Bitchin' Blog Posts
The Tycoon’s Rebel Bride by Maya Banks
by SB Sarah | by SB Sarah | May 27, 2009 | Wednesday at 10:01 am | 16 CommentsTitle: The Tycoon's Rebel Bride
Author: Maya Banks
Publication Info: Harlequin 2009
ISBN: 9780373769445
Genre: Contemporary Romance
ETA: I made a programming boo-boo and because of it, the grade on this review defaulted to an “A+.” The actual grade, as posted now, is a B. The review was also categorized as “science fiction/fantasy” - again, my bad. This was totally my programming error, and I am sorry for the confusion.
Maya Banks: You have my permission to smack me upside the head with the largest blunt object you can find. My apologies.
I have had to look up the title to this book four different times to recommend it, and at one point sent someone across the Barnes and Noble in Clifton, NJ, (Hi Sydney) to find it with the following instructions: It’s a May release. There’s a couple on beach. It’s yellow and red. It’s by Maya Banks. There’s a Tycoon I think. Or maybe a billionaire. He’s Greek!
Even the title of the file wherein I typed out this review is: “Banks Tycoon Something or Other.”
It’s tough to remember and distinguish between the titles when they are all so damn similar, and if folks miss this book because the people who have enjoyed it can’t remember the title, it’s a shame.
Cue standard character tropes:
Your heroine: Isabella Caplan.
- She’s a virgin.
- She’s younger than he is.
- She’s a ward of sorts - his family are the trustees to her inheritance, and they consider her their responsibility.
Your hero: Theron Anetakis.
- He’s Greek.
- He’s stern.
- He’s some sort of corporate magnate with a security team, multiple residences, and a fuckton of money.
- He has decided he should find a husband for her because she has just graduated and is about to come into full access to her estate - and he knows she’s bait for fortune hunting jackasses.
- He places himself in control of the vetting process for said husband candidates.
- He’s holding on tightly to the traditional rules and roles of his Greek family, including his own potential engagement to another woman, one who is acceptable and “a good match” but who absolutely does not light his fires in the least. Appropriate is more important than passionate, of course.
But uh oh:
- She has nursed a crush on him for years, and now that she’s grown up and moved past the adolescent fuglies into a seriously hot bod, it’s time to put on her big girl pants and go after the man she loves.
Cue the funky stuff!
Isabella is the sexual aggressor. She goes after him, knowing this is her one change to get him to notice her and pay attention to her within close confines. She’s in his apartment while she finds her own place. She asks him to help her with the process of finding an acceptable place to live, though she bristles at his attention to security. She’s constantly around him because looking out for her is his duty. He can’t help but notice her.
And notice her he does, and he hates himself for it. Despite being a virgin and relatively inexperienced, and despite being nervous that she might fail on an enormously embarrassing scale, Isabella knows she’s hot, and she knows how to get his attention. She wants a passionate marriage and she wants it with Theron. And once she figures out that he is attracted to her, she is going to make her play because once he’s engaged, he’s off limits to her - she doesn’t want to be the other woman, and she doesn’t want to wreck another person’s happiness. He resists as long as he can, but she doesn’t make it easy. And their struggle and attraction is delicious. It crackles.
Once she’s got his attention, though, there are some scenes that seemed totally out of place, and utterly wrong to their characters. Isabella’s best friend is an exotic dancer (Oh noes! Moral Turpitude in the traditionalist perspective!) and when her friend has a theatrical audition that might cost her the dancy-dance job, Isabella steps in and tries to dance in an exotic fashion. When Theron arrives just in time to see her take the stage, the scene doesn’t play out at all the way I expected. (Highlight to view spoiler.)
I didn’t believe for a minute that Isabella would freeze up. She’d dance. She’d maintain a distance and wouldn’t throw herself all over the bouncer with the shaved head and the soul patch, but she’d get her groove on. Isabella is brave and well aware of her own sensuality. But I guess having a Silhouette Desire heroine dancing on stage for men who pay to see her shake her bazoombas would not fit the mold.
Those moments of inconsistency highlight what I liked about this book, and what I found most frustrating: in the plot and in the characters, there’s a battle between old and new, tradition and experimentation. This is not your standard Harlequin/Silhouette novel, and the heroine’s vivacity and sexual awareness break a lot of the rules that define the traditional heroine. I’d love more books like this, because I love when tropes and the confinements of stereotypical female sexuality are turned on their heads. They reveal even more about the story and the people in it. She’s more powerful than you might expect, that assertive heroine, which is why some scenes that dismantle her firm autonomy rang so false and were so disappointing.
Theron is a traditional hero trying to live his life according to expectation, and here comes this younger woman who is off-limits to him, who sets him on fire and who seems truly interested in him, and not just his role as a potential husband specimen. Isabella challenges his expectations every other minute. What a refreshing virgin she is. Plus, the “other woman,” Theron’s potential fiancee, isn’t a bad sort at all, and neither is her mother. Both women arrive in the middle of the book with another expectation - but no one plays according to type.
The ending scenes, with the balance of the traditional hero, and the unique and sometimes clumsy enthusiasm of the heroine, were perfectly charming, and resolved almost all of the “what now?” scenes that didn’t fit. More stories like this will make me a very happy reader indeed.
Filed: General Bitching
Nadia Lee said on 05.27.09 at 11:15 AM • [link]
Why did you categorize it as SFF? :confused:
Laura Vivanco said on 05.27.09 at 11:36 AM • [link]
It seems to me that there isn’t really such a thing as a “standard Harlequin/Silhouette novel” because there can be so much variation between the different lines (as well as within them). I wonder, from what you’ve written, if you’re meaning that the heroine’s got the sexual assertiveness you’d expect in a Blaze heroine but she’s got the virginal status and the kind of super-rich, traditional hero you’d more often expect to find in a Harlequin Presents/Silhouette Desire.
SB Sarah said on 05.27.09 at 02:13 PM • [link]
Nadia Lee:
You’re right - programming error on my part miscategorized the book and defaulted the grade to A+. I’ve corrected it. Maya Banks can whoop me one when she next sees me. I feel like such a tool. Sorry about that.
Laura:
Absolutely - it blends several of what I think of as the hallmark Harlequin tropes from the different lines (virginity, tradition in the face of progress, autocratic hero, patriarchal culture, sexual assertiveness, etc.) and renders a product that isn’t at all easily identifiable as one particular HQN line. Sometimes it’s especially easy to identify the line from which a book might be issued, but this one fit across several, or partially in one versus another, and for that reason stood out for me.
Malika said on 05.27.09 at 02:47 PM • [link]
“Refreshing virgin”
This sounds good, another title to put on the pile of to-read.
The combination of old-fashioned and new is a welcome development and i can forgive clumsy or out of tone plotting if someone bravely tries to marry both. What i like is the thought that just because you’re a virgin, it doesn’t mean that you are a prim miss goody two-shoes. And that here is a heroine that doesn’t need her friends to be cookie-cutter versions of herself. Often in romance novels, friends are a useful foil, which short-changes these secondary characters. But not this heiress!
shuzluva said on 05.27.09 at 03:56 PM • [link]
I have to thank you for sending me across that ginormous B&N to find this book. It was absolutely worth it. On the other hand, the second book that I bought (which you found for me in the new-release kiosk) was not. Still haven’t finished it, and will discuss with you later. Back to Maya Banks!
I thought Isabella was (and I hate using this) refreshing, for a change. While she’s a technical virgin, and definitely nervous about the physical sex act, her comfort and pride in her body come through loud and clear. I also loved that she was the aggressor, and Banks did a phenomenal job of keeping Isabella aggressive without absolutely throwing herself, legs spread, at Theron.
I had a bit of a WTF moment with the scene you have hidden above as well. It definitely did not fit in with what I believed to be Isabella’s character and how she would react to a certain situation. Of course, I’m still learning about the limitations of what is/not acceptable in the Harlequin lines, being a major consumer of MMPs and Trade, and only beginning to discover the delights of category.
This was a great addition to my growing collection!
Tlönista said on 05.27.09 at 04:19 PM • [link]
The Silhouette Desire ones all have titles like this. They’re pretty hilarious. From the ones on our shelf:
At the Tycoon’s Command
Tycoon’s One-Night Revenge
Secrets of the Tycoon’s Bride
The Greek Tycoon’s Secret Heir
Rich Man’s Vengeful Seduction
The Magnate’s Marriage Demand
The Billionaire Who Bought Christmas
Now my roommate’s going around singing, “All I want for Christmas is your long, hard cock…”
Ooh, and there’s also a series: The Greek’s Forbidden Bride, The Greek Tycoon’s Unexpected Wife, The Greek Tycoon’s Virgin Mistress, and The Giannakis Bride. Why Greek especially, I wonder?
Megan said on 05.27.09 at 04:45 PM • [link]
I liked this one, and I didn’t have any problems with the scene mentioned. My only problem with the book was that the heroine had no ambition beyond landing the hero. She didn’t seem to have any hobbies, interests, or even a life that didn’t revolve around Theron, which, for all of her sexual forwardness, I thought was disturbing and regressive rather than progressive.
Tori said on 05.27.09 at 05:43 PM • [link]
I’m excited. A book where the heroine is the aggressor? Yay! What a refreshing change. Let’s hope there are even more books to come in this vein.
Hmm… That does seem like a good point though. Obsessed characters are always so much fun… Just kidding.
JoanneL said on 05.27.09 at 07:35 PM • [link]
I wonder if people still buy the Harlequin/Silhouette books by title rather then by line or author name?
I am a self-confessed Title-Tramp but even I have had to stop making purchases that way since the stories of the tycoons/billionaires/millionaires/kings are not all written with the same skill.
The author’s name is generally what makes me buy the book. I’m truly sorry about the plight of new authors but my book dollars are not stretching well enough to experiment.
Sasha said on 05.27.09 at 08:57 PM • [link]
Okay, wow—the moment before I logged on to this site, I’d just taken a break from a Maya Banks Marathon on my ebook reader (I’ve been reading and rereading her Samhain releases, as well as her print books). She’s writes really, really, really, REALLY DAMMIT steamy scenes when you need the steamy. Toe-curling, pretend-you’re-reading-stock-quotes-while-commuting steamy. Man.
NOTE: The next paragraph has very little to do with The Tycoon’s Rebel Bride.
One book of hers that I’ll pose as my own standard example is Colters’ Woman (kudos for exceptional use of apostrophe-play). You want aggressor and initiator? There she is, sidling up to three men—brothers, to boot (she plays a ward of sorts here as well, protected by yumyum three rancheros). And they resist, gahdamn do they resist. But it all works out in the end. Read the epilogue Colters’ Wife if you like. :) Oh, and there are some excruciating moments as well—just the right amount of angst to numb the tips of my fingers.
Her erotica sometimes gets me going “Wah?” since sometimes,
1- the heroines can get a little too fixated on the AlphaGrunt of a hero and Happy Time with him,
2-and the hero can get too predictable in his Grunt Grunt Alphaness (“You’re mine. Love and kisses. Ug ug.”)
3-and (on a nit-picky view) they may be too many Swifties in her books (“He said hesitantly… she replied encouragingly… he told her supercalifragilistically.”)
—but, well, I like ‘em just fine {Boyfriend says it’s because they serve a particular purpose, but I told him to can it since he greatly benefits}. Nothing fantastic, really, nothing exceptional from the couple I’ve read, but she was in my Auto-Buy when I still had money, haha. There’s just something about Maya Banks.
Also. I’ve noticed that she’s attached to a couple of publishing houses, although I’m still surprised that she’s with Harlequin. Maybe it’s because Harlequin has always been Great-Grandma’s (bless her romance-loving soul) novels for me, literally speaking.
AND. I have babbled too much. This may very well be the longest comment I’ve posted since I started lurking here since Jebus knows how long.
Ros said on 05.28.09 at 12:58 AM • [link]
Sounds fab.
I loathe the way that these books are titled. It absolutely screams LAZY!!! Not to mention the possibility for confusion. And the complete forgettability of them. I do sometimes wonder if they have a fruit machine with the words tycoon, billionaire, blue-eyed, Greek, boss, bride etc. and just pull the handle each time.
Gina said on 05.28.09 at 01:55 AM • [link]
Stopped by Borders after work and picked this one up. Quite recently, I’ve discovered a love of Harlequin Presents/Silhouette Desires. Maybe I’m going through an alpha hero phase. Who are the best authors in these lines?
JaneDrew said on 05.28.09 at 11:35 PM • [link]
Oh, this reminds me of one of the other HP/SD books that I browsed through in a Target store about.. um… bother; a year ago. Kept meaning to recommend it and never remembered—it was “The Sicilian’s Virgin Bride” or something? Definitely Sicilian hero; definitely a virgin bride—and some of the same characteristics you note here.
Hero gew up watching his father get emotionally destroyed due to being (literally) crazy in love with his mother, who cheated on him—father ended up, I think, killing the hero’s mother and then shooting himself. At any rate, hero took the lesson that marriage is about having children to carry on the family name, but once you have a nice, plain, quiet, boring wife, you can go out and have exciting sexy mistresses (who you don’t get too emotionally attached to, of course).
Heroine grew up with abusive alpha-male father and quasi-doormat mother, which did a heck of a number on her self-esteem (plus she is brunette and curvy and surrounded by willowy blonde types).
Hero thinks that the heroine matches his “nice, plain, quiet, boring, good hips for having children” wifely ideals, and arranges a marriage/business deal with the heroine’s father. Except, she sees him kissing his mistress during the wedding reception, and so high-tails it out of there, with her mother’s help.
Three years later, when she comes back for her mother’s funeral, her husband is waiting to pick her up at the airport. Naturally, he thinks she ran away with Another Man (bribed the gardner’s assistant to take her to the airport, and he was seen).
What made the set-up actually work for me was the fact that not only do we get to see the hero’s perspective, so the reader knows that his problem is largely this wall he’s built up between “wife = for children/ mistress = sexy,” we also get to see the heroine realize that _that’s_ what his problem is… and that he is tying himself into knots around her trying to maintain that wall. At which point she goes on the attack against the wall, with sledgehammers. And also lingerie.
JD
ps—I also loved the fact that the heroine had been living with a family who owned a farm, and who kept trying to feed her—so that instead of the typical Romance Heroine Wasting Disease, she came back having put on weight, and that only made the hero find her sexier.
Lindsay said on 05.29.09 at 04:11 AM • [link]
Have not read a Harlequin since I was 12, have they truly gotten better? The only reason why I looked at this thread was because of Maya’s name, love her Heat releases, but a bit hesitant to jump back into Harlequin again. Love Sasha’s “great-grandma” reference…they were my mother’s books for me and they grated on my last nerve, but for Maya, I think I would buy it.
Laura Vivanco said on 05.29.09 at 12:11 PM • [link]
Jane, was it The Sicilian’s Virgin Bride by Sarah Morgan? I haven’t read it, but there’s an excerpt here. It seems quite close to what you’re describing, with the hero unexpectedly meeting the runaway heroine at the airport, except that it’s only 6 months after their wedding, and after her father’s funeral, but she did run away from her wedding with “Carlo, her father’s gardener, who had just happened to be in the right place at the right time.”
JenD said on 06.01.09 at 09:06 PM • [link]
Picked this up at Target yesterday. I picked it up specifically because of the review here. It sounded different with the heroine being the aggressor.
I wasn’t let down in the least. I just finished it and it really was fun. Even gave me that ‘hollow pit of pain’ feeling in my chest at a few sad points.
Now I just have to wait for Piers’ story. Hurmph!
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