Bond of Hatred by Lynne Graham

First Published: 12 May 1995
Publisher: Harlequin
Pages: 189
Format: Mass Market Paperback
Finished Date: 25 November 2011

Blurb from Goodreads
'I will pay the price. I will marry you.'

Alex Terzakis's words took Sarah's breath away - marriage was the last thing on her mind! She'd wanted two things when she'd impulsively flung her proposal at him: revenge for her young sister's death and the chance to raise her sister's baby son.

True, Alex would fight tooth and nail to keep his nephew but, in her anger and grief, Sarah had believed her demand would send him packing - she'd never expected him to accept!

My Rating

My Review

I really enjoyed this book. But yet, I’m very hesitant to give it 5 stars. The beginning was amazing. But the ending? Not so. But for the emotions I experienced throughout the entire book, and for the sheer admiration I had for the heroine, this book definitely deserves 5 stars.

Can I start by raving about how awesome the heroine is? Seriously, you don’t know how long I’ve waited to find this sort of heroine. This is the kind of heroine that I love in books. Sarah is in a word, cool. I love it when she so easily resists Alex and completely doesn’t even find him attractive. Gosh, I absolutely loved it when Alex was stunned that she was the one woman in the world who could resist him. And she didn’t even have to try. It came so naturally to her. Haha I love it when alpha males just get their egos deflated by that one woman who can just so easily resist them! Its really really funny and well, you know, I love it when the guy is shown that he is not the most amazing person in this world and that every single woman ever born will like him.

Ok, now, back to the plot! Basically what happened was that Sarah’s sister, I forgot her name, died in childbirth cos of a weak heart. The father was Alex’s brother, Damien? And he’s a coward. Seriously. I have no idea what her sister saw in him. Sarah blamed Alex and his whole family because she felt that Damien should have done what was right and married her. However, Sarah never knew that Damien was already married. Her sister knew, yet still had an affair. But before she found out, she completely hated that family. Sarah fought tooth and nail for her nephew, Nikos, or rather Nicky. Alex wanted to take that child cos he felt that Nikos should grow up in luxury. Of course, Sarah didn’t want it and came up with what she thought was the perfect plan to get Alex to back off. She told him that if he wanted Nikos, he had to marry her. Unfortunately, as you can guess, her plan backfired. Alex agreed. Albeit extremely reluctant. Gosh, that guy is mean, I’ll say more later! So basically they got married. They realised they were super attracted to each other, or rather Alex helped Sarah realise their attraction. I think you know what comes next. Yes, they fall in love and have a HEA. Like all romances. But the emotions this book brought out in me was really something. I found myself rooting for them and I really could not wait till he admitted he loved her.

Alex is a jerk sometimes. A jerk who has an overly inflated view of himself. Of course, Sarah helps to burst that bubble. I mean, sure Alex is hot and all, make that really really hot! :D But what he said to Sarah on several occasions, just made me want to hit him. Seriously, it was just so mean to her. He just accused her of a lot of stuff, right after they made love for the first time. I mean, gosh, you really want to say all those things, you can wait till the next day right? But no, just because he was afraid of the emotions and thoughts she brought to him, he had to insult her and scold her. Gah. I felt like hitting him sometimes. Seriously. Oh oh oh! She hit him! Once! And caused a bruise:D Oh well, he deserved that one. Later on, he was so freaking cute! It was so obvious he was trying to win her affection and get her to like him. But honestly, he did try too hard. Heh, it was really cute though! I could see that he did like her. As for love, I’m not too sure about that.

I didn’t like a few things about the book. Firstly, I couldn’t really believe their love. As in, I was really rooting for them to fall in love right from the start. But… when they finally confessed and all, I couldn’t feel the sincerity. I mean, I figured that he did love her, but the words he said didn’t really convey that message. As for Sarah, I really could not tell she truly loved him. At least, not the last forever kind of love. How would I say it? I really don’t know how she came to the conclusion that she loved him. Sure, she missed him. But if she was just infatuated with him, wouldn’t she miss him too? Possessiveness, a bit of jealousy, crazy sexual attraction. All these doesn’t scream true love, instead it shouts infatuation. For me, I take true love as a person being really unhappy without the other. Where both parties just need each other. To me, that’s true love. And no, I didn’t see it in her behaviour. A little bit in his, but not enough.

Nevertheless, the emotions I experienced throughout the book was one of the most intense I’ve felt in a while. And just for that, I’ll give this five stars. As much as I feel that the confession of love and the love between the characters could have been better, the rest of the parts covers it!

All in all, I do think that this is a good book to read, and I really did enjoy myself while I was reading the book. I was literally addicted to it, I simply could not take my eyes of the book, even for a second. So yes, I do recommend it to others. And I really don’t think the confession of love and the love between the characters was as bad as I made it sound. Maybe it was just me being overly sensitive!