Earn Lover In Pursuit Rendered By Stephanie James Offered In Physical Book

would've been better if he'd blackmailed her instead of wooing her RTC,
Nothing to talk aboutstars, Meh, started better than it ended, All the internal monologuing got real old real fast, Stephanie James aka Jayne Ann Krentz,

The h and H had a brief affair when she tried to take over his brother in law's company, He seduced her to stop her and she gave in and wrecked her career, after which he promptly dumped her,

She moved to Hawaii and six months later he realizes he really loves her and comes after her willing to give her back all she lost.


The only problem is she is happy in her new life and doesn't want her old one back, She decides to have an affair with him and pays him back for his callousness earlier,

They eventually figure out they do love each other and stay in Hawaii for a big HEA,

Good story and this H was not as arrogantly bullying as some of the other Jayne Ann Krentz H's of that time in her writing.

Steel boned h amp groveling H! My teenage self was not a stickler for details, Here's what she remembered about this book:

The Betrayal: Six months before the story begins, the heroine was working in mergers amp acquisitions at a Seattle corporation and had targeted the hero's brotherinlaw's mismanaged computer company for a takeover.
The hero sweeps in, seduces her, she drops the takeover bid because she loves him, then he coldly dumps her,

The Consequence: She resigns from her job and moves to Hawaii where she takes a job as a desk clerk at a hotel.
One of the perks of the new job appears to be living in one of the hotel's beachfront condos, unrealistic

The Payback: I would call this "the grovel," but the hero never actually apologizes, In fact, the heroine agrees that he did the only thing he could to save his bil's firm from her, So there is no verbal admission of douchebaggery, Instead, he finds the heroine on her beach and tells her he wants her love back in his life, To which she responds she obviously doesn't love him any more but she's grateful for the push out of the old corporate rat race and into this fabulous new relaxed Hawaiian lifestyle.
He's convinced she's just bitter and will return to Seattle with him indays, She makes fun of him for wearing a tie in the islands, She unnerves him by pursuing plans to open a gourmet takeout deli on the island, She outrages him by having sex with the hero while continuing to deny she loves him, Twothirds of the sex in this book flips traditional gender roles in vintage romance, The heroine outwardly retains her indifference for three days while the hero pursues, attacks, and regroups,

The Resolution: At the end of the fourth day, the hero announces he is flying back to Seattle in the morning.
He asks the heroine to sleep with him one last night, and while they're sexing it up, he reveals that he spent the day arranging the financing for her gourmet deli.
He's a venture capitalist, so arranging financing is his business, When he drops off to sleep realistic, she stews over this development, Convinced he had arranged the financing to assuage his guilt over ruining her career, the heroine spitefully reduces the gesture to a business transaction by leaving him a check that represents his fee.
She then sits on the beach and weeps off the rage and the grief she had been suppressing for six months, Afterwards, it occurs to her that the loan may actually represent a gift of love rather than guilt, As she had demonstrated her love by giving him the one thing he wanted in Seattle safety for his bil's firm he was giving her the financing to pursue her dream.
She races back to his hotel room to find the devastated hero holding the check she had left, She throws herself in his arms and confesses her love, He confesses his love. They deconstruct all of the emotions involved in their turbulent relationship and agree to live on the islands, HHEA Hawaiian happily ever after,

I've always enjoyed the extended payback/grovel section, but this book has never been one of my favorites because of the reversal of the heroine's insouciance in the resolution.
I just don't like that the hero was correct in his initial arrogant assertion that she was bitter and would still love him once she got past that bitterness.
I would rather the heroine recognize that Seattle!hero had been unworthy of her love and sacrifice and owes her a freakin' apology while newly transformed Hawaii!hero might be worth a risk.


However, now that I'm superold, I see other things that didn't make an impression before,

. Even though the heroine resigned willingly from her job, the loss of her career is supposed to be part of the damage sustained when the hero rejected her.
But beyond the fact that she has fallen into a better living situation, she deserved to lose her job and should have resigned even if the hero hadn't dumped her.
She betrayed her employer by dropping the takeover bid for personal reasons, I can't help but notice that the hero isn't extending a job offer to her, even though he promises to "put the pieces back together" and "make everything right.
" Who would want to employ a woman who can't be trusted to act in her employer's best interests

, The hero is a douchebag gigolo, At their first meeting, he realized the heroine was attracted to him and immediately decided to use that leverage to save his brotherinlaw's firm, There's no indication he considered any legitimate business strategies to thwart the takeover à la the protagonists from sitelinkCorporate Affair, Nor are we given any information on the sister and her husband to make them sympathetic characters worthy of such a tacky maneuver like their business went down the drain because they were spending/at the bedside of their leukemiastricken child or something.


. The past is recapped without dialogue or flashbacks, We're told rather than shown how the heroine was captivated by the hero's charm seriously, there is no charm in sight and surrendered everything for love.
We're told that the heroine went to the hero's office to reveal the takeover bid had been cancelled and he immediately dumped her, but we're not shown that conversation.
Not only does this deny the reader an emotional scene, it also hampers my ability to determine if the hero is redeemable, Was he cruel in victory or merely condescending

, The explanation for why the hero treated her so coldly is that he didn't recognize love, eyeroll In addition to not offering any apologies when he locates the heroine, he is not offering protestations of love, just demanding hers, Seriously, where do these arrogant JAK heroes get their nerve His dual character trajectory is to loosen up and learn how to love, The former is accomplished via bird watching and body surfing I guess the latter is accomplished through those genderreversed sexual encounters,

So there are a lot more flaws here than I saw in my youth, but this book is still worth a read if you enjoy seeing your heroes repeatedly thwarted by a heroine whose backbone doesn't dissolve until the end of the book.


JAK checklist
Pacific Northwest setting: The protagonists abandon Seattle for Hawaii, Lots of island food, activities, and some light Maui tourism,
Familiar professions: The hero is a venture capitalist, which becomes a fairly popular career choice for JAK's longer contemporary romances see: sitelinkDouble Dealing, sitelinkTwist of Fate, and sitelinkHidden Talents.
She went from corporate shark to hotel clerk with entrepreneurial plans for the food and hospitality industry,
What's in a name: Reyna wasn't a particularly popular name for girls when this was published in, so I have no idea what Mr and Mrs Mackenzie were thinking when they named their baby girl in.
His name, Trevor, is shortened to "Trev" throughout, . . I think it's supposed to sound more manly, but somehow it just seems easier to dismiss "whatever, Trev",
Marital status: As far as I can tell, both are single, never married,
Age: She'she's,
Heroine's eye exam: Graygreen
Hero's eye exam: Amber
Hair color: Hers is a sunstreaked brown, thanks to her time on the beach his is ravenblack with touches of silver.

Pets: None,  
Vehicles spell success: He drives an unspecified rental during their whirlwind reconciliation, By the time they're married and living on Oahu, the hero owns a BMW,
Metaphors are for flogging: I think JAK's early Silhouette editors tamped down her tendency to literalize metaphors,
Hero threatens to spank heroine: One

idle threat in the face of her taunting indifference,
The sitelinkFamily Man Forecast: This heroine's plans for a gourmet takeout deli catering to tourists reminds me a lot of the heroine's plans for Pesto Presto in Family Man.
This is first a romance between the author and Hawaii and then at a distant second a romance between our two main characters sitelink

This book was incredibly boring with bland characters and repetitive dialogue and inner monologue.
Read the review at Alpha Fangirl,

sitelink alphafangirl. com/contempor A bit dated which is only to be expected this was a very refreshing change from the usual formula, Here the heroine, Rayna, has left the ruins of her old life in Seattle and started a new one in Hawaii, Trevor, the hero and cause of her life's ruination turns up after six months wanting her back, Typically in the genre the heroine will swoon and off the pair of them will go into the sunset, Here however she quite politely tells him she's fine, no longer in love with him, and her life now is marvellous so pretty much 'bye and don't let the door hit you on the way out!' And that's where the story really starts! It's a great turn around and left me with a really good feeling.
Hugely enjoyable. .