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Legally Bound
Legally Bound by Kerry Allyne released on Oct 25, 1984 is available now for purchase.
190 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1984
5 people are currently reading
74 people want to read
About the author
Kerry Allyne
69 books49 followersKerry Allyne was born in England, UK. Her early childhood was uneventful, she remembered, until her father came home one day and began talking about emigrating to Australia. When they eventually arrived in Australia, Kerry took to her new land with a passion. During the family's first years "down under," she explored as much of the country as she could, journeying northward into Queensland and out onto the Great Barrier Reef, and sometimes south through New South Wales into Victoria. As a adult she returned to England for a short time. A long working holiday enabled her to travel the world before returning to Australia where she met her engineer husband-to-be, and they had a couple of children. The family eventually moved to a rural area and she started to write. She used the people and countryside as inspiration for her romances. She was published by Mills & Boon from 1976 to 1994.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
October 23, 2015
Re Legally Bound - This one may well be the lowest ranked book in all of HPlandia which puzzled me for a bit because it has all the hallmarks of a angsty-emo trainwreck, and for those of us who like our HPangst, this should be a front runner.
It isn't--and I have read this book more than a few times in an effort to figure out exactly why. What I keep coming back to is that every time I finish this book I don't feel an HEA. I don't particularly hate this book (not like Smoke in the Wind - I can --and have-- ranted for days about that one, to my very perverse enjoyment), but when I finish reading this I always feel like the whole story was just rather sordid --not a romance at all.
The plot is that h and H were married, she was fairly youngish, 19 or so, and he was around 10 years older. He was establishing his business (some vague conglomeration) and she went out all the time. Her complaint was he was never home but always working, and his was that she was always out having a social life. One night while he was working and she was out, the babysitter got distracted and their daughter drowned.
He blamed her, she blamed herself and they grew so far apart, she finally left him, took back her maiden name and got her own life. He buys the company she works for and then gets her to be his secretary. She has a guy she is dating but no sex, he has a girlfriend he has slept with and she is also a client.
They fight continuously and he is nasty and she immaturely childish. He frequently makes out with his girlfriend in his office in front of her, yet transfers her boyfriend, (whom she told she would marry,) to another city, when he catches them kissing in her's.
Then he rapes her on a weekend workathon, they spend the night together and have a second congress that was more cooperative on her part. He leaves her in the morning to go to his girlfriend and she takes the handbrake off his Alpha Romeo and lets it wreck into a garden wall.
He threatens her about it and they fight, but she stupidly sticks around and doesn't quit her job and move --for no good reason that I could tell, they are still married - he isn't going to have her arrested for her Waiting to Exhale moment- and he can't really make her pay for the car because legally she is entitled to part of his money, but her behavior (plus his) devolves even more when she figures out she is preggers.
He forces her back as his wife, continues seeing his girlfriend and she goes from Sally Wentworth fiesty crazy revenge woman to neurotic doormat Penny Jordan introvert - then the girlfriend shows up to reiterate her position in the H's life. The H questions the h about it later, but she blows him off, then they spend a few days together - as the H is concerned she is becoming a recluse- and they fight some more, he tells her he is leaving for business and she should go live with her parents. (Somehow over the course of this plot, the h goes from independent career woman to infantilized dependent who needs to be sent home to mummy and daddy after a bad week at summer camp.)
The h is crying and has a big drama and she confesses she lurves him and vice versa. We then get the big explanation paragraphs where he says he has always loved her etc, and then he says what is possibly the most idiotic explanation for why his adultery should be excused in all of HPlandia ( I will quote it here so we can all share the brain bleach)....
"So you kept visiting Rosalind instead,' she accused in reproachful accents. `But only for business reasons,' he impressed decisively. `Having had no business experience at all before her father died, she hadn't a clue how to run the company, and on most occasions it was only in an advisory capacity that I spent time with her.'
She was silent for a time, and then . . . `Although you have slept with her, haven't you?' she probed hesitantly, wistfully. The other girl could not have made the claims she had without at least some basis of truth in them, surely!
Lane exhaled heavily and, half turning towards her, brushed the back of his hand down her cheek, in a tender gesture.
`No, I've never slept with Rosalind,' he denied. His sensuous mouth slanted crookedly. `I may have gone to bed with her, but I've never had the slightest desire to sleep with her.'
Jenna's eyes clouded pensively. `Is there a difference?' `To me there is,' he nodded resolutely.
`Going to bed with someone is merely a means for gaining a brief feeling of satisfaction, a moment's passion ... but to my mind, sleeping with someone,'
pausing, he bent to kiss her meaningfully,
`is wanting to remain after the love-making, to hold them in your arms while you sleep, and the pleasure of knowing they'll be there in the morning. And that desire I've only ever experienced with you, my love...."
Sorry folks, I had to do it ( I am willing to share my Captain Morgan and triple fudge cookies tho) - so while he was "mostly" visiting the girlfriend for business after the h moved back in and only inserted body parts occasionally, all is well cause he did not really WANT to actually sleep the whole night with her.
Well-- that whole explanation is probably one of the reasons this book doesn't work, not even as a so-bad-it-is-cultic trainwreck. The cardinal error in introducing and having scenes with the OW is also made in this one.
When you are having the OW confrontation, it is imperative that she not be shown to have every statement she makes about her relationship with the H to be true - and it is direly urgent that she not be right in assuming that she would be a better h for the H than the ACTUAL h.
In this one, it is fairly obvious that the girlfriend/OW really IS a better match for the H - and she knows it, the nominal h knows it -- and more importantly -- the reader knows it, so it just negates all the wrecky drama of the book.
Basically the immature h is stuck with a disinterestedly antagonistic H because she is preggers and the whole situation is what was just in the book editorially approved outline.
It isn't a good match with the H and h, it isn't true love, it is a depressing reminder of the fifties HPlandia rules that pregnancy equals being stuck in marriage (make the best of it for the baby's sake, dontcha know) with a non-compatible partner - it makes the reader hopeful that another plot point can be the h miscarries, (we've still got 20 pages left in the book,) so that the H and his REAL h can have their HEA.
That is the other problem with the book, while reading it you can almost see the book outline, and the child's death doesn't really have a lot of impact - it is a plot point to get to outline part 2 in the story.
Technically it is a pretty strong book in terms of progression, but the H and h are so unlikable and the devolution of the h is so sadly pathetic that any real angst is drowned in the faint distaste of watching a couple who really should not be together forced into an ending to finish an outline for an extremely disheartening and rather sordid story.
It isn't--and I have read this book more than a few times in an effort to figure out exactly why. What I keep coming back to is that every time I finish this book I don't feel an HEA. I don't particularly hate this book (not like Smoke in the Wind - I can --and have-- ranted for days about that one, to my very perverse enjoyment), but when I finish reading this I always feel like the whole story was just rather sordid --not a romance at all.
The plot is that h and H were married, she was fairly youngish, 19 or so, and he was around 10 years older. He was establishing his business (some vague conglomeration) and she went out all the time. Her complaint was he was never home but always working, and his was that she was always out having a social life. One night while he was working and she was out, the babysitter got distracted and their daughter drowned.
He blamed her, she blamed herself and they grew so far apart, she finally left him, took back her maiden name and got her own life. He buys the company she works for and then gets her to be his secretary. She has a guy she is dating but no sex, he has a girlfriend he has slept with and she is also a client.
They fight continuously and he is nasty and she immaturely childish. He frequently makes out with his girlfriend in his office in front of her, yet transfers her boyfriend, (whom she told she would marry,) to another city, when he catches them kissing in her's.
Then he rapes her on a weekend workathon, they spend the night together and have a second congress that was more cooperative on her part. He leaves her in the morning to go to his girlfriend and she takes the handbrake off his Alpha Romeo and lets it wreck into a garden wall.
He threatens her about it and they fight, but she stupidly sticks around and doesn't quit her job and move --for no good reason that I could tell, they are still married - he isn't going to have her arrested for her Waiting to Exhale moment- and he can't really make her pay for the car because legally she is entitled to part of his money, but her behavior (plus his) devolves even more when she figures out she is preggers.
He forces her back as his wife, continues seeing his girlfriend and she goes from Sally Wentworth fiesty crazy revenge woman to neurotic doormat Penny Jordan introvert - then the girlfriend shows up to reiterate her position in the H's life. The H questions the h about it later, but she blows him off, then they spend a few days together - as the H is concerned she is becoming a recluse- and they fight some more, he tells her he is leaving for business and she should go live with her parents. (Somehow over the course of this plot, the h goes from independent career woman to infantilized dependent who needs to be sent home to mummy and daddy after a bad week at summer camp.)
The h is crying and has a big drama and she confesses she lurves him and vice versa. We then get the big explanation paragraphs where he says he has always loved her etc, and then he says what is possibly the most idiotic explanation for why his adultery should be excused in all of HPlandia ( I will quote it here so we can all share the brain bleach)....
"So you kept visiting Rosalind instead,' she accused in reproachful accents. `But only for business reasons,' he impressed decisively. `Having had no business experience at all before her father died, she hadn't a clue how to run the company, and on most occasions it was only in an advisory capacity that I spent time with her.'
She was silent for a time, and then . . . `Although you have slept with her, haven't you?' she probed hesitantly, wistfully. The other girl could not have made the claims she had without at least some basis of truth in them, surely!
Lane exhaled heavily and, half turning towards her, brushed the back of his hand down her cheek, in a tender gesture.
`No, I've never slept with Rosalind,' he denied. His sensuous mouth slanted crookedly. `I may have gone to bed with her, but I've never had the slightest desire to sleep with her.'
Jenna's eyes clouded pensively. `Is there a difference?' `To me there is,' he nodded resolutely.
`Going to bed with someone is merely a means for gaining a brief feeling of satisfaction, a moment's passion ... but to my mind, sleeping with someone,'
pausing, he bent to kiss her meaningfully,
`is wanting to remain after the love-making, to hold them in your arms while you sleep, and the pleasure of knowing they'll be there in the morning. And that desire I've only ever experienced with you, my love...."
Sorry folks, I had to do it ( I am willing to share my Captain Morgan and triple fudge cookies tho) - so while he was "mostly" visiting the girlfriend for business after the h moved back in and only inserted body parts occasionally, all is well cause he did not really WANT to actually sleep the whole night with her.
Well-- that whole explanation is probably one of the reasons this book doesn't work, not even as a so-bad-it-is-cultic trainwreck. The cardinal error in introducing and having scenes with the OW is also made in this one.
When you are having the OW confrontation, it is imperative that she not be shown to have every statement she makes about her relationship with the H to be true - and it is direly urgent that she not be right in assuming that she would be a better h for the H than the ACTUAL h.
In this one, it is fairly obvious that the girlfriend/OW really IS a better match for the H - and she knows it, the nominal h knows it -- and more importantly -- the reader knows it, so it just negates all the wrecky drama of the book.
Basically the immature h is stuck with a disinterestedly antagonistic H because she is preggers and the whole situation is what was just in the book editorially approved outline.
It isn't a good match with the H and h, it isn't true love, it is a depressing reminder of the fifties HPlandia rules that pregnancy equals being stuck in marriage (make the best of it for the baby's sake, dontcha know) with a non-compatible partner - it makes the reader hopeful that another plot point can be the h miscarries, (we've still got 20 pages left in the book,) so that the H and his REAL h can have their HEA.
That is the other problem with the book, while reading it you can almost see the book outline, and the child's death doesn't really have a lot of impact - it is a plot point to get to outline part 2 in the story.
Technically it is a pretty strong book in terms of progression, but the H and h are so unlikable and the devolution of the h is so sadly pathetic that any real angst is drowned in the faint distaste of watching a couple who really should not be together forced into an ending to finish an outline for an extremely disheartening and rather sordid story.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 9, 2019
Curse my stupid curiosity!! Dang my lack of control! HP's are written by the devil!!! Why oh why am I so stupid? Curse you Red Baron!!!!
Okay so I read this again. I have no idea why. I read boogenhagens review and I remembered how much I hated it but no, Debbie just had to go peak and see if it was still in my library and then she just had to read the end, then the beginning and then the middle and then the end again and now I am heartsore!!!! Dang you Debbie DiFiore!! Why did you do this to yourself? Why didn't you just throw yourself down the stairs and break a leg??? I am demented. I hate this book!!!! Yet I had to look at it again. It was like a bad accident and then there was blood and gore on the pavement and you just had to slow down and take a glance at it and then wham, you are throwing up on the side of the road wishing you had never done it. I have put myself in time out for a couple of hours. In a corner with a bottle of Titos and Thin Mints. Don't judge. I know I am stupid.
This book is horrid. The hero is an idiot and the heroine is just as dumb. His excuse for cheating was ludicrous and her believing it just shows that her gene pool must be really, really shallow. Boogenhagen's review outlines the story very well. But I couldn't stop there.I had to verify it for myself and I am so so sorry I did.
My summary: Separated for five years, NOT divorced, hero is a cheating bastard, heroine is just existing, wannabe OM, actual OW lover "that he beds but doesn't sleep with", forced seduction, OW visitation rights, heroine totals his car (YAY), uh oh pregnancy and reunion.
Take my advise, just drive away from the crime scene and don't look at the blood. This one will make me sick for days. I am a moron.
Okay so I read this again. I have no idea why. I read boogenhagens review and I remembered how much I hated it but no, Debbie just had to go peak and see if it was still in my library and then she just had to read the end, then the beginning and then the middle and then the end again and now I am heartsore!!!! Dang you Debbie DiFiore!! Why did you do this to yourself? Why didn't you just throw yourself down the stairs and break a leg??? I am demented. I hate this book!!!! Yet I had to look at it again. It was like a bad accident and then there was blood and gore on the pavement and you just had to slow down and take a glance at it and then wham, you are throwing up on the side of the road wishing you had never done it. I have put myself in time out for a couple of hours. In a corner with a bottle of Titos and Thin Mints. Don't judge. I know I am stupid.
This book is horrid. The hero is an idiot and the heroine is just as dumb. His excuse for cheating was ludicrous and her believing it just shows that her gene pool must be really, really shallow. Boogenhagen's review outlines the story very well. But I couldn't stop there.I had to verify it for myself and I am so so sorry I did.
My summary: Separated for five years, NOT divorced, hero is a cheating bastard, heroine is just existing, wannabe OM, actual OW lover "that he beds but doesn't sleep with", forced seduction, OW visitation rights, heroine totals his car (YAY), uh oh pregnancy and reunion.
Take my advise, just drive away from the crime scene and don't look at the blood. This one will make me sick for days. I am a moron.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 15, 2010
Wow, this is awful. I don't usually rate a book I didn't read all the way through, but nothing could redeem this one. Two incredibly immature and nasty main characters who thoroughly deserve each other and should live miserably ever after.
April 6, 2021
I have no idea how I stumbled into this nightmare of a book, but it’s been downloaded in Scribd for quite a while.
Two horrible, horrible characters. She’s immature and stupid, he’s just nasty.
She uses her maiden name, has a boyfriend who has no idea she’s still married. She lies by omission and never rectifies this. He’s got a, I don’t know what to call her, OW maybe.
He buys out the company she works for and they spend more than 3/4 of the book verbally sparring, have sex, she gets pregnant, he assumes it’s the boyfriend’s until he confronts the boyfriend, forces her to move in with him and then basically ignores her, then realizes she’s unhappy, huh? She’s been unhappy since page one. Blah, blah, blah, they still love each other, whatever.
The author must think readers are morons...
1. After 2 years separation he realizes he still loves her.
2. But he couldn’t find her, really?? He knows how to find her parents, never thought to ask them?
3. After finally finding her, he buys the business to be near her, really? He couldn’t just knock on her door?
4. During their HEA moment, she points out that he slept with the OW. His response? He didn’t sleep with her, sleep implies more intimacy, sleeping with someone is about love and comfort, what he did was simply slack a physical need. OMG, MY HEAD JUST EXPLODED!
This was a rage inducing piece of crap, it should have been a DNF, but I kept reading this tacky train wreck, the author’s right, only a moron would finish this.
Two horrible, horrible characters. She’s immature and stupid, he’s just nasty.
She uses her maiden name, has a boyfriend who has no idea she’s still married. She lies by omission and never rectifies this. He’s got a, I don’t know what to call her, OW maybe.
He buys out the company she works for and they spend more than 3/4 of the book verbally sparring, have sex, she gets pregnant, he assumes it’s the boyfriend’s until he confronts the boyfriend, forces her to move in with him and then basically ignores her, then realizes she’s unhappy, huh? She’s been unhappy since page one. Blah, blah, blah, they still love each other, whatever.
The author must think readers are morons...
1. After 2 years separation he realizes he still loves her.
2. But he couldn’t find her, really?? He knows how to find her parents, never thought to ask them?
3. After finally finding her, he buys the business to be near her, really? He couldn’t just knock on her door?
4. During their HEA moment, she points out that he slept with the OW. His response? He didn’t sleep with her, sleep implies more intimacy, sleeping with someone is about love and comfort, what he did was simply slack a physical need. OMG, MY HEAD JUST EXPLODED!
This was a rage inducing piece of crap, it should have been a DNF, but I kept reading this tacky train wreck, the author’s right, only a moron would finish this.
April 23, 2017
What a "hero" so they were separated not divorced and he was whoring around but hey that's ok because he never slept with other women.....he just had sex with them and then left! Let's not forget his current girlfriend who he wasn't sleeping with but having sex with who treated her like a slave and made her do errands and when she comes back they are both sucking each other's faces off, he disappeared a lot of evenings to see her and we never know if he is still sexing the ow even after meeting the heroine again. This book was written well and to some extent maybe he did care for her but he was not a hero just an unfaithful nasty rat!
June 20, 2021
This book was just full of unlikeable characters. The H and the h and their respective others were not very nice people.
The H was a manipulative, cheating bully/manho
The h was a shallow, immature numptie
The OW was just nasty although having said that maybe she was well within her rights. The H led her right up the garden path.
The OM might have been the best of a bad lot as although he showed jealous tendencies he was provoked and he was otherwise a gentleman with the h. She lied to him and treated him pretty poorly to be honest.
I just could not get over what happened to their daughter and the lack of follow up. I mean really? It was truly awful what happened to her and neither of her parents came out of it in a good light.
I'm over this one I don't want to talk about it anymore :(
The H was a manipulative, cheating bully/manho
The h was a shallow, immature numptie
The OW was just nasty although having said that maybe she was well within her rights. The H led her right up the garden path.
The OM might have been the best of a bad lot as although he showed jealous tendencies he was provoked and he was otherwise a gentleman with the h. She lied to him and treated him pretty poorly to be honest.
I just could not get over what happened to their daughter and the lack of follow up. I mean really? It was truly awful what happened to her and neither of her parents came out of it in a good light.
I'm over this one I don't want to talk about it anymore :(
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 9, 2012
for a romance this was remarkably unappealing. the heroine and hero were both unlikeable, selfish, and deserved each other so they wouldn't ruin 2 other people!
April 30, 2024
So bad. DNF, skimmed a bit, awful people. H didn’t sleep with OW, just had intercourse. I need to bleach my tablet after having this muck on it.
August 13, 2024
What killed this story for me as how easily the H and h both got over the tragic death of their baby daughter (a careless babysitter left her in the bath while she talked to her boyfriend and the baby drowned, HORRIBLE!!! And the crappy girl wasn't even charged!! I'd have seen to it that she spent time in jail, hopefully in a cell with a tough woman looking for a "bitch".) Neither ever visits the cemetery, has moments where memory really hurts (just token references here) and when the h FINALLY wants to discuss their loss, the H cuts her off by saying it's all in the past! Shows how much depth of feeling he has! Hope when his time comes, they dance on his grave!
It was a case of marrying too soon (based on sex attraction), with the h too young, the H spending too much time at work, the h going to too many parties without the H (he always had to work), he accused her of being self-centered and shallow, she accused him of being a neglectful workaholic, and neither seemed to take any time from working, partying, arguing and f--king to spend any time with their baby! in my opinion, the kid was better off dead than with these two for parents!
The whole story is silly, with the H and h separated for several years, but neither in a hurry to divorce legally, though they've both moved on with other people. (In the h's case, she has a fiancé who she's stringing along, planning to marry one of these days, but not ready to set a definite date, or sleep with him. In the H's case, he's sleeping with a woman who he hasn't made any commitment to at all, taking a "whatever" attitude. Naturally, they're both jealous of OM and OW, and the H uses his position as the new boss to have the OM transferred elsewhere!
The h was glad to be rid of him, as he was getting tiresome. (Imagine a fiancé wanting you to set a wedding date and show at least a little interest in making love! Horrible man!) She also neglected to tell him she was still legally married! Oops! Just a minor detail!
Just too ridiculous! I never should have read it through! Be smarter than me and don't bother with this one!
It was a case of marrying too soon (based on sex attraction), with the h too young, the H spending too much time at work, the h going to too many parties without the H (he always had to work), he accused her of being self-centered and shallow, she accused him of being a neglectful workaholic, and neither seemed to take any time from working, partying, arguing and f--king to spend any time with their baby! in my opinion, the kid was better off dead than with these two for parents!
The whole story is silly, with the H and h separated for several years, but neither in a hurry to divorce legally, though they've both moved on with other people. (In the h's case, she has a fiancé who she's stringing along, planning to marry one of these days, but not ready to set a definite date, or sleep with him. In the H's case, he's sleeping with a woman who he hasn't made any commitment to at all, taking a "whatever" attitude. Naturally, they're both jealous of OM and OW, and the H uses his position as the new boss to have the OM transferred elsewhere!
The h was glad to be rid of him, as he was getting tiresome. (Imagine a fiancé wanting you to set a wedding date and show at least a little interest in making love! Horrible man!) She also neglected to tell him she was still legally married! Oops! Just a minor detail!
Just too ridiculous! I never should have read it through! Be smarter than me and don't bother with this one!
June 12, 2022
Avoid. Their daughter drowns and the H actively sleeps with the OW when they are reunited. He also confesses that he did, read Boogen's review for recall.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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October 11, 2025Dessa vez quem merece uma frigideira na cabeça sou eu .... Ecaa
March 31, 2013
A five year separation after the death of their child meant that Jenna and Lane were now living their own lives had their own loves and their own futures. Jenna planning marriage to her co-worker and Lane involved with a rich socialite; but when Lane's buys the Company she works for then things have a way of getting complicated.
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June 25, 2018Lane regarded her as his property
The day Jenna's estranged husband took over her company, she was prepared to resign. She couldn't work with Lane Forrester again after the tragedy of their brief marriage.
But he refused to let her go, just as he'd refused to grant her a divorce. He didn't want her for himself, but he was going to make sure no one else could have her, either.
Jenna didn't understand why Lane wouldn't free her. Worse, she no longer understood why she wanted to go.
The day Jenna's estranged husband took over her company, she was prepared to resign. She couldn't work with Lane Forrester again after the tragedy of their brief marriage.
But he refused to let her go, just as he'd refused to grant her a divorce. He didn't want her for himself, but he was going to make sure no one else could have her, either.
Jenna didn't understand why Lane wouldn't free her. Worse, she no longer understood why she wanted to go.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews