Margot McCleery and Bentley Wellington had been best friends
when an accident changed their lives. Ten years later,
Margot is a reclusive and successful romance novelist, while
Bentley is your average wealthy playboy about town, wasting
his life away having sex with women who want his money, and
he couldn't care less because these women won't ask
anything more from him. Margot and Bentley haven't seen
each other in all that time, but that is about to change as
their respective grandparents have conspired to reunite them
when Margot's grandmother won Bentley at a bachelor's
auction. Both are livid, and Margot literally and
figuratively slams the door in Bentley's face.
Rachel Van Dyken is a very versatile author, and I know and
love her best for her goofball characters and her zany
screwball comedies, which is what I expected from this book
and the blurb. I was somewhat taken aback by the heavy tone
and themes exploited in THE PLAYBOY BACHELOR, however, this
is not a criticism but merely stating a fact, in case the
reader might be expecting something light and fluffy. THE
PLAYBOY BACHELOR is a mesmerizing story of two broken,
insecure and lonely people who try to cope as best as they
know with crippling guilt issues, and who have chosen very
different avenues to do so. Bentley is a jerk, he knows it,
and he owns it to a point. He is terrified of coming face to
face with the woman he knows he hurt badly, but he doesn't
know the extent of which she has suffered all that time, and
not only because of him. Margot is bitterly resentful, and
for once her animosity is justified, but Bentley had one
heck of a good reason for his behavior, which very few
people know. Margot's anguish is apparent, while Bentley
hides behind his bravado; he still can't deal with his
appalling behavior, and this is the type of situation where
it's easy to point a finger, but makes one wonder how one
would have dealt with the situation, if one is being honest
with oneself. Margot and Bentley are at first, and for a
long time, truly nasty to each other, so much it hurts, and
for a charmer, Bentley can really put his foot in his mouth
at the worst times.
THE PLAYBOY BACHELOR is far from a laugh-out-loud read, but
it is a very insightful look at two people who have not been
able to cope successfully at what life threw at them. There
were a couple of things that bothered me a bit. The first
one is not exclusive to Ms. Van Dyken, and I worry that it
might be a new trend: a hero who brags openly of his sexual
exploits to the heroine, who seems to find it seductive.
Personally, it would turn me off; I find it rude, but then
again, Bentley is a thoughtless jerk. The second hiccup is
more complicated. As I mentioned, THE PLAYBOY BACHELOR is a
serious story, heavy on psychological drama, and as you know
from the start, being a romance you expect the couple to get
together at some point. But I found the mood shift after the
first sex scene somewhat disconcerting: suddenly, Bentley
and Margot's relationship seems to be all hunky-dory, and
it felt like too much happened too quickly and too easily,
however it became apparent later on how and why this had
occurred, but still it felt strange at the moment it did.
Rachel Van Dyken demonstrates with THE PLAYBOY BACHELOR that
she can do serious and deep with the best of them, and I
expect the next book, about Brant -- Bentley's twin -- to
be as riveting as this one. Brant is one of the very few
secondary characters in this book, and he is quite
intriguing. The author always writes terrific characters,
such as the brash elder Wellington grandfather, who is
dating the formidable Nadine Titus -- introduced in THE
BACHELOR AUCTION, as well as Margot's slightly ditzy
grandmother. Margot and Bentley have so many layers, so many
secrets, and so much to overcome, and all this along with
Ms. Van Dyken's flawless writing, make THE PLAYBOY BACHELOR
a very intense, powerful and satisfying read that will have
your heart aching in places, and wanting those two
characters to be happy again.
She's no Sleeping Beauty. And he's definitely no
prince . . .
Margot McCleery could have lived her whole life without
seeing Bentley Wellington again-her ex-best friend and the
poster boy for Hot, Rich Man-Whores everywhere. But Margot's
whiskey-augmented grandmother "buys" Bentley at a charity
bachelor auction, and now suddenly he's at her door.
Impossibly charming. Impossibly sexy. And still a complete
and utter jackass.
Bentley's just been coerced by his grandfather to spend the
next thirty days charming and romancing the reclusive
red-haired beauty who hates him. The woman he abandoned when
she needed him the most. Bentley knows just as much about
romance as he knows about love-nothing. But the more
time he spends with Margot, the more he realizes that "just
friends" will never be enough. Now all he has to do is
convince her to trust him with her heart . . .
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