Customer Reviews

Cole Cameron'S Revenge (Red Hot Revenge) (Harlequin Presents)

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

 

 

I want to share this great review with you. It was written by Toni Kroening, and she's given me permission to share it.

Toni said:
"Cole Cameron's Revenge" came in the mail after Christmas, giving me a nudge to keep my dreams alive. My head has been filled with interest rates and taxes lately.
Your book did the impossible. It enabled me to get away from it all and still remember what is really important.

As a reader, you kept me captivated and it was hard to put down. I was able to return to whatever scene I left without losing the story. That's talent.
As a writer, you impressed me again. I loved the prologue and the set up. You promised me a story with enough meat and came through at the end. Underneath all the anger and the horrible words they said to one another, it boiled down to the love they have. It was superbly written."

This is a wonderful book, full of depth and heart. The story is compelling and the characters and their emotions are beautifully drawn. I highly recommend this to any reader looking for something more than a read-it-and-forget-about-it experience. This one will linger with you.

Overall this was a pretty good story. I felt that the characters were well drawn and had good reasons for the choices that they made throughout the story. Cole was very mean to Faith when he returned but the reader knew deep down he still cared about her. For example: when he discovered that his brother died in an accident he asked about her and was genuinely concerned about whether or not she survived. He is extremely jealous about what or whom she has been with over the years as well. Apparently this is important in these books.

What bothered me the most is the fact that he decided to take revenge upon her because she married his brother. From his perspective it seems reasonable that he would want to seek to hurt her the way she had inadvertently hurt him over the years by marrying his brother, Ted. However, before Cole ran away like he did he told his brother to take care of her. So his brother did! Cole never even told Faith that he was leaving. He needed to get out of town and he wanted to protect her so he didn't speak up when he could have. Yet Cole has conveniently forgotten that he told his brother to take care of Faith and he can only think of seeking revenge on the gold digger!! I wanted him to seek revenge on the liar who caused him to leave town as well as his accursed father!! I can't believe that he would be so eager to believe the people of that small town when they didn't seem to care too much about him before, but I excused that because all signs pointed to them telling the truth. However, I would expect him to be even madder once he discovers the truth after Faith has run away with his nephew and he searches her out. Given that he was so eager to punish Faith for marrying his brother, one would think he would be royally peeved that she sought to deny him something else. After all he was willing to punish her for a supposed wrong when later it is a guaranteed wrong, yet he doesn't punish her at all and really doesn't say anything about it. He is just so happy to have her back in his life. If there had been a little more anger on his part I would have given the story five stars. Definite angst here!

Seriously the guy in this book is so hateful and stupid that I would like to chuck him through a car window and run a truck over him. He's so incredibly stupid throughout the book that it's just not credible that any sane woman in her right mind would still forgive him and want to marry him. Don't buy this book, it's a waste of your intelligence.

The prologue drew me in fast and once I was hooked, I could not put this book down until it was over. By page fifty, I had cried so much my eyes were puffy and red. Sandra Marton brings these characters to life. She lets you see what they are thinking and I felt like I understood their decisions by reading about their internalized feelings.

The hero and heroine are so right for each other but their wrong conclusions about the past make them star-crossed lovers. The attraction they have for one another sizzles and I even felt my stomach flip when he'd kiss her. My emotions were so caught up in this novel but...

The ending would have been perfect had the characters feelings been revealed to the reader. However, at the most vital scene, Sandra Marton stops revealing the character's feelings to the reader. Instead there is dialogue between the characters and the secrets are revealed with out the reader ever knowing how the other truly feels about the revelation. This makes the end unrealistic and it falls flat. A few lines of internalized feelings would have made this a five-star book, and because it comes so close, I would have liked to give it 4.5 stars.

I highly recommend this novel because, even though the ending falls slightly short of perfect, this book is a great read with three-dimensional characters, an interesting plot, and great pacing.

Widowed heroine is shocked to find out that her late husband poorly invested her 8yo son's inheritance, leaving them with nothing. She & her son are at the mercy of her husband's brother (her ex-BF) since he inherited the house they currently live in & nobody would hire heroine. Hero thinks its the perfect revenge since he believed that heroine deceived him in high school & seduced his brother thereafter to get to their family wealth. He blackmails her to marry him or else lose custody of her son. Heroine makes him sign a prenup that forbids him in her bed. But will that be enough to keep heroine from eventually succumbing to her strong attraction to Hero?

I am a fan of Marton's books but I take exception to this one. It did well in involving my emotions & was a fast read. It also had good sexual tension & sex scenes. But I did not like the main characters. Hero was a jerk! He saw himself as the victim of heroine & acted like her righteous judge. In actuality, he was the one who left her without any sort of communication. No phone calls, letter, or messenger even after he started working various jobs around the world. And he somehow expected her to wait for him. I don't know how she was supposed to know that since he never contacted her! He was so self-absorbed & irresponsible (& possibly stupid) that he didn't consider that having sex with her without any protection would make her pregnant. Hero was also a hypocrite & verbally abusive to heroine. He thought she was a materialistic slut but he was the man-ho who slept with "a hundred other women" after heroine. Even at the end, he never apologized to her for the damaging abuse he heaped on her.

Heroine was a doormat. She was openly disliked & demeaned by the town residents yet she didn't move out, even when she was more financially comfortable during her 1st marriage. She didn't make any effort to better herself, career-wise or job-wise. She just lazed around in her husband's mansion, feeling sorry for herself for being hated. It took her son to be ostracized by his peers for her to seriously consider moving away. But by then she had no job skills to speak of. Heroine was also foolish. She gave her love so easily to verbally- & emotionally-abusive Hero the 2nd time. Hero didn't grovel & only lightly apologized & she was ok with that.

I'd skip this one.

Cole Cameron's Revenge by Sandra Marton
Harlequin Presents # 2233 - January 2002

Cole Cameron left town suddenly eight years before to protect the girl he loved from shame. He later learnt that she married his brother, and he feelings of love soon changed to bitterness as he felt she had betrayed him for his family's money. Cole returns to his hometown when he learns that his brother had died in an auto accident. And what he finds makes him even more bitter towards Faith, as it seems that she lead his brother a merry dance, forced him to marry her and then coldly left his bed after the birth of their son. Cole is drawn to his nephew and sees much of himself in the trusting boy. Faith still carries the hurt when Cole abandoned her those years ago, but puts that aside for her son's sake. It seems that her husband has left her quite penniless and about to be homeless when Cole sells the family estate. Cole's apparent hate for her shocks her and forces her to keep quiet about the true relationship she had with his brother.

Ms Marton opens this story with Cole as a very young man and the circumstance that lead to him leaving town suddenly. I'm glad she gave us this insight, had she not, I fear I would not have warmed up to Cole very easily. His bitterness has made him ruthless and almost cruel in his behaviour. Faith will do anything to protect her son. She agrees to Cole's demands but makes her own in return. I liked that she wasn't going to be his doormat. Their emotions are intense. Some may be disappointed that the only love scene is towards the end of the book. I read this in one sitting and have found myself reaching for it again. A definite for the keeper pile! :D

Cole Cameron's Revenge won the 2002 RT Reviewers' Choice award in the Harlequin Presents category

I couldn't find any romance in this book. There were too many ill-feelings, hate, misunderstandings and animosity between the two characters. Very disappointed even with the quick ending how both characters resolved their anger and discovered that they loved each other only lasted a couple of paragraphs. It was such a downer and nothing in the book brought any positive feelings. I enjoy other Marton books, but please remember that these are "romance books" not "negative, I hate you" that went on during the majority of the book.