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Natalie Anderson

Author of Breathe for Me

116+ Works 945 Members 33 Reviews 2 Favorited

About the Author

Series

Works by Natalie Anderson

Breathe for Me (2013) 60 copies, 1 review
Out of Her Dreams (2008) 39 copies, 2 reviews
Bargain in Bronze (2012) 36 copies, 2 reviews
His Mistress by Arrangement (2007) 28 copies
All Night With the Boss (2007) 27 copies
Pleasured by the Secret Millionaire (2008) 27 copies, 2 reviews
Out of Her League (2009) 25 copies
First Time Lucky? (2012) 24 copies
Out of Her Depth (2010) 24 copies
Caught on Camera with the CEO (2010) 24 copies, 1 review
Mistress Under Contract (2008) 21 copies, 1 review
The End of Faking It (2011) 18 copies
The Right Mr. Wrong (2013) 17 copies, 1 review
The Queen's Impossible Boss (2020) 17 copies
Walk on the Wild Side (2011) 17 copies
Whose Bed Is It Anyway? (2013) 17 copies, 1 review
Dating and Other Dangers (2011) 16 copies, 1 review
Awakening His Innocent Cinderella (2019) 15 copies, 1 review
Melt (2011) 15 copies, 5 reviews
Nice Girls Finish Last (2011) 15 copies
Nine Months to Claim Her (2021) 12 copies
Shy Queen in the Royal Spotlight (2020) 12 copies, 1 review
Pregnant by the Commanding Greek (2019) 12 copies, 2 reviews
Taming His Tutor (2014) 12 copies, 1 review
The Forgotten Gallo Bride (2017) 11 copies
The Innocent's Emergency Wedding (2019) 11 copies, 1 review
The Greek's One-Night Heir (2020) 11 copies
Blame It on the Bikini (2012) 11 copies, 1 review
Out of Her Reach (2009) 11 copies
Secrets Made in Paradise (2020) 9 copies
The Boss's Stolen Bride (2023) 8 copies
Their Altar Arrangement (2025) 7 copies
Flirting to Win (Flirting To Win, #1-3) (2012) 7 copies, 2 reviews
Bound for Me (Be for Me, #4) (2014) 7 copies, 1 review
The Royal House of Karedes, Books 5-8 (2010) — Contributor — 6 copies
My One-Night Heir (2024) 6 copies
Seduction in Silver (2013) 6 copies, 1 review
Gamble in Gold (2013) 4 copies
Back to Claim His Crown (2023) 4 copies
Toda la noche con el jefe (2008) 3 copies, 1 review
Enemies Until After Hours (2026) 2 copies
Babies and Bosses Bundle (4-in-1) (2010) — Author — 1 copy
Modern Romance May 2019: Books 5-8 — Author — 1 copy
Harlequin Comics Best Selection, Vol. 029 [FREE] (2016) — Original Text — 1 copy
L'enfant de Santa Cruz (2021) 1 copy
Unfinished business (2012) 1 copy
¿El hombre apropiado? (2014) 1 copy, 1 review
Una tentadora propuesta (2009) 1 copy, 1 review
Süütu hädaabielu (2022) 1 copy

Associated Works

The Heat Is On [with bonus book: Blame It on the Bikini] (2010) — Author, some editions — 39 copies
Hot Boss, Boardroom Mistress (2014) — Original Text — 1 copy
Unbuttoned by Her Maverick Boss (2016) — Original Text — 1 copy
Mistress Under Contract (2016) — Original Text — 1 copy
Caught on Camera with the CEO (2015) — Original Text — 1 copy
Bought: One Night, One Marriage (2017) — Original Text — 1 copy
The Millionaire's Mistletoe Mistress (2018) — Original Text — 1 copy
Bedded by Arrangement (2020) — Original Text — 1 copy
To Love, Honour and Disobey (2020) — Original Text — 1 copy
The Forgotten Gallo Bride (2020) — Original Text — 1 copy
Pregnant by the Commanding Greek — Original Text — 1 copy

Tagged

Common Knowledge

Other names
Anderson, Natalie
Birthdate
1973
Gender
female
Short biography
Natalie Anderson was born in 1973. She obtained an Arts Degree majoring in Music and English before doing a Masters in Library Studies. She worked in London for a couple of years where she met her future husband, other New Zelander. After another couple of years in London and Edinburgh they did return home to New Zealand to settle down and have babies - four in five years. The second child, was a boy who decided not to sleep. She need some form of escapism - and started writing a romance novel. She did the final revisions to her manuscript from a hospital bed. Just after having an emergency cesarean section (twins), her husband brought her the e-mail from her editor. The publisher Mills & Boon, liked the previous revisions Natalie had already made and there was a slot for publication—but she had to have the rewrites done in a week. “So there I was, hooked up to the IV, on massive painkillers, manually expressing every two hours while my babies were locked away in ICU,” she says. But her husband thought that it was a good idea to go for it, so he brought in his brother’s laptop and Natalie went to work. She delivered the revisions that Friday. By Monday she was back at home and finally got The Call and she heard the magic words in that English accent: “We want to buy your book.” Natalie has been writing seriously for only about two years. But since she started she’s written every night and every day of the week after her two children—and now her newborn twins—went to bed. She joined the eHarlequin.com Community boards in 2005, researching, participating and becoming addicted to the online reads. But Natalie says the best thing she found on the site was her critique partner, Jude.

Natalie lives in Christchurch, New Zealand with her gorgeous husband and their four fabulous children.
Nationality
New Zealand
Places of residence
Christchurch, New Zealand
Associated Place (for map)
Christchurch, New Zealand

Members

Reviews

39 reviews
Summertime in Lake Como, there’s fireworks, commuting to work on a bicycle, and patio seating at a bakery, if you’re a seasonal reader this is ideal for warm weather, especially since it’s lighter in the angst department than Presents novels often are.

Watering roses for an elderly friend, baker Gracie meets cute with the property’s new owner. Wealthy businessman Rafe is very much a playboy with no interest in settling down, however, no strings with Gracie isn’t quite as easy to show more abide by as it has been with other women.

The flirty banter and even just really any other bit of dialogue had a natural quality to it that I really appreciated.

I thought the pacing for this one was well done, whether its the rate at which they moved from attraction to more or Rafe’s personal growth, even the sex scenes were written in a way where they start off as purely physical but gradually each encounter is increasingly tangled up in emotion.

The other thing that stood out to me about this one is how open and honest Rafe and Gracie are with one another. There isn’t a lot of mind-games, each of them have baggage and they talk about it, a pivotal moment of the book comes about because Gracie simply decides to say how she’s feeling despite knowing that it won’t be well received. There isn’t a lot of saying one thing here while inside feeling something else and in a genre that sometimes (not always) seems like it specializes in misunderstandings, a romance where there’s genuine communication involved felt kind of refreshing.
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This had far too little plot, for the most part it’s propelled by this pair’s lack of communication, he tells her nothing and she asks him nothing, and there’s nothing going on in their lives other than an upcoming gala that he suddenly decides she needs to attend because the novel needed to extend her stay with him. The story and these characters kind of meander in somewhat repetitive thoughts and actions until a sudden epiphany is required to scuttle them along to happy ever after. show more For me, there was just never enough going on here and the motivations for things tended to be sketchy.

I prefer a slow burn, I like tension building first. These two give in to their desires super quickly so there wasn’t even that lingering between them to give their dynamic a bit more interest, a bit more pull, and to me that also quickly downgraded their initial claims that they were emotionally wounded by each other. If you had a painful experience with this person before, wouldn’t you have some resistance in you the second go round? I get that in the book-tok obsessed with spice era, there’s a reluctance from publishers and/or authors to let things simmer, but sex early and often does not actually fit every situation. Letting social media dictate the content of stories rather than letting the characters dictate it in a way that actually makes sense for them seems to be damaging the quality of the storytelling in this genre.

I also didn’t like the couple of stalker-ish moments here. There was a time when Ares watching her that way wouldn’t have bothered me, it might have even appealed (I did love Edward Cullen once upon a time), but you reach a certain age and you hear about enough of that kind of behavior turning lethal and it starts feeling creepy rather than like the romantic pining I know this author intended it to be (and to be clear, I never felt like there was an actual threat from him).

Most of what made this a disappointment for me are personal preference things, if you are an avid lover of the Presents line and the alpha behavior inherent within it, this could be a much more enjoyable reading experience for you that it was for me. My sensibilities don’t always match up well with Presents novels, and that was unfortunately the case here as well, even though I have loved some other books by this author.
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I loved this book. It completely blew my expectations for what a HP novel could be right out of the water.

There was a real quality to the characterization that was very refreshing. We spent equal amounts of time with both Alessandro and Katie, understanding not only their thoughts and actions but their feelings as well. So many HPs have cold, arrogant heroes and idiot heroines, whose only purpose in the book is to start having sex for some inexplicable reason and end up married (also usually show more for some inexplicable reason).

This novel couldn't be more different. The heroine, Katie, had a real reason to pursue this proposed marriage of convenience. A fostered child who had suffered emotional abuse at the hands of her father, she had a very strong sense of learned helplessness, a coping mechanism adapted so that she wouldn't lose the only family she's ever known. He finally pushes her to the breaking point, however, when he threatens to basically sell her to one of his creepy old cronies to land a cash injection into the businesses he's run into the ground. Katie won't have that, but there's only one person she can think of who could possibly help her: Alessandro, a "step-cousin" of sorts, whom she knew once upon a time when his father married her foster father's sister and they spent their summers on the estate.

Alessandro is your typical billionaire hero who works hard and parties hard, but for all his business acumen and cutthroat arrogance in the board room, he is a genuinely nice guy. Once he realizes why Katie is reacting to him the way she is (a mixture of no romantic experience whatsoever and the learned capitulation in order to avoid abandonment), he takes a step back and actually considers her feelings. He doesn't want to hurt her. He doesn't think less of her because she's so unworldly; he understands the precarious circumstances that have made her who she is today.

Katie had a puppy-love crush on Alessandro when they were teens, and she's confronted with that same torch when she approaches him with her proposal. However, she is acutely aware that in some ways, she's simply running from one all-powerful man to another, and she longs to break free and find her own spirit. She doesn't blindly accept her circumstances at any point in the story.

These two challenge each other. Alessandro teases her constantly with innuendo, but he also tells her that she has to vocalize what she wants, and coaxes her into understanding that she does deserve to be happy. Katie challenges him to face the fact that he's just as terrified of rejection as she is, having lost his parents the way he did. He realizes that while he has control of his life, it's not much of a life worth celebrating.

It was really wonderful to see these two push and pull with one another, to fall in love without realizing it, to slide into a sort of comfortable reality that has made them both better people. They spent a lot of time touching and kissing and exploring the emotional connection that's blossomed between them. This makes the sex scenes 1000% better, IMO, and the ones in this book were really, really good.

This book is a combination of my favorite tropes and excellent characterization. It is completely focused on the growth of the main characters, which is both rare and refreshing. This author has jumped onto my auto-read list, and I look forward to reading more of her work!
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Ettie Roberts (head concierge at Cavendish House in London's Mayfair) finds she has a new boss when handsome and wealthy Leon Kariakis buys the building. After they get off to a bad start they begin to find they are attracted to each other. Neither want to get involved but they can't deny the scorching hot chemistry between them. Eventually they make love, Ettie discovers she's pregnant...

This was an engaging romance. Not too much angst, just enough to keep things interesting. Ettie was a show more very sweet heroine. She was thoughtful and kind to the residents at Cavendish House and they all loved her. Leon was a good hero and obviously smitten with Ettie. I liked how Ettie and Leon talked through their problems like adults instead of endlessly arguing like some couples do in romance novels.

Sweet and sexy read by Natalie Anderson with a very appealing main couple.
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Associated Authors

Statistics

Works
116
Also by
12
Members
945
Popularity
#27,197
Rating
½ 3.7
Reviews
33
ISBNs
397
Languages
4
Favorited
2

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