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gamz's review
3.0
Jo, the h in this book needed therapy. Within a six month period she lost both her parents and then her only surviving relative, her sister. And to be there and witness her sister’s death, well, she needed some serious help.
Her 18 year old sister got pregnant for Mark, cousin of Mike, the H. Mark was in love with someone else and the h’s sister was a bit of fun while he and his love were separated. What he didn’t expect was for her to get pregnant.
In an attempt to help her sister, Jo went looking for Mark to confront him. Instead she found Mike, and the attraction was immediate. She explained the situation as she understood it and Mike promised to help her. The following day, Mike came to her house with a completely different attitude. He didn’t believe a thing that was said and accused her sister of being a gold digger and trying to trap his cousin.
This led to a nasty argument and to her sister running out of the house in histrionics. Not paying attention to where she was going, she ran into the street and was hit by a car and killed. Jo saw the entire thing.
Three years later, Jo’s company sends her on a job for a firm that needs a computer programmer and she is the best they have. She is shocked to find that Mike, the H, is the owner of the business. He is equally shocked to see her. The horror of her sister’s death and the pain she has lived with for the past three years are back and with a vengeance!
The animosity is at full force and Jo can barely hold it together. But she’s a professional and she pulls herself together and gets down to business. Mike is still mad about Jo and wants her with a passion. But she’s like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. She loves him but blames him and his cousin for her sister’s death.
The trauma of all her losses and the horror of the situation surrounding her sister’s death explains why she is the way she is throughout the book. The guilt she felt for falling in love with someone she held responsible for the death of her sister didn’t help either.
My heart broke for Jo. She was in a horrid place and had to let go of her anger before she could accept that it was ok to love. I understood this but what angered me is Mark’s putting the blame on her 18 yr old sister. He was 30 at the time and took no responsibility for his actions.
I still don’t know how I feel about this one. There is so much about the story that I disliked. And I don’t know how Jo and Mike would build a life together without animosity creeping in to undermine it. Unless she got some serious therapy.
Her 18 year old sister got pregnant for Mark, cousin of Mike, the H. Mark was in love with someone else and the h’s sister was a bit of fun while he and his love were separated. What he didn’t expect was for her to get pregnant.
In an attempt to help her sister, Jo went looking for Mark to confront him. Instead she found Mike, and the attraction was immediate. She explained the situation as she understood it and Mike promised to help her. The following day, Mike came to her house with a completely different attitude. He didn’t believe a thing that was said and accused her sister of being a gold digger and trying to trap his cousin.
This led to a nasty argument and to her sister running out of the house in histrionics. Not paying attention to where she was going, she ran into the street and was hit by a car and killed. Jo saw the entire thing.
Three years later, Jo’s company sends her on a job for a firm that needs a computer programmer and she is the best they have. She is shocked to find that Mike, the H, is the owner of the business. He is equally shocked to see her. The horror of her sister’s death and the pain she has lived with for the past three years are back and with a vengeance!
The animosity is at full force and Jo can barely hold it together. But she’s a professional and she pulls herself together and gets down to business. Mike is still mad about Jo and wants her with a passion. But she’s like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. She loves him but blames him and his cousin for her sister’s death.
The trauma of all her losses and the horror of the situation surrounding her sister’s death explains why she is the way she is throughout the book. The guilt she felt for falling in love with someone she held responsible for the death of her sister didn’t help either.
My heart broke for Jo. She was in a horrid place and had to let go of her anger before she could accept that it was ok to love. I understood this but what angered me is Mark’s putting the blame on her 18 yr old sister. He was 30 at the time and took no responsibility for his actions.
I still don’t know how I feel about this one. There is so much about the story that I disliked. And I don’t know how Jo and Mike would build a life together without animosity creeping in to undermine it. Unless she got some serious therapy.
katiev's review
3.0
This was different. Very readable, but I'm not sure how I feel about it. I finished it, which seems to be a miracle these days, so I'll give it a 3. I think it attempted to give a more nuanced view of things but ended up slut shaming. I was left with a niggling distaste for attitudes toward the dead that bothered me, much like Leona in her review.
When the h, Jo, is 21 her 18-year-old sister confesses she's pregnant and that she cannot locate the father to tell him. She claims she's very much in love. Jo has to help her track him down.
So, Jo goes to try and track down the lover (Mark) but ends up faced with his cousin, Mike. After some initial misunderstanding, Mike agrees to contact Mark and referee the situation. There is chemistry between them and Jo instinctively trusts Mike to take care of the situation.
Mike calls his cousin and gets a different story than the one Jo sold him. Mark claims that Carol is no innocent victim. She came on to him, dammit! And she said she was taking precautions. She either wasn't pregnant or she'd gotten pregnant on purpose to trap him. Either way, he couldn't have her around to muck up things with the ex he'd just gotten back together with and planned to marry. Mike needed to fix it.
Mike's pissed! He'd been taken in hook-line-and-sinker by Jo's story of an innocent sister seduced and dumped. He wanted Jo like no other woman. How dare she not be what she seemed! Grrr... He was going over there and setting both of these hussy's straight.
Ummm.... how about take into account that Jo was trying to protect her sister. Her flesh and blood. Her only living family. Yeah, maybe she wasn't quite as innocent as Jo portrayed her, but she was her sister and only 18. Their parents had died. Jeez!.
Anyway... Mike goes to the sisters' home and acts like a pompous ass. He tells Carol her gold digging scheme has failed. She must prove she's pregnant and only then will he approach Mark about maintenance. No big money, mind you! Just maintenance. Carol can't speak to Mark, either. Mark (who's probably 30) must be protected from this 18-year-old Delilah.
Jo is appalled. She tells Mike where he can stick his money and orders him out of their home. Carol hasn't given up, however, and she runs after Mike and gets hit by that pesky HPlandia car-outta-nowhere vs. hysterical female phenomena. Unfortunately, she doesn't go into a coma and wake up on a private island married to a gazillionaire. Carol isn't the heroine in this story. So, she is killed instantly.
Fast forward, 3 years later. Jo is a successful businesswoman and is hired to do contract work for a company that ends up belonging to Mike.
The gist is that Mike still wants Carol and he's sorry he misjudged her about being "in on" her sister's evil plot to trap his cousin. His defense is that the sister wasn't the sweet innocent Jo thought her to be. If Jo will just accept that Carol was a slut who brought about her own ruin, they can be together. Okay, he never says that, but it's heavily implied IMHO.
Perhaps the lesson here is that Mike and Jo shouldn't have tried to fix things for their family. They should have put Mark and Carol together and let them deal with the fallout. Mark even says at one point that perhaps he would have been happy married to Carol. His own marriage didn't turn out well. Carol may have been wilder and more selfish than Jo realized, but she also wasn't the devil. She was young, immature, and self involved, but Mark had liked her and enjoyed spending time with her. She and her baby didn't deserve to die or be branded with a scarlet letter. A 30 year old man has some responsibility for himself.
But while some lip service and illusions are made to the above, I still felt the overall tone was: If Carol hadn't been such a conniving slut, none of this unpleasantness would have occurred. But... oh yeah... poor thing.
So, Jo goes to try and track down the lover (Mark) but ends up faced with his cousin, Mike. After some initial misunderstanding, Mike agrees to contact Mark and referee the situation. There is chemistry between them and Jo instinctively trusts Mike to take care of the situation.
Mike calls his cousin and gets a different story than the one Jo sold him. Mark claims that Carol is no innocent victim. She came on to him, dammit! And she said she was taking precautions. She either wasn't pregnant or she'd gotten pregnant on purpose to trap him. Either way, he couldn't have her around to muck up things with the ex he'd just gotten back together with and planned to marry. Mike needed to fix it.
Mike's pissed! He'd been taken in hook-line-and-sinker by Jo's story of an innocent sister seduced and dumped. He wanted Jo like no other woman. How dare she not be what she seemed! Grrr... He was going over there and setting both of these hussy's straight.
Ummm.... how about take into account that Jo was trying to protect her sister. Her flesh and blood. Her only living family. Yeah, maybe she wasn't quite as innocent as Jo portrayed her, but she was her sister and only 18. Their parents had died. Jeez!.
Anyway... Mike goes to the sisters' home and acts like a pompous ass. He tells Carol her gold digging scheme has failed. She must prove she's pregnant and only then will he approach Mark about maintenance. No big money, mind you! Just maintenance. Carol can't speak to Mark, either. Mark (who's probably 30) must be protected from this 18-year-old Delilah.
Jo is appalled. She tells Mike where he can stick his money and orders him out of their home. Carol hasn't given up, however, and she runs after Mike and gets hit by that pesky HPlandia car-outta-nowhere vs. hysterical female phenomena. Unfortunately, she doesn't go into a coma and wake up on a private island married to a gazillionaire. Carol isn't the heroine in this story. So, she is killed instantly.
Fast forward, 3 years later. Jo is a successful businesswoman and is hired to do contract work for a company that ends up belonging to Mike.
The gist is that Mike still wants Carol and he's sorry he misjudged her about being "in on" her sister's evil plot to trap his cousin. His defense is that the sister wasn't the sweet innocent Jo thought her to be. If Jo will just accept that Carol was a slut who brought about her own ruin, they can be together. Okay, he never says that, but it's heavily implied IMHO.
Perhaps the lesson here is that Mike and Jo shouldn't have tried to fix things for their family. They should have put Mark and Carol together and let them deal with the fallout. Mark even says at one point that perhaps he would have been happy married to Carol. His own marriage didn't turn out well. Carol may have been wilder and more selfish than Jo realized, but she also wasn't the devil. She was young, immature, and self involved, but Mark had liked her and enjoyed spending time with her. She and her baby didn't deserve to die or be branded with a scarlet letter. A 30 year old man has some responsibility for himself.
But while some lip service and illusions are made to the above, I still felt the overall tone was: If Carol hadn't been such a conniving slut, none of this unpleasantness would have occurred. But... oh yeah... poor thing.
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