Seize Your Copy Savage Possession Designed By Margaret Pargeter Distributed In Booklet

too keen about this story, Found the heroine irritating at times, Not to keen on her mother and drunken stepfather and their attempts to push the heroine into hero's life, Open the dictionary and you will find the heroine's picture next to "high maintenance, " The run your finger down to "smitten" and you'll see the hero, All that sexual tension and bad behavior insults, pouting, sulking, slaps, brutal kisses, jealous maneuvers, humiliation, gossip, and lies make for quite the ride,

Ivy has the definitive review with plot points and why this story is so much fun even though the heroine would have made an excellent OW in any other HP.
The hero is brutal enough to match her OW energy and by the end these two have found a way to domesticate this sort of "love.
"

One bright side to having an OWtype as your heroine is that the reader knows the hero truly is smitten and will never stray.
What a pairingstars.




LOL, There's a foot stomping, temper tantrum throwing, LAZY, spoilt hoyden heroine in the house in this unforgettable and unique novel by Margaret Pargeter ! Melissa is unlike every other heroine I've ever read about in MPargeterlandia.


And, what's worse is that I totally dig this horrible girl ! Because, . . she kinda reminds me of someone I know very well, who hasequally spoilt, bratty, little white dogs with similar entitled personalities,





And now, after reading this review, all my Goodreads' friends will totally hate and despise my lazy/entitled ass for actually enjoying a book that will make other readers scream and wanna kill this heroine.








OK, seriously now: Sometimes we all read a book and encounter a character who reminds us so much of ourselves that it's freaking awesome or scary or embarrassing.
Lol. I like to think I'm a pretty OK sort of person but I am aware of all my many personality flaws and I've accepted them.
It would've been so easy to jump on my high horse and gallop away, to annihilate this heroine in my review, I've done it before to heroines and sometimes I get a gleeful sadistic zeal from doing it, But I can't, in all honesty, do that to Melissa because it would be the height of hypocrisy since she reminds me so much of myself.
When I looked back at all the shitty stuff Melissa did in this book and the even shittier reasons why she did them, I ask myself: what would I have done under those circumstances The answer: I probably would've done many of the same things because I've always been a spoilt daddy's girl who wasn't close to my mom.
And, if my mom cheated with some guy and married himweeks after my beloved dad died, the way Melissa's mom had done, I would totally despise her and want her to suffer in purgatory forever and ever.
. . I'm also lazy, superficial and self indulgent and I always think first of how a situation would affect me personally before I think of how it will impact on my loved ones.
That's not a pretty picture of a very nice person and Melissa did all and more she's a little worse than me, thankfully, . . LOL.

This is the bratty heroine from Hell, Melissa:



This is the H, Ryan:



This novel is set in Melissa's quaint, provincial, childhood Cornish village.
The H Ryan, is like the local squire he's also the landlord for all the local tenant farmers, Melissa's mother Mary and her stepfather Lewis owe him years' back rent and cannot even pay recurrent rental fees, Melissa doesn't really care much about all this because she resents Mary and Lewis for betraying her father while he'd been terminally ill, The heroine had run off in a huff to go and live with her father's widowed cousin Helen, after her mother's hasty marriage to Lewisyrs ago.
Melissa would've probably never returned home to see her mother, if cousin Helen hadn't tried to force her to marry a rich titled guy, Melissa's also afraid of intimacy with men she finds kissing distasteful after the time she'd spied Mary and Lewis swallowing each other's tongues in the kitchen, while her poor sick daddy lay dying !



Melissa's led a very luxurious life during theyrs she lived with Helen.
She attended an elite fancy school and got to travel all over the world, But now, she's run away to her old village in Cornwall because Helen was obstinate in her demand that the heroine marry the pompous, titled Lord Freddy.
At the start of the story, Melissa is stranded in a snowstorm and the H saves her, The following fictional dramatization will help to explain everything in a more entertaining fashion:

RYAN: Ryan's internal monologue when he saw Melissa: OMG I want to bang this hot girl so
bad ! I've never seen a more beautiful siren of a woman in my life and I have bedded
many hot ladies, so that's saying something

Hey, you either accept my help or die from hypothermia !

MELISSA: Melissa's internal monologue when she saw Ryan: Why is he looking at me as if I'm
food Oh well, I'm used to men ogling me like this.
It is like so annoying but that's
just part of life's problems if you're beautiful little me, Hmnnnn he IS awfully tall,
handsome and sexy though, but I wish he would stop smirking at me, It makes me want
to slap him or kick his shins !

I didn't ask for your help you jerk, But I will grace you with my princessy presence and
make you an omelet because I'm feeling unusually generous this evening, Melissa
burns the omelet because she stopped in the middle of cooking it, to go and comb her
pretty hair !

The MC's agree to get along while she's stranded for the night at his home.


The rest of the story goes like this:

MARY: Melissa, you need to help us out here ! We're drowning in debts.


MELISSA: And how is that MY fault You married Lewis the loser and brought him into my daddy's
home, Besides, how can I help I don't have a job, . .




MARY: You can go have sex with Ryan ! He'll totally write off our debts if you bang him, Lewis
and I have seen how he ogles you as if you're food, It's just a little sacrifice Melissa, . .

MELISSA: Melissa's internal monologue: I'm not a skanky whore like you, you pimptastic,
shameless bitch who totally cheated on my daddy and fucked over his legacy and
memory.


NO ! I hate Ryan and I will not even smile at him, Besides, his ugly rude housekeeper said
that he has a girlfriend a snobbish, socialite called Angela, who totally treats me like
crap because she's jealous that my awesome natural beauty eclipses her wan, average
looks even when she's dressed in her best outfit.


MARY: Pleads to Melissa, OOOkaaay then princess, but will you help me out a little by
working in the shop selling vegetables

MELISSA: Rolls her eyes in childish petulance and sighs as she looks condescendingly at her
mother.
But Uh ! What That is totally, . . like beneath my dignity ! I attended
an elite fancy school ! I cannot work in a mere vegetable shop, What about my image
What will people think I've already suffered enough by leaving most of my fancy clothes
at Helen's mansion, I have to walk around in dumb old jeans while Angela laughs at me
! I will die if I have to let people see me weighing vegetables like a common minion in a
market.


MARY: Almost in tears and at the end of her rope with her daughter, Alright Melissa. I
understand.

MELISSA: Feeling ashamed of herself when she sees how stressed her mom is, OK OK I
guess I can weigh and sell a few vegetables for you since you're begging me so nicely,




But, unlike other HPlandia Mary Sues, Melissa doesn't do anything else to help out Mary and Lewis, She does no chores, refuses to work in the greenhouse and wakes up late every single morning, The H Ryan eventually gets exasperated with her attitude and threatens to throw them all out on their asses until she starts helping out on the farm.
The lazyass heroine gives him a verbal agreement but continues to spend all her time lazing around, visiting her friends and going to the town everyday to walk around aimlessly since she can't do any shopping without money.
Now this part I totally understood because if my mom had cheated on my dad and married the guyweeks after my dad's funeral, there was no way in hell I'd want to sully my hands doing manual labour to help their adulterous asses.
But Melissa didn't realize that she was cutting off her nose to spite her face, because she also depended on the farm for her bare existence.
And she also did something I wouldn't have done: she kept insulting the H for NO REASON WHATSOEVER, That part made so sense, because Ryan started off by being one of Margaret P's more laid back and nicer H's, It was Melissa's horrid behaviour that catalyzed the change in him: he went from being flirtatious, solicitous, benign and neighbourly to being rude, vindictive, scheming, insulting and he even delivered a lot of punishing kisses and groping too ! At times in the story, I wanted to scream at the way these MC's fought so much:



The storyline took an OTT turn when the MC's were in a state of all out battle with each other.


The heroine refused to work on the farm and told the H that he was mean for wanting them to pay back all the rents owed, especially when he was so rich and didn't need the money ! LOL.
That was so awful and shameless on her part ! I might be a little similar to Melissa but I do NOT ever ever ever believe in mooching off of other people like a parasite.
. .

Anyway, that was the final straw for the long suffering H, He got so mad with Melissa that he sent a lawyer's letter of eviction to the heroine and her family, This was the turning point in the story because Melissa finally saw that Mary, while still being an adulterous cheating whore LOL , was still her mom and she didn't want to see her mom suffer.
That was so sweet of Melissa and I don't know if I would've felt so sorry for my mom under the same circumstances, I probably would've still continued to laugh in silent glee and think that it's her due punishment for cheating, I know I know I'm a terrible person but I don't forgive people easily when they hurt someone I love, The real truth behind Mary and Lewis's debts is soon revealed: apparently, Lewis had become addicted to gambling so Mary had used up all of her late husband's savings to pay off his gambling debts !



To make the situation even worse, Lewis was also an alcoholic:




By this time, though, Melissa had undergone a positive change in her character arc.
The heroine finally decided to get down to doing some hard manual labour a la all good Mary Sues in HPlandia, This was a turnaround point for the MC's relationship too because the H started to treat her better when he saw how hard she was working.
Things weren't always easy though, because of the interfering and malicious antics of the H's housekeeper and the wannabe OW Angela, In fact, there were a couple of OTT incidents that totally shocked me in this novel:
The housekeeper acted like she was the H's mother and treated Melissa like a skank ! The housekeeper was also a minion who worshipped at the feet of the wannabe OW Angela.


. The jealous wannabe OW Angela slapped Melissa hard on the face when she realized how besotted the H was acting towards the heroine,

. Melissa and Ryan slapped each other on their respective faces, during one nasty argument ! Actually, it was Melissa who slapped him first and he slapped her back, because he said women fought hard for equality, so they should expect a slap in return if they hit a man.
I don't like violence in books but I can overlook it in a book that's as old as this,

. There was no forcible seduction and the H tried to behave himself when he realized that Melissa had a phobia about intimacy with men, There was one scene where he did get so mad with jealousy after she insulted him, that his punishing kiss caused her lip to bleed a little.
However, for the most part, Ryan tried subtle seduction, did not force himself on her and respected her desire for him to keep his hands to himself.
Melissa, on the other hand, kept telling him to leave her alone, while totally giving him little signals to keep touching her:



.
The H was so besotted and crazed with jealousy that he demanded, as part of their debt repayment agreement, that she absolutely stopped dating all other men.
It was the weirdest clause in a debt repayment contract ever ! LOL

"I want you to promise that until we get this market back on its feet you will concentrate on it to the exclusion of everything else.
With this in mind you must give up your present friendship with Barry Ward and Ben, when he returns from the States, "

There was so much OTT drama in this trainwrecky romance novel ! It was kinda like The Taming of The Shrew by Shakespeare, but a soap opera type, plastic surgery version that's on steroids.
The HEA was kinda sweet because the besotted H totally didn't mind that Melissa still couldn't cook ! In fact, he agreed to hire a chef and a new housekeeper too.
Melissa, for the most part, became so besotted and in love with her man that she even said she'd do a little housework if she had to ! Lol.
I totally laughed at the new and obedient Melissa at the end:

"I'll do everything I can, Ryan, to deserve you, "

The MC's were both in happy and in love at the end but I think that the H will be more besotted with Melissa than she is with him.
I don't think most readers will enjoy this novel because Melissa's a very difficult heroine and Ryan's vengeful, spiteful schemes to punish her were a little OTT.
The wannabe OW Angela also got no comeuppance for all her lying and scheming but the bitchy housekeeper was replaced, Melissa is also the polar opposite personality of the selfless, lovable, super hardworking heroine Sherry from Born of the Wind, also by Margaret Pargeter.
I wish the H Scott Brady, from BOTW, had had Melissa for a heroine ! She'd have delivered many well deserved bitch slaps to his bullying ass ! Melissa also mended her relationship with her mother Mary and even became friends with her stepfather Lewis.
I think Mary was sincerely sorry for how she'd behaved in the past, but she never did apologize for trying to pimp out Melissa to the H, in exchange for the rent payments.


Safety: A wannabe OW who stalk the H, a couple of wannabe other men but I don't think the H cared about the OW.
He might have been involved with her before Melissa arrived but I don't think there was any cheating because he was totally obsessed only with the heroine.
He did throw the wannabe OW in the heroine's face a few times, but I think it was just to see if she would become jealous.
.