Dani Collins

Ivy Lam’s life is at a crossroads. She’s just broken up with her long-term boyfriend, who strung her along with promises of settling down together for 8 years before admitting it wasn’t going to happen. She’s also making a change in her career (having moved to be near said ex), and calls up an old boss looking for connections. Because they developed a warm relationship while working together, said boss invites her to his engagement party, where rumors abound that a real-life billionaire is in attendance!

Ivy could care less, really, as she’s there for professional reasons, but she and said billionaire, Tsai Jun Li, meet by chance and decide to spend the afternoon (and the night) together. Both are clear what they’re getting into: one night, no strings, rebound situation.

Four months go by and Ivy learns that she is pregnant. Since she’s been so busy trying to get her career (and life) on track, she hasn’t had much time for dating, so the last person she slept with – Jun LI – is the father. Having been burned in romantic relationships before, she fully anticipates that he will be Not Be Happy about this. What she doesn’t anticipate is him being so impossible to contact that she basically has to crash a party just to get five minutes of his time. All she wants to do is tell him that she’s pregnant, that she’s keeping the baby, and that she plans to raise it herself. She doesn’t want anything from him – except medical history.

Jun Li is skeptical, for many reasons. As a billionaire businessman, this is not the first time a woman has tried to claim that she’s carrying his baby in order to trap him into a commitment of some sort. He also had a pregnancy scare as a teen, and went to great lengths to ensure it would never be possible to sire a child. Ivy already knows he’s going to ask for tests to prove his paternity, which he does. He accepts that her news is true with relative calm, and because he is a Fixer, he moves right on ahead making plans for how to now accommodate her and his future child into his life. Because he is from a traditional family, he wants to marry Ivy to ensure the health and safety of her and her baby. He sees no issue with an arranged marriage, but Ivy – as a second generation Canadian born to immigrant parents – wants to marry not for security, but for love. As much as she understands Jun LI’s POV, she doesn’t want to feel like she’s obligating yet another man to marry her when he doesn’t want to, for her.

This is sort of a fractured fairy tale. What woman doesn’t fantasize about being swept off her feet by a handsome man with endless amounts of money, who can provide a life of luxury? But fantasy is quite different from reality, and these two are far apart on their views of marriage. They have explosive sexual chemistry, though, which complicates matters. I really enjoyed the push-pull of these characters as they work through their emotional entanglement and the reality (such as it is in HP) of combining lives that are so different from each other.

I also really enjoyed the development of Jun Li and the arc of his storyline. I can list on one hand the number of novels I’ve read with a hero who admits to, explores, and treats his depression. It takes him a long time to open up to the heroine, but he eventually does – and her own insecurities about her past fuck-ups make her very empathetic to him. As much as she wants to hear that he’s fallen in love with her (as she has with him), she doesn’t force the issue, or act jealous or stupid. She’s trying to cope with her own ever-changing reality, and it is a bumpy road indeed that she’s on, trying to come to terms with extreme material wealth.

The only reason I can’t give this 5 stars is because one little loose end that bothers me a lot. Ivy struggles with finding her own place in the world, and yet she allows herself to be swept up in this chaos basically by hand-waving away her previous desire for independence because she discovers that her home is wherever her husband is. She’s left her job, her family, her country to be with this man, basically a stranger, and that was a little hard for me to swallow, even if some of her agency is returned in the epilogue.

I loved these characters, however, and the intensity of the emotional and sexual charge they share. HPs are known for lots of handwaving, so I get it. I’m definitely going to be picking up more of this author’s work, and am very thankful that SuperWendy read and reviewed a previous HP by this author and pointed me in her direction!… (meer)

This is a steamy western historical set in a mining camp in Colorado. Marigold is a mail-order bride, replacing her sister, to take care of a widower's children. Virgil isn't sure of his replacement bride and puts off the wedding, hiring her as a housekeeper/nanny instead. Several passionate interludes take place and some disagreements, but the two are getting along when Marigold's sister shows up.
I have to admit that, for me, the ending kind of ruined a fairly good book. The kids were cute, Marigold and Virgil were a good coupled, and the mining camp was interesting. But the way the ending was handled seemed like a repeat of Virgil's first marriage which doesn't bode well for the couple. Anyway, it made it just okay for me.… (meer)