Here's the story from this 1981 book: a young woman agrees to marry a man bent on revenge for a business deal dealt to his father by her father, 15 years ago. The dangerous man, aptly named Hunter, wants to punish the woman's father by ruining her brother's marriage to his dippy wife. As preposterous as it sounds, this premise could actually have worked if the story was constructed with more care and more TIME. (Put it in a Regency setting and it would have made perfect sense.)All the expository is delivered in dialog during the first 5 pages and it becomes silly. But if Ms Castle/Quick/Krantz wanted to take the time to rewrite this in her current, careful style, it would be worth reading. Right now it's not, and it's expensive to buy used...for some reason.

Hunter Manning has been plotting a revenge on Paul Rylan for destroying his father 14 years ago by a takeover of his father's business. He begins his revenge by trying to seduce Paul's son Eric's new wife in hopes to ruin the marriage. Stacy Rylan, Paul's daughter, offers herself in an immediate marriage to stop the threat. What could be better than turning a Rylan into a loyal Manning! As silly as the plot sounds, it actually works, and the sexist story is fun to read.

I collect the older as well as the newer jayne ann krentz books and this one is right up there with some of her classics like "Second Wife" and "Corporate Wife". The premise that the heroine gets involved with the hero to become his vengence target to protect her brother and sister-in-law works and makes for a suspenseful relationship. They are both strong characters and attracted to each other and after the initial agreement start the complications are just starting. :-) You do wish this book would be longer like her full length novels now but it has the benefit of not having any hokie religious philosophies or weird hobbies as gimmicks.

This is not one of Jayne Ann Krantz better books. The plot was too convulted and inner conflict that character was feeling was too long and drawn out. It took away from the storyline.

Great idea........starts off with a lot of good conflict...but....
Cade spent two months romancing Jamie at the same time he was investigating her employers. The investigation blows up, causing Jamie and her employer, Miss Isabel, to have to face the press and investors angry over losing hundreds of thousands of dollars in Miss Isabel's brother's schemes. Cade arrogantly thinks he can say his investigation and using of Jamie to gain information had nothing to do with their romance. GRRRRRRRR

That was the first bad point, but figured you could work with the premise. But instead of learning from it, he continues in the same smug, arrogant, know it all attitude, treating Jamie like he knows more about he than she does herself, and simply because he took her to bed, he owns her. He even smirks that she is likely going to come crawling to him, because she got her pregnant!

Sorry, this one really [is bad]. Jamie is a wishy-washy character than lets the arrogant [person] run all over her and you really end up not liking either of them, and possible downright hating HIM. I don't know any woman who could have loved this [person].

Saying it was dated might cover these sins of woe, but frankly, I did not like this one when it was first published. This sort of jerk was no acceptable back then, and he certainly is not acceptable today.

Especially - DO NOT pay the hardback PRICE!

Jamie Garland feels betrayed and used by Cade Santerre when he catches her employer's brother in a financial scam.

The arrogance of the hero, Cade Santerre, was annoying. The heroine, Jamie Garland, kept telling Cade that he was having trouble accepting that he was a romantic hero, while insisting that he had trampled all her romantic dreams. Since this is a reissue, this may have been when Ms. Krentz was transitioning her heroes from being totally alpha males, but, the veneer of romantic male just didn't take. The characters caused the storyline to just galumph along.

Jayne Castle (Krentz) is a good writer and this book is worth reading but it is an earlier effort and sexist, as her earlier books were. She has grown in later years. This book has a good story if you can get past the hero's tendency to push the heroine around.

You can really tell this July 1981 book is a very early Jayne Castle(Krentz) attempt at a romantic story. Rich boss Cord Harding cons employee Savannah Emery, who is on a winning streak at cards, to wager a bet at a party. The stakes are a weekend with him, and she loses. She pretends to accept her fate, but soon escapes from him for her booked vacation a couple hours later. He follows her determined to collect his winnings for three-quarters of the 187 page book. Only when another woman enters the picture does the repetitious book cease to drag and finally move onward with some humour and romance.

I normally enjoy this author's books. I am just glad that I borrowed it from the library and didn't actually buy it. I agree with the other reviewers about this book. I remember reading books in the 80's and I hope I didn't enjoy these kinds of books, then. I couldn't get past the first four chapters. As I was reading, I kept hoping that Cole had some reason for his behavior that would eventually either come out or he would have some sort of change in his thinking. Neither things happened. His behavior was controlling, even abusive. The main character was even raped in a coercive fashion but never realizes this, except the morning after, and then, doesn't follow through with her intentions to stay away from Cole. I skipped through the rest of the book and the ending was even more appalling. Cole decided they were getting married and she agreed with him, because now she loves him and even more, she TRUSTS him. Evidently, this trust was all Cole needed to make the decision to get married and tell her a little something about himself. I hated this book.

I picked this one up in a used book store last year. I never got past the first two or three chapters before I threw it away (actually threw it away, something I have done only three or four times with the thousands of books I've read) so no one else would be subjected to it. Reading the full plot description provided by another reader makes me glad I did. This kind of controlling behavior has all the hallmarks we now look for in the abusive male. There is NOTHING romantic or sexy about any of it. Avoid this one like the plague.

JAK's 1985 release does not hold up well. Her writing was sharp and she brought forth vivid characters, but this chest thumping alpha male me-Tarzan-you-Jane against her wishy-washy
female just will not please readers of today.

However, if you are a JAK fan and collecting all her stuff, you will want to add this one. Not a bad read, but very dated.

Worse they soak you with the higher price!! They should have released this like they did the low cost Stephanie James ones. You don't feel so bad when they give it a nice price, but this was really rotten to charge NEW BIG book prices for a very dated series romance from the mid 80's!!

I bought this book thinking that it was a collection of short stories by some favorite authors. Boy, was I wrong! I was unpleasantly surprised to find out that they were just condensed versions of previous published novels, one that I know for sure I already own. The stories have been distilled down to just basically dialogue and sex scenes - any meaningful character development has been cut out, along with descriptions of settings and motivations. The sex scenes lose much of their impact when you don't really know enough about the characters to even care what they're doing.

The hatchet job done to Jayne Ann Krentz' two stories (one as Stephanie James) was horrible (and the Krentz original story to begin with wasn't one of her best anyway). Continuity was the worst with the Stephanie James story. The Sherry Woods story tried to fit too much into too small a format - a lost love, losing the family farm, a tornado, a child falling down a well, etc. - all that in forty pages! Probably the best of the collection were the stories by Candace Schuler. They seemed to fit the format the best, but still, the conflicts were reduced to their most simplistic terms - white woman fitting into the Navajo world and lust, ex-spouses finally learning to compromise and lust.

My recommendation? Don't Take 5 - take your five and buy full-length novels.

This book has 5 condensed versions of previously published books (meaning old). I bought it thinking it was a new collection of stort stories. Not only were the stories previously (and I do mean previously) published, they were condensed to the point that they were silly. As I was reading, it was very obvious when the story was being condensed, as the continuity of the story was ruined. If you like Jayne Krentz, and/or the other authors in this book, buy the previously published non-condensed works. They are easy, quick reads anyway!