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Rating: 
Summary: very infantile heroine
Review: In this book, Petra is described as "mature" because she was orphaned at 17, and has jet-setted across Europe and Australia since then. However, there is little evidence of any maturity. She is childish, selfish, self-righteous, intolerant, and stereotypes Rashid as a beach bum gigolo undeserving of any respect. Petra has absolutely no compassion whatsoever. She immediately thinks the worst of him in any situation (that he is a money-grubbing promiscuous male slut), jumps to conclusions, and as far as I can tell, has no redeeming qualities aside from being attractive and rigidly, self-righteously virginal (in other books, it's actually possible to be virginal and a nice/admirable person at the same time). Petra is usually yelling, accusing, or panicking in this story. The hero, Rashid "Blaize" is devastatingly sexy, but as to his actions, he acts very cruelly towards her, taunting her, making her panic. The characters were not likable for me - she was too childish, he was too mean at times - and the plot suffers from two very difficult to believe twists: Implausibly and unrealistically, in a sudden blinding moment, emerging from her total lack of respect for Blaize, Petra realizes she loves him. And we learn that underneath his cruel manner, Blaize has secretly loved Petra all along because of her ideals (oh, is that why he was so mean to her?). There were some stereotypes, like Petra feels a longing for home and roots because she's part British, but also feels a longing for a nomadic lifestyle because she's part Arabic. (Could one also say that a character has a taste for conquest because they're British and a taste for being colonized because they're part Egyptian? It sounds pretty absurd to me.) This was my first Penny Jordan book, and will be my last. I much preferred the other book I got at the same time, "The Arabian Love-Child" by Michelle Reid.
Rating:
Summary: very infantile heroine
Review: In this book, Petra is described as "mature" because she was orphaned at 17, and has jet-setted across Europe and Australia since then. However, there is little evidence of any maturity. She is childish, selfish, self-righteous, intolerant, and stereotypes Rashid as a beach bum gigolo undeserving of any respect. Petra has absolutely no compassion whatsoever. She immediately thinks the worst of him in any situation (that he is a money-grubbing promiscuous male slut), jumps to conclusions, and as far as I can tell, has no redeeming qualities aside from being attractive and rigidly, self-righteously virginal (in other books, it's actually possible to be virginal and a nice/admirable person at the same time). Petra is usually yelling, accusing, or panicking in this story. The hero, Rashid "Blaize" is devastatingly sexy, but as to his actions, he acts very cruelly towards her, taunting her, making her panic. The characters were not likable for me - she was too childish, he was too mean at times - and the plot suffers from two very difficult to believe twists: Implausibly and unrealistically, in a sudden blinding moment, emerging from her total lack of respect for Blaize, Petra realizes she loves him. And we learn that underneath his cruel manner, Blaize has secretly loved Petra all along because of her ideals (oh, is that why he was so mean to her?). There were some stereotypes, like Petra feels a longing for home and roots because she's part British, but also feels a longing for a nomadic lifestyle because she's part Arabic. (Could one also say that a character has a taste for conquest because they're British and a taste for being colonized because they're part Egyptian? It sounds pretty absurd to me.) This was my first Penny Jordan book, and will be my last. I much preferred the other book I got at the same time, "The Arabian Love-Child" by Michelle Reid.
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