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Dacre Family #1
Tiger Eyes
"He's tough and he's brilliant and he's got no weaknesses.
"
That was how Leo Dacre's brother had described him. And Tansy Ormerod was about to find out just how accurate those words were! Leo intended to find out exactly what had happened to his drop-out half-brother Ricky. Tansy knew, but had no intention of telling him. But Leo wasn't used to being denied...especially by someone like Tansy! So when bribes and threats failed, he kidnapped her. Tansy was confident she would survive the ordeal intact. But that was before she realised the passions that Leo could release in her...
That was how Leo Dacre's brother had described him. And Tansy Ormerod was about to find out just how accurate those words were! Leo intended to find out exactly what had happened to his drop-out half-brother Ricky. Tansy knew, but had no intention of telling him. But Leo wasn't used to being denied...especially by someone like Tansy! So when bribes and threats failed, he kidnapped her. Tansy was confident she would survive the ordeal intact. But that was before she realised the passions that Leo could release in her...
189 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 1994
About the author
Robyn Donald
467 books137 followersRobyn Elaine Donald was born on 14 August 1940 in Northland, New Zealand. She was the oldest child in her family, and as a child, she thrilled her four sisters and one brother with bloodcurdling adventure tales, usually very like the latest book she'd borrowed from the library.
Robyn owes her writing career to two illnesses. The first was a younger sister's flu. She was living with her husband and Robyn and spent most of that winter acquiring, suffering, and recovering from various infections. One day she croaked that she had read everything on Robyn's bookshelves, so would Robyn please buy her something cheerful and sustaining. Robyn found three paperbacks- one Mills and Boon Modern Romance novel and a couple of other romances. Robyn read them, too, of course, and so enjoyed them she spent the next couple of years hunting down more Mills and Boon books. This was much more difficult then than it is today, so she decided to write her own, and for the following busy 10 years she wrote and hoped that one day she would finish a manuscript good enough that was good enough to send to a publisher.
The second illness was her husband's, and it was bad a heart attack. He was so young it terrified them all. While he was recovering, he suggested that Robyn finish the manuscript she was writing and send it off. It wasn't a perfect manuscript, but the doctor had said to humour her husband, so she finished the manuscript, edited it as best she could, and sent it off. Three months later, she was astounded to read a letter from the editor saying that if She made a few revisions they would buy her novel Bride at Whangatapu.
Published since 1977, Robyn sees her readers as intelligent women who insist on accurate backgrounds, so she spends time researching as well as writing.Robyn Donald sometimes thinks that writing is much like gardening. It's a similar process creating landscapes for the mind and emotions from the seeds of ideas and dreams and images. Both activities can also lead to moments of extreme delight, moments of total despair, and backache.Now Robyn lives in the Bay Islands. She continues writing, and also finds time for a very supportive husband, two adult children and their partners, a granddaughter and her mother, not to mention the member of the family that keeps her fit - a loud, cheerful, and ruthlessly determined "almost" Labradordog.
Robyn owes her writing career to two illnesses. The first was a younger sister's flu. She was living with her husband and Robyn and spent most of that winter acquiring, suffering, and recovering from various infections. One day she croaked that she had read everything on Robyn's bookshelves, so would Robyn please buy her something cheerful and sustaining. Robyn found three paperbacks- one Mills and Boon Modern Romance novel and a couple of other romances. Robyn read them, too, of course, and so enjoyed them she spent the next couple of years hunting down more Mills and Boon books. This was much more difficult then than it is today, so she decided to write her own, and for the following busy 10 years she wrote and hoped that one day she would finish a manuscript good enough that was good enough to send to a publisher.
The second illness was her husband's, and it was bad a heart attack. He was so young it terrified them all. While he was recovering, he suggested that Robyn finish the manuscript she was writing and send it off. It wasn't a perfect manuscript, but the doctor had said to humour her husband, so she finished the manuscript, edited it as best she could, and sent it off. Three months later, she was astounded to read a letter from the editor saying that if She made a few revisions they would buy her novel Bride at Whangatapu.
Published since 1977, Robyn sees her readers as intelligent women who insist on accurate backgrounds, so she spends time researching as well as writing.Robyn Donald sometimes thinks that writing is much like gardening. It's a similar process creating landscapes for the mind and emotions from the seeds of ideas and dreams and images. Both activities can also lead to moments of extreme delight, moments of total despair, and backache.Now Robyn lives in the Bay Islands. She continues writing, and also finds time for a very supportive husband, two adult children and their partners, a granddaughter and her mother, not to mention the member of the family that keeps her fit - a loud, cheerful, and ruthlessly determined "almost" Labradordog.
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
December 16, 2016
This is a difficult story to categorize. Former foster child heroine is a busker on the streets of Wellington, NZ - but she's also a university graduate and an aspiring songwriter. Lawyer hero is looking for his younger half-brother who ran away from boarding school. The boy's mother has cancer and is fretting about him. Hero is convinced heroine knows where the boy is. Heroine does know where the boy is (he's at a rehab camp), but she has promised the boy to not tell his family until the counselor says it's okay for him to renew contact with his family.
The heroine's promise is sorely tried. The hero is unstoppable - first trying bribery, then threats, then seduction, then kidnapping. But along the way he comes to know the heroine and falls for her just as she falls for him.
It's an intense little dance they do, and at times you almost forget the real purpose of the hero's interest - finding his half-brother.
The heroine has doubts about the hero's feelings, but any astute romance reader would know the minute she takes off her hat and he is fascinated with her hair, that he is a goner. This is a smitten hero who is 8 years older than the heroine and is much higher up in the social strata. But the heroine has her integrity and her love of music and her talent for songwriting to keep her going. She has endured all for her music , so a little more discomfort in love is something she can endure. Quibble - why would a university grad not be able to teach or get better gigs than just playing on the streets? Her extreme poverty was far-fetched.
Once the boy is reunited with his family, there's a bit more story to go and that's where this story lost a star. I can see why the author wanted the heroine to have success on her own without the hero's interference (and she does), it was just told and not shown so the last scenes had minimal emotional impact.
This had a feel good ending (at least I felt good when I finished it). They are a well-matched pair. They are both strong and are able to live without each other - but are much better off and happier with each other.
The heroine's promise is sorely tried. The hero is unstoppable - first trying bribery, then threats, then seduction, then kidnapping. But along the way he comes to know the heroine and falls for her just as she falls for him.
It's an intense little dance they do, and at times you almost forget the real purpose of the hero's interest - finding his half-brother.
The heroine has doubts about the hero's feelings, but any astute romance reader would know the minute she takes off her hat and he is fascinated with her hair, that he is a goner. This is a smitten hero who is 8 years older than the heroine and is much higher up in the social strata. But the heroine has her integrity and her love of music and her talent for songwriting to keep her going. She has endured all for her music , so a little more discomfort in love is something she can endure. Quibble - why would a university grad not be able to teach or get better gigs than just playing on the streets? Her extreme poverty was far-fetched.
Once the boy is reunited with his family, there's a bit more story to go and that's where this story lost a star. I can see why the author wanted the heroine to have success on her own without the hero's interference (and she does), it was just told and not shown so the last scenes had minimal emotional impact.
This had a feel good ending (at least I felt good when I finished it). They are a well-matched pair. They are both strong and are able to live without each other - but are much better off and happier with each other.
July 30, 2018
Re Tiger Eyes - Robyn Donald goes with the perennial HP favorite of the H kidnaps h because she defies him trope and what an interestingly intense time we are going to have on this first HP Plus of August 1995.
Tansy is 19, a few days shy of 20 when the story opens. Four months earlier she found an upper class runaway boy at the railway station and took him home with her.
Mainly because she herself was a runaway a few years earlier when her foster parents refused to let her continue her musical education and tried to force her to work in a supermarket. Tansy was an abandoned child and never fit into her foster family, she has a burning intense passion for creating music.
So ever since she left her foster home, she has been doing street busking, playing in a cafe at night and trying anything else musical to earn enough to pay her school fees. She has managed to get her degree, but now she wants to go for a masters in music theory. She plans to be the New Zealand answer to Vivaldi and Verdi - she is that passionate and that talented.
Tansy also has a deep sense of fairness and paying things forward. When she first got to Wellington, she was taken in for a year by a lady who worked with street kids and helped her get her start in busking and got her other kids to show her how to protect herself.
So when Tansy takes Rick home with her, she knows he probably has a drug problem, but she also remembers the lady who helped her and in her honor, she gives Rick a place to stay and a plan. Rick comes from money, it is pretty obvious, but he is smothered by his clingy, smothering dependent mother Grace and intimidated and overshadowed by his brilliant older barrister brother Leo.
After some time of Rick soul searching and Tansy's knowledge of the undergound network of people who try to help street people out, Rick decides to take himself off to junkie boot camp and try and get his brain sorted out. He asks Tansy not to reveal his location, especially since he knows his brother Leo will come looking for him, and Tansy agrees not to give him up.
Then Leo shows up wanting to know where Rick is at because his mother, Grace, has cancer and the battle of wills is on. Leo is older, but Tansy is harder and probably more driven in her focus. Leo makes all kind of snobby rich upper class assumptions about Tansy, including the main one that she was a street kid prostitute.
Knowing that changing the opinion of a self righteous snobby nematode like Leo is a fruitless exercise in banging her head against the wall, Tansy lets Leo think what he wants. Leo, on the other hand, starts by making heavy insinuations that Tansy is Rick's lover, is a prostitute and can be bought.
When money fails to move Tansy to confide where Rick is at, Leo tries charm and dinners and a few roofie kisses. Those roofie kisses get a lot roofier when Tansy's beret falls off and her glorious fall of curly ginger hair is revealed in all it's glory. But still Tansy isn't giving up Rick's whereabouts.
Tansy does feel for Rick's mother and her illness, but she also knows how close to the edge Rick really is and while she does eventually get a message to the guy who runs the place where Rick is at, she also knows that this may well be Rick's last chance to get his life together and the guy running the boot camp rehab agrees.
So despite fine dining, meeting snobby friends of Leo's and a small exposure to Leo's high dollar life style, Tansy stays firm and stays mute. Even telling Leo that Rick has to save himself and it is useless for Leo to try and continue to manage him, as Rick needs to be treated as an adult, Leo just won't back down. Tho based on his reaction to Tansy's glorious tresses, it is a good guess on why he just can't quit.
Leo doesn't like anyone not doing things how he wants them done and he is worried that his stepmother Grace may die, he threatens Tansy that if something happens to Rick, he will make her pay twice over for it. Tansy doesn't give into the threats either.
So Leo kidnaps her. He takes her to his beach house on one of the Hauraki Gulf Islands of New Zealand. Leo wants Grace to do her Moaning Myrtle act about Rick over Tansy and make her feel guilty.
(Which was kinda ludicrous on Leo's part, cause if Tansy was the hardened hooker he claimed she was, she probably would have taken one look at petulant, spoilt, clingy Grace and shrugged and said good riddance.)
When Tansy threatens to report him to the police, Leo cheerfully informs her that no one will believe her, because of his power and money and his connections, he will just say he dumped her after dating her and she is being spiteful. Tansy knows Leo is correct, so it is off to Auckland and the Hauraki Gulf we go.
He forces Tansy to sleep in the same bed as they travel, claiming he isn't going to do anything, which of course leads to more roofie kissing moments. Leo tries to buy Tansy new cloths, more socially acceptable than the thrift shop ones she has. Tansy refuses to wear them and but is forced to because he dumped her own things. So Tansy wears the same thing all time and that also sets Leo off.
For Tansy's part, she gets a few inspirational composing moments now and then and gets a real boost in creativity, which produces some very good songs. She is surprised she gets these flashes around Leo, but she is aware that there is a Lurve Mojo Force between them, even as she is trying to figure out how she can get some revenge.
After several days of tit for tat verbal baiting, roofie kisses and deep currents of Lurve Force Mojo tension leading to epic shouting matches, Rick finally shows up. He has completed his rehab and has a calling for the church, which he thinks will be his career.
In the aftermath of Grace's and Rick's reconciliation, Leo and Tansy finally make it to the Purple Passion Transcendent Shores of Bliss. Then it is Leo's time to suffer. Tansy won't stay and Leo is obsessed and Tansy doesn't care.
She tells him that she only wants to compose and that female artist's lose their talent when they get sucked into relationships. She also tells him that he is good a mojo moment, but his world is not something she wants to live in and she is too good to be his tart on the side.
Leo believes Tansy despises him, and after a quick visit to see the foster parents she left behind - which only emphasizes how much an outsider Tansy was all her life, while Leo is very much an elite insider - Leo and Tansy part. Tansy has a mopey moment because she does love Leo, but she has to find money for school and a new flat and just surviving takes over her life - she knows she has to fulfill her passion for music and that Leo isn't compatible with that dream.
Leo puts a lot of money in her bank account and sends the clothes he bought her, but Tansy gives the money to a charity and tells them to send Leo the receipt and then does the same thing with the clothes. Leo finally gets the message that Tansy isn't that into him and doesn't care if he is sorry for behaving badly.
Tansy feels that Leo is trying to pay her off like a tart, so she decides to do some traveling for the holiday season and hitchhikes to a tourist town for the lull in busking business in Auckland. Tansy has another little mopey moment and writes a song over not being preggers with Leo's child as a way to mourn a different life path not taken, then she makes her way back to Wellington.
Eventually her music adviser professor comes up with a grant to allow Tansy to complete her Masters degree. She gets some TV documentary composing work and the chance to have her song about not being preggers presented by an orchestra, she also gets a chance to rent a new flat for a reasonable price.
After her big concert hall success of her mourning composition, entitled Requiem for an Unborn Child, Leo comes to hunt her down. He thinks she has had a miscarriage and when she explains she hadn't, she just wrote it after the demise of their affair, Leo accuses her of being the coldest witch he ever met, cause everything is grist for her music compositions.
Tansy agrees and Leo realizes that he better do some serious humble explaining really fast, cause Tansy doesn't look too delighted to see him. So Leo tells her that he has had people following her and Tansy gets mad.
Leo knows it, but he can't help himself, cause when she hitchhiked off on her holiday jaunt he panicked. He missed her after she left him, in fact he can barely function without her and she just walked away like he was sewer scum. Tansy explains that was because he assumed she was a prostitute and tried to treat her like one. Then she explains what really happened to her after she left the foster home.
Leo knows he did wrong. He planned to leave her alone for two years to finish her degree before he married her and he was behind the grant money and the new flat. He was upset that she wouldn't take the things he tried to give her and he swears that they were tokens of his deep and vast love. But now he knows she hates him and while he won't stalk her exactly, he won't go away either, until she loves him as much as he loves her.
Tansy, realizing that Leo's version of not going away is probably very close to felony stalking for anyone else, decides to avoid the whole legal and police nightmare and just tells Leo she loves him and she will marry him. Leo also will have to hire people to cook and clean and things, as she plans to keep composing, cause that is what she does.
Leo is relieved, cause Tansy has a more indomitable will that he does and she can endure hardship and suffering a lot more than his fragile male persona. Leo swears that they may fight a lot but will always love each other madly and we leave them lurvin' it up for the big pink sparkly passionate HEA.
This one is really intense and the only thing not to like about it is Leo kinda arranges things for Tansy at the end and that hit a jarring note in Tansy's fierce determination to succeed on her own merits.
This is one of RD's younger H's and I liked that him only being 28 meant that he was still adaptable to not buttonholing Tansy into doing what he wanted and giving up her dreams. Plus it also meant that in terms of matching egos and determination to succeed, the equality between the two of them was a lot more believable than if Leo had been in his 30's or so to her 20.
I also thought the whole Requiem subplot was a might heavy handed on the RD deus ex machina interference, but I did believe the HEA and I highly recommend this for a great HPlandia outing.
Tansy is 19, a few days shy of 20 when the story opens. Four months earlier she found an upper class runaway boy at the railway station and took him home with her.
Mainly because she herself was a runaway a few years earlier when her foster parents refused to let her continue her musical education and tried to force her to work in a supermarket. Tansy was an abandoned child and never fit into her foster family, she has a burning intense passion for creating music.
So ever since she left her foster home, she has been doing street busking, playing in a cafe at night and trying anything else musical to earn enough to pay her school fees. She has managed to get her degree, but now she wants to go for a masters in music theory. She plans to be the New Zealand answer to Vivaldi and Verdi - she is that passionate and that talented.
Tansy also has a deep sense of fairness and paying things forward. When she first got to Wellington, she was taken in for a year by a lady who worked with street kids and helped her get her start in busking and got her other kids to show her how to protect herself.
So when Tansy takes Rick home with her, she knows he probably has a drug problem, but she also remembers the lady who helped her and in her honor, she gives Rick a place to stay and a plan. Rick comes from money, it is pretty obvious, but he is smothered by his clingy, smothering dependent mother Grace and intimidated and overshadowed by his brilliant older barrister brother Leo.
After some time of Rick soul searching and Tansy's knowledge of the undergound network of people who try to help street people out, Rick decides to take himself off to junkie boot camp and try and get his brain sorted out. He asks Tansy not to reveal his location, especially since he knows his brother Leo will come looking for him, and Tansy agrees not to give him up.
Then Leo shows up wanting to know where Rick is at because his mother, Grace, has cancer and the battle of wills is on. Leo is older, but Tansy is harder and probably more driven in her focus. Leo makes all kind of snobby rich upper class assumptions about Tansy, including the main one that she was a street kid prostitute.
Knowing that changing the opinion of a self righteous snobby nematode like Leo is a fruitless exercise in banging her head against the wall, Tansy lets Leo think what he wants. Leo, on the other hand, starts by making heavy insinuations that Tansy is Rick's lover, is a prostitute and can be bought.
When money fails to move Tansy to confide where Rick is at, Leo tries charm and dinners and a few roofie kisses. Those roofie kisses get a lot roofier when Tansy's beret falls off and her glorious fall of curly ginger hair is revealed in all it's glory. But still Tansy isn't giving up Rick's whereabouts.
Tansy does feel for Rick's mother and her illness, but she also knows how close to the edge Rick really is and while she does eventually get a message to the guy who runs the place where Rick is at, she also knows that this may well be Rick's last chance to get his life together and the guy running the boot camp rehab agrees.
So despite fine dining, meeting snobby friends of Leo's and a small exposure to Leo's high dollar life style, Tansy stays firm and stays mute. Even telling Leo that Rick has to save himself and it is useless for Leo to try and continue to manage him, as Rick needs to be treated as an adult, Leo just won't back down. Tho based on his reaction to Tansy's glorious tresses, it is a good guess on why he just can't quit.
Leo doesn't like anyone not doing things how he wants them done and he is worried that his stepmother Grace may die, he threatens Tansy that if something happens to Rick, he will make her pay twice over for it. Tansy doesn't give into the threats either.
So Leo kidnaps her. He takes her to his beach house on one of the Hauraki Gulf Islands of New Zealand. Leo wants Grace to do her Moaning Myrtle act about Rick over Tansy and make her feel guilty.
(Which was kinda ludicrous on Leo's part, cause if Tansy was the hardened hooker he claimed she was, she probably would have taken one look at petulant, spoilt, clingy Grace and shrugged and said good riddance.)
When Tansy threatens to report him to the police, Leo cheerfully informs her that no one will believe her, because of his power and money and his connections, he will just say he dumped her after dating her and she is being spiteful. Tansy knows Leo is correct, so it is off to Auckland and the Hauraki Gulf we go.
He forces Tansy to sleep in the same bed as they travel, claiming he isn't going to do anything, which of course leads to more roofie kissing moments. Leo tries to buy Tansy new cloths, more socially acceptable than the thrift shop ones she has. Tansy refuses to wear them and but is forced to because he dumped her own things. So Tansy wears the same thing all time and that also sets Leo off.
For Tansy's part, she gets a few inspirational composing moments now and then and gets a real boost in creativity, which produces some very good songs. She is surprised she gets these flashes around Leo, but she is aware that there is a Lurve Mojo Force between them, even as she is trying to figure out how she can get some revenge.
After several days of tit for tat verbal baiting, roofie kisses and deep currents of Lurve Force Mojo tension leading to epic shouting matches, Rick finally shows up. He has completed his rehab and has a calling for the church, which he thinks will be his career.
In the aftermath of Grace's and Rick's reconciliation, Leo and Tansy finally make it to the Purple Passion Transcendent Shores of Bliss. Then it is Leo's time to suffer. Tansy won't stay and Leo is obsessed and Tansy doesn't care.
She tells him that she only wants to compose and that female artist's lose their talent when they get sucked into relationships. She also tells him that he is good a mojo moment, but his world is not something she wants to live in and she is too good to be his tart on the side.
Leo believes Tansy despises him, and after a quick visit to see the foster parents she left behind - which only emphasizes how much an outsider Tansy was all her life, while Leo is very much an elite insider - Leo and Tansy part. Tansy has a mopey moment because she does love Leo, but she has to find money for school and a new flat and just surviving takes over her life - she knows she has to fulfill her passion for music and that Leo isn't compatible with that dream.
Leo puts a lot of money in her bank account and sends the clothes he bought her, but Tansy gives the money to a charity and tells them to send Leo the receipt and then does the same thing with the clothes. Leo finally gets the message that Tansy isn't that into him and doesn't care if he is sorry for behaving badly.
Tansy feels that Leo is trying to pay her off like a tart, so she decides to do some traveling for the holiday season and hitchhikes to a tourist town for the lull in busking business in Auckland. Tansy has another little mopey moment and writes a song over not being preggers with Leo's child as a way to mourn a different life path not taken, then she makes her way back to Wellington.
Eventually her music adviser professor comes up with a grant to allow Tansy to complete her Masters degree. She gets some TV documentary composing work and the chance to have her song about not being preggers presented by an orchestra, she also gets a chance to rent a new flat for a reasonable price.
After her big concert hall success of her mourning composition, entitled Requiem for an Unborn Child, Leo comes to hunt her down. He thinks she has had a miscarriage and when she explains she hadn't, she just wrote it after the demise of their affair, Leo accuses her of being the coldest witch he ever met, cause everything is grist for her music compositions.
Tansy agrees and Leo realizes that he better do some serious humble explaining really fast, cause Tansy doesn't look too delighted to see him. So Leo tells her that he has had people following her and Tansy gets mad.
Leo knows it, but he can't help himself, cause when she hitchhiked off on her holiday jaunt he panicked. He missed her after she left him, in fact he can barely function without her and she just walked away like he was sewer scum. Tansy explains that was because he assumed she was a prostitute and tried to treat her like one. Then she explains what really happened to her after she left the foster home.
Leo knows he did wrong. He planned to leave her alone for two years to finish her degree before he married her and he was behind the grant money and the new flat. He was upset that she wouldn't take the things he tried to give her and he swears that they were tokens of his deep and vast love. But now he knows she hates him and while he won't stalk her exactly, he won't go away either, until she loves him as much as he loves her.
Tansy, realizing that Leo's version of not going away is probably very close to felony stalking for anyone else, decides to avoid the whole legal and police nightmare and just tells Leo she loves him and she will marry him. Leo also will have to hire people to cook and clean and things, as she plans to keep composing, cause that is what she does.
Leo is relieved, cause Tansy has a more indomitable will that he does and she can endure hardship and suffering a lot more than his fragile male persona. Leo swears that they may fight a lot but will always love each other madly and we leave them lurvin' it up for the big pink sparkly passionate HEA.
This one is really intense and the only thing not to like about it is Leo kinda arranges things for Tansy at the end and that hit a jarring note in Tansy's fierce determination to succeed on her own merits.
This is one of RD's younger H's and I liked that him only being 28 meant that he was still adaptable to not buttonholing Tansy into doing what he wanted and giving up her dreams. Plus it also meant that in terms of matching egos and determination to succeed, the equality between the two of them was a lot more believable than if Leo had been in his 30's or so to her 20.
I also thought the whole Requiem subplot was a might heavy handed on the RD deus ex machina interference, but I did believe the HEA and I highly recommend this for a great HPlandia outing.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 16, 2014
I decided to sneak in a Harlequin Presents book in the middle of my review reading schedule, and my eyes fell on this book. It's a reread, but it felt fresh and new for me. If asked, I wouldn't have listed Robyn Donald as a favorite author. But a book like this makes me want to change that. This short romance packs a powerful punch.
Tansy is a singular heroine. She's very independent, quite confident, and very much her own woman. Her true love was always music, and she made a lot of sacrifices for that love. However, her heart is larger than she thought, because she made room for a teenage runaway with big problems. But you know what they say about good deeds? Now she has to deal with his older, domineering and very fascinating older brother, Leo. Leo wants to know where his brother is, but a promise is a promise. He won't go away until he gets the knowledge he seeks. And the more time she spends with him, the more he intrudes into the small world that Tansy has created for herself with her music. As a music lover, I can appreciate the impact that music continues to make in her life, and I love that she was determined to be a composer, and willing to work and sacrifice towards that dream, cherishing her independence along the way.
I just plain loved Tansy. Despite her young age, she is a very self-actualized woman, and she's fearless about life. That doesn't mean she doesn't have room for growth, because she realizes that there is room in her heart for love, and that her music doesn't have to consume her whole world.
Leo is fairly likeable as well. I think the one aspect that really appealed to me was how hard he fell for Tansy, despite the fact that she didn't fit into his world. She challenges him and he rises to the challenge. He's a good brother and son, and that is definitely worth admiring. And despite his rough edges, he is a honorable man.
This book has the zing that has me coming back to vintage Harlequin Presents. In the short 189 pages, Donald packs in a powerful story with textured characters, dynamic interactions built around strong chemistry and a story that screams romantic and true love to this die-hard romantic.
For that, I'd have to give it 4.5/5.0 stars.
Tansy is a singular heroine. She's very independent, quite confident, and very much her own woman. Her true love was always music, and she made a lot of sacrifices for that love. However, her heart is larger than she thought, because she made room for a teenage runaway with big problems. But you know what they say about good deeds? Now she has to deal with his older, domineering and very fascinating older brother, Leo. Leo wants to know where his brother is, but a promise is a promise. He won't go away until he gets the knowledge he seeks. And the more time she spends with him, the more he intrudes into the small world that Tansy has created for herself with her music. As a music lover, I can appreciate the impact that music continues to make in her life, and I love that she was determined to be a composer, and willing to work and sacrifice towards that dream, cherishing her independence along the way.
I just plain loved Tansy. Despite her young age, she is a very self-actualized woman, and she's fearless about life. That doesn't mean she doesn't have room for growth, because she realizes that there is room in her heart for love, and that her music doesn't have to consume her whole world.
Leo is fairly likeable as well. I think the one aspect that really appealed to me was how hard he fell for Tansy, despite the fact that she didn't fit into his world. She challenges him and he rises to the challenge. He's a good brother and son, and that is definitely worth admiring. And despite his rough edges, he is a honorable man.
This book has the zing that has me coming back to vintage Harlequin Presents. In the short 189 pages, Donald packs in a powerful story with textured characters, dynamic interactions built around strong chemistry and a story that screams romantic and true love to this die-hard romantic.
For that, I'd have to give it 4.5/5.0 stars.
December 3, 2011
This is a very good Robyn Donald. The heroine, 19 almost 20 year old Tansy, is strong, and talented and has a red head's temper. Leo, the H, is domineering, autocratic and used to having his own way. This makes for some lively interactions. Thankfully there are no evil OW issues, altho plenty of other issues to provide angst and interest.
May 18, 2019
At first I had mixed feelings on this book but I really appreciated how the author depicts the h's character so my final feeling towards it is positive.
Tansy had a bad past and is still struggling to pursue her dreams: she plays in the street and is a composer.
She is totally misjudged by the H that is really cold and cruel in most parts of the story.
It is definitely an enemies to lovers/opposites attract story: both fight their attraction fiercely, but with no success, of course.
H kidnaps her in order to get responses on his missing younger stepbrother. She is loyal to him and refuses to help the H: angst, pain and cruel words.
Before it is too late, the H realizes the truth and most of all his true feelings and also decides to support the h in her music career. A complete turnaround for a heartless/career oriented barrister....
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 9, 2020
Anyone else think that the hero and heroine where very unsuited for each other? I did, just no romance, no friendship just arguing and disagreeing on everything. Skip. Could have been good but wasn't.
February 20, 2018
Heroine is wonderful woman; all strength with a golden heart and with wonderfully high standard of morals. Romance, though, fell little short at the end.
April 16, 2019
Totally old school, but so much fun.
August 31, 2012
It was a decent read by the end I was like omg, the hero has turned into a wimp. Which he totally did. He was practically a begging miserable half of a man. The heroine was brutal and strong, she had a fucked up life but did great things in this novel.
June 27, 2013
Leo kidnaps Tansy to force her tell him about his half-brother.
April 16, 2024
"Tiger Eyes" is the story of Tansy and Leo.
GUYS I LOVED IT.
So this is one of the few plots I love in romance book.
Independent, obstinate yet self reliant working class heroine meeting a smitten rich hero.. but he has nothing he can entice her with.
The heroine works as a busker, and sings to make ends meet. The hero is the brother to a young lad she helped a while ago. When the lad goes "missing", asking heroine not to reveal his location, his family/ the hero decide to stalk the heroine.
Thus begins a tale of cat and mouse between the fiercely strong heroine and a hero who refuses to let her be. He tries to court and coax her for information, but she doesn't budge. Even when he kidnaps and tries to bribe her, she sticks to her guns. There's lots of sexual attraction, banter between them. Even when the conflict is resolved, she refuses to accept anything, until he is forced to declare his love and basically lay himself open- asking for her love. And she eventually surrenders.
I loved it. Reminded me of blue velvet by iris johansen which is one of my favorites. Also, ending is great.
Safe
5/5
GUYS I LOVED IT.
So this is one of the few plots I love in romance book.
Independent, obstinate yet self reliant working class heroine meeting a smitten rich hero.. but he has nothing he can entice her with.
The heroine works as a busker, and sings to make ends meet. The hero is the brother to a young lad she helped a while ago. When the lad goes "missing", asking heroine not to reveal his location, his family/ the hero decide to stalk the heroine.
Thus begins a tale of cat and mouse between the fiercely strong heroine and a hero who refuses to let her be. He tries to court and coax her for information, but she doesn't budge. Even when he kidnaps and tries to bribe her, she sticks to her guns. There's lots of sexual attraction, banter between them. Even when the conflict is resolved, she refuses to accept anything, until he is forced to declare his love and basically lay himself open- asking for her love. And she eventually surrenders.
I loved it. Reminded me of blue velvet by iris johansen which is one of my favorites. Also, ending is great.
Safe
5/5
August 12, 2024
I don’t feel qualified to write a proper review for this one since I only read the last three chapters, because I’d already read boogenhagen’s excellent review, and her reviews are usually even more fun to read than the books themselves, and also my quota for angst fest was full. I read enough to know I’d never reread it but that the hero was actually very well written. I think it can be a fun read if you’re in the mood.
April 10, 2024
I utterly despised this book ... the dreaded triple play of Alpha Asshat, Stockholm Syndrome, tremulous MFC with Treacherous Body Syndrome who falls in love after being kidnapped and then groped repeatedly. Ah, romance! Another reviewer describes him as begging and miserable in the second half, but I didn't have the stomach to read that far.
May 24, 2022
The book description always put me off this one but it's actually very good. A very different very interesting, realistic story with probably the strongest h I have ever encountered in any trade romance and a charismatic but supportive H.
June 1, 2024
I think it is just me, but I did not enjoy the overall tone of this book. The heroine is not likeable and there did not seem to be any chemistry with the hero. Also the hero is 28, but acts more like 48.
The storyline is good, but I found it very dull and lacking romance.
The storyline is good, but I found it very dull and lacking romance.
February 10, 2018
What a fun story. Loved the characters and the way they related to each other. He was cunning but she was not a fool.
July 18, 2022
My notes are that I liked this a lot.
February 17, 2024
Strong heroine.Loved the story
September 29, 2021
I really enjoyed this for the wonderful characters. Absolutely love that the heroine was strong enough to overcome her difficult childhood, and that she had a fabulous musical talent. I really like heroines who are gifted at whatever their vocation or passion is, or are really good at their job. Can't stand the TSTL ones.
And the hero was a huge five star hero. Usually RD writes some really mean vile heroes but I was standing up to cheer about this guy. Unlike a zillion other HPs there was no slut-shaming. Even though he genuinely believed that she had had to resort to prostitution when she was a teenage runaway from her unpleasant foster parents, he never called her a whore and condemned her for it. Instead, he was compassionate and understanding, and he felt hurt for her, that she had to resort to that to survive. Of course she didn't (she was a virgin), but still. He even wanted her despite his wrong impressions of her background. What an amazing alpha. Woohoo!
And the hero was a huge five star hero. Usually RD writes some really mean vile heroes but I was standing up to cheer about this guy. Unlike a zillion other HPs there was no slut-shaming. Even though he genuinely believed that she had had to resort to prostitution when she was a teenage runaway from her unpleasant foster parents, he never called her a whore and condemned her for it. Instead, he was compassionate and understanding, and he felt hurt for her, that she had to resort to that to survive. Of course she didn't (she was a virgin), but still. He even wanted her despite his wrong impressions of her background. What an amazing alpha. Woohoo!
June 8, 2021
He's tough and he's brilliant and he's got no weaknesses." That was how Leo Dacre's brother had described him. And Tansy Ormerod was about to find out just how accurate those words were! Leo intended to find out exactly what had happened to his drop-out half-brother Ricky. Tansy knew, but had no intention of telling him. But Leo wasn't used to being denied…especially by someone like Tansy! So when bribes and threats failed, he kidnapped her. Tansy was confident she would survive the ordeal intact. But that was before she realised the passions that Leo could release in her…
April 19, 2015
Occasionally when I am reading to escape from thought, I'm surprised by the quality of a book.
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