Chantelle Shaw

This is one of my favorite tropes in the HP world. Heroine is mistress to the hero. She gets pregnant but he throws her out, convinced she was cheating because he's had a vasectomy. But this one just failed in execution for me.

Once he finds her again and she has a fairly reasonable explanation of what happened even though he knows that some vasectomies fail he still refuses to consider he might be one of the failures. He calls her every nasty name in the book but still gets her in bed every show more third page it seemed like. She was totally spineless. I think any man who called me those sorts of names and told me to my face I was trash would not be able to talk me into bed 5 minutes later especially after first time he said "see I told you you were a 'ho" afterwards.

I'm used to a certain amount of asshatery and spinelessness but CS just didn't sell me on it this time. show less

Thoroughly satisfying Hp read. It had amnesia, yeah! Totally differently set up so double yeah! Well written, kept me interested. The hero was quite dastardly. But he he got what was coming to him and had to struggle to get the heroine back. Heroine eventually had a nice bit of backbone. Fun OTT read all around.

Clare Marchant (who is 24) goes to Brazil to pay the ransom for her sister Becky who has been kidnapped. When Clare arrives in Brazil she is sent a package/box with what appears to be part of her sister’s severed ear inside. The note with the box instructs Clare to go to the town of Torrente, deep in the Amazon rainforest, and the kidnappers will meet her at a cave by a waterfall. A distraught Clare goes into a church and breaks down and tells a nun everything. The nun arranges for Clare show more to be flown to Manaus (in northern Brazil) to stay with the nuns of the Holy Order of the Sacred Heart while another nun, Sister Ann, arranges Clare’s onward journey to Torrente. Sister Ann asks a gold prospector (37-year-old hero Diego Cazorra) if he can take Clare to Torrente, giving him the story that Clare is a nun who is going to Torrente to take up the post of teaching Sunday school there. He reluctantly agrees to take Clare and they set off for Torrente. Along the way they encounter bad weather, treacherous roads, and to Diego’s shock he finds himself attracted to Clare who he believes to be a nun. They eventually meet the kidnappers…

This was a really fun and enjoyable read! The story had some humorous moments, and some suspense. I liked Clare. She was sweet and brave. She always felt like she was second best in comparison to her beautiful model sister Becky, who her parents favored. She was pretty gutsy standing up to the bad guys. I also liked Diego, he was a sexy hero. Blond, disheveled, tall, and built. Diego had a terrible childhood and he spent two years in a Brazilian jail. But years later he was left a fortune by his grandfather (who he never knew) and he bought a diamond mine and became a diamond magnate with his partner Cruz (from the previous Chantelle Shaw book “Mistress of His Revenge”).

Another entertaining read by Chantelle Shaw. show less

When Sabrina Bancroft (from England) was 18 and Cruz Delgado was 24 they had a brief affair that lasted less than a year. She was a wealthy aristocrat visiting her father, Earl Bancroft, in Brazil where he was working at his diamond mine. Cruz was one of the miners (who grew up in the slums and later found work mining.) During their affair Sabrina eventually became pregnant but then had a miscarriage. Cruz had asked her to marry him but Sabrina turned him down. She was sure Cruz didn't love show more her, he only wanted his child. And after witnessing her parents disastrous marriage, she was wary of making a commitment. So they drifted apart, she went back to England, and they haven't seen each other since then.

Ten years later...

Sabrina now has a PhD and works in antique furniture restoration. Her father, Earl Bancroft, has been missing for eighteen months, he's been officially declared a missing person, so his bank accounts have been frozen and Sabrina is running out of money. Opening up her large ancestral home (Eversleigh Hall) for weddings and parties was the only way Sabrina could afford the huge running costs of the estate until her father returns.

Cruz is now a wealthy man and the owner of a diamond empire (Delgado Diamonds). He bought the diamond mine he named "Old Betsy" from Earl Bancroft, and found diamonds, and became rich. He has heard stories about a map with details about an abandoned mine connected somewhere to his mine and he wants that map. (He is especially interested in finding a rare red diamond---the Estrela Vermelha.) Since Earl Bancroft sold him the mine he figures the old Earl has the map. So he goes to England to visit the Earl, not knowing the Earl is missing and he will only be seeing Sabrina.

Cruz arrives at Eversleigh Hall and discovers Sabrina's father is missing and she is having financial difficulties. Cruz asks about the map but Sabrina doesn't know where her father put it. She tells him the Hall has many secret places/rooms to hide things and her father could have put the map in one of these places. So Cruz decides to make Sabrina an offer. He offers her a lot of money and in return she will be his mistress for the next six months. This will give Cruz time to look around Eversleigh Hall for the map and Sabrina will be able to pay expenses for maintaining her estate. Sabrina's younger brother Tristan also needs money for his university education. His dream is to become an airline pilot. Sabrina eventually accepts Cruz's offer and they become lovers again and find they are still very attracted to each other. They also learn a lot more about each other than they did ten years ago.

Sabrina was a cool, classy, aristocratic heroine. I liked how much she cared for her brother, Tristan, and looked out for him for years since her parents were never around much. Her mother left them for her lover when they were young, and their father was always going off somewhere, exploring, mining...

Cruz was aloof and distant towards Sabrina at first. He tried to keep his emotional distance since she rejected him ten years ago. He always (wrongly) felt that Sabrina thought she was too good for him since she was wealthy and he was poor. Cruz is wealthy now but he still feels he isn't accepted by the upper classes because of his poor background.

At first I found the main couple cool/cold because they were both trying to hide their emotions and feelings for each other but they grew on me as the story progressed and they opened up and talked to each other. I also liked the loyalty they had to their families, Sabrina's closeness and devotion to her brother Tristan, and Cruz's love for his family, his mother and sisters that he looked out for after his father died in the mine.

This was an enjoyable read by Chantelle Shaw with lots of misunderstandings, sexy love scenes, and diamonds. show less