Something about The Greek's Forced Bride made me want to read it when I read the short review of it. I haven't even read this author before to use as an excuse. And I really hate the title of the book (and the serial its a part of 'Bedded for Blackmail'? So gothic!). It didn't stop me from thinking that at any moment a werewolf or vampire or witch or even a ghost would pop up and make this story seem more familiar. Is it a sad state of affairs that I can relate to those ghoulish fantasies more then a grounded romance?

I did enjoy the book. I read it over about a two and half hour stint, with one break and found it easy and enjoyable. Nothing deep is happening, but then I never expect that from Harlequin titles (most of the time at least) and I definately wanted to smack Leo a few dozen times. Also a few quick smacks to Natasha's head wouldn't have felt out of place either.

Leo and Natasha are of course the most fleshed out characters, with a surprising amount of fleshing given to Leo's ex-wife as well. In fact we might have learned more meaningful things about why she acted the way she did then seemed necessary. Leo and Natasha's romance...actually I'm not sure you can call it that. This book, despite the fact I did enjoy it (I need to stress that because this review might sound critical), reminded me why I don't read contemporary romances dated after about 1992.

I don't really want to be reminded that sex becomes such a necessary part of a relationship--especially in this case since Leo's answer to everything was to just get back into bed together and work out their problems through sex. I Hate You! To the bed! You slept with your ex-wife! To the bed! It just seemed like an endless litany of reasons for them to go to bed together. In a paranormal at least there's some other reason; vamp has to feed, werewolf is in heat, ghost is horny after years of celibacy--something! So to see the characters in and out of bed is more rationalized in my head. Pathetic as that sounds.

Then there is also the matter of despite this being written 23 years after The Olive Tree, and an entirely different writer (though both oddly are about British gals falling for Greek rich boys) the same template seemed to be used for the chick's response. Guy is all masculine and aggressively sexual, she resists, he convinces, she succombs and hates herself for it--only now with added sex to really make the girl hate herself!
( )

Lovely story. But then Michelle Reid is a favorite of mine. This was one of those books where you knew that the guy was pretty head over heels for her from the beginning. The heat between the hero and heroine was pretty high. Every once in a while some of the arguments between them didn't make the best sense mostly from the hero's point of view. To the point that you wondered why the devil did he even say that? That wasn't suave, in fact it was pretty much guaranteed to piss the heroine off. To the point where it felt like it was not really trued to the hero's character and they were just added by the author because she wanted them to fight. Those instances kept the book from attaining the 5 star. The ending was lovely with the hero desperate to convince her to stay with him.

All in all a fun read. ( )

This book didn't work for me at all. Heroine Natasha was dull. The storyline was silly. The book really got boring after hero Leo takes Natasha to Greece...with endless sex scenes between a couple I could care less about. A disappointing read. ( )