A review by una_macchia
Innocent Secretary... Accidentally Pregnant by Carol Marinelli

3.0

I really liked some of the non-romantic relationships in this story -- the heroine and her father, the hero and his dog (I'm not a dog person but I wish there were more scenes with Pepper), the hero and his family. The hero's father was physically abusive to his mother throughout his childhood; now he's sick and dying and can't hurt her physically anymore, but of course he can still abusive her verbally and the memories are still there. The hero takes the heroine home with him for his sister's wedding, and there are some great scenes with him struggling to hold it together around his father and act as he's expected to in public, while the heroine tries to figure out what's going on and he slowly opens up. The hero's fear of being like his father was very well done imo, and came across as realistic instead of overblown drama. He behaves badly toward the heroine to drive her away, but (for me) he doesn't cross the line to being too shitty to deserve a happy ending. I also appreciated that he actually went to see a counselor to deal with his issues when he realized that he really did want a relationship with the heroine and their unborn child, though I would have liked to see a scene between him and the counselor instead of just a summarizing paragraph.

The heroine felt a little flat/underdeveloped by comparison with the hero, though I did like her. She has a spine and she stands her ground when the hero is trying to be as unpleasant to her as he can to push her away. What bothered me a lot more is a twist toward the end regarding the hero's family background. It is briefly foreshadowed beforehand, but I thought it was totally unnecessary and I don't love the implications.

Spoiler

Turns out the hero's biological father is actually another man, the family doctor. He and the hero's mother had feelings for each other and acted on them before her marriage, though the affair didn't continue after that encounter. The hero's uncle and grandfather are/were also violent toward their wives, and the narrative seems to suggest that their behavior is mostly caused by genetics. I felt that this really cheapened the hero's storyline by handwaving his fears about becoming his father as a nonissue because he isn't really his father's son -- instead of because he's a person who made a deliberate decision to not behave that way. Idk. I was still happy with his HEA but that really weakened the ending for me.