Customer Reviews

Twist of Fate (Dales Romance)

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Back of book: Joanne was a shadow of her lovely mother

Everywhere she went, Clea Thorpe was the center of attention. And Joanne had been content enough living in her shadows--until Ben Norris arrived at their villa in Nice.

He seemed drawn to Clea, even offered to back her latest film. But his motives were not as simple as they seemed. The day Joanne discovered his real feelings was the day she decided she never wanted to see him again.

Now, after five years, she thought she'd got him out of her system. Then she opened a hotel room door--to suddenly find herself right back at square one!

MY REVIEW:

Joanne, the daughter of a self absorbed actress, Clea, meets Ben Norris at one of her mother's parties. It would appear that Ben is just another notch on Clea's purse straps. Later it is discovered the Ben will be financing her mother's next film and that he is the son of one of Clea's previous lovers. Ben is out for revenge for a wrong that he believes Clea committed on his poor alcoholic mother who has since passed away. Joanne appears to be 16 when Ben a 30 year old man first lays eyes on her. Clea likes to keep mum about age since she is so vain that she tries to avoid looking her age and admitting to having a 20-21 year old daughter would definitely age her too much.

Ben sees Joanne with another man and becomes jealous. He soon believes that she is exactly like her mother. Willing to do anything, including sleeping with someone, to get what she wants. When Ben's father returns on the scene it throws his whole plan for revenge against Clea out the window. Then he comes up with a new plan of getting his revenge. He has decided to go after Joanne. He says things to her that hurt her feelings but he doesn't really cross the line until he sees her out in the ocean one day. He asks for forgiveness for his earlier atrocities to her and invites her to go on a ride with him. Ben practically kidnaps her and drags her to a yacht anchored out in the ocean. Once there he locks her in his room with him and tells her that he will only keep her a few hours as that will exhaust her potential. He tells her of his plan against Clea. Ben intends to force Joanne she claims it would be rape and he tells her to go ahead and tell people. She is in a quandary because by yelling rape it could ruin her mother's career as well as the upcoming marriage of her mother to Ben's father. She manages to talk him around to sitting the stage for seduction by asking for wine. He agrees as he believes it would relax her more. Once the other man brings the wine, Joanne flings a glass at Ben and manages to escape the room. She eventually is forced to jump into the ocean and Ben pursues her. He tells her that she won't ever make it to shore that she will drown. He rescues her and tells her again that she might have drowned. She screams at him that it would be better than what he had in mind. After this Ben goes on to Paris and Joanne carries on with her life. Five years later they meet again. He is very concerned with the amount of damage that he inflicted upon Joanne that night. Joanne is set to marry another man and Ben doesn't like it at all. He interferes in that and later Joanne sees Clea, her mother, in Ben's bedroom! She leaves and doesn't return for awhile. Clea was a piece of work. She was so wrapped up in herself and everyone around her seemed to enable this attitude. They fed it and shielded this woman. Of course it was constantly explained that she did it with a childlike quality and it wasn't done out of malice but I find that hard to believe. Clea was very upset when Ben chose Joanne over her. Clea would have had no qualms with sleeping with Ben as it fed her ego and no one ever called her on this behavior instead they continued to let her act this way. Ben and Joanne eventually get their HEA and it is believable. They just have to not visit their families very often to maintain this HEA and even Joanne admits this to herself.