The Winter Heart

by Lillian Cheatham

The Winter Heart by Lillian Cheatham released on Apr 24, 1986 is available now for purchase.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0373108885
• ISBN13: 9780373108886
• Release Date: May 1986
• Publisher: Harlequin
• Length: 186 Pages
• Weight: 0.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 6.8" x 0.5" x 4.2"

Customer Reviews

The Winter Heart Needs Warmth

I do not deny that I enjoy the rather unrealistic for the real world, and campy in a very 'this is real to the people participating' way, storylines of the Harlequin Presents line. This story has the marriage for revenge plot. Simon is a writer whose sister is paralyzed in a car accident caused by a bimbo his brother-in-law was having an affair with. When he goes to investigate, he finds out that Maggie was driving the car. But it turns out, she wasn't. Her younger sister was. He sets out to get revenge on the little tramp who ruined his sister's life. He is going to get her to fall in love with him, marry her and take her off to a secluded cabin in the mountains and make her pay for what she did to his sister and her marriage. That's probably the worst plan for revenge I've ever heard. Yet this book is a great story. Maggie is of course a really good, decent woman, who would never have an affair with a married man. She's never had an affair at all. She's too busy working and trying to make ends meet and taking care of her ungrateful 'Lolita-esque' sister. In fact, she is terrified of cars ever since her mother died in a car accident and she was driving. Instead of seeing that Maggie is a good and decent human being, Simon persists in believing her to be an amoral trampy gold-digger, but finds himself attracted to her air of innocence all the same. He hires her to be his secretary to help him transcribe his book, and romances her into marriage. Poor Maggie is none the wiser until they get to Simon's little cabin in the mountains where he takes her for their honeymoon, when he reveals his true colors. He hates her guts and he wants to make her pay by making her his slave and taking her away from the glamorous world she lives in so she cannot seduce and destroy any other men. Maggie protests her innocence on deaf ears. He doesn't listen. After all this, he still expects Maggie to help him with his book, and to do all the cooking and cleaning. This is not a book that you like for the hero, clearly. I liked it for Maggie. I could sympathize with her, and I hoped she made it out of this crazy situation with her sanity intact. Of course, things change where Simon finds he wants to make her his real wife in every way. Things heat up in the bedroom, although Maggie doesn't get why she would fall in love with a crazy, cruel man like Simon. All along, Maggie is showing her true colors. That she is a good person, and she would never do what Simon has accused him of. Of course, she turns out to be a real homemaker (turning the sparsely furnished cabin into a home, cooking great meals on the antiquated stove, and taking up quilting). He sees this, but thinks it's just an act. Suddenly, the younger sister shows up, just when things sort of settle into an uneasy truce. She has decided that she wants to take her sister's husband, since he's a rich man who can keep her in style. The good news is that she is kind of dumb. She says way too much, and p