I loved this book. The writing was amazing. I loved the witty repartee. I loved the interior monologues the characters had. I loved the metaphors and beautiful descriptions of the surroundings.

The book was mostly happy and charming. The characters were modern in their attitudes. The hero was a great guy, not an ass at all. The heroine was a sexy, funny, self confident, smart woman.

As usual, the title had little to do with the book. She was not a mistress at all. They had a mutual relationship that started out light and temporary and grew from there. There was a bit of angst at the end.

The secondary characters were well written and clearly developed. The hero has 4 brothers and I hope they have books. I'm going to look for them as soon as I finish this review.

If you enjoy watching the English language really do its stuff in the hands of an artist, do yourself a favor and read this book. I enjoyed every word in it. And in 40 years of reading only 3 or 4 other authors have made me say that. ( )

This series from Hunter has been consistently fantastic, but they're really not Presents. They're too funny, the heroes too middle-class (well, except for the first book), the heroines neither virginal nor sexually inexperienced and the relationship dynamic too even-footed. They're not stories where a heroine's swept off her naive feet by a domineering hero who has to have her. They're cute stories about two people finding love where they least expect to.

But I loved this story about an Australian Navy veteran flying a helicopter charter in the Greek islands and a Greek-Australian aspiring photographer helping to run one of her family's businesses on a small island, improper Presents or not. Her protective, interfering family made me smile at how they continually contrived to keep Serena and Pete decent. Their outrageously flirtatious banter took the place usually occupied by sex scenes and was just as hot. When they finally do manage to shake her family, it's all the more hot for the wait and the feelings tied up in it. Add in a completely smitten hero and a commitment-averse heroine, and you've hit all my favorites.

There's just one thing holding the book back for me. The final bit of conflict rested on what I saw as a false dilemma. He's a helicopter pilot with no fixed address and she wants to go on and work as a photojournalist at a daily newspaper somewhere far away from her family. So why are her dreams and a relationship with him mutually exclusive? Why would she turn down his proposal when she's inordinately fond of him just because she got a job at an Athens newspaper? Surely two bright people could've worked out a long-distance relationship for a bit or had him work in Europe somewhere. I saw numerous options other than "drop job and move with him to Sydney" and "break up," and that deflated the drama a bit for me. ( )

Got the book from We Hear You, Harlequin's survey program. Another ARC-style book - white cover and floppy pages; this one says the book was published in 2009. Cute, fun story - not nearly as good as the Kate Hardy, but interesting slant on several romance tropes. Again, stupid title - it sounds like she threw darts at a list of 'romance-y things' and came up with Maverick, Greek island, and mistress. Though it does in fact match the story, as titles like that sometimes don't. One nice slant in the story - the maverick is male, of course, but it's not sweet-innocent-girl to match him - she's very pleased to find someone with whom it would be appropriate to have a torrid short-term fling. Of course it turns out not to be that simple - but Pete and Serena match very nicely in their course from interest to obsession to love. And for once it's the woman who is more reluctant to commit. The air-sea rescue angle is neat, as are the close and protective families. One bit that struck a wrong note - she keeps talking about how she's put her life and ambitions on hold to answer family requirements, but beyond her current situation that's never shown. And lacking her grandparents' presence, it's not very well shown for that current situation, either. The setting was particularly amusing to me, since I've spent several summers on a Greek island (while quite a bit younger than Serena, though) - a lot of familiar aspects to her life. Overall, not a bad story, but I'm not particularly interested in re-reading. ( )