Customer Reviews

The Brooding Frenchman's Proposal (Harlequin Romance)

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This book is a bizarre stylistic jumble. The plot reads like something out of the Harlequin Presents line- like "The Greek Billionaire Prince's Captive Nanny Virgin Love Slave Bride". The set-up is there- the heroine is a nice girl who is trying to get rid of her lying husband, and the lead is a French rich guy. He thinks she's a golddigging tramp having an affair with his brother and recovering from a really horrendous divorce. He acts like he hates her and spends most of the book seeming to punish her for the fact that he finds her attractive. Standard Harlequin Presents rot (no offense to those who like that style of book, but when I read them I mainly want to see the heroine deck that guy, because what woman in her right mind would let a guy get away with that? I don't care how fine and rich you are, if you're a jerk you can keep it moving. They never have anything approaching a sense of humor, and I just find them... degrading. Basically, it is not in any way my fantasy).

The stylistic mash comes because this is the Harlequin ROMANCE line. The male lead keeps on acting like an ass, but he really never does anything that bad. I mean he's a jerk, but compared to the standard of behavior in these kinds of books it's really not that bad. He keeps on apologising to her for acting poorly, and she keeps on reacting strongly to his 'abuse' but there really isn't any. It's as if the author had to tone it down to keep in line with the standards of this kind of series romance. It was just... weird.

Ultimately it just doesn't work. It was... kind of boring. The characters had no sense of humor, and lacked the pure melodrama to make up for it.