Jessica Steele writes rather good romances that have semi-believable plots and characters. I could feast all day on her books except for one glaring problem. When her heroines worry out their man problem they think through things in a bizarre way, with illogical thinking and illogical, convoluted sentences that are hard to follow. The rest of the narrative and the way the other characters talk and think (when we can see their thoughts) are reasonably straightforward and use normal English sentence structure, not Yoda-speak. I think Jessica Steele uses this to show us that the heroine is all mixed up and miles down the wrong road.

Plot Synopsis

Keely’s widowed mom works as a housekeeper for a widower, Lucas Varley. Now she is so excited and joyful; Lucas has asked her to marry him. They love each other which thrills Keely. Keely rushes down to Lucas’s country home to find her mom is tense and worried because Lucas’s son, Tarrant, offered her money to leave, he assumed she was after his dad’s money and tried to buy her off. Keely dashes back to London and insists on seeing Tarrant in his office where she tells him off and smacks him hard. Tarrant implies that not only is her mom after a rich man, but so is Keely!

The newlyweds plan to stay at home – alone – for a few weeks but Tarrant plans to stay there too; he cynically expects his new stepmom to reveal her true, gold diggery colors and wants to be around when it happens. He’s rather nasty. Keely points out that his dad and his new wife want to be alone and tries to persuade Tarrant to leave, he agrees on condition that she spends the weekend with him at his apartment.

Clearly Tarrant is intrigued and attracted to Keely but she’s not seeing that, she sees only that he wants to humiliate both her and her mom. Tarrant insults her a few more times, they have a heavy make out session on the couch but he leaves her to sleep alone, saying he refuses to allow her to trap him. Did I mention insults? Add conceited and convinced of his own never-fail sex appeal.

Another weekend Keely decides to get her own back at Tarrant and tells Lucas and her mom the exact, literal truth, that she spent the weekend with Tarrant in his apartment and slept in his bed. She omits that she slept there alone and of course dad and stepmom have things to say to Tarrant. That makes him even madder – by this time he’s realized new stepmom loves Lucas and is not after his money – and he’s even more attracted to Keely and frustrated. He decides to forcibly seduce her and does.

A few weeks later, when Tarrant comes back from a long business trip Keely tells him she’s pregnant and says to herself but out loud, that she cannot have this child. Tarrant assumes she plans an abortion and has another fit, insists they marry. While she’s supposedly engaged Keely moves a bunch of heavy furniture around and miscarries, an all too frequent occurence in her family. Tarrant again insults her, yells at her for having an abortion, and Keely is too tired and sad to tell him the truth.

Next visit home Keely’s mom mentions that her neice miscarried and that it is sadly something that all the women in her family face. Tarrant realizes he goofed, and once again insists Keely marry him, but this time for love.

Characters

Tarrant is quite well done. We readers can see him falling for Keely, getting himself twisted in knots trying to avoid the attraction, frustrated because he wants her, angry because he thinks she doesn’t want him and doesn’t want their child. It’s almost funny.

Keely, in typical Jessica Steele fashion, jumps to all sorts of silly conclusions. For example Tarrant calls her from the airport the morning after they sleep together and Keely immediately assumes he wants her to get all of her mom visits done so he can go to his dad’s house on the weekends when he’s back without seeing her. I re-read this section and have no idea how anyone would conclude that’s what he meant, but Keely is in a swivet and not thinking clearly. She knows she’s in love with Tarrant, convinced he does not and never will love her, and her internal musings reflect this.

Mom and new husband Lucas are standard casting central characters with little development or personality. Lucas seems nonchalant when Mom mentions she suffered several miscarriages and that her sisters hae the same problem; it’s rather unnerving to see a man, who supposedly loves someone, listen to that without caring.

Overall

If this were written in straighforward English I’d give it three stars without question. Being as it is, written to show Keely’s illogical thinking, full of split infinitives (and split everything else!) it’s closer to two stars. (That sentence is my attempt to write Jessica Steele-speak. It’s a lot harder than it looks.)

2 Stars

I got my copy in a book lot on eBay and you can find copies on Thriftbooks. Many of Jessica Steele’s romances are available on Harlequin.com or from Amazon in E format, but this one, Bond of Vengeance, is not. Amazon has the comic version as of this writing.

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