Yes, another revenge romance. And this revenge is particularly stupid, which is a shame because the rest of the story is quite good. Ten years ago Val and David had been high school best buddies, dating and falling in love. The year she was a senior, Val’s parents died in a drunk driving car crash and Val left the small California town to live near Seattle with her aunt. Val knew David drank too and had become concerned with it, and after her parents died she was unwilling to continue in any romance with David.
Now, 10 years on, Val is back for her high school reunion and has a good heart to heart with David before he leaves the party, drinks and dies in a car accident. David’s brother Michael, a successful cardiologist, blames Val for this because she broke David’s heart 10 years ago. Oh, give me a break! What sort of brother would expect any 17 year old girl to remain in love once she moves away after her folks die and she doesn’t see the guy any more? And what sort of brother would blame her for dumping the guy when he consistently drinks too much, especially when her folks died due to drinking? And who would be anything but glad that his alcoholic 17 year old brother wasn’t planning marriage??
But Michael did blame Val. It was her fault David drank for the last 10 years, and obviously she must have upset him so much at the reunion that he drove off drunk. Clearly Val is responsible and clearly she must PAY!
The whole revenge thing makes no sense whatsoever. It’s a darn shame Hammond included it because it detracts from an otherwise solid romance.
Val and Michael have chemistry plus similar interest plus genuine liking going for them, and Michael decides to forego his seduction/dump revenge but unfortunately for them both, Val finds out his plans after they sleep together and before he tells her that he’s moving to Seattle where she lives. Val can’t quite believe that he intended to tell her and based on his earlier accusations figures he is lying now and had planned revenge all along.
Incidentally, what is with the whole seduction-as-revenge thing anyway?? Does it make any sense to you that a guy who believes he’s top of the walk and perfectly positioned to be judge, jury and executioner, would decide that he wants to sleep with a woman he despises? No? It doesn’t make sense to me either. Plus the idea of turning lovemaking into punishment is icky.
Hammond creates good characters including Val’s best friend and employee, and the Other Woman and Other Man, neither of whom have much to do with the story aside from causing worry and concern. The dialogue is good and Hammond uses dialogue with internal musings to move the story along and give us glimpses of Val’s feelings and hurt. She tells the story entirely from Val’s point of view so we see MIchael only as Val sees him, an ever-evolving portrait.
Hammond writes reasonably well. I had a hard time getting through this novel but that’s because I couldn’t get past the idiocy of wanting revenge for a high school romance gone bad, especially when there were excellent reasons for the romance to end and it wasn’t Michael’s romance anyway. The pacing is a little slow and there isn’t a ton of plot here.
Overall Bittersweet Revenge is good, a solid entry in the Harlequin Presents Romantic Revenge category, but it’s not great and I found it slow. Let’s be generous and round up to
3 Stars.
I got my copy from eBay, where you often can find Harlequins in good condiiton, and Thriftbooks and Amazon both have the print version. Bittersweet Revenge is not available now in E format. I didn’t see it on Archive.org.
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