If I had a choice of being outside in the six degree weather shoveling snow off my driveway, or reading Bella and the Merciless Sheikh in the warmth of my home, I would have been bundled up in a nanosecond. Sadly, I didn’t have a choice. I didn’t get slammed with the book’s mediocrity in the beginning. It started out like a normal series read. But by page 38 I was looking longingly outside. Starting at page 40, I told myself, “think of it as a campy book,” and that worked until page 90. Luckily for my sanity, Bella and her Sheikh left the desert and the book improved.

Most of the time a picture is worth a thousand words. So just visualize a Lindsay Lohan or Paris Hilton-type heroine stuck in the desert. Bella Balfour, known as Bad Bella in the press, has been sent to a retreat in the middle of the desert to meditate on her sins and change her ways. Due to her negligence, the Balfour name has again been dragged through the mud. Now Bella is about to lose her mind since all her electronic toys have been taken away. Noticing a stable next to the retreat, she asks permission to go horseback riding. However that request is denied because the horses belong to the Sheikh of Al-Rafid, a sheikhdom with hugh reserves of oil, which is an international center of commerce. Not one to let a simple “no” stop her, Bella sneaks into the stable, finds it abandoned, and takes off with one of the horses straight into the desert, with no supplies, no water, etc… Of course she gets lost and passes out.

Zafiq, the sheikh of Al-Rafid, reserves one week a year for just himself, spending it in the quiet, beautiful surroundings of the desert, away from his numerous responsibilities. Of course he comes across Bella and his horse, and has to lead them to his oasis. Once she regains consciousness, Bella pulls out all the stops, hoping to manipulate the Sheikh into taking her into the city. Zafiq is not about to take her back, because he wants his solitary week, even it he has to put up with an seductive foreigner. Bella tries to worm her way into his good graces, says things like,” Do people shake when they see you coming? Get it? Shake. . . Sheikh?”

The first night is restless for both and the next day after returning from his morning ride, Zafiq finds himself appalled but also aroused by the changes Bella has made to the robe he gave her. It now skims her thighs, and she wove a belt from the leaves of a date palm to show off her figure. After his morning swim, things heat up in the tent, and Bella soon decides that great sex is better than access to her iPod any day.

After four wonderful days together, Zafiq’s brother asks him to return. With their sexual interlude over, Bella begs Zafiq to let her stay, and tells him that she will work for her keep. Taking her at her word, Zafiq agrees that she can work in the stable. However, one mistake and she is out of there. I will have to say that after that the book improved, but the dialogue was limited between the heroine and hero as she was too busy working sixteen-hour days.

Most of the time the heroine makes or breaks a book for me so I’m not very tolerant of TSTL heroines. Honestly, I was somewhat willing to forgive Bella’s first mistake of going off in the desert without supplies, but almost immediately she compounds that rash decision with so many more. While I realize that Bella needs to experience personal growth and prove herself plus realize that her public persona is not who she really is, I felt from the beginning that she needed a parent, not a lover.

I do understand the limitations that writing for the HP line places on realistic characterization. This line is more about the overpowering, compelling, and unlikely attraction between the hero and heroine and usually features lots of drama. Still, there needs to be something more for me as a reader, such as liking the characters and a more believable plot.

If the campy style had continued for all of the book, then this book would have been my first F review. As it is, the second portion of the book pulled it up, and I am only rating it a D.