The Price of Passion : All About Romance

The Price of Passion

Grade : B

Actually, this one isn’t half bad.

Kate Crawford has been Drake Daniels’ sporadic lover for the past two years. When she discovers she is pregnant, she tracks down the semi-reclusive author to his hidey hole to spend time with him outside of bed and see if they have a future together.

Nothing new. Absolutely nothing new. But this familiar plot gets a recommendation because the execution is decidedly above average. The story is told entirely from Kate’s point of view, and she is a sympathetic heroine. Her outlook on parenthood was influenced by her mother’s single-minded pursuit of a career at the expense of a family life, and Kate went into the affair with Drake with both eyes open, demanding nothing and hiding her feelings, thus holding his attention far longer than the usual groupie hanging onto his success. Kate never intends to deceive Drake for long about her pregnancy – her motive is solely to discover if they, as a couple, can lower both sets of barriers to become a real couple.

Drake is much harder to understand because we never see his point of view. I think the reader is supposed to understand that he has been in love with Kate as long as she has loved him, but that her reserve made him uncertain. Drake has one of the best reasons I’ve seen for aping the typical male protestations against emotion and clinginess – his mother was insanely dependent on his father, who deserted his family when Drake was still a child. Her jealousy and neediness eventually drove her to suicide, and Drake has avoided deep emotional connections with females ever since. But somehow, Kate got under his skin. Anyway, that’s my guess – probably a good one, but I’m not sure because I never got confirmation from Drake himself, whose jerk genes come to the fore too often for wholehearted sympathy. However, he apologizes readily for his mistakes and, if this had been his story as equally as it is Kate’s, I think we’d have a DIK here.

As for the pregnancy: I hate this plot, but against my will I was sucked in. Kate’s motives are believable, and I sympathized with her longing to keep the baby and make a life with Drake. All in all, it was a nice way to spend a Sunday morning in bed. Ms. Napier’s prose is pleasant, the story takes place in New Zealand (!), and there are some nice moments of humor. For a story of 187 pages the author entertained me for two or three hours. Straight, simple, and solid. I can deal with that.

Reviewed by Enya Young

Grade : B

Book type : Series Romance

Sensuality : Warm

Review Date : July 9, 2009

Published On : 2008

Enya Young

I'm a teacher who's been fortunate to live in a few places; currently I'm in England. And if you give me a choice between savoury and sweet, I'll go for savoury every time.

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