Bitter life lessons have taught Crown Prince Maksim Yurkovich that duty must come before desire. His country needs an heir, so when he discovers his lover can't have children, he must sever their ties. Only Maks can't resist spending one last night in her bed.
…can avert this royal scandal!
Now he faces the biggest diplomatic crisis of his life. Against all odds, Gillian Harris has become pregnant. Maks's royal reserve masks the heart of a fierce Cossack warrior—one who is not above using their mutual passion to convince a hurt, wary Gillian that she must be his queen!
~~
I'm sure my coworker got super annoyed with me as I reading this because every other word out of my mouth was 'Oooh', 'That's different', or some variation on 'I didn't expect THAT to happen'. Reading One Night Heir reminded me that while Harlequin Presents are not usually my #1 pick when it comes to romance, there is still a place for them in my life/shelf.
The plot is very typical, prince rejects lover/marriage interest due to her supposed inability to conceive even though he really likes her, but Monroe does a great job at keeping things fresh. When Maks learns of Gillian's pregnancy and comes back to propose marriage, Gillian does not jump on the gravy train. In fact I would have loved this as a longer title where even more time was spent with Gillian going no a lot - because she does it in such a way that it's respectful of her own feelings while acknowledging what could happen with Maks in the future. Maks's 'incredible sexual appeal' doesn't suddenly override her reason or her intelligence and Maks has to work to show that while he 'may not' love her that doesn't mean he wants to live without her or that he'd be a bad father.
Highly recommended, but only if you're able to read the prose without rolling your eyes (too much). There's a lot made about Maks's urbanity combined with a Cossack spirit, and the language at times is incredibly flowery. Which I don't consider bad so much as representative of genre, but I wanted to give you a heads up.
Bring on Demyan!
Overall Feeling - A
Series - 1) One Night Heir (6/18/13) 2) Prince of Secrets (7/23/13)
*Title requested from NetGalley*
