The Innocent's Surrender
And, Ladies and Gentlemen, we have another contender for WOAT (Worst Of All Time) HQ. Forced into prostitution by her family, raped by the buyer, She naturally falls in love with the rapist. After reading about half, I stopped as I was absolutely certain that this psychopath rapist has a big boo hoo story in his past that makes him a f@#$ing saint. Screw that: put his nasty ass in jail for 20 years; preferably with a seven foot 300 lb cell mate named Bubba.
To Stay Forever
There's A**holes, Unforgivable and Irredeemable A**holes, and then there's this douchebag. This whole story is as romantic as a severe case of food poisoning.
Winter of Change
Wow! Every male in the story is an a**hole is his own way. The ML is a scowling, rude grump from the word go, who makes an instant judgment that the FL is a spoiled little girl. The two old men are total grumps who treat women like idiot slaves. The younger doctor is a complete moron, and the cousin is a trashy fortune hunter (almost like he's put in the story so that the ML doesn't look quite so much like a stupid prick). The old busybody house keeper treats the FL with the same disrespect that all the males in the story do. The FL is naive and unsure of herself, mainly from the treatment received from her grandfather while growing up. Emma, the ML's cousin, is a nervous mess, mainly from being treated like a mentally incompetent slave by her father. I find it hard to believe this was written by a woman, since all the men, attractive and not, are paternalistic, father-knows-best misogynists. It's almost as if the author wishes to be a weak little home maker cared for by a much older lordly male who smacks her around "for her own good." Barf!
RICH GIRL, BAD BOY
I don't care about his epiphany, his selfless (ha, ha) love, or anything else that supposedly makes him a saint underneath. He took sneak pictures of a woman and was going to sell them to trash tabloid papers. This makes him an irredeemable pile of excrement and he should die in a ditch in pain and want.
Never Gamble with a Caffarelli
After reading these stories, I've come to the conclusion that the entire Craparelli family should have forcibly had their tubes clipped before attaining the ability to reproduce. The ML, throughout the story, is no different from a rapist. The FL's father belongs with his Craparelli enemies, because there isn't a millimeter's difference between them. The lesson taken away from this story, "All men, especially those from patriarchal dynasties, are misogynistic pigs, but it doesn't matter because all women are stupid and will fall for them." That's the only thing the author has to tell us.
A Scandal, A Secret, A Baby