Customer Reviews

The Brazilian's Blackmailed Bride (Harlequin Presents)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Back cover:
A wife at his command....Anton Luis Scott-Lee has to marry the woman who so callously rejected him years ago. His revenge will be sweet... A mistress at his service...Cristina Marques will be totally at Luis's bidding-bought and paid for! A bride by blackmail. Cristina has no choice but to accept Luis's marriage demand. But Luis will find that his new bride can't or won't fulfill all of her wedding vows...


Comments:
This is book 2 in the Ramirez series. I don't think that book 1 has to be read first in order to understand what's going on. Just as in the first Ramirez book, Anton receives a package stating that if he does not marry and produce a child within a year then he will never know the true identities of his half-brothers. So, Anton has the perfect person in mind he wants to pay to fulfill this stipulation. Cristina Marques. Though he has loathed her with a passion for six years, he still can't put out the sparks of passion he has for her. The last time they were together she callously ended their relationship and told him that under no circumstances she would bear his English children. Little did he know Cristina was spitting out empty words and trying to cover up her own secrets and pain. So, Anton goes back to England resenting what Cristina did to him and harbors bitter feelings towards her. Then the package comes and Anton sets a plan in motion. He neatly sets up a plan to get Cristina into a position that forces her to either accept his loan from his bank or lose her family home. The passion is definitely there between Cristina and Anton and Reid does a good job at giving both the heroine's and hero's POV. BUT there seemed to be an element missing in this book. Maybe it was because the reason for them breaking up could have been resolved in a different way and not dragged out for I think six years. Overall, this was a good read and it didn't drag on.

This is the best book in the series, by far. Why? THE AUTHOR!!! Michelle Reid always spins a tale that the reader cannot put down. I love how she tells the story from the point of view of the male character, as well as the female. And her writing is so seamless, never tedious, as I find with most of the other 'Presents' authors. Her gift for creating exciting characters and situations will have you seeking out her entire catalogue, as I have.

The Ramirez Brides Trilogy
Brazilian polo player, Enrique Ramirez had sown a lot of oats in his youth. Traveling with the team around the world put the charismatic Enrique in the company of many exotic women. Now years later, three couriers deliver three messages to three men. One in Australia, one in England and one in America. Until this moment these men did not know the others existed. They are half brothers and if they wish to know each other they must follow their father's demands or all will be forfeit.

The Brazilian's Blackmailed Bride by Michelle Reid
Harlequin Presents # 2493 - October 2005

Anton hadn't a clue that the man who raised him was not his biological father. Suddenly his life is upside down. Anton wants very much to meet his half brothers, but can he fulfill his father's challenge to seek out the woman who rejected him and marry her. Somehow his father's challenge indicates that is was Anton that had betrayed Cristina, and that he was the one that needed to mend the broken hearts.

Ms. Reid always pens a riveting lovestory with intense passionate scenes. Both Anton and Cristina are strong characters. Anton has some lessons to learn and faces conflicting emotions over what he thought he had known as truth with what is now coming to light as being the truth. Gripping story. One you'll read from cover to cover in one sitting. :D

The Ramirez Brides trilogy..
The Ramirez Bride by Emma Darcy - HP-2487 - September 2005
The Brazilian's Blackmailed Bride by Michelle Reid - HP-2493 - October 2005
The Disobedient Virgin by Sandra Marton - HP-2499 - November 2005

All three brothers do fulfill their father's demands. And in the doing discover that their father may have known them very well indeed. These three very talented authors brought to life three dynamic men who share the same blood. I enjoyed very much reading their journeys of self-discovery and their HEAs.

When Anton "Luis" Scott Lee finds out that the man he always thought was his father was not really his father, but married his pregnant mother to give him a name everything in his life seems to be a lie. His real father was a playboy, Enrique Ramirez, who now informs him through his will that he also has two half brothers and that if he wants to learn their identity he must marry the woman who once jilted him, Cristina Marques. Anton knows he will be haunted by believing every stranger he sees is his brother and knows he will marry Cristina to know their identities. Actually Anton still loves Cristina even though she hurt him like nobody ever could and he also wishes to hurt her the way she hurt him. When he learns that the rich old man she jilted him for left her penniless and her home is on the verge of being taken from her, he dangles the key to saving her family home, just marry him. Cristina did jilt Anton, but the truth is she never stopped loving him and there were secrets she kept that may have changed everything. Now Cristina and Anton must try to make the best of their situation but some hurts can never heal.

This was a steamy book with a really bitchy antagonist but somehow it seems that a lot of the problems the characters had were of their own making. It was a good book and I am looking forward to the final, the Disobedient Virgin. I'm just hoping the book is better than the cheesy title.

Widowed Brazilian heroine is in desperate need due to her family's ranch's dire financial straits. She reluctantly agrees to hero's marriage proposal even though she knows he's doing it out of vengeance b/c she cruelly rejected his marriage proposal 6 yrs ago without telling him her real reasons & instead married a much older man per her father's business arrangement. Later, an unexpected financial help comes from a man who rescued her when she was child & who hero recently found out was his biological father. And the secrets begin to unfurl.

Reid's writing is good. Her writing pulls my emotions, keeps the pace quick, & dialogue interesting. Sexual tension & love scenes are passionate.

What made it a 3-star for me is the heroine's convoluted self-sacrifice. It didn't make sense & made the problems much bigger than it should have been. All heroine needed to do was tell the hero about her miscarriage as soon as it happened & save them so many complications. She didn't have a good reason to not contact him as soon as she could, like when she was at the hospital. I just didn't see what her reason was for not doing so & why that wasn't the 1st thing she talked to him about as soon as hero came back from his dad's funeral. As strong & independent as she is, heroine kept making such dumb mistakes by keeping her big secret a secret from hero. She took away his choice by not being honest with him from the beginning & when she saw him again. She acted like a self-effacing martyr. Ugh. These self-sacrificing heroines drive me nuts! It didn't make sense to me either that she agreed to marry her 1st husband. Yes, her dad needed the money for the ranch but she didn't even struggle & find another solution, which seems so unlike her character. I felt so bad for the hero who was so in love with her & was completely baffled as to why she cruelly rejected him. Poor guy. Heroine needed to grovel for hero's forgiveness. She's the 1 that started the whole mess.

Partially recommended.

Love this book. Best of the 3 in the series. Fiesty heroine. Great hero still totally in love with the heroine after several yrs have passed.
Both affected by plain bad luck and fate (and a little bit of pride on both ends). However eternal love comes in to save the day!

My three options after I read a book are :
1. what a waste of time and money ....... not even worth giving to Goodwill --> landfill
2. it was kinda aaalright --> donate to Goodwill
3. yummmyyyyyyy... gotta read completely or in parts again --> definitely a keeper

This one..... NO DOUBT ... #3

Ok, I guess you must cut some slack when dealing with writers. They can bend reality and be forgiven. But I think when you're writing about a foreign country at least some research is needed. As a Brazilian I was appalled by the mistakes committed. Enrico Ramirez is a purely Spanish name as are others. People, Portuguese is very different from Spanish. In Portuguese you don't say 'papa' you say 'pai' or 'papai'. When a woman says thank you, she says 'obrigada'. A man says 'obrigado'. My God is 'meu Deus' and not 'meu Dues'. My darling is 'minha querida' and not 'meu querida'. And at the end of the book, when Anton says 'Nada matérias outras', it means nothin at all in Portuguese. If he wanted to say 'nothing else matters', he should have said 'Nada mais importa'. I was very sad with those mistakes because it shows a lack of care and it's not so difficult to find people who speak Portuguese and who could have edited the use of it. And I'm not going to talk about Rio and the fact that in Brazil we don't refer to ourselves as Portugueses, but as Brazilians. We have not being Portugueses since 1822 when we achieved our independence... By the way oil can't be by private owned, one only have a Government leave to explore it...

Anton Luis Scott-Lee and Cristina Marquez had been lovers six years past but Anton was jilted by the Brazilian beauty for some crazy reasons. Now broke and on the verge of losing her beloved estate Anton steps in to save the day....revenge? Hardly, the man is angry and crazy in love with this woman. It starts off with a bang and the heat of this book in the beginning is almost too much. Then nothing, a lot of looking and internal dialogs that drove me nuts. This is the Ramirez series thing and I really didn't care for any of them, but this one was the best of the three, but not great either. It did have a nice ending but no spice at all.

From the other source:

A wife at his command... : Anton Luis Scott-Lee has to marry the woman who so callously rejected him years ago. His revenge will be sweet....

A mistress at his service... :Cristina Marques will be totally at Luis's bidding - bought and paid for!

A bride by blackmail!: Cristina has no choice but to accept Luis's marriage demand. But Luis will find that his new bride can't or won't fulfill all of her wedding vows....