Acquire Substitute Lover Prepared By Penny Jordan Edition

Stephanie was eighteen she fell in love with a man named Paul and married him, Little did she know that Paul was abusive both verbally and physically, He was a cruel man and started slapping her around right after there honeymoon, Embarrassed and ashamed, Stephanie hid this fact from everyone, One night when Paul and Stephanie were fighting, Paul took off, took his yacht out and drowned, Stephanie was finally free of his abuse but her guilt ate at her for years,

Ten years later, Paul's cousin Gray called her up and wanted a favor, Stephanie agreed to help him, little to know that Gray was setting her up because he had been in love with her since she was eighteen.
After a whole emotional and traumatic time with Gray and confessing what Paul had truly done to her, she finally freed herself from the guilt and fell in love with Gray.


The story is very emotional, it shows the side of abusers and their victims and how the victims blame themselves.
It was politically correct in so many ways and a very good read! One of those extremely angsty HPs, Heroine is a widow who had an abusive marriage, but now finds herself returning to the town where they used to live and her husbands best friend.
After all his help he now asks her to help him get rid of an annoying suitress, What's the female version of suitor,

Stephanie has a lot of ghosts in her closet, and it doesn't help that she's been keeping it secret for all those years.
Gray is mostly understanding, though he's also a bit scheming,

The dress on the cover actually plays a role in the story! The hero, Gray, had loved Stephanie, the heroine, for years but she married his cousin.
It was a disastrous marriage, Her husband abused her and after he died the heroine avoided men and relationships, The hero thinks she is still mourning her asshole husband but she is in fact afraid of men, When Stephanie believes Gray is having an affair with a married woman she realizes she is in love with Grey but she doesn't dare confess her feelings.


Delicious angst and sexual tension! Penny Jordan was such a great author!! This was so clunky, Both H and h had their respective hang ups, and to be frank, it would've been better if we were in the h's head for the entirety of the story.
Instead, since we had glimpses of the H's thoughts, and their mutual machinations and manoeuvring was so clumsily executed that I wanted to race to the end as quickly as I could.
I really enjoyed reading this book although it isn't really a very good example of Jordan's work, It's not a romance as such but more the tale of a woman getting over her abusive husband's mistreatment of her.
It's set in a seaside town I'm thinking somewhere like Lymington/Isle of Wight way as it refers to her driving down through the New Forest when she first returns there.
This is also a departure for Jordan as she normally goes for the Cotswalds/her native Cheshire, occasionally London and sometimes in the time when Desert romances were in fashion in the middle of a fictional "Arabian" country.
The male lead is not again a departure a millionaire in fact, he's an impoverished boat yard owner who's trying to make good with his new yacht design.
After that, it all gets a bit Howard's Way remember that with the heroine bursting into tears everytime a gale threatens to blow the new yacht off course.
In fact, she spends much of her time in tears and only really takes a break from crying to don various items of peachcoloured clothing ball gowns, and on one occasion, what seems to be some kind of onesie.
Well it was written in thes after all a time when Howard's Way and the colour peach was at its height.
I used to hate Howard's Way when it was on on a Sunday night it was much better when the BBC replaced it with Lovejoy, the loveable antique peddling rogue.
I just couldn't relate to the billionaire lifestyle of the yacht owning classes depicted in Howard's Way I was brought up in landlocked Manchester in a working class family need I say more.
. . Anyway, I couldn't relate to this all that much either, but it is an easy read and despite the hero mishandling nearly all aspects of his courtship of the heroine, and despite the fact that the heroine spends most of her time weeping, this book is not without its charms.
Gray Chalmers needed Stephanie to pose as his lover to help him resist the attractions of a beautiful but married woman.
Gray knew Stephanie, knew she didn't even like being touched, Yet he insisted she return to play the part of the femme fatale,

Gray had never pried into the bitter marriage Stephanie had endured to his cousin, He'd offered only comfort in the ten years since its tragic ending, So Stephanie agreed to his demand, only to find her long buried feelingsand her body's dormant desiresfully awakened, . . This was a reread for me, I'm not sure why. I sometimes wonder if PJ heroine's can find their way to the wash room,

I'm downgrading this tofromand that is being quite generous,

I never wrote a review before so I can't even say original review below, . . :D I quite enjoyed this angsty HP, The hero had loved the heroine for years since before she had married his cousin, Turns out the cousin was abusive and after he died the heroine, Stephanie, had closed herself off out of fear of men while the hero, Gray, thought it was because she was mourning the dead husband.
That's all in the very beginning so no big spoiler, There was POV from both the heroine and hero so you knew what was going on with both of them, Well done and well written with pretty well founded angst as each was afraid to tell the other how they felt for fear they would lose the relationship they already had.
The hero wasn't an ass and the heroine wasn't particulary wimpy,

Very good. To think that I was barely six years old when Substitute Lover was initially published, and I am enjoying this book after so many years have passed since then, attests to the talent that authors like Penny Jordan wielded in the romance genre.
Though Penny Jordan is no more, I read her older books with the fondest of memories, memories of how her books used to spin and weave magic for me, which made me want to read more of the same.
My reading did move onto other circles, especially given the fact that most Harlequin titles of today just seem lackluster in comparison, few giving a reader their worth in money spent.


Substitute Lover tells the story ofyear old Stephanie Chalmers, a widow goingyears, who has to force herself to return to the place of her “wedded life”, a marriage that had done a number on the innocent and naive girl that Stephanie had been back then.
The one thing that should calm her in the midst of the storm that is blazing to life inside of her at the mere thought of going back should be Gray Chalmers, the man who had stood by her all these years, pushed and prodded her to move on with her life, offering her the shoulder of friendship when she had needed it the most.
What she doesnt count on this time around is for her feelings towards Gray to turn towards murkier waters, surprising her by the ferocity of what strikes her, when she has an aversion to being touched by the opposite sex after the number her brief marriage had done on her.


Gray was done being patient, standing on the sidelines and watching Stephanie remove herself from even the possibility of a shared life with another.
Thus brings about the charade about Gray needing Stephanie to ward off the unwanted attentions of another woman, a task to which Stephanie takes to all too well, leaving her floundering in the wake of the emotions that being up close and personal with Gray brings about.


Substitute Lover is a novel that was full of the angst of the kind that I love and revel in.
I treasure old Harlequin titles for this reason, Even though miscommunication and sheer stubbornness on the hero or heroins part to see the truth is not what I am talking about, there is a certain kind of lure to the kind of angst some of these books deliver and Substitute Lover managed to deliver just the right touch of it.
The agony that Gray himself goes through to keep his end of the bargain, the scars and horrors of the past that Stephanie has to deal with to move on were the reasons the pages kept turning into the wee hours of the night.


Stephanies short lived marriage is the kind of stuff nightmares are made of, To think that she had suffered through it all alone, blaming herself for failing to be the woman her husband had required her to be was one that struck an emotional chord deep within me.
Grays pain and the secret he has held on for so long made the story that much more delicious and I loved every single moment of this wonderful story.
Reading and revisiting books by an author who made me fall in love with a genre I continue to readyears on is my way of giving tribute to someone who has illuminated the world of so many romance readers with the wonderful hues of bright and colorful lights of lust, angst amp ever lasting love.


Rating/

For more reviews and quotes, please visit, sitelink www, maldivianbookreviewer. com Awww no one writes a torchcarrying hero like Penny Jordan, There were a few instances of the hero's pov, but any reader could see he was in pain from unrequited love.
happy sigh

Widowed heroine was a bundle of neuroses from her abusive first marriage, so it's good the "OW" is a psychiatrist and will be close by to sort her out from time to time.


Because the plot was a series of misunderstandings hero thought she was in love with his dead cousin her abusive ex and heroine thought he was in love with the OW your enjoyment of the story will depend on how much patience you have for that trope.


Lots of good reviews below if you need more info! Re Substitute Lover PJ is back with possibly the most beta H ever or more likely, given his ten years of near celibacy because of unrequited love for the h, the most lacking in blood flow to his thinking head due to it all pooling downwards and causing serious mental impairment.


I liked this H for the most part, he was sorta ineffectually sweet in his little lovelorn kinda way, so I really don't want to call him an utter idiot, but srsly he kinda was fortunately high IQ isn't required in a PJ beta H, just an immense capacity for unrequited love and a ton of patient waiting.


The story starts with the H asking the h to return to his and the h's dead husband's boat yard and run it while he and his wealthy investor design a new, really fast single person sailing yacht to help keep the boatyard afloat financially.
The H plans to race his new super speed yacht in a dangerous race that if he wins, will bring lots of new orders in.
The h doesn't want to go there, she lives in London and has since her husband diedyears earlier, It was a whirlwind marriage when she wasand the husband swept her off her feet and then turned into a womanizing wife abuser during the honeymoon.
The man tried to kill her rather than let her get a divorce and the h was so ashamed that she hid his abuse and believed the snail snot when he told her she was not a complete woman and she was frigid.


The H has been in love with the h for all these years, He actually met the h first when she was, but the dead guy got involved and managed to crowd the H out when he did not move fast enough.


The bad guy got the girl and when he died during a storm while sailing his yacht, the h was too ashamed to tell anyone how he abused her.
So the H thinks the h has been mourning the meany for ten years, The h will have to live with him in his cottage while the boat is being developed, so the H thinks this might be a chance to woo the h and win her heart.


Except when he runs around with no clothes on, the h just blushes but she doesn't seem to be ripping off her own.
At a bit of a loss, since his manly charms are not winning the get the h naked sweepstakes for him, he hits upon the notion of claiming his investor's wife is romantically interested in him when the h accuses of him of having an affair with her.
The h now has to save him from himself and promises to act as his very close companion to drive the OW off.


The H and h begin to live together and there are little dates and close moments together to dissuade the OW, who the h would really like if she wasn't a brazen hussy trying to keep two men on a line at once.
After a scary sailing experience where the h has a bit of a PTSD flashback to the dead snail snot hubby, the H doses the h up with some sailor's rum and the whole sad truth of the h's marriage comes out.
The h won't let the H go in a fit of alcoholic bliss and the inevitable lurve clubbing moment finally happens.


But the next morning the OW is there on the phone inviting the H and h to dinner and the h thinks that the H is rejecting her in favor of his real love.
So mopey jealous moments are abounding, cause the H thinks he isn't getting anywhere with the h, and that she was just using him as a snail snot exorcist.
The h thinks he likes the other lady more as the woman keeps inviting them to things which the h thinks are excuses to spend time with the H right in front of the OW's hubby too, the shameless tart, and there is a big make or break race with the new yacht coming up.


To be fair, the H does try to explain to the h that she is wrong about him and the OW, but the h is having a temper tantrum and doesn't want to talk about ANYTHING so the H is back to suffering longing again and the brain cells of both of them continue to dwindle.
Tho the H does appreciate the h's really hot undies she wears under her preyacht race party dress when she can't do up the zip flashbacks of the vision of those undies inspires him to hang on to his hope for the h.


Finally the boat race begins and the h is in mortal agony with worrying, even more so when there is a report that the H's yacht has foundered and the h is convinced he is dead.
She wanders around the beaches for hours and finally trails into the H's cottage, a wringing wet little waif full of woe and sadness.
Then she sees the H standing there and almost passes out, the H explains that the news reports got it wrong, some other guy's yacht foundered and the H stopped to rescue him and lost the race.
But losing doesn't matter cause the H is a hero and the new yacht was awesome enough that he would have won if he hadn't been a good sport and orders are pouring in.
The H and h reunite in a fury of passion and the resulting union of two bodies is EPIC, Then the h wakes up the next morning to the H telling her he is going to see the OW the h feels utterly rejected now and packs herself up to leave the H forever.


She is driving away when the OW chases her down in her car and spends several hours trying to convince the h that she and the H were never lovers, he was just trying to interest the h and so the OW agreed to pretend then she tells the h that the H loves only her and gets the h to go back.
The h goes back to the cottage to find the H sorta drunk and passed out on the couch and the h wakes him up with a big vow of lurve.
The H is ecstatic and starts planning the wedding right away cause he has loved her forever, The two happily resume the couch cuddles and plotting toning wedding colors for the big HEA,

This is a sweet book, which is good cause I wasn't sure the H and h had a whole brain cell between them.
The OW was pretty much a gift of divine intervention cause she was a lot smarter than both of them put together plus the OW did really love her hubby so it wasn't like she was evil.
So while the intelligence of this h and H's future progeny is srsly in doubt, there is no doubt they were massively in love with each other.
Plus the H gets huge allowances for waiting around celibately for years, which makes this one perfect for those that like the celibate H or PJ fan girls in HPlandia.
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