Savage Obsession by Diana Hamilton ... QC #252

makes you wonder how some lines age better then others

I think what bothered me about it was that Charles never explained to Beth about his 'relationship' with Zanna.  In some ways he was a bit insensitive about the fact that not only had Beth lost their baby -- she potentially lost the possibility of having another one.

Letting Zanna and her son stay with them, in the nursery that was prepared for their baby was just totally insensitive.  He seemed more concerned with Zanna than with what Beth was feeling. 

I think that this book would have benefited from having the H's POV -- at least a little bit. 

You've just convinced me that I must find myself a good UBS and visit it.  I have to dig out some older presents.  They sound very interesting...

Great review :-)

I really enjoyed reading all the discussion that this review generated :-)

Kat.... go ahead and read/review those Janet Daileys.  Why not?  Just say "readers will find this sexist now" or "dated by time" or whatever if you think you should.

hey, Janet ..... glad you read what I did .... thanks for sharing your review .... this is only my second book by Diana Hamilton ... the first one I read I wasn't too impressed with ... Scandalous Bride ... I lost respect for the heroine and found myself feeling really sorry for the hero  ... I have other older HPs from DH that I think I'll dig out ... any recommendations?

Scandalous Bride is in my TBR pile....  hmmm....  I guess I'll keep it at the bottom of the TBR, no need to bring it up.

About DH.... I'm pretty happy with her books as a whole.  I think I've reviewed enough of her books this year to get a good impression of her as an author, and she's what I like: she writes sensual scenes that pack a whallop, low on angst, and she avoids my ick factors.  She's kind of like Carole Mortimer in the respect that her books are "safe reads" for the most part.

About what recommendations I'd give for DH books...  this one was actually the DH book I gave the highest rating to. 

Here are some of my DH reviews.  Maybe you can check what's in your TBR and see if I've read any of 'em?  (I have three or four DH books with HP numbers under 1800 that I read in Jan/Feb/March and haven't reviewed yet...  but I probably won't write up a real thoughtful review)

2321
The Italian's Trophy Mistress
Diana Hamilton
Harlequin Presents
A great "mistress" type of story.  She chooses to be his mistress only because it's the type of relationship she wants (she has issues with commitment, unable to trust rich men to stay the course because of daddy issues).  She falls in love and dumps him as a defensive action, and he chases after her.  He tries to blackmail her back into his bed, changes his mind, and wants marriage instead.  Great passion. Somewhat weak characters.  Rating: 3.5 stars, a good read.

2672
The Mediterranean Billionaire's Secret Baby
Diana Hamilton
Harlequin Presents
Back Cover: She's carrying his baby--so she will be his bride!

Italian billionaire Francesco Mastroianni was captivated by Anna. But their passionate affair was cut short when Anna's father attempted to blackmail Francesco into marrying her. Seven months later, Francesco is shocked to see Anna again. She's struggling to make ends meet and she's visibly pregnant! If she's carrying the Mastroianni heir, that can mean only one course of action for Francesco: marriage!
  My Review: Mmm!  This was kind of nice.  They had a whirlwind holiday romance, and he was about to propose, but then he "found out" she was supposedly a gold-digger, he dumped her in a bitingly short letter that implied he'd moved on to other women.  The heroine hates his guts and thinks him a cad and womanizer.  When he realizes she's pregnant and it's his baby, he wants to support her financially but he's bitter about her using him last time for money.  She scared him off women, which I liked, I'm glad he didn't rush blindly into bed with other women, it's a trite way for a man/woman to soothe their ego and it's over-used.  I liked seeing him distrust women and throw them off him, because he wasn't ready to open himself up with women again.  Slowly he started to see that he might have been wrong about the heroine.  As soon as the baby is born, he falls fathoms deep in love with his son, and he makes an adorable daddy.  The hero proposes a marriage of convenience because he wants control over her, and it disheartens him to propose this way, to the woman he loved and dreamed of marrying for love a few months ago.   They spend time together after the baby is born and they give in to the passion between them.  The sex means this marriage isn't going to be just for convenience, they start to talk more about what lead to their break up in an effort to set things off on the right foot, and the hero learns to trust that the woman he loved is as guileless as he originally thought, and that she never had any intent to use him for his money.  Rating: 4/5 stars, this was a very passionate read, highly steamy, driven by a great conflict.  The hero was agressive and strong, but he had a huge vulnerability to the heroine and was capable and open to love.  I loved that the hero was celibate after his break up with the heroine, because nothing hurts more than for the heroine to pine away pregnant with the hero's child and suffering while the hero sleeps around.  

A Spanish Vengeance
Diana Hamilton
Harlequin Presents
Back Cover: Lisa Penington will do anything to help her family – even if that meant accepting an indecent proposal from a man who broke her heart years ago.
For five years Diego Raffacani has thought of nothing but Lisa – and revenge. He is sure that she will come to his bed, if only for her family’s sake. But he soon realises that he has underestimated her – and the force of their passion. Now the only way to make right the wrongs of the past is to make her his bride. But will Lisa yield to the Spaniards seduction?
   Favourite Scene: (warm fuzzy moment) Her hands felt so small within his. The delicacy of her bone structure had aroused all his protective instincts five years ago, left him in awe of her fragile beauty. As his eyes narrowed on the exquisitely modelled features, the soft mouth that trembled slightly, he could feel it happening all over again. The need to cherish and adore.  Another Fav Scene: (yay alpha!) He dragged his mouth from hers and stated raggedly, `You will marry me. You will forget Clayton, forget you ever knew him. If, he weren't already lying injured on a hospital bed I would have beaten him to a pulp!'
He planted a kiss on her startled mouth, impressing his forceful decision. Lisa gurgled with laughter and kissed him back, only to find his dark head rearing away, a ferocious glitter in his dark eyes. `This is no laughing matter. You are mine and I am a possessive man. I mean what I say. I propose to you and you giggle!' Violently insulted male pride bristled from every pore. `But this time,' he uttered darkly, `you do not leave my sight until I have my wedding ring on your finger. And not even then.'  My Review: I love a good revenge story, and I do like it when after a separation the hero deliberately seeks out the heroine because he can't live without her.  (Even if at the time he thinks he's doing it "for revenge" it's really because he wants her back in his life in some capacity)   This had a great alpha hero with some yummy moments.  I think there was good sizzle here and pretty good conflict keeping them apart.  I do dislike it though when the years spent apart serve no purpose, and in this case there was no real point to the years spent apart, no growth happened during the years to make it worthwhile, to make them better able to have a stable relationship once they did get back together.  I enjoyed this book.  Rating: 3.5/5 stars, a nice revenge plot, and hey, it was sweet that the hero didn't take away her choices when it came down to it, he gave her freedom.

2732
Virgin: Wedded at the Italian's Convenience
Diana Hamilton
Harlequin Presents
Back Cover: Arrogant Italian Paolo Venini needs to marry. And English rose Lily Frome will make a perfect, convenient wife.

As Lily struggles to adapt to Paolo's glamorous world, Paolo whisks her off to Italy's beautiful Amalfi coast to spend their wedding night. But Paolo expects more than just a marriage in name only—after their vows have been exchanged, Paolo intends to claim his virgin bride as his own….
My Review:  She works for a charity, she goes to the hero for a donation, and she ends up as his pretend fiance to please his ill mother.  After his mother's unexpected recovery, they need to further perpetuate the engagement.  Soon the hero is lusting after her and sees a real marriage to the heroine as a very appealing and satisfying prospect.  He sets about railroading her into marriage.  She fights it because she knows his history with women: a failed engagement, a marriage that lasted a matter of months, and a string of casual affairs.  He seems the type to bore quickly and she doesn't think she could survive it.  I loved how at their first kiss, they start to maul each other.  I loved the moment when he walked in to her bedroom, saw her naked, closed the door behind her and walked towards her with intent in his mind, then grabbed hold of control and covered her with a robe instead of tumbling her onto the bed as he'd wanted to.  So sexually charged, great tension!  This was an enjoyable read, characters you start to care about, slow building sexual tension, and a romance that is steamy.   My Rating: 4/5 stars, It's nice.  Diana Hamilton can usually be relied on for a good read!

1841
Sweet Sinner
Diana Hamilton
Harlequin Presents
Back Cover: Zoe Kilgerran's friend and flatmate Gary has broken up with his girlfriend Hannah and he desperately wants her back. So he gets the idea of having Zoe dress like a tart for a vicars and tarts party and pretend to be his date to make Hannah jealous. This works and Gary has a friend drive Zoe home. However the friend has roving hands, Zoe objects and he tosses her out of his mini in an unsavory part of London. A flash car happens by, the magnetically handsome occupant mistakes Zoe for the tart she's dressed as, calls her a cab and an embarrassed Zoe goes home. However the next day at work she finds out her knight in shining armor turns out to be none other than James Cade the CEO of the company she works for. She hopes he won't recognize her from the night before. He eventually does and now you have the bases for a romance that I dearly loved. Even though we know how it has to come out, Ms. Hamilton gave us plenty of dollops of suspense and just plane good characterization in her writing.
      Spoiler Warning: All my reviews contain spoilers      Favourite Scene: ‘Were you hurt?’ The dark, gravelly voice was abrasive and she took a small, defensive backward step, shaking her head, just wanting him to go away, shivering uncontrollably now despite the heavy warmth of the June night air. ‘There have to be better ways of earning a crust.’ The wide slash of his mouth indented cynically. ‘Don’t you understand the risks you’re running?’   My Review: Great sexual tension!  The hero thought she was a 15 year old prostitute when he first met her, so when he finds out she's actually a 25 year old accountant, he doesn't really trust her to work on his confidential business matters, especially when he arrives at her home and gets the impression that all her roommates are into swapping beds and mistakes the heroine's twin nephews for her own fatherless babes.  The heroine flies into a rage at his accusations and rashly offers to let him take her to bed and find out firsthand just how virginal she is.  Having that said sets their relationship on edge, he's tempted to take her up on it.  They work together, but the hero still disapproves of her and suspects she's flirting around.  They fight the chemistry between them and don't want to give in to it.  A few too many of their confrontations ended with the hero angrily huffing off, and I started to think it was a bit repetitive.  The dialogue though was great and you could cut the sexual tension with a knife, so I enjoyed it!  The heroine thinks the hero is engaged to the ugly daughter of his boss, and is jealous.  The confrontation scene, when the hero comes to find her after she just disappeared upstairs with another man for an hour, is intense (he tells he he's giving in, there's nothing to keep him from taking what he wants)  My Rating: 3.5/5 stars, great sexual tension, there's so much ridiculous misunderstanding that it was fun to watch the absurdity of it all and the author really did a good job of harnessing the plot and taming this massive misunderstanding. 

1775
Never a Bride
Diana Hamilton
Harlequin Presents
She marries him because he wants a permanent secretary.  It's a paper marriage with the only out being if one of them falls in love.  She falls in love with HIM and wants out because she can't stand being with him and being jealous of other women he might discreetly be having affairs with.  She convinces him she's sneaking around with a guy.  He after much fighting eventually lets her go.  Good passion, somewhat good plot.  Conflict was a little weak.

1612
A Honeyed Seduction
Diana Hamilton
Harlequin Presents
This was a fun read.  The heroine has issues about marriage/sex (her parents fought horribly until her father abandoned them).  The hero is apparently a "playful" fun loving guy who enjoys women.  The heroine feels a little put out by the hero's attitudes, thinking him a bit of a bum.  She asks him to pretend to be her fiance to help her out of a mess, and he agrees, taking gleeful flagrant advantage of the opportunity to try to seduce her.  He fails, because she's too scared to get involved, not able to trust she'd be safe/loved.  He is a bit angry that she thinks a wedding ring is a magical relationship fixer.  They have their issues, but the hero knows what he wants is HER and he sets out to get her.  It's a fun compelling read, good emotional conflict.  Rating: 4/5 stars, I enjoyed seeing the characters fall in love. 

Throughout that book I could have "shaken" both of them.  However the last 10-15 pages made me want to literally choke the H.  I couldn't wait to give away that book.

I usually drop off my books at a hospital auxiliary book "fair."  They re-sell books very cheaply.  Once in awhile I'll find a book that I've been searching for.  They don't usually have many books and I can't rely on them to find them.

We used to have some fabulous UBS in my area but in the past few years they've closed.  I tend to buy the older books on line.

Lidia

oh Janet ... about the Daily's .. my conflict is in my own feelings really more than anything ... JD was caught plagarizing from Nora and that bothers me to know end ... though it was well after she stopped writting for HP, I still feel that reading her stuff is almost like a support .... I know, it's pretty silly isn't it?   ... but cheaters in work are like cheaters in love, very icky  ....

Really???  I didn't hear that.  That is shitty.  I really did like the JD HP books I read, they were very intense emotional stories.  It's shitty that she plagiarized.  What exactly did she plagiarize?  Was it flagrant?  I'm not making excuses, but I could almost see how subliminally one could read so many stories that when they went to write their own they accidentally created a plot arc they'd already seen in another book.  So I'm curious what she actually did do. 

I jot notes as I read, I bend corners to mark fav scenes, and I usually type them up.  If I'm not at home when I'm reading, I email myself notes.  It's kind of sad...  *grin* 

Aw, that's too bad.  I'd hate to see anything getting between me and my books.  You know, I've already been thinking myself "what if I were to go blind before I could finish my TBR pile???" (sad when I'm only in my 20s and already thinking this)  

I read shorter books I guess, HPs and SDs mostly, but it's not really that I'm looking for a short read...  I just love the intensity and the passion and how fast-paced the affairs are. 

About LINKED BOOKS.... do you mean linked HPs and SDs?  That kind of thing?  The only linked books that I really ADORE and MUST READ all that I can get of them in order...  are the Angela Knight Magiverse series and the JR Ward Black Dagger Brotherhood series.  Those series are paranormal vampire romances and are longer and so utterly intensely steamy....  *drools a tad bit*

Ahh... libraries...  i love that my library has so many HP/SDs, it's like heaven as a TBR.  What does cheese me off though is that some readers obviously are smokers... and the books sometimes smell like smoke.  That just frustrates me because you have to hold the book close to your face to read and you just can't escape the smell....  no offense to smokers, but ugh, that's as bad on books as spine-breaking.  I almost stopped reading a smoke-smelly book once, it was a longer book, an Angela Knight book, and I was so caught up in the story but my enjoyment was getting slaughtered by the smell.  

Well about linked stories, if you do think you could try a longer book and handle it better if it's a linked series, those two series I mentioned by Angela Knight and JR Ward are intensely good reads... keepers... 

Shorter linked series.... well there was a Michelle Reid Hot Blooded Husbands series a while back with "The Mistress Bride", "Ethan's Temptress Bride", "The Sheikh's Chosen Wife" (keeper!), and two other books listed here which weren't really to my taste because of separations/other women: http://www.fictiondb.com/author/michelle-reid~series~hot-blooded-husbands~4518~c.htm

I don't know if you read that one?  You might have been one of the people to tell ME to read it, I don't remember, I just really like Michelle Reid's passionate stories. 

Do you read SDs?  Because there are two series there that I have really liked...  The Garrisons and Diamonds Down Under  (Another SD series is The Elliotts, which had some great books, but the last few books in that series just weren't too my personal taste: they focused on older members of the Elliott family, H/h who were separated for years and had other women/men issues that just didn't appeal to me)

Katherine,

Email me (lidia923@myway.com) after you read that book.  Then I'll tell you what really bothered me -- I think that most people do not "pick up" on that.

And yes, the book that Janet mentioned with the two month separation was the one that I mentioned.

I also like connected stories -- I love reading about previous characters and seeing what their future holds.

You surprised me about Janet Dailey.  I had no idea.  I read some of her books in the past. 

Many years ago, I worked in New York City and traveled on the bus from NJ.  In those times I used to read at least 2 books per day -- mostly HPs.  Now I am lucky if I read 2 books every two weeks.  That definitely makes me more picky and even more annoyed if I am mis-lead about a book -- by back cover copy, etc... I do know that the authors don't write the back cover copy but somethings are totally "incorrect."

I find this conversation fascinating!  I've always been annoyed by the excerpts and wondered why they were there. Glad to know that they appeal to some so they aren't the waste of space I always thought of them as!  Isn't it odd how different things draw different folks into a book????

Lidia... you've got mail as well. 

Front Teasers...  I'm a big fan of.  Need 'em.

Author/Editor letters...  I have read them before, and I do like the insight in them, but of course if I had to choose I'd say don't cut the Front Teasers, cut the letters. 

Speaking of BEEFS...  I just sent Lidia a hell of an email about my beef with infidelity, adultery, and other women being tossed in heroine's faces in HPs...  poor Lidia...  I really let loose and got ranty there....  

I read your email Janet and will get back to you later!

Lidia

Thanks for the welcome.  Knowing I've got so many books to go through is such a treat for me.  I could read one a day.  Another author I just read (from my box of books) is Daphne St. Clair--all from the early 90's.  I liked them even though they were a little dark, with plenty of angst.  One is definitely a keeper.  I, too, have this gigantic plastic box where I keep my fav's to read over and over.  Maybe when I can find some time, I could do a review on one of the Daphne St. Clair books.    The reviews here are great btw!

Katherine T., Nice to see you blogging some of the older ones.  I think it gives some perspective to newer romance readers about how romance has changed and grown and which of the older releases people consider classic good reads.