| Title | : | Island of Dolphins |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0373026838 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780373026838 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 186 |
| Publication | : | First published November 1, 1984 |
Island of Dolphins Reviews
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Finally, a good grovel! Thank you, Lillian Cheatham for a strong heroine who mostly speaks her mind and for a jerky alpha hero who talks it all out at the end.
The plot: Heroine has just lost her dolphin expert stepfather and mother to a diving accident. She is looking for a secretarial job when the agency hooks her up with a grad student who is also doing dolphin research. Grad student's brother (hero) is rich, rich, rich, but heroine has never heard of him.
From the time she is picked up by the helicopter pilot to arriving at the island home, she insulted by everyone (including the hero) she meets because they think she is a prostitute or adventuress or something. Heroine is justifiably outraged and refuses to leave with the creepy boat captain. Luckily, the agency does finally verify her right to be there and she goes to the grad student and begins to help him.
I'm leaving out a few details that add some richness to the characterization and make the plot a little more plausible. Heroine has some good banter with the hero. Hero is clearly smitten - even while he's acting badly. They both had strong personalities and I bought what Lillian Cheatham was selling - that the hero really wasn't able to judge who was a gold digger and who wasn't because that's all he knew until the heroine. A warning - he was just horrible to the heroine until he wasn't. A true vintage alpha hero who grovels. (Look! A unicorn!) -
Oh, Drama! This was just what the doctor ordered. Sometimes I crave these older Harlequin chock full of drama. The hero is a real b*stard in this book. He needed a slap or two, to be honest. I can't imagine why he thinks that being mean to a woman shows his love and devotion. I didn't really like Mark at all. He was just a bully in my opinion. But, there is something about Lillian Cheatham's writing that keeps me reading and enjoying her books, even if the hero is a putz. I did like Juliet. She had some gumption, although she turned a little weak-kneed at Mark's punishing kisses.
I can't explain why these oldies appeal to me. They are like my soap operas, but even better. The whole, "I hate you but I want you, and you will be mine." And the "Oh, you are such a brute! Stay away from me, but I can't help seeing that you are very sexy!" storylines make for great reads. And then there's Mark's geeky (that part was cool) but spineless brother (not cool) who throws temper tantrums when he doesn't get his way. He even lies and says Juliet has been sleeping with him because he's jealous of Mark taking her away from him (although she's only his assistant and doesn't have any romantic feelings for him). Throw in an evil ex-mistress (also the island nurse) who wants to get back her short-lived status in Mark's revolving bed. And then there is a scheming teen who has been promised by her overbearing mother that she will net Mark as her husband. Classic!
Great scenery with the Caribbean island setting, and a heroine who is a skilled editor and knows her subject (her stepfather was an expert in cetaceans and she actually wrote his book for him although she didn't take credit). There are a couple of scenes with the dolphins, which add to this book's appeal.
Really, Juliet was a lovely heroine. She was worth fifty of Mark. He was a real jerk, who didn't know a good woman when he saw one. He needed his mouth washed out for some of the nasty things he said to Juliet. Just when I was starting to think he might be a decent person (when he saves a local boy after a near-fatal stingray bite), he turns into Mr. Octopus Hands with a bad mouth. Sigh. The fool was very much in love with Juliet, but he was very clueless on how to show it. And, somehow Juliet fell in love with this creep. It was fun to read.
This really gave me my needed Vintage Harlequin drama fix. If you like this sort of thing, I think you'd enjoy this book, because it was very well written. Too bad Lillian Cheatham wasn't a very prolific Harlequin author. Her books always satisfy. -
Juliet wanted to rebuild her life after the death of both her mother and stepfather. She had no real qualifications , but since she worked with her scientist stepfather and shared him the success of his book, the employment agency's manager decided she would be suitable to work for Mark Bannerman in his isolated island. Unfortunately, Juliet enthusiasm was crushed not only by the assumptions of the people she met in the island, but also by the hostility she encountered from Mark himself. It seemed she's to work with his absent-minded scientist brother, but he wasn't going to let her out of his sight and in every opportunity that presented itself he would attack her and seduce her!
Half of the book was so encouraging and intriguing, but the other half was highly disappointing. The characters shifted from alpha to "doormats". I felt really frustrated at the end. -
The last of the Lillian Cheatham harlequin/mills and boon books. I only found 3. I enjoyed each of them. Stmargarets has an excellent review of this book with hidden spoilers:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
The heroine, Juliet, goes to work on an island for Mr. Bannerman who is studying dolphins just like her dead parents did. She has lived a pretty sheltered although interesting life, writing and typing for her stepdad. She gets to the island super excited to be there.
Unfortunately, the people she first meets on the island are rather bitchy. It seems that they are under the impression that she is another one of Mr. Bannerman’s dolly wannabes. You see Mr. Bannerman is wealthy, handsome, and quite the stud. All the ladies are trying to get with him, much to his aggravation.
Then she meets the studly man she is supposed to work for, he continues the insults and insinuates that she is a call girl. (He may look her up when he gets back to the mainland and has more time). He tells her to get off the island and go back to her bosses aka pimps.
Our h fires right back at him and gladly leaves. Unfortunately, her ride is gone and the evil cousin who first greeted her with the insult of floozie, has made arrangements for her to leave with a local sea captain and his first mate. We aren’t talking Skipper and Gilligan, it is more like Blackbeard and Captain Hook. Our h is like hell no, and is determined to sleep on the beach until something better can be arranged tomorrow.
Thank goodness, she is rescued by the clearing up of a huge miscommunication. She was assigned to work with the other Mr. Bannerman, James. He is the absent minded scientist, and step brother to the Hero. He is a lot like her father, and nothing like the Hero.
She is happy to work for him as long as she never has to associate with anyone from the manor house. Well, that is not going to happen once the H gets wind of her living alone with his brother. He makes sure she has to live at the manor house. Now the romance can begin!
The story gets fleshed out with the H’s secretary(she is actually good!), the pilot Jack, potential om’s that never go anywhere(one of them being the scientist brother), wannabe OW’s, and an ex ow Serena who puts the naughty in naughty nurse.
Our h is not a pushover, and she handles things as they come at her. She is an enigma to the H. She had him hooked from day 1, even if he didn’t realize it. These two had good chemistry with some wicked banter. One thing that really comes across in the book is the H’s overwhelming attraction for the h. You could feel his trembling through the pages. Here is a snippet of his intensity, and they still were not officially an item plus he believes that she has become his brother’s lover.
“All right, baby, it's all right! You're staying with me! I'm not letting you go to anyone else! Damn you, you leave me and I'll kill you—do you understand me?”
Their coming together is glossed over on the last page of the book, but I sure hope they do not have any crew on their honeymoon cruise, because there will have to be a lot of averting of eyes.
Our H also provided us with romantic gestures, and a grovel. He did a great job of “cleaning” house as well. He got rid of anyone that could pose a threat to their happiness!
If you like an enemies to lovers trope, I think this is a good one to read. You also have a beautiful, won’t take crap heroine, and a hero who becomes ott in love. -
description
Juliet had no complaints about James Bannerman, the gentle scientist who had hired her to assist him with his study of dolphins on the Caribbean island of Tamassee. The problem lay with James's ruthless and abrasive brother Mark, who thought every woman fair game and made it clear from the start that Juliet wasn't welcome in his private paradise. Unless, of course, she was willing to agree to his insolent propositions. -
This was an old school book, with young and innocent heroine and jerk hero.
She's a typist (why do all old school heroines have to be typist/secretaries? They can't be lawyers, writers, doctors???) and is sent to an island property of the hero, a surly and rude man who as soon as he sees her he thinks she's a slut who is there to have sex with him.
Just like that.
The heroine would go back immediately but then the misunderstanding is cleared: she has to work for heros' brother, who's a scholar studying doplhins.
The hero is all angry and rude and slut-shaming the heroine because he thinks she's only there to get her paws on their money.
The heroine offers to leave the job but the hero doesn't want her to, he seems obsessed with her and wants her to go to live in his house with his secretary and his housekeeper, to keep her distant from his brother.
The brother is a childish and selfish man, who basically wants the heroine for himself, and is jealous of his older brother.
So the poor heroine has to live in a situation where the hero tries to force himself on her and slut-shames her repeatedly.
This was angsty but also annoying. Luckily the heroine is no doormat and she keeps up, but of course she's harassed by his bossy ways.
There is also a ow, who is is ex mistress, a woman he sent away before the heroine came to the island but is determined to have the hero back.
And for some time it seems the hero is willing to reconcile, until ow advise the heroine to staw away from him since now they are together again.
The hero doesn't seem very smitten with ow, he's always rude and overbearing, and he keeps on harassing the poor heroine, thinking she is the mistress of both his brother and of the man she lived for years. Unfortunately for the hero one of his guests recognizes the heroine as the stepdaughter of this man, he married her mother when the heroine was only two and was a father to her and died drowned with her mother a few months before.
The hero forces -again- a false engagement with the heroine and of course we all understand that he's madly in love with her and wants to marry her but since he's idiot and stupid and a jerk, he can't just tell her so, and pretends it's a moc, where they will be happy because they are sexually attracted to each other and want a family and children.
Until the very end the heroine doesn't accept his proposal, thank god, and the hero must confess he loves her as madly as she does, and everyone is happy, except ows.
Yes, there are two ows: his ex mistress and a precocious teenager who tries to seduce him in his house and is shattered when she finds h/H in bed together.
Too many ows here, too much slut shaming and a very rude hero as only maybe Diana Palmer would have.
And his celibacy is very unclear since he pretends to be with ow but one night he sleeps at her house, or anyway it's never explained if they have sex together, which at that point of the story would be a really turn off because the hero was pursuing relentlessly the heroine at the point of obsession (he threatens to kill her if she tries to leave the island). He only tells the heroine in the end he only wanted to make her jealous, and actually he was never cozy with ow, but the matter is unclear.
I liked the book because the heroine was no doormat and the hero was obsessed enough, and their relationship is very passionate.
I didn't like:
-too much ow
- too much forced seduction (that anyway doesn't end with sex)
- too much and too useless slut-shaming and pejudices. -
Juliet had no complaints about James Bannerman, the gentle scientist who had hired her to assist him with his study of dolphins on the Caribbean island of Tamassee. The problem lay with James's ruthless and abrasive brother Mark, who thought every woman fair game and made it clear from the start that Juliet wasn't welcome in his private paradise. Unless, of course, she was willing to agree to his insolent propositions. (less)
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okuyalı çok oldu..ama güzeldi sanki:)
