Hotly Bedded, Conveniently Wedded

Got the book from We Hear You, Harlequin's survey program. Lovely story. The title is stupid (it would be better if it were the other way around, but not much better), and for some reason although it's copyright 2008 the book is an ARC - white cover, floppy paper, and no publication info. That aside - the story is wonderful. I like both Bel and Alex; they're independent, clever, intelligent, nice, and have very interesting jobs. I'd love to have either job (though Alex's sounds like more fun). It's a girl-next-door story, with (of course) complications - the obvious ones of ages out of synch, plus one bad love affair and one bad marriage. And the usual romance stupidity (realistic, but still stupid) of 'Oh, I can't tell him/her that I'm show more falling in love - she/he might not reciprocate!' One amusing thing - I just finished a Harlequin from 2000, by a different author, that used the same Apache blessing as in this book. The sex is explicit and just a little clinical in language - technical terms for his and hers parts - but not so much that it turned me off. There are a lot of cliches used here - the aforementioned girl-next-door and secret feelings, plus family interference (positive - positively pushy, even), want-a-baby (with miscarriages), previous bad experience, etc., etc., - and I still enjoyed the story tremendously. I really like the characters, and even when they're acting out the romance cliches they stay real-feeling. Their mutual love of history rings a bell for me - both of their holidays sound wonderful to me, just as trips. I spent a lot of the last half of the book crying - it touched me deeply enough for that. I like - and I'll be looking for more from this author. For that matter, there might be three previous stories in this series - Alex has three married sisters. I'll have to hunt them up (another sign it's an ARC - no convenient series lists in the front!). Very nice. show less