Blackmailed into Marriage

Lia has never had much of a relationship with her spanish grandfather, especially after eloping to the US with her high school boyfriend when she was 18. She finds out that her daughter Kaylee has a hole in the heart and requires life-saving surgery which she cannot afford. Lia's grandfather agrees to give her the money for the operation, but only if she agrees to marry his business associate Damien Marquez. Damien is illegitimate and wants to marry Lia for the sake of her grandfather's title. Unbeknownst to him, Lia has vaginismus which makes her unable to have penetrative sex.

Lia is very bitter towards both her grandfather and Damien for using her daughter's life to blackmail her into marriage. She doesn't realise that Damien didn't know about this. An even bigger obstacle in their marriage is her feelings regarding her inability to have sex which caused a lot of problems in her first marriage. Damien deals with both these things as only a romance hero can. He is incredibly gentle, loving and understanding with Lia, eventually gaining her trust and her love. Lia's grandfather eventually realises the error of his ways and makes up with her, apologising for using Kaylee's health to manipulate her.

I loved this book. It was heart-wrenchingly beautiful. I was going to say the characters are realistic, but as I write this review I realise that Damien is really too good to be true. Plus, they sort out their sexual problems much to quickly and easily to be believed. Nevertheless, it was a great story and I'll definitely be reading more of Lucy Monroe's books.