The Banker's Convenient Wife

Rating:
Summary: Too Much Verbal Abuse
Review: Hilary meets Roel (who is a banker worth millions or more) when he comes into her salon once a month for a haircut. He is forced to marry but wants a wife in name only in order to inherit from his grandfather. Hilary gets herself into a mess by being soft and offering to marry him to "help" him. They marry and he goes back to Switzerland while Hilary stays in the U.K. He did leave her some money but she only used a little of it and gave the rest back. Four years later, Roel has a car wreck and loses recent memory (five years of it). For some strange reason, Roel still has a picture of Hilary with her phone number on it (which he never used). His aunt calls Hilary while he is unconscious. Hilary comes running to this man to help him and doesn't tell him the whole story about the marriage. She lets him think that their marriage is for real. He even has a small episode of having a conscience when he discovers his wife was a virgin and that he has a mistress (whom he quits seeing). Hilary decides to go back to England because she doesn't want to live a lie anymore and Roel's memory is slowly returning. She doesn't tell him the whole story. He gets his memory back after she leaves and comes after her and blackmails her into living with him again. He even gets abusive with Hilary because he blames her for having to give up an adulterous relationship. Even though Hilary should have been honest, the verbal abuse her husband dealt out was horrible. I wanted to cheer her decision to leave that nasty-mouthed snob the second time until he came groveling for her not to leave him. She was even pregnant and he was nothing but an arrogant abuser. This one touched to close to my heart because of a similar experience. At least this one had a "happy ending." The husband is not only vervbally abusive but extremely unkind and just completely self-centered and mean,mean,mean. Marriage meant so little to him that he didn't even keep in touch with his bride for 4 years nor did he get a divorce once he got his inheritance plus he was an adulterer. There was no transition from this terrible, arrogant bag of testosterone that he was to the seemingly nice man at the end of the book. This is not an enjoyable book to read. Even the ending did nothing to soften the horror that Hilary went through with her husband. If anything, it could teach women what kind of men to avoid.

Rating:
Summary: This one is SO GOOD!
Review: I kept getting a tug in my heart while reading it and even cried in places -- the heroine was so heart-tugging. She was crazy about the hero from the first moment she met him and wanted desperately to be his real wife and not just a wife in name only. He felt the same strong attraction for her when they first met but fought it because of her young age (she was 19 at the time), the difference in their background, and his distrust of women and marriage in general. When he had temporary amnesia after a car accident and thought she was a real wife to him, he no longer fought his feelings for her and his passion for her burned red hot! He couldn't keep his hands off her even though he thought she was not his type. The love scenes sizzled! I love Lynne Graham's heroes and heroines and I hope she does not change them due to some complaints from some other readers. Her heroes are always strong-willed mega gorgeous billionaires and her heroines are usually poor and may lack self confidence at the beginning of the book but who gain in self confidence towards the end of the book. Lynne cannot please everyone and if she pleases some she will lose others. Lynne's writing is superb and what makes her books keepers for me is her heroes and heroines as they are so vivid and the dialogue between them are so memorable. The reason I buy every one of her new release as soon as they come out is that I've come to expect a certain type of story, hero, and heroine from Lynne and so far I have not been disappointed by any of her books.

Rating:
Summary: Great ending to the Brides of L'Amour Series
Review: I really enjoyed this story and am a big fan of Lynne Graham. The back cover to the book says: "Italian-Swiss banker Roel Sabatino has suffered partial memory loss after a car crash. It seems he has a wife...but can't remember getting married! When Roel tries to take her to bed-as any husband would-he discovers she's a virgin! All this is shocking to Roel, though he still recognizes a great deal when he sees one. So why not enjoy all the pleasures that this marriage has to offer, whatever his reasons were for tying the knot?"
One of the fun things about this Graham story is the heroine is a little different than her normal ones. This one is a hairdresser with spiky platinum blond hair with pink ends. Of the Brides of L'Amour series I think I liked The Frenchman's Love-Child slightly better but this one is really good.

Rating:
Summary: Great ending to the Brides of L'Amour Series
Review: I really enjoyed this story and am a big fan of Lynne Graham. The back cover to the book says: "Italian-Swiss banker Roel Sabatino has suffered partial memory loss after a car crash. It seems he has a wife...but can't remember getting married! When Roel tries to take her to bed-as any husband would-he discovers she's a virgin! All this is shocking to Roel, though he still recognizes a great deal when he sees one. So why not enjoy all the pleasures that this marriage has to offer, whatever his reasons were for tying the knot?"
One of the fun things about this Graham story is the heroine is a little different than her normal ones. This one is a hairdresser with spiky platinum blond hair with pink ends. Of the Brides of L'Amour series I think I liked The Frenchman's Love-Child slightly better but this one is really good.

Rating:
Summary: not enough strong women
Review: I think Lynne Graham is a great writer, I just wish the heroines in her stories had a little more pride self esteem and confidence. The heroine in this book is just like most of the heroines Lynne Graham writes about. They deem themselves less than important to the men they love. They either have no education, weak or very tolerant to verbal abuse. In this book there is the hint of some physical abuse and verbal threats. I started skipping pages in this book, then finally I just could not take it any longer and stop reading it. Lynne Graham should take a chapter for Jackie Collins and give us a kick ass, strong heroine for once.