Customer Reviews

Mistress For A Weekend (Harlequin Presents)

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

 

 

Mistress for a Weekend was one of the best love stories I've read in a long time. It was funny, fast-moving and very sexy. Not to mention loveable characters.
Tycoon Blake MacLeod thinks Nora has something special - confidential information. And he'll keep her in his bed to prevent her giving it away. Blake is really a sweet charachter which is shown with the way he works to win Nora's love, how she understands her fobia etc.

If you enjoy reading romances that are pure escape, romantic, with memorable dialogue & scenes, Cinderella-type romances, I highly recommend this book.

This is one hot book! From cover to cover the relationship is steamy. Not much of those distracting & irritating dishonest by-play of words, keeping them from saying what they really feel about each other. The hero is attractive, wealthy, confident and surprisingly honest about his wants and needs. The heroine may be clumsy & awkward at times, but lovable in her sincerity & attempts at sophistication. I couldn't put it down. This is the first time I read a book from this author, but it certainly won't be the last.

Recently I decided to stop being a snob about Harlequin and try reading the books for myself. Resolving to start with the zenith (or nadir), the Presents line, I considered 2 possible methods of attack: a) pick up a book with the least cheesy title from the bookstore shelf and cringe at the checkout, or b) research reviews on Amazon and order 1 of the best rated. Having tried a) and slogged through a barely 2 star read, I was more than ready to try method b). What is all this leading up to? Mistress for a Weekend is not only 1 of the higher rated HP books, it fully deserves its high reputation. And I'm more than happy to find that, with careful selection, there are indeed great reads to be found in the HP line.

Blake and Nora are a wonderful couple, and their romance is steamy but sweet. She's a geeky, clumsy IT nerd - emotionally fragile after finding her boyfriend cheating with her roommate, but ballsy enough to splurge on designer shoes and go in search of a man to get the foul taste out of her mouth. She's endearing and no pushover, and she's not above using her clumsiness to put the moves on the hero.

He's the usual HP millionaire alpha male, but he's refreshingly non-jerky and non-too-arrogant. It's funny how his family are all union activists who look down on his capitalist ways. He's never cruel or abusive to Nora, even after she flees and leaves him high and dry, or even when he suspects her of setting him up and being an industrial spy. He's honest about his feelings too, but he's a strong and determined man don't get me wrong. He's not above "kidnapping" our heroine to suit his purposes.

The writing is of very high quality, with an endearing use of Britishisms like "lift" in place of "elevator". Someone needs to tell the author though that disorientated is not a word - the word is disoriented. The first 50 pages are 1 long verbal foreplay leading up to the first sexual encounter. It's a testimony to the writer's skill that it never drags or bores. The sex scenes are hot and steamy, although the staircase scene challenged my notions of plausibility and comfort :-)

In short, if you've always thought that the HP line contains only verbally abusive jerks and powerless TSTL heroines, then Mistress for a Weekend will totally change your opinion, as it did mine. And now I'm off to find more good reads!

I really enjoyed the romance between Nora and Blake. She's so very endearingly clumsy and her attempts at being sophisticated made me giggle. Blake may sound like the stereotypically arrogant alpha male we've all known from romance books, but he's really honest and quite sweet. Now, this doesn't mean that this book wasn't hot and sexy! Because there were some pretty well-written bedroom scenes that rounded this book out. It had a unique plot (as all of Susan Napier's books do) and the characters were fleshed out really well. So well that even though they've only known each other for a short period of time, you get to know them and believe in their romance. I really, really enjoyed Mistress For a Weekend - worth every penny!

From the back cover: Frommouse to mistres... Nora Lang needs the most dangerous man she can find! Enter tycoon Blake MacLeod. He normally prefers sophisticated blondes that don't require too much of his brainpower. But Nora's a challenge... the perfect opportunity for a little light relief. Until she acquire some important information that he can't risk being leaked. Now Blake has to make sure Nora doesn't leave his sight - he'll make love to her for a whole weekend!

My thoughts: My mom actually bought this book online even though I told her I had a million HP novels to choose from first. Well, I'm glad she bought it because this was a totally cute book! As mentioned in previous reviews I normally don't read new HP novels but this book was fast paced, cute and enjoyable. I can definitely re-read this book again. The previous reviewers already stated that this book is two thumbs up and I can second that emotion!

Mistress for a weekend is Susan Napier's 33rd romance novel. After making the dismaying discovery of her boyfriend and her flatmate together, Nora Lang needs distraction, preferably by a good-looking dangerous male. Enter Blake MacLeod, tycoon, trouble-shooter and playboy. She's not his type, but somehow she gets under his skin. Nora is unable to fight her attraction for him, and somehow ends up at his coastal hideaway for a long weekend. Surprisingly, it takes these two quite a while to get into the real action, but when they do, some very hot sex scenes follow. An enjoyable romance with a Kiwi flavour.

Clumsy computer tech wants to find the most dangerous-looking man at a party to have a fling with, after catching her BF in the act with her roommate & BF blaming her for being too nice & conventional. Heroine chooses attractive businessman Hero who happens to be fascinated by her social awkwardness & returns her attraction. When heroine accidentally takes his valuable computer disk & getting a look at the vital info in it, Hero abducts her to his beach house where they get to know each other more.

The 1st 1/4 of the book was fun & interesting b/c of heroine's quirkiness & Hero's surprised fascination with her. Then my interest went downhill from there. Napier failed to engage my emotions in the book & the main characters lacked emotional connection & intensity for each other. I'm not really surprised b/c other Napier books I've read lacked these qualities also. What's worse about it in this book is that even heroine doubted the extent of their emotional commitment to each other at the end. Sure, both Hero & heroine were attracted & liked each other. But deep love? No. Napier couldn't convince me with her writing. Also, heroine's clumsiness got on my nerves after awhile. What was cute & quirky at 1st looked immature & stupid later.

Caution: Light-hearted but dry romance.

This book was so much fun. The conversation between the two characters kept me reading and I laughed aloud several times. Nora was just brilliant.

Good, but for some reason it just didn't grab me as Susan Napier books usually do.