Customer Reviews

Devil to Pay

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From the back of the book: Cressida was anything but disciplined except when it came to her work as a wildlife photographer. Behind a camera she was utterly dedicated, meeting all her deadlines regardless of the job's difficulties.
So it wasn't surprising that despite the onset of a high fever, she left Auckland determined to reach Coromandel. But it was a disastrous idea--and when Cressy came out of her delirium she found herself at Devlin Connell's country estate. Unfortunately, she'd interrupted a top-secret meeting and Dev wasn't about to let her loose to spill the beans.
My take on it: Devlin is intrigued and attracted to Cressida despite her klutziness and his suspicions of her journalistic integrity, or lack thereof. (He holds them in low esteem and believes they'll do anything for the story to scoop the competition). Funny story behind the bordello-like room in which Devlin places Cressida and near the end of the story we get to meet his parents as well as Cressida's father.
Cute story, but I like Counterfeit Secretary and Honeymoon Baby much more.

This story is terrible because it is so ridiculous and unbelievable. The heroine, Cressida, must be a moron. The book opened with her stripped down to her slip while driving in a rented car hurrying to finish an assignment. She was having a fever and felt so hot that she turned on the aircon to full blast BUT with the driver's window wide open so that the sweltering heat got into the car.She was perspiring so heavily that she was momentarily blinded by the sweat and ran her car slightly off the narrow road so that one of the tyres landed in the ditch.She got out of the car but locked her keys inside . So she trekked to the nearest house to find help. She found a big mansion with an electirfied gate . In her delirious state, she was able to short it before climbling over into the ground. Even the burly men with fierce dogs were not able to prevent her from forcing her way into the house to see ' the man who owns this house' because " It took a GREAT DEAL OF TROUBLE for me to get here' Then she barged into a room where the owner was in a meeting with a lot of men. As if this was not stupid enough, she pointed her finger at him saying ' You ...' and began accusing the lot being murderers, gangsters and she knew what they were plotting and planning , all their secrets and would expose them. The ridiculous thing was that Devlin or Devil, the high power industrialist was able to tolerate not only the sudden intrusion , wild accusations but her slutty antics of trying to strip him in front of his guests.He carried her upstairs and personally took care of her , refusing to let the doctor fly her to the hospital. When Cressida recovered and he invited her to a formal dinner with his guests, she deliberately wore her purple slip. This lack of decorum was funny to her but extremely distasteful to others .She was outrageously flirtatious to the guests even to the extent of groping one. I feel totally disgusted with the annoyingly stupid heroine for her lack of good breeding and common sense. There is no spark between the two main characters and the romance is so forced and contrived. The whole situation is unrealistic and downright silly with inane conversations, unnecessary episodes and padded fillers. I have enjoyed Susan Napier's ' In Bed With the Boss' very much but after ' Devil to Pay',I have second thoughts about buying any more of her books.