Terms Of Possession (Mills & Boon Vintage 90s Modern)
The wife is perfectly fine with the h and her husband having a banging baby making weekend if the payoff is a child. Apparently baby motilator vintages have a specific rating and IVF vintage motilators just aren't good enough, only the freshest, injected straight from the source will do. The book opens with the H and h starting out on the baby making weekend and the h is positively overwhelmed with the Lurve Force Mojo as she gives up her unicorn grooming license forever - to the H's complete mystification as to why a unicorn groomer would even be doing that - unless of course she wanted to go shopping.
In due course the H's motilators hit the target and we all can anticipate a happy new arrival. The h's mum is saved and recovering nicely in a very private nursing home. Then the h sees the BFF locked in an embrace with another man who is not her husband and the h vows to never tell the H about his wife's perfidy. The h is horrified and shocked and determined to keep the baby, rather than send it to a broken and adulterous home.
I fell over laughing when EP managed to convey this with a figuratively straight face. The h tells the H she is backing out, but neglects to tell him why as per her personal vow. The H is furious and explodes and starts a campaign of harassment and threats against the h. The H's wife has run off and eventually sends a letter explaining that she has eloped with her lover.
Then she gets killed and H seemingly has no recourse. Until he blackmails the h into marrying him by threatening to take custody of the baby - cause the h worked in a law office, but never managed to read the actual cases or even the Daily Mail. So the two marry and the h gets an adorable cat named Tuesday. There is a lot of bickering and push and pull and angsty longing and huge Purple Passion Mojo Events and it is quite clear that this H is totally obsessed with the equally obsessed h.
But the h is convinced that the H only wants her for the baby and she gets to have nine months of mopey moments cause her love is unrequited. The H is convinced the h is more into the guy she used to work for, who was really very nice and wore an earring, so his jealousy and possessiveness is raging rampantly.
As an epic trainwrecky whacktastic bonus, the dead BFF's cousin is running her mouth at full volume trying to convince the h that the H is really in love with her and multiplying the h's misery by a factor of million. Tuesday does some cute things too, so there is a little angsty angsting kitten relief. Eventually it all boils up when the h goes to court to see the H prosecute a case and he ignores her and she goes into to labor in the middle of the court session and the wanna be OW is right behind the H in the courtroom making goo-goo eyes at him.
The h was there to talk to the H and hoping for an attempt at reconciliation outside of them lurve clubbing each other's brains out. The wanna be OW indicated that she and the H were going to be going on their own little weekend fling, and the h was ragingly jealous and desperate to stop him. The h and H have a little girl and the H is a great labor coach. Relations are still strained between the H and h tho.
The H knows all about the h's mum's health issues by now and that his wife was having an affair with another man, but rather than just telling the h how he feels about her, he decides to force a confrontation. The H takes the h back to the hotel where their daughter was conceived and then to a nice country house he bought for the h. There are some verbal battling words and then the H tells the h that she loves him.
The h finally admits she does and the H disavows any dating or attraction to the wanna be OW - he was only representing her due to a partnership deal that affected his dead wife's estate and she apparently has a boy friend of her own. Tho one that she obviously wouldn't have minded dumping if she could get her hooks into the H, who married her cousin after a tepid date or two with her own fabulous wanna be OW self. The H then declares that he loves the h back and loved her even before he married his wife. Supposedly the H only married the BFF because she claimed to be preggers, but that turned out to be a lie and then he impregnated the h because he thought it would save his marriage.
It is totally EP HP logic, don't ask, just roll with it. To prove that he really loves the h and not anyone else, we get the big reveal that the H put an offer in on the house for the h well before he blackmailed her into marriage. The H is also emotionally wounded that the h actually believed his custody threats. He seems quite shocked that the h would think so little of him, even tho he pounded it into her head at every chance he got that he would use all his legal connections, which were numerous, to wrest her child away from her.
After all, the H explains, if he tried to take the h to court and sue for custody, she would be considered the baby's mother and he would be stricken from the Law Rolls for contracting a surrogate illegally. Which is kinda classic EP. Her H's do and say horrible things and then get their ego's hurt when the h totally believes they would actually do them, but EP always throws some real world logic in there to make the h feel silly. So now that the H has bullied and arranged everything just the way he wants it and the h believes that he is happy to stay with her, even if he has another life in London during the week.
The two of them agree to make their marriage more than just about the lurve club mojo, cause the baby and Tuesday need a loving, solid home for an utterly whacktastic, but quite entertaining HP Trainwreck Outing. View all 19 comments. Diehard Harlequin Presents fans, Fans of surrogate mother falls in love with father of baby theme. A young wife convinces her friend to have a baby with her husband, but then hightails it off with her lover, leaving pregnant friend to deal with angry husband, who thinks the friend had something to do with the wife leaving.
She dies soon after in a fiery car crash, leaving a friend pregnant with the baby of her husband. What a tangled web! Not a fan of adultery theme in romance, but this one was so well done. I couldn't help thinking, why didn't they do artificial insemination? Did the husband A young wife convinces her friend to have a baby with her husband, but then hightails it off with her lover, leaving pregnant friend to deal with angry husband, who thinks the friend had something to do with the wife leaving.
Did the husband really have to sleep with her friend to get her pregnant? I guess it's best not to ask that question, but to enjoy the story. It sets things up for future interactions as the hero realizes that his obsessed with the heroine, and she was in love with him for years prior to the baby-making encounter. The hero is very possessive of the heroine, despite the fact that he was married and the heroine is merely the surrogate. However I imagine sleeping together would forge such bonds and since he was her first lover and the father of the baby, it probably engendered possessive feelings.
The hero walks a tightrope of being a cruel hero versus a caring hero. He demands that the heroine live under his roof and allow him to take care of her. He pokes his head in often to see how her baby bump is growing.
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And he is livid when she insinuates that he might not be the baby's father after all, even though that is basically giving him a Get Out of Jail Free card. Yes, he's a very alpha hero, and happens to be a high profile lawyer or barrister as they call trial lawyers in England. Strangely, this was a book I couldn't put down although I freely admit I love the pregnancy theme. I pondered the convoluted relationship between the hero and the heroine, and the wife, who actually didn't even really want a baby, but felt like she should want one because she thought that's what the hero wanted.
He wanted a baby because he felt like his wife was heartbroken about being barren. Poor heroine is in the middle. Her mom needs surgery for her health, and by having the baby, she is able to afford the surgery. Of course, this makes her look like a gold digger to the hero who sees her faults with a magnifying glass, yet is able to overlook his wife's faults including an ongoing affair pretty easily. He has decided that she saved her virginity to trade for a higher paycheck That makes no sense except to a HP hero.
I have decided that the hero fell madly in love with the heroine and was tormented by the fact that he loved her instead of his wife. That is why he is so possessive and borderline domineering of her. Ah, Life According to Harlequin Presents. I have a list of things I won't be doing after twenty plus years of reading these books.
But we won't get into that. Although this is probably a book that most people wouldn't want to read, I really enjoyed it. Thus it has a spot on my keeper shelf. They named the baby Justine, since the hero was a barrister. I thought that was very cute. View all 33 comments. Oct 02, Fre06 Begum rated it did not like it Shelves: This book was def unusual of its time and I could have enjoyed it a lot more but a few things just didn't work for me.
First this book had adultery regardless of the wife encouraging it for the purpose of a baby and the fact that female lead agreed to it using her mother as a reason to justify it when deep inside she admitted to herself she was doing it for herself just wound me up. I think my main issue though is the fact that the hero admitted that he wanted his marriage to work and so I was l This book was def unusual of its time and I could have enjoyed it a lot more but a few things just didn't work for me.
I think my main issue though is the fact that the hero admitted that he wanted his marriage to work and so I was left with the impression that if his wife had not died he would have been happy to take the baby and raise it with his wife so how can I feel that he loves the heroine? I personally did not feel he loved her enough more lke he was sexually attracted to her whereas you could really feel the love from the heroine for him.
I have to admit I did not like or respect the female lead I know the hero's wife was not a nice person but at the end of the day she had been the heroine's best friend and the fact that she would have probably kept on sleeping with the hero if there was any chance because she just couldn't resist him made me want to puke up that in my opinion is not a woman worthy of my respect!
Terms of Possession
This book could have been better if female lead actually showed some integrity instead of being lumped in the same category as her best friend who are what I call cheats. View all 5 comments. Okay I just had to read this today after seeing it in my update feed and wow, I liked it. So my question is Where am I and what have you done to me? I personally blame boogenhagen because her review made me want to read it.
And I wanted to give it four stars?!?! Again I ask which way did I go????
Terms Of Possession (Mills & Boon Vintage 90s Modern) - Kindle edition by Elizabeth Power. Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or. She needed money for her mother's operation. He wanted a son and heir .and he was prepared to pay for it. A contract for seduction.
I am still in shell shock and I wonder if God is going Okay I just had to read this today after seeing it in my update feed and wow, I liked it. I am still in shell shock and I wonder if God is going to smite me for liking adultery but in this case, I think even God wouldn't mind it. I was so intrigued by this book, I couldn't put it down. And honestly my 'Cheater Meter' didn't even beep, much less reach the implosion stage. I read a blurb and reviews on a book today called "Pretty Venom" and the 'Cheater Meter' reached near stroke level so I am really in a state of disbelief.
The heroes wife talks him into having smex with a co-worker to get a baby. She needs the money for her Mother who is sick and so she agreed to be a surrogate sex slave, oops I meant surrogate. The thing is the heroine secretly loves him and has for many years. He takes her to a nice hotel and romances her basically with dinner, roses and a room where they spend two days going at it. Then he takes her home and goes back to his wife. At this point I was hearing Rod Serling talking about dimensions and zones and I kept reading it. I totally must be crazy.
I hate hate hate cheating but I kept reading because it didn't bother me for some reason. There are a bunch of twists and turns and bossy males and annoying heroines and I don't want to spoil it any more. But it was worth the read. Would I read it again, probably not but I really did like it. I loved the ending and I think it's an awesome example of HPhysteria at its finest. Thank you Boogengagen for inspiring me to go out of my comfort zone.
It was quite a ride. View all 6 comments. I don't know who is worse: I don't give a rat's rear about any of these characters, just pity for the poor plot moppet born to these idiots and saddled with a cutesy name. I'm surprised they didn't name her after the hotel she was conceived in. I wonder if anyone's seen the beautiful movie Firelight with the amazing Sophie Marceau? If you haven't, I highly recommend it and if you have, you may understand why I eagerly picked this up, idiotically assuming it would be written in somewhat the same vein.
Because when I read the intro of the heroine sacrificing to give her best friend a child, I assumed the friend was probably in a wheelchair, sick with an incurable disease, maybe longing to see husband happy with a child before she dies and I wonder if anyone's seen the beautiful movie Firelight with the amazing Sophie Marceau? Because when I read the intro of the heroine sacrificing to give her best friend a child, I assumed the friend was probably in a wheelchair, sick with an incurable disease, maybe longing to see husband happy with a child before she dies and so trusts her friend with the deplorable task of sleeping with her husband, maybe faced with little choice after years of failed fertility treatments.
Add on to the fact that the h was secretly in love with the husband Why did I not read the reviews beforehand?
Thus there are still cases where biological parents are having to adopt or petition for guardianship of their own children and some huge legal battles have ensued. Texas Baby by Tanya Michaels - - pages. Tempting Fate by Risa Kirk - - pages. Why did I not read the reviews beforehand? The novels flowed, and they have continued to publish her books ever since.
This book should have been titled The 20 Month Pregnancy, except it was a misdiagnosis and it was really constipation and I went through the agony of it all just for a pile of crap. It felt that long, painful and pointless. Her best friend, the h is hot.
Which woman in her right mind would send her husband to have sex with her hot best friend? Their reason for not going through with Artificial Insemination was vague; it felt lazy, ignorant, miserly. Maybe h offered half the price with discreet sex thrown in. It doesn't help that the book starts off straight into their sex rendezvous. So we get no clue of their angst and struggle to get to this stage.
Aside from some minor second thoughts from the h, it just felt like two people cheating with his wife's blessing. I would have respected it more if the wife had just gotten in there and made it a rocking threesome. It wasn't all bad for a while. There's a nice little twist with the wife turning out to be an evil bitch and H quickly becoming swoon-worthy with his actions proving louder than words that he is in love with the h and trying to take care of her, the unborn child and control an escalating situaiton. But this h was unforgivably annoying. She's in love with him and later wants to keep the baby when she discovers the evilness of the wife.
She tries to go back on the contract but doesn't tell him why. Neither does she tell him she went through this because she needed money for her mum's illness. It's almost as if she relishes being indignant at his high-handedness when really who could blame him when he's not in possession of all the facts. She finds a way to keep ruining things with her useless meanderings and pointless quibbling and internal lamenting of how he must love his wife and not her. Her pregnancy and the book felt endless.
I thought it must surely stop when she gave birth but nooo, it kept going on and on. I can forgive many things in a book but boredom isn't one of them. I kept nodding off. Not the worst book ever but certainly not great. View all 7 comments. Sep 17, Leona rated it did not like it Shelves: This is the most offensive book I have ever read as a category romance.
Once she realised that copying Rupert Bear stories word for word from her albums wasn't really the thing to do, she was on her way! By the age of fourteen, Elizabeth had produced her first full-length novel-alas! Married in her early twenties, Elizabeth found that the needs of the home became her priority. Despite the ever present nagging little voice in her conscience that constantly reminded her of those unfulfilled writing ambitions, the creativity had stopped. A few weeks before her thirtieth birthday, Elizabeth was thinking about what she had done with her first thirty years and realised she had been telling herself that she would "start writing tomorrow" for at least twelve of them!
She couldn't help wondering, "whatever happened to that dream? Writing was now Elizabeth's life.
They wanted to publish her book. The novels flowed, and they have continued to publish her books ever since. Living in England's beautiful West Country, she likes nothing better than taking walks with her husband along the coast or in the adjoining woods, and enjoying all that nature has to offer.