Customer Reviews

The Purchased Wife (Harlequin Presents, No. 2358)

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

 

 

Back cover:
He bought her for cash-his payback is passion! Xander Pascalis can buy anything...including a wife! At millions of dollars, Helen is lavishly expensive. But Xander thinks he knows a good deal when he sees one...

However, when Helen refuses to share his bed, Xander is forced to take his headstrong wife to his private Greek island to tame her into keeping her marriage vows. He wants value for money: she will give him the wedding night that, so far, she's denied him...


Comments:
Both the heroine and hero possessed strong personalities throughout the entire book, but not to the point that it became overly annoying. Xander is a true alpha male who struggled with showing Helen how much he truly loved her and gaining her trust. He also struggled with forgiving past mistakes done to him by others. What made this book so great was that the reader got an inside view of what the hero was thinking throughout the book (not just the heroine's point of view) and the author displayed Xander's flaws and insecurities. Helen is no wimpy wife and puts up a fight against Xander and makes him prove his love to her. I don't want to give the story away, but this book is a definite keeper.

This book is a good example of why communication is important in a relationship. Xander is such a jerk sometimes, that it keeps me from giving this story a 5 star rating. He is such a domineering control freak, even when he breaks and falls in love you find it hard to forgive. That's the downside, but the upside is you can feel the heat between these two burning up the pages. when Helen is injured in a car accident trying to leave her husband Xander, he whisks her away to a secluded island to heal where she is trapped and at his mercy. On their wedding day a year ago, Helen sees a picture of him with his reported mistress taken days before. When she confronts him, he never denies it and basically tells her she is his property and he doesn't care about her feelings. Well, she doesn't allow him to have his wedding night and he deposits her under strict security at his villa and that is where the story starts. All of this couple's problems could have been prevented with a little communication.

Michelle Reid seldom disappoints, but this book has been so hyped that I expected better - like Price of a Bride maybe (her very best ever). It seemed to me that the hero treats the heroine badly, even though it really isn't her fault that they're married, as they only married so he could financially bail out her father. When she discovers this she won't sleep with the hero. It's not her fault throughout, and yet the hero goes on blaming her, and says he's been 'too patient' with her - he is, of course, sulking because he thinks she's about to run off with another man, even though he's done nothing to reasure her tha he is not having an affair, though the evidence is there (he isn't, and he could have told her that!). So becasue of his attitude to her I just never warmed to the hero. However, he definitely has his problems, notably his horrible parents. He has to look after his dead father's mistress, who is stupid rather than bad for having had an affair with a married man, and he is the only one who cares about her child. His father rejected the child as the price of getting his own wife back. Both are disgraceful for ignoring a baby's needs. He does become more sympathetic in the end, but he never persuaded me he was a decent guy, worthy of the heroine.

If a man treated me the way Xander treats Helen, I would have left him ages ago. He's a control-freak. I kept wishing she would just leave him. I think she needed it. Also, there's the scene where he basically forces her to have sex when she doesn't want to. I'm so tired of the whole "sexually experienced male vs the virgin" and men who treat their wife like crap and then reveal it's because they "love" them.
I'm sorry I even read it.

The Purchased Wife by Michelle Reid
Harlequin Presents # 2470 - June 2005
Foreign Affairs themed series

Helen thought she was marrying Xander for love. But weeks before the wedding she discovers that she's signed a prenuptial agreement that more or less has said that her father sold her to Xander. And on top of that she discovers tabloid articles of her soon-to-be husband's exploits with a mistress while he's on a trip to the US. So on her wedding night, she refuses to sleep with him. Xander was taken with Nell's beauty the moment he first seen her. Her innocence enthralled him and he had to make her his. He gives into his brides demands only because she seems so young and not ready. Xander's very wealthy and in the lime light. He surrounds himself with bodyguards. He assigns a bodyguard for Nell and then pretty much leaves Nell alone for a whole year. When another tabloid story comes out that Xander is seen with his mistress, Nell fires her bodyguard and tires to run away. Only to be in a horrific car accident that could have taken her life. Xander comes to his wife only to find she despises him, but he's more determined now than before to make their marriage real. When he discovers there is another man involved with Nell's attempt to escape him, he's consumed with jealousy and he takes her away to his family's Greek island. And the seduction begins. But who's doing the seducing, because Xander's finding his bride has him going in circles.

This being a Presents, of course the hero has to be Alpha. Xander is that and then some! His arrogance and often disregard for the feelings of others almost put me off the story. But he redeems himself when the truth of the mistress comes out. I liked the way Nell's strength and confidence grew and she learnt to fight back. This is a passionate one!

If I could have given this book 3 and 1/2 stars I would have. The beginning and ending of this book was wonderful. Sadly the middle parts not so good. Michelle Reid just carried the misunderstandings between this couple too far. I actually got bored with it.

And just wanted to say that I just finished Michelle Reid's "The Purchased Wife" and it was absolutely wonderful! The story was so intense, it was impossible to put it down and I devoured it in one sitting...as the bathtub water chilled around me and the hour grew extremely late. Sigh...but it was worth it. Xander is the classic "imperfect" and totally enthralling hero matched with Helen, a strong and intense heroine with traits I both admired and identified with. I re-read the book the very next day and I've got to say that it will have a special place on my keeper shelves.

I read a Harlequin after a long time and this one certainly did not disappoint. A very sweet and tender love story which was a little similar to Lynne Graham's "Unfaithful wife" except this one was much much better. I loved the fact that we knew what was going on in the hero's head as well. Xander loved his wife and would do anything to keep her. A true love story!

There wasn't anything at all good about this book or storyline. The hero is jerk, the heroine is spiteful shrew, and both of their families are screwed up. I felt like the author just wanted to end the story, rather then give the characters depth. What made the book worse was how the little boy Alex...Xander's half-brother is treated by everyone. Xander is the one who steps up to the a father to the little boy, his mother is witch for what she did to the little boy, and Helen is too worried about whether or not Xander had an affair with Alex's mom. When the climax of the book happened, and Helen found out the truth about Alex, she was to foucssed on having Xander apologize to his mom for being mean to her. My all time favorite line of the book is at the end when Helen tells Xander that their "real" son hero worshipps him....even though Xander is a "father" to Alex. I have never read a Michelle Reid book, and if her other books are like this then I will just stick to Lynn Graham, and Jennie Lucas.

This is my first Michelle Reid book I ever read and so enthralled I was unable to put it down until I finish reading it, no wonder it's highly recomended.