Cathy Skendrovich

There are good aspects to this story but I know the morals were different then, women had few rights compared to men but he sleeps around, admittedly he thought his marriage was over and he doesn't realise he is sleeping with another man's wife but still he has no morals. He is unkind on her wedding night, he realises she is not a virgin but he doesn't try and find out what happened, she was raped. He makes unkind accusations and automatically assumes she is a worthless woman who would foist another man's child on him. A bit of maturity would go a long way.
Later in the book he totally redeems himself, is utterly smitten, but I can't help but wonder if she upset him again whether he'd resort to his other personality and treat her badly. Because he loves her all is forgiven when her life is totally controlled by others leaving her few choices. In the end of course she chooses to be with him.… (more)

1.5 stars

I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Nicky Costas is really Jake Dalton, undercover cop. When the case is wrapping up and the mob boss he is investigating gets busted, everything goes according to plan with Jake thrown into prison. However, his partner Jeremy is sprung out and he remains there, definitely not according to plan. When some inmates send a message loud and clear with their fists and saying the mob boss is asking about the missing money, Jake clues in that something is very wrong. Lucy is finally heading out for a girl's weekend but of course she manages to get herself lost and while she is stopped on the side of the road trying to get her bearings, she gets herself carjacked and kidnapped, too. Lucy and Nick have been thrown together by fate but they're going to have to trust one another if they are going to survive.

Prisoner of Love took the interesting storyline of what happens when a woman, kidnapped by a good guy posing as a bad guy, starts to develop uncomfortable feelings for him all while running from the other good and bad guys. It was an intriguing setup but unfortunately for me, it lacked execution. Lucy almost immediately fell into the TSTL romantic suspense heroine pit. I understand that romance is a huge part of romantic suspense but 10 mins into your kidnapping, by a man wearing an orange jumpsuit, holding a shiv at you, should not have you thinking about how thick his eyelashes are. Lucy's feelings developed far too quickly for my liking and while she would occasionally talk back to Jake, she bravely called him stinky once, there were many, many times she'd end up a crying mess. Realistic for the circumstances she was put into? Maybe. Fun to read about? No. Jake was the stronger character of the two with his background and overall character flushed out and discussed more. His actions and motivations made more sense but his dialogue would occasionally flow into "write like you speak" writing, which doesn't read as natural as it sounds.

The secondary characters were basically names of people who periodically popped up, we get a little more of an outline of the main villain but with a quick info dump of his motivations at the end, and he also ended up feeling flat. There were two things that drastically brought the story down for me, the first, why Jake couldn't tell Lucy he was an undercover cop in the beginning. Jake first says he couldn't trust her not to blab it to the cops, which would endanger him with the mob boss but if he told her it would cost his life, wouldn't she understand? There is a whole conversation in Jake's head about how amazingly smart Lucy is, so his image as a convict to Lucy was annoyingly dragged out. The second issue I had a problem with was all of the bad guy's preoccupation with Lucy's size. They called her plump, fat, and plus-sized, over and over for no apparent reason. The villain is making plans to kill Jake so his whole operation doesn't go up in smoke, yet he has the time to think about Lucy's size by calling her Jake's "plus-sized companion"? It all felt unnaturally jammed in and I have no idea why, they sell drugs and they kill people, I think they were "bad" enough without the body-shaming.

This read as more of a campy version of a kidnapping story (admittedly, I like darker toned stories) with Lucy calling Jake stinky, Jake singing Lady Gaga in the shower, and Lucy telling Jake the villain called her a "fat cow" and Jake answering back he was going to "butcher him like prime beef". The romance was of the insta variety and I never felt its depth while the suspense side started off fast paced but kind of lost its way with vague characters and motivations (well, I'm sure the main motivation was money but it got convoluted with egos and pride). The ending simultaneously dragged on and was rushed with once again a forced angst moment of Jake keeping Lucy out of the loop (for 6 months he didn't answer her calls or speak to her) and then instant forgiveness with no real explanation given. On the other hand, this was a super quick read and non-taxing, just hope you don't have the same annoyances I did.
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I was asked to review this by Librarything.com

This sequel had it all, romance, steaminess, fun, Christmas (even though I read this in October), swashbuckling pirates and the odd tear along the way.

This is the sequel to "The Pirates Bride" although the reader does not have to have read this -it does aid the reader with the characters.

It is sometime since we read about the main characters -Sophie and Andre who are very much in love, after a somewhat complicated relationship- readers they are now married.

Christmas is fast approaching and it looks like they will spend the festive period on the "Jade Princess" but Sophie wants to spend this on land rather than at sea- the reasons are apparent at the end of the story.

A lovely gentle read with a bit of history thrown into the mix.

An ideal stocking filler when you just want something light to read over the Christmas break, with a Gingerbread latte and Christmas pyjamas.

Thank you Librarything and Cathy Skendrovich for letting me review this book.… (more)