Review: Countering His Claim by Rachel Bailey

Title: Countering His Claim
Author: Rachel Bailey
Age Group:  Romance
Release Date: 1st October 2013
Publishers: Harlequin
Available from: Amazon
Source: Author
Never be distracted by a woman is hotel magnate Luke Marlow's golden rule, especially when the woman just inherited half his late uncle's luxury cruise liner. But ship's doctor Della Walsh is the exception. Her dignified beauty ignites Luke's desire despite his suspicions. Even so, he will gain full control of the ship at all costs.

For Della, the ship has been a sanctuary. Now she has just three weeks to change Luke's mind and save the ship; until passion comes along and steers them off course.

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We all know with a 187 page Romance novel that it'll end up "Happily Ever After", however, how the story ends up there is what makes this book a "Must Have" on your bookshelf.

Take one emotionally dead, suspicious, rich workaholic leading male who has so many "issues" that any female in her right mind would run very fast in the other direction from this landlubber. Take one highly educated leading female who's been traumatised, has physical scars, is shielding herself from the unknown and has created a safe haven for herself at sea. Toss in a few other things and you’ve got a massive mess to untangle!

The way that Rachel Bailey tells this story to untangle this knotted mess has taken care, thoughtfulness, talent and a lot of skill. Rachel's use of words makes every sentence powerful with concise descriptions without the need to "waffle on" just to make a specific point. The story flows smoothly, gently leading the reader to understand that both leading characters will slowly understand how to heal themselves and logically understand their place in the world and eventually with each other. None of the characters are weak, whiny, bitchy, need rescuing or are co-dependent. This makes a refreshing change.

Besides this being a beautiful story and would make a lovely movie of the week, where you'd be very happy to watch every time you saw it on the TV schedule. This would also make an excellent book for any Book Club to discuss the psychology of self-healing, letting go of the past and moving onto something wonderful that's full of hope and promise and of course to Love.

Leone