The Greek's Christmas Baby by Lucy Monroe

You know, I really liked this book. Despite the typical Presents title and cover, The Greek's Christmas Baby is a rather good, emotional story.

So what happens when young woman gets swept off her feet by Greek tycoon and then learns she's pregnant with his child? Well, he immediately marries her and whisks her off to his Greek island. Greek alpha male now has beautiful, good-in-bed, complacent wife to come home to after globe-trotting for work. Now what on earth could go wrong? Add in beautiful Greek personal assistant who wants Greek tycoon for herself and hates beautiful wife. Beautiful wife sees what Greek PA is up to and tries to tell her husband, who brushes her off (as he's a guy and couldn't possibly have had bad taste in PAs and PA is family friend, blah blah blah). Enter in car trip where wife tells Greek alpha husband that things are not working out and that she wants a divorce. Greek husband is shocked and in that moment they're hit by another vehicle. Talk about drama!

Did I mention beautiful wife is pregnant with their second child? Story starts off in the hospital where Eden (wife) is on bed rest to prevent a miscarriage. Aristide (husband) is in a coma. When Aristide awakes, he's suffered a loss of memory - specifically, he has no recollection of Eden. Kassandra (his personal assistant) uses this to further her own goals and paints Eden as an opportunistic whore who trapped Aristide into marriage.

Well, things go on from there. It's all full of drama and that drama works. Kassandra knows how to twist the truth perfectly and since she's know Aristide for ages, he trusts her more than a woman he doesn't remember. I think I liked this story so much because the alpha male here (Aristide) really gets punished for his alpha-tendencies. His inability to believe he could be wrong about Kassandra causes lots of tension and Eden has every right to be hurt. There are plenty of misunderstandings here, but I felt that many of them were valid. And as much as Aristide is definitely an alpha hero, he's also just as much a real guy with all the foibles of men we know and love. Like, oh, taking things for granted (no, Nick, I don't mean you specifically) and thinking the romance isn't needed once the ring is on.

Suffice to say, I just really liked this book. I don't read many Harlequin Presents, but I think I will definitely continue to at least buy Lucy Monroe's. She may often have heroes that I want to shake some sense into (not here, actually, though) and virgin heroines, but she does pack a lot of emotion in her stories. So if you're in the mood for a Christmasy story that won't take too long to read, I recommend picking this one up. I'm glad I did.