Header PromotionSpanish Billionaire, Innocent Wife
Book Fifty-five: “Spanish Billionaire, Innocent Wife”, Kate Walker, Harlequin Presents, June, 2008, #2734, eBook, Adobe format
As I Write This “Spanish Billionaire, Innocent Wife”, is the #1 Best Selling eBook!
This is a very hard book for a man to read. The hero is a saint. He is an alpha-male, Spanish, billionaire with a vast ducal estate. He is a perfect gentleman. He wants his future wife to remain a virgin until their wedding day. Since he is so passionate for her, this proves to take enormous willpower. The heroine is a very insecure, worry-wart; she is almost, what the English would call a “nutter”.
When the hero tells her he wants to marry her and produce an heir to has vast fortune, she takes this as an insult and refuses to marry him. Worse, she does not tell him why she is upset (like all men he is suppose to be a mind reader) but instead tells him she is leaving him for another man. This is a total lie because she is actually madly in love with him.
The hero is a perfect gentleman. He makes an honorable offer of marriage. He respects her virtue. Yet the heroine runs off with another man. Of course, he is deeply hurt by her behavior.
This was the “black moment” and it happened two years before the story opens. The rest of the story is going to be the heroine’s attempt to bridge the gap and get the hero to say he loves her. In the interim, she spins off “black moments” like some active pulsar sending radio signals throughout the universe. If the hero looks at his watch, in the heroine’s mind, this proves he doesn’t love her and she must flee while she can. If he makes a phone call too soon after getting out of bed, it proves he does not love her and she must flee while she can. She flees at the drop of a hat -- she even runs out of the flat without her shoes and half-dressed. I kept wanting to warn the hero: run, Raul, run, this woman is going to misinterpret everything you tell her for the rest of your life! Run, Raul, Run.
Now it could be that female readers will like vicariously spending time in this heroine’s head. I don’t know why but then I don’t have to.
Here’s something else: at the start of the story, the hero and heroine find themselves together again in a hospital after two years separation. This is because they have both have lost loved ones. The heroine has a disclosure she wants to make to the hero. This disclosure takes eight words to make. That’s all. Eight simple words. It is also a disclosure that the hero is going to find out about anyway very shortly. The next 100-plus pages involve the hero and heroine in an emotional discussion while the heroine tries to make said disclosure and the hero tries to pry it out of her. There is virtually no story movement for the first 100 pages. Once the disclosure is made, the story really begins. After this point the action picks up and the plot movement is very good. But the heroine is still a near “nutter”.
That being said, the book is very well written. The emotional turmoil for the first 100 pages, in which the heroine is trying to make the eight word disclosure, is very well written. However, unlike “The Greek Tycoon’s Unwilling Wife”, where the stakes were “life and death” and early disclosure placed the mental health of the injured hero was at risk, the stakes were not high enough in “Spanish Billionaire, Innocent Wife”, to warrant the expenditure of so much story space.
I think the hero was a saint and I think the heroine is going to have a HEA. However, I don’t see any way the hero is going to have a HEA. Maybe the mean Presents alpha-heroes do better in the wife department.
Don’t get me wrong. Females readers may love this book. It’s the story of a feisty little red-headed heroine who holds out for over two years until she wins a genuine declaration of love from the hero. She literally – not figuratively – but literally brings the hero to his knees. I fear however that he is going to spend a lot of time there in the coming years. Maybe this actually is a very good story -- from the female POV!
What do you think? 
Excellent Writing As Usual
Story is Problematic – Hero is a Saint
Thanks,
Vince
“Romances are the emotional vitamins of the soul.” Vince
Vince, I just blogged this
Vince, I just blogged this book as well. I didn't find the hero a saint. But I don't always enjoy Presents as I find the heroes too mean spirited at times and I LIKED how Raul had that vulnerability as well as being all the things required of a Presents alpha.
I also understood the heroine's actions. LOL that either means it is a female POV thing or I too am a nutter. Which too often is likely true!
Donna
THE RANCHER'S RUNAWAY PRINCESS, Romance, January 09
HIRED: THE ITALIAN'S BRIDE, Romance, June 09
http://www.donnaalward.com
http://www.donnaalward.blogspot.com
A saint????
Hi Vince
Well, this was an intriguing review to read – and , I’ll admit, a rather confuzzling one. Raul – a saint? Never! No way. It must be a male ‘read’ of his character as opposed to the female read. Interesting isn’t it that Donna in her review says that ‘He's tough. He's really tough’ – which I think is how a f'emale read' would see Raul. And it’s certainly how I meant the book to be. I didn’t find my heroine a nutter – I certainly didn’t write her that way – she was someone who felt she was only valued as a potential mother of Raul’s heirs – and his behaviour when they met again reinforced that. The message she had to deliver to him was going to make him hate her family – and they were both in a deeply emotional state - not one that makes for easy communication. In those circumstances it wasn't something she could just blurt out.
What intrigues me is the very different reading of – just to take one example – that phone call . That was not just any old phone call. It was a call to summon his driver to take him away from her, just after he's got out of bed. As a woman, I’d find that desperately hurtful. So like Donna I understand her reactions. Well, I’d have to or I wouldn’t write the book that way. I’ve been too busy on a deadline to keep up with the discussion on Black Moments - fascinating though it is – but for me, the black moment in this book isn’t before it starts. It’s the fact that Alannah believes the only thing Raul wants from her is an heir – and it seems that she can’t give him that. Which, in this female mind, means that she will be entering into a totally loveless and pointless marriage.
Personally, I’d find that impossible to go ahead with – or maybe that’s me being a nutter too! So that’s you and me both, Donna.
Hmm - must ask another male to read this book and see if he views it in the same was you do Vince. As I said - intriguing
Kate
http://www.kate-walker.com
The Alcolar Family ~ ebook bundle
Bedded By The Greek Billionaire ~ Presents October 2008 RT Top Pick
Cordero's Forced Bride ~ Presents February 2009
12 Point Guide To Writing Romance
You're Right About the "Black Moment" & Yes, it's St. Raul.
Hello Kate:
Oh, you are so right about the second “black moment” in thinking she could not produce an heir (but again that was only after three tires – windows of opportunities – a little soon to panic). However, I also saw this as a resentful continuation of the original “black moment” which was the hero’s failure to say he loved her for herself. That was the problem then and it was the problem at the end. She needed a declaration of love. (I know, all heroines deserve this. It was his failing.)
Perhaps you can tell me what he did that was tough? As a man, I didn’t see one act of toughness.
Imagine you’re a man and you ask a woman you are crazy about to marry you and she says no and then says she’s leaving you for another man. That means she was going with that "other man" all the time you were dating her.
Then she keeps rejecting you. She knew the driver was coming back for the hero. Should he wait around to be rejected again and again when he thinks he is acting in good faith?
Yes, the disclosure might make him hate her family – for five minutes until he understood the full implications and who was at fault. Also, he was going to find out anyway very shortly.
I think you have a great point about having another man read the book. It could be the book will be very different for him or even the next woman who reads it. I can only go by my reading experience. And I should not think that my experience will be the same as all or even most men.
I now think that women are going to love this book.
BTW, please don’t read all that “black moment” stuff. Write some more books. You have wonderful Alpha heroes! We need more of them!
Thanks,
Vince
“Romances are the emotional vitamins of the soul.” Vince