Review: Bought for the Greek's Bed by Julia James

After being introduced to the romance genre during the past year or so (and reading the fabulous m/m romance Sticks and Stones), I've been craving more romance novels of different genres. I like the idea of various specific categories and authors fitting into those while still being true to their voice and inspiration. It must be hard and I bet not everyone can do it.

Julia James failed for me. Her novel Bought for the Greek's Bed is too corny (the title is a good indicator), too convoluted, too unoriginal. It's a story of Vicky, a regular Londoner who goes to visit her super-wealthy uncle in Greece, where she agrees to marry Theo Theakis for some business reason or another. Obviously, he's quite a catch, but Vicky decides not to fall in love and after a series of events that don't make more sense now what I think about them in retrospect, they part and are obviously reunited in the end.

Was this painful to read! There are certain phrases repeated throughout the book's 300 pages and not one original idea was introduced in the book. It's basically like you took the worst romance cliches and sewed them up together into this book. The heroine is an idiot - if she were in a horror movie, I'm sure she would be the first to run to the attic or some other dead end. And the hero is so two-dimensional that it is almost ridiculous. It's not hard to feel hot for him, but it's basically like feeling hot for an Action Man.

No, I was not happy with this book. And I would love to know how many copies it sold. I guess the steamy cover, along with the Harlequin logo on top, must sell a fair number of copies. If so, Julia James must be pretty happy. At least someone is.

RATING: 1/5