The Sabbides Secret Baby by Keiko Yamada

Phoebe was just a hotel receptionist when she caught the eye of the Greek millionaire, Jed. He showered affection and presents upon her, so pleased was he that She Wasn't Like Other Women™ (e.g. crafty, money-grubbing harlots). All that changed, however, when Phoebe told Jed she was pregnant. What does this prize do? Tells her nobody wants a pregnant mistress and then offers to "take care of" her situation. She says a big "to hell with that" and runs away, only in her clumsiness, she trips and falls and ends up miscarrying.

Secret baby romances all seem to have the same plot. Rich guy and ordinary girl have passionate fling, pregnant girl flees, rich guy finds out after the fact and uses his impressive resources to intimidate girl into letting him back into his life. This book had a nearly identical plot to another Harlequin manga I recently read, WHEN FALCONE'S WORLD STOPS TURNING. Only that hero was Italian, not Greek. (I guess Greece and Italy's populations are, like, 90% millionaires?)

This wasn't a bad book. I thought Jed was a jerk but he sort of redeemed himself by the end. I feel like most of the heroes' problems in these Harlequin Presents books boil down to Sad Boy Mommy Issues™, which makes me wonder if Oedipus is mandatory reading if you want to be penning these tawdry little 100 Calorie Packs of drama. I was wondering how, if the heroine had a miscarriage, she still had a baby to spirit away and the book threw me a total curveball: she was carrying fraternal twins and only miscarried one of the fetuses. Apparently it's rare, but this can happen(?).

I liked FALCONE better, but the art in this was aces, so I'm not mad at SABBIDES.

Thanks to Netgalley/the publisher for the review copy!

3 out of 5 stars