I thought the hero, Xavier, was wonderful and really made the book worth reading. The funny thing is that I actually started the book preferring Mariella over Xavier (still d him though). He'd mistakenly assumed Mariella to be as loose and shallow as her sister so was rather hostile towards her in the beginning. But as the misunderstanding resolved itself his compassionate and responsible nature became apparent, proving to Mariella by example that not all men are douches. Ah, the healing love of a good man. It can do wonders. LOL

Mariella was definitely the flawed and damaged one of the two. Her abandonment issues were simply getting the best of her.

I felt bad for Xavier when Mariella left after claiming she didn't want to marry him, while secretly planning to have him impregnate her. Poor Xavier had fallen in love with Mariella (he hadn't told her yet, but the reader was aware), and wanted to marry her. Mariella subconsciously denied her love for him, claiming to herself that she only wanted a baby from him.

Thankfully the author made Mariella realize she'd made a mistake pretty quickly: three months in book time for the characters and one to two literal pages. Otherwise, I'd might have had to slap some sense into her. She knew she'd stolen Xavier's right to be a father and denied her child the right to be loved by him in turn. Her father had abandoned her as a baby so Mariella feared loving or trusting men, including Xavier. After reuniting at a party celebrating the opening of her frieze (the enclosure she'd been commissioned to paint for the Prince), Mariella finally realized she loved Xavier who'd proved he wasn't her father at all.4-stars-really-d allergic-to-love angst ...more10 s Fanniny Moreno Zavaleta465 98

4.5 stars

KC already did a great job reviewing , so I won't bother much. And BTW, she probably recommended me the book, she gave me a list of the good PJs because I had such a bad luck with a couple of them that I had avoided PJ the plague. After I read one of her recs I gave some other PJ books a chance, but I can't remember if this one was on the list if it was then thank you KC!

So, the story is about Mariella going to the desert kingdom for work but seizing the chance to go and nag the rich Arabian for impregnating and abandoning her little sister. She takes the little niece because the little sister is working on a cruise. She only has a name and address of the man her sister hates so he must be the niece's daddy.

Instant lust when H and h meet. He thinks she's the baby's momma and they hate each other while being hot and bothered and having some feelings of betraying the sister/cousin. You know what happens with this kind of misunderstandings. But you can tell how much he lost it, poor guy.

When things are cleared he feels bad about his behavior but also means she's not a harlot and he's considering what never had (marriage). She, on the other hand, wants a baby now that the sister has taken the niece away so she goes to seduce the H to get pregnant on purpose!! She lost me a bit when he was trying to propose and she gave him the I-just-wanted-sex-no-strings-attached speech.

After a page of separation, everything gets in order for an HP HEA. BTW, both the cousin and sister are superficial awful people that will ruin the baby's childhood so she can become an HP heroine in the future. Oh, and I loved the French aunt.childhood-scars fell-in-love-with-the-hero he-has-a-title ...more10 s *CJ*4,313 517

"One Night With the Sheikh" is the story of Mariella and Xavier.

Actually, this book suffered from not bad leads, but just terrible communication skills between them.

Both have shitty siblings who sleep with one another, get pregnant and abandon each other. The h, who is a successful and loving career woman takes care of her beloved niece, while her sister goes off to work and drown in her misery. She takes it upon herself to trace the baby's father, assuming the H to be him. Therefore, the h and H get trapped in a sandstorm, where they both have a case of mistaken identity- the H thinks the h is her gold-digger sister who is a callous mum (as she doesn't breastfeed and stuff), the h thinks the H is his tomcat cousin (who abandoned her pregnant sister). They almost have sex. Sandstorm ends.

The ahole siblings get married, and take the baby away in one of the most painful scenes in HQN books. The h and H LOVE their niece, and it was heartbreaking to see the callous and ignorant parents taking them away. The h then makes the decision to deliberately get pregnant, seduces the hero, and the rest of the story is very predictable. Everything is magically resolved.

Again I repeat, the MC's were strong, passionate and likable. Their circumstances, impulsiveness and siblings were not.

Safe
2.5/5
kill-me-and-save-me-from-this-tortu meh safety-first ...more8 s Grace HarwoodAuthor 3 books33

This is the third of the "desert" books I have read by Penny Jordan, and, once again, it's more getting hot and steamy in the desert. This time, the action centres around Mariella, a woman who Ray Mears would utterly despair of, being as she makes bad decision after bad decision, before ultimately ending up in a survival situation in the desert with a baby in tow. Fortunately, she is saved by sexy Sheikh Xavier who puts her up for the duration of the sandstorm in his Oasis. Now, at this point the plot gets complicated - Mariella, who is looking after her half-sister's baby believes that Xavier is the baby's father who has purposely abandoned the baby and her mother. Xavier believes that Mariella is the baby's mother and a woman of loose morals. There's plenty of confusion with the only consistent element in the story being the couple's mutual attraction and wild desires.

When Tanya turns up, however, this time married to the baby's father, you'd think all would be resolved. Well, think again. There's still another five chapters of that Mills and Boon to fill so it's time for another bad decision on Mariella's part. This time, now that she's babyless (baby has gone back with Mum) she decides she needs (and I mean NEEDS) a baby of her own. So, it's off back to the oasis to get Xavier's help again. Poor old Xavier; one almost feels sorry for him - but don't worry - it's a Mills and Boon and there's a happy ending in there somewhere. Even if it's only poor old Xavier getting saddled with Mariella who has decided her future lies in baby-making.

Yes,the story is quite frankly ridiculous, but somehow it works. The characters ooze passion and no-one writes a sex scene Penny Jordan. I found myself smiling all the way through, even though the desert romances aren't my favourites of her stories. (I prefer the even more ridiculous office-based romances!) In short,this is a very enjoyable tale of debauchery in the desert. Download it now! 2 s HÜLYA1,101 43

Bu ayki Harlequin Clasics serisinin ilk hikayesi ?eyhli bir hikaye idi..Genelde ?eyhli hikayeleri pek sevmesem de severek okudum...

?eyh Xavier Al Agir ile Mariella Sutton'un hikayesidi ..Mariella at resimlerini çizen bir ressamd?..Babalar? ayr? k?z kard?i Tanya ile birlikte ya??yordu..Tanya sevdi?i adam taraf?ndan hamile iken terkedilmi?ti...Rastlant? sonucu ye?eninin babas?n?n Zuran ?eyhi Xavier oldu?unu ö?rendikten sonra daha önceden oradan gelen teklifi de?erlendirmeye karar verir...Amac? bunun hesab?n? ondan sormakt?r..
Ama ?eyh ile kar??la?t???nda onun uzun zamand?r rüyalar?nda görd?i? ?ahin bak??l? erkek oldu?unu görür:))
Tavsiye ederim..
2 s Julia B.199 49

I HATE giving a paperback romance another one-star rating, but I feel I'm honestly pretty easy to entertain, and this.............did not succeed.

When I discovered there was a whole genre of sheikh romance I was shook, baffled—I needed to know what this was and why it existed and why it was so popular??? I sadly didn't find this out in One Night with the Sheikh, because it doesn't really matter that our hero, Xavier Al-Agir, is a sheikh at all (his name is Xavier, and he was raised in France). It means nothing to the story, seriously; it's just about these two people who really, really hate each other as soon as they meet but also they're super, super attracted to each other and eventually they have sex but our heroine Mariella's daddy issues get in the way and she takes off afterwards...but obviously they get married in the last five pages. So it's your typical will they-won't they schmaltz, except they're in a desert sometimes.

I wasn't enthusiastic about this ride not (thank God) because of any overt racism (a lot of implied/subconscious racism though? Ohhh baby you know it), but because the writing is very, very bad, with characters shouting exposition at every turn with very little personality, and also because I found the portrayals of pregnancy and parenthood deeply uncomfortable. It is fine for a single woman to want kids. It is not fine to purposely seduce a man while not on birth control in order to get pregnant and never tell him (!!!!!!). Xavier also sucks but he definitely sucks less than Mariella. Holy shit.

Anyway, I think I'm going to stick with vampires as my romance genre specialty..........but wow.romance1 LakishaAuthor 14 books291

Must be something about the desert, sand, and men so hot they raise the temperature up several degrees.

I understand that when a woman's biological clock starts ticking we do crazy things but I'm not sure I d how Mariella went about scratching her urge. Xavier was very arrogant but also vulnerable. Mariella had her share of issues, too. The pairing was decent.

I didn't have a problem with the story overall. It was a solid read.contemporary romance1 Bella Foxygobble99 9

Ugh.

Not one, but TWO secret babies.

I can't even. My least favorite plot device.

The searing attraction between Sheikh Xavier Al Agir and Mariella Sutton was instant and all consuming. When a storm left Mariella stranded at Xavier's desert home, passion soon took over.... It was a night she would never forget!

But having always yearned for a child of her own, Mariella planned just one more night with the sheikh--to conceive his baby....

As a mother, I find it very difficult to believe that any mother would leave a four month old baby (regardless if it's family) with her sister to work on a cruise ship. Sister then presumes it would be ok to take infant child to middle-eastern country where men have more paternity rights than mothers to work on commission art.

I love a good Harlequin Presents and I love Penny Jordan generally, but this one jumps the shark a bit for me. I just had a hard time thinking any of it was believable. Although these books are normally escapes to exotic locations, this one just raised my blood pressure. Tanya, Mariella's sister, was selfish and Mariella completely lost her marbles. In the end? Typical of all Harlequin Presents novels, everything is tied up in a neat little bow - but its a box of explosives just waiting to happen.

I'm a glutton for punishment, I'm a sucker for Harlequin Presents books though, so Possessed by the Sheikh is already on hold at the library for me.

Sheik's Arabian Night Series

My Ratings:

5*****I loved this book, consider it an all time favorite
4**** Thoroughly enjoyed the book and will recommend it
3*** I d it well enough,
2** Brain Candy - It was okay. Writing mediocre, will
keep/re-read if part of a series
1* didn't /possibly not finished.2020-me harlequin-presents library-loan ...more Anuradha548 13

I am not a big fan of the "dogs in heat" approach to romance stories.

The leads first notice each other as a piece of juicy meat. They get on with Doing IT. Never mind if they are still perfect strangers to each other, and have strong reasons to dis each other.

Now that, sex is done with and out of the way, they start to explore each other civilized humans.

So here the conflict is over a scandalous affair and a child as a result of it. The younger siblings are the reckless ones with the affair. The older siblings, that is the hero and heroine are the ones who are doing the cleaning up.

So they meet with distrust and outrage in their attitude towards the other. But fall into bed in record time. And then she discovers, the guy is good father material after all. So let me try and have another child out of wedlock with this guy !! Never mind letting him know her plan.

The poor hapless guy is left floundering. She of course comes back after getting pregnant and declares undying love.

Not my cup of tea. Barely 2 stars. Sara114

This book was really good, but had one serious flaw. The hero made assumptions about the heroine, and it took forever for him to realize his assumptions were wrong. This particular trope is tired, where the hero assumes the heroine is a slut just because the hero is sexually attracted to her. But the two characters did have a red-hot instant connection, and the heroine more than made up for the hero's flaws. harlequin harlequin-presents-2018-challenge red-hot-chemistry ...more Melody Cox1,499 164

Didn't care for this one at all. Cris222 3

Me ha encantado ambos están heridos pero son fuertes y se complementan ???? ???????364 5

????? ???? ???? (???????? ??????) - Penny Jordan, ????? ?????, ??????? 1179????? ?????-??????? Sarah745 2

Not as cringe worthy as I thought it would be. Not a bad concept, except the guy was too petty and the lady was too baby-crazy… that’s just a lot. So yeah, it was okay. Tania951 15

note to me - sandstorm

not-so-literary-quote-but-means-something-to-me#216573

Hazily Mariella noticed that the red geraniums she remembered tumbling from the urns in the outdoor courtyard had been changed to a rich vibrant pink to match the colour of the flowers of the ornamental vine softening the walls of the courtyard. p162
[comment: geraniums remind me of my childhood]bookcrossing nature-quotes RomLibrary5,733

The searing attraction between Sheikh Xavier Al Agir and Mariella Sutton was instant and all consuming.When a storm left Mariella stranded at Xavier's desert home, passion soon took over.... It was a night she would never forget!

But having always yearned for a child of her own, Mariella planned just one more night with the sheikh--to conceive his baby....a-top-vh jilted-at-or-before-the-alter kindle ...more KhanhK20 9

I knew it was a mistake to open a Harlequin romance this since the 2nd page. God help me, I have around 10 this in my Calibre - a fact I don't appreciate at all.

I would dearly want to give this one 1 out of 5 stars, but I just never gave any book that low rating, so 2 stars it is.never-again Aswathy413

Far better than falcon's prey and her other book "one night with the sheikh"...by this book I to believe she had improved her style a bit...so it was not completely bad...or it could be that I became used to her writing standards.... Amy743 9

Not her best work. Takes place in fictional Middle East country. The decisions made by the characters in this story left more questions than answers and both Maribella and her sister made a few immature, selfish decisions. Sharnee2

Great book :) Poleng139 5

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