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paddlefoot55's review
5.0
ARC received from Netgalley for honest review
I didn't know what to expect when I picked up this book - which I think is a good thing anyway.
After reading the blurb, it sounded like everything would happen while being detained in an interview room at an airport. So wrong - the story begins after they leave the airport!
Darcy Campbell is an ambitious reporter for a Sydney newspaper. She gets flown to Shanghai for the career break she needs - an exclusive interview with reclusive Australian billionaire, Will Parker.
Arriving in China, she is stopped at immigration for irregularlities with her visa, and is detained in a freezing room at Pudong Airport.
After a while, she has a fellow detainee. A sexy fellow Aussie. Darcy feels an instant attraction to the handsome stranger, and it seems the attraction is mutual.
To fill in the time, Darcy and the stranger start a game of Truth or Dare.
With no names given, Darcy and handsome stranger realise that they can be more truthful with each other than they have ever been before. Things get quite personal, and their attraction and bond gets stronger.
After finally being released, handsome stranger, whom she has nicknamed Tara after the town he grew up in, drops her off at her hotel and seemingly drives out of her life.
But they can't keep away from each other, and they spend a wonderful weekend together, enjoying the anonymity of the situation.
On Monday, Darcy goes to interview Will Parker - only to find out that the interview is cancelled, and that Tara is Mr Will Parker himself.
Darcy is furious, hurt and humiliated by Will. She also knows that his cancelling the interview has destroyed her career.
On returning to Sydney, Darcy runs a story with information she gathered in Shanghai, something that garners worldwide attention, and could ruin Will personally and professionally.
The article leads to things occurring to Will that he had dreaded all his life. But can things be fixed? For that, you are going to have to go buy Detained and find out!
Ainslie Paton had me run through a whole range of emotions - I laughed, I cried, I was afraid for the characters. This line particularly made me laugh (the Aussies amongst us will laugh with me).
"Darcy didn't do pretty. Pretty took time and consideration and while she was no bush pig Andy's favourite description of an unattractive woman, she'd rather be acknowledged for her thought patterns than her eye make up."
I loved Will - the way he walked away from his traumatic past to make himself into the man he is today -both the good and the bad. His love and the things he has done for his "brother" Pete - the only real family he has ever had - pulls at the heartstrings.
Darcy has a father and a brother who are more like colleagues or acquaintances. I for one think she would be better off without them at all. She has a heart of gold and works hard to correct the mistakes she makes in her life.
The interactions between Darcy and Will are sexy, sweet, funny, heartbreaking... their relationship is the epitome of the emotional rollercoaster.
I could not put this book down once I started reading, and was up till all hours of the morning finishing it!
I thoroughly enjoyed the ride Ainslie Paton took me on, and I am definitely going to read more of her work!
I didn't know what to expect when I picked up this book - which I think is a good thing anyway.
After reading the blurb, it sounded like everything would happen while being detained in an interview room at an airport. So wrong - the story begins after they leave the airport!
Darcy Campbell is an ambitious reporter for a Sydney newspaper. She gets flown to Shanghai for the career break she needs - an exclusive interview with reclusive Australian billionaire, Will Parker.
Arriving in China, she is stopped at immigration for irregularlities with her visa, and is detained in a freezing room at Pudong Airport.
After a while, she has a fellow detainee. A sexy fellow Aussie. Darcy feels an instant attraction to the handsome stranger, and it seems the attraction is mutual.
To fill in the time, Darcy and the stranger start a game of Truth or Dare.
With no names given, Darcy and handsome stranger realise that they can be more truthful with each other than they have ever been before. Things get quite personal, and their attraction and bond gets stronger.
After finally being released, handsome stranger, whom she has nicknamed Tara after the town he grew up in, drops her off at her hotel and seemingly drives out of her life.
But they can't keep away from each other, and they spend a wonderful weekend together, enjoying the anonymity of the situation.
On Monday, Darcy goes to interview Will Parker - only to find out that the interview is cancelled, and that Tara is Mr Will Parker himself.
Darcy is furious, hurt and humiliated by Will. She also knows that his cancelling the interview has destroyed her career.
On returning to Sydney, Darcy runs a story with information she gathered in Shanghai, something that garners worldwide attention, and could ruin Will personally and professionally.
The article leads to things occurring to Will that he had dreaded all his life. But can things be fixed? For that, you are going to have to go buy Detained and find out!
Ainslie Paton had me run through a whole range of emotions - I laughed, I cried, I was afraid for the characters. This line particularly made me laugh (the Aussies amongst us will laugh with me).
"Darcy didn't do pretty. Pretty took time and consideration and while she was no bush pig Andy's favourite description of an unattractive woman, she'd rather be acknowledged for her thought patterns than her eye make up."
I loved Will - the way he walked away from his traumatic past to make himself into the man he is today -both the good and the bad. His love and the things he has done for his "brother" Pete - the only real family he has ever had - pulls at the heartstrings.
Darcy has a father and a brother who are more like colleagues or acquaintances. I for one think she would be better off without them at all. She has a heart of gold and works hard to correct the mistakes she makes in her life.
The interactions between Darcy and Will are sexy, sweet, funny, heartbreaking... their relationship is the epitome of the emotional rollercoaster.
I could not put this book down once I started reading, and was up till all hours of the morning finishing it!
I thoroughly enjoyed the ride Ainslie Paton took me on, and I am definitely going to read more of her work!
claudiap's review
3.0
Detained is a contemporary novel written by Ainslie Paton, who also mixes the erotic and thriller genres.
It is a story easy and quick to read, with an accelerated pacing . Full of action scenes and some erotic scenes well delineated. The best point of this book is that the main characters are strong. Darcy is the typical woman without emotional life and very dedicated to her work, while Will is a rich and arrogant, that only has superficial love affairs.
Although being a book that reads well, it's filled with clichés. And in that sense , although it is easily read until the end, it doesn't mark us in any especial sense. The story starts with insta-love which makes a lot of sense in YA books, but in adult book it makes me uncomfortable. The suspense was terribly predictable. And Will's "dark" secret past made me roll my eyes. A man who was an arrogant, rich, charming and cultured, but had horrible traumas in the past. Really? I do not know how many times I've read the same thing. The twists that appeared were not anything unexpected.
So, it's not bad, but not great either. It is above all a book to relax a bit and enjoy the ride.
#I received this book from NetGalley for an honest review#
It is a story easy and quick to read, with an accelerated pacing . Full of action scenes and some erotic scenes well delineated. The best point of this book is that the main characters are strong. Darcy is the typical woman without emotional life and very dedicated to her work, while Will is a rich and arrogant, that only has superficial love affairs.
Although being a book that reads well, it's filled with clichés. And in that sense , although it is easily read until the end, it doesn't mark us in any especial sense. The story starts with insta-love which makes a lot of sense in YA books, but in adult book it makes me uncomfortable. The suspense was terribly predictable. And Will's "dark" secret past made me roll my eyes. A man who was an arrogant, rich, charming and cultured, but had horrible traumas in the past. Really? I do not know how many times I've read the same thing. The twists that appeared were not anything unexpected.
So, it's not bad, but not great either. It is above all a book to relax a bit and enjoy the ride.
#I received this book from NetGalley for an honest review#
susanscribs's review
4.0
Wow, angst to the nth degree! Well-written, sensuous romance that has it all - exotic settings, child abuse, kidnapping, prison riots, business scandal, family dysfunction...and two very strong-minded main characters. I like the way Paton portrays her heroines as ambitious, successful professional working women (seems to me that many British romances go for the ditzy heroine, while Australian ones realize that competence is sexy), but the heroine here spends way too much time apologizing to the hero for just doing her job, while he doesn't grovel nearly enough. Still, the heat they generate is palpable and their respective grand gestures are suitably swoon-worthy. Paton is my new favorite contemporary romance e-author. White Balance is also recommended.
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