Open Your Heart (Arabesque) [Mass Market Paperback]

Michelle Monkou (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Traumatized by a sexual assault, Shelly Bishop moves back home to Baltimore where she works as a hospital nurse and volunteers at a women's crisis center. When Shelly is offered a better paying position as a private nurse for Phillip Thornton, she accepts and finds herself face to face with Phillip's son, Justin, a notorious playboy. Shelly, who hasn't been in any relationships since her attack, is surprised to discover her attraction for Justin, and he is equally captivated by her beauty and grace but thinks that she's after his money. As they care for Justin's terminally ill father, they each realize that first impressions aren't always accurate. Then trouble in the form of Toby Gillis arrives. When Toby tries to buy the Thornton family business and is rebuffed, he plots to use Shelly to get to Justin, and Shelly must overcome her fear of Toby to prevent his vengeful plans. Monkou's moving debut novel is full of touching characters and heartfelt moments. Megan Kalan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Kimani Press (November 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1583143793
• ISBN-13: 978-1583143797
• Product Dimensions: 7.1 x 4.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,743,244 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Bravo Michelle, Open Your Heart is a winner!, January 3, 2003

By 

Celeste O. Norfleet (Virginia USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Open Your Heart (Arabesque) (Mass Market Paperback)

Open Your Heart is a wonderfully delightful novel written by an exciting new author, Michelle Monkou. I read it and thoroughly enjoyed it. As the title suggested, I opened my heart and was amply rewarded with several hours of a remarkable written, emotionally satisfying, and thoughtfully presented novel. Open Your Heart is filled with tender moments and exciting intrigue centering around wonderfully thought out characters that seem to jump right off the page. The plot was particularly well developed and continually gave me the sense of urgency as the story line played out on each page. The novel flowed easily with well-written dialogue and detail descriptions. Open Your Heart is a human-interest gem filled with emotion and feeling that kept me entertained from the first page to the very last.
The two main characters, Shelly Bishop and Justin Thorton, are extremely well written and gave me a detailed sense of their personality and motivations. Shelly, battling the inner turmoil of a long ago betrayal, is timid when it comes to opening her heart and trusting for fear of being hurt again. Having been physically attacked by a man whom she once considered a friend, she finds it difficult to open up to anyone including her family. Then there's Justin Thorton, the strong hero, who struggles with having been betrayed by his wife's infidelity. The wife begged his forgiveness just before she is killed in a car accident. Justin didn't forgive her and is tortured by that decision.
Several secondary characters also add to the fullness of the novel. My favorites are; Phillip Thorton, the sly matchmaking father of Justin, and Toby Gillis, an all around menace and meanie. In a well-rounded ensemble, these characters brought the story to life and had me excitedly reading until the wee hours of the morning.
Bravo Michelle, you've got a winner in Open Your heart!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Could have been a little bit better........but enjoyable, November 6, 2002

By 

Devan E. May "DMAY" (Arkansas) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Open Your Heart (Arabesque) (Mass Market Paperback)

This was my first book by this author and i did enjoy it somewhat....this book started out a little slow but it eventually picked up ..Shelly is a woman with a very hurful past she had been violated and betrayed by someone she trusted and this has affected her life immensley she works as a nurse part time and volunteers/attends a center for women who had been raped or assaulted ...during her work as a nurse she meets Phillip Thorton who suffering from an illness asks her to be his private nurse.......she later after thinking about it agrees....soon finding out that there is an ulterior motive by the name of Justin , he is Phillips son (whom Phillips feels like he wants to play matchmaker for) and has had a hard life after being betryed by his wife and later losing her tragically he is leary of Shellys motives when he meets her at his fathers house.....they soon begin to see one another as Justin shows her that she can love and feel again and she shows him that he can trust again they both learn to leave their past behind even after Shellys come back to haunt her terribly ..........this book was sweet, sad all in one though not enough passion for me I enjoyed reading/watching Phillips dream come true ...........good read!!

5.0 out of 5 stars Open Your Heart, August 22, 2008

By 

Layetta R. Burrough (Maryland) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Open Your Heart (Arabesque) (Mass Market Paperback)

I truly enjoy reading Open Your Heart. It was a book that was hard to put down from begin to ending. I truly enjoyed Shelly and Justin. How trust came into place especially dealing Toby with his crazy self. I really like Justin father how he took to Shelly, and also how he brough together the two people he love. It was sad at the end when Justin father pass away.

I enjoyed the Open Your Heart.