Reviewer: Holly The Markonos Bride by Michelle Reid
Series: Greek Tycoons #55
Also in this series: The Billionaire's Pregnant Mistress (Petronides Brothers Duo #1; Greek Tycoons #4)
Publisher: Harlequin
Publication Date: May 1st 2008
Genres: Fiction
Pages: 192
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Series Rating:
The island of Aristos holds bittersweet memories for Louisa. Here she met and married gorgeous Greek playboy Andreas Markonos and bore him a precious son. But when tragedy struck, Louisa fled….
Now, years later, Andreas can't believe that his runaway wife has dared set foot on Aristos again—and that he still desires her. Andreas will reclaim his wife with the one thing they still have in common…intense physical passion!
I love the Harlequin Presents line. There’s so much emotion packed into such a short story, you can’t help but feel emotionally wrung out when all is said and done. This one was an emotional roller coaster ride.
Andreas blames himself for Louisa taking off, knowing he didn’t comfort her and stand strong for her as she needed him to. His father is pressuring him to file for divorce and find a new bride, but he can’t bring himself to do it. Even after five years, he’s mired in grief. Both for his dead son and his estranged wife.
This part just made me melt.
Divorce, Andreas repeated to himself as he stared at those damn ferry lights. Now, there was a word that mocked itself. For how did you divorce yourself from the woman who’d lain in your arms night after night and loved you with every look and touch and soft sigh she uttered? How did you divorce yourself from the sight of her giving birth to your child?
And how did you divorce yourself from the inconsolable sight of her the day you placed that child in the ground?
You didn’t. You lived with it. Night and day you lived with it. Night and day you scanned through a kaleidoscope of memories; some light, some dark, some so unbearable you wished you could switch off your head. And for the best became a soul-stripping insult, just as time to move on did. For how did you divorce yourself from all of that grief and agony and move on in your life as if it had never happened at all?
You didn’t. You just lived with it.
He was such a strong character, yet had hints of vulnerability in him. His reaction to seeing Louisa again is mostly pure animal instinct. To possess her. It was totally hot. And overbearing. And annoying. And hot.
He immediately turns caveman on her and decides she’s not leaving now that she’s home. I had some issues with some of his tactics, but I couldn’t fault him for realizing he still cared for her and wanting to keep her close.
Louisa thinks she’s over Andreas. Every year she comes back to the island to visit her son’s grave and never has had an issue with leaving. So she’s shocked when she runs into Andreas and is just as attracted to him as she was as a hormonal teenager.
She definitely still wants sex with Andreas, but she isn’t willing to give her heart back to him. It was trampled on once already, and she was devastated. She’s terrified of being that vulnerable to him again. But she can’t seem to resist him. I understood where she was coming from, but I personally would have karate chopped Andreas for a few of the stunts he pulled, and I think Louisa should have done the same. She wasn’t necessarily weak, she just chose to fight the wrong battles, IMO.
They both suffer from jealously issues, though Andreas worse than Louisa. Halfway through the novel he convinces himself Louisa has been the live-in love of her boss and has a conniption fit. This is one of those times I would have karate chopped him. Two or three times. Still, the resolution wasn’t an easy one, but it worked. There wasn’t some trite apology and then they all lived happily ever after. They both worked for it, which was nice.
It was such an emotionally powerful story with flawed characters who needed to see past their own pride and insecurities to find what really mattered. The hero bugged some, but then so did the heroine. Overall I was very pleased with it.
4.0 out of 5
This book is available from Harlequin Presents. You can buy it here or here in e-format.