Customer Reviews

A Suspicious Proposal (Romance)

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Of course I loved this book. They meet at a wedding, the alpha male Xavier Gray is so top heavy in that he is a legend in his own mind, and he makes a prejudice assumption that is remarkably bad. For such a smarter than anybody else millionaire he slips badly.
Xavier thinks Esther Russell is her friend Janice who is an actress and works in a bar.
Essie is a Veterinarian Surgeon. Xavier insults both Janice and Essie in one fell swoop, and he never saw it coming when he finds out the truth. In fact Essie apologies, when she has nothing to be sorry for.
So starts the fun. As Essie tramps over Xavier's heart, and other vital organs, Xavier lowers himself to buy the Veterinarian practice so he can bed Essie.
Only Essie isn't bed-able, well not really.
I have always wondered if the situation was the opposite would she have as much success or failure as he did.
Anyway Xavier steps into England from Canada and he is a self-made-millionaire, not only that but the circumstances that brought him to riches were so horrible that it brought me to tears.
Ms Brooks had me laughing at the merry chase Essie gave Xavier, then brought me to tears when both badly wounded people find a chance at happiness.
From the back of the book: 'One wedding leads to another...Essie met millionaire businessman Xavier Grey at a wedding: she was the chief bridesmaid, he was a distant relative of the bridegroom. They were strangers, yet for some reason Xavier clearly disapproved of Essie. Only, that didn't stop him pursuing her!
Their attraction was electric, but what were Xavier's true intentions? When he proposed was it an affair or marriage he had in mind?'

Essie thought that she could return to the relatively quiet life of being a country veterinarian. She hoped she could forget all about Xavier Grey's arresting eyes and the strange way that he made her feel, but she found it quite impossible. Despite his wealth, Xavier seemed oddly at home in her little cottage. His gentle care was also against all of Essie's preconceived notions of how rich and powerful men might behave.

What secrets lay beneath that attractive exterior of his, she wondered? Did Essie really have the courage to find out and, when she did, might she find it impossible to turn away? This is a lovingly told tale of two very different people who find common ground, surrounded by each other's arms and the special love they share.

In Helen Brooks latest release, Essie Russell, a vet meets Xavier Grey, a Canadian millionaire, while at her friends wedding where she is the chief bridesmaid. In a case of mistaken identity, Essie is insulted when Xavier presumes that she is Janice, the other bridesmaid who is an actress as well as a party animal simply because she is blond and beautiful. She plays him along for awhile just to get back at him and he is understandable angry when he finds out. Like many of the other European written romances I've read before, Brooks falls back on old plot points such as a heroine who is afraid of commitment because of a jerk of an old boyfriend and a rags-to-riches millionaire who came up from the gutter. (How many men can be self-made millionaires by the time their 33?) In this respect, there is no surprise in the plot and the characters seem interchangeable from characters from other similar novels. However, Brooks does make things a little more interesting by including the random paragraph that is seem from another point of view. Like a tom cat at Essie's vet practice for example, as well as a peek into Xavier's mind. This is refreshing because almost all romance novels are seen from the heroine's point of view. Overall, not a bad read even if it did fall onto old topics and was a pleasant way to pass a long summer's day.