, sometimes cold other hot, but the heroine falls in love with him anyway.
Then her brother arrives to the island and the heroine decides she will stay with her abusive husband. Because he so loved her all along.
Of course.
Not very convincing and very anachronistic.
The heroine is kidnapped by the hero because his fiancée run away with her brother, so first the hero threatens the heroine to rape her and to make her his mistress for revenge then he manhandles her, throttling her, then he proposes.
Just like that, in a matter of minutes.
Is he a psychopath?
Likely.
They get married and they also have good sex, the hero live in some tropical island where he rules as a medieval sovereign, while the heroine is a young liberated woman, and they often clash.
He behaves strangely in my opinion, sometimes cold other hot, but the heroine falls in love with him anyway.
Then her brother arrives to the island and the heroine decides she will stay with her abusive husband. Because he so loved her all along.
Of course.
Not very convincing and very anachronistic.
May 10, 2014
Ahh... no school like old school. I will just let Sam Winchester sum it up
Because why not girl. It is old timey alphahole. And good old fashioned old timey nympho. Hispanic douche abducts, threatens, rapes and then marries "firebrand" liberated New Zealand miss. And missy falls in love because of his "principles"- which include raping and taking the virginity of a woman because her brother ran away with his fiance.
And the fiance is called- wait for it- Pilar!
So aggressive gender role enforcement- check. Sweet stereotypes without character development- check. Rape but it was so good that she loves it- check. Blaming the liberated woman for her husband's unhappiness- check. Killing of said liberated woman conveniently and blaming her for complaining about patriarchy- check.
Holy angsty monotone with bad editing. What is not to louv?
Because why not girl. It is old timey alphahole. And good old fashioned old timey nympho. Hispanic douche abducts, threatens, rapes and then marries "firebrand" liberated New Zealand miss. And missy falls in love because of his "principles"- which include raping and taking the virginity of a woman because her brother ran away with his fiance.
And the fiance is called- wait for it- Pilar!
So aggressive gender role enforcement- check. Sweet stereotypes without character development- check. Rape but it was so good that she loves it- check. Blaming the liberated woman for her husband's unhappiness- check. Killing of said liberated woman conveniently and blaming her for complaining about patriarchy- check.
Holy angsty monotone with bad editing. What is not to louv?
January 1, 2012
A real bodice-ripper with a jerk as a hero and a spineless doll as an heroine
September 26, 2015
A real bodice-ripper old school Harlequin. Read it if you enjoy a cruel alpha hero and a sweet heroine.
September 3, 2018
I know this is Harveyland and sky is the limit to find a reason to fall in love with a cruel abusive hero(my favorite type 😉) however this book was so boring, heroine’s attitude to people/events was soooo silly. The only things that make me give two stars were Hero’s dialogues with h.
This lovely plot went to waste, Yvonne Whittal or Margaret Pargeter could have written better i think.
This lovely plot went to waste, Yvonne Whittal or Margaret Pargeter could have written better i think.
November 21, 2021
Extreme vintage fare. If you’re in the mood it might not be too offensive to you. The H was pms’ing all thru the book in my opinion.
The only leverage I’d say is when he acts like a maniac (encircling the h’s neck with his hands like he’s about to strangle) and thinks of it as an act of endearment to test waters. I know someone in real life just like that so maybe this wasn’t totally made up. Did you hear that ladies? Choking and threatening someone with tales of a knife thru their neck is endearing and is meant to profess love at first sight.
So the h receives a missive telling her to take a plane to attend her brother’s wedding. She gets there and realizes that she’s been duped. Her brother took off with the H’s fiancé and now she herself is this man’s vengeance. The H threatens to use her as a mistress or else to agree to his proposal of marriage with which she’s a prisoner on his island.
The book is long and quite deep. The H’s family is like any other meddling Mediterranean family. The servants are all privy to when their master sleeps with his wife or abandons her and smile about it privately to themselves.
The h isn’t sure of where this relationship leads. The H is rather maniacal and says beyond cruel stuff to the h. He doesn’t give an inch without cutting her through in a battle that didn’t make sense to me. How is competing for a woman’s love against her love for her brother even a situation??
The H is raving mad because despite his threats and strangulations, the h would still not think a minute before running away to her brother. He instead hopes for her to lay her heart out at his crushing feet.
The HEA is sudden and unbelievable. In all honestly the H deserved more than the 2 slaps the h ranks his face with. I’d make it 20.
The only leverage I’d say is when he acts like a maniac (encircling the h’s neck with his hands like he’s about to strangle) and thinks of it as an act of endearment to test waters. I know someone in real life just like that so maybe this wasn’t totally made up. Did you hear that ladies? Choking and threatening someone with tales of a knife thru their neck is endearing and is meant to profess love at first sight.
So the h receives a missive telling her to take a plane to attend her brother’s wedding. She gets there and realizes that she’s been duped. Her brother took off with the H’s fiancé and now she herself is this man’s vengeance. The H threatens to use her as a mistress or else to agree to his proposal of marriage with which she’s a prisoner on his island.
The book is long and quite deep. The H’s family is like any other meddling Mediterranean family. The servants are all privy to when their master sleeps with his wife or abandons her and smile about it privately to themselves.
The h isn’t sure of where this relationship leads. The H is rather maniacal and says beyond cruel stuff to the h. He doesn’t give an inch without cutting her through in a battle that didn’t make sense to me. How is competing for a woman’s love against her love for her brother even a situation??
The H is raving mad because despite his threats and strangulations, the h would still not think a minute before running away to her brother. He instead hopes for her to lay her heart out at his crushing feet.
The HEA is sudden and unbelievable. In all honestly the H deserved more than the 2 slaps the h ranks his face with. I’d make it 20.
November 6, 2023
I would have liked this had the hero not been too cruel. I normally like a cruel and macho hero but this one was too much. I wanted to slap him at times and did not buy it when he said that he had fallen in love with h before he met her (from a pic) and thats why he married her. U gotta show ur work. Too bad, because I m a fan of stories set in Spanish/ south american farms where the hero is a Don something. This one had all the elements but the H ruined it.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 24, 2018
Its such a boring book that i wanted to stop reading it in the first chapter but i kept going, it did not get better. Soo bored. Her brother runs of with the H girl so he sends for the h and when she gets there the H tells her that hes gonna rape her but she gets to choose whether she gonnw be his mistress or his wife. She chooses wife and so she becomes a titled rich wife of the H and they have lots of great sex and the h falls in love so now her angst start because the H is not in love with her but he's been calling amorcita which means love in Spanish since chapter 2 or 3 so yeah even the angst felt kinsa fake. I dont know. And telling me the h is independent and defiant but making her a martyr for her brother is stupid. And this book only works because the H is a rich attractive man because if he was not rich or attractive he would be a creepy rapist.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 25, 2026
Zero stars. A repulsive story that infuriated me the whole way through. I love angst and assumed the book would get better after it delivered the angst. It just got worse until the slap in the face of an awful ending.
I love an angsty romance. I love a dominating, almost brutish alpha hero who treats the heroine badly because of his own inner torment, only to spend the ending regretting it, grovelling, and showing just how deeply he loves her.
This book is NOT that.
For me, Wife in Exchange was an absolute disgusting train wreck. All the way through I kept thinking, "I really hate this. It's probably a three-star bookeven if it redeems itself." Then the ending somehow managed to make everything even worse, and by the time I'd finished I could only give it one star.
This book simply did not work as a romance.
The entire story felt like an exercise in Stockholm syndrome for the heroine, with everyone in this supposedly traditional patriarchal culture encouraging the heroine to surrender her free will, accept that she's been abducted and forced into marriage under threat of rape, and told by her husband she was his one woman harem slave and property. They all said yo accept being dominated, and convince herself she'll eventually be happy if she just gives in. And she told herself the same thing too. It was utterly disgusting and absolutely infuriated me.
There was no romance here.
There was just a deeply misogynistic shitshow of a hero.
People often complain that heroes in old category romances are misogynistic, and quite often I'll still enjoy the book because I enjoy difficult heroes who see the wrror of their eays eventually. I like angst. I like emotionally damaged alpha males who behave badly because they don't know how to deal with their feelings.
This man wasn't that.
He was just a creep. Irredeemable garbage.
The book tries to excuse everything under the banner of "ancient Spanish culture", but for me that simply didn't work.
The hero is supposedly taking revenge because the heroine's brother ran away with his fiancée. His response is to lure the heroine, Kaara, to his private island by pretending her brother has invited her to his wedding. Instead, she arrives at the house where he keeps his mistresses and he calmly informs her that he's brought her there for revenge and intends to rape her.
This could have worked as a fab setup if he was only blustering and speaking in anger. Nope. he meant it. He was a pig.
Worse, The heroine's reaction doesn't remotely resemble how any normal person would react. She should be screaming, fighting him, slapping him—anything. Instead, her stupid little mond makes inneffectual arguments and reconciles herself to the pogs demands in seconds it seems. within a single evening she agrees to marry him rather than be raped for revenge.
What the fuck?
The entire situation is treated almost as though it's the beginning of a romance instead of the horrifying situation that it actually is. There was none of that underlying romantic tension that can sometimes make morally grey situations work in fiction. It was simply repugnant.
And from there, the hero never gets any better.
He makes it clear hes going to manioulate her into loving him, which will be his ultimate revenge. But meanwhile, he will also constantly abuse her and remind her she is nothing but his stupid loyal dog, his vengeance tool. His actual words. His entire attitude is that even if she starts developing physical feelings for him, he'll constantly remind her she's there purely as revenge and means absolutely nothing to him. Whenever she starts becoming emotionally open or tender towards him, he reacts by becoming even more physically aggressive. He played mind games, easing her into bed like a gentle lover to make her give in. then sometimes deliberately using sex to dominate and punish her until she's left crying afterwards. (FYI, all closed door so you get a lot of build up then a whole bunch of nothing. The bedroom scenes might have helped flesh out the actual emotions a bit but we get zilch.)
There was nothing romantic about any of it.
Nothing.
These two people never improved each other's lives. They never built trust. They never helped each other become better people. He simply tormented her over and over again while she (and his whole family and servants and community) gradually persuaded herself that perhaps the only way to survive was to accept being owned by him completely—body and soul—and convince herself she loved him.
That isn't romance.
That's Stockholm syndrome.
And I simply could not believe that any psychologically healthy woman would fall in love under those circumstances.
To make matters worse, Kaara is only twenty years old. The hero repeatedly comments that she's almost like a child, jokes about treating her like one, yet simultaneously also says she challenges him like no other woman. Etc. She comes across as a naive yet willful yet amazing girl-child elevated to the queen of fairyland bullshit. It just made the entire dynamic even more uncomfortable.
One of the most disturbing aspects of the novel is another woman living on the island—a French woman who genuinely loved her Spanish husband, and who was loved by him in return. Yet despite supposedly loving her, her husband wouldn't allow her any independence whatsoever. She couldn't return home, couldn't live the life she wanted, and even her own children were largely raised by nannies. She was lonely. She had no friends with whole to really talk on an even footing. She was surrounded by placating or disapproving doormats and domineering chauvinistic sneerers. For years.
The poor woman became deeply depressed.
Instead of recognising why, everyone around her blamed her. They described her as difficult, miserable and selfish, warning Kaara not to listen to her because she'd only fill her head with dangerous ideas.
Eventually the woman killed herself.
Even then, the people around her blamed her for that too, calling her selfish for leaving behind her husband and children. So did the heroine. Yuck.
Honestly?
She was the only sane person in the entire bloody book.
She even warns Kaara that one day this life will drive her to exactly the same point. She tells her that she'll convince herself she's happy because she has no alternative, but that one day she'll realise she isn't and yhen feel the torture of her cage and the life forced upon her will destroy her.
I completely believed her.
Frankly, I thought the heroine might end up in exactly the same position.
The really frustrating thing is that the novel almost stumbles onto an interesting psychological point. Even after Kaara tells the hero she loves him, he still can't fully believe her because, somewhere deep down, he recognises that love obtained through coercion can't really be genuine.
Ironically, I thought that was one of the most psychologically believable moments in the entire novel.
Because it isn't genuine.
It's Stockholm syndrome.
The brother's visit was another moment where I thought the book might finally redeem itself.
The hero summons Kaara's brother to the island—not because he's prepared to let her go, but because he wants to prove that even her own brother will choose his wife over his sister. He offers him an ultimatum: return my former fiancée, who is now your wife, and you can take your sister home.
The brother refuses.
Not because he doesn't love Kaara, but because he quite reasonably believes this absolute psychopath will rape and abuse his wife if he hands her over.
The hero is smugly delighted because he thinks he's proven that Kaara's brother doesn't love her enough.
It's another attempt to isolate her emotionally from the last person she still trusts.
Eventually, after Kaara slaps him in fury, he throws her the option of leaving with her brother.
This was the moment where the book could have redeemed itself.
She should have gone home with her brother. The hero should have been utterly destroyed. He should have realised he'd finally lost her forever.
He should have had to leave his precious misogynistic island behind, come after her, grovel like hell, and prove he'd changed. He should have grown as a person and changed his selfish ways and proven to us he isn't a narcissistic sociopath.
Instead...
Kaara tells her brother to leave without her. "For love." "I must prove to my abuaer hubby i love him by stayung." She chooses to stay. Yuck! Barf.
She willingly embraces becoming the perfect little Stockholm syndrome wife.
The hero is overjoyed because, apparently, she's chosen him. Then we're told he'd actually loved her all along because he'd seen a photograph of her before the story even began.
Absolutely disgusting.
The ending infuriated me more than almost anything else in the novel.
Robyn Donald is perfectly capable of writing wonderful angst. I've enjoyed other books by her enormously. But this wasn't angst.
It was psychological abuse presented as romance. And the hero was an utter sociopathic creep. After the end of the book, I've no doubt he goes back to playing his abusive little games and the stupid little heroine tells herself it's all okay because he "loves" her.
What made it even worse was how real parts of it felt in terms of how a misogynistic culture degrades and belittles and gaslights women. The constant pressure from everyone around Kaara to stop wanting freedom of choice, stop questioning the system, stop expecting equality and simply become a dutiful wife felt horribly believable. The blaming her if her husband was cruel bwcause she made him be cruel by "resisting" his orders. The women themselves enforce it, telling her she'll only ever be happy if she stops resisting and accepts her place.
That, more than anything, made me hate this book.
It wasn't fantasy.
It reflected attitudes that have existed—and still exist—in deeply patriarchal societies, where women are expected to surrender their independence and convince themselves they're happier for it.
I found it genuinely upsetting to read.
So if, like me, you enjoy angsty romances with terrible heroes who eventually earn redemption, please don't assume this delivers that.
It doesn't.
There's no meaningful redemption.
There's no satisfying grovel.
There's no emotional payoff.
Just an abusive relationship dressed up as a romance, capped off with one of the most infuriating endings I've ever read.
I genuinely wish I had never read this book.
I love an angsty romance. I love a dominating, almost brutish alpha hero who treats the heroine badly because of his own inner torment, only to spend the ending regretting it, grovelling, and showing just how deeply he loves her.
This book is NOT that.
For me, Wife in Exchange was an absolute disgusting train wreck. All the way through I kept thinking, "I really hate this. It's probably a three-star bookeven if it redeems itself." Then the ending somehow managed to make everything even worse, and by the time I'd finished I could only give it one star.
This book simply did not work as a romance.
The entire story felt like an exercise in Stockholm syndrome for the heroine, with everyone in this supposedly traditional patriarchal culture encouraging the heroine to surrender her free will, accept that she's been abducted and forced into marriage under threat of rape, and told by her husband she was his one woman harem slave and property. They all said yo accept being dominated, and convince herself she'll eventually be happy if she just gives in. And she told herself the same thing too. It was utterly disgusting and absolutely infuriated me.
There was no romance here.
There was just a deeply misogynistic shitshow of a hero.
People often complain that heroes in old category romances are misogynistic, and quite often I'll still enjoy the book because I enjoy difficult heroes who see the wrror of their eays eventually. I like angst. I like emotionally damaged alpha males who behave badly because they don't know how to deal with their feelings.
This man wasn't that.
He was just a creep. Irredeemable garbage.
The book tries to excuse everything under the banner of "ancient Spanish culture", but for me that simply didn't work.
The hero is supposedly taking revenge because the heroine's brother ran away with his fiancée. His response is to lure the heroine, Kaara, to his private island by pretending her brother has invited her to his wedding. Instead, she arrives at the house where he keeps his mistresses and he calmly informs her that he's brought her there for revenge and intends to rape her.
This could have worked as a fab setup if he was only blustering and speaking in anger. Nope. he meant it. He was a pig.
Worse, The heroine's reaction doesn't remotely resemble how any normal person would react. She should be screaming, fighting him, slapping him—anything. Instead, her stupid little mond makes inneffectual arguments and reconciles herself to the pogs demands in seconds it seems. within a single evening she agrees to marry him rather than be raped for revenge.
What the fuck?
The entire situation is treated almost as though it's the beginning of a romance instead of the horrifying situation that it actually is. There was none of that underlying romantic tension that can sometimes make morally grey situations work in fiction. It was simply repugnant.
And from there, the hero never gets any better.
He makes it clear hes going to manioulate her into loving him, which will be his ultimate revenge. But meanwhile, he will also constantly abuse her and remind her she is nothing but his stupid loyal dog, his vengeance tool. His actual words. His entire attitude is that even if she starts developing physical feelings for him, he'll constantly remind her she's there purely as revenge and means absolutely nothing to him. Whenever she starts becoming emotionally open or tender towards him, he reacts by becoming even more physically aggressive. He played mind games, easing her into bed like a gentle lover to make her give in. then sometimes deliberately using sex to dominate and punish her until she's left crying afterwards. (FYI, all closed door so you get a lot of build up then a whole bunch of nothing. The bedroom scenes might have helped flesh out the actual emotions a bit but we get zilch.)
There was nothing romantic about any of it.
Nothing.
These two people never improved each other's lives. They never built trust. They never helped each other become better people. He simply tormented her over and over again while she (and his whole family and servants and community) gradually persuaded herself that perhaps the only way to survive was to accept being owned by him completely—body and soul—and convince herself she loved him.
That isn't romance.
That's Stockholm syndrome.
And I simply could not believe that any psychologically healthy woman would fall in love under those circumstances.
To make matters worse, Kaara is only twenty years old. The hero repeatedly comments that she's almost like a child, jokes about treating her like one, yet simultaneously also says she challenges him like no other woman. Etc. She comes across as a naive yet willful yet amazing girl-child elevated to the queen of fairyland bullshit. It just made the entire dynamic even more uncomfortable.
One of the most disturbing aspects of the novel is another woman living on the island—a French woman who genuinely loved her Spanish husband, and who was loved by him in return. Yet despite supposedly loving her, her husband wouldn't allow her any independence whatsoever. She couldn't return home, couldn't live the life she wanted, and even her own children were largely raised by nannies. She was lonely. She had no friends with whole to really talk on an even footing. She was surrounded by placating or disapproving doormats and domineering chauvinistic sneerers. For years.
The poor woman became deeply depressed.
Instead of recognising why, everyone around her blamed her. They described her as difficult, miserable and selfish, warning Kaara not to listen to her because she'd only fill her head with dangerous ideas.
Eventually the woman killed herself.
Even then, the people around her blamed her for that too, calling her selfish for leaving behind her husband and children. So did the heroine. Yuck.
Honestly?
She was the only sane person in the entire bloody book.
She even warns Kaara that one day this life will drive her to exactly the same point. She tells her that she'll convince herself she's happy because she has no alternative, but that one day she'll realise she isn't and yhen feel the torture of her cage and the life forced upon her will destroy her.
I completely believed her.
Frankly, I thought the heroine might end up in exactly the same position.
The really frustrating thing is that the novel almost stumbles onto an interesting psychological point. Even after Kaara tells the hero she loves him, he still can't fully believe her because, somewhere deep down, he recognises that love obtained through coercion can't really be genuine.
Ironically, I thought that was one of the most psychologically believable moments in the entire novel.
Because it isn't genuine.
It's Stockholm syndrome.
The brother's visit was another moment where I thought the book might finally redeem itself.
The hero summons Kaara's brother to the island—not because he's prepared to let her go, but because he wants to prove that even her own brother will choose his wife over his sister. He offers him an ultimatum: return my former fiancée, who is now your wife, and you can take your sister home.
The brother refuses.
Not because he doesn't love Kaara, but because he quite reasonably believes this absolute psychopath will rape and abuse his wife if he hands her over.
The hero is smugly delighted because he thinks he's proven that Kaara's brother doesn't love her enough.
It's another attempt to isolate her emotionally from the last person she still trusts.
Eventually, after Kaara slaps him in fury, he throws her the option of leaving with her brother.
This was the moment where the book could have redeemed itself.
She should have gone home with her brother. The hero should have been utterly destroyed. He should have realised he'd finally lost her forever.
He should have had to leave his precious misogynistic island behind, come after her, grovel like hell, and prove he'd changed. He should have grown as a person and changed his selfish ways and proven to us he isn't a narcissistic sociopath.
Instead...
Kaara tells her brother to leave without her. "For love." "I must prove to my abuaer hubby i love him by stayung." She chooses to stay. Yuck! Barf.
She willingly embraces becoming the perfect little Stockholm syndrome wife.
The hero is overjoyed because, apparently, she's chosen him. Then we're told he'd actually loved her all along because he'd seen a photograph of her before the story even began.
Absolutely disgusting.
The ending infuriated me more than almost anything else in the novel.
Robyn Donald is perfectly capable of writing wonderful angst. I've enjoyed other books by her enormously. But this wasn't angst.
It was psychological abuse presented as romance. And the hero was an utter sociopathic creep. After the end of the book, I've no doubt he goes back to playing his abusive little games and the stupid little heroine tells herself it's all okay because he "loves" her.
What made it even worse was how real parts of it felt in terms of how a misogynistic culture degrades and belittles and gaslights women. The constant pressure from everyone around Kaara to stop wanting freedom of choice, stop questioning the system, stop expecting equality and simply become a dutiful wife felt horribly believable. The blaming her if her husband was cruel bwcause she made him be cruel by "resisting" his orders. The women themselves enforce it, telling her she'll only ever be happy if she stops resisting and accepts her place.
That, more than anything, made me hate this book.
It wasn't fantasy.
It reflected attitudes that have existed—and still exist—in deeply patriarchal societies, where women are expected to surrender their independence and convince themselves they're happier for it.
I found it genuinely upsetting to read.
So if, like me, you enjoy angsty romances with terrible heroes who eventually earn redemption, please don't assume this delivers that.
It doesn't.
There's no meaningful redemption.
There's no satisfying grovel.
There's no emotional payoff.
Just an abusive relationship dressed up as a romance, capped off with one of the most infuriating endings I've ever read.
I genuinely wish I had never read this book.
Read
November 1, 2016Can't finish this book, so I will not rate it. As far as I could manage to read the characterizations and conversations are stupendously unrealistic! h goes something like that "Go on rape me. Don't leave it until tomorrow. "!!! She wants the man who is threatening her with rape to go on with it immediately because she wants to get over with it !!! She won't scream, neither beg to be spared because she will keep her dignity!!! It is mind boggling to see that author as a woman cannot conceive indignity and HORROR of a rape... A normal woman would do ANY thing including fight, beg, scream, vomit etc. to prevent it, or delay it with the hope of escape or get help.
Most of RD`s books are quite good but this one is awful (at least as far as I could read).
Most of RD`s books are quite good but this one is awful (at least as far as I could read).
May 28, 2020
Apparently still hungover from her own vintage Harley immersion-read, RD writes a bad version of a Violet Winspear/Ann Mather-esque old-skool trope featuring the cruel older aristo type dominating and manhandling the innocent waif in a forced vengeful marriage. It's almost comically bad, but thankfully for all of us, RD soon found her footing and her unique voice and went on to craft far less cartoony (but way scarier, IMO) alpha Hs and and admirable heroines with some backbone.
November 6, 2018
I liked this romance but it disturbed me that they slept in separate bedrooms. Even in the end when she was in his bedroom he didn´t allow her for once to sleep in his bed. I always thought that married couples should share same bed and bedroom or is it just me that needs physical nearness to feel an emotional connection?
February 5, 2013
AMAZING!!! I loved all of the history involved!
July 5, 2016
an old school.....but i loved it and felt its beautifully described spain...
October 28, 2019
Had I been Spaniard, I would have been mighty offended. But it's the least of this book's offenses.
May 6, 2024
She was so submissive. She had no pride and no brains and no backbone, it was annoying. Many HP h’s are like that, but she takes the cake.
Near the end he tells her to go and he tells her “I’m sick to death of all of you”, but she still wanted to stay with him. She explains to her brother she would rather be unhappy with the H than happy without the H. It would have been a more interesting read if she had called the H’s bluff and would have left him.
Near the end he tells her to go and he tells her “I’m sick to death of all of you”, but she still wanted to stay with him. She explains to her brother she would rather be unhappy with the H than happy without the H. It would have been a more interesting read if she had called the H’s bluff and would have left him.
Read
November 8, 2019uhhhh k. This is just nuts. All the fade to black for the sex makes the reader not know if sex is bringing the hero and heroine closer, it could be hella rape for all we know! Skip. Just too dumb to function.
November 20, 2020
I don't like revenge and I especially don't like it when someone uses a completely innocent third party to effect revenge. That's the backstory here and the book goes downhill from that. This is the kind of novel that gives Harlequins a lurid cheap reputation.
Did not finish.
Did not finish.
August 11, 2021
2.5 stars ⭐️⭐️The H was crazy mean! Needlessly mean and violent. It could have been much better if H showed some feelings toward h. He was so hot and cold. Almost to the last page I wanted h to leave him.
December 20, 2023
Crazy vintage, very non pc but enjoyable in the classic H is an unbelievable bastard Robyn Donald fashion. I have lovely fantasy rewrites of this one where she kills, maims, or divorces him and gets all his $.
May 26, 2017
very entertaining
May 28, 2018
Oh unbelievable....... that was really horrible.
December 1, 2019
Well this was from the stone age....
October 8, 2022
Older Spanish aristocrat, young innocent virgin, forced/revenge marriage, loved you from the first …
This book probably deserves better rating but ultimately, I didn’t feel the love.
This book probably deserves better rating but ultimately, I didn’t feel the love.
July 9, 2025
2.5
H was a moody ass, blowing hot and cold.
h was high strung but still better than him.
H was a moody ass, blowing hot and cold.
h was high strung but still better than him.
June 29, 2026
barf.
April 21, 2021
It is books like these where I tend to question my own thought processes....I definitely need to wash my brain out with 🧼. Should I be offended by this book as a female? Hell yes!!!! I should be offended as a member of the human race, yet not only do I harbor a little bit of a dark side in the recesses of my soul, but I really have a soft spot for these vintage reads. The hero’s ruthless, caveman tactics will not be appreciated by anyone with an ounce of feminism or anyone part of the PC police. Most of the romance in this book will have to be developed in the reader’s’ imagination, because quite frankly there aren’t many romantic moments in this book. .....
SPOILERS AHEAD.........
Our heroine falls madly, deeply in love with our hero despite the fact that ....
*She is brought to the island under false pretenses...she thought she was there to attend her brothers wedding, but come to find out the brother absconded with the Hero’s fiancé and is now out for revenge...The H wrote the letter to lure her there(charming, yes?) or maybe she is in love with him because....
*Once there, the H tells the h she will either submit to him as his mistress where he will use her and leave her to scorn OR she can marry him and he will use her but on the upside she will have respect and can bear him children(oh and he will be faithful too...so happy that RD gave us that little bit of security)...Now our h is a little bit of a spitfire, which is probably to her detriment as I am pretty sure this is a turn on for the H....yet he only lets her be a spitfire to a point...then he employs brute force to keep her in line....he basically tells her that she will learn to heal like a dog and she will be grateful for it(unfortunately this really is foreshadowing how far our h does fall)
* Maybe our h fell in love with him on her wedding night where we are lead to believe that he lovingly coaxed her into sexual servitude(being an older book we do not see them between the sheets) However, she’s pretty sure he called out his ex fiancé’s name which means he will never love the h because he must still love his Pilar.
* I’m sure our h fell in love with the H during the scenes we are not privy to...horse rides, hanging out, times where he treats her like an equal...of course she tells us about the good times, we never actually see the H being good...for most of the book he is grabbing, choking, or sneering at the h
* Absence makes the heart grow fonder? H goes to Bangkok and our h misses him dearly even though she has been told by a wannabe ow that he is in Bangkok at the same time his ex lover is there...basically weaving more doubt into our h’s head...upon his arrival home she is pleased but then flinches from him and this makes him obsessively angry...he rapes her, she feels guilty because she responded to him....she lays crying in bed next to him and this is him...
He let her cry, lying on his back in the rumpled bed beside her....her tears start to abate...he says, “let that be a lesson to you” Then he blathers on about him owning her and that he doesn’t need her love just her respect....So at this point I really should have stopped reading this book and let my review die here...but nope not me...there are still 70 some pages in the book to go and my darkness wins out so I
continue reading....
Of course she can’t help but love him after that and he bought her some pretty earrings from Bangkok...we find out that he has a picture of her that was left behind by the brother(so the romantic in me is going to assume he fell in love with her picture)
The story continues, he sneers, she submits. On one of their outings they scuba dive and have a great time together where he later makes love to her and she professes her love for him....so he becomes distant...they do some entertaining...he almost raped her again but settled for bruising her instead...he brings her brother to the island then says she may leave if she wants to...she doesn’t and waits for him to come home and then enters his bedchamber...it is at this point the H lets her know that he has loved her since she first arrived...he explains away his cruelty and they will now live happily ever after...
I did learn a new word...so um, that makes up for all the other things I allowed my brain to absorb with this book making it all worthwhile...here was the word
per·spi·ca·cious
having a ready insight into and understanding of things.
Before this book I read a very tame Betty Neels book, I have a batch of her books recently acquired at a sale, so I may need to use them as a cleanser to use after books such as this! Enjoy!!!
SPOILERS AHEAD.........
Our heroine falls madly, deeply in love with our hero despite the fact that ....
*She is brought to the island under false pretenses...she thought she was there to attend her brothers wedding, but come to find out the brother absconded with the Hero’s fiancé and is now out for revenge...The H wrote the letter to lure her there(charming, yes?) or maybe she is in love with him because....
*Once there, the H tells the h she will either submit to him as his mistress where he will use her and leave her to scorn OR she can marry him and he will use her but on the upside she will have respect and can bear him children(oh and he will be faithful too...so happy that RD gave us that little bit of security)...Now our h is a little bit of a spitfire, which is probably to her detriment as I am pretty sure this is a turn on for the H....yet he only lets her be a spitfire to a point...then he employs brute force to keep her in line....he basically tells her that she will learn to heal like a dog and she will be grateful for it(unfortunately this really is foreshadowing how far our h does fall)
* Maybe our h fell in love with him on her wedding night where we are lead to believe that he lovingly coaxed her into sexual servitude(being an older book we do not see them between the sheets) However, she’s pretty sure he called out his ex fiancé’s name which means he will never love the h because he must still love his Pilar.
* I’m sure our h fell in love with the H during the scenes we are not privy to...horse rides, hanging out, times where he treats her like an equal...of course she tells us about the good times, we never actually see the H being good...for most of the book he is grabbing, choking, or sneering at the h
* Absence makes the heart grow fonder? H goes to Bangkok and our h misses him dearly even though she has been told by a wannabe ow that he is in Bangkok at the same time his ex lover is there...basically weaving more doubt into our h’s head...upon his arrival home she is pleased but then flinches from him and this makes him obsessively angry...he rapes her, she feels guilty because she responded to him....she lays crying in bed next to him and this is him...
He let her cry, lying on his back in the rumpled bed beside her....her tears start to abate...he says, “let that be a lesson to you” Then he blathers on about him owning her and that he doesn’t need her love just her respect....So at this point I really should have stopped reading this book and let my review die here...but nope not me...there are still 70 some pages in the book to go and my darkness wins out so I
continue reading....
Of course she can’t help but love him after that and he bought her some pretty earrings from Bangkok...we find out that he has a picture of her that was left behind by the brother(so the romantic in me is going to assume he fell in love with her picture)
The story continues, he sneers, she submits. On one of their outings they scuba dive and have a great time together where he later makes love to her and she professes her love for him....so he becomes distant...they do some entertaining...he almost raped her again but settled for bruising her instead...he brings her brother to the island then says she may leave if she wants to...she doesn’t and waits for him to come home and then enters his bedchamber...it is at this point the H lets her know that he has loved her since she first arrived...he explains away his cruelty and they will now live happily ever after...
I did learn a new word...so um, that makes up for all the other things I allowed my brain to absorb with this book making it all worthwhile...here was the word
per·spi·ca·cious
having a ready insight into and understanding of things.
Before this book I read a very tame Betty Neels book, I have a batch of her books recently acquired at a sale, so I may need to use them as a cleanser to use after books such as this! Enjoy!!!
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