Friday, January 15, 2010

Review: Bought: Damsel in Distress by Lucy King


The blurb:

Billionaire's bid…

Luke Harrison is always in control. But ever since he bid for the chance to save a green-bikini–clad beauty he's felt his self-possession slipping away….

Blind date…

Independent Emily does not want rescuing—until Luke, a smoldering knight in shining armor, swoops in on his private jet and starts to change her mind!

Secret baby?

Neither is prepared for the heat between them as Emily undoes her steely-eyed billionaire—and their no-strings fling leads to pleasure beyond their imagining…


Now, I will admit that when I started this book I had some definite preconceived notions, but in my defense if you read a lot of Harlequins it's hard not to have those. Harlequins are one of my guilty pleasures and sometimes I find a gem in the batch and a lot of times, I don't. The ones that are good, though, make it worth wading through the ones that are just so much cliched junk.

When I read the opening line though, I knew my preconceived notions were gonna get knocked on their rear.

Here's the line in question:

"You must be wondering what sort of girl ends up for auction on the internet," said Emily, picking up her glass of champagne and taking a quick sip.

That had me going, What?! The internet?! No way! That hooked me.

So come to find out, our heroine's ex-fiance is getting married in France and she's invited, but really doesn't want to go. Her older sis, who's pretty much raised her, doesn't think she's getting out enough and has decided that she'll never get closure if she doesn't go and watch the loser marry some poor other girl. So she puts Emily up for auction on Ebay without telling her about it until 30 min before the winner came to pick her up. It was hilarious. She also blackmailed Emily into going by having the proceeds of the auction donated to a charity and if Emily didn't go with the guy, the charity didn't get the money.

I so liked this set up better than the usual, I'll send your brother/father/friend/cousin to jail if you don't be my wife/mistress/baby factory trope that gets used so very much in Harlequins. Don't get me wrong. I still read those and sometimes I even like them, but this felt refreshing.

The dialogue was very witty, too. Emily and Luke, our hero, would verbally spar and it was both funny and sometimes poignant as well as being practically foreplay for them.

I liked that they both had damage and that got addressed a bit in the story. I liked that Emily wasn't a virgin and happened to enjoy sex and asked for what she wanted. That, too, was a nice change of pace from all the virgin mistresses out there. They did bring in the cliche of an unexpected pregnancy and that always kinda irritates me. A woman doesn't have to get knocked up. There are plenty of kids out there. Not to mention, sometimes they use the kid to bring the couple together and then you don't feel that they would ever had made it on their own. This time they handled it pretty well. Luke didn't stay for the baby and being pregnant made Emily have to deal with some of her own personal issues.

All in all it was a very enjoyable read. It left me feeling good and not like throwing the book across the room. Hehehe.

My final grad for this is a B+.

You can buy this book here

Or here

9 comments:

Wendy said...

I don't think I've ever read a Harlequin but this one sounds fun!

The Queen B said...

*gasp* You never have? Oh my, you don't know what you're missing. Some are really good and some are so bad they're good :P

Smokinhotbooks said...

I'm with you B. IN high school I somehow magically signed up for HQN books & got so burnt out, I can't stand to even look at 'em anymore. I wonder if HQN has changed since then?

Sayuri said...

Aww, I LOVE the Blaze line. It's great, it's condensed great contemporaries. Sarah Mayberry is one of the best. Hasn't written a bad book yet. (for me)

I can't read a lot of the Presents tho. Too much alpha males and never enough grovelling. I can handle an asshat but there's got to be major grovel at the end.

I quite like a Silhouette desire aswell. There's a lot of great Aussie/NZ authors for that line.

The Queen B said...

OMG! I think you're my soulmate, lol. I love the Desire line and I do hit up the Blaze line like an addict....but anyway...yeah..I do like the Presents, but you have to weed through some crap. I agree, I can do assholes but I want the woman to stick it to him and make him crawl over broken glass then grovel, but the heroines rarely ever have the cajones in that line to follow through, hence the throwing the book across the room. That and the eternavirgin trop. Gack. Thank God this heroine wasn't virgin and didn't fear sex.

Sayuri said...

*whispers* I have a Blaze Subscription...cough.

Yeah, they are all twenty something virgins who have no experience of the bed or world and then the hero comes along and they do everything he says. That's called abuse in my book not love! LOL

Give me a heroine who knows what and orgasm is and isn't afriad to use it! LOl

The Queen B said...

Your secret's safe with me.
You know, the whole inexperienced chick or dude and the man or woman that's going to...er...educate them in the ways of lurve and lust can be a hot trope. After like 500 books with that, though, I just wanna slit my wrists.

Sayuri said...

Oh, but I LOVE VIGIN HEROES. Can't get enough of those virgin heroes. I just want to deflower them. In a verra dirty manner... :)

The Queen B said...

Yeah, if the chick is experienced, cuz I've done the fumbling "we're both virgins" thing and...yeah...more awkward, less hot.
And yes, it's so sweet when the guy is all eager and not sure and ...yeah.. ::fans self::

 
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