The Mistress (The Anetakis Tycoons Book 1)

Another New Favorite. Maya sure knows how to bring out the High Emotion in her books.

Betrayal, amnesia, love, marriage, pregnancy, it's a heartbreaker for sure. What would you do if you are thrown out of your Boyfriends home, where you both live, for a betrayal that you never committed. Then being kidnapped, released and not being able to remember what happened bfore or during the horrible event. Then having said boyfriend take you from the hospital, and trying to start over again with a man who you can't remember, but nothing seems right??

Yeah...I know...sounds AWESOME!! You need to read this book!! It will take your heart, throw it on the ground, stomp on it for a few minutes and maybe twist it up a little...then patch it up so their is no more pain!!

Oh Harlequin...how you draw up every emotion is beyond me!!

Chrysander and Marley are in a relationship until his crazy ads assistant plants papers on her to make it look like she stole plans from him and sold them to his competitors, his brothers Theron and Piers even believe the lies. When Chrysander sees a news report about Marley being soundcard that the baby is fine too, he rushes to the hospital to claim her as his finance, will she eventually remember what happened to her?

Enjoy

This was such a great love story! Lots of misunderstandings, mistrust and manipulations. No spoilers here, just saying read it you will love it. Really kept my interest. Read it in my free time in two days. Love this author and will read more of her books.

The Mistress: Story of Chrysander and Marley. She fell hard and fast for a proud, sexy Greek tycoon who wasn't ready to admit to his feelings for her until he hurt her beyond human realms. Mystery and intrigue in this love story.

Books like Maya Banks's THE TYCOON'S PREGNANT MISTRESS are why series romances have a bad reputation. Banks may be good writer, but you can't tell it by this book. Perhaps the series format is too short for her amnesiac story line. I am not normally one of those romance readers that insist that everything be accurate, logical and make perfect sense, but my suspension of disbelief only goes so far. In this vein, I have decided to cathartically list some of the most bothersome aspects of this story. I won't be giving anything away that the book summary doesn't already highlight, so here goes.

1) The hospital releases the heroine, a rescued amnesiac kidnap victim, to a man (the hero) who lies about being her fiancé, and they don't require any proof of his relationship to her even though her abductors are at large and she's still purported to be in danger. 2) Even though she was just released from the hospital, Banks inserts a scene where the hero insists that the heroine get a medical checkup where she has an ultrasound so the doctor can confirm the health of the baby. So the hospital not only violated the laws of the state and the laws of decency by letting some stranger take her home, but they didn't see to the health of her five month old fetus before she was released? I get that this scene was probably an attempt to make this jerk seem caring, but all I could think was, "what kind of quack hospital did they take this poor woman to?" 3) The hero believes himself betrayed by the heroine and seems to genuinely hate her. But instead of simply providing for her care (and thus the care of his unborn child), he lies about them being engaged and proceeds to treat her schizophrenically with equal parts tender care and contempt. 4) His brothers treat her (the recently kidnapped, five-month-pregnant, confused, traumatized, amnesiac woman carrying their nephew) abominably. Their stories will be published soon. I can't wait to skip those. 5) The hero, while believing the heroine to be a lying, conniving, backstabbing, spying witch who slept with him to get at his corporate secrets, doesn't let his contempt stop him from having frequent sex with her even though (let me reiterate) she has been recently kidnapped, held for three months, is pregnant with his child, and is so traumatized she has almost complete amnesia. Ahh, romance!

I was set to give this book one star until I got to the part when the heroine gets her memory back. Her subsequent pain and struggle, along with the hero's guilt and contrition, were so well written it got another star out of me. But it certainly didn't make up for what came before.