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The Perfect Crightons #2

The Perfect Seduction

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(Publicado originalmente como Destinos 92)
Os Crighton sempre foram fonte de vergonha e mágoa para Bobbie Miller... e ela quer vingança! Tudo que ela precisa fazer é seduzir Luke Crighton, e os segredos da família estarão em suas mãos. Mas a sedução perfeita se volta contra Bobbie. Afinal, ele é tentador como o pecado, e ela logo se vê caindo em sua própria armadilha...

187 pages, Mass Market Paperback

Published January 1, 1998

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About the author

Penny Jordan

1,125 books666 followers
Penelope Jones Halsall
aka Caroline Courtney, Annie Groves, Lydia Hitchcock, Melinda Wright

Penelope "Penny" Jones was born on November 24, 1946 at about seven pounds in a nursing home in Preston, Lancashire, England. She was the first child of Anthony Winn Jones, an engineer, who died at 85, and his wife Margaret Louise Groves Jones. She has a brother, Anthony, and a sister, Prudence "Pru".

She had been a keen reader from the childhood - her mother used to leave her in the children's section of their local library whilst she changed her father's library books. She was a storyteller long before she began to write romantic fiction. At the age of eight, she was creating serialized bedtime stories, featuring make-believe adventures, for her younger sister Prue, who was always the heroine. At eleven, she fell in love with Mills & Boon, and with their heroes. In those days the books could only be obtained via private lending libraries, and she quickly became a devoted fan; she was thrilled to bits when the books went on full sale in shops and she could have them for keeps.

Penny left grammar school in Rochdale with O-Levels in English Language, English Literature and Geography. She first discovered Mills & Boon books, via a girl she worked with. She married Steve Halsall, an accountant and a "lovely man", who smoked and drank too heavily, and suffered oral cancer with bravery and dignity. Her husband bought her the small electric typewriter on which she typed her first novels, at a time when he could ill afford it. He died at the beginning of 21st century.

She earned a living as a writer since the 1970s when, as a shorthand typist, she entered a competition run by the Romantic Novelists' Association. Although she didn't win, Penny found an agent who was looking for a new Georgette Heyer. She published four regency novels as Caroline Courtney, before changing her nom de plume to Melinda Wright for three air-hostess romps and then she wrote two thrillers as Lydia Hitchcock. Soon after that, Mills and Boon accepted her first novel for them, Falcon's Prey as Penny Jordan. However, for her more historical romance novels, she adopted her mother's maiden-name to become Annie Groves. Almost 70 of her 167 Mills and Boon novels have been sold worldwide.

Penny Halsall lived in a neo-Georgian house in Nantwich, Cheshire, with her Alsatian Sheba and cat Posh. She worked from home, in her kitchen, surrounded by her pets, and welcomed interruptions from her friends and family.

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5 stars
14 (15%)
4 stars
18 (19%)
3 stars
37 (40%)
2 stars
17 (18%)
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6 (6%)
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
Profile Image for boogenhagen.
1,993 reviews884 followers
February 1, 2019
Re The Perfect Sedcution - Penny Jordan's 100th book is also the second book of her epic The Perfect Crightons mini series.

PJ is also a member of the five star club mentioned in previous months, but by this time PJ was well above book sales of five million, she was probably closer to ten times that amount, as she was a top HQN author for years.

Because of PJ's phenomenal readership, her mini-series includes books that are not HP's. PJ used the HQN Mira imprint to write hefty additions to her Crightons series and used the HP line to relay smaller bits of information on the less important members of the family.

For that reason, I am only going to relay the main HP romance during these Crighton spoilerizations. There are a lot of characters and a lot of intertwining plot lines to this saga and almost every character makes an appearance and has a tidbit in every book, so by focusing on the main couple and their backstory, it makes it a bit easier to share the story.

As in all HP miniseries, we get a cast of characters as follows:

BEN CRIGHTON: Proud patriarch of the family, a strong-minded character in his seventies, determined to see his dynasty thrive and prosper.

RUTH CRIGHTON: Ben's sister. After a tragic love affair during the war years, Ruth has devoted herself to the family and become a source of comfort and advice.

DAVID CRIGHTON: Twin brother of Jon, and favourite son of Ben. Glamorous, charming and selfish, he doesn't deserve his status as heir to the Crighton fortune…

TIGGY CRIGHTON: Beautiful, fragile wife of David, an ex-model who is determined to remain youthful as long as possible. Desperate for attention, she flirts with all men.

OLIVIA JOHNSON: Daughter of David and Tiggy, an independent young woman who's met her match in husband Caspar. In defiance of family opposition, Livvy became a talented lawyer outside the family firm.

CASPAR JOHNSON: An American law tutor, devoted to his wife Olivia.

JON CRIGHTON: Younger twin of David, steady and reliable, he carries the burden of responsibility in the family law firm.

JENNY CRIGHTON: Wife of Jon, a very practical and warmhearted woman devoted to her family. Partner in a local antique business and a role model for her niece, Livvy.

LOUISE and KATE: Twin teenage daughters of Jon and Jenny. Vibrant, spirited characters determined to go their own way.

JOSS: Charming ten-year-old son of Jon and Jenny.

LUKE CRIGHTON: Charismatic, devastatingly attractive, a talented lawyer with women vying for his attention. Part of the Chester branch of the Crighton family.

BOBBIE MILLER: A beautiful and bright young woman, determined to have revenge on the Crighton family for the heartache they caused her mother. She sees Luke as a means of getting close to the family…

SAM MILLER: Bobbie's twin sister, living in America.

The Crightons are an old English family living in Chester and it's environs in the Northwest of England. The entire family is very law oriented and more than one formidable courtroom barrister has emerged from it's fold.

This tale is about Luke, one of the Crighton family scions, a tall, dark and handsome barrister lady buffet sampler, he likes them small and blonde and clingy.

Our h in this one is Bobbie Miller, an American woman who is the daughter of a New England Senator and on a mission directed by her twin sister Samantha, who has sent Bobbie to meet the Crightons and denounce a terrible crime against their recently ill mother.

Bobbie is probably not the best person to send on this journey. She is very tall and blonde and pretty, but Sam is the more forceful of the two and Bobbie likes to work with special needs children.

Unfortunately Sam is in the middle of her masters and their mother's pain has been unassuaged for too many years, so since Bobbie has the time, it is up to her to make these arrogant, mean people pay for their sins.

Bobbie makes a start when she is wandering through a churchyard and runs into ten year old Joss Crighton, Joss's older brother Max is a loathsome philanderer and Joss was the very late baby of Jon and Jenny.

Jon is the youngest son of his father, a somewhat bitter and crotchety old man, who still tries to bully his sister Great Aunt Ruth around. Jon has also had to step up to the plate as the face of the Crighton legal firm, his older brother and heir apparent David disappeared on his own personal journey after he had a heart attack several years earlier. There are post cards from him periodically, so he is still alive.

David's wife Tiggy has eating disorders and mental dramas, so her young son also lives with Jenny and Jon. David's other daughter, Olivia, is married to an American law tutor named Caspar and they recently had a baby daughter.

Joss has two older twin sisters as well and they are having an 18th birthday party. Joss invites Bobbie as his guest, both his cousin Luke and James are very tall and Joss thinks they would be most impressed with the lovely Bobbie.

So Bobbie, who is looking for a way in to the Crighton family, shows up at the party and meets all the dubious and not so dubious characters. Luke shows up with an old unwanted ex girlfriend trying to manipulate her way back into his life as a wanna be OW.

After some verbal confrontations with Bobbie, Luke shows up at Bobbie's hotel room door later that night, roofie kisses her as his wanna be OW bursts in and then explains that he is using Bobbie to get rid of a woman he has no interest in.

Bobbie is suitably outraged over the whole situation and Luke is a big nematode about it. But being that the Crightons are well known locally, it is assumed that Luke and Bobbie are having a romance and all the Crighton ladies are trying to pimp Bobbie out to Luke.

Bobbie soon gets hired as a temporary nanny by Olivia and we learn more about Bobbie's intense interest in Great Aunt Ruth - prompted by several bullying calls from Sam, Bobbie's more aggressive sister.

Married fortune hunter and philanderer Max makes some moves on Bobbie, which arouses Luke's suspicions. There are a few more roofie kissing moments and verbal spats at family occasions and then Luke overhears Bobbie on the phone to Sam.

Sam wants Bobbie to denounce Great Aunt Ruth at the next family occasion, which happens to be a celebration for the oldest Crighton, Great Aunt Ruth's brother and family patriarch, Ben. Ben hates Americans.

Luke only hears Bobbie trying to convince Sam that denouncing Ruth isn't the way to handle this, before he has a fit and kidnaps Bobbie to his flat, accusing her of blackmail.

They wind up having a purple passion moment and in the aftermath, Bobbie's full mission comes out when her whole family shows up after an emergency flight from the US to the UK.

It seems Bobbie and Sam's grandfather was an American soldier stationed in Chester in WWII. He and Ruth fell in love and then her father interfered. Bobbie's grandfather was given orders by his military commander to clear off and Ruth was told he married another woman.

Ruth was pregnant and isolated in a distant hospital and forced to give her daughter up. Bobbie's grandfather, Grant, was at the same hospital and he discovered Ruth had given up their child. so since he was the father, he took his daughter back to America and raised her himself.

Bobbie's upper-class father's New England Pilgrim family did not want to accept Bobbie's mother into the family as she did not have a pedigree going back yonks, even tho Grant was really rich.

Since Bobbie's mum had been told that her mother had given her up, Bobbie's mum has been sad and felt rejected for years - even tho Bobbie's father loves her madly and would have told his whole family off for her.

In the process of Sam's phone calls to Bobbie, her father and Grant found out what she was up to. After Luke kidnapped Bobbie to his flat, Grant, Ruth's former lover, called back and got to talk to Ruth. They soon figured out that both of them had been lied to by Ruth's father.

Neither Ruth nor Grant had ever married anyone else and yet they were told that both of them had found other people. Grant, Ruth and Bobbie's mother have a huge, happy reunion and Grant and Ruth are still in love after all this time.

That leaves Luke and Bobbie to sort out. Bobbie buys a small cottage in Chester and mirrors the bathroom. She sends her identical twin sister Sam to go yell at Luke and tell him that she hates him and never wants to see him again after he pretty much pumped and dumped her and accused her of horrible things.

Then Bobbie goes to take a bath in her very suggestive bathroom and Luke shows up. He climbs in the bath as he passes the twin test and admits that he loves her and he could never mistake her twin sister for her.

They decide to marry and we get a little epilogue where Luke and Bobbie are happy together and their grandfather Grant is marrying Ruth. With wedding bells ringing, we close the curtain on this episode of the Crighton saga with some all around HEA's and wonder what will happen next.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Profile Image for StMargarets.
3,216 reviews631 followers
April 24, 2019
Very little romance. Too much family saga. I thought the heroine’s American accent was strange. She just says “kinda” all the time. That’s not really a hallmark of a New England accent, but that must be the way British ears hear a “drawl.”

The set up is that the American heroine travels to England to find the woman who gave her baby up for adoption during WW2. It's the spinster aunt of this "perfect" English family. Hero is suspicious/attracted to the heroine. Heroine feels guilty about lying to all these nice people. Not my favorite dynamic to get a relationship off the ground.

Boogenhagen has all the details in her excellent review. I don’t think I’ll be reading this series. Most of the characters are unpleasantly judgmental or smug in their superiority. I now understand why Max is the The Perfect Sinner of book six. *shudder*

Profile Image for Melluvsbooks.
1,570 reviews
not-in-the-mood-maybe-later
March 30, 2025
Stopping at 13% - the author keeps going on and on and on about the heroine’s height making her seem like a freak … and she’s on some sort of revenge quest against the H…
I’m not really in the mood - But maybe I’ll come back to it
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Profile Image for Tia.
Author 10 books141 followers
September 2, 2012
While this novel wasn't the best I've ever read by Penny Jordan, it certainly wasn't the worst. I wouldn't read it again but it kept me entertained for a while. It was quite dramatic.
Profile Image for Priscilla.
1,928 reviews16 followers
May 4, 2022
Decepcionante.

O livro não dá uma continuação adequada ao primeiro volume, na verdade, poderia ser re-titulado como: Diário de uma Adolescente, pois há motivo de sobra para isso.

A personagem principal, Bobbie, apesar de ser descrita como uma pessoa adulta e madura, bola um plano meia-boca baseado em vingança com um fundo emocional tão aborrescente que em certos momentos extrapola e pode ser resumido a manha de criança.

O mocinho também não ajuda muito, pois é cheio de preconceitos e sempre pula para a pior, ou mais superficial, das conclusões. Comportamento inadmissível para o ambiente que tentam retratar.

Não há como simpatizar com o par romântico que desequilibra a história... uma espécie de versão tresloucada de "você abandonou minha mãe (etc), então vou destruir toda a sua família".

Exatamente assim, pois não há uma linha principal de narrativa e no final, fica-se com a impressão que alguém - você ou a autora - se perdeu no meio do caminho e resolveu tentar fazer alguma outra coisa.
Profile Image for Leyns.
3,055 reviews
November 13, 2016
2.5 stars. I just don't understand how and when these two fell in love? They spent hardly any time together and hardly knew anything but superficial and unpleasant things about each other. So the love was completely unbelievable from my point of view. Lust, yes. Love, no. Also, the hero was altogether arrogant and unpleasant, and the heroine made it much too easy for him.
Profile Image for Ada .
451 reviews27 followers
March 15, 2015
Estoy casi segura que es una serie... este librito lo encontré en uno de mis viajes y me encanto!! el protagonista, ademas los paisajes y al historia se desarrolla tan bonita...
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews

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