The premise is, a rich guy buys an island and the islanders don't want to confront him so they send the heroine in instead. The rich guy, our hero, realizes that the heroine is loved by the islanders, so if he strikes it up with her, then everyone will fall in line with his plans.
The heroine was raped by an old man who was never brought to justice because she never told anyone. She's lived a repressed life when it comes to relationships because he burned her face with a cigar and told her no one would ever want her again, something she believed. But that trauma is nothing when compared with the hero's. His wife was sleeping with a rich old man while they were married.
The writing style switches point of view every five paragraphs. Plus the characters themselves completely switch thought process every two. The hero gets to call the heroine all sorts of names that should have set her back years in whatever progress she's made by herself after the rape, but instead she shrugs it off because "he didn't really mean it" even after thinking that she's dirty and the old man was right.
This book was a joke.
When the hero confronts the heroine for daring to carry pepper spray in her bag, I decided this book was hopeless. Heaven forbid a woman carry pepper spray around with her. It must mean she was raped because there is no other reason for a woman, who was living in London and now lives by herself on an island where she takes tourists out on boat rides, would ever need to carry pepper spray with her.
If I hadn't already read a book I liked by this author, after reading this I would never have picked up another one by her. The writing style sucked, the rape was a convenient plot device, and the hero was clinical in all his actions. I only paid 70 cents for this book and I still feel cheated out of money.
