365 books in 365 days Challenge ... Book #338

Shameful Secret, Shotgun Wedding - Sharon Kendrick
Mills & Boon Modern
Harlequin Mills & Boon, 2010
ISBN: 9780263878448











My rating

From the back cover:

"His pregnant mistress 
When renowned international playboy Giancarlo Vellutini invites shop assistant Cassie Summers to join him for dinner, how can she refuse? After all, she is an ordinary girl from Cornwall, and chances like this don't come round very often! 
Throwing caution to the wind, before she knows it unworldly Cassie is completely at Giancarlo's mercy. She finds herself agreeing to be his mistress for Christmas...But will an unexpected gift make this temporary festive arrangement last a lifetime?"


Another book I found cheap in the kindle store!

The hero Giancarlo sees the heroine Cassie working in a busy department store, finding her totally captivating he asks her to have dinner with him. Cassie is a little surprised by the offer, Giancarlo is so much more than anyone she has ever met, at first she declines his offer but then changes her mind. They end up spending the night together and Giancarlo is overwhelmed by both Cassie's innocence and her spirit. He asks her to spend a couple of weeks with him, making it clear that it is only a short term affair that he is offering, and Cassie agrees. The time they spend together is full of passion and they become close, but by the end Cassie realises that she doesn't belong in Giancarlo's world and their eventual parting is less than amicable. A few weeks later and Cassie is still thinking about Giancarlo and worried about what his reaction will be when she has to contact him to tell him that she is pregnant.

While this is a tried and tested plot, the execution of this book is pretty much perfect. I am a big fan of Sharon Kendrick, and I love it when she write the more gentle hero. The hero in this book manages to be that, as well as having all the alpha traits you would want. There is a lot of emotion and passion in all of the hero and heroine's interactions. and the whole story has a wonderful flow. The relationship actually develops over the story - by that I mean we, the readers, actually get to 'see' how the characters get to know one another and fall in love (rather than a book where the timeline jumps a lot).

This is a nice, yet passionate, read. I enjoyed it.

Xx