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In Spite Of Themselves
She was nicknamed the Ice Princess
Anne Chapin was reserved, shy and conventional. And she was astounded when cynical New York businessman Nicholas Thayer asked her to pose as his supposed mistress.
Anne was involved with Joel, a man who badly wanted his own gallery and Nick's offer would provide the needed funding in return for a few weeks of her time.
Driven to accept, Anne found it a time of discovery--of herself, of Nicholas and the pain of unrequited love. Somehow she had to find the confidence to melt herself, and Nick, too
Anne Chapin was reserved, shy and conventional. And she was astounded when cynical New York businessman Nicholas Thayer asked her to pose as his supposed mistress.
Anne was involved with Joel, a man who badly wanted his own gallery and Nick's offer would provide the needed funding in return for a few weeks of her time.
Driven to accept, Anne found it a time of discovery--of herself, of Nicholas and the pain of unrequited love. Somehow she had to find the confidence to melt herself, and Nick, too
- GenresHarlequin Presents
190 pages, Mass Market Paperback
Published December 1, 1990
3 people are currently reading
38 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
March 19, 2022
Hero spent the ENTIRE book staring hungrily at his brother's trampy wife while using the heroine as an emotional crutch. He suddenly went into I Love You mode on the last page after she left him? Puh-leeeeeeeeeeze.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 4, 2017
This guy was so obsessed with his ex and hearing about how heroine could see how sexually attracted he was to the other woman disgusted me, he told heroine he wasn't as sexually attracted to her as the ow that maybe he could learn to love her in time.... this is meant to be a romance? Suddenly right at the end he decides he loves the heroine and he didn't really want the ow, our heroine just hearing ILY fell in to his arms and we like her are just supposed to forget his painful longing and desire for the ow which lasted until towards the end!! Nope I don't think so I def did not believe in their hea I won't put it passes him to have those feelings again if he was to see her again because even I felt his intensity for his ex and I never felt his passion for our tstl heroine he treated her like a child whom he had affection for. In the end I think he settled for second best because as he said true passion only happens once so he had it but it was def not for the heroine!
November 11, 2017
This is one of most aptly titled stories, I've had the pleasure to read in the HP line. Yes, in spite of themselves and their delusions, the H/h manage to find a happy ending.
The plot:
The heroine was obsessed with a Svengali-type art gallery owner.
The hero was obsessed with his brother's evil wife.
The hero hires the heroine to be his mistress-in-name-only to protect him from his obsession with his sister-in-law.
In return the heroine will give the Svengali the paid up lease on gallery space for five years.
Along the way they fall in love.
The characters:
The heroine was a loyal idiot and allowed everyone to talk down to her to her face.
The hero was either lusting after the h or OW, or making phone calls.
The hero's brother was a whiner and a hypochondriac who hated his brother.
The Svengali was a user and had manipulation down to a science.
The OW was maniacally evil.
Still, it was a fascinating read. The author created an alternate universe where hate and money were the primary motivators. Both the H/h wanted love and acceptance, but neither knew what that looked like. No wonder the H/h clung to their illusions for so long.
The plot:
The heroine was obsessed with a Svengali-type art gallery owner.
The hero was obsessed with his brother's evil wife.
The hero hires the heroine to be his mistress-in-name-only to protect him from his obsession with his sister-in-law.
In return the heroine will give the Svengali the paid up lease on gallery space for five years.
Along the way they fall in love.
The characters:
The heroine was a loyal idiot and allowed everyone to talk down to her to her face.
The hero was either lusting after the h or OW, or making phone calls.
The hero's brother was a whiner and a hypochondriac who hated his brother.
The Svengali was a user and had manipulation down to a science.
The OW was maniacally evil.
Still, it was a fascinating read. The author created an alternate universe where hate and money were the primary motivators. Both the H/h wanted love and acceptance, but neither knew what that looked like. No wonder the H/h clung to their illusions for so long.
May 29, 2017
Re In Spite of Themselves- Elizabeth Barnes only HPlandia adventure is a 24 yr old h who is paid a lot of money by the H to pretend to be his mistress. The trope is a familiar one, but in this case we can almost consider the H's offer to be knight in shinning armour rescue situation for the h.
When the book opens, the h is discussing the evening's upcoming party with the man she lives with. The h's backstory is that her parents decided to 'turn on and drop out' when she was 14 and they moved the whole family to a commune. Then they started a rather swinging lifestyle, explaining to the h that everybody should be able to experience "free love". The only problem was that for the h, when love became free and easy, she became invisible and neglected. When the h was old enough to leave, she moved to New York and spent some time adrift, trying various jobs and trying to develop her art.
Then she met the guy she currently lives with but doesn't sleep with, because she is a pure and virtuous girl and doesn't want to use her charms to bargain her way through life. The man she is currently living with is a user slime swiller extraordinaire, he basically pimps the h out with the hint of various favors and uses her very intelligent brain to run his art business.
There is another woman the user slime swiller is actually involved with - the h thinks they are just good friends, but we can read between the lines pretty quickly. The h's nominal user slime toad boyfriend tells the h how to dress and how to act and has no problems exploiting whatever he can of the situation, it turns out the h is great businesswoman and great at selling things. The h is convinced they are in love, but really she is just brainwashed into thinking she needs this guy as her rock of stability.
The user slime toad wants to open a high end art gallery. But he has no finances for the endeavor, so his piece on the side recommends getting the h to schmooze her cousin, the H. The bit on side is a first class witch, and she resents that her cousin the H inherited all the family money when his father died. She is hoping to get a ton of money out the H for a NYC gallery and she and the slime toad can lurve it up while continuing to exploit the h's business talents.
The slime toad decides that the h is to wear and Edwardian wedding dress for the cocktail affair that evening, and she is to do WHATEVER it takes to get the H to give slime toad the money for the art gallery. The h, who has the reputation of an untouchable Ice Queen always cool under fire which was deliberately cultivated by slime toad, is very naively vague about WHATEVER, but she goes to hang with the H when he arrives anyways.
The H, after chatting with the h and enjoying himself, quickly reads the entire situation very correctly. Since he has a rather dubious situation of his own going on, he formulates a plan to use the h in his own domestic drama and then maybe help her see how she is being used as well. He tells the h that as long as she continues to amuse him, he will consider finance for the gallery. The h is determined to be amusing no matter what, tho she does insists that no funny physical business can go on because slime toad is the love of her life.
A few days later the H puts his plan into motion. He gives the h a ton of money, signs the lease for her on a building that can hold a gallery and tells the h that all her plans can be fulfilled if she will agree to go to his brother's tropical Island home and pretend to be his mistress. He vaguely explains that his brother's wife has a thing for him and the H wants to ward her off. The h reluctantly agrees, but since she loves her slime toad so much and the H is promising no funny business, the h decides she can pull it off and agrees to tell nobody about the bargain. She and the H go to tell slime toad that the h has thrown him over for the H, as per the terms of their new agreement.
Slime toad loses his temper and starts berating and denigrating the h. The H, who is beyond irritated, knocks him out with a well placed punch, has the h gather her personal things but leave all the clothes the slime toad dressed her in and it is off to shop we go.
The H buys the h a whole new wardrobe, a ton of pricey jewelry she can keep and installs her in his NYC penthouse. The h doesn't want all the things, but the H tells her it is mandatory for a mistress, besides she is going to need some sort of financial security after this is all over. The h is still convinced slime toad loves her and will forgive her and take care of her, irregardless of his little tirade earlier.
The H agrees that slime toad will be quick to take advantage of the h, but since she hasn't turned anything over to the guy yet, he figures there is still time to save her from herself. We get to the H's older brother's island and things get a whole lot more interesting.
The H is one of three brothers, his father was married several times and he had three sons. So the H's older half brother was kicked out his father's life when the H's father married the H's mother. The H's paternal grandmother hated the H, raised his older brother to be a dilettante and when the H's mum died and the father remarried, sent the H to boarding school. She also taught the older brother to resent and hate the H whenever he was around. The H has another younger brother, and he too was taught to hate the H.
All this family infighting and hate was going while the H was still a teenager and had little say about things. But then his father died and the H was the only one who could run the father's business empire - so he got it all and became the responsible family caretaker. Everyone else is dependent on the H to provide a living for them, so needless to say there is a hot bed of resentment and backstabbing going on. The H supported the grandmother's extravagant lifestyle while she was alive and kept supporting both his brothers and still does when the book opens.
The older brother managed to stick the knife in the H tho, when he married the woman who is his current wife. The H was dating the beautiful blonde girl first, ten years before the book begins. When she mistakenly believed that the older brother would inherit everything, she dumped the H and married the older brother instead.
She soon found out her mistake when the H took everything over and the H, who does love his brothers and really wants to be closer to them, has a distant but strong obsession with the woman he lost. The blonde tart soon begins flagrantly cheating on her weak, hypochondriac, parasitic older brother husband, but the H manages to evade getting into bed with her. The parasite older brother, who makes being ill into an art form, knows the H still wants his wife and so for years he has enjoyed taunting the H with what he doesn't have.
Now the older brother has invited the H to stay with him, ostensibly to become a 'closer' family, but in reality to just twist the knife and leech on the H some more. So hence the need for the h. (The h doesn't know the whole story until she gets to the island and is able to piece things together, it is a complicated back story, so I just put it all out there for coherence.)
We are all on the island and the parasite brother is invaliding around, the brother's tart wife is vamping the H and the h and H are engaging in public displays of roofie kissing every time someone might be in ear or eye shot.
The h is strangely affected by all the passion flying around and is reluctantly but definitely enjoying those bone melting love moments. As the Tart Wife gets more desperate in her attempts to vamp the H, the parasite brother gets more petulant in his bid for coddling and the H and h get to know each other better and the h discovers how obsessed the H is with the girl who got away.
The h starts to see that her slime toad is a non-keeper and falls in love with the H. Who, for all his comments about not being srsly into the h because of the Tart wife, is actually very caring, protective and supportive of the h at all times - he even defends her from the Evil Tart. So we can see that they are both falling in love, tho the H can't really recognize it in himself. Mainly cause the H is a goal driven person, he doesn't do a lot with feelings or love, cause he has never been in any kind of loving relationship to recognize them.
The h changes all that and the big kicker moment comes when the H and h finally succumb to the power of the HP Lurve Mojo. The H has been proposing marriage to the h pretty much since chapter six, but he keeps putting it as a business proposition and not a real love match. When the H declares the h should marry him because she is good for him and he could learn to love her after their night of rapturous bliss, the h realizes it is time to get out. Then the H remarks that maybe she did not really want to sleep with him, she was just once again sacrificing herself for someone else.
When the H is called to the house because his parasite brother is kicking the Tart Wife out now that he sees that the H isn't into her. The H has to referee because the sparks are flying and the parasite has fallen in love with his adoring nurse instead and the Tart Wife doesn't like it and is getting violent.
The h gets the H's younger brother to take her to the airport. She leaves a long note telling the H that she can make her own choices and that he is too much like the slime toad, never trusting her to make the best decisions for herself and that she wanted to lurve it up with the H because she is in love with him. She takes the cash the H gave her, cause she finally figured out slime toad was betraying her with the H's cousin, but leaves the other stuff like the jewelry and the gallery lease and she plans on trying again with her art that she gave up cause slime toad her she should.
She is waiting at the airport when the H shows up and asks her to come back to him because he loves her. He was obsessed with the Tart Wife for a while because he was wanting something he couldn't have, just like the h was with slime toad. But now that they both found each other, they both realized what they really wanted was someone to care about them and both of them had their self-induced blinders removed about who the people they thought they wanted really were.
In short, both the h and the H discover that the objects of their affections at the start of the book were illusions that they had both built in their minds. The real people behind those illusions were not at all as they imagined them to be and when the h and H were able to spend time with a person who actually really cared about them, those false idolizations crumpled into sand.
The H and h declare that they really love each other and want to grow together, and both are very vehement that the care because they want to, not out of responsibility or duty or obligation, they just like being with each other. The end up lurving it up and planning to marry and getting some real doors with locks on the guest cottage to keep out whomever wanders by for the big HEA.
I have to admit that I found myself enjoying this one, as convoluted and twisted as it was and as off putting as the two of them being obsessed with other people sounded, I was pretty enthralled in spite of myself - which is a very apt name for this book.
The H and h both kept saying they were into their obsession objects, but in the actual interactions with each other it was pretty obvious they were falling hard. That is a very hard trick to pull off in a story, much less pull it off in HPlandia where innuendo, rumor and hysterics pretty much run the plot. EB throws out a lot of the conventional H and h standard HP approved reactions to the various manipulations of the secondary characters. She replaces them with reactions that make a lot of sense based on how she has built these characters, so it makes for an overall charming story with some different but refreshing twists.
Definitely give this one a shot if you come across it. While the relationships are convoluted and the H has the family from the dark side of the abyss, the pace moves along nicely and it really isn't hard to see the H falling in love even tho he verbally denies it. If you like the show instead of the tell in a story, this one is an excellent choice and one of the better, tho little known HPlandia outings.
Sadly, the majority of EB books are over in HRtopia, and there are only four or so and they don't all have the delicate precision of this one in terms of characterization and believablity. However EB does a great job when she is on her game and is worth a read in whatever Harley line you find her in.
When the book opens, the h is discussing the evening's upcoming party with the man she lives with. The h's backstory is that her parents decided to 'turn on and drop out' when she was 14 and they moved the whole family to a commune. Then they started a rather swinging lifestyle, explaining to the h that everybody should be able to experience "free love". The only problem was that for the h, when love became free and easy, she became invisible and neglected. When the h was old enough to leave, she moved to New York and spent some time adrift, trying various jobs and trying to develop her art.
Then she met the guy she currently lives with but doesn't sleep with, because she is a pure and virtuous girl and doesn't want to use her charms to bargain her way through life. The man she is currently living with is a user slime swiller extraordinaire, he basically pimps the h out with the hint of various favors and uses her very intelligent brain to run his art business.
There is another woman the user slime swiller is actually involved with - the h thinks they are just good friends, but we can read between the lines pretty quickly. The h's nominal user slime toad boyfriend tells the h how to dress and how to act and has no problems exploiting whatever he can of the situation, it turns out the h is great businesswoman and great at selling things. The h is convinced they are in love, but really she is just brainwashed into thinking she needs this guy as her rock of stability.
The user slime toad wants to open a high end art gallery. But he has no finances for the endeavor, so his piece on the side recommends getting the h to schmooze her cousin, the H. The bit on side is a first class witch, and she resents that her cousin the H inherited all the family money when his father died. She is hoping to get a ton of money out the H for a NYC gallery and she and the slime toad can lurve it up while continuing to exploit the h's business talents.
The slime toad decides that the h is to wear and Edwardian wedding dress for the cocktail affair that evening, and she is to do WHATEVER it takes to get the H to give slime toad the money for the art gallery. The h, who has the reputation of an untouchable Ice Queen always cool under fire which was deliberately cultivated by slime toad, is very naively vague about WHATEVER, but she goes to hang with the H when he arrives anyways.
The H, after chatting with the h and enjoying himself, quickly reads the entire situation very correctly. Since he has a rather dubious situation of his own going on, he formulates a plan to use the h in his own domestic drama and then maybe help her see how she is being used as well. He tells the h that as long as she continues to amuse him, he will consider finance for the gallery. The h is determined to be amusing no matter what, tho she does insists that no funny physical business can go on because slime toad is the love of her life.
A few days later the H puts his plan into motion. He gives the h a ton of money, signs the lease for her on a building that can hold a gallery and tells the h that all her plans can be fulfilled if she will agree to go to his brother's tropical Island home and pretend to be his mistress. He vaguely explains that his brother's wife has a thing for him and the H wants to ward her off. The h reluctantly agrees, but since she loves her slime toad so much and the H is promising no funny business, the h decides she can pull it off and agrees to tell nobody about the bargain. She and the H go to tell slime toad that the h has thrown him over for the H, as per the terms of their new agreement.
Slime toad loses his temper and starts berating and denigrating the h. The H, who is beyond irritated, knocks him out with a well placed punch, has the h gather her personal things but leave all the clothes the slime toad dressed her in and it is off to shop we go.
The H buys the h a whole new wardrobe, a ton of pricey jewelry she can keep and installs her in his NYC penthouse. The h doesn't want all the things, but the H tells her it is mandatory for a mistress, besides she is going to need some sort of financial security after this is all over. The h is still convinced slime toad loves her and will forgive her and take care of her, irregardless of his little tirade earlier.
The H agrees that slime toad will be quick to take advantage of the h, but since she hasn't turned anything over to the guy yet, he figures there is still time to save her from herself. We get to the H's older brother's island and things get a whole lot more interesting.
The H is one of three brothers, his father was married several times and he had three sons. So the H's older half brother was kicked out his father's life when the H's father married the H's mother. The H's paternal grandmother hated the H, raised his older brother to be a dilettante and when the H's mum died and the father remarried, sent the H to boarding school. She also taught the older brother to resent and hate the H whenever he was around. The H has another younger brother, and he too was taught to hate the H.
All this family infighting and hate was going while the H was still a teenager and had little say about things. But then his father died and the H was the only one who could run the father's business empire - so he got it all and became the responsible family caretaker. Everyone else is dependent on the H to provide a living for them, so needless to say there is a hot bed of resentment and backstabbing going on. The H supported the grandmother's extravagant lifestyle while she was alive and kept supporting both his brothers and still does when the book opens.
The older brother managed to stick the knife in the H tho, when he married the woman who is his current wife. The H was dating the beautiful blonde girl first, ten years before the book begins. When she mistakenly believed that the older brother would inherit everything, she dumped the H and married the older brother instead.
She soon found out her mistake when the H took everything over and the H, who does love his brothers and really wants to be closer to them, has a distant but strong obsession with the woman he lost. The blonde tart soon begins flagrantly cheating on her weak, hypochondriac, parasitic older brother husband, but the H manages to evade getting into bed with her. The parasite older brother, who makes being ill into an art form, knows the H still wants his wife and so for years he has enjoyed taunting the H with what he doesn't have.
Now the older brother has invited the H to stay with him, ostensibly to become a 'closer' family, but in reality to just twist the knife and leech on the H some more. So hence the need for the h. (The h doesn't know the whole story until she gets to the island and is able to piece things together, it is a complicated back story, so I just put it all out there for coherence.)
We are all on the island and the parasite brother is invaliding around, the brother's tart wife is vamping the H and the h and H are engaging in public displays of roofie kissing every time someone might be in ear or eye shot.
The h is strangely affected by all the passion flying around and is reluctantly but definitely enjoying those bone melting love moments. As the Tart Wife gets more desperate in her attempts to vamp the H, the parasite brother gets more petulant in his bid for coddling and the H and h get to know each other better and the h discovers how obsessed the H is with the girl who got away.
The h starts to see that her slime toad is a non-keeper and falls in love with the H. Who, for all his comments about not being srsly into the h because of the Tart wife, is actually very caring, protective and supportive of the h at all times - he even defends her from the Evil Tart. So we can see that they are both falling in love, tho the H can't really recognize it in himself. Mainly cause the H is a goal driven person, he doesn't do a lot with feelings or love, cause he has never been in any kind of loving relationship to recognize them.
The h changes all that and the big kicker moment comes when the H and h finally succumb to the power of the HP Lurve Mojo. The H has been proposing marriage to the h pretty much since chapter six, but he keeps putting it as a business proposition and not a real love match. When the H declares the h should marry him because she is good for him and he could learn to love her after their night of rapturous bliss, the h realizes it is time to get out. Then the H remarks that maybe she did not really want to sleep with him, she was just once again sacrificing herself for someone else.
When the H is called to the house because his parasite brother is kicking the Tart Wife out now that he sees that the H isn't into her. The H has to referee because the sparks are flying and the parasite has fallen in love with his adoring nurse instead and the Tart Wife doesn't like it and is getting violent.
The h gets the H's younger brother to take her to the airport. She leaves a long note telling the H that she can make her own choices and that he is too much like the slime toad, never trusting her to make the best decisions for herself and that she wanted to lurve it up with the H because she is in love with him. She takes the cash the H gave her, cause she finally figured out slime toad was betraying her with the H's cousin, but leaves the other stuff like the jewelry and the gallery lease and she plans on trying again with her art that she gave up cause slime toad her she should.
She is waiting at the airport when the H shows up and asks her to come back to him because he loves her. He was obsessed with the Tart Wife for a while because he was wanting something he couldn't have, just like the h was with slime toad. But now that they both found each other, they both realized what they really wanted was someone to care about them and both of them had their self-induced blinders removed about who the people they thought they wanted really were.
In short, both the h and the H discover that the objects of their affections at the start of the book were illusions that they had both built in their minds. The real people behind those illusions were not at all as they imagined them to be and when the h and H were able to spend time with a person who actually really cared about them, those false idolizations crumpled into sand.
The H and h declare that they really love each other and want to grow together, and both are very vehement that the care because they want to, not out of responsibility or duty or obligation, they just like being with each other. The end up lurving it up and planning to marry and getting some real doors with locks on the guest cottage to keep out whomever wanders by for the big HEA.
I have to admit that I found myself enjoying this one, as convoluted and twisted as it was and as off putting as the two of them being obsessed with other people sounded, I was pretty enthralled in spite of myself - which is a very apt name for this book.
The H and h both kept saying they were into their obsession objects, but in the actual interactions with each other it was pretty obvious they were falling hard. That is a very hard trick to pull off in a story, much less pull it off in HPlandia where innuendo, rumor and hysterics pretty much run the plot. EB throws out a lot of the conventional H and h standard HP approved reactions to the various manipulations of the secondary characters. She replaces them with reactions that make a lot of sense based on how she has built these characters, so it makes for an overall charming story with some different but refreshing twists.
Definitely give this one a shot if you come across it. While the relationships are convoluted and the H has the family from the dark side of the abyss, the pace moves along nicely and it really isn't hard to see the H falling in love even tho he verbally denies it. If you like the show instead of the tell in a story, this one is an excellent choice and one of the better, tho little known HPlandia outings.
Sadly, the majority of EB books are over in HRtopia, and there are only four or so and they don't all have the delicate precision of this one in terms of characterization and believablity. However EB does a great job when she is on her game and is worth a read in whatever Harley line you find her in.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 21, 2023
September Readathon
Different style and tone than a lot of HP. I wasn't sure at first, and wasn't sure in the middle, but it snuck up on me to care by the end and I was glad for how it all went, and went down.
I think that sums up the experience for the leads as well.
This plays out like an 80s nighttime soap opera. Big eyes and seething everywhere, vicious dramatic personalities, no one really likeable but all of them compelling. There's a fairly large cast of characters too, everyone intertwined and miserable and scheming to score points and bring misery to the others.
Except! for the heroine, who despite being unsullied by all that cynicism and machinations, reads and intuits people and situations well and holds her own in them. I was so glad there was never a moment she was utterly humiliated during, or a scene that plays out just to see her stumble. This plot and the writing was open to it happening, and it was refreshing for Barnes not to do so.
The OW is truly a poisonous number. The hero's brothers, awful. The heroine's choice in crush and friendships, pathetic (we never get back to them after they jet away from NYC to confront the hero's family and OW, but that's no loss, consider them well and truly cut out of the picture).
This couple has a LOT to get over before they realize they're in love, but they need each other and that love to get over their pasts and the obstacles in their (interior, and shared) way. Usually the hero and/or heroine being long-term hung up on another person and discussing it with the hero and/or heroine at length leaves me a bit wanting to outright cold; it's still heavy-handed in this book, and I wish the shift to realization and into one another happened sooner, but it works given the set-up and characterization and you are along for and believing them falling in love.
It won't slot into being an old fave for me, but I enjoyed and found it in closing worthwhile after an uncertain start. I liked both leads and their vulnerabilities and how continually forthright they were with each other, and how that lead to their HEA. The few 'misunderstood / overheard' moments were dealt with almost immediately, the heroine gave back what for, the hero redeems himself and faces up to his issues, they'll do a lot of healing from where the book ends, together and for each other.
Which -- in the end, the heroine and the hero are likable, not-vicious creatures, leaving Dynasty-esque nonsense and old wounds behind. I do enjoy a 'the only one who ever cared or loved me is you' trope, and while this book's version of it is subtle, it's there and nicely so.
Again, just a different HP than the norm I've read. Give it a go--and stick with it because it does come into its own in the final third--if you ever come across it.
The hero calls the heroine 'love' far, far too many times. It was so noticeable it felt like a tic.
Joel read to me like a George Sanders gay-coded cad. But in that not-gay 'oh, Rebecca!' George Sanders completely charming awful cad way.
Different style and tone than a lot of HP. I wasn't sure at first, and wasn't sure in the middle, but it snuck up on me to care by the end and I was glad for how it all went, and went down.
I think that sums up the experience for the leads as well.
This plays out like an 80s nighttime soap opera. Big eyes and seething everywhere, vicious dramatic personalities, no one really likeable but all of them compelling. There's a fairly large cast of characters too, everyone intertwined and miserable and scheming to score points and bring misery to the others.
Except! for the heroine, who despite being unsullied by all that cynicism and machinations, reads and intuits people and situations well and holds her own in them. I was so glad there was never a moment she was utterly humiliated during, or a scene that plays out just to see her stumble. This plot and the writing was open to it happening, and it was refreshing for Barnes not to do so.
The OW is truly a poisonous number. The hero's brothers, awful. The heroine's choice in crush and friendships, pathetic (we never get back to them after they jet away from NYC to confront the hero's family and OW, but that's no loss, consider them well and truly cut out of the picture).
This couple has a LOT to get over before they realize they're in love, but they need each other and that love to get over their pasts and the obstacles in their (interior, and shared) way. Usually the hero and/or heroine being long-term hung up on another person and discussing it with the hero and/or heroine at length leaves me a bit wanting to outright cold; it's still heavy-handed in this book, and I wish the shift to realization and into one another happened sooner, but it works given the set-up and characterization and you are along for and believing them falling in love.
It won't slot into being an old fave for me, but I enjoyed and found it in closing worthwhile after an uncertain start. I liked both leads and their vulnerabilities and how continually forthright they were with each other, and how that lead to their HEA. The few 'misunderstood / overheard' moments were dealt with almost immediately, the heroine gave back what for, the hero redeems himself and faces up to his issues, they'll do a lot of healing from where the book ends, together and for each other.
Which -- in the end, the heroine and the hero are likable, not-vicious creatures, leaving Dynasty-esque nonsense and old wounds behind. I do enjoy a 'the only one who ever cared or loved me is you' trope, and while this book's version of it is subtle, it's there and nicely so.
Again, just a different HP than the norm I've read. Give it a go--and stick with it because it does come into its own in the final third--if you ever come across it.
The hero calls the heroine 'love' far, far too many times. It was so noticeable it felt like a tic.
Joel read to me like a George Sanders gay-coded cad. But in that not-gay 'oh, Rebecca!' George Sanders completely charming awful cad way.
pback-to-read
February 9, 2021She was nicknamed the Ice Princess
Anne Chapin was reserved, shy and conventional. And she was astounded when cynical New York businessman Nicholas Thayer asked her to pose as his supposed mistress.
Anne was involved with Joel, a man who badly wanted his own gallery and Nick's offer would provide the needed funding in return for a few weeks of her time.
Driven to accept, Anne found it a time of discovery--of herself, of Nicholas and the pain of unrequited love. Somehow she had to find the confidence to melt herself, and Nick, too (
Anne Chapin was reserved, shy and conventional. And she was astounded when cynical New York businessman Nicholas Thayer asked her to pose as his supposed mistress.
Anne was involved with Joel, a man who badly wanted his own gallery and Nick's offer would provide the needed funding in return for a few weeks of her time.
Driven to accept, Anne found it a time of discovery--of herself, of Nicholas and the pain of unrequited love. Somehow she had to find the confidence to melt herself, and Nick, too (
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