This HaBO request is from Chelsea, who wants to find a romance from possibly the 80s or 90s. Trigger warning for suicide:
I am looking for a book I found when we moved houses when I was about thirteen. My mother didn’t really read romances, so I don’t know why she had the two or three I found, but I know they were older (80s/90s?) and were Harlequin or something of the sort, as they were shorter and had order forms for subscriptions in them.
The one I am trying to find was about a woman that broke up with her boyfriend/fiance because her father blackmailed her in some fashion. Because of the breakup, he committed suicide.
Years later, she for some reason has interactions with a close friend of the ex-boyfriend. He wants revenge against her. They start to get close and she tries to convince him that she never meant to hurt his friend and explains the blackmail. He finally says he believes her, but is still thinking about revenge by making her fall in love with him and then breaking her heart.
Eventually the heroine’s father dies and the hero is helping her clean out and look through the father’s office. While they are doing this, he comes across documents that confirm the father was blackmailing her. When the heroine realizes, he is completely dumbfounded that she was telling the truth. She is pissed and tries to run away from him.
In doing so, she runs outside and in front of a car. She refuses to let him see her in the hospital when she awakens, but I think she ends up staying with his parents to recuperate? They run in to each other there, and all I remember of the end is that she throws dishes at him and then they make up.
I feel like I remember a lot, but without an author’s name and/or character names I have found it impossible to figure out what book this is. It was probably my first actual romance read, so please help me find this so I can have a nostalgic re-read!
Talk about some heavy stuff. Anyone know this one?
Oh god, this is an old school Mills and Boon that’s lying at home, 800 kms away from me! I can’t recall the name, but I’ve read this.
P.S. The hero is an asshat.
At least one person is called Niall. The heroine is a redhead. Don’t remember the rest of it, argh!
Based on what AnannyaB added, could it possibly be “Black Niall” by Mary Wibberley?
Black Niall appears to be out of print and Amazon has no description but on Goodreads it says “Everything was going wrong for Alison. Her job was in jeopardy, and she was going to have to sell her beloved family home to a stranger.
“As if that wasn’t enough, Niall MacBain had come home; Niall, her arch-enemy, whom she had not seen for nine years but for whom she still felt nothing but hatred.”
God, I love old Harlequins.
The Asking price by Amanda Browning! I have this one and yes the hero is an asshat.
Melissa, that’s it. I remember that cover! I do remember thinking the hero was a jerk, but it was one of my first romances and I have been craving the chance to revisit it. Thank you ladies!